Israel So Far Not Launching End Times (in Which It Fares Poorly)
April 15: Diplomats for the win … Fine, also weapons … Military-aid vote … Trump trial …
Consider for a moment, dear Newsfucker, the historic position occupied this week by one Donald John Trump, former president of the United States, well-known rapist, and somehow a defendant in only four criminal trials.
He has been embroiled in negotiations with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) over the issue of supplying Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons to defend itself against Ukraine, and…
…as of today, the start of his trial for allegedly trying to cover up what he did with his own johnson, Trump will be embroiled in negotiations over the issue of whether prospective jurors are looking at him funny.
Meanwhile, actual-Pres. Joe Biden spent his weekend saving the world … from the monster unconditional U.S. support has created … trying to prevent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from touching off World War III in response to Iran trying to touch off World War III.
Let’s start big, shall we?
Did Joe Biden Just Save the World?
The U.S. military on Saturday helped the Israeli Defense Forces save potentially scores of lives this weekend, assisting in the awe-inspiring achievement of shooting down more than 300 missiles and drones set to strike Israeli targets nearly simultaneously.
Meanwhile, U.S. diplomats helped other countries’ diplomats save an estimated eight billion people over the past few days, getting Iran to limit the scope of its attack and Israel to temper its own response. So far. (Given my track record, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will airdrop tons of bacon onto Tehran the moment I hit “Send” on this puppy.)
Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman reported yesterday on how Earth was saved by an un-motley crew of pencil-necked, book-reading, terrorist-talking diplomats bristling with manly impulse control and unbridled strategic thinking.
Iran had telegraphed its intention to attack Israel days before. In that time, Israel’s war cabinet met and, in Bergman’s words, “if they had filmed it and broadcast it on YouTube, today there would be four million people in Israel trying to find a way to escape from here.”
Israel’s war cabinet approved plans to retaliate “within a few hours” if Iran did indeed strike. The U.S. didn’t find out about this plan until just a day or two before Iran’s drone/missile swarm on Saturday.
And then Iran indeed fucking struck. The first time Iran has ever attacked Israel militarily, directly, rather than through its proxies (remember, U.S. intel concluded that Iran didn’t know about the Oct. 7 Hamas attack beforehand).
It’s also the first time Israel has been attacked militarily by any other country since Iraq under Saddam Hussein did it in 1991, hoping to expand the first Gulf War broadly enough to pick up a few allies.
And yet, so far, despite the decision to retaliate within hours, Israel so far has not. So what’s going on?
Before Saturday’s attack, those U.S. diplo-nerds were burning up the phone lines to their counterparts in Britain, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, Bergman says. It was basically the global equivalent of a game of Telephone. Luckily, France didn’t screw it up by insisting on translating it into French. And according to Bergman, Iran got the message.
Iran, Bergman writes, “decided as a result to greatly reduce the volume of its attack, and move the targets of the attack to areas far from the center.”
And while the attack was happening Iran literally called Switzerland to say, “Hey, Switzerland? It’s me, Iran. So, uh, y’know the U.S.? Yeah. Can you tell the U.S. I know this whole Armageddon thing looks bad, but after this we are totes done. Okay? And tell them please don’t hit me.”
In other words, Iran tempered its attack in response to U.S. diplomatic initiatives, and sought to assure the U.S. there was no need to deter more Iranian attacks, because there weren’t going to be any.
That said, the Institute for the Study of War assesses that Iran expected to cause significantly more damage than it did. It launched 30 cruise missiles, 120 ballistic missiles, and 170 drones.
Based on Russia’s success rate in Ukraine, Iran had reasonable expectations that a lot more of its flying death machines would successfully hit Israel than the one that did. In other words, Iran wanted to do a lot more damage than it did, but not so much to justify an Israeli, let alone U.S. escalation. (It’s worth noting that it’s hard to imagine what every single Israeli went through Saturday night, knowing for hours that death machines were in the air … with no way of knowing the defensive net would be as insanely successful as it was in stopping them.)
Also on Saturday, Jordan and Saudi Arabia got involved — on Israel’s side. The exact extent of their involvement isn’t clear, but the U.S. has military and intelligence systems based in Saudi Arabia that likely were used in Saturday’s game of aerial Whack-a-Mole. And Jordan said it shot down Iranian drones and let Israeli and U.S. fighter jets into its airspace.
Jordan says it was acting in self-defense — which makes sense, since Iran had to launch its attack over Iraq and Jordan. Jordan’s king afterward cautioned Israel to take the W. As did Biden.
All told, the diplomatic work before and after the attack — coupled with the much more viscerally and juvenilely satisfying use of hundreds of flying machines to shoot down more than 300 bombs flying through the night sky at hundreds of miles an hour — is a pretty goddamn stunning, nigh-herculean achievement.
And that’s not even including the quiet diplomacy that the White House has been undertaking with another religious extremist…
Johnson Expected to Bring Ukraine Aid for a Vote
Iran’s unprecedented attack on Saturday left House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) vowing to hold a vote on some kind of funding for military aid for both Israel and Ukraine, before the End Times happen without him.
Johnson said Sunday that he expects the House to vote this week on buying Israel more death stuff. It’s unclear what bill he might be talking about, however.
The Senate passed a bill that the House could send to Biden today. But that aid is unconditional, and every day more Democrats are getting on board with the idea that buying Israel weapons to shoot down Iranian drones is in a whole ‘nother category than buying Israel weapons to shoot civilians, aid workers, and journalists in Gaza.
The Senate bill also includes Ukraine, and it’s unclear whether Johnson plans to include Ukraine in any vote on weapons for Israel. But there has been movement after months of Johnson’s intransigence on bailing out Ukraine — which is now paying a price for its shortage of ammo to fend off Russian drones and missiles.
That aforementioned movement comes from D4FRFP1 Donald Trump. Johnson and Trump met at Mar-a-Lago on Friday. Afterward, Trump signaled he’s on board with providing military aid to Ukraine…if it’s a profit deal for the U.S.
“We’re thinking about making it in the form of a loan instead of just a gift,” said Trump, who is also looking into whether the U.S. can regift weapons to Ukraine.
You may recall that on Friday I predicted the GOP would start moving toward helping out Ukraine. To date, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is the big stumbling block, and her issue is religious: Ukraine’s persecution of orthodox churches allied with Russia.
But as I revealed last week, Russia’s persecution of Christian clergy at home and in occupied territories of Ukraine is emerging as a casus belli for Republicans. .
Literally, later the same morning I reported that the “religious freedom” rationale was making its way from evangelical circles to mainstream conservative ones, Newsmax reported word-thinged an article headlined “10 Reasons Ukraine Aid Is Good for America.”
Number three? “Russia is targeting evangelical Christians for persecution.” Who do they quote? The star of my report, anti-LGBTQ+ crusader Pavlo Unguryan, the Ukrainian liaison with The Family, the folks whose prayer breakfast network serves up steaming plates of theocracy around the world under syrupy platitudes about Jesus unifying us all.
Which means we might very well be seeing evangelical Christianity in the process of moving Republicans to approve billions of dollars in weapons, sidestepping a tiny number of Christian Republicans who were blocking it out of faithfulness to Trump… whose unfaithfulness to his wife led to the historic criminal trial starting today…
Trump’s Historic Criminal Trial Starting Today
The first criminal trial of a former president in U.S. history starts today, after more than 200 years of no one ever prosecuting any of those other criminals.
You can read an incredibly granular primer of the trial from Joyce Vance here. Jury selection starts today from a pool expected to top 500 people. This could take a while!
The case centers on whether Trump committed criminal campaign-finance fraud by fudging his books to hide the fact that he paid his lawyer, Michael Cohen, to give Stormy Daniels hush money so that voters wouldn’t know he slept with her.
Because the payments were made to benefit his campaign, Trump was obliged to report them. Which is why he entered them in his ledgers as legal fees for Cohen rather than as campaign expenses.
(Keep in mind, this was 2016, before Trump realized that his base would make tee-shirts about how awesome Trump was for cheating on his wife with a pornographic-movie star.)
The books-fudging on its own is a minor crime. What makes it a serious felony is Trump’s alleged intent to carry out that books-fudging in the furtherance of committing campaign fraud. In other words, it’s campaign fraud if the reason he paid Daniels was to help his campaign.
Luckily for prosecutors, they’ve got a smoking gun. Unluckily for prosecutors, their smoking gun is a lying lawyer.
As they’ll argue in court, however, Cohen lied at Trump’s behest. And as anyone who’s seen it can tell you, Trump’s behest is enormous.
According to prosecutors, Trump told Cohen to try to delay payment to Daniels until after the election, because then he could stiff her (that’s what he said) and it wouldn’t matter. Which means the election was the reason to make the payment.
All of this and today is also the deadline for Trump to file his fraudulent 2023 tax returns!
Recommended Reading
CRIMMIGRATION Veteran Newsfuckers know how I feel about our twin national obsessions with our fictional crime wave and the nonfictional immigrants responsible for it.
As I’ve pedanted many a time, it’s gross to welcome immigrants based on their perceived ability to benefit us financially, and it’s out of step with the words inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty, back when America was proud and said to the world, “We’re so fucking badass we’re game to host the lowest of the low. Bring it, wretched refuse!”
Well, two new books are out looking at these phenomena jointly, but from different perspectives. And the indispensable Bolts magazine looks at those two books in a piece by Piper French that synthesizes so much that swirls around these two issues in a way that, if adopted more broadly, could help us rewire our fear-fritzed brains.
(Disclosure: I am pro rewiring our fear-fritzed brains.)
TCB
NICOLE SANDLER Join me later today, and every Monday, for the weekly edition of “The Fucking News” on The Nicole Sandler Show, which airs weekdays at 5pm eastern.
You can also stay in touch with me and The Fucking News mostly on Twitter but also on Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky, Mastodon, and Spoutible.
Go get ‘em, kids…!
D4FRFP = Disgraced, quadicted, fraudster, rapist, former President.