Jan. 16: Trump shuts down Biden’s defense of Israel’s self-defense … From hell’s heart, Blinken spits at Netanyahu … Trump nominee tells GOP senators their budget laws are suggestions … DNC race gets a new candidate …
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In a dramatic, last-minute diplomatic rescue mission, President-elect Donald Trump yesterday saved Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization, from its Israeli attackers.
The storied terrorist group had been on the brink of annihilation by Israeli militants for about a year now, until Trump yesterday announced he had succeeded in rescuing them and ensuring their safety in the future.
In the face of threats against Israel by Trump’s negotiating team, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed yesterday to stop defending his country against Hamas, the terrorist organization that conducted the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, slaughtering Israeli civilians at random.
The deal protecting Hamas from Israel is set to go into effect Sunday, allowing Trump to use his inauguration speech Monday to tout his humanitarian victory for Hamas. Israel this morning said the cease-fire ratification by the cabinet will be delayed, but that was before Trump woke up, so we’ll see how long that lasts.
The proposed cease-fire was negotiated by a U.S. team working hand in hand, consisting of professional diplomats dispatched by Pres. Joe Biden and a New York real-estate guy dispatched by Trump.
In more than a year of defending itself, Israel had only managed to kill just over 46,000 — mostly elderly, women, and children — terrorists out of Hamas’s estimated 30,000 fighters. New estimates go much higher, but Netanyahu had vowed to keep defending Israel until Hamas was eliminated.
It’s not clear why Trump sided with Hamas, but there is some historic common ground, as both are known for a mutual interest in raping people. (Unlike Trump, Hamas rape accusations remain in dispute, but the number alleged reportedly reaches up to near-Trumpian levels.)
Announcing the deal yesterday, Trump took full credit for finally preventing Israel from defending itself:
“This EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened [for Hamas] as a result of our Historic Victory in November, as it signaled to the entire World that my Administration would seek Peace and negotiate deals to ensure the safety of all Americans, and our Allies [and Hamas].”
Trump’s deal was quickly praised by parties such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which helped out with the Hamas attack on Oct. 7. Hamas needed the sign-off of its terrorist ally to greenlight the Trump deal saving Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad issued a statement calling Trump’s deal “an honorable agreement [thanks to Trump] to stop the aggression” that is Israel’s self-defense.
Trump was, however, entirely too modest about his success in crushing Israel. For instance, he referred to the deal’s requirement that Hamas free its hostages — some of whom are still alive! — by saying, “I am thrilled American and Israeli hostages will be returning home.” But Trump’s deal goes well beyond that: He’s forcing Israel to free far more Hamas terrorists: Hundreds.
"This is a crazy thing,” one unnamed senior Israeli official said. “We're about to [approve] a mass release of terrorists.” Yes, you are, unnamed senior Israeli official. Thanks to Trump!
And although Trump suggested Gaza would no longer be a “safe haven” for terrorists, Israel suggested otherwise afterward by bombing Gaza some more overnight.
Prior to yesterday’s deal, Israel had been protected unconditionally by Biden. His unwavering support for Israel was so great that Biden may have cost Democrats — and America, and the world — the White House. New accounts emerging from the State Department suggest Biden was so devoted to Israel that he was willing to break U.S. law to ensure Israel could keep defending itself with sustained atrocities.
That dynamic changed with the election of Trump, who wanted to make sure Hamas was safe by the time he became president. Here’s the Washington Post:
“A diplomat briefed on the ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas credited progress in the talks in part to the influence of President-elect Donald Trump, saying it was 'the first time there has been real pressure on the Israeli side to accept a deal.'...
“Israeli negotiators offered concessions…”
That’s thanks to Trump’s lead negotiator, New York real-estate developer Steve Witkoff, who has never before negotiated with terrorists, except New York landlords. Which, fair.
The contours of the deal are essentially the same as those Biden proposed months ago, which Israel refused to accept — before Trump swooped in to save Hamas — because it would mean the end of Israel forever, including even the End Times when Israel’s supposed to still be around for Jesus to kill all the Jews who don’t love Him or something.
According to CNN, it was Witkoff who forced Israel to her knees. In “critical talks between Witkoff and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week … Witkoff was on hand to emphasize Trump’s desire to see a deal finished by Inauguration Day.”
Of course, this is not Trump’s first rodeo with terrorists. During his first term he invited the Taliban to hang out at Camp David and then gave them Afghanistan in exchange for them adopting Trump’s policies toward women.
And it’s not entirely clear whether Netanyahu and his allies understand that Trump doesn’t give a shit about Israel and/or anything that is not literally himself. “Soon enough,” Haaretz’s Ravit Hecht wrote, “the [Israeli] far right that backed Trump to the hilt will realize that the incoming president has achieved everything the Democratic administration couldn't force Netanyahu to do.” For Hamas’s sake!
BIDEN’S HEROIC EFFORTS ProPublica has new reporting out on the heroic lengths to which Biden was willing to go and/or let children die, in order to ensure that Israel could defend itself and/or kill children, before Trump rescued Hamas.
According to reporter Brett Murphy, Biden’s commitment to Israel was so great that it trumped (ha!) State Department policy, United States law, and the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which Biden will never again swear to uphold.
Murphy’s story is an inventory of high-level White House and State Department officials preventing staff from investigating Israel’s alleged crimes, or punishing Israel for them, repeatedly backing down on threatened consequences.
State Department staffers couldn’t get full accounts of alleged Israeli atrocities because they were barred from talking to organizations that Israel labeled as terrorist groups, predictably leading Israel to label everyone a terrorist group. U.S. officials not only categorized documents as classified because they would embarrass Israel, staffers were banned from using some phrases altogether.
Among the phrases workers were unable to use as a result:
“Condemn” (re: illegal Israeli West Bank settlements).
“Palestinian residents of Jerusalem.”
“Congratulations on your re-election, Pres. Biden.”
MOSTLY OUT OF FUCKS TO GIVE Secretary of State Tony Blinken on Tuesday gave a speech burning the bridges that Israel hasn’t yet bombed.
Still couched in diplomat-speak, the speech was widely seen — okay, Washington Postly seen — as an unprecedented rebuke of Israel and Netanyahu because no shit. Some highlights:
“Israel’s government has systematically undermined the capacity and legitimacy of the only viable alternative to Hamas: the Palestinian Authority…
“Israel’s [alleged humanitarian] efforts have fallen far short of meeting the colossal scale of need in Gaza.
“Israel is expanding official settlements and nationalizing land at a faster clip than any time in the last decade, while turning a blind eye to an unprecedented growth in illegal outposts.”
The U.S. has also turned billions of dollars and thousands of lives worth of blind eyes for more than a year now to Israeli atrocities in response to Hamas’s atrocities.
Politically speaking, it might have been easier for Biden to restrain Israel — or for State Department staff to follow the law and impose consequences on Israel — if Democrats were not so cowed by constant Republican refrains that anything short of free reign for Israel amounts to helping the terrorists.
Of course, that’s all over now that Trump is here to save Hamas.
MEANWHILE, IN ISRAEL Netanyahu reportedly is trying to trick Israelis into thinking he isn’t signing a deal to save Hamas from Israel. Or, Netanyahu has successfully tricked the U.S. into thinking he is.
According to Amir Tibon of Haaretz, the official deal involves two stages.
Stage one: Hamas frees 34 hostages, mostly non-dudes. Israel retreats from most of Gaza.
Stage two: Hamas releases the remaining hostages, mostly men of fighting age. Israel finishes getting the fuck out of Gaza.
But Tibon reports that Netanyahu has shared a different version of the second stage that looks more like this:
Stage two: Continuing bombing the shit out of Gaza. Fuck the remaining hostages.
A Netanyahu TV-news ally even wrote on Tuesday that Trump just wanted a thing to portray as a victory for his inauguration and won’t give a shit how many Palestinians terrorists Netanyahu kills after Monday. TFN suspects that’s overstating things somewhat, as TFN suspects that Trump does give a shit about U.S. TV talking about things that are negative in any way that might reflect on him.
Which re-atrocitying Gaza surely will.
Congressional Republicans Discover Their Budgets Are Just Suggestions
Russell Vought was director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) during the Trump1.0 administration, during which he oversaw multiple violations of the laws around budgeting and spending. (Fun fact: When non-White House staff people violate laws it’s called “crime.”)
Specifically, the law says that federal money must be spent when Congress allocates it via legislation once that legislation becomes law with the president’s signature, even if it’s just a series of up-and-down lines.
Yesterday, Vought was interviewed by two Senate committees for the job of resuming his OMB position for Trump2.0.
Vought helpfully informed the senators that he and Trump gave this a lot of thought and decided they don’t like the law that says presidents have to spend money just because the law they made says they have to.
Technically, it’s called impoundment law. And Vought says the Trump2.0 Whiter House may or may not follow that law. Meaning (as happened during Trump1.0), that if Congress allocates money for Ukraine — which it did — and Trump doesn’t want to spend it – which he didn’t — then he just won’t — which he wodn’t.
Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) pointed out that this concept would make budget negotiations impossible, because Congress wouldn’t know whether they could trust what Trump–
AH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!
Anyway, even government-hating Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), chair of the Senate Homeland [sic] Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said, “I think if we appropriate something for a cause, that’s where it’s supposed to go.”
Paul added impotently, “That will still be my position [when Trump ignores it and I don’t say jack shit about it even though I’m pouting about it now and not even threatening to do anything about it].”
Anyhoo, folks may recall that Vought was a key architect of Project 2025, but his willingness to not spend money that congressional Republicans allocate will likely make already difficult upcoming budget negotiations even more already difficult.
New UnitedHealth Policy Raises Fears of Brian Thompson Being Remurdered
A new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report found that UnitedHealth charged cancer patients ten times the cost of a cancer drug that would help patients with their cancer-having and which they needed because they had fucking actual cancer.
Studies show that cancer-having is a significant contributor to consumer willingness to pay higher prices for cancer drugs.
UnitedHealth’s pharmacy benefit manager (PBM), along with the PBMs of CVS and Express Scripts, took in $7.3 billion over cost, the FTC says, thanks to the robust purchasing patterns of cancer-having patients who choose to buy cancer drugs.
The accusations raised fears that some patients may no longer have cancer because they died, unable to afford the price-gouging. And there’s concern the revelations could inspire copycat killers to emulate Luigi Mangione’s alleged murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson by murdering Thompson all over again just to be sure it sticks.
All the companies involved deny the charges, accusing the FTC of “cherry-picking” data. The companies are expected to respond by charging consumers ten times the price for cherries.
DNC Race Shakes Up
There’s a new entrant in the race to chair the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Faiz Shakir ran the 2020 presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and then started More Perfect Union. In other words, he’s the first open economic populist to throw his hat in the ring so that even poor people have hats.
Shakir did not qualify for tonight’s DNC debate1 and the race already has two presumed front-runners.
That’s Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler and Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chair Ken Martin, who picked up an endorsement yesterday when state Sen. James Skoufis (D-NY) dropped out. Former Gov. Martin O’Malley (D-MD) and author/activist Marianne Williamson are still in the running.
Shakir’s entrance into the race suggests that the previous candidates are already succeeding at inspiring Democratic activism…by failing to put forward a robust, populist vision. Shakir in a letter to DNC members said he’s running due to the existing candidates’ “lack of vision and conviction for what to do to restore a deeply damaged Democratic brand.”
Here’s Shakir:
“[A]s I have listened to our candidates, I sense a constrained, status-quo style of thinking. We cannot expect working class audiences to see us any differently if we are not offering anything new or substantive to attract their support.”
Shakir said he wants to create a “powerful media outlet” to counterbalance the right-wing media ecosphere. Hmm!2
Three Quickies
The Wall Street Journal reports that the bond market is unhappy with Republican plans to more-blow-up the U.S. debt by extending the Trump tax cuts, and by spending more on military shit and the border in order to prevent law-abiding immigrants from sneaking in and improving our economy. Borrowing even more to finance all of that needless bullshit will drive up borrowing rates, making it more expensive for Wall Street to borrow money and WALL STREET DOES NOT LIKE THAT. It remains to be seen how much President-elect Donald Trump will care and how long it will take for Wall Street to remind Republicans who funds their campaigns.
House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) led the panel’s Democrats in asking Attorney General Merrick Garland yesterday to release special counsel Jack Smith’s report on the documents case against RePresident Donald Trump. He’s accused of taking documents owned by the government and he explained that he did so because he wanted to. Garland is keeping the report secret to protect the prosecutions of Trump’s alleged co-conspirators, Walt Nauta and Carlos DeOliveira. If Garland refuses to release the report, he is expected to cement his legacy of having saved democracy from Walt Nauta and Carlos DeOliveira.
Remember in November your consoling TFN tried to ease shattered nerves and bottomless despair by suggesting the Republican margin in the Senate might not be as big as it seemed? With the count at 53-47, Republicans can hardly lose a single vote, but as TFN said might happen, they already are. As predicted, new Sen. Jim Justice (R-WV) is barely showing up for work. The lazy-ass multi-millionaire was only sworn in on Tuesfuckingday, and missed both of the day’s votes. (And predecessor Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) said it was the lazy working class that doesn’t work.)
TCB
LOST IN TRANSLATION Any Newsfuckers out there read Romanian? Or Korean? HMU!
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REPORTING My insane race to get new reporting out continues. I’m now working on a big exclusive (with a sidebar or two) that will piss people off because it’s about a Democrat. Sorry/not sorry. It’ll be up on the Jonathan Larsen Substack if you wanna subscribe there, but I’ll also flag it here so no one will miss it!
CONNECTING We’re still on social media: Bluesky, Threads, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon and Spoutible.
Go get ‘em, kids!
The eligibility requirements involve having, like, some number I forget of DNC delegates behind you and maybe some other stuff that I also forget.
Disclosure/humble-brag: I’ve known and been friendly with both Faiz and Ben. No, I have no inside info about anything.
Chef's kiss sarcasm, firing on all cylinders today!
I may be dating myself, but I seem to recall another time a middle eastern hostage crisis was "solved" just in time for some republican asshole to swoop in like the conquering hero at his inauguration and do irreparable harm to this country. Gee, I hope it doesn't turn out like the last time, heavy sigh.
Bravo!