Tuesday, September 10, 2024

Following Trump’s train of thought as it derails on a child care question

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/09/06/following-trumps-train-thought-it-derails-child-care-question/

“Well, I would do that, and we’re sitting down — you know, I was, uh, somebody, we had Sen. Marco Rubio [(R-Fla.)] and my daughter, Ivanka, was so, uh, impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue.

But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that — because child care is child care. It’s, couldn’t — you know, it’s something, you have to have it. In this country, you have to have it.

But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to but they’ll get used to it very quickly. And it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country.

Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s gonna take care. We’re gonna have — I, I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time. Coupled with, uh, the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country — because I have to say with child care, I want to stay with child care, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth.

But growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just, uh, that I just told you about. We’re gonna be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in.

We’re going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people and then we’ll worry about the rest of the world. Let’s help other people. But we’re gonna take care of our country first. This is about America first. It’s about: Make America great again. We have to do it, because right now we’re a failing nation. So we’ll take care of it. Thank you. Very good question.”

Trump’s Psychologist Niece Says ‘Donald Is Dementing’

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-psychologist-niece-mary-says-donald-is-dementing

Mary Trump, the psychologist and writer who is now an outspoken critic of her father’s younger brother, addressed the former president’s cognition after his rambling, incoherent answer to a question about childcare last week. Asked at the Economic Club of New York about what legislation he would advance to make childcare more affordable if he wins back the White House, Trump blathered on for almost two minutes in a response that left media pundits at a loss to explain what he was trying to say.

“Well, I would do that, and we’re sitting down—you know, I was, somebody, we had Senator Marco Rubio, and my daughter Ivanka was so impactful on that issue,” Trump’s answer began. “It’s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that—because look, childcare is childcare, it’s—couldn’t, you know, it’s something, you have to have it, in this country you have to have it.”

IDF strikes Hamas terrorists who operated in humanitarian area in Khan Yunis

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/395934

Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and additional means.

Monday, September 9, 2024

Donald Trump Holds Responsibility for Afghanistan Withdraw, Ex-Adviser Says

 https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-responsible-afghanistan-withdraw-ex-adviser-1944696

"Oh, yes," McMaster said after being asked by Cooper if Trump bears "part of the responsibility for what happened." McMaster then added, "The whole premise of talking to the Taliban before you leave Afghanistan...why the heck were we even doing that?"

"The Obama administration didn't negotiate with al-Qaeda and Iraq on the way out," he continued. "If we were gonna leave, why not just leave? What happened in these series of negotiations is we kind of threw the Afghans under the bus on the way out... then forced them to release 5,000 of some of the most heinous people on the earth

Trump officials back away from 2020 Taliban peace deal after withdrawal chaos

 https://www.axios.com/2021/08/20/trump-taliban-agreement-doha-biden

Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who was fired by Trump in November 2020, said he believed at the time the agreement was signed that it should have been "conditions-based," which is in part why he later objected to Trump's call for a Christmas homecoming for U.S. troops.

Esper told CNN that although Biden is responsible for the outcome in Afghanistan, Trump "undermined" the agreement and weakened U.S. leverage in negotiations by impatiently calling for troop reductions in the country.

"Our secretary of state [Mike Pompeo] signed a surrender agreement with the Taliban," McMaster said on Bari Weiss' podcast. "This collapse goes back to the capitulation agreement of 2020. The Taliban didn’t defeat us. We defeated ourselves."

GOP probe of Afghanistan exit rips Biden, labors to implicate Harris

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/09/08/republican-afghanistan-report-harris-trump/

But while the GOP report contains some minor new details, there are no major revelations that go beyond prior reporting already in the public domain via separate investigations conducted by the Defense Department, the State Department, news outlets and analysts, as well as the foreign affairs committee itself. And it contains no evidence that Harris played a major role in the withdrawal’s execution.

Democrats on Sunday panned the new report and noted the total absence of Democratic involvement in its drafting. “It is a politicized, cherry-picked report … a nakedly partisan campaign thing,” the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Jim Himes (Conn.), said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” That is all it was “designed to do,” Himes said — “not shed light on a tragedy.”

GOP releases critical report of Biden withdrawal from Afghanistan

 https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4868649-gop-report-afghanistan-withdrawal/

The report asserts that Biden was not bound by the Doha Agreement negotiated under the Trump administration, arguing it allowed for the dissolution of the deal if the Taliban did not meet its commitments.

But Biden has made clear he viewed the U.S. as too far down the path of withdrawal to shift its approach and that doing so would commit the military to once again engaging with the Taliban.

“The choice I had to make, as your president, was either to follow through on that agreement or be prepared to go back to fighting the Taliban,” Biden said in a televised address in 2021.

Negotiators said to believe chance of hostage deal ‘close to zero’; US also pessimistic

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/negotiators-said-believe-chance-of-hostage-deal-close-to-zero-us-also-pessimistic/

Families reportedly told deal unlikely to happen as Netanyahu, Sinwar both hardened stances; US to delay presenting new proposal, does not want to reward Hamas after executions

Sunday, September 8, 2024

3 Israelis killed in terror shooting at crossing between West Bank and Jordan

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/

Three Israeli men were killed in a terrorist shooting attack at the Allenby Bridge Crossing between Jordan and the West Bank on Sunday morning, authorities said.

The attack was carried out by a Jordanian truck driver who had arrived from Jordan. The crossing, also known as the King Hussein Bridge, is the West Bank’s sole crossing with Jordan.

BBC breaches its own editorial guidelines 1500 times during Israel-Hamas War

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-819124

The BBC has breached its editorial guidelines for news coverage more than 1,500 times since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, according to The Telegraph's Saturday report based on research led by British lawyer Trevor Asserson.

The research analyzed four months of the BBC's output across television, radio, online news, podcasts, and social media. Additionally, a team of around 20 lawyers and 20 data scientists contributed to the research and analyzed nine million words of BBC output using artificial intelligence (AI), 

Hamas document details tactics to up pressure on Israel, stall hostage talks

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-document-details-tactics-to-up-pressure-on-israel-stall-hostage-talks-report/

A newly revealed Hamas document indicates that the terror group’s main concern in ceasefire negotiations with Israel is to rehabilitate its military capabilities, and not to alleviate the suffering of Gaza’s civilian population, German newspaper Bild reported Friday.

Largest Texas Newspaper Accuses Greg Abbott of 'Beyond Reckless' Behavior

 https://www.newsweek.com/houston-chronicle-governor-greg-abbott-purged-voter-rolls-texas-1950355

The Houston Chronicle's editorial board, in a Wednesday op-ed entitled, "Texas' voter roll purge is routine practice. So why is Greg Abbott crying voter fraud?" took direct aim at Abbott's August announcement that over 1.1 million people have been removed from Texas voter rolls since September 2021.

This purge, which Abbott framed as an effort to protect elections from illegal voting, includes individuals who have moved out of state, are deceased, or are not U.S. citizens.

How some of the biggest right-wing social media stars became unwitting mouthpieces of Russian propaganda

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/07/media/tenet-media-russia-rt-tim-pool-dave-rubin-lauren-chen/index.html 

The secret payments pull back the curtain on some of the most popular right-wing personalities, who were paid millions of dollars by the Kremlin, without their knowledge according to the Justice Department to promote conservative narratives that furthered Russian interests. And while the influencer, podcaster, and online content creator space is booming, the indictment shows how open the new media ecosystem is to infiltration, where independent creators operate with few guardrails and little transparency.


Saturday, September 7, 2024

Man charged with plotting attack on N.Y. Jewish center on Oct. 7 anniversary

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/09/06/new-york-oct-7-attack-pakistani-canadian-arrested/

U.S. officials have charged a Canadian resident with plotting to travel to New York to try to carry out a mass shooting against Jewish people on the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks in southern Israel, authorities announced Friday.