The Conversation -- November 27, 2024
Alexandra Hutzler of ABC News: "President Joe Biden on Tuesday celebrated the acceptance of a ceasefire deal brokered by the United States to end the 'devastating conflict' between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah after more than a year of fighting. Biden, in remarks delivered from the White House Rose Garden, said he had just spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanon's caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati. 'Under the deal reached today, effective at 4 a.m. tomorrow local time, the fighting across the Lebanese-Israeli border will end. Will end. This is designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities,' Biden said." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ The New York Times is liveblogging developments here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
More on Israel's wars linked below.
Alice Ollstein of Politico: “The Trump transition has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Biden White House, incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles announced on Tuesday — a move that clears the way for coordination with the federal agencies they will soon take over. The Trump team’s unprecedented delay in signing these agreements, weeks after being declared the winner of the election, had alarmed former officials and ethics experts who warned it could lead to conflicts of interest and leave the new government unprepared to govern on day one. In the Tuesday announcement, Wiles suggested the Trump transition will not sign a separate agreement with the General Services Administration, which would have allowed them to receive federal funding, cybersecurity support and government office space, pledging instead to fund the transition with private dollars.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Whaddaya mean, "unprepared to govern on Day One"? Why, Trump is going to solve all the world's conflicts on Day One AND slap tariffs on every item being offloaded from every ship in every port in the U.S.A. AND start rounding up all the immigrants (except Elon) AND put all the Democrats & liberal reporters and other trouble-makers in jail. Oh, they'll be ready. ~~~
~~~ Michael Shear of the New York Times: “But Mr. Trump’s team has so far refused to sign an agreement with the Justice Department to allow the F.B.I. to do security clearances for transition members. Without that, Biden administration officials will be unable to share classified information with many of Mr. Trump’s transition aides.... [Since the Trump team also refused to sign an agreement with the G.S.A.,] White House officials said ... it would be more difficult to share information with them. Biden administration officials are being instructed to find alternate ways to share information that are still secure, officials said.... White House officials said that if [Trump's team did not sign the agreement with the Justice Department], classified information would not be shared with transition officials who do not already have security clearances.”
Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: “... Donald J. Trump said on Tuesday evening that he had selected Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford physician and economist whose authorship of an anti-lockdown treatise during the coronavirus pandemic made him a central figure in a bitter public health debate, to be the director of the National Institutes of Health.... Dr. Bhattacharya, who is not a practicing physician, has called for overhauling the N.I.H. and limiting the power of civil servants who, he believes, played too prominent a role in shaping federal policy during the pandemic.... Dr. Bhattacharya is one of three lead authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, a manifesto issued in 2020 that contended that the virus should be allowed to spread among young healthy people who were 'at minimal risk of death' and could thus develop natural immunity, while prevention efforts were targeted to older people and the vulnerable.... Dr. Bhattacharya and his fellow authors were promptly dismissed as cranks whose 'fringe' policy prescriptions would lead to millions of unnecessary deaths.” ~~~
~~~ Erin Schumaker of Politico: “Bhattacharya, 56, has advocated for a major shakeup of the agency and accused former NIH leaders Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci of suppressing scientific debate and research during the pandemic. 'The rot, having accumulated over decades, was plain for all to see,' Bhattacharya wrote earlier this month on the British news and opinion site UnHerd, in an endorsement of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick for health and human services secretary.”
~~~ Marie: Occasionally I wander from idly musing about the ways Trump is going to inconvenience me or substantially interfere with my life to wondering if he'll just kill me outright via a cockamamie scheme or edict one of his "health experts" unleashes.
Jonathan Swan, et al., of the New York Times: “... Donald J. Trump selected Kevin Hassett on Tuesday to be the director of the White House National Economic Council, giving an adviser who served as his top economist during his first term a leading role in steering his economic agenda. As the director of the N.E.C., Mr. Hassett will work closely with the Treasury secretary to push forward Mr. Trump’s economic plans, focused on cutting taxes, increasing tariffs and expanding energy production....
“Mr. Trump also selected Jamieson Greer, a lawyer and former Trump official, to lead the Office of the United States Trade Representative. Mr. Greer is a partner in international trade at the law firm King & Spalding. During Mr. Trump’s first term, he served as chief of staff to Robert E. Lighthizer, the trade representative at the time. He was involved in the Trump administration’s trade negotiations with China, as well as the renegotiation of NAFTA with Canada and Mexico.”
Team of Nitwits. Hannah Knowles, et al., of the Washington Post: In assembling the team for his second term as president*, Donald Trump is “enlisting people deeply critical of the agencies they will lead, bucking conservative orthodoxy with some of his picks and, above all, rewarding his most loyal allies.... The Cabinet is also mostly White.... 'What you see here is a wholesale contempt for government,' said Ty Cobb, a White House lawyer during Trump’s first administration who has become a critic.”
Ana Swanson of the New York Times: “Before Mr. Trump even sets foot in the Oval Office, his threat to put tariffs on America’s three largest trading partners on his first day in office was reverberating around the world, shocking international businesses, rocking diplomatic relationships and calling into question two big trade deals that Mr. Trump negotiated during his first term. Mr. Trump’s pronouncement late Monday that he would impose a 25 percent tariff on all goods from Canada and Mexico and a 10 percent tariff on products from China was immediately denounced by business groups.... Foreign officials rushed to reassure the incoming Trump administration that they had been working to stop drugs and migrants from coming into the United States — while warning that they were also ready to turn around and impose their own tariffs on American exports....
“In a public letter on Tuesday, President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico said her country had developed a comprehensive policy that had led to far fewer encounters at the U.S. border and said tariff threats would not solve the problem.... Ms. Sheinbaum also threatened to answer Mr. Trump’s tariffs with levies on American products, even if that harmed automakers and other businesses that trade goods along both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.... 'Rather than panicking, we’re engaging in constructive ways to protect Canadian jobs like we have before,' [Canadian Prime Minister Justin] Trudeau said. 'The idea of going to war with the United States isn’t what anyone wants.'”
~~~ An AP story on President Sheinbaum's reaction to Trump's threat is here. The Guardian's story on Canadian reactions is here. More on Trudeau's troubles linked below. ~~~
Noah Berlatsky of Public Notice: “Trump ... seems to surround himself with certain men because they mistreat women, not in spite of it. The contemporary GOP under Trump has defined itself as a party devoted to violence, harassment, and the denial of women’s bodily autonomy. Abuse, harassment, and dismissing the testimony of women are central to the party’s policies and to its ethics. Not only are Republicans unable to expel abusers, they actively empower them.... Public, sexualized attacks on women are central to MAGA politics. One of Trump’s main accomplishments in his first term was appointing far right Supreme Court justices ... who destroyed women’s right to abortion and bodily autonomy.... One of [those] Supreme Court picks, Brett Kavanaugh, was accused of sexual assault during his confirmation hearing. But instead of taking the claim seriously, Trump secretly blocked an FBI investigation into the charges, and Kavanaugh was confirmed by the Senate.... Following [Kamala] Harris’s defeat, pro-Trump men began trolling women on social media with posts declaring, 'Your body, my choice.'... Make America Great Again always meant returning America to a time when rich white men had power to subjugate others with impunity.” (Also linked yesterday.)
Trump Has Another NYT Meltdown. Dominick Mastrangelo of the Hill: “'Will the failing New York Times apologize to its readers for getting years of “Trump” coverage so wrong,' Trump wrote Tuesday morning on Truth Social. 'They write such phony “junk,' knowing full well how incorrect it is, only meaning to demean.' He specifically called out national political correspondent Maggie Haberman as ... 'a third rate writer and fourth rate intellect, writes story after story, always terrible, and yet I almost never speak to her.' The president-elect’s post came just hours after the Times published a story outlining an internal investigation his transition team had conducted around top Trump aide Boris Epshteyn, alleging he solicited payment from candidates for top Cabinet posts to curry favor with Trump.” MB: Haberman co-wrote the Epshteyn story with Jonathan Swan. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Somebody should tell NYT publisher A.G. Sulzberger that unless the paper wants to publish only the sweetest, Trump-vetted puff pieces about Der Furor, Donald Trump will attack the Times. ~~~
~~~ Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Swan of the New York Times: “... Donald J. Trump has always demanded loyalty from his aides, but few have answered the call quite like Natalie Harp. A 33-year-old former far-right cable host, Ms. Harp is nearly always at Mr. Trump’s side. She has written him a series of devotional letters, including one that said, 'You are all that matters to me.'... Little known beyond Mr. Trump’s immediate orbit, Ms. Harp is now poised to play a potentially influential role in his White House, sitting right outside the Oval Office and acting as the conduit for a largely unsupervised flow of information to and from the president and helping him with his social media feed. She has no official title, but during the campaign, colleagues referred to her as the 'human printer' because she followed Mr. Trump around with a portable printer and a battery pack to charge it, so she could hand him information in hard copy, as he prefers.... One of her go-to news sources, people who have observed her say, is the website Gateway Pundit, which frequently disseminates conspiracy theories embraced by the far right.” ~~~
~~~ Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "It's not clear what triggered Trump's rant in the early hours of Tuesday. He singled out reporter Maggie Haberman, whose name he misspelled intentionally and also seemingly unintentionally, but his Truth Social post came shortly after the newspaper published a report by her and colleague Jonathan Swan on a series of passionate letters from a much younger aide." ~~~
~~~ digby finds the Trump-Harp relationship, as described by Haberman & Swan, to be “a little weird.... He calls her 'sweetie' and treats her like his own daughter.... She goes with him everywhere and does everything he wants.... “'“I want to bring you joy,” she wrote [to Trump in a letter Haberman & Swan have seen], “to feel like we can get through a day without ever having to talk ‘work.’”' Oookay. That sounds perfectly innocent….” MB: Nothing weird about Trump's calling Harp "sweetie." She's one of the ubiquitous blonde aides, and Trump can't remember her real name.
BTW, in a Bluesky skeet RAS linked earlier Tuesday, Jon Wolfsthal, a security analyst who served in the Obama administration, wrote, "The push to fire Government workers is actually a scam designed to funnel even more money to government contractors and management consulting. The dirty secret of 'smaller government' is that it benefits management consulting firms. The works still has to get done, but with 40% overhead." So, graft on a grand scale. Just think of the vast opportunities for bribes and "favors" and insider trading and profiteering and and and. (Also linked yesterday.)
Rebecca Beitsch of the Hill: “The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday granted a request from special counsel Jack Smith to drop President-elect Trump’s Florida documents case, ending the battle to charge him over retaining records with classified markings after leaving office. The order fulfills a request from Smith to end an appeal in the case as it relates to Trump though the case continues for his two co-defendants – valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos de Oliveira.” This is a developing story. It does not report whether the case against Trump was dropped with prejudice or without prejudice. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: It is still not clear to me, after re-reading a later version of Beitsch's report as well as other reports, whether or not it is theoretically possible that a future AG could revive the documents case against Trump. Apparently Barbara McQuade, who understands this far better than I, thinks so: ~~~
~~~ Barbara McQuade, in an MSNBC opinion piece: "It may be that a future attorney general ... will lack the appetite to resuscitate the cases against Trump in 2029. But [Jack] Smith has done all he can to preserve that possibility."
~~~ Marie: Here's why not all Trumpbots are as stupid as we think: the story of the appeals court's dismissal of the classified docs case on something called "Fox Live" is headlined, "Trump Cleared." You and I know Trump was not "cleared," which according to Merriam-Webster (and common understanding) means, "to free from accusation or blame: exonerate, vindicate." Smith asked that the cases be dismissed because of DOJ protocols regarding prosecutions of sitting presidents*, not because he determined Trump was not guilty. If your sources of news were right-wing media, you might reasonably assume that poor ole Trump had been wrongly accused and Jack Smith was finally admitting it.
Devlin Barrett, et al., of the New York Times: “The legacy of [Jack] Smith’s investigation [into Donald Trump's misdeeds] is shaping up to be a complex one. Legal experts give him credit for running a tightly disciplined investigation and amassing considerable evidence to back the charges he lodged. But legal battles that spun out of his prosecutions have left the Justice Department with what appear to be considerable new constraints on holding presidents accountable. And for all Mr. Smith’s efforts to avoid having his work enmeshed in politics, Mr. Trump essentially put the voters between himself and federal prosecutors.”
Tobi Raji of the Washington Post: “A Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas has rejected the state’s long-shot attempt to temporarily block special counsel Jack Smith from destroying records related to his investigation into ... Donald Trump, calling the state’s argument 'unserious.' Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) had asked U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk to order Smith to preserve the records, including any communications Smith’s office had with a 'range of outside parties' and information regarding the cellphones assigned to Smith’s team, among other items, according to the complaint. Such requests can be a routine first step in congressional inquiries, law enforcement investigations and litigation. Three days after Trump was elected president, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Georgia) asked Smith’s office to preserve all records of his classified documents and election interference probes, an early sign that they were planning to investigate his work. But Paxton does not have any clear jurisdiction to launch such an investigation.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Wow! Ken Paxton is too "unserious" even for every winger's favorite go-to judge Matthew Kacsmaryk.
Helene Cooper, et al., of the New York Times: “A Republican senator is blocking the promotion of Lt. Gen. Christopher T. Donahue, the commander of U.S. troops in the final days of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, in what could be the first salvo in a Trump administration war against America’s generals. Senator Markwayne Mullin, Republican of Oklahoma, put a hold on General Donahue’s promotion to four stars, or general, after his nomination was sent to the Armed Services Committee last week, officials said.... Trump transition officials have said they plan to go after generals in the Pentagon for a list of perceived crimes, including taking part in the Afghanistan evacuation and promoting diversity in the ranks....
“General Donahue was the last American service member to depart Afghanistan as Taliban fighters took control on Aug. 31, 2021. A decorated former Delta Force commander, Army Ranger and paratrooper with multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, he was recently selected to lead the U.S. Army’s Europe Command as the war in Ukraine heads into its fourth year.... General Donahue arrived at Kabul international airport on Aug. 18, three days after the Afghan capital fell to the Taliban. In front of him was an impossible puzzle: a sprawling airport besieged by desperate people trying to flee and not enough troops to carry out an orderly end to America’s longest war. Days later, on Aug. 26, 2021, a suicide bombing at the airport’s Abbey Gate killed 13 U.S. service members and scores of Afghan civilians. General Donahue was not responsible for that part of the airport when the attack occurred.” (Also linked yesterday.)
Stefanos Chen & Olivia Bensimon of the New York Times: A hearing in a federal court in Manhattan on Monday, scheduled to “to discuss [Rudy Giuliani's] continuing failure to give up nearly $11 million worth of personal assets..., was the most contentious yet in the winding search for his personal assets.... But first, Judge Lewis Liman allowed Mr. Giuliani’s lawyers to withdraw from the case.” Giuliani's new lawyer said one reason he was requesting a delay in the case was that Giuliani wanted to attend Trump's inauguration. “The answer, Judge Liman said, was no.” Oh, and one of the few items Rudy did turn over to the plaintiffs -- a vintage Mercedes supposedly once belonging to Lauren Bacall -- he surrendered without the keys and the title. So Shaye & Ruby can't even drive around in style. But his failure to do even the bare minimum required by the court didn't stop Rudy from yelling at the judge or from whining about how the women have tied up his last penny. This would be sad if Rudy didn't deserve every indignity imposed upon him. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ The NBC News story by Adam Reiss & Dareh Gregorian is here: “... Giuliani snapped: 'The implications you are making against me are wrong. I have no car, no credit card, no cash, everything I have is tied up. They have put stop orders on my business accounts, and I can’t pay my bills.' The judge said Giuliani did not appear to be indigent and warned him against any further outbursts.”
Adeel Hassan of the New York Times: “An animal-rights activist suspected in bombings at two locations in Northern California over two decades ago — and who landed on the F.B.I.’s list of most-wanted terrorists — was caught in Wales on Monday, the F.B.I. said on Tuesday. The activist, Daniel Andreas San Diego, 46, was sought in connection with the bombings of two San Francisco-area buildings that housed companies with ties to animal testing.... In January 2006, the F.B.I. offered a $250,000 reward for information leading directly to his arrest, and the agency put him on the list of most-wanted terrorists in 2009.... The F.B.I. said that it had coordinated with British authorities to arrest Mr. San Diego, but did not give any more details on how he was found, or whether the reward money would be shared.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Texas. Caroline Kitchener of the Washington Post: “The Texas committee that examines all pregnancy-related deaths in the state will not review cases from 2022 and 2023, the first two years after Texas’s near-total abortion ban took effect, leaving any potential deaths related to abortion bans during those years uninvestigated by the 23 ... specialists who make up the group. In a September meeting, leaders of the Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee said the change was made to 'be more contemporary' — allowing them to skip over a backlog of older cases.... But in interviews with The Washington Post, several members of the committee expressed concern that they would not be reviewing deaths that may have resulted from delays in care caused by Texas’s abortion bans.... At least three women have died in Texas because of delays in care related to the abortion bans, according to reporting from ProPublica.... The abortion bans have restricted the ability of doctors and hospitals to provide critical care to women experiencing miscarriages or other pregnancy complications — situations that would trigger a review by the committee if a woman died.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Canada. Ian Austen of the New York Times: “Amid rapidly growing anxiety over the potential harms to Canada if ... Donald J. Trump fulfills his promise to impose heavy tariffs on the country, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Tuesday that he would seek a united political front at an emergency meeting the following day with all of his country’s provincial and territorial leaders.... But Mr. Trudeau may not be able to muster as unified a response as he managed during the previous Trump administration. Most of the premiers are his political opponents, his Liberal federal government isn’t polling well and he is vulnerable in the next federal elec.tion, which must be held within a year. In the aftermath of Mr. Trump’s announcement, several premiers criticized Mr. Trudeau as much as they denounced Mr. Trump’s plan.”
Marie: You see why I want to move to Denmark? They are the only country on Earth to have a fart tax! ~~~
Denmark. Somini Sengupta of the New York Times: “... there are five times as many pigs and cows in Denmark as there are people. Nearly two-thirds of its land is taken up by farming. And agriculture is becoming its largest share of climate pollution.... So now, Denmark’s unlikely coalition government, made up of three parties from across the political spectrum, has agreed to tax the planet-heating methane emissions that all those animals expel through their poop, farts and burps. The measure, under negotiation for years, was passed by the Danish Parliament this month, making it the only such climate levy on livestock in the world.... The tax is part of a larger package designed to clean up the country’s agricultural pollution and eventually restore some farmland to its natural form, like peat lands, which are exceptionally good at locking away planet-heating gases underground but were drained decades ago to grow crops.”
Israel/Palestine, et al.
The Washington Post's live updates of developments Wednesday in Israel's wars are here: “A U.S.-backed cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah came into effect at 4 a.m. local time Wednesday, halting the deadliest war in Lebanon in decades. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel could strike again if the Lebanese militant group violated the deal. Despite both sides warning displaced residents not to return to southern areas under Israeli evacuation orders, many people were seen flocking home in the south, causing traffic jams on highways. The deal is set to stop fighting for an initial 60-day window, during which all Israeli soldiers would withdraw as Lebanese forces take up their positions, a senior Biden administration official said. The agreement is intended as 'a permanent cessation of hostilities,' President Joe Biden said.”
Johnatan Reiss of the New York Times: “An independent commission, founded by survivors of the [Hamas-led October 7, 2023,] raid and relatives of Israelis who were killed and kidnapped..., releas[ed] a scathing report that blamed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and top military commanders for years of faulty decisions that made Israel more vulnerable to invasion. Based on three months of interviews and public hearings, the commission’s report criticized the government’s decision to funnel money to Hamas.... The commission ... condemned Mr. Netanyahu for sidelining high-level decision-making forums that might have stirred greater internal debate about the wisdom of such a policy. The commission also criticized top generals for reducing the number of troops stationed along Israel’s border with Gaza, allowing loose discipline among the soldiers who remained, and prioritizing signal intelligence over human and visual monitoring of the Palestinian enclave.”
1 Comment
Reader Comments (1)
I’m thinking that Trump will find a way to take credit for the Israeli-Hezbollah ceasefire. If he can’t, he’ll condemn it as a something, something, something failure of Biden’s leadership.
I had been thinking that Bibi was going to wait until the Fat Fascist was inaugurated before agreeing to a ceasefire in Gaza so Trump could take credit for stopping the war in 24 hours. But now that a commission has found him criminally liable for incompetence and stupidity leading up to the Hamas invasion, Bibi has no choice but to keep the conflict going indefinitely to stay out of jail. Besides, he hasn’t reached 100,000 innocent Palestinians dead yet. There’s gotta be a few more orphanages and hospitals to firebomb.
Fatty’s victory parade will have to wait. Oh…what am I saying? He doesn’t have to wait for shit. Facts in the real world don’t matter anyway. He’ll simply announce that he ended the war but…um…let’s see…a thing happened, and um, Hamas started it up again so…now…I know. Bibi can nuke Gaza!
Problem solved.