The Conversation -- October 18, 2024

Presidential Race

Maeve Reston of the Washington Post: “Vice President Kamala Harris chided Donald Trump on Thursday for his revisionist history on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — accusing him of 'gaslighting' the American people with his recent assertion that it was a 'day of love.'... At all her rallies this week — including here in Wisconsin — Harris has said Trump is 'unstable' and 'seeking unchecked power.' Campaigning in two Wisconsin cities, Harris touted her own combative performance on Fox News on Wednesday night as a show of her willingness to speak to people 'no matter their political party' or 'where they get their news.' She noted that on the same night, Trump had appeared at a Univision town hall where a 56-year-old self-described Republican said he was alarmed by what took place on Jan. 6, 2021, and wanted to give the former president the 'opportunity to try to win back my vote.' Trump responded by calling it 'a day of love' and seemed to include himself when referring to those who entered the Capitol that day as 'we.'... Harris’s criticism of Trump followed a week in which her campaign has tried to paint him as confused, incoherent and unstable.” More on Trump's recent remarks re: January 6 below.

Yes, Trump Is a Fascist. Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: “The word 'fascist' has hovered around ... Donald J. Trump from the moment he rode down his golden escalator in 2015 to warn of Mexican rapists and drug dealers.... But for most top Democrats, it was a provocative term loaded with dread, historical import and potential incitement — best left unsaid. Until Vice President Kamala Harris this week made clear — again and again — that it would be just fine with her to use the word. On Tuesday, as the radio host Charlamagne Tha God interviewed Ms. Harris, he interjected as the vice president contrasted her vision with her rival’s. 'The other is about fascism,' he said of Mr. Trump’s vision. 'Why can’t we just say it?' Ms. Harris’s response: 'Yes, we can say that.' On Wednesday, speaking in Washington Crossing, Pa., Ms. Harris quoted Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Mr. Trump, describing his former boss as 'fascist to the core,' as detailed in a new book from the journalist Bob Woodward.

“The quotation of Mr. Milley may have opened the floodgates for Democrats, granting new permission with the authority of his uniform and his unique closeness to the inner workings of Mr. Trump’s administration. But an element of political risk remains, even as Mr. Trump freely uses the word himself against Ms. Harris.... Mr. Trump’s running mate, Senator JD Vance, singled out the term 'fascist' as an incitement to violence that was beyond the pale.”

     ~~~ Marie: Got that? According to both Weisman and JayDee, it's dangerous for Democrats to accuse Trump of being a fascist even though he is one. And according to JayDee, it's unacceptable. But it's okay for Trump to call Harris a fascist, though she has shown no fascistic bent; according to the linked story, he had called her a fascist at least five times by mid-September. Democrats must politely pull their punches because they're expected to be nice and reasonable. Trump can say whatever he wants because people expect him to be rude and crude. Both-siderism is so over. We're going full double standard here.

Heck, I’m only two months younger than Donald Trump. But good news for you is I will not spend 30 minutes swaying back and forth for you. I will not clap off beat, nor will I pretend to be a conductor, because we got a race to win. And we have to win it. I’ve been doing this a long, long time, and I can honestly say that this time I am not here running for anything anymore except for my grandchildren’s future. -- President Bill Clinton, at a rally in North Carolina ~~~

~~~ Dylan Wells & Patrick Svitek of the Washington Post: “Former president Bill Clinton campaigned for the first time alongside the Democratic ticket Thursday, appearing with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and reprising his role as 'explainer in chief' to make the case to North Carolinians to elect Kamala Harris on the first day of early voting here.... Clinton appeared with Walz as part of a multistate tour by the former president targeted at mobilizing rural and Black voters.... Clinton dedicated much of his remarks to acknowledging concerns voters have about the economy and explaining the conditions that led to the current rate of inflation.”

Erin Doherty & Andrew Solender of Axios: "Former Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) revealed he voted for Vice President Kamala Harris and blasted former President Trump in a statement first shared with Axios.... '[Harris] and I will not agree on every issue, but in her, we have a capable leader who will always put the interests of our country before her own, unlike her opponent who will always put his personal interests ahead of those of the United States,' Dent said.... Dent, who endorsed President Biden over Trump in 2020, said Thursday that he cast his absentee ballot for Harris in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Dent offered a searing rebuke of Trump, saying that his 'affection for autocrats like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jung Un, his hostility toward the free press, our allies, and anyone who dares to disagree with him are reprehensible.'... A Trump critic while in the House, Dent resigned from Congress in 2018."

Kevin Manahan of NJ.com: “Fox News anchor Bret Baier is taking criticism from all sides: — Donald Trump supporters are screaming that that the anchor from the Trump-friendly cable giant wasn’t tough enough in his hourlong interview with Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday night; — Democratic supporters have called him rude for interrupting Harris many times during her answers; — Media critics are pointing out that Fox deceptively edited a clip of Trump — and were fact-checked by Harris in real time; — And many, in all circles, are claiming that Baier, in an attempted takedown of Harris, was no match for her. Even Baier seemed to acknowledge that Harris won the day. 'I think she had a mission that she wanted to do,' Baier said after the interview. 'Maybe she wanted to have a viral moment or pushback. She came to Fox News and she wanted to have a go-after-Donald-Trump viral moment that plays on a lot of other channels and on social media. She may have gotten that.'” ~~~

~~~ Margaret Sullivan of the Guardian: “... Baier came out guns blazing, barely allowing the vice-president to finish a sentence before jumping in with objections and arguments.... Immigrant hatred. Transphobia. And later, Joe Biden’s age. Baier was running through the Fox News greatest hits playlist. This was grievance theater, not political journalism.” ~~~

~~~ Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post: “One of the people Vice President Kamala Harris might want to thank in her victory speech, if she wins the election, is Fox News anchor Bret Baier. His combative interview Wednesday gave Harris the chance to display qualities — and present facts — that Donald Trump desperately wants to keep hidden from the network’s millions of viewers.... Baier presented a too-brief clip from a town hall event, aired on Fox earlier Wednesday, in which Trump denied [calling his critics 'enemies of the people']. This was gaslighting: A slightly longer clip would have shown Trump railing against 'the enemy from within' and naming two leading Democrats, Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff, as being part of that 'sick' group. Baier obviously knew that — and Harris called him on it....

“[During his inquisition,] Baier repeatedly interrupted the vice president, trying to talk over her and posing questions seemingly cut and pasted from the list of Republican talking points. Intentionally or not, all of this was a gift to Harris. She stood her ground, refuting the Trump campaign’s claim that she is weak and easily pushed around. She spoke fluently and cogently, putting to rest GOP claims that all she offers is word salad. She brushed off the most tendentious questions, engaged with the substantive ones, and insisted on finishing her answers whether or not Baier liked it.” ~~~

~~~ An interesting update to all that: ~~~

     ~~~ Michael Luciano of Mediaite: “Fox News host Bret Baier said the wrong clip aired during his interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.... During a contentious 30-minute sit-down, Harris referenced remarks by former President Donald Trump on Sunday Morning Futures on Fox News. Trump suggested using the military against 'the enemy from within,' which he explained are 'radical left lunatics.' Baier responded by teeing up a clip of a Fox News town hall.... 'We asked that question to the former president today,' Baier told Harris. 'Harris Faulkner had a town hall, and this is how he responded.' 'They were saying I was like, threatening,' Trump said in the snippet. 'I’m not threatening anybody. They’re the ones doing the threatening....'... Harris took exception. 'Bret, I’m sorry, and with all due respect, that clip was not what he has been saying about the enemy within that he has repeated when he’s speaking about the American people,' the vice president said. 'That’s not what you just showed!' Baier addressed the dustup at the end of Thursday’s Special Report. '... I did make a mistake,' he told panelists Faulkner and Harold Ford Jr. 'And I did want to say that I did make a mistake. When I called for a soundbite, I was expecting a piece of the “enemy from within” from Maria Bartiromo’s interview to be tied to the piece from your town hall, Harris, where you asked the former president about “the enemy from within.” It just had the piece about the town hall.'” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Baier went on to say, “My point was that we asked him about the question about that sentence and what he was trying to mean.” So, even though Baier admits he made a mistake, he also admits that the whole purpose of airing the clip from the town hall was to give the audience a chance to see Trump try to clean up his act by denying he was threatening everybody and portraying himself as the victim of Democratic threats. That is, even before he interviewed Harris, Baier had planned to give Trump the chance to falsely deny he was threatening detractors. Airing the clip of Trump's false denial was not a mistake at all; the mistake was failing to air an “enemy from within” clip, too. AND there's this: ~~~

     ~~~ Daniel Hampton of the Raw Story: "On Thursday night, Gretchen Carlson, who joined Fox News in 2005 and was a co-host on Fox & Friends until 2013, blasted Baier on X. 'Now Bret Baier says "his mistake" he ran wrong Trump "enemy from within' clip during interview w/ Harris. Newsflash: When wrong clips run (which happens) hosts can easily say "Sorry that was the wrong clip". He or his producers would have known it was the wrong one right then,' she said."

Michael Gold of the New York Times: “... Donald J. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris both delivered remarks to the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Ms. Harris in a recorded video and Mr. Trump in person in a ballroom in Manhattan packed with New York’s political elite, business leaders and religious luminaries. Mr. Trump rushed through prepared remarks, stumbling at times as he read through pointed political jokes, bitter grievances and crude and at times profane personal attacks. He seemed most energized when he ditched his script, caught between being an insult comic or just being insulting. Ms. Harris was campaigning in Wisconsin.... She ... appear[ed in a video] with the actress Molly Shannon as her Catholic schoolgirl character Mary Katherine Gallagher.” Gold relates some of the “jokes” and jokes. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I won't embed a video of Trump's remarks, and so far YouTube doesn't have a good copy of Harris's video, but the brief local report below gives you a flavor of Trump's flat, halting delivery and of Harris's video presentation: ~~~

    ~~~ Update. Here we go: ~~~

     ~~~ Admittedly, since Harris' remarks were recorded, she had the advantage of being able to do retakes (which is not to say she did so). But anyone who listens to her and to Trump for about 15 seconds each has to be daft (or Mitch McConnell -- see link below) to say, "I'm liking old Orange Man there." Harris's competence and dynamism shine, while Trump clearly is not capable of reading a script. (He never was, according to [NYT link] John Lithgow and other reports I've read.) Even if you knew nothing else about Harris or Trump, it wouldn't be a close call: you'd pick Harris to be Leader of the Free World.

Michael Gold of the New York Times: “... Donald J. Trump blamed President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine for Russia’s invasion of his country in a podcast interview released on Thursday, inverting the facts of the largest military action in Europe since the Second World War.... Mr. Trump, in a rambling, muddled answer on a conservative podcast, was criticizing President Biden’s leadership when he abruptly brought up his skepticism over the administration’s continued military aid to Ukraine.”

Trump Advisors Concerned He's a Babbling Idiot. Michael Bender of the New York Times: “... some Trump advisers and allies say privately they are concerned that ... Mr. Trump’s impetuousness and scattershot style on the campaign trail needlessly risk victory.... At a time when ... Vice President Kamala Harris has stepped up her attacks on him as 'unstable,' Mr. Trump has struggled to publicly hone his message by veering off script and ramping up personal attacks on Ms. Harris that allies have urged him to rein in.” Bender offers numerous examples of Trump's wacko behavior & unfocused remarks from just this past week. Here's one: “At the Economic Club of Chicago on Tuesday, he answered a question about whether he would break up Google by complaining about a Justice Department lawsuit against Virginia election officials. When he was reminded the question was about Google, he said he 'called the head of Google the other day' to grouse about the difficulty of finding positive news stories about his campaign on the company’s search page.” Bender notes that the Harris campaign is taking advantage of Trump's instability with remarks and in ads.

Marie: (I wrote this earlier, but I'm leaving it in, because it backs up an assertions Maeve Reston made in the WashPo story linked above.) Nicolle Wallace of MSNBC said yesterday that Trump had made a "confession" during his Univision town hall when he responded to a question about January 6 and identified himself with the Capitol marauders. Here's a part of the transcript of Trump's response:

Some of those people went down to the Capitol, I said, peacefully and patriotically, nothing done wrong at all. Nothing done wrong. And action was taken, strong action. Ashli Babbitt was killed. Nobody was killed. There were no guns down there. We didn’t have guns. The others had guns, but we didn’t have guns. And when I say 'we' these are people that walk down, this was a tiny percentage of the overall, which nobody sees and nobody shows. But that was a day of love from the standpoint of the millions, it’s like hundreds of thousands. ~~~

     ~~~ If this is a “confession,” everything else Trump says here is a lie. As Maeve Reston of the Washington Post writes (linked above), “Trump supporters, trying to stop the affirmation of Joe Biden’s 2020 win, assaulted 140 police officers, damaged the building and destroyed government property.... Babbitt was one of five people who authorities said died as a consequence of the siege.... It is still unclear how many in the crowd were armed before the riot occurred. But six men were arrested that day for having guns in the vicinity of the U.S. Capitol....” As for the crowd size at the Ellipse, PolitiFact went with the House Select Committee's estimate of 53,000, not “like hundreds of thousands.”

The Miracle of Evolution: A Turtle Morphs into a Chicken. Mary Jalonick of the AP: “Mitch McConnell said after the 2020 election that ... Donald Trump was 'stupid as well as being ill-tempered,' a 'despicable human being' and a 'narcissist,' according to excerpts from a new biography of the Senate Republican leader that will be released this month. McConnell made the remarks in private as part of a series of personal oral histories that he made available to Michael Tackett, deputy Washington bureau chief of The Associated Press. Tackett’s book, 'The Price of Power,' draws from almost three decades of McConnell’s recorded diaries and from years of interviews with the normally reticent Kentucky Republican.... Despite those strong words, McConnell has endorsed Trump’s 2024 run....” (Also linked yesterday.)

⭐ Confessions of a Suit. John D. Miller in a U.S. News opinion piece: “I want to apologize to America. I helped create a monster.... I led the team that marketed 'The Apprentice,' the reality show that made Donald Trump a household name outside of New York City, where he was better known for overextending his empire and appearing in celebrity gossip columns. To sell the show, we created the narrative that Trump was a super-successful businessman who lived like royalty.... At the very least, it was a substantial exaggeration; at worst, it created a false narrative by making him seem more successful than he was.... To sell the show, we created the narrative that Trump was a super-successful businessman who lived like royalty. That was the conceit of the show. At the very least, it was a substantial exaggeration; at worst, it created a false narrative by making him seem more successful than he was.” Read on. (Also linked yesterday.)

Marie: Decades ago, when Steve Martin was a stand-up comic, he did a joke where he gave advice on how to make a million dollars and not pay any taxes: “First, make a million dollars. Then, when the IRS asks you why you didn’t pay any taxes, say ‘I forgot.’” Well, I've got a joke that's not so funny. Because it works: “Here's how to make a billion dollars (or 247 billion) and take control of a major foreign country. First get 247 billion dollars; then, become a U.S. citizen & bribe Donald Trump.” This is intended to highlight Elon Musk's influence, but without much massaging, it applies to Rupert Murdoch, too.

Marie: In her stump speech, Kamala Harris zeroes in on the "freedoms" Americans have a right to expect. One of them is the "freedom to breathe clean air, and drink clean water and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis." She knows whereof she speaks: ~~~

~~~ Project 2025 Oil & Gas Industry Addendum -- Stinks. Evan Halper & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: “An influential oil and gas industry group whose members were aggressively pursued for campaign cash by Donald Trump has drafted detailed plans for dismantling landmark Biden administration climate rules after the presidential election, according to internal documents obtained by The Washington Post. The plans were drawn up by the American Exploration and Production Council, or AXPC, a group of 30 mostly independent oil and gas producers, including several major oil companies. They reveal a comprehensive industry effort to reverse climate initiatives advanced during nearly four years of Democratic leadership. At the same time, the documents contain confidential data showing that industry’s voluntary initiatives to cut emissions have fallen short. The lobbying blueprint takes particular aim at a new tax on emissions of methane, a gas that the International Energy Agency (IEA) says is responsible for nearly a third of human-caused global warming. The documents show the methane emissions of nine of 19 AXPC member companies that responded to an internal survey are increasing — in many cases sharply.”

Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: “An independent panel reviewing the failures that led to the attempted assassination of ... Donald J. Trump in July called on the Secret Service to replace its leadership with people from the private sector and focus almost exclusively on its protective mission. The recommendations, part of a report released Thursday commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security, outlined deficiencies that have already been identified in the months after the rally in Butler, Pa., on July 13. Those include the failure of the Secret Service to secure a nearby building where a rooftop would-be assassin fired eight shots toward Mr. Trump. That and other security lapses, members of the panel said, result from an absence of 'critical thinking' among agents and supervisors. The panel was particularly struck by a 'lack of ownership' conveyed by the agents it interviewed. Those involved in the security planning did not take responsibility in the lead-up to the event, nor did they own failures in the aftermath. And, the report added, they 'have done little in the way of self-reflection in terms of identifying areas of missteps, omissions or opportunities for improvement.'” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: There's a biting irony here: every intellectual lapse the panel identifies in Secret Service leadership is one that the target of the assassination shares: an absence of critical think, lack of ownership of mistakes, failure to take responsibility from the git-go right on through the follow-up and "little in the way of self-reflection in terms of identifying areas of missteps, omissions or [making] opportunities for improvement."

Devlin Barrett of the New York Times: “Federal prosecutors have charged a man they identified as an Indian intelligence officer with trying to orchestrate from abroad an assassination on U.S. soil — part of an escalating response from the United States and Canada to what those governments see as brazenly illegal conduct by a longtime partner. An indictment unsealed in Manhattan on Thursday said that the man, Vikash Yadav, 'directed the assassination plot from India' that targeted a New York-based critic of the Indian government, a Sikh lawyer and political activist who has urged the Punjab region of India to secede. The target of the New York plot has been identified by American officials as Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the general counsel of Sikhs for Justice.... Authorities say Mr. Yadav recruited an associate to find a U.S.-based criminal to arrange the murder of the Sikh activist. Last year, U.S. prosecutors charged the man accused of being Mr. Yadav’s henchman, Nikhil Gupta, and said Mr. Gupta had acted under instructions from an unidentified employee of the Indian government.... The indictment came just days after the Canadian government expelled India’s top diplomat and five others, saying they were part of a criminal network.”

Zach Montague of the New York Times: “The Biden administration has reached a major milestone in its pursuit of expansive student debt relief, announcing on Thursday that over one million people have had their federal student debt canceled through a program that offers forgiveness to public service workers. For President Biden, whose student debt agenda has been repeatedly handicapped by Republican legal challenges, the announcement marked a modest but undeniable achievement. With just weeks until the election, the administration has reported approving around $175 billion in total student debt relief for nearly five million borrowers through all the actions taken during Mr. Biden’s presidency.” (Also linked yesterday.)

~~~~~~~~~~

Arizona Senate Race. Shocking Divorce File Unsealed. Meh. Maria Paul of the Washington Post: “For months, Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake has speculated that her opponent, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), had used the courts to hide 'something really, really bad' in his divorce from Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego.... Lake and her allies have repeatedly sought to paint Gallego’s personal life in a negative context — running ads describing him as a 'deadbeat dad' and alleging his divorce records contain a 'massive story.'... But on Thursday, an Arizona court unsealed most of the case file — revealing what one judge called 'one of the most garden-variety divorce files I have ever seen.' The records were made public following a 10-month-long legal battle between the Gallegos and the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative publication that filed a lawsuit earlier this year to unseal them.... The 465 pages that were unsealed Thursday by the Yavapai County Superior Court detail standard divorce proceedings.... They also include no details of any illegal activity or infidelity and expressly state that no physical abuse had occurred. Following the documents’ release, the Gallegos blasted Lake and demanded an apology 'for lying about our family and the circumstances of our divorce,' the former couple wrote in a joint statement.”

Arizona. Frances Vinall of the Washington Post: “A deaf Black man with cerebral palsy will no longer face charges over an incident in which he was repeatedly Tasered and punched by Phoenix police. Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said Thursday that she had reviewed the case and 'made the decision to dismiss all remaining charges.' Tyron McAlpin, 34, had been charged with resisting arrest and two counts of aggravated assault on an officer. Mitchell said she had consulted with the local chapter of the NAACP and 'convened a large gathering of senior attorneys and members of the community to hear their opinions' before concluding her review.... The arrest happened less than three months after an almost three-year federal civil rights investigation by the Justice Department into the Phoenix Police Department found it had routinely used excessive force and discriminated against Black, Hispanic and Native American people.”

Florida. Ha! Lori Rozsa of the Washington Post: “A federal judge in Florida on Thursday ordered the state to stop threatening TV stations with criminal charges if they run a political ad in support of a referendum that would repeal the state’s six-week abortion ban. Proponents of Amendment 4 sued the state on Wednesday over letters from the Florida Department of Health to broadcast stations around the state, threatening 'criminal proceedings' if they ran the ads. U.S. District Chief Judge Mark Walker said the state’s actions amount to 'unconstitutional coercion' and violate the First Amendment.... Julia Friedland, Gov. Ron DeSantis’s deputy press secretary, denounced the decision as 'another order that excites the press.'... DeSantis and his administration have been using state agencies to attack the proposed amendment ahead of the Nov. 5 general election.” MB: The injunction expires October 29, so I guess it anticipates an appeal by the state. I dunno.

Texas. David Goodman of the New York Times: “The Texas Supreme Court on Thursday halted the execution of Robert Roberson, a Texas man convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter, after a roller-coaster series of legal maneuvers initiated by an unusual intervention from a bipartisan group of Texas House members. The decision by the state’s highest civil court related to a procedural question raised by the legislators’ issuing a subpoena for Mr. Roberson to testify before the Legislature on Monday and not the details of his case. But the effect was to run out the clock for the time being. Because the execution could not be carried out before midnight, a new date would now have to be set.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Israel/Palestine, et al.

The Washington Post's live updates of developments Friday in Israel's wars are here: “Top U.S. officials renewed calls to pursue an end to the war in Gaza in the wake of Israel’s announcement that its troops had killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.... U.S. officials described Sinwar as having been the 'chief obstacle' to a truce, but two diplomats familiar with the negotiations — which the United States mediated along with Egypt and Qatar — said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had repeatedly obstructed a deal since June by placing new demands on a framework proposed by [President] Biden.”

Ronen Bergman, et al., of the New York Times: Israeli soldiers were on a routine patrol Wednesday in the southern Gaza Strip when “a firefight erupted and the Israelis, backed by drones, destroyed part of a building where several militants had taken cover, Israeli officials said.” One of the Palestinians killed was Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader. “Mr. Sinwar’s death was the most severe blow to Hamas’s leadership after more than a year of escalating violence in the Middle East, and it immediately plunged the war in Gaza into a new and uncertain phase.”

Zolan Kanno-Youngs & Ephrat Livni of the New York Times: “President Biden said on Thursday that the death of Yahya Sinwar ... could create the opportunity to 'move on' to a cease-fire in Gaza, adding that he had spoken to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to congratulate him on Mr. Sinwar’s death. 'It’s time for this war to end and bring these hostages home. So that’s what we’re ready to do,' Mr. Biden told reporters upon his arrival in Berlin on Thursday evening. He added that he was 'hopeful' about the prospects of a cease-fire and would be sending Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken to Israel in the coming four to five days to discuss securing Gaza and what the 'day after' the war will look like.” ~~~

     ~~~ Here's President Biden's statement via the White House.

Katie Rogers & Reid Epstein of the New York Times: “Declaring that 'justice has been served,' Vice President Kamala Harris said on Thursday that the killing of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader whom she called the 'mastermind' of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, created an opportunity to end the war in Gaza. Ms. Harris spoke shortly after Israeli officials confirmed the death of Mr. Sinwar, who was viewed as the architect of the Hamas-led attack, in which militants killed roughly 1,200 people and took about 250 others hostage.”

⭐ Josef Federman, et al., of the AP: “Israeli forces in Gaza killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a chief architect of last year’s attack on Israel that sparked the war, the military said Thursday. Troops appeared to have run across him unknowingly in a battle, only to discover afterwards that a body in the rubble was Israel’s most wanted man. Israeli leaders celebrated his killing as a settling of scores just over a year after Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped 250 others in an attack that stunned the country. They also presented it as a turning point in the campaign to destroy Hamas, urging the group to surrender and release some 100 hostages still in Gaza. 'Hamas will no longer rule Gaza. This is the start of the day after Hamas,' Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. U.S. officials expressed hopes for a cease-fire with Sinwar out of the picture.” (Also linked yesterday.)

The New York Times' live updates of developments Thursday in Israel's wars are here: “The Israeli military said on Thursday that it was assessing whether Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had been killed in the Gaza Strip. The military released no further details about the assessment, but four Israeli officials said the military was taking the body of a slain militant to a laboratory in Israel in order to assess whether its DNA matches that of Mr. Sinwar.” ~~~

Update: “The Israeli military confirmed on Thursday that Yahya Sinwar, the powerful and elusive militant leader who has been the No. 1 target for Israel since the beginning of the war, had been killed in battle. Mr. Sinwar was viewed as the architect of the brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel that set off the 13-month war that has plunged the Gaza Strip into a humanitarian crisis and began a wider conflict that now includes the fighting in Lebanon.” (Also linked yesterday.)

The New York Times has an obituary of Sinwar here. (Also linked yesterday.) 

Comments

[ForrestMorris]

The brain's prefrontal cortex is affected by a person's life style.
Things like sleep (we know of someone who is up texting at 1:00 A.M.)
Exercise (who is that fat man always riding in a golf cart?).
Healthy diet (no one can live on hamberders and stay healthy).
Could be the reason Donald has been losing it for years.
P.S. I'm not a psychologist but I dated one once (just once!).