Crooked Media - What A Day: Waiting in the right-wing

Israel’s campaign in Gaza continues to cause devastation in the enclave, and the lack of any end in sight has increased pressure on the country’s right-wing leadership. 
 

• The Palestinian Red Crescent accused Israel of firing on a hospital in Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip on Friday, as the Israel Defense Forces advanced in the main city in the southern part of the enclave. The IDF said it is investigating the claim. The offensive near the Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, the main city in Southern Gaza, threatens what few healthcare facilities are still open in the area. Nearby, IDF tanks were also approaching Gaza’s largest remaining functional hospital, Nasser, where people reported hearing shellfire from the west. The World Health Organization reported that most of Gaza’s 36 hospitals have stopped functioning. Only 15 are partially-operational, with a deluge of patients stretching those to three times their normal capacity. All are without adequate fuel and medical supplies. 
   

• A two-day IDF raid in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm left at least eight people dead, including two children, The New York Times reported, citing Palestinian news media. Funeral processions were held on Friday, and locals examined the damaged homes and remains left from the attack. The IDF detained hundreds of Palestinians—blindfolding and physically binding them—destroyed homes, tore up roads, and stopped and searched ambulances transporting injured persons, the Times said, citing eyewitnesses and photos published by news agencies. Israel said the raid was a counterterrorism operation, and its forces had arrested over 35 people and found hundreds of explosives in the Tulkarm and Nur Shams refugee camps. Those camps were established in the early 1950’s for Palestinians displaced in the creation of Israel. 
   

• The Gaza Health Ministry reported that 142 Palestinians have been killed and over 278 injured in Gaza in just the past 24 hours, with the total death toll in the enclave now nearing 25,000. The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) estimated that more than 1.7 million people, three-quarters of Gaza’s population, have been displaced since the conflict began on October 7, many forced to move repeatedly.

The Israeli government is facing increasing friction with its allies and division among its own ranks. 
 

• President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finally spoke on Friday after nearly four weeks of dead air in their communications. In the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack that claimed some 1,200 Israeli lives, the White House initially held Israel tight with unconditional, total support. But the two heads of state have been increasingly at odds over Israel’s devastating campaign in Gaza and possible postwar strategies for peace. Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected the idea of Palestinian statehood, central to the two-state solution favored by the Biden administration, and neither side shows signs of backing down.  
   

• Netanyahu has to deal with divisions at home, as well as abroad. Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, a member of the Israeli war cabinet, appeared in a television interview on Thursday imploring the country to pursue a longer ceasefire with Hamas so that more October 7 hostages could be freed. It was a small but significant rebuke of Netanyahu’s pursuit of “total victory,” and carried particular weight as Eisenkot’s 25-year-old son was killed in the fighting. On Friday, a former head of the country’s top intelligence agency expressed the same sentiment. The Israeli public is growing frustrated and impatient with the government’s failure to bring home the hostages, evidenced by a protest by relatives of the hostages and their supporters that blocked traffic on a major highway in Tel Aviv on Friday. 

Netanyahu has not responded to the highway protest.  

What happens when one of China’s most prominent human rights activists escapes house arrest in China, lands in America as a hero of freedom and democracy, then somehow re-emerges a few years later as an avid Trump supporter? This is the story of Chen Guangcheng. In Crooked’s newest podcast - Dissident at the Doorstep, hosts Alison Klayman, Colin Jones, and Yangyang Cheng, tell the story of how a person can become a symbol for American values. AND what happens to them NEXT. The next episode launches tomorrow. Listen to episodes 1 & 2 out now. New episodes of Dissident At The Doorstep drop every Saturday, in the Pod Save The World feed, wherever you get your podcasts.

On Thursday, disgraced former president Donald Trump warned the Supreme Court of “bedlam” if he’s not allowed back on the ballot in Colorado. He wants the high court to overrule a decision from the Colorado State Supreme Court, which disqualified Trump from the GOP primary due to his participation in the January 6 insurrection. The state court cited the Constitution’s so-called insurrection clause—section 3 of the 14th amendment—which was originally drafted after the Civil War to keep confederate rebels from seeking power via the ballot box. The text says that anyone who vowed to “support” the Constitution, and then joined or aided an insurrection, can’t hold office again. One of Trump’s particularly LOL arguments was the assertion that despite being president, he never swore to “support” the Constitution, because the presidential oath includes a vow to “preserve, protect, and defend” the Constitution. Totally different! Genius mode: activated!

The Supreme Court will hold oral arguments in the Colorado matter on February 5, with a decision expected quickly—likely within a few weeks. Trump personally hand-picked half of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority, so surely that will not factor into the equation. 

Meanwhile, at the World Economic Forum in Davos—where the elite meet to rub elbows and complain to each other about taxes and The Poors or something—Trump was a hot discussion topic as well. Many executives reportedly said in private they think Trump is going to win the 2024 election, and feel simultaneously “worried” and “resigned” to that predicted outcome. If we remember correctly, CEO’s and billionaires didn’t shed too many tears over a Trump presidency last time, so they can stop practicing expressions of concern in the mirror. In fact, several of the American business executives repeated old (now thoroughly-debunked) talking points, such as that the threat of Trump’s presidency is being “overblown” by the media, that he’s “all bark no bite,” even that some of his policies were “right.” Profiles in courage! This is going to be… one hell of a year.

National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby announced on Friday that for the sixth time in ten days, the United States conducted airstrikes against Houthi militants in Yemen. 

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) could be facing a primary challenge in the next election…from her former chief of staff. 

Online furniture retailer Wayfair announced it would lay off 1,650 employees—a staggering 13 percent of its workforce—after the CEO called the company “bloated.” Bloated, huh? That’s a word I would use to describe CEO pay.  

Trump’s former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley said she won’t be anybody’s vice president, and that option is “off the table.” A reasonable decision when the current GOP frontrunner’s supporters threatened to hang his last VP. 

A grand jury has been empanelled to decide whether any law enforcement officers should be indicted over the failed response to the Robb Elementary shooting in 2022.

A New Mexico grand jury indicted actor Alec Baldwin on Friday on involuntary manslaughter charges, reviving the case against him for the accidental fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in October 2021 on the set of the film “Rust.” Baldwin has maintained that he was not responsible for the death and was told that the gun did not contain any live rounds. 

The lead prosecutor in Trump’s criminal racketeering case in Atlanta, GA, Nathan Wade, paid for plane tickets with District Attorney Fani Willis to Miami and San Francisco, according to bank statements. One of Trump’s codefendants has accused Willis and Wade of having an “improper” relationship, and argued that it undermines the entire case.

The S&P 500 stock index closed at an all-time high on Friday. Man, it would be cool to read a news item about the stock market with the phrase “all-time high” and not immediately get very scared about what's next, but that’s my Millennial Pavlovian response!

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President Biden canceled nearly $5 billion in student loan debt for 74,000 Americans on Friday. The beneficiaries are mostly public service workers like teachers, nurses, and firefighters. 

Americans are growing more confident about the economy: Consumer sentiment jumped 29% since November in the biggest two-month increase in three decades, according to the University of Michigan. 

President Biden leads Trump in New Hampshire, according to a new Marist poll.