Crooked Media - What A Day: On the Blinken of disaster

“…that doesn’t mean I have a homosexual crush on them. I just appreciate their acting skills. Very strong heterosexual credentials.”

- Jesse Watters being forced to explain to his Fox News audience that it is not gay for a man to think another man is a good actor. Extremely normal people.

Israel continued to launch airstrikes in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah on Monday, while preparing for a ground assault in the face of growing international objections.
 

• The Israel Defense Forces appear poised to launch an all-out assault on Rafah, where about half of Gaza’s population is now sheltering after months of bombardment in the North, following a brutal commando rescue operation that killed 74 people there. As a result of the operation, Israel freed two Israeli-Argentine hostages on Monday, the first of the October 7 hostages being held by Hamas released through military action, as opposed to a prisoner swap. 
   

• In four months of the conflict, much of Gaza has been flattened, and 28,340 Palestinians have been killed there, according to Gaza health officials. Almost 68,000 people are wounded, those officials say, and many more are believed to be buried under the rubble. The Israeli military says 31 of the hostages have died over the course of that period. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that the rescue of the two hostages (out of the 100 estimated to remain in Hamas captivity) demonstrates that military pressure should continue, and rebuffed international alarm at the plans for a ground assault on Rafah.
   

• Israel reportedly proposed the creation of sprawling tent cities in Gaza as part of its evacuation plan, to be funded by the United States and its partners in the Arab Gulf ahead of the invasion. The proposal was sent to Egypt in recent days, just as the Biden administration was warning Israel against proceeding into Rafah, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing Egyptian officials. Cairo has reportedly said that it would suspend the 1979 peace treaty with Israel if Palestinians crossed the border from Rafah to flee an Israeli offensive. Netanyahu declined to comment on the proposal.

The U.S., UN and International Criminal Court are all raising warnings about the looming invasion of Rafah, and urging Israel to exercise greater restraint. 
 

• White House National Security Spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that some progress has been made in negotiations towards a pause in fighting, but more work remains. The Biden administration pressed Israel on Monday to work toward a pause in the conflict to win freedom for more hostages and to rapidly increase the flow of humanitarian aid to Palestinians. President Biden reportedly spoke with Netanyahu on Sunday by phone and told him a military operation in Rafah “should not proceed” without a plan to protect civilians. Biden has privately disparaged Netanyahu as impossible to deal with, NBC News reported, but the administration’s official policy towards supporting Israel has remained largely unchanged. 
   

• A Dutch Court on Monday ordered the government of the Netherlands to stop exporting parts for F-35 fighter jets to Israel, in a sign of mounting alarm over the staggering civilian death toll in Gaza. The Netherlands hosts a warehouse of American-owned F-35 parts that are exported to other countries where the fighter jets are operated. Oxfam and two other human rights organizations filed lawsuits against the Dutch government in December demanding that it halt these exports amid concerns that Israel may be potentially violating international law in the enclave. Monday’s ruling, in part, read: “The court finds that there is a clear risk that Israel’s F-35 fighter jets might be used in the commission of serious violations of international humanitarian law.”

Shortly after speaking with President Biden, King Abdullah II of Jordan—home to a large population of Palestinian refugees and their descendants—again called for an immediate ceasefire. “We cannot afford an Israeli attack on Rafah,” he said. “It is certain to produce another humanitarian catastrophe.”

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Disgraced former president Donald Trump suggested that if he wins reelection, he would not defend NATO allies who “failed” to spend enough on defense, and would even encourage Russia to attack them. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a military alliance founded in 1949 amidst Cold War tensions. Article 5 of the organization’s founding treaty commits each member to the principle of collective defense: the idea that an attack on one member will be considered an attack on all. The alliance makes decisions by consensus, but the outsized political and military strength of the United States (plus, you know, all of the nukes) means that it has an equally outsized role in the 31-member bloc. Trump has been complaining about NATO for years, accusing members like Germany of not footing enough of the bill for their own defense and relying on the United States to protect them. He certainly wasn’t the first American president to grip about this, just the most bellicose in his language. GOP lawmakers have largely fallen in line behind Trump’s incendiary comments, a significant departure from foreign policy hawkishness in the party when Trump first emerged as a candidate in 2016. As always: profiles in courage!

France, Poland, and Germany warned Monday of an increase in Russian propaganda meant to undermine their governments ahead of European Union elections in June. 

The Kansas City Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers at the Super Bowl in Las Vegas on Sunday Night. Cheers to the last vestige of American monoculture!

The Atlanta judge overseeing the election interference case over disgraced former president Donald Trump and his lackeys confirmed on Monday that he is moving forward with a hearing over allegations that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis engaged in an improper personal relationship with the case’s lead prosecutor. 

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin transferred his official duties to his deputy at the Pentagon after being admitted to the critical care unit of Walter Reed Medical Center on Sunday.

A Nor’easter is expected hit New York City with the heaviest snow its seen in over two years.

Trump asked the Supreme Court to extend a pause on his Washington D.C. criminal trial while he appeals the rejection of his claim to absolute immunity. He’s hoping to slow-walk the whole thing through a hearing of the full D.C. appeals court, but the Supreme Court may not grant him that much of a delay.

Antivaxx supreme leader Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s PAC spent millions of dollars on a Super Bowl ad touting his famous last name as a mark of his qualifications to be president. His family was furious, and denounced the ad.

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Thousands of drivers for ride-sharing platforms Uber and Lyft, as well as workers for the food delivery app DoorDash will strike across the United States on Valentine’s Day seeking fair pay. 

There were some funny Super Bowl commercials last night to take our mind off The Horrors™!