Split Screens ✡️🎉🙌 🎗️

Home בבית!   They’re home!  Very early this morning Hamas released the remaining live Israeli hostages kidnapped on October 7, 2023. The hostages were released in two groups, first seven, then the remaining thirteen. Some, although not all, of the bodies of the Israelis who did not survive are to be released shortly.  In exchange Israel will be releasing 1700 Palestinian prisoners, including more than 200 who are currently serving long sentences for having committed heinous terrorist attacks, a particularly difficult and controversial move for Israel given that the now deceased former head of Hamas Yahya Sinwar who was the architect of the October 7 massacre had been among the more than 1000 Palestinians prisoners released in 2011 in exchange for Gilad Shavit, an Israeli soldier who had been held by Hamas for five years.  As the second group of hostages were being prepared for release, Trump arrived in Israel to take a victory lap and to lament the Nobel committee’s failure to award him their peace prize. He declared that “war is over, this is a new beginning” and as much as it would be nice to think that he’s right, the Middle East has a habit of disappointing.  After a short stop where he is being warmly embraced, both out of gratitude that the hostages have been freed and because Israelis, especially Bibi, know that the secret to keeping Trump happy and on your side is to lavish praise and tell him he’s the greatest ever, he will be departing to attend a Gaza “peace” summit in Sharm el-Sheikh hosted by Egypt’s Al-Sisi.  A who’s who of European and Middle Eastern leaders including the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas and Qatar’s Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani will be in attendance but no one from Hamas, Israel or Iran has been invited, curious because Israel still controls a large portion of Gaza and Hamas, machine guns and probably missiles too, controls much of the rest. On Friday, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced that Qatar, the country that continues to host Hamas leadership and who funded Hamas’ terror apparatus including its tunnels and projectiles, would be building an air force base in Idaho because who doesn’t invite a terrorist abettor to build an air force base on one’s home turf?  After getting lots of pushback from politicians across the ideological spectrum, Hegseth walked back that statement saying he misspoke, they wouldn’t be building their own base but would get expanded training at one of our existing bases. Gifting a gold plane to Trump, slow walking the shutting down of the terrorists you funded while continuing to host their leadership, and then “brokering” peace appears to have been a brilliant strategy on the part of the Qatari’s Emir who has now solidified his position as one of Trump’s BFFs.  It’s too early to say that the Emir has supplanted Putin because despite Trump’s occasional dissing of Vlad, Melania has a special relationship with him.  She revealed that she’s been privately chatting away with him and has used her influence to reunite eight Ukrainian children with their families.  That’s nice, but what about the other 19,000+ that Putin forcibly tore away from their families and deported to Russia?

 

The Homefront:  While Trump is playing world diplomat, things continue to deteriorate at home. The #TrumpShutdown continues. INS raids keep getting uglier. Epstein is still lurking. Despite Veep Vance’s efforts to shrug it off, the Tom Homan $50K bribe really happened and the stock market tanked on Friday in response to Trump’s announcement that he would be levying 100% tariffs on China.  That tariff hike threat is his way of trying to get China to stop playing hardball which Xi is doing by depriving us of the things we need, including those coveted rare earth minerals.  Unfortunately, China’s Xi has a lot of staying power and doesn’t appear willing to cave to Trump’s bully tactics, a problem particularly for manufacturers and our farmers who’ve seen the market for the soybeans they previously sold to China disappear.  The farmers, like Argentina, will probably be bailed out by Trump but the rest of us not so much so don’t expect grocery prices to go down but do expect jobs to keep on disappearing with virtually no new hiring taking place all while inflation continues to rear its ugly head. As to those jobs, after getting both a COVID (!) shot and a flu shot during his second “routine annual” check-up Trump fired large swaths of the CDC, including the people responsible for keeping Ebola off our shores, responding to all those measles cases that are still springing up around the country, the entire Epidemic Intelligence Service, and the team that assembles the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, because if you don’t report disease maybe it’s not happening?  The good news is that someone, somewhere realized that they’d goofed by firing some of those people and lots, though not all of them, were rehired.  The bad news is that it increasingly looks like the government is being run by a bunch of headless, vindictive chickens.  And in case you are wondering, Trump who has swollen cankles and a permanently bruised hand has the heart of someone 14 years younger, or at least that’s what the White House physician wants us to believe.  Even Ronny Jackson, the former White House doctor turned Congressman knows that’s a crock.  He spilled the beans by saying what we all suspected: that Trump’s visit was to monitor his chronic venous insufficiency.  As to those vaccines, has anyone checked to see if RFK is still standing, he and the anti-vax squad must be furious.  Unfortunately, it’s not just the CDC people who’ve been laid off, notices have been sent to 4000 government employees.  It’s not clear that those notices are kosher, but who are we kidding, does Trump or Russel Vought really care.  By the way, in case anyone’s counting, former National Security Advisor John Bolton is likely to be indicted soon, another one that Trump wants jailed or at the very least tortured.  Don’t be surprised if Former FBI Director Chris Wray is next.  Over the weekend, before departing for the Middle East, Trump went on a Truth Social rant, post screeching: “THE BIDEN FBI PLACED 274 AGENTS INTO THE CROWD ON JANUARY 6. If this is so, which it is, a lot of very good people will be owed big apologies. What a SCAM – DO SOMETHING!!! President DJT.”  Worth noting, Biden was not president on January 6, 2021, Trump was.  Unfortunately, for Wray, he was the FBI Director and though he didn’t place 274 FBI plants into the January 6 horde, someone needs to be the scapegoat. Wray better watch out; he could also be one of those on mega rich guy Peter Thiel’s antichrist possibility list.  I am not sure what an antichrist is, but Thiel’s been out on a speaking tour saying that if we don’t keep moving towards autocracy we’re at risk of being taking over by an antichrist and since he’s the billionaire who brought us Veep Vance, we should listen to him.  La di dah.