Week three
Gaza has been called "the world's largest prison camp" and it's not inaccurate. But if you are tempted to think that excuses in any way the atrocities committed by Hamas, I have a corrective. Take a Valium or a stiff drink or whatever you need to suppress your gag reflex and look at this article on The Media Line about the pathologists struggling to identify some of the human remains. I won't blame you if you don't. (Warning: it's illustrated.) Burning people alive is beyond even the depravity attributed to the Wagner Group in Ukraine. When the Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis says "It's civilization against barbarism," I don't feel like pointing out that there are barbarians on both sides. Not today.
In the circumstances, it's hard to be impressed that two Israeli hostages were released today for reasons of poor health. That leaves at least two hundred, with an IDF ground invasion apparently imminent. Back in Washington, John Kirby of the National Security Council says Iran is behind proxy attacks on US troops in the region, which does not make me feel better.
Hamas has at least one prominent fan here ("very smart"), but he seems to be suffering memory lapses. When Sidney Powell took a plea in the Fulton County election conspiracy Trump immediately forgot who she was, posting redundantly that Powell "WAS NOT MY ATTORNEY, AND NEVER WAS." He told Hugh Hewitt that while she worked for Michael Flynn, "she didn't work for me as per se." She was just part of the multitude shocked by the "RIGGED AND STOLLEN" election.
Another fink he barely knows is "red-haired weirdo from Australia" Anthony Pratt. Pratt says he has recordings of conversations about Iraq and Ukraine. Of Trump Pratt observed, "He just says whatever the fuck he wants." We know. He also minimized his relationships with Paul Manafort, Mohammed bin Salman, Carter Page, Michael Cohen and Steve Bannon. Here he opens a Pratt paper plant in Ohio with the red-haired weirdo:
I wonder what he'll say if Ivanka can't get the subpoena quashed and has to testify in the New York fraud trial. "I always suspected Ivana had an affair. She suddenly looked HAPPY."
We are also coming up on three weeks without a Speaker of the House, and no matter who wins, America loses. All but two of the announced contenders are election deniers and one of them is abasing himself in Trump's direction so hard, there is reason to fear a head injury. Byron Donalds got a couple of courtesy votes last January and visions of Gingrich began to dance in his head. (He's the dumb-as-a-brick who reported that our national secrets were safe in Mar a Lago because it has so many bathrooms.) Majority Whip Tom Emmer, one of the two reality holdouts, made the required phone call yesterday: "I think he's my biggest fan now because he called and told me I'm your biggest fan," Trump boasted. Emmer is a former hockey coach -- what is it with sports and useless politicians? Three embarrassing ballots ago Trump endorsed Jim Jordan, too. Maybe they can unite behind Kurt Schilling.
Before Trump denies all knowledge of him, co-defendant Rudolph Giuliani is touring a Trump tribute act, flinging wild lies and charges in all directions to distract from his own legal and financial disasters. He took to the media -- well, Newsmax -- to proclaim that Joe Biden (and Barack Obama for good measure) are siding with Hamas and Iran, that Biden's administration is "honeycombed with traitors," as Major Strasser would say, and that he's not "functioning in the best interest of the United States." Sadder and sadder.
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