The Conversation -- November 26, 2023

From the CNN liveblog, also linked below: "US President Joe Biden is now delivering remarks [at about 12:08 pm ET] following the release of 17 hostages from captivity in Gaza -- including a 4-year-old American-Israeli girl. The Red Cross received 17 hostages on Sunday, including Israelis and foreign nationals, Israel's military confirmed. Thirty-nine Palestinians will be released later today, Qatar said, in the third such exchange of a four-day truce between Israel and Hamas. Biden confirmed in the news conference that 4-year-old American-Israeli Abigail Edan was freed on Sunday, marking the first successful release of an American hostage since the start of the truce."

A Crook Grants a Crook a Last-Minute Commutation. Other Crooks Help Out. Michael Schmidt, et al., of the New York Times: "Jonathan Braun of New York had served just two and a half years of a decade-long sentence for running a massive marijuana ring, when [Donald] Trump, at 12:51 a.m. on his last day in office, announced he would be freed. Mr. Braun was, to say the least, an unusual candidate for clemency.... Mr. Braun's family had told confidants they were willing to spend millions of dollars to get him out of prison. At the time, Mr. Trump's own Justice Department and federal regulators, as well as New York state authorities, were still after him for his role in an entirely separate matter: his work as a predatory lender.... Just months after Mr. Trump freed him, Mr. Braun returned to working as a predatory lender, according to New York State's attorney general.... Nearly three years later, the consequences of Mr. Braun's commutation are becoming clearer, raising new questions about how Mr. Trump intervened in criminal justice decisions and what he could do in a second term.... A New York Times investigation ... found there were even greater ramifications stemming from the commutation than previously known and revealed new details about Mr. Braun's history and how the commutation came about."

Kayla Guo of the New York Times: "More than three dozen members of Congress have announced they will not seek re-election next year, some to pursue other offices and many others simply to get out of Washington. Twelve have announced their plans just this month. The wave of lawmakers across chambers and parties announcing they intend to leave Congress comes at a time of breathtaking dysfunction on Capitol Hill, primarily instigated by House Republicans."

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Glenn Thrush & Serge Kovaleski of the New York Times: "The stabbing on Friday of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd in 2020, at a special unit inside a Tucson, Ariz., prison is the latest in a series of attacks against high-profile inmates in the troubled, short-staffed federal Bureau of Prisons. The assault comes less than five months after Larry Nassar, the doctor convicted of sexually abusing young female gymnasts, was stabbed multiple times at the federal prison in Florida. It also follows the release of Justice Department reports detailing incompetence and mismanagement at federal detention centers that led to the deaths in recent years of James Bulger, the Boston gangster known as Whitey, and Jeffrey Epstein, who had been charged with sex trafficking." MB: Gives me a lot of confidence the feds will do a great job if successful in their effort to take over NYC's notorious Rikers Island prison.

Sara Boboltz of the Huffington Post: "Rep. George Santos, the New York Republican whose various deceptions have landed him in hot water with colleagues and the Justice Department, remained defiant during a three-hour-long appearance on a live audio program Friday.... The Republican chairman of the House ethics committee, Rep. Michael Guest (Miss.), has already filed a resolution for his expulsion that will likely be put to a vote next week. Santos initially lashed out at Guest, calling him a 'pussy,' the [Ethics Committee] report a 'vacuous political hit piece,' and the committee 'a fucking weaponization of who they don't like.'... Throughout the interview, which included an exchange with fellow Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), Santos portrayed himself as a victim of cold political calculations."

Presidential Race 2024

David McAfee of the Raw Story: "Donald Trump on Saturday heard boos when he arrived at the South Carolina 'Palmetto Bowl.' He also reportedly saw billboards telling him that he lost. Trump attended the bowl at least in part to show up his GOP rival Nikki Haley at her alma mater.... He was met with two billboards saying, 'You lost. You're guilty. Welcome to Columbia, Donald,' according to the Messenger's report. "The former president was also greeted as he drove into the city by two huge electronic billboards reading: '"You lost. You're guilty. Welcome to Columbia, Donald,"' the report says. 'The billboards also noted that the message was "sponsored by League of Radical Leftist Vermin," referring to Trump's recent social media post calling those who don't support him 'vermin.'"

Romney Doesn't Like His Choices. Nick Robertson of the Hill: "Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) signaled that nearly any candidate in the 2024 field, of either party, would be an 'upgrade' over another term for former President Trump. 'I'd be happy to support virtually any one of the Republicans -- maybe not Vivek [Ramaswamy] -- but the others that are running would be acceptable to me, and I'd be happy to vote for them,' the retiring senator said Friday in an interview with CBS's Norah O'Donnell. 'I'd be happy to vote for a number of the Democrats too,' he continued. 'It would be an upgrade, in my opinion, from Donald Trump and perhaps also from Joe Biden.'"

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Joseph Menn of the Washington Post: Jorge Ramos, "the most prominent U.S. journalist at Univision, the country's largest Spanish-language network, wrote Saturday that reporters had a moral obligation to ask hard questions of Donald Trump during his campaign to retake the White House. Jorge Ramos devoted his weekly column to making that case in the wake of his network's recent friendly interview with Trump, which was attended by three senior executives at Univision's relatively new parent company. Ramos wrote that it had 'put in doubt the independence of our news department.'... 'We cannot normalize behavior that threatens democracy and the Hispanic community, or offer Trump an open microphone to broadcast his falsehoods and conspiracy theories. We must question and fact-check everything he says,' Ramos wrote. Ramos has tangled with Trump before and was ejected from a news conference in 2015 after asking the candidate about his remarks denigrating immigrants." ~~~

     ~~~ Ramos' column, in English, is here.

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Ireland. A Pint (and Then Some) for Caio. Christopher Schuetze of the New York Times: "In the wake of a knife attack in Dublin this past week that sparked Ireland's worst anti-immigrant violence in recent memory, people in the country and beyond are celebrating a Brazilian immigrant who intervened to end the assault. An online fund-raiser set up to 'Buy Caio Benicio a pint,' a standard token of appreciation in the country, as of Saturday afternoon had raised more than 330,000 euros, about $350,000, for Mr. Benicio, a Rio de Janeiro native who lives in the Irish capital and witnessed the stabbing while passing by on his moped.... Although the authorities have not publicly identified the citizenship of the attacker, whom witnesses described as a man in his 50s, rumors spread online claiming that he was an immigrant, drawing many members of the far right to central Dublin on Thursday, some holding signs reading 'Irish Lives Matter.' The protest quickly escalated, and roughly 500 people, mostly young men, vandalized cars, looted shops, and attacked hostels and hotels where immigrants were thought to be staying, according to the authorities.... ~~~

"'Thank you so much Caio, you deserve every penny that you get,' wrote Aine Waters, one of the online donors. 'You took off your helmet to help while others covered up their faces and wore hats later to terrorize. You are a true hero and I am so happy that you came to live in Ireland.'" MB: Gosh, do you think these winger-rioters will repent and realize a poor immigrant is a better person than any of them is? Okay, no.

Israel/Palestine

The Washington Post's live updates of developments Sunday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "Israeli officials received a list of the hostages held in the Gaza Strip due to be released Sunday, the prime minister's office said. Their family members have been notified, it said, without specifying their identities or how many are in the group -- the third due to be released since fighting paused.... After the agreed pause in combat ends, Israeli military leaders said Sunday, they would resume efforts to eliminate Hamas and free remaining hostages." ~~~

     ~~~ CNN's live updates for Sunday are here.

Steve Hendrix, et al., of the Washington Post: "Hamas released a second group of Israeli hostages late Saturday, capping a nerve-racking day of delays and complications that underscored the fragility of the deal for a pause in fighting in Gaza, the exchange of captives and the delivery of more aid to the beleaguered enclave. The pause held for a second day, but a challenge by Hamas to Israel's implementation of the agreement delayed the planned release of Israeli hostages by seven hours, as Qatari and Egyptian diplomats held emergency talks with both sides to salvage the deal. Qatar's Foreign Ministry said late Saturday that the dispute had been resolved and that the exchange would proceed. Qatar and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which is facilitating the transfers, said 13 Israeli hostages had been freed and were on their way to the Rafah crossing in Egypt. Israel reciprocated by releasing 39 Palestinian prisoners, according to Israel's prison service."

** Lauren Leatherby of the New York Times: "... experts say that even a conservative reading of the casualty figures reported from Gaza shows that the pace of death during Israel's campaign has few precedents in this century.... More than twice as many women and children have already been reported killed in Gaza than in Ukraine after almost two years of Russian attacks, according to United Nations estimates.... More women and children have been reported killed in Gaza in less than two months than the roughly 7,700 civilians documented as killed by U.S.forces and their international allies in the entire first year of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, according to estimates from Iraq Body Count, an independent British research group. And the number of women and children reported killed in Gaza since the Israeli campaign began last month has already started to approach the roughly 12,400 civilians documented to have been killed by the United States and its allies in Afghanistan during nearly 20 years of war.... Israel's liberal use of very large weapons in dense urban areas, including U.S.-made 2,000-pound bombs that can flatten an apartment tower, is surprising, some experts say." (Also linked yesterday.)

Ukraine, et al. Fredrick Kunkle & Kostiantun Khudov of the Washington Post: "Russia launched a fierce swarm of explosive drones at Kyiv and other targets early Saturday, interrupting a weeks-long lull in the Ukrainian capital and adding to its darkening mood. Ukraine's military said air defenses destroyed 74 of 75 Iranian-made Shahed drones during a six-hour attack that included dozens of the weapons aimed at Kyiv, in what the city's mayor said was the largest drone attack since Russia's invasion in February 2022. All of the pilotless craft headed for Kyiv were intercepted and destroyed, although falling debris struck a kindergarten, ignited a few fires and injured five people, including an 11-year-old child, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a post on Telegram. The noisiest day in weeks, if not months, came as a reminder of more hard days ahead -- with many Ukrainians bracing for Russia to attack civilian infrastructure throughout the winter."

The Conversation -- November 25, 2023

From the CNN liveblog, also linked below: "A second group of hostages released from Gaza -- comprising 13 Israelis and four foreign nationals -- arrived in Israel late Saturday, according to Israeli officials and a CNN team on the ground. Around the same time, 39 Palestinian detainees and prisoners were released from Israeli jails, authorities said. Hamas had delayed the second exchange over a dispute about the prisoners and aid for Gaza that was resolved through mediation, according to Qatar, which helped negotiate the 4-day truce and exchange agreement between the two sides."

** Lauren Leatherby of the New York Times: "... experts say that even a conservative reading of the casualty figures reported from Gaza shows that the pace of death during Israel's campaign has few precedents in this century.... More than twice as many women and children have already been reported killed in Gaza than in Ukraine after almost two years of Russian attacks, according to United Nations estimates.... More women and children have been reported killed in Gaza in less than two months than the roughly 7,700 civilians documented as killed by U.S. forces and their international allies in the entire first year of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, according to estimates from Iraq Body Count, an independent British research group. And the number of women and children reported killed in Gaza since the Israeli campaign began last month has already started to approach the roughly 12,400 civilians documented to have been killed by the United States and its allies in Afghanistan during nearly 20 years of war.... Israel's liberal use of very large weapons in dense urban areas, including U.S.-made 2,000-pound bombs that can flatten an apartment tower, is surprising, some experts say."

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** Sherrilyn Ifill, in a Washington Post op-ed, explains the Fourteenth Amendment to dummies, and that includes judges and Supreme Court "justices": "... post-Reconstruction courts have rarely upheld or applied in full the ambitious demands of the 14th Amendment. Instead, its guarantees have been watered down to accommodate the political forces of the day, or repurposed to serve powerful interests (such as the dubious determination that corporations are 'persons' entitled to its protections), or treated like an a la carte menu, in which some items -- such as the guarantee of privileges and immunities and all of Section 2 (which would reduce state representation as punishment for voter suppression) -- are essentially ignored." MB: Contributor Ken W. says Ifill's essay is well-worth a read. I concur. (Also linked yesterday.)

Marie: I didn't want to wreck your Thanksgiving with this ~~~

~~~ "Happy Thanksgiving" from Donald Trump. Lauren Irwin of the Hill: "Former President Trump wished his supporters a happy Thanksgiving in a Truth Social post early Thursday while slamming New York's attorney general, the judge overseeing his civil fraud case, President Biden and the 'Radical Left Lunatics.' 'Happy Thanksgiving to ALL, including the Racist & Incompetent Attorney General of New York State, Letitia "Peekaboo" James, who has let Murder & Violence Crime FLOURISH, & Businesses FLEE; the Radical Left Trump Hating Judge, a "Psycho," Arthur Engoron, who Criminally Defrauded the State of New York, & ME, by purposely Valuing my Assets at a "tiny" Fraction of what they are really worth in order to convict me of Fraud before even a Trial, or seeing any PROOF, & used his Politically Biased & Corrupt Campaign Finance Violator, Chief Clerk Alison Greenfield, to sit by his side on the "Bench" & tell him what to do,' Trump said on his social media site. Trump also targeted Biden, accusing him of weaponizing the 'Department of Injustice' against his predecessor in the Oval Office, as well as 'all of the other Radical Left Lunatics, Communists, Fascists, Marxists, Democrats, & RINOS, who are seriously looking to DESTROY OUR COUNTRY.'"

The Iceberg Cometh. Amy Woodyatt of CNN: "The world's biggest iceberg -- more than twice the size of Britain's capital city - is on the move after decades of being grounded on the seafloor in Antarctica.... The iceberg, carried by ocean currents, will likely head eastward, and at its current rate is traveling five kilometers (three miles) a day.... Climate change is driving changes in Antarctica's ice and the continent is losing enormous quantities of ice every year."

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Minnesota Congressional Race. Nicholas Nehamas of the New York Times: "Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota, a Democrat who began a long-shot primary challenge to President Biden last month, said on Friday that he would not run for re-election next year. Mr. Phillips, 54, a moderate third-term congressman who represents a district that includes suburban Minneapolis, renewed his call for generational change in Washington as he announced the move. 'After three terms it is time to pass the torch,' he said in a statement, describing a country 'facing a crisis of cooperation, common sense and truth.' In challenging Mr. Biden for the Democratic nomination, Mr. Phillips has cited the president's age, 81, and his low approval ratings, warning that Mr. Biden risks losing his re-election bid to ... Donald J. Trump, 77...." Politico's story is here.

The Price of a Hamburger. Jeff Stein & Taylor Lorenz of the Washington Post: "On Dec. 20, 2022, Topher Olive went to a McDonald's in the town of Post Falls, Idaho, and ordered a limited edition 'smoky' double quarter pounder BLT with fries and a Sprite. The meal cost $16.10, and he posted the receipt on TikTok.... Olive's video about a $16 McDonald's order went viral, racking up hundreds of thousands of views. After a McDonald's revenue report recently, the same post went viral again earlier this month, with at least a half-dozen news outlets ... picking up the story of Olive's pricey patty.... Posts on Reddit, the conservative site Twitchy and elsewhere tied the cost to President Biden's economic management....Even as inflation has fallen to a manageable 3 percent, and although the labor market has remained hot amid strong growth, voters still don't like the economy, and they blame the president." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I blame the increased McDonald's prices not on President Biden but on McDonald's taking advantage of having to raise the wages of its employees and pretending the price hikes are entirely caused by higher workers' wages. Just a guess. But after buying an $8 quarter-pounder earlier this year, I solved the problem by never going to McDonald's again. Should any kid chastise me for scroogery, I will do my best Mrs. Bea McCrabbie. I'll wave my index finger at him and say, "Listen here, you little whippersnapper, I remember when a burger cost 15 cents at the Royal Castle."

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Israel/Palestine

The Washington Post's live updates of developments Saturday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "A pause in fighting, which began Friday, allowed 137 trucks of goods to enter that day, 'making it the largest volume of aid since the resumption of humanitarian deliveries' on Oct. 21, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said." ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates for Saturday are here. CNN's live updates are here: "The 13 Israeli hostages released on Friday are in good, stable condition after their release, doctors said on Saturday. The Schneider Childre's Medical Center in Petah Tikva, east of Tel Aviv, said in a statement that 'the condition of the four children and the four women who returned to Israel last night is determined good.... They are together with their family members in the dedicated and separate compound, surrounded by medical and psycho-social teams,' the statement said. Meanwhile, the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, south of Tel Aviv, said 'the condition of five returnees who were admitted yesterday at Wolfson Hospital is stable.'... Palestinians released from Israeli prisons were met with celebrations on Friday evening as they returned to their hometowns and villages in Jerusalem and the West Bank. In videos obtained by CNN, the released prisoners can be seen paraded through the streets, carried on people's shoulders as crowds wave the Palestinian flag, as well as that of Hamas."

Patrick Kingsley , et al., of the New York Times: "Hamas freed two dozen hostages held in Gaza and Israel released nearly 40 imprisoned Palestinians on Friday, completing the first exchange in a tense, temporary truce that halted the fighting after seven weeks of war.... The hostages released included 13 Israelis, several children among them, as well as 10 Thais and one Filipino.... The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said in a statement that the military and the country's foreign intelligence agency, Mossad, had received a list of hostages slated to be released on Saturday, and that security officials were reviewing the list."

Matt Viser of the Washington Post: "'It's only a start,' [President] Biden said [of the hostage release Friday] behind a makeshift podium, in front of an American flag, in a conference room at the White Elephant Nantucket. 'But so far, it's gone well.' He said 'the chances are real' that the truce could be extended by a few more days. He added that he expected American hostages to soon be released. And he proclaimed that Hamas 'doesn't give a damn' about Palestinians caught in the conflict, adding, 'I don't trust Hamas to do anything right. I only trust Hamas to respond to pressure.'"

Ireland. Karla Adam of the Washington Post: "Right-wing protesters, angered by a stabbing attack they believed had involved someone of immigrant background, rampaged through central Dublin on Thursday night, leaving behind a trail of burning destruction. Ireland's police chief on Friday described the unrest, in which double-decker buses, trams and police cars were torched, as 'scenes that we have not seen in decades.' The violence and looting through some of Dublin's most famous streets began after a stabbing attack outside a school that left five people hospitalized. They included three young children and a woman. Police detained a man who also is being treated for injuries. Rumors spread online that the perpetrator of the attack was an immigrant or had an immigrant background. The BBC, citing unnamed sources, said the man was an Irish citizen who had lived in the country for 20 years." ~~~

     ~~~ Don't Confuse Us with the Facts. digby: "It turns out that it was an immigrant who stepped in and stopped the assailant. Imagine that. [According to the Daily Beast, 'A] Brazilian food delivery driver in Dublin heroically stopped the knifeman who attacked a group of young children outside their school yesterday.... [Caio] Benicio was on a job when he saw the attack taking place. He jumped off his motorcycle, took off his helmet, and hit the attacker with it until the attacker collapsed. 'I didn't even make a decision, it was pure instinct, and it was all over in seconds. He fell to the ground, I didn't see where knife went, and other people stepped in,' he told Irish news website The Journal." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: One upside to being a right-winger: you never have to let facts stand in the way of your bigotry.

News Ledes

AP: "The two people killed when their luxury car crashed into a border checkpoint in Niagara Falls and exploded in a fiery wreck were identified Friday as a western New York husband and wife whose family owns a lumber business and several hardware stores in the Buffalo area. The investigation into what caused the 2022 Bentley Flying Spur to race through an intersection, hit a low median and become airborne Wednesday continued, with investigators looking at whether medical or mechanical issues may have contributed, Niagara Falls Police Chief John Faso told local media. The car slammed into a row of security booths at the Rainbow Bridge and burst into flames. Police identified the couple as Kurt P. Villani and Monica Villani, both 53, of Grand Island, a suburb on the Niagara River between Buffalo and Niagara Falls. Online business records and the company website indicate the victims' family owns Gui's Lumber and seven Ace Hardware locations in western New York, his family operating the business since the mid-1980s."

New York Times: "Betty Rollin, a network news correspondent who described intensely personal life passages in two memoirs -- 'First, You Cry,' about being diagnosed with breast cancer and having a mastectomy, and 'Last Wish,' in which she revealed that she had helped her pain-ravaged mother end her life -- died on Nov. 14 in Basel, Switzerland. She was 87. The cause was voluntary assisted suicide, at Pegasos, an assisted dying service, said Ellen Marson, a close friend, who disclosed the death to The New York Times on Thursday. Ms. Rollin, she said, had been dealing with pain from arthritis and a gastrointestinal condition and had been brokenhearted since the death of her husband, Harold Edwards, a mathematician, in 2020."

New York Times: "Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who was convicted of murdering George Floyd during a 2020 arrest that set off a wave of protests, was stabbed at a federal prison in Tucson, Ariz., on Friday, according to two people with knowledge of the situation. The Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed that an inmate at the Tucson prison was stabbed at 12:30 p.m., though the agency's statement did not identify Mr. Chauvin, 47, by name. No other inmates or prison staff were injured, and the situation was quickly contained, according to the people familiar with the situation. Emergency medical technicians 'initiated lifesaving measures' before transporting the inmate to a local hospital 'for further treatment and evaluation,' bureau officials wrote. No details were immediately available on his condition, but one of the people with knowledge of the incident said that Mr. Chauvin survived the attack." The AP's story is here.

The Conversation -- November 24, 2023

** Sherrilyn Ifill, in a Washington Post op-ed, explains the Fourteenth Amendment to dummies, and that includes judges and Supreme Court "justices": "... post-Reconstruction courts have rarely upheld or applied in full the ambitious demands of the 14th Amendment. Instead, its guarantees have been watered down to accommodate the political forces of the day, or repurposed to serve powerful interests (such as the dubious determination that corporations are 'persons' entitled to its protections), or treated like an a la carte menu, in which some items -- such as the guarantee of privileges and immunities and all of Section 2 (which would reduce state representation as punishment for voter suppression) -- are essentially ignored." MB: Contributor Ken W. says Ifill's essay is well-worth a read. I concur.

Patrick Kingsley of the New York Times: "Twenty-five hostages held in Gaza, including 12 Thai nationals and 13 other women and children, were released on Friday, the Egyptian government said, the first people to be freed under a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that took effect hours earlier.... The cease-fire that took effect Friday morning has already enabled the delivery of aid supplies to Gaza, where roughly two-thirds of its 2.2 million people have been displaced by the war. By the afternoon, dozens of trucks carrying humanitarian aid had entered Gaza from Egypt, a spokesman for the border crossing ... said by phone. Israel said that eight aid trucks contained fuel and cooking gas, a small but significant amount for a territory that has all but run out of fuel." This is part of a liveblog. ~~~

     ~~~ UPDATE from the CNN liveblog, also linked below: "An initial group of 24 hostages has been released as a truce between Israel and Hamas -- the first in weeks of fighting -- appears to be holding. The released hostages released include 13 Israelis, 10 Thai citizens and 1 Filipino citizen, according to Qatar's foreign ministry. The hostages are now in Israel, where they have undergone and initial medical assessment.... An Israeli official said a total of 39 Palestinian prisoners will be freed in return on Friday."

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Who Could Have Seen This Coming? Luke Broadwater, et al., of the New York Times: "Speaker Mike Johnson's decision to publicly release thousands of hours of Capitol security footage from Jan. 6, 2021, has fueled a renewed effort by Republican lawmakers and far-right activists to rewrite the history of the attack that day and exonerate the pro-Trump rioters who took part.... Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the hard-right Georgia Republican, was among the first lawmakers to post false information about the newly released videos.... [She said an insurrectionist holding a vape pen was holding a law enforcement badge and was 'disguised as a Trump supporter.'] Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, recirculated the same clip and false allegation that the man pictured had flashed a badge, adding that he looked forward to questioning Christopher S. Wray, the F.B.I. director, about the matter.... Still others, such as Donald Trump Jr., have shared video of rioters walking through the Capitol hallways doing nothing violent, suggesting that those who entered the building were entirely peaceful."

Presidential Races 2016 -- 2024

Two Corinthians Are Back in the News. Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "In the heat of the Republican primary of 2016, Donald Trump called evangelical supporters of his rival Ted Cruz 'so-called Christians' and 'real pieces of shit', a new book says.... The new book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism, by Tim Alberta, an influential reporter and staff writer for the Atlantic, will be published on 5 December.... Early in the book, Alberta describes fallout from an event at Liberty University, the evangelical college in Virginia, shortly before the Iowa vote in January 2016.... Trump was asked to name his favourite Bible verse. Attempting to follow the advice of Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council..., [Trump] introduced it as 'Two Corinthians', rather than 'Second Corinthians'.... 'The laughter and ridicule were embarrassing enough for Trump,' Alberta writes. 'But the news of Perkins endorsing Ted Cruz, just a few days later, sent him into a spiral. He began to speculate that there was a conspiracy among powerful evangelicals to deny him the GOP nomination.... Alberta adds that 'in private over the coming years', Trump 'would use even more colourful language to describe the evangelical community'."

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Israel/Palestine. The Washington Post's live updates of developments Friday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "A cessation of violence in the Gaza Strip went into effect Friday, according to social media reports from within Gaza.... Fifty hostages and 150 Palestinian prisoners are expected to be released during the pause, as part of a deal to release hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel. Qatar, which has acted as a mediator, said Thursday that Hamas is set to release an initial group of 13 hostages.... Hamas is expected to release civilian women and children hostages, and Israel to release women and minors detained in Israeli prisons." ~~~

     ~~~ CNN's live updates are here.

The Netherlands. More Bad News for Democracy. Claire Moses of the New York Times: "The Netherlands, long regarded as one of Europe's most socially liberal countries, woke up to a drastically changed political landscape on Thursday after a far-right party swept national elections in a result that has reverberated throughout Europe. Geert Wilders's Party for Freedom, which advocates banning the Quran, closing Islamic schools and entirely halting the acceptance of asylum seekers, won 37 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, making it by far the biggest party, in a clear rebuke of the country's political establishment. The results, tabulated overnight after Wednesday's voting, give Mr. Wilders enough support to try to form a governing coalition. Centrist and center-right parties long wary of the firebrand have left the door ajar to a possible partnership, giving Mr. Wilders a chance to become the Netherlands' first far-right prime minister." The AP's story is here.

News Lede

New York Times: "Charles Peters, the founding editor of The Washington Monthly, a small political journal that challenged liberal and conservative orthodoxies and for decades was avidly read in the White House, Congress and the city's newsrooms, died on Thursday at his home in Washington. He was 96. His death was confirmed by The Washington Monthly, which reported that Mr. Peters 'had been in declining physical health for several years, mainly from congestive heart failure.' Often called the 'godfather of neoliberalism,' the core policy doctrine of the magazine, Mr. Peters was The Monthly's editor from 1969 until his retirement in 2001. He also wrote five books on politics, government and history, and a column, 'Tilting at Windmills,' offering pithy thoughts on politics and current events, from 1977 to 2014."