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- CNN’s Jake Tapper on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) resolution to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)
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As the death toll in the Israel-Hamas war continues to rise, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emphatically rejected pleas for a ceasefire.
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In recent days, the United Nations Secretary-General, humanitarian groups, and others have called for a ceasefire, a motion for which also won a majority vote in the U.N. General Assembly. On Monday, Netanyahu equated such appeals to “calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism,” and said that Israel is “fighting the enemies of civilization itself.” When asked about the Palestinian civilian death toll—over 8,000 now according to the Gaza Health Ministry—Netanyahu said “not a single civilian has to die,” and laid blame for civilian casualties at the feet of Hamas. Netanyahu further compared Israel’s refusal to agree to a ceasefire to reactions after Pearl Harbor and September 11 in the United States. The United States and British governments have also rejected calls for a ceasefire. In the United Kingdom, a Conservative Member of Parliament was fired from his position as Parliamentary Private Secretary for calling for a complete stoppage of the violence. Also during Netanyahu’s address, a reporter asked whether he would resign amid collapsing poll numbers and rising criticism of his handling of the conflict, including from his own former defense minister, Moshe Yallon, who had said in a radio interview that Netanyahu “is solely engaged in political maneuvering and his attitude is, ‘Let the nation burn.’” Netanyahu responded that he had no intention of stepping down.
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The Israel Defense Forces advanced deeper into Gaza on Monday, surrounding Gaza City on at least three sides as it continued to bombard the enclave with airstrikes. In the West Bank, settler violence against Palestinians has escalated sharply in the past three weeks. According to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, at least seven Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers, and more than 100 Palestinians have been killed by the IDF in the West Bank since October 7. 30 Israeli rights groups, including B’Tselem, warned that the violence is displacing entire Palestinian communities in the West Bank at a scale that could potentially amount to forced population transfers if allowed to continue. President Biden issued a strong rebuke of attacks from “extremist settlers” last week, saying, “It has to stop.” Even before the conflict with Hamas began earlier this month, incidents of settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank have been worsening for much of the year.
- Forty-seven aid trucks carrying food, water, medical supplies, and other necessities entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing on Sunday, according to one Palestinian official at the checkpoint. That is the highest number of aid trucks allowed to pass in the three weeks since fighting began. Before the October 7 attack, some 500 supply trucks entered Gaza each day; as of Sunday, only 117 trucks total had been let into Gaza since, all in the last ten days. Essential supplies, particularly water and electricity, are further limited in Gaza by heavy damage to infrastructure, including the network of pipes that carry water into the densely-populated enclave, as well as the Israeli government’s decision to turn off electricity that is normally routed into the territory.
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Incidents of antisemitic and Islamophobic hate crimes have seen a notable increase since the outbreak of violence began.
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A band of rioters in the predominately-Muslim Dagestan region of Russia stormed a local airport and surrounded a plane that had arrived from Tel Aviv. The riot appeared to have been instigated on Telegram, where users urged one another to “catch” traveling Israelis. Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the West and Ukraine of agitating the riot, which Ukrainian officials denied. More than 20 people were hurt, none of them Israeli. White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby condemned the riot, calling it “a chilling demonstration of hate, bigotry, and intimidation,” and compared it to “the pogroms of the late 19th and early 20th century.”
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On Saturday, a 52-year-old Pakistani-American pediatrician, Talat Jehan Khan, was fatally stabbed outside of her Texas home. Police arrested 24-year-old Miles Fridrich on charges of first-degree murder and are currently investigating his social media activity to determine whether or not he will be charged with a hate crime. The Texas chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said in a statement, “We are unsure at this moment if this was a hate crime, however given the tragic circumstances, we are paying very close attention to the investigation.” Last week, a Muslim teenage girl was attacked while riding the New York City subway to school. A man sat down next to her and said, “You’re a terrorist, you don’t belong here,” before pulling on her hijab. Another female passenger intervened and the man ran away. The NYPD have stated they are investigating the crime.
On Sunday, global aid organization Save the Children reported that the number of children killed in Gaza in the past three weeks has surpassed the total number of children killed across the world in all conflict zones in each of the previous three years. Since October 7, 3,195 children have been reported killed in Gaza, as well as 33 children in the West Bank and 29 in Israel. Israeli authorities have not stated how many of the estimated 1,400 victims of Hamas’s October 7 attack were children, though there have been numerous reports of children killed in the assault.
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Exciting news! Pod Save America tickets for New Orleans, Louisiana on November 10th are on sale! Come on out to see Pod Save America Live—what many people are calling the mardi gras of political podcast recordings. We’ll be joined by co-host Tim Miller, guest Devante Lewis, and more! Who knows, maybe Dan will throw some beads. Tickets are going fast! Head to crooked.com/events to get yours today.
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Over the weekend, federal judge Tanya Chutkan reinstated a gag order barring Donald Trump from trying to intimidate or threaten the special counsel or witnesses in his upcoming federal election obstruction trial. (This is a different gag order than the one imposed by New York judge Arthur Engoron, the judge in a civil trial, focusing on a few of Trump’s many, many, many, many financial crimes. Also, this isn’t the 2020 election-related trial in Georgia. That one’s for racketeering. It’s also not the federal trial in Florida. That’s about Trump stealing classified documents. There are also some other indictments but my fingers are getting tired.)
Chutkan had lifted the gag order at the request of Trump’s lawyers on Oct. 20; when she did, he immediately started hurling sub-Dangerfield insult comedy at special counsel Jack Smith and witnesses reported to be cooperating with Smith, notably Mark Meadows. All of those posts were compiled and entered into Smith’s request to Chutkan. Trump is pretty bad at obeying gag orders—he was fined $10,000 for his tantrum about one of Engoron’s clerk’s last week. His lawyers also did not check the box that would have requested a jury trial in that case, so he is particularly at the mercy of this judge whose orders he seems determined to violate. But that’s the old gag order. The shiny new gag order? Trump hasn’t violated that one yet. He did scream about Chutkan on Truth Social, though. I wonder if she’ll remember that the next time his lawyers beg her to lift the order again.
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House Republicans have introduced an emergency aid bill that would give $14.3 billion in funding to Israel which would be paid for by cutting the same amount of funding from the IRS. The bill has no chance in the Democratic-led Senate, or anywhere outside of Grover Norquist’s dream journal.
Creepy zealot and former vice president Mike Pence announced on Saturday that he was dropping out of the 2024 Republican presidential primary “after much prayer and deliberation.” So I guess even God said, “No thanks, Mike.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry has confirmed the death of a 23-year-old German-Israeli woman named Shani Louk, whom Hamas had abducted at a music festival during its October 7 attack. She became internationally known when Hamas released a video showing her contorted body being driven through Gaza in the back of a truck. She was likely killed before being taken to Gaza, according to forensic evidence recovered by an aid group at the festival site.
Hamas released a video on Monday of three Israeli women they are holding hostage. The women accuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of failing to protect Israelis during the October 7 attack and now failing to return the hostages home. Netanyahu called the video “cruel psychological propaganda.”
More than a dozen progressive groups are pressuring the Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland to reverse a new safe harbor policy they argue gives a “free pass” to corporate criminals in shady mergers and acquisitions dealings. The policy states that the DOJ will not target firms that report misconduct they find within six months of acquiring a new company, a policy that has also been criticized by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). Warren called the policy “a betrayal of the Department’s mission ‘to uphold the rule of law.”
Attorney General Ken Paxton (R-TX) will finally go to trial for securities fraud on April 15 to face charges that he solicited investors in a technology company in 2011 without disclosing that the company was paying him to promote its stock. In September, legal experts told the Houston Chronicle that the nearly decade-long delay between Paxton’s indictment and his trial was “unprecedented.”
The elections team of Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) admitted on Friday to removing nearly 3,400 qualified Virginia voters from the state’s rolls ahead of a pivotal General Assembly election. Youngkin’s administration had previously estimated that only 270 eligible voters were removed.
Employees at CVS and Walgreens launched a three-day walkout on Monday to pressure the companies to improve working conditions and hire more people. Organizers have dubbed the walkout “Pharmageddon.”
“Friends” star Matthew Perry was found dead at his Los Angeles home on Sunday. He was 54.
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General Motors and the United Auto Workers struck a tentative agreement on Monday, effectively ending the union’s six-week coordinated strikes against the Detroit Three automakers which won record pay increases. After years of stagnant wages even in the face of record inflation, UAW leadership and even president Biden have said “Record profits should mean record contracts,” for union members, and that’s exactly what they got. The union won approximately the same package of wage increases from General Motors as they did from Ford and Stellantis, including a 33 percent pay increase for veteran workers and increased contributions to retirees. This contract will reverse years of efforts by GM to create lower-paid groups of UAW workers at component plants, parts warehouses, and electric vehicle battery operations. It also restricts the use of lower-paid temporary workers, and secures the right to strike over future plant closures.
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