A stand-alone foreign aid package advanced in the Senate, but many questions linger.

Thursday, February 8, 2024
BY JULIA CLAIRE & CROOKED MEDIA

- Disgraced former president Donald Trump ([link removed]) , just trying absolutely anything at this point.

After absolutely whiffing it on Wednesday, Senators hauled their old asses back to Capitol Hill on Thursday to try to get something done.

* The Senate advanced a $95 billion foreign aid bill for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan on Thursday ([link removed]) , right after Republicans in the Upper Chamber blocked a version of the bill that would have also included provisions for tightening the border on Wednesday—which was, you know, the thing that they had been demanding. The foreign aid bill advanced by a 67-32 vote, exceeding the 60-vote threshold needed. Despite the chaos of Wednesday’s border bill collapse, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer seemed upbeat, describing Thursday’s bill advancement as “a good first step,” and called the legislation “essential for our national security, for the security of our friends in Ukraine, in Israel, for humanitarian aid for innocent civilians in Gaza and for Taiwan.”

* Regarding aid to Palestinians in Gaza, the State Department announced on Monday that it would redirect any funds for the United Nations agency responsible for distributing aid to Palestinians—UNRWA ([link removed]) —to other agencies working in the enclave if Congress passes legislation barring funding from the agency. The version of the bill that advanced in the Senate includes language that would block funds to UNRWA, although this still isn’t the final text. Last month Israel claimed that a dozen of UNRWA’s 13,000-member workforce ([link removed]) took part in the October 7 Hamas attacks. The agency immediately fired all employees in question, but the White House announced it would pause new funding to the agency while it investigates.

* UNRWA effectively acts as a stand-in for the state in Gaza, and its staff are the most widespread on the ground of any humanitarian organization there, so it’s difficult to know how effective diverting its funds to other aid agencies would be as the enclave remains in dire crisis. Ethan Mayer-Rich, the Liaison for US Government Affairs at Arab Center Washington DC, called the Biden administration’s decision to suspend aid to UNRWA and the precedent it set in Congressional aid “reckless.” ([link removed])

So what’s the fate of the U.S.-Mexico border after Wednesday’s legislative embarrassment?

* The Biden White House claims that the swift demise of the bipartisan border security bill has reshaped the political dynamics of the immigration issue ([link removed]) , but that remains to be seen. The border has been a point of weakness for Biden, who may now be positioned to go on the political offensive. But disgraced former president Donald Trump and his lackeys in the House and Senate insist that Trump will maintain the upper hand on the issue in the 2024 race.

* Republicans were able to kill a bill that would have begun addressing the border crisis—again, a bill that they demanded—which may be helpful for Trump in convincing many of his more soft-brained supporters. But scores of other Republican voters are still with-it enough to know that it was their party who torpedoed the bill. Sen. Jim Lankford (R-OK), one of the authors of the failed bipartisan border bill, opposed the stand-alone foreign aid package ([link removed]) , and chastised his GOP colleagues for playing politics just because it’s an election year.

The grand irony of the border bill debate is that it has many “America First” types in Congress who had loudly and vehemently opposed additional funding for Ukraine now rushing to support it. Useless cowards!

Crooked’s newest limited series, Dissident At The Doorstep, is dropping a new episode this Saturday. This podcast is a wild ride following the true story of one of China’s most prominent human rights activists who later turns into a Trump MAGA supporter only a few years later. Listen to new episodes of Dissident At The Doorstep every Saturday, wherever you get your podcasts!
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Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report investigating President Biden’s handling of sensitive government documents found at his private residence and office was published on Thursday. It cleared Biden of committing any crimes ([link removed]) , but that’s about the only positive for the president to come out of the report. The 345-page document paints Biden as a forgetful elderly man who was careless with classified materials. Most damning, investigators described Biden’s memory as faulty and unreliable, reporting that Biden could not remember the years he served as Vice President or when his son Beau Biden died “even within several years,” and misremembered key details of the Afghanistan conflict—one of his central points of focus in his early Vice Presidential term. Biden staged a fiery press conference afterwards in which he slammed the Special Counsel Robert Hur for even asking about his late son, who died of brain cancer in 2015.


Hur is a former U.S. attorney in Maryland who held other posts in Donald Trump’s DOJ ([link removed]) , and left his private practice to lead the Biden investigation. Biden reportedly cooperated with investigators and handed over the documents—fewer than 20 in total—as soon as they were discovered. There’s no sugar-coating this: it’s not good for ole’ Joey B, whose advanced age, 81, has become a major liability for his reelection campaign. Don’t get us wrong: Trump is also old as hell and has a corroded brain, but this report will be exploited by Republicans and used against Biden every day until the election.


Nevertheless, it’s important to distinguish the Biden classified documents case from Trump’s, because the Trump campaign and its supporters will do everything they can to make the two seem equal. The separate special counsel investigation into Trump taking classified White House documents to his creepy Florida Mar-a-Lago resort led to 40 federal criminal counts and involved roughly 300 documents. Federal prosecutors also believed that Trump was deliberately misleading them and hiding some of the highly-sensitive materials after receiving a grand jury subpoena demanding their return.

U.S. Intelligence officials told Congress this week that while Israel has degraded Hamas’s military capabilities, it is currently not close to eliminating the group ([link removed]) , which the Israeli government has repeatedly said is their principal aim.


Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy replaced a popular chief in Kyiv’s army with his ground forces commander on Thursday ([link removed]) , a big roll of the dice to make at a critical moment in the war.


Self-help author and Oprah’s one-time spiritual adviser Marianne Williamson suspended her longshot presidential campaign on Wednesday ([link removed]) . Pour out a tincture and raise a crystal to our fallen galactic queen.


Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) asserted that she will no longer support unconditional aid for Israel ([link removed]) due to the continuing failure of the Netanyahu government to negotiate for a hostage release and the deaths of over 26,000 Palestinians in Gaza.


TikTok has removed a specific function that displays how many videos with a specific hashtag have been viewed ([link removed]) after researchers used it to track the viewership difference between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian content.

Republicans in the Georgia General Assembly continue trying to oust Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R-GA) from the State Election Board ([link removed]) , because he has continually defended the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

The Supreme Court looked poised on Thursday to allow disgraced former president Donald Trump to remain on the ballot in Colorado ([link removed]) . Does it help that Trump appointed one-third of the Court? And that Clarence Thomas’s wife Ginny was basically live-texting Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows following the 2020 election ([link removed]) ? No, no, of course not. It couldn’t possibly. But even a few of the more progressive justices—how often do Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Clarence Thomas agree on something?—warned of the possible negative ramifications if the lower court decision were not reversed. The Colorado state Supreme Court Court barred Trump from the ballot after finding that he engaged in insurrection on January 6, and was therefore barred from running for office under
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Much of the Supreme Court’s discussion on Thursday revolved around differing interpretations of that provision. Chief Justice John Roberts argued that the 14th Amendment was aimed at limiting the power of the states, and therefore should not be used to allow states to prevent candidates from running for federal office. Section 3 does not specify who is supposed to enforce the clause, should it be invoked. Trump’s lawyers argued that Congress should enforce the provision, not the state courts, and that Trump’s actions on January 6 did not amount to insurrection. Lol, okay pal.
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The Federal Communications Commission said on Thursday that calls made with AI-generated voices are illegal ([link removed]) after a fake robocall imitating Joe Biden was intended to dissuade people from voting in the New Hampshire Primary. Tough news for our own ([link removed]) Tommy Vietor ([link removed]) .


The right is slowly warming to the idea of ranked-choice voting ([link removed]) .

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden has called on the Biden Administration to fire Inspector General Gail Ennis ([link removed]) , a 2019 Trump administration appointee, after multiple long-running investigations into her leadership. She has drawn particular scrutiny for a program that leveled large penalties against disabled Social Security claimants, and for allegedly retaliation against staffers who objected to that practice. Get her ass, Ron!!
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