By Todd Lassa

No matter how Vice President Kamala Harris tried to spin President Biden’s performance in his debate with Donald J. Trump Thursday evening, the incumbent’s performance was a disaster, serving to confirm multiple polls that say voters think he is too old to run for re-election. Ex-President Trump, 77, is too old, too, say many of these polls, but Biden, 81, was unable to effectively strike back at Trump’s multiple lies beyond repeating familiar arguments in a thin, raspy voice. 

Credit CNN’s debate rules, at least, for preventing the sort of mayhem that defined the first such clash between the two in late September 2020.

CNN anchor John King told a post-debate panel he has never had his phone light up as much before, from Democratic operatives reacting early in the debate – when Biden lost his train of thought several times. The president appeared to perk up later in the debate when Trump made incendiary comments about Biden’s family and on his record with the Veterans Administration and foreign policy before the whole thing devolved into an argument over who is the better golfer.

Pundits and news outlets had made much prior to Thursday about how the debate was by far the earliest between presidential candidates in modern times. Intentional or not, this early bird special debate gives both the Democratic and Republican parties the opportunity to “broker” their upcoming conventions if their respective candidate voluntarily steps down. 

You can bet that won’t happen at the Republican National Convention in “horrible” Milwaukee next month. But Biden has to Chicago in August to step down from his campaign if he’s serious about stopping what much of his party considers “dictator for a day” Trump’s anti-democratic tendencies. 

Democratic Party leadership knows that Biden’s vice president would not be the answer. Never mind that no MAGA Republican would ever vote for her under any circumstances; progressive Democrats, already angry over Biden’s policy toward Israel in Gaza would oppose her presidential candidacy for her law-and-order crackdowns as California attorney general and as San Francisco district attorney before that.

Most obvious step-in is 2028 presidential candidate and California Gov. Gavin Newsom. He stood behind Biden after the debate, saying “I have no trepidation” about his continuing to run, NPR reports. 

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), a designated Biden surrogate, defended the president’s performance on Morning Edition, arguing that Trump “spent the entire debate lying and lying and lying.”

True that Trump repeated such Fox News talking points as that Capitol police invited in the January 6^th rioters he will pardon if he wins November 5. And Dana Bash had to ask three times whether Trump would accept the election result “no matter what” before he gave the usual answer about assuring clean ballot counting.

As of Friday, Democratic Party leadership and certainly anti-MAGA Republicans like Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and former Illinois congressman Adam Kinzinger realize it is very unlikely President Biden will be re-elected November 5.

Other voices … Friday’s headlines:

“Biden’s Struggles in Debate Alarm Democrats” – The New York Times.

“The debate Democrats feared” – Semafor.

“Democrats Discuss Replacing Biden on Presidential Ticket” – The Wall Street Journal.

“Democrats really have no way to spin this. We break down Biden’s disastrous debate” – Politico.

“DEFCON 1 moment: Biden’s debate performance sends Democrats into panic”, and “Ninety miserable minutes of Biden v. Trump” – The Guardian. 

“Joe Biden’s horrific debate performance cast his entire candidacy into doubt” and “The president had one job to do and he utterly failed at it” – The Economist.

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

THURSDAY 6/27/24

NOT TODAY: Trump v. United States – The US Supreme Court’s last ruling of the day Thursday was for Mike Moyle, Speaker of the Idaho House of Representatives v. United States according to SCOTUSblog. So no decision ahead of Thursday night’s presidential debate on former President Trump’s claim of post-presidential immunity in regard to special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment for his alleged 2020 election interference. Bets on whether there’s a decision Friday, so SCOTUS can go on vacation before the Independence Day holiday?

Moyle v. United States – This is the ruling SCOTUS’ official website briefly posted a day early then quickly removed, but not before Bloomberg News could write about it. A 6-3 ruling temporarily blocks an Idaho law from prohibiting abortions necessary to protect a woman’s health, including her fertility, while allowing abortions to prevent a woman’s death. Obviously, the law places  the burden on doctors and hospitals to determine whether or not a pregnant woman faces death if there is no abortion. But the procedural ruling leaves key questions unanswered, so the issue is likely to come up before the court again soon. 

Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P.— By 5-4 vote SCOTUS threw out a controversial opioid settlement with Purdue Pharma over a “mountain” of litigation against the maker of OxyContin, Bloomberg News reports. The majority opinion, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, says the deal would have improperly shielded the Sackler family, which owns Purdue Pharma. Family members were to be made immune to lawsuits over OxyContin in exchange for at least $6 billion in payments to OxyContin families and their victims. But Gorsuch in his ruling notes Sackler family members themselves never filed for bankruptcy, according to NPR.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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...meanwhile... WEDNESDAY 6/26/24

This week?: The US Supreme Court may rule as early as this Friday, after the presidential debate, on Donald J. Trump's claim of ex-presidential immunity in his election interference case. Next year: SCOTUS has agreed to hear arguments regarding a Tennessee law banning transgender care for minors, which would test the constitutionality of similar restrictions already law in 23 other states.

Tuesday’s Primaries – Known best to non-New Yorkers as the second-term congressman who pulled a fire alarm while fellow lawmakers were on the House floor working on a spending bill, Rep. Jamaal Bowman lost the Democratic primary Tuesday to Westchester County Exec. George Latimer, The New York Times reports. The primary race for New York’s 16^th District cost a record $25 million, more than $14 million of which the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, spent on Latimer.

Bowman had attached his star to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s The Squad and supports the pro-Palestinian side in the war on Gaza..

Meanwhile, Beetlejuice fan Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) is in for a likely third term after switching districts to Colorado’s 4^th, where she beat four other Republican candidates. At her election night victory, according to the AP, Boebert wore gold lamé Donald J. Trump basketball shoes and a white, signed MAGA hat, and commented; “America will rise again, and I’m so excited that you all are here to be part of it with me.” 

Boebert’s in the right place … Colorado’s 4^th opened when Republican Rep. Ken Buck resigned early over what he called the GOP’s divisiveness and devotion to Trump.

State Rep. Gabe Evans (R), a former police officer, defeated former state Rep. Janak Joshi for the chance to take on Colorado 8^thDistrict incumbent Yadira Caraveo (D) who won by fewer than 2,000 votes in 2022. The district extends north of Denver.

--TL

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TUESDAY 6/25/24

Pardon Assange? -- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will seek a pardon from the US presidency after reaching a deal to accept a charge under the US Espionage Act, according to his wife, Stella. Assange, 52, was released yesterday from a prison in the UK where he had been held for five years and was en route Wednesday to US territory in Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, per The Guardian, on the way back to his native Australia.

"The fact that there is a guilty plea, under the Espionage Act in relation to obtaining and disclosing national defense information is obviously a very serious concern for journalists and national security journalists in general," Stella Assange told Reuters.

This was not Daniel Ellsberg's Pentagon Papers: While WikiLeaks' document dump in the last decade revealed alleged war crimes on the part of the US government, Assange also has been condemned even in journalism circles for publishing them unredacted, making them open to Russia and potentially placing US agents in danger. The WikiLeaks dump resulted in history's largest release of classified US documents.

--TL

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MONDAY 6/24/24

SCOTUS to Review Transgender Law – The Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments next year a Tennessee law banning transgender care for minors under 18 years of age. The case will offer SCOTUS the opportunity to consider the constitutionality of similar restrictions already imposed by 23 states since 2021, according to The Washington Post.

Meanwhile… SCOTUS’ ruling on whether ex-President Trump has immunity as an ex-president in special council Jack Smith’s case charging him with attempts to overthrow the 2020 presidential election could be delayed to early July, The Hill reports, but possibly ahead of the Republican National Convention July 15-18 in Milwaukee, by time the nine justices should already be on vacation.

•••

After the Golden Escalator – Britain’s chief Brexiter and leader of the Reform UK party, Nigel Farage, told ITV that Donald J. Trump has “learned quite a lot from me” before running for president in 2016, per Politico.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

FRIDAY 6/21/24

To Be Fired by a Cannon? -- Mar-a-Lagogate, the case by special prosecutor Jack Smith against Donald J. Trump for keeping classified documents from his expired administration in his Florida compound, was once considered the strongest criminal case against the former president. After all, evidence has appeared media-wide in which Trump is showing off the documents to people who definitely do not have clearance or executive privilege.

Now, as Judge Aileen Cannon (above) continues to slow-walk the trial, Trump's attorneys have Smith & Co. in her Ft. Pierce, Florida federal court to argue whether Smith was unconstitutionally appointed or is otherwise prosecuting the case without legal authority. Politico calls it a "far-fetched bid by Trump to scuttle the case altogether." Legal and political pundits are watching closely to see how far-fetched the argument under the Trump-appointee is.

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THURSDAY 6/20/24

Block Comstock? – Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) plans to introduce legislation to repeal the Comstock Act Thursday, the 1873 law that Democrats worry Republicans will use in a second Trump administration to bar abortion-related materials from being sent through the mail, The Washington Post reports. As The New York Times reported in a front-page story Sunday, Democrats at various government levels have begun a concerted pre-emptive effort to try and block the most controversial of Trump’s agenda should he win the presidential election this November.

“There is a very clear, well-organized plan afoot by the MAGA Republicans to use Comstock as a tool to ban medicated abortion, and potentially all abortions,” Smith said.

Donald J. Trump, whose appointment of three conservative Supreme Court justices in his administration overturned Roe v. Wade has provided confusing messages on his anti-abortion agenda and has suggested it is a states’ issue.

•••

Target the Money – Efforts to cut the supply of street fentanyl shipped from China to Mexico are failing despite a crackdown Presidents Biden and Xi Jinping agreed to last November, so the Treasury Department will take up the cause by following the money. Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen Thursday is to announce in Atlanta Thursday measures to go after the cash international drug networks generate in selling street fentanyl in the US, NPR’s Morning Edition reports.

--TL

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JUNETEENTH 2024

Russia, North Korea v. NATO – Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un signed a partnership deal Wednesday to counter what they see as a threat from NATO. The deal includes a vow of mutual aid if either nation faces “aggression,” the AP reports, and is perhaps the strongest connection between Moscow and Pyongyang since the Cold War.

Trumpy v. Trumpier – Virginia State Sen. John McGuire’s Republican primary challenge to Rep. Bob Good, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus is “too close to call” the AP reports Wednesday. McGuire, who has Donald J. Trump’s endorsement because Good supported Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ failed presidential run, led Good by just 327 votes out of 62,495. McGuire also had support from former Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who seeks revenge against Good for joining Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) motion last year to vacate McCarthy as House speaker. The counting of ballots is off for Juneteenth and will resume on Thursday.

--TL

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TUESDAY 6/18/24

Just Friends – Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is on his first visit to North Korea in 24 years, where he meets Tuesday with the son of the dictator he visited in July 2000, for a two-day grip-and-grin. That’s on the surface, of course; Putin gets conventional weapons it is running short of, after more than two years invading Ukraine, including artillery shells and short-range ballistic missiles, according to USA Today. North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un (pictured) gets much-needed flour, cooking oil and energy from Russia in exchange, according to NPR’s Morning Edition.

Then, on Wednesday, Putin departs for a visit to Vietnam. While it’s Putin’s first visit since Kim Jong Il led the Hermit Kingdom, son Kim Jong Un took an “enormous” and luxurious armored train to visit Putin in Russia just last September. 

•••

Biden and the Border – As Republican attacks on President Biden’s lack of border action continues, the White House Tuesday is expected to announce a “people in place” policy to allow nearly 500,000 undocumented spouses of legal US citizens work permits and protection from deportation, per Newsweek and the Associated Press. 

Meanwhile in Iowa … A federal judge Monday blocked Iowa’s attempt to take border control into its own hands by enforcing its own law making it illegal to enter the state after being deported or denied entry into the US (per The New York Times). Imitating an effort by Texas, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) had signed a bill to allow state law enforcement to arrest and deport undocumented aliens.

--TL

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MONDAY 6/17/24

Netanyahu Dissolves War Cabinet – With moderate Benny Gantz and two-stater Gani Eisenkot having resigned the war cabinet set up after Hamas’ October 7 attack against Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu (above), the Israeli prime minister, announced Monday he is dissolving said war cabinet. Seen as largely a symbolic gesture and meant to take power from defense ministers, according to Haaretz, war strategy is now transferred to the security cabinet. “Sensitive” decisions will be addressed in smaller consultation form with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, National Security Council head Tzachi Hanegbi and Shas Party Chair Aryeh Deri.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu has granted 11-hour pauses per day in South Gaza to protect deliveries of humanitarian aid, according to The Washington Post. The pauses do not amount to a ceasefire, as fighting continues unabated elsewhere in Gaza.

At the Lebanese border … Rocket exchanges between Israeli Defense Forces and Iran-backed Hezbollah heated up in the last week, according to NPR’s Morning Edition, with Hezbollah firing rockets into Israel for Hamas. Israel has been hitting Hezbollah targets across the Lebanese border. 

•••

Support to Ukraine – At the Burgenstock resort in Switzerland over the weekend, 78 countries and four European institutions signed a peace summit’s joint communique to end Russia’s war on Ukraine, The Kyiv Independent reports. Russia was not invited, and China, which was, did not show up. 

The US announced $1.5 billion in aid for Ukraine, including support for the country’s energy infrastructure.

Ukraine said it used “at least 70” drones in an attack on Russia’s Morozovsk airbase, while Russia has launched 3,500 missiles per month on civilian targets and infrastructure. 

Ukraine also says Russia suffered 4,000 casualties per month in its Kharkiv offensive. 

•••

Conviction Hits Trump Support – A new Ipsos/Politico Magazine poll finds that 21% of independents surveyed are less likely to vote for Donald J. Trump after his business records/hush money conviction last month. While significant in what is expected to be a tight race up to November 5, the poll also notes that many Trump supporters and independents remain skeptical of motivations behind the trial.

•••

Up on the Hill -- The House is on break this week and the Senate is in session Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, with Wednesday off for observance of Juneteenth.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

The Consumer Price Index settled in at 3.3% for May, a notch down from April's 3.4% and a notch up from March's 3.2%, the Labor Department reported Wednesday, while the Federal Reserve maintained a 5.25%-5.5% benchmark interest rate. Scroll down this column for details. [CHART: Bureau of Labor Statistics]

FRIDAY 6/14/24

Find the Pope at the G7 – After meeting with Whoopi Goldberg, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert at the Vatican Friday, Pope Francis travels to the G7 summit in Puglia, Italy, where he will meet with President Biden and address potential dangers of artificial intelligence, NPR reports. On Thursday, the G7 countries (the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US) committed $50 billion to Ukraine.

•••

As Crow Flies Thomas – Harlan Crow, son of real estate mogul Trammel Crow, provided Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas with at least three more formerly undisclosed private jet trips, including one to Glacier National Park in Montana, the billionaire’s attorney told the Senate Judiciary Committee. Another of the flights took Thomas to his Georgia hometown, reports ProPublica, the non-profit newsroom whose earlier reporting on Crow’s largess toward the justice launched the investigation by Judiciary Committee Democrats.

The latest disclosures make it “crystal clear that the highest court needs an enforceable code of conduct,” committee chair Sen. Dick Durban (D-IL) said. Full findings of the committee’s investigation will be revealed later this summer, he said. 

Crow’s office said in a statement that Crow gave senators information covering the past seven years with the committee’s agreement to end its investigation “with respect to Mr. Crow.”

“Despite his serious and continued concerns about the legality and necessity of the inquiry, Mr. Crow engaged in good faith with the committee,” reads the statement. 

•••

IVF Down – A Senate vote to forward a bill protecting access to, and expanding coverage of, commonly used fertility treatments failed 48-47 Thursday, CQ Roll Call reports. Sixty votes were required, but just two of 50 Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joined Democrats in the vote, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) changed from “yes” to “no” so he could raise legislation later under Senate rules.

The bill combined language from smaller bills to protect in vitro fertilization by Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Patty Murray (D-WA) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) in response to the Alabama Supreme Court’s February ruling recognizing frozen embryos as unborn children.

•••

Charges Against Gershkovich – Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been in a Moscow jail since last year, faces up to 20 years in prison after Russia accused him (thus convicting him) of spying for the CIA (per The Washington Post). He has been moved from a Moscow jail to Yekaterinburg for his trial.

--TL

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THURSDAY 6/13/24

Mifepristone Saved -- The Supreme Court unanimously threw out the lawsuit Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, which sought to restrict access to mifepristone, one of two drugs used for medicated abortions, according to SCOTUSblog. The court ruled Thursday that doctors and medical groups associated with the anti-abortion movement that had challenged the FDA's 2016 and 2021 expansion of access to the drug lacked standing in the case. They did not rule on whether the FDA acted properly in expanding access to mifepristone.

Writing for the court, Justice Brett Kavenaugh acknowledged the challengers "sincere legal, moral, ideological, and policy objections" to elevate abortions "by others."

•••

US, Ukraine at G7 in Italy – President Biden is in Puglia, Italy Thursday for the G7 Summit (Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US) where world leaders are working out a deal to squeeze some money out of $300 billion in seized Russian assets, held mostly in European banks, to fund Ukraine. There is a good deal of urgency, especially among the European nations, to getting this deal done as future funding for Ukraine faces the uncertainty of the U.S. presidential election (and political movement to the populist right in Europe as well), according to NPR’s Morning Edition.

PRI’s Marketplace explains that the interest from those Russian assets would serve as collateral for a $50-billion loan to Ukraine. 

Speaking of urgency, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also is in Puglia to join the G7 group and sign a 10-year deal with Biden for US support to Ukraine, which a second Trump administration could unravel, according to The Washington Post.

•••

Trump Returns to Capitol Hill – With President Biden out of town for the G7 summit, ex-President Donald J. Trump returns to Washington, D.C. Thursday to meet with Congressional Republicans. A headline in Politico reads something like a National Enquirer headline, or perhaps one from the New York Daily News: “Trump’s private demand to Johnson: Help overturn my conviction.”

According to Politico, Trump’s first return to Washington since he left for Mar-a-Lago on January 20, 2021, is “billed as a resolutely forward-looking session focused on a potential 2025 legislative agenda…” but more importantly he has been “obsessed” with harnessing Congress’ powers in reversing what he considers Democratic “weaponization” of the justice system against him. 

That effort begins with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who was one of the first members of Congress to appear with Trump at his Manhattan trial for falsifying business records.

The Biden tapes… Meanwhile, the House voted 216-207 along party lines Wednesday to hold Attorney Gen. Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress over a subpoena dispute regarding recorded interviews with Biden over his confidential documents investigation by special counsel Robert K. Hur. That tight floor vote “is unlikely to lead to any official consequences for Garland,” according to CQ Roll Call.

Congress long has had access to a transcript of Hur’s interview of the president. Biden is claiming executive privilege in refusing to turn over the recordings, which Trump would like to have for campaign commercials.  

--TL

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WEDNESDAY 6/12/24

One Cut -- Calling the May Consumer Price Index a "mild inflation report," The Wall Street Journal says the Federal Reserve plans one interest-rate cut for this year. The Fed held its benchmark rate in the 5.25% to 5.5% rate Wednesday, a two-decade high, at its policy meeting.

On a month-over-month basis, prices were unchanged in May, though that's a balancing of a 3.6% drop in gasoline prices against an 0.4% increase for shelter. Food prices rose 0.1% for the month, with food away from home up 0.4% and food at home unchanged. Energy overall was down 2%. There has been some talk of the Federal Reserve easing interest rates in the next few months even as inflation remains stubbornly above the central bank's 2% inflation target.

•••

Ball of Confusion – Ceasefire or no ceasefire? After some optimism that Hamas and the Israeli government would agree to the ceasefire plan proposed by President Biden last month after Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Tel Aviv earlier this week, there appear to be at least a couple of wrenches caught in the mechanism.

Blinken earlier said the proposed ceasefire would take the “pressure” out of the growing conflict at Lebanon’s southern border between Israel and Hezbollah. He now says Hamas has proposed “unworkable” changes to the ceasefire plan, The Guardian reported early Wednesday. At the same time, the United Nations Human Rights Council has released a report charging both Israel and Hamas with war crimes committed since the Hamas attack October 7. The report was chaired by former UN Human Rights chief Navi Pillay.

Is Netanyahu Aboard? … Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is for the ceasefire proposal and against it, depending apparently whether he’s speaking with the U.S. or with Israel’s war cabinet. Newsweek quotes an Israeli official saying that the U.S. proposal “aligns with” Netanyahu’s goal of “inflicting a lasting, decisive defeat” against the Palestinian movement. The BBC’s Newshour says that Netanyahu has not publicly endorsed the ceasefire.

--TL

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TUESDAY 6/11/24

Hunter Biden Guilty -- President Biden's surviving son, Hunter, was found guilty on two counts of making false statements in a gun license application and one count of illegal possession of a firearm by a drug user or addict Tuesday (per NPR's All Things Considered. His attorney, Abbe Lowell, said Biden will "vigorously continue to pursue" all legal options. The sentencing date has not been set.

Biden's statement on the verdict: "I am more grateful today for the love and support I experienced this last week from Melissa, my family, my friends, and my community than I am disappointed by the outcome."

Hunter Biden faces a second trial in California this September on tax evasion charges.

•••

Hamas Accepts – Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who concludes his visit to Israel Tuesday after the United Nations Security Council voted for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, says a Hamas statement that it accepts the ceasefire resolution is a “hopeful sign,” The Guardian reports. Blinken is ready to work out the details, senior Hamas official Abu Zuhri told Reuters. Meanwhile, the fighting between the Israeli Defense Forces and Hezbollah is intensifying along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, according to NPR’s Morning Edition.

The proposal drafted after President Biden on May 31 announced that Israel had put forth a ceasefire deal consists of three phases (per The New York Times):

•Immediate ceasefire.

•Release of all hostages in exchange for Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons, return of displaced Gazans to their homes and full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

•A multi-year reconstruction plan for Gaza and return of remains of dead hostages.

•••

Primaries Tuesday – Maine, South Carolina, Nevada and North Dakota hold primaries Tuesday. Ohio holds a special election to replace Rep. Bill Johnson, a Republican who retired in January. The race for Ohio’s 6^th congressional district is between state Sen. Michael Rulli (R) and Michael L. Kripchak (D). In South Carolina, Rep. Nancy Mace, who is on the longer end of the short list to become Donald J. Trump’s running mate is being challenged for the Republican primary by Catherine Templeton, who is backed by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Mace voted with the House’s MAGA wing to remove McCarthy from the speakership in 2023.

•••

Biden Verdict? – The jury in first son Hunter Biden’s trial for charges he lied on a gun registration form that he was not a drug addict began Monday in Wilmington, Delaware.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Unemployment ticked up to 4% in May, when the US economy added 272,000 jobs. Scroll down for details. [CHART: Bureau of Labor Statistics]

MONDAY 6/10/24

Hostages Freed – Saturday’s triumph by Israeli soldiers and special operations police in rescuing four hostages of Hamas from Gaza serves as a microcosm of the whole eight months of war. Though reports of the number of Palestinians killed in the operation “varied wildly in confusion over the attack,” according to The New York Times, two Gaza health officials said the number was more than 200, while Israeli military spokesman and Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the number killed was “less than 100,” based on information he had seen. 

The four rescued hostages were kidnapped from the October 7 Nova music festival by Palestinian militants, according to reports.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scored a victory in the hostage rescue coming after much criticism from Israeli moderates and liberals that he was stretching out the war to save his political career and has no plan for who will govern Gaza or how after the war finally does end. 

By Sunday, Benny Ganz, a moderate and “key member” of the Israeli war cabinet quit the government over Netanyahu’s handling of the war. Palestinian officials said their civilian casualties from the rescue was up to at least 274 by late Sunday.

Meanwhile, the NYT says Hamas still holds “roughly” 120 Israeli hostages Netanyahu has urged Hanz on X-Twitter to withdraw his resignation, according to CNN.

“Benny, this is not the time to abandon the campaign,” Netanyahu wrote. “This is the time to join forces.”

•••

Trumpist Populism Hits EU Elections – Coming just after a visit with President Biden following the 80^th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, President Emmanuel Macron says he will dissolve French parliament and call snap legislative elections after his allies lost European Union parliamentary elections to Marine Le Pen’s populist National Rally party, The Guardian reports. RN won about 32% of the French vote, while Macron’s allies took 15% and the Socialist party garnered about 14%. 

Populists also scored big wins in the EU elections for Germany, Austria and The Netherlands.

Up on the Hill – The Senate and the House of Representatives are in-session Tuesday through Friday.

--TL

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FRIDAY 6/7/24

May Jobs Stats --The US economy added 272,000 jobs in May for another strong month and another potential reason for the Federal Reserve to hold interest rates. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4% after 27 straight months under the 4.0 mark. The Labor Department noted job gains in health care, government, leisure and hospitality, and professional, scientific and technical services.

***

Biden Apologizes to Zelenskyy – In a meeting that’s sure to raise hackles among the likes of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), President Biden apologized to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for delays in a $61-billion aid package in his country’s defense of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s invasion of his country. 

“I apologize for the weeks of not knowing what was going to pass, in terms of funding, because we had trouble getting the bill that we had to pass, that had the money in it,” Biden told Zelenskyy.

“During World War II, the United States helped to save human lives, to save Europe,” Zelenskyy replied. “And we count on your continued support and standing with us, shoulder to shoulder. Thank you so much.”

(Per The New York Times.)

•••

No Pardon for Hunter – President Biden told ABC News’ David Muir he would not pardon his son, Hunter, if convicted in a Wilmington, Delaware federal court for failing to report drug addiction on a gun permit application. Interviewed from Normandy, France during the ceremony for the 80^th anniversary of D-Day for ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir, Biden replied “yes,” when asked whether he would accept a guilty verdict for his son, and “yes” again when asked whether he would rule out a pardon.

Defense is expected to wrap up its list of witnesses in Hunter Biden’s trial on Monday.

•••

Infowere – Families of Sandy Hook school shooting victims who had been awarded a $1.5 billion judgment against Infowars host Alex Jones for his scurrilous claims they were “actors” in a “faked” tragedy voted unanimously in favor of liquidating the far-right talk show host’s assets in order to wrap up bankruptcy proceedings, according to Bloomberg Law. Families favored the liquidation over an alternative offered by Jones to allow him to reorganize by preserving part of his media empire and pay them “at least $5.5 million” per year over 10 years. He also had proposed additional creditor recoveries from the remains of Infowars’ parent company, portions of his income and of proceeds from his sale of various assets. 

Of course, his rejected proposal also would have allowed him to keep his radio show.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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