Weekend Open Thread
[guest post by Dana]
Let’s go!
President Biden stuck between a rock and a hard place:
President Biden has become increasingly critical of Israel — and some of his campaign’s biggest pro-Israel donors are becoming more critical of him…Whether he is aiding or criticizing Israel, every move Biden makes has potential negative political consequences.
…Democratic megadonor and Israeli American Haim Saban emailed senior White House officials Wednesday asking them to pass along his criticism of Biden’s recent move to pause bomb shipments to Israel over a possible ground operation in Rafah.
“Bad, Bad, Bad, decision, on all levels, Pls reconsider,” he wrote in a message obtained by Axios and other news outlets…Let’s not forget that there are more Jewish voters, who care about Israel, than Muslim voters that care about Hamas.”
…”There are a lot of people in the pro-Israel community who are very worried, very upset and very angry. We don’t know what the consequences are going to be politically.”
Second news item
Democrats move to support border security:
“Some House Democrats are leaning into border security on the campaign trail after years of playing defense against Republican criticism, hoping to defuse a top political liability headed into the fall elections,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The party now argues that Democrats in competitive races can run on fixing the border, while painting Republicans as obstructionists for rejecting the Senate’s bipartisan border deal, according to a memo from House Democrats’ campaign arm. Republicans currently have a 217-213 majority in the House, and the fight for control of the chamber is seen as a tossup.”
Related:
CNN's Fareed Zakaria says that President Joe Biden needs to implement former President Donald Trump's asylum policies to deal with the illegal immigration crisis.
He says that Trump's policies are "correct" and "the right policy because the old asylum system is being gamed by… pic.twitter.com/b8VsPqf8T5
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) May 10, 2024
Third news item
Russia launches major offensive:
Russian troops on Friday launched a major attack on Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, forcing Ukrainian troops to reposition and defend against a new front.
Russian forces appear to have launched the offensive from the Russia’s Belgorod region and are moving toward the town of Vovchansk, which lies north of Kharkiv, the second-largest city in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense reported that forces were defending strongholds in Kharkiv after Russian forces launched airstrikes and artillery fire ahead of an early morning armored vehicle offensive.
“As of now, these attacks have been repelled; battles of varying intensity continue,” the Ministry of Defense wrote on X. “Reserve units have been deployed to strengthen the defense in this area of the front. The Defense Forces of Ukraine continue to hold back the enemy’s offensive.”
Related: It is being reported that the U.S. will announce a new $400 million military aid package to Ukraine today.
Fourth news item
Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump declared that father-in-law Donald Trump is down with accepting election results on Thursday in a wild claim that ignores the former president’s frequent election denialism.
Lara Trump, in a Newsmax interview aired Thursday, was asked about former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Joe Bidensaying “something to the effect” that Donald Trump — if he were to lose in November — won’t accept the election results.
“Is that coordinated?” asked “The Balance” host Eric Bolling.
“I think, isn’t it all coordinated?” replied Lara Trump, the wife of Eric Trump.
She continued, “Isn’t all of this stuff coming from one place? It’s pretty obvious that Donald Trump does accept election results even despite the fact that it was a very questionable election in 2020 because Joe Biden is, unfortunately, sitting in the Oval Office today.”
Stay golden, RNC!
Fifth news item
Unsurprising, given that the school district is 75% White, 18% Hispanic and 3% Black: :
School board members in Virginia’s Shenandoah County voted early Friday to restore the names of two schools that previously honored Confederate leaders – four years after those names had been removed.
The 5-1 vote came after hours of public comment during a meeting that began Thursday evening from people speaking on both sides of the issue. Vice Chairman Kyle L. Gutshall was the sole opposing vote.
“I ask that when you cast your vote, you remember that Stonewall Jackson and others fighting on the side of the Confederacy in this area were intent on protecting the land, the buildings and the lives of those under attack,” said a woman urging the board to restore the Confederate names. “Preservation is the focus of those wishing to restore the names.”
Gene Kilby, the last surviving son of James Wilson Kilby, a Virginia civil rights activist who helped desegregate schools in Virginia, criticized the move to keep the names.
“Why are we here tonight to go back to a time in history that was very cruel, where hatred and racism continued throughout this county and throughout the United States?” Kilby said. “Is this the type of legacy that you want to put in Shenandoah County’s public school buildings?”
The schools had been named after Confederate Gens. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Turner Ashby…
Sixth news item
Donald Trump has a Nikki Haley problem that doesn’t seem to be going away:
On Tuesday night, Indiana Republican primary voters unsurprisingly awarded Trump all 58 of their delegates. But somewhat surprisingly, more than 20% of them voted against him. While he handily won 78.3% of the vote, the 128,000 Republican voters who instead pulled the lever for Nikki Haley sent the presumptive nominee a serious message: “We are not with you.”
Lest you think that an anomaly, late last month 83.4% of Republicans in Pennsylvania voted for Trump. But significantly, 16.6%, or roughly 158,000, voted for Haley.
There’s more. In Washington State, Haley won 19.3% — 150,832 votes — of the Republican primary vote. In Arizona, she won 17.8%. In Illinois, she won 14.5%. In Ohio, she won 14.4%.
This was all after Haley had officially dropped out of the race.
Seventh news item
Seventeen Princeton students began a hunger strike last Friday until the university agreed to meet with them to discuss divestment from Israel and the dropping of charges against students who had occupied a campus building.
According to The Daily Princetonian, student Sameer Riaz said he believed he and his comrades “were forced into” their hunger strike by school officials.
Princeton student pretends to CRY as she blames the university for her hunger strike:
“This is absolutely unfair. My peers are I are starving. We are physically exhausted. I’m literally shaking right now as you can see. We are both cold and hot at the same time.” pic.twitter.com/YOHGNIpyZW
— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) May 8, 2024
Eighth news item
I can think of any number of politicians who appear to have suffered the same malady as RFK:
The Times reported Wednesday that doctors noticed a dark spot in brain scans for Kennedy after he experienced memory loss in 2010 and concluded he had a brain tumor, according to a 2012 deposition. He received a call from another doctor who believed that it was not a tumor, and was instead a dead parasite.
The doctor believed the abnormality “was caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died,” Kennedy said in the deposition, per the New York Times.
Kennedy told the Times he was also diagnosed with mercury poisoning likely from ingesting too much fish containing the heavy metal at the same time he learned about the parasite.
From Kennedy’s campaign:
The press team added: “Questioning Mr. Kennedy’s health is a hilarious suggestion, given his competition.”
Heh.
Have a great weekend.
–Dana