Weekend Open Thread
[guest post by Dana]
Let’s go!
First news item
Going back to the Fox News well again?:
President-elect Donald Trump is eyeing another former Fox News host for a key role in his second administration, CNN reported — Dan Bongino to head the U.S. Secret Service.
Bongino was a police officer with the New York Police Department before serving as a Secret Service agent from 1999 until 2011. He first emerged on the political scene as a Republican candidate for Senate in Maryland in 2012. After losing that race, he ran for a Maryland congressional seat in 2014, lost, moved to Florida in 2015, and then ran for a southwest Florida congressional district in 2016. . .
Second news item
International Criminal Court issues arrest warrant for Prime Minister Netanyahu:
The world’s top war-crimes court issued arrest warrants Thursday for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister and Hamas’ military chief, accusing them of crimes against humanity in connection with the 13-month war in Gaza.
The warrants said there was reason to believe Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have used “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting humanitarian aid and have intentionally targeted civilians in Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza — charges Israeli officials deny.
The White House mocked the ICC and by pointing out the absurdity of the warrant for Netanyahu:
The ICC issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous. Let me be clear once again: whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.
This disgraceful ICC decision is the last nail in the coffin of the international order based on Yalta-Potsdam arrangements. Politicizing & criminalizing self-defense against terrorism also discredits previous judgments against real war criminals like Putin.
Third news item
Putin’s warning to the West:
The Kremlin said Friday that its attack using a new ballistic missile was a warning to Ukraine’s “reckless” Western allies, the culmination of a week of escalating threats from President Vladimir Putin.
But despite Moscow’s deployment of the new weapon, which carried multiple warheads, the United States and its European partners have vowed not to be deterred in their support for Kyiv.
. . .
Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Friday that the message sent by this should be clear.
“Reckless actions by the West, which supply missiles to Ukraine and later take part in strikes against Russia, can’t be left without a Russian response,” Peskov told a daily news briefing. “Russia has shown its capabilities and the nature of our future possible responses is also rather clear.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed that Russia test-fired a new type of hypersonic intermediate-range missile at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
“This is an obvious and serious increase in the scale and brutality of this war,” Zelensky said in a statement published on Telegram.
. . .
Zelensky said it was “final proof that Russia definitely does not want peace.”
He also criticised the global response and warned other countries they could also become targets for Putin.
“The world must react. Right now there is no strong reaction from the world,” Zelensky said.
“You have to react. We must squeeze. It is necessary to urge Russia to a true peace, which is possible only through force. Otherwise, there will be relentless Russian strikes, threats and destabilisation, and not only against Ukraine,” he said.
The Western media intoning that Russia launched missile strikes into Ukraine “in response to” Ukraine striking targets in Russia seems to have forgotten that Russia has been launching missiles against Ukraine for 1.000 days of war. Pathetic weasels.
— Branislav Slantchev (@slantchev) November 21, 2024
Fourth news item
Plans for the near future:
Tech entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy outlined a plan Wednesday for President-elect Donald Trump to oversee a massive reduction in the federal workforce, arguing the employees won’t be needed after Trump eliminates “thousands of regulations” in his next administration.
Musk and Ramaswamy, who Trump last week named co-heads of a new Department of Government Efficiency, singled out in a Wall Street Journal op-ed federal employees “who view themselves as immune from firing thanks to civil-service protections.”
The duo pointed to recent Supreme Court decisions to argue the incoming president has the executive power to nullify many regulations unilaterally without Congress, pursue “large-scale firings” of federal workers and relocate some agencies outside of Washington. They said “a drastic reduction in federal regulations” would require vastly fewer federal employees.
Have a good weekend.
—Dana
