Meanwhile, Hamas has decisions to make
Hamas is no longer a cohesive organization with a clear chain of command and a formidable armed wing. It lacks an agreed-upon policy for the near future and encounters major difficulties in trying to chart a new course. Rival groups around Khaled Mash’al and Khalil al-Hayeh squabble fiercely among themselves, seeking to fill the vacuum created by the demise of well-entrenched leaders. The organization is at a crossroads.
The article goes on to explain that the split is between those who think October 7 and especially its aftermath has been a disaster, and those who don’t. Note that no one seems to think it was wrong on moral grounds; the disagreements are merely tactical.
More:
These ongoing controversies among Hamas leaders, primarily those residing in Qatar, affect their decision-making in the current negotiations over a ceasefire and release of the remaining Israeli hostages (in exchange for Palestinian prisoners convicted of acts of terrorism). The split between “pragmatists,” who are prepared to accept a phased process of IDF withdrawal, and “radicals,” who insist on the IDF’s complete withdrawal, has produced frequent obstacles in the bargaining and caused shifts in Hamas positions and tactics.
The more moderate wing (although their moderation is relative) believes in cutting losses, cooperating somewhat, and living to fight another day when the time is right. The more radical wing believes it can leverage the remaining hostages into victory:
[The latter group argues] that playing the “hostages card” smartly will allow Hamas to achieve the full withdrawal of the IDF and ultimately to maintain its exclusive control over Gaza. They believe that Qatar, Turkey and many non-governmental donors will devise ways to provide significant aid to them, with Iran doing its best to help. Furthermore, they say that the Palestinian Authority is very fragile and there is no benefit in accommodating it.
Is this true? It’s probably close to it; it makes intuitive sense. Nothing indicates any basic change in the goals, however: to achieve power and to destroy Israel.
Seems like only yesterday …
… but it was exactly a year ago that Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race. Actually, he was forced out. Democrats ended up being defeated anyway, because – as they had known all along – Kamala Harris was a poor politician who just couldn’t pull in the votes.
Could Biden have done any better had he stayed in? I doubt it, because not only was his presidency disastrous but his infirmities had become obvious no matter how hard the MSM tried to cover them up.
The whole thing is still amazing to contemplate.
Who might be charged for Russiagate, and with what?
There’s a lot of talk about the new Russiagate documents and whether anyone will be charged, if so who and with what, and what the chances of conviction might be. I came across this video yesterday. I’m not a Barnes fan, to say the least – I think he’s wrong on many issues. But I do think he’s usually very good on specific legal questions such as this. He seems to detest Pam Bondi, by the way. But as I said, he may be spot on about what charges the Russiagate perps might face. Neither treason nor sedition are among them.
Anyway, it’s worth a listen; it’s just a couple of minutes long:
As for the list of names, it’s unclear but it would probably include but not necessarily be limited to Clapper, Comey, and Brennan.
Open thread 7/21/2025
“He that keepeth Israel”
Robert F. Graboyes is a writer I often read, and I recommend this more personal piece he wrote about his beloved recently-deceased wife. RIP. She sounds like a rare and wonderful person, and it sounds as though they had a blessed marriage.
But I’m also writing this to focus on Psalm 121, which he quotes thusly:
The Jewish Publication Society’s 1985 translation of Psalm 121 reads as follows:
“I turn my eyes to the mountains; from where will my help come?
My help comes from the LORD, maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot give way; your guardian will not slumber;
See, the guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps! …”
I remember that psalm, but it’s the King James Version that I recall. That version goes like this:
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, From whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, Which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: He that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel Shall neither slumber nor sleep.
I’ve written previously about my preference for the King James Version rather than later versions; you can find the post here. And with Psalm 121 I feel the same way, especially the line “Behold, he that keepeth Israel Shall neither slumber nor sleep.” What’s wrong with “behold” and why would anyone change it to “see”? I don’t know the Hebrew, and perhaps “see” is more correct, but I can’t imagine why because see and behold mean more or less the same thing, although the latter has much more gravitas and importance. Don’t we want gravitas and importance for the guardian/keeper of Israel?
And what about guardian versus keeper? The former is a somewhat legalistic word and it even conjures up the idea of an adult taking care of a child. It seems all wrong to me. Now, you might not like the archaic “eth” suffix on the word “keep,” and although I like it very much I can see an argument to leave it off. But I see nothing wrong with “keep” or “keepeth” versus “guardian.”
And there’s that extra word “shall” in the King James Version. I very much like it; it adds weight as well. After all, “the guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps” sounds more like the guardian might have insomnia and we don’t know why. The “shall” in the KJV connects the guarding and keeping with the vigilance involved in not sleeping.
And the “slumber nor sleep” is redundant, of course, because they are synonyms; but saying something two times in different ways is one of the conventions of Biblical poetry. Fortunately, both versions keep that convention (or do they guard that convention?).
Why TDS has gotten worse among many Democrats in Trump’s second term
I’ve noticed that, ever since Trump’s 2024 election and especially since he took office in January, some of my Trump-hating friends and acquaintances have gotten even angrier at Trump and angrier at those who support him, as compared to Trump’s first term. Here are my ideas about why that’s happened.
(1) Trump’s first term victory was considered a fluke and this one was not. Therefore they believe the electorate has become more evil and/or stupid.
(2) In Trump’s first term, they could claim that he didn’t “really” win because he didn’t win the popular vote. In the second term, he won the popular vote.
(3) Efforts to sabotage Trump’s first term – such as Russiagate – were immediately successful in that they convinced a lot of people and also had a restrictive effect on Trump in terms of what he could accomplish and how much energy he could devote to his policy aims versus fighting the lies.
(4) There were many people in Trump’s first administration who either weren’t onboard with his goals or were actively against them. This is far less true in his second term.
(5) He hit the ground running in his second term.
(6) During the Biden administration, Democrats watched Biden undo a great deal of what Trump had done in his first term. And now they’re having the nightmarish experience of watching Trump II undo what Biden did, or re-do what Biden had undone.
(7) One of the most awful things about the 2024 election, as far as the Democrats are concerned, was their loss of support in several of the groups on which their power depends: black and Hispanic voters. They’re not sure what to do about that.
(8) The Trump assassination attempt in Butler galls them, because it was such a close call and many really really wish Trump had been killed. His seemingly miraculous survival is especially frustrating.
(9) They thought that their lawfare against Trump would work either to put him in prison or at the very least to turn more voters against them. Instead it had the opposite effect, another dramatically and deeply frustrating result. It’s something like the classic scene in a horror movie in which the hero or heroine thinks the monster is gone and is finally able to relax and then bam! The monster pounces.
One of these things is not like the other: Russiagate, Epstein letter
One is an extremely serious offense and well-documented. The other is meaningless, unauthenticated, and very likely fabricated.
This corruption in this story dwarfs the worst Trump scandals. It’s unprecedented. It’s now in writing that the whole Trump-Russia thing was invented. But feel free to think it’s still a Fox fantasy. https://t.co/jICihVzV6P
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) July 19, 2025
Open thread 7/19/2025
One of my favorite Nina Simone songs. I had this record in high school, one of the first I ever bought:
Rescissions bill passes
Just after midnight, the House of Representatives approved a $9 billion rescissions package by a 216-213 vote. The bill now heads to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature which is expected on Friday.
Two Republicans, Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Mike Turner of Ohio, voted against the measure. Fitzpatrick, you may recall, also voted against passage of Trump’s big, beautiful bill earlier this month. He is a moderate from a swing district in the state that Democrats are hoping to flip in next year’s midterms. …
This legislation will block $8 billion in funding to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and $1 billion to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for the remainder of the fiscal year.
NPR has long outlived its usefulness, except to the left. And the left isn’t happy. If so, I would suggest they donate money to keep NPR going.
And this is the Russiagate conspiracy from which they’re trying to distract us
If you have access to X, take a look.
If you don’t, you can read it at this link.
The usual suspects: Obama, Clapper, Comey, and Brennan.
If you can access the comments at X, please note that quite a few responses are this sort of thing: “a nothingburger; the really important news is the Epstein file coverup!”
Margot Cleveland has this X thread covering much the same information. You can also see it here.
And as the sun quickly sets on the MSM empire, the WSJ morphs into the National Enquirer
They won’t stop, they can’t stop, they don’t want to stop, and why would they? Salacious allegations get clicks, salacious allegations about Trump get more clicks, and salacious allegations about Trump and Epstein are especially hot right now.
Thus, we have this from the once-venerable Wall Street Journal: some sort of alleged birthday letter written in 2003 (yes, that’s not a typo) that is supposedly a compilation from many people, including a note supposedly from Trump with a drawing of a naked woman and some sort of suggestion that he and Epstein have “certain things in common.” If – like me – you don’t have access to the WSJ, You can find details here and here.
Trump is planning to sue, and denies the allegations. They don’t even seem to be his style, but that doesn’t stop the WSJ. But because the WSJ and other papers are protected by Sullivan, it may be tough to prove actual malice or reckless disregard for truth, although I believe both are probably present.
Trump is of course the target, but will his supporters care a whit about this? I don’t think it is authentic, but that’s not even the point. I don’t care even if it is true; it was before Epstein was charged and it says pretty much zero. It’s such a transparent attempt to ride the Epstein furor, and I think the authors are not only trying to get clicks but also to reach some heretofore pro-Trump people and turn them against him. After all, the left and Democrats and many Independents already detest him, but his enemies sense blood with some people on the right who are incensed about what they consider an Epstein coverup (I’ve written several times recently about that).
What’s the WSJ got against Trump? Well, there’s this:
The Journal itself has been increasingly hostile to Trump’s agenda, with its editorial board regularly attacking his policies on tariffs, immigration, and other key issues. The editorial board has called Trump’s tariff plans the “dumbest tariff plunge” and warned his policies could be “the biggest economic policy mistake in decades.”
When the same publication that calls Trump’s economic policies “remarkably poor judgment” suddenly discovers a 22-year-old party invitation, we should ask whether this represents serious journalism or partisan opportunism.
I think it’s clear on the face of it that this is partisan opportunism. The story itself is meaningless and its only point is to smear Trump. It’s unsourced and unauthenticated and the paper doesn’t even seem to be claiming any due diligence in trying to find out:
Here’s what the Journal doesn’t tell you: They provide no evidence that this letter was authenticated. No handwriting analysis. No chain of custody documentation. No forensic verification. Just their word that they “reviewed” it among Justice Department documents.
If they just got it, and it was in “Justice Department documents,” my guess is the source may have been the recently fired Maurene Comey or one of her allies in the DOJ.
As for Trump, he’s also trying to release more of the previously-unreleased Epstein information from the Grand Jury. It won’t placate those who are out to get him; nothing will.