The Full Belmonte, 10/28/2023
Israel widens war after hostage stalemate
Israel launched intense airstrikes in the northern Gaza Strip today. Photo: Abed Khaled/AP
“Israel's war Cabinet decided to expand ground operations in Gaza after talks on a possible hostage release with Hamas reached a stalemate, two Israeli officials told Axios' Barak Ravid.
Hamas is holding more than 220 people hostage, according to Israeli officials.
What's happening: The Israeli military launched massive air raids and artillery strikes before announcing late Friday night local time that it was ‘expanding’ ground operations in the Gaza Strip.
Cellular, internet and other communications in the enclave have also been cut, according to Palestinian human rights groups and several reports.
Hamas fired a barrage of rockets on Tel Aviv and other cities in central Israel.
Zoom in: Israeli officials have said the goal of a ground offensive is to ‘dismantle’ Hamas infrastructure and completely ‘destroy’ the militant group, which is considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the U.S. and other countries.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that the war would be ‘long and difficult.’ Early in the fighting, Netanyahu told President Biden that Israel had no choice but to invade.
What to watch: There are growing concerns worldwide that the war could widen into a regional conflict.
Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and Tehran have both warned Israel against launching an invasion of Gaza.
In Gaza, it's unclear what Israel plans to do if it achieves its aim of dismantling Hamas. Israeli officials say they want to create a ‘new security regime.’” [Axios]
Sweeping new Biden order aims to alter the AI landscape
“President Joe Biden will deploy numerous federal agencies to monitor the risks of artificial intelligence and develop new uses for the technology while attempting to protect workers, according to a draft executive order obtained by POLITICO.
The order, expected to be issued as soon as Monday, would streamline high-skilled immigration, create a raft of new government offices and task forces and pave the way for the use of more AI in nearly every facet of life touched by the federal government, from health care to education, trade to housing, and more.”
Read the latest at POLITICO
Trump's mounting legal troubles intensify with rough week in court
© Getty Images
“Former President Trump endured a series of legal setbacks in recent days, underscoring the mounting risks he faces as his various legal cases intensify.
Trump took the stand in New York this week, sworn in as a witness for unexpected testimony in his financial fraud case to respond to allegations he violated a gag order by making a comment about the judge’s clerk while complaining about the ongoing trial.”
Read the full story here at The Hill
“The US economy is a bit of a phenom. Even in the face of more than a year of aggressive interest-rate hikes to stem inflation, the labor market continues to chug along, with GDP growing at an eye-popping 4.9% last quarter, the fastest pace in nearly two years. While Bloomberg Economics and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen say that growth rate is unsustainable, investors remain amazed that something hasn’t broken yet. The last time US government bond yields climbed so far, so fast, the nation plunged into back-to-back recessions. But everyone who has predicted a downturn since early last year has been dead wrong. For now, the Federal Reserve will continue to feel the pressure to keep rates high to battle price surges. Matthew Yglesias writes in Bloomberg Opinion about how despite the sunny numbers, Biden has yet to get credit for his role in achieving them.” [Bloomberg]
SBF takes the stand
Sam Bankman-Fried is questioned by his attorney Mark Cohen today. Sketch: Elizabeth Williams via AP
“FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried officially started testifying today after suffering a major setback at his New York trial, Axios Crypto co-author Brady Dale writes.
Why it matters: Judge Lewis Kaplan almost entirely banned SBF from saying he had relied on lawyers to make decisions at FTX in front of the jury.
Yesterday's hearing — which featured SBF on the stand with no jury present — gave the judge a chance to hear the defendant's testimony and decide how much was admissible.” [Axios]
Rep. Dean Phillips announces primary challenge to Biden. He says Democrats need to focus on future
“For months, Dean Phillips called for a Democratic primary challenge to President Joe Biden, drawing no public interest from governors, lawmakers, and other would-be alternatives. The 54-year-old Minnesota congressman finally entered the race himself on Friday.” Read More at AP News
Ivanka Trump ordered to testify at New York fraud trial
“A New York judge has ordered Ivanka Trump, daughter of former President Donald Trump, to testify in his $250 million fraud trial.
The state attorney general’s office also provided a timeline, saying they plan to call the former president to testify on Nov. 6, and afterward rest their case.
Trump testified briefly on Wednesday, when the judge called him to the stand and fined him $10,000 for violating his gag order.
Trump later stormed out of the courtroom and said the judge ‘should end this trial immediately.’” [NBC News]
“New York Republican Rep. George Santos pleaded not guilty today to additional charges against him, including identity theft. His trial date has been set for Sept. 9.” [NBC News]
Republicans have ruled Wisconsin for a decade – but a court decision could change that
Republicans’ legislative majorities are virtually impenetrable thanks to district lines – but that could change if the current maps are overturned
“Lynn Carey, a retired nurse with a double lung transplant, has spent years trying to get Wisconsin lawmakers to improve healthcare. Carey organized voters in support of the Affordable Care Act back in 2009. Since its passage, she has pushed to get her Republican representatives in the state legislature to expand Medicaid coverage to its poorest residents.
An illustration by Eric Wilson for Votebeat.
The rightwing group swamping US election offices with records requests
The idea has been overwhelmingly popular in Wisconsin: a 2019 poll showed 70% of voters in the state supported it. But Medicaid expansion hasn’t gone anywhere – even after Democrats won back Wisconsin’s governorship in 2018.
Republicans still hold near-supermajorities in both chambers of the legislature, and have shown no sign of compromise on this issue or many others popular with most Wisconsinites. Their legislative majorities are virtually impenetrable, cemented by Republican-drawn district lines that have guaranteed Republicans control of the legislature even in years where Democrats received more votes statewide. “We don’t have competitive districts where people have to listen to their constituents,” Carey said.
That could change soon.
In early October the Wisconsin supreme court agreed to bypass lower courts and hear a case seeking to strike down the legislative maps. The maps are so tilted in favor of Republicans, the plaintiffs in the case argue, that they violate the Wisconsin constitution’s guarantee of free speech and association. Liberals won a 4-3 majority on the court in April, and are widely expected to rule that the maps are unconstitutional. Oral arguments in the case are set for 21 November.
If the current maps are overturned in favor of new, more competitive ones, it’s likely to shrink the Republican advantage in the legislature from a supermajority to a narrow one – and give Democrats a fighting chance at winning control. That could transform politics in Wisconsin, forcing Republicans to consider supporting issues that have broad bipartisan support like Medicaid expansion and marijuana legalization that have been stymied by the legislature for more than a decade….Read more at The Guardian
People rally for fair maps in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in January 2022. Photograph: Mark Hertzberg/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock
The Israel-Hamas war is a political curveball for Biden
A woman blows a kiss at a poster thanking US President Joe Biden for his support for Israel following his October 17, 2023, visit to the country. Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images
“President Joe Biden’s full-throated support for Israel as it begins ground operations in Gaza is proving polarizing in the US. The question is whether it will cost him votes in the 2024 election.
The lowdown: According to an October 26 Gallup poll, Biden’s approval rating has fallen to 37 percent overall and 75 percent among Democrats, down from 41 percent and 86 percent, respectively, over the last month. The drop comes after Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls Gaza, launched its attack on Israel. It’s his lowest approval rating among Democrats and overall since he took office.
Biden’s response to the Israel-Hamas war appears to be a factor in those numbers, particularly among Democrats, but Americans also have a bleak outlook on the economy.
Biden’s administration also faces other challenges: Increasing numbers of migrants are arriving on the southern border, and public support has dropped for his entreaties for additional funding to the war in Ukraine.
Support for Biden’s approach to Israel varies widely across generations in the US: Just 48 percent of Gen Z and millennials — voters who tend to lean Democratic — say the US should publicly voice support of Israel compared to 63 percent of Gen Xers, 83 percent of baby boomers, and 86 percent of the Silent Generation, according to an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.
The stakes: It’s not clear that criticism of Biden’s response to the war will actually hurt him in 2024. Bernie Porn, a pollster based in Michigan, told Vox that it was already a close race in the critical battleground state even before the Israel-Hamas war broke out, and it’s unlikely that Biden’s pro-Israel stance will tip the scales in favor of GOP frontrunner and former President Donald Trump even in places like Dearborn, home to the largest Arab American community in the US.
‘The Biden numbers were below where he should be,’ he said. ‘When you take the Israeli situation into account, it is certainly understandable that Biden has been criticized for the situation. Still, it's gonna be all be contrasted with what Trump would have done.’
Biden won 74 percent of the vote in Dearborn in 2020, Porn said. And he may be able to make an effective argument that, by pressuring the Israelis behind the scenes, he was able to delay their plans for a ground invasion and secure some humanitarian aid for Palestinians trapped in Gaza, even if that aid has so far proved woefully insufficient.
Biden can also point to actions that the Trump administration took that harmed Israel-Palestine relations, including relocating the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and tacitly accepting Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank.
Still, a lot could change before 2024.
‘I don't think that he's necessarily in a bad position in terms of what he has said or done, although, clearly, anecdotally, there are a lot of concerns among Arab Americans about his position. But it's a little early,’ Porn said.” [Vox]
“Argentina is headed to a runoff election. Voters in the economically troubled country are weighing runaway inflation under the current Peronist government, versus radical plans by far-right outsider Javier Milei that include making the country’s currency the US dollar. Economy Minister Sergio Massa, who leads Milei going into the runoff, is likely to keep the center-left status quo for now, even as Argentina, a commodities powerhouse, battles a steepcurrency devaluation.” [Bloomberg]
Exchange rates displayed at a Sur Cambio currency exchange store in Buenos Aires on Oct. 23. Photographer: Anita Pouchard Serra/Bloomberg
Spillover Violence
Smoke and fire rise from a leveled building in the aftermath of an Israeli strike on Gaza City on Oct. 26.Omar El-Qattaa/AFP via Getty Images
“Israeli forces launched a second overnight ground assault into Gaza on Friday to continue preparing the battlefield for a possible larger ground offensive. This followed similar efforts the day before in northern Gaza. Israel’s war cabinet has not yet released a timeline for starting its wider invasion. Late Friday also saw the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carry out an exceptionally heavy barrage of airstrikes on northern Gaza, and reports indicate that the territory has come under a near-total communication blackout, including the loss of internet and cell service.
That same day, the IDF carried out a raid in a West Bank refugee camp, killing three people and arresting around 70 others. A fourth person was killed later that day. According to the IDF, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad commander was among the four Palestinians killed; one Israeli soldier was also killed.
As the Israel-Hamas war intensifies, fears are rising that the conflict could spill over into the rest of the region. On Thursday, the United States executed airstrikes against two Iranian-backed militant targets in eastern Syria. According to the U.S. Defense Department, two F-16 fighter jets targeted a weapons and ammunition storage facility funded by Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The attack was a direct retaliation for recent strikes against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed groups, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, and was separate from Washington’s efforts to support Israel. But Iran has a long history of funding and training Hamas as well as other militant groups in Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria, and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Thursday that the United States ‘will not be spared from this fire’ if the Israel-Hamas war continues.
To further worry regional experts, drone strikes hit two Egyptian Red Sea towns near the Israeli border on Thursday. At least six people were injured. Although no group has claimed responsibility, the IDF blamed an ‘aerial threat’ in the Red Sea region, potentially pointing to Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthis. Last week, U.S. Navy forces intercepted a Houthi-launched missile that some military officials feared was aimed at Israel. And on Wednesday, Hamas targeted the Israeli village of Eilat, located near one of the Egyptian towns attacked on Thursday—signaling the longest-range Palestinian attack since the war began on Oct. 7.
‘Israel will work with Egypt and the U.S., and will bolster regional defenses in the area,’ IDF spokesperson Brig. Gen. Daniel Hagari saidregarding the overnight strikes. Cairo has a long history of involvement in Gaza, including helping the IDF impose a 17-year blockade on the region and organizing aid deliveries into Gaza in the past few days. On Friday alone, Egypt transported a medical team and 10 trucks carrying food, water, and medicine into southern Gaza through its Rafah border crossing.” [Foreign Policy]
“In memoriam. Former Chinese Premier Li Keqiang died on Friday from a heart attack. He was 68 years old. The No. 2 leader was known for warning against Beijing’s economic decline, particularly during the country’s strict zero-COVID lockdown era, despite government efforts to put a positive spin on China’s worsening economic situation. However, under President Xi Jinping, Li lost much of his power and finally left office in March of this year.
Numerous global leaders expressed their condolences for Li’s death, including U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the Japanese Embassy in China. However, Xi remained noticeably silent following his death, directing all questions to the country’s state media outlet and Li’s official obituary.” [Foreign Policy]
“A new monarch. Malaysia’s royal families selected Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar, the ruler of Malaysia’s southernmost state, to be the country’s next king. Sultan Ibrahim is known for his vast personal wealth, varied business interests, and strong relationship with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. He will begin his five-year term as head of state on Jan. 31.
Although Malaysia’s monarchs have historically served an exclusively symbolic role, outgoing King Al-Sultan Abdullah utilized the office’s few powers by picking the country’s past three prime ministers when parliamentary elections failed to achieve a majority. It is likely that Sultan Ibrahim will follow in his footsteps, considering that the incoming leader has expressed interest in politics in the past.” [Foreign Policy]
“Qatar death sentences. Qatar sentenced eight Indian former naval officers to death on Thursday for allegedly spying on the country’s submarine program for Israel. The suspects were arrested in August 2022 and will be allowed to appeal their death sentence. Indian government officials said they were ‘deeply shocked’ over the conviction and noted that all legal avenues will be explored.
Qatar has toed a fine line in the region by facilitating hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas. Only four people of more than 200 hostages have been released thus far. Doha does not have formal ties with Israel, and the Israeli government has not yet issued a statement regarding the sentencing of eight alleged spies. India, on the other hand, has strong economic relations with Qatar that could be fractured over these new accusations.” [Foreign Policy]
Students on the Run, Schools Taken by Troops and a Generation’s Catastrophe
“With an estimated 19 million children out of school for months because of war, Sudan is on the verge of becoming “the worst education crisis in the world,” U.N. officials say.” [New York Times]
“Taylor Swift has done things differently, and as such she’s built a colossal fortune with innovative takes on everything from record deals to touring, streaming negotiations and even her property portfolio. Bloomberg did the math to come up with the most definitive account of her fortune. We found that the pop star’s “Eras Tour” and its accompanying film have vaulted her into the rarified category of music billionaire. Here’s how she did it.” [Bloomberg]
Watch: Just How Rich Is Taylor Swift? We Did the Math Photographer: Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP
New "Schoolhouse Rock"
First Lady Jill Biden helps launch "Well Versed" in Philadelphia today. Photo: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
“First Lady Jill Biden helped Nickelodeon debut a new TV show called "Well Versed" focused on teaching kids civics — a modern take on "Schoolhouse Rock."
And, yes, the announcement involved slime, Axios' Sara Fischer writes.
First Lady Jill Biden slimes fifth-grade students in Philadelphia. Photo: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
Why it matters: The animated show, announced on National Civics Day, launches at a trying time for American democracy.
The new musical series debuts Nov. 1 on Nickelodeon, Paramount+ and Noggin.” [Axios]
Richard Moll, bailiff 'Bull' Shannon on 'Night Court,' has died
“Moll played bailiff Nostradamus "Bull" Shannon on the original NBC comedy "Night Court." He died Thursday at age 80. No cause of death was given.”
READ MORE at USA Today
THE WEEK IN CULTURE
Dave Chappelle at Madison Square Garden in August.Eduardo Munoz/Reuters
“Dave Chappelle, who has made a career of courting controversy, did so again this week when he commented on the war between Israel and Hamas during a stand-up set, leading some in the audience to walk out.
That Chappelle would wade into such a fraught topic was not surprising, the Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman wrote: ‘He has embraced the sober truth-teller role, telling magnetic stories that sometimes end in lessons, not punchlines.’
“Tommy,” the rock opera by The Who, is returning to Broadway next year. The original stage production opened in 1993 and won five Tony Awards.
Silvio Berlusconi bought some 25,000 paintings, many on TV-shopping binges, before he died this year. His heirs don’t know what to do with them.
On Francesca Scorsese’s TikTok page, her dad, Martin — yes, that one — is a budding social media star.
In “Priscilla,” the director Sofia Coppola re-examines Elvis Presley from the perspective of the woman he married. Our critic calls it “stealthily devastating.”
Taylor Swift released “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” a rerecording of her blockbuster 2014 album. Lindsay Zoladz wrote about “Slut!,” a never-before-heard song from that era.
Do you remember your first scary movie? Times readers told us about the films that freaked them out as kids — everything from “The Exorcist” to “The Wizard of Oz” to “Air Bud.”” [New York Times]