Israeli calls for Gaza’s ethnic cleansing are only getting louder

The human misery unfurling across Gaza finds little sympathy in the Israeli public discourse, where the priority remains the vanquishing of Hamas — perpetrators of the single bloodiest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust — and the freeing of hostages held in Hamas’s Gazan redoubts. Indeed, a steady drumbeat of sound bites from Israeli lawmakers and other politicos has urged an even more devastating fate for the territory.

Members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition have called for the dropping of a nuclear bomb on densely-populated Gaza, the total annihilation of the territory as a mark of retribution, and the immiseration of its people to the point that they have no choice but to abandon their homeland.

This week alone, a parliamentarian from Netanyahu’s Likud party went on television and said it was clear to most Israelis that “all the Gazans need to be destroyed.” Then, Israel’s ambassador in Britain told local radio that there was no other solution for her country than to level “every school, every mosque, every second house” in Gaza to degrade Hamas’s military infrastructure. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/01/05/wv-israel-hamas/

The Potency of Propaganda

Facts have little bearing on the sentiment inside the Republican Party, which has been fed a steady diet of lies and half truths by Fox News and the rest of the sprawling right-wing media machine. To wit, the false notion that Joe Biden nefariously stole the 2020 election is now widely shared inside the GOP. A CNN poll conducted over the summer found that nearly 70% of Republicans believe Biden's win was not legitimate, a number that has continued to tick up.

In other words, the Big Lie that led to the 2020 insurrection is now the dominant thinking among Republicans. https://view.newsletters.cnn.com/messages/17044267428625716fa3b920b/raw

A quarter of Americans believe FBI instigated Jan. 6, Post-UMD poll finds

Twenty-five percent of Americans say it is “probably” or “definitely” true that the FBI instigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, a false concept promoted by right-wing media and repeatedly denied by federal law enforcement, according to a new Washington Post-University of Maryland poll.

The Post-UMD poll finds a smaller 11 percent of the public overall thinks there is “solid evidence” that FBI operatives organized and encouraged the attack, while 13 percent say this is their “suspicion only.”

Among Republicans, 34 percent say the FBI organized and encouraged the insurrection, compared with 30 percent of independents and 13 percent of Democrats.

The results confirm that misinformation about Jan. 6 is widespread as the United States heads into a presidential election year, during a campaign in which the former president and leading 2024 Republican candidate Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed support for those who participated in the insurrection. Despite a detailed congressional investigation and more than 725 completed federal prosecutions of Jan. 6 participants that did not yield evidence of FBI involvement, a substantial minority of Americans still embrace conspiracy theories not unlike the ones that drove many rioters to storm the Capitol three years ago.

“The people that went there to express their views, to support Trump, were peaceful,” said Richard Baum, 61, an independent voter from Odessa, Tex. “The government implants were the violent ones: the FBI, the police people that were put in there, the antifa and BLM hired by George Soros; everybody knows that. https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/01/04/fbi-conspiracy-jan-6-attack-misinformation/

Florida surgeon general calls for halt on mRNA covid vaccines, citing debunked claim

Florida’s top health official called for a halt to using mRNA coronavirus vaccines on Wednesday, contending that the shots could contaminate patients’ DNA — a claim that has been roundly debunked by public health experts, federal officials and the vaccine companies.

"We’ve seen this pattern from Dr. Ladapo that every few months he raises some new concern and it quickly gets debunked,” said Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s public health school who led the White House’s national coronavirus response before stepping down last year. “This idea of DNA fragments — it’s scientific nonsense. People who understand how these vaccines are made and administered understand that there is no risk here. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/01/03/florida-surgeon-general-ladapo-covid-vaccine/
 

Justice Department Sues Texas Over Law That Would Let Police Arrest Migrants Who Enter U.S. Illegally

The Justice Department on Wednesday sued Texas over a new law that would allow police to arrest migrants who enter the U.S. illegally, taking Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to court again over his escalating response to border crossers arriving from Mexico. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/justice-department-sues-texas-over-law-that-would-let-police-arrest-migrants-who-enter-us-illegally_n_6595e628e4b0bf73e1784300

SpaceX illegally fired workers critical of Elon Musk, U.S. labor agency says

Rocket and satellite maker SpaceX on Wednesday was accused by a U.S. labor agency of unlawfully firing eight employees for circulating a letter calling founder and CEO Elon Musk a “distraction and embarrassment.”

A regional official with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a complaint claiming SpaceX violated the workers’ rights under federal labor law to band together and advocate for better working conditions.

The letter sent to SpaceX executives in June 2022 focused on a series of tweets Musk had made since 2020, many of which were sexually suggestive. The employees claimed Musk’s statements did not align with the company’s policies on diversity and workplace misconduct, and called on SpaceX to condemn them.

The complaint also accuses SpaceX of interrogating employees about the letter, disparaging the workers who were involved, and threatening to fire workers who engaged in similar activity.

The case is the latest to accuse companies run by Musk of violating employees’ rights under labor and employment laws. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/spacex-illegally-fired-workers-critical-elon-musk-us-labor-agency-says-rcna132250

White House for Sale: How Princes, Prime Ministers, and Premiers Paid Off President Trump

By elevating his personal financial interests and the policy priorities of corrupt foreign powers over the American public interest, former President Trump violated both the clear commands of the Constitution and the careful precedent set and observed by every previous Commander-in- Chief.

 Article I Section 9 , Clause 8 of the Constitution forbids the President to accept money payments or gifts of any kind whatever from foreign governments and monarchs unless he obtains the Consent of the Congress to do so . Yet Donald Trump, while holding the office of president, used his business entities to pocket millions of dollars from foreign states and royalty and never once went to Congress to seek its consent. This report sets forth the records showing foreign government money and all the spoils from royals we can find pouring into hotels and buildings that the President continued to own during his presidency, all in direct violation of the Constitutional prohibition. https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/352377138e125817/849dad00-full.pdf

January 6 Still a Big Liability for Trump

Democrats and independents still hold starkly negative views of Jan. 6, its participants and Trump’s role in stoking the riot. Majorities of Americans overall still believe now-President Joe Biden was elected legitimately, that Trump is guilty of trying to steal the election and that the federal criminal charges in Washington against Trump are appropriate.

Even as surveys generally show Trump running even with the unpopular Biden or leading him narrowly in the horse race, Trump’s refusal to concede the last election and his actions leading up to the Capitol riot are significant liabilities for his candidacy.

And it’s not just a poll-based hypothetical that direct ties to Jan. 6 or broader denial of the 2020 election results are a millstone for Trump and his aligned candidates. Only 14 months ago, voters in the midterms rejected the majority of 2020 election deniers — especially in battleground states — despite a political environment and generic ballot that otherwise favored Republicans. https://politicalwire.com/2024/01/06/january-6-still-a-big-liability-for-trump

Drug that Trump called a ‘miracle Covid cure’ is linked to 17,000 deaths in new study

A drug infamously touted by Donald Trump has been linked to nearly 17,000 Covid deaths in a new scientific study.

Researchers say that the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine was prescribed to patients during the first wave of Covid-19 despite the absence of evidence documenting its clinical benefits.

The French study estimated that 16,990 patients in the US, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Turkey may have died as a result of the drug. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-drug-covid-deaths-hydroxychloroquine-b2474022.html

‘Election deniers’ are still running Congress three years after January 6

Three years after a violent breach of the US Capitol that stopped the certification of millions of Americans’ votes, nearly one-third of its elected members have denied the election’s outcome, including 127 sitting members of Congress who refused to certify the 2020 results.

Those members – who supported legal battles to reverse results, voted against them, or promoted election conspiracy theories – represent voters in 37 states.

They include 19 Senators and 152 members of the House of Representatives, including its Republican speaker, labelled the most powerful election denier in Washington. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/election-denier-congress-jan-6-trump-b2473943.html

China spent over $5.5 million at Trump properties while he was in office

The Chinese government and its state-controlled entities spent over $5.5 million at properties owned by Donald Trump while he was in office, the largest total of payments made by any single foreign country known to date, according to financial documents cited in a report from House Democrats released Thursday.

Those payments collectively included millions of dollars from China’s Embassy in the United States, a state-owned Chinese bank accused by the US Justice Department of helping North Korea evade sanctions and a state-owned Chinese air transit company. https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/04/politics/trump-properties-china-foreign-payments/index.html
 

THE DAILY GRILL

“I’m leaving it on the table. I’m not gonna say I’m gonna go file it tomorrow night. I’m not saying I’m not gonna file it tomorrow. I think the speaker needs to know that we’re angry about it.” — Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), who would not rule out a motion to vacate against Speaker Mike Johnson. https://twitter.com/Olivia_Beavers/status/1744837637221888278

VERSUS

“If they try it, they are fucking idiots.” —  Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) warning hardline Republicans to not even think about attempting to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, https://www.semafor.com/article/01/09/2024/johnson-budget-vacate-moderates