April 5, 2024

Friday, April 5,2024. Annette’s News Roundup.

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Joe is always busy.

Biden talked to Netanyahu.

Biden calls for "immediate ceasefire" in tense call with Netanyahu

President Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when they spoke on Thursday that "an immediate ceasefire" is needed to "protect innocent civilians" in Gaza and improve the humanitarian situation, the White House said.

Why it matters: This is Biden's strongest push for an end to the fighting in Gaza in six months of war. It's also his clearest message that U.S. policy on the war will depend on Israel's actions.

Driving the news: The call came three days after an Israeli strike killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers, and with Biden under growing pressure from members of his own party to push for a ceasefire and ensure Israel does more to allow aid into Gaza.

• Biden "emphasized that the strikes on humanitarian workers and the overall humanitarian situation are unacceptable," per the readout.

• Biden also told Netanyahu that Israel must "announce and implement" a series of "concrete and measurable steps" to protect aid workers and address humanitarian suffering.

The key line: "He made clear that U.S. policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel's immediate action on these steps."

• Secretary of State Tony Blinken echoed that point in a press conference of his own on Thursday, saying: "If we don't see the changes we need to see, there will be a change in our policy."

Zoom in: After the call, White House spokesperson John Kirby said the steps the U.S. expects Israel to take include increasing the amount of aid that gets into Gaza, opening additional crossings to Gaza, and better protecting civilians and aid workers.

• "If there are no changes in their policy there will have to be changes in ours," Kirby said.

Behind the scenes: A source familiar with the call said it was "tense and challenging" and lasted more than 30 minutes.

Between the lines: Biden had previously been careful to make clear that his calls for a ceasefire were conditioned on a deal to bring Israeli hostages home.

• In Thursday's readout, the White House didn't fully link those issues but stressed the president "urged the Prime Minister to empower his negotiators to conclude a deal without delay to bring the hostages home."

What to watch: Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), one of the top Democratic backers of Israel and close ally to President Biden, said for the first time on Thursday that he was open to conditioning aid based on how Israel conducts the war. (Axios)

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A Moral Voice in the Wilderness.

José Andrés: Let People Eat.

The New York Times op-ed by the founder of World Central Kitchen.

In the worst conditions you can imagine — after hurricanes, earthquakes, bombs and gunfire — the best of humanity shows up. Not once or twice but always.

The seven people killed on a World Central Kitchen mission in Gaza on Monday were the best of humanity. They are not faceless or nameless. They are not generic aid workers or collateral damage in war.

Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, John Chapman, Jacob Flickinger, Zomi Frankcom, James Henderson, James Kirby and Damian Sobol risked everything for the most fundamentally human activity: to share our food with others.

These are people I served alongside in Ukraine, Turkey, Morocco, the Bahamas, Indonesia, Mexico, Gaza and Israel. They were far more than heroes.

Their work was based on the simple belief that food is a universal human right. It is not conditional on being good or bad, rich or poor, left or right. We do not ask what religion you belong to. We just ask how many meals you need.

From Day 1, we have fed Israelis as well as Palestinians. Across Israel, we have served more than 1.75 million hot meals. We have fed families displaced by Hezbollah rockets in the north. We have fed grieving families from the south. We delivered meals to the hospitals where hostages were reunited with their families. We have called consistently, repeatedly and passionately for the release of all the hostages.

All the while, we have communicated extensively with Israeli military and civilian officials. At the same time, we have worked closely with community leaders in Gaza, as well as Arab nations in the region. There is no way to bring a ship full of food to Gaza without doing so.

That’s how we served more than 43 million meals in Gaza, preparing hot food in 68 community kitchens where Palestinians are feeding Palestinians.

We know Israelis. Israelis, in their heart of hearts, know that food is not a weapon of war.

Israel is better than the way this war is being waged. It is better than blocking food and medicine to civilians. It is better than killing aid workers who had coordinated their movements with the Israel Defense Forces.

The Israeli government needs to open more land routes for food and medicine today. It needs to stop killing civilians and aid workers today. It needs to start the long journey to peace today.

In the worst conditions, after the worst terrorist attack in its history, it’s time for the best of Israel to show up. You cannot save the hostages by bombing every building in Gaza. You cannot win this war by starving an entire population.

We welcome the government’s promise of an investigation into how and why members of our World Central Kitchen family were killed. That investigation needs to start at the top, not just the bottom.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said of the Israeli killings of our team, “It happens in war.” It was a direct attack on clearly marked vehicles whose movements were known by the Israel Defense Forces.

It was also the direct result of a policy that squeezed humanitarian aid to desperate levels. Our team was en route from a delivery of almost 400 tons of aid by sea — our second shipment, funded by the United Arab Emirates, supported by Cyprus and with clearance from the Israel Defense Forces.

The team members put their lives at risk precisely because this food aid is so rare and desperately needed. According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification global initiative, half the population of Gaza — 1.1. million people — faces the imminent risk of famine. The team would not have made the journey if there were enough food, traveling by truck across land, to feed the people of Gaza.

The peoples of the Mediterranean and Middle East, regardless of ethnicity and religion, share a culture that values food as a powerful statement of humanity and hospitality — of our shared hope for a better tomorrow.

There’s a reason, at this special time of year, Christians make Easter eggs, Muslims eat an egg at iftar dinners and an egg sits on the Seder plate. This symbol of life and hope reborn in spring extends across religions and cultures.

I have been a stranger at Seder dinners. I have heard the ancient Passover stories about being a stranger in the land of Egypt, the commandment to remember — with a feast before you — that the children of Israel were once slaves.

It is not a sign of weakness to feed strangers; it is a sign of strength. The people of Israel need to remember, at this darkest hour, what strength truly looks like. (New York Times)

From Haaretz.

World Central Kitchen called for an independent investigation into the attack, urged Israel to preserve any relevant documentation and criticized PM Netanyahu's remarks that such incidents "happens in war."

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Biden. Trump. Who is winning today?

The WSJ poll.

You may have heard that Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal poll had Trump ahead of Biden in six out of seven battleground states. Is that so?

They don’t make clear what we should all know though it is buried in the article on the poll…

”About one-quarter of voters are either undecided or back third-party and independent candidates such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmental lawyer and antivaccine activist, a likely signal that many voters haven’t decided on a candidate and could ultimately swing behind the president.”

“Don’t look at these people as excited by third-party candidates.… They are saying, ‘I’m toying with some other options because I don’t like the options I’ve been given,’” said Michael Bocian, a Democratic pollster who conducted the survey along with the firm of Tony Fabrizio, a Republican. Past polling and election results suggest that most of these voters will back a major-party nominee as they hear more from the candidates. 

Voters could also be influenced by developments such as the April 15 start of Trump’s trial in New York on felony hush-money charges, the first of what could be multiple criminal trials that the former president faces. Previous Journal polling and surveys of GOP primary voters have found some Trump supporters saying they would change their votes if he was convicted of a felony. Trump has denied wrongdoing.”

“When combined with undecided voters or those who say they are likely, but not definitely, backing Trump or Biden, they form a substantial block of up-for-grabs voters: nearly one-third of the battleground-state electorate, a larger share than the 28% the Journal found in its February poll of voters nationwide.” (Source. WSJ).

Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist and consultant, is pushing back against the Democratic doom and gloom.

Simon Rosenberg was right about the congressional elections of 2022. All the conventional wisdom — the polls, the punditry, the fretting by fellow Democrats — revolved around the expectation of a big red wave and a Democratic wipeout.

He disagreed. Democrats would surprise everyone, he said again and again: There would be no red wave. He was correct, of course, as he is quick to remind anyone listening.

These days, Mr. Rosenberg, 60, a Democratic strategist and consultant who dates his first involvement in presidential campaigns to Michael Dukakis, the Democratic presidential candidate in 1988, is again pushing back against the polls and punditry and the Democratic doom and gloom. This time, he is predicting that President Biden will defeat Donald J. Trump in November.

In a world of Democratic bed-wetters, to reprise the phrase used by David Plouffe, a senior political adviser to Barack Obama, to describe Democratic fretters, Mr. Rosenberg is the voice of — well, whatever the opposite of bed-wetter is these days.

The idea of this interview is that, at a time when there is so much fretting in the Democratic world, you are not — and have never been — a bed-wetter. Can you explain why? This goes back to the midterm congressional elections in 2022, as I recall?

Yes. The argument I made then was threefold. One was that the Republicans did something unusual in 2022. Usually when a party loses elections, they run away from the politics that caused them to lose. And Republicans were running toward it. They were becoming ever more MAGA, even though MAGA had lost in 2018 and 2020.

Second, that Biden was actually a good president, and we’d have a strong case to make. And third, there’s been this huge increase in citizen engagement in the Democratic Party. We’ve been raising crazy amounts of money and have an unprecedented number of volunteers because of the fear of MAGA.

We were stronger and better than was the conventional wisdom. The constant mistake everyone’s been making since the spring of 2022 has been the overestimating of their strength and the underestimating of ours. We went into Election Day with there being this huge belief that the Democrats were going to get killed. I believed those three things were going to allow us to do better than people expected in 2022. And I have that basic view now about 2024.

But this seems like a different time for Democrats, or certainly for Biden.

Here we are almost two years later, and a lot of the same kinds of things are still happening — and Trump is a far weaker candidate in this election than he was in 2016. He’s more dangerous. He’s more extreme. His performance on the stump is far more erratic and disturbing. I’m just giving you my rap here.

Now, on the issue of the nervousness? Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, the media tells us, The New York Times tells us, MSNBC tells us, that we should be looking at this election largely through the prism of current polling. That’s the polling industrial complex asserting itself in a very aggressive way in the daily understanding of our elections. I think those of us who have a more holistic understanding of the health of candidates and parties, we have to keep making our case that there’s a lot of other things we should be looking at.

Is there evidence already that polls that suggest Biden is in trouble are misleading?

Well, the evidence is that Trump has underperformed in these early primary states and underperformed in public polling in every one of these states, except for North Carolina. Second is that we know from polling in these early states that somewhere between 20 and 30 percent of the Republican coalition is open to not supporting Trump.

OK, but is there anything that keeps you up at night, that worries you in terms of Biden winning re-election?

I wish we had more time. I think the campaign got a late start, and we have a lot of work to do to win this thing. But we are where we are now, and just have to put our heads down and go to work. (To read the whole interview with Simon Rosenberg and absorb the reasons for his optimism about victory 2024, click here.) New York Times.

Daily Cartoon: Thursday, April 4th | The New Yorker

“And so, freaked out about the coming election, they moved to France and lived happily ever after.”

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Thursday court losses for Trump.

Trump’s newest defeat in Fulton County, Georgia trial.

Judge McAfee Denies Trump's Motion To Dismiss On First Amendment Grounds.

Another day, another loss for Trump in the courtroom

Judge Scott McAfee has officially denied Donald Trump's motion to dismiss the Georgia RICO case against him on First Amendment grounds. 

Previously, Trump argued that his speech relating to the big lie and overturning the 2020 election was constitutionally protected speech under the First Amendment. This argument was easily rejected by Judge McAfee as the speech was done in furtherance of criminal activity and the speech was false, which neither are protected under the Constitution. 

The following quote properly sums up the Judge's order:

"After interpreting the indictment’s language liberally in favor of the State as required at this pretrial stage, the Court finds that the Defendants’ expressions and speech are alleged to have been made in furtherance of criminal activity and constitute false statements knowingly and willfully made in matters within a government agency’s jurisdiction which threaten to deceive and harm the government."

Judge McAfee went further to assert that many of the issues raised by Trump and his co-defendants, such as whether Trump had the requisite criminal intent when making the statements at issue, are questions better suited for a jury determination. 

While the order leaves the door open for a limited, as applied challenge on First Amendment grounds after the factual record has been established during a trial, it is unlikely such a challenge will be successful following the District Attorney's presentation of the evidence. 

Read the full 14 page order below:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24482771-order-on-motion-to-disqualify

(Meidas Touch).

The Mar-a-Lago Documents Case.

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More and different losses for Trump.

Nebraska (like Maine) will not be a winner-takes-all Electoral State.

Nebraska lawmakers block Trump-backed changes to electoral system.

Nebraska legislators on Wednesday night overwhelmingly declined to change how the state awards its Electoral College votes to a winner-take-all system.

Shrugging off pressure from former President Donald J. Trump and Gov. Jim Pillen, who have pushed Republicans to move forward on the issue, members of the unicameral State Legislature rejected in bipartisan fashion an effort to attach a provision that would have made the change to an unrelated bill. Had it passed, the change could have helped Mr. Trump in his race against President Biden.

It is still possible that the provision could be attached to another bill, but there are only days to go before the legislative session ends.

Nebraska is one of two states — the other being Maine — that award an electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district, meaning it’s possible for a candidate who loses the state to nonetheless receive some credit.

In Nebraska’s case, this means two electoral votes are awarded to the statewide winner and three are awarded to the district winners. Two of the districts, and the state as a whole, are solidly Republican. But the Second District, in and around Omaha, is a swing district and voted for Mr. Biden in 2020.

In an election as close as this November’s may be, that single electoral vote could be decisive. There is a realistic scenario — Mr. Biden wins Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin; Mr. Trump wins Arizona, Georgia and Nevada — in which it could make the difference between a Biden victory and an Electoral College tie. If that were to happen, the election would be thrown to the House of Representatives, and Mr. Trump would be likely to win. A tie would be resolved with each state delegation getting one vote, not by a vote of the full chamber. (New York Times)

Trump can’t be happy that more 3rd Party Presidential candidates won’t be in the cards in 2024.

Trump must now be wondering if he has to look for another bond.

One more thing.

Trump likely will hear about this 👇 too. It may not fly with some voters.

Trump told his South Carolina rally they would prefer “the white President.”

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Trump legal advisor John Eastman was disbarred. The disbarment of Patrick is next.

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Khashoggi, Women’s and LGBTQ+ Rights are in the rear view window for Professional Women’s Tennis.

Saudi Arabia will host the women's tennis WTA Finals for the next three years.

Saudi Arabia will host the WTA Finals as part of a three-year deal announced Thursday by the women’s professional tennis tour that will increase the prize money for this November’s season-ending championship to a record $15.25 million, a 70% increase from 2023.
The event for the top eight singles players and top eight doubles teams will be held in Riyadh from 2024-26, part of a recent wave of investment by the kingdom in tennis and various sports, despite questions about LGBTQ+ and women’s rights there raised by Hall of Famers Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova and others.


“We’re going into this eyes wide open that the investment in sport by Saudi certainly provokes strong views from people,” WTA Tour Chairman and CEO Steve Simon told The Associated Press. “We’ve met with Chris and Martina and listened to their concerns and we have shared their concerns through our stakeholders as well, without prejudice. We’ve also shared the concerns around women’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights within the Kingdom of Saudi.

Our focus is on how we develop women’s tennis for the benefit of everybody involved in the game. The reality of it is ... we are truly a global tour, a global business. We have players from over 90 nations now. We have over 90 events. ... We participate in many countries that have different cultures and values systems across the board.”



As for any concerns about Saudi Arabia that current players might have, Simon said: “We don’t plan to do any persuading. The players need to make their own choices, and we do believe that everyone who qualifies is going to want to play.”


Locations in Europe, North America and Asia also were considered as possible new sites for the WTA Finals, which have moved around to five cities over the past five editions after a deal to put the tournament in Shenzhen, China, through 2030 was disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic and concerns over the safety of retired Grand Slam doubles champion Peng Shuai, who accused a Chinese government official of rape.


The cities that hosted in 2022 (Fort Worth, Texas) and 2023 (Cancun, Mexico) were not revealed until September each year, and last November’s event was strongly criticized by players. Four-time Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek beat Jessica Pegula in last year's title match; U.S. Open champ Coco Gauff and Australian Open winner Aryna Sabalenka were among the other participants.
Simon said Riyadh was selected by the WTA in late December, but the details of the agreement were just completed.


“This partnership will build on our exposure to a market and a region whose impact on the sports industry is certainly growing rapidly,” Simon said. “We certainly expect that you’ll see more events coming there in the future. So at the end, we believe that the WTA should be a part of this development, versus being on the outside.”


Saudi Arabia’s Private Investment Fund (PIF) formed the LIV Golf tour and put money into soccer, for example, and the kingdom’s role in tennis has been rising. The ATP Tour moved its Next Gen Finals for leading 21-and-under players to Jedda in November; the PIF is the title sponsor for the men’s rankings; 22-time Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal recently became an ambassador for the Saudi Tennis Federation; he will join 24-time major champ Novak Djokovic and rising stars Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner at an exhibition event in Riyadh in October.

There have been discussions about placing a top-tier Masters 1000 tournament in Saudi Arabia, too, part of a possible larger restructuring involving the WTA, ATP and the country.


Rights groups say women continue to face discrimination in most aspects of family life and homosexuality is a major taboo, as it is in much of the rest of the Middle East.


In recent years, Saudi Arabia has enacted wide-ranging social reforms, including granting women the right to drive and largely dismantling male guardianship laws that had allowed husbands and male relatives to control many aspects of women’s lives. Men and women are still required to dress modestly, but the rules have been loosened and the once-feared religious police have been sidelined.

Still, same-sex relations are punishable by death or flogging, though prosecutions are rare.


In an opinion piece published in The Washington Post in January, Evert and Navratilova urged the WTA to stay out of Saudi Arabia because, they wrote, staging the Finals there “would represent not progress, but significant regression” and asked whether “staging a Saudi crown-jewel tournament would involve players in an act of sportswashing merely for the sake of a cash influx.”


In response, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud, said the two former athletes relied on “outdated stereotypes and western-centric views of our culture” and “turned their back on the very same women they have inspired and it is beyond disappointing.”
The ambassador joined the head of the Saudi Tennis Federation and other women in a video conference with current WTA athletes to “speak to the changes that are happening and to what still needs to be done within the region,” Simon said.


The WTA said the Finals prize money will help work to meet the tour’s pledge, made last year, to increase pay and put it in line with what men earn in tennis. The $15.25 million on offer from Nov. 2-9, 2024 — an amount set to increase in 2025 and 2026 — is up from last year’s $9 million and eclipses the event-high $14 million at Shenzhen in 2019.

In recent years, Saudi Arabia has enacted wide-ranging social reforms, including granting women the right to drive and largely dismantling male guardianship laws that had allowed husbands and male relatives to control many aspects of women’s lives. Men and women are still required to dress modestly, but the rules have been loosened and the once-feared religious police have been sidelined. Still, same-sex relations are punishable by death or flogging, though prosecutions are rare.

In an opinion piece published in The Washington Post in January, Evert and Navratilova urged the WTA to stay out of Saudi Arabia because, they wrote, staging the Finals there “would represent not progress, but significant regression” and asked whether “staging a Saudi crown-jewel tournament would involve players in an act of sportswashing merely for the sake of a cash influx.”

In response, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud, said the two former athletes relied on “outdated stereotypes and western-centric views of our culture” and “turned their back on the very same women they have inspired and it is beyond disappointing.”

The ambassador joined the head of the Saudi Tennis Federation and other women in a video conference with current WTA athletes to “speak to the changes that are happening and to what still needs to be done within the region,” Simon said.

The WTA said the Finals prize money will help work to meet the tour’s pledge, made last year, to increase pay and put it in line with what men earn in tennis. The $15.25 million on offer from Nov. 2-9, 2024 — an amount set to increase in 2025 and 2026 — is up from last year’s $9 million and eclipses the event-high $14 million at Shenzhen in 2019. (Washington Post).

One more thing. Here is the earlier (January) opinion piece opposing holding the Women’s Tennis Association finals in Saudi Arabia by Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova.

We did not help build women’s tennis for it to be exploited by Saudi Arabia.

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