Dear Weekend Jolter,
The Israel-Hamas deal has more fathers than a Jerry Springer episode. Biden allies were all too eager to claim that his administration laid the groundwork for the cease-fire and hostage return that has, for now, put an end to two years of fighting.
But it’s difficult to envision anybody but President Trump pulling off this week’s headline event. His mercurial blend of wheedling, hectoring, arm-twisting, trash-talking, promise-making, and Iran-bombing — combined with, of course, Israel’s military achievements and the work of his diplomatic team — helped compel both sides to the table in the end.
“This doesn’t happen with President Kamala Harris or President Mitt Romney,” Jeff Blehar writes. It didn’t happen with President Joe Biden.
As counterintuitive as it might be to say, this kind of breakthrough happens not in spite of Trump’s flaws but because of them. A more couth, predictable, statesmanlike actor can be respected, not always feared — as Hamas can testify. As a staunch Israel ally (who also shows tough love), he’s been able to push Benjamin Netanyahu toward “yes” in ways his predecessors couldn’t.
Israeli military and intelligence services displayed incredible acumen throughout the war against the terrorist groups that surround Israel and the rogue states that sponsor them. And President Trump and his deputies contributed mightily to this civilizational achievement. Their clear-sightedness and diplomatic creativity delivered a result that means Trump certainly deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, whether he ever gets it or not.
Their elementary theory of the case — defeat Israel’s enemies first and make peace with them second — eluded far too many over the course of the war that Hamas started on 10/7. But it did not elude the president.
The peace may not be lasting. A dispute over missing hostage bodies already threatens it. Hamas could yet reconstitute and resume its reign of terror over the Gaza Strip and beyond, drawing Israel into a new phase of war. But as of this week, the blessed return of living hostages to Israel after two years in captivity, and the deal that secured their release, is Trump at his best.
Unfortunately, the worst of Trump comes with the bargain, even as it makes the fruits of his administration, in cases like this, possible. (I’m not saying we should be comfortable with this.) This past week showed that paradox in action. Part of the reason Trump is feared, abroad and at home, is that he does vindictive, extreme, seemingly irrational things to those who cross him (imagine Trump delivering the Bill the Butcher monologue to a protégé, on the value of “the spectacle of fearsome acts”). Take his Justice Department’s pursuit of prosecutions against political rivals and critics. While it’s too soon to assess the merits of the case against John Bolton — the most recent figure to be indicted, for allegedly mishandling classified materials — the choice of target sends an obviously deliberate message; Bolton, for his part, denied the charges and accused Trump of weaponizing the DOJ. The same goes for the indictments against James Comey and Letitia James. As Dan McLaughlin writes of the latter case, “There appears to be enough law and evidence on the side of this indictment to get it to a jury, but nobody has any illusions that James would have been charged if she had not fired the first shot at Trump.”
Would someone other than a payback president who threatens “HELL” for Hamas bag the Mideast deal? It’s impossible to know. But the account earlier this year from freed hostage Omer Shem Tov, that his captors “wanted Kamala to be elected,” gives a sense of those odds.
NAME. RANK. LINK.
EDITORIALS
On the hostages’ return: A Hard-Fought Triumph in Israel
On the Zelensky visit: Tomahawk Missiles for Ukraine Should Be on the Table
On Columbus Day: Restoring Columbus to His Rightful Place
A warning: China’s Rare Earth Dominance Must End
ARTICLES
Audrey Fahlberg: Jay Jones Haunted by Text Message Scandal at Virginia Attorney General Debate
Rich Lowry: A Preposterous Legal Assault Against Fossil Fuels
Jim Geraghty: Why the Democrats’ Activist Class Couldn’t Celebrate the Cease-Fire They Demanded
Kamden Mulder: All Living Israeli Hostages Return Home, Ending Two Years of Torment
David Trulio: What Thatcher’s Partnership with Reagan Can Teach Us
Haley Strack: Teens Who Assaulted Ex-DOGE Staffer Avoid Jail Time
Charles C. W. Cooke: How Not to Be Caught Saying Hideous Things: A Primer
Brittany Bernstein: This Illinois Town Has Doled Out Millions in Housing Reparations — but Ownership Remains Out of Reach
Mark Antonio Wright: Have We Reached Peak Trans?
Jack Fowler: Karen Wright, Fierce Friend of Liberty and, Above All Else, Mother. R.I.P.
Christian Schneider: Ready for Your Close-Up? Not If You’re the Wrong Race
Guy Denton: Ace Frehley, R.I.P.
LIGHTS. CAMERA. REVIEW.
Brian Allen, ironically, visits the seat of American power in search of china: A Critic Takes the White House Tour
Armond White, on the sexual politics of Honey Don’t!: Ethan Coen’s Pulped-Fiction Politics
TIRED OF CLICKING LINKS? EXCERPTS ARE FOR YOU
Jim Geraghty tracks how the loudest voices demanding a “cease-fire” suddenly have little to say:
Way back on October 11, 2023, New York City Council Member Tiffany Cabán called for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. Now, at that point, Hamas had just massacred civilians in 21 communities, killing 1,195 people including 38 children. The Israel Defense Force had barely begun its retaliation for the atrocity, but the answer in the mind of Cabán was clear: Everyone should stop shooting and accept a permanent cease-fire. To some of us, this sounded like allowing Hamas to get a free shot at Israelis and then preventing the Israelis from hitting Hamas back.
Two days later, on October 13, a then-little known state senator by the name of Zohran Mamdani joined the call for a cease-fire: “Now is the moment for all people of conscience to call for a ceasefire and no more military funding.” The same day, another Democratic socialist state senator, Julia Salazar concurred: “A ceasefire is urgent. Please implore your federal elected officials to take every action they can to stop this from continuing.”
On October 28, 2023, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined her call. “Some may dismiss a ceasefire as naïve or worse. Yet who has a plan for what follows this destruction? What do we call that?”
Mamdani offered a statement on Twitter yesterday that declared “Today’s scenes of Israelis and Palestinians are profoundly moving” but also said that “we have watched as our tax dollars have funded a genocide.” At least Mamdani acknowledged that the cease-fire occurred.
AOC’s X feed had nothing about the cease-fire in the past few days. Nor has Cabán’s. Nor Salazar’s.
For two years, prominent leftist Democrats have been screaming their heads off to get a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and now they’ve finally got one. But suddenly, it’s as if the issue just doesn’t interest them anymore. It’s like a Men in Black neuralyzer has wiped the issue of the Gaza Strip from their memories. It’s shameless, hilarious, and deeply revealing about how the Democratic Party perceives issues and America’s role in the world.
Rich Lowry explains a lawsuit that’s a bit much, even for Boulder:
Aaron Brockett is the woke mayor of Boulder, Colo.
He has made so-called social justice a priority in his public career. As the website of the city of Boulder notes, proudly, “As part of the city’s commitment to advancing racial equity, Mayor Brockett has attended the Advancing Racial Equity: Role of Government and Bias and Microaggression Trainings.”
Who would expect anything else? Famously countercultural Boulder deserves — nay, one assumes, demands — a silly person as its mayor.
What makes no sense is that Mayor Brockett, as the titular leader of a city of 100,000 in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, wants to have the power to remake national, even global, energy policy.
Of all the people one would want to bestow with such influence, Brockett is very far down the list. Maintaining bike paths? Maybe. Determining U.S. energy policy? Definitely not. Yet a lawsuit against oil companies undertaken by the City of Boulder could hand the small jurisdiction outsize power over American energy.
The suit, and others like it, is preposterous on its face and represents a threat to our economic well-being and constitutional order.
The Colorado Supreme Court has allowed the suit to go forward, despite the fact that it is a clear attempt to supersede federal environmental regulations, and the U.S. Supreme Court is now considering whether to grant cert in the case and take up the novel and consequential issues it presents.
The Court should consider it its duty to hear the case and bring legal and constitutional sanity to a scammy abuse of the legal system.
The City and County of Boulder have sued, specifically, ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy for their contributions to climate change. Boulder has asserted claims for public and private nuisance, trespass, unjust enrichment, and civil conspiracy.
There has been a spate of such suits alleging that climate change is a public nuisance, traditionally defined as “an unreasonable interference with a right common to the general public.” Obviously, this is a framework that doesn’t fit climate change.
Brittany Bernstein checks in on how one city’s reparations experiment is really working out:
Since becoming the first U.S. city to offer reparations to black residents for past housing discrimination, Evanston, Ill., has doled out $6.8 million in payments to more than 250 residents — but critics say the program has done little to address the underlying causes of the city’s housing crisis that impacts residents of all races.
Under the reparations program, individuals who lived in Evanston between 1919 and 1969 — or who are the descendants of a resident who lived in the city during that time period — are eligible to receive $25,000. While the payments were initially restricted to funds for housing costs, including down payments, repairs, or repayment of penalties to the city, the city later expanded the program to include $25,000 direct cash payments.
Proponents of the reparations program argue the past housing policies have denied black families the opportunity to build generational wealth through home ownership. Black residents account for 16 percent of the city’s population.
After passing the resolution committing to local reparations in 2019, the city worked with the Shorefront Legacy Center, a local community archive, to collect “evidence of city practices and policies that had adversely impacted the Black community,” according to the Mellon Foundation.
Shorefront Legacy Center founder Morris Robinson and independent researcher Jenny Thompson authored a 77-page report that “revealed how a system of redlining, restrictive covenants, racist zoning ordinances, and other segregationist practices — in some cases even forcibly removing entire homes from white neighborhoods — restricted Black residents to the city’s Fifth Ward.”
By the late 1930s, 95 percent of Fifth Ward residents were black. Much of the housing in the area lacked electricity, water or sewers, according to the report.
But no matter the reparations program’s intentions, Illinois Policy Institute assistant editor Dylan Sharkey tells National Review, the payments fail to address the city’s very real housing crisis that prevents residents of all races from achieving homeownership.
“Evanston’s reparations program is designed to provide relief through down payment and mortgage assistance, as Evanston is one of the most expensive places in the state to own a home,” he said. “Yet, the problem persists across the city and state. Illinois’ property taxes are among the highest in the nation, primarily driven by state and local pension debt. The typical homeowner in Evanston pays more than $7,000 a year in property taxes, which adds to the premium.”
“It’s hard for nearly anyone in the area to own a home,” he added. “Regardless of pending litigation related to reparations, Evanston and state leaders must work on addressing high housing costs. They should look at root causes that even the playing field for all – allowing more kinds of housing units, reducing overly burdensome housing regulations and encouraging the state to enact pension reform.”
In closing, Charles C. W. Cooke shares his foolproof plan for avoiding public scandal over past remarks:
CNN reports that Graham Platner, who hopes to be Maine’s next senator, has a record of declaring himself a “communist,” of describing “white rural America” as “racist and stupid,” and of calling all cops “bastards.” The comments were made on Reddit, going back to 2021.
I have developed a strategy to avoid being caught saying that I hate all cops, am a communist, or believe that all white, rural Americans are racist idiots, and, in my infinite benevolence, I would like to share it with Platner — and others — for free. My strategy is that I don’t say those things in the first place. The technique is actually quite simple. In some circumstances, it involves me not placing my hands on a keyboard and typing those sentiments out; in others, it involves not saying them aloud. When practiced concurrently with another useful strategy — not believing any of those things in the first place — it is almost foolproof.
Better still, the approach works across all parts of our political spectrum.
CODA
Two days before Kamala Harris showed up at Washington’s Warner Theatre, the venue hosted a far more distinguished guest.
I speak, of course, of Steven Wilson, whom I had the chance to see there last week. Those who semi-regularly make it to the bottom of this newsletter may already know I’m a committed Wilson evangelist; this was my first time seeing him live, so it was a big deal. The vibe of the audience for this prolific but still rather obscure progressive-rock god — “I don’t have any hits,” he confessed/bragged in explaining why he was not bound to play any particular songs for encores — would be best described as “Nerd Woodstock.” We left the Warner floating: He played the entirety of his new album, The Overview, and devoted the second set to songs spanning his solo career plus one banger by Porcupine Tree (the band he founded). “Vermillioncore,” an unpredictable instrumental, helped close the show. “No Ghost on the Moor,” something beautiful from his new album, was part of the first set.
Hope you enjoy. Catch you later.