W³P Lives: 02/07/25

Friday, February 7, 2025

Trump's Gaza Gambit and the Art of the Ultimate Deal

posted by Josh Hammer at Townhall

Days after shocking the world with his upset victory in the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump espoused his hope of negotiating the "ultimate deal" between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs to resolve the "war that never ends." As Trump told The Wall Street Journal at the time: "As a deal maker, I'd like to do ... the deal that can't be made. And do it for humanity's sake."

Over eight years later, back in the White House following a Democratic interregnum and with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his side, Trump confirmed his interest in forging the "ultimate deal." Crucially, however, Trump's basic parameters of such a deal will not, to put it mildly, be those long favored by the bipartisan foreign policy establishment.

Before getting into his latest proposal, let's flash back to Trump's first term.

From 2017 to 2021, Trump governed as the most pro-Israel American president, by far, since the modern State of Israel was established in 1948. In January 2020, after already taking such measures as withdrawing the U.S. from former President Barack Obama's Iran nuclear deal, moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, Trump -- again standing at the White House with Netanyahu -- unveiled his "Peace to Prosperity" plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Although imperfect, it was by far the most pro-Israel plan for resolving the conflict an American president had ever proposed.

Because the "Peace to Prosperity" plan legitimized Israel applying its sovereignty over disputed areas of the Jordan Valley and Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank"), many of the Palestinians' traditional Arab backers were piqued. In June 2020, the United Arab Emirates' ambassador to the U.S., Yousef Al Otaiba, took the unprecedented step of publishing a Hebrew-language op-ed warning Israel not to go forward with asserting any additional sovereignty. Yet only two months later, in August 2020, the UAE became the first Arab country in two and a half decades to establish peace with Israel. Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan soon followed, joining the UAE in the Abraham Accords circle of peace.

In one fell swoop, Trump and Netanyahu did more to achieve Israeli-Arab rapprochement than all previous American presidents and Israeli prime ministers combined. They debunked the failed consensus -- the ruinous shibboleth pushed for decades by Washington's professional "peace process" cartel that only further Israeli territorial concessions could yield peace. The "peace process-ers" pushed their "inside-out" approach: Create a new Palestinian state, then the Arab states will normalize ties with Israel. Trump and Netanyahu inverted the playbook, going for a novel "outside-in" approach.

It worked like a charm. As both leaders recognized, the Hamas-overrun Gaza Strip has already been, ever since Israel's 2005 unilateral withdrawal, a miniature "two-state solution" in action. And it has been an abject disaster.

That brings us up to the present.

Prior to this week, Trump had alluded to the idea that he wanted Egypt and Jordan -- the latter of which quite literally was established as the "Palestinian" state under the terms of the European powers' post-World War I settlement and the British Mandate for Palestine -- to absorb the Arab population of Gaza. He has since doubled down. The idea of such a population transfer is unpopular in the Arab world, to put it mildly. But Trump has overcome such resistance before.

Three consecutive presidents -- Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama -- failed to fulfill the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, which mandated moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, by issuing "national security" waivers every six months. All were scared of the reaction in the proverbial "Arab street." Trump didn't care and did it anyway. The reaction, it turns out, was fairly muted.

Suffice it to say Jordanian King Abdullah II's trip to the White House on Tuesday will be interesting.

But it turns out population transfer to Jordan and Egypt is only the first half of what Trump has in mind. He shocked everyone around him -- including, it seems, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles -- when he casually but assertively stated that the United States intends to "take over" Gaza after Israel's war against Hamas. The U.S. will "own" Gaza, Trump said, and make it a "Riviera of the Middle East." If we are taking Trump literally and not just seriously, to alter Salena Zito's popular 2016 quip, it seems part two of the plan (U.S. ownership of Gaza) is contingent on part one (population transfer of the Arabs there).

Or perhaps we should not take Trump literally. Perhaps this is, much like the "Peace to Prosperity" plan in 2020, a negotiating chip in a bigger plan -- the much-desired entrance of Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords alliance, maybe. And there is certainly some early second-term data in favor of the "negotiating chip" theory: Trump's recent deferral of 25% tariffs on both Canada and Mexico in response to those two countries' leaders agreeing to send troops to their respective borders with the U.S., for instance.

It's difficult to know exactly what Trump is thinking here. There are real reasons for skepticism -- but there are also real reasons for hope. He's done this before. Let's be patient and watch the shibboleth-buster in action. He may very well surprise us yet again.

X22, And we Know, and more- Feb 7

Ep 3566a - [CB] Set The Trap For Trump, Boomerang, Reciprocal Tariffs Coming

Tulsi Gabbard, the Smear Machine, and the Battle for America’s Intelligence Integrity

posted by Charlton Allen at American Thinker

In a time of growing distrust in institutions and blatant political double standards, the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence (DNI) has exposed the festering rot in America’s political and intelligence establishment.

Gabbard is a decorated combat veteran and former congresswoman. Once hailed as a rising star in the Democrat party, she has since been relentlessly smeared—from being labeled a “Russian asset” to even being placed on a terrorist watchlist during the Biden-Harris administration. These attacks aren’t just absurd; they expose how deeply politicized the intelligence community has become.

As DNI, Gabbard would oversee 18 intelligence agencies with a $70 billion budget. Her pending Senate confirmation—where Republicans hold the majority—reignited the predictable chorus of partisan attacks. But the real issue isn’t her qualifications, it’s that Washington fears what her leadership represents: independence, accountability, and a return to intelligence gathering as a national security mission—not a political weapon.

The Clinton Smear and the Politics of Personal Destruction

The “Russian asset” lie leveled against Gabbard is as transparent as it is baseless. The smear originated with none other than Hillary Clinton, who insidiously suggested in 2019 that Gabbard was being “groomed” by Russia to sabotage the 2020 election. Clinton—a political figure infamous for conspiracy theories and deflection—provided no evidence because there was none.

The sheer recklessness of Clinton’s smear should have made it a political joke—yet much of the chattering political class and legacy media ran with it. CNN, The New York Times, and others breathlessly analyzed Clinton’s remark, amplifying it with vague speculation and partisan spin. The same media that demands proof of election fraud or censorship claims had no problem laundering an evidence-free accusation from a former presidential candidate with a track record of deception.

Gabbard did not stay silent. She fired back, calling Clinton “the queen of warmongers” and exposing the smear for what it was: a desperate attempt to destroy an independent voice that refused to fall in line with the Democrat party’s regime-change mantra.

This tried-and-true tactic of the political class and their media acolytes is as dirty as it is effective. Once told, a lie creates a self-perpetuating cycle—a narrative endlessly repeated and amplified, inflicting lasting damage despite never being legitimate in the first place.

The smear took on a life of its own, metastasizing into a media-approved slander that is still repeated today by Democrat operatives, former intelligence officials, internet trolls, and corporate media lackeys.

This phenomenon is how the politics of personal destruction works. The accusation doesn’t need to be true—it just needs to be repeated. The Clinton machine, aided by its intelligence community allies, set the narrative, and the press dutifully carried it forward, tarnishing Gabbard’s name without substantively addressing the facts.

The Syria Smear and the Intelligence Community’s Role

One of the most persistent falsehoods about Gabbard—parroted by both the media and former intelligence officials—is that she was an “apologist” for the Russian-backed Syrian regime. Balderdash.

This smear conveniently ignores that Gabbard’s stance on Syria was rooted in longstanding military skepticism of regime-change wars. As a combat veteran, she saw firsthand the catastrophic failures of U.S. interventions in Iraq and Libya and refused to support another reckless war in Syria.

A RealClearInvestigations report methodically debunks this smear, showing that her critics selectively framed her 2017 fact-finding trip to Syria as an endorsement of Bashar al-Assad while ignoring the broader context.

Gabbard met with Syrian officials, including Assad, to gather firsthand intelligence—just as numerous U.S. diplomats and leaders have done with foreign adversaries. Yet the same intelligence community figures who cheered John Kerry’s diplomacy with Iran or Obama’s engagement with Cuba framed Gabbard’s visit as treasonous.

The accusation that she was sympathetic to Assad is not only false, it is laughably hypocritical. While Gabbard was vilified for engaging in dialogue, the Obama-Biden administration was funneling weapons to so-called “moderate rebels” in Syria—many of whom had direct ties to terrorist organizations, including al-Qaeda affiliates.

The fact that former intelligence officials helped push the false Assad-Russia smear while staying silent on these actual policies exposes their selective outrage for what it is: partisan opportunism.

The Hunter Biden Laptop and the Intelligence Community’s Role

If there were any lingering doubts about the intelligence community’s descent into partisan activism, the Hunter Biden laptop debacle erased them. In October 2020, just weeks before the presidential election, 51 former intelligence officials signed a letter dismissing the laptop story as Russian disinformation. This action was an orchestrated political maneuver squarely meant to tip the scales in the United States presidential election.

The laptop was real. The contents were damning. And yet, the people who once claimed to be neutral guardians of national security helped bury a story that could have influenced voters. Some of the signatories were still on the CIA payroll—as contractors—when they affixed their names to this political stunt.

The consequences of this deception were profound. Major news outlets and Big Tech platforms didn’t just report on the intelligence community’s false claims—they weaponized them to stifle legitimate journalism. In doing so, they influenced the course of a presidential election while the exact media figures who spent years decrying “foreign election interference” disregarded the interference from within our own institutions—and from within their own newsrooms.

Regrettably, this episode was no anomaly—it was part of a broader pattern of intelligence officials manipulating political narratives. From the Steele dossier to the Mueller probe to the laptop cover-up, the intelligence establishment has repeatedly placed partisan interests above its duty to the American people.

Addressing the Real Issue: Unconstitutional Surveillance, Not Edward Snowden

The decision to discuss Edward Snowden at Gabbard’s senate confirmation hearing conflates her legitimate concerns over unconstitutional surveillance with an endorsement of Snowden’s actions.

Let’s be clear—Snowden broke the law. He knowingly disclosed classified information and fled the country. That is not in dispute, and Gabbard has never suggested otherwise. Yet her opponents deliberately blur the line between her condemnation of illegal government surveillance and endorsement of Snowden’s methods.

At her confirmation hearing, senators didn’t seem interested in debating the real issue—why American citizens were subjected to unconstitutional government surveillance. Instead, they fixated on Snowden, seemingly to sidestep the uncomfortable truth.

Even The New York Times acknowledged that while none of the senators defended the NSA’s illegal bulk collection of Americans’ phone records—because they couldn’t—they were far more eager to defend mass surveillance of foreign communications under Section 702. That shift wasn’t just an attempt to change the subject but a discernible move to avoid confronting the intelligence community’s growing credibility problem. Years of overreach, political interference, and surveillance abuses have badly damaged public trust.

The Real Problem: A Politicized Intelligence Apparatus

And here’s the rub: The intelligence community has repeatedly abused its authority, weaponizing surveillance against American citizens—often beyond the bounds of the law.

Tulsi Gabbard dared to question the abuse and that’s precisely why the establishment fears her.

That’s why they oppose her.

Not because she’s unqualified.

Not because she’s extreme.

But because she threatens the status quo.

The Leadership We Need

Tulsi Gabbard has been relentlessly attacked not because she is unqualified but because she is independent—independent of her former party, the perpetual war machine, and the entrenched political class.

But let’s be clear: The intelligence community’s failures don’t rest with the rank-and-file patriots who serve this country with honor. The problem is at the top—with leaders who have politicized intelligence, weaponized investigations, and eroded public trust to serve their agendas.

Confirming Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence is imperative. We need a leader who will restore integrity, demand accountability, and put national security ahead of politics. This is a rare opportunity to refocus our intelligence agencies on their mission: protecting the United States, not advancing partisan interests.

The attacks on Gabbard aren’t just about her. They expose an intelligence bureaucracy hijacked by political operatives, a leadership class that abandoned its principles long ago, and a system that fears accountability more than it fears failure.

America deserves better. The dedicated men and women of our intelligence agencies deserve better. And Tulsi Gabbard—who has endured smears, slander, and political warfare for daring to stand her ground—deserves far better. The country cannot afford another rubber-stamp bureaucrat willing to look the other way. It needs a leader who will demand accountability, restore credibility, and ensure intelligence serves its true purpose: safeguarding national security, not advancing partisan agendas.

It’s time to demand better.

Let her lead—and let accountability begin.

Trump’s Tariff Diplomacy Is Working

Victor Davis Hanson The Daily Signal February 7, 2025

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USAID Might Be the One Thing Democrats Love More Than Abortion

posted by Derek Hunter at Townhall

There’s a better than average chance you’ve never heard of USAID, the United States Agency for International Development, before because you’re a normal person with a life who doesn’t have time to monitor the thousands of agencies the federal government creates to squander tax dollars while subsidizing progressive policies around the world. Once you realize that you begin to see why the Democrats are so upset at the idea of auditing its books and shining a little sunlight on the whole mess.

It's really odd watching Democrats scramble to circle the wagons around a federal agency with a few thousand faceless bureaucrat employees and, relatively speaking, a small budget. You’d think it was the most important agency the government has, one on which their electoral fates hinged.

But no one in this country is voting for anyone based on their position regarding USAID funding or mission because no one before this week could have told you anything about it, and no one beyond next week will remember it.

Since, however, we don’t live in the past or the future, the now is all about it and Democrats are beside themselves with outrage. Well, it’s fake outrage. Senators and Congressmen dragged staff to the streets to serve as a random crowd of angry Americans to call for war against the Trump administration,which I remember being a bad thing when the president was not named Trump.

All the anger is directed at Elon Musk because Democrats have no answer to him. He is OCD when it comes to waste and inefficiency, and that’s about 85-90 percent of what government is. He’s the man you want on this job…unless you benefit from waste, fraud and abuse.

That’s why Democrats are really so upset.

USAID spends a lot of money well and in the interest of the United States. It also spends a lot of money recklessly on things related to whatever social agenda the radical left has elevated to being the most important thing ever at any given moment. DEI and Trans issues are top of that list right now, and they’re blowing our money on it.

To hear dumb people talk about, these are just pennies and not where you should start when trying to root out waste. Well, the government can multitask, or at least we were always told when Barack Obama and Joe Biden took repeated, extended vacations, but also every drop of water in a pool gets you wet, the shallow end isn’t less to blame.

I have to laugh when I see Elizabeth Warren or Chris Murphy or Chuck Schumer screaming about “No one elected Elon Musk to anything!” I guess I missed the USAID elections somewhere long the way…

Of course, no one voted for it or its leaders. Moreover, USAID is a part of the Executive Branch of government, which has exactly two elected members: President and Vice President. No one else in it, from Cabinet Secretary to mailroom clerk, was elected to anything. And the President gets to oversee and steer all aspects of the Executive Branch.

Given their 30 IQ understanding of our Constitution, I have to assume Democrats skipped that year in civics class.

These people really are a piece of work, or at least a piece of something.

How else to explain an entity like NBC News employing Ginger Goebbels, also known as Jen Psaki, who calls the President doing the job of President as “a hostile takeover of the US government”?

These people are a special kind of stupid, but the ones who actually know better (and you can decide for yourself which ones those are) are evil. Their rhetoric about this insignificant agency wasting a bunch of money is not designed to inform anyone or win someone to their side, it is designed to outrage and, quite frankly, inspire someone to at least try to kill the President, Musk or someone close to them.

How else do you explain a member of the “Squad” calling Elon a “Nazi-Nepo-Baby”? She did so in front of the entire Democratic Congressional Caucus and not one person said anything negative about it, they just giggled. I don’t know if there’s another word for that than “evil.”

Democrats love abortion and will lie, cheat or steal in order to get as many performed in this country as possible. I never thought I’d find anything they love as much as that. Turns out, it’s USAID. At least this week. In a couple of weeks, when the Trump administration really gets going, it will be the Department of Education. Provided Democrats don’t succeed in inspiring the violence they’re so desperate for first.

Country With Record Illiteracy Worried What Will Happen If Education System Reformed

Country With Record Illiteracy Worried What Will Happen If Education System is Reformed

U.S.·Feb 7, 2025 · BabylonBee.com

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Politicians who represent the country with record illiteracy expressed worry about what might happen if the education system responsible for making everyone illiterate were reformed.

"We cannot stand idly by while King Elon Musk guts the Department of Education and replaces it with a better education system that will enrich the lives of all Americans," said Congressman Bill Foster. "I cannot have my constituents learning how to read. What if that leads to them thinking for themselves? Everything we've worked so hard to build would be destroyed."

Concern over the Department of Education's fate reached a boiling point early Friday when politicians marched on the Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building to express concern over possible reforms but were stopped by security. This led to outrage as many legislators were too illiterate to understand the order the security guard had issued.

"You can't stand here!" screamed Maxine Waters, representative of California's 43rd district. "I don't know what the words on the door say but I'm certain they don't say 'closed!'"

As others verbally assaulted the security guard standing in front of the entrance to the building, others carefully read the words on the door to prove that they were not as illiterate as others.

"This says 'All Access Entrance,'" said a proud Representative Lateefah Aaliyah Simon of California. "I can read."

At publishing time, some members of Congress began to regret the record illiteracy in the United States, wondering if perhaps their shouting 'We are members of Congress, look at our ID badges' might have worked if people could read.

https://babylonbee.com/news/country-with-record-illiteracy-worried-what-will-happen-if-education-system-reformed

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World Health Organization Warns Trump Funding Cuts May Delay Release Of New Pandemic

Babylon Bee🐝

GENEVA — World Health Organization (WHO) leaders are sounding the alarm Thursday, warning that President Trump's temporary freeze on federal funding for the organization may delay the release of a new pandemic.

"And that would be terrible," the organization said in a statement. "We've got a cool name for it and everything. Delaying the pandemic now would cost hundreds, maybe thousands of good-paying Chinese jobs."

According to WHO officials, the next pandemic is expected to be a "real doozy" and lead to creative new policies like standing exactly 28.5 feet away from other people, wearing masks over your ears, and burning down churches. But now, at the rate American policies are changing, the pandemic may never even happen.

"No one wants to see their life's work go down the drain," said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. "It's almost like Trump doesn't even care who he hurts as long as he gets to save a buck."

President Trump's approval rating has risen by another 10 points in light of news of the pandemic's likely delay and possible cancelation, surprising members of the mainstream media.

"The COVID pandemic was the best time of my life," said CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins. "We got to scold people and get paid for it! Trump ruins everything!"

At publishing time, President Trump had responded to the WHO's warning by making all funding cuts permanent.

Al Green Gets Mic Dropped by Irate Caller Over New Impeachment Threat During C-SPAN Visit

Democrats simply would not be Democrats if they did not dangle the impeachment carrot in front of the woketivist left within days or weeks of Donald Trump taking office, and this time around has been no exception to the rule.

Rep. Al Green (D-TX), in particular, is a big fan of throwing the threat around carelessly, having done so multiple times during Trump's first term in the White House, and in the process earning the distinction of being the first Congressional Democrat to formally request, on the House floor, impeachment proceedings against him at the time.

“This is about my position. This is about what I believe. And this is where I stand. I will not be moved. The President must be impeached,” Green stated in a speech given on May 17, 2017. Two months later, he would co-sponsor an article of impeachment alongside Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) related to the Russiagate hoax.

Hirono: It's a 'Conspiracy Theory' to Say Dems Wanted Trump Impeached From Day One (But We've Got the Footage)

Here we are in 2025, and Green is back at it again, taking to the House floor not even three weeks into President Trump's second term and going on a wildly unhinged rant, demanding his impeachment over the POTUS' surprise suggestion Tuesday during his meeting with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the U.S essentially take over the Gaza Strip.

In his floor remarks, Green described this as "ethnic cleansing":

“The movement to impeach the president has begun,” Green said on the House floor. “I rise to announce that I will bring articles of impeachment against the president for dastardly deeds proposed and dastardly deeds done.”
[...]
“Ethnic cleansing is not a joke, especially when it emanates from the president of the United States, the most powerful person in the world, when he has the ability to perfect what he says. Ethnic cleansing in Gaza is no joke, and the prime minister of Israel should be ashamed knowing the history of his people,” Green said.

Watch:

Thursday morning, Green appeared on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" program to make his case - and then got schooled by a Savannah, GA, Republican caller named Richard right off the bat:

"Thank you. I watched you yesterday with the Democrat Party, Al, protesting everything that Elon Musk is trying to do for the American people. The USAID is 100 percent a money laundering scheme around the world, kickbacks back to the Democrat Party, whether it's to the Clinton Foundation in Haiti - $4.4 billion and $84 million went to her daughter, Chelsea Clinton.
All y'all have is impeachment, and race, and gender, etc. And you actually do nothing for the people of America today. I think the Democrats should sit back and let America see what it‘s like to reduce the people in government, the wasteful spending. All y‘all can do is just complain and be negative. We are sick of it."

BOOM. Watch:

I think that caller hit the nail on the head.

If Democrats think the American people have an appetite for impeachment at all, let alone so soon after Trump has taken office, they are absolutely delusional. Further, impeachment was not designed to be a weapon used simply due to disagreement with a president's policies or suggestions.

You wouldn't know that by listening to Green, though, who said the quiet part out loud in 2019 about the real reasons why Democrats were weaponizing it against Trump:

Some things - and Democrats - just never change.