☕️ OVERLONG GOODBYES ☙ Thursday, January 16, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

MidEast peace deal offers hostage return but media complains; Biden's baffling long farewell settles political scores not much else; Florida's great Governor leads immigration from the front; more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Thursday! Can you believe we have only four more days? Today’s quick but hard-hitting roundup: possible Middle East peace deal hangs in the balance while media tries to scare up a controversy; Joe Biden delivers an extended farewell address to the nation and settles scores; and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis throws down the immigration enforcement glove, once again leading the nation FROM THE FRONT.

🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍

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The New York Times dourly ran what should have been an encouraging story yesterday headlined, “Biden and Trump Defy Their History of Animosity to Seal Gaza Cease-Fire.” Leave it to the Times to obscure good news. The potential deal is much better than some temporary cease-fire; the terms between Israel and Hamas would require the return of all civilian hostages, just as Trump demanded. But the Times (and all corporate media) still managed to find a dead Gates Foundation mosquito in the good news ointment, a media-generated controversy over the credit: “But the extraordinary collaboration between outgoing and incoming presidents did not stop both sides from claiming credit.”

To be honest, corporate media has just been a sad disappointment lately. They used to be so much cleverer. It really seems like they are getting dumber by the minute. This was another brainless take, a failed narrative, since the deal isn’t done. It’s only mostly done, so there’s no real credit contest. It’s all made up, they jumped too fast.

For the record, Israel’s politically-savvy Prime Minister thanked both Trump and Biden yesterday evening (although, perhaps wisely, Trump first). It’s too early to safely assign credit for a deal not yet signed.

All that said, there is plenty of reason to believe it is, in fact, the Trump Effect producing another miracle: the first significant movement in the conflict since October 7, 2023, the date of the original barbaric invasion.

First of all, the Biden Administration has allegedly been trying to broker a peace deal for over a year now. Regular readers will recall Biden’s negotiations have, for some reason, been led by the CIA instead of the State Department for what, despite the Biden Administration’s stalwart ‘commitment to transparency,’ remains a complete mystery. But set that aside. The point is, no deal even got close to being inked until now, the last few days before Trump’s Inauguration.

Indeed, the reports say Biden’s negotiators offered this same deal in May (which is why they call it “Biden’s deal”) but Hamas refused. It seems logical they only agreed to it now because of the pending change in U.S. government.

It required more than just the Trump Effect by itself. On top of issuing broad, ill-defined, Reagan-like threats against Hamas, Trump also dispatched his long-time friend and real-estate developer Steven Witkoff to the Middle East to help Biden’s Team negotiate.

Various reports suggest Witkoff promptly took the lead, and that he’s a hardened, hard-charging dickerer with haggling skills comparable to a Turkish rug merchant. For example, earlier this week, Israeli media complained about Witkoff’s unyielding demands, disclosing that Witkoff had insisted on meeting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in person on Saturday, despite the Prime Minister’s protests about it being the Jewish Sabbath.

Apparently, Witkoff —then in Qatar, presumably meeting with Hamas representatives— responded “spicily” after Netanyahu’s aides offered different dates. The upshot was the men met at Netanyahu’s office. On Saturday, just as Witkoff had asked.

In other words, Witkoff got Netanyahu to change his position from “no” to “yes” in an early round, preparing him psychologically for making more material concessions in later rounds. Brilliant. The Art of the Deal.

The Times quoted former Representative Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), who is no Trump fan, admitting on Twitter that the ‘deal,’ such as it is, only came together because of the Trump Effect:

🔥 Despite all the frantic triumphalism celebrating the cease-fire agreement, as of this morning it remains un-inked, and it involves parties notorious for agreeing to things and then backing out, sort of like what we used to call “Indian giving” until we found out that was racist, or culturally appropriative, or micro-agressive, or something, dammit, I can’t be expected to keep up with all this nonsense.

In any event, Netanyahu obviously agreed. The outlines of the agreement must still be approved by Israel’s cabinet in a meeting scheduled for later today, and as of this morning, the Jerusalem Post was already complaining Hamas is ‘trying to change the deal.’ Apparently, not all the details have been fully worked out. So things could still easily go sideways.

There is a curious historical parallel. The Times invested several paragraphs eerily comparing President Carter’s mangled hostage crisis to this one. In 1981, Carter finally managed to broker a deal with the Iranians to return over 400 American diplomatic staff after years of standoff, but only because of incoming President Reagan’s threat. History has properly credited Reagan for ending the Carter’s hostage crisis.

Both Biden and the Times are worried that, just like Reagan, Trump might get the credit for ending this hostage crisis, too. Credit is the last thing they should be worrying about, but they cannot help it.

Not only that, but a deeply paranoid Biden believes the Prime Minister is trying to screw him — on purpose. The Times reported, “Biden advisers and allies have suspected that Mr. Netanyahu was deliberately holding off on a cease-fire deal to hand the victory to Mr. Trump in an effort to kowtow to him.”

Think about the unlimited narcissism revealed by that comment. Biden and his team actually believe that Israel’s Prime Minister would let the hostages molder in captivity for months and endure all the negative political damage the awful, Carter-like crisis is inflicting on Bibi — just to score a few points with Trump. Their arrogance truly has no boundaries.

While opinions may differ on the value (or lack thereof) of Israel’s global influence, even here, most folks will agree that getting the innocent hostages back and halting the fighting would be good for everybody.

It is terrific and encouraging progress. But since the deal isn’t done yet, nobody can claim the credit. We pray for peace, for the hostages, and for their families.

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The Times wasn’t done burnishing Biden’s bunions. It ran a front-page story this morning headlined, “In Farewell Address, Biden Warns of an ‘Oligarchy’ Taking Shape in America.” In a 17-minute farewell that only felt like an hour and a half, Joe used his whispery, slow voice to interminably say goodbye. You know the one, the voice with less emotional range than a talking doll, each sentence repetitively sighed out with the exact same rhythm and cadence, the emphasis always landing on the final syllable. Maybe talking that way hypnotizes Democrats or something.

CLIP: Jesse Watters’ summary of Biden’s extended farewell (1:13).

It might not have been the longest presidential farewell in American history, but it felt like it. Joe’s speechwriters failed. It was so enervating that none of the headlines quoted a single sound bite, perhaps fearing the written version would stun readers into sleepy boredom. Most tellingly, out of all the half-dozen long-form, magazine-style articles the Times ran about Joe’s long goodbye (17-minutes!) and his wonderful “legacy” — not one included a clear picture from last night’s address. I had to grab the one above off Twitter.

Sometimes, we can learn more about what the corporate media thinks by what it doesn’t report.

🔥 In typical Biden style, his speech was a pugilistic opportunity to settle some final scores. After spending four years calling Republicans “dangerous” (especially MAGA supporters), Biden directed his dangerous ire into dark warnings about Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Trump, and even Congressional Democrats, since Nancy Pelosi pushed him out and nobody stuck up for him.

“It literally threatens our very democracy,” Joe began, repeating his most-used line, misusing the word “literally” again, and obscuring which problem “it” referred to.

All of “it,” I suppose. Or, Joe was full of “it.” Your choice.

🔥 Since Elon Musk helped the Republicans win the most recent election, Joe has —too late— discovered the awful threat of “oligarchs” —meaning billionaires— influencing politics. Oh, it was perfectly fine when George Soros and Mark Zuckerberg did it to help Democrats undermine our representative form of government. But now, Joe practically feels like fainting at the thought any billionaire could courageously align with conservatives — despite the risk of Democrat retaliation. But I digress.

At bottom, it was embarassingly obvious that Joe was just mad at Elon, so his handlers wrote a song about it. That’s all it amounted to. Not one reportable soundbite. (Media loved the word “oligarch” though, so expect a lot more of that over the next four years. And Joe should know about oligarchs; some of his best business deals involved them.)

In what his speechwriters probably expected to be Biden’s most clever moment, the Old Man recalled Eisenhower’s warning about the military-industrial complex —a prophetic warning we completely ignored— and offered his very own version: the looming danger of the rising ‘tech-industrial complex.’ Hearing that piqued our interest; maybe Biden would talk about the dangers of AI, self-directed weapons, gene editing, and photo fakery—truly threatening technologies that nobody seems able to get an arm around.

But no, whatever promise was offered by all that history and the dramatic rhetorical setup immediately fizzled. It turned out all Biden meant by “tech-industrial complex” was the lack of government control over ‘free speech.’ He’s just mad that Zuckerberg threw him under the bus this week, so he was getting in a few licks.

🔥 Finally, the speech’s physical characteristics amounted to a kind of gloomy metaphor for Biden’s presidency. Joe started in the basement without anyone but family, no rallies, events, or press conferences, only the continuous flicker of his ever-fading Zoom presence and the discordant dripping of his endless teleprompter gaffes. And now, in a very similar manner, his failed presidency has ended, again alone, again in a room with no one but family, no supporters, no fans, no allies, no ceremony — just Joe, reading his script, winding it down.

So that’s about it! There’s no need now to watch Joe’s Long Goodbye (you’re welcome). How we have longed for this happy day! Seeing Joe go was almost worth watching the whole 17 minutes. Almost.

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Fox13-Tampa Bay ran a story yesterday headlined “Governor Ron DeSantis, law enforcement officials push 'sense of urgency' on illegal immigration.” Two days ago, the leaders of Florida’s legislature pushed back against DeSantis’ plan to hold a special legislative session on immigration, calling the Governor’s plan “poorly defined” and “unnecessary.” So the Governor amped up the pressure. Yesterday, he held a press conference with Florida’s most popular sheriffs and laid out a more specific and very aggressive list of bold immigration reforms he wants to see legislators deliver next week.

CLIP: DeSantis and law enforcement officers hold presser on permanently solving the immigration crisis in Florida and leading the nation (1:21:00).

“We in Florida have a sense of urgency to accomplish this mission,” DeSantis explained. Well, most of us have a sense of urgency. “The mission is very simple,” he continued, “we need to end the illegal immigration crisis once and for all in these United States of America.”

Huzzah.

As he often did during covid, DeSantis also delivered a one-page primer describing the legislative package he is looking for. The scope of what the Nation’s Best Governor wants is astonishingly bold:

“You can’t just say ‘wait till they commit a serious felony’ until you deport them,” DeSantis argued. “If you have gangs, like these Venezuelan gangs running roughshod around the country —we have some in Florida, too— you shouldn’t have to wait for them to commit a crime and victimize somebody. You should be able to just turn ‘em over to ICE and get them back to their home country where they belong.”

Indeed.

Leading —from the front— Governor DeSantis added, “We need to enact strong policies that will help this Administration accomplish the mission the American people spoke loudly and clearly about in November.”

As we reported yesterday, the Governor recalled Florida’s lawmakers back to Tallahassee on January 27th to handle this agenda. I’m somewhat sympathetic to the legislators, whose late January schedules are being ripped to shreds. Plus, here in stingy Florida, where we don’t turn politics into permanent careers, lawmakers only receive $29,697 a year for their service. They also get $152 per diem during legislative sessions, which is not luxurious.

So we can sympathize with their discomfort, but we also have expectations for their commitment. They all signed up for this. And this is why we voted for them. Like during the pandemic, now is the time for Florida’s lawmakers to lead the country like our stellar Governor is doing. Now is their opportunity to help make history help and make the country great again.

Legislators: we are with you. Trust Governor DeSantis and follow his lead. Remember how well DeSantis led us during covid. Grab this historical moment with both hands. Turn our national Titanic back into a luxury cruise.

The Inauguration is in four days. Brace for impact!

Have a terrific Thursday! Sail back here tomorrow morning for another delightful trip on the S.S. Coffee and Covid, when we will tour the islands of essential news and commentary.

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