The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

 

The good:

The standoff over the federal shutdown has exposed deep fractures within the GOP, particularly around health care — a longstanding vulnerability for Republicans.

The New York Times highlighted in a report Sunday that while Democrats insist they will not support a spending deal without extending the expiring tax credits under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that safeguard coverage for millions, Republicans are split between ideology and electoral reality.

On one end, hard-line conservatives still press to eliminate the ACA outright; on the other, pragmatists recognize that wiping it out without a credible replacement could inflict “a political disaster” on their party, per the report.

The shutdown has forced the GOP into a public tug-of-war over what to do with a law they largely oppose but cannot realistically undo without major risk.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) insisted the dispute is not about health care, calling Democrats’ insistence on subsidies a “red herring” that distracts from the funding fight.

At the same time, top Republicans such as House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) pledged to vote against extending the credits, arguing they would “bail out insurance companies,” even as many recipients live in GOP-held districts.

At least 14 House Republicans and several senators signaled they would support a renewal of the credits through 2027, recognizing what some advisers called “a potential political catastrophe for the G.O.P.” if coverage were lost.

The report noted that the broader dynamic reveals why the party remains stuck. Even though Republicans have long pledged to “repeal and replace” the ACA, they have repeatedly failed to articulate what “replace” means in practice. The 2017 Senate health care bill collapsed amid conservative-moderate splits, leaving GOP leaders without an alternative mapped out.

According to the report, Democrats "have forced the G.O.P. to wrestle publicly with its divisions about what to do with the health care law, which most Republicans revile but many recognize would be impossible to unravel without bringing political disaster to their party.”  (our emphasis)

The bind the MAGAt Republicans are in politically is as a result of their dystopian views on health care and what government's priorities should be in general.  Democrats have all the leverage and are using it surprisingly well.  Please continue.

The bad:

When Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers stormed through Santa Ana, California, in June, panicked calls flooded into the city’s emergency response system.

Recordings of those calls, obtained by ProPublica, captured some of the terror residents felt as they watched masked men ambush people and force them into unmarked cars. In some cases, the men wore plain clothes and refused to identify themselves. There was no way to confirm whether they were immigration agents or imposters. In six of the calls to Santa Ana police, residents described what they were seeing as kidnappings.

“He’s bleeding,” one caller said about a person he saw yanked from a car wash lot and beaten. “They dumped him into a white van. It doesn’t say ICE.”

One woman’s voice shook as she asked, “What kind of police go around without license plates?”

And then this from another: “Should we just run from them?”

During a tense public meeting days later, Mayor Valerie Amezcua and the City Council asked their police chief whether there was anything they could do to rein in the federal agents — even if only to ban the use of masks. The answer was a resounding no. Plus, filing complaints with the Department of Homeland Security was likely to go nowhere because the office that once handled them had been dismantled. There was little chance of holding individual agents accountable for alleged abuses because, among other hurdles, there was no way to reliably learn their identities.

Since then, Amezcua, 58, said she has reluctantly accepted the reality: There are virtually no limits on what federal agents can do to achieve President Donald Trump’s goal of mass deportations. Santa Ana has proven to be a template for much larger raids and even more violent arrests in Chicago and elsewhere. “It’s almost like he tries it out in this county and says, ‘It worked there, so now let me send them there,’” Amezcua said.

Current and former national security officials share the mayor’s concerns. They describe the legions of masked immigration officers operating in near-total anonymity on the orders of the president as the crossing of a line that had long set the United States apart from the world’s most repressive regimes. ICE, in their view, has become an unfettered and unaccountable national police force. The transformation, the officials say, unfolded rapidly and in plain sight. Trump’s DHS appointees swiftly dismantled civil rights guardrails, encouraged agents to wear masks, threatened groups and state governments that stood in their way, and then made so many arrests that the influx overwhelmed lawyers trying to defend immigrants taken out of state or out of the country.

And although they are reluctant to predict the future, the current and former officials worry that this force assembled from federal agents across the country could eventually be turned against any groups the administration labels a threat... (our emphasis)

Let's not mince words:  this is a budding fascist police state in America.  This is part of what the "No Kings" protests were about.  Please read and share the rest of ProPublica's chilling report on "How Trump is building a violent, shadowy Federal police force" with every one you know who's not paying attention to what's happening (and even those who are).

The ugly: 

Israel launched airstrikes on southern Gaza early Sunday in the first major test of its ceasefire with Hamas, as the two sides traded accusations of significant breaches of the deal brokered by President Donald Trump.

Israel said that Hamas had carried out “a blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement” with attacks on its forces in the Rafah area.

Hamas restated its commitment to the truce and said it had no knowledge of any clashes. A senior official accused Israel of working to “fabricate flimsy pretexts” for its own actions.

The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that it had begun strikes around Rafah “to eliminate the threat” posed by militants and “dismantle tunnel shafts and military structures used for terrorist activity.”

Israel said it was acting “in accordance with the ceasefire agreement,” accusing militants of firing an anti-tank missile and gunfire toward IDF troops in the area.

An Israeli military official earlier accused Hamas of a “bold violation of the ceasefire” with incidents including a rocket-propelled grenade attack and a sniper attack against Israeli forces.

“Hamas carried out multiple attacks against Israeli forces beyond the yellow line,” the Israeli military official said, referring to the area where its military is now positioned inside Gaza under the first phase of the ceasefire.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in statement that he had directed officials to take "strong action" against "terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip." Defense Minister Israel Katz said that “Hamas will learn the hard way today that the IDF is determined to protect its soldiers and prevent any harm to them.”

Izzat Al-Rishq, a senior member of Hamas’ political wing, said the group “affirms its commitment to the ceasefire agreement,” accusing Israel of violating the agreement and working to “fabricate flimsy pretexts” to evade its responsibilities.

In a longer statement Sunday, Hamas said it had "fully, accurately, and faithfully committed to implementing the agreement" and accused Israel of repeatedly violating the truce. The group alleges Israeli forces have killed civilians, delayed the release of detainees and blocked aid delivery, warning that Israel would be responsible if the deal collapsed...

"Hello, Nobel Committee?  Sane world here.  You might want to put a hold on any talk about a 2026 Peace Prize for the Malignant Fascist.  The 'ceasefire' the MF said meant the region was 'finally at peace' seems to have ceased in less than a week."  It looks like it was one of those "ceasefires for thee, not for me."