(Image: Taken by Me!)
THAT IS SOME SMOKE OUT THERE TODAY And after walking Jinx this morning I've decided to not leave my house today. Say a prayer for those in harm's way from these fires and if you know any rain dances, now would be a good time to bust them out.
IT'S ASK US ANYTHING TODAY AT 1! Grant is with us for today and then Angie is back in Monday from her super secret Army stuff so let's do an Ask Us Anything. I know an AUA is not the same as an AMA but we've got three of us and maybe you want to ask Dave or Grant a question. Let's make this a good one!
ABOUT THE UAE PEACE PLAN WITH ISRAEL The deal announced by the Trump Administration yesterday is the biggest accomplishment of his Presidency. There, I said it. Across the board, opinionistas are waxing poetic about the importance of this deal. It not only normalizes relations between the United Arab Emirates, it also prevent further annexation of the West Bank by Israel, which is a MAJOR concession by Israel, one they said they would not make. Even Thomas Friedman agrees that it was the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Plan put together by Jared Kushner that laid the foundation for this deal. From Friedman's column:
The Kushner plan basically called for Israel and the Palestinians to make peace, with Israel being able to annex some 30 percent of the West Bank, where most of its settlers were, and the Palestinians getting to establish a demilitarized, patchwork state on the other 70 percent, along with some land swaps from Israel.
The Palestinians rejected the deal outright as unbalanced and unjust.
....
It didn’t work, because Kushner, who was hearing regularly from Egypt, Jordan and the gulf Arabs that such a unilateral Israeli annexation would be a total deal-breaker for them, told Bibi, “Not so fast.” Kushner persuaded Trump to block Bibi’s cherry-picking of the plan by taking annexation now.
This was causing Netanyahu to lose support from the settlers — and, at a time when he is on trial on corruption charges and facing daily protests outside his home over his poor performance in leading Israel out of the coronavirus epidemic, left him sinking in the polls.
So what Trump, Kushner, Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, the de facto leader of the Emirates, and Netanyahu did was turn lemons into lemonade, explained Itamar Rabinovich, one of Israel’s leading Middle East historians and a former ambassador to Washington.
This seems to a be a case of starting the negotiations so high there was only down to go, and it worked.
RICHARD GRENELL WANTS EVERYONE TO REMEMBER HOW WRONG PEOPLE WERE ABOUT TRUMP'S FOREIGN POLICY And I think he makes some good points here regarding how everyone thinks Trump is a rube but he's always working in the background. Read this for more on how this is part of the longer game Trump and his team have been playing.
WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS IN THE WEST BANK? This article does a relatively fair job explaining why the settlements are so controversial.
AND YOU MUST UNDERSTAND THE SIX DAY WAR AS WELL And this is a GREAT article that explains how Israel took control of the West Bank in the first place. Very good history lesson here.
A SHORT LIST OF THINGS PRESIDENT BIDEN/HARRIS WILL BAN And it's what you might think: fracking, assault weapons and drilling on federal lands. But also in the list are plastic straws and bags and a mask mandate, which I guess is a ban on breathing freely.
DO YOU TRUST COPS? If so, you are in the minority now. A new Gallup poll says that a minority of Americans say they trust cops and this is sad to me. I understand someone who has had a negative experience with police officers in the past feeling this way, but really America? What do you tell your kids to do if they are in trouble? Who do they turn to? This is just sad and another notification that another key component of our society has been successfully attacked and destroyed. When you undermine trust in all major institutions, it's easy to overthrow it.
LET'S HERE IT FOR MALE KARENS! Ryan Long continues his reign of comedy genius.
THE DOJ FINDS DISCRIMINATION AT YALE And it's against Asian and White students. Uh-oh. This is the same thing that has been happening at Yale for YEARS as they punish high performing Asian students for being Asian. It's about time someone stood up to this nonsense.
DR. FAUCI SAYS AIMING FOR HERD IMMUNITY IS A BAD IDEA And he said so in an interview with actor Matt McConaughey on Instagram. He says that too many people would die because we are fat and have high blood pressure and diabetes. He may have a point there, though he said it more tactfully.
LIBERALS WHO LIVE IN GENTRIFIED NEIGHBORHOODS ARE SUPPOSED TO GIVE BLACK PEOPLE THEIR HOUSES And if you want to alienate an ally, this is pretty much how you do it. If you want to see video of black people yelling at white people that they need to give their houses to black people, you can see that here.
PLAY STUPID GAMES, WIN STUPID PRIZES OR WOMAN ON A BUFFALOOOOO And this idiot woman is lucky she's not dead after deciding to get close to a herd of buffalo and their calfs. Moron.
WHY DO WE SEE FACES IN OBJECTS? There is a scientific reason for it and it's kinda cool. Read about it here.
NOTHING SAYS "YOU MATTER" MORE THAN A 60 SECOND SPEAKING SLOT Frankly, I would turn this down, but Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes won't because she can't pass the chance to be seen up. She's been allotted sixty whole seconds to prepare recorded remarks for the virtual DNC. Heh. This is worse than not being asked at all.