Is It Possible? Do We Have an End to the Arab-Israeli War?
“If Trump pulls off this peace treaty, will you say he did a great thing?” I asked.
He knew, and I knew, that he could not. TDS is a malady that attacks the logic systems in the neocortical brain. The syllogism goes like this: Trump is bad. Therefore, anything he does must be bad, too.
“So?” I repeated.
I could almost see that portion of his brain lighting up. Logically, he couldn’t say “no.” But since his logic system was short-circuited, he said the only thing he could: “Let’s see how long this peace treaty lasts.”
It was the only safe square available to him. And it was a good one. There have been ceasefires and peace agreements before. None of them lasted very long because, in each case, before the ink on the agreement was dry, the group representing the “Palestinian” people went back to attacking Israel.
But on Monday, we woke to find that the initial stage of this agreement had been completed. Israel released nearly 2000 political prisoners and detainees and Hamas released 20 hostages.
As I’m writing this, there are still plenty of foreseeable situations that could derail this ceasefire and peace treaty. And most of them have something to do with the fact that Hamas is a genocidal terrorist group. Yes, Hamas. Not Israel. Hamas is textbook genocidal. Their mission statement says so. They teach their children that Jews are evil and they all deserve to die. (This is not an exaggeration. Look it up.)
But there is one good reason to have hope – and that is the 21-point plan that Trump and his team put together to get the ceasefire in the first place.
Unlike prior ceasefire agreements and peace accords, this one includes terms that make it very difficult for Hamas to use the ceasefire to arm up and launch another assault. If you read it, you can see that it was written based on mistakes in the past – serious mistakes that resulted in the subsequent murders of thousands of Israelis.
It’s also unique in its approach to the governance of Palestine in the future. Instead of giving “the people of Palestine” the right to self-governance with oversight by Israel, Palestine will be governed by locals but under the supervision of a half-dozen Mideastern countries, all but one of which are Arab countries.
The genius of this is that Hamas will be able to say that it achieved peace without giving up its territory, Israel will have accomplished its goals of getting its hostages returned and disarming and effectively abolishing Hamas, and the primary enforcers of the peace agreement going forward will be Arab countries that are almost as interested in ending the war and deactivating Hamas as Israel is.
This is far from over and this peace is far from carved in stone. But for the first time since the Abraham Accords in 2020, we have a coalition of states whose interests coincide with rather than contradict those of Israel and the United States.
Our Blue Cities Are Becoming Safe Again
Another feather in Big Orange’s cap: Since August, when the National Guard was sent into DC in response to several grisly murders, the capital city has been miraculously transformed from one of the most violent cities in the country (about one murder per day) to one of the safest.
And the same thing is happening in Los Angeles and Baltimore and Chicago, whose murder and violent crime record is not only the worst in the US, but among the worst in the world, including Venezuela, South Africa, and Afghanistan.
The Little Fight Against Big Food & Drugs Continues
RFK Jr. continues his efforts to battle the Food & Drug Industrial Complex by, among other things, getting Trump to open up the dialog on how unhealthy the US diet is and how ineffective and dangerous many of the most commonly prescribed drugs are by uncovering and publishing hundreds of studies that support his longstanding “conspiracy theories” about vaccines and acetaminophen. (See below.)
There is no doubt in my mind – regardless of what you think about the man – that Trump is the most “impactful” (as they say) president we have had in office since Lyndon Johnson.
Is Tylenol Really Dangerous for Pregnant Women?
Donald Trump is well practiced in saying surprising things, and when he declared that Tylenol was dangerous for pregnant women, the mainstream media jumped on it, thinking this would be another “Haitians steal dogs for dinner.”
It turns out that the statement is not as crazy as it sounds. According to a just-released report from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS):
There are numerous prenatal drugs and substances that have been associated with increased risk of childhood neuropsychiatric or neurodevelopmental disorders (such as autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, intellectual disability, anxiety, depression, behavioral problems, or cognitive deficits) in the scientific literature. Based on a synthesis of peer-reviewed sources (including systematic reviews, cohort studies, and meta-analyses from PubMed, JAMA, BMJ, and other databases), at least 30 specific drugs have been associated with these risks to varying degrees.
For example:
* Anticonvulsants/Antiseizure Medications (5+ drugs) – These are commonly linked to neurodevelopmental risks, especially autism and intellectual disability, due to interference with brain development.
* Antidepressants (15+ drugs) – Prenatal exposure, especially in the first trimester, has been linked to ASD, ADHD, altered brain development, and behavioral issues.
* Antipsychotics (7+ drugs) – Associated with neurodevelopmental disorders and learning difficulties.
* Opioids (4+ drugs) – Linked to lower cognitive/motor skills, ADHD, and behavioral disorders.
And one of those 30+ drugs is – you guessed it – acetaminophen (as in Tylenol).
Holy Moley! I Can’t Believe This Happened!
Bari Weiss, the former award-winning NYT and WSJ reporter who, in 2021, founded The Free Press, has been named the editor-in-chief of CBS News.
CBS News, perhaps the most distinguished of the legacy news channels, was recently taken over by David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance. And one of the first decisions Ellison made was to buy The Free Press and hire Weiss.
This is big news. I don’t know whether it’s good or bad at this point, but it’s big. CBS News was a staunchly pro-Biden, anti-Trump establishment company. The Free Press is a renegade start-up whose political, social, and economic views range across the ideological divide but settle, at least in Weiss’s view, in the center. In fact, when she quit the NYT’s editorial staff in 2020, she accused the company of being hostile to her unwillingness to toe the establishment line.
The Free Press – which I’ve been a subscriber to and a fan of since its inception – had an impressive start. As of April, the site had a reported 1.25 million readers and 155,000 paid subscribers. Critics argue that Weiss, who built a career largely in newspaper-based op-ed roles, lacks experience in broadcast journalism.
The question on my mind – and I’m sure thousands of others – is whether her move to the news company that once employed Walter Cronkite will change her great accomplishment of putting out news and views that are not filtered through an ideological lens, or whether she can make CBS a news source that people can trust.
What Is Elon Musk Doing in Memphis?
You don’t have to be a fan of Elon Musk to know that once he sets his mind to doing something, he pursues it intelligently but also megalomaniacally, and that results in a very high probability of accomplishment.
According to a colleague of mine, Musk is currently hyper-busy on what my colleague believes is his next multibillion-dollar adventure. He is building a huge data center – something called “Colossus” – in Memphis.
You can find out more about it here.
