Abbreviated Pundit Roundup is a long-running series published every morning that collects essential political discussion and analysis around the internet.
We begin today with Itamar Eichner of Ynet News who was the first to report that Minister without portfolio and Knesset opposition leader Benny Gantz will be traveling the United States today for high-level talks about the situation in Gaza; apparently without the initial approval of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
This visit comes at a time when efforts to secure a hostage exchange deal have been ongoing for quite some time, and amidst reports in the U.S. that the American government is losing patience with Netanyahu's conduct in the war - and allegations that he is being restrained by his government partners Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
The Prime Minister's Office expressed anger at the publication of Ynet and clarified that Gantz is flying without the Prime Minister's approval, contrary to the government regulations, which "require every minister to coordinate his trip in advance with the Prime Minister, including approval of the travel plan."
According to Netanyahu's associates, "the Prime Minister clarified to Minister Gantz that the State of Israel has only one Prime Minister." From Washington, Gantz is expected to continue to London.
Trevor Hunnicutt of Reuters reports that among the officials that Minister Gantz will meet with are Vice President Kamala Harris, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and members from both parties of Congress.
The talks, first reported by Reuters, are expected to span topics including reducing Palestinian civilian casualties, securing a temporary ceasefire, the release of hostages held in Gaza and increasing aid to the territory, a White House official said.
"The Vice President will express her concern over the safety of the as many as 1.5 million people in Rafah," the official said, adding that Israel also had a "right to defend itself in the face of continued Hamas terrorist threats."
A statement from Gantz confirmed that he would meet with Harris, as well as with U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Republican and Democratic members of U.S. Congress.
"Minister Gantz personally updated the prime minister on his own initiative on Friday of his intention to travel, in order to coordinate the messages to be transmitted in the meetings," the statement said.
Yasmin Rufo and David Gritten of BBC News write about petitions to the Israeli and Egyptian governments by journalists and news organizations for international journalists to have access to Gaza.
Only one foreign journalist has been granted entry into Gaza through Egypt on an escorted visit. CNN's Clarissa Ward - who is among the signatories of the letter - was able to spend only a few hours on the ground in the southern border city of Rafah with an Emirati medical team in December.
The letter calls on Israel's government to "openly state its permission for international journalists to operate in Gaza".
It also asks Egyptian authorities to allow foreign press access to the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza.
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The broadcasters represented in the letter are the UK's BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky News, and the US outlets ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC.
A number of journalists who signed the letter have been reporting from Israel during the conflict.
As I have said, while I have some sympathy for the Gazan journalists already operating at great risk to their lives and the lives of their loved ones, I am under no illusion that those Gazan journalists have operated independently of the influence of Hamas.
Nor do I entirely trust the reporting of the number of Western journalists embedded with the IDF; after all, the IDF will show those journalists what they want seen and reported.
Most of the international journalists there have reported on conflicts and wars before. Allowing them freedom to report on the war without “embedding” may also serve to better protect those Palestinian journalist who have been losing their lives.
Turning to domestic matters, Super Tuesday is coming up and with the presidential primaries all but wrapped up, I’ll focus on downballot items beginning with High Point University’s poll showing a substantial lead for candidates in both the Republican and Democratic primaries for governor of North Carolina.
In the Democratic primary for governor of North Carolina, Josh Stein has support of 57% of the vote among likely and self-reported Democratic primary voters. He is followed by Michael R. Morgan (14%), Gary Foxx (10%), Chrelle Booker (10%) and Marcus Williams (9%).
In the Republican primary for governor, Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson has 51% support among these likely and self-reported Republican primary voters. Bill Graham and Dale Folwell have less support with these voters, receiving 33% and 17% of the vote, respectively. [...]
There is no clear front-runner in the Democratic primary for attorney general of North Carolina. Democratic likely and self-reported primary voters appear to be split between Jeff Jackson (36%), Tim Dunn (33%) and Satana Deberry (31%).
Avi Bajpai of the Charlotte Observer reports that a Republican Super PAC appears to be funding a Democratic candidate for North Carolina Attorney General.
A mysterious new super PAC that has spent close to a million dollars promoting Satana Deberry in the Democratic primary for state attorney general is being funded by the Republican Attorneys General Association, new election filings show.
The group, And Justice For All, started buying TV, radio and digital ads last month in support of Deberry, the Durham County District Attorney who is running against U.S. Rep. Jeff Jackson of Charlotte and Fayetteville attorney Tim Dunn in Tuesday’s Democratic primary.
Details initially available about the super PAC’s expenditures, such as the bank and media buyer it was using, showed ties to groups typically used by Republicans. But not much else was known about the group or who was behind it. [...]
As of Feb. 29, the group had spent more than $950,000 on TV and radio ads, digital ads, mailers, and text messages in support of Deberry.
The ads promote Deberry’s liberal record and suggest she’s the “real progressive” in the race, according to Charlotte radio station WFAE.
Francine Kiefer of The Christian Science Monitor says that it looks like a ballot initiative to link California’s mental health systems with its affordable housing systems appears likely to win the support of a majority of California voters.
As states across America grapple with the twin challenges of rising homelessness and mental illness, California’s counties are clamoring for more places like ASC. But there aren’t enough of them. Neither is there enough affordable housing in this expensive state. Despite billions spent in recent years, homelessness has increased, and many unhoused people struggle with mental illness and addiction. All of this has rolled into a perfect storm impacting public health and safety, businesses, and quality of life – making homelessness a top concern for California voters.
Politicians, not surprisingly, are under tremendous pressure to do something. Their latest effort, Proposition 1, which will be on the March 5 ballot, would overhaul the state’s mental health system to firmly link it to housing. For the first time, counties would be required to spend behavioral health dollars on housing for homeless people with mental illness and addictions. Proposition 1 also includes a $6.4 billion state bond to secure supportive housing and treatment places for homeless people, with $1 billion for veterans. Gov. Gavin Newsom dubs it “treatment, not tents.”
The measure has its critics. One main objection is that more county behavioral health dollars for housing means fewer for mental health services. While the ballot measure promises more than 11,000 places for treatment and living, the independent state legislative analyst says the new measure would reduce statewide homelessness “by only a small amount.” Yet the legislation behind the measure passed with near unanimity in Sacramento last year. Opinion polling shows nearly two-thirds of likely voters support it.
Christopher Hooks of Texas Monthly takes a look at the struggle of Texas state House Speaker Dade Phelan to win his primary in spite of the endorsement of former governor Rick Perry as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton seeks revenge on those who chose to impeach him last year.
On February 16, money has come calling to the Jack Brooks Regional Airport in Nederland, south of Beaumont, where Speaker Dade Phelan is holding a campaign rally. It is the week before the start of early voting in the Republican Primary. Phelan is suffering through an unprecedentedly brutal bid to be reelected Speaker. He faces two candidates in this first round to retain his seat, the most formidable being David Covey, a right-wing Christian conservative and the former chair of the Republican party of Orange County, which straddles the Louisiana state line near Beaumont. (The third candidate, Alicia Davis, a hairdresser from Jasper, has not been showered in attention and resources like Covey has.) The most powerful Republicans in the state have either endorsed Covey or are staying out of the race altogether. Phelan hopes to win a majority of the vote to avoid a runoff and smooth the way to his next Speaker vote. [...]
Ever since the state’s founding, the political religion of the state has been economic development. Southeast Texas is littered with its temples. On the night of the rally, moonlight illuminates clouds of water vapor and other emissions rising from petroleum refineries in the distance. The Port Arthur Canal snakes around the airport, which has just one daily flight left, an American Eagle shuttle to Dallas–Fort Worth. The namesake of the airport, Jack Brooks, represented the area in Congress for 42 years as a conservative Democrat—as Perry was once. In his day, politicians gained power to help their constituents. In 1994, in a sign of changing times, Brooks lost the general election to Republican Steve Stockman, a right-wing ideologue who spoke the new vernacular of talk radio and was later convicted of felony money laundering.
Nothing to do with Democratic Party politics, of course, but given the surprise impeachment of Paxton last summer, I was curious.
Anita Hofschneider of the climate blog Grist reports that a federal study shows climate change may lead to the exposure of nuclear waste in some parts of the world.
A federal report by the Government Accountability Office published last month examines what’s left of that nuclear contamination, not only in the Pacific but also in Greenland and Spain. The authors conclude that climate change could disturb nuclear waste left in Greenland and the Marshall Islands. “Rising sea levels could spread contamination in RMI, and conflicting risk assessments cause residents to distrust radiological information from the U.S. Department of Energy,” the report says.
In Greenland, chemical pollution and radioactive liquid are frozen in ice sheets, left over from a nuclear power plant on a U.S. military research base where scientists studied the potential to install nuclear missiles. The report didn’t specify how or where nuclear contamination could migrate in the Pacific or Greenland, or what if any health risks that might pose to people living nearby. However, the authors did note that in Greenland, frozen waste could be exposed by 2100.
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The authors of the GAO study wrote that Greenland and Denmark haven’t proposed any cleanup plans, but also cited studies that say much of the nuclear waste has already decayed and will be diluted by melting ice. However, those studies do note that chemical waste such as polychlorinated biphenyls, man-made chemicals better known as PCBs that are carcinogenic, “may be the most consequential waste at Camp Century.”
Carmen Morán Breña of El País in English writes about the just-finished Mexican Open tennis tournament which took place in Acapulco. It’s was the city’s first major event since Hurricane Otis devastated the town this past October.
People say that crises bring opportunities. Many imagined a new-look Acapulco following the devastation of Hurricane Otis, an apocalypse that would usher in peace through the reconstruction of the city, or so the most optimistic people thought. However, the calm has not followed the storm, at least not yet. During these days, in which the battered pearl of the Pacific is staging the Mexican Tennis Open as a symbol of the yearned-for normality, all is still not well in the region. There are still long queues in supermarkets to exchange the vouchers issued by the government for food before they expire and many of those affected are waiting to be censused to receive the expected aid. Violence has resulted in various deaths in the last week alone, with the customary scenario of bodies shot to death or severed heads accompanied by narco-messages. Public and private transportation has ceased to operate on several occasions in protest against the attacks perpetrated by organized criminal groups. In the meantime, the governors have hailed the big Latin American tennis event with grandiose phrases: “The port lives, shines and will shine stronger than ever. We want a new Acapulco,” recently exclaimed the governor, Evelyn Salgado.
Hoteliers still estimate that it will take two years before they can run at full capacity, given the extent of the destruction caused by the hurricane that swept in from the sea in the early hours of October 26. Health officials are working tirelessly to bring to an end as soon as possible the dengue epidemic that caused the collapse of the health services. Acapulco is still struggling to get back on its feet, which is why the tennis tournament, hosted in the city since 2001, represents two sides of the coin. On the one hand, it is an opportunity to stimulate tourism and employment. On the other, it is evidence that basic needs and outbreaks of violence cannot be camouflaged with a sporting showcase. [...]
Perhaps nothing can stop crime. People thought at first, the hurricane that devastated the city would drive the corrupt narcos out of Acapulco and the community could rebuild itself with other social parameters. But this was not the case. The assassinations have been ongoing and there are many who believe that the economic gains from the reconstruction will provide a lifeline for the gang members and their diverse circle, which sometimes involves politics and the business sector. The crisis of violence in the transport sector certainly includes some of this. “We thought that with Otis’ battering they would have no one to extort money from, all the businesses closed, but they have targeted the transport sector,” says the journalist Muñoz Cano. Indeed, the mafias that fight over transportation have triggered numerous crises in Acapulco and the whole state of Guerrero, causing deaths and placing the state government in a complex situation. Burned taxis, murdered drivers. The state responds to each crisis by pledging to provide more police to reinforce the routes, but nothing can deter crime.
Finally today, Gary Younge writes for The New York Review of Books (paywalled $$$) about the rise and (continuing) fall of the British Empire.
Britain’s diminished status has been anticipated for some time. It was, to my mind, best captured by the broadcaster Peter Jennings on New Year’s Eve 2000 as he watched an impressive fireworks display cascade over the River Thames:
It’s something of a reminder for those people who pay attention to history that in 1900, when Queen Victoria was on the throne, she presided over the largest empire in history. Four hundred million people, one fifth the earth’s surface…. And now as we come to the end of the century, for all this fantastic show that they’ve put on…Britain’s possessions have dwindled…but the Falkland Islands are still British.
Britain’s decline is relative, of course (its economy remains the sixth largest in the world), but it is real (it was fifth until the end of 2021, when India, its erstwhile colony, overtook it). Decades ago this diminishment was understood to be gradual and generational. After the Suez Crisis in 1956, there was an attempt to retreat to this smaller position in an orderly manner. I’m fifty-five, and my generation’s parents grew up in a virtually monoracial country, reliant on heavy industry, with the globe colored pink to mark British territories. I was raised to learn the metric system, the names of new countries—Zimbabwe, Benin, Burkina Faso—in a nation that saw itself as the stable conduit between Europe and America, with postcolonial ties across the globe. My children’s cohort has adjusted to an economy in which Indian restaurants employ more people than steel, coal, and shipbuilding all put together, and membership in the EU is a fact of history. [...]
What has happened to Britain? For all its faults, the British ruling class used to take itself seriously—if anything, too seriously. No one would accuse it of doing that now. The deluded act of self-harm otherwise known as Brexit was the most glaring example: for momentary electoral gain and an internal party truce, former prime minister David Cameron asked the country a question to which he did not want to know the answer and then resigned when they got it “wrong.” A nation that insisted on an aggressive, isolating version of its own sovereignty has spent the past eight years struggling to figure out what to do with it. But Brexit also acted as a sifting mechanism, elevating the least serious to the top.
I mostly remember watching MSNBC on New Year’s Eve 1999 but I recall ABC’s Peter Jennings’s talking a lot about clocks. New Year’s Eve 2000 in London was by far the best fireworks display of the night...and of course, Big Ben going off at the turn of the millennium did make it seem as though it was a New Year even though it still remained seven hours away here in Chicago.
And, of course, there was this stunner on New Year’s Eve 1999. And yes, there was a slight concern about those Russian missiles.
Try to have the best possible day everyone!