THE SHOW NOTES: Biden's Botched Red Sea Response, Increasing Pressure on Hamas, & Antisemitism on College Campuses

Welcome! A former Bernie Sanders staffer just said the unthinkable about Israel.

HEADLINE: School Assigned Girl to Sleep With Boy Who Identifies as Trans Without Parental Notification - Daily Signal

WHAT: Two Years Later, No EV Chargers Have Been Installed After Congress’ $7.5 Billion Investment - The Messenger

WATCH: A house in Virginia explodes when police approach it with a search warrant. - Twitter

LOL: John Fetterman paid George Santos $343 for a Cameo to troll Bob Mendendez - BI

The Show Notes is my blueprint for radio but is only for subscribers. You can subscribe and listen here.

Increasing Pressure on Hamas

The Israeli military has allegedly cornered the remaining Hamas fighters in northern Gaza into two distinct neighborhoods as Israel begins to shift its focus to the south. Gaza City’s Shajaiya neighborhood and the city of Jabalia have been the targets of heavy airstrikes that have resulted in the death of Hamas’s battalion commander.

Southern Gaza: Israeli troops are currently engaged in some of the heaviest firefights of the two-month war in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. The remaining Hamas fighters not battling Israeli troops in the north have likely entrenched themselves in Gaza’s second-largest city where the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is all but certain to be located. It is widely assumed the remaining Israeli hostages are being held here as well.

Drugged: Following the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for a temporary ceasefire, Israeli officials can confirm that Hamas drugged the released hostages with Klonopin to make them look happy.

Tunnels: Israel has constructed a plan to flood the infamous tunnels Hamas uses to secretly traverse the city. Large pumps have been constructed along the Mediterranian Sea that could pump enough seawater to flood the tunnels within weeks.

Netanyahu: The corruption trial of Benjamin Netanyahu has resumed following Israel’s decision to pause all non-essential trials after the attacks of October 7th.

Well Done, Jake Tapper and CNN

CNN’s Jake Tapper took the UN to task for only recently acknowledging that sexual violence was used against Israeli women on October 7th despite evidence being widely available since the attack.

Antisemitism on College Campuses

Watch: Bella Ingber - a young Jewish student at NYU - describes the rampant anti-Semitism she and other Jewish students have faced on college campuses since October 7th while school administrators turn a blind eye.

Bonus: Apollo’s Marc Rowan Slams Universities Over Free Speech, Antisemitism Failures - Bloomberg (paywall)

US officials frustrated by Biden administration’s response to attacks in Red Sea

An hourslong firefight involving U.S. commercial vessels in the Red Sea this weekend has left some U.S. officials frustrated by what they see as the Biden administration’s deliberate downplaying of a major threat to American forces.

A U.S. Navy warship scrambled to respond to multiple distress calls on Sunday, as Houthi rebels in Yemen launched missiles and drones against three separate commercial vessels. The USS Carney fired back, taking down three unmanned aerial systems.

Full story at Politico.

Who Exactly Is Leaving New York?

Now, a new report based on the latest census and state tax filing data has found a reversal: The ranks of millionaires have come surging back, while lower- and middle-income New Yorkers are heading for the exits, according to the study, published Tuesday by the Fiscal Policy Institute, a nonprofit policy group.

The people leaving New York at the fastest rate last year were families making between $32,000 and $65,000. A disproportionately high share of these movers were Black and Hispanic. They were followed by people earning $104,000 to $172,000 a year, an above-average income in many parts of the country but a more modest one in New York City.

Full story at The New York Times (paywall)

China’s Credit Rating Cut To Negative Again

Moody’s Investors Service lowered its outlook for China’s credit rating from stable to negative on Tuesday, warning that the financial stresses of some regional and local governments will require Beijing to provide support to them. That could weigh on China’s government finances at a time when its economy is slowing.

The New York-based credit-ratings firm kept its long-term rating of A1 on the nation’s sovereign debt, a level that is four notches below its top Aaa rating. But the outlook change signaled how the risks from China’s local government debts have become too big to ignore.

Full story at The Wall Street Journal (paywall)

Biden’s 2024 Challenge: Taking Down Trump’s Poll Numbers

With President Biden struggling to bring his polling numbers up, he and his fellow Democrats are sharpening their focus on a different task—pushing former President Donald Trump’s numbers down.

The 2024 campaign appears likely to pit two exceedingly well-known candidates against each other, an incumbent and his predecessor. Polls show that the contest is essentially tied and, to Democrats’ chagrin, that many voters remember Trump’s presidency in positive terms and think he would handle several issues better than Biden has.

So Biden is issuing a stark reminder of what life could be like if his rival—the expected Republican challenger—returned to the White House. In speeches, fundraising appearances and on the airwaves, Biden is laying out what he says is at stake, painting an apocalyptic picture of a second Trump term, saying his predecessor would gut the Affordable Care Act, enact a nationwide ban on abortion and ship jobs overseas if elected.

Full story at The Wall Street Journal (paywall)

Russia’s Getting Desperate?

In the charred remains of two homes set ablaze hours earlier, they found the burned, mutilated bodies of six local residents. News of the massacre shook Derevyannoye, a village of 1,200 people, where sailing boats bob in Onega Lake and the border with Finland is a three-hour drive away. What was most shocking was the identity of one of the two suspects: a repeat offender freed from a maximum-security prison to fight in Ukraine.

Igor Sofonov had been in and out of jail for 20 years by the time he joined Storm Z, a unit of convicts created to bolster Russia’s war effort. If he and others survived long enough to complete their six-month contracts, they were promised their freedom through a secretive program of presidential pardons. Sofonov survived, and returned to Russia with the remainder of his sentence for drug trafficking erased. He is among around 30,000 enlisted ex-prisoners, many of whom had been serving long prison terms for violent crimes, who have returned home to liberty.

Full story from John Ellis.

Trending news:

• Trevor Lawrence suffers brutal injury after lineman steps on him - NY Post

• Nikki Haley wants to reform Social Security and Medicare. Donors are paying attention - CNN

• Trump Rips Drudge Report for Covering Him ‘Unfairly’: ‘Site Fell Apart’ - The Messenger

• Gold Bars Found in Sen. Menendez Home Tied to 2013 Armed Robbery - The Messenger

• The anti-Trump alarm goes off - Washington Examiner

• Mathematics, reading skills in unprecedented decline in teenagers - Reuters

• What is happening at the UN’s UNRWA??? - Twitter

• Indictments dropped against 17 Texas police officers over tactics used during 2020 George Floyd protests - NBC

• Higher Ed Has Become a Threat to America - WSJ (paywall)

Market snapshot: