Comment on Republicans Set to Gather for Policy Retreat Backed by Corporations

“Every evening on TV news, Israelis get the latest on the Gaza war—cease-fire and hostage talks, Israeli military casualties, battlefield analysis and coverage of the Oct. 7 attacks by Islamist militant group Hamas that sparked the conflict,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “One thing that is almost always missing: the people of Gaza.” “Israel is watching one war unfold in Gaza, while much of the rest of the world is seeing a different one, with footage of the destruction caused by Israeli airstrikes in the densely populated enclave and sometimes gruesome images of Palestinians killed in the fighting.” “That split screen helps explain the widening gulf between an Israel that feels isolated and misunderstood and outsiders who have shifted their attention from the horrors of Oct.

Wall Street Journal: “Two decades later, what was once the white-hot center of political debate has receded to the background. Polls show nearly three-quarters of Americans, including 49% of Republicans and a majority of regular churchgoers, support it. The Supreme Court made same-sex marriage a nationwide right in 2015, and Congress gave federal recognition to the practice on a broad bipartisan vote in 2022…” “The widespread public approval suggests most people don’t believe the horrors once forecast have resulted from same-sex marriage’s legalization, and now there is evidence to prove it.

Punchbowl News: “Ask House Republicans what they are running on this year. They all say different things.” “The House GOP is struggling to figure out what — if anything — to tout this November. The Republican Conference remains plagued by the bitter infighting and deep divisions that have overshadowed everything they’ve done during this Congress.” “We spoke with roughly two dozen House GOP lawmakers about how they plan to convince voters to let them hold on to the majority.

“As the Israeli military stepped up pressure on what it calls Hamas’s last stronghold in Gaza, fighting elsewhere in the Palestinian enclave on Sunday led to warnings that the militants might remain a force for a long time to come,” the New York Times reports. “Close-quarters ground combat between Hamas fighters and Israeli troops raged in parts of northern Gaza over the weekend, both sides said on Sunday, even as the world’s attention was largely focused on the southern city of Rafah, where Israel escalated military operations last week.”

“Ukraine is shooting down a far smaller proportion of Russian missile attacks than it was earlier in the war,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “The worsening performance of Ukraine’s air defenses comes as Russia increases drone and missile attacks, and fires more harder-to-hit weapons, such as ballistic missiles. Kyiv is also running low on ammunition for the Western-supplied Patriot systems that have been its best defense against such attacks.”

Paul Manafort, convicted felon pardoned by Trump, has backed away from his role advising the Republican National Convention. Paul Manafort, convicted and pardoned felon, has quit his again-unpaid role as advisor to the Republican National Convention. “As a longtime, staunch supporter of President Trump and given my nearly 50 years experience in managing presidential conventions, I was offering my advice and suggestions to the Trump campaign on the upcoming convention in a volunteer capacity,” Mr.