Israel’s decision to go into Gaza City, Hamas’s remaining stronghold, helped get Hamas to agree to a cease fire. Israel’s failed strike on Hamas in Qatar helped put countries like Qatar on notice that Israel was serious, and helped get them to more strongly support a deal. Trump sending people perceived as close to himself as negotiators helped convince Middle East actors that Trump was serious about a deal and that these negotiators negotiated on his behalf. Trump made very strong demands that effectively would amount to a Hamas surrender. Hamas agreed to some, but quibbled with others. Trump just accepted the yes and said we’ll figure out the other stuff later, creating a cease fire.
Deploying the National Guard isn’t just costly in the direct costs of the deployment, but in how it takes workers and students away from work and school.
The United States military is making extrajudicial illegal killings of potential drug traffickers, apparently killing a boat of Colombians this time. The U.S. is threatening a regime change war with Venezuela.
Many private data sources rely on BLS data. BLS data is extremely important for knowing what’s happening in the economy. It needs more resources to improve its processes. Instead, it’s being politicized by Donald Trump.
The Navy said they didn’t want any more littoral combat ships because they sucked, but Congress spent a bunch more money building more of them due to district politics.