DL Open Thread: Monday, September 1, 2025
The Trump Gaza Riviera: Are all the Democrats OK with this?
The 38-page prospectus seen by The Washington Post envisions at least a temporary relocation of all of Gaza’s more than 2 million population, either through what it calls “voluntary” departures to another country or into restricted, secured zones inside the enclave during reconstruction.
“I looked at a picture of Gaza, it’s like a massive demolition site,” Trump told reporters while signing a raft of executive orders in the Oval Office two days after his inauguration. “It’s got to be rebuilt in a different way.” Gaza, he said, was “a phenomenal location … on the sea, the best weather. Everything’s good. Some beautiful things can be done with it.”
Two weeks later, at a White House news conference with Netanyahu, Trump said “the United States will take over the Gaza Strip.” Describing a “long-term ownership position,” he added that everyone he had spoken to about it “loves the idea.”
“I’ve studied this very closely over a lot of months, and I’ve seen it from every different angle,” Trump said. “I don’t want to be cute. I don’t want to be a wise guy. But the Riviera of the Middle East, this could be something that could be so magnificent.”
Trump’s February vow to own and redevelop Gaza offered both a green light and a road map for the group of Israeli businessman, led by entrepreneurs Michael Eisenberg, an Israeli American, and Liran Tancman, a former Israeli military intelligence officer. They had already handed off the GHF project to implementers and moved on to the postwar problemin consultation with international financial and humanitarian experts, and potential government and private investors, as well as some Palestinians, according to people familiar with the planning.
Just thought that you, and perhaps the few remaining sentient Democrats, would like to know.
How Trump Delivered India Into The Arms Of China.
President Trump’s 50 percent tariffs landed like a declaration of economic war on India, undercutting enormous investments made by American companies to hedge their dependency on China.
India’s hard work to present itself to the world as the best alternative to Chinese factories — what business executives and big money financiers have embraced as part of the China Plus One strategy — has been left in tatters.
Now, less than a week since the tariffs took full effect, officials and business leaders in New Delhi, and their American partners, are still trying to make sense of the suddenly altered landscape.
Just how much things have changed was evident from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to China over the weekend to meet with Xi Jinping, China’s top leader. Trade and political relations between India and China have been strained, at times severely, and it was Mr. Modi’s first trip there in seven years.
Mr. Trump’s tariffs are already causing dislocation in supply chains. India has been rendered far less enticing to American importers. Companies can go to other places for lower tariffs, like Vietnam or Mexico. A U.S. court ruling, which on Friday invalidated the tariffs but left them in place while Mr. Trump appeals, did nothing to repair the rupture between the countries.
The “Trump shock will reduce manufacturing export growth and kill even the few green shoots of China Plus One-related private investment,” four Indian economists, including a former chief economic adviser to Mr. Modi, wrote in an Indian newspaper last week.
But just think of all those brand new factories that will soon open in America…
Bernie’s Right–As Always. Endorses an exciting candidate over a 77-year-old Governor who is playing rope-a-dope on run for Senate:
Bernie Sanders has broken with the Democratic establishment in the push to unseat Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) in 2026. The Democrats are hoping that the state’s current Governor, Janet Mills, will enter the race to unseat the ‘Down East’ Hamlet. Sanders, on the other hand, has thrown his considerable progressive cachet behind Graham Platner. Who? Let’s have a look.
Platner is an ex-Marine who goes by the sobriquet “The Oysterman.” He is a political neophyte. And by the standards of the profession is a youthful 40 years old. He has vigor. He does not talk in the poll-tested, focus group-approved language of the professional politician. He knows his voters, and he speaks to them.
Platner speaks my language:
“But everywhere I’ve gone, it seems like the fabric of what holds us together is being ripped apart by billionaires and corrupt politicians, profiting off of destroying our environment, driving our families into poverty, and crushing the middle class.”
“And the enemy is the oligarchy. It’s the billionaires who pay for it, the politicians who sell us out. And yeah, that means politicians like Susan Collins. I’m not fooled by this fake charade of Collins deliberations and moderation.”
- “Why can’t we have universal healthcare like every other first-world country?”
- “Why can’t we take care of our veterans when they come home?”
- “Why are we funding endless wars and bombing children?
- “Why are CEOs more powerful than unions?”
- “We fought three different wars since the last time we raised the minimum wage.”
Can you imagine the contrast between this guy and Collins during a debate?
The Courts To The Rescue–Again:
With migrant children waiting on tarmacs to be sent to their native Guatemala, a federal judge Sunday temporarily blocked the flights, siding with attorneys for the children who said the government was breaking laws and sending their clients to potential peril.
The extraordinary drama played out overnight on a holiday weekend and vaulted from tarmacs in Texas to a courtroom in Washington. It was the latest showdown over the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration — and the latest clash between the administration’s enforcement efforts and legal safeguards that Congress created for vulnerable migrants.
“This idea that on a long weekend in the dead of night they would wake up these vulnerable children and put them on a plane irrespective of the constitutional protections that they had is something that should shock the conscience of all Americans,” said Kica Matos, president of the National Immigration Law Center, which represents the children, following Sunday’s hearing.
In Florida, The Enemy Is–Chalk:
As the nation reels from last week’s horrific school shooting in Minnesota, authorities in Florida seem to be doing everything in their power to re-traumatize a community victimized by a different mass attack. That now includes arresting one protester, apparently for leaving temporary chalk footprints in a crosswalk that has become a flashpoint in Republican efforts to expunge pro-LGBTQ messaging from the public square.
Earlier this month, the Florida Department of Transportation removed rainbow markings from a crosswalk in Orlando. There are rainbow-colored crosswalks across the country showing communities’ commitment to equality, but this one had special significance—it was painted as a memorial to the 2016 massacre at the nearby Pulse nightclub, an LGBTQ bar where 49 people were slaughtered by a gunman who expressed support for ISIS. At the time, it was the deadliest mass shooting in US history.
A New Gig For Rudy Giuliani? He’s perfect for it. Just look at the lineage:
Bobby Heenan:
Andy Kaufman:
Vince McMahon (Who donned this for his steroid trial):
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was injured in a car accident in New Hampshire over the weekend but is recovering, his head of security and the New Hampshire State Police said Sunday.
Giuliani’s vehicle was struck from behind at “high speed” on Saturday evening, Michael Ragusa Giuliani’s head of security, announced in a statement on X. Giuliani, who is also President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, was transported to a nearby trauma center, Ragusa noted, “where he was diagnosed with a fractured thoracic vertebrae, multiple lacerations and contusions, as well as injuries to his left arm and lower leg.”
It’s never too late to reinvent yourself.
What do you want to talk about?
This tells you everything you need to know about how terrible Janet Mills would be as a candidate, and on the off chance elected how utterly rancid she would be as a senator.
Bernie Sanders has broken with the Democratic establishment in the push to unseat Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) in 2026. The Democrats are hoping that the state’s current Governor, Janet Mills…
Plus–as much as I like Sherrod Brown, sure would be nice if the ‘Senate Democratic Leadership’ supported candidates who weren’t in their septuagenarian peer group. If an octogenarian like Bernie can understand this, it shouldn’t be all that difficult.
I mean, if the corporatists didn’t run the Party.
El Som,
Sometimes hate to acknowledge it but their “septuagenarian peer group” is also our septuagenarian peer group.
Only difference is that you and I never got elected to anything so we’re free to say how badly our elected peers have fucked up.
Oh, I get it. As does Bernie. Just wish the septuagenarian Party leaders got it.
Many decisions are ceded to polls. Polls this far from the ’26 election will always favor candidates with high name recognition, which the office of governor gives Ms. Mills. So the “safe” thing to do is run Janet Mills.
Fetterman seemed like a better bet than the establishment guy he ran against, too. How’d that work out?
Obviously, you can’t account for a guy having some sort of mental breakdown.
Let me just say this as someone who was in a PA College Dems chapter (and the most progressive one in the state at the time that *should’ve been* a slam dunk endorsement for Fetterman) during his 2016 Senate run: the guy has been a major asshole since longgggg before the stroke.
There is a reason ZERO federal or state level Dem elected officials and only one mayor (from all the way across the state) endorsed him either time he ran for Senate. Platner already is rallying with a former Maine Senate President (equivalent to Dave Sokola, not the Lt. Gov.); this is a green flag that he is capable of being a team player for progressives in a way that Fetterman never was.
AOC is also someone who beat an establishment Dem. This guy reminds me of her.
Once you calibrate for his electorate, yes.
The establishment Democratic Party nationally and in Delaware has been eroding for years. Some people get it, some people don’t and rather be popular in the circuit of boring donors who don’t seem to matter anymore.
I can actually count the years. Bill Clinton ran in 1992.