THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE: Five Republican presidential candidates ripped each other up during a debate in Miami last night and said little about the man they are running against, Donald Trump. They’re running to be the alternative.

  The five quipped and sparred over aid to Ukraine, Social Security, confronting China, banning TikTok, and how to approach abortion less than a day after their party got smacked at the polls over that issue.

  Political analysts came away pronouncing former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley as the one who showed true substance, pushing against Trump’s “America First” foreign policy, promising to continue backing Ukraine, and saying she would support military strikes against Iran.  Haley also said the US needs to support Israel with “whatever they need and whenever they need it.”

  In one bitter exchange over TikTok with Vivek Ramaswamy, she muttered that he was “scum.”

  At a rally last night, Donald Trump demonstrated again what appeals to his base, promising that as president, “We will restore the Trump travel ban on entry from terror-plagued countries, and we will implement strict vetting and ideological screening for all new entrants into our country … On day one I will terminate every open borders policy of the Biden administration and we will begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”

THE CAUSE: Palestinian leaders told the NY Times that the October 7^th attacks on Israel were necessary because the Palestinian cause was slipping away and needed to be revived. 

  They killed more than 1,400 people in Israel that day. Israel has killed more than 10,500 Palestinians since.

  Khalil al-Hayya, a member of Hamas’s top leadership, told the Times during an interview in Doha, Qatar that, “We succeeded in putting the Palestinian issue back on the table, and now no one in the region is experiencing calm.”

  Leaders of Hamas have said that the October 7^th operation set off a sustained conflict that ends any thought of coexistence among Israel, Gaza, and the countries around them. It is part of the Hamas constitution that Israel must be eradicated. Taher El-Nounou, a Hamas media adviser, told The Times, “I hope that the state of war with Israel will become permanent on all the borders, and that the Arab world will stand with us.” 

  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said yesterday that following the conclusion of hostilities, Gaza should be unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority. It’s the first indication of what the Biden administration would like to have happen to preserve peace and stability in the future. It’s counter to what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, suggesting that his country would have a security role in Gaza “for an indefinite period,” which basically means a military occupation. 

ORANGE ALERT: Ivanka Trump testified in a New York Court yesterday, becoming the fourth member of her family who said they really didn’t know anything about the finances about the company they ran.

  The judge in the lawsuit against the former president and his adult sons has already found that they falsely inflated Trump’s net worth to obtain better loan rates and insurance rates.

  Answering questions about a company-owned apartment for which she had an $8.5 million purchase option despite a company valuation of $20.8 million, the former president’s daughter said, “I wasn’t involved in his statement of financial condition, so I can’t say what it took into account or didn’t take into account.” 

  She said a high level meeting with the General Services Administration about buying the old post office building in Washington didn’t involve “financial statements or anything granular like that.”

  But when she was queried about shopping for loans to buy the Doral Golf Resort in Florida, she was confronted with her emails asking Deutsche Bank to lower Donald Trump’s required net worth to get the money. The requirement was lowered from $3 billion to $2.5 billion. At the time in 2011, Trump’s stated net worth was $4.2 billion.

  Regardless of the numbers, the negotiation reveals that Ivanka did actually know something about the company net worth. 

  Late night host Jimmy Kimmel said that only in the Trump family does “Take Your Daughter to Work Day” mean having her testify in court.

LAST ACT: The Hollywood actors’ union SAG-AFTRA reached a tentative deal to end the 118-day strike against the Hollywood production companies. If the actors approve, it will re-start the $134 billion industry. 

  The actors had sought a percentage of streaming fees, which they didn’t get. They succeeded in winning increased pay for streaming shows and films, better health care, and guarantees that studios will not use artificial intelligence to create digital reproductions of their likenesses without payment or approval.

THE SPIN RACK: Three people have been arrested on charges of operating a “high-end brothel network” in Massachusetts and Virginia for a clientele that included elected officials, military officers, and government contractors with security clearances, the Justice Department announced. Joshua Levy, acting US attorney for Massachusetts, said of the client list during a Boston press conference, “Pick a profession. They’re probably represented in this case.” — New York City had a 64 percent increase in reported incidents of shoplifting during the period between mid-2019 and June of this year, according to the Council on Criminal Justice. In Los Angeles, it was 61percent. — Four men have been charged with the 2019 theft of a fully functioning 18-karat golden toilet from Blenheim Palace in southern England. The toilet was an artwork titled “America” intended as a satire about excessive wealth. 

BELOW THE FOLD: A federal grand jury in Brooklyn has indicted ten members of the Gambino crime family for racketeering, extortion, and conspiracy for their efforts to dominate the carting and demolition industries. Just for entertainment, here are some of the defendants: Joseph “Joe Brooklyn” Lanni, also known as “Mommino,” Diego “Danny” Tantillo, Angelo “Fifi” Gradilone, Francesco “Uncle Ciccio,” Vicari, Kyle “Twin” Johnson, and Vincent “Vinny Slick” Minsquero. 

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