February 5, 2024

Vol. 13, No. 2105

RETALIATION: US forces yesterday destroyed a cruise missile deployed by Houthi rebels in Yemen that had posed “an imminent threat to US Navy ships and merchant vessels in the region.”

  This followed events on Saturday when US and British warplanes struck dozens of sites controlled by Houthi militants in Yemen as retaliation continues for the attack that killed three American service members in Jordan. The targets were described as weapons storage facilities, missile launchers, and air defense systems. 

 US national security officials said yesterday that President Biden has ordered still more retaliation for the killings of the three service members by Iran-backed militias, but declined to say when or how it would happen.

  Iran said the strikes are a “strategic mistake” and Iraq claimed they will bring “disastrous consequences” for the region.

  This all began last Friday when US forces hit 85 targets in Iraq and Syria. “The president was clear when he ordered them and when he conducted them that that was the beginning of our response and there will be more steps to come,” Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, said on CNN. 

  John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, pushed back against Republican lawmakers who accused the administration of waiting too long to strike back. “You want to do this in a deliberate way,” Kirby said on “Fox News Sunday.” “You want to carefully select your targets. You want to make sure that all the parameters are in place to have good effects, including factoring in the weather.”

WHERE IT NEVER RAINS: Torrential rains have brought flooding, power outages, and emergency declarations to Southern California. Downtown Los Angeles got four inches of rain yesterday, and it’s still raining.

  Flood warnings have been issued for Beverly Hills, the Hollywood Hills, Malibu, and the Santa Monica Mountains. 

BORDERLINE POLITICS: Senate Republicans and Democrats released a $118.3 billion compromise bill to crack down on illegal immigration across the border with Mexico tied to further military aid for Ukraine, but the deal faces long odds in a Congress deeply divided over both issues.

  This is the bill that before anyone had read it, House Speaker Mike Johnson had declared “dead on arrival.” Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley said on social media, “This is an open-borders bill if I’ve ever seen one.”

  President Biden was quoted in a statement asking, “Do they want to solve the problem? Or do they want to keep playing politics with the border?”

  In addition to tightening rules for migrants claiming asylum, and expanding detention capacity, the bill would allow for shutting the border if more than an average of 5,000 migrants a day try to cross illegally in the course of a week, or more than 8,500 attempt to cross in just one day.

  The bill would provide $20.2 billion for improvements to border security, expand the number of available detention beds, and increase drug screening. It also includes $60.1 billion for Ukraine, $14.1 billion in security assistance for Israel, and $10 billion in humanitarian aid for civilians in war zones including Gaza, the West Bank, and Ukraine.

RUNNING MAN: President Biden declined to do an interview with CBS News that would air in advance of next Sunday’s Super Bowl. It is the second year in a row Biden has skipped what has become a traditional presidential interview. Last year he turned down Fox News, the mouthpiece of the irrational right.

  Also over the weekend, Biden won the South Carolina Democratic primary, his first of the season, taking 95 percent of the vote in every county. Biden was quoted in a statement saying, “The people of South Carolina have spoken again, and I have no doubt that you have set us on the path to winning the presidency again — and making Donald Trump a loser again.” 

AND THE WINNER IS: Phoebe Bridgers won the most awards at the Grammys last night, four of them.

  Joni Mitchell at age 80 stunned the crowd with a performance of her song “Both Sides Now,” which she has been singing since she was 23.

  Taylor Swift won Album of the Year for a record fourth time. And she made a splash, not with a wedding announcement or an endorsement of Joe Biden for re-election, but with the news that she’s releasing a new album this spring to be titled, “The Tortured Poets Department.”

THE SPIN RACK: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said last night on CBS’ “60 Minutes” that the time is coming for interest rate cuts, but it won’t likely be next month. — Days after wildfires swept through Chile’s Pacific Coast, at least 99 people are dead and hundreds are reported missing. Thousands of homes have been destroyed. Describing the fires in the Valparaíso region, President Gabriel Boric said yesterday, “That number is going to go up, we know it’s going to go up significantly.” — Escalating a power battle with the federal government, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced yesterday that he’s extending state control of the border along the Rio Grande. Abbott said, “We are expanding to further areas to make sure we expand our level of deterrence and denial of illegal entry into the United States.”

BELOW THE FOLD: California Gov. Gavin Newsom tells a story about how he witnessed an incident of shoplifting while he was Christmas shopping with one of his kids at a target store … and was blamed for it.

  Newsom says he saw someone walking out of the store with an armload of goods right past his security detail and none of the store staff did anything. He turned to a store clerk and asked, ‘Why didn’t you stop him?” 

  As Newsom tells it, “She goes, ’Oh, the governor, the governor lowered the threshold, there’s no accountability. … We don’t stop them because of the governor.”

  Then he told the clerk that he is the governor.

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