+ Here’s Hakeem Jeffries’ letter announcing that he will vote against a resolution introduced by Thomas Massie that would cut off all aid to Israel, a measure that is supported by more than 70 percent of people who identify as Democrats…
+ In the end, nearly half (103) of the Democrats in the House, including Nancy Pelosi, voted to end all US funding to Israel. Thomas Massie was the lone Republican to vote YES on his own measure. (I don’t give Pelosi any credit for this lame duck vote, but I do credit the Movement that made her do something once unthinkable.)
Still, 98 Democrats voted against the measure. Here are their names…
+ Give the Yellow Badge of Courage award to ten other Democrats who stood up and resolutely voted “Present”: Bera (CA), Brown (OH), Bynum (OR), Elfreth (MD), Huffman (CA), McCollum (MN), Morrison (MN), Chris Pappas (NH), Sánchez (A.) and Thompson (CA).
+ On Tuesday, a lawsuit filed on behalf of Mahmoud Khalil by the Center for Constitutional Rights and Beldock Levine & Hoffman, under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, alleges that he was the target of a conspiracy between private actors and federal officials who coordinated to target, detain, and attempt to deport him because he is Palestinian and he advocated for Palestinian rights. The suit charges that not only Stephen Miller, Secretary of State Rubio, and other senior Trump Administration officials, but also the Heritage Foundation, Canary Mission, and Betar with a conspiracy in a coordinated plot to punish, silence and intimidate advocates for Palestinian freedom and liberation.
+ In a three-hour interview with Joe Rogan, JD Vance accused Israel of smearing him and using paid “influencers” to sabotage the Iran peace deal. Vance pointed to a Time magazine article that said the money originating with the Israeli government went through the accounts of a former Trump campaign official. Vance claimed the influencers had maligned him as an anti-semite. ‘My response to that is, well, go to hell,’ Vance told Rogan.
+ A senior Iranian official told Drop Site News their negotiators sent back-channel messages warning JD Vance that Trump’s Middle East envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witcoff, were trying to sabotage the agreement, using their position to enrich themselves and leaking inside information to the Israelis. Witkoff and Kushner reportedly checked in with Netanyahu and Mossad head Roman Gofman nearly every day.
+ Rep. Ro Khanna described to Mehdi Hasan being detained by armed Israeli settlers while in the West Bank: “You have these two young hoodlums, one with an M4 rifle, marching around our van, kicking the tires, wiping the windshields, telling us that we can’t leave. It’s very upsetting to me that the American ambassador [Mike Huckabee] isn’t looking out for American citizens.”
+ Like Joe Manchin and Bill Maher before him, John Fetterman is threatening to leave the Democratic Party over Israel: “If our party ever becomes — and just makes it official — the anti-Israel party, that’s when I would leave because that’s been a moral clarity for me.” That’s some perverse sense of moral clarity, Sen. Lurch…
