Ep. 52: Peace in Gaza?
Hey FRs,
We had a big show on Friday covering Trump's 20-point plan and some even bigger updates after the show was recorded, with the news that Hamas has accepted parts of the proposal and agreed to talks. How that plan is operationalized has a lot of--channeling my best Donald Rumsfeld--known unknowns and even more unknown unknowns, but we'll do our best to stay on top of it and provide y'all with different perspectives and analysis. Hopefully we can be this incisive:
In addition to our interview with Jonathan Panikoff, we dug into how Trump's tariff war on China and proposed bailout of Argentina are converging to make life even harder for US farmers. We talked about why the deportation of Iranian asylum seekers back to Iran is just plain cruel and closed the show with our increasingly dystopian JD Vance corner. We thought the guy had hit the bottom of the human decency barrel but he continues to surprise us with new ways to suck. Highly innovative, that JD.
On this week's show, we'll be back to talk about new developments in the middle east, plus whatever else gets thrown our way. See you there...🙃
Seena's Corner
LOOK THINGS ARE ROUGH
I’ve been seeing the awful news of the treatment of the people that were on the flotilla (thankfully over 170 have been released). Chicago just had an entire building raided by ICE. And Stephen Miller is trying to start a civil war every hour on the hour. There’s a lot of people to feel bad for, but for a moment, think of the microphones that Stephen Miller speaks into. Who speaks for those innocent sound amplifiers. They don’t get to choose who spouts into them, but they have to magnify nonetheless. I’m told that many Miller’d microphones have thrown themselves into bathtubs of water or retired to Uber karaoke to escape the trauma. To those mics, deep bow of respect, we see you.
What can we do though? Doom scrolling should be an Olympic sport here for the summer game in ‘28. How far off does 2028 seem though? In galaxy far far away…
But you gotta stay strong! Don’t fall into stoicism and dissociate from the pain, and don’t let your empathy fall into despair. It’s going to get worse before it gets better, but here’s what you should do in the meantime:
- Laugh in the darkness and at the fascists
- They are weak, sad people with low self esteem who use cynicism and violence to ratchet up fear and pray on our vulnerability.
- Use this time to get strong emotionally and intellectually
- Write your thoughts down, I’m grateful to this show because I have an outlet to test my thoughts and challenge my presumptions.
- If you haven’t seen it, we put the whole interview with Jonathan Panikoff up from the Atlantic Council. This is what I mean, I disagreed with him on quite a few points, but I was also able to be open enough to learn about things I didn’t know.
- Talk about the future you want.
- Talk about it with your friends and, if you dare, family members that disagree with you. This will sharpen your mind, ground your heart, and help you grow.
- It’s the harder thing to do because it takes openness and creativity, two things this administration wants to beat out of you.
Also make sure you keep your job, because if you lose your job, they will laugh at you and we don't want that. So maybe, instead of dropping that sick burn online, just throw a
emoji up… it speaks volumes.
Don’t let them win. Laugh at them, make fun of them, keep your jobs, love your community and family. And also tell your friends about our show lol
Meanwhile in Ohio: What Travis is Reading--
Last week on TFR we talked about Trump's ongoing tariff wars and how once again foreign policy and domestic policy are intertwined, making the international market for U.S. soybean farmers a living hellscape while our competitors in Argentina reap the benefits AND bailouts via our taxpayer dollars –– in Ohio, soybean farmers are also feeling the squeeze with one former Republican farmer (who joined the Democrats' ranks in 2018) still sounding the same alarm that he did during Trump's first administration, hilariously comparing Trump's relationship with U.S. soybean farmers to his relationship with Stormy Daniels... "Screwing us" and then "paying us off"
What's Coming...
FPZ and T-Ceps are back at it this week, doing their best to make the unbearable bearable. But, the 10/17 show will feature a special guest, so be sure to read next week's newsletter for that announcement.
As Always
Send us a message or tell us a joke. Tell us something you want us to cover or what you liked/hated about last week's show. We want to hear from you! Theforeignreportlpn@gmail.com