Hezbollah's Leader Killed
Plus: Fentanyl wars, rent stabilization in NYC, possible dockworker strike, and more...
Nasrallah assassinated: On Friday, Israeli strikes killed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's longtime leader.
The assassination marks a new phase of the conflict between Israel and the Lebanon-based, Iran-backed terrorist group, Hezbollah. Though the conflict has been simmering since Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel, after which Hezbollah started striking the reeling nation, the last 12 days have seen significant escalations including Hezbollah firing a long-range missile at Tel Aviv (on September 25) and Israel most likely responsible for a September 17 attack in the form of thousands of pagers exploding, taking out several members of the terrorist group. In the last nine or so days, more than 700 Lebanese have been killed with some 250,000 displaced; many fear this most recent round of fighting will be even more deadly than the 2006 war between the two countries.
But it's also possible Israel will be able to make more headway at stamping out terrorist influence in the region, building on some of its victories over Hamas. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said over the weekend that killing Nasrallah was critical if residents of northern Israel are to ever return to their homes, and that the leader was "the main engine of Iran's axis of evil."
The Israeli military reports that it was able to successfully breach Hezbollah's underground headquarters beneath Beirut to carry out Nasrallah's killing by using 2,000-pound bombs; a video published by the Israeli military showed eight planes fitted with more than a dozen 2,000-pound bombs which are sometimes known as "bunker busters" precisely because they can cause damage deep underground.
"Hezbollah has acknowledged only 10 members' deaths—including Mr. Nasrallah's—since Israel's intensified air offensive on Monday," reports The New York Times, "suggesting it may be unable to keep track of losses or is trying to conceal them." Over the weekend, Israel also took out Hassan Khalil Yassin, a senior member of Hezbollah's intelligence arm.
Fentanyl wars: Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, visited the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday and said she would "make it a top priority to disrupt the flow of fentanyl coming into the United States" by taking a crack at the "global fentanyl supply chain" and "doubl[ing] the resources for the Department of Justice to extradite and prosecute transnational criminal organizations and the cartels."
Her opponent former President Donald Trump somehow read this as…Harris wanting to legalize fentanyl?
"She even wants to legalize fentanyl," said Trump the next day, at a speech in Wisconsin. (Don't get libertarians excited!)
It's kind of wild how Harris keeps trying to claim Trump will make abortion illegal nationwide—even though he's a fairly pro-choice Republican, seemingly nonideological on the matter of abortion, pissing off a lot of his own party—and Trump keeps trying to claim Harris is soft on crime, when she is seemingly trying to distance herself from some of her more progressive 2020 campaign stances and carve out more of a law and order reputation for herself. It's like both are hallucinating what the other believes, and running against that vs. being tethered to reality.
Trump goes super tough on crime: "You know, in New York, you can't walk into a drugstore now," Trump said during a speech this past weekend in Pennsylvania. "It's like you're in a prison of glass. If you want to buy aspirin, you have to wait 45 minutes for a clerk to come up and open, because of what's gone." He continued, complaining about how cops aren't allowed to do their jobs. Then he launched into a wild monologue, theorizing about how having "one real rough, nasty day" would lead to the restoration of order:
You know, if you had one day, like, one real rough, nasty day with the drug stores as an example, where when they start walking out with—you know, she created something in San Francisco, $950, you're allowed to steal. Anything above that. You will be prosecuted. Well, it works out that the 950 is a misnomer because you can steal whatever you want. You can go way above, but you'd see it. Originally you saw kids walk in with calculators. They would calculate. They didn't want to go over the $950. They're standing with calculators, adding it up. You know, these are smart, smart people. They're not so stupid, but they have to be taught. Now, if you had one really violent day, like a guy like Mike Kelly, put him in charge, Congressman Kelly, put him in charge for one day. Mike, would you say you're right here? He's a great congressman. Would you say, Mike, that if you were in charge you would say, 'Oh, please don't touch them. Don't touch them. Let them rob your store. Let all these stores go out of business,' right?…One rough hour, and I mean real rough. The word will get out and it will end immediately. End immediately. You know? It will end immediately.
Trump is right that San Francisco is a hellscape, and that many cities have created something basically akin to legalized theft due to their inability to prosecute stealing below a certain dollar amount; it's not clear to this city resident why we can't simply enforce laws and protect property rights. But having one "rough hour"—implying cops commit, what, mass slaughter of thieves?—would be an obviously bad price to pay for the restoration of order. It's disturbing that Trump continuously promotes this type of thing, and that those at his rallies appear to eat it right up.
Scenes from New York: It's kind of fun that all these apartment-porn TikTok videos, meant to just be fun and lighthearted, are rightfully getting skewered on Twitter for unintentionally revealing the awfulness of rent stabilization and rent control.
There is no good reason for this apartment to be rent-stabilized, not subject to market forces. But make no mistake, this is common. Almost 30% of the city's housing stock––960,000 units!––are rent-stabilized.
It's government policy that makes it hard to afford a family here. https://t.co/wz27Gp0iXu
— Liz Wolfe (@LizWolfeReason) September 30, 2024
QUICK HITS
- "Sunday afternoon, Gavin Newsom vetoed SB 1047, the high-profile AI bill whose early versions would establish a new government agency to enforce a compliance scheme on developers of 'covered models'—those that used 10^26 or 10^25 floating point operations (FLOPs) for training or fine tuning, respectively—under threat of perjury," reports Brandon Gorrell at Pirate Wires. "Critics of the bill, which included Silicon Valley venture capitalists, California startup founders, AI policy wonks, academics, and a bi-partisan set of lawmakers, argued it would stifle AI innovation and throttle California's economy."
- Hurricane Helene's destruction has been enormous, with 90 people dead so far and plenty of property damage that will take a long time to rebuild from. Mountainous western North Carolina was hit especially hard, where half a million people lost power and many people lost their homes. More on this from The Washington Post.
- Argentine President Javier Milei looks set to privatize the national airline, Aerolineas Argentinas, soon following a tense standoff with unions.
- Bloomberg says we're nearing "the end of the cheap burger" for a bunch of reasons, one of which is that the U.S. cattle herd has been at record-low numbers this year.
- "Thousands of unionized dockworkers on the East and Gulf Coasts could go on strike as early as Tuesday, stranding cargo and sending ripples through supply chains for consumer goods and manufacturing parts," reports The New York Times. "A contract between the operators of port terminals and the International Longshoremen's Association, covering workers who load and unload cargo ships at three dozen ports, is set to expire on Monday." The actual specifics of the negotiations are kind of wild, in part because dockworkers are actually paid…pretty well: "East and Gulf Coast longshoremen with six or more years' experience currently earn $39 an hour, up 11 percent from the start of their previous six-year contract. But over that the same period, inflation has risen 24 percent. A person familiar with the negotiations said the union was asking for a $5-an-hour raise in each year of the new six-year contract, while employers were offering annual raises of $2.50 an hour."
- True:
we live in a culture that cannot fathom the idea of prioritizing the well being of children/ adolescents (nevermind mothers). And ppl still wonder why the birth rate is down? https://t.co/QBIZOeWGT5
— ???????????????????????? ⏳ (@Grimezsz) September 29, 2024
