Better in their words…

Lightning-fast Middle East peace as Israel agrees to partial withdrawal and Trump hints at biblical stakes; four big judicial shocks—deportations, dismissals, defunding, and MAHAMart’s debut.

Source: MAHA Mart ☙ Sunday, October 5, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS

WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY

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Yesterday afternoon, President Trump defied critics and naysayers and announced more progress in the unfolding peace plan. It is walking forward one small step at a time. As of dinnertime yesterday, Israel had agreed to a ‘first-stage’ withdrawal of its troops from about half of Gaza closest to the coast:

President Trump’s allusion to a “3,000-year catastrophe” is fascinating. He’s speaking in Biblical terms, reaching all the way back to Palestine’s spiritual and geographic ancestors, the Philistines, which the very first books of the Bible describe as one of Israel’s earliest and peskiest problems. All non-Christians raised in the West are familiar, for example, with the story of David versus the giant Goliath.

Goliath led the Philistines, which Trump’s rhetorical allusion traces directly to modern Gaza.

In 136 AD, Roman emperor Hadrian sanctioned the Jews after their “Bar-Kokba” revolt, by renaming the province of Judea (* the origin of “Juden” or “Jew”). Hadrian relabeled the territory as “Syria Palestina,” which was soon shortened to just “Palestina,” evolving into the modern vernacular, “Palestine.” The new name was both a map-drawing punishment as well as an insult.

By calling their homeland “Palestina,” Emperor Hadrian raised up the name of Israel’s traditional Biblical enemy, daubed royal White-Out across the Jewish identity, and erased it from both that province and from Jerusalem, which Hadrian renamed Aelia Capitolina.

This kind of punitive name-swapping is historically commonplace. The Turks renamed Constantinople to Istanbul, spurring the famous jingle. “Why did Constantinople get the works? That’s nobody’s business but the Turks.” As the song noted, our own New York was once New Amsterdam. Gainesville, where I live, was once “Hogtown”— originally named after some mostly peaceful Seminole Indians who raised swine in between pioneer raids. The town’s new moniker, Gainesville, was an homage to General Edmund Pendleton Gaines, a Virginian and a notorious Indian fighter. So.

🚀 By alluding to “3,000 years” and framing the present conflict as the latest book in an extraordinarily long historical tome of violence and rivalry over the land of Canaan, Trump is tapping deeply into collective memory and ancient biblical mythology. He’s suggesting not just any old political deal, but the fulfillment of a grand historical arc. Indeed, Trump’s choice of language echoes popular prophetic interpretations (see, e.g., Jonathan Cahn), which paint the recurring conflict in Gaza —a former Philistine stronghold— as the resurrection of ancient biblical struggles.

Is Trump merely playing the Grand Showman, magnifying the scale of his peace plan for marketing effect, to position his diplomatic wins as epic, world-historic achievements, rather than just the latest round of Middle East peace efforts? Or is there something more? Is he perhaps framing it this way for the involved parties, so that they feel a sense of participation in something much more significant than they thought?

If parties see themselves as helping to end a legendary, biblical feud, they may be more willing to adopt bold compromises rather than taking incremental, cautious steps. Elevating the stakes leverages moral and psychological pressure on all sides to wrap up the deal and avoid being seen as a spoiler, a party that “walked away from history.” Even if some concessions are painful, being cast as co-architects of epochal peace can offset the domestic political costs for the involved leaders.

Does Trump view himself as David in this epic story? Is he, like the young man in the story, about to topple a gigantic, unbeatable conflict and stop a war?

🚀 The pressure to make peace continues building on both sides. The Muslim world is squeezing Hamas like it’s a key lime at pie-making time. A headline from this morning’s Jerusalem Post:

Israel is also feeling the heat. According to the Post, tens of thousands of Israelis turned out yesterday in Tel Aviv to encourage their government to conclude the deal. The picture was dramatic:

But not all Israelis are copacetic about Trump’s peace proposal. Israel’s orthodox ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich threatened to resign unless Hamas is “permanently destroyed.” If they resign, Netanyahu’s parliamentary coalition will collapse, and a new Prime Minister will be elected.

Shrewdly, President Trump made the hostages the key. If, at this point, Hamas fails to surrender the hostages, it will lose catastrophic levels of international support, and Israel can escalate its attacks. If Hamas doesreturn the hostages, it surrenders its biggest bargaining chip, without which both it and Israel will face irresistible pressure to conclude the deal.

Either path leads to a conclusion of hostilities.

Based on his existing dealmaking record, Trump should already be known as the “president of peace.” No other U.S. president in history has brokered so many peace deals in such a short time. If Hamas sends the hostages home, Trump’s legacy will be undeniable.

Never bring a spear to a sling fight.

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This week delivered a slew of terrific judicial developments. First, on Friday, the New York Times ran a story awkwardly headlined, “Supreme Court Lets Trump Revoke Deportation Protections for Venezuelans.” The headline should have said, “again.”

In a brief, unsigned order issued Friday, SCOTUS cleared the way for the Trump administration to deport more than 600,000 Venezuelan illegal immigrants that Biden had awarded “temporary protected status.” It was actually the second time; the first time the Justices approved Trump’s ending the program and sent the case back to federal judge Edward Chen, he just made a few new findings and said the prior Supreme Court ruling didn’t apply.

Friday, the Supremes (6-3) knocked Chen down again.

They issued the rhetorical version of a face slap, writing that Judge Chen’s “new findings” were neither new nor findings. Specifically, the Supreme’s order said that “although the posture of the case has changed, the legal arguments and relative harms generally have not.” For that reason, the court calmly but firmly continued, “the same result that we reached in May is appropriate here.”

The bottom line is that DHS can resume deporting Venezuelans who’ve entered illegally, despite Biden’s protection plan, unless Judge Chen tries another judicial end-around. I wouldn’t bet against it. We’ll see.

⚖️ On Friday, Atlanta’s local affiliate WSB-TV ran a story headlined, “Judge issues 14-day deadline to find new prosecutor to take on Trump case or it will be dismissed.” At long last, we are nearing the end of the sordid story of Fani “Love Mama” Willis and her pet, Nathan the Hot Dog.

In what must have been a super-satisfying one-paragraph order, Judge Scott McAfee announced that he will dismiss Fani Willis’s criminal case against Donald Trump (and friends) unless a new prosecutor takes over within two weeks. Judge McAffee was responding to the Georgia Supreme Court, which two weeks ago declined to reverse an appellate court ruling that neither Fani Willis nor anyone in her office was qualified to proceed with the Trump prosecution.

So what is a judge supposed to do? In effect, Fulton County has no lawyer to prosecute its case. Thus, Judge McAfee said, either get a lawyer or this case is gone. Fulton County can’t appoint Fani’s replacement; that job falls to a state agency, the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council, which so far has seemed downright disinclined to do much about it.

Will the PAC appoint a new prosecutor from a different Georgia county? Or just let the case die a humiliating death, dismissed because Fani couldn’t keep her hands off the help?

It must be terribly disappointing for Democrats, who’d practically elevated Fani Willis to Fauci status. The mood on BlueSky was best described as morbid:

⚖️ Also Friday, MassLive ran another terrific story headlined, “Boston Judge denies ‘sanctuary’ cities’ request to block federal funding cuts.” FAFO.

Judge Nathaniel Gorton of the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts stated in his ruling that the case’s two “sanctuary cities” failed to prove they would face “imminent and irreparable harm.” So, no injunction.

In February, the proud blue towns of Chelsea and Somerville sued the Trump administration, claiming that their federal funds should not be contingent on cooperating with immigration enforcement. They sought an injunction stopping the government from withholding federal grant funds during the lawsuit, arguing that it would hamstring their ability to offer essential municipal services like roads, schools, and public safety.

As with other so-called “sanctuary” cities, Chelsea and Somerville’s ordinances ban local police and city staff from asking after anyone’s immigration status or assisting federal immigration officers in any way. Trump issued several executive orders cracking down on sanctuary cities. As a result, Somerville has already lost a $4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, which was bad news for the city’s pocketbook, but great news for its mental health.

Judge Gorton reasoned that only one grant has been canceled so far and future grant losses are speculative. He pointed out that federal grants are generally reimbursements after-the-fact, with various conditions and requirements, and some are competitive, so the cities have no guarantee of receiving them in the first place. “A preliminary injunction would not eliminate the status quo uncertainty for the Cities,” Judge Gorton wrote.

Maybe they’ll start to get the idea, sooner or later. I’m not saying the cities will exactly become enthusiastic or anything, but maybe they’ll stop interfering with immigration enforcement.

⚖️ Finally, Wisconsin Votebeat ran a very encouraging story Friday headlined, “Wisconsin judge orders citizenship checks for all voters.” In November, Wisconsin voters amended their state constitution to make citizens a mandatory requirement for voting there. The state’s progressive termites dug in. This lawsuit followed.

On Friday, Waukesha County judge Michael P. Maxwell ordered the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) to proactively determine whether any noncitizens are registered to vote and to stop accepting voter registrations without verifying that the applicant is a U.S. citizen. They have until February.

People who sign up to vote in Wisconsin (and most other states), are currently asked to check a box on the form attesting they are U.S. citizens. The petitioners in this lawsuit argued that the WEC had to actually check and make sure. The WEC claimed no state law required it to confirm citizenship beyond putting that box on the form.

But Judge Maxwell disagreed, finding that the WEC can’t just rely on the self-serving statements of registrants and has a duty to double-check.

“Petitioners have a clear legal right to not have their votes diluted by a non-citizen casting an unlawful ballot,” the judge wrote in his order. “Further, WEC has a plain and positive duty to ensure that only U.S. citizens may be registered to vote in Wisconsin, and therefore only U.S. citizens may appear on Wisconsin voter rolls.”

Judge Maxwell shot down the WEC’s contemptible argument that there aren’t many illegals voting in Wisconsin anyway. “If one non-citizen is present on the voter rolls and thus can cast even one unlawful vote,” Judge Maxwell opined, “there can be no doubt as to the injury to every other lawful voter in Wisconsin whose lawfully cast vote could be cancelled.”

Unfortunately, Wisconsin has a 4-3 far-left majority on its state supreme court. In April, after the most expensive and acrimonious judicial campaign in U.S. history, Wisconsin voters narrowly replaced one leftwing judge with another. So this terrific decision remains at risk of reversal.

Also note: Wisconsin voters— you must defend a conservative supreme court seat this coming April. Just saying. Heads up.

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It took the Dobbs decision, President Trump’s relentless push to defund the awful abortion provider, and a slew of terrific new state laws, but it is starting to work. Planned Parenthood is slowly starving to death. At least, it is having a horrible, no-good, very bad year.

The bad news began in January, when longtime abortion activist Cecile Richards died suddenly and unexpectedly of brain cancer. Um … 💉?

Richards, 67, ran Planned Parenthood for ten long years, then helmed a Democrat super-PAC focused on women’s voter registration. Richards announced her brain cancer diagnosis on Instagram in January, 2024. In November, and ironically, Biden awarded Richards the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Two months later, she was pushing up daisies. Turbo cancer.

In August, the country’s biggest Planned Parenthood office —located in Houston— announced its permanent closure. The doors closed for good this week.

The same month, Axios reported that Planned Parenthood was closing allLouisiana locations:

Ten days ago, Wisconsin’s Planned Parenthood announced that it was pausing abortion procedures statewide:

Last week, the Houston Chronicle reported that Maine’s Planned Parenthood clinics are radically downsizing (since providing abortions disqualifies them for Medicare reimbursement):

All across the country, Planned Parenthood is in full retreat. Without federal money, its business model is failing. In other words, taxpayers have been holding up Planned Parenthood all this time.

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Finally, earlier this week, CNN ran a MAHA success story headlined, “Walmart will remove dyes and other additives from its US house-brand products by 2027.” The headline didn’t quite do it justice. Walmart isn’t just pulling dyes from its store-brand recipes, but the retail giant is also pruning 30 other artificial additives, like fake sweeteners, fat substitutes, and various hard-to-pronounce chemical preservatives.

Although we can be sure that HHS Secretary Kennedy is the real reason for the change, Walmart credited customers. “Our customers have told us that they want products made with simpler, more familiar ingredients — and we’ve listened,” Walmart CEO John Furner said. Okay. Good listening. Furner added, “By eliminating synthetic dyes and other ingredients, we’re reinforcing our promise to deliver affordable food that families can feel good about.”

The article quoted Professor Marion Nestle (not made up), who credited the correct cause, saying, “This is a big MAHA win, and one that food advocates have urged for decades.” She added, “I’m hoping MAHA will build on this and now take on more important issues.” Us, too.

My family doesn’t shop for groceries at Walmart, so I can’t personally rate those products. (We prefer Publix.) In fact, I’m not sure a Walmart-branded food product has ever appeared in the Childers pantry. (Some may have snuck through, though, and I just didn’t notice since I suffer from male-pattern blindness.) According to the story, Walmart accounts for a whopping 30% of all grocery sales in the United States.

There is reason to think that, if Walmart goes natural, other retailers will be forced to follow suit.

To be honest, it’s never been clear to me why frozen chicken nuggets need113 ingredients, including six different food dyes. To be perfectly honest, the very idea makes me sort of queasy and dizzy just thinking about it. The article said that, of the 11 dyes that Walmart is canceling, nine of them are petroleum-based.

The majority of the dyes are petroleum?? I’m stunned; I can’t even formulate a coherent question. How, exactly, did we get here? What’s next, strychnine tarts? Watermelon-flavored cyanide puffs? Why not just jump straight to nuclear waste-stuffed jalapeños?

Well, it only took a pandemic and a poll-defying election, and now they’re shedding factory ingredients faster than a morbidly obese rap artist can eat them. More significantly, it’s happening even before the FDA has flexed a single regulatory muscle, though one suspects that a certain amount of behind-the-scenes arm-twisting is going on right now.

More quickly, please!

Have a blessed Sunday! Pray for success of Trump’s peace plan, and meet me back here tomorrow to kick off another tremendous week of C&C-style essential news and commentary. As ever, I thank you deeply for your continuing loyal support of the C&C mission.

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