Credit Where It is Due to Trump -- Hostages Returned, Peace In Gaza Seems More Possible
The hostages appear to have been released from Gaza, which is a huge step forward after 2 years of violence. Not only is this a joy for their families, but it also likely makes ongoing violence in Gaza much harder for both parties. I had initially thought Trump was making progress by being the "crazy man" in the negotiation who might do anything (sort of like trying to play poker with a 16-year-old). And a lot of the Left is likely to continue to treat it that way. But from everything I have read in the last few days, Trump's team did a lot of hard diplomacy all over the Arab world, carefully corralling every potential Hamas supporter and getting them all to tell Hamas it was time to settle (here and here for example).
This should not be surprising -- Trump showed a similar facility with negotiating in the Arab world in his first term with the Abraham Accords and really did not get enough credit for it.
So tomorrow Trump will likely tick me off again but for today he should be thanked for his work on this deal.
Postscript: and no, great work negotiating this peace deal does not convince me he has some super-brain master plan behind the tariffs
My thoughts exactly. The release of the hostages makes this a day worth celebrating, especially so because I didn't dare hold my breath for it.
My initial thoughts is that hamas is still intact and controls gaza (or will regain full control)
News today 10/14/2025 is that Hamas is starting to round up gazians suspected of cooperation with Israel and is executing them.
So as I suspected, Hamas still controls, and the war is only paused long enough for hamas to get rearmed and reassembled
I'm not a Republican either and this may just be temporary, but:
U.S. budget deficit edged lower in 2025 as tariffs, debt payments both saw new records
The U.S. budget deficit edged lower for 2025 as record-setting tariff collections helped offset what also were unprecedented numbers for payments on the spiraling national debt, the Treasury Department announced Thursday.
In a year marked by a bruising trade war and high financing costs, the federal government managed to escape with a $1.78 trillion shortfall, some $41 billion, or 2.2%, less than in fiscal 2024.
While that's still on the high end historically, the red ink would have been still worse had it not been for a massive surge in customs duties and a September surplus of $198 billion that also set a record for the month.
CNBC | Oct 16 2025
Regarding Trump's craziness -- yet he still achieves some success.
A good while ago I have read an excellent analysis of Dick Cheney who, as part of Reagan's team, managed to further weaken the Soviet Union in the early '80s. I believe this article fairly well describes what Trump is doing nowadays. I still remember that back then, when I was just a teenager in the sad side of the Iron Curtain, the rhetoric from Reagan was terrifying -- at least the way it was presented to us. He looked like a crazy man who would be happy to conduct a "limited nuclear war" in Europe.
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2003/11/09/a-profile-of-dick-cheney/