Mark Penn

CEO, Stagwell Inc., Past EVP Strategy @Microsoft. Past CEO of @B_M and @PSBresearch, past advisor to President Clinton and Hillary Clinton, author Microtrends

[Mark Penn @Mark_Penn]

Gerrymandering Pickle

The Supreme Court in trying to get out of the business of setting district lines has kicked off a storm of partisanship that is setting back the whole electoral system.

First the Democrats did not start this round of gerrymandering but they did start the process over the last decade basically using non profits to fight for heavily tilted Democratic maps in blue states. The northeast (north of ny) has no Republican representatives at all. Obama and Holder ran this effort to tilt the maps to the Democrats and they were successful. In NY where reps got 44per cent of the presidential vote they are 26 per cent of the house seats and the legislature is trying to get that to zero if they can.
Obviously the reps fired back in Texas and the Dems retaliated in Ca.
So ultimately unless the court reconsiders its ruling we will eventually just be in winner take all congressional seats in each and every state.
The Court’s experiment in this case of throwing it back to the states and letting the politicians sort it out is unfortunately not going to work out to produce balanced representation roughly proportional to the voter mix in each state. Non partisan redistricting should produce something close to a balance and partisanship itself will find no limits, producing even fewer swing districts and an even more partisan Congress.

[Mark Penn @Mark_Penn]

Iranian Logic

Hezbollah opened fire with scores of rockets and drones on Northern Israel making it uninhabitable.

Israel is responding to the Hezbollah attacks which Hezbollah could stop and ask for a ceasefire at virtually anytime but instead continues to fire at Israel with escalating attacks and more sophisticated drones sent against civilians at night.

And Iran has been firing on ships in the Strait and at Kuwait and elsewhere. And they are walking away over Lebanon? More incredible double talk from the world’s most evil regime.

[Mark Penn @Mark_Penn]

Defiant Rants

The Supreme Leader has issued defiant rants against the United States.

Now is the time for the President to act in no uncertain terms to decimate the remaining military assets, leadership and key infrastructure to secure a real peace in the region.

Prolonging this only prolongs the global turmoil caused by a regime that declares the United States its enemy as part of a religious war it is waging. And it has attacked not only Israel but almost all the neighboring countries as well. Just as a reminder Iran is over 1000 miles away from Israel and has no common borders, territorial disputes or refugees. It has simply declared it and the United States as sworn enemies it intends to destroy one way or another. And the regime gunned down untold thousands of its own citizens and execute people daily for protesting while shutting down the internet and controlling all communications.

This regime has confounded presidents since 1979 and was all but legitimized by Obama who shipped them pallets of cash. Now is the time to finish the job and take out the biggest source of terror and instability in the world and reopen and control the Strait.

[Mark Penn @Mark_Penn]

Meticulously researched article from a federal judge on the NYT failure to test the credibility of the Hamas-related sources or report on the systems and laws in place to police the incarceration of prisoners. Of course, anyone can find that Hamas record that on October 7th they took 255 prisoners (imprisoned for no reason other than they were thought to be Jewish), and returned 168 in various states of trauma while 87 or 34 per cent were returned dead, often tortured and then murdered. This included 8 US citizens taken prisoner. 50 per cent of those were returned murdered and 50 per cent alive.

[Roy K. Altman @RoyKAltman]

New from me in @TheFP: A Miscarriage of Journalism at ‘The New York Times’

https://t.co/AXYDDjl4Cq

[Roy K. Altman @RoyKAltman]

New from me in @TheFP: A Miscarriage of Journalism at ‘The New York Times’

https://t.co/AXYDDjl4Cq

[Mark Penn @Mark_Penn]

Serious Negotiations

Now we are told there are “serious negotiations” underway with Iran, with the same folks who got a cease fire by promising to open up the Strait of Hormuz only they closed it down instead and attacked US warships and the UAE. They didn’t attack Israel because they know what happens if they do that — and it’s not more negotiations.

[Mark Penn @Mark_Penn]

Iran Resolution

With just about every senator having agreed Iran should never have a nuclear weapon, how puzzling it is that nearly half the senate would vote to end all military operations against Iran at a crucial moment while Iran violates international law by controlling the Strait of Hormuz and continues to execute its own people for protests while banning the internet so they cannot communicate with the rest of the world.

Imagine if the Senate could actually pass such a resolution and imagine it would be binding. Such a resolution would immediately clear the path for Iran to have a nuclear weapon; would imperil all of the neighboring nations including the UAE. All progress in the region would come to a halt as terrorist proxies would be emboldened. It would be catastrophic and yet rather than back a resolution that supports America against Iran but say adds more Congressional oversight, the Dems instead push for a resolution that would be an immediate and unconditional surrender to Iran and its proxies. This is a direct undermining of our country and plays into the hands of the Iranians.

[Mark Penn @Mark_Penn]

A lot happening

On Iran the president has to weigh keeping the blockade, authorizing a fresh wave of strikes, or focusing on reopening the Strait by force.

Negotiations have gone nowhere and Iran never kept the promise it made to open the Strait in exchange for a cease fire.

It seems the slow blockade approach keeps oil higher for longer while the other two measures are riskier but more likely to yield faster results. I’d bet on one of them soon over just the blockade.

Meanwhile both the US and Israel eliminated some big time terrorists including a top ISIS figure in Africa and a top Oct 7th planner/Hamas leader.

And the NYT continues to immolate itself with defending its errant opinion column in the face of a 300 page report on the wanton and widespread sexual violence on Oct 7th. This time the din is not dying down and I think the best days of the NYT are clearly behind it. The turn it has taken to platform Hassan Piker, Graham Platner and Tucker Carlson are part of a rabbit hole it has gone down from which it may never recover.

[Mark Penn @Mark_Penn]

The plot thickens

Today the Civil Commission released in Britain a detailed and fully documented report on the atrocities of Oct 7th and it’s clear that this propaganda piece by Kristof was timed to displace that report.

[Mark Penn @Mark_Penn]

NY Times Does it again

In the 1930s, they won a Pulitzer for romanticized reporting of Joseph Stalin that failed to uncover the deliberate starving of millions in the Ukraine.

Then the paper won a Pulitzer for reporting that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when it turned out to be false.

And then they won a Pulitzer for their coverage of the non existent Russia Russia hoax on the president that turned out to be an unsubstantiated Clinton oppo research scheme.

Recently, they won a Pulitzer for a photo purporting to show a starving child that turned out to be a child with severe prenatal birth defects and a healthy mother and brother (who was cropped out).

And now they publish an op ed (and let me tell you they fact check every single word of a moderate op ed for days) from Nicholas Kristof that carries unproven and impossible allegations of trained rape dogs from Hamas-affiliated sources.

No award in sight yet but give it time. I don’t know how many more “awards” our country can withstand for this outlet’s nearly hundred year history of the amplification of politicized propaganda.

[Mark Penn @Mark_Penn]

@havivrettiggur @ChrisWilsonQED Exactly. Propaganda tied to the publication of this new report

[Mark Penn @Mark_Penn]

The Iran Dare

After a relentless pounding and regime change in Iran, the new regime continues to ban the Internet for its people, execute and threaten them, threaten neighbors like the UAE with missiles and drones, attack US ships, keep the Strait closed and so the time they were given for reflection appears to be coming to an end.

In the meantime the US has added to its forces and the new regime is once again exposed. No doubt they have taken some steps to rearm and plan counter attacks but they are also more vulnerable than ever.

The president may decide to just keep the blockade going, especially until after his trip to China. But the Iranian dare is getting more visible each day and the world seems to have decided there will be no further response to the new regime in Iran’s positions and claim on the Strait as Europe has retreated into its shell rather than confront Iran.

One way or another though it’s more likely than not that the president will reaffirm his wider goals in the presence of a defiant regime and there will be another round of “kinetic” actions. There is no reason to leave the regime in place if it is not willing to give up its expansionist military goals.

It is unlikely that temporary increases in oil prices and the threat of midterms six months away is going to stop the president from pushing this to the next level despite his having given the new regime opportunity — but his strategy here remains his own and will be disclosed in due time — and that’s the way it should be.

[Mark Penn @Mark_Penn]

Negotiations nearing end?

They are torturing young people to get confessions and then hanging them. They have seized the Strait of Hormuz to paralyze the world oil market.They are sending missiles to civilian areas of countries like the UAE and even tried attacking our ships. And keeping the internet shut so their people cannot communicate.

And we are negotiating with them? I am always open minded to see what happens but these don’t seem like promising negotiating partners.

[Mark Penn @Mark_Penn]

Credibility

At this point the Iranians have attacked the UAE with missiles. They have attacked US ships. They failed to keep their original commitment of opening up the Strait.

Maybe the blockade alone will work.

But…

It’s red line time and the Iranians have now crossed every red line. They have done it deliberately and defiantly. Hard to see any other options left on the table. Or at least a limited strike.

The blockade is definitely causing internal problems and maybe sticking to it is the most prudent course but they have not so far given up on any of the critical points needed for peace.

[Mark Penn @Mark_Penn]

Seriously ???

The magistrate judge apologized for putting Cole Allen on suicide watch, which involved solitary confinement.
And ruled he be integrated with the rest of the prisoners and be given a bible.

The prosecutors suggested that perhaps someone who left final goodbye notes and launched an all out attack to try to kill as many cabinet members and the president as well as possible might possibly need a psych evaluation and could possibly be suicidal.

I thought perhaps the article with its headline about the judge apologizing to the assassin was from The Babylon Bee. What planet could this judge possibly be on? Does he not remember what happened to Lee Harvey Oswald? Does he not realize that mixing him at this point would be a danger to him? And not realize that putting him on suicide watch was a perfectly realistic action given Allen never expected to survive the attack?
Sometimes it just seems like an upside down world.

[Mark Penn @Mark_Penn]

When push comes to shove

The President has announced an initiative to open up passage thru the Strait while continuing his blockade and either it will be successful or Iran will start pulling the trigger on ships crossing it.

If they do, expect the US to hit them hard and they know it’s coming. The President is definitely not bluffing.

No question he would prefer Iran to give up their ambitions of ruling the region and holding the world hostage to their twisted vision. But in response to the good faith moves of the US, the Iranian leadership has announced they own and run the Strait of Hormuz. This is something neither the US nor any of its regional allies can allow to stand even a day longer.

Iran has a choice. Confronted with the US armada it could simply back off and let Operation Freedom go forward. That would be the smart choice but there is little indication they have the ability or willingness yet to go down that road.

Consequently, the likely outcome here is another military round; new leaders in Iran and then another round of negotiations until capitulation. If Iran does not challenge Project Freedom it could maintain a ceasefire but its economy is under the siege of the blockade.

So the president has them penned in on all sides — economically and militarily. They have no visible way out other than to try to delay and he continues to tighten the trap they are in. It may take longer than anyone would like but it is hard to see what moves Iran has as long as he keeps the full court press going.

[Mark Penn @Mark_Penn]

https://t.co/BcRwy0ARGi