David Makovsky/Times of Israel:

The trust Biden built with Israelis doesn’t come with a blank check

The depth of the US president's commitment impressed ordinary Israelis but an ongoing Gaza war could test ties

This may have been one of the most devastating weeks in Israel’s history, but it also could mark a fundamental turning point between the Israeli public’s relationship with US President Joe Biden.

Israel has had emotional moments of connection before with foreign leaders at times of great shock. One came when Jordan’s King Hussein kneeled before grieving Israeli families after a crazed Jordanian soldier killed seven Israeli schoolgirls. Another came when President Bill Clinton met with Israeli high school students after four suicide bombings, two of them on Tel Aviv buses, during a single nine-day period in 1996. These were not standard political meetings, but intimate encounters between a grieving society and a foreign leader who they came to see as a trusted friend for their words and actions. This week may be another.

Biden’s three sets of White House remarks – first over the weekend, then a forceful statement on Tuesday expanded upon in remarks to American Jewish leaders on Wednesday – were effective for different reasons. They had an extraordinary and immediate impact inside Israel. A commentator on Israel’s right-wing Channel 14 apologized to Biden on-air for questioning his commitment to Israel in the past, saying this was the “moment of truth.” Huge billboards sprung up on Tel Aviv’s Ayalon Highway declaring “Thank you, Mr. President” and quoting from his speech. Public reaction, judging from Israeli TV and social media, ranged from grateful to ecstatic.

Simon Rosenberg/”Hopium Chronicles” on Substack:

The President’s Speech On the Terror Attacks in Israel - Yesterday, the President gave his first extended set of remarks on Hamas’ barbaric attacks on Israel. His remarks have been widely praised. Many have called it the finest hour and finest speech of his Presidency. Do watch. The remarks are only about 10 minutes long. The video is below and you can find a transcript here.

YouTube Video

Jonathan V Last/The Bulwark:

Biden Gets 10/7 Right

Another crisis and another solid response from POTUS.

Our hearts may be broken, but our resolve is clear.

There’s more. You can read the rest. You should read the rest.

Here are some things Biden did not do:

• He did not tweet out threats.

• He did not call people dogs.

• He did not alienate any of our allies.

• He did not endorse war crimes.

• He did not criticize any of his domestic political opponents.

Just objectively speaking: Is there anything more you could want from an American president at a moment like this? Because if there is, I can’t think of it.

Joe Biden has done the job about as well as anyone—Republican or Democrat—could have hoped.

Bruce Hoffman/The Atlantic:

Understanding Hamas’s Genocidal Ideology

A close read of Hamas’s founding documents clearly shows its intentions.

How many Israelis, or Jews, or anyone else for that matter, have read the 1988 Hamas Covenant or the revised charter that was issued in 2017? With 36 articles of only a few paragraphs’ length each in the former, and 42 concise statements of general principles and objectives in the latter, both are considerably shorter and more digestible than the 782-page original German-language edition of Mein Kampf. Moreover, unlike Hitler’s seminal work, which was not published in English until March 1939, excellent English translations of both the original Hamas Covenant and its successor can easily be found on the internet.

Bruce Hoffman is a professor at Georgetown University. He is also the Shelby Cullom & Katharine W. Davis Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security at the Council on Foreign Relations and the George H. Gilmore Senior Fellow at the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center.

This is not a pretty or relaxing read.

Jerusalem Post:

Poll: Majority blames gov’t for Hamas massacre, says Netanyahu must resign

An overwhelming majority of 86% of respondents, including 79% of coalition supporters, said the surprise attack from Gaza is a failure of the country's leadership.

The survey, which polled 620 Israeli Jews from across the country, also found that a majority of respondents believed Netanyahu should resign following the conclusion of Operation Swords of Iron.

A slim majority of 56% said Netanyahu must resign at the end of the war, with 28% of coalition voters agreeing with this view, and  52% of respondents also expect Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to resign.

As I have noted, expecting Israelis to rally around Netanyahu the way it happened here after 9/11 is a misread of the situation and a projection of American politics onto a different society.

Patricia Murphy/Atlanta Journal Constitution:

They can’t run their caucus. How can Republicans run a country?

It would be tempting to compare the House GOP caucus to the Mickey Mouse Club. But at least the Mickey Mouse Club had a leader. House Republicans are nowhere close to being able to say the same.

It’s been a week and a half since a group of eight disgruntled Republicans ousted former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. But after days of closed-door caucus meetings and secret ballot votes this week, Republicans are further away from choosing a new speaker than the day McCarthy was booted…

In the same period of time that the House has been leaderless, Hamas launched a deadly massacre against Israel, with more than 1,000 Israelis dead and at least 22 Americans killed. Israel responded by bombing Gaza, and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken traveled to the Middle East with the United States’ hostage specialist to seek the return of Americans held there…

The only things House Republicans have managed to do in response are fight amongst themselves, gavel the chamber into session for seven minutes, and take Nancy Pelosi’s office away from her. It hasn’t been pretty.

A bipartisan solution is available, but Republicans aren’t ready yet.

Here’s an interesting pair of articles regarding Wisconsin:

Associated Press:

2nd former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice advises Republican leader against impeachment

Former Justice Jon Wilcox told The Associated Press that there was nothing to justify impeaching Justice Janet Protasiewicz, as some Republican lawmakers have floated because of comments she made during the campaign about redistricting and donations she accepted from the Wisconsin Democratic Party.

“I do not favor impeachment,” Wilcox told AP in a telephone interview. “Impeachment is something people have been throwing around all the time. But I think it’s for very serious things.”

New York Times:

Wisconsin Republicans Retreat From Threats to Impeach Liberal Justice

Republicans had floated the idea of impeaching Janet Protasiewicz, newly seated on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, before she could undo the party’s legislative gerrymander. But on Thursday, they backed off.

Wisconsin Republicans signaled on Thursday that they were retreating from their threats to impeach a recently seated liberal State Supreme Court justice, Janet Protasiewicz, before the newly left-leaning court could throw out the gerrymandered legislative maps that have cemented the G.O.P.’s hold on power in the state.

Robin Vos, the powerful Republican speaker of the State Assembly, said at a news conference in Madison that he would not seek to remove Justice Protasiewicz based on the argument he and fellow Republicans had been making for two months — that statements she made calling the maps “rigged” during her campaign for office this year compelled impeachment if she refused to recuse herself from a case challenging them.

Now, Mr. Vos said, the focus would be on what Justice Protasiewicz does “in office.” He said that if the court ruled against the Republican-drawn maps and other conservative causes, he would appeal its decisions to the U.S. Supreme Court. Impeachment, he said, remained “on the table” but was not something Republicans would pursue now.

It’s very hard to know what’s bluster and what’s a plan—or intimidation.

New York Times:

Republicans Choose a New Speaker Nominee, Then Quickly Undercut Him

Multiple lawmakers refused to honor their party’s internal selection of Steve Scalise, continuing the chaos over the speakership with no end in sight.

Republicans used to consider themselves the orderly party, the one that assiduously adhered to the rules and respected the will of the majority. But the traditional rule book has been thrown out the window when it comes to the extraordinary tumult in the House.

In what would have been unthinkable in the past, numerous House Republicans on Wednesday refused to honor the results of their internal election of Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana for speaker — historically a given. They threatened a mutiny on the House floor that had factions of the party in open conflict amid the unrelenting chaos on Capitol Hill.

Republicans are, in fact, the party of refusing to accept election results. They are nihilists and insurrectionists. And it’s on full display in the House. But there is a way out, unlikely though it may be. This is from the Washington Post:

Hakeem Jeffries: A bipartisan coalition is the way forward for the House

House Republicans have lashed out at historic public servants and tried to shift blame for the failed Republican strategy of appeasement. But what if they pursued a different path and confronted the extremism that has spread unchecked on the Republican side of the aisle? When that step has been taken in good faith, we can proceed together to reform the rules of the House in a manner that permits us to govern in a pragmatic fashion.

The details would be subject to negotiation, though the principles are no secret: The House should be restructured to promote governance by consensus and facilitate up-or-down votes on bills that have strong bipartisan support. Under the current procedural landscape, a small handful of extreme members on the Rules Committee or in the House Republican conference can prevent common-sense legislation from ever seeing the light of day. That must change — perhaps in a manner consistent with bipartisan recommendations from the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress.

In short, the rules of the House should reflect the inescapable reality that Republicans are reliant on Democratic support to do the basic work of governing. A small band of extremists should not be capable of obstructing that cooperation.

No specifics here, just a statement of principle. Still, getting important bipartisan bills on the floor for a vote would be a step forward.

Bolts Magazine:

Kentucky Activists Step In to Deliver on the Promise of Voting Rights Restoration

After the governor restored hundreds of thousands of people’s rights in 2019, a coalition led by formerly incarcerated Kentuckians is working to inform people of their rights.

The outlook changed dramatically for Kentuckians with felonies in 2019, when Democrat Andy Beshear entered office with what he called a “moral responsibility” to help others like Malone. Two days after his inauguration, Beshear issued a sweeping executive order to automatically restore voting rights for people convicted in Kentucky of nonviolent crimes once they finish all parts of their sentence, including parole or probation. The order instantly restored voting rights to about 180,000 Kentuckians and sliced the state’s disenfranchised population in half.

But in practice, this massive expansion of voter eligibility has not translated into a wave of newly-enfranchised Kentuckians actually heading to the polls. In the 2022 midterm election, three years on from the executive order, only about 7 percent of people whose voting rights were restored by Beshear’s order actually cast ballots, according to the Kentucky Civic Engagement Table, a voting rights organization. That’s compared to 42 percent of the overall electorate.

Part of the blame, Kentucky’s advocates say, lies with a Beshear administration that did little to notify people affected by the order. This inaction has inspired Kentuckians like Malone to step in and inform people who are eligible to vote but may not realize it. Their project has kicked into higher gear recently, ahead of a critical November election that, as I reported last month, could lead to a reversal of Beshear’s order and a return to blanket disenfranchisement of anyone convicted of a felony.

A coalition of activists and nonprofit organizations have been using public records and word of mouth to identify people whose rights were restored, traversing the state to tell those people they have the right to vote and to encourage them to exercise it. In addition to door-to-door canvassing, this coalition scours social media, meets people in barber shops and churches, in parks and county jails, and at public events like this Lexington festival.