Jonathan V Last/The Bulwark:

2024 Is Democracy's Moonshot

Like it or not, a crisis is coming. But we are facing it on good ground.

Just objectively speaking, the forces of stability are actually in a strong position.

The pandemic is over. I don’t think we appreciate this enough. COVID was so traumatic that we’ve memory-holed how unstable and deadly a place America was in four years ago.

The economy is strong. Forget the attitude surveys. If you were handed reams of economic data you would come to two rock-solid conclusions:

(1) The American economy is in a good place: Low unemployment, bottom-led wage growth, increasing household wealth, solid GDP growth.

(2) Relative to the rest of the world, the American economy has performed marvelously. Every advanced economy would trade places with us in a heartbeat.

We are not involved in any wars. The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are over and our troops are no longer in harm’s way. This gives America extra freedom of maneuver in dealing with our adversaries because we no longer have active conflicts leaching away our political will on a daily basis.

We are certainly involved in Ukraine, Gaza and other places but that’s not at all the same thing.

Steve Almond/WBUR:

Joe Biden’s drama-free White House is America’s most under-appreciated Christmas gift

Whatever the reasons, I can’t help but think of Biden and his economic team, toiling away without much fanfare, like Santa and his elves. Whether or not you support him, it’s worth acknowledging a few of the gifts Santa Joe has tucked under our tree this year.

A holiday meal sans masks. COVID hasn’t gone away; it’s now endemic. But thanks, in part, to Biden’s aggressive push to vaccinate the public, 2023 brought the end of the national emergency phase of the pandemic.

More buying power. For all the hyper-ventilating about inflation in the conservative media, Biden and the Federal Reserve have managed to engineer the “soft landing” once thought impossible. The result? Wage growth is now outpacing inflation.

Cheaper prescription drugs. As part of the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden took the fight to Big Pharma and capped the cost of insulin at $35 per month. By allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices directly, the law will eventually lower the price of numerous additional drugs.

A reminder of how Democrats always, always, always fret, from New York Times (September, 2011):

Democrats Fret Aloud Over Obama’s Chances

And in a campaign cycle in which Democrats had entertained hopes of reversing losses from last year’s midterm elections, some in the party fear that Mr. Obama’s troubles could reverberate down the ballot into Congressional, state and local races.

“In my district, the enthusiasm for him has mostly evaporated,” said Representative Peter A. DeFazio, Democrat of Oregon. “There is tremendous discontent with his direction.”

Democrats feared Mitt Romney and—uhm—Rick Perry, according to that piece. Meanwhile:

Same as all the other polls, (I) too early for predictive value and (II) basically tied before the campaign gets started in earnest, but not where it matters most. If that bothers you, see the New York Times piece above from 12 years ago.

USA Today with a headline we should be reading more often, because it’s true:

Donald Trump faces many signs of potential political trouble; here are a few of them

Here are some of the things that can and will happen to Trump as he pursues the presidency again.

Adverse court rulings

The potential of legal trouble is all around Trump, and could pop up any time..

Falling poll numbers; rising rivals

Trump's GOP rivals warn that his continued legal woes will eventually wear out voters who might start to consider alternatives…

Bad voter reaction

The ultimate bad sign for Trump would come from voters.

Des Moines Register:

Why does Trump keep saying migrants are 'poisoning' America? Many GOP caucusgoers like it

The poll found that 42% of likely Republican caucusgoers are more likely to support Trump for his "poisoning the blood" comments; 28% said they are less likely to support him; and 29% said it does not matter.

The poll, conducted by Selzer & Co., has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

…

That includes respondents of all age and income levels. It also includes married and single caucusgoers and those with children under 18, as well as likely caucusgoers from all four of Iowa's congressional districts.

Pluralities of men and women both say their support increases, with 45% of men and 38% of women saying they are more likely to support Trump after hearing him say illegal immigrants are "poisoning the blood" of America.

Politico:

House GOP traps itself in impeachment box

Republicans are barreling toward an impeachment vote, still short of a majority. But if they skip one altogether, it might look like failure to the base.

Much of the House GOP has tried to keep the question of a full-scale removal vote at arm’s length, despite the course they’ve charted toward formal articles of impeachment. It’s not hard to see why: They’ll start the election year with only a three-vote majority, which could shrink even further, and 17 incumbents who represent districts Biden won. Plus, Democrats are almost guaranteed to unanimously oppose impeachment.

All that means a vote to recommend booting the president from office would be highly risky.

Wall Street Journal:

Prices Fell in November for the First Time Since 2020. Inflation Is Approaching Fed Target.

Spending and personal income rose, as Americans’ confidence in the economy rebounded

The Federal Reserve is winning its fight over inflation, boosting Americans’ spirits and offering greater reassurance that the U.S. economy can avoid a recession while bringing prices under control.

The Fed’s preferred inflation measure, the personal-consumption expenditures price index, fell 0.1% in November from the previous month, the first decline since April 2020, the Commerce Department said Friday. Prices were up 2.6% on the year, not far from the Fed’s 2% target.

New York Times:

What Went Wrong for Ron DeSantis in 2023

The Florida governor entered the year flush with cash and momentum. In the months since, internal chaos and Donald Trump’s indictments have sapped even his most avid supporters.

“I don’t think it’s fair,” Mr. DeSantis said. “But it’s reality.”

He was talking about Mr. Trump’s predicament. But he could just as easily have been talking about his own.

Boxed in by a base enamored with Mr. Trump that has instinctively rallied to the former president’s defense, Mr. DeSantis has struggled for months to match the hype that followed his landslide 2022 re-election. Now, with the first votes in the Iowa caucuses only weeks away on Jan. 15, Mr. DeSantis has slipped in some polls into third place, behind Nikki Haley, and has had to downsize his once-grand national ambitions to the simple hopes that a strong showing in a single state — Iowa — could vault him back into contention.

For a candidate who talks at length about his own disinterest in “managing America’s decline,” people around Mr. DeSantis are increasingly talking about managing his…

“He lacks charisma,” [New Hampshire voter] Mr. Scaer said in an interview later. “He just doesn’t have that.”

If the great promise of the DeSantis candidacy was Trump without the baggage, Stuart Stevens, a top strategist on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, said that what Republicans got instead was “Ted Cruz without the personality.”

Cue the “Never Back Down” jokes about the DeSantis campaign backing down.

Matt McNeil and Cliff Schecter:

The Hill:

GOP struggles to outrun Texas, Supreme Court abortion cases

Across-the-aisle tensions on abortion have been on full display over the last week after the Texas Supreme Court blocked Kate Cox, a pregnant woman whose fetus was diagnosed with a fatal condition, from having an abortion. Cox left the state to obtain an abortion just hours before the Texas court rejected her challenge.

Biden has already sought to wield the case as a cautionary tale against Republicans in power and against the GOP presidential front-runner, former President Trump.

“I don’t think they can escape it,” Republican strategist Liz Mair said of next year’s White House candidates, adding that the recent Texas case underscores the salience of the issue.

Alabamain Sean Lulofs and Iowan Steve Deace have a convo, which Nicholas Grossman frames beautifully:

Let it sink in everywhere.

Greer Donley/New York Times:

What Happened to Kate Cox Is Tragic, and Completely Expected

As someone who has been studying state abortion definitions and exceptions in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s demise, I was not shocked.

The Texas anti-abortion law that went into effect shortly after Roe was overturned was drafted to ban the care needed by Ms. Cox and other women with similar cases: It does not include an exception for fetal anomalies, unlike laws in a handful of other states. The law does have a narrow exception allowing abortions in some medical emergencies, but it is written in such a vague and confusing way that it is difficult for even experts on this topic, like myself, to parse.

What is clear to me is that the Texas Supreme Court would have needed to make a broad and compassionate interpretation of the law for Ms. Cox to meet the high bar of that exception. Instead, the court interpreted the law narrowly — which is exactly what the state lawmakers who passed the legislation were hoping for. And the results have been tragic.

Jonathan V Last/The Bulwark:

The Case for Why Biden Will Win

We're all gonna make it.

I’ve been feeling more pessimistic than usual, because let’s be honest: Things are not great.

• There’s a yawning disconnect between voter sentiment and economic reality.

• The most successful first-term president since either Clinton or H.W. Bush has an impeachment proceeding against him for [reasons] and voters don’t seem to care.

• Republicans are going to nominate a guy who attempted a coup and now expressly says he’d like to be a dictator.

• This aspiring dictator is leading the incumbent president in most polls.

• Ukraine has bogged down, Russia is making small gains, and America is wavering in its support for the most consequential European war since WWII.

But last night on TNB our economist friend Noah Smith made a pretty radical argument:

Even though it feels like we’re in a moment that is outside of historical norms, the long-running dynamics of economics and politics are still at work. And these dynamics suggest that Joe Biden is likely to win reelection.

So let’s unpack Noah’s thesis.

Ronald Brownstein/The Atlantic:

Biden’s Economic Formula to Win in 2024

Could this be the president’s new strategy?

President Joe Biden and Democrats cannot win the debate over the economy without fundamentally reframing the terms of the choice they are offering voters, an extensive new research study by one of the party’s prominent electoral-strategy groups has concluded.

The study, scheduled to be released today, seeks to mitigate one of the party’s most glaring vulnerabilities heading into the 2024 election: the consistent finding in surveys that when it comes to managing the national economy or addressing inflation, significantly more voters express confidence in Republicans than in Democrats.

To close that gap, the study argues, Biden and Democrats must shift the debate from which party is best equipped to grow the overall economy to which side can help families achieve what the report calls a “better life.” The study argues that Democrats can win that argument with a three-pronged message centered on: delivering tangible kitchen-table economic benefits (such as increased federal subsidies for buying health insurance), confronting powerful special interests (such as major corporations), and pledging to protect key personal liberties and freedoms, led by the right to legal abortion.

Politico:

Republican strategist Jeff Roe quits pro-DeSantis super PAC amid turmoil

Roe announced his resignation late Saturday.

[Ron] DeSantis has been heavily leaning on Never Back Down to oversee his campaign’s functions, including its field deployment.

Why it matters: DeSantis was trying something new—using an outside group and not the campaign for basic campaign blocking and tackling. To abuse a football analogy even further, outsourcing your offensive and defensive lines means there’s no team coordination whatsoever (pretend it’d be illegal to coordinate), and you can imagine how that plays out on the field.

Well, it didn’t work. And DeSantis is is big trouble without a game plan just as Nikki Haley threatens to eclipse him altogether.

See also from Politico: DeSantis on the ropes

David French/New York Times:

To Support Ukraine, Persuade the Elephant

One of the most interesting explorations of the art of persuasion comes from New York University’s Jonathan Haidt, who several years ago described the process of persuasion as well as anyone I know. In his book “The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom,” he compares people’s relation to their emotions to a “rider on the back of an elephant.”

The rider is our rational mind. It’s the part of our brain that deals with facts and reason. It acknowledges, for example, that two plus two equals four, the sky is blue and the Southeastern Conference is the greatest college football conference in the history of the universe.

The elephant is basically everything else about us. As Haidt later explained in an excellent podcast discussion, the elephant represents “99 percent of what’s going on in your mind that you’re not aware of.” By controlling our emotional and social aspects, the elephant controls us far more than we might like; we are, after all, only riders. If the elephant doesn’t want to move, it won’t move. But if the elephant wants to move, as Haidt said on the podcast, “then it is effortless to persuade the rider to go along.” Thus the best way to persuade the elephant and rider to change course is to “reach the elephant first.”

Tom Sullivan/Hullabaloo:

Those Left-To-Right Sliders

What spurs some to lurch right is rejection by the left. Trust me, I’ve heard that one. Some new volunteers are quickly discouraged at not being elevated to positions of prominence and authority in political campaigns that are mostly grunt work directed by the more experienced. Grunt work is beneath their dignity. They are “big ideas” people.

We see something similar among better-knowns of the post-left. 

Cliff Schecter & Stephanie Miller:

The Rudy Giuliani defamation trial is now over.

NBC News:

Rudy Giuliani hit with $148M verdict for defaming two Georgia election workers

An attorney for Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, had urged the eight-person jury to “send a message” with its verdict.

It was a unanimous decision by an eight-person jury. Giuliani deserved punitive damages, and the plaintiffs—Fulton County, Georgia, election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss—deserve to be compensated.

The courts are saying that lying can be expensive. And Donald Trump’s fraud trial in New York is still yet to resolve (and it might send the same message).

In other news:

Neil Irwin/Axios:

What the Fed's rate policy pivot means for the economy

Why it matters: The end of the war on inflation is in sight. Barring some unpleasant economic surprises, the central bank is now prepared to take its foot off the brakes and move to a stance in which it is no longer actively trying to slow growth.

• Importantly, the majority of policymakers are now envisioning significant rate cuts in 2024, while also envisioning the economy remaining basically solid, with low unemployment and steady growth.
• In other words, rates will probably be coming down next year even in the absence of a severe downturn. That's a sweet spot both for financial markets and for families and businesses.
• The cycle of monetary tightening that has whipsawed markets and the economy for the last two years is, for all intents and purposes, over.

John Stoehr/The Editorial Board:

House Republicans ‘will regret’ voting for impeachment inquiry

An interview with the peerless Jill Lawrence.

Biden’s impeachment, which is imminent, is part of Trump’s vengeance movement. Fortunately, it’s being seen that way. Stories about it seem to have two critical features. One, that there’s no evidence linking Joe Biden to Hunter Biden’s businesses. Two, that beneath all the innuendo and conspiracy theory is an obsessive, driving force – a disgraced former president who’s still stinging from being impeached twice.

Since these impeachment proceedings are going to be based on nothing, one could say nothing will come of them – meaninglessness has no meaning. But that overlooks something important about the House GOP’s smear campaign. It represents fundamental weakness.

Craig Mauger/Detroit News:

In court, Michigan Republicans tie false elector effort to Donald Trump's campaign

While the Trump campaign has previously been tied to the overall strategy of crafting electoral certificates in seven battleground states, the testimony Thursday described campaign staffers as being involved in recruiting attendees and running the meeting of the false electors in Lansing on Dec. 14, 2020. During that gathering, 16 Republican activists signed a document that was used to claim the then-incumbent Republican president won Michigan's 16 electoral votes.

The revelations came on the second day of preliminary examinations for six of the Republican electors as Attorney General Dana Nessel's office pursues criminal forgery charges against those whose names appeared on the false certificate.

Bolts magazine:

The Thousands of Local Elections That Will Shape Criminal Justice Policy in 2024

Counties across the nation are electing DAs and sheriffs next year. Bolts guides you through the early hotspots.

Local DAs like [Georgia’s Fani] Willis have become a key GOP target this year, as Republicans go after prosecutors who they think are standing in the way of their political or policy ambitions. New laws in Georgia and Texas give courts and state officials more authority to discipline DAs. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is challenging Trump for the GOP’s presidential nomination, has over the last 18 months removed two Democratic prosecutors from office, angry over their policies like not prosecuting abortion.

The presidential election is also pulling sheriffs into its orbit. Far-right sheriffs have allied with election deniers, using local law enforcement to amplify Trump’s lies about 2020, ramp up investigations, and even threaten election officials. One such sheriff, Pinal County’s Mark Lamb, is now running for the U.S. Senate in Arizona, leaving his office open. Over in Texas, Tarrant County (Fort Worth) Sheriff Bill Waybourn inspired a new task force that will be policing how people vote while he runs for reelection next year.

With roughly 2,200 prosecutors and sheriffs on the 2024 ballot, voters will weigh in on county offices throughout the nation next year, settling confrontations over the shape of local criminal legal systems while also choosing the president and Congress.

Bolts today is launching its coverage with our annual overview of which counties will hold such races and when: Find our full list here.

Bloomberg:

Mike Johnson May Be the Next House Speaker to Lose His Job

• Conservatives warn Johnson against deals on Ukraine, shutdown
• Lawmakers due back just 10 days before next US funding lapse

House Speaker Mike Johnson is ending 2023 with an ominous preview of what to expect in the new year: dissension in his ranks that threatens to hamstring deals on US government funding, Ukraine war aid and border policy.

It could also cost him his job.

The Louisiana Republican, elected speaker in October after GOP hardliners ousted his predecessor for making deals with Democrats, sent the House home for the holidays on Thursday after passing a bipartisan defense policy bill over strong objections from 73 ultra-conservatives.

This YouTube lecture from New York Times analyst Nate Cohn on the state of polling is excellent:

Joyce Vance/”Civil Discourse” on Substack:

Jack Smith's Bold Move

The issue comes down to this: Is Trump immune from criminal prosecution for the rest of his life for any acts he committed while president? In other words, is he above the law? Or can he be, as Jack Smith argues, prosecuted once he leaves the White House.

The Supreme Court has never decided this issue before. And it has to be decided, because if it goes in Trump’s favor, the case is dismissed and there will be no trial. I don’t think anyone expects that will be the outcome here, although you never know with the Supreme Court. But Smith is asking them to tell Trump that immunity (and double jeopardy, an argument with even less merit than immunity) is off the table so the case can proceed to trial.

It’s too early to do horse race polling, but if you want to look at a poll, look at the ones that ask about convictions.

CNN:

NY appeals court hands Trump another defeat over gag order

A New York appellate court rejected Donald Trump’s challenge of the gag order in his civil fraud trial Thursday. Trump’s attorneys petitioned the court over the gag order that bars him and the attorneys from speaking publicly about Judge Arthur Engoron’s court staff.

In rejecting the challenge Thursday, the appeals court said Trump didn’t use the proper legal vehicle to challenge the gag order and sanctions.

The appellate court in another order Thursday also rejected a Trump request to allow his legal team to seek a review of the gag order by the Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court.

Trial testimony ended Wednesday after 11 weeks in court.

The parties are scheduled to file supplemental briefs in the case January 5 and return to court for oral arguments January 11 before Engoron renders a final verdict.

And on that note, keep in mind how often Trump is losing in court, except for some delay moves.

On the “vibes vs. the economy” debate, Nate Cohn/The New York Times:

Vibes, the Economy and the Election

Recent positive news may put two theories on economic disenchantment to the test.

Yes, voters are upset about high prices, and prices are indeed high. This easily and even completely explains why voters think this economy is mediocre: In the era of consumer sentiment data, inflation has never risen so high without pushing consumer sentiment below average and usually well below average. This part is not complicated.

But it’s harder to argue that voters should believe the economy is outright terrible, even after accounting for inflation. Back in early 2022, I estimated that consumer confidence was running at least 10 to 15 percentage points worse than one would expect historically, after accounting for prices and real disposable income.

In that regard, consider the following headlines:

• CNN: Dow surges to new record as Fed signals three rate cuts in 2024
• New York Times: Is Jerome Powell’s Fed Pulling Off a Soft Landing?
• New York Times: The Markets Are Getting Ahead of the Fed
• CNBC: Dow rises to fresh record after more strong economic data, falling rates
• Reuters: US economy still resilient as retail sales beat expectations, layoffs stay low

Consider also that weak Chinese economic growth is likely to depress oil demand for some time.

Jill Lawrence/The Bulwark:

Impeachment Is Just Another Word for Getting Even. Thanks, GOP.

Accountability is on life support and even Jack Smith may not save it.

No facts? No problem. House Republicans plan to launch an official Biden impeachment inquiry this week—if they can wrangle enough votes from their minuscule, divided majority. Greene predicted two months before the 2022 midterms that there would be “a lot of investigations” if the GOP won the House. It’s the Democrats’ fault, she told author Robert Draper, because they started it with their “witch hunts” against Trump. She introduced an impeachment resolution against Biden the day after he took office.

The Associated Press:

The Republican leading the probe of Hunter Biden has his own shell company and complicated friends

Interviews and records reviewed by The Associated Press provide new insights into the financial deal, which risks undercutting the force of some of [GOP Rep. James] Comer’s central arguments in his impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden. For months, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee and his Republican colleagues have been pounding Biden, a Democrat, for how his relatives traded on their famous name to secure business deals.

Expect more stories like this now that the hypocrisy is on full display.

Great point:

He’s right about Leader Jeffries. Then again:

Tony Michaels and Cliff Schecter on a Trump dictatorship:

New York Times:

Hamas and Israel Prepare for 3rd Exchange of Prisoners for Hostages

The Egyptian government said it had received a list of those who would be swapped. Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, said that at least one American citizen could be among them.

• An earlier delay underscores the fragility of the agreement.

• Freed Israeli hostages are sharing details of their time in captivity, relatives say.

• Biden’s national security adviser says an American hostage might be released on Sunday.

NBC News:

The five 'extremely excruciating' weeks of talks that led to the Hamas hostage deal

Vast challenges remain in freeing all 240 hostages. Most of all, Hamas’ claim that it is not holding roughly 100 of the captives.

The final agreement — the outlines of which had been on the table for weeks — wouldn’t have been accepted by Netanyahu without enormous pressure from Biden, according to a senior Israeli government official.

“This deal was a Biden deal, not a Netanyahu deal,” the official said.

Washington Post:

White House grapples with internal divisions on Israel-Gaza

The Hamas attacks and Israeli reaction have roiled the Biden team like no other issue during his presidency

The division inside the White House is to some degree between Biden’s senior longtime aides and an array of younger staffers of diverse backgrounds. But even top advisers said they recognize the conflict has hurt America’s global standing. “We’re taking on a lot of water on Israel’s behalf,” one senior official said. Still, Biden’s aides noted that his public statements have become increasingly direct on the responsibility Israel has to minimize civilian casualties and to allow aid into Gaza, even as he declines to call for a cease-fire as many liberals want.

The White House also insists it has influenced Israel’s military tactics, pointing out that more than 100 aid trucks a day on average are getting into Gaza and that Israel is now allowing in some fuel. One senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss secret diplomacy, said that after the United States dispatched three senior military officers in late October to advise the Israelis on strategy, they sent only about a third as many troops into Gaza as they had initially planned.

Sahil speaks truth.

Peter Wehner/The Atlantic:

Have You Listened Lately to What Trump Is Saying?

He is becoming frighteningly clear about what he wants.

I thought about the events that led up to the Rwandan genocide after I heard Donald Trump, in a Veterans Day speech, refer to those he counts as his enemies as “vermin.” “We pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country—that lie and steal and cheat on elections,” Trump said toward the end of his speech in Claremont, New Hampshire. “They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American dream.” The former president continued, “The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.”

When Trump finished his speech, the audience erupted in applause.

Mediaite:

Trump Lashes Out At ‘The Atlantic’ After Brutal Article Details His Recent Rhetoric: ‘Frighteningly Clear About What He Wants’

Former President Donald Trump took aim the The Atlantic on Saturday and personally attacked its owner Laurene Powell Jobs.

“It’s so good to see how badly the THIRD RATE MAGAZINE, The Atlantic, is doing,” Trump said of the storied publication.

“It’s failing at a level seldom seen before, even in the Publishing Business. False and Fake stories do it every time! They’ve got a rich person funding the ridiculous losses, but at some point, rich people get smart also. Steve Jobs would not be proud of his wife, Laurene, and the way she is spending his money. The Radical Left is destroying America!”

Darren Samuelsohn/The Messenger:

Trump Vows to Prosecute Critics and Rivals — But it’s Not Quite That Easy

The Republican presidential frontrunner's second-term retaliation plans may be catnip for his MAGA audiences but will be far more difficult to implement in real life

Even for someone who has twice survived impeachment and who can expect to be successful in making it his top priority upon inauguration to redirect the DOJ from prosecuting him to becoming one of his biggest defenders, legal experts told The Messenger that Trump may be a bit overconfident if he thinks he could also achieve his goals by taking absolute command of the nation’s most powerful arm of law enforcement to direct at his leisure.

If he doesn’t win, problem solved.

Click for the entire message from George Takei. With age comes experience, at least sometimes, but it’s certainly true for Biden.

A reminder the House is back Tuesday, so the standard starting routine applies at noon: A Speaker pro tempore for the day is appointed, a benediction, the Speaker’s approval of the journal (previous session’s activity), The Pledge of Allegiance, and a George Santos expulsion motion.

Matt Robison on Elon Musk:

Greg Sargent/The Washington Post:

Youngkin’s disastrous night shows the right’s culture war has fizzled

But the GOP governor’s comeuppance isn’t just about the durability of abortion rights as a political winner for Democrats. It also shows that right-wing culture-warring on education — built around a “parents’ rights” agenda limiting school discussion of race and gender — has utterly lost its political potency, allowing Democrats to respond with their own affirmative liberal cultural agenda.

Strikingly, more than $5.5 million was spent on ads about education in the Virginia legislative contests, according to data provided by the tracking firm AdImpact. While it’s unclear what percentage focused on “parents’ rights,” some Republicans modeled their campaigns on the way Youngkin turned that issue into a 2021 victory — an upset that led many pundits to declare education a political loser for Democrats even in blue territory.

Amanda Marcotte/Salon:

"I'm so tired of these psychos": Moms for Liberty is now a toxic brand Last month, Salon reported on one town's fight over a right wing school takeover — Tuesday, the resistance won big

Last month, I published an investigative report about how Moms for Liberty, a group dedicated to rewiring American education toward the far right, had taken over the board of education in the Pennridge School District, about half an hour outside Philadelphia. Moms for Liberty, a heavily funded astroturf organization linked to GOP leadership, wasn't especially subtle in its strategies, pinpointing a handful of swing districts in purple states, like Virginia and Pennsylvania, and targeting school board elections, which are usually low turnout and easy to win. Once installed, Moms for Liberty members started banning books and Pride flags, as well as protesting that teachers were "grooming" kids with "smut," which usually meant either a history book or acclaimed, age-appropriate fiction. The idea was to create moral panics around sex and race that could tip national elections towards Republicans.

Well, it backfired.

As I reported, parents in the Pennridge district eager to fight back against right-wing radicals formed the Ridge Network and got the word out, arguing to voters that the group was degrading the quality of the public schools. This week, those efforts paid off: Democrats won all five of the open school board seats in the district, wresting control away from Moms for Liberty.  

ICYMI, it also happened in Iowa. This from Bleeding Heartland was previously shared: “Progressives win, book banners lose many Iowa school board races.”

Tom Bonier/The New York Times:

American Elections Are About Abortion Now

Abortion rights won big on Tuesday night. In Ohio, a constitutional amendment enshrining protections for abortion rights was on the ballot, and in Virginia, control of both chambers of the state legislature was considered a tossup, and both parties made abortion rights the central issue of their campaigns. The pro-abortion-rights measure in Ohio passed by a wide margin. In Virginia, the Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, made his proposal for a ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy the central argument for electing Republicans in the state legislature. Republicans failed to win back control in the Senate and lost their narrow majority in the House of Delegates as turnout surged to historically high levels in key swing districts.

Before this week’s elections, most of the attention of the political class and the public was focused on national polls showing Donald Trump holding a lead over President Biden in the 2024 presidential contest. But it is now clearer than ever that the backlash against the Dobbs decision — and voters’ general distaste for strictly limiting abortion access — could play a crucial role in winning Mr. Biden a second term. Certainly, there will be many other major issues at play in this election, including war and voters’ perceptions of the economy. But abortion could plausibly be the deciding factor next November.

NBC News:

Ron DeSantis says it's 'out of bounds' to attack candidates' kids — except for Hunter Biden

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he disagreed with Vivek Ramaswamy's reference to Nikki Haley's daughter.

In an interview with Fox News, DeSantis said he disagreed with Vivek Ramaswamy bringing up former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley’s daughter in a discussion about TikTok during the presidential primary debate hosted by NBC News on Wednesday night. He cautioned against dragging family members into the political fray.

“I think the kids are out of bounds. I didn’t think that was an appropriate thing to do,” said DeSantis, who has three young children.

“I keep the kids out of it for sure,” he added of his own conduct.

But out on the campaign trail, the governor does not shy from making a punchline out of Hunter Biden, 53, joking about his history of addiction and embarrassing details of his personal life that have surfaced publicly.

While Hunter Biden is an adult, so is Haley’s daughter — albeit a few decades younger than the president's son. Both, however, are politicians’ children who are not in elected office.

Adam Wren/Politico:

Can the GOP ever come to grips with the lies of 2020?

Mike Johnson’s election, and the process getting there, showed a party not willing to address the fundamental question facing it.

Whether the Republican Party can ever reconcile its divergent response to Jan. 6 is not the next question. It’s the question defining this turbulent political moment in Washington and beyond — roiling and coursing just below the surface. These days, all roads lead back to the original lie that Donald Trump won.

They fear their voters. It’s as simple as that. 

Good for him. 

Liam Donovan/New York Times:

Matt Gaetz Created a Win-Win Situation for Himself

Within weeks, many of those same hard-line conservatives mounted a procedural blockade of government funding bills, forcing Mr. McCarthy to choose between the shutdown they sought to compel, and the bipartisan end-around that would lead to his removal as speaker. While Mr. McCarthy’s reliance on Democratic votes was cited as evidence of noncompliance with the January deal, the blockade and ensuing mutiny was a practical acknowledgment that what is achievable under the current balance of power in Washington had proven insufficient to hard-liners.

In the end, the inside influence they had sought for the past decade was less fulfilling than the outside clout that had secured that power.

Liam predicts the same destructive cycle could begin anew and all too soon. Any Speaker has to work with the Senate and the White House, both controlled by Democrats, even if the Senate is just barely.

Daily Beast:

Democrats Say They Have No Choice but to Work With Extremist New Speaker

Democrats are appalled by much of Mike Johnson’s record. But they say they have to find a way to look past his extremist beliefs.

In reality, Johnson’s history on the issue is far from irrelevant. The 2020 election remains incredibly important to the most powerful person in the GOP—Trump—and Emmer’s certification vote stance was no small reason why Trump issued a scorching statement torpedoing his speaker bid.

Johnson’s role in trying to overturn the election was a signal to GOP voters and Republicans in Congress that he was sufficiently “conservative” and aligned with their values.

Should Johnson remain the Speaker through the 2024 election, his approach to the 2020 election—which saw him discount the will of voters and an abundance of facts about the fairness of the election in order to keep Trump in power—will be anything but a relic of the past.

The scandal sheets on Mike Johnson:

Politico Playbook:

What’s in store for Speaker Johnson?

MAGA MIKE’S LOOMING GAVEL WOES — House Republicans’ three-week-long nightmare is over. But for new Speaker MIKE JOHNSON, the nightmare is just beginning.

While it was all smiles and standing ovations from his GOP colleagues yesterday, the new leader is about to run smack into the tough reality that he just got promoted to the worst job in Washington.

That includes the pleasure of dealing with the egos, rivalries and demands of a bitterly divided GOP Conference … of negotiating with Democrats eager to flip the House and see him fall flat on his face … and let’s not forget about the public scrutiny that’s already ratcheting up on a man who has probably received more attention in the past 48 hours than he has in his entire career.

Let’s unpack some of the heartburn ahead …

Punchbowl News:

How Johnson will get squeezed

Brand-new Speaker Mike Johnson has two brewing problems — House GOP moderates and Senate Republicans.

House Republican moderates overwhelmingly backed Johnson, ending several weeks of internal fighting. But they’re warning they aren’t going to blindly follow a far-right agenda.

The vow from center-right Republicans will have an impact across a range of issues, but there are two areas in particular worth watching — government funding and the potential impeachment of President Joe Biden.

“We have to speak up,” Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.) told us. “We’re a strong voice as majority makers. Now’s the time to express it with a new speaker.”

In the aftermath of Johnson’s election, many House Republicans exuded a kumbaya vibe, as unrealistic as that seems.

Yet there are lasting scars from the last three weeks. The bitter clashes between top Republicans — with threats in particular aimed at GOP lawmakers, their families and staffers from some supporters of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) — aren’t going to be forgotten anytime soon.

Politically vulnerable Republicans, notably the 18 members in districts Biden won in 2020, have already faced a slew of tough votes.

Jennifer Rubin/Washington Post:

Republican radicalization takes its toll

The findings in this year’s Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) annual American Values Survey are a disturbing reminder that, regardless of the political fortunes of four-time-indicted former president Donald Trump, the MAGA movement he spawned has radicalized millions of Americans.

The poll, conducted in partnership with the Brookings Institution, surveyed more than 2,500 Americans on everything from trans rights to QAnon to racism.

The survey’s great value comes as a warning about the radicalization and alienation of a segment of the major parties’ followers. “Today, nearly a quarter of Americans (23%) agree that ‘because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country,’ up from 15% in 2021,” the survey found. “PRRI has asked this question in eight separate surveys since March 2021. This is the first time support for political violence has peaked above 20%.” A full third of Republicans believe this, compared with 13 percent of Democrats. Meanwhile, QAnon believers have jumped from 14 percent of Americans to 23 percent, with Republicans twice as likely as Democrats to buy into the extreme conspiracy theory.

Matt Robison interviews Barbara McQuade:

Natalie Jackson/National Journal:

Either 59% or 22% of Republicans want a speaker loyal to Trump. Which is it?

The same pollster yields wildly different responses by changing the question format.

The items on the trait list selected by two-thirds or more of Republicans as important were generic leadership traits—“strong leader,” “trustworthy,” “ethical,” and “intelligent”—while items directly about the politics of the speakership, including the Trump-loyalty item, were chosen by less than a third of Republicans.

The preference for generic over political items is an indicator that even Republicans aren’t paying a ton of attention to the specific issue. The Economist’s poll also showed that only 28 percent of Republicans were paying “a lot” of attention to McCarthy’s removal, and while 3 in 4 Republicans had heard of McCarthy and could give an opinion on him, around 4 in 10 hadn’t heard of the alternatives—Scalise or Rep. Jim Jordan.

Jim Jordan won’t automatically sink the GOP without campaigning against what he stands for, because, well, most people don’t know who their Senators are.

On the other hand, Jordan is easy to campaign against, because of what he stands for. And a campaign against what he stands for will happen. Just not yet.

Don Moynihan/Substack:

A "legislative terrorist" tries to become Speaker Jim Jordan as a symptom of the deinstitutionalization project

What are the factors that make for a good Speaker of the House? Surely it involves the ability to manage factions, and to understand and protect the institution that you lead.

Whatever the criteria, Jim Jordan fails to meet them. His rise as a candidate signals how the Republican Party has shifted focus from governing to deinstitutionalization.

Read it in full, it’s amazing. And bad for MAGA.

John Burn-Murdoch/X/Twitter via Threadreader:

Some quick thoughts on why large parts of the mainstream media keep slipping up on Gaza/Israel (and why it was the same at times with Covid): The main reason is a failure to keep pace with modern news gathering techniques, but there’s more. 

With the proliferation of photos/footage, satellite imagery and map data, forensic video/image analysis and geolocation (~OSINT) has clearly been a key news gathering technique for several years now. A key news gathering technique *completely absent from most newsrooms*. 

Obviously not every journalist should be an OSINT specialist, just as not every journalist is a specialist in combing through financial accounts, or scraping websites, or doing undercover investigations. But any large news org should have *some* OSINT specialists. 

Good thread on media rushing to judgment, more at the link.

New York Times:

In Tel Aviv, Biden’s Embrace of Israel Came With a Gentle Warning

In a rare wartime visit, President Biden paired his support for Israel with a plea for caution not to let overwhelming grief or anger drive the country to go too far.

In a way, Mr. Biden flew to Israel on Wednesday to give the whole country a hug, to say how much America grieves with Israel and stands by Israel and has Israel’s back. But with the hug came a whisper in the ear as well, a gentle warning not to give into the “primal feeling,” not to let overwhelming grief or overpowering anger drive the country to go too far as he believes America did after Sept. 11, 2001.

David Rothkopf/Daily Beast:

Biden’s Israel Trip Was a Gamble That’s Already Paying Off

Humanitarian aid is finally entering Gaza, Israelis felt supported, and Netanyahu is unlikely to disrespect the U.S. president again any time soon.

The response of the Biden team in the wake of the explosion and fire at the hospital was calm, compassionate and resolute.

They determined to proceed with the trip. The White House announced the summit with regional leaders would be postponed. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, whose extraordinary shuttle diplomacy following the Hamas attack on Israel has been a diplomatic master class stated, “All civilians, Israeli and Palestinian, must be protected. Deeply saddened by the explosion at the Al Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza. As @POTUS said, “The United States stands unequivocally for the protection of civilian life.”

The tenor of the Blinken statement illustrated yet another challenging aspect of the Biden mission. He sought to both show support for Israel, and to seek to temper the Israeli response to the terrorists’ atrocities to ensure it was consistent with international law and that humanitarian concerns of both Israelis and Palestinians would be given priority.

There will be an address to the nation form the Oval Office tonight.

Alex Burness/Bolts:

“I Don’t Think They Care”: Virginia Is Slow-Walking the Fix to a Wrongful Voter Purge

With elections weeks away, state officials admitted improperly removing some people from voter rolls. Local advocates say the state is doing too little, too late to remedy the harm.

Even after Virginia’s delayed acknowledgment, it took the state two additional weeks to reinstate Shelton onto voter rolls. She found out Monday when she checked her registration status on the state’s site.

Shelton says neither state officials nor her county registrar have reached out to tell her that she has been reinstated. “I haven’t heard anything from anyone. I just happened to be checking online,” she said. “If I wasn’t checking, I would not have known, and I would keep on assuming I was denied.”

There is little time before Virginia’s Nov. 7 elections, which will decide control of the legislature and other local offices; half of the early voting period is over, and the deadline to ask to vote by mail looms next week.

Voting rights advocates warn that Virginia is doing too little, too late to stave off confusion and correct its costly mistake in the lead-up to Election Day.

They say they don’t even know how many people the state has reinstated so far and how many remain improperly purged, since the state is sharing little information. “They’re very tight-lipped about what they’re doing now, how this happened, and how they’re going to rectify it,” says Sheba Williams, who helps formerly incarcerated people regain their rights as the founder of the Richmond-based nonprofit Nolef Turns. “I don’t think they care.”

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.

Politico:

McCarthy loyalists vow to draw out painful speakership battle

House Republicans' state of emotional limbo is particularly problematic, since they'd otherwise welcome the chance to move quickly on aiding Israel.

Republican lawmakers are scheduled to meet Tuesday evening for another forum on the internal speakership election that's expected to take place on Wednesday, though neither Scalise nor Jordan has the votes to win the speakership on the House floor — and, importantly, McCarthy does not have the votes he'd need either. That emotional limbo is particularly problematic for House Republicans who would otherwise welcome the chance to move quickly on helping Israel beat back weekend attacks by Hamas.

While the conference remains polarized, Duarte joined GOP Reps. Carlos Gimenez and John Rutherford of Florida in making their plans clear during a closed-door House GOP conference meeting Monday night, according to three GOP lawmakers.

Rutherford warned his fellow Republicans that he was prepared to keep voting for McCarthy over and over, suggesting that the former speaker’s still livid supporters are ready to hold out for some time in order to undercut the other candidates.

As many have noted, the war Republicans are focusing on is their internal one. Meanwhile, Kevin McCarthy has asked his allies to not nominate him, but only after disrupting the election for those who are running. Perhaps the beneficiary will be Patrick McHenry, a McCarthy ally.

In any case the fecklessness and petty childishness of Republicans while Biden leads the country is on full display.

New York Times:

Israel-Gaza WarAs Scale of Atrocities Emerges, Biden Condemns Hamas Attacks as ‘Sheer Evil’

Speaking from the White House, President Biden said 14 Americans had been killed during Hamas’s incursions into Israel and that some U.S. citizens were being held hostage.

• President Biden bristled with indignation during his 10-minute address at the White House, appearing as angry as he ever has in public since becoming president. In remarks after speaking with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he denounced the attack as “evil” multiple times. Victims, he said, had been “butchered” and “slaughtered,” and he decried the “bloodthirstiness” of the assailants.

Major speech by a major politician.

David Schenker/Haaretz:

Israel Focused on the Wrong Iranian Threat, With Deadly Results

Israel's fixated on the Iranian nuclear threat while Iranian proxies Hamas and Hezbollah dramatically increased their capabilities

Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israel is a watershed moment. Not only did the intelligence failure rival that of 1973, the long-term implications of this bloody assault are as consequential as the 1967 war.

One early take away from this outrage is that Israel’s longstanding strategy of “wars between the wars”--the plan to constrain its Iranian proxy adversaries through limited kinetic action--was insufficient…

For more than a decade, Israel’s political and security establishment has been narrowly focused on the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear weapons program. While the IDF periodically targeted Hamas assets and personnel as well as Iranian forward operating positions in Syria, Israel has largely avoided largescale operations against Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah. The reticence to seriously militarily degrade these terrorist organizations was understandable; an Iranian nuclear weapon is an existential threat, while Hezbollah and Hamas were considered a deadly, but tactical challenge.

Noga Tarnopolsky and Shira Rubin/Washington Post:

Israel massed troops in the West Bank. Then Hamas attacked from Gaza.

Three days after the deadliest attack in Israeli history, with at least 900 dead, the country is on the cusp of a long and bloody war in Gaza. More than 300,000 reservists have been called up to serve. But the capacity of Israel’s military, long revered here as a source of stability, suddenly feels like a question mark. Equally unclear is the end game for Netanyahu — with his Gaza containment strategy in ruins, some are calling for a full reoccupation of the territory…

Aharon Zeevi Farkash, former head of the Israel Defense Forces’ military intelligence branch, told Israeli radio station Reshet Bet that “after we are able to probe this, we will see that we knew almost everything. There were intelligence assessments hours before. The question is, did we understand what we knew?”

Analysts also point to a failure in political leadership. Netanyahu, they contend, allowed military preparedness to erode alongside Palestinian militant escalation as he pursued a contentious plan to weaken Israel’s judiciary — setting off months of furious protests that delighted the country’s adversaries.

This is one of the main reasons Israelis are not giving Netanyahu much leeway. They see him as the architect of unreadiness. The political implications follow.

This echoes the Israeli press, much of which is still paywalled but the New York Times has:

As War Rages, Netanyahu Battles for Reputation and Legacy

The horrors committed by Hamas on Israeli civilians are all but certain to mark Benjamin Netanyahu’s legacy no matter the outcome of the war.

After leading Israel for nearly 16 years in total and priding himself on bringing the country prosperity and security, Mr. Netanyahu, 73, now confronts the vivid failure of his own policies toward the Palestinians — presiding over what many Israelis are calling the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

The Hamas breakout from Gaza and incursion into Israel proper, killing hundreds of civilians as well as soldiers, is all but certain to mark Mr. Netanyahu’s legacy no matter the outcome of the fierce war he now promises against Hamas.

On Tuesday, under pressure to do so, Mr. Netanyahu struggled to try to negotiate a unity government that included some of his main rivals, most of them experienced military officers. But disagreements continued over their demands for a smaller security cabinet to administer the war, which would sideline some of Mr. Netanyahu’s most controversial ministers.

David Rothkopf/Daily Beast:

It’s Dangerous for the U.S. to Give Israel a Blank Check to Assault Gaza

There’s no military solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict. If there were, the attacks of this past weekend would not have happened.

In the wake of atrocities, it is hard to be rational. But the failure of rationality in precisely moments like these that begets future atrocities. It does not help the Israeli people, nor does it advance U.S. interests to “show solidarity” by supporting, defending, or even simply tolerating the bad acts or instincts of the most incompetent, corrupt, and vile government in Israel’s history. Such a position dishonors the victims of Hamas and the rest of the people of Israel if it compounds the crimes with more crimes that make more senseless bloodshed more likely. It is not “loyal” to increase the likelihood of more, not fewer, October 7ths.

Pedro Soriano Mendiara/Agenda Publica:

Israel, the North Star in US Foreign Policy

Israel’s increasing shift to the right, exemplified in 1977 by Likud’s first electoral victory, which also coincided in time with a similar shift in the Republican Party and the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, made the relationship between conservative administrations in the two countries increasingly comfortable, even after the fall of the Soviet Union. In that sense, the attacks of 11 September 2001 and the fight against Islamic jihadism only served to strengthen the ties between the two countries in their struggle against a common enemy.

While Republican administrations supported Israel’s heavy-handed policy towards its adversaries, Democratic administrations tried to get it to reach agreements with them (for instance, the 1978 Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt under President Carter or the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO, negotiated under President Clinton).

This partisan division of labour has become more strained in recent years as the Democratic Party, in particular, has sought to adopt a more critical stance towards its ally (perhaps inevitably, as American Muslims, a traditionally Republican bloc, began to vote Democratic after 9/11 and gained more influence in Democratic administrations) and Israeli governments began to rely on far-right parties to govern. It is well known that relations between Presidents Obama and Biden with the current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were and are very frosty and that the latter’s authoritarian policies, with his attempts to control the Israeli judiciary, are viewed with great concern by the current US administration.

In other news… 

Associated Press:

Former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice advises Republican leader against impeachment

There should be no effort to impeach a liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court justice based on what is known now, a former justice advised the Republican legislative leader who asked him to review the issue.

Some Republicans had raised the prospect of impeaching newly elected Justice Janet Protasiewicz if she did not recuse from a redistricting lawsuit seeking to toss GOP-drawn legislative district boundary maps. On Friday, she declined to recuse herself, and the court voted 4-3 along partisan lines to hear the redistricting challenge.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos had asked three former justices to review the possibility of impeachment. One of those three, David Prosser, sent Vos an email on Friday, seemingly just before Protasiewicz declined to recuse, advising against moving forward with impeachment. That was after a state judiciary disciplinary panel rejected several complaints lodged against Protasiewicz that alleged she violated the judicial code of ethics with comments she made during the campaign.

Satire, folks. Or is it? There are some editors and publishers...

Ian Ward/Politico:

Kevin McCarthy’s Downfall Is the Culmination of the Tea Party

Political scientist Theda Skocpol on how tea party politics laid the foundation for the GOP’s current troubles.

“I’m sitting here looking at a picture on my iPad of the three ‘Young Guns’ from that iconic cover of their book,” she said. “All three of them were felled in succession by the popular anger of the tea party base.”

The tea party that Skocpol was referring to no longer formally exists as a faction in Congress, its erstwhile allies having been subsumed into the far-right Freedom Caucus or into the generic “America First” wing of the GOP. But according to Skocpol, the history of the tea party remains essential to understanding the forces that ultimately led to McCarthy’s political demise.

Cliff Schecter on the Speaker fiasco: