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:

Politico:

‘What Is Broken in American Politics Is the Republican Party’

Fourteen experts on the roots of Kevin McCarthy’s ouster and why Republicans keep destroying their own leaders.

We asked some of the smartest thinkers and observers of politics and Capitol Hill to weigh in. Something seems broken in American politics — but what is it? Does the dysfunction stem from a sickness in the Republican Party, or is it decay in the institution of Congress? Or is it something else entirely — and is there a way to fix things, so we can return to some semblance of a healthy democracy?

Their responses leaned heavily toward blaming a populist, Trumpian, or even nihilistic turn in the GOP, although others took issue with the premise of the question, arguing that stability in politics isn’t always a sign of health or that American politics may not be as fractured as it seems. Few, though, were optimistic about improvement any time soon.

New York Times:

Now Is The Time To Pay Attention To Trump’s Language

Donald Trump has never been shy with his language, but recently, the Times editor Alex Kingsbury argues, his violent speech has escalated. In the past few weeks alone, Trump suggested that his own former general was treasonous, said that shoplifters should be shot and exhorted his followers to “go after” New York’s attorney general. Alex says he understands why voters tune Trump out but stresses the need to pay attention and take action for the sake of American democracy.

Paul Farhi/Washington Post:

Trump’s violent rhetoric is getting muted coverage by the news media

After eight years of Trump in politics, is a ‘banality of crazy’ setting in?

Last week, the Republican Party’s leading presidential candidate proposed executing suspected shoplifters.

“Very simply, if you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store,” former president Donald Trump said in Anaheim, Calif., outlining his vision for a second term at the convention of the state’s Republican Party. As the audience applauded, laughed and cheered, Trump added for emphasis, “Shot!”

Trump’s advocacy of extrajudicial killings was widely covered by newspapers and TV stations in California but generally ignored by the national press. No mainstream TV network carried his speech live or excerpted it later that night. CNN and MSNBC mentioned it during panel discussions over the next few days. The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, NPR and PBS didn’t report it at all. The New York Times wrote about it four days later, playing the story on Page 14 of its print edition.

Local coverage matters. But national coverage needs to do more and better.

Washington Post:

Moderates could unite amid House speaker chaos. Why don’t they?

So far, Republicans plan to elect a new speaker using GOP votes alone. It may not work — and no one knows what happens next.

The failure of the last-ditch effort by the self-styled “problem solvers” underscores how unlikely it will be for the House to solve its leadership vacuum in the coming days through some kind of unity government that might otherwise seem the most obvious path forward.

Even with government funding set to lapse in less than 45 days, aid to Ukraine in limbo and America’s reputation as a functioning democracy on the line, there was little sign this week of interest in cobbling together a bipartisan coalition that could be the fastest way to collect the 217 votes necessary to elect a speaker.

Paul Kane/Washington Post:

McCarthy thought he could harness forces of disruption. Instead they devoured him.

As far back as 2009, the future House speaker tried to channel the anti-politician, tea-party wave building into a political force, but the movement crushed him

“You get enough people on their surfboards, you send them in the right direction and see how many can get to shore,” McCarthy told The Washington Post in a January 2010 interview.

More than 85 political surfers made it to shore in the November 2010 elections that put Republicans in charge — a political wave that elevated Boehner to House speaker; Eric Cantor (Va.) to majority leader; and McCarthy to majority whip. Their friend Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) became the top policy wizard as chair of the House Budget Committee.

Less than 13 years later, all four have been devoured by the very forces they helped launch. One by one, each got booted out of office by rabble-rousing disrupters who, after first taking flight in 2010, came to dominate national Republican politics following Donald Trump’s ascendancy to the White House in 2017.

McCarthy — the tactician who was the least substantive of the quartet — managed to last the longest, until Tuesday. A small band of GOP rebels linked arms with Democrats to oust him as House speaker, the first time in U.S. history that a sitting speaker had been expelled through the obscure motion to vacate.

David Rothkopf/Daily Beast:

A Broken Congress Is What MAGA Always Wanted

If they couldn’t shut down the government, they proved they could cripple the House of Representatives as a consolation prize.

There have been MAGA true believers shitting on the floor of the Congress ever since Jan. 6, 2021. But the right wing’s active desecration of the U.S. government extends far beyond ugly recent events on Capitol Hill, and dates back long before the Trumpist insurrection of two and a half years ago.

In fact, the origins of the attacks on the government date back at least four decades to the Reagan administration, when the former president popularized the idea within his party that government was actually the enemy. His joke that the scariest words one could hear were, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help,” has metastasized from being a pitch for smaller government into a movement to blow the whole damn thing up.

Darren Samuelson/The Messenger:

Trump’s Lawyers Ask Judge to Dismiss Jack Smith’s 2020 Indictment, Citing ‘Presidential Immunity’

Trump's trial is scheduled to begin on March 4, 2024, in Washington, D.C.

Donald Trump's attorneys on Thursday asked a federal judge to throw out in its entirety Special Counsel Jack Smith's criminal indictment charging the former president with trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

The former president's 52-page motion to dismiss the indictment centers around an untested legal argument that Trump had "presidential immunity" that protects him from any criminal charges tied to his actions leading the country.

"Breaking 234 years of precedent, the incumbent administration has charged President Trump for acts that lie not just within the 'outer perimeter,' but at the heart of his official responsibilities as President," Trump's lawyers argue. "In doing so, the prosecution does not, and cannot, argue that President Trump’s efforts to ensure election integrity, and to advocate for the same, were outside the scope of his duties."

This is an important challenge and gets to the heart of the Trump defense. He should lose resoundingly, but in this world nothing’s certain except death, taxes, and GOP House dysfunction.

Also on the legal front but a different case:

Well, that one went nowhere.

That one went nowhere as well.

Will Bunch/Philadelphia Inquirer:

America needs to talk about the right’s ‘Red Caesar’ plan for U.S. dictatorship

“Thought leaders” of the far right talk openly about a 2025 dictatorship. People need to be alarmed.

TV pundits compared a near-shutdown of the federal government and Kevin McCarthy’s subsequent ouster as speaker to the iconic sitcom Seinfeld — a show about nothing. In capitals around the globe, world leaders and baffled analysts struggled to make sense of the utter dysfunction paralyzing the nation that just a generation ago held itself out as the lone superpower.

Yet to a small but influential gaggle of so-called “thought leaders” on the edge of the stage — the pseudo-intellectuals of right-wing think tanks, and chaos-agent-in-chief Steve Bannon — the growing rot infecting another key U.S. institution is just more evidence for their stunning argument now flying at warp speed, yet under the radar of a clueless mainstream media.

The D.C. dysfunction is more proof, they would argue, that the nation needs a “Red Caesar” who will cut through the what they call constitutional gridlock and impose order.

If you’re not one of those dudes who thinks about Ancient Rome every day, let me translate. The alleged brain trust of an increasingly fascist MAGA movement wants an American dictatorship that would “suspend” democracy in January 2025 — just 15 months from now.

Steve Benen/MaddowBlog:

Trump pushes envelope with comment on the ‘poisoning’ of U.S. ‘blood’

There’s nothing new about Donald Trump attacking those seeking a better life in the United States. But “poisoning the blood of our country” is new.

It’s often tempting to ignore reports on Donald Trump’s rhetorical excesses. Everyone has seen countless examples of the former president making unhinged remarks about matters large and small, to the point that they start to have diminishing returns.

But in recent days, there’s been a flurry of new reporting on the Republican’s radical rhetoric, and given the specific details, it’s best not to shrug one’s shoulders and look away. Axios reported this week, for example, that Trump's “violent rhetoric ... has grown more extreme as the walls have begun to close in on his business empire, livelihood and personal freedom.”

Since he left office, Trump’s erratic behavior has been masked, numbed and normalized by the political fatigue permeating the media and the public. But his words’ violent turn in recent weeks — calling for a U.S. military leader to be executed, mocking a potentially fatal assault on a congressional spouse, urging police to shoot shoplifters — suggest a line has been crossed.

For those who keep up on current events, much of the list will likely seem familiar.

New York Times:

From a Capitol Hill Basement, Bannon Stokes the Republican Party Meltdown

The former Trump adviser has helped create the spectacle of G.O.P. dysfunction, using it to build his own following and those of the right-wing House rebels who took down Kevin McCarthy.

Representatives Matt Gaetz of Florida, the instigator of the rebellion, and Nancy Mace of South Carolina, one of seven other Republican defectors, huddled with Mr. Bannon for a morning meeting ahead of a joint appearance on his “War Room” podcast.

“Tectonic plate shift here in the imperial capital,” Mr. Bannon told his listeners at showtime, while directing them to donate to his guests online. “We must stand in the breach now. We have to lance the boil that is K Street in this nation.”

From this cavelike studio not far from where Congress meets, Mr. Bannon, the former Trump adviser, has been stoking the chaos now gripping the Republican Party, capitalizing on the spectacle to build his own following and using his popular podcast to prop up and egg on the G.O.P. rebels.

Nancy Mace is no moderate.

Jonathan Allen/NBC:

The GOP armed its bazooka caucus. What could go wrong?

Analysis: Republicans now use powerful procedural weapons — impeachment, removal of the speaker and election certification — to thwart majority rule and disrupt democratic institutions.

It was inevitable that giving Rep. Matt Gaetz the procedural bazooka he demanded would end in the political annihilation of newly former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

For Gaetz — a 2020 election denier, a defender of the Jan. 6 insurrection and the subject of an ethics investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and more — rules seem to matter most when they benefit him. The animating tenet of his political ideology — a strain of the broader conservative bent against taxation and spending — is that the federal government works against the public interest because it is corrupt. Chaos feeds his narrative.

McCarthy's substantive sins were avoiding a national default and a federal shutdown, which interfered with Gaetz's ability to demonstrate that the government is broken. So Gaetz, R-Fla., used his procedural weapon — the "motion to vacate" — to do the next best thing: He aligned with Democrats to throw the House into a state of anarchy. For one day, at least, Gaetz and his seven followers ruled the 433-member House.

Washington Post:

As House GOP flails, government shutdown fears reemerge

House Republicans on Wednesday started the process of choosing their next leader, but whoever they choose is likely to face the same political constraints that led to McCarthy’s ouster. The former speaker was deposed in part over the fury that followed his decision on Saturday to extend government funding with Democratic votes. After the House did not pass several other Republican spending bills, McCarthy agreed to essentially take up a bipartisan Senate measure, jettisoning the far-right’s demands for hundreds of billions in budget cuts and a crackdown on immigration.

Already, the chaos on the House floor is eating into the time necessary to forge a bipartisan agreement on spending. Congress passed a law on Saturday night to keep the government operating for about 45 days. But now the House is in recess through this weekend, and the mess consuming the GOP will carry on at least into next week’s vote on the next speaker, reducing the number of days lawmakers have to work to about 30, said Bill Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank.

Whosoever they choose, the’ll suck. But so did McCarthy, so here we are. And as to Democratic thinking real time, this is an excellent explainer from Aaron Fritschner on X/Twitter via Threadreader:

Some are writing about this as if we chose to overturn a status quo of Kevin McCarthy playing the part of Speaker Scarlet Pimpernel secretly fomenting plans to do the right thing. We had plenty of reason to think things could get worse quickly. It was unstable and unsustainable. 

Will the next Speaker be worse? Nobody can possibly know who it'll be or what the dynamic will be. But at some point - this phrase has been trotted out in bad faith many times lately so lets try to use it well - you have to think about the institution. And, you know, the country. 

Their so-called "moderates" who enabled McCarthy's empowerment of the right because he campaigned and raised money for them could've acted at any time to correct that course. Not one of them did so much as sign a discharge petition. They made a choice and they're still making it. 

Matt Robison and Paul Hodes with Jamie Raskin:

Alex Kingsbury/New York Times:

Trump’s Promise of Lawlessness

Mr. Trump, as General Milley discovered and many Americans already knew, is a man unencumbered by any moral compass. He goes the way he wants to go, legalities and niceties be damned. Last week in a post on his social network, Mr. Trump argued that General Milley’s actions would have once been punishable by death.

Most Americans probably didn’t notice his screed. Of those who did and were not alarmed, far too many nodded along in agreement. As Josh Barro said in a Times Opinion round table this week about the former president’s recent comments, “Trump is and has been unhinged, and that’s priced in” to the views that many voters have of him.

Joe Perticone/The Bulwark:

The Biden Impeachment Inquiry Starts With a Flop

“These witnesses aren’t giving any answers. They’re just asking more questions.”

The House Oversight Committee held the first hearing in its impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden today. At least at the start, reporters and onlookers packed the hearing room in the Rayburn House Office Building. But the room was equally packed with skepticism and doubt regarding Republicans’ claims that the president is somehow implicated through his son Hunter in a pay-to-play influence-peddling scheme…

CNN reports one Republican called it an “unmitigated disaster” and lamented the lack of performative “outbursts.” Toward the end of the hearing, there were empty seats in both the audience and on the dais, a rare scene for such a consequential hearing. Even Fitton departed with a few remaining lawmakers to go.

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) summed up the overall mood of the hearing:

These witnesses aren’t giving any answers. They’re just asking more questions.

Aaron Fritschner/X via Threadreader:

This hearing was a major tactical mistake by Comer, Jordan, and McCarthy. The whole point is to damage the President politically, but the first hearing totally backfired. Having started this it's hard to stop, and it will get harder as they go, for all of them. Real risk here imo

Meanwhile, actual fact finding rolls on:

Joyce Vance/”Civil Discourse” on Substack:

That brings us to today and Scott Hall, an Atlanta-area bail bondsman who was facing seven charges in the Fulton County case, including a RICO violation and conspiring to steal sensitive election data in Coffee County. This afternoon, with little advance notice, Hall pled guilty to five misdemeanors, will serve five years of probation, pay a $5,000 fine, and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. It’s the sort of deal that is so beneficial to a defendant that it suggests prosecutors believe his cooperation is valuable enough to merit the bargain.

So what might Hall be able to do? It’s not clear how important of a role he played in the overall scheme, and who he might have had direct communications with. But Hall was in the thick of things with Sidney Powell when she went to Coffee County, Georgia on January 7, the day after the insurrection, to carry out her scheme to illegally access voting machines. Hall’s cooperation is a bad sign for Powell. And Powell, in turn, had conversations about pursuing the Big Lie with others in the group and was in the room with Trump during some of the key conversations.

Sidney Powell isn't the only Trump co-defendant who should be concerned by Hall’s plea deal. Hall reportedly had an hour long call with Jeff Clark on January 2nd. That’s a long time for the Georgia bail bondsman to have been on the line with the Attorney General-wannabe who wanted to push states Biden won to call those results into question based on untrue allegations of fraud to try and swing the electoral vote call to Trump. It’s unlikely the call was just an hour of pleasantries. Precisely what was said and how good Hall’s recollection is—and whether or not he has contemporaneous notes or other verification of what took place during the call—remains to be seen.

Charlie Sykes/The Bulwark:

Comer’s Fiasco

“An unmitigated disaster”

Fresh off a chaotic and embarrassing presidential debate, and slouching toward a government shutdown, congressional Republicans took time out Thursday to roll out the Biden impeachment inquiry. The charitable view is that the first hearing was a dumpster fire inside a clown car wrapped in a fiasco. To put it mildly, the GOP did not bring their best. Here’s the WaPo’s Jackie Alemany:

"It is shocking that House Oversight would tap witnesses that don’t enforce your narrative," source adds. https://t.co/ZeCKgqZL6z

— Jacqueline Alemany (@JaxAlemany) September 28, 2023

John Halpin/The Liberal Patriot:

TLP/YouGov 2024 Presidential Election Project—Wave 2

President Biden continues to hold a narrow lead over Donald Trump, but inflation concerns and doubts about his economic agenda weigh him down.

The Liberal Patriot will release the results in a series of posts over the next two weeks and the full data can be found here.

Initial findings include:

President Biden maintains a small lead over likely Republican nominee Donald Trump. Our first wave of research released earlier this summer showed Biden with a 6-point lead over Trump, a result that is essentially unchanged in our September polling. Currently, 47 percent of registered voters say they would choose Biden if the election were held today compared to 41 percent who would choose Trump; 9 percent would choose someone else or are unsure and 3 percent say they would not vote.

Polls this early are to set narrative, and they are certainly being used for same. TLP’s schtick is to tack towards the middle (Third Way neo-Clinton style) and they read everything as such, in my opinion.

Brandi Buchman/Law and Crime:

Trump’s fight to stay on 2024 election ballot threatens to turn Constitution’s insurrection clause into ‘historical ornament,’ experts say

The litigation invoking Section III isn’t unprecedented or hallowed ground, though [Praveen Fernandes, constitutional expert and vice president of the Constitutional Accountability Center in Washington, D.C.] acknowledged that this situation is unique since this is the first time it is being invoked against a person running for president. The U.S. has been “somewhat fortunate,” Fernandes said, that it has not had insurrections disturbing its stability the way many other nations have.

“I think the Framers were wise to establish this provision and not hem it in with language that was specific to the Civil War or Confederate officers,” he said. “They forged this language in the historical crucible of the Civil War but made a choice, a drafting choice, to be more expansive about officers who violated their oaths not being trusted again to serve the public.”

While some may argue that it is “undemocratic” for voters to use Section III to challenge someone’s ability to be on the ballot, Fernandes noted that the Constitution itself was a democratically enacted instrument, agreed upon by the people to serve as the governing document for a nation, and there was a reason the framers included the clause in the document.

Cliff Schecter:

New York Times:

Trump Lawsuit Against Judge in Fraud Case Rejected by Appeals Court

Former President Donald J. Trump had accused Justice Arthur F. Engoron of ignoring an earlier decision that could have barred evidence from the case.

The appeals court, in a terse two-page order Thursday, turned aside a lawsuit Mr. Trump filed against the trial judge, Arthur F. Engoron, which had sought to delay the proceeding.

The ruling came two days after Justice Engoron issued an order that struck a major blow to Mr. Trump, finding him liable for having committed fraud by persistently overvaluing his assets and stripping him of control over his New York properties. Justice Engoron sided with the New York attorney general, Letitia James, who last year sued Mr. Trump, accusing him of inflating his net worth by billions of dollars to obtain favorable loan terms from banks.

New York Times:

Trump’s Sprawling Legal Defense Effort Comes Under Strain

Former President Donald Trump’s team has found lawyers for others caught up in his prosecutions and has paid many of their legal bills. That arrangement may not be sustainable.

In an interview, Mr. Rowley said he was simply trying to help witnesses who did not have lawyers or did not know how to find one, and that he never sought to influence anyone’s testimony. And legal experts said the voice mail, while somewhat unusual, did not appear to cross any ethical lines.

But as Mr. Trump’s legal problems have expanded, the ad hoc system has come under intense strain with the PAC doling out financial lifelines to some aides and allies while shutting the door on others. It is now running short of money, possibly forcing Mr. Trump to decide how long to go on helping others as his own legal fees mount.

Prosecutors have also brought conflict-of-interest questions about some of the arrangements before the courts, and witnesses and co-defendants may begin to face decisions about how closely they want to lash their legal strategies to Mr. Trump’s.

David Cay Johnston/DC Report:

Judge Gives Trump Organization the Corporate Death Penalty

Donald Trump is no longer in business.

Worse, the self-proclaimed multibillionaire may soon be personally bankrupt as a result, stripped of just about everything because for years he engaged in calculated bank fraud and insurance fraud by inflating the value of his properties, a judge ruled Tuesday.

His gaudy Trump Tower apartment, his golf courses, his Boeing 757 jet and even Mar-a-Lago could all be disposed of by a court-appointed monitor, leaving Trump with not much more than his pensions as a one term president and a television performer.

Chris Lehmann/The Nation:

The Great Rolling Trump Fraud

A summary judgment in the legal case against the former president rules that he’s exactly as shady as he looks.

Engoron made similarly short work of the two-pronged paper defense Trump and his attorneys mustered for the billions in dodgy valuations they racked up—the magical disclaimer supposedly stipulating that the estimates supplied to bankers, loan officers, and insurers were “worthless”; and the allied contention that any reasonable financial officer would soon override such valuations via standard due-diligence research. “Defendants’ reliance on these ‘worthless’ disclaimers is worthless,” he drily noted. “The clause does not use the word ‘worthless’ or ‘useless” or ‘ignore’ or ‘disregard’ or any similar words. It does not say, ‘the values herein are what I think the properties will be worth in ten or more years.’ Indeed, the quoted language uses ‘current’ no less than five times, and ‘future’ zero times.” And he observes that the due-dilgence dodge is little more than a license to frontload systemic fraud into any company’s business model: “Defendants’ stance is, practically speaking, that they may submit false [suspected fraudulent claims] so long as the recipients know, from their own due diligence, that the information is false.”

Still, there is one limited sense in which Trump’s defense was anchored in reality. In a deposition, Trump contended that he could affix any value he saw fit to any property in question, for the simple reason that he could always “find a buyer from Saudi Arabia” to accept the price.

Philip Bump/Washington Post:

How much would your house be worth if the Trump Organization owned it?

The New York Post, appearing eager to side with the longtime star of its gossip pages, scoffed at the objective appraisal included in the judge’s ruling, insisting that other assessments put the value of Mar-a-Lago at somewhere around $300 million. Those well-versed in mathematics will notice that this would still mean the $612 million Trump valuation was twice the actual worth of the property.

But here is a different approach. Instead of defending the Trump Organization’s inflation efforts, you can put them to work for you. The tool below allows you to choose a property value between $100,000 and $1 billion (for especially lucky readers) and see how those values might have been presented to investors had the Trump Organization’s inflationary metrics been applied. All of the calculations here are taken from the judge’s ruling, in which the presented value and assessed values are offered explicitly — as in the Seven Springs example above.

The tool is set at $400,000 to start, about the median sales price for U.S. homes this year.

Matt Glassman/X via Threadreader:

Why is defeating the Previous Question on a rule so much more powerful/dangerous than defeating the rule?

The answer is that defeating a rule is *negative* agenda setting, while defeating the PQ is *positive* agenda setting. 

When you defeat a rule, the leaders who brought the rule cannot set the agenda. But that's the end; you block them from doing something, but that's it. They go back to the side rooms and try to figure out what to do next. 

When you defeat the PQ on a rule, you block a *vote* on the rule and leave it live on the floor, open to amendment. You can then propose an amendment to it, and if your coalition that defeated the PQ holds together, you can pass your amendment.

In effect, YOU set the agenda.

This is why it terrifies leaders so much more than a rule defeat, and why it's truly a declaration of war against the leadership. You aren't just saying no to their agenda, you are seeking to substitute *your* agenda. 

Mona Charen/The Bulwark:

The Fear Factor in Republican Politics

The MAGA movement has made political violence and intimidation a regular feature of our public life.

This is not new, but that shouldn’t diminish our outrage. On at least 24 occasions, the former president has accused critics of treason. They ranged from Peter Strzok, whose offense was exchanging worried texts with his lover to the then-anonymous administration official who penned a New York Times op-ed saying that many insiders in Trump world were aware of his unfitness to Democrats who declined to applaud at the State of the Union address. Yes, these examples seem like something out of Idiocracy, but millions of Americans, contra Salena Zito, take him literally and seriously.

Now Trump has upped the ante by including a reference to the death penalty, which is in fact a punishment available in cases of treason, not just “in times gone by.” Trump knows full well that some of his more rabid followers may interpret this as an invitation to assassination, just as the January 6th crowd chanted “Hang Mike Pence.” That thuggishness, that play of the finger near the trigger, places Trump in a category all his own in American politics.

That’s why Biden gave that speech on democracy yesterday.

From Matt Robison:

Will Bunch/The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Why GOP doesn’t want Menendez to quit

Even Wyatt Earp says that New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez needs to go. That’s the Ocean County, N.J., Democratic Party chairman (who did you think I was talking about?), who joined a posse of Garden State Democrats this weekend when he declared with a “heavy heart” that the state’s twice-indicted senior U.S. senator should step aside “to make room for a senator who will continue to stand up for Democratic values.”

A majority of Democratic senators join Earp in saying that Menendez should spend more time with his family at home.

Republicans, on the other hand, don’t want to be asked about Donald Trump (or George Santos), so they say nothing.

Detroit Free Press:

Biden walks picket line with striking UAW members at Willow Run parts center

Wearing a UAW hat and speaking through a bullhorn, Biden tells workers they helped save the auto companies with their sacrifices. "Now they’re doing incredibly well and, guess what, you should be doing incredibly well too."

Fain speaks after Biden, saying, "This is a historic moment."

Fain also thanked Biden for coming, a significant gesture, given that the union hasn't yet endorsed the president in his reelection bid, when most other major unions have done so. "Thank you, Mr. President," he said, "for coming... to stand up with us in our generation's defining moment.

David Rothkopf/The Daily Beast:

Ask the GOP Debaters if They Support Trump’s Open Fascism

Trump called for executions and media censorship over the weekend. Make his Republican opponents stand up and choose a side.

Donald Trump lost his damn mind this weekend. Or to be more accurate, he revealed more clearly than usual the madman wannabe dictator that lurks within him. But for all that, he did one thing that seemed impossible. He created the opportunity for this Wednesday’s Republican debate to seem relevant.

Admittedly, a debate among a pack of spineless nonentities (who have no more chance of being president than you or I) probably deserves scrutiny from the Food and Drug Administration as a form of broadcast Klonopin. If you even bother to tune in, it is likely to put you to sleep in minutes.

Charlie Sykes/The Bulwark:

Biden Is Old, But Trump Is Crazy (and Dangerous)

Plus: Why you should be alarmed. But not panicked.

In the last few days, the leading GOP candidate for president — the twice impeached, defeated former president, who is facing four criminal indictments — suggested the execution of General Mark Milley; demanded a federal shutdown unless the prosecutions against him are defunded; called on all Senate Democrats to resign; and threatened to use the powers of the federal government to retaliate against news outlets like NBC that had criticized him.

This is the same former president who has called for terminating provisions of the Constitution; orchestrated a coup to overturn the last presidential election; and absconded with military secrets. Lest you have forgotten, he has also been found liable for rape; and faces more than 90 felony counts for (among other things) paying off a porn star, conspiracy, obstruction, and defrauding the federal government.

And just a few days ago, we got a new report reminding us of the depths of the former president’s contempt for disabled and wounded veterans

Eric Levitz/New York Magazine:

Trump Wants His Enemies to Fear for Their Lives

In this context, a news outlet can cover Trump’s affronts to democracy. But it can’t quite internalize them. For such a publication to fully behave as though it has a working memory — and a capacity to rationally weigh the significance of disparate pieces of information — would be for it to resemble a partisan rag.

The most salient truth about the 2024 election is that the Republican Party is poised to nominate an authoritarian thug who publishes rationalizations for political violence and promises to abuse presidential authority on a near-daily basis. There is no way for a paper or news channel to appropriately emphasize this reality without sounding like a shrill, dull, Democratic propaganda outlet. So, like the nation writ large, the press comports itself as an amnesiac, or an abusive household committed to keeping up appearances, losing itself in the old routines, in an effortful approximation of normality until it almost forgets what it doesn’t want to know.

Carlton Huffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

I helped elect 3 Republicans to Wisconsin Supreme Court. I can't support impeachment.

There is a disease that has afflicted right wing politics since President Obama’s re-election in 2012: The belief that outcomes are rigged.

As a regional director in the WOW counties (Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington) I did my part to help Rebecca Bradley defeat JoAnne Kloppenberg in 2016. In 2017 as grassroots director I was witness to the layup that was Chief Justice Annette Ziegler’s victory. And in 2019, I was part of the team that poured heart and soul to seeing Brian Hagedorn win a seemingly impossible race. It has been the labor of my professional life to see a conservative majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. However it is exactly the principles of small government conservatism that drives me to oppose the impeachment of Protasiewicz.

Richard L. Hasen/The Atlantic:

The Supreme Court Needs to Make a Call on Trump’s Eligibility

The question of the former president’s possible disqualification needs to be resolved sooner or later. Sooner is better than later.

Those are the legal questions. The political questions are, in some ways, even more complicated, and at least as contested. If Trump is disqualified on Fourteenth Amendment grounds, some believe that this would become a regular feature of nasty American politics. Others worry that significant social unrest would result if the leading candidate for one of the country’s major political parties were to be disqualified from running for office rather than giving voters the final say on the issue.

All of these questions, however, are somewhat beside the point. This is not merely an academic exercise. Trump, right now, is already being challenged as constitutionally disqualified, and these issues are going to have to be resolved, sooner or later. My point is that sooner is much better than later.

Roll Call:

Military pay, typically exempted during shutdowns, is at risk

Lawmakers have bills ready that would ensure troops and civilian support employees get paychecks on time

Technically, there’s still time. Former Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., introduced the bill on Sept. 28, 2013; it passed the House at 12:24 a.m. on the 29th. The following day, the last full day of government funding, the Senate took just a few minutes to clear the measure by unanimous consent. President Barack Obama signed it that night, just before the shutdown was set to begin.

Despite that unanimous 2013 House vote, there were plenty of Democrats who took to the floor to blast the GOP for allowing the shutdown to happen and leaving every other agency’s employees in the lurch.

“We are all going to vote for this bill,” then-House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., said during brief debate. “But I will tell my friends on both sides of the aisle, it is time for us to give respect to our non-uniformed federal personnel because they are critical to the success of this country, to the success of our people.”

Bolts Magazine:

Maine Referendum Spotlights Voting Rights for People Under Guardianship

Voters in November will choose whether to scrub a clause in Maine’s constitution disenfranchising people “under guardianship for reasons of mental illness."

Maine is already closer to universal suffrage than most states. It’s one of two states, plus Washington D.C., that is approaching universal suffrage. Maine allows people to vote from prison and state law affirms the voting rights of people with intellectual disabilities, autism, and brain injuries. That makes this clause stand out—it treats mentally ill people under guardianship as second-class citizens, which is precisely why the court ruled it unconstitutional.

“We are creating a subset of mentally ill people under guardians who can’t vote,” Democratic State Senator Craig Hickman, who spearheaded the effort to put the matter to the vote, told Bolts. Hickman, a voting rights advocate, has also been involved in other measures to remove outdated language from Maine’s constitution. “I think it’s important to ratify this amendment. [We need to] make it clear that in this state we have no reason to disenfranchise.”

Cliff Schecter on Taylor Swift:

ProPublica:

Wisconsin’s Republicans Went to Extremes in Gerrymandering. Now They’re Scrambling to Protect That Power.

Heavily redrawn election districts in the battleground state gave Republicans firm control of the legislature — and the leeway to move aggressively against officials and judges they perceive as threats.

The new maps have given Wisconsin Republicans the leeway to move aggressively on perceived threats to their power. The GOP-controlled Senate recently voted to fire the state’s nonpartisan elections chief, Meagan Wolfe, blaming her for pandemic-era voting rules that they claim helped Joe Biden win the state in 2020. A legal battle over Wolfe’s firing now looms.

The future of a newly elected state supreme court justice, Janet Protasiewicz, also is in doubt. Her election in April shifted the balance of the court to the left and put the Wisconsin maps in peril. Republican leaders have threatened to impeach her if she does not recuse herself from a case that seeks to invalidate the maps drawn by the GOP. They argue that she’s biased because during her campaign she told voters the maps are “rigged.”

“They are rigged, period. Coming right out and saying that. I don’t think you could sell to any reasonable person that the maps are fair,” she said at a January candidates forum.

She added: “I can't ever tell you what I’m going to do on a particular case, but I can tell you my values, and common sense tells you that it’s wrong.”

New York Times:

As Trump Prosecutions Move Forward, Threats and Concerns Increase

As criminal cases proceed against the former president, heated rhetoric and anger among his supporters have authorities worried about the risk of political dissent becoming deadly.

At the Federal Bureau of Investigation, agents have reported concerns about harassment and threats being directed at their families amid intensifying anger among Trump supporters about what they consider to be the weaponization of the Justice Department. “Their children didn’t sign up for this,” a senior F.B.I. supervisor recently testified to Congress.

And the top prosecutors on the four criminal cases against Mr. Trump — two brought by the Justice Department and one each in Georgia and New York — now require round-the-clock protection.

New York Times:

The Wrecking-Ball Caucus: How the Far Right Brought Washington to Its Knees

Right-wing Republicans who represent a minority in their party and in Congress have succeeded in sowing mass dysfunction, spoiling for a shutdown, an impeachment and a House coup

Defying the G.O.P.’s longstanding reputation as the party of law and order, they have pledged to handcuff the F.B.I. and throttle the Justice Department. Members of the party of Ronald Reagan refused to meet with a wartime ally, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, this week when he visited the Capitol and want to eliminate assistance to his country, a democratic nation under siege from an autocratic aggressor.

And they are unbowed by guardrails that in past decades forced consensus even in the most extreme of conflicts; this is the same bloc that balked at raising the debt ceiling in the spring to avert a federal debt default.

“There is a group of Republican members who seem to feel there is no limit at all as to how you can wreck the system,” said Ross K. Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University. “There are no boundaries, no forbidden zones. They go where relatively junior members have feared to tread in the past.”

Brian Beutler/”Off Message” on Substack (inaugural post):

Welcome to Off Message

Refuge from a world gone mad

Many of my formative political memories and experiences as a political journalist date back to the late George W. Bush years, which in hindsight feels like a more innocent time. But that’s only by comparison to 2023, when social media is ubiquitous and distorting, Americans are awash in propaganda, and one of the country’s two major political parties has embraced a totalitarian kind of dishonesty, which back then it was only flirting with.

The truth is the old days weren’t so innocent. Two misbegotten wars—one completely lawless—had become quagmires, the United States had become synonymous internationally with torture and warrantless spying, and the world was on the brink of an era-defining economic calamity. But all of that coexisted with a bracing sense that most people had caught on to the malice and failures of the country’s leaders, were eager to rise against them, and confident enough in their righteousness that they were willing to air their internal differences without fear or favor. Or at least with less fear or favor than now.

To put it in more partisan terms, Democrats were tired of losing and ready to fight. Fifteen years ago, it seemed natural rather than heretical that new ideas and leaders should challenge older ones, and Democrats had more confidence to confront Republicans directly across a range of liabilities. They correctly identified a “culture of corruption” that had run rampant in the Bush years, and exposed much of it on their march back to power. They didn’t reflexively close ranks around whichever leaders felt most safe—far from it, one of the big reasons Barack Obama challenged Hillary Clinton for the presidency, and was able to win the nomination, is because Nancy Pelosi (who was then House speaker) and Harry Reid (who was then Senate majority leader) encouraged him to run. Liberals argued in a freewheeling way about the candidates they supported, without panicking that they might undermine the cause of change.

That whole spirit is gone.

NBC:

Poll: Overwhelming majorities express concerns about Biden, Trump ahead of 2024 race

Trump's lead has expanded in the GOP presidential contest, while Biden and Trump are tied in a hypothetical general election matchup.

“Yes, the numbers for Biden aren’t where he needs them to be,” said Horwitt, the Democratic pollster. “But the lens for most voters is still through Donald Trump first.”

The above is what most polling is showing (a close race). Some polling thoughts on an outlier (they themselves say so) Washington Post poll that had a big lead for trump over Biden:

It’s still too early to worry about 2024 polls. Worry about elections.

WTKR:

Early voting kicks off in Virginia with abortion as major issue for voters

Early voting has kicked off in Virginia with every seat of the General Assembly on the ballot this fall.

On Friday morning, it got off to a calm start at the Virginia Beach Registrar's office.

Democrats held a small rally outside to discuss the issues they find important this year.

"Reproductive freedom is on the ballot," said Michael Feggans, the Democratic nominee in the 97th House of Delegates district. "Support of our public schools and education is on the ballot. Making sure we're taking care of our veterans is on the ballot."

On Senator Robert Menendez, D-NJ and indicted on corruption charges:

Matt Robison and Daniel Cox on Trump’s polling status:

Vanity Fair:

The Exquisite Agony of Being Kevin McCarthy

“You talk to pretty much any lawmaker on the Hill, and there’s sort of just an acceptance, reluctant though it might be, but an acceptance that there will be a shutdown,” says [Abigail] Tracy, as a group of “rogue Republicans” keeps “making demands, shifting the goalposts, but nothing is going to placate them.”

Bomb throwers like Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert are “not serious people,” says [John] Harwood, a Polis Distinguished Fellow at Duke University. “They’re on television, they have podcasts or whatever,” he adds, “but they’re not built to do what politicians have to do to make government work.”

link to podcast

Paul Krugman/The New York Times:

Why Kevin McCarthy Can’t Do His Job

The speaker of the House is the only congressional officer mentioned in the Constitution, other than a temporary Senate officer to preside when the vice president can’t. The speaker’s job isn’t defined, but surely it includes passing legislation that keeps the federal government running.

But Kevin McCarthy, the current speaker, isn’t doing that job. Indeed, at this point it’s hard to see how he can pass any bill maintaining federal funding, let alone one the Senate, controlled by Democrats, will agree to. So we seem to be headed for a federal shutdown at the end of this month, with many important government activities suspended until further notice.

Why? McCarthy is a weak leader, especially compared with Nancy Pelosi, his formidable predecessor. But even a superb leader would probably be unable to transcend the dynamics of a party that has been extremist for a generation but has now gone beyond extremism to nihilism.

And yes, this is a Republican problem. Any talk about dysfunction in “Congress,” or “partisanship,” simply misinforms the public. Crises like the one McCarthy now faces didn’t happen under Pelosi, even though she also had a very narrow majority. I’ll come back to that contrast. First, let me make a different comparison — between the looming shutdown of 2023 and the shutdowns of 1995-96, when Newt Gingrich was speaker.

CNN:

Biden leads Trump in potential New Hampshire rematch, though dissatisfaction with both remains high

An early read of a New Hampshire rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump gives the incumbent president the advantage, amid signs that anger toward Trump could outweigh dampened enthusiasm for another Biden term, according to a new CNN/University of New Hampshire poll.

About 6 in 10 New Hampshire residents, 62%, say they would be dissatisfied or worse if Trump retook the presidency – with most, 56%, expressing outright anger at the prospect. A 56% majority say they’d be dissatisfied or worse if Biden won reelection, but fewer, 38%, say they’d be angry. About one-fifth say they’d be less than satisfied with either scenario

John Burn-Murdoch/Financial Times:

Are we destined for a zero-sum future?

A backdrop of slower economic growth may be shaping attitudes of tomorrow that cut across political divides

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach ofFT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found here. https://www.ft.com/content/980cbbe2-0f5d-4330-872d-c7a9d6a97bf6 You wouldn’t typically think of affirmative action advocates and anti-immigration nativists as being bedfellows. The former group skews young and is composed overwhelmingly of progressives, and the latter skews old and conservative. But according to a fascinating new study out of Harvard University, they have one significant thing in common: a predilection for zero-sum thinking, or the belief that for one group to gain, another must lose.The same way of thinking crops up on all manner of issues that cut across traditional political divides. Roughly equal numbers of US Democrats and Republicans agree that “in trade, if one country makes more money, then another country makes less money”. And while Democrats are more likely to say “if one income group becomes wealthier, this comes at the expense of other groups”, a third of Republicans agree.

NBC News:

New GOP ad campaign for control of Virginia centers on abortion limits

Democrats are campaigning against the GOP's proposed restriction at 15 weeks. Republicans are painting Democrats as the party of "no limits" in an effort to regain ground on abortion.

Republicans have high hopes of flipping Virginia’s state Senate and holding the state House of Delegates in November, which would give them full control of state government under GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin. Youngkin, seeking the governing majority that would allow him to enact parts of his agenda he has struggled to push through a divided legislature, is leading what has become a massive investment in the statehouse races by tapping into a national donor network, attending fundraisers from Nantucket to Dallas.

And abortion has become a flashpoint, with Democrats campaigning on the fact that a GOP majority would threaten Virginia’s status as the last state in the South without significant restrictions on abortion rights.

The Washington Post:

DeSantis is in growing trouble. He’s betting big on Iowa to rescue him.

Abandoned by some donors, bashed by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and polling behind other Trump alternatives, DeSantis and his allies are increasingly focused on the first GOP caucus state

The pastor said she liked DeSantis. Soon she was recruited.

The Florida governor showed up at the door last month with his family for a home-cooked meal complete with Iowa corn. On Saturday, she drove two hours to see him again, huddling around DeSantis for a prayer at a church event. “I’m not that political of a person,” said the pastor, Joyce Schmidt, 70, laughing a bit at her involvement. “But all of a sudden … ”

The courtship illustrates the organizing underway as DeSantis banks heavily on evangelical Christians, far-flung campaigning and intensive fieldwork to revive the long-shot hopes of his struggling bid to best former president Donald Trump, who holds a widening lead over him in national and early-state polls.

Dan Balz/Washington Post:

Kevin McCarthy turns impeachment into political score-settling

The House speaker directed an impeachment inquiry into President Biden based on “allegations,” making the process a debasement of what was intended to be a constitutional vehicle to remove a president for malfeasance

Now that the inquiry is launched, it could take on a life of its own, in which case it might be difficult to stop before articles of impeachment are introduced. Or the inquiry could run for months without any conclusion, never rising to a formal impeachment proceeding but without anyone calling a halt to it.

McCarthy has claimed the impeachment inquiry is a “natural step” after the work that has been done, but there is nothing natural about this one. It is a political step, one taken under the speaker’s duress. The burden of proof remains with McCarthy and his Republican colleagues.

David French/New York Times:

The Most Interesting Element of the Hunter Biden Indictment

And now Hunter Biden, who bought a gun as a nonviolent, unlawful drug user, is charged under the same federal statute at issue in each of the cases above. Arguably, Biden’s best defense to that charge is to join a host of other criminal defendants by challenging that count under Bruen’s text-and-history test. He just might win — and if he does, he will contribute to the dismantling of a key element of federal gun regulations.

Martin Pengelly/The Guardian:

Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis turns on ‘malignant narcissist’ ex-president

Ellis, one of 18 Trump associates charged in Georgia election subversion case, says she ‘simply can’t support him’ again

Deace said: “Before that man [Trump] needs to be president again … [to] escape the quote-unquote, ‘witch-hunts’, that man needs Jesus again because … his ambitions would be fueled by showing some self-awareness. And he won’t do it because he can’t admit, ‘I’m not God.’”

Ellis said Deace had “perfectly articulated exactly how I as a voter feel”. She knew Trump well “as a friend, as a former boss”, she said, adding: “I have great love and respect for him personally.

“But everything that you just said resonates with me as exactly why I simply can’t support him for elected office again. Why I have chosen to distance is because of that, frankly, malignant narcissistic tendency to simply say that he’s never done anything wrong.

“And the total idolatry that I’m seeing from some of the supporters that are unwilling to put the constitution and the country and the conservative principles above their love for a star is really troubling.

“And I think that we do need to, as Americans and as conservatives and particularly as Christians, take this very seriously and understand where are we putting our vote.”

New York Times:

Top Democrats’ Bullishness on Biden 2024 Collides With Voters’ Worries

Party leaders have rallied behind the president’s re-election bid, but as one top Democratic strategist put it, “The voters don’t want this, and that’s in poll after poll after poll.”

From the highest levels of the party on down, Democratic politicians and party officials have long dismissed the idea that Mr. Biden should have any credible primary challenger. Yet despite their efforts — and the president’s lack of a serious opponent within his party — they have been unable to dispel Democratic concerns about him that center largely on his age and vitality.

The discord between the party’s elite and its voters leaves Democrats confronting a level of disunity over a president running for re-election not seen for decades.

Interviews with more than a dozen strategists, elected officials and voters this past week, conversations with Democrats since Mr. Biden’s campaign began in April, and months of public polling data show that this disconnect has emerged as a defining obstacle for his candidacy, worrying Democrats from liberal enclaves to swing states to the halls of power in Washington.

This is a storyline that has to work it’s way through until they’re bored with this one as well as the others.

It’s sarcasm.

Matthew Continetti/Commentary:

The Left of the Right

The first thing to say about the New Right is that it can get weird. Its ranks are composed almost entirely of men. They inhabit a social-media cocoon where they talk a lot about manhood, and strength, and manliness, and push-ups, and masculinity, and virility, and weight-lifting, and testosterone. “Wrestling should be mandated in middle schools,” write Arthur Milikh and Scott Yenor in the collection Up from Conservatism. “Students could learn to build and shoot guns as part of a normal course of action in schools and learn how to grow crops and prepare them for meals. Every male student could learn to skin an animal and every female to milk a cow.”

The second aspect of the New Right that deserves attention is its flirtation with anti-Semitism and racial bigotry. Earlier this year, one of the contributors to Up from Conservatism, the international-relations scholar Richard Hanania, was revealed to have written hateful Internet posts under a pseudonym. The pro-Trump Breitbart reported that Pedro L. Gonzalez, an associate editor at Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture who boosts DeSantis on his social-media account, had a history of anti-Semitism. Around the same time, DeSantis fired speechwriter Nate Hochman, a New Right wunderkind who had promoted an online video that incorporated neo-Nazi imagery.

Matt Robison and Rex Huppke: