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Marjorie Taylor Green is a very stable genius: Sitting in here earlier, I was listening to the discussion on jobs and that the whole reason claimed by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle is that they want to bring in as many illegal aliens as possible, give them amnesty so they can fill jobs in America,” Greene claimed. “And then they talked about that we have a population growth problem in the United States.” “Well, I think we can all say that if maybe, perhaps, 63 million people weren’t murdered in the womb, we wouldn’t have a population growth problem, would we?” she asked. “That’s not women’s reproductive rights. That’s called abortion. It’s called murder.” Greene blamed abortion rights for slowing population growth. Never say there is no plan: By the way, they are lowering the working age in red states. They’re getting prepared.

Yeah, good luck with that Democrats cannot let women forget what MAGA Republicans and Christian nationalists (to the extent they don’t overlap) think of them. My God, Rep. Matt Gaetz says it right out loud: “This is the blue collar realignment of the Republican Party and what I can tell you is for every Karen we lose, there’s a Julio and a Jamal ready to sign up for the MAGA movement, and that bodes well for our ability to be more diverse and to be more durable as we head into not only the rest of the primary contest, but also the general election.” Yeah, good luck with that. In case you missed testimony by Jessica Valenti (Abortion Every Day) on Wednesday before some Senate Democrats, her prepared statement was appalling. In part: Right now, there is a quiet but well-funded campaign led by the most powerful anti-abortion groups in the country that is focused entirely on pressuring and forcing women to carry doomed pregnancies to term.  They’re not only trying to do away with exceptions for nonviable pregnancies—they’re trying to eradicate prenatal testing altogether.

President Joe Biden on Wednesday dispatched his chief of staff to call the former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and apologize for a dig the Democratic National Committee took at him a day prior, just after he had dropped his campaign for president. Hutchinson had been one of Donald Trump’s biggest critics from the right in his failed campaign, which he ended less than 24 hours after he finished a distant sixth in the Iowa caucuses. The DNC looked to make light of Hutchinson’s performance in a statement sent to reporters shortly after his exit Tuesday, writing, “This news comes as a shock to those of us who could’ve sworn he had already dropped out.” Karine Jean-Pierre, Biden’s press secretary, revealed during a Wednesday press briefing that Jeff Zients made the phone call after she was asked about the DNC’s statement. Jean-Pierre said Biden has a “deep respect” for the former governor and “admires the race he ran.” “The president knows him to be a man of principle who cares about our country and has a strong record of public service,” Jean-Pierre said.

And he may reward her with the big enchilada Is it possible Trump will actually choose Stefanik? I still doubt it. She’s not out of central casting after all, at least not in the way Trump thinks is important. But apparently he’s talked about it” During a candlelit dinner with Mar-a-Lago members in late December, former President Donald Trump walked around the table as the conversation turned to one of the biggest decisions he’d have to make should he become the Republican nominee: Whom should he pick to be his running mate?  That’s when Rep. Elise Stefanik, the hard-charging upstate New York Republican, came up, according to a person at the dinner table. Attendees around Trump raved about her viral moment just weeks before, when she grilled three university presidents at a congressional hearing about antisemitism on campus.  At the thought of Stefanik as a possible choice for vice president, Trump nodded approvingly.

Keep this in mind when you hear that Trump has changed his spots and “won’t have time for retribution.” It’s what he lives for: Former President Donald Trump and people in his inner circle have told down-ballot Republican candidates not to hire Republican strategist Jeff Roe or his political consulting firm after Roe worked to elect Ron DeSantis, according to four people familiar with the conversations. The admonition against hiring Roe represents an attempt to choke off revenue for his consulting firm, Axiom, in an act of political retribution. Roe was a top strategist for the DeSantis super PAC, Never Back Down. Roe resigned in mid-December after the Washington Post published a story detailing backbiting at the super PAC. Candidates have been warned that hiring Roe could create a political problem for them with the Trump team. “It’s an open secret that candidates who want to stay on President Trump’s good side should not hire Axiom,” said one of the four people, an influential Republican strategist who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “They are enemy No. 1.” He wants to be a dictator.

And 75% of GOP voters think Trump is just fine It’s the other 25% he needs to be concerned about… Former President Donald Trump‘s convincing victory in Monday’s Iowa caucuses shows his continued strength among Republicans, and a new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds once more that Trump is both viewed nationwide as the candidate whom Republicans and Republican-leaning independents would be most satisfied with as their 2024 nominee as well as the highest-rated contender across a range of other attributes. Three out of four Republican-leaning adults say they would be very or somewhat satisfied with Trump as the GOP’s presidential nominee, compared to 64% who say the same about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and 50% for former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Trump’s two remaining rivals in the nominating race. Trump’s advantage tracks closely with the findings about Republicans who were interviewed as part of a more extensive ABC News poll conducted the week before the Iowa caucuses.

I’ve written for UnHerd about the international bestseller Slow Down: How Degrowth Communism Can Save the Earth by Kohei Saito, the rising star of contemporary Marxist thought. The book was a huge success in his home country Japan, selling over half a million copies, and has now just been published in English. Saito’s argument is pretty straightforward: capitalism is destroying the …

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Florida Democrats flip state House seat With few exceptions (Hi, Hillsborough!) Democrats in Florida have not been showing us how it’s done lately. Maybe that’s changing (Daily Kos): Florida Democrats kicked off the new year with a major victory as businessman and Navy veteran Tom Keen flipped a Republican-held seat in the state House―a development that represents Gov. Ron DeSantis’ second electoral humiliation in the span of 24 hours. Keen defeated his Republican rival, Osceola County School Board member Erika Booth, 51-49 in Tuesday’s special election for the 35th House District, a constituency in the Orlando suburbs that Joe Biden carried 52-47. The Democrat will succeed Republican Fred Hawkins, whom Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed in June to serve as president of South Florida State College despite lacking any background in higher education. “Republicans will hold an 84-36 supermajority in the state House,” writes Jeff Singer, with “a similarly lopsided edge in the state Senate.” Keen’s seat will be up for reelection in November, so he had best not get too comfortable.

Trump’s win in Iowa showed his weakness The Trump juggernaut rolled into Iowa on Monday and won what the media is calling a “historic” victory. He won 51% of the vote while his closest rival Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis only won 21% and Former S. Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, 19%. Obviously, it was a tremendous victory for the former president, demonstrating his massive strength going into the 2024 election. Or was it? First of all, this was no surprise. Donald Trump has been destined to win this caucus and frankly, every primary from the moment he announced he was running. Unlike in 2016, he reportedly had a very professional campaign in the state and was polling over 50% throughout the race. It is very probable that he will be the de facto nominee within the next month and will have it all wrapped up by Super Tuesday. However, taking a closer look at those Iowa numbers shows some of the pit falls awaiting him in the general election. If there’s one state in the nation you can call MAGA country, it’s Iowa. It’s something like 95% white, older than most states, extremely rural and the Republican Party there is as conservative as it gets.

Trump is acting like a juvenile delinquent in the federal courthouse today. His lawyer is too. Is there anyone else on earth who would be allowed to do this? Millions of people want this monster to be president of the United States. This is a very, very sick political culture.