Jim Jordan is the heir to the Gingrich Revolution. Another day, another clusterf***k in the US House of Representatives. After days of behind the scenes haggling (and reports of strong-arming) Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio said he was ready to call for a vote to make him the new Speaker of the House. The word on Tuesday morning was that they believed they had commitments for the necessary votes and the worst case scenario would be defections in the single digits, which were being rationalized as protest votes that would fall away on a second ballot. As it turned out Jordan lost 20 votes and after originally calling for another vote in the afternoon they postponed until Wednesday morning. By the time you read this that vote might have taken place already or perhaps Jordan has seen the writing on the wall and dropped out. The rumors are that serious discussions of making the “acting” Speaker Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina a temporary Speaker with full powers to get the House through the appropriations process although nobody seems to know exactly how that would work.
Uncategorized
Joe Biden went to Israel today and spoke from experience Joe Biden urged Israel not to repeat “mistakes” the US made after 9/11 as he made a statement during his visit to Tel Aviv on Wednesday, 18 October, following Hamas’ attack earlier this month. The US president told people not to be “consumed” by rage as he compared the attacks to the events of September 11 in the US. “After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes,” he added. Mr Biden’s statement came as he announced a new $100m aid package to Gaza after a hospital explosion that is feared to have killed hundreds of people on Tuesday. I suspect the right wingers will have a fit about this because American presidents are never allowed to admit to mistakes. On the other hand, they must be confused because Trump is hostile to Netanyahu and they’ve recently been programmed to be against war in the Middle East (what they now call “forever wars” no matter what the circumstances.) So, we’ll see.
Josh Marshall on the Gaza Hospital blast. Like him, I have zero expertise on these issues so I have to try to find credible sources to inform me. I have been seeing the same thing: I have no ability to evaluate grainy videos or make sense of what different blast patterns look like. But I’ve spent several years developing lists of open source intelligence and forensics analysts who are consistently credible. You’ve seen some of this in the various Twitter lists I sometimes post here. Credible doesn’t mean always right, of course. By credible in this case I mean analysts who are highly knowledgeable in one relevant domain, use an empirical framework for analyzing videos, open source data, etc., and have a proven track record of the appropriate level of caution and skepticism in drawing conclusions. Many of these people come out of the Bellingcat world, others got started (at least publicly) analyzing the Syrian and Ukraine conflicts.
The putative GOP nominee shows his priorities Trump: They want to keep me here instead of campaigning in Iowa… They want me to be here *3 minutes later* Reporter: Will you be back tomorrow? Trump: Probably not. We’re having a very big professional golf tournament at Doral, so probably not pic.twitter.com/l8TUIbASUv — Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) October 18, 2023 And he doesn’t have to be at the trial ever. He just wants the attention he gets at the Courthouse. It’s his current version of chopper talk.
And a way out of cynicism Polling has been bad for years. Traditional models seem to be failing. Too many focus on horse-race politics. But why? Dan Pfeiffer this morning: Despite historically high turnout in the last several elections, people are disconnected from politics, angry at politicians, and distrustful that the political process can make an iota of difference in their lives. To be fair, Americans have always had some cynicism about politics and a distrust of government dating back to dumping tea in the Boston Harbor. But the levels of discontent are unprecedented and happening across the political spectrum. Pfeiffer is commenting on a Pew survey that came out in September. Is it any good? Who knows? But its findings may be instructive for Democrats in 2024, Pfeiffer believes: That last bit is good advice. Trump’s brand is rule-breaking. Even if his instincts are criminal. But Joe Biden has instincts too. Not for what Americans tell pollsters they believe about this country, but for what they want to believe about it.
How kind of him to give democrats such a great campaign Ad https://t.co/1Iw0pBIdHE — Olivia Julianna 🗳 (@0liviajulianna) October 18, 2023 And they see it as a selling point. Tom Cole, by the way, is frequently mentioned as a possible speaker candidate.
He made their political motives clear Trump’s lawyer Kenneth Chesebro wrote some things down that he probably shouldn’t written: On Dec. 24, 2020, Kenneth Chesebro and other lawyers fighting to reverse President Donald J. Trump’s election defeat were debating whether to file litigation contesting Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in Wisconsin, a key swing state. Mr. Chesebro argued there was little doubt that the litigation would fail in court — he put the odds of winning at “1 percent” — as Mr. Trump continued to push his baseless claims of widespread fraud, according to emails reviewed by The New York Times. But the “relevant analysis,” Mr. Chesebro argued, “is political.” The emails have new significance because Mr. Chesebro is scheduled to be one of the first two of Mr. Trump’s 18 co-defendants to go on trial this month on charges brought by the district attorney’s office in Fulton County, Ga. The indictment accused Mr. Chesebro of conspiring to create slates of so-called fake electors pledged to Mr. Trump in several states that Mr. Biden had won. Mr.
Act like a bunch of clowns The Republican circus is not playing well in those swing districts. How could it? These people are a joke: In California’s 45th Congressional District, along Western Avenue in Buena Park, a giant billboard is set to display a photograph of Representative Michelle Steel next to former President Donald J. Trump and Representative Jim Jordan, the Republican hard-liner from Ohio she voted for twice this week for speaker. “Rep. Steel Supports Extremism,” the billboard reads. “Stop the extremism.” The advertising campaign, paid for by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, is part of a broad effort by Democrats to target Republicans like Ms. Steel, who represent congressional districts that President Biden won in 2020. A dozen of those vulnerable G.O.P. lawmakers have stood on the House floor this week and cast their votes to put Mr. Jordan second in line to the presidency. Another group, the Congressional Integrity Project, began a digital ad campaign this week in those same districts, focusing on Mr. Jordan and his attempts to overthrow the 2020 election.
“an absurd and dangerous choice” The Washington Post is posting live updates of Jacketless Jim Jordan’s quest to be Speaker of the House and second in line for the presidency. Really. The House begins business today at noon, “two weeks to the day since former House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was ousted.” “The next speaker should not be someone we already know is willing to manufacture disputes and support groundless claims to overturn an election to install the president he wants,” Jill Lawrrence writes at The Bulwark. She offers a detailed list of why the Ohio congressman is “an absurd and dangerous choice for that reason and too many others to count.” Among them is former House Speaker John Boehner’s assessment of his fellow Ohioan: “Jordan was a terrorist as a legislator going back to his days in the Ohio House and Senate. . . . A terrorist. A legislative terrorist.” Not to mention being an election denier and Trump co-conspirator, Jeffrey K. Tulis and William Kristol remind Bulwark readers. Jordan has Donald Trump’s endorsement.
Broadcast radicalization You’ll recall the hissy fit conservatives threw at the FBI’s suggestion post-Jan. 6 that domestic terrorism by “white supremacists, militias and other extremists” was a growing threat in this country. Some years earlier, the Department of Justice was focused on foreign terrorists’ efforts at “online radicalization.” As in “Online Radicalization to Violent Extremism” (2014): Using a combination of traditional websites, mainstream social media platforms, YouTube, and other online services, extremists broadcast their views, provoke negative sentiment toward enemies, incite people to violence, glorify martyrs, create virtual communities with like-minded individuals, provide religious or legal justifications for violent actions, and communicate individually with new recruits to groom them for violent activities I’m wondering today (again) when the DOJ will turn its attention to the threat of broadcast radicalization.