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If you want to know why half the people in his own party don’t trust him, this is it Philip Bump on Jim Jordan: Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) had a job to do Wednesday afternoon, and darned if he wasn’t going to do it. Cole joined the lengthy roster of Republican representatives given the opportunity to nominate their party’s candidate for speaker before a vote in the House — a roster on which he might admittedly already appear, given that the Republican conference is well into the double digits on such nominations this year. But given that task, his job was to convince the House broadly, his colleagues specifically and the viewing audience potentially of the preparedness of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) for the job. With that goal in mind, he at one point in his speech hailed the House Judiciary Committee chairman’s moral fortitude. “He is a person of absolute personal integrity,” Cole said of Jordan. “I’ve never once had to question something that he told me. He’s an honorable man.” This is a more important testimonial than it might seem.

I’ve got a new piece up at UnHerd about the unprecedented wave of violence and gang warfare currently engulfing Haiti. In the article I explain that the current situation can only be understood in the context of more than a century of disastrous neocolonial interventions — mostly by the US, and more recently by the UN.

I’ve written for UnHerd about Africa’s revolt against Western-dictated Net Zero policies, and how these threaten to lock the world’s poorest countries into perpetual underdevelopment.

I’ve got a few new articles out in the usual mags. Over at UnHerd I’ve written about Donald Tusk’s victory in Sunday’s Polish elections and its momentous consequences — for Poland, the EU and NATO. Long story short: it’s clearly a big win for pro-EU forces, but attempts to use the result to justify a new integrationist power …

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No, Kevin, Republicans did this Please append this to Digby’s Tuesday post, The Most Fatuous Spin In World History. Former speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) spun like a top yesterday after Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) lost his first vote for Speaker of the House by 20 Republican votes one week after Republicans gave McCarthy the boot and stopped the House cold amidst an international crisis. McCarthy: “Every single Democrat voted to stop one branch of government. They created this mess with eight Republicans. Every single Democrat did this.” McCarthy was referring to the vote last week that ousted him as speaker. Um, Short Attention Span Theater, Kevin. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) reminds Republicans that the reason they, McCarthy, Jordan, and the country are in this mess (and why McCarthy is out of a job) dates from a January vote by Republicans only (here). McCarthy himself set the stage for his ouster by caving to his MAGA lunatics’ demand for a rule change that would allow only one member of Congress to bring a “motion to vacate” and force a vote on removing the speaker. One did. Matt Gaetz did. And here we are.

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.

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.