Oh great I’ve argued that he is more likely to take votes from Trump than Biden. But it appears that at this point in the cycle anyway, I’m wrong. He does take more from Biden. Dan Pfeiffer writes about it in his newsletter today: Politico also reports that American Values 2024, a Super PAC supporting Kennedy Jr., has commissioned polling and is preparing for an independent bid. While multiple polls demonstrated that the No Labels and West candidacies could hurt Biden, the initial speculation was that Kennedy would hurt Trump more. On its face, Kennedy Jr. has been running as MAGA’s favorite Democrat. He is a regular on Fox News and other MAGA media outlets, where he mostly attacks Biden, spouts anti-vax conspiracy theories, and toes the Trump line on Russia. If West pulls disaffected liberals from Biden, and the No Labels ticket is a place for Republicans and independents that disapprove of Biden, shouldn’t RFK Jr. take votes from Trump? What the Polls Say Most of the polling shows Kennedy Jr. getting 10% and 20% of the vote against Biden in the primary.
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Lol: Former President Donald Trump is considering a visit to the Capitol next week where he is open to pitching himself as a speaker candidate, according to a Republican familiar with internal discussions. If it happens, Trump would come speak to the House GOP sometime before lawmakers’ internal speaker election, which is set to happen on Wednesday, that person said. A final decision hasn’t yet been made. The full GOP will meet Tuesday for an internal “candidate forum.” It’s not clear if Trump — the frontrunner in the 2024 presidential primary — would actually run for speaker. Winning would require near-unanimity from the House GOP, a difficult hurdle for the controversial former president. One of his closest Hill allies, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, is already in the race. (Jordan told NBC that he discussed his speakership bid with Trump this week.) It remains a longshot idea: The House has never elected a speaker who wasn’t a member of Congress, though it is not technically a constitutional requirement.
Say it ain’t so… It’s been obvious that Rudy Giuliani drinks to excess for a long time. He’s shown up on Fox News inebriated more than once, as was obvious to anyone watching. In the infamous interview “Over Bloody Mary’s with NY Magazine’s Olivia Nuzzi” he was described like this: His ex-wife had implied, in an interview with New York, that he was an alcoholic. Others anonymously question his mental state. “Oh yeah, yeah — I do a lot of drugs,” Giuliani said sarcastically. “There was one I was addicted to. I’ve forgotten what it is. I don’t know where the drug things come from — I really don’t. The alcohol comes from the fact that I did occasionally drink. I love Scotch. I can’t help it. All of the malts. And part of it is cigars — I love to have them with cigars. I’m a partyer.” Here’s some evidence.
That first hearing was a train wreck. Is there any possibility that the next ones will be better? House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer did not cover himself with glory in the hearings and the Republicans are not happy. They seem to think it was just a bad performance (which it was) but the real problem is the total lack of any evidence justifying an impeachment. The Bulwark’s Joe Perticone has the details: The House Oversight Committee’s impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden didn’t begin with the bang Republicans had wanted. The first hearing, one week ago today, was seen by many impartial observers as disorganized and rudderless. No surprise there: This has been the case throughout the past several months of the Oversight Committee’s sprawling probes into the president and the business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden. The backlash was everywhere, on Capitol Hill and in conservative media. You can even see the skepticism in polling of Republicans. According to a new Monmouth University poll, just three in ten Republicans put a lot of trust in the fairness of the impeachment inquiry.
Analysts predict a massive drop in prices over the next few days and weeks. We’ll have to see if the media notices. Over the past few weeks there has been non-stop hysteria over the gas price spike on the news. There has been lots of speculation about how it’s the death knell for Biden’s presidency , of course. Will they report this? After spiking to alarming levels just last week, oil prices are suddenly in free-fall mode. The dramatic reversal should bring relief to drivers (and nervous central bankers) very soon. US oil prices plunged by 5.6% to $84.22 a barrel on Wednesday, marking the biggest one-day decline in a year. Crude dropped even further Thursday, sinking as low as $82.24 a barrel, a five-week low. This is quite the U-turn, even for the notoriously boom-to-bust oil market. As recently as last week, US crude briefly touched $95 a barrel and Wall Street banks were predicting $100 or higher amid Saudi Arabia and Russia’s aggressive supply cuts. Now, gas prices are already starting to retreat and experts predict sharper drops to come.
Apparently, he has a great fear that someone is going to poison him. Cassidy Hutchinson is still on her book tour. And she has some more tea (or, should I say, condiments)on Trump’s bizarre phobias and obsessions. He isn’t just an authoritarian monster, he’s also filled with weird paranoid neuroses: Cassidy Hutchinson is not done airing out the sordid, amusing, sometimes confounding things she witnessed while working under Donald Trump. The former White House aide, whose book Enough is leading American sales, stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live and spent much of her time explaining, of all things, the former president’s apparent inability to eat lunch like a normal person. Hutchinson’s testimony during last year’s January 6 hearings instantly went viral and, as Jimmy Kimmel put it on Wednesday night, “cast serious doubt on the highly professional, by-the-book reputation of the Trump administration.” Among other damning accusations, Hutchinson recalled a time when Trump threw his lunch against the wall in a fit of rage.
Unwilling to govern “Kevin McCarthy just found out in the hardest way possible that Nancy Pelosi only made it look easy,” Charlotte Clymer posted at Bluesky. “Backwards, and in high heels,” replied Marcy Wheeler (emptywheel). If House Republicans ousting Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday was too abstruse a sign that they cannot govern like adults, bowtied Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, now speaker pro tempore, made sure cameras picked it up as he recessed the House until Tuesday. The gavel didn’t do anything. Jeez. pic.twitter.com/I0TWxHK3Qf — Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 3, 2023 The Republican House caucus is at war with itself. Eight Republicans led by Matt Gaetz of Florida voted to oust McCarthy on Wednesday. All eight are “traitors,” former Speaker Newt Gingrich told Fox News. “All eight of them should in fact be primaried.” Ninety-six percent of Republicans voted to keep McCarthy, he insisted. McCarthy, “who practiced a management style of doing and saying pretty much whatever it would take to get through the day,” did not make it through yesterday.
Wait for it The narrative will come from the press, from Republicans, and from the peanut gallery. Here’s former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, post-defrocking: “I think today was a political decision by the Democrats, and I think the things they have done in the past hurt the institution. When they just started removing people from committee, when they just started doing the other things, and my fear is the institution fell today.” Ah, they failed to support the institution. Here we go: It would be understandable if Democrats decided to remain neutral on Tuesday (by voting “present”), reasoning that it is a Republican civil war. But they didn’t. Instead, by voting “no” on the procedural motion to table Rep. Matt Gaetz’s motion—and then voting “yes” on his Motion to Vacate the Office of Speaker—Democrats effectively voted for Gaetz. And a vote for Gaetz is a vote for chaos. Peanut gallery (I think): McCarthy was a MAGA-owned House Speaker who removed Ukraine aid from the government funding bill, so … no. https://t.co/PtNRVnAN2R — Kevin M.
His strategy to win the election is to delegitimize the legal system and martyr himself I’m sure Donald Trump was hopping mad to see Kevin McCarthy and Matt Gaetz steal the spotlight yesterday with their historic antics in the House. After all, Dear Leader is on trial and he’s appearing in the courtroom even though he’s not required to so that he can preen before the cameras in the hallways and insult the judge, the prosecutor and everyone else. This is supposed to be his party and it was completely overshadowed by House Republicans who are supposed to understand that. As of midnight last night the only thing he had to say on the matter was, “Why is it that Republicans are always fighting among themselves, why aren’t they fighting the Radical Left Democrats who are destroying our Country?” If the man he calls “My Kevin” expected him to intervene on his behalf he was sorely disappointed. In fact, he didn’t even bother to write a bland Truth Social post wishing McCarthy well in his future endeavors.
Your party turns its lonely eyes to you Some Republicans literally can’t think of anyone but Trump: Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) announced late Tuesday that he will file paperwork to nominate former President Trump to be the next Speaker of the House. “This week, when the U.S. House of Representatives reconvenes, my first order of business will be to nominate Donald J. Trump for Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives,” Nehls said in a statement. “President Trump, the greatest President of my lifetime, has a proven record of putting America First and will make the House great again.” It’s mass delusion. And statements like that should prove to all of us that the idea that elected Republicans are all cynics and cowards is not entirely true. Some of them are brainwashed true believers in the cult of Donald Trump. To them he is literally the only leader they can conceive of. Trump said he was fully concentrating on becoming president (to stay out of jail) but that hasn’t stopped the speculation.