Ballooning🌻 🌻 🌻 🎈 🎈 

Curious Benjamins: Yesterday, by a party line vote of 218 to 211 with one Republican, David Joyce, voting present the House voted to kick Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota off the Foreign Affairs committee. Love her or hate her, the vote had less to do with Omar’s opinions about Jews or her view of Israel including her statement that supporting Israel was all about the Benjamins, and more to do with retribution for the removal of Republicans Paul Gosar of Arizona and Margie Taylor Greene of Georgia from all their committees back when the Democrats were in charge.  We know that because Speaker McCarthy didn’t just put Gosar and Greene back on committees, he’s given them plum assignments despite the despicable things they’ve said and done. As a reminder, Gosar was booted by a vote of 223 to 207 with former Republican Representatives Kinzinger and Cheney joining all Democrats and David Joyce again voting present after he tweeted a photoshopped video of him killing Congresswoman AOC, which he then unapologetically retweeted after the vote took place.  Margie Q was booted from her assignments by a vote of 230 to 199 with 11 Republicans voting along with the Democrats for her unhinged statements endorsing the execution of prominent Democrats, questioning 9.11, and her Jewish space lasers lunacy. And then there’s McCarthy whose outrage about Omar’s use of the “Benjamins” trope is hard to buy given that before the midterms, he resorted to similar tropes, tweeting that Republicans “cannot allow Soros, Steyer, and Bloomberg to BUY this election. Get out and vote Republican on November 6^th #MAGA.” Apparently, it’s okay for him and other members of his party and that guy Trump to invoke anti-Semitic tropes and dine with folks like white supremacist Nick Fuentes, just not okay for Omar.  Here’s a suggestion, none of them should be saying and doing anti-Semitic things, period and those who do shouldn’t be allowed to get away with casting stones at others. Putting aside that the vote against Omar had more to do with tit for tat than real outrage, it’s notable that McCarthy was able to get all of his caucus on board, even the few who’d earlier said that on principle they wouldn’t vote to unseat Omar. Ironically, by getting all of his crowd on board, McCarthy also united all the Democrats, several of whom were initially leaning towards voting to kick Omar off Foreign Affairs as well and he’s also elevated Omar in much the way that penalizing Margie Q elevated her.

RealPolitik:  President Biden is scheduled to give his State of the Union address next week. Following his speech Sarah Huckabee Sanders, one of Trump’s many prevaricating former press secretaries who is now the Governor of Arkansas, will be giving the Republican rebuttal. Then, because there’s always a then, if you haven’t conked out you can watch newbie Democratic Congresswoman Delia Ramirez give the progressive response to both on behalf of the liberal Working Families Party. No word yet if the Congressional Black Caucus who to be fair probably has a lot to talk about right now or any other person or group will also speak but since Mike Lindell always seems to have time on his hands, who knows?  As to prevaricators, George of many names Santos who as a notable Jew ish person spoke against Omar yesterday from the floor of the House is still in Congress but given who he is his saga continues to metastasize so it shouldn’t be surprising that  the lawyer he’s hired to represent him in Brazil related to the case involving the stolen checks he used to buy a few thousand dollars of clothing at a high-end boutique is a convicted murderer who served prison time for his involvement in a gangland killing. Meantime, here in the US Santos’ pit grows deeper. Politico reports that on behalf of the US Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of NY, FBI agents are investigating Santos’ role in the GoFundMe scheme involving a disabled vet and his tumor ridden service dog. Voters in Santos’ Long Island/Queens district aren’t all that happy about him either, 78% of them including 71% of Republicans want him to resign with 83% viewing him unfavorably. Also, that Jew ish thing doesn’t appear to be working for him, according to the Jewish news magazine The Forward, only 73% of the Jewish voters in his district voted for him in November and now 94% of Jewish voters there want him to resign.  Moreover, McCarthy’s concerns that Republicans will lose Santos’ seat in a special election are probably accurate as according to the Washington Post, Santos’ former rival Robert Zimmerman has been out and about shaking hands and appears to be growing more popular by the minute.

China Syndrome:  So game set match to you if you had a Chinese dirigible on your 2023 BINGO card.  According to the Pentagon, a Chinese surveillance balloon is flying above the US and has been for days.  President Biden considered shooting it down but was advised not to by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Milly over concerns that balloon debris would do damage here on the ground.  It’s not clear that the balloon is obtaining anything more than a spy satellite would but still the fact that the Chinese are so brazenly flying one over the country is disturbing especially given that last week a leaked memo written by US Air Mobility Command General Mike Minihan revealed his concern that the US could be at war with China by 2025. In other related news, the US military is expanding its presence in the Philippines, a move to position our ability to constrain China’s armed forces and constant saber rattling about Taiwan.  Assuming you are up to date on all things going on in Ukraine and Russia, not that anyone is or can be, now might be a good time to brush up on all things China.