Chaos on Steroids ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

Biden World:  Last night President Biden gave a remarkable prime time speech, where he forcefully stated that supporting Israel and Ukraine was the right thing to do and vital for US security.  His words “History has taught us when terrorists don’t pay a price for their terror, when dictators don’t pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and death and more destruction. They keep going. And the costs and the threat to American and the world keep rising.” He is expected to request today that Congress pass a $105 billion aid package for Israel and Ukraine.  The package also includes money for humanitarian aid to Gaza, for managing the US-Mexico border crisis, and for Taiwan, another potential world hotspot.  Though it’s members will undoubtably have opinions on the components of the package the Senate is prepared to move forward but as detailed below the House is in chaos mode, a bit of a problem all things considered.

Gymbo, Gymmie, Gym: Confused about what’s going on in the House?  You are not alone.  To state the obvious, House Republicans 🤡 🤡 are in disarray, bigly.  Facing the reality that he was going to lose a third Speaker vote, Republican Congressman/Coup Plotter Jim Jordan cancelled the third Speaker vote that had been scheduled to take place yesterday, saying that he would support Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry staying on in an expanded Speaker role until January. Jordan added that he still considered himself the Republican’s Speaker Designee and that he would run again in the new year. For a brief time, attention shifted to what type of deal Republicans would need to work out with Hakeem Jeffries to get Democratic support for the McHenry option, support that was expected to be forthcoming after the usual haggling over details. Republicans then gathered for a group grope, where things got testy, harsh words were exchanged, Matt Gaetz was excoriated for causing the leadership crisis, and the concept of moving forward with a vote to anoint McHenry as Speaker until January was dumped on by the rightist of the very rightwing crowd, a sentiment publicly shared by Trump surrogate Sean Hannity. For his part McHenry said that he’d step down if anyone pushed him to bring legislation to the floor before first voting to give him the official authority to do so. Later in the day Gymbo did a complete flip flop, announcing that he’d proceed with a third Speaker vote.  In an effort to secure more votes, he held another group grope, this one with those who’d voted against him during the first two ballots, many of whom hold Gym responsible for the death threats they and their families have been receiving.  Those emerging from that meeting reported that no one present indicated a willingness to jump on the Gymbo train, if anything those who attended pushed the Gymster to drop his Speaker aspirations altogether. Gymmie plans to speak to the Republican caucus this morning at 8 AM in another effort to rally everyone to his side, then assuming it’s not cancelled again, there will be a third House wide Speaker vote, and maybe a fourth, fifth and so on. Bottom line, this is insane.  The House can’t do anything without a Speaker and though it’s clear this is a problem caused by Republicans, deposed Speaker Kevin McCarthy once again blamed the mess on Democrats because pointing fingers elsewhere is all he’s got. Oh, and the budget clock is ticking, Israel is at war, and so is Ukraine and as Biden noted both countries are relying on additional US aid to survive. 

Kraken Up:  Trump who kvetched about the burden that needing to appear in court to scowl at witnesses testifying against him at his NY civil trial was having on his campaign schedule, plans to miss the next session to play golf because that’s what he does. Though golf, like expressing love for dictators, is one of his priorities, he probably should allocate some time to strategize with his lawyers about recent events in Fulton County Georgia because yesterday his one- time lawyer/advisor, Sidney “Kraken” Powell entered into a plea deal with DA Fani Willis’ prosecutors.  In exchange for her cooperation Powell got off easy.  She pleaded guilty to six misdemeanors related to her efforts conspiring to interfere with the performance of the 2020 presidential election. She won’t go to jail but will serve six years of probation, will be fined $6,000 and, most significantly, has agreed to testify truthfully against her co-defendants at future trials. Trump is one of those co-defendants as is Kenneth Chesebro who was offered but rejected a plea deal. Jury selection for Chesebro’s trial, which until yesterday was also supposed to be Kraken Sidney’s trial, begins today.  Though there were expectations that some of the Fulton County co-defendants would reach plea deals with Fani Willis before their trial dates, Sidney Powell’s plea was a bigly surprise. Sidney may be Kraken Krazy but she’s also smart, saw the writing on the wall, and figured that getting ahead of the crowd would keep her out of the slammer at least in Georgia, she’s one of the as yet unindicted co-inspirators in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s January 6 insurrection case so she may not be out of the woods altogether. In any case, her cooperation makes it more likely that some of the other defendants will start knocking on Fani Willis’s door but they’d better hurry because the longer it takes for them to show up, the worse their deals will be.