The House That Isn't  ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

Chaos Caucus:  It’s day 20 without a Speaker and House Republicans 🏡 🤡 🤡 still don’t have a leader and the way things are going, it’s unlikely that they’ll have one anytime soon.  On Friday, their Speaker designate, Jim “Gym” Jordan lost a third floor vote, with 25 Republicans joining all the Democrats in voting for someone, anyone other than him.  Gym initially said that he was prepared to push forward with another vote but before that could happen, Republicans held a closed-door meeting where they conducted a secret ballot on Gym’s nomination.  He lost that vote 86 to 112.  Not only was that losing margin remarkable, but it also revealed how many Republican House members were too afraid of receiving vitriol and threats from MAGAs to go public with their opposition to Gym. Gymbo is now out of the race and House Republicans are back to square one. There are now nine Republicans running to become the Republican’s Speaker designate. For what it’s worth the Republican list of candidates includes Michigan’s Jack Berman, Florida’s Byron Donalds, Minnesota’s Tom Emmer, Oklahoma’s Kevin Hern, Louisiana’s Mike Johnson, Pennsylvania’s Dan Meuser, Alabama’s Gary Palmer, Georgia’s Austin Scott, and Texas’ Pete Sessions. There’s no reason to believe that any one of the nine will be able to get the 217 votes they’ll need to win a floor vote. Worth mentioning, most of these candidates voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election, only four of them voted to raise the debt ceiling,  five voted to avoid a government shutdown, and only one, Tom Emmer, voted to codify interracial marriage.  Not a single one of them voted to ensure the right to contraception.   Deposed Speaker Kevin McCarthy has thrown his support behind Tom Emmer who had the sanest voting record among this crowd but since McCarthy’s support is probably the kiss of death, it’s not clear that Emmer has what it takes to get the gavel.  It certainly doesn’t help that Trump said that he doesn’t support Emmer’s bid. At this point, despite some suggestions that they might consider it, Republicans still refuse to cut any deal with Democrats, not even one that gives more powers to Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry, so the House remains frozen.  No vote on keeping the government open past November 17, no vote on funding Israel, no vote on Ukraine, no farm bill, no defense bill. Nada.  One more thing about Gymbo, over the weekend the Washington Post published its long-anticipated article/expose on Gym and his involvement in the lingering Ohio wrestler molestation scandal. Though there’s no suggestion that Gym molested anyone, the article provides convincing evidence that he knew what the team doctor was doing to his athletes largely because it was an open secret. Though the doctor’s assaults which included rape took place at a time when silence was sadly more commonplace, that doesn’t explain Gym’s current behavior.  Despite testimony from an increasing number of the affected wrestlers, as well as a settlement by OSU, Gym continues to deny his knowledge of the events, even worse he’s engaged in a public relations campaign to smear many of the athletes who’ve come forward. Many of those athletes continue to suffer emotional damage from their trauma.  Gym represents a very safe, highly gerrymandered Republican district.  Had he come out early with an artfully crafted statement about how he didn’t realize the severity of the accusations, he’d have emerged with his reputation intact, at least among his constituents.  It speaks volumes about him that he didn’t and even more about the Republican party that they seriously considered making him Speaker.

Trumpy Dumpy:  When Fulton County DA Fani Willis announced her RICO case against Trump and his 18 co-defendants, many pundits on both sides of the aisle questioned her decision to indict so many.  Well, it increasingly looks like DA Willis knows exactly what she’s doing and is doing it well.  On Friday, another one of her election interference co-defendants waved the white flag. Kenneth Chesebro who is thought to have designed the false elector scheme entered into a plea deal just as the jury selection for his requested early trial was to begin. He pleaded guilty to a felony count of conspiracy to file false documents and accepted a sentence of three to five years of probation. He also was assessed a fine, has to pay some restitution and write an apology letter even though we all know the only thing he’s sorry about is being caught. Chesebro is now the third defendant to enter into a plea deal.  He joins Kraken lawyer Sidney Powell, who Trump now says he didn’t really know, and Georgia jail bondsman Scott Hall. Unlike Powell, who got her plea done before him, Chesebro did plea to a felony count.  That said, all three have gotten off relatively easy, good for them, but given their promise to cooperate with prosecutors going forward not so good for the rest of the co-defendants, a list that in addition to Trump includes Mark Meadows, Jenna Ellis, and Rudy Giuliani. Stay posted, more plea deals, some of which may involve jail time, are probably on the horizon. In other Trump legal news, NY Judge Engoron fined Trump $5000 for failing to take down a slimy post about his court clerk from his campaign website.  Not a lot of money, but something. Washington DC Judge Chutkan froze her limited gag order, not because she doesn’t stand by it but because Trump’s lawyers are currently appealing it to the DC Court of Appeals. Despite or maybe because of all this Trump remains the Republican’s likely presidential candidate though Nikki Haley appears to be on the verge of passing Ron DeSantis for second place while former Mike Pence is running out of cash.      

Fog of War:  When the parking lot outside of the Gaza Hospital was bombed, virtually every press outlet rushed to judgement, blaming Israel and fueling Hamas claims that Israel had “targeted” sick children and their families.  Based on convincing evidence that the missile that caused the death and destruction at the Hospital was fired from Gaza by a militant jihad group most of those media outlets including CNN and the AP both of whom conducted their own analyses, and even the NY Times, have now walked back their shoot from the hip erroneous reporting.  Unfortunately, nothing can be done to undo the hate that their sloppy, click driven reporting amplified.  By the way, the NY Times, the paper of record has now rehired a pro-Hitler journalist from Gaza who they had previously fired for his biased reporting.  What could go wrong?  In other news, over the weekend Samantha Woll, president of the board of a downtown Detroit synagogue was found stabbed to death at her home.  It’s too early to say how or why she was killed, though this morning a number of outlets report that there is no evidence that her murder was a hate crime but as Politico reporter Heidi Przybyla points out there’s little evidence to indicate anything else at this point.  Lastly, it’s great that two Hamas hostages have been released, probably not so coincidentally US passport holders, but somewhere around 220 remain.