As the whole world watches the events unfolding in Israel in slack-jawed horror, I think most people are vastly relieved that the person who won the 2020 American presidential election was not Donald Trump. As Israel's most powerful ally, President Joe Biden has been a steady hand at the wheel. Trying to ensure that the war doesn't spread beyond Israel's borders, Biden has reassured everyone that the U.S. is not going off the rails despite its ongoing political turmoil.
But you can't say the same for the putative Republican nominee for president in 2024, Donald Trump, whose only contribution to the discourse has been to repeatedly assert on his Truth Social feed that this never would have happened if he were still president and proclaim “I KEPT ISRAEL SAFE! NOBODY ELSE WILL, NOBODY ELSE CAN, AND I KNOW ALL OF THE PLAYERS!!!” He has also taken the time to insult Forbes magazine, New Yorl Attorney General Letitia James, Rosie O'Donnell and others. He held a raucous rally in New Hampshire where his brief comments about the war included a rousing recitation of "The Snake." Let's just say that Trump has never seemed more out of his depth.
Meanwhile in Washington, the Republicans are hardly any more serious. In the Senate, Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville is still refusing to allow the promotions of 300 military officers unless they agree to change some rules about abortion that are more to his liking. We have a conflagration in the Middle East happening as we speak but his hobby horse still takes precedence. He obviously believes that he can wear the Democrats down and get his way. So at some point, the Democratic majority needs to step up and change the rule that allows him to continue with this silly tantrum. This has gone on long enough.
Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican, galloped around on his hobby horse this week demanding that all Ukraine aid be immediately redirected to Israel. I don't know how he's going to break it to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who has been demanding for months that the Ukraine aid be diverted to the southern border, which she now claims is leaving Americans vulnerable to Hamas terrorists. She's not alone in that. Her mentor, Trump, posted this on Monday:
“The same people that raided Israel are pouring into our once beautiful USA, through our TOTALLY OPEN SOUTHERN BORDER, at Record Numbers. Are they planning an attack within our Country? Crooked Joe Biden and his BOSS, Barack Hussein Obama, did this to us!”
Recognizing that sometimes you have to do more than one thing at a time, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has reportedly been working with a bipartisan group of senators and the White House to put together a spending package linking Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan aid. Since the Senate is marginally more functional than the House there's a decent chance they can get it passed. Unfortunately, the House is still in chaos so it's still very much up in the air if anything will get done before the deadline to keep the government open is upon us.
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There has not been a lot of progress on the quest for a new Speaker since Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was ignominiously removed last week. They are set to vote today and it does not appear that anyone has the votes to win it. McCarthy announced that he would not run again last week and then re-opened the door to it earlier this week. He reportedly told members since then not to nominate him but it's fairly clear that if duty calls he will be available.
The first meeting of the caucus after McCarthy's ouster last week was apparently something of a free-for-all all with some members almost coming to blows. And the anger and resentment against the eight members who voted to oust McCarthy is still raw today. One of them, the rather bizarre Rep. Nancy Mace of North Carolina posted this on social media:
https://x.com/Acyn/status/1711888986841776320
I don't think she understands what "The Scarlet Letter '' was all about but she seems to think that she is being targeted in her caucus as a woman when in reality she's been ostracized because she inexplicably threw in with Matt Gaetz and his band of rebels. It's unlikely this sort of stunt will get her or any of the rest of them back into the caucus's good graces.
After taking a few days to cool down, the caucus met again this week to clear the air and set forth a plan. It doesn't sound as if anything was resolved. There is much talk of reforming the rules to require that the vote not come to the floor unless someone can earn 217 votes from Republicans. I guess they don't want any more public humiliation. You'd think they'd have already agreed to get rid of McCarthy's suicidal agreement to allow one member to make a motion to vacate the chair but there's no sign that's happened yet or if it will. That means the new speaker will have the same sword hanging over his head that McCarthy had.
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Some of the more centrist members are vowing to keep voting for McCarthy over and over again in protest over the other two choices Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Oh., and Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., both of whom are hardline right-wingers. Scalise appeals more to the more traditional far-right conservatives and has experience in the leadership while Jordan is a MAGA standard bearer who has Donald Trump's endorsement. (I'm a little surprised that hasn't carried more weight in this contest since Trump is almost certain to win the presidential nomination.) It will be surprising if these centrists follow through but you never know.
Both Jordan and Scalise have promised to keep the impeachment of Joe Biden on track so at least we know they do share the top priority of the nation. Jordan had said that he would shut down the government but according to CNN he offered a plan in Tuesday night's meeting for "a long-term, stopgap spending bill that would cut current spending levels by 1% in order to give them more time to pass individual spending bills." This appealed to some of the alleged moderates which may be the kiss of death. We'll just have to see if that marks him a RINO-squish in waiting or if his credibility as a MAGA warrior will keep the right-wingers with him anyway.
At this point, we have no idea if this can be resolved this week or even this month. There is no consensus and feelings are still running high. But one thing we do know is that whether it's Scalise, Jordan, McCarthy or some dark horse we haven't heard of yet, nothing is going to change. The dynamics that brought them to this place are exactly as they were last week. The Republican Party is still completely dysfunctional and they have no idea how to fix it.
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