Natalie Jackson/National Journal:
Either 59% or 22% of Republicans want a speaker loyal to Trump. Which is it?
The same pollster yields wildly different responses by changing the question format.
The items on the trait list selected by two-thirds or more of Republicans as important were generic leadership traits—“strong leader,” “trustworthy,” “ethical,” and “intelligent”—while items directly about the politics of the speakership, including the Trump-loyalty item, were chosen by less than a third of Republicans.
The preference for generic over political items is an indicator that even Republicans aren’t paying a ton of attention to the specific issue. The Economist’s poll also showed that only 28 percent of Republicans were paying “a lot” of attention to McCarthy’s removal, and while 3 in 4 Republicans had heard of McCarthy and could give an opinion on him, around 4 in 10 hadn’t heard of the alternatives—Scalise or Rep. Jim Jordan.
Jim Jordan won’t automatically sink the GOP without campaigning against what he stands for, because, well, most people don’t know who their senators are.
On the other hand, Jordan is easy to campaign against because of what he stands for. And a campaign against what he stands for will happen. Just not yet.
Don Moynihan/Substack:
A "legislative terrorist" tries to become Speaker
Jim Jordan as a symptom of the deinstitutionalization project
What are the factors that make for a good Speaker of the House? Surely it involves the ability to manage factions, and to understand and protect the institution that you lead.
Whatever the criteria, Jim Jordan fails to meet them. His rise as a candidate signals how the Republican Party has shifted focus from governing to deinstitutionalization.
Read it in full, it’s amazing. And bad for MAGA.
John Burn-Murdoch/X/Twitter via Threadreader:
Good thread on media rushing to judgment, more at the link.
New York Times:
In Tel Aviv, Biden’s Embrace of Israel Came With a Gentle Warning
In a rare wartime visit, President Biden paired his support for Israel with a plea for caution not to let overwhelming grief or anger drive the country to go too far.
In a way, Mr. Biden flew to Israel on Wednesday to give the whole country a hug, to say how much America grieves with Israel and stands by Israel and has Israel’s back. But with the hug came a whisper in the ear as well, a gentle warning not to give into the “primal feeling,” not to let overwhelming grief or overpowering anger drive the country to go too far as he believes America did after Sept. 11, 2001.
David Rothkopf/Daily Beast:
Biden’s Israel Trip Was a Gamble That’s Already Paying Off
Humanitarian aid is finally entering Gaza, Israelis felt supported, and Netanyahu is unlikely to disrespect the U.S. president again any time soon.
The response of the Biden team in the wake of the explosion and fire at the hospital was calm, compassionate and resolute.
They determined to proceed with the trip. The White House announced the summit with regional leaders would be postponed. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, whose extraordinary shuttle diplomacy following the Hamas attack on Israel has been a diplomatic master class stated, “All civilians, Israeli and Palestinian, must be protected. Deeply saddened by the explosion at the Al Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza. As @POTUS said, “The United States stands unequivocally for the protection of civilian life.”
The tenor of the Blinken statement illustrated yet another challenging aspect of the Biden mission. He sought to both show support for Israel, and to seek to temper the Israeli response to the terrorists’ atrocities to ensure it was consistent with international law and that humanitarian concerns of both Israelis and Palestinians would be given priority.
There will be an address to the nation from the Oval Office tonight.
Alex Burness/Bolts:
“I Don’t Think They Care”: Virginia Is Slow-Walking the Fix to a Wrongful Voter Purge
With elections weeks away, state officials admitted improperly removing some people from voter rolls. Local advocates say the state is doing too little, too late to remedy the harm.
Even after Virginia’s delayed acknowledgment, it took the state two additional weeks to reinstate Shelton onto voter rolls. She found out Monday when she checked her registration status on the state’s site.
Shelton says neither state officials nor her county registrar have reached out to tell her that she has been reinstated. “I haven’t heard anything from anyone. I just happened to be checking online,” she said. “If I wasn’t checking, I would not have known, and I would keep on assuming I was denied.”
There is little time before Virginia’s Nov. 7 elections, which will decide control of the legislature and other local offices; half of the early voting period is over, and the deadline to ask to vote by mail looms next week.
Voting rights advocates warn that Virginia is doing too little, too late to stave off confusion and correct its costly mistake in the lead-up to Election Day.
They say they don’t even know how many people the state has reinstated so far and how many remain improperly purged, since the state is sharing little information. “They’re very tight-lipped about what they’re doing now, how this happened, and how they’re going to rectify it,” says Sheba Williams, who helps formerly incarcerated people regain their rights as the founder of the Richmond-based nonprofit Nolef Turns. “I don’t think they care.”