Jennifer Bendery/via Threadreader from X/Twitter:
Johnson also signed onto a Texas amicus brief in support of throwing out votes in swing states…
Here is Mike Johnson on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, just hours before Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to try to kill lawmakers and prevent the election results from being certified because they believed Trump's Big Lie about widespread voter fraud:
[Tweet quote: We MUST fight for election integrity, the Constitution, and the preservation of our republic! It will be my honor to help lead that fight in the Congress today.The statement I drafted summarizes our position and the legal analysis that supports it.]
Who is Mike Johnson? He is an insurrectionist, and not someone who should be speaker. But the insider guess is that he will be. And that’s because of those who have run, he has the least number of House Republicans who personally dislike him (what, you thought elections are about policy?)
Well, an Elise Stefanik congratulations is a hopeful sign, as all of her other speaker-designate subjects have lost. As Chad Pergram put it:
HuffPost:
Tom Emmer Wins House GOP Nomination To Be Speaker
The Minnesota Republican only needed a majority of his party’s support for the nomination. It’s unclear if he can actually become speaker.
It’s unclear if Emmer can get 217 out of the 221 House Republicans to back him on the floor. If he can’t, he’ll either need to sway the holdouts somehow or give up.
The House has ceased functioning as a legislative body since Republicans ousted Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) from the speaker’s office earlier this month. Republicans have since rejected two possible replacements after they won internal votes but couldn’t garner the near-unanimity of the conference.
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) told reporters Tuesday, “Look at the last two weeks. It seems like nobody can get to 217.”
Yeah, it’s old news. But it wasn’t old news when it was written less than 24 hours ago. He lasted four hours.
Make sure you include this for your complete collection of Elise Stefanik congratulating a speaker-designate.
Politico:
House Democrats are signaling they could help a GOP speaker nominee. But the GOP isn't interested.
Republican speaker candidates aren’t in any mood to cut a deal with Democrats.
“It’s not helpful to make reference to specific House members that might be willing to pursue this path. Because what we learned last week is that then their support erodes in in their caucus,” said Rep. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.), chair of the centrist New Democrats.
The idea that Jenna Ellis pleaded guilty and Mark Meadows was offered immunity on the same day an insurrectionist was chosen to run for speaker is … something. The GOP is begging American voters to reject them. I say we give them what they are begging for.
Greg Sargent/Washington Post:
The quiet vindication of Hakeem Jeffries
When Democrats refused to save Kevin McCarthy from the hard-right faction of House members who ousted the California Republican as speaker earlier this month, the pundit recriminations were thunderous and damning: Democrats had “burned” future possibilities of bipartisanship. They’d squandered a chance to own “the adult brand.” They should have “saved the country” but betrayed it instead.
But now, with Republicans still struggling to elect a speaker, Democrats’ strategy — largely charted by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — is plainly working. The New York Democrat’s approach to navigating the GOP’s disaster isn’t just proving to be good politics for his party; it’s likely to produce a better result for the country as well.
Only weeks ago, Jeffries faced stern questioning from reporters on whether his party would provide the votes to rescue McCarthy and prevent the House from plunging into prolonged chaos. But this affair shows that when Democrats ignore the disapproval of the pundit class, the spotlight turns back on GOP efforts to quell their mania within. It has forced Republicans to vote on whether a full-blown MAGA firebrand such as Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan really merits the awesome powers of the speakership.
Jamelle Bouie/New York Times:
Millennials and Gen Z Are Tilting Left and Staying There
As the saying goes, if you’re not a liberal when you’re young, then you have no heart, and if you’re not a conservative when you’re old, you have no brain.
The idea, of course, is that liberalism is a game for the youth and that age brings security, stability and a natural resistance to change. The upshot, in American politics, is that while most voters might start on the center-left, with Democrats, they’ll end their political journey on the center-right, with Republicans. One party represents disruption and change; the other party represents a steady hand and the status quo.
Or at least that’s the story. The reality is a little more complicated. Not only does our narrative of political change over time exaggerate the degree of rightward drift among different people as they age, but there’s also good evidence that for the youngest generations of Americans, it is hardly happening at all.
The evidence comes from a new Wall Street Journal analysis of the latest data from the General Social Survey, a comprehensive examination of American attitudes and beliefs, conducted since its creation in 1972 by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.
An argument could be made that going to court is fair play so long as you admit that you lost when you lose. Insurrections are another thing altogether.
Rolling Stone:
Trump Plots to Pull Out of NATO — If He Doesn’t Get His Way
At the very least, the former president wants to put the U.S. on “standby” mode — and undermine NATO’s principle of collective defense
Any threats or action on Trump’s part in recasting the U.S.’s role in NATO would all, of course, be contingent on Trump winning reelection next year. When he was leader of the free world for four years, he dangled anti-NATO sentiments on multiple occasions, only to yield to intra-administration pushback.
“It would be a tremendously stupid endeavor, especially at a time when war in Europe rages, and much of Europe is looking to the United States to deter further conflict,” Dr. Aaron Stein, a Black Sea Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, says, reacting to Trump’s NATO-skeptic policy goals. “Trading away allies based on ignorance, and Trump is ignorant about this issue, is just silly for broader U.S. national security.”
But this time around, an array of nationalist allies and pro-Trump policy wonks have been eager to offer the ex-president frameworks for how to MAGA-fy the U.S. approach to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. One possibility that has piqued Trump’s interest in recent months is what the former president has privately branded, “NATO on standby,” according to sources familiar with his private musings. One source close to Trump describes the idea as having the potential to “blast a hole straight through NATO.”
David Folkenflick/NPR:
News outlets backtrack on Gaza blast after relying on Hamas as key source
The initial coverage of a deadly blast at a Gaza hospital last week offers a fresh reminder of how hard it can be to get the news right — and what happens when it goes awry. The list of those news organizations that fell short is long and illustrious, including The New York Times, the BBC, Reuters, The Associated Press and more.
Uriel Heilman/USA Today:
How Hamas trumped Netanyahu holds lesson for divided United States. Wake up, America.
Buffeted by multiple corruption trials, Israel's prime minister was determined to cling to power at all costs. If this were a Hollywood script, Trump would be suing for copyright infringement.
After Hamas terrorists launched their brutal surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, many observers tried to contextualize the event as Israel’s 9/11. It’s a bad comparison.
For one thing, as President Joe Biden noted in Tel Aviv last week, the death toll of Israelis – more than 1,400 – represents a far larger proportion of Israel’s population of 9 million than the 9/11 attacks did in the United States, where nearly 3,000 were killed in 2001. An equivalent U.S. attack would mean about 50,000 deaths.
But the real flaw in the comparison is that a successful Hamas infiltration of Israel from Gaza was the exact scenario for which Israel was supposed to be prepared – not some unpredictable event. While Hamas bears sole blame for its ruthless attack, Israel’s failure to anticipate it or respond adequately during that day while terrorists massacred Israeli civilians virtually unimpeded constitutes a catastrophic, systemic failure of Israel’s government, intelligence and military.
It’s hard not to fault Benjamin Netanyahu, the man who, as Israel’s prime minister for most of the past 15 years, has empowered extremists, degraded Israel’s democratic institutions, formed a government marked by dysfunction and incompetence, and stoked internecine conflict.
There’s a warning here for what could happen in America. Former President Donald Trump checks each one of those boxes, too.
As of this morning is this still the list? Not likely. Fleischmann’s going to be out.
We’ll see who else is still running (Rep. Other call your office.)
Cliff Schecter: