Thursday Thread And AMA

I've got answers, hopefully you've got questions

Note, I didn’t promise GOOD answers…

I keep coming back to the old cliche, the more things change…

• The Hamas massacre, and the still-developing Israeli response, have upended global politics, in large part by shocking the world out of its desensitization to tit-for-tat violence in the Middle East.

• Whatever is new here, the region’s leaders seem intent on drawing things into a familiar pattern: atrocity begetting indiscriminate backlash begetting yet more blowback.

• The leaders of the liberal world, whatever they might be saying in private to Benjamin Netanyahu and others, have given public blessing to letting history repeat itself.

• Netanyahu has praised President Biden for his response and support.

• Perhaps relatedly, Donald Trump has lashed out at Netanyahu. Who knows what’s really going on in that addled mind, but it would make sense that Trump is mad that Netanyahu undermined the MAGA-propaganda line that Biden is responsible for and even bankrolled the Saturday massacre. He would of course expect Netanyahu to demonstrate loyalty by meddling in U.S. elections (i.e. lying about Biden) even when doing so would undermine Israel’s vital interests.

• Even under these hellish circumstances, many Republicans view the unfolding crisis only as an opportunity to gain fleeting advantage in domestic politics.

• Nevertheless, they still can’t do anything competently. The House of Representatives continues to lack a speaker. The Republican conference narrowly selected Steve Scalise over Jim Jordan (that is, “David Duke without the baggage” over “insurrection and sex-abuse coverup guy”) to be their speaker-designate, but it became clear very quickly Scalise doesn’t have the votes he needs to be elected on the House floor.

• In fact, there may be enough individual Republicans with selfish interest in keeping the House hobbled to ever provide enough votes for a partisan speaker.

• But they also don’t seem inclined to find a viable speaker by making modest concessions to Democrats.

• Special Counsel Jack Smith has cited the threats and smears Trump has leveled against attorneys and court officers in his New York civil-fraud case in a motion asking Judge Tanya Chutkan to implement procedures to protect potential jurors in his January 6 trial from harassment.

• We had one of the best monthly jobs reports I’ve ever seen, but this is how mainstream news saw fit to cover it. 

  

And we’ve got a government funding deadline coming up, Halloween and spooky-movie season before that, an election in a year or so… What’s on your mind? Drop your comments below. They’ll be chronological this time. Mix it up with one another (friendly like) and I’ll hop on at 2 p.m. ET for an hour or so to answer questions and chat live with anyone who happens to be logged on then.