Big Black Smoke

When it's time for a new pope, white smoke from the Sistine Chapel means "done deal," while black smoke means "not yet." If we apply the concept to something more secular, then the House Republican Conference gave us some black smoke yesterday, since there is no new speaker. Big black smoke, in fact, because the red teamers don't appear to be particularly close to seating a replacement for former speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).

The "good news," such as it is, is that the Conference has settled on a nominee for the speakership: Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA). However, it was a two-person election, and he got just 50.7% of the vote. It would be pretty hard for his "victory" over Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) to represent any less of a mandate.

So, can Scalise convert roughly 113 Republican votes into 217 Republican votes? Anything is possible over the course of a few days, we suppose. Or, more probably, weeks. Maybe even months? At the moment, only a few dozen members of the GOP Conference have made public their voting plans, and there are already seven "nays" on Scalise: Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Bob Good (R-VA), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Nancy Mace (R-SC), Max Miller (R-OH), Lloyd Smucker (R-PA) and Carlos Gimenez (R-FL). Seven defections is considerably more than the four Scalise can afford if he is to become speaker.

At this point, it's not even clear if there will be a chamber-wide vote on Scalise today... or this week. Some members of the Conference are pushing for one, in hopes of creating "momentum" for the Louisianan. Others don't want to be publicly embarrassed again, as they were in January. Presumably, the final decision is in the hands of Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-NC).

Unless we are missing something, there would appear to be only three paths forward:

1. Scalise gives away the farm to get to 217.
2. Scalise steps aside for some other, more acceptable candidate.
3. Scalise reaches across the aisle and becomes some version of a "unity" candidate.

We list those in order from most likely to least likely but, at the moment, it's hard to see how any of them leads to the necessary result.

The only real certainty that emerges from yesterday's events is this: Donald Trump got poked in the eye. He threw his support wholeheartedly behind Jordan and, once again, his endorsement didn't matter. Clearly, a sizable chunk of the House Republican Conference isn't willing to challenge Trump directly, but also doesn't have much interest in following his orders.

One last thought that didn't really fit in with the flow above: Considering the track record of Jim Jordan, it is absolutely insane that nearly half of the Republicans in the House want to make him one of the two or three faces of the Party, not to mention the person third in line for the presidency. This is not like Trump, where the Republicans were basically stuck with him. 49.3% of them are choosing to cast their lot with Jordan. We say again: This is not a healthy, normally functioning political faction. Though you didn't need us to tell you that. (Z)

Israel Quickly Becoming a Political Football

As we noted earlier this week, the moment that Hamas launched its attack on Israel, Republican politicians reflexively began pointing the finger at Joe Biden. It started with the wannabe presidents, and spread to the members of Congress. We were rather skeptical that the administration's agreement to unfreeze $6 billion in Iranian money in exchange for hostages was somehow connected to Hamas. Our exact characterization: "Most of the Republican presidential 'candidates' are making the argument that Joe Biden is somehow responsible for what happened in Israel because Iran-money-Hamas-hand waving-Let's Go Brandon. In other words, it's not a particularly compelling argument, or one supported by the evidence."

That said, this is rather far removed from our areas of expertise. So, when we saw yesterday that The Bulwark had an item headlined "Blood on Biden's Hands?," we were interested to see what they had to say. After all, the folks who write that site have shown themselves to be fair-minded, but they're also conservatives/libertarians who could potentially lay out the argument against the administration without indulging in silly partisan rhetoric.

As it turns out, however, the Bulwark staff (Bulwarkers? Bulwarkians? Bulwarkettes?) sees things pretty much as we do. The subhead of that piece (which you don't see until you click through the link on the main page) is "The sick, twisted attempt to blame the killings in Israel on the U.S. president." In the body, the site's Cathy Young observes:

The $6 billion, transferred to a restricted Qatari bank account, reportedly hasn't been accessed by Iran yet and is available only for humanitarian programs. The argument linking it to the Hamas attacks is that money is fungible, and the $6 billion potentially disbursed to Iran frees up other funds for financing terrorism and specifically for Hamas. An obvious problem with this linkage, however, is that the planning for the massive, elaborately coordinated attack—which, at least according to some early accounts in the press, Iran did help plot—certainly began long before August when the deal was made. One might as well claim that Hamas was emboldened to attack because its leaders saw the clownish antics of U.S. House Republicans when they ousted Kevin McCarthy as House speaker last week and concluded that American power was a joke.

Some fair points there, not the least of which is that if you attribute Hamas' boldness to their having perceived American weakness, it's entirely possible that comes from what's going on in the House as opposed to what's going on in the White House.

In fact, and on that point, there IS a pretty good argument for pointing a finger at the president. Well, at the former president, at least. Consider the argument of a piece from The Daily Beast headlined "Trump's Overrated Peace Plan Helped Enable the Horrors in Israel and Gaza":

No American president caused Hamas' surprise assault across the Gaza border that killed over 900 Israelis—mostly in deliberate, brutal attacks on civilians, including 260 at a music festival—and kidnapping about 150 more. But U.S. policy, especially the Trump administration's, contributed to the unsustainable situation that made an outbreak of violence more likely.

Claims that "Trump brought peace to the Middle East" are almost an inversion of reality.

He shifted U.S. policy fully in Israel's favor—reducing support for the Palestinians and treating their quest for statehood as something that could be ignored—and shaped the regional context by heightening confrontation with Iran without strategic benefit.

We are well aware that The Daily Beast has a pronounced leftward lean. However, this particular piece is very well written, and is backed with substantial evidence. Author Nicholas Grossman, who teaches international relations at the University of Illinois, clearly knows his stuff. We also think the very first observation, namely that it's wrongheaded to blame any particular president, is the most important one. We'll add that it's a form of hubris for Americans to assume that their policy is somehow the main driver for the latest flare-up of violence in a conflict that dates back generations (and, really, centuries).

To return to the Bulwark piece, Young also writes:

But to declare the president of the United States an accomplice to terrorism with "blood on his hands" before the blood in Israel is dry—in fact, while it's still being shed—is nothing short of obscene. In times of crisis, one could expect partisan rhetoric to be toned down...

That, of course, is not how the current iteration of the Republican Party plays things. In addition to all the finger-pointing at Biden, there's also been plenty of performative stuff, as GOP politicians try to grab some headlines. To take one example, Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) made a spectacle of himself when White House staffers gave Congress a briefing on Israel, including shouting, stomping and profanity. To take a second example, Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) is in Israel right now, because... well, that's not entirely clear. But he did make a point of getting on Fox to complain:

The Biden administration again, weakness invites aggression and Iran, China, Russia, North Korea, they're preying upon this weakness in the White House, this weakness in this administration, their priorities on wokeness as opposed to freedoms and safeties of Americans. And I can tell you right now as an elected official, I'm not going to stand for it. And if I had to come over here and do Biden's job, so be it.

Mills is specifically involved in helping evacuate American citizens from Israel. We can hardly claim to know the facts on the ground over in that part of the world, but it is simply not believable that the White House is not doing everything in its power to find and extricate every American that it can. Even if you believe that the Biden administration is governed entirely by its own self-interest, the optics of the situation still demand an all-hands-on-deck approach.

There is not, as far as we can see or discover, an equivalent finger-pointing response on the Democratic side. If you really squint hard, you might consider talk of connecting Ukraine aid with Israel aid to be politicizing the situation, we suppose. But even then, it's not an attempt to turn the suffering of innocent people into a cudgel to be wielded against one's political opponents. And in general, the Democrats—from Biden on down—are clearly focused on trying to respond to the situation in Israel as efficaciously as is possible. The political gamesmanship can wait until later.

As the GOP plays the finger-pointing game, however, they're also playing with fire. It is improbable that anyone, other than the Fox crowd, will remember Iran-money-Hamas-hand waving-Let's Go Brandon when Election Day rolls around next year. However, if the Republicans can't pull together, elect a Speaker, and approve funding to help Israel, some people just might remember that.

There's also one other problem on the political front for Republicans. Donald Trump undoubtedly senses that he might get some of the blame here, or at very least that his signature foreign policy achievement is going up in smoke. And so, he's gone on the attack. Biden's in the Trump crosshairs, of course, but so is... Benjamin Netanyahu. In an appearance on Fox, Trump slammed the Israeli PM for being "unprepared." And in a speech in Florida yesterday, Trump appeared to make fun of Israel for getting caught unprepared, attacked Netanyahu for not helping with the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, and, in reference to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, said it was not smart to "listen to this jerk." We don't think such rhetoric is a winner, politically.

At the same time that Trump is slurring Netanyahu, and Trump's fellow Republicans are aiming their fire at Biden, the Israeli leader is actually serving as a model of how to respond to crises like this, forming a unity government where decision-making power will rest with the PM, his rival Benny Gantz, and Gallant. Again, this is way far away from our area of expertise, and we certainly have no basis for judging the extent to which Netanyahu is motivated by patriotism and civic spirit versus the extent to which he is motivated by self-interest. But whatever his reasons, Netanyahu is doing what needs to be done, and, according to people more expert than we are, may be able to keep the war from widening further.

It would be nice if the U.S. government could follow in the footsteps of the Israelis, and pull together, at least for now. But that's not likely to happen. We know which faction we think is the obstacle to that; we'll see if the voting public reaches the same conclusion and, if so, if they act on it during the next election season.

And there you have 1,500 words on an incredibly touchy subject that is miles outside our comfort zone. As a reminder, comments and criticisms go here. (Z)

Bye, George?

As we noted yesterday, the legal troubles faced by Rep. "George Santos" (R-NY) have deepened considerably. His fellow New York Republican House members do not want him to drag them down (no pun intended), especially since there's an excellent chance that some of their districts will be redrawn to be less red. So, half a dozen of the New Yorkers are going to introduce a resolution to expel "Santos" from the House.

Readers may recall that this maneuver was tried once before, although the circumstances are different this time. Then, it was instigated by Democrats, with Kevin McCarthy aggressively whipping votes (including the votes of the New York members) to protect his slim majority. Now, it is being instigated by Republicans, the legal problems are more serious, and a House Ethics Committee report on "Santos" has come back. It was not favorable.

It's going to take some time for this to be resolved since there is, of course, no speaker right now to bring the matter to the floor. Once that can be done, then it will take about 80 Republican votes to reach the 2/3 threshold needed to expel "Santos" (assuming all Democrats vote to expel, as they did before). Will that many members be willing to risk making their majority even more narrow—"Santos'" district, NY-03, is D+2—to try to protect their fellows next year? It could come down to how aggressive the next speaker is when it comes to protecting "Santos." If the speaker is Steve Scalise, well, it's worth noting that "Santos" endorsed, and voted for, Jim Jordan. (Z)

Don't Bank on +1 for Democrats in South Carolina

In Alabama, after the 2020 census, the state needed only to make small tweaks to its House districts because the state's overall population was stable, and the size of its House delegation was unchanging. And yet somehow, by an amazing coincidence, AL-02 became less Black after redistricting than it previously was. This despite the fact that Black voters became a slightly larger percentage of the population between 2010 and 2020 (with white voters becoming a slightly smaller percentage; hence the stability of the total population). This maneuvering was transparent enough that every level of the federal court system, including the Supreme Court, insisted that the Alabamians go back and make AL-02 a majority-Black district. When the Alabamians declined, a special master did the job for them, with the result that the Democrats are all-but-certain to pick up a seat in the state next year.

Something pretty similar happened in South Carolina. Over the course of the 2010s, the population of SC-06 (the district of Rep. Jim Clyburn, D, which was then D+19) shrank, while the population of SC-01 (the district now represented by Rep. Nancy Mace, R, which was then R+10) grew. In order to rectify the situation, it would have been enough to shift a relatively small chunk of SC-01 to SC-06. However, doing so risked making the district permanently competitive. So, the South Carolina map-drawers bent over backwards to move white, Republican voters from SC-06 to SC-01, and then carefully shifted Black, Democratic voters to SC-06. The result was that SC-06 ended up as D+14, while SC-01 ended up R+7—just white, and Republican, enough to remain safely GOP.

These machinations were obvious enough that they not only triggered a lawsuit, but one that was successful at both the district and appeals level. The appellate ruling went so far as to refer to the "bleaching" of SC-01, and ordered the legislature of the state to do better. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the state's appeal and, given what happened with Alabama, Democrats and civil rights organizations were expecting another win, and thus another seat in Congress.

Not so much, if the questions asked by the conservative justices during yesterday's oral arguments are any indication. In short, even though a lower court looked closely at the matter and concluded "illegal racial gerrymander," and even though the Supreme Court was theoretically just looking to see if a reversible error had been made by the lower court, the Supremes (particularly Samuel Alito, John Roberts and Neil Gorsuch) appeared to take the position that what South Carolina did was not a racial gerrymander, it was a political gerrymander. And per the jurisprudence that came from this very court, political gerrymanders are a-OK.

There is a rather obvious problem here, at least in Southern states, namely that there is a great deal of overlap between "Black voters" and "Democratic voters." Just about any political gerrymander, at least in the former Confederate states, is going to be racial. It's hard to imagine what a completely non-racial political gerrymander would even look like in the Palmetto State.

The questions asked during oral arguments are not always instructive, and people have certainly read those tea leaves incorrectly before. That said, just about everyone in the room yesterday sensed that the matter is settled, and that SCOTUS is going to overrule the lower court. If so, then Roberts & Co. will be encouraging the exact sort of rebellious behavior they just rebuked the Alabamians for. After all, if the determination of "racial gerrymander" is essentially random, why not try, try again if at first you don't succeed? (Z)

Uygur Declares Presidential Run

Progressive activist and provocateur Cenk Uygur, founder of the Young Turks, believes Joe Biden has "at best a 10% chance of winning" next year's election. And so, Uygur has decided he has no choice but to run for the nomination himself, so as to save the Democrats from themselves.

There are two small problems here. The first, of course, is that barring serious health problems or scandal, Biden has the nomination all locked up. Other than potentially stealing a win in New Hampshire, because of the song-and-dance going on there, there is no viable way for a Biden challenger to make headway against him. There will be no debates, there will be no infusion of cash, there will be nothing that changes the game, even if a person largely controls a lefty media outlet, as Uygur does. When was the last time you read anything about Marianne Williamson, for example?

The second small problem, meanwhile, is actually what led us to decide that an item on Uygur's candidacy was worthwhile. See, he was born in Istanbul and immigrated to the U.S. in 1978, later becoming a naturalized citizen. We put all six staff researchers to work on it, and they report that the Constitution has some remarks on presidential eligibility, including this: "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."

Uygur says he is aware of the problem, and that he is confident that "naturalized citizen" and "natural-born citizen" are the same thing. Odd that the fellows who wrote the Constitution would have dropped the modifier in there, then, as opposed to just writing "No Person except a Citizen of the United States shall be eligible to the Office of President." Anyhow, he says he's going to file a lawsuit, and take the matter to the Supreme Court in order to achieve clarity. Given that body's "What, Me Worry?" approach to jurisprudence, who knows what they might come up with? (Z)

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