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New polls: (None)
Dem pickups: (None)
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Tomorrow the Battle for Speaker Begins

The speaker of the House is elected by the entire House, not by the majority party. That is important. Currently, there are 221 Republicans, 212 Democrats, and 2 vacancies in the House. To be elected speaker, a candidate needs 217 votes. There are three candidates for speaker right now: Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Steve Scalise (R-LA), and Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). It is virtually certain that Jeffries will get 212 Democratic votes on every ballot. That means to win, one of the Republicans has to get 217 of the 221 Republicans. More than four defections and it's no go.

Both Jordan and Scalise have dozens of endorsements, many more than four. If all the endorsers stick to their guns, nobody wins and another ballot is needed. And another. And another. There is no reason to think members are likely to switch horses in midstream. Jordan, in particular, is very unpopular with the Biden 18 because they fear he will carry on like a madman, shut the government down, and turn all the independents against the Republicans, including themselves. It is hard to see what Jordan could offer them to get 14 of the 18 to vote for him, even on the 15th ballot, unless they decide that the voting itself looks so bad for the GOP that a crazy speaker is better than showing the country that Republicans can't govern.

One thing that might affect the race is Donald Trump's endorsement of Jordan. It could make skittish members in red districts pick Jordan. But it could also make the Biden 18, who are mostly in districts where Trump is toxic, resolve to oppose Jordan until the bitter end lest Democrats campaign against them on "He/She is Trump's toady." But maybe Trump's endorsement won't even matter. There is no way to game this out. Last year, Trump backed Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) when he challenged Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for Senate Minority Leader. It didn't work. The alligator was crushed by the turtle. The Senate is different from the House due to the longer terms and bigger and more diverse constituencies, but still, Trump's endorsement didn't move the needle at all.

One thing that is roiling the Republican caucus before the action even starts is a proposed rules change. Over 90 House Republicans have signed a letter to Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry (R-NC) asking to change the rules so that the caucus nominee be the unanimous choice of the caucus. Currently nominees must obtain majority choice. If every Republican agrees to the nominee in advance, then he would be elected on the first ballot and no more of this 15-ballot stuff, like last time. Allies of Scalise oppose this change because they know that Scalise might be able to get a majority of the caucus on his side, but he could never get everyone (including Jordan). The Freedom Caucus supports the change because that gives all of its members a veto. It should be noted that the caucus rules are not binding in any way. What matters is the public vote on the floor of the House. Of course, if McHenry delays the floor vote until all 221 Republicans agree on a candidate, the fighting will happen in private (but will leak like a sieve), and not on national television.

Tomorrow there will be a forum in which Scalise and Jordan each make their pitch. Originally, the plan was to televise the forum on Fox News, but that plan was scotched when many members decided they didn't want to air their dirty laundry in public. There is bound to be a straw vote either tomorrow after the forum or on Wednesday. What happens if neither candidate is even close to 217? Will the conference keep voting privately or will they move to the House floor to vote? What happens after a dozen or more ballots, either private or public, and neither candidate is close to 217? It should be noted that even if one of them gets to 217 privately, the vote on the House floor will be public and members of the Biden 18 are not going to want to go on record supporting a Trump-endorsed candidate. It could be a political death sentence.

It could get even worse. It is possible that Trump will take a break from attending his trial and show up tomorrow to endorse Jordan at the forum. That could easily be counterproductive, tying Jordan to Trump even more tightly, thus making him even more toxic to the Biden 18.

We don't see how this could end. Our best guess is that some dark horse acceptable to 217 Republicans emerges after many fruitless ballots, either privately or publicly. Reps. Kevin Hern (R-OK), Tom Cole (R-OK), and Tom Emmer (R-MN) are possibilities, but anything could happen. Maybe even McCarthy, the Sequel. It could get wild.

David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report sees five takeaways from what is going on in the House, summarized as follows.

• Gaetz destroyed the Republicans' secret weapon: Kevin McCarthy was the biggest GOP fundraiser in the history of the House. Now that McCarthy is (probably) history, all the money he would have raised this cycle is not going to be raised. Due to Scalise's health, he certainly can't start flying hither and yon raising money the way McCarthy did. Jordan is in fine health but he is poisonous to many Republican donors. In addition, McCarthy was very good at recruiting strong candidates. Scalise will not be any match for him and Jordan would recruit the same unelectable Republican candidates that Hakeem Jeffries would if he could. Finally, McCarthy made a deal in January NOT to recruit "moderate" candidates to oppose Freedom Caucusers. That deal just went bye-bye and McCarthy, freed from his leadership role, may now spend his time specifically recruiting moderates to oppose FCers.
  
  
• The chaos will continue: The fundamentals are not changing. The Freedom Caucus can still block anything the new speaker does and so can the Biden 18. The chaos is a gift to the Democrats who will take up the message "Republicans can't be trusted to govern." The longer the chaos goes on, the better for the House Democrats.
  
  
• Democrats were never going to bail out McCarthy: At first, it seemed possible that a handful of Blue Dog Democrats would save McCarthy's lunch. In retrospect, that was never going to happen. McCarthy objected to certifying the 2020 election, broke his promise to Joe Biden about the budget, started the process to impeach Biden, and then lied on television saying Democrats caused the mess in the House. There was never any possibility that any Democrats would bail him out after all these things. He simply operated in bad faith all the time.
  
  
• More retirements?: If you look at the Congress: retirements link in the menu to the left of the map, you see that since 2006, the average number of House Republicans retiring per cycle has been 24. Currently only four Republicans have announced their retirements and only one (Victoria Spartz) is a true retirement (as opposed to running for some other office). That number is now likely to shoot up as some members may decide they don't want to be in a body where eight members can bring the house down. The prime retirement announcement season is January, after family members at Thanksgiving and Christmas ask House members: "Why are you ruining your life being in that useless body?" If Republicans in swing districts call it quits, their districts are suddenly potential pickups for the Democrats.
  
  
• It's McCarthy's own fault: In the 2022 cycle, McCarthy studiously recruited House candidates who were not Trumpy. His goal was to win the House. It was his picks like Juan Ciscomani (AZ-06), Zach Nunn (IA-03), and Jen Kiggans (VA-02) who gave the Republicans their majority. His counterpart in the Senate was not as successful at blocking Trumpy candidates, so the Democrats captured the Senate. If McCarthy hadn't worked so hard in 2022 at recruiting non-Trumpy candidates, then probably the Democrats would have had a 2-3 seat majority, and it would be Hakeem Jeffries who would have been on the hot seat all the time. An ultra-thin Republican majority may actually prove to be worse for the Republicans in 2024 than an ultra-thin Democratic majority would have been. Then the Democrats would have been blamed for everything.
  

So, lots of internal horsetrading today, then the forum tomorrow followed by the first vote. We can't imagine either of the candidates winning on the first ballot. What happens after that is a complete unknown. Democrats are probably hoping that Jordan will win since he is a far better target than Scalise, who will get some sympathy for being injured in a shooting and is now dealing with cancer. We still think it very unlikely that Jordan can pull this off, but in a one-on-one race, his chances go up somewhat. (V)

Hamas' Attack on Israel Has Many Ramifications for U.S. Politics

Saturday morning, Hamas fired a barrage of 2,200 Iranian rockets from the Gaza Strip into cities all over Israel. Islamic militants broke out of the Gaza Strip in at least five places and rampaged through Israel, killing people and taking women and children as hostages. The surprise attack killed at least 700 Israelis and wounded at least another 1,100. Proportionally, this is as if the Sept. 11 attacks had killed 25,000 Americans and injured another 39,000. Some Americans have been killed or captured in Israel as well (at least four, and the number might rise). The hostages could be used to try to affect how Joe Biden responds. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded by saying: "We are at war, and we will win. The enemy will pay an unprecedented price." Israel immediately began retaliating by attacking Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip. At least 400 Palestinians are reported to have been killed so far. Israel also cut off electricity to the entire Gaza Strip.

A war in the Middle East affects the U.S. in so many ways it is hard to even keep track of them all. First, as soon as he heard about the attacks, Biden called them horrific and said: "My administration's support for Israel's security is rock solid and unwavering" (Note: nothing about the Palestinians). Biden also said he would offer "all appropriate means of support" to the U.S. ally. Undoubtedly this includes whatever military goodies the Israeli army wants. Republicans instinctively oppose everything Biden says or does. What are they going to do now? Support an Iran-backed terrorist group that just killed 700+ innocent civilians in cold blood? Remember that the biggest backers of Israel in the U.S. aren't Jews, many of whom are secular and don't like Netanyahu one bit. No, the biggest backers are evangelical Christians, who believe that having a Jewish state in Israel is a precondition for Jesus to show up, wave his hands, and cause all Christians, both dead and alive, to be teleported together to heaven on the spot, a procedure technically called rapture (from the Latin rapta, meaning "kidnapping"). Evangelicals are the Republican base. When Biden takes concrete steps, will the Republicans in Congress support Biden (which they hate to do) or oppose him (thus angering their own base)?

Second, if Biden wants to send financial or military aid to Israel, that may require Congress to pass a bill, depending on the details of what he decides. Getting a bill through the Senate will be easy. Most Senate Republicans support Israel and certainly none want to have to campaign against "He/She supported the terrorists who attacked Israel." Mitch McConnell immediately coupled aid to Israel to aid to Ukraine. McConnell said: "Failure to support friends under attack—in Kyiv or Tel Aviv—will only embolden the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism [Iran] and fellow authoritarians who watch closely for a weakening of American leadership and Western solidarity." Both Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise support Israel. Yesterday Jordan said: "America stands with Israel today and every day. It must defend itself against these Hamas terrorists. We will continue to pray for our great ally and its citizens." Scalise said: "Make no mistake. The United States will always stand with Israel, our greatest ally in the Middle East. They must defend themselves as their citizens are slaughtered by Hamas terrorists. They have our full support and our prayers." Fortunately, the House has a chaplain, Rear Admiral Margaret Kibben (the first female chaplain in either chamber), so it can pray right now (even without a speaker)—unless Republicans balk at praying under the leadership of a Nancy Pelosi appointee. But the House likely can't do anything else, like pass some aid bill the Senate sends over, until it has a speaker. That could take a bit of time (see above).

Third, the attack messes up Biden's plans for the Middle East. Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia (because his father, King Salman, is too ill to run the government) is willing to make peace with Israel so he can concentrate on dealing with Saudi Arabia's archenemy, Iran. He doesn't give a camel turd about the Palestinians (although his enfeebled father does). Biden is trying to broker a deal among Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. which would include a U.S. promise to defend Saudi Arabia from an attack by Iran in return for a formal peace treaty between Israel and Saudi Arabia. MBS, as he is known, is OK with making peace with Israel because he knows Israel will never launch an unprovoked attack on the Kingdom, whereas Iran might. However, he also wants equipment for building nuclear weapons, something Netanyahu and Biden will never agree to. It is all very complicated and a war between Israel and an Iran-backed Hamas makes it even more complicated, especially if Israel uses overwhelming force in Gaza. Biden's hopes for a big foreign-policy win just got scrambled by the attack.

In fact, Iran likely ordered Hamas to attack Israel just to foil Biden's plans. It is not keen on an Israeli-Saudi-U.S. alliance against Iran. Last week Iran's supreme leader gave a speech attacking the idea of normalizing the relationship with the Zionist entity (precisely what Biden and MBS were talking about). The attack puts Netanyahu in a bind because his position as prime minister is dependent on the support of several extremely far-right parties in his cabinet, who, like the Freedom Caucus in the House, exert a power many times their actual numbers. Iran is trying to exploit this weakness. The U.S. is lucky that the President had 30 years experience on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and 8 years as veep to a president who wasn't too interested in foreign policy. That might work out better than a president whose foreign policy is "Whatever Putin wants, Putin gets." What Putin wants, incidentally, is for Hamas to win the war with Israel.

Fourth, the U.S. doesn't have an ambassador to Israel at the moment. Biden nominated Jack Lew, but the Senate hasn't confirmed him. Suddenly, this is a top priority for the administration. However, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and other Republicans are in no hurry to confirm Lew. In addition, the U.S. military may want to deploy ships off the coast of Israel. That would work a lot better if there were a chief of naval operations in place. But Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) is holding up the confirmation of the chief in an attempt to get the Pentagon to change its policies relating to servicewomen seeking an abortion. Even now, with Israel in crisis, Tuberville is not budging.

Fifth, the attack and responses also affect the Republican primary. Donald Trump blamed Biden for the attack because Biden made a deal with Iran in which Iran will release five Americans it holds in prison in return for the U.S. moving $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets to a bank in Qatar to be used only for humanitarian purposes. Mike Pence tore into Trump and some of his rivals, faulting "voices of appeasement like Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis that I believe have run contrary to the tradition in our party that America is the leader of the free world." Could foreign policy rear its ugly head in the next Republican debate? Stay tuned. (V)

Dozens of Former Trump Insiders Now Oppose Him

The list of Trump insiders who have changed sides and who now oppose him is long. CNN has compiled a list of 24 of the most outspoken current ones. Here it is with brief quotes from each one.

• Mike Pence: "The American people deserve to know that President Trump asked me to put him over my oath to the Constitution."
  
  
• Bill Barr: "Someone who engaged in that kind of bullying about a process that is fundamental to our system and to our self-government shouldn't be anywhere near the Oval Office."
  
  
• Jim Mattis: "Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us."
  
  
• Mark Esper: "I think he's unfit for office. He puts himself before country. His actions are all about him and not about the country."
  
  
• Mark Milley: "We don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We take an oath to the Constitution and we take an oath to the idea that is America—and we're willing to die to protect it."
  
  
• Rex Tillerson: "(Trump's) understanding of global events, his understanding of global history, his understanding of U.S. history was really limited. It's really hard to have a conversation with someone who doesn't even understand the concept for why we're talking about this."
  
  
• Nikki Haley: "He used to be good on foreign policy and now he has started to walk it back and get weak in the knees when it comes to Ukraine. A terrible thing happened on January 6 and he called it a beautiful day."
  
  
• Chris Christie: "Someone who I would argue now is just out for himself."
  
  
• Herbert McMaster: "We saw the absence of leadership, really anti-leadership, and what that can do to our country."
  
  
• John Bolton: "I believe (foreign leaders) think he is a laughing fool."
  
  
• John Kelly: "A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law. There is nothing more that can be said. God help us."
  
  
• Mick Mulvaney: "I quit because I think he failed at being the president when we needed him to be."
  
  
• Anthony Scaramucci: "He is the domestic terrorist of the 21st century."
  
  
• Stephanie Grisham: "I am terrified of him running in 2024."
  
  
• Betsy DeVos: "When I saw what was happening on January 6 and didn't see the president step in and do what he could have done to turn it back or slow it down or really address the situation, it was just obvious to me that I couldn't continue."
  
  
• Elaine Chao: "At a particular point the events were such that it was impossible for me to continue, given my personal values and my philosophy."
  
  
• Richard Spencer: "The president has very little understanding of what it means to be in the military, to fight ethically or to be governed by a uniform set of rules and practices."
  
  
• Tom Bossert: "The President undermined American democracy baselessly for months. As a result, he's culpable for this siege, and an utter disgrace."
  
  
• Michael Cohen: "Donald's an idiot."
  
  
• Ty Cobb (Trump's lawyer, not the baseball player): "Trump relentlessly puts forth claims that are not true."
  
  
• Alyssa Farah Griffin: "We can stand by the policies, but at this point we cannot stand by the man."
  
  
• Omarosa Manigault Newman: "Donald Trump, who would attack civil rights icons and professional athletes, who would go after grieving black widows, who would say there were good people on both sides, who endorsed an accused child molester; Donald Trump, and his decisions and his behavior, was harming the country. I could no longer be a part of this madness."
  
  
• Sarah Matthews: "I thought that he did do a lot of good during his four years. I think that his actions on January 6 and the lead-up to it, the way that he's acted in the aftermath, and his continuation of pushing this lie that the election is stolen has made him wholly unfit to hold office ever again."
  
  
• Cassidy Hutchinson: "I think that Donald Trump is the most grave threat we will face to our democracy in our lifetime, and potentially in American history."
  

It would be completely impossible to find a list of 24 former insiders from the Obama, Bush 43, Clinton, Bush 41, Reagan, or any previous administration who had such scathing remarks about their former boss. Well, OK, maybe the Millard Fillmore administration. (V)

Trump Finally Wins One--for the Moment

Donald Trump has been losing legal battle after legal battle, but on Friday, he got some good news, at least for the time being. On Friday, an appeals court in New York paused the enforcement of a ruling by Judge Arthur Engoron that Trump's business empire in New York should be dissolved, starting right now. The appeals court didn't say Engoron was right or wrong. It merely said that dissolution has to wait until the appeals court has ruled on the merits of the case. This is not unreasonable. If the court ultimately decides that Engoron should not have ordered the dissolution of Trump's company and it has already been sold off, then there would be no way to put it back together.

But not all the news from the appeals court was good. Trump asked the appeals court to delay the ongoing trial in front of Engoron. That trial will determine what the penalty will be for the massive fraud Trump and his adult sons pulled off. The appeals court denied Trump's request for a delay, so the trial will continue. It is expected to run until December. As an aside, talking about "the criminal conduct of Trump's adult sons" will abruptly stop on March 20, 2024. Will Donald Jr. and Eric stop their nefarious activities 2 weeks into Dad's criminal trial? Probably not, but on that date, Barron Trump will turn 18 and thus will also become one of Donald Sr.'s adult sons. (V)

Trump's Lawyers Reveal Their Plans in the Hush-Money Case

Of the four criminal cases filed against Donald Trump, the weakest and least important is the one brought by Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg. Bragg is claiming that the way Trump reported the hush money payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal violates state law because he falsified business documents. If Trump had been smarter, he would just have paid the two women in cash out of his own pocket and not used company money. Then everything would have been perfectly legal. But he is a cheapskate, used company money, and then cooked the books to hide it. It is the latter that got him indicted. It is not illegal to pay someone money in return for their not talking to the media about something. Claiming the payment as a deductible business expense is illegal.

The trial is scheduled for March 4, 2024, but is almost certain to be pushed back because the federal conspiracy trial will very likely begin on that date. Nevertheless, court filings are now proceeding on the assumption that the trial will start March 4. Based on these filings, an outline of Trump's defense is now out there. One of Trump's lawyers in that case is Joe Tacopina. This is the guy who represented Trump in the first E. Jean Carroll case and lost bigly. He loves being in the media and loves acting like a tough guy there. It turns out that is useless in court. Who knew? But since the A- and B-teams refuse to work for Trump, he needs to go with the C-team.

Here is an outline of Tacopina's plan.

• Selective prosecution: "It is a witch hunt. They wouldn't go after an ordinary businessman who falsified records. It's political persecution of Trump." This is a dumb defense. Bragg can show his office has a long history of going after unknown businessmen who falsify records. He does it all the time whenever he gets wind of a falsification. Tacopina is hoping some juror is convinced it is a witch hunt and won't budge, leading to a hung jury.
  
  
• It's too late: When Bragg was elected D.A., two veteran prosecutors were already on the case. He told them to drop it and they both quit. One of them, Mark Pomerantz, later wrote a book calling the charge a "zombie theory" because after the prosecutors quit, Bragg restarted the case. Tacopina will argue that when the case was restarted, the statute of limitations had passed. But during the pandemic, then-governor Andrew Cuomo extended the statute of limitations. Also, under New York State law, when a defendant is out of the state, the clock stops, thus extending the statute of limitations. This is a very nerdy and technical defense that doesn't really address the issue. Expect Justice Merchan to rule on this issue before it ever reaches the jury.
  
  
• The charges are legally defective: Tacopina will argue that the false records—invoices, checks, and ledger entries—are not business records. Nobody is going to believe that. Also, falsifying business records is a misdemeanor unless they were falsified to cover up a second crime. In this case, the second crime is a federal crime (violating federal election law), not a state crime. The jury isn't going to care about this, but an appeals court could rule that the crime being hidden also has to be a state crime. This is not an argument for winning the case in court, but for having the verdict thrown out on appeal.
  
  
• Preindictment leaks: Tacopina will argue that leaks from the grand jury proceedings put pressure on Bragg to indict Trump. This is awfully weak, and doesn't deny that Trump falsified documents, which is a crime. This is essentially the "witch hunt" defense again.
  
  
• Move to federal court: Trump thinks he would be better off in federal court because then the jury pool would be from a much broader area than just Manhattan. Earlier this year, Tacopina asked for removal to federal court and the judge said "no." That is on appeal now.
  

What is interesting here is that none of the arguments claim Trump didn't do it or what he did do is legal. All the defenses are very technical in nature. Jurors aren't going to understand them. Bragg will say: "Trump falsified business records to hide the fact that he paid the women off in a way that violated federal election law. When you falsify records to hide a crime, that is a felony in New York State." That is something the jury is going to understand. It is a weak case to start with, but the defenses are probably too nerdy for most jurors to understand. No matter how loudly Tacopina bellows at Bragg, it is not likely to work with most jurors. Clearly he is hoping there are one or two die-hard Trump supporters on the jury and he can get a hung jury. When you are going with the C-team, this is what you get. (V)

Trump Drops His $500 Million Lawsuit against Michael Cohen

When Trump wants to intimidate someone, he sues them. This makes the suee have to get a lawyer and pay big money to defend themself. Much of the time, the target of Trump's wrath gives up just to avoid the costs.

Trump is hopping mad at Michael Cohen, his one-time fixer and current nemesis, about Cohen's books and many media appearances attacking Trump and calling him a crook. Cohen also testified before Congress that Trump manipulated the value of his properties, telling the banks that they were made of gold and the property tax assessors that they were made of moldy cardboard. New York AG Letitia James picked this up and sued Trump. That case looks likely to strip Trump of his license to do business in New York State and could result in all of his New York State properties (and maybe some beyond) being seized and sold off to pay a fine that could reach $1 billion. Boy is Trump mad at Cohen, so he sued him for $500 million. That would put the fear of God in dumb Michael. Take that!

Cohen didn't flinch. His lawyer told Trump she wanted to depose him under oath. Trump is a terrible, awful, horrible witness, who can't remember what his lawyers tell him to say and who often blurts out very incriminating things. He was scheduled to be deposed today. Rather than go through with the deposition and be cross examined by Cohen's lawyer, who knows where the skeletons are buried because Cohen has told her, Trump dropped his lawsuit. Trump's lawyers probably strongly advised him to do this because: (1) he has no chance of winning his suit against Cohen, (2) he might easily commit perjury while testifying, and (3) he might say things under oath that would help Letitia James in her (vastly more important) case. So, Trump blinked.

Now that Cohen has gotten this out of the way, he is likely to be James' star witness. He knows firsthand that Trump manipulated the values of his properties. Trump often bragged to Cohen about what a great businessman he was for doing this. Trump's lawyers are going to point out that Cohen is a convicted felon and can't be trusted. Trump's problem is that James' case is before Judge Arthur Engoron, a judge with 20 years' experience on the bench. He is quite capable of making his own judgment about the quality and credibility of witnesses. There is no jury to delude, just an experienced judge who can't be led around by the nose. Cohen is clearly a huge threat to Trump since he is an eyewitness to Trump's crimes. That is why Trump wanted to scare him, but Cohen scared Trump by saying he wanted his lawyer to cross examine him. In principle, Trump could sue Cohen again, but if he does this after Cohen has testified against him, Cohen's lawyer is going to say that there is no basis to the suit and Trump just wants revenge for Cohen's testimony.

For what it is worth, Cohen's lawyer, Danya Perry, is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School. She was formerly deputy attorney general of New York State and also formerly an assistant U.S. attorney. As a prosecutor, she supervised the prosecution of hundreds of white collar crime cases, including a billion-dollar health-care fraud case. She put two corrupt but powerful state Assemblymen in prison. Later she was a professor of law at NYU. She is clearly one tough cookie. Trump tends to be afraid of smart and powerful women and probably was afraid to be deposed by her. (V)

The Clock Is Ticking for Sen. Butler

Newly appointed Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-CA) has a big decision to make, and not much time in which to make it. Will she run for a full term or find some other job as of mid-November 2024 when the winner of the special election is sworn in? Friday is the deadline for submitting her name to the California Democratic Party, which could endorse her or one of her rivals. In mid-November, there is a California State Democratic Convention that could endorse one of the candidates. If the state party machinery and the convention picks someone else, that would be a huge blow to someone who has to build a campaign from scratch against three well-known opponents, two of whom have over $10 million in the bank already. What could her pitch be? I'm a Black woman? So is Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), who has been in the House for decades. What makes her better than Lee?

The three main candidates are not sitting around waiting for her to decide. Lee, who has been endorsed by the Congressional Black Caucus and many other Black organizations, has been lobbying members of that caucus to stick with her and not the new kid on the block. Her pitch is: "Why support an unknown, inexperienced, Black woman over a well-known, battle-tested Black woman?" A number of members of the caucus reiterated their support for Lee. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) said: "I hope that she [Butler] won't run, for a lot of reasons." Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY), chairman of the Black Caucus' PAC, said: "As far as I know, there's only one Black woman that is running in the primary, and that's Barbara Lee." If Butler jumps in and most members of the Black Caucus continue to support Lee, it will be painful for Butler. If they switch horses in midstream, Lee is going to paint them all as turncoats. It won't be pretty.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who has raised 3x as much money as all the others combined, touted his fundraising lead, which he hoped would get Butler's attention, and especially that of reporters writing about the race. Both Schiff and Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) have massive e-mail lists and they are hitting them up for money and support.

Also relevant here is the case of Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA), also originally an appointed senator. Months after his appointment, his name recognition in the state was stuck in the teens, even though he had been in elective politics for 20 years and had won two statewide elections as secretary of state. There was huge publicity about the appointment of the state's first Latino senator, but 85% of the voters seem to have missed it. Butler has never won an election, so she figures to have even worse name recognition issues.

A private poll of the Senate race was released last week. It asked people to pick one of the candidates from a list of names. Butler's support was so low it amounted to statistical noise. All three of the others are well known in the state.

There are also reports that oppo research on Butler is gearing up. She's never been under a national microscope before. As leader of the nonprofit EMILY's List, Butler faced attacks on her goals (helping women who support abortion access running for public office), but nobody ever examined her own background with a fine-tooth comb and went after her personally. If she decides to go for it, she will get an unpleasant introduction to electoral politics anno 2023. Maybe she is clean as a hound's tooth. If so, good for her. She was a member of the state Board of Regents for 3 years. Did she take any controversial votes there (e.g., on affirmative action)? She worked for a political strategy firm for several years. One of her clients was Uber, which was trying to fend off a union. How will unions feel about that? She also worked for Airbnb for a few years. How does the hotel industry feel about that? We could find out.

Who has the deepest roots in California? Butler was born in Mississippi and moved to California in 2009. Now she lives in Maryland with her wife, although she owns a house in View Park, CA. Porter was born in Iowa and has lived in California for 12 years. Schiff was born in Massachusetts but graduated from Monte Vista High School in 1978, so he has been in California for 45 years. Lee was born in Texas but graduated from San Fernando High School in 1964, so she has been in the state for 59 years. Schiff and Lee are sure to point out how long they have been in the state and try to paint Butler as a carpetbagger.

Does Butler have any personal scandals? Researchers are looking into it as you read this. We don't know what she will do. Probably she doesn't either. Once people get to be in the spotlight, they often think they are invincible. Think about Presidents Scott Walker, Rudy Giuliani, Ted Cruz, and, course, President Jeb!, among many others. (V)

The Demographics of Asian Americans Are Changing

When you think of Asian Americans, who do you think of? Most people think of people with Chinese (or maybe Japanese) ancestry. Statistically, that is now wrong. Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial group in the U.S. and Indian Americans are now the largest subgroup among them, not Chinese Americans. The number of people who consider themselves Indian-American is now 4.4 million, an increase of 50% from 2010 to 2020. To a considerable extent, that is due to immigration, especially highly educated workers in information and communications technology (ICT), medical fields, and finance.

This could have a political impact because Indian Americans skew heavily Democratic. They are keenly aware (and proud) that Kamala Harris is partly of Indian origin. In 2020, nearly three-quarters of Indian Americans voted for the Biden/Harris ticket and fewer than one-quarter voted for Trump/Pence.

This should not be surprising. As a group, Indian Americans are highly educated, something that correlates very strongly with being a Democrat. Here is a table showing the highest educational attainment of various Asian American subgroups. In terms of having a bachelor's degree or higher, Indian Americans are far and away the leaders, more than double Americans as a whole:

Origin Group	High School or Less	Some College	Bachelor's or Higher
Indian	15%	10%	75%
Malaysian	21%	14%	65%
Mongolian	18%	22%	60%
Sri Lankan	20%	20%	60%
Korean	23%	20%	57%
Chinese	29%	14%	57%
Pakistani	26%	17%	57%
All Asians	27%	19%	54%
Indonesian	25%	23%	53%
Japanese	21%	27%	52%
Bangladeshi	35%	16%	49%
Filipino	22%	30%	48%
Thai	34%	21%	45%
Nepalese	42%	13%	44%
All Americans	39%	29%	33%
Vietnamese	45%	23%	32%
Cambodian	55%	24%	21%
Hmong	46%	31%	23%
Burmese	65%	12%	23%
Laotian	56%	27%	18%
Bhutanese	75%	10%	15%

With the Republicans constantly railing against immigrants, that is sure to increase voting participation among Asian Americans, most of whom lean Democratic, and especially among Indian Americans. While it is a relatively small group, it is also a relatively well-off group, which typically translates into donating money to favored candidates and parties, and these are unlikely to be Republicans. (V)

Alexa Says That Trump Won in 2020

We and many others have been warning about the potentially huge and harmful effects of AI in 2024. Most AI systems are trained by feeding them the Internet. They absorb all the information there and "learn" from it. However, there is a popular saying in the IT community: "Garbage in, garbage out."

Case in point: Amazon's Alexa. When asked who won the 2020 election, Alexa is saying it was "stolen by a massive amount of election fraud." It cites Rumble, a right-wing Twitter competitor, as the source. Alexa also says races were "notorious for many incidents of irregularities and indications pointing to electoral fraud taking place in major metro centers." It got this from Substack. It also says Trump won Pennsylvania, citing an Alexa answers contributor.

Even though Alexa is spewing total garbage it found on the Internet, Amazon is promoting the device as a reliable source of election information to its 70 million users. When The Washington Post article about Alexa was brought to Amazon's attention, the company claims it fixed the problem. So we now have a situation in which devices to which millions of people turn to for information get fixed only when a national newspaper points out that it is spewing harmful nonsense. What happens when no newspaper catches false information some AI system is spewing?

Voice assistants like Alexa, Siri, and others are only as good as the information they can find on the Internet, a fair amount of which is completely bogus. None of this software understands what it is doing. It can only repeat what it found, and has no way of telling whether an article on Rumble is any better than an article in the Post. But many users think that the information has been gathered or is approved by Amazon, Apple, Google, or whatever tech company built the gadget or wrote the software, so they believe it. They don't understand that "I found it on the Internet" is not proof that it is true. All we can say is "buyer beware." (V)

House Democrat Calls Trump's Bluff on Value of Mar-a-Lago

For property tax purposes, between 2011 and 2021, Donald Trump has valued Mar-a-Lago at $18-28 million. On financial documents given to banks, he claimed it is worth $490 million. Most likely this is due to his imagining what he could get by subdividing it into smaller plots and putting expensive homes there, even though zoning rules specifically forbid that.

But Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) believes Trump's claim that Mar-a-Lago is worth $490 million. Consequently, he wrote to the Palm Beach County property appraiser informing her that Mar-a-Lago is worth $490 million and asking him to appraise it at that value and adjust the property tax accordingly.

Come to think of it, Trump has also put valuations for his properties in New York City and Westchester County in financial documents that are far above the appraised values. Perhaps someone should point this out to the property tax offices in New York City and Westchester County. If the county appraisers did this, Trump would be put in a position of saying that the valuations he gave the banks were bogus. However, if he did that, Letitia James' ears might just perk up. (V)

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