They held a session of Congress yesterday and the Jerry Springer Show broke out. In a Senate hearing, Oklahoma Sen. Sen. Markwayne Mullin threatened to fight Teamsters union President Sean O’Brien until Bernie Sanders made Mullin sit down. In the House, defenestrated speaker Kevin McCarthy bumped Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee in a hallway while Burchett was talking to a reporter, leading Burchett to accuse McCarthy of elbowing him in the kidney. I’m starting to see how a person might develop contempt for democracy.
So we know Republicans are good at posturing. Governing, though? Not so much, and they get mad when someone does – for example, when the new House speaker passes a stopgap spending bill with the votes of Democrats. It makes one wonder how long MAGA Mike – who was smart enough to call Trump dangerous in 2015 while craven enough to later recant – will remain Lord of the Flies.
Bad news out of Georgia: Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis says Trump’s trial won’t conclude before election day, meaning that even if he loses yet again the news won’t be Trump-free for the foreseeable future. They’ll still be obsessing over him when the next asteroid wipes out life on Earth.
Bad news out of Michigan: A judge ruled you can’t keep Trump off the ballot just because he’s a traitor. Remind me again, is the Constitution a suicide pact or not?
Moms for Liberty, the ironically named book-banning outfit, got scorched on Election Day as their radical-right “parents rights” candidates were rejected almost everywhere – except, of course, in ruby red areas. If ignorance is good enough for them, it’s good enough for their traditionally gendered children, by jiggity!
I don’t follow the politics of Israel and the Middle East – I can’t solve Rubik’s Cube, either – but Tom Friedman of the New York Times does. The Mustache of Understanding is having a return to relevance with the war in Gaza, and his column about his recent 9-day stay in Israel explains why Netanyahu is being so hard-line:
He has to appease the hard-right hawks in his coalition to keep his job. Israel’s democracy isn’t as advanced as ours, as Bibi has not yet threatened to beat anybody up.
The floor’s yours.