Politics

Welcome to Thunderdome, where we had a brief glimpse last night of everything we could’ve gotten from a meaningful contest about America’s next generation of leadership, with two Generation Xers from opposite ideologies and coasts taking the stage together for what has to be considered the best debate of the cycle. It showed the clear differences between the governing styles of Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom, included some zingers and insults, but also left viewers with a clear idea of the differences between both states and both men. Congratulations are also due to Sean Hannity, who showed himself more than capable, even as a conservative partisan, of managing a high-quality debate.

Political media is buzzing with the news that former UN ambassador Nikki Haley will have the backing of the Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity Action in the 2024 presidential primary. AFP Action says it will launch a multi-million dollar ad buy for Haley in early primary states and is prepared to deploy all of its grassroots resources to help Haley defeat former president Donald Trump.Who told them to light their money on fire? Haley is the only GOP primary candidate who has gained significant ground in the polls since launching her campaign, but the reality is that Trump still leads her by at least twenty points in New Hampshire and by about thirty in Iowa and Haley’s home state of South Carolina.

George Santos’s remaining time in Congress appears to be as fleeting as a candle — or, more accurate, a balloon — in the wind. As the congressman faces threats of explosion from within the Capital, a giant balloon of the swamp’s infamous fabulist is flopping around the National Mall.   The fifteen-foot inflatable of the disgraced New York congressman is currently caught in the city’s chilly fall gusts, falling flat on its face like Santos may soon do himself. The spectacle was commissioned by MoveOn Political Action, a progressive advocacy group which hopes to encourage Congress to expel Santos.   https://twitter.com/metzgov/status/1729530134359642540?

President Joe Biden presided over an event at the White House on Monday in which he announced the creation of a Council on Supply Chain Resilience and promised actions to “strengthen supply chains, lower costs for families and help Americans get the goods they need.” This news might bring a sigh of relief to many — finally, the Biden administration is taking inflation seriously! But the White House first led with a “Bidenomics” victory lap that felt more like a slap in the face than a swelling pocketbook. Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg gave opening remarks in which he chastised the media for “saying that Christmas was going to be canceled” due to supply chain disruptions in the winter of 2021.

It's not often that the New York Times has a prophetic vision. In 2021, the paper ran a fawning profile of Calla Walsh, a high-schooler leading an "army of sixteen-year-olds" against Massachusetts's Democratic establishment. Now all grown up, Walsh has become a general to a fierce group of agitators. Walsh, now a committed communist, was arrested on Monday morning at a defense contractor facility in New Hampshire along with two other women. The three were arraigned on Tuesday on charges of riot, sabotage, criminal mischief, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct.   The women, along with a larger group of pro-Palestine protesters, had surrounded the Elbit Systems facility, which is allegedly involved in Israel's military campaign.

Why apologize when you can just wait and hope people forget what you did wrong? As we enter the season of goodwill and gratitude, that’s the question posed by disgraced former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who this year is thankful for the complicity of his allies as he attempts to stage a comeback.While New York City mayor Eric Adams chokes on a different kind of Turkey, Politico writes that Cuomo has “begun in recent days to gauge the viability of a potential mayoral bid.”Cuomo resigned as governor in ignominy back in August 2021 after an investigation by New York attorney general Leticia James claimed that he had sexually harassed as many as eleven women.

How should we assess the value of a US president? In the case of John F. Kennedy, who died sixty years ago, the box denoting youthful vigor clearly gets a checkmark. Kennedy was just forty-six at the time of his assassination, which makes him younger than Hunter Biden is now. The box denoting the “vision thing” gets checked as well, if only because Kennedy saw the potential for beating the Soviets in the race to put a man on the moon, famously declaring, “We choose to do this, not because [it is] easy, but because it is hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.” Also to be considered is the collective trauma of the events of November 22, 1963.

Right before President Biden and Chinese president Xi Jinping met in San Francisco this week, the US State Department and the Chinese Ministry of Ecology and Environment each released a statement on “enhancing cooperation to address climate change.”  “[T]he United States and China reaffirm their commitment to work jointly and together with other countries to address the climate crisis,” the Sunnylands Statement says. Addressing “energy transition,” the statement declares that both countries support pursuing efforts to triple renewable energy capacity globally by 2030 and accelerate renewable energy deployment as a substitute for fossil fuels.

Once again a mostly peaceful protest has inexplicably ended up in violence — this time outside of the Democratic National Convention headquarters in Washington, DC. Ironically, this latest batch of protesters were calling for a ceasefire in Israel as they initiated their own violence on the streets of the nation’s capital.   A pro-Palestine protest was held Wednesday night outside the DNC headquarters as Democratic lawmakers gathered in the building for a fundraiser. During the melée, Capitol Police evacuated the top House Democrats from the building, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, House Minority Whip Katherine Clark and Representative Pete Aguilar.  The night began with a candlelight vigil down the street from the DNC before turning violent.

Fight Club is so back — and this time it’s in the halls of Congress. First rule of congressional fight club: throw down in front of the media. Representative Tim Burchett exploded onto the national scene when he joined with seven House Republicans and every House Democrat in throwing Speaker Kevin McCarthy out of his leadership position. Now, he’s claiming that McCarthy sucker-punched him in the kidneys. Representative Matt Gaetz in turn lodged an ethics complaint against McCarthy for “assaulting” Burchett.  McCarthy claims Burchett is making it up and that any contact was unintentional and merely the result of tight hallways.

The Florida Man had a plan. It was obvious from the beginning, but this being Washington, despite all the bizarre outcomes of the post-Cold War political scene — interns, scandals, impeachments, Donald Trump in the White House and out of it, the Cheneys surrounded by cheering Democrats — normalcy remains the assumed status quo. Normalcy does not encompass a plan to vacate the speaker’s chair with the unanimous help of the other party. In fact, prior to 2019, anyone could have used the same tool the Florida Man would deploy to unseat a speaker. They just never tried it officially, because to do so would be crazy, risking handing control of the House to the minority. And it was that audacity which kept the Florida Man’s plan alive.

Kim Kardashian was once cozy with the Trump White House. Together, the former president and the celebrity entrepreneur spearheaded criminal justice reform, providing the Kardashian with the political experience she desired and giving Trump one of the PR stunts he lives for. But the snuggling ended when Trump found out that Kim wasn’t all in with Team Trump, as she expressed her support for Joe Biden, hitting Trump where it hurts him most — loyalty. Jonathan Karl takes us behind the scenes of this spat in his new book Tired of Winning. According to the ABC News personality, when Kim called Trump for help with a clemency case, Trump hung up on her. According to an excerpt obtained by Axios, at the end of the Trump presidency, Kim attempted to get Trump to commute more sentences.