Month: October 2023

On Friday, Federico Klein, “a 42-year-old former member of the U.S. Marine Corps and [President Trump] appointee to the State Department” will be sentenced for committing eight felonies and some misdemeanors during the January 6, 2021 coup attempt at the Capitol. The Department of Justice is seeking a 120 month (or ten-year) sentence. If that seems severe, consider that Klein committed six separate assaults during the insurrection and is convicted of “assaulting, resisting or impeding [law enforcement] officers.”

Does it make a difference that even the prosecutors concede that Klein sincerely believed that he was fighting to prevent the election from being stolen from Trump?

Klein, prosecutors say, “strongly believed that the 2020 presidential election was ‘stolen’ from former President Trump. So much so that in the weeks after the election, Klein took time off from work at the State Department to volunteer to travel to Las Vegas, Nevada, where he investigated claims of voter fraud. Because of this strong belief and his participation in the volunteer effort, he was also keenly aware of the options available to challenge the election results.”

Being deluded is not a defense for Klein, and it doesn’t appear to even warrant leniency in sentencing, although that is ultimately up to the judge. Could he really spend a decade in prison because he chose to act on his gullibility?

More than 1,100 people have been arrested on January 6-related charges. That number could grow to 3,000 before the statute of limitations runs out in 2026. Roughly 400 people have been incarcerated. I presume nearly all of these folks were acting on the false presumption that Biden stole the election.

But when it comes to Donald Trump, who is solely responsible for deceiving these people because he made a decision not to concede and attempt a coup, it’s supposed to matter somehow whether he sincerely believed there had been election fraud. All this effort is being made to prove that Trump was well-informed that the election was not fraudulent and that he even privately admitted as much.

Maybe this is a problem with our laws which never envisioned a president committing these kinds of crimes, but I prefer the “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander” type of justice. If Federico Klein is going to do up to a decade of hard time in prison for trying (in his mind) to prevent a political coup, then Trump should do at least as much time for attempting one.

Klein is going to pay for the pain and suffering he inflicted on the Capitol Police, but shouldn’t Trump pay the same price? And shouldn’t Trump be held responsible for the pain and suffering he caused to the 3,000 people subject to arrest, the 1,100 that have been arrested and the 400 who have been imprisoned? He ruined their lives because they’ve believed him. They were stupid but that being stupid didn’t save them. Why should being stupid save Trump?

I don’t care what goes on in his rancid mind or what he sincerely believes for ten seconds at a time. He attempted a coup and his sentence should be greater than any other January 6 defendant.

Based on my experience watching the Iowa caucuses over the years, I know that polls even one week out aren’t all that helpful. It seems that Iowans make up their minds very late in the process. A prime example is the 2004 Democratic contest which John Kerry won. That result wasn’t easy to foresee. Dick Gephardt was the early favorite and then it looked like Howard Dean had surged into the lead. But when they focused all their attacks on each other, they sank together and wound up finishing behind Kerry and John Edwards. In any case, the winner of Iowa isn’t very predictive of who will win the nomination, particularly on the Republican side. Consider past winners like George H.W. Bush in 1980, Bob Dole in 1988, Mike Huckabee in 2008, Rick Santorum in 2012 and Ted Cruz in 2016.

It appears that two Republican candidates, Tim Scott of South Carolina and Ron DeSantis of Florida, are betting everything on winning Iowa, so it makes sense to look at how they’re doing there in early polls. It’s not particularly encouraging. At the moment, Trump is leading in the 538 aggregation of polls with 49 percent, trailed by DeSantis at 17, Nikki Haley at 11, and Scott at seven. In the most recent poll, Haley has pulled even with DeSantis at 16 percent. So, now we’re seeing articles about Haley’s surge and DeSantis’s decline. On Monday, the Washington Post took a crack at this genre of analysis.

DeSantis began the year widely viewed as the Republican with the best chance to build a winning coalition against the former president — the Trump alternative who could entice Trump critics yet was also in many ways a continuation of Trump’s “America First” platform. But DeSantis’s support has shrunk dramatically since then, eroding on both ends of the party spectrum, interviews with dozens of early state voters, as well as pollsters and strategists, show.

As the article details, when the DeSantis campaign launched their initial pitch to wealthy Republican fundraisers was “Trump without the crazy.” He would offer an America First agenda without all the insanity and baggage. This had the added advantage that Trump was being largely blamed for a disappointing GOP performance in the 2022 midterms, while DeSantis had been reelected in an earthshaking rout in the Sunshine State. It hasn’t worked out as planned.

In order to work, Trump needs to collapse leaving a opening for an America First replacement. But the more Trump’s legal problems mount, the more Republican voters rally to his side. In Iowa, we can see that Trump is currently getting about half the vote, which leaves the others to split up the other half. What’s holding DeSantis back more than anything else is that most of the America First voters have Trump as their first choice, and many non-America First voters are looking at Haley or Scott or are undecided.

So, DeSantis is getting pinched at both ends and he doesn’t have much room to grow. If you want to predict what will happen in the Iowa caucuses, you need to figure out three things.

1. How big is the American First pie? Is it well over 50 percent or just below it?
2. How interested are the caucus-goers going to be in nominating an electable candidate?
3. How is Trump’s electability going to look on the day of the Iowa caucuses?

On the first question, we also want to know how many candidates will still be in the race. This past weekend, for example, Mike Pence dropped out of the race, and his evangelical supporters will have to reallocate themselves among the alternatives. If it were a two-way between Trump and someone else, it might be very competitive. But that seems highly unlikely. The question then is really whether or not DeSantis is the most likely to pick any voters that leave Trump.

And the main reason voters may leave Trump is if they don’t perceive him as electable. But what if they don’t care? What if they simply don’t give a shit? Iowa Republicans don’t have a record of opting for electability, which is why folks like Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee have won the caucuses.

But if there is to be serious erosion for Trump over the electability question, things will have to look different than they look now. As of today, Trump looks very competitive with Biden in head-to-head national polls. If that changes, then the electability issue will become more of a factor in Iowa. And, I believe, despite DeSantis’s poor campaign, he is still the most logical second choice for America First Trump supporters.

In plain terms, if Trump’s Iowa numbers start to decline from the 49 percent he currently enjoys in the Iowa average of polls, the most likely candidate to gain from that is DeSantis. I don’t believe Nikki Haley will gain at the same rate. Scott might pick up some support, and now that Pence is out, Scott might see a small uptick in the next surveys, but is he really a threat?

A lot is going to happen on the legal front between now and the Iowa caucuses, and I don’t think the electability question will be clear even one week out from the voting. When it comes right down to it, I think a lot of Trump’s support is defensive in nature. People are supporting him because he’s under attack by the legal system. But when it comes time to pick a nominee, people will be more forward-looking and practical. I think Iowa will be a lot closer than the polls indicate right now.

That was the DeSantis gamble at the beginning, and I don’t think he should back off it just because it doesn’t look like it’s working. What he probably should do is double down and begin making the argument that despite what the national polls show, Trump isn’t going to be a viable candidate for the Republicans. If the collapse never comes, then there never really was a chance to beat Trump, and that’s true for all the candidates and all possible strategies they might have employed.

But by positioning himself to be Trump without the crazy, DeSantis has the best chance to be the alternative to Trump. Nikki Haley is the practical choice for voters who want to run a more traditional campaign against Biden. But DeSantis has already spurned the chance to compete for moderate Republicans. If the American First vote is big enough, he should be able to beat Haley provided Trump’s collapse is substantial.

What I am basically saying here is that it is simply too early to predict how Iowa will shake out, or to write off DeSantis’s chances. All you have to do is imagine what happens if Trump’s perceived electability takes a major dip.

Our new Speaker of the House, second in line to the presidency, is closely associated with young earth creationism, having successfully sued the state of Kentucky on behalf of the Ark Encounter theme park. You might not know how immensely popular the Ark Encounter and adjacent Creation Museum are, but they’re ranked by USA Today as the “No. 1 and No. 2 religious museums in the nation.” This shouldn’t surprise you, because there are a ton of Americans who believe humans were created by God in the current form within the last 10,000 years.

James Ussher, a 17th-Century theologian from Dublin, made a good faith effort to estimate to the date of earth’s creation and came up with 4,004 B.C.E. and that became a bit of a standard, appearing authoritatively in the King James Version of the Bible beginning in the 18th-Century. Advances in geology brought young earth hypotheses into disrepute in the 19th-Century, and quite obviously the existence of dinosaurs presents a conceptual problem. The Ark Encounter and Creation Museum solve this conceptual problem by arguing that dinosaurs and humans once co-existed.

One sign inside the Noah’s Ark replica, which is 510 feet long by 85 feet wide and 51 feet high, reads, “Did you know? Up to 85 kinds of dinosaurs were on the ark, including 2 Tyrannosaurids, 2 Stegosaurids, 2 Ceratopsids, and 2 Brachiosaurids.”

Needless to say, 510 foot long boat with 85 pairs of dinosaurs aboard doesn’t make any kind of sense. But Johnson successfully argued that the Ark Encounter park was deserving of a tourism tax rebate despite its policy of hiring only people who profess a belief in young earth creationism.

I don’t know how Johnson feels about the merits of the young earth theory, however. At the time, he boasted, “The court has affirmed a longstanding principle that the Constitution does not permit a state to show hostility towards religion. The First Amendment does not allow Christian organizations to be treated like second-class citizens merely because of what they believe.”

I know for certain that he’s a creationist because he’s been quite open about it.

During a 2016 sermon at the Christian Center in Shreveport, Louisiana, Johnson said that a “series of cultural shifts” in the United States — led by “elites” and “academics” in the 1930s who were engaging with the theories of Charles Darwin — erased the influence of Christian thinking and creationism from society.

“People say, ‘How can a young person go into their schoolhouse and open fire on their classmates?’” Johnson asked the audience. “Because we’ve taught a whole generation — a couple generations now — of Americans, that there’s no right or wrong, that it’s about survival of the fittest, and [that] you evolve from the primordial slime. Why is that life of any sacred value? Because there’s nobody sacred to whom it’s owed. None of this should surprise us.”

Johnson blaming school shootings on teaching evolution was first identified by Meidas Touch.

Earlier in the sermon, Johnson had discussed the necessity of a creationist view of life. “If [the theory of evolution] is true, there really probably isn’t a God anyway, right? There really isn’t a creator,” Johnson said. “So remember when the founders said ‘God’s up here and he’s transcendent and all men are down here.’ Well [the academics] just erased God from the equation entirely.” He said that when there is no creator, “then that means that man gets to make all the decisions,” and that the the infiltration of this philosophy into government and schools had begun to “teach a generation of Americans that there really isn’t any God, and there really isn’t any right and wrong.”

Now, some surveys show nearly 40 percent of Americans share elements of this world view. In 2017, Gallup found 38 percent “believe that God created humans in their present form at some time within the last 10,000 years or so.” So, if that’s what Johnson believes, it’s really not much of an outlier.

I don’t think there’s a lot of political juice in ridiculing Johnson for his beliefs, as it just feeds into anti-elitist resentment. If ridicule could get rid of fundamentalism, H.L. Mencken would have finished the job during the Scopes Trial.

But I do think it’s dangerous to have someone in such a position of power who basically has a form of brain damage. I’m not a politician, so I can say it. If you can’t understand the science that explains the age of the Earth, your brain isn’t operating properly, and you might be a wonderful person but you can’t be trusted to make big decisions for the country.

 

Hello again painting fans.

This week I will be continuing with the painting of the Jerome, Arizona scene. The photo that I’m using (My own from a recent visit.) is seen directly below.

I’ll be using my usual acrylic paints on a 5×7 inch canvas panel.

When last seen the painting appeared as it does in the photo seen directly below.

Since that time I have continued to work on the painting.

Some slow progress for this week’s cycle but I did further refine the buildings a bit.

The current state of the painting is seen in the photo directly below.

I’ll have more progress to show you next week. See you then.

Hi photo lovers.

It’s been a while. I had hoped to post something sooner, but things are still far too hectic. In June, as a Father’s Day gift, one of my daughters who works in a greenhouse brought home a Hibiscus plant. It’s done quite well, in spite of the insanely hot summer it had to endure. The photo you are looking at is possibly the last flower of the year for this particular plant. There’s one more that looks like it might bloom, but so much depends on the timing of a cold front. Last year, the Hibiscus plants I did have had stopped producing new flowers in late September or early October. This year has been something else. I won’t complain. I’ve been treated to new flowers on a nearly daily basis throughout the summer and even as we approach mid-autumn.

I am still using my same equipment, and am no professional. If you are an avid photographer, regardless of your skills and professional experience, you are in good company here. Booman Tribune was blessed with very talented photographers in the past. At Progress Pond, we seem to have a few talented photographers now, a few of whom seem to be lurking I suppose.

I have been using an LG v40 ThinQ for nearly five years. My original phone is gone. The back of the phone came off. Apparently the battery began to burst. My replacement had a similar fate. I bought yet another version of the same phone for hardly anything, as I simply didn’t have the time to really research a good permanent replacement. We will see how long this one lasts. I need more time to research smart phones, especially at the high end. I prefer to get a device and keep it for four or five years. Most of my family seems to be gravitating toward iPhones, so I suspect I may eventually have to succumb and go to the Dark Side of The Force. Given the times we live in, my default is to delay any major purchases as long as possible. So, unless something really goes wrong with my current phone, I’ll stick to the status quo for as long as possible. Keep in mind that my last Samsung kept going for over four years (although the last year was a bit touch and go). Once I do have to make a new smart phone purchase, the camera feature is the one I consider most important. So any advice on such matters is always appreciated. Occasionally I get to use my old 35 mm, but one of my daughters seems to have commandeered it for now. So it goes.

This series of posts is in honor of a number of our ancestors. At one point, there were some seriously great photographers who graced Booman Tribune with their work. They are all now long gone. I am the one who carries the torch. I keep this going because I know that one day I too will be gone, and I really want the work that was started long ago to continue, rather than fade away with me. If I see that I am able to incite a few others to fill posts like these with photos, then I will be truly grateful. In the meantime, enjoy the photos, and I am sure between Booman and myself we can pass along quite a bit of knowledge about the photo flog series from its inception back during the Booman Tribune days.

Since this post usually runs only a day, I will likely keep it up for a while. Please share your work. I am convinced that us amateurs are extremely talented. You will get nothing but love and support here. I mean that. Also, when I say that you don’t have to be a photography pro, I mean that as well. I am an amateur. This is my hobby. This is my passion. I keep these posts going only because they are a passion. If they were not, I would have given up a long time ago. My preference is to never give up.

Matt Gaetz, Steve Bannon and Donald Trump are happy this morning because they got their guy installed as Speaker of the House. That guy is Mike Johnson, a little known congressman and attorney from Louisiana who had a big role in the attempted coup.  His plotting began shortly after the November 3, 2020 election.

Johnson’s role in seeking to overturn the 2020 vote was directly solicited by Trump, who tapped the lawmaker — first elected the same year that Trump was, in 2016 — to help spearhead efforts on Capitol Hill in support of a court challenge.

“President Trump called me last night and I was encouraged to hear his continued resolve to ensure that every LEGAL vote gets properly counted and that all instances of fraud and illegality are investigated and prosecuted,” Johnson tweeted on Nov. 9, 2020.

One month later, Trump called Johnson again and asked him to whip up support among House Republicans for a ludicrous challenge from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to invalidate the elections in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin due to pandemic-related changes in those states’ election regulations.

To do this, Johnson, who had sway as head of the Republican Study Group — a conservative policy group in the House — assiduously allied himself with Trump. He used that connection in writing a Dec. 9, 2020, email with the subject line: “Time-sensitive request from President Trump.”

Johnson wrote that Trump had called him and “asked me to contact all Republican Members of the House and Senate today and request that all join on to our brief.”

…Johnson’s role was so central that the brief’s cover page reads: “U.S. Representative Mike Johnson and 125 Other Members of the U.S. House of Representatives.”

Two days later, the Supreme Court wrote “Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections,” and tossed the Paxton/Johnson suit in the trash. Later on, Matt Gaetz would seek a pardon from Trump for “every Republican who signed the Amicus brief in the Texas lawsuit.”

Back in October 2022, the New York Times did a deep-dive on the 139 Republicans in the House who voted to dispute the Electoral College count on January 6th. One part of that article focused on a January 5 meeting organized by then-Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who was the chairwoman of the House Republican Conference. She and far right Freedom Caucus member Rep. Chip Roy of Texas argued against challenging the results, but Johnson presented a different view.

Members could simply accept the results, as Ms. Cheney and Mr. Roy insisted, or they could vote to object because of the fraud concerns raised by the president and his allies. But Mr. Johnson argued that they could take a different path: object based on what he called “constitutional infirmity.”

The Constitution stipulates that state legislatures set election rules. Yet some state officials, without asking their legislatures, loosened restrictions on mail-in or early voting to deal with the pandemic. That was unconstitutional and grounds to reject the election results from those states, Mr. Johnson argued.

This was essentially the Paxton argument all over again. And it was obviously persuasive.

Bannon, Gaetz and Trump probably preferred Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio for the speakership role, but Johnson has described his relationship with Jordan as “like Batman and Robin,” so I don’t think there’s any disappointment.

Yet, Johnson is a weak Speaker. Just like Kevin McCarthy before him, he is subject to a motion to vacate the chair that can be initiated by any single member of the House. Just like McCarthy, he has no way of getting his caucus to approve spending levels that are acceptable to the Senate or the White House. The government will shut down on November 17 if he doesn’t at least pass a continuing resolution to buy himself some time, but that’s precisely what got McCarthy booted. In fact, Rep. Roy has already indicated that “any bill avoiding a shutdown on Nov. 17 would need to impose something like the 30 percent slashing of government spending that House Republicans attempted last month.” With demands like that, Johnson will have to seek Democratic votes or voluntarily oversee a shutdown.

Johnson ascended to the top position more through exhaustion than enthusiasm, and the Republican appropriators who objected to Jordan are still deeply opposed to a shutdown, as are many at-risk centrists seeking reelection in competitive districts. For these reasons, the most likely scenario if Johnson can’t get a clean continuing resolution is that there will be a shutdown, but it will end (eventually) through a discharge petition.

A discharge petition is a way for a majority of the House to force a vote over the objections of the Speaker and the Rules Committee. Simply put, if Johnson doesn’t get near-unanimous Republican support for a clean C.R. and won’t go to the Democrats for help, then the only way to end a shutdown is for the functional majority in favor of opening the government to assert itself by taking control of the floor away from the Speaker.

Johnson may prefer this option since he knows what happened to McCarthy and doesn’t need that headache. But let’s be clear that it entails losing control of the proceedings of the House. When members of the majority sign a discharge petition, it amounts to rank insubordination and is usually subject to harsh punishment. No Speaker in any normal situation would welcome this type of rebellion, and I think it’s a good indication of how weak Johnson is as he begins his tenure with the gavel.

Now, if he wants to test his strength, he can demand a clean C.R. from his caucus and dare them to vacate the chair again. After seeing the chaos caused after McCarthy’s removal, perhaps he would win that fight. It would be a stupid result showing that McCarthy should never have been removed in the first place, but at least it would give Johnson some authority. But I don’t expect him to try that route.

I think we’re headed for a government shutdown, and it will last until the functional majority decides it has to end.

You can listen to the fifth episode of the Progress Pondcast here. It’s entirely devoted to the House Republicans’ troubled effort to elect a new Speaker of the House. As I write this, the Republicans are getting ready to take a vote on the floor to elect Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana, and there seems to be some optimism that he might succeed. It could be that they’ve found the sweet spot between a complete troglodyte that satisfies the far right and someone with a low profile who hasn’t made a lot of enemies among his colleagues. You also can’t discount the importance of exhaustion. And, of course, the people who ought to object to Johnson are also the people least likely to throw a fit and hold everything up in defiance of the consensus of the caucus.

If Johnson becomes Speaker, he will immediately have to go to the Democrats to pass another continuing resolution to fund the government as “Pelosi levels.” If he doesn’t, the government will shut down and stay shut down. If the former happens, we’ll see if Johnson can hold onto the job. If the latter happens, the pressure will build to govern by discharge petition, meaning that a majority will overrule the Republican leadership and force votes to the floor. It could be the only way to reopen the government, short of vacating the chair again and electing a bipartisan Speaker.

Make sure to tune in.

Howdy! Another midweek has arrived. I haven’t done an opening monologue post in a long time. A lot of that was due to the screenwriters’ strike, which kept late night talk show hosts off the air. Thankfully that strike went well for the screenwriters, so we have late night talk back. This one is very current, and has plenty of funny bits (as long as you can stand the occasional ranting of Hair Fuhrer):

Plenty of good times. Hey. This space is yours. Post some videos. Say hello.

I’ll see you all around. Cheers.

Reading through the news about Israel this morning, I immediately had the image of Gulliver being tied down by the Lilliputians come to my mind. It’s not an apt comparison at all, really, not if you know the plot of Jonathan Swift’s 18th-Century satire. But it came to mind nevertheless, because it seems like so many forces are coming together to tie Israel down and prevent them from recklessly invading Gaza without having a clear plan.

Right off the top, there’s a reason this story about evacuation plans for Americans in the Middle East is running on the nation’s front pages. It’s being reported not just because the planning is going on. The Biden administration wants Americans to understand their security is at risk, that there is a cost to giving strong support to Israel, and that they’re justified in urging restraint.

The Biden administration is preparing for the possibility that hundreds of thousands of American citizens will require evacuation from the Middle East if the bloodshed in Gaza cannot be contained, according to four officials familiar with the U.S. government’s contingency planning.

It also puts pressure on Israel to be responsive to our concerns. But if that shot across the bow wasn’t clear, there is this:

The US has intelligence that Iranian-backed militia groups are planning to ramp up attacks against US forces in the Middle East, as Iran seeks to capitalize on the backlash in the region to US support for Israel, according to multiple US officials.

The militia groups have already launched multiple drone attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria.

But the US now has specific intelligence that those same groups could escalate even further as the war between Israel and Hamas continues.

There are “red lights flashing everywhere,” a US official in the region told CNN.

And if Israel still doesn’t get the point, there’s a message from President Barack Obama.

But even as we support Israel, we should also be clear that how Israel prosecutes this fight against Hamas matters. In particular, it matters — as President Biden has repeatedly emphasized — that Israel’s military strategy abides by international law, including those laws that seek to avoid, to every extent possible, the death or suffering of civilian populations. Upholding these values is important for its own sake — because it is morally just and reflects our belief in the inherent value of every human life. Upholding these values is also vital for building alliances and shaping international opinion — all of which are critical for Israel’s long-term security…

…the world is watching closely as events in the region unfold, and any Israeli military strategy that ignores the human costs could ultimately backfire. Already, thousands of Palestinians have been killed in the bombing of Gaza, many of them children. Hundreds of thousands have been forced from their homes. The Israeli government’s decision to cut off food, water and electricity to a captive civilian population threatens not only to worsen a growing humanitarian crisis; it could further harden Palestinian attitudes for generations, erode global support for Israel, play into the hands of Israel’s enemies, and undermine long term efforts to achieve peace and stability in the region.

But, in case Israel wants to run headlong into Gaza anyway, the Biden administration wants everyone to know that they are not prepared and don’t have a viable plan. This is from a New York Times article:

The Biden administration is concerned that Israel lacks achievable military objectives in Gaza, and that the Israel Defense Forces are not yet ready to launch a ground invasion with a plan that can work, senior administration officials said.

In phone conversations with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III has stressed the need for careful consideration of how Israeli forces might conduct a ground invasion of Gaza, where Hamas maintains intricate tunnel networks under densely populated areas.

Biden administration officials insisted that the United States had not told Israel what to do and still supported the ground invasion. But the Pentagon has sent a three-star Marine, Lt. Gen. James Glynn, along with other officers to help the Israelis with the challenges of fighting an urban war.

And, as you can see from the following screenshot taken from the website of the Times of Israel, the message has been received.

 

But it’s not just America. France came up with an idea out of left field to tie Israel down.

French President Emmanuel Macron proposed on Tuesday that an international coalition fighting against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria be widened to include the fight against the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.

Macron gave no detail on how the U.S.-led coalition of dozens of countries, of which Israel is not a member, could be involved.

Speaking alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Macron stressed that France and Israel shared terrorism as their “common enemy”.

Here, France is waving the potential for a true international coalition to assist them in eliminating Hamas.

Macron’s office said the idea was to draw inspiration from the [anti-ISIS] coalition and that France was available to discuss with Israel and partners what could be relevant against Hamas.

“The international coalition against Daesh does not limit itself to operations on the ground, but is also involved in the training of Iraqi forces, the sharing of information between partners, and the fight against terrorism funding,” it said.

Such an offer cannot easily be spurned, but France isn’t offering it for free. They want a pause before an invasion to negotiate for hostages, some of whom are French nationals. Macron is also calling for a “humanitarian truce” to allow international aid to flow into Gaza, and he wants Israel to allow for a political solution and a return to discussions about a two-state solution.

Now, France and America are not Lilliputians. They are world powers and permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. But you can see how they’re binding Israel and preventing it from launching an all-out ground offensive. And Israel’s defense forces (the IDF) have noticed:

The Israel Defense Forces believes that in order to attain the government’s stated objectives in the war against the Hamas terror group, the military must begin its ground offensive in the Gaza Strip sooner rather than later, The Times of Israel learned Monday…

…The Times of Israel learned that, after 16 days of airstrikes, the IDF has told the government that it is fully prepared for a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, and believes it can achieve the goals set out for it, even at the risk of heavy casualties to soldiers, and amid ongoing attacks by Hezbollah in the north.

But the military fears that the government may not ever give the order to begin the ground offensive, or postpone it for a lengthy period…

…The army is concerned that further hostage releases by Hamas could lead the political leadership to delay a ground incursion or even halt it midway.

Of course, the political leadership is under enormous pressure from its international allies not to launch a ground offensive, at least for the time being. And this must be a source of tremendous consternation because it makes Israel look weak, which is widely thought as fatal in the Middle East. But unless Israel wants to find out what true political isolation looks like, they cannot afford to ignore this pressure.

There simply isn’t the stomach to watch Israel level Gaza, which is basically what’s required to get to Hamas since they have an extensive underground tunnel system and are otherwise mixed in with the civilian population.

Meanwhile, the rocket fire from Gaza into Israel cities and towns continues unabated, making it incredibly difficult to explain continued restraint to the disillusioned Israeli people.

This is the situation Benjamin Netanyahu created and it is unfathomable that he be allowed to continue in power.

One thing I like about this New York Times piece on Republican Party disarray by Lisa Lerer and Michael C. Bender is that at no point do they try to blame the Democrats for the GOP’s problems. Two weeks ago, there was a widespread sense that Hakeem Jeffries ought to help the Republicans elect a Speaker without receiving anything in return. That idea seems to have withered on the vine. Even the Republicans are forgetting that talking point. It’s a relief, because it was always a ludicrous concept.

Brendan and I recorded the fifth episode of the Progress Pondcast last night. It will be available as soon as we’re doing with the edits. We’ve both been suffering from bad colds and I think the situation in Israel made it difficult to think about anything else, but we finally got it together to discuss the failure of the House Republicans to elect a Speaker. Make sure to tune in to get our take on what has transpired and where we might be headed.

Without getting into all that, I’ll just say here that this remains a problem best understood by the House Republicans’ inability to perform its two fundamental responsibilities as the majority party: to pay our debts on time and to pass government appropriations bills. Kevin McCarthy was only able to do those two things with heavy support from House Democrats, and that will remain true for any future Speaker. This means the functional majority in the House is not only bipartisan but strongly tilted to the left, and logically this group should have majorities on committees, including the all-important Rules Committee that controls the flow of legislation to the floor.

If the next Speaker is elected with Democratic votes, the Democrats need this kind of arrangement. If the next Speaker is a Republican elected with only Republican votes, they will not be able to keep the government funded and operational unless they repeat the sin that cost McCarthy his speakership.

This was the scenario I foresaw last December after I saw that the red wave did not arrive in the midterm elections, and it has an iron logic that is inescapable.