Max Boot: This is Israel’s 9/11. The consequences will be dangerous — and unforeseeable.

The Israeli military remains the strongest force in the Middle East, and it will ultimately prevail. But even a tactical victory would leave Israel facing the question “Now what?” Most Israelis have no desire for a long-term occupation of the Gaza Strip, one that would inevitably lead to further Israeli casualties and accusations that their troops are committing war crimes. But they are running out of alternatives.

The only certainty is that the Hamas attack will make life worse for Palestinians. Gaza is already one of the poorest places on Earth, and its misery has only been exacerbated by the Israeli-Egyptian blockade designed to prevent Hamas from amassing too much military power. The day before the attacks, The Post ran a heart-rending story about how merchants in Gaza are so poor, they cannot afford trucks and have to rely on donkeys — only to see the supply of donkeys from Israel dry up.

Hamas did not attack because of the miserable conditions in Gaza. Its leaders are insulated from deprivation and motivated by religious and nationalist fanaticism. But the terrible conditions do make it easy for Hamas to recruit fighters from among young men so poor and desperate that they have no better alternative than to become “martyrs.”

Ultimately, Israelis and Palestinians have to recognize that they have no alternative but to live side by side in peace. Responsible Israelis — who are largely missing from Netanyahu’s far-right cabinet — know that Palestinians’ lives have to improve to prevent more eruptions of violence in the future.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/07/gaza-israel-war-hamas-destruction/

Eric Lutz: Republicans Are Using Attack on Israel to Take Cynical Swings at Biden

The Biden administration has emphasized that American taxpayers did not, in fact, fund the attack Saturday, during the Simchat Torah holiday. “Not a penny has been spent” of the Iranian assets the United States has opened up, Brian Nelson, under secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at the Treasury Department, wrote over the weekend. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also added Sunday that the administration is still investigating Iran’s possible involvement in the incursion. “We don’t have anything that shows us that Iran was directly involved in this attack, in planning it or carrying out, but that’s something we’re looking at very carefully,” Blinken said.

But that didn’t stop Republicans from accusing the Biden administration of inadvertently funding the attack. “Do you think it was irresponsible of your rivals to level that allegation without any evidence or proof?” NBC News’ Kristen Welker asked Nikki Haley on Sunday. “I actually think it was irresponsible for Secretary Blinken to say that the $6 billion doesn’t weigh in here,” Haley responded. “Let’s be honest with the American people and understand that Hamas knows and Iran knows they’re moving money around as we speak, because they know six billion is going to be released,” the former United Nations ambassador added. “That’s the reality.”

It's a cynical framing, as Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel inadvertently laid bare on Fox News over the weekend: “I think this is a great opportunity for our candidates to contrast where Republicans have stood with Israel—time and time again—and Joe Biden has been weak,”  she said.

But this is obviously about more than just cheap political point-scoring. The Hamas attack over the weekend left more than 700 dead and at least 2,300 wounded in Israel, which responded with a siege that has killed at least 590 in Gaza and injured thousands of others. It’s a horrific situation—with innocent civilians caught in the middle. “For too many Republicans, their hatred of Democrats is their only organizing prism,” as Democratic Senator Chris Murphy wrote Sunday, after a GOP colleague claimed Biden’s “appeasement” of Iran had led to the war. “Even on a day like today all they can do is attack.” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/10/republicans-attack-biden-over-hamas-attack-israel

Jackie Calmes: Jim Jordan should never be House speaker. Here’s why

If Republicans choose Jordan over the other speaker candidate, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, the person second in line to the presidency would be a guy who actively sought to overturn a presidential election that even Trump administration officials deemed “the most secure in American history.”

Two days after the 2020 election, Jordan starred at a “Stop the Steal” rally at the Capitol in Pennsylvania, one of the pro-Biden states central to coup plotters’ scheming. On TV, he repeatedly claimed that the election was stolen. He was in cahoots with Trump officials about goading then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject some Biden electoral votes when Pence presided over the certification of the election in Congress on Jan. 6. Jordan attended a pivotal White House planning meeting on Dec. 21, and that month Trump cited the “fighter” Jordan’s support in haranguing Justice Department leaders to back the false voting fraud allegations.

There’s more: On Jan. 2, 2021, Jordan led — led! — a conference call with Trump and a few other Republicans to strategize about the certification vote as well as a social media effort to mobilize a simultaneous MAGA “march to the Capitol.” Trump and Jordan then spoke privately for 18 minutes.

In the hours after the insurrection, with several people dead and scores of police injured, Jordan continued to coordinate with Trump and Co. to upend the election certification. And after Jan. 6, he spoke with Trump advisors about pardons for implicated Republicans.

On Jan. 11, Trump cheapened the esteemed Presidential Medal of Freedom, intended to recognize “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States,” by privately awarding it to his accomplice, Jordan. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-10-10/jim-jordan-house-speaker-steve-scalise-kevin-mccarthy

Adam Rawnsley and Asawin "Swin" Suebsaeng: Team Trump Is Using ‘Fyre Festival Strategies’ in N.Y. Fraud Case

In the weeks leading up to the start of his $250 million civil fraud trial in New York, Donald Trump and his attorneys privately discussed how they believed defeat in this trial was preordained. Their best chance — and it wasn’t much, according to two sources familiar with the matter and another two people briefed on internal deliberations — would be to fight the case on appeal.

This belief led to the development of an approach to the case that centers around chaos and cacophony, rather than any attempt to win it on the merits. One person close to Trump describes it as the "Fyre Festival strategies."

That approach — ‘let’s just do it and be legends,’ in the words of the festival’s founder —  famously turned Fyre Fest into a scandal-riddled disaster. But Trump and his lawyers are hoping that their legal strategy in their ongoing courtroom “suicide mission” will score some political and public-relations points for Trump, kick up as much dirt as possible, enrage the judge, gratuitously trash some of the witnesses, and turn the process into a media circus.https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-team-new-york-fraud-case-media-circus-1234848510/
 

Jen Psaki: Putin must be loving this

Vladimir Putin is likely thrilled with MAGA lawmakers right now. And why wouldn’t he be?

His entire goal in 2016 was to throw the United States and its institutions into chaos. Well, the MAGA wing of the House is now doing just that — and the Russian president hasn't had to lift a finger. With no speaker, and no consensus choice from the caucus in advance of leadership elections next week, a chaotic, divisive power vacuum has developed. This is exactly the kind of feckless governing Putin dreams about instigating.

But that’s not all. This incompetence, coupled with Republicans who seem to be secretly rooting for the Kremlin is terrible for the Ukrainian war effort. Ukraine needs additional funding to ensure it can adequately defend itself on the front lines, but the chances of securing that vital funding appear to be dwindling. So yes, Putin is thrilled with the party that Trump has created. They are doing his work for him. https://www.msnbc.com/inside-with-jen-psaki/matt-gaetz-kevin-mccarthy-speaker-chaos-putin-rcna119245

Karen Tumulty: McCarthy’s legacy is one of damage to the House and his former office

McCarthy’s leadership — if you can call it leadership — was notably rudderless and chaotic. On his watch, the country came to the brink of what could have been a catastrophic default on its debt. His hard-right members regularly humiliated him by blocking vital GOP-backed measures from even coming to a vote on the House floor — among them, recently, one to fund the Pentagon. It was only with the help of Democrats that he managed to muster enough votes Saturday to prevent a government shutdown.

And yet, he continued to try to appease the hard-liners, including by unilaterally opening an impeachment inquiry into President Biden based on allegations — but no evidence — that the president had benefited from the business dealings of his son Hunter.

In a grievance-filled news conference after he announced his decision not to try to get his job back, McCarthy said, with dark humor: ‘I made history, didn’t I?’ Indeed, he has left a mark — a scar on the institution and the office — that will be hard to erase. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/04/kevin-mccarthy-legacy-house-speaker/

Michelle Cottle: Can Anyone Lead House Republicans Out of the Darkness?

Who out there picked nine months in the office betting pool for how long Kevin McCarthy would survive as House speaker? Go ahead. Raise your hands. Looks like you’re due a victory lap.

On Tuesday, the right-wing extremists made good on their long-dangled threat to depose Mr. McCarthy — whom they never wanted or trusted as speaker in the first place. The motion to vacate introduced on Monday by Representative Matt Gaetz, the self-appointed King of the Wingers, wound up passing with the support of eight Republicans and all of the 208 Democrats present. With this decapitation, the first ever in the House, Mr. McCarthy has indeed made history.

But the conference’s clown car rolls on, with Republicans now scrambling to select their next driver. With no obvious candidate who can win full Republican support, the process promises to be messy. For now, Representative Patrick McHenry is serving as the interim speaker, thanks to a 2003 rule that required Mr. McCarthy to designate who his temporary successor would be in the event his chair became vacant. For this and other reasons, Mr. McHenry needs to be replaced by a duly elected speaker ASAP.

And so here we go again. The House’s chaos is reminiscent of Mr. McCarthy’s ordeal back in January, when he went 15 rounds with his right-wing rebels, until he finally wore them down enough to squeak into power. I suppose he could be hoping for a new variation on this: Let his critics try, and repeatedly fail, to install a suitable replacement, until exhaustion and despair drive them to reinstate him almost by default. But as of Tuesday evening, he was insisting that he would not run for the job again. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/03/opinion/can-anyone-lead-house-republicans-out-of-the-darkness.html

Susan B. Glasser: McCarthy’s Ouster Is Proof, Once Again, That Appeasement Doesn’t Work

The overthrow began, on Monday evening, with a fittingly juvenile exchange of public taunts. “Bring it on,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy posted, at 7:31 p.m. “Just did,” Representative Matt Gaetz replied. Gaetz is the latest in a series of increasingly confrontational Republican members of Congress who have, during the past dozen years, made the job of Speaker in a G.O.P.-controlled Congress one of the capital’s most impossible positions. (See: Boehner, John; Ryan, Paul.) This, however, turned out not to be just another episode of the House Republicans’ rolling soap opera of dysfunction but an assault by a punk from Florida serious enough to go down in the history books.

Gaetz, an acolyte of Donald Trump, followed through on months of threats on Tuesday, using the weapon that McCarthy himself had provided back in January to win the speakership in the first place, when he agreed to a rule allowing a single member to force a vote on a motion to vacate the chair. This was akin to giving Gaetz a loaded gun; it was inevitable that he would pull the trigger. The last time there was a vote on a motion to vacate was in 1910; Joseph Cannon survived and went on to become one of Congress’s legendary figures, an iron-fisted ruler whose name today adorns one of the House’s three main office buildings. No one, it’s safe to conjecture, will be naming any buildings for Kevin McCarthy.

The political-obituary writers will not be as kind to McCarthy as he was to himself. The fifty-fifth Speaker of the House turned out to be one of the weakest America has ever had, a man whose overriding ambition seemed merely to have been obtaining the job itself and whose willingness to make a bad deal to get it proved to be his predictable undoing.

The record of his suck-uppery to Trump and the Trumpists is too long to recount in full. Perhaps it’s enough to recall that Trump nicknamed him “my Kevin,” and that, during Trump’s Presidency, McCarthy was reported to have sent over to the White House a jar of Trump’s favorite Starbursts, carefully culled of all but his favorite red and pink candies. It was McCarthy’s egregious behavior in the aftermath of the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, however, that really proved him to be a hopeless stooge.

And yet, for all that McCarthy did for Trump, it was no surprise that Trump declined to step in and do anything to save McCarthy’s tenuous speakership. On the contrary, Trump publicly cheered on those like Gaetz, who were pushing for a government shutdown over McCarthy’s frantic efforts to stop it. As the coup unfolded, Gaetz gleefully told reporters that he had spoken with the ex-President. https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/mccarthys-ouster-is-proof-once-again-that-appeasement-doesnt-work

David Frum: GOP Fantasy Collides With Reality

The rules of contemporary Republican politics make it hard to accept reality. Reality is just too awkward.

In reality, Trump has been a big vote loser for Republicans. He fluked into the presidency with a Dukakis-like share of the vote in 2016, then lost his party its majority in the House in 2018. Trump got decisively booted from the presidency in 2020; rampaged illegally on January 6, 2021; and then cost his party its Senate majority in the January 2021 runoff elections. His election-denier message damaged his party further in the elections of 2022. His demand for a Biden investigation and impeachment in 2023 is producing an embarrassing fiasco. But no Republican leader dares say these things out loud.

Most taboo of all is working with Democrats, on any terms other than total, one-sided domination: We win, you lose. So McCarthy just had to press ahead, acting as if he commanded a majority when he did not; insulting and demeaning the minority, even though he had to know that he might need their help at any minute.

That minute came. McCarthy sought Democratic votes to save him from his own refractory members, and in return he offered nothing. Not even politeness.

That proposition did not produce the desired results, and so here we are. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/kevin-mccarthy-republican-party-delusion/675538/

David Graham: Donald Trump Is Any Defense Attorney’s Nightmare

It’s possible to construct a theory under which Trump’s outbursts at judges aren’t all that disastrous. Trump often seems to prioritize his political fortunes—fervor among his base, fundraising, press coverage—over his apparent best interest. But if you presume that losses in both the fraud and election-subversion cases are already foregone conclusions, then his strategy makes some sense. Engoron has already ruled that Trump committed fraud, and the facts in the election case are damning… Any conviction (or damages, in the civil cases against him) will likely be appealed, but at the trial level, Trump may have already accepted he is likely to lose, and thus may stand to gain the most by wrapping himself in a lost cause.

But even if the self-inflicted wounds in any individual case are incidental, his tendency to create unnecessary nightmares for defense teams (along with his history of stiffing contractors) means that he is less able to attract high-quality representation. Top-tier lawyers have repeatedly declined to work for him, and among those who have taken the job, many don’t stay for long. Over time, that could deepen his risk in all of the cases against him. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/trump-civil-trial-lawyers-gag-order/675564/

NY Times Editorial: The Cost of Inaction on Immigration

It is difficult to find an issue that more exemplifies the dysfunction of American government today than immigration.

In the past year, more than a million people have entered the United States through the southern border, overflowing shelters and straining public services. Most of the newcomers claim asylum, a status that allows them to be in the country legally but leaves them in limbo. They often must wait years for their cases to be heard, and it can be a lengthy process to obtain legal permission to work.

This nation has long drawn strength from immigration, and providing asylum is an important expression of America’s national values. But Congress has failed to provide the necessary resources to welcome those who are eligible and to turn away those who are not. Instead, overwhelmed immigration officials allow nearly everyone to stay temporarily, imposing enormous short-term costs on states and cities that the federal government hasn’t done enough to mitigate.

Vice President Kamala Harris and others have correctly identified corruption and instability in Central and South America as reasons many people continue to flee their homes, and the United States should do what it can to help countries with these challenges. But that is not an answer to the disruption that this recent wave of people is causing in American communities right now.

The federal government’s negligence is fueling anger against immigrants and stoking divisions. The question is whether Congress, mired in dysfunction, can stir itself to enact sensible changes so the nation can reap the benefits of immigration.

The White House is limited in the actions it can take; Mr. Biden may have exhausted what he can do through his executive authority. Until Congress decides to take meaningful action, America will continue to pay a price. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/07/opinion/new-york-migrant-crisis.html