Speaker Mike Johnson fails his first test.

October 31, 2023

          During a moment of international crisis, House Republicans took the first available opportunity to propose slashing IRS funding as the price of supporting Israel—presumably to garner favor with wealthy Republican donors who view the IRS as a foe to be vanquished. In one of the first tests of Mike Johnson’s (lack of) leadership skills, he proposed a $14 billion supplemental funding bill for aid to Israel that included offsetting cuts of $14 billion in funding for the IRS. Cutting funding to the IRS will cause reductions in tax revenue and increase deficits. The proposal is a ham-fisted, counterproductive measure that plows new ground in bad-faith norm-busting by House Republicans. See The Hill, Democrats accuse Johnson of ‘political games’ with Israel-for-IRS funding proposal.

          Per The Hill,

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee, said offsetting the Israel aid with IRS funding cuts sets a “dangerous precedent.”

“Emergency supplemental funding is used to address urgent crises. House Republicans are setting a dangerous precedent by suggesting that protecting national security or responding to natural disasters is contingent upon cuts to other programs,” DeLauro wrote in a statement. “The partisan bill House Republicans introduced stalls our ability to help Israel defend itself and does not include a penny for humanitarian assistance.”

          The proposed bill betrays Speaker Mike Johnson’s limited legislative skills. As explained in Punchbowl News, House Democrats will oppose the bill, sending it to the Senate with Republican support only. But Senate Democrats and Republicans will likely remove the IRS offsets and insert funding for Ukraine before returning the bill to the House. See The Hill, McConnell touts Ukraine aid: ‘a test for the United States and for the free world.’ At that point, House Republicans will be challenged to vote against funding for Israel and Ukraine as one of Mike Johnson’s first legislative efforts.

          Demanding tribute for wealthy US taxpayers as a condition for supporting Israel and Ukraine is insulting to our allies and the American people. It demonstrates why Republicans cannot be trusted with control of either chamber of Congress. They are unable to restrain their impulse to treat every legislative act as an opportunity for gamesmanship and soundbite-driven “gotcha” politics. (For background on the corporate backers of Mike Johnson, see this deeply researched article by Judd Legum in Popular Information, Speaker Mike Johnson's corporate backers.)

          As House Republicans were playing politics with aid packages for Israel, there were significant developments in Israel’s war against Hamas.

• During a press conference, Prime Minister Netanyahu apologized for blaming Israeli intelligence agencies for failing to warn about the Hamas terror attack but refused to resign and rejected calls for a ceasefire.

• Hamas terrorists released a video of hostages pleading for their release and reading propaganda statements prepared by the terrorists.

• The Israeli military secured the release of a female Israeli soldier “during IDF ground operations.” For security reasons, the circumstances surrounding the release were not disclosed.

• Israeli tanks and ground troops pushed into northern Gaza, reaching the outskirts of Gaza City.

• President Biden’s expressions of support for Israel have taken on a new urgency surrounding the protection of Palestinians in Gaza. See NYTimes, Biden’s Support for Israel Now Comes With Words of Caution.

          As the world fractures over the war in Israel, the incidents of antisemitic threats and intimidation have spiked in the US and beyond. US university campuses have witnessed several ugly incidents of antisemitism, including anonymous threats of violence against Jewish students at Cornell University. In the Russian region of Daghestan, a pro-Palestinian crowd stormed the airport, surrounded a plane that had arrived from Tel Aviv, and “checked passports” looking for Israeli travelers. Putin blamed the antisemitic protest on “outside interference” from “Ukraine and the West.”

          Israel’s war on Hamas terrorists and its impact on Palestinians in Gaza will continue to divide the world and the people of the US. Those divisions cannot be allowed to justify or excuse antisemitism or Islamophobia. But for the Jewish people, the antisemitic actions in response to Israel’s war on Hamas are freighted with the awful burden of the Holocaust—which killed two out of three Jewish people in pre-war Europe.

The war between Israel and Hamas will be long and devastating—for both Israelis and Palestinians. But we cannot forget that the war started with a barbaric attack that targeted Israelis because they were Jews—the same animus that motivated the Holocaust. I know that some readers will respond that the cause of the war is not limited to the terrorist attack on October 7. But we cannot allow any dispute over the origins of the war to obscure the understandable feelings of an existential threat to their existence that the terrorist attack has engendered in Jews across the world.

A few notes on Joe Biden.

          Pundits are predicting disaster for Joe Biden because his unfavourability ratings are increasing in response to his steadfast support for Israel. As with almost every issue one year out from the election, the pundits’ predictions of the future should be ignored—for now. In the meantime, Joe Biden continues the business of governing the largest economy in the world--to great reviews.

          An example is an article by Jill L. Lawrence in The Bulwark, Joe Biden’s Surprising Focus on the Future. Lawrence discusses a number of important investments in the future by Biden but focuses on his recent executive order on “AI”—artificial intelligence. Lawrence writes,

Joe Biden is our oldest president, as everyone keeps saying, but he’s also—despite and possibly because of his age—an unusually forward-looking president.

I’ve had this thought often throughout this administration, and it struck me again when word leaked that Biden would be signing a sweeping executive order this week on artificial intelligence. It’s not the first one, but based on a draft order it obtained, Politico deemed it “the most significant single effort to impose national order on a technology that has shocked many people with its rapid growth.”

Like so much else Biden has prioritized, the AI order is geared toward a better, safer, more livable world for today’s children and generations to come. It’s the latest in a series of Biden administration moves to meet U.S. challenges that former President Donald Trump largely ignored, failed at, or made worse.

          As Biden multi-tasks by managing multiple international crises and a vibrant economy, Trump's one-trick-pony brand of populism is wearing thin—at least with observers who care about his cognitive deterioration. See NYTimes, Trump’s Verbal Slips Could Weaken His Attacks on Biden’s Age - The New York Times.

          If you have not been paying attention, Trump has been piling up gaffes at a pace that can no longer be dismissed as accidents. As noted by the Times,

Mr. Trump has had a string of unforced gaffes, garble and general disjointedness that go beyond his usual discursive nature, and that his Republican rivals are pointing to as signs of his declining performance.

In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has also told supporters not to vote, and claimed to have defeated President Barack Obama in an election. He has praised the collective intellect of an Iranian-backed militant group that has long been an enemy of both Israel and the United States, and repeatedly mispronounced the name of the armed group that rules Gaza.

          So, yes, it is true that Biden is managing an international crisis that will alienate a segment of voters no matter what he does. But it also true that in managing the crisis, he has shown decisiveness, judgment, and wisdom. Over time, that performance will contrast with Trump's deterioration and ignorance. It is difficult to maintain patience as a painful and unfair process unfolds, but do not lose trust in the only outcome that aligns with a rational world in which competency and decency prevail over incompetency and hate.

Trial commences in Colorado to disqualify Trump from the presidential ballot.

          The trial of claims by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) began on Monday in Colorado. See The Hill. CREW seeks to disqualify Trump from the Colorado presidential primary ballot on the ground that he violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Under that Section, a person who engages in insurrection after having taken an oath to uphold the Constitution is prohibited from holding federal office.

          On the first day of trial, Rep. Eric Swalwell testified about the harrowing experience on January 6 as Congress attempted to count the electoral ballots. Capitol Hill police officers and experts on extremism are expected to testify later in the week. There is a near certainty that the US Supreme Court will be the final arbiter of the application of Section 3 to Trump's involvement in the January 6 insurrection.

          Kudos to CREW for undertaking this important effort. Check out CREW’s website if you are interested in supporting its suit to disqualify Trump.

BigTentUSA is hosting Neal Katyal.

          Several hundred readers of this newsletter attended BigTentUSA’s event a week ago with Heather Cox Richardson and Katie Couric. Readers raved about the event. If you missed it, you can check out the video here: Spotlight Speakers: Heather Cox Richardson and Katie Couric.

          BigTentUSA is hosting an event this week with Neal Katyal, known to many as a Supreme Court advocate and frequent commentator on MSNBC. The event will be held on November 1 at 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm EDT. Register here and RSVP here: Spotlight Speaker Series: Neal Katyal - BigTent USA

Concluding Thoughts.

          A reader sent a link to an interesting article by Scott Lilly in Better Choices, Borders. The article is a reflection on the substantial progress toward reducing deaths caused by war by enforcing secure borders through international norms and alliances. If you are in a reflective mood about this difficult moment, the article will give perspective on how far we have advanced the cause of peace despite our present troubles.

          An organizing device of Scott Lilly’s article is to imagine what Winston Churchill would have said to modern politicians about their current policies. Toward the end of the article, Lilly imagines what Churchill would have said to House Republicans who just tied aid to Israel (and Ukraine) to a reduction in funding for the Internal Revenue Service. Here is Lilly’s imagined advice from Churchill to Mike Johnson and his spineless crew:

Your grandparents or perhaps even your great-grandparents suffered through the misery of a world war. In the wake of those horrific times, they helped establish a new order. For the past 73 years tyrants have not succeeded in using the threat of military might to expand their borders. You are the beneficiaries of their efforts and their sacrifice. You have not only enjoyed a period of relative peace not experienced on this planet for more than a thousand years but a concomitant period of prosperity, unimaginable to previous generations.

Don’t mistake your good fortune as being a God-given right. Violence and deprivation are as distant in your future as your perceived will to stand up to would-be oppressors. Your anxiety over the expenditure of an additional $24 billion to send [Vladimir Putin] back to his side of the Russian border is patently absurd. During World War II your country managed to dedicate more than a third of its annual output to conquer fascism. In today’s world $24 billion is less than the output of your economy in a single morning.

You must also know that weakness has a distinct odor. If would-be empire builders around the world get the scent that you are no longer willing or interested in defending international borders, if your allies believe that you will not long help them in protecting their borders, you will suddenly be living in a very different world!

          I will not compare Biden to Churchill. I will leave that comparison, if appropriate, to future historians. But Biden understands what Mike Johnson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Donald Trump do not: That strong international alliances have provided 75 years of relative peace (as measured against wars over the last several centuries). That relative global peace is threatened by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Hamas’s stated desire to “obliterate” the nation of Israel.

          President Biden’s proposal for a $100 billion supplemental aid package is a big request from the American taxpayer and demanding that the aid package be funded in a responsible manner is reasonable. But tying the aid to a windfall for tax cheats that will increase deficits is not reasonable. And we don’t need Winston Churchill to tell us that! We have Joe Biden!

          Talk to you tomorrow!