(The Consumer Price Index rose 0.4% in September, the Labor Department reported Thursday, maintaining an annual rate of 3.7%. Details below.)
FRIDAY 10/13/23
Scalise Takes Himself Out – Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan, John Boehner and Kevin McCarthy were all stripped of their House speaker’s gavel by hardcore Republican forces. Now Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) has removed himself from the race to replace McCarthy, a day after he got just 113 votes (per NPR) in a private GOP House vote.
The next speaker will have to get at least 217 House votes to grab the gavel.
“Our conference still has to come together and it’s not there,” Scalise said after a private Republican meeting in which he announced his withdrawl, per Punchbowl News. “There are still some people that have their own agendas. And I was very clear – we have to have everybody put their agendas on the side and focus on what this country needs. This country is counting on us to come back together. This House of Representatives needs a speaker and we need to open up the House again. But clearly, not everybody is there. And there’s still schisms that have to get resolved.”
Scalise told reporters he will stay on as majority leader. “I have a job I love,” he said. And apparently no one is trying to remove him from it.
But what about: Support for Israel following Hamas’ surprise invasion and attack. And the federal budget, which expired September 30 but was extended by continuing resolution, to November 17. None of this gets done without a House speaker.
Who’s left?: Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is still in the running, we think, and in case that doesn’t work out for the GOP, there’s always the wacky scenario about how McCarthy gathers a sufficient number of increasingly panicked Democrats to vote for him with whatever number of Republicans still count themselves as moderates.
--TL
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THURSDAY 10/12/23
New Charges for Menendez -- The Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office issued additional charges to Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), his wife, Nadine and New Jersey businessman Wael Hawa Thursday. Prosecutors allege the three used Menendez's position as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to benefit the government of Egypt, while failing to register as foreign agents (Politico).
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Inflation Rate is 3.7% -- The Consumer Price Index rose 0.4% in September, the Labor Department reported Thursday, for an annual inflation rate of 3.7%. That's still above the Federal Reserve's 2% target, of course, so do not expect interest rate relief soon. The CPI index for shelter accounted for more than half the increase, while the energy index was up 1.5%, food was up 0.2% and food away from home was up, for the third-straight month, by 0.3%. Used cars and trucks, and apparel were down for the month to partially offset the increases.
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WEDNESDAY 10/11/23
UPDATE -- House Republicans have nominated Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise over Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan. But Scalise now needs 218 votes on the House floor, or support from all but three Republicans or a combination of Republicans and Democrats.
Speaker Madness -- House Republicans scheduled 10 a.m. Wednesday to meet and choose the next speaker. Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) is floating a proposal to raise the threshold to bring a candidate to the floor for a roll call vote, Punchbowl News reports. It would benefit Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who is in favor and not Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), who is not. Meanwhile, Kevin McCarthy appears to be on the sidelines with the hope that neither top candidate will gather enough Republican votes, leaving Democrats to decide the former speaker is their least-worst choice.
--TL
Israel and Ukraine
TUESDAY 10/10/23
Zelenskyy Equates Hamas Attacks with Russia – Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared solidarity with Israel Tuesday, equating Hamas’ attacks with Russia’s invasion of his own country, in posts on X-Twitter (per The Hill), saying “everyone who values life must stand in solidarity.”
“We in Ukraine have a special feeling about what has happened. Thousands of rockets in the Israeli sky… People killed just on the streets… Civilian cars shot through… Detainees being humiliated…Our position is crystal clear: anyone who causes terror and death anywhere on the planet must be held accountable. Today’s terrorist attack on Israel was well-planned, and the entire world knows which sponsors of terrorism could have endorsed and enabled its organization.”
Iran denies: Iran Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei denied his country’s involvement in the Hamas attacks, according to NPR. Khamenei added, “We kiss the hands of those who planned the attack on the Zionist regime.”
Casualties: The Israeli military said it found “hundreds and hundreds” of bodies of Hamas militants who died fighting inside the country, as an indication of the size of the attack, NPR reports. There are no longer infiltrators coming over the Gaza border. More than 900 Israelis have been killed by Hamas attacks and rocket fire, Israel says. Palestinian officials say at least 680 people were killed in Gaza and by Israeli strikes.
--TL
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War and Terrorism
MONDAY 10/9/23
Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu immediately declared war after the Iranian-backed militant group Hamas launched terrorist attacks against his country, Saturday. Over the weekend, Hamas had pounded Israel with more than 4,000 missiles, according to CNN. By Monday morning Eastern time, Hamas had killed more than 1,000 Israelis, BBC reports, including 260 youth at a dance festival. Hamas had taken “dozens” of hostages, kidnapping men, women and children from the southern portion of the country into Gaza (NPR). Israel has shut off electricity, fuel and food to Gaza. About 500 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict (BBC).
The U.S. Navy is sending a carrier strike group to the region, not as a symbolic move, but to show it’s “quite important” to keep Hamas from opening a second front, Jon Finer, White House deputy advisor to the White House told Morning Edition.
Senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America and former Vice President Dick Cheney’s national security advisor, John Hannah, told The New York Times’ Peter Baker it seems “highly probable to me” that Saturday’s attack had origins in Iran and Hezbollah’s home base of Lebanon with the goal of “derailing the momentum toward peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia,” a key Biden administration diplomatic initiative to reach a deal “akin” to the Abraham Accords.
President Biden quickly expressed U.S. support for Israel, but that did not stop accusations from the right that the recent White House hostage deal with Iran had prompted the attacks.
“Sadly, American taxpayer dollars helped fund these attacks, which many reports are saying came from the Biden administration,” Trump said in a formal statement.
No American taxpayer dollars were paid to Iran in the hostage deal, Baker writes. “The Biden administration signed off on the release of $6 billion of Iranian oil revenue frozen in South Korea and decreed that it be kept in a bank in Qatar available only for humanitarian proposes,” Baker reports, adding that officials said last Saturday that none of the money has been spent.
This war comes 50 years after an attack by an Arab coalition launched the Yom Kippur War and led to the end of Prime Minister Golda Meir’s leadership. Now questions are being raised over why Israel’s elite intelligence force were caught off-guard by the attacks, and what effect it will have on the government of Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has been a hardliner on the issue of a Palestinian homeland.
The war between Israel and Hamas also comes after circulation of a video from an Iranian subway station of another young woman apparently being attacked by authorities for wearing “improper” clothing, and days after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa