I’m guessing not, since just for starters, she has 1.7 million FBOOK followers. The overall volume must be too much for any one person to read. Maybe she has an assistant who gets the gist of it all and reports back to her.
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Probably a grad student…
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October 10, 2023 (Tuesday)
“[T]here are moments in this life…when the pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed on this world. The people of Israel lived through one such moment this weekend.”
So began President Joe Biden’s speech today about the attacks in Israel at “[t]he bloody hands of the terrorist organization Hamas—a group whose stated purpose for being is to kill Jews.”
“This was an act of sheer evil,” Biden said.
He described the slaughter in Israel in detail, noting that it looked much like “the worst rampages of ISIS,” as its fighters ravaged Iraq and Syria.
“But sadly, for the Jewish people, it’s not new,” he said. “This attack has brought to the surface painful memories and the scars left by…millennia of antisemitism and genocide of the Jewish people.”
“So, in this moment, we must be crystal clear,” he said. “We stand with Israel…. And we will make sure Israel has what it needs to take care of its citizens, defend itself, and respond to this attack.”
Biden was careful to distinguish between Hamas and the Palestinians. “Hamas does not stand for the Palestinian people’s right to dignity and self-determination,” Biden said. “Its stated purpose is the annihilation of the State of Israel and the murder of Jewish people…. Hamas offers nothing but terror and bloodshed with no regard to who pays the price.”
Former ambassador of Israel to the United States Michael Oren wrote on social media: “President Biden’s speech was the most passionately pro-Israel in history. The president stood four square behind the Jewish state and the Jewish people and unequivocally against terror and anti-Semitism, and pledged the power of the US to our defense. Our people will always remember and cherish this speech and the man who delivered it.” Israeli president Isaac Herzog agreed: “On behalf of the entire people of Israel, thank you [President] Joe Biden.”
President of the Arab American Institute James Zogby told Barak Ravid of Axios that the speech “was expected, but it was disappointing…. What I would have hoped for today is a call for restraint and for ceasefire…and a U.S. effort to play a leadership role in bringing about an end to the violence and offering some hope—both to Palestinians and to Israelis—that their security mattered, that their futures mattered,” he said.
But Biden’s speech did more than simply express moral support for Israel. It outlined increased U.S. military assistance to Israel, more U.S. intelligence, and more U.S. military force in the region “to strengthen our deterrence.”
That deterrence is undoubtedly a key part of the reason for this strong statement about the U.S. stance in the region, as leaders are eager to stop the crisis from expanding. “Let me say again—to any country, any organization, anyone thinking of taking advantage of this situation, I have one word: Don’t,” Biden said. “Don’t. Our hearts may be broken, but our resolve is clear.”
That determination to limit the spread of the fighting by shoring up alliances and partnerships was behind the president’s working of the phones all weekend and was likely part of the more than three dozen meetings he and Vice President Kamala Harris have held with the national security team since the crisis began.
The effort to keep the violence from spreading will be at least part of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s role when he travels tomorrow to Israel and Jordan. The U.S. is talking to Israel and Egypt about establishing a humanitarian corridor between the Gaza Strip and Egypt that will enable Palestinians to evacuate.
The president’s speech was not without notice to Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vowed fierce retribution against all the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip for the actions of Hamas. Biden said that in a recent phone call the two had discussed “how democracies like Israel and the United States are stronger and more secure when we act according to the rule of law. Terrorists…purposefully target civilians, kill them. We uphold the laws of war,” Biden said, laws that prohibit deliberate targeting of civilians and require proportionate responses. “It matters. There’s a difference.”
Monica Alba, Carol E. Lee, and Peter Nicholas of NBC News reported the conversation was stronger than Biden’s speech indicated, with Biden warning Netanyahu that the U.S. will be watching closely for blowback to excessive force, especially if such force kills civilians.
Biden also suggested that the forces at work in Israel today could threaten us here in the U.S. He noted that the police departments, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are taking steps to increase security around centers of Jewish life. “Let’s be real clear,” Biden said. “There is no place for hate in America—not against Jews, not against Muslims, not against anybody…. [What] we reject is terrorism. We condemn the indiscriminate evil, just as we’ve always done.”
The speech undercut those Republicans who are threatening to withhold funds from Ukraine. The White House is also trying to get the Senate to confirm Jack Lew, Biden’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to Israel. This is a crucially important position in ordinary times, but even more so in such a crisis. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has been holding up his nomination.
Meanwhile, Congress as a whole is in limbo as House Republicans appear to be no closer to uniting behind a speaker. Today, four of the former Ohio State University wrestlers who claim Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) covered for a sexual predator when he was an assistant coach there spoke up against his election as speaker. “Do you really want a guy in that job who chose not to stand up for his guys?” one said. “Is that the kind of character trait you want for a House speaker?”
Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC) entered the Republican candidate forum today wearing a white T-shirt with a red letter “A” on it, saying she was doing so because of the backlash she faced as “a woman up here, and being demonized for my vote and for my voice.” Mace, one of the eight House Republicans who voted to get rid of former speaker Kevin McCarthy, said the A was her “scarlet letter,” an apparent reference to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 novel involving a woman forced to wear a scarlet A after giving birth to a child without identifying the father. MSNBC host Katie Phang called the stunt “performative nonsense,” and it does seem to indicate a preoccupation with media hits that appears to have taken over the party.
The Republicans had another setback today when a new indictment against New York Representative George Santos added 10 more charges against him, including lying about donations to jump-start his political career and then stealing money from donors to buy designer goods and pay his own debts.
The Democrats are united behind Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).
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I am relieved to see this. I’m very afraid for the Palestinians lives. I am also afraid of the ways in which Netanyahu could use this conflict to further erode Israeli democracy and the rights of Israelis
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October 11, 2023 (Wednesday)
Tonight, a limited letter tied tightly to today’s news because I am wiped out from the hours I’ve been keeping. Hoping to have my batteries back into the green by the weekend.
In a secret vote by the House Republican Conference today, Representative Steve Scalise (R-LA) won the race to become the Republican candidate for speaker of the House of Representatives, beating out Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) by 113 to 99.
In the past, the conference as a whole would have stood behind the majority’s choice, but traditional rules no longer apply to today’s Republican Party. Three of Jordan’s supporters have already said they will not support Scalise, and Representative George Santos (R-NY) is complaining that Scalise hasn’t called him, convincing him to throw his vote to “ANYONE but Scalise and come hell or high water I won’t change my mind.”
To become speaker, Scalise needs 217 votes. Unless he can attract Democratic votes, he cannot lose more than 4 Republican votes. All 212 House Democrats remain united behind Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), meaning that he is closer to a majority than any of the Republican candidates.
Rather than hold a floor vote to elect a speaker today, the House recessed in order to let Scalise try to get his ducks in a row.
Both Scalise and Jordan are Trump supporters; both went along with the lie that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent. Early in his career, Scalise compared himself to Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke “without the baggage,” while Jordan is accused of overlooking sexual assault when he was an assistant wrestling coach and was a key player in the January 6, 2021, attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. It is astonishing that a major U.S. political party is considering either man to become the second in line for the presidency.
As the Republicans try to line up behind one of the two candidates—so far—the chaos is hobbling the government. Until the House is organized again under a new speaker, it cannot provide aid to Ukraine or Israel, or work toward reaching an agreement on next year’s budget before the continuing resolution funding the government at 2023 levels runs out in mid-November. Or do pretty much anything other than try to elect a speaker.
Senate Republicans are creating their own chaos. Joe Gould and Connor O’Brien of Politico reported today that in the Senate, Democrats are trying to push through the hold Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) has placed on more than 300 military promotions as well as other senators’ holds on a number of diplomatic officers. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) has called for a reform of the current nominations process, which permits a single senator to stop confirmations.
In light of the crisis in the Middle East, the holds reveal how easy it is for a senator or two to weaken the United States. Gould and O’Brien point out that Tuberville’s hold means that two of the senior military positions in the region are unconfirmed, as are State Department appointments including ambassadorships to Middle Eastern countries—among them both Egypt and Israel—and the department’s top counterterrorism position.
These are not controversial appointments in their own right. Republicans are using them as leverage for their own policy goals. Pentagon officials have warned senators that the holds are disrupting our national security and that of our allies and partners.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court today heard arguments in Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, a gerrymandering case notable in part because the attorneys and justices all agree that the Republican-dominated South Carolina legislature constructed a district map rigged in favor of Republicans so dramatically that it is virtually impossible for Republicans to lose.
In the 2019 Rucho v. Common Cause decision, the Supreme Court ruled that partisan gerrymandering was a state question rather than a federal one, making it impossible to challenge partisan gerrymanders in federal courts. But partisan gerrymanders quite often overlap with racial gerrymanders, and the question before the court in Alexander is whether the South Carolina map violated the law by being racially discriminatory. A federal three-judge panel agreed that it did, but if the Supreme Court disagrees, the process of carving up districts so politicians can pick their own voters will have gotten even easier.
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October 12, 2023 (Thursday)
We are in a bizarre moment.
If the U.S. government were operating within its normal parameters, my first story tonight would be about new federal charges that Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) was acting as an agent of Egypt while chairing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Democratic rules in the Senate required Menendez to step down from that chair when he was charged with bribery in late September.
The new charges are serious indeed. As Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) said today, calling for Menendez to be expelled from the Senate: “We cannot have an alleged foreign agent in the United States Senate. This is not a close call.”
If the government were working as usual, I would also be writing about Congress’s response to the crisis in the Middle East and the war in Ukraine, as well as the jockeying over the appropriations bills necessary to fund the government for 2024. But the House was in session for just two minutes today as the Republicans continued to struggle to get behind a new speaker, leaving Congress paralyzed.
That paralysis means that the House is not addressing these crises.
The crisis in Israel is uppermost in the United States. The news has been plagued with disinformation as the algorithms on social media have promoted fake stories, but President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have been crystal clear in their condemnation of the attack on Israel by Hamas last Saturday and in their promise that the U.S. will stand with Israel.
They have also made it clear that Israel must operate according to the rules of war in order to avoid civilian casualties. Hamas does not observe those rules, and various U.S. officials have compared Hamas’s brutality to that of the terrorist group ISIS, while nonetheless reinforcing the importance of the rule of law. Israeli officials say that 1,300 people were killed and more than 3,000 wounded in the initial attack; officials in Gaza say that Israeli airstrikes since have killed more than 1,500 people and wounded more than 6,600.
The airstrikes, consisting of 6,000 munitions in six days, have forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians out of their homes, and Israel has cut food, fuel, and electricity to Gaza, saying the siege will not end until all the hostages Hamas took are returned.
Talks with Egypt about constructing humanitarian corridors out of Gaza have broken down, but talks about rushing humanitarian aid into Gaza from Egypt continue.
Secretary Blinken is in Israel and has expanded his trip to the troubled region, visiting not only Israel and Jordan, as originally announced, but also Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt, where he will meet with senior officials. There, the State Department said, he will “reiterate his condemnation of the terrorist attacks in Israel in the strongest terms,” “reaffirm the United States’ solidarity with the government and people of Israel,” and “engage regional partners on efforts to help prevent the conflict from spreading, secure the immediate and safe release of hostages, and identify mechanisms for the protection of civilians.”
Meanwhile, a former Hamas leader has called for protests across the Muslim world tomorrow and for Israel’s neighbors to join the fight against Israel.
Starting tomorrow, the U.S. government will begin running charter flights to enable U.S. citizens and their immediate family members who have not been able to book commercial flights to leave Israel. Twenty-seven American citizens have been confirmed dead in the attack, and fourteen are unaccounted for.
Tonight the Israeli military told the United Nations that the 1.1 million people in northern Gaza must evacuate into the southern part within 24 hours as it prepares to go into Gaza, at least in part to target the extensive network of tunnels Hamas has constructed for its operations. U.N. officials said the U.N. “considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences.”
The crisis in Ukraine has not ended while all eyes are on the crisis in the Middle East. The Institute for the Study of War concluded that Russian forces have launched “a significant and ongoing offensive effort” in the past two days but “have not secured any major breakthroughs,” as Ukraine’s forces are “inflicting relatively heavy losses.”
Meanwhile, House Republicans are further from reorganizing the House tonight than they were even a day ago. House majority leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), who won the conference’s secret ballot over Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) yesterday, has given up hope of turning that victory into a win on the House floor and has withdrawn from the race. Former speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) broke the secrecy of the conference to tell reporters that Scalise didn’t have the votes, a signal that McCarthy is not intending to fade into the background of this struggle.
Aaron Fritschner, the chief of staff for Representative Don Beyer (D-VA), noted today that since it’s mid-session, no new candidate for speaker has prime positions to offer in exchange for votes. Leadership positions have already been handed out, and legislative promises have already been made. That leaves a potential speaker with relatively little leverage to consolidate power.
Representative David Joyce (R-OH) revealed how badly the negotiations are going when he told Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News that he’s talking to Republicans and Democrats about giving acting speaker Patrick McHenry (R-NC) more power for 30 to 60 days so that the House can pass a funding bill while the Republicans try to get their act together.
The Republican chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Mike McCaul of Texas, today told reporters, “Every day that goes by, it gets more dangerous.” He continued: “I see a lot of threats out there, but one of the biggest threats I see is in that room [pointing to where the Republicans were meeting], because we can’t unify as a conference and put a speaker in the chair together.”
House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) today said it is “urgently necessary” for the Republicans to “get their act together and elect a Speaker from within their own ranks, as it is the responsibility of the majority party to do, or have traditional Republicans break with the extremists within the House Republican Conference and partner with Democrats on a bipartisan path forward. We are ready, willing, and able to do so. I know there are traditional Republicans who are good women and men who want to see government function, but they are unable to do it within the ranks of their own conference, which is dominated by the extremist wing, and that’s why we continue to extend the hand of bipartisanship to them.”
Journalist Brian Tyler Cohen, who hosts the podcast No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, summed up the day when he wrote: “The fact that ALL Republicans would rather fight over Scalise (who attended a neo-Nazi event) or Jordan (who allegedly covered up rampant sexual abuse) rather than simply work with Democrats to elect a Speaker says it all.”
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See also: the fact that almost all Republicans will still vote for Trump over Biden if Trump is the GOP nominee. Anything but a Democrat.
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I’m on it, I’m on it…
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I’ve been doing that for a while, Heather… 
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Law school certainly involves a good deal of legal history. Which is still history, I guess.
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(I should’ve noted that it’s a review of her new book.)
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I’ve never taken a law class, but I’d assume that the historical context around particular aspects of the law would be critical to fully understanding it… Maybe being a lawyer is just a particular kind of pratical historical practice? 
Also, I read the article, and while I agree with her point that studying history gives you some good practical skills (reading and writing effectively), I kind of wish she’d gone a bit deeper into the social/cultural importance that isn’t just about, again, job skills. It’s still kind of a “neo-liberal” way of justifying a profession or path of study… One also learns empathy, a greater understanding of how we are connected to our communities and the world around us, how history isn’t just about great men in fancy rooms, making important decisions 
that we all have to live with… a good study of history also reminds us that they are not the only agents of history, that we all have the ability to shape the future, and even to make it better (or worse, like we seem to be doing). it helps people to understand cause and effect in life, and to understand that nothing is really inevitable, rather it is the sum of choices made and that we can make different choices… But we’re never going to get out of this rut humanity seems to be in if we don’t come to grips with that stuff, and that happens with a good education, which far too many of us are denied.
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I bought her book and have been listening to it with my husband in the car. It’s a great refresher and “how did we get here” kind of book for laymen who want context.
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Oh, Nikita!
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They really should have let him go there, things might have been a bit more relaxed.
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