<Between rows of portable toilets, a line of strangers waited be baptized in an aluminum horse trough. One by one, they emerged from water heated all day by the Nevada sun, united in purpose as new soldiers for Donald Trump.

Nearby, Christian rock blared from a large tent where pastors standing before the main stage prayed and laid hands on attendees of the ReAwaken America Tour, a far-right religious roadshow now in its third year.

Helmed by retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn — a supporter of the former president and a key figure in efforts to overturn the 2020 election — and Clay Clark, an Oklahoma entrepreneur and podcaster, the whirlwind event melds the MAGA movement, election denial, QAnon conspiracy theories and doomsday prophecy.

The two-day church revival held in August just outside Las Vegas featured nearly 70 speakers who preached that vaccines are poisonous and will bring about the end of the world, that a cabal of global leaders is engaged in child sex trafficking and that the 2020 election was stolen.

Through it all was an apocalyptic drumbeat that the country will be destroyed if Trump doesn't become president again. God wants him to win in 2024, speakers proclaimed to their audience, and as Christians they have been called upon to ensure he does.

"We know the one in charge up above, and I can tell you that I believe that he has his hand now on Donald Trump, that no weapon formed against him shall prosper," Trump's daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, told the crowd. "God is a part of this race. I'm telling you guys this. I feel it deep down inside."

Thousands have attended ReAwaken America on its dozens of stops across the country. Clark began the tour in 2021 to protest COVID-19 public health restrictions, and with Flynn’s help it has gained a reputation for promoting Christian nationalist beliefs alongside right-wing conspiracy theories.

On Friday, the tour is scheduled to stop for the second time this year at the Trump National Doral resort in Miami, and Clark hinted that the former president may appear. In December, the tour heads to Tulare in the Central Valley, hometown of former California Rep. Devin Nunes, a Trump supporter who now serves as chief executive of his media company.

Over the last year, the tour has become increasingly focused on reelecting Trump. In North Las Vegas, several speakers referred to him as the "rightful president." Self-described prophets spoke of Trump as God's "anointed one," and presenters told the crowd that his reelection is necessary to save the country from evil.

“Just as Jesus Christ our heavenly father saved me, I am absolutely convinced that he will deliver Donald Trump and save this nation in our greatest moment of peril,” former Trump political advisor Roger Stone told the crowd.

Rhetoric on the tour can veer toward the violent, invoking deliverance and final judgment. A crowd wearing red "Make America Great Again" caps and clothing emblazoned with the American flag roared with laughter when far-right radio personality Stew Peters called for the deaths of President Biden's son Hunter and retired White House chief medical advisor Anthony Fauci.

“Let's be clear. Accountability is God's job. But it's not solely God's job. No, it's our job too,” Peters said. “When [Fauci] is convicted after a short and fast but thorough trial, he will hang up from a length of thick rope until he is dead. … When [Hunter Biden] is convicted … he will get … death!”

Association with such an event would once have been career-ending in politics. But the tour features a who's who of Trump’s inner circle, a demonstration of how valuable Trump-world views the support of the far right in the 2024 election.

In addition to Stone and Lara Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and his partner, Kimberly Guilfoyle, spoke at the North Las Vegas conference. So did Trump lawyer Alina Habba and former Defense Department staffer Kash Patel, who sits on the board of the Trump Media & Technology Group, which operates the internet platform Truth Social.

In his keynote speech, Trump Jr. issued a dire warning about the election, telling the audience that they had to get involved to counter opposition from mainstream conservatives.

"If we don't wake up and we don't reset, it will also be the beginning of the end of everything that we know," he said.....>

<.....As moderate Republicans have become less excited about Trump, the importance of the far right to his reelection chances has grown, said Georgetown University government professor Clyde Wilcox.

Wilcox said conspiracy theories and the extreme elements of the Christian right have been a part of the Republican Party since at least the 1990s, but no mainstream politician has embraced them as Trump has.

“Trump didn't just jump the shark, he jumped the mosasaur,” Wilcox said. “Trump really, really increased the visibility, the outreach [of the far right]. It's become a personality cult for many of these people.”

Trump, who is leading polling for the Republican presidential nomination by a wide margin, has talked about bringing treason charges against the free press and has had dinner with white nationalist Nick Fuentes. He routinely reposts QAnon conspiracy theorists on his social media accounts.

Why the former president has faced little repercussion for his embrace of the far-right isn't clear, said Rita Kirk, director of the Maguire Center for Ethics and Public Responsibility at Southern Methodist University.

"They're going to vote for Trump, in Trump's words, [even] if he shoots somebody in downtown Manhattan, right?" she said of his most ardent supporters. "It doesn't matter. They're going to support him. And he knows that."

Throughout the ReAwaken conference, two life-sized paintings hung at the back of the stage. In one, Trump was pictured at the center, an American flag over his shoulder, his sons in the background. In another, Flynn, whom organizers call "America's general," was pictured in full military uniform, a bald eagle flying through a lightning storm behind him.

Additional portraits of the former president were for sale at a campaign merchandise booth that stretched along the back of the ReAwaken America tent, depicting Trump ripping open his suit to display a superhero costume or as a shirtless boxer wearing a title belt.

Speakers repeatedly referenced Trump’s campaign, his multiple felony charges and the mugshot taken of him in Atlanta, where he has been indicted on conspiracy charges in connection with efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

"When they arrested Trump, the Lord said something very clear to me: 'They also arrested who? Jesus. How did that turn out for them?'" said Bo Polny, a Newport Beach-based social media personality whose YouTube channel blends discussions of gold, cryptocurrency and the Bible. He dedicated his 15 minutes on stage to alleged prophecies about Trump.

"Touch not my anointed," he said. "It is written in the Bible."

Flynn told the audience that the ReAwaken America Tour will hold monthly events ahead of the 2024 election, using the language of war to describe efforts supporting Trump.

“These people don’t realize what they are up against. We will never quit, we will never surrender," he said, gesturing to a screen displaying Trump's mugshot.

Likening the presidential campaign to a righteous battle, speakers cautioned those present that they had been victimized by a “deep state” trying to control them, their health and their families.

“We all know what’s going on right now in this country," Lara Trump said. "It’s not about Republican versus Democrat. It is good versus evil, and the good will win — and it has to win."

ReAwaken America allows attendees to get up close to the far-right personalities they have come to trust. Selfie lines extended the length of the tent after speeches by Flynn, Stone and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who has poured millions of dollars into efforts to advance discredited assertions of fraud in the 2020 election. As each speaker was introduced, screams of joy could be heard hundreds of feet away from the main stage.....>

<.....Less-known speakers and right-wing media personalities spent time mingling in the crowd, giving hugs and signing hats.

Ian Smith, who gained attention for refusing to close his New Jersey gym during the pandemic lockdown, received pats on the back after leaving the stage. Seth Keshel, a former Army captain who travels the country claiming that election fraud is rampant, listened to many of the other speakers from the audience before and after his speech on getting involved in local elections. Micki Witthoeft, the mother of rioter Ashli Babbitt of California, who was killed by police inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was repeatedly stopped by attendees as she wound her way through the crowd. She was there to raise funds for Jan. 6 insurrection defendants.

Those who attended the tour said it was a safe space for them.

Linda Hoy, 62, of Henderson, Nev., said she wanted to “just spend a couple of days with like-minded, patriotic, God-fearing, Jesus Christ-loving people and to hear from the speakers about our health and actions that we can take to save our country from communism.”

Attendees could also browse through merchandise booths in a rambling bazaar, where T-shirts, dietary supplements, water purification systems, handwritten manifestos, art and fitness equipment were available for purchase. A company called Redemption Shield vowed its products would protect users from 5G cellular frequency bands.

Dr. Stella Immanuel, a proponent of the theory — heavily criticized by public health authorities — that the drug hydroxychloroquine cures COVID-19, manned a booth selling her supplements. Children’s books about Trump and the so-called deep state written by Patel were prominently displayed. Lindell greeted buyers at the MyPillow booth after his speech, which included a plea for donations to his legal defense fund. Facing multiple defamation suits in connection with his 2020 election claims, Lindell was reported last week to owe millions of dollars to attorneys who are seeking to withdraw from those cases.

Like at other stops, the tour struggled to find a location for the event, Clark said, noting that organizers spent $600,000 erecting the air-conditioned tent in a North Las Vegas park because they were rejected by venues in Las Vegas over fears of “reputational risk.” Tickets didn't include the event name and were instead labeled as being for the “Fresh-Roasted Coffee Fest & Expo.” Attendees were given a discounted room rate at the Trump International Hotel on the Strip.

As in church, baskets were passed to collect offerings to help organizers offset the cost of the event.

One reason the tour has struggled to find venues is the group Faithful America has petitioned local officials not to issue permits to ReAwaken America organizers and urged businesses not to rent them space.

The Rev. Nathan Empsall, a critic of Christian nationalism who serves as the executive director of the organization, said his group arranged for mobile billboards to circle the Las Vegas event.

“Christian nationalism, and in particular, white Christian nationalism, is probably the biggest threat to both American democracy and the church today," Empsall told The Times. "And the Reawaken America Tour is one of the clearest and most blatant examples of Christian nationalism.”

Empsall argued that the tour is about power and politics, not faith, and said Christians have an obligation to denounce what Clark and Flynn are doing.

Speakers "know that by attaching themselves to the thing people hold most dear — their faith, their genuine relationship to God — maybe they can make those folks hold them equally dearly [and] get to a point that to question Trump or Flynn or Stone or the dozen pastors on stage with them is to question God, when of course that's not true," Empsall said....>

<.....Misinformation and conspiracy theories flowed freely at the event.

One speaker warned that a global plan was in place to merge humans with machines and control them using artificial intelligence. Another urged people not to take any vaccines or medications except for the supplements she was selling at her booth.

"The No. 1 message I can share with you is you are right. Everything you believe is right,” far-right site Gateway Pundit contributor Joe Hoft told the crowd during his speech about the state of the country.

Maria Zeee, a self-described independent journalist from Australia, said that weather modification technology was being used to take over America, and that a cabal of world leaders would make it impossible to access money or to travel without being inoculated.

“That is the plan unless we stop these Luciferian maniacs,” Zeee said. “These people want you under their control or dead. You must understand this.”

Participants gasped and whispered to one another as they heard an April 2013 recording of Kim Clement, a late South African preacher, apparently prophesying Trump's presidency.

“There is a man by the name of Donald,” Clement said. “God said, ‘You have been determined through your prayers to influence this nation. … I will open that door that you prayed about, and when it comes time for the election you will be elected.'”

Clement's daughter, Donné Clement Petruska, called the audience "warriors of a new millennium."

"You are those people he saw — the remnant that God would use to wake up and save this country," Petruska said of her father. "And so it's not just Donald Trump. Donald Trump is at the head taking the hits, but we are behind him."

Wilcox, the government professor, said there is an element of the religious far-right that has embraced the idea of Trump as savior even though his actions may be antithetical to their beliefs.

“If everything is falling apart, if the danger is immense, then actually we can overlook his personal flaws because sometimes God raises up a strong man to do what's needed. I mean, it's the theology they're creating for themselves there,” Wilcox said.

The night before most attendees arrived, at least 100 gathered at the tent for a Pastors for Trump meeting. The ReAwaken America Tour offers discount tickets for pastors.

“Right now in this free country, the ungodly are attacking President Trump for trying to protect us,” said Pastor John Bennett, a former chair of the Oklahoma Republican Party and former congressional candidate.

Oklahoma pastor Jackson Lahmeyer, who helped create Pastors for Trump, said the group has organized more than 10,000 pastors across the United States ahead of the 2024 election to mobilize evangelicals.

“If they vote their value system, my friends, I guarantee you they will vote for Donald Trump in 2024,” Lahmeyer told the crowd.

Julie Green, who calls herself a prophet, told the gathered pastors they were in both a revolutionary and civil war.

“Right now we are under the greatest attack that we’ve ever been in," Green said. "We’re under attack not only for our nation, we’re in attack in our bodies. We’re in attack in our minds. Our enemy is going out and he’s doing everything he possibly can. He is trying to destroy each and every one of you individually.”

Like many of the speakers, Green referred to Trump as the "rightful president" as she led her audience in a prayer.

“Not only has he been attacked, but we all have been attacked,” she said.

Trump and many of his supporters cast a dark picture of the world and seek the support of religious groups, said NYU history professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who is an expert on fascism, authoritarianism and threats to democracies. She said both are common methods of securing allegiance by authoritarian leaders, a group that she says includes Trump.

She called the ReAwaken America Tour a “radicalization event.”

“[Authoritarian leaders] get buy-in and allies from religious institutions; it’s really important, and they’re often the most impious people,” she said. “They have to create a sense of crisis, and then they present themselves as the saviors.”

Alex Newman, who runs a far-right website, used biblical passages to claim that the deep state and major political and social institutions are in a spiritual battle with God.

“They're gonna keep stealing elections as long as we let them, and our nation is at war," Newman told the crowd. "Forces from the pit of hell are working to destroy our country, our families, our churches, our freedoms, our Constitution, even humanity itself. And at this point, they're saying so pretty openly.”

As they listened to the speakers, ReAwaken participants fanned themselves with handwritten prophecy screeds claiming that the end of the world is near. Sweat trickled from their hairlines.

<Increasingly desperate Republicans convened behind closed doors again Friday as the endless search for a House speaker drags deeper into a second week leaving the GOP majority spiraling into chaos for the foreseeable future.

Attention swiftly turned to Rep. Jim Jordan, the Trump-allied Judiciary Committee chairman and founder of the hard-line Freedom Caucus as the next potential candidate after Majority Leader Steve Scalise abruptly ended his bid when it became clear hard-line holdouts refused to back him.

But not all Republicans want to see Jordan as speaker, second in line to the presidency. Overwhelmed and exhausted, anxious GOP lawmakers worry their House majority is being frittered away to countless rounds of infighting over rules, personalities and direction of the GOP.

"Someone said 'You know, you could put Jesus Christ up for Speaker of the House, and he still wouldn’t get 217,” said Rep. Mark Alford, R-Mo., about the number needed to win a floor vote.

Next steps are uncertain as the House is essentially closed while the Republican majority is expected to convene again in the afternoon for the internal nominating speeches to elect a speaker after ousting Kevin McCarthy from the job.

“I think Jordan would do a great job," said McCarthy, whose own allies are trying to reinstate him as speaker. “We got to get this back on track.” Jordan and his backers instantly revived calls for party members to get behind the Ohio Republican.

Backed by Trump, the Republican frontrunner to challenge Joe Biden in 2024, Jordan had nominally dropped out of the race he initially lost to Scalise, 113-99, during internal balloting at the start of the week.

“Make him the speaker. Do it tonight,” said Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind. “He’s the only one who can unite our party.”

Jordan also received an important nod Friday from the Republican party's campaign chairman, Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., who made an attempt to unify the fighting factions.

“Removing Speaker Kevin McCarthy was a mistake,” Hudson wrote on social media, saying the party finds itself at a crossroads also blocking Scalise. “We must unite around one leader.”

Heading into the morning meeting, Jordan said: “I feel real good.”

While the firebrand Jordan has a long list of detractors who started making their opposition known, Jordan's supporters said voting against Jordan during a public vote on the House floor would be tougher since he is so popular and well known among Trump voters.

Other potential speaker choices were also being floated. Some Republicans proposed simply giving Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., who was appointed interim speaker pro tempore, greater authority to lead the House for some time.

With the House narrowly split 221-212, with two vacancies, any nominee can lose just a few Republicans before they fail to reach the 217 majority needed in the face of opposition from Democrats who will most certainly back their own leader, New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries.

Absences heading into the weekend could lower the majority threshold needed, or push the House floor vote for speaker into next week. Republicans said they were down about a dozen lawmakers as of midday Friday. No floor votes are scheduled as attendance thinned before the weekend.

In announcing his decision to withdraw from the nomination, Scalise said late Thursday the Republican majority still has to come together and “open up the House again. But clearly not everybody is there.”

Asked if he would throw his support behind Jordan, Scalise said, “It’s got to be people that aren’t doing it for themselves and their own personal interest.”

Scalise had been laboring to peel off more than 100 votes, mostly from those who backed Jordan. But many hard-liners taking their cues from Trump have dug in for a prolonged fight to replace McCarthy after his historic ouster from the job....>

<.....The hold-outs argued that as majority leader, Scalise was no better choice, that he should be focusing on his health as he battles cancer and that he was not the leader they would support. The House closed late in the night, with lawmakers vowing to meet again early Friday.

Handfuls of Republicans announced they were sticking with Jordan, McCarthy or someone other than Scalise — including Trump. The position as House speaker does not need to go to a member of Congress.

Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, repeatedly discussed Scalise’s health during a radio interview that aired Thursday.

“Well, I like Steve. I like both of them very much. But the problem, you know, Steve is a man that is in serious trouble, from the standpoint of his cancer,” Trump said on Fox News host Brian Kilmeade’s radio show.

Scalise has been diagnosed with a form of blood cancer known as multiple myeloma and is being treated, but has also said he was definitely up for the speaker's job.

McCarthy said afterward that Scalise would remain as majority leader but had no other advice for his colleagues.

Another California Republican Rep. Tom McClintock had introduced a motion to reinstate McCarthy during Friday's morning meeting, but it was tabled without enough support.

“I just told them, no, let’s not do that," McCarthy said afterward. "Let’s walk through this and have an election.”

The House is entering its second week without a speaker and is essentially unable to function during a time of turmoil in the U.S. and wars overseas. The political pressure increasingly is on Republicans to reverse course, reassert majority control and govern in Congress.

The situation is not fully different from the start of the year, when McCarthy faced a similar backlash from a different group of far-right holdouts who ultimately gave their votes to elect him speaker, then engineered his historic downfall.

But the math this time is even more daunting, and the problematic political dynamic only worsening.

Exasperated Democrats, who have been waiting for the Republican majority to recover from McCarthy’s ouster, urged them to figure it out.

“The House Democrats have continued to make clear that we are ready, willing and able to find a bipartisan path forward,” he said, including doing away with the rule that allows a single lawmaker to force a vote against the speaker. “But we need traditional Republicans to break from the extremists and partner with us.”>

<Serves Belichick right for dumping Tom Brady. They should have drafted/signed a couple wide receivers for targets. Now the Patriots can't score with a... paid masseuse. No offense, peri douche.>

Of course, the point overlooked here by the GOAT (hahahahaha!!) is that Brady was not on the younger side; it was high time to snatch a QB in the draft and start looking towards the future.

<A Trump-appointed judge dealt a blow to Texas Republicans after he ruled that Galveston County violated the federal Voting Rights Act by splitting up Black and Latino communities so that white voters would make up a larger percentage of the electorate in each precinct.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump in 2019, ruled against the GOP-drawn map on Friday, calling the map a "clear violation" of federal law and determining that it "denies Black and Latino voters the equal opportunity to participate in the political process and the opportunity to elect a representative of their choice to the commissioners court."

The case in Texas is one of several legal disputes that have popped up across the country challenging the redrawing of voting maps after the 2020 Census. Earlier this week, the Supreme Court heard arguments about South Carolina's congressional map.

"This is not a typical redistricting case," Brown wrote. "What happened here was stark and jarring. The commissioners court transformed Precinct 3 from the precinct with the highest percentage of Black and Latino residents to that with the lowest percentage."

The county has been ordered to redraw the map within the week, by October 20, and plaintiffs will have until October 27 to voice their objections. If the county fails to submit a new plan, Brown said he will force them to implement the map drawn by Anthony Fairfax, a redistricting expert retained by the Justice Department. A new map also needs to be adopted before November 11 for the upcoming 2024 presidential election.

Although Galveston County is predominately [sic] white and Republican, the county is also home to a large population of Black and Latino voters who tend to lean Democratic. Brown noted that the dynamic is reflected in the county's leadership, writing that the candidate supported by white voters is more likely to win an election under the redistricting map.

"The undisputed evidence shows that Anglo voters in Galveston County vote cohesively and for candidates opposing those supported by a majority of Black and Latino voters," Brown wrote. "Anglo voters do so at a rate sufficient to defeat the minority-preferred candidate consistently in each of the enacted commissions-court precincts."

The County Commissioners Court consists of an elected judge and four commissioners. Republicans currently hold a 4-1 majority, with Precinct 3's Commissioner Stephen Holmes as the only Democrat on the court.

Under the newly redrawn maps, Precinct 3, the county's sole Black- and Latino-majority precinct, was dismantled and chopped up, threatening Holmes' chance of re-election. Holmes has led the precinct for 24 years over six terms.

During the bench trial, William Cooper, an NAACP expert witness with four decades of experience crafting voting maps, called the Galveston County case "a textbook example of racial gerrymandering."

"I have never seen anything this bad," Cooper testified, Courthouse News Service reported. "Because normally if a minority-majority district is in place, then you are not going to see a locality attempt to eliminate it unless it had no choice due to demographic changes."

Newsweek reached out to Galveston County Judge Mark Henry via phone for comment.>

<Former president and current criminal defendant Donald Trump, the front-runner in the GOP presidential primary, is getting worse.

I realize that’s a mighty high bar for him to clear, but he’s doing it, each day showing independent voters and Republicans who still value sane leadership why he should never be allowed within 10 square miles of the White House.

In the wake of the hideous Hamas attack on Israel, with American lawmakers and both sides of the aisle pledging full support for our ally, Trump’s political instincts told him to slam Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and say: “Israel was not prepared.”

Trump criticizes Israel then praises Hezbollah. Whose side is he on?

Trump then praised the terrorist organization Hezbollah, which on Wednesday was attacking Israel along its northern border.

“You know, Hezbollah is very smart,” Trump said. “They’re all very smart.”

MAGA loyalists’ minds won’t be changed by anything, but those voters also won’t be enough, should Trump win the GOP nomination, to get him back into office. He’ll need to win over independents and even some moderate Republicans who put country over party while making headway with the ever-growing number of Generation Z voters who, based on recent elections, broadly reject Trump's MAGA movement.

How is he going to do all that when he's running around the country insulting an ally reeling from an unspeakable terror attack and generally sounding like his brain has turned to oatmeal?

After horrific Hamas attack on Israel, Biden acts presidential while Republicans act like fools.

Trump's insensitive Israel comments are just the start of his recent madness

Consider an assortment of baffling/disturbing comments Trump has made in speeches and on social media just in recent weeks.

He has repeatedly misidentified President Joe Biden as former President Barack Obama, recently saying at a rally “you take a look at Obama and look at some of the things he’s done” and then, in an interview this week about Biden’s response to the attack on Israel, saying, “It’s all coming through Iran, and Obama, he doesn’t want to talk about it. ... He doesn’t even mention them in a statement.”

The Fox News interviewer had to correct him afterward.

Trump can't keep Jeb Bush and George W. Bush straight ...

In another recent interview, Trump said: “We have the worst education almost in the large world, the world that people know about.” As opposed to the large world people don’t know about?

He said at a rally that the U.S. Capitol “looks like sh-t.”

Referring to Jeb Bush, Trump said: “He got us into the Middle East. How did that work out?” It was President George W. Bush who “got us into the Middle East.”....>

<.....much less Joe Biden and Barack Obama

In a Sept. 15 speech in Washington, D.C., Trump suggested Biden will lead America into World War II, which ended in 1945: “We have a man who is totally corrupt and the worst president in the history of our country, who is cognitively impaired, in no condition to lead and is now in charge of dealing with Russia and possible nuclear war. Just think of it, we would be in World War II very quickly if we’re going to be relying on this man.”

When questioning someone’s lucidity, it’s generally best to sound lucid yourself.

Do independent voters want a president echoing the words of Hitler?

Late last month at a rally, Trump mocked Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and her husband, who was brutally attacked and beaten in their home last year.

“We’ll stand up to crazy Nancy Pelosi, who ruined San Francisco – how’s her husband doing, anybody know?” Trump said as the crowd laughed. “And she’s against building a wall at our border, even though she has a wall around her house – which obviously didn’t do a very good job.”

Biden is too old. And so is Trump. As a Gen Z voter, I want younger candidates.

Speaking of immigrants, Trump said in an interview earlier this month: “It is a very sad thing for our country. It’s poisoning the blood of our country.”

That language mirrors lines in Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and is in line with the way white supremacists discuss immigrants.

Face it, the drunk at the end of the bar is making more sense than Trump Trump has said recently that forest fires could be prevented “if you dampen your forests.”

He said anyone who robs a store should be shot – “If you rob a store you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store. Shot!”

And in a Florida speech this week, he went on this rant (I’ve used all-caps and phonetic spelling to illustrate the pronunciation of words he loudly emphasized): “Instead of keeping terrorists and terrorist sympathizers out of America, the Biden administration is inviting them in. You know why, because he’s got a boss. Who’s his boss? Barack HOO-SANE Obama. Barack Hoo-sane Obama. You remember the great Rush Limbaugh, Barack Hoo-SANE Obama. He’d go, Barack Hoo-SANE Obama.”

While Republicans question Biden's age, Trump appears to be losing it

Petty criticism of Israel (Trump remains mad at Netanyahu because the prime minister accepted that Biden won the 2020 election), violent rhetoric, mixing up the names of political rivals, mocking an attack on a lawmaker’s spouse and generally sounding like the town drunk slouched at the end of the bar airing conspiratorial grievances. And that’s only a small sample of Trump’s madness over the past few weeks.

Setting aside his two impeachments, his incitement of an attack on the U.S. Capitol, his election denialism and the 91 state and federal felony charges he faces, I have to ask independents and on-the-fence Republicans alike: Would you actually vote for that mess? Is that really the best the Republican Party can offer America and the world?

People will keep taking swipes at Biden’s age, though Trump is only three years younger. But if you listen and pay attention to the former president, you’ll see a profoundly unhinged man teetering on a full separation from reality.

The ham has slipped off his sandwich. It’s time to stop pretending otherwise.>

<The U.S. Supreme Court, on Wednesday, October 11, heard arguments in Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP — a case dealing with gerrymandering in that southern state.

While neighboring North Carolina is a swing state that President Joe Biden lost by only about 1 percent in 2020, South Carolina is much more of a red state. But South Carolina has its Democrat-friendly areas, and Democrats have been arguing that gerrymandering of the state's U.S. House districts gives Republicans an unfair advantage — including Rep. Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina).

The New Republic's Grace Segers, in a report published on October 12, explains, "Given Republicans' slim majority in the House of Representatives, any congressional seat that is up for grabs becomes a potential pickup for Democrats in their quest to retake the House. If the Supreme Court rules that the districts in question should be redrawn, the ramifications will echo far beyond South Carolina."

At issue in Alexander v. South Carolina, according to Segers, is whether South Carolina's 1st Congressional District "was redrawn with primarily racial or partisan considerations in mind."

Mace's future in Congress, Segers reports, "may depend on the Supreme Court's decision" in Alexander. Michael B. Moore, a Democratic running for the U.S. House in that district, could, according to Segers, be the one who benefits if the High Court agrees with the NAACP's arguments in the case.

"Court precedent dictates that racial gerrymandering is illegal," Segers observes, "but redrawing a district to benefit a particular party is permissible…. In January, after a case was brought by the South Carolina chapter of the NAACP and a Black voter, three federal judges found that the gerrymander amounted to 'bleaching' the district and racially discriminated against Black voters.">

<A centrist Democratic political action committee launched an ad campaign on Friday targeting several vulnerable House Republicans by tying them to hard-line Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and the struggle for the GOP conference to select a speaker.

As part of its "Flip Five" campaign, the Welcome PAC is working to encourage five of the 11 Republican representatives hailing from districts won by President Joe Biden in 2020 to join Democrats in selecting Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) as the next speaker.

Each of the targeted members is part of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus. The group is urging constituents to tell the at-risk representatives to join the 212 Democratic lawmakers to bring Jeffries to 217 votes, electing him speaker. This comes as no Republican representative has been able to obtain the necessary votes despite the party holding the majority in the House.

The new digital ads look to constituents of Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY), Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR), Don Bacon (R-NE), and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA). The ad buy informs voters in their respective districts of Republicans' struggle in selecting a speaker and asks that they call and ask their representative to support Jeffries instead.

The ads began running on Friday in each pivotal district.

One ad targeted at Lawler includes a photo of Boebert and Greene next to the New York Republican. It reads, "Tell Mike Lawler to put country over party," alongside his office phone numbers.

"With the House in chaos, now is truly the time for a bipartisan coalition. Voters in these districts responded to messages of bipartisanship, and sent a Democrat to the White House and a Republican to Congress. These Republican Problem Solvers have an opportunity to fulfill their campaign pledges of bipartisanship by accepting Democratic outreach to form a stable governing coalition. By informing their voters, we can encourage compromise over chaos," Welcome PAC co-founder Liam Kerr said.

The PAC, which was launched in 2021, spent over $2 million last year to support centrist Democrats with the ability to win over swing voters and Republican voters.

Since the historic ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the House Republican Conference has struggled to put forward a new speaker nominee. The conference selected Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) earlier this week, but he quickly withdrew his name when it became clear he could not win over certain GOP holdouts.

While Republicans have become publicly frustrated over fractures within the conference, Democrats have remained a united front, prepared to vote Jeffries for speaker.>

<Citing her overwhelming ambition to be a major player in national politics,Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) was called out for remaining silent on indicted Rep. George Santos (R-NY) while New York Republicans are seeking to boot him from Congress.

In a column for MSNBC, analyst Hayes Brown noted that when several prominent New York Republicans attempted to force the issue and get Santos expelled after he was slammed with superseding federal indictments last week, Stefanik was nowhere to be seen.

According to Brown, the woman who serves as the chair of the House Republican Conference after former Rep. Lynne Cheney [sic] (R-WY) was booted due to her opposition to Donald Trump, is running defense for Santos to the dismay of her colleagues.

In his column, Brown wrote, "Given Stefanik's leadership position, it feels extremely unlikely that the push to remove Santos will succeed without her support. But she hasn’t spoken in public about Santos since May, soon after his indictment first dropped."

He added that Stefanik, as of late, has been more interested in moving up the GOP leadership ladder than in cleaning house and helping to oust Santos who could turn into a campaign issue for embattled New York GOPers who will be on the ballot next year.

According to Brown, the current chaos in the House as Republicans struggle to pick a new speaker likely plays into Stefanik's political calculus.

"The jockeying for power among the GOP leadership means that they know that any path to 217 votes, a majority of the House, will likely require his [Santos] support in the face of Democratic opposition," the MSNBC analyst wrote. "And with Stefanik effectively running defense for him, he knows that there’s no way that any vote on kicking him to the curb will garner support from the necessary two-thirds of the House to succeed. As far as hustles go, given the petty and sloppy nature of his alleged crimes, this may be Santos’ most effective con yet.">

<When former President Donald Trump spoke at a campaign rally in New Hampshire on Wednesday, he ostensibly was laying out a vision for American foreign policy in the wake of Hamas’s brutal attack on Israeli citizens last weekend. Instead, Trump kicked an ally while they’re hurting, heaped praise on our mutual enemy Hezbollah and tied the attack to his own delusions of the “stolen” 2020 election. In case anyone had forgotten, Trump’s incoherent remarks reminded us all that he is a fickle friend, a terrible ally and a walking national security risk.

Since news of Hamas’ attack broke, President Joe Biden has been the model of a responsible leader. He immediately condemned Hamas’s assault and pledged support for Israel’s defense, while reminding the Israeli government of its obligations under the rules of war. He sent Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Israel and Jordan and promptly engaged with heads of state around the world to make sure we are containing the crisis and providing support as needed. President Biden also reaffirmed his commitment to a negotiated two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians.

By contrast, Trump decided this week was a good time to scorn Israel to “step up its game.” He referred to Israel’s defense minister as a “jerk” for putting Hezbollah, which he called “very smart”, on notice to not attack Israel. Despite the fact that all Israeli citizens are required to serve in the military for two to three years, Trump claimed Israel “wasn’t ready militarily” to protect itself from Hamas and Hezbollah. He not only insulted Israel’s current leadership, but also insulted the everyday people who have trained and live under the constant threat of attack, keeping two terrorist groups at bay for decades.

Trump didn’t utter these words out of some grand foreign policy vision. He ridiculed a U.S. ally in its time of suffering because of a grudge. According to multiple reports, Trump’s fury is rooted in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s prompt congratulations to Biden after the 2020 election. The former president, incredibly, saw that not as an acknowledgment of reality, but a show of disloyalty.

As a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, I know that Trump’s statements go against what those of us who work on national security wrangle with in real terms every day: that Israel is surrounded by threats and the target of the world’s largest state-sponsor of terrorism, Iran. As a major non-NATO ally, Israel collaborates with the U.S. in the development of military technology and regularly engages in joint military exercises with the American military and other forces.

The consequences of Trump’s remarks can be far reaching in this fraught moment. As the United States rallies leaders to defend Israel, Trump is a warning to those same leaders that in just one year, the United States may turn on a dime and abandon its allies. Trump’s mercurial nature and his focus on personal grievance will leave leaders hedging their bets before going all in on any deals or agreements with the United States.

Few Americans recognize the ugly version of this country that Trump presents to the world. Trump’s America is callous in the face of shared hardship and willing to praise our enemies while hanging our allies out to dry. Trump would use the mantle of leader of the free world to demoralize communities under attack and settle his own feuds. As this crisis continues, and even if it ends long before next November, Trump’s recent remarks must be a reminder to all of us that our national security will also be on the ballot.>

<Republican leaders in the House are a lot like Hamas, a former White House reporter argued on Saturday.

Journalist Brian Karem argued last month that members of the press have been "moral cowards" by not properly covering ex-president Donald Trump, who Karem says is "a fraud, a cheat and a rapist, facing 91 felony counts." Now, Karem is taking the fight directly to the GOP.

Karem noted that the former president was overshadowed by Hamas and its attacks on Israel, and called Jim Jordan, the would-be House speaker, a "political termite."

"Jim Jordan, at one time considered the 'Man Who Would Be King' in the House of Representatives, is now merely a political termite," the reporter wrote. "He’s good at chewing away at the place if you want to bring it all down, but he can’t build a consensus among three people, even if they all agree with him."

Karem continues:

"That may explain why by midweek, for the first time in a very long time, Donald Trump and the rest of the idiots in the GOP did not dominate the news. The reality of thousands dying in the Middle East overshadows the sideshow barker who complains that he had every right to keep classified information, while at the same time claiming he didn’t have it."

Karem adds that, unfortunately, "the world is run by older men who would not abandon their own peace, but are eager to urge younger men and women to do so."

"They are terrorists like the leaders of Hamas. They are despots like Vladimir Putin. They are men like Donald Trump, who has never gone without a meal or lacked the social lubricant of money his entire life, and yet has convinced millions he is the answer to all our problems," the journalist wrote.>

<Over the last several years, polls have revealed Americans’ increasing disgust with the country’s political system. Results about the disillusionment of voters have become so commonplace that the media often doesn’t cover them. But last week Pew Research Center released a survey so comprehensive, so bleak, and so alarming that it couldn’t be ignored.

In summary, Pew found trust in the government at a 70-year low, disgust with both parties at all-time highs, and that only 4 percent of adults think the political system is working very well. This doesn’t just reveal a country fed up with a few bad politicians — it reveals a deep, system-wide dilemma for American democracy. It’s no wonder the poll also finds broad support for significant structural changes to our political system, given that voters see “little hope of improvement on the horizon.”

On one hand, I don’t blame them. Having served in government myself, many sentiments reflected in the Pew survey ring true. The political process is indeed “dominated by special interests, flooded with campaign cash, and mired in partisan warfare.”

But that doesn’t mean there is no hope. The way to change our politics is to participate in it, and perhaps to get a little creative. That’s why I joined a movement called No Labels that is working to provide a solution to the very problems highlighted in the poll. We are securing a ballot line on 2024 state voting ballot to create the opening for a potential independent Unity Ticket featuring a Republican and a Democrat together as running mates.

No Labels views this as an emergency option: it would only offer its ballot line to the Unity Ticket if the American people continue to feel dissatisfied by their two major party options.

Our effort has been viciously attacked by both parties, but a deeper dive through Pew’s extensive results shows why the Unity Ticket concept could be exactly what the American people are yearning for.

First, the poll finds that the Republican and Democratic parties are equally unpopular, and that four times as many Americans hold unfavorable views of both parties now than they did in 2002. No Labels’ critics on the left like to pretend that only Donald Trump and the Republican Party are unpopular, and that by offering voters an independent third choice, we will split the anti-Trump vote and cost Democrats the election. They miss the point. Neither party is popular, and voters are desperate for an alternative to both.

Second, the poll confirms what No Labels has been arguing for months: voters don’t like the candidates that either party is putting forward. Well over half — 63 percent — say they are dissatisfied with the candidates for president on both sides. Even apart from the presidential race, only 1 in 4 voters rate the quality of today’s political candidates as very or somewhat good, which is down about 20 percentage points from 2018. This is a clear sign that something is wrong with how the parties choose their candidates.

Third, and perhaps most damning of all, more than eight-in-ten Americans (86 percent) say the following is an accurate description of politics: “Republicans and Democrats are more focused on fighting each other than on solving problems.”

This is a problem that demands a solution. Unless something significant happens in the next six months to give voters hope, the Unity Ticket could very well be the best and only serious idea that addresses voters’ concerns. It would combine the commonsense majorities on both sides into a new political coalition — one that rejects extremism and actually works to solve the problems voters care about. It would also serve as a reset for the Republican and Democratic parties, forcing them to realign their efforts to once again compete for the voters in America’s vast political middle.

While the findings of the Pew poll are gloomy, I believe they prove the wisdom of the American people. Our voters know something is wrong. They know this system is not functioning as intended. And they know who to blame: the establishment leaders of the two parties, who stoke extremism while suppressing voices that are trying to solve actual problems.

Voters know exactly what the problem is, which is why I’m confident that they will know a good solution when they see it.>

<Julius Erving leaves LeBron James off his all-time lineup, relegates Michael Jordan to second team

Dr. J has some controversial opinions on modern players

Cue your "old man yells at cloud" memes because yet another older NBA legend has fired off a take that doesn't exactly paint the modern game in the best light. Former Philadelphia 76ers forward Julius Erving appeared on Chris Haynes' Posted Up Podcast and picked his all-time team, and, unsurprisingly, leaned heavily on players from previous generations.

His first team consisted of Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell. All five of those players retired by 1974, when Erving was still in the ABA. His second team gets slightly more modern, but not by much: Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Karl Malone and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Malone lasted the longest out of that group as he retired in 2004.

You might have noticed one rather conspicuous absence: At no point did Erving list Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James. To that, he offered a somewhat perplexing explanation.

"When you look at LeBron and anybody he sort of picks with him ... he played with so many guys. He's the guy who has led the charge in terms of superteams being put together. When he put together the team in Miami, he put together that team in Cleveland as well and put together a team in Los Angeles. So he can pick his own team, I'm not going to pick his team. I'm not saying nothing bad about LeBron."

James was a pioneer in the player empowerment era, but to suggest that he alone led the charge on the creation of superteams is simply inaccurate. Ignoring the fact that James built his Miami roster to oppose another one that had been built in Boston three years earlier, it could be argued that Erving himself played for a superteam in Philadelphia. His 1981-82 76ers reached the NBA Finals, and then, in the very next offseason, they signed reigning MVP Moses Malone in free agency. That gave the 76ers four All-Stars in Erving, Malone, Maurice Cheeks and Andrew Toney. Bobby Jones was nearing the end of his career, but he was also a Hall of Famer. That team won 65 games and went 12-1 in the playoffs to win the championship. Whether a superteam is defined by success, talent or how its best players were acquired, those 76ers check practically every box.

<Embattled Rep. George Santos, the New York Republican who is currently under indictment for alleged fraud, reportedly threatened Saturday to resign from his position if Republicans reach a deal with Democrats to elect a speaker of the House.

Santos has been a supporter of Jim Jordan as speaker, and admitted he felt spurned by the earlier GOP nominee, Steve Scalise, who Santos said never called him to jockey for the congressman's support in a vote.

After Scalise dropped out of the race, Jordan became the nominee, but there are serious doubts as to whether he can unite the conference in such a way that he gets the necessary votes for becoming speaker.

On Saturday, Santos reportedly took his position a step beyond what he's previously proclaimed. Despite resisting calls to resign based on his indictment (and superseding indictment), Santos apparently offered his resignation in exchange for a mere compromise.

Azi Paybarah of the Washington Post listened in on an X "Spaces" audio update on Israel and Hamas. During the event, Santos reportedly said, "It's about time we end our membership in the U.N."

Santos also said, "We need to call out the fake stuff," according to Paybarah.

Finally, according to the report, Santos threatened to quit.

"Rep. George Santos, who has resisted calls to resign for lying about his background and credentials, said he would resign from congress if Rs and Ds work together to elect a House Speaker," Paybarah wrote.

The report was also confirmed by Talking Points Memo publisher Josh Marshall.

Santos "just threatened that he’ll resign from Congress if there’s a deal to elect a Speaker with the Dems," according to Marshall's account.>

<We have grown accustomed to sleepwalking through the dysfunction of modern Republican Party politics. Americans wake up to see another outlandish story of things having gone wrong in Washington and our response is to yell at our phones, nod our heads disapprovingly, shrug our shoulders and move on.

But there are high costs to the way that the Party of Trump, originally the Party of Lincoln, does its business.

What are the consequences of the extreme rightward drift of the modern GOP?

In moments of international crisis, such as the one we are now living through, the party has left a key branch of government paralyzed. Because they decided to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and have already spent many days consumed by chaos and infighting, the “people’s house” still has no head.

A day after a majority of House Republicans voted for him in a party conference, Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana dropped out of the race after he realized he wouldn’t get the 217 votes needed to win the speakership. On Friday, it was Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio who won the vote within the party, but he also faces an uphill battle to get the 217 votes.

With a floor vote postponed until next week, Jordan will have the weekend to try to unify the party behind him —and will get a few days more than Scalise did to fantasize about winning the post. The election of Jordan, who former Speaker John Boehner called a “legislative terrorist,” would put one of the most radical members of the party in charge, someone who would have little problem sending the government into a shutdown.

This comes as the world is on fire. The Middle East has erupted following the brutal and horrific attacks that Hamas orchestrated against Israeli citizens. As a result, Israel has started a devastating bombing attack on Gaza in an effort to wipe out the terrorist organization, and a ground battle appears imminent.

At the same time, war in Europe continues to rage between Russia and Ukraine while policymakers nervously watch China’s relations with Taiwan, which it claims as its own. And this does not include many other areas of instability, including Guatemala, where pro-democracy protests are rocking the country.

Yet back in Washington, Congress can’t do its work. Without a speaker, the House is unable to carry out its responsibilities of controlling the purse strings for defense spending, maintaining oversight over the executive branch, and taking part in national security deliberations. Because a small group of Republicans decided that McCarthy should pay for the sin of working with Democrats to keep the government open, the party is now squabbling over the next leader instead of carrying out the important functions of the lower chamber.

If and when Republicans finally string together enough votes to elect a House speaker, the outlook for progress will likely still be bleak. Speaker Newt Gingrich’s move to shut down the federal government in 1995 when trying to force President Bill Clinton’s hand on spending cuts set an unfortunate precedent. A new normal has since taken hold and government shutdowns are no longer an anomaly. Given that the latest stopgap funding bill only keeps the government open until November, time is of the essence.

Modern Republican politics has forced officials to focus on the ongoing chaos on Capitol Hill rather than on long-term problems such as immigration, inequality and climate change. Republicans have refused to enter into serious negotiations over legislative solutions. Intense dysfunction handcuffs federal officials and pushes the most consequential of issues to the back burner.

A party that can’t and won’t govern hurts everyone. A Republican Party once committed to conservative principles has become a party committed to chaos. The nation deserves better than this. We need better than this.>

Like this, <antichrist>? <ursus banalus>?

<In a column for Ohio's largest newspaper, the former editorial director for the Cleveland- Plain-Dealer dropped the hammer on Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) for coming way too close for comfort to the House speakership.

According to Brent Larkin, the controversial Jordan has accomplished nothing in years in Congress and the idea that he might still be speaker if Donald Trump should win re-election in 2024 would create America's own "Axis of evil."

Getting right to the point, Larkin wrote that Jordan seems to believe that his mission in Congress is to destroy everything in sight -- a view shared by some of the blustery Republican's colleagues.

On Sunday he wrote: "Placing second in the line of presidential succession [as speaker] a man willing to besmirch everything America stands for in service of Trump by rights should prove too risky for many of the House’s 221 Republican members."

In an effort to make his case he characterized the Ohio lawmaker as "a follower, not a leader. That’s why this one-trick pony was so willing to dive into any conspiratorial rabbit hole dug for him by the likes of Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon or Alex Jones. Eventually, Jordan either reappears empty-handed or emerges holding a fistful of lies designed mainly to harm some honest and hard-working American who loves his or her country."

The columnist cited former House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) who once told reporters, "I just never saw a guy who spent more time tearing things apart ― never building anything, never putting anything together.”

According to the columnist, Jordan's history, which includes accusations he looked the other way as students at Ohio State were allegedly sexually assaulted, is likely to gain new life the closer he gets to the speakership.

Add to that, he noted that former Rep. Lynne [sic] Cheney (R-WY) has gone on the record stating, "Jim Jordan knew more about what Donald Trump had planned for January 6 than any other member of the House of Representatives. Jim Jordan was involved, was part of the conspiracy in which Donald Trump was engaged as he attempted to overturn the election.”

According to Larkin, "No one who genuinely cares about the country and its future would want Jordan as speaker. The same applies to Democrats, even though Jordan’s winning the job would almost certainly prove catastrophic for Republicans in the 2024 congressional elections."

"Jordan is bad for the country, bad for Ohio. With luck, those considering Jim Jordan for speaker of the House will keep that in mind," he concluded.>

<Rep. Jim Jordan's bid to be the next House speaker after the ouster Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is running into a considerable amount of resistance from his GOP caucus, so allies of the Ohio Republican are reportedly twisting arms and making threats to ensure his selection.

According to a report from the New York Times, Republican House members who are balking at falling in line are being threatened with retribution and are already on the receiving end of harassment being fostered by supporters of Jordan.

With one ally admitting the Jordan camp was stunned that he didn't get close to the 217 votes needed to become speaker, the Times is reporting that fans of blustery Ohio Republican are using the weekend to sic their own followers on balking House members.

Calling it an "extraordinary instance of Republican-on-Republican fighting," the Times' Karoun Demirjian is reporting, "Several of Mr. Jordan’s supporters have posted the phone numbers of mainstream G.O.P. lawmakers they count as holdouts, encouraging followers to flood the Capitol switchboard with calls demanding they back Mr. Jordan — or face the wrath of conservative voters as they gear up for primary season."

Noting that extreme right-wing activists have focused on about a dozen House Republicans who want no part of Jordan as the face of the Republican-majority House, the Times is reporting, "Mr. Jordan’s supporters said his decision to send lawmakers home to their districts over the weekend rather than keeping them in Washington for one-on-one meetings to drum up support was a deliberate move to intensify grass-roots pressure on them to fall into line."

According to Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), a Jordan supporter, "Everybody’s going to go home, listen to their constituents, and make a decision. Honestly, the grassroots, there’s nobody stronger.”

Rep. John Rutherford (R-FL) is balking because he doesn't want to reward the "bad behavior" that led Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to lead the revolt against McCarthy.

Taking aim at Gaetz, he told the Times, "I’m a no on allowing Matt Gaetz and the other seven to win by putting their individual in as speaker.">

<As news spread that Sean Hannity was attempting to overthrow the House of Representatives with his own hand-picked man, the repetition was obvious to some and a campaign violation to others.

"So at the lowbrow entertainment network that paid a $787.5 million settlement for parroting lies crafted to overturn the Constitution, producers openly campaign in support of a coup-plotting legislator’s bid for the insurrectionist party’s leadership," said Washington lawyer George Conway of Fox's efforts to get Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) to the Speaker's office. "How deeply runs the rot."

NBC News congressional correspondent Sahil Kapur explained, "This is where the rubber meets the road. Jim Jordan’s allies are betting his opponents buckle when he puts them on record and conservative media lights them up. Trump is with Jordan, creating an added specter of retribution. Will come down to whether 5+ 'Never Jim' Rs hold firm."

Washington Post Live anchor Leigh Ann Caldwell confirmed the reporting, revealing "One member said Hannity reached out directly with this same message - that the war in Israel is a reason to get behind Jordan. Member told me it's not going to persuade them. Read more in the Early 202 in the morning."

She isn't the only one. Reporters are not only beginning to hear from the members, but Politico's Olivia Beavers reported "anger" among part of the GOP.

"Been hearing this frustration quite a bit as well. In addition to anger about the changed position Jordan and his allies had about not going to the floor without 218 votes when Scalise was running, but now doing the opposite," she said.

Washington Post columnist, Karen Tumulty, posted, "This is … not smooth."

Former White House counsel to Richard Nixon, John Dean said, "Fox News should be [required] to register as a lobbyist for Jim Jordan! The First Amendment does not exempt lobbyists, and this is blatant, conspicuously blatant!"

Mark Jacob, a former editor of the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times, agreed that the network was continuing to reveal itself as a political operation.

"Fox News is not journalism," he posted on the social media site previously known as Twitter. "It’s a right-wing political operation disguised as journalism, as this example demonstrates. Hannity is pressuring Republican members of Congress to knuckle under to Jim Jordan."

"The next time Fox or Republicans clutch their pearls about the LiBeRaL MeDiA, show them this email and ask which media is actually an extension of a political party," attacked MSNBC contributor Brian Tyler Cohen.

The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson pointed out that moderates have "all got the number for Rep. Jeffries." He was referring to Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY). There are several moderate holdouts miffed at the GOP being taken over by the few fringe elements of the party, but they've been unwilling to play hardball and make a deal with Jeffries. Instead, they've allowed themselves to be tied to the most unpopular piece of their party.

Brett Meiselas, a co-founder of the progressive group Meidas Touch asked, "So is it normal for a major political party to use a cable “news” host to extort party members into voting for their Speaker pick?"

"More evidence Fox is a political/propaganda operation, not a journalistic entity. In case you needed more evidence the sun rises in the East," Mother Jones DC bureau chief David Corn wrote.

But ultimately, "democracy defender," and elections lawyer Marc Elias pointed out, "Reminder: There are no moderate House Republicans. There are proud MAGA and scared MAGA. This is aimed at scared MAGA.">

<Former President Donald Trump's legal team appears more focused on leveraging his New York fraud trial to lay the groundwork for a future appeal, turning the proceedings into a fundraising event and relying on the trial as an excuse to avoid other court dates, rather than attempting to secure a victory, legal experts say.

Privately, his team has held conversations about how they believed losing this trial was inevitable. Their most viable option would be to contest the case in an appellate court, two sources familiar with the matter told Rolling Stone.

Trump, who is facing a substantial threat to his real estate holdings, could risk destabilizing his entire financial standing. Engoron has already ruled to revoke Trump's business licenses after determining that the ex-president and his company committed years of fraud by inflating his assets and net worth on his financial statements. By December, he may be ordered to pay up to $250 million or more in penalties.

"The Trump team seems to be almost conceding failure in the trial court and planting the seeds of an appeal,” trial attorney Bernard Alexander told Salon. “Most litigants focus their energies on winning at trial, based on the facts and the law, not orchestrating circumstances for an appeal. It does not bode well to be conceding failure in the trial court, attempting to pressure the judge with threats of reversal on appeal, rather than prevailing based on squarely addressing the facts and the law."

The former president’s lawyers have contested nearly every piece of evidence presented by New York Attorney General Letitia James and also cautioned New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron that each of his rulings will face intense scrutiny from appellate judges, with the likelihood of reversals, The Daily Beast reported.

Their tactics include dragging out the process, asking long-winded questions and repeating them. His lawyers’ attempts to stretch the proceedings and continuously bring up legal arguments that Engoron has already barred have been met with frustration from the judge.

But even after being sanctioned and ordered to pay $7,500 for repeating the same arguments, Trump’s attorneys haven’t shied away from relying on the same tactics as part of their defense.

“Trump’s lawyers are perilously close to being sanctioned once again and more heavily by Judge Engoron for their misconduct,” Bennett Gershman, a former New York prosecutor and law professor at Pace University, told Salon. “They are behaving in manifest bad faith by intentionally delaying and obstructing the proceedings and deliberately creating a spectacle to promote Trump's fundraising. Lawyers in any legal proceeding foresee an appeal if they lose and try to make a complete and proper record for appellate review.”

Things have started to heat up in the courtroom. On the trial’s third day, the judge accused the defense of wasting time after Trump lawyer Jesus Suarez repeatedly asked longtime Trump accountant Donald Bender lengthy questions about specifics from 2011 to 2020.

"Counselor, can we lump this all together against using the same principles?" the judge asked.

While Suarez agreed, he persisted in prolonging the questioning.

"I don't talk just to hear myself. I'm precluding you from doing this," Engoron said.

Lead defense lawyer Christopher Kise assured the judge that they would “attempt to streamline this as much as possible,” arguing that the “devil’s in the details,” per the Daily Beast.

Tensions escalated at that point, with Engoron addressing the Trump team's apparent strategy to delay.

“This is ridiculous!” Engoron said, per The Beast. “To the reporters: I’m pounding the bench again. This. Is. Ridiculous! There's no point in going through each line. I'm just being logical here.”

Kise shot back saying he’s “never had to negotiate how to ask questions” and argued that it “makes a poor record.”

“Trump’s lawyers are not seriously trying to make an appellate record but are engaging in grandstanding and gamesmanship,” Gershman said. “Given the powerful evidence amassed by the attorney general, Trump’s lawyers know he will lose and are engaging in stunts, games, and frivolous tactics in violation of New York State ethics rules. The appeals court likely will take into account the misconduct by Trump’s lawyers when it reviews the case and probably agree with Judge Engoron’s sanctions against them.”....>