“Did that balloon take off from Wuhan?”
— Rep. James Comer (R-KY), on Fox News.
Victoria Spartz Won’t Run Again
Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) will not run for either the House or Senate in 2024, Punchbowl News reports.
GOP Lawmaker Hands Out Assault Weapon Lapel Pins
Rep. Andrew S. Clyde (R-GA) admitted in a video that he “has been handing out lapel pins shaped like assault rifles to fellow GOP lawmakers,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Clyde: “I hear that this little pin that I’ve been giving out on the House floor has been triggering some of my Democratic colleagues. Well, I give it out to remind people of the Second Amendment of the Constitution and how important it is in preserving our liberties.”
“The assault-rifle pins have angered Democrats, who began noticing them in recent days before they knew of their origin.”
The Long Twilight of Iran
Ali Vaez: “The Islamic Republic is now where the Soviet Union was in the early 1980s. The system is ideologically bankrupt, at a political dead end, and incapable of addressing its structural economic and societal troubles. It still has the will to fight, as evidenced by its brutal response to the uprisings. But no amount of force will end the standoff with its people, which is primarily the result of the regime’s failures across the board. There is little left of the promises made during the 1979 revolution to build a shining, pious city on a hill.”
“In practice, the regime has created a militarized republic of fear in which mediocrity is glorified and mendacity institutionalized. The Islamic Republic’s architects vowed there would be egalitarian prosperity for all, but instead, they delivered affluence for a few and ruined what was once a booming economy. They promised paradise on earth and then dried out the land and polluted the air, imperiling a civilization that has survived for 7,000 years.”
“The Islamic Republic is now a hollow misnomer. It is a theocracy that has inadvertently secularized the population. It is a republic that has demolished the participatory base it once used to legitimize its rule. By gradually tightening his circle of insiders, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has sidelined an increasing number of the original revolutionaries and other politicians who sought to put the system on a better path.”
Jobs Report Comes at Great Time for Biden
“A stronger-than-expected jobs report has put the wind at President Biden’s back ahead of his State of the Union address next week, and it could provide additional momentum as he prepares a reelection announcement in the coming weeks,” The Hill reports.
Paul Ryan Will Not Support Trump
Former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) “is doubling down on his belief that former President Donald Trump is the wrong choice for Republicans in 2024, saying he would not support Trump if he becomes the Republican nominee for president,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
Said Ryan: “There are too many people like me in the Republican Party who would not support him if he were the nominee, and that is why I don’t think he’ll be the nominee. Because everyone knows we’ll lose the election if we nominate this guy again.”
Trump’s Stormy Daniels Dilemma
Rolling Stone: “The Manhattan District Attorney’s office right now is laying out its case against Trump, arguing that the $130,000 paid to Daniels, an adult-film actress, in 2016 constituted violations of election and business-records laws. But according to two sources with knowledge of the matter, multiple Trump advisers — including at least one of his lawyers — have told him in recent months that he has a stronger case if he argues the payments had nothing to do with the election. Instead, these advisers would have Trump argue that the payments were entirely about preventing conflict with his wife, Melania.”
“In order to bring felony charges, New York law requires that prosecutors prove defendants falsified records in order to cover up a separate crime. In Trump’s case, District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office is reportedly attempting to prove that the paperwork detailing Trump’s reimbursement of former fixer Michael Cohen amounted to an effort to cover up an illegal campaign contribution. Trump’s advisers hope that by casting the payments as marriage-related, they could remove any basis for the felony charge Bragg reportedly has in mind.”
“But the argument would leave Trump facing some tough questions. Because if the payments to Daniels had nothing to do with the election, then Trump would have to explain why he was willing to spend six figures to prevent his wife from hearing about an alleged sexual encounter with a porn star — a tryst that he for years has claimed never happened.”
Clyburn Wants Compromise on Police Reform
Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) told the Washington Post that he thinks the odds of lawmakers getting police reform done are “fair to good” and urged Democrats to compromise with Republicans following the death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of police.
Said Clyburn: “I said at the time — I got in trouble for saying it — there’s no perfect bill. There’s no perfect bill. To keep trying to get the perfect piece of legislation rather than a good piece of legislation — I just don’t know if that’s a good thing to do.”
The Bagel Caucus
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) is starting the House Bagel Caucus, Punchbowl News reports.
There’s no policy agenda for the group. The goal is just to introduce members to “real” bagels — meaning the ones from New York.
‘Disloyalty’ to Trump Would Actually Help Him
Donald Trump is not pleased with all of his so-called friends considering 2024 runs, Semafor reports.
For a former president obsessed with rooting out “disloyalty,” however, it’s hard for him to focus on anything else.
The irony, of course, is that more former cabinet members running very likely helps him by splitting the opposition.
Blinken Trip to China Postponed Over Spy Balloon
“The State Department has indefinitely postponed Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing after what U.S. officials identified as a Chinese reconnaissance balloon was detected loitering above the continental U.S.,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“U.S. officials on Thursday said the craft was loitering over Montana having earlier crossed Alaska’s Aleutian Islands and Canada. The Pentagon scrambled jets and at one point considered shooting down the balloon, the officials said, though didn’t over concerns that the debris posed a risk to people on the ground.”
China Claims Balloon Is ‘Civilian Airship’
China claims the suspected Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon flying over the continental United States is a “civilian airship” used mainly for weather research that deviated from its planned course, CNN reports.
Launching a Trial Balloon
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Republicans Float One Spending Cut
“There’s no Republican plan, let alone a bill, to resolve the debt ceiling problem. But some GOP lawmakers are floating one idea to include in a package: rescinding approved but unspent Covid relief funds,” NBC News reports.
“Taking back the unused pandemic response money ‘certainly could’ be in a debt ceiling measure to avert default, Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., the chair of the powerful Rules Committee, said.”
Said Cole: “I would hope we look at that. It’s something that ought to be on the table.”
Trump ‘Totally’ Disagrees With Kevin McCarthy
Donald Trump praised a rioter who was shot by police while storming the Capitol and rebuked Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for defending the officer, the HuffPost reports.
Said Trump: “I totally disagree with the Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, in that the Police Officer ‘Thug,’ who has had a very checkered past to begin with, was not just ‘doing his job’ when he shot and killed Great Patriot Ashli Babbitt at point blank range.”
McCarthy Wants Briefing on Chinese Spy Balloon
“House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Thursday night called for a briefing of the ‘Gang of Eight‘ — the group of lawmakers charged with reviewing the nation’s most sensitive intelligence information — following reports of a Chinese spy balloon flying over Montana,” Politico reports.
What Matt Gaetz Wants to Lift the Debt Ceiling
“Rep. Matt Gaetz is trying to convince his fellow Republicans to demand new work requirements for Medicaid as part of a deal to raise the debt ceiling,” Semafor reports.
“The Florida congressman, who has been enjoying new influence within his party after leading the surprisingly effective conservative revolt in last month’s House speaker battle, recently broached the idea on Fox News. He tells Semafor that he’s now ‘socializing’ the concept among colleagues, including Speaker Kevin McCarthy.”
Is Trump Way Up or Way Down?
Nate Cohn: “In national surveys since last November’s midterm election, different pollsters have shown him with anywhere between 25 percent and 55 percent of the vote in a multicandidate field. That’s right: a mere 30-point gap.”
“Whether Mr. Trump is at 25 percent or 55 percent is no small matter. Believe it or not, early polling is fairly predictive of the eventual outcome in presidential primaries. It also has real-world consequences. It affects the decision-making of potential candidates, operatives and activists, many of whom have adopted a wait-and-see approach in part because there are so many conflicting signs of Mr. Trump’s strength.”
“And the existence of such a wide split betrays that the survey research industry may be in far worse shape than one might have otherwise guessed. While the exact reason for the vast spread in survey results is hard to ascertain, the likeliest explanation is that many well-known pollsters are collecting profoundly unrepresentative data.”
