24 Oct 2023

‘Are we screwed?’: Anguished House GOP seeks fourth speaker pick

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Their third speaker pick in three weeks lasted barely four hours. Now, with their desperation on full display, Republicans are trying again.

The House GOP is convening Tuesday night for its fourth internal huddle of the day as it hears from yet another unwieldy field of candidates to lead its broken ranks. No one has demonstrated the ability to do what the three previous failed speaker hopefuls couldn’t: unite enough Republicans to land 217 votes on the floor.

Two members of tonight’s five-man field have already run and lost. That includes Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), the second highest vote-getter earlier Tuesday.

There’s little hope for relief among the bitterly divided GOP, where the fruitless search for a speaker has become so miserable that some members even floated a return to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy — with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) as an “assistant speaker.” (The idea has not been taken seriously inside the conference.) Others are again mulling ways to empower acting Speaker Patrick McHenry, maybe even without a formal vote on the floor, an idea that risks significant constitutional challenges.

“It’s going to get more and more difficult to move forward in this process. The animosity is high. The tension is high but we have to put that aside,” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) said.

Republicans now plan to hold their next internal vote for speaker nominee Tuesday evening, with some — like Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), who helped oust McCarthy earlier this month — saying they’re even willing to do it at “three or four o’clock” in the morning. One member, Florida Rep. Vern Buchanan, suggested that a late-night session could speed up the process for choosing a speaker as “people get tired.” (The full House, having adjourned, can’t actually vote until at least noon Wednesday.)

In reality, though, many Republicans fear they’ve reached the point where no candidate can get 217 votes on the floor — which means losing no more than four GOP votes. The fracture began even before eight members voted with Democrats to boot McCarthy on Oct 3. Some believe the break is now unfixable.

“Right now, I think it is apparent to the American people that the GOP conference is hopelessly divided,” said Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.). “Can it be overcome? Never say never. But the signs are, right now, that this conference is at some kind of an impasse.”

Womack then suggested that Republicans should work to empower McHenry, even if it means testing the “constitutional limits” of his powers — a suggestion that the institutionalist Republican said he doesn’t make lightly.

“It’s sad. I’m sad. I’m heartbroken. Lots of really, really good people left in the wake here,” Womack added.

A visibly frustrated Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) put it another way, calling out the conservative who originally moved to oust McCarthy: “Are we screwed? Ask Matt Gaetz that question.”

He later said he didn’t believe any of Tuesday night’s candidate could get to 217.

Miller belongs to a freshman class that has seen unfathomable levels of turmoil within the House GOP since electing McCarthy for speaker on the 15th ballot earlier this year. In the months after, a gang of GOP hardliners moved to paralyze the floor multiple times to protest McCarthy — before some of those same members ultimately triggered his ousting earlier this month. That final play came after McCarthy moved to prevent a government shutdown on Sept. 30 — while setting up another deadline that’s now less than a month away.

And it’s that looming Nov. 17 funding deadline that’s making House Republicans even more anxious. Without a speaker, the chamber can’t conduct any business on the floor — even if the GOP conference were able to agree on passing its own spending bills.

The deadline carries another threat: Even if Republicans can elect a speaker before Nov. 17, he may not be able to keep the gavel if he, too, moves to avert a shutdown by forging a compromise plan with Democrats.

Whether that glaring leadership vacuum is filled by then, however, is anyone’s guess.

Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.), who ran his own short-lived speaker bid earlier Tuesday, said this on whether anyone can get 217 votes: “if I knew that, I’d be in Vegas.”

24 Oct 2023

Record-breaking numbers of Cuban migrants entered the U.S. in 2022-23

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A record-breaking number of Cubans have arrived in the U.S. over the last two years, according to updated data released by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Agency.

Slightly fewer than 425,000 Cubans were encountered at U.S. ports of entry in fiscal years 2022 and 2023, according to CBP, and 200,287 of those arrived in fiscal year 2023, which ended in September. Most were apprehended at the U.S. border with Mexico, a marked change from previous waves of migration.

Those figures have smashed records. More Cubans have come to the U.S. in the last two years than came during the Freedom Flights, which saw 270,000 Cubans leave the island over a roughly eight-year period between 1965 and 1973. They are also greater than the combined numbers of Cubans who left during the 1980 Mariel Boatlift and the 1994 Balsero crisis.

The sharp uptick in Cuban migration comes as Cuba’s economy has stagnated over the last few years, leading to widespread blackouts, shortages of food and medicine and deteriorating quality of life for the country’s inhabitants.

It also follows continued dissatisfaction toward Cuba’s communist government, which has struggled to turn unfavorable economic tides in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and a political and economic crisis in Venezuela, a major ally of Havana. The island’s leaders have also failed to negotiate with Washington on a reprieve on U.S. sanctions, which have historically limited Cuba’s trade and investment opportunities.

Dissatisfaction with the communist government resulted in widespread protests in the country in July 2021 and intense repression in response from authorities against dissidents.

The Cuban government has blamed the U.S. embargo for driving the migration surge.

The increase in Cuban migration has coincided with a surge in arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border from various Latin American and Caribbean countries over the last few years — a political headache for the Biden administration ahead of the 2024 election.

The administration has sought to expand alternative pathways for migrants to enter the country legally, while also tightening security at the border.

But government data suggests that the policies have yet to translate into an immediate change at the border. Roughly 3.2 million migrants arrived in the U.S. in the last year, an increase of nearly 500,000 from the previous year, according to the same CBP dataset.

24 Oct 2023

Harvard student group to protest Riley Gaines’ Speak Louder Campus Tour

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Twelve-time All-American swimmer Riley Gaines is scheduled to make a presentation at Harvard this week, “to encourage college students to speak-up for our fundamental right to free speech, for truth and for women.”

A student group dubbed TransHarvard, however, is looking to “challenge the anti-trans athlete discussions being brought to campus.”

Gaines, an advocate for women’s rights, particularly for female athletes, rose to national fame when the former University of Kentucky swimmer tied for fifth place in the 200-yard freestyle at the 2022 NCAA Championships with Lia Thomas, who became the first openly transgender athlete to win a Division I national championship.

Gaines is bringing her Speak Louder Campus Tour to Harvard on Thursday at 7 p.m., a talk that “focuses on encouraging the next generation to fight for our fundamental rights and for fairness,” according to a release promoting the event.

“Women have been stripped of opportunities to fairly compete in sports; denied scholarships; put in physical danger; and exposed to humiliation in locker rooms,” the release states. “Worse, people who oppose this movement have been silenced … these injustices will only accelerate if we don’t speak up now.”

The event, advertised in Harvard’s weekly update last week,  has received blowback from some groups on campus, particularly TransHarvard, an organization that provides resources to trans students.

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TransHarvard, on social media and in a flier, is promoting a “big trans party” that it will hold when Gaines is due on campus. The group is calling on community members to come to the “pizza dinner, speeches from brilliant trans+ leaders and allies, sign-making and education outside Boylston Hall,” where Gaines will be speaking to the public.

“Let’s show this transphobe that we are here, we belong, and that she can’t silence us or any other queer people,” the group stated on a flier. “Hate has no home here. <3”

On Monday, Gaines posted a screenshot of an email highlighting the “trans party.”

“If she’s claiming pro-woman means anti-trans, wouldn’t pro-trans inherently mean anti-woman?,” she wrote. “See ya soon, Harvard!

This comes as the Cambridge campus has become more divided than in recent memory amid the Israel-Hamas war, as pro-Palestine student groups continue to rally against Israel.

Gaines’ visit to Harvard will be her ninth so far on her fall campus tour, organized and funded by the Leadership Institute, where she launched a center in August “to fight the push to erase women and destroy women’s sports.”

The speaking tour sparked controversy earlier this month when Gaines was slated to visit Penn State but the talk never happened. University officials claimed the event was not scheduled properly, while her representatives called it an excuse the school used “as cover for preventing the event out of political concerns,” according to Penn Live.

24 Oct 2023

U.S. has ‘high confidence’ Palestinian militants to blame for Gaza hospital blast

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U.S. intelligence officials say they have “high confidence” that last week’s deadly blast at a Gaza hospital was caused by a failed rocket launch by Palestinian militants, not an Israeli strike.

In a briefing to reporters on Tuesday, the intelligence officials said they based their assessment on analysis of videos of the projectile’s flight, as well as an examination of the blast’s effects on the hospital and surrounding area. They were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Analysis of videos shot from four locations, including from two cameras that captured the projectile’s flight, showed the rocket was launched from within the Gaza Strip and traveled northeast, according to one of the officials. About 10 seconds after the launch, analysts assess the motor combustion became “unstable,” one of the officials said.

“We can tell that in part based on the fluctuating intensity of the rocket plume about five seconds after that there’s a flash in the video,” said the official.

Five seconds later, one object hit the ground, followed about two seconds later by a second. Analysts believe the first object was likely the motor from the rocket, and the second was the warhead.

“There was a catastrophic motor failure that likely occurred, which separated the motor and the warhead. The warhead landed in the hospital compound and that was the second explosion and a much bigger one,” said the official.

Analysts also based their assessment on the effects of the blast. The damage at the site is consistent with what officials would expect to see from a rocket, not the “large craters and broader blast effects” from an air-dropped munition or artillery round, the official said, adding that the hospital only sustained “light structural damage.”

“There was no observable damage to the main hospital building, no large impact craters, only light damage to the roots of the two structures near the main hospital building and both of them remained intact,” said the official. “All of this is inconsistent with our assessment of what the damage would look like if this was an Israeli munition.”

The officials also said they assessed with “low confidence” that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad was responsible for launching the rocket, backing up statements made by the Israeli Defense Forces. The assessment is based on audio of Hamas militants discussing who is responsible for the launch, which was provided by Israeli officials and “carefully vetted,” said the official. However, officials can’t confirm who the speakers are or that what they are discussing took place.

Officials also have not seen images or video of debris that would have come from Israeli munitions, the official said.

“If an Israeli munition was responsible for this blast, we would expect that Palestinian militants would be very directly and clearly showing what they thought was an Israeli munitions,” said the official.

The initial U.S. assessment — that the blast was not caused by the Israeli Defense Forces by the first night — was based on initial signals intelligence, according to a second senior intelligence official.

“Then over the course of the next several days of when we got imagery of it, when we got some additional reporting and the analysts had time to sift through the data and do some analysis of it, I think our views of — our confidence level evolved over the next three four five days,” the senior official said.