A modern Moses ready for a Red Sea moment

Aldous Pennyfarthing of Daily Kos discussed a congressional hearing held on Tuesday on impeaching President Biden. Democrat Rep. Joe Neguse tried to get Republican Rep. Guy Reschenthaler to name Biden’s crime. He could not. Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley admitted there is no evidence. Peter Doocy of Fox News admited there is no evidence. So, of course: An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported that the House, on a 221-212 party line vote, authorized an impeachment inquiry. Those Republicans in swing districts voted for it after being assured a vote for an impeachment inquiry is not the same as a vote for impeachment. Democrats were unified in their opposition to the bill. They concede that Hunter Biden has made mistakes, but he is a private citizen and the justice system is already dealing with him (though likely more harshly than they would were he not the president’s son). Kerry Eleveld of Kos wrote:

This impeachment should be embarrassing to Republicans, and yet the bubble of far-right politics has given them the courage of their fact-free convictions. Democrats should thank them. After months of polling showing a tight 2024 presidential contest with whiffs of sagging Democratic enthusiasm for Biden's reelection, Republicans have handed Democrats a base-energizer. Democratic voters will be rightfully outraged that Republicans would launch an inquiry when they have zero supporting evidence despite a year-long investigation into Biden’s supposed misdeeds that turned up squat.

In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Charles Blow of the New York Times:

Confidence in many of our major institutions — including schools, big business, the news media — is at or near its lowest point in the past half-century, in part because of the Donald Trump-led right-wing project to depress it. Indeed, according to a July Gallup report, Republicans’ confidence in 10 of the 16 institutions measured was lower than Democrats’. Three institutions in which Republicans’ confidence exceeded Democrats’ were the Supreme Court, organized religion and the police. And as people lose faith in these institutions — many being central to maintaining the social contract that democracies offer — they can lose faith in democracy itself. People then lose their fear of a candidate like Trump — who tried to overturn the previous presidential election and recently said that if he’s elected next time, he won’t be a dictator, “except for Day 1” — when they believe democracy is already broken. In fact, some welcome the prospect of breaking it completely and starting anew with something different, possibly a version of our political system from a time when it was less democratic — before we expanded the pool of participants.

Mark Sumner of Kos wrote that Russia needs Republicans in order to win. Sumner then reviewed all the things pundits are saying to show Russia will win (so Ukraine should cede that territory and end the war). He also showed why those same things mean Russia isn’t winning. A US Intelligence report says that 315,000 Russian soldiers have died or been injured. That’s 90% of the troops it had when the war started (of course, poorly trained conscripts). Between the personnel (including generals) and equipment losses Russia will spend a generation recovering. Putin has steeply increased the military budget and the draft. He’s doing this only because he refuses to admit defeat. Russia’s capacity to rebuild its military is well below the rate of loss. And it seems Ukraine is better at innovating with drones than Russia is. Even some Russians see there is no victory on the current path. A popular blog suggests Russia freeze the war (though continue to bomb Ukrainian infrastructure) to take two years to rebuild the army, then go after the rest of Ukraine. So don’t believe the claims of Putin – or Republicans. And this is why Putin is investing so heavily in those Republicans. I wrote about the departure of George Santos and Kevin McCarthy from the House. As I did so I wrote about Republicans down to a two-vote margin. I probably didn’t explain it well or accurately. David Nir of Kos Elections has a more complete and better explanation. With Santos gone Republicans have 221 members and Democrats have 213. When all are present and voting if four Republicans don’t support the Speaker then there is a 217-217 tie, which is a loss. When McCarthy leaves that’s 220 to 213 and still four Republican defections mean a loss. Nir works through a few more scenarios – a Democrat who says he’s resigning, another Republican leaving, and Santos likely replaced by a Democrat. If all that happens Republicans can afford two desertions, but not three. John Cole tweeted a cartoon that includes this limerick:

Well, Speaker McCarthy was tryin’ To handle the GOP lion He went for a ride On the lion’s inside With the bones of Boehner and Ryan.

Pennyfarthing wrote that Speaker Mike Johnson is calling himself a modern Moses ready to lead the country through a “Red Sea moment.”

In a recent speech before the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, Johnson said God woke him up in the middle of the night to tell him it was His plan all along to publicly humiliate His faithful servants Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, and Steve Scalise so House Republicans would finally be exhausted enough to accept Mike Johnson as their leader. ... Of course, pretending you talk to God is one of the slickest grifts there is, because no one can ever check.

Pennyfarthing then reviews the story of Pharaoh chasing after the Israelites, formerly slaves, Moses parts the Red Sea and the Israelites flee to safety, then the Sea flows together again to drown Pharaoh’s army.

In other words, in Mike Johnson’s parochial, Bible-besotted worldview, lots of bad people need to suffer and die before God delivers his promised “Handmaid’s Tale” utopia. Making Kevin McCarthy look like a drowning Red Sea ferret for nine months was all part of the plan. ... But have no doubt: Johnson and his ilk are deadly serious about remaking America in the idiosyncratic image of their god.

An abortion story has been playing out in Texas over the last week. A Texas Tribune story posted on Kos from a week ago tells the start. Kate Cox was pregnant and at 20 weeks learned the fetus had a chromosomal abnormality that is almost always fatal. But her doctors said Texas law prevented them from doing an abortion. Cox and her husband went to the Center for Reproductive Rights and they sued. Travis County District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble ruled that Cox could have that abortion and issued an order allowing her to seek it at a Houston hospital. Sumner took up the story. Immediately after the ruling Texas Attorney General Kex Paxton sent letters to Houston hospitals threatening penalties if they did the abortion. Then Paxton appealed to the Texas Supreme Court. And...

On Monday evening, the Texas Supreme Court overturned a lower court decision allowing Kate Cox—a woman carrying a nonviable fetus in a life-threatening pregnancy—to seek an abortion. The ruling makes it clear that Texas’ anti-abortion legislation is working as intended, and that no court can provide relief from the inherent cruelty and dehumanization of the Texas law. ... Hours before the ruling was handed down, the Center for Reproductive Rights announced that Cox had left Texas to seek a surgical abortion in another state. Details are intentionally being withheld, out of concern for Cox and her family.

Cox left before the ruling was given because she was running out of time.

The Texas Supreme Court’s ruling shows that Paxton’s inhumanity and malice are not an aberration: They are the intentional result of legislation passed in Texas. The Texas decision calls into question the value of any provision that supposedly extends the option of an abortion to protect the life or health of the woman. It’s now clear that such provisions can be thwarted by intrusive Republican attorneys general arguing that the woman’s life is not under enough threat. The Texas courts have agreed with Paxton. No doctor is going to feel able to provide an abortion, even in an emergency, under these conditions. That a woman should be required to risk her life and her family’s future in carrying to term a child that cannot survive and will live any brief life in abject misery is just what Republicans intended. This is Texas law working as designed. This is what “pro-life” activists celebrated when Roe v. Wade was overturned. This is just what they wanted.