Josh Marshall
The Campaign Is Upon Us 
If you’ve been watching Donald Trump since he left the White House, there’s nothing new under the sun. Over the course of his presidency Trump was consistently horrible. But he got more experience in how to make good on his desires and impulses over the course of his presidency. That culminated in the events of January 6th 2021. The progression has continued out of office with every new addition of legal peril stoking a more adamant demand for revenge. Unlike in his first term, there are now a stable of Trump organizations and think tanks preparing not so much to put his plans into effect as to devise plans and policies that map on to his inchoate impulses and targets for retribution. What was latent in his rhetoric and threats is now explicit. Staid MSM publications have now dared to use the F-word — “fascist” — to describe his rhetoric.
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Calls Grow for Threesoming MAGA Star School Board Member to Resign
Tom Edwards, a member of the Sarasota County School Board, has called on fellow board member Bridget Ziegler to resign. There have already been a flood of calls for Ziegler’s husband Christian to resign as chairman of the state Republican party. But Christian Ziegler is the focus of a criminal investigation into whether he raped an as yet unnamed woman. Bridget Ziegler has not been accused of any crime. Her role in the scandal engulfing the couple is tied to her being an anti-gay, anti-trans crusader who had sex at least once with another woman, in a threesome with her husband. So hypocrisy, basically.
Read MoreThe number of Israeli military fatalities has been relatively low since October 7th. But just moments ago the IDF announced that Gal Eizenkot, son of war cabinet member Gadi Eizenkot, was killed today in Gaza. The elder Eizenkot is a former IDF Chief of Staff and the second ranking member of the opposition National Unity party headed by Benny Gantz, another former Chief of Staff. National Unity entered the current Israeli coalition government days after October 7th. And both Gantz and Eizenkot are members of the small war cabinet which is directing the war.
We knew going into this debate that the Republican presidential primaries are not real. Trump is the Republican nominee. I do think though that if Chris Christie had been the Chris Christie who showed up about half the time in this debate that would have been significant. He would have consolidated the admittedly very small Never Trump group within the GOP. That doesn’t matter a lot. But he would have raised some doubts among Republicans about what Trump’s first term was actually like and also forced more conversation about what Trump is promising in a second term. That would have been significant. It would have forced more stuff into the public conversation. It would have forced the other Republican candidates to address Trump’s craziness more clearly. It wouldn’t have defeated Trump. But it would have made a difference by breaking the GOP code of silence about Trump.
Read More9:10 PM: I think Christie managed to connect there. He’s breaking through on the fakeness of the whole primary campaign and unwillingness of any of these people to attack Trump. He basically made smoke come out of DeSantis’s ears. But DeSantis is already roadkill. So hard to say how much it matters.
9:01 PM: “Europe is committing suicide” with immigration. Basically right out of the Great Replacement playbook.
8:44 PM: I haven’t seen any time counts but it seems like Chris Christie has spoken dramatically less than the other three. Just doesn’t have it in him. No fight. Had a couple sharp moments with Ramaswamy. But just flat.
8:31 PM: Kate and I will definitely do an instapod tonight if Christie and Haley murder Vivek live on stage.
8:30 PM: Christie already seems to be done attacking Donald Trump.
8:28 PM: Let’s just note that Haley seems to have floated the conspiracy that Iran launched the massacres in southern Israel to help Russia in Ukraine, and also Putin’s birthday! Weird.
8:25 PM: That’s the first time Christie has really done what he promised he’d do at the start of his campaign: take the argument to Trump. But it seems like he might already be done attacking Trump. Doesn’t seem to have the fight in him anymore.
8:15 PM: I’ve basically made my career covering stupid. But this kind of has me defeated 15 minutes in.
8:08 PM: Just being reminded of the fact that these four are the best the GOP could get up on this stage. It’s pretty remarkable.
8:05 PM: Not sure the 2022 collapse is a big applause line in a GOP debate?
8:04 PM: DeSantis has that weird hands down, dominated dog stance. Weird.
8:03 PM: The only thing of any consequence is whether any of these folks really try to take the fight to Trump.
7:55 PM: Let’s do this.
We can’t promise you it will mean anything. But we promise to make tonight’s fourth GOP debate entertaining. Join us for our live coverage!
Speaker Johnson Called J6 Rioters Shameful “Criminals” Before Protecting Them from DOJ
Eager to maintain the support of the far right of the House GOP caucus Speaker Mike Johnson recently ordered the release of internal House footage of the various rioters who stormed the Capitol complex on January 6th 2021 in an effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. But his transparency train hit a speed bump when he decided to blur the faces of the rioters and criminals who stormed the capitol in order to prevent their being, in Johnson’s words, “retaliated against and charged by the DOJ and have other concerns and problems.”
So Johnson says quite clearly and publicly that his office is obscuring the faces of Jan. 6th rioters in order to prevent law enforcement from holding them accountable for their crimes.
But Johnson wasn’t always so pro-January 6th rioter, or at least he hasn’t been consistently. He called the feral Trumpers who stormed the capitol shameless criminals, in fact.
Read MoreWhen last we checked with accused rapist and confessed threesomer Christian Ziegler, Chairman of the Florida GOP, major Florida Republican party officials were all coming out and demanding he resign. On Monday the state party Vice Chair Evan Power announced he was going to call an emergency meeting for December 17th to deal with the matter. When I heard this I was surprised they’d wait that long to boot Ziegler. They clearly want him gone yesterday.
But they may have to wait longer.
According to Florida Politics, the state party has no mechanism for removing a party chair against their will. It seems the best they can do on the 17th is censure Ziegler or perhaps appoint someone to investigate his behavior.
Approaching the Day After
With the Israeli army surrounding the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza strip and the Israel-Hamas war assuming a grim regularity, I wanted to note a few developments which give perhaps a glimpse of how this all ends and what comes after. To frame the question, I want to flag to your attention this article by Hussein Ibish in The Atlantic. It’s one of the most clear-eyed discussions of the war and its aftermath I’ve seen over the last two months. Ibish’s central argument is that the war certainly won’t end with any kind of final defeat of Hamas or its destruction as an organization. This is an impossible standard since under almost any scenario at least some remnant of the group will emerge from its tunnels at the end of the war and declare victory on its own terms for having survived. But, as Ibish argues, that will be a hollow and pyrrhic victory … unless Israel decides to remain in Gaza with the goal of permanently or indefinitely delaying that hollow declaration of victory. In that scenario either Hamas, or some future reconstituted version of itself, really will have managed a major victory, placing itself at the head of the Palestinian national movement in a permanent state of war with Israel.
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