⭕️ It would take just ~43 House Democrats to keep Hakeem Jeffries from becoming speaker. The Congressional Progressive Caucus alone expects more than 100 members in January.
🔹Its chair, Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), co-sponsored Rep. Rashida Tlaib's November 2025 resolution "recognizing the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza." Now he says he expects to "deliver the votes" for Jeffries. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), another co-sponsor, told MS NOW on Monday that Jeffries will have the caucus's unanimous support, calling his expected rise a "pretty historic moment." In all, 22 House Democrats backed the genocide resolution and well over 40 have described Israel’s actions as genocide.
🔹Jeffries has been one of the strongest supporters of Israel’s military response in Gaza. He opposed a July bid to cut off US military aid to Israel, saying it would "restrict our country's ability to confront Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations in the region." His promised "reset" wouldn't touch aid until the current 10-year deal expires in 2028.
🔹The math: Speaker needs 218 votes cast for a person by name on Jan 3, 2027. With roughly 260 Democrats, if 43 commit to naming someone else and every Republican votes against Jeffries, he falls short.
🔹It's been done before. In January 2023, about 20 Republicans withheld their votes from Rep. Kevin McCarthy through 15 rounds of voting. He won only after major concessions, including a rule letting any single member force a vote to remove the speaker, which Rep. Matt Gaetz used to oust him nine months later.
🔗 Drop Site's Julian Andreone asked Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), another co-sponsor of the genocide resolution who backs Jeffries, whether progressives could use that kind of leverage.
Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Cmte, says “we can end Trump’s war with iran, but not with the snap of our fingers.”
Congress could in fact end the war with one line in the CR. Murray is suggesting here she intends to fund the war into 2027.
Footage shows a Jewish man in Nice pretending to be attacked by pro-Palestinian protesters.
Captured from multiple angles, the videos show him simulating an antisemitic assault in front of demonstrators just as police arrived at the scene.
Americans invented a word for bribery so it would stop sounding like bribery.
They called it "lobbying."
A pharmaceutical company that spends $300 million purchasing the votes of legislators who will then block drug price regulation is not, in American law, corrupt.
It is "civically engaged."
A defense contractor that pays a retired general $500,000 a year to advocate for weapons contracts, contracts the general previously approved from the government side, is not a conflict of interest.
It is "private sector expertise."
A senator who receives $2 million from the insurance industry over a career and votes against universal healthcare every single time is not bought.
He is "fiscally responsible."
The genius of American corruption is not that it is hidden.
It is that it is legible, documented, publicly filed, searchable on the internet, and still not called what it is, because the people who would name it are the same people cashing the checks, and the people watching it happen have been trained to call it "democracy."
At least when a Nigerian official takes a bribe, everyone in the room knows what happened.
In Washington, they hold a press conference about it.
Good point from Van Hollen, but it’s actually three. Schumer wanted Haley Stevens, Angie Craig and also Janet Mills — who most Maine folks thinks would have lost to Collins