The Rolling Stones perform at a celebration for the release of their new album “Hackney Diamonds” on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Dear Commons Community,

Those miracles of modern science, the Rolling Stones, celebrated the release of their first album of original music in 18 years with a Manhattan club gig on Thursday.

Before an audience of invited guests that included Christie Brinkley, Elvis Costello and Trevor Noah at Racket NYC, the Stones made a notable racket themselves over seven songs, four from the new “Hackney Diamonds” disc.  As reported by the Associated Press.

Mick Jagger alluded to past stunts the Stones had done in New York to tout new music over the years, including performing on a flatbed truck on Fifth Avenue.

He saluted the city by opening with the 1970s-era punkish tune, “Shattered,” with the lyric “my brain’s been splattered all over Manhattan.”

After performing the new single, “Angry,” Jagger noted to his bandmates: “There’s a first time for everything.”

With the death of drummer Charlie Watts in 2021, the Stones are down to a core trio of Jagger and guitarists Keith Richards and Ron Wood. They’re supplemented onstage with four other musicians.

“Hackney Diamonds,” coming at a time many fans wondered if the Rolling Stones would ever bother again with new music, has been well received by critics, with many noting the crisp energy the band displayed. It’s out Friday.

That vigor was apparent at the performance in Manhattan’s Meatpacking district. Following an opening DJ set by Questlove, Jagger pranced and prowled a stage much smaller than he’s used to, one that a roadie prepared for him by sprinkling powder on the floor. Now 80, he moved like a man half his age. His tongue wagged slightly as he caught his breath after another punk-inspired tune, “Bite My Head Off.”

“You might be familiar with this one,” Jagger said before Richards began the opening riff to “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” instantly trumping the thousands of bar band versions attempted in the 55 years since the song’s release.

This time, the bar band was the Rolling Stones.

Lady Gaga, dressed in a sequined maroon pantsuit, made an appearance to recreate her duet with Jagger on the new “Sweet Sounds of Heaven.”

“New York, the Rolling Stones!” she said before leaving, exchanging kisses with Jagger and Richards.

What can be better!

Tony

Jim Jordan.  Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Dear Commons Community,

House Republicans hit the reset button on their search for a new House speaker and will try again next week to find a leader, after Rep. Jim Jordan’s (R-Ohio) bid came to a whimpering end yesterday.

Republicans voted against keeping Jordan as their speaker-designee by a margin of 86 to 112, lawmakers told reporters after their meeting in the Capitol basement. Jordan then accepted the result.  As reported by the Huffington Post and other media.

“We put the question to them. They made a different decision. I told the conference that I appreciated getting to work with everyone, talking to everyone,” Jordan told reporters after the vote.

“Unfortunately, Jim is no longer going to be the nominee,” Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters. “We will have to go back to the drawing board.”

The clean slate brought out a plethora of announced and potential candidates for the speaker post, which can be won by wrangling 217 votes from the 221-member House Republican conference.

Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), who as party whip is the third-ranking leader, is reportedly running. Emmer would likely be the front-runner, having helped flip control of the chamber back to Republicans as head of the National Republican Congressional Committee in 2020 and 2022.  Politico reported that Donald Trump privately conveyed to allies yesterday he does not back House Majority Whip Tom Emmer’s bid for speaker, throwing another wrench into an already chaotic process to find the next person to hold the gavel.

Republicans have had no leader since chucking McCarthy out of the speaker’s suite earlier this month because he’d been overly cooperative with Democrats.

All House business has ceased as Republicans try to find a replacement for McCarthy, but they’ve been unable to agree among themselves after first nominating Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) and then Jordan.

At least 20 Republicans voted against Jordan on the House floor three separate times this week, depriving him of the required 217 votes. Jordan received only 194 votes Friday in his third attempt.

Jordan had told HuffPost before the secret ballot among Republicans on Friday that he intended to keep trying to win his colleagues over. He said he had lost his most recent House floor vote by a smaller margin than some people expected.

House members headed home for the weekend.

“Monday, we’re going to come back and start over,” Scalise told reporters.

Now Republicans will go back to the beginning of the process. A candidate forum is set for Monday evening and a series of votes is set for Tuesday.

With Jordan and McCarthy off the table, the list of actual and potential speaker candidates is long.

In addition to Emmer, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) — who won a few floor votes for speaker in January, when McCarthy took 15 rounds to lock down the speakership — has tossed his hat in the ring.

Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), who ran as token opposition in the party vote that originally made Jordan the speaker-designee, is running again.

Another candidate is Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), who chairs the Republican Study Committee, the House GOP’s biggest intraparty group. If successful, he would be the first Oklahoman to hold the speakership since Carl Albert, the so-called Little Giant.

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), a former Rules Committee chair, has also said he is running, as has Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.).

Others who are potential candidates or said to be informally testing the waters for a run include Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), as well as Texas Republicans Roger Williams and Jodey Arrington. Williams heads up the Small Business Committee, while Arrington is chair of the Budget Committee.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), the popular chair of the House Rules Committee, has seen his name bandied about, but he has insisted that he is not interested in the job.

One name that won’t be in the mix is McCarthy’s, despite the Californian getting two floor votes for speaker Friday and many in the conference remaining bitter about his ouster. He’s thrown his support behind Emmer.

McCarthy told reporters Friday that the group of eight Republicans who made his ouster possible had done “insurmountable” damage to the country.

“I’ve never seen this amount of damage done [from] just a few people for their own personalities, for their own fear of what’s going through,” McCarthy said.

“I’m concerned about where we go from here.”

The chaos continues. We should all be concerned!

Tony

Kenneth Chesebro appears at a hearing related to the 2020 election interference case  in Fulton County Superior Court in Atlanta, Georgia. Photo: Alyssa Pointer-Pool/Getty Images

Dear Commons Community,

Lawyer Kenneth Chesebro pleaded guilty to a felony yesterday as jury selection was getting underway in his trial on charges accusing him of participating in efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election in Georgia.

Chesebro, who was charged alongside Trump and 17 others with violating the state’s anti-racketeering law, pleaded guilty to one felony charge of conspiracy to commit filing false documents in a last-minute deal, with prosecutors agreeing to dismiss the other charges. His plea came a day after fellow attorney Sidney Powell, who had been scheduled to go to trial alongside him, entered her own guilty plea to six misdemeanor counts. As reported by The Associated Press and the New York Daily News.

In Chesebro’s case, he was sentenced to five years’ probation and 100 hours of community service and was ordered to pay $5,000 in restitution, write an apology letter to Georgia’s residents and testify truthfully at any related future trial.

The two guilty pleas — along with a third for a bail bondsman last month — are major victories for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. They allow her to avoid a lengthy trial of just two defendants — which would have given those remaining a peek at her trial strategy — and to whittle down an unwieldy pool of defendants.

Unlike Powell, who was involved in strategy talks with the former president after the election, the indictment does not indicate direct contact between Chesebro and Trump. This could potentially limit any information he could offer prosecutors that would be helpful to them in their case against Trump.

Chesebro’s lawyer, Scott Grubman, said it is entirely up to prosecutors whether his client will be called to testify against others in the case, but he would be surprised if it happens. Asked if Trump should be worried about any testimony Chesebro might offer, Grubman said, “I don’t think so.”

Chesebro, who lives in Puerto Rico, was initially charged with felony racketeering and six other counts as part of a wide-ranging scheme to keep the Republican president in power after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. The indictment alleges Chesebro coordinated and executed a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans sign a certificate declaring falsely that Trump won the state and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.

Grubman said after the plea hearing that his client has been “inaccurately described as the architect of some plan to overturn democracy.” He said the plea deal contradicts that.

“I think this plea deal absolutely shows and proves that he was not and never was the architect of any sort of fake elector plan or anything like that,” Grubman told reporters.

For prosecutors, the plea deal assures that Chesebro publicly accepts responsibility for his conduct in the case and removes the uncertainty of a trial by a jury of his peers. It also compels him to testify in future trials in the case. Based on court filings by prosecutors, that could include communications he had with Trump’s campaign lawyers and close associates, including co-defendant Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and a Trump attorney.

Trump attorney Steve Sadow said it appears as if Chesebro’s guilty plea “was the result of pressure by Fani Willis and her team and the prosecution’s looming threat of prison time.”

He also reiterated what he said after Powell’s guilty plea, which similarly included a commitment to testify in future trials: “Once again, I fully expect that truthful testimony would be favorable to my defense strategy.”

Chesebro was also an unnamed, unindicted co-conspirator in an indictment filed against Trump by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith. The former president was charged in that case with trying to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 election and block the peaceful transfer of power.

The federal indictment alleges that “co-conspirator 5” — identified as Chesebro by The Associated Press through court and congressional records and other means — “assisted in devising and attempting to implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.”

By the time Chesebro agreed to the plea deal, prospective jurors at his planned trial had already been sworn in and filled out an extensive questionnaire. He had been set to be tried alongside Powell after each filed a demand for a speedy trial.

As part of Powell’s deal, she will serve six years of probation, will be fined $6,000 and will have to write an apology letter to Georgia and its residents. She also recorded a statement for prosecutors and agreed to testify truthfully against her co-defendants at future trials.

A lower-profile defendant in the case, bail bondsman Scott Graham Hall, pleaded guilty last month to five misdemeanor charges. He was sentenced to five years of probation and agreed to testify in further proceedings.

All of the other defendants, including Trump and his White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, have pleaded not guilty.

Grubman said this deal means his client will get to return to his family and his life without spending a day behind bars. He said he believes that getting prosecutors to agree on the record that this was not a crime of “moral turpitude” should allow Chesebro to continue practicing law.

Prosecutors allege that Chesebro unlawfully conspired with Trump and lawyers associated with his campaign to have the group of Georgia Republicans sign the false elector certificate and to submit it to various federal authorities. He also communicated with Trump campaign lawyers and Republican leaders in other swing states won by Biden to get those states to submit false slates of electors as well, prosecutors alleged.

That included writing memos advocating for Republicans in those states to meet and cast electoral votes for Trump and providing detailed instructions for how the process should be carried out. In an email to Giuliani, he outlined strategies to disrupt and delay the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, during which electoral votes were to be certified. He wrote that those strategies were “preferable to allowing the Electoral Count Act to operate by its terms.”

One flip, two flips, three flips – how many more flips?

Tony

ESO/M. Kornmesser

Dear Commons Community,

Astronomers have detected a mysterious blast of radio waves that have taken 8 billion years to reach Earth. The fast radio burst is one of the most distant and energetic ever observed.

Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are intense, millisecond-long bursts of radio waves with unknown origins. The first FRB was discovered in 2007, and since then, hundreds of these quick, cosmic flashes have been detected coming from distant points across the universe.

The burst, named FRB 20220610A, lasted less than a millisecond, but in that fraction of a moment, it released the equivalent of our sun’s energetic emissions over the course of 30 years, according to a study published yesterday in the journal Science.

Many FRBs release super bright radio waves lasting only a few milliseconds at most before disappearing, which makes fast radio bursts difficult to observe.

Radio telescopes have helped astronomers trace these quick cosmic flashes, including the ASKAP array of radio telescopes, located on Wajarri Yamaji Country in Western Australia. Astronomers used ASKAP to detect the FRB in June 2022 and determine where it originated.

“Using ASKAP’s array of (radio) dishes, we were able to determine precisely where the burst came from,” said study coauthor Dr. Stuart Ryder, astronomer at Macquarie University in Australia, in a statement. “Then we used (the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope) in Chile to search for the source galaxy, finding it to be older and (farther) away than any other FRB source found to date and likely within a small group of merging galaxies.”

The research team traced the burst to what appears to be a group of two or three galaxies that are in the process of merging, interacting and forming new stars. This finding aligns with current theories that suggest fast radio bursts may come from magnetars, or highly energetic objects that result from the explosions of stars.

Scientists believe that fast radio bursts may be a unique method that can be used to “weigh” the universe by measuring the matter between galaxies that remains unaccounted for.

“If we count up the amount of normal matter in the Universe — the atoms that we are all made of — we find that more than half of what should be there today is missing,” said study coauthor Ryan Shannon, a professor at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, in a statement. “We think that the missing matter is hiding in the space between galaxies, but it may just be so hot and diffuse that it’s impossible to see using normal techniques.”

So far, the results of current methods used to estimate the universe’s mass don’t agree with one another, which suggests the entire scope of the universe isn’t included.

“Fast radio bursts sense this ionised material,” Shannon said. “Even in space that is nearly perfectly empty they can ‘see’ all the electrons, and that allows us to measure how much stuff is between the galaxies.”

This method of using fast radio bursts to detect missing matter was demonstrated by the late Australian astronomer Jean-Pierre Macquart in 2020.

“J-P showed that the (farther) away a fast radio burst is, the more diffuse gas it reveals between the galaxies. This is now known as the Macquart relation,” Ryder said. “Some recent fast radio bursts appeared to break this relationship.
Our measurements confirm the Macquart relation holds out to beyond half the known Universe.”

Nearly 50 fast radio bursts have been traced to date back to their origin points, and about half of them have been found using ASKAP.

“While we still don’t know what causes these massive bursts of energy, the paper confirms that fast radio bursts are common events in the cosmos and that we will be able to use them to detect matter between galaxies, and better understand the structure of the Universe,” Shannon said.

Astronomers said they hope that future radio telescopes, currently under construction in South Africa and Australia, will enable the detection of thousands more fast radio bursts at greater distances.

“The fact that FRBs are so common is also amazing,” Shannon said. “It shows how promising the field can be, because you’re not just going to do this for 30 bursts, you can do this for 30,000 bursts, make a new map of the structure of the universe, and use it to answer big questions about cosmology.”

We have so much to learn about the universe!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Lawyer Sidney Powell pleaded guilty to reduced charges yesterday over efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election in Georgia, becoming the second defendant in the sprawling case to reach a deal with prosecutors.  As reported by various news media.

Powell, who was charged alongside Trump and 17 others with violating the state’s anti-racketeering law, entered the plea just a day before jury selection was set to start in her trial. She pleaded guilty to six misdemeanors accusing her of conspiring to intentionally interfere with the performance of election duties.

As part of the deal, she will serve six years of probation, will be fined $6,000 and will have to write an apology letter to Georgia and its residents. She also recorded a statement for prosecutors and agreed to testify truthfully against her co-defendants at future trials.

Powell was initially charged with racketeering and six other counts as part of a wide-ranging scheme to keep the Republican president in power after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. Prosecutors say she also participated in an unauthorized breach of elections equipment in a rural Georgia county elections office.

The plea deal makes Powell the most prominent known person to be working with prosecutors investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. Her cooperation in the case and participation in strategy talks threaten to expose the former president and offer insight on what he was saying and doing in the critical period after the election.

Above all, the guilty plea is a remarkable about-face for a lawyer who, perhaps more than anyone else, strenuously pushed baseless conspiracy theories about a stolen election in the face of extensive evidence to the contrary. She also has important knowledge about high-profile events, including a news conference she participated in on behalf of Trump and his campaign shortly after the election and on a White House meeting she attended in mid-December of 2020 in which prosecutors say ways to influence the outcome of the election were discussed.

Powell’s only comments in court came in response to routine questions from prosecutor Daysha Young and the judge.

There was a moment of levity when Young asked, “How old are you, ma’am?”

“Oh gosh,” Powell said with a chuckle. “Sixty-eight, despite my astonishingly youthful countenance.”

But Powell was solemn and succinct when Young asked, “How do you plead to the six counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties?”

“Guilty,” Powell said, her hands folded in front of her on the defense table.

John Fishwick, a former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, called Powell’s plea a “significant win” for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

“This is somebody who was at ground zero of these allegations and a lawyer who is pleading guilty,” he said. “This is very significant.”

 One flip, two flip, how many more flips?

Tony

Source:  US Federal Reserve: https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/scf23.pdf

Dear Commons Community,

The net worth of the typical U.S. household grew at the fastest pace in more than three decades from 2020 through 2022, while relatively low interest rates at that time made it easier for households to pay their debts, according to a government report released Wednesday. As reported by the Associated Press.

Wealth for the median household — the midpoint between the richest and poorest households — jumped 37% during those three years, the Federal Reserve reported, to nearly $193,000. (The figures are adjusted for inflation.) The increase reflected primarily a jump in home values and higher stock prices and a rise in the proportion of Americans who own homes and stocks.

The jump in wealth occurred even as the brief but brutal pandemic recession cost 20 million Americans their jobs in 2020. Extensive government relief aid, totaling about $5 trillion, helped spur a rapid recovery that regained the lost jobs much faster than had been true after the 2008-2009 recession. The additional spending, though, is believed to have helped fuel the worst bout of inflation in four decades.

The broad-based wealth increase helps explain the surprising durability of the U.S. economy this year and the consumer spending that powers about two-thirds of it. For at least a year, economists have been warning of a forthcoming recession. Yet the economy has kept chugging along.Economic growth in the just-completed July-September quarter might have topped a robust 4% annual rate, boosted by strong consumer spending for physical goods as well as for services, a broad category that includes airline travel, entertainment, restaurant meals and other experiences.

Government-provided stimulus payments in the aftermath of the pandemic also boosted households’ finances. The median value of checking and savings accounts and other cash holdings surged 30%, according to the Fed’s survey, which it conducts every three years. And with borrowing rates historically low, Americans dedicated just 13.4% of their incomes to paying off debt in 2022, the lowest such proportion since the Fed survey began in 1989.

Even so, substantial wealth inequality remained in place during the survey period, reflecting decades of widening disparities between the richest households and everyone else. Among the wealthiest 10% of households, median wealth reached nearly $3.8 million in 2022.

Still, more Americans bought individual stocks after the pandemic — a likely reflection, in some way, of the “meme stock” craze that was fueled partly by stimulus checks. The proportion of families that directly owned stocks — as opposed through mutual funds — jumped from 15% to 21%, a record increase, the survey found.

The median value of individual stock holdings was $15,000, the Fed report said. The average value of direct stock ownership was much higher — $404,000 — the survey found, reflecting the holdings of richer families.

Household net worth rose more, on a percentage basis, for Black and Hispanic households than for white ones, though measured in dollar terms the disparities remained wide. The median net worth of Black households jumped 60% but remained comparatively low at $45,000. For Hispanics, the figure surged 47% to nearly $62,000. Among white households, median household net worth rose 31% to $285,000.

The Fed’s survey found that even as wealth inequality declined, income disparities worsened. Median incomes grew 3% compared with the previous survey, which covered 2017 through 2019. But average incomes, which are swollen by the earnings of the wealthiest one-tenth of households, jumped 15%. The outsize gain among the richest households was driven by profits on stock and property holdings as well as higher wages.

Yet the income data was also more complicated than usual in this report, Fed officials noted. It did not, for example, capture the effects of stimulus checks. And the report focused on incomes in 2021, when many Americans were still grappling with job losses from the pandemic recession.

Other economic research has found that since the pandemic struck in 2020, wages have actually grown faster for lower-income workers than for wealthier ones. That reflects the fact that restaurants, hotels, warehouses and many other service businesses dramatically raised pay to try to attract desperately needed workers.

A March 2023 research paper by David Autor, an economist at MIT; Arindrajit Dube, an economist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and Anne McGrew, a Ph.D. student at UMass, found that rising wages for the lowest-paid one-tenth of workers from 2019 to 2022 managed to reverse one-quarter of the increase in income inequality since 1980.

More good news about our economy!

Tony

Speaker Chair Still Empty.  Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Dear Commons Community,

Republican Rep. Jim Jordan failed again yesterday on a second ballot to become House speaker.

Next steps were highly uncertain as angry, frustrated Republicans looked at other options. A bipartisan group of lawmakers floated an extraordinary plan — to give the interim speaker pro tempore, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., more power to reopen the immobilized House and temporarily conduct routine business.

What was clear was that Jordan’s path to become House speaker was almost certainly lost. He was opposed by 22 Republicans, two more than he lost in first-round voting the day before. Many view the Ohio congressman as too extreme for a central seat of U.S. power and resented the harassing hardball tactics from Jordan’s allies for their votes. One lawmaker said they had received death threats.  As reported by the Associated Press.

“We’ll keep talking to members, keep working on it,” Jordan, a founding member of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, said after the vote.

The House came to another abrupt standstill, stuck now 15 days since the sudden ouster of Kevin McCarthy without a speaker — a position of power second in line to the presidency.

Once a formality in Congress, the vote for House speaker has devolved into a bitter GOP showdown for the gavel with no foreseeable end. Jordan is resisting entreaties to step aside and no other politically viable candidate is emerging to unite the ruptured Republican majority.

As Republicans upset and exhausted by the infighting retreated for private conversations, hundreds of demonstrators amassed outside the Capitol over the Israel-Hamas war, a stark reminder of the concern over having the House adrift as political challenges intensify at home and abroad.

“The way out is that Jim Jordan has got to pull his name,” said Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who voted twice against him. “He’s going to have to call it quits.”

After yesterday’s vote, McCarthy and other party leaders appeared to tentatively rally around Jordan, giving the combative Judiciary Committee chairman the time he was demanding, though it was doubtful he could shore up votes. No further action was scheduled and the House lost another day.

With Republicans in majority control of the House, 221-212, Jordan must pick up most of his GOP foes to win. Wednesday’s tally, with 199 Republicans voting for Jordan and 212 for Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, left no candidate with a clear majority.

As the rollcall got underway, Jordan lost more than he gained, picking up three backers but adding more detractors.

The holdouts added to a surprisingly large and politically diverse group of 20 Republicans who had rejected Jordan’s nomination the day before.

Jordan’s refusal to concede only further embittered some of the Republicans, who were upset that the party’s first choice, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, was essentially forced to drop his own bid 24 hours after a failed vote last week in large part because Jordan’s backers team refused to give their support.

Bipartisan groups of lawmakers have been floating ways to operate the House by giving greater power to McHenry or another temporary speaker. The House had never ousted its speaker before McCarthy, and McHenry could tap the temporary powers that were created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks to ensure continuity of government.

The novel concept of boosting the interim speaker’s role was gaining favor with a pair of high-profile Republicans: former GOP speakers Newt Gingrich and John Boehner.

Gingrich said while he likes Jordan, he has “no faith” the nominee can get much beyond the 200 votes he won in the first vote.

Boehner reposted Gingrich’s views saying, “I agree,” on social media.

The two men have deep experience with the subject. Both were chased to early retirement.

“All options are on the table to end the Republican civil war,” Jeffries said Wednesday.

But McHenry appeared to brush off the idea of taking further powers for himself, saying Jordan “has the support of the conference to keep going, so that’s what we’re gonna do.”

McHenry added that he finds himself in an unprecedented position and has constructed his role “as narrowly as the rules say I should, and we can’t transact business until we elect a speaker.”

In nominating Jordan, veteran Republican Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma said it was time to end the upheaval that he had warned against with McCarthy’s sudden ouster.

“We have a chance today to end that chaos, end that uncertainty,” Cole said.

Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar of California nominated Jeffries, noting the Democratic leader continues to win more votes and is the best choice to move the country forward.

“The country cannot afford more delays and more chaos,” Aguilar said.

Jordan had relied on backing from Trump, the party’s front-runner in the 2024 election to challenge President Joe Biden, and groups pressuring rank-and-file lawmakers for the vote, but they were not enough and in fact backfired on some.

“One thing I cannot stomach or support is a bully,” said a statement from Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, who voted against Jordan on the second ballot and said she received “credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls.”

Flexing their independence, the holdouts are a mix of pragmatists — ranging from seasoned legislators and committee chairs worried about governing, to newer lawmakers from districts where voters prefer Biden to Trump.

Instead, the holdouts cast their ballots for McCarthy, Scalise and others, with one vote even going to the retired Boehner.

Jordan has been a top Trump ally, particularly during the Jan. 6 Capitol attack by the former president’s backers who were trying to overturn the 2020 election he lost to Biden.

The political climb has been steep for Jordan, who is known more as a chaos agent than a skilled legislator, raising questions about how he would lead. Congress faces daunting challenges, risking a federal shutdown at home if it fails to fund the government and fielding Biden’s requests for aid to help Ukraine and Israel in the wars abroad.

First elected in 2006, Jordan has few bills to his name from his time in office. He also faces questions about his past. Some years ago, Jordan denied allegations from former wrestlers during his time as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University who accused him of knowing about claims they were inappropriately groped by an Ohio State doctor. Jordan has said he was never aware of any abuse.

House Republicans need to move on!

Tony

Amber Wilsondebriano

Dear Commons Community,

A South Carolina high school senior made history as the school’s first Black homecoming queen in 155 years.

Amber Wilsondebriano, a senior at Charleston’s Porter-Gaud High School, was voted homecoming queen by her peers in 2023.  As reported by USA Today.

“When I was nominated, I didn’t feel confident I would win,” Wilsondebriano said. “However, throughout the week, many students told me they were voting for me. When the day came and my name was called, I was relieved and honored because I knew I was a part of history. I was elated the whole night. My peers made me feel special for the day.”

Wilsondebriano said the support she has received before and after her coronation has been overwhelming.

“So many children of all ethnicities asked to take pictures with me as the new queen,” she said. “I’m so happy to have been chosen as homecoming queen for my character and achievements, not because of my race.”

Wilsondebriano, 17, is one of Porter-Gaud High School’s best students. She has a 4.66 GPA and is a co-founder of several clubs at the school. One of the clubs she is most proud of is the Black Excellence Society.

The Black Excellence Society is a club she thought the school needed to have Black students in the school come together and have a safe space. The club is also a space where Black students can find ways to bring more diversity to the school.

“There are less than 10 Black people in my senior class,” Wilsondebriano said. “When we have our meetings, every Black student in the school can fit in one classroom.”

When Wilsondebriano and her five friends pitched the club to the directors at Porter-Gaud High School last year, they immediately accepted the program.

“I can’t say enough how supportive the school has been of the club,” Wilsondebriano said. “They have funded catering for us and gave us a classroom to hold our meetings. I appreciate the school very much.”

Wilsondebriano is the Chinese and Art Club co-leader and plans to major in painting at The Savannah College of Art and Design next fall. Her goals are to illustrate and write children’s books. She also dreams of someday owning a business and sourcing her work.

“Amber is a very special child,” said Amber’s mother, Monique Wilsondebriano. “She has taught herself how to paint. She is such a blessing. It’s not surprising to me that the kids voted for her to become queen. She is a good friend and is very loyal.”

Wilsondebriano’s family is from New York but moved after her father, Chevalo Wilsondebriano, was injured in the 9/11 attacks. While working for the FDNY EMS as a medic and first responder, he sustained an injury to his lungs.

They moved to South Carolina to open their company, Charleston Gourmet Burger Co. Their products have been sold in Macy’s, Whole Foods and Walmart.

Congratulations to Amber!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Two members of a conservative group followed and harassed a queer Arizona State University professor who founded a drag story hour, starting an altercation that ended in the two people shoving the professor down and “bloodying his face,” University President Michael Crow told faculty and staff on Saturday.  As reported by The Huffington Post.

Security footage from the altercation last Wednesday shows two people — one with a camera — from the right-wing group Turning Point USA following and questioning professor David Boyles. After the professor appears to try to grab the camera or push it out of one of the men’s hands, the other knocks Boyles to the ground.

Boyles is the co-founder of Drag Story Hour Arizona, which features drag performers reading children’s books to kids. Drag story hours across the country have become a frequent target of right-wing attacks and anti-LGBTQ+ misinformation.

In video of the incident posted by Turning Point USA, the two men confront Boyles on campus and pepper him with questions implying that his work with Drag Story Hour makes him a groomer.

“If I ask you how long you’ve been attracted to minors, or how long you’ve fantasized about minors having sex with adults and why you write about it in children’s books, what are you going to tell me?” asked one of the Turning Point USA members.

ASU police did not respond to a request for comment, but they told KPNX that the assault is being investigated as “a potential bias or prejudicially motivated incident.”

Turning Point USA, which was founded by then-19-year-old Charlie Kirk, told KPNX that the person with the camera plans to press charges against Boyles for assault.

Both Turning Point USA and Boyles did not immediately respond to a request for comment from HuffPost.

On his Facebook page, the professor spoke out about the incident and said he was shoved down after he “moved to block the camera.”

“My physical injuries are relatively minor and I’m doing ok,” Boyles wrote the post alongside a photo of his face with a large cut. “But I’m also feeling angry, violated, embarrassed, and despairing at the fact that we have come to normalize this kind of harassment and violence against anyone who tries to support LGBTQ+ youth (ironically the topic of the class I had just finished teaching) or just LGBTQ+ people and other marginalized groups in general.”

President Crow wrote in his email to faculty and staff that Boyles is “part of an academic community that appropriately engages” students across the “entire spectrum of human experience and expression.”

He called the two Turning Point USA members “cowards.”

“It is astounding to me that individuals from Turning Point USA would wait for an ASU instructor to come out of his class to follow him, harass him and ultimately shove him to the ground, bloodying his face,” Crow wrote. “Cowards that they are and so confident in the legality and appropriateness of their actions, the Turning Point USA ‘reporter’ and ‘cameraman’ then ran away from the scene before police arrived.”

A 2019 HuffPost investigation revealed that Turning Point USA’s national organization hired several racists to its national staff, including former national field director Crystal Clanton, who once texted a fellow employee: “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE. Like fuck them all . . . I hate blacks. End of story.”

These people have no place in a civilized society!

Tony

Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) The Hill

Dear Commons Community,

“A vote today to make the architect of a nationwide abortion ban, a vocal election denier and an insurrection insider to the Speaker of this house would be a terrible message to the country and our allies,” Aguilar said, speaking of Jim Jordan.

“Mr. Speaker, it would send an even more troubling message to our enemies, that the very people who would seek to undermine democracy are rewarded with positions of immense power,” he continued.

He ripped the GOP’s Speaker nominee for putting the country’s national security at risk, for his role in not certifying the 2020 election results and for launching “baseless investigations.” Jordan has been a leading figure in House impeachment probes into President Biden and his son Hunter.

“We’re talking about someone who has spent his entire career trying to hold our country back, putting our national security in danger, attempting government shutdown after government shutdown, wasting taxpayer dollars on baseless investigations with dead ends, authoring the very bill that would ban abortion nationwide without exceptions and inciting violence on this chamber,” Aguilar said.

“Even leaders of his own party have called him a legislative terrorist,” he added.

That monicker was once used by former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to describe Jordan.

Aguilar also took aim at Jordan for voting no on a series of legislative action, including approving natural disaster relief in states after they were ravaged by hurricanes and wildfires. When listing examples of what legislative action Jordan opposed, some Democrats appeared to join in chorus, saying “he said no” along with Aguilar.

“When the Mississippi River floods devastated the South and communities across state lines needed Congress to act, he said no,” he said. “When our veterans were suffering from disease and dying as a result of their service to our country and Congress passed a bipartisan solution, he said no.”

The California Democrat criticized the House for considering electing a member “who has not passed a single bill in 16 years.”

Aguilar called on the House to find a bipartisan way forward, accusing Republicans of throwing the House into “chaos” by failing to come to a consensus on a new Speaker. He said that they are gathered to vote on a new leader because “this hallowed chamber has been led to a breaking point by two dangerous forces — extremism and partisanship.”

Jordan, who narrowly secured the GOP nomination for Speaker in an internal vote last week, failed to clinch the 217 votes necessary on the first ballot. The vote was 200 for Jordan, 212 for Jakeem Jeffries and 20 for other members. It’s unclear when a second vote might be held.

Tony