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Woman eats 48 oysters video: Restaurant reacts to her tip

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Woman eats 48 oysters video: Restaurant reacts to her tip

A video of a woman in Atlanta, Georgia eating 48 oysters in one sitting has gone viral, being viewed 4.5 million times on TikTok in four days.

However, the poster has since faced questions over visibly leaving an $11 cash tip, which she contests. The restaurant’s general manager responded to the video, saying that while “people have been roasting this poor girl,” she “was nice.”

In the video, the woman explains that she is reluctantly going on a date with a man at Fontaine’s Oyster House, to the north-east of the city center, which she describes as having “the best f***ing oysters in the land.”

The viral clip then shows her indulging in plate after plate of a dozen oysters, until four are stacked on top of one another at the table. The video contains extensive profanity.

“When the fourth one came out, he [the date] was looking at me crazy,” the poster narrates. “I didn’t give a f***. I’m like, ‘baby, you invited me out. I’m going to eat.'”

She added: “They were so good, I just had to.”

She then proceeds to eat a plate of potatoes and crab cakes, before claiming that her date had left without paying the bill, which came to nearly $185 without a tip. She can then be seen placing $11 in cash on the receipt tray.

Many users were quick to comment on both the number of oysters she consumed and the relatively small tip she appeared to leave—though the restaurant said it was not uncommon for such a large number of the shellfish to be eaten by their guests.

“You eating 48 oysters, a whole meal and multiple drinks in that short window is INSANE,” one commented, while another wrote: “I’m sorry but 48 oysters as an appetizer got me screaming.”

“They brought you your weight in oysters and you left that skinny a** tip,” a further TikToker said. “Shame on you sister.”

However, another responded: “Y’all telling her what to do with HER money? She can tip however much she pleases.”

In response to one of the comments, the poster released another video, which has been viewed 1.9 million times in three days, showing the receipt including an additional $15 tip, which she said she paid by card. The video may also contain some swearing.

“People have been roasting this poor girl,” Kelcey Flanagan, the oyster bar’s manager, told Rolling Stone magazine. “You know, it comes out in the wash. Some people tip great, some people, it’s regular, but she was nice. I just hope she’s not getting too much flak.”

She added that eating that number of oysters was “nothing new for us,” noting that two women had once ordered six lots of a dozen oysters each, and during an oyster eating competition, one put away 15 plates of the shellfish.

“I will say, it had been a minute since I had a single female eat that many,” Flanagan told the magazine. “But then, you know, she was eating crackers and things like that. But yeah, she put it away. It’s pretty impressive.”

She also said that the woman’s date had returned after she had paid the bill, and that they left. Newsweek approached the TikTok poster via email for comment on Sunday.

Did Donald Trump’s indictments boost his poll numbers?

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Did Donald Trump’s indictments boost his poll numbers?

Donald Trump’s appearances last week in civil court, where he is accused of inflating the value of his property portfolio, was characteristically defiant, as he told reporters his legal troubles were a boon to his 2024 presidential campaign.

As well as the civil lawsuit, brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, Trump faces 91 federal and state charges across four indictments, all of which he denies.

While the federal trials are yet to begin, Trump has claimed that each of his indictments has helped his 2024 presidential polling numbers. Republican primary polls show he is standing about 40 points ahead of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

A clip of Trump speaking outside court, shared on TikTok last Monday and since viewed more than 1.3 million times, showed him saying: “If I weren’t leading in all the polls or if I weren’t running, I wouldn’t have any of these cases.

“I wouldn’t be seeing you this morning, so we’ll go in and see our rogue judge, and we’ll listen to this man, and I think most people get it. People are getting it, I can tell you voters are getting it because every time they give me a fake indictment I go up in the polls and that has never happened before.”

It is not clear which specific polls he is referring to.

Throughout the year, poll aggregators such as FiveThirtyEight and Real Clear Politics have been tracking Trump’s standing in the GOP race, his standing versus Joe Biden in a hypothetical presidential contest, and his favorability among Americans.

Trump has faced four indictments this year: March 30 on Manhattan “hush money” charges; June 8 for allegedly handling classified documents; August 1 in Washington, D.C., regarding election interference; and August 24 in Georgia on racketeering and election interference charges.

To examine any potential impact of the polling average, Newsweek compared Trump’s average aggregated ratings before each indictment with those a week and two weeks after he was charged.

The data comparison suggests Trump’s polling received a bump following his first indictment—over alleged “hush money” payments, but the increase was not repeated after each subsequent indictment.

Polls change for many reasons. This data analysis does not assess reasons behind changes.

Newsweek has reached out to a Trump representative via email for comment.

How Trump’s GOP Polling Changed

Looking at the week after the first indictment in the hush-money case, there was a clear boost to Trump’s numbers in the GOP primary race. Seven days after being charged, Real Clear Politics stated his primary poll numbers rose on average by about six points, from 45.7 percent on March 29 to 52.0 percent on April 7. The rating did not move significantly in the week after. FiveThirtyEight recorded a smaller initial leap, rising from 46.8 percent on March 29 to 51.9 percent on April 7. However, a week later, his score grew, securing almost 2 more percentage points by April 14. DeSantis was almost neck-and-neck with Trump in mid-February, polls show, but by late March DeSantis’ numbers began to decrease sharply.On June 7, the date before his Mar-a-Lago classified documents charges, Real Clear Politics reported Trump’s average primary approval rating was 54 percent; FiveThirtyEight recorded 52.8 percent. In the week after the indictment, Real Clear reported a 2-percentage-point loss; he would not recover his 54 percent support until August 10. FiveThirtyEight reported a dip of 0.2 percentage points, with no real clear change in fortunes until the end of the month.After Trump was indicted on August 1 on federal election interference charges, FiveThirtyEight reported a 0.2 percentage point rise and fall in seven and 14 days compared to his prior polling average. Real Clear Politics reported the reverse pattern; compared to the day before the indictment, Trump saw his average drop of 0.3 percentage points in the seven days after he was charged. By August 15, it increased by that amount over his pre-indictment rating.Trump’s charges in Georgia came before a fall in ratings. The day before his indictment, FiveThirtyEight recorded average support of 55.8 percent; by August 28, it was 52.6 percent, recovering to 56.6 percent by September 4. Real Clear Politics saw no such recovery, with Trump’s average dropping from 54.8 percent to 53 percent in the week after he appeared in Fulton County. He recovered 0.4 percentage points seven days later, but it took several more days before he pulled back the points he lost.

Overall, Trump has seen a boost in his numbers since his first charge. FiveThirtyEight has recorded a nearly 12 percentage-point climb in his average GOP primary standing since March 2023, at 58.7 percent currently. Real Clear Politics registered a similar uptick, reporting 57.4 percent average support at time of publication.

Real Clear Politics and FiveThirtyEight have provided polling averages throughout the year. The averages include polls from a wide range of surveys, rather than tracking changes in like-for-like polls. FiveThirtyEight describes its methodology in detail, avoiding especially large sample sizes, limiting extreme values, removing overlapping polls from individual pollsters,

Newsweek has reached out to Real Clear Politics for a copy of its polling methodology.

How Trump’s Favorability Changed

Trump’s indictments did not result in any noticeable improvement in what Americans have thought of him. His favorability, according to analysts, has mostly spun on a pin throughout 2023, with Americans consistently disapproving of Trump by roughly 52 percent to 56 percent.

Trump could, of course, justify his claim about indictment uplifts by pointing to individual polls. For example, one Fox News poll conducted after his indictment in Georgia showed a 10-percentage-point leap in his GOP primary ratings, compared to results recorded before the announcement.

As for results in a theoretical Trump vs. Biden 2024 presidential race, the competition has been neck-and-neck, with the indictments offering no clear boost for the former president.

What Analysts Say

Thomas Gift, director of the University College London Centre on U.S. Politics, told Newsweek that the overall uptick in Trump’s poll numbers cannot be “pegged neatly and temporally to each specific prosecution.”

“Since Trump’s indictments have begun, there’s an obvious positive trend line to Trump’s popularity among Republican voters,” Gift said. “To me, this is broadly consistent with the indictments helping Trump with the primary electorate.

“But it’s not necessarily the case that each successive indictment, in isolation, has buoyed Trump in the polls. It’s more a general effect than one that can be pegged neatly and temporally to each specific prosecution.”

Professor Lonna Atkeson, an election science expert at Florida State University’s College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, argued it may be much later in the campaign before attitudes shift toward his alleged crimes.

“Usually indictments do matter and convictions do matter and one might think in a general election campaign where those became issues, which they would, that they would have negative consequences, assuming they are seen as legitimate,” Atkeson told Newsweek. “Will the election turn on the veracity of the indictments?”

Other presidential hopefuls have previously faced legal issues. Ahead of the Watergate Senate hearings, President Richard Nixon enjoyed approval ratings in the mid-60s, which quickly slumped as Americans learned more about his crimes and as congressional investigations played out live, research by Pew found.

President Bill Clinton, however, saw little impact in his popularity during and after his impeachment, Pew reported. Like Trump, Atkeson told Newsweek, Clinton argued that the charges against him were politically motivated.

“So, a lot depends on how [Trump’s indictments] play out in court, and with it on TV voters will get to see and determine at least, in part, on their own perceptions,” Atkeson said.

“Second, it matters whether GOP elites turn on the former president or they stay with him. So far only [former New Jersey Governor Chris] Christie is out there strongly against Mr. Trump. That’s not enough. If the GOP message is corruption of justice and that’s fortified by a circus in court, well you can see how things are uncertain, and could play out differently.”

There is little evidence in the polls that Trump’s indictments have hurt his chances in 2024, which is “pretty remarkable,” according to professor David C. Barker, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University.

“The reason for that is pretty simple, though,” he told Newsweek. “In these polarized times in which no amount of information is considered credible on the right if it emanates from traditional sources of authority [the press, academia, the scientific community], all the indictments are seen as part of a grand witch hunt designed to keep ‘the good people down.'” Barker said.

“Indeed, by going after Trump, it fuels defensiveness on the part of his supporters. They have a bunker mentality, circling the wagons to protect their guy from his grand inquisitors. In short, the more the ‘elites’ appear to despise Trump [the indictments are viewed that way, and they aren’t wrong], the more they feel compelled to defend him.”

However, Brian Ward, professor of American Studies at Northumbria University, told Newsweek that a lack of alternatives might be aiding Trump’s cause.

“Die-hard Trumpers always will support Trump regardless,” he said. “The absence of viable or attractive GOP opponents, faltering campaigns, etc….may encourage some who have grave doubts to hold their noses and support him again, and some of those will buy in to, or pretend to buy in to, the ‘witch-hunt’ myth. These two constituencies may be boosted by the indictments.

“Meanwhile, others clearly feel the MAGA/Trump moment is over or ending and are looking for ways to recalibrate their position in the GOP, without quite knowing how to do it, who to shift allegiances to, especially while the MAGA/Trump elements still seems so strong, and potentially decisive. They may still be publicly supportive, as dissing the Dems/Biden is low-hanging fruit, but the cracks are showing and the levels of support are unlikely to rise, I think.”

With the 2024 presidential election still more than a year away, anything could happen.

“There could be kind of a snowball effect or a cumulative effect of, you know, multiple indictments and new information that could emerge that could kind of shake people from long-held views about Trump,” professor Costas Panagopoulos, an election campaign expert at Northeastern University, told Newsweek.

“But it it would have to be some pretty damaging new information, because attitudes are just generally resistant to shifts and it seems that attitudes about Trump in particular are especially impervious.”

Crowds flee shooter in food court at State Fair of Texas: Video

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Crowds flee shooter in food court at State Fair of Texas: Video

Video footage from attendees at the State Fair of Texas in Dallas shows crowds fleeing after a shooting that left three people with injuries on Saturday night.

Dallas police confirmed shortly after 8 p.m. local time (9 p.m. ET) that one person was in custody following the incident, which took place in the food court, located near the Cotton Bowl stadium, around 15 minutes earlier. The fair’s organizers said that the force, which had been on-scene to secure the event, ordered the immediate evacuation of the park.

According to local news station WFAA, the 23-year-old suspect had shot at another man, leaving three victims with wounds that were deemed not to be life-threatening. The suspect attempted to flee the scene but was arrested, while a gun was also recovered, Dallas police said.

Law enforcement is now investigating the incident. Newsweek approached the Dallas Police Department via email for comment on Sunday.

One clip, taken from near the first gate into the fair and the Chevrolet Main Stage, shows hundreds of people, including many children, running away from the food court. Screams of fear can be heard, while one person asks: “What is happening?”

Another, taken onboard the Ferris Wheel to the south of the food court, shows a number of people exiting the park, which sits to the east of the city center, towards a large parking lot while lights from emergency vehicles shine in the background.

The person who took the video, which has since been viewed 6.2 million times, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that it was “not what [you want to] see at the top of the Ferris Wheel.” The video contains some swearing.

The State Fair of Texas wrote shortly after midnight that in light of the shooting, its reopening on Sunday would be delayed to 2 p.m. local time “unless otherwise communicated by State Fair officials.”

Adam R. Bazaldua, a Dallas City council member whose district includes the State Fair park, said that the city manager had informed him that the shooting was “sparked from a conflict between two people who knew each other,” though police have not confirmed this.

“It’s one thing to have a right to bear arms, it’s another to have legislation, like permit-less carry, that makes it easier for senseless acts of gun violence like this to be carried out in our state,” he added.

The State Fair of Texas says on its website that “no weapons of any kind are permitted on the fairgrounds,” but qualifies that it has “long allowed Fair attendees with valid handgun licenses to carry their handguns in a concealed manner.”

Newsweek has contacted the State Fair of Texas via email for clarification.

The fair has existed since 1886 and takes place annually from the final Friday of September, though several fairs have been canceled during the two world wars and the coronavirus pandemic. It aims to promote agriculture and entertainment.

Avdiivka map shows progress of Russian army offensive

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Avdiivka map shows progress of Russian army offensive

Russian forces have gained ground around the Ukrainian-controlled town of Avdiivka, new maps show, as Kyiv’s counteroffensive against Moscow’s troops moves into the tougher winter months.

Russian forces advanced north and southwest of the Donetsk town of Avdiivka on Friday, also claiming some advances north and south of the city on Saturday, according to the U.S.-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War.

In recent days, fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces has intensified around the eastern town of Avdiivka, in what has been described as a major Russian offensive effort on the key settlement. At least three Russian battalions are thought to be involved in the push, which follows months of the Kremlin’s troops battling back against Ukraine’s attempts to gain ground in Donetsk and the southern Zaporizhzhia region.

On Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his troops were “improving their position in almost the entire area” of the front line. Taking control of Avdiivka would be a significant victory for Russian fighters in Donetsk, and a real blow to Ukrainian soldiers now more than four months into the counteroffensive effort.

Ukraine had seen the Russian attack on Avdiivka coming, a spokesperson for Kyiv’s military intelligence agency said earlier this week, and there are indications that it had prepared for the assault, such as by laying mines, the ISW said.

Around 1,600 residents are still living in Avdiivka, Vitaliy Barabash, who heads up the town’s military administration, has previously estimated. It had a pre-war population of around 30,000.

On Sunday, the Ukrainian General Staff said Russian forces “unsuccessfully” tried to break through its defenses around Avdiivka. Kyiv’s forces fended off 15 Russian attacks around Avdiivka and surrounding settlements, the military said.

Barabash said on Saturday that Russian forces “are striking with everything they have.”

There is no information confirming that Russia controls the Avdiivka Coke Plant to the northwest of the city, despite “conflicting reports” from Russian sources, the ISW said on Friday.

Newsweek has contacted the Russian Ministry of Defense via email for comment.

As the assault got underway, Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky‘s office, said earlier this week that Avdiivka was “under mass attacks of Russian artillery and aviation.”

“Our army is now holding positions in difficult battles,” Yermak wrote in a post to the Telegram messaging app on Friday.

Late on Saturday night local time, Zelensky placed Avdiivka at the top of the list of fighting hotspots, saying: “I thank everyone who is holding their positions and destroying Russian troops.”

Muslim boy stabbed to death, mother injured in Illinois hate crime: Sheriff

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Muslim boy stabbed to death, mother injured in Illinois hate crime: Sheriff

An Illinois landlord is facing hate crime charges after attacking his Muslim tenants by fatally stabbing a 6-year-old boy and injuring his mother because he was upset about the ongoing conflict involving Israel and Hamas, the local sheriff’s office said.

Joseph Czuba, 71, of Plainfield, Illinois, was charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two counts of a hate crime and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, the Will County Sheriff’s Office (WCSO) said in a statement on Sunday that was shared to its Facebook page.

The motive for the “brutal attack” that happened on Saturday appears to be that both victims were Muslim, with the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) identifying the boy as a Palestinian-American.

“Detectives were able to determine that both victims in this brutal attack were targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis,” the WSCO said in its statement, calling it a “senseless and cowardly act of violence.”

On October 7, Hamas, which the U.S. designates as a terrorist organization, led the deadliest Palestinian militant attack on Israel in history. Israel subsequently launched its heaviest ever airstrikes on Gaza. As of Sunday, more than 1,300 people had been killed in Israel, the Associated Press reported. More than 2,300 people had been killed in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, the AP said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his country is “at war” and has cut off supplies of food, fuel, electricity and medicine into Gaza. Israel has called up 360,000 army reservists as it prepares for a likely ground offensive into the territory, which has an estimated population of 2.3 million.

Newsweek reached out via email to CAIR and the WCSO for comment. It was unclear at the time of publication if Czuba had retained an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

News coverage on the war in the Middle East allegedly sparked the deadly encounter, which occurred just before noon at a home on South Lincoln Highway in Plainfield, the WCSO said.

The mother, Hanaan Shahin, 32, and her 6-year-old son Wadea Al-Fayoume, had lived on the ground floor of the house for two years, with no previous issues with Czuba prior to the attack, according to CAIR-Chicago.

Czuba, enraged about the war, knocked on his tenants’ door and attacked Shahin when she opened it. “He tried to choke her and proceeded to attack her with a knife while yelling ‘you Muslims must die,'” CAIR-Chicago said in a statement.

When she ran into the bathroom to call 911, she came out to find that he had stabbed her son to death. A forensic pathologist determined during an autopsy on Sunday that the boy had been stabbed 26 times, the WSCO said.

Shahin suffered more than a dozen stab wounds to her body, including her chest, torso, and upper extremities, the sheriff’s office said, adding that she was transported to a nearby hospital in “serious condition,” but is expected to survive.

“It all happened in seconds,” Shahin told CAIR-Chicago via text message while recovering in the hospital.

When authorities arrived at the residence, they said they found Czuba “sitting upright outside” on the ground near the driveway with a laceration to his forehead. After being treated and released from the hospital, he was transported to the Will County Sheriff’s Office Public Safety Complex for questioning. The WSCO said even though he did not make any statements regarding his involvement in the “heinous attack,” detectives were able to gather enough information through interviews and evidence to charge Czuba with “numerous criminal offenses.”

Ahmed Rehab, CAIR-Chicago executive director, said the Muslim advocacy group has heard the mother’s account and referred to the incident as the “worst nightmare.”

“Our hearts are heavy, and our prayers are with the darling boy and his mother,” Rehab said. “As we await the official investigation of the local authorities, what we can confirm at the moment is that we have a murdered child in his own home, a six-year who had just celebrated his birthday a couple of weeks ago, and a mother lying in the hospital in serious condition, both stabbed over a dozen times. And we have testimony from the mother as to the harrowing moments that unfolded in terms of what was done and said – and it is our worst nightmare.”

U.S. President Joe Biden condemned hate crimes in posts on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday night, saying that he and First Lady Jill Biden were “sickened” by the attack.

“Jill and I were sickened to learn of the brutal murder of a child and the attempted murder of the child’s mother yesterday in Illinois,” Biden said in the post. “Our condolences and prayers are with the family. This act of hate against a Palestinian Muslim family has no place in America.”

In a subsequent post, Biden urged Americans to “reject Islamophobia.”

“As Americans, we must come together and reject Islamophobia and all forms of bigotry and hatred,” the president said. “I have said repeatedly that I will not be silent in the face of hate. We must be unequivocal.”

Czuba has been transported to the Will County Adult Detention Facility and is awaiting his initial court appearance, according to the WCSO.

Update 10/15/2023, 11:55 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.

Donald Trump beats Joe Biden in 2 pivotal swing states: New poll

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Donald Trump beats Joe Biden in 2 pivotal swing states: New poll

Former President Donald Trump is ahead of President Joe Biden in two swing states that could shape the 2024 presidential election, according to a poll published on Sunday.

The former president is leading in Arizona and Georgia—both of which helped him win in 2016 against his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, but then sided with Biden in 2020.

In Arizona, Trump is beating Biden by 5 points, 44 to 39 percent, according to polling data from Redfield & Wilton Strategies, in partnership with The Telegraph, taken between October 7 and 9. The former president is also beating Biden by 3 points in Georgia, 43 to 40 percent.

Arizona and Georgia are traditionally considered to be red states, with the majority of voters choosing the Republican nominee for most elections in the past few decades. However, that was until Biden turned both states blue in the 2020 election. Biden narrowly won Arizona by a margin of 0.3 percent and Georgia by 0.2 percent against Trump.

Meanwhile, Biden is just 1 point ahead of Trump in another contested state, Pennsylvania, 43 to 42 percent, according to the poll.

While Pennsylvania had voted for the Democratic nominee in the six presidential elections prior to 2016, Trump managed to win the 19 Electoral votes from the state with a margin of 0.7 percent. However in 2020, Pennsylvania turned blue once again, with Biden winning the state by 1.2 percent.

In Michigan, Trump and Biden are currently tied with 41 percent each. In recent history, the majority of people in Michigan voted Democratic—that was until the 2016 election when Trump won by a slim margin of 0.2 percent. Biden later would take Michigan in the 2020 election with a margin of 2.8 percent.

Trump is also leading the president by 5 points in Florida and North Carolina, which he won in 2016 and again in 2020.

Biden has a negative net approval rating in all six swing states that varies from 4 to 9 percent, according to the polling data. In Arizona, the president has a negative net approval rating of 8 percent and a negative net approval rating of 5 percent in Georgia.

However, a recent Rasmussen Reports survey found that Biden has an overall positive approval rating with 49 percent of Americans approving of his conduct while serving as president, compared to 48 percent who disapprove.

One big question ahead of the 2024 election is if the older candidates are fit to run for president.

Approximately two-thirds of voters in the new poll in all of the six swing states agreed that Biden is too old to seek a second term. However, pluralities of voters in every state except Florida also agreed that Trump is also too old for a second term.

Newsweek reached out to Trump’s office and the White House for comment via email.

Ohio newspaper article warns Jim Jordan will form "axis of evil" with Trump

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Ohio newspaper article warns Jim Jordan will form "axis of evil" with Trump

An Ohio newspaper published a strong rebuke of Representative Jim Jordan in an opinion column on Sunday, warning that the Republican congressman will form an “axis of evil” with former President Donald Trump if he’s chosen as the new House speaker.

After Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, was ousted from the speakership in a historic 216-210 vote on October 3 when Representative Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican, spearheaded an effort to remove him, House Republicans began voting on a nominee to replace him. While both House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Jordan of Ohio decided to run for speaker, Scalise withdrew from consideration on Thursday, leaving Jordan to be chosen as the new nominee with 152 votes.

Cleveland.com, which produces content for The Plain Dealer, Ohio’s largest newspaper by circulation, published an opinion column on Sunday in response to Jordan’s nomination.

The column, written by Brent Larkin who was The Plain Dealer‘s editorial director from 1991 until his retirement in 2009, expressed disapproval of Jordan as a nominee for House speaker and provided a strong warning against the congressman and Trump, the frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, if both are successful in attaining the positions they are seeking.

“Just maybe, deep in the recesses of their souls, the prospect of this country having its very own Axis of Evil frightened even them. As it should. Because that’s precisely what would become of the United States with Donald Trump as president and Jordan as House speaker. Placing second in the line of presidential succession, a man willing to besmirch everything America stands for in service of Trump by rights should prove too risky for many of the House’s 221 Republican members,” Larkin wrote.

While Trump endorsed the congressman last week in a post to Truth Social, Jordan will need to attain 217 votes in order to win the position of speaker.

However, amid campaigning for the 2024 presidential election, Trump continues to face charges in two federal cases, one surrounding the January 6, 2021, riot at the United States Capitol building and the other related to classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

In addition, New York prosecutors have also charged him in relation to an alleged hush money payment he made to adult film star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign, and an Atlanta-area grand jury indicted him on charges stemming from an investigation into his alleged attempts at overturning Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results.

Trump, meanwhile, has pleaded not guilty to all charges in all cases.

Larkin’s column also breaks down Jordan’s controversial history and reiterates how detrimental it would be for America if the congressman wins the speakership position.

“Jordan apparently remains a viable option to replace the ousted speaker, Rep. Kevin McCarthy. They’re mistaken. Jordan is a follower, not a leader…Eventually, Jordan either reappears empty-handed or emerges holding a fistful of lies designed mainly to harm some honest and hard-working American who loves his or her country,” Larkin wrote.

The column comes after Republicans such as former Representatives Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Liz Cheney of Wyoming, along with former GOP communications director Tara Setmayer, voiced their disapproval of Jordan and the subsequent disarray of the Republican Party.

While Kinzinger predicted Jordan would win the nomination, his disapproval is also noted as he posted his reaction on Friday to X, formerly Twitter, saying, “Good job everyone. This country cannot have Jim Jordan as speaker.”

Cheney and Setmayer condemned Jordan this past week for his history and close allyship to the former president, along with his alleged involvement in efforts to keep Trump in power after losing the 2020 election.

“Jim Jordan was involved in Trump’s conspiracy to steal the election and seize power; he urged that Pence refuse to count lawful electoral votes,” Cheney, who served as one of two Republicans on the January 6 select committee alongside Kinzinger, wrote on X on Friday. “If Rs nominate Jordan to be Speaker, they will be abandoning the Constitution. They’ll lose the House majority and they’ll deserve to.”

While Setmayer said on Saturday, “This is just an example of the absolute desperation of the Republican caucus, that Jim Jordan has been nominated for Speaker, it tells you everything you need to know about the degeneration of the House GOP and the party as a whole.”

However, McCarthy says he feels Jordan will be able to win over more House members to secure the speakership.

“Yeah, but he’ll get there. I don’t see a problem with him not getting there,” he said to CNN congressional correspondent Manu Raju in a hallway of the U.S. Capitol after Jordan’s nomination was announced.

Despite Jordan’s nomination, Democrats are backing House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York for the role, with voting expected to continue on Monday.

Newsweek has reached out to Jordan and Trump via email for further comment.

For Donald Trump, Judge Chutkan’s next rulings may be crucial

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For Donald Trump, Judge Chutkan’s next rulings may be crucial

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan will hear arguments on Monday about whether to impose a gag order on Donald Trump.

Federal prosecutors have asked Chutkan, who is overseeing Trump’s federal election interference case, to impose a narrow gag order that would bar him from making “inflammatory” and “intimidating” comments about witnesses, lawyers and other involved in the case.

The Republican former president is charged with four felony counts related to his efforts to undo his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. It is one of four criminal cases Trump is facing as he seeks to regain the White House. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The decision about whether to impose a gag order is a big test for Chutkan, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, who has been at the receiving end of Trump’s attacks herself after being randomly assigned to the case.

As the Associated Press noted, she will have to balance the need to protect the integrity of the legal proceedings against the First Amendment rights of a presidential candidate to defend himself in public. If a gag order is imposed, Chutkan will have to navigate how it might be enforced and how to ensure it does not fuel Trump’s claims of political persecution.

“She has to think about the serious risk that it’s not just his words that could trigger violence, but that she could play into the conspiracy theories that Trump’s followers tend to believe in, and that her act of issuing a gag order might trigger a very disturbing response,” Catherine Ross, a George Washington University law school professor, told the AP.

“If we allow that to stop a judge from doing what is called for, that’s a big problem for rule of law. But on the other hand, if I were the judge, I would certainly be thinking about it,” she said.

Erwin Chemerinsky, a legal scholar and the dean of the University of California Berkeley School of Law, has argued that a gag order would “infringe freedom of speech and likely do little good.”

Trump “does have free speech rights, however much I loathe what he has to say,” he wrote in a recent op-ed.

“Anyone, including him, can criticize a prosecution, a prosecutor and a judge. Of course, no one has the First Amendment right to intimidate witnesses, but there is no indication that his speech has risen to that level.”

While he noted there is concern that trump’s “incessant criticism of the proceedings will undermine their legitimacy and even lead to violence,” he wrote that “the government, including a court, can never try to bolster its legitimacy by silencing its critics.”

Chemerinksy added that if Chatkan were to impose a gag order, she must be prepared to enforce it if he violates its terms. “In other words, she must be prepared to put him in jail for contempt if he speaks out despite the gag order,” he wrote.

Chutkan has imposed a protective order in the case, and warned that violating that order or inflammatory comments could result in her moving up the trial, which is scheduled to begin in March, to reduce the risk of a tainted jury pool.

Federal prosecutors have also asked Chutkan to force Trump to tell them whether he intends to defend himself by arguing that he was following the advice of his lawyers.

Trump and his lawyers have “repeatedly and publicly announced that he intends to asset the advice of counsel as a central component of his defense,” special counsel Jack Smith‘s team wrote in the motion filed on Tuesday.

They requested a formal order requiring Trump to disclose his plans by December 18 “to prevent disruption of the pretrial schedule and delay of the trial.”

That notification could give prosecutors an edge in the case.

The filing noted that if Trump relies on an advice-of-counsel defense, he “waives attorney-client privilege for all communications concerning that defense, and the government is entitled to additional discovery and may conduct further investigation, both of which may require further litigation and briefing.” According to the filing, 25 witnesses cited attorney-client privilege when they withheld information from the investigation.

An attorney for Trump declined to comment.

China Isn’t Going to War Because It Doesn’t Have To

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China Isn’t Going to War Because It Doesn’t Have To

Relax, boys and girls: China won’t invade Taiwan, and the U.S. Navy won’t engage Chinese forces any time in the foreseeable future. It’s a scam, a goof, a Muppet show, whose point is to cover up the incompetence and corruption which led the Pentagon to spend trillions on obsolete weapons. We lost the South China Sea years ago. We’re in roughly the same position as Britain was in Singapore in late 1941, except that unlike the feckless British, we know it. We just can’t admit it.

The U.S. Department of Defense has known since no later than 2012—when I consulted for the late Andrew Marshall at the Office of Net Assessment—that Chinese surface-to-surface (STS) missiles can destroy U.S. aircraft carriers, or any other military asset that isn’t submerged. Not until recently did the U.S. military concede this in official assessments.

In contrast to the Reagan Administration, which made missile defense a priority, we’re doing little to counter China’s formidable capabilities. We can’t test defenses against hypersonic missiles, because we can’t even launch a hypersonic missile. Lockheed junked its flagship hypersonics program last March.

China is under no time pressure to take military action. From a military standpoint, a seaborne landing like the Normandy invasion of December 1944 would be senseless. Taiwan has storage capacity for 11 days of natural gas consumption. A Chinese blockade would force Taiwan’s surrender in short order.

The Pentagon knows this, and isn’t stupid enough to stumble into a firefight. Nonetheless, American commanders talk as if Chinese soldiers are about to hit Taiwanese beaches. In March 2021, Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Philip Davidson, Pacific Fleet commander, warned that China might invade Taiwan by 2027. Chief of naval operations Michael Gilday, said he could “not rule out” a Chinese attempt to invade as early as 2023.

Really? Why indeed would China risk military action of any kind in the Taiwan Strait? For the time being, China is getting everything it wants from the island. Taiwanese investment on the mainland is running at $4 billion a year and rising. Taiwanese chip engineers built China’s chip fabrication plants.

Leave aside the risk of a nuclear exchange—depicted chillingly in Admiral James Stavridis‘ thriller 2034—the least consequence of any kinetic confrontation would be a global economic slump due to trade restrictions.

China has a decisive advantage in its home theater, and it’s growing. It can deal with Taiwan whenever it wants. “The conventional arm of the PLARF is the largest ground-based missile force in the world, with over 2,200 conventionally armed ballistic and cruise missiles and with enough antiship missiles to attack every U.S. surface combatant vessel in the South China Sea with enough firepower to overcome each ship’s missile defense,” as Maj. Christopher J. Mihal wrote in 2021 in a U.S. Army journal.

“The [People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s] ground-based missile forces complement the air and sea-based precision strike capabilities of the PLAAF and PLAN,” the Pentagon’s November 29,2022 report, ”Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China,” found. “The PLARF continues to grow its inventory of DF-26 IRBMs, which are designed to rapidly swap conventional and nuclear warheads. They are also capable of precision land-attack and anti-ship strikes in the Western Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the South China Sea from mainland China.

And that doesn’t take into account Chinese hypersonic missiles, against which there is no defense; hypersonics fly as fast as the anti-missile missiles that are supposed to intercept them. “China has tested and deployed a new longer-range hypersonic missile that is probably able to evade U.S. defenses, according to an overlooked top-secret document among those recently leaked. Now, the public can see what the American intelligence community already knew: China is quickly improving its capacity to strike thousands of miles from its shores and prevent the United States from intervening,” Josh Rogin reported last April in the Washington Post.

One circumstance, and one only, would prompt China to take military action against Taiwan, and that is a move by the island toward sovereignty. It mounted a de facto two-day blockade of Taiwan in August 2022 during then-House Speaker Pelosi’s visit. In China’s calculus, the Speaker of the House is second in line to the president, and Pelosi’s visit raised the prospect of diplomatic recognition of Taiwan.

As long as China can maintain the diplomatic fiction that Taiwan is a renegade province that belongs to China, it will eschew the use of force. But Beijing would view American support for an independent Taiwan as an attempt to break up China, as the imperialist powers did during the 19th and early 20th centuries, and respond with all the power at its disposal.

If we don’t want a war, all we need to do is preserve Taiwan’s status quo.

In sad emulation of great powers of the past, the United States has invested in the wrong kind of weapons for a kind of war that won’t be fought again. Battleships took the lion’s share of every combatant’s military budget before World War II, and as Victor Davis Hanson observes in The Second World Wars, Germany and Japan made the mistake of building battleships rather than carriers, and that probably cost them the war. After Japanese bombers sunk four U.S. battleships at Pearl Harbor and two British capital ships near Singapore in December 1941, no navy ever laid a battleship keel again. The aircraft carrier ruled the seas for half a century. Now missiles have made the carrier obsolete.

Under Reagan, the federal development budget (building weapons prototypes) comprised 0.75 percent of GDP, compared to a paltry 0.25 percent today. If we want to restore the technological edge of America’s military, we need to mobilize our national resources and fund R & D on Reagan’s scale. That requires a radical shift in defense priorities from forever wars to high-tech weaponry. That’s the right thing to do, but it would take years to achieve in the best-case scenario.

In the meantime, trash-talking China will get us nowhere. The kind of “denial” that applies to our national debate over Taiwan has more to do with Freud than Clausewitz. It’s time to stop posturing and start rebuilding.

David P. Goldman is Deputy Editor of Asia Times and a Washington Fellow of the Claremont Institute. He formerly was global head of debt research at Bank of America.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.

China warns Israel has "gone beyond" self-defense in war

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China warns Israel has "gone beyond" self-defense in war

Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip have gone “beyond the scope of self-defense,” China’s foreign minister has said, as the encroaching possibility of an Israeli ground attack threatens to further endanger Palestinian civilians who have been caught up in the fighting.

Protecting “the basic needs of the people in Gaza” is a priority and “China opposes and condemns all acts that harm civilians,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said during a call with Saudi Arabia Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud in remarks reported by Chinese media.

It has been more than a week since Hamas militants launched a large-scale land, air and sea attack on Israel. Fighters quickly moving through Israeli villages close to the Gaza Strip, killing civilians and taking hostages back into the besieged enclave. It was the deadliest attack by Palestinian militants in Israel’s history.

Israel then launched widespread air strikes on the Hamas-controlled territory, to the west of southern Israel. The Israel Defense Forces has said the thousands of bombs dropped on the sliver of land have targeted the extensive network of tunnels under Gaza, used by Hamas to coordinate attacks against Israel.

Hamas uses around 480 kilometers, or 300 miles, of tunnels under Gaza, according to the U.S. think tank, the Institute for the Study of War.

The densely populated Gaza Strip is home to an estimated 2.3 million people, many of whom are civilians already days into an Israeli siege and a blockade of key supplies such as food, water and medicine. Hospitals in Gaza have been overwhelmed, and a spokesperson for health authorities there said on Sunday morning local time that 70 percent of residents in northern Gaza and Gaza City do not have access to health services.

According to the Gazan Health Ministry, 2,329 people have died in Gaza since October 7. More than 1,300 Israelis have been killed in the eight days of fighting, the “overwhelming majority” of whom were civilians, the Associated Press reported on Sunday.

“We oppose acts that harm civilians and violate international law,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin, said on Friday. “We are committed to promoting peace talks and achieving a ceasefire and will continue to work for de-escalation and resumption of peace talks.”

On Sunday morning, Israel’s military said its forces would not carry out operations along a specific route from northern Gaza to the south of the strip between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. local time. “During this window, please take the opportunity to move southward from northern Gaza,” the IDF said in a statement.

“Be assured, Hamas leaders have already ensured their safety and that of their families,” the IDF said.

Israel had previously warned more than 1 million residents of northern Gaza to move southwards, something the United Nations said may be “simply not possible.”

Representatives for Hamas said on Sunday that the Palestinian group had launched rocket attacks on the southern Israeli city of Sderot “in response to the targeting of civilians.” Hamas also struck several settlements close to the Gaza border, the representatives said.

On Sunday, at 7 a.m. local time (12 a.m. ET), an IDF spokesperson said rockets were fired on Tel Aviv and southern Israel overnight, and that fighting was continuing around the north of the Gaza Strip.

The IDF continues to “attack different military targets belonging to Hamas,” Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus said. Israel is preparing for the “next stage” of operations, he added.

Israeli authorities have not yet launched the expected ground attack on Gaza, but have been amassing forces around its border for several days.

Newsweek has reached out to Israeli authorities for comment via email.

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