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• GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie has a basic message for House Republicans: Get a speaker.
• “I don’t care. Just pick someone!” he said during a Saturday campaign appearance in South Carolina.
• Christie argued that the speakership holdup is hurting US efforts to aid Israel and Ukraine.

Nearly three weeks after Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California was ousted as House speaker, House Republicans have been unable to coalesce around a successor.

And the frustration has seeped out of the House chamber and spread across the party.

For GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie, he’s already seen enough.

“They asked me on TV on Thursday, ‘Who do you want to be Speaker?’ I said I don’t care. Just pick someone!” Christie said during a Saturday town hall in Charleston, South Carolina.

The former New Jersey governor then remarked that the impasse was preventing the United States from helping its allies across the globe.

“Just pick someone because Israel needs help,” he said. “Ukraine needs help. Our southern border needs to be secured.”

“And Taiwan needs to be armed now so we’re not catching up later,” he continued. “We need to send a message to the Chinese now that Taiwan will be ready if they come.”

House Republicans are set to reconvene on Monday to hear pitches from speaker candidates, with an internal vote for a nominee slated for Tuesday.

After McCarthy was removed from his post, the party turned to House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, but his bid faltered amid a bloc of opposition. Next up was Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, who lacked the broad support needed to secure 217 votes and win.

So the race remains open, with a mix of candidates — from House Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota to Rep. Jack Bergman of Michigan — angling for the post.

Christie during his remarks this weekend said House Republicans have been too preoccupied with “who’s going to get the big office with the view of the National Mall to make sure their ego is okay.”

“Make a decision! Be done already! That’s what we need to do,” he added.

Christie’s comments also come as likely GOP presidential primary voters continue to back former President Donald Trump, with the ex-president boasting significant leads in national polling and most statewide polls.

Once a Trump ally, Christie in recent years has become a major critic of the former president, which has both elevated his candidacy and turned off sizable numbers of GOP voters. However, of all of the early-voting states, Christie is best positioned in New Hampshire, where he’s largely focused his campaign.

In a September CNN/University of New Hampshire poll of likely GOP primary voters, Trump led with 39% support, with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy in second place with 13%, followed by former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley at 12% and Christie with 11% support.

• Thousands of people, and their dogs, have donated hair to help clean up Lake Maracaibo.
• Environmentalists will weave nets out of the hair to stop the oil slicks from spreading.
• The tried-and-true method has been an effective oil clean-up tool for decades.

Venezuela’s Lake Maracaibo has been polluted with so much crude oil over the years that it can be seen from space.

Now, a young environmentalist is trying to change that — by asking volunteers to donate their hair to soak up the oil, The Washington Post reported.

Selene Estrach, 28, is the founder of the Venezuelan environmentalist organization Proyecto Sirena. She and her team are collecting the hair and plan to use it later this month.

Estrach told the Post that thousands of people have already donated, and some even brought their dogs in for a haircut to contribute to the cause.

Estrach and her team will use the hair to weave nets — called booms — that can both stop oil slicks from spreading and soak up the oil itself. Estrach told the Post that two pounds of hair can soak up between 11 and 17 pounds of oil.

Estrach told the outlet she’s also developing a way to safely wring out the oil and dispose of it so they can re-use the booms.

Estrach’s work follows in the footsteps of environmentalists who have been working on this method for decades.

In 1989, Alabama-based hairdresser Phillip McCrory created a prototype for an oil clean-up device made of human hair — a device that NASA tested and deemed effective.

McCrory later teamed up with Matter of Trust, a California-based organization that has been creating human hair booms for more than 20 years now.

• Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell were among 19 co-defendants — including Trump — who were indicted in Georgia this year.
• Both of them requested speedy trials and were set to go to trial next week.
• But just before their criminal trials began, Powell and Chesebro flipped and struck plea deals with prosecutors.

Two of Donald Trump’s allies flipped against him at the last minute in a pair of surprise plea deals with Georgia prosecutors.

Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro were set to go to trial starting next week as part of the Fulton County DA’s office’s case alleging Trump and his allies conspired to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.

Chesebro and Powell were among 19 co-defendants who were charged in the sprawling RICO case.

The two former Trump lawyers had pushed for a speedy trial date, and Chesebro had asked to be tried separately from the others facing charges.

That was a different strategy than their co-defendants like Trump, who argued his trial date should get pushed back because it was interfering with his 2024 campaign for president.

But just days before they were scheduled to be in court, Chesebro and Powell struck plea deals with prosecutors and agreed to testify against their now-former codefendants, including former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and others.

Powell, a longtime GOP lawyer who pushed nonsense conspiracy theories about the 2020 election while working for Trump, struck her deal on Thursday. She pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy to interfere with election duties.

As part of the deal, she was ordered to testify at future trials and write a letter apologizing to Georgia citizens.

One day later on Friday, Chesebro followed suit, pleading guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to file false documents. He will also have to testify at future trials and write a letter apologizing to Georgia citizens.

And according to Lawfare’s Anna Bower, Chesebro has already recorded a proffer statement for Georgia prosecutors. A proffer agreement is one in which someone under a criminal investigation or indictment provides prosecutors with relevant information in exchange for a pledge that the information will not be used against them in future proceedings.

The sudden switch is bad news for Trump who, in addition to the Georgia case, is also facing three other criminal indictments related to his post-election activities as well as his business practices.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in all the cases against him.

• Average net worth for Americans shot up 37% between 2019 to 2022.
• Increases were the most pronounced among those under 35, as well as those in the 55 to 64 age group.
• This was due in part to increases in home and stock prices, as well as government stimulus initiatives.

Net worth for the average American skyrocketed 37% during the pandemic, thanks in part to government stimulus initiatives along with higher home and stock prices.

The Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances found that net worth for all age groups rose between 2019 and 2022. This was more than double the next-largest increase in net worth since 1989, when the Fed began the survey. Median net worth — which measures household assets like houses and vehicles, minus debts like mortgages and student loans — surged to $192,000 when accounting for inflation.

One of the stand-out numbers was median real net worth gains for Americans under 35 years old, who experienced a 143% rise, the largest of any group. While this group, comprised of younger millennials and Gen Zers, has a much smaller net worth than any other age group, median net worth grew from $16,100 to $39,000 during the three-year period.

The Fed noted in its report that “net improvements in economic performance, including rising house and corporate equity prices that well exceeded consumer price inflation,” led to increases in net worth over the last three years.

For example, younger Americans have been investing more — some because of FOMO, or fear of missing out — and as of 2022, nearly a third of 25-year-olds owned a home, a Redfin analysis found.

So-called DINKs, or couples with “double income, no kids,” also saw huge net worth increases, according to the Fed’s survey.

Americans in the 55 to 64 age group saw median net worth gains of 48%, while those between the ages of 65 and 74 had a 33% rise in median net worth. What’s more, the 65 to 74 group had the highest median net worth at nearly $410,000.

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, told CNBC that much of this wealth increase was caused by low interest rates at the start of the pandemic, which eased borrowing costs for consumers and made it less likely for people to carry high debt loads. Zandi also said home and stock prices, as well as other assets, spiked up after stimulus checks and other government support programs like enhanced unemployment benefits were issued and showed the US would recover from the early shocks of the pandemic.

For instance, median home prices grew from $139,100 in 2019 to $201,000 in 2022. Additionally, participation in the stock market increased from a median of $46,400 in 2019 to $53,200 in 2022 in directly or indirectly held stock between the 50th and 90th income percentiles on the Fed’s survey.

A pause on student loan payments and interest also gave Americans more spending power throughout the pandemic.

Still, these net worth gains have benefited wealthier Americans the most, further exacerbating wealth inequality. Those in the 80th to 90th income percentiles saw median net worth gains of 69%, while those in the bottom 20th percentile only experienced a 24% increase. The Fed said those in the 20th percentile often do not own assets like homes.

This wealth inequality is stark: the median net worth for those in the bottom 20th percentile was $14,000 in 2022. For those in the top 10th percentile, that figure was $2.56 million.

Wealth inequality among racial groups narrowed over the three-year period but still remained elevated, given the average white family had about six times more wealth than the average Black family, according to the Fed.