Month: November 2018

Russian government agents’ little white slip is showing

by digby

This whole thing is pretty absurd but It’s indicative of the global white supremacist movement:

We’re not saying that Russia helped make #Blexit trend, but Twitter accounts with a history of pushing Kremlin fake news are playing a disproportionate role in amplifying the call for African-American voters to hop on the Trump Train.

Blexit, the brainchild of right-wing personality Candace Owens, is a nascent movement meant to urge black voters to leave the Democratic Party.

Owens, the communications director for campus conservative group Turning Point USA, announced the campaign last Saturday at a Turning Point conference in Washington. But while Blexit is less than a week old, it’s already been beset with controversies. Owens initially claimed that rapper Kanye West, who praised her politics earlier this year on Twitter, designed Blexit’s “X” logo and the 90’s-style colors of its merchandise. But West claimed in a series of tweets Tuesday that he had nothing to do with Blexit, distancing himself from Owens and her group. Owens eventually apologized to West, but insisted that Blexit will continue.

Additionally, a pre-existing organization also called Blexit is threatening to sue over Owens’ use of the name. (Owens didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story)

Despite the hiccups, the torrent of tweets pushing the Blexit hashtag on Twitter gives the impression that African-Americans are rejecting the Democratic party in droves. Over 15 hours ending Friday afternoon, the Daily Beast captured more than 250,000 tweets amplifying the Blexit movement.

“40,000, or 16 percent, of the Blexit tweets we collected came from accounts that previously pushed Kremlin propaganda.”
There’s no easy way to tell how many of those tweets are swelling from Blexit’s target demographic rather than already-committed GOP supporters. But by cross-referencing the tweets with data The Daily Beast collected during previous tweet storms, we can tell a little about what the putative Blexiters supported in the past.

It turns out that approximately 40,000, or 16 percent, of the Blexit tweets we collected came from accounts that previously pushed Kremlin propaganda in one of two key Russian disinformation campaigns: one attempting to exonerate the Syrian government in a deadly chemical weapons attack, another targeting last year’s presidential election in France in support of a failed 11th-hour intervention by Russia’s GRU, its military intelligence agency.

Russian government agents really seem to think a key to influencing American elections is to dupe black people. They played this card heavily in 2016 too.

This just shows how racist they are and it goes a long way toward explaining why they love Trump so much. They are surprisingly good at understanding American social fault lines in some ways. But they are on the wrong track with this. There is no way that Afican Americns are going to be duped by this nonsense, particularly when they can see with their own eyes that right now, in states around the country, the Republicans are doing everything in their power to stop them from voting! They’re not blind!

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Why isn’t this terrifying story of leftist violence getting wall to wall coverage??!!!

by digby

Sure there are Trump superfans sending pipebombs to their Dear Leader’s enemies list and yes, there are anti-Semitic right wing nuts inspired by the president’s rhetoric about immigrants committing mass murder just one week ago today. But let’s not forget the terroristic activity on the left this past week:

Fox News is the only network carrying the horrific story:

An intern for Democratic Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum has been arrested and charged with battery after she threw chocolate milk on a group of College Republicans tabling on campus.

The far-left student activist who had the profanity-laced meltdown, Shelby Shoup, is listed as an intern for the Andrew Gillum for Florida Governor Campaign on LinkedIn and a member of FSU Students for Justice in Palestine. Gillum’s campaign did not return a Fox News request for comment.

A portion of the profane exchange with the College Republicans on campus was caught on camera.

Shoup threw her drink on SFU College Republicans Vice-Membership Chair, Daisy Judge, and when another student passing by tried to de-escalate the situation, she threw the remainder of her drink on him, according to a statement released by the College Republicans at FSU.

“You are supporting Nazis,” Shoup said in the video posted online. “Do you understand that?”

Another student snapped back at the girl wearing a communist pin: “And you are supporting communism?”

She replied: “Yeah, I f***ing am.”

“Don’t pour your coffee on me,” he said.

But Shoup replied, “F*** you. I will,” before she opened her chocolate milk and threw it on him.

At the link you can see the horrific incident caught on tape. So glad they “locked her up.”  I feel so much safer now.

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A lovers quarrel?

Nobody believes this sudden GOP conversion to “protect pre-existing conditions”

by digby

These Republicans arguing that they will protect the people with pre-existing conditions are so confused by it that they don’t even know how to defend the position.

“A former Republican congressman from Georgia, Jack Kingston, debated health care policy with Dr. Zeke Emanuel, a former White House advisor to President Barack Obama. What’s the evidence that Republicans will totally protect people with preexisting conditions?” anchor Victor Blackwell asked Kingston.

Kingston claimed that pre-existing condition coverage would still exist, but admitted that, “the premium might not be where it is now”

“If they can’t afford it, then it’s not coverage,” Blackwell noted.

“They’re not going to say you don’t insure people, they’re going to say, ‘insurance companies charge them whatever you want’ and that is what the president has made his Department of Health and Human Services do — giving states waivers to allow insurance companies to charge people with preexisting conditions tens of thousands off dollars for their insurance,” Dr. Emanuel explained. “That makes it unaffordable.”

Having failed on the pre-existing conditions argument, Kingston pivoted to labeling ObamaCare “quasi-socialist” while complaining about the profits of insurance companies.

“What I would like to point out is you can’t both say it’s socialized medicine and the insurance companies are doing well,” Dr. Emanuel noted.

“That is a lie that you keep perpetuating,” he argued.

This was a weird stand for them to take. EVERYONE in the country knows that they voted repeatedly to repeal the ACA. And the vast majority, especially the base of the GOP which made that repeal their Holy Grail for almost a decade, understand that the GOP has never, ever said this before. It was never part of their agenda to “protect pre-existing conditions” and they only ever offered some vague nonsense about allowing insurance companies to sell across state lines.

I don’t think this is fooling anyone. And when their surrogates fail this spectacularly, I think we can rest assured that the only people who are buying this line are the cultists who aren’t concerned with details about anything. And maybe a few poor people who are sick but love Donald Trump and just want to believe he wouldn’t do that to them. But, of course, he would. He was desperate to repeal Obamacare and they had absolutely nothing in the hopper to replace it after years and years of ranting and raving about it.

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Insanity

by tristero

As the saying goes, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

And here we go again, written by a Democratic political strategist who, for starters, apparently never heard of Neville Chamberlain:

When it comes to immigration, Democrats should take heed of the bigger picture and bend rather than break on the smaller issues—like the wall. If Democrats are interested in a more humane immigration policy as a whole, they should push for a higher refugee ceiling and a simultaneous enhancement of border security to help more people and those who are most in need. A more humane immigration agenda would certainly also include a stop to the forcible separation of children and parents (ended for now, but reportedly being reconsidered by the Trump administration) and a fix for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals to make sure that immigrants who have barely known their country of origin can’t be deported. And such a plan would also ensure that no immigrant is turned away on the basis of gender, religion, race or ethnicity. These concerns are much larger than any kind of human rights concerns posed by the wall, and Democrats should trade the wall for solutions on some of them instead.

Riiiiiight. Because Republicans can be trusted to keep their promises to Democrats:

Senate Democrats struck a deal last week with Republicans that saw the quick confirmation of 15 more conservative judges in exchange for a rapid flight to the campaign trail. Liberal activists were infuriated, but after the brutally divisive fight to confirm Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, the agreement held out a promise of peace. 

“I would like to have the future mending things,” declared the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. 

On Wednesday, at Mr. Grassley’s instruction, the armistice collapsed. 

Republicans on the Judiciary Committee convened yet another hearing to consider still more conservative federal court nominees — while the Senate was technically in recess. Incensed Democrats boycotted the proceedings, but their empty chairs did not prevent candidates for the bench, such as Allison Rushing, 36, a social conservative nominated by President Trump to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, from taking a crucial step toward confirmation.

Just one of many recent examples.

Who, you might ask, was Neville Chamberlain? This was Neville Chamberlain:

Like many in Britain who had lived through World War One, Chamberlain was determined to avert another war. His policy of appeasement towards Adolf Hitler culminated in the Munich Agreement in which Britain and France accepted that the Czech region of the Sudetenland should be ceded to Germany. Chamberlain left Munich believing that by appeasing Hitler he had assured ‘peace for our time’. However, in March 1939 Hitler annexed the rest of the Czech lands of Bohemia and Moravia, with Slovakia becoming a puppet state of Germany. Five months later in September 1939 Hitler’s forces invaded Poland. 

And with that, Chamberlain finally declared war. By then, it was too late to avert the slaughter of millions.

Sure: different time, different stakes. But the exact same tactics.

The referendum he always wanted
by Tom Sullivan

This is the last day of early voting in North Carolina. It had better be a good one. The current long-term forecast is for rain in our end of the state much of the day on Tuesday as well as in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. That goes for Atlanta as well, where the Georgia governor’s race is polling at a what? A dead heat? Neck-and-neck? Given the racial tensions in play there, a lot of cliched descriptions have dark connotations hard to escape.

In Georgia, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports two federal courts have thwarted attempts by Republican candidate for governor and secretary of state Brian Kemp to reject absentee ballots over alleged signature mismatches:

The U.S. Court of Appeals has declined to stop an injunction that prevents Georgia elections officials from rejecting absentee ballots over signature discrepancies.

U.S. District Court Judge Leigh Martin May issued the injunction last week as part of two separate lawsuits filed against defendants that include Secretary of State Brian Kemp. May declined on Wednesday Kemp’s request to pause the injunction while he appealed the decision.

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals made the same decision Friday, issuing an order rejecting a similar request. That means May’s original order — which requires elections officials across Georgia to provide absentee voters more opportunities to rectify signature-related ballot issues — remains in effect.

Rain is expected as well in Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker also faces a tight race for reelection against Democrat Tony Evers. An Emerson College poll of likely voters released Friday shows Walker trailing by 5 points. The Week reports that with unfavorable ratings of 50 percent, Walker is dangerously close to losing on Tuesday:

The best poll Walker has seen in the past few months has still only shown him up by one point, while Evers has maintained a lead of between two and 13 points in others. The Cook Political Report classifies this race as a tossup, while FiveThirtyEight gives Evers a 60.2 percent chance of defeating the two-term governor.

Early voting in Wisconsin is at 140 percent of 2014 levels. In fact, Axios reports 26 states have surpassed their 2014 vote totals during early voting (data via Michael McDonald’s Elect Project). Some states may have near presidential turnouts before this is over. There are a lot of assumptions wrapped up in what that means. What percentage of party registrants will vote with another party? Which way will the independent voters break? What will Election Day turnout look like?

Axios samples some of the largest early vote totals:

• Texas, where 4.3 million have already voted compared to 2 million total early votes in the last midterm election.
• Tennessee, where over 1.3 million people have already voted. In 2014, the total was 634,000 early votes.
• Florida voters have already cast more than 4 million votes, compared to 3.1 million.

The election on Tuesday (Why Tuesday?) will be “the purest midterm referendum on a sitting president in modern times,” writes Dana Milbank:

Will we take a step, even a small one, back from the ugliness and the race-baiting that has engulfed our country?

Or will we affirm that we are really the intolerant and frightened people Donald Trump has made us out to be?

Unprecedented early turnout suggests the country agrees this is the referendum on Trump Trump wanted. The outcome could answer Milbank’s questions.

Even in the “heartland,” there are signs Trump’s white nationalism has worn thin. “That’s just Trump being Trump” isn’t playing there anymore. At least, not in Iowa City, where as “an issue of grave moral and ethical import” the Press-Citizen Editorial Board urges “all voters to turn in a straight-party ballot for Democrats“:

The Republican party of the United States has allowed its proud history to be hijacked by a leader who gleefully spreads lies and dangerous conspiracy theories, malevolent rhetoric, barely disguised racist dog whistles and calls the media “the enemy of the people.” Women, Mexicans, the disabled, the transgender, the poor, African-Americans – almost any single subset of the American populace not straight, white and reasonably wealthy – has been targeted by this President.

And the rank and file Republicans – up and down the ballot – have either stood silently by or issued only the faintest, mildest condemnations of the President’s words and actions, fearing the wrath of his political base and Twitter account.

Until that changes, the paper will not endorse any of them. Neither should the rest of us.

[h/t JR]

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For The Win 2018 is ready for download. Request a copy of my county-level election mechanics primer at tom.bluecentury at gmail.

Friday Night Soother: Baby elephant!

by digby

h/t to The Pie Master for this one:

Watch the baby elephant though😂😂👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾 pic.twitter.com/GSEV1JgOTz

— Jimmy ✊🏾 #PowerToThePeople (@jwheels74) October 29, 2018

Do what you have to do this week-end. Don’t stress. Don’t eat your feelings. 

The midterm elections are turning out to be nearly as stressful as the 2016 presidential election — especially for Democrats.

According to a poll conducted by YouGov and commissioned by the fitness site Daily Burn, Democrats are 50 percent more likely than Republicans to say they’re “eating their feelings” as a result of the current political climate. They’re also drinking more (a 2-to-1 ratio over their GOP counterparts).

The ostensibly good news is that these stressed out Democrats are also working out more, by as much as 40 percent; but even exercise can be overdone.

“I’m seeing some people so stressed at the moment they’re doing two, even three soul cycle classes at day,” Dr. Navya Mysore, a primary care doctor, tells NBC News BETTER. “Exercise is good for you, but too much is not. You [risk] dehydration and your body needs time to rest and rejuvenate.”

What appears to be happening among many concerned voters, is that they’re resorting excessively to the habits that help us de-stress, whether that’s eating, drinking or exercising.

“Depending on how you’re used to dealing with stress, people tend to gravitate toward that habit more,” says Dr. Mysore. “If you had a hard day, you’ll have a glass of wine, so maybe you’re doing that more. Same for people who are stress eaters — they’ll eat more. If you’re more prone to sweat it out when stressed, then you’ll do that more.”

How do we stop the stress-induced madness?

They offer the usual healthy tips. But there’s really only one that will help this week-end:

GET OUT OF YOUR HEAD AND OUT IN THE COMMUNITY

Emotional eating, drinking your feelings and even excess workouts aren’t productive ways of handling any amount of stress, and they certainly won’t help shift the results of the election.

Rather than succumbing to this lonely feeling of powerlessness, get more involved with the political changes you want to see.

“Find a way to get involved in the process — go out and vote, volunteer for a cause you believe in and contribute to causes that you find important,” says Dr. Helen Odessky is a licensed clinical psychologist and author of “Stop Anxiety From Stopping You: The Breakthrough Program for Conquering Panic and Social Anxiety.”

By making a difference hands-on, even in small ways, you’ll probably feel more inspired to get back on track to the things that help defeat stress on a daily level like gratitude, positivity and self-care.

This is it. If you can canvas or call and you haven’t done it yet, it’s time.

We can all drink and eat cake on Tuesday night, whether to soothe or celebrate. This week-end is for engagement. We’ll feel better!

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“If you criticize me, you are inciting violence”

by digby

Trump didn’t say exactly that. But it was close. And it is implicit in the veiled threats coming from the right about the left being “uncivil.”

Asked about new @ABC News/WaPo poll finding 49% believe he encourages politically motivated violence with the way he speaks, Pres. Trump tells @karentravers, "You're creating violence by your question…A lot of the reporters are creating violence by not writing the truth." pic.twitter.com/pm4YI4VTao— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) November 2, 2018

They will define it any way they choose. In this case, Trump is defining “incivility” as asking a question about a poll.

We’ve seen his fans take the next step just last week. He is continuing to incite them. I think he might truly think at this point hat the press will come to heel if they get a little bit of a beating … if you know what I mean. We know he will blame them for provoking it if it gets (more) violent and someone gets hurt. After all, he blamed the synagogue where one of his fellow travelers killed 11 people last Saturday for failing to “protect themselves” with armed guards. I could easily see him blaming the press for being so “negative” that it just drove some man crazy.

Maybe if they don’t ask the president all these unpleasant questions the media can protect themselves too, amirite?

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“Name one country run by a black person that’s not a shithole.”

by digby

That’s Trump, of course. And it certainly explains why he thinks the United States was a shithole before he descended from heaven to save us.

We know he’s a racist. It’s been obvious since the 1980s when he wrote that offensive Central Park Five ad.His rhetoric from the beginning has bee explicitly bigoted, over and over again. His former lawyer Michael Cohen confirms that he’s just as bigoted in private, which means it’s not a schtick to appeal to his racist base, it’s him:

Michael Cohen, the president’s former lawyer, was among those closely following the story. The son of a Holocaust survivor, Cohen has remained largely silent since the F.B.I. executed search warrants on his home, hotel room, and office this past spring. In August, he pleaded guilty to charges related to campaign-finance violations and tax fraud, and at the advice of counsel, he has not spoken publicly about his case or his relationship with the president ever since. Privately, he has been cooperating with investigators in the Southern District of New York, the special counsel’s office, and New York State. (He faces sentencing in the Southern District next month.) Yet Cohen wanted to express himself in the wake of the tragedy. Shortly after the sun rose on Tuesday, he tweeted, “In honor of those sadly being buried today resulting from #AntiSemitism #PittsburghSynagogueShooting, let’s follow the wisdom and thoughtful words of #RabbiJeffreyMyers ‘it can’t just be to say we need to stop hate. We need to do, we need to act to tone down rhetoric.’”

Like many, Cohen has observed the president’s scorched-earth campaign tactics as the midterm elections approach, and as the prospect of a Democratic House majority beckons, with its attendant promise of investigations and inquiries. He has heard Trump’s constant invocation of the migrant caravan moving through Central America; he’s noticed the president threaten to revoke birthright citizenship; he’s noted Trump’s tweet calling Florida’s African-American gubernatorial candidate, Andrew Gillum, a “thief,” without any evidence. He also watched Trump shirk responsibility after it was discovered that Bowers invoked the caravan in posts online ahead of the mass murder in Pittsburgh, and after one of his ardent supporters was charged last week with mailing pipe bombs to notable Democrats and other frequent Trumpian targets. (The suspect plans to plead not guilty.) On Twitter and during rallies, Trump has referred to the media as “the enemy of the people,” blaming the free press for “the anger we see today in our society.”

That message rang hollow to those most familiar with the president and his language, including Cohen, who said he has spent the last several months quietly reflecting on his former boss and his own role in the Trump Organization.
[…]
During our conversation, Cohen recalled a discussion at Trump Tower, following the then-candidate’s return from a campaign rally during the 2016 election cycle. Cohen had watched the rally on TV and noticed that the crowd was largely caucasian. He offered this observation to his boss. “I told Trump that the rally looked vanilla on television. Trump responded, ‘That’s because black people are too stupid to vote for me.’” (The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)

This conversation, he noted, was reminiscent of an exchange that the two men had engaged in years earlier, after Nelson Mandela’s death. “[Trump] said to me, ‘Name one country run by a black person that’s not a shithole,’ and then he added, ‘Name one city,’” Cohen recalled, a statement that echoed the president’s alleged comments about African nations earlier this year. (White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders denied those comments at the time. She added that “no one here is going to pretend like the president is always politically correct—he isn’t.” She subsequently noted that it was “one of the reasons the American people love him.”)

Cohen also recounted a conversation he had with Trump in the late 2000s, while they were traveling to Chicago for a Trump International Hotel board meeting. “We were going from the airport to the hotel, and we drove through what looked like a rougher neighborhood. Trump made a comment to me, saying that only the blacks could live like this.” After the first few seasons of The Apprentice, Cohen recalled how he and Trump were discussing the reality show and past-season winners. The conversation wended its way back to the show’s first season, which ended in a head-to-head between two contestants, Bill Rancic and Kwame Jackson. “Trump was explaining his back-and-forth about not picking Jackson,” an African-American investment manager who had graduated from Harvard Business School. “He said, ‘There’s no way I can let this black f-g win.’” (Jackson told me that he had heard that the president made such a comment. “My response to President Trump is simple and Wakandan,” he said, referring to the fictional African country where Black Panther hails from. “‘Not today, colonizer!’”)

In retrospect, Cohen told me that he wishes he had quit the Trump Organization when he heard these offensive remarks. “I should have been a bigger person, and I should have left,” he said. He didn’t, he said, because he grew numb to the language and, in awe of the job, forgave his boss’s sins. Cohen, in fact, even defended the president publicly against charges of racism. Last year, he explicitly tweeted as much. Cohen explained that he defended the president because he thought the magnitude of the office would eventually force him to be more judicious with his words. “I truly thought the office would change him,” he said. But it hasn’t, Cohen continued. In fact, he said, it has exacerbated his rhetoric.

Cohen’s claims would damage most presidents. Trump, however, survived the Access Hollywood tape in the run-up to the presidential election in 2016. His supporters stayed with him after his jarring “both sides” comment regarding the racial violence in Charlottesville and didn’t bend when Omarosa Manigault Newman accused him of using vile racial language after she left the White House (Trump referred to her as “that dog” after her book came out). When Trump portrayed Brett Kavanaugh as a man under siege, his poll numbers went up. Trump seems to perform best with his base when he appears like his back is up against the wall. For Cohen’s part, he said he is hoping that people bear his words in mind as they cast their ballots on Tuesday. He will.

His voters talk like that too. Sarah Sanders wasn’t wrong. His bigotry is what they love about him.

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The fascist zombie returns to Europe

by digby

On Fox, the White House strategic communications director misleadingly characterizes everyday border crossings as "a daily caravan," and claims that "the larger caravan" is “putting women and children on the front line” to “invade our country." pic.twitter.com/j23lZsAB3A— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) November 2, 2018

When the government takes over the media ….

Check out what’s happened to the media in HUngary when the Prime Minister and his rich friends decided to take action:

If you’re wondering what attacks on the news media around the world mean for the future of democracy, it’s worth a trip to Budapest. Consider it a cautionary-tale vacation.

When I visited Hungary recently, I knew I was entering a waning democracy that’s become increasingly authoritarian. I knew that Prime Minister Viktor Orban won a third term in April by convincing voters that a phantasmic combination of Muslim migrants, the Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros and European Union bureaucrats was coming to get them.

But I only understood how Mr. Orban pulled this off when I spoke to Hungarian journalists. They explained that Mr. Orban first criticized the press for being biased against him. Then he and his allies took over most of it, and switched to running stories that promote Mr. Orban’s populist agenda and his party, Fidesz.

This happened fast. The investigative website Atlatszo estimates that more than 500 Hungarian media titles are now controlled by Mr. Orban and his friends; in 2015, only 23 of them were. Loyalty trumps experience: Hungary’s biggest media mogul is a former pipe fitter from Mr. Orban’s hometown.

In some cases, Orban allies bought publications and shut them down. One morning in 2016, journalists at Nepszabadsag, one of Hungary’s biggest dailies, were simply locked out of their offices. Its new owner, an Austrian businessman, claimed financial problems; the paper had just run a series of articles exposing government corruption.

Other news organizations were bought and transformed from within. Some now reportedly take their talking points directly from the government. Recent headlines at Origo — once a respected online news site — were a numbing assortment of articles about migrants wreaking havoc on various European cities and conspiracies about Mr. Soros.

Headlines were strikingly similar on the website of Lokal, co-founded in 2015 by one of Mr. Orban’s top advisers. Its free print version, handed out at train and bus stations, is now Hungary’s highest-circulation newspaper.

There’s still independent news online, but most Hungarians don’t see it. And when one of these websites exposes corruption, Orban-friendly publications align to attack it.

“This is what the government would like to teach society — that there are no reliable sources at all among those who criticize the government,” explained Attila Batorfy, who tracks the Hungarian media for Atlatszo.

This wouldn’t happen exactly like that here. But you could see some billionaire media moguls deciding that it’s in their interest to get with the program. Fox was set up to do that. But others could follow. Maybe some more takeovers and mergers could happen. Some pressure from the FEC, dominated by conservatives could help. It’s hrd to imagine in such a big country with so many outlets. But you never know.

The fact that it’s happening in Europe is disheartening, that’s for sure. It seems that fascism just went dormant for a while. It didn’t die.

And its cousin is here.

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