Month: June 2021

I hadn’t thought about this but it rings true. Tim Miller suggests that this Arizona “audit” may be leading to a major uprising:

At some point during our schooling we were all met with a frustrated social studies teacher who was forced to fall back on the old saw about how those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it in order to implore a class of checked-out brats that the history lesson before them is not without value to their imagined future lives as architects/importer-exporters.

[…]

In the months between Trump’s electoral schlonging and the January insurrection, the GOP establishment participated in the coup two-step, during which they tried to ignore Trump’s antics when they weren’t actively enabling it by just asking questions. This strategy was a failure of historic proportions, resulting in the disruption of America’s practice of peaceful transfers of power, a violent siege of the Capitol, and the deaths of their own supporters, who had bought the lies they were fed.

You would think this history lesson would be something Republicans might learn from.

But no.

Today the insurrection is ongoing and the next potentially violent inflection point will come in the weeks after the results of the Arizona “audit” are revealed. The audit, which is being conducted by the “Cyber Ninjas” and funded at least in part by my old pal Lin Wood, is set to deliver some type of result soon. The state senate’s audit “liaison” Ken Bennett (congrats on the fancy title, Ken) said that they expect the process will take most of the “rest of this month.”

Much like Trump’s Four Seasons Total Landscaping coup attempt, the Arizona audit is being ignored by Republican leaders such as Mitch McConnell and Kevin Mccarthy, who are not engaging on the subject publicly and privately consider it shambolic sideshow. This while conservative allies dismiss those of us who are alarmed about the ongoing risks to democracy.

Meanwhile the whole Arizona circus is being taken deadly seriously by Trump himself—he called Republican pols who are ignoring the audit “weak”—and by his radicalized supporters who still want to “stop the steal.”

Doesn’t this all sound a little too familiar?

There’s more.

Activists in the QAnon movement have described the audit as the first step in “The Great Awakening.” And Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward has threatened “arrests” of those who did not comply with the audit. (N.B.: The Arizona Republican Party does not yet have the power to detain citizens for crimes against MAGA.)

One Arizona GOP precinct committeewoman, Gail Golec, has quit her job as a real estate agent to focus on uncovering “fraud” full-time, which she details on her Facebook and YouTube pages. One America News has hired a local propagandist, Christina Bobb, to “cover the audit”—while also fundraising for it.

Steve Bannon’s War Room, which was the official podcast of the “Stop The Steal” rallies last fall, is playing the same role in unofficial fashion in Arizona and has found an audience for the grift. (At the time of this writing, War Room was the tenth-biggest news podcast on the Apple charts.) The thirstiest and craziest MAGA Republicans around the country have all made the hajj to Maricopa to either learn how they can bring the insurrection to their states or signal their allegiance to primary voters. The frontrunner in the Missouri race to succeed the retiring Senator Roy Blunt, Eric Greitens, is the latest of this latter group.

Again, I ask: Doesn’t this all sound pretty fucking familiar?!!!

Sometime soon the results of the Arizona audit will be brought forth. It seems quite likely, given the participants, that the auditor ninjas will claim that Donald Trump won Arizona. Or probably won Arizona—who can say! Or would have won Arizona, if not for those meddling kids.

And if this happens, the former president and his MAGA media echo chamber will once again stoke the flames of insurrection. Q-adherents will convince themselves that one of the seven seals has been revealed. Millions (tens of millions) of Republicans throughout the country will believe it. And some of them will demand action.

More at the link. By the way:

Attorney General Merrick Garland says domestic terrorists fighting for the "superiority of the white race" are the greatest threat to the United States. pic.twitter.com/0UDkBJXAoQ

— The Recount (@therecount) June 15, 2021

He’s describing a very important faction of the Trump cult. The ones who are preparing to take up arms. Again.

The House Committee on Oversight and Reform released this extraordinary statement this morning. Please read it all the way through. It is unbelievable:

On May 21, 2021, the Committee sent a letter to DOJ requesting documents relating to President Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election prior to the January 6 attack. 

Documents obtained by the Committee in response to this letter show that in December 2020 and early January 2021, President Trump, his Chief of Staff, and outside allies repeatedly put pressure on senior DOJ officials to challenge the results of the presidential election and advance unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud, with the apparent goal of keeping President Trump in power despite losing the 2020 election.

President Trump Sent Bogus Election Fraud Claims to Top DOJ Officials Minutes Before Announcing Their Promotions to the Top Two Spots in the Department

On December 14, 2020—the day electors in each state certified the Electoral College votes—President Trump’s White House Assistant sent an email with the subject “From POTUS” to then-Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen.  The email attached materials about alleged voter fraud in Antrim County, Michigan, including “talking points” that asserted, “a Cover-up is Happening regarding the voting machines in Michigan,” and, “Michigan cannot certify for Biden.”

Just two minutes after President Trump’s assistant sent these documents to Mr. Rosen, then-Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, through his assistant, sent the same documents to the U.S. Attorneys for the Eastern and Western Districts of Michigan. 

Approximately 40 minutes after sending this phony voter fraud information, President Trump tweeted that Attorney General Barr—who had said publicly that he had not seen widespread election fraud—would be stepping down, that Mr. Rosen would serve as Acting Attorney General, and that Mr. Donoghue would serve as Acting Deputy Attorney General.

President Trump Used Official White House Channels and a Private Attorney to Pressure DOJ to Urgently File a Supreme Court Lawsuit to Nullify the Election

On December 29, 2020, President Trump’s White House Assistant emailed Mr. Rosen, Mr. Donoghue, and Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall, attaching a draft legal brief to file in the Supreme Court.  She wrote, “The President asked me to send the attached draft document for your review,” and provided a phone number so they could contact the President directly. 

The draft 54-page complaint demanded that the Supreme Court “declare that the Electoral College votes cast” in six states that President Trump lost “cannot be counted,” and  requested that the Court order a “special election” for president in those states.

On the very same day, a private attorney, Kurt Olsen, contacted multiple senior DOJ officials on President Trump’s behalf to urge them to file this complaint.  In one email to Mr. Rosen’s Chief of Staff, he wrote:  “As I said on our call, the President of the United States has seen this complaint, and he directed me last night to brief AG Rosen in person today and discuss bringing this action.  I have been instructed to report back to the President this afternoon after this meeting.”  In a separate email to the Acting Solicitor General, Mr. Olsen added, “This is an urgent matter.”

Emails indicate that Mr. Rosen discussed the filing with Mr. Olsen on or around December 29, 2020, and asked Mr. Olsen to send him Supreme Court precedent supporting the arguments in the complaint.  Mr. Olsen previously represented Texas in its failed lawsuit to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. 

President Trump Enlisted Assistant AG Jeffrey Clark in an Attempt to Advance Election Fraud Claims

Emails confirm that on December 31, 2020, and January 3, 2021, President Trump met with Mr. Rosen, then-Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, and other DOJ officials.  During these meetings, President Trump reportedly pressured them to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election. 

On January 1, 2021, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows directed Mr. Rosen to have Mr. Clark look into “signature match anomalies in Fulton county, GA.”  Later that day, Mr. Rosen sent Mr. Clark the cell phone number of then-U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Byung J. Pak with the subject line “atlanta.”   That day, Mr. Clark also emailed Dustin Carmack, Chief of Staff to the Director of National Intelligence, to request a call. 

On January 2, 2021, Mr. Rosen followed up with Mr. Clark regarding his call with Mr. Pak.  Mr. Clark replied, “I spoke to the source and am on with the guy who took the video right now.  Working on it.  More due diligence to do.”  Later that day, President Trump referred to Mr. Pak as a “never-Trumper U.S. Attorney” while discussing two videos purporting to show fraudulent votes in Fulton County with Georgia Secretary of Secretary Brad Raffensberger.

The January 3 meeting was described in press reports as an “Apprentice”-like battle during which President Trump considered “whether to fire Mr. Rosen and replace him with Mr. Clark” who was sympathetic to the President’s election fraud claims.  After the meeting, Associate Deputy Attorney General Patrick Hovakimian reported to his colleagues:  “it sounds like Rosen and the cause of justice won.”

Later that evening, Mr. Donoghue emailed Mr. Pak with the subject line “Please call ASAP.”  Mr. Pak resigned less than 10 hours later, reportedly under pressure from the Trump White House.

The White House Chief of Staff Pressured DOJ to Investigate Conspiracy Theories At Least Fives Times

Newly released documents substantiate recent reports that former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows pressured DOJ officials—on at least five occasions—to investigate baseless claims of election fraud or put pressure on other officials to pursue these claims.

On December 30, 2020, Mr. Meadows forwarded Mr. Rosen an email from Cleta Mitchell, a Trump advisor who later participated in a January phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.  During that call,  President Trump reportedly asked Georgia election officials to “find” enough votes to declare him the winner of the state.  The December 30 email contained allegations of “video issues in Fulton County.”  Mr. Meadows wrote to Mr. Rosen:  “Can you have your team look into these allegations of wrongdoing.  Only the alleged fraudulent activity.” 

Later on December 30, 2020, Mr. Meadows emailed Mr. Rosen a translation of a document from an individual in Italy claiming to have “direct knowledge” of a plot by which American electoral data was changed in Italian facilities “in coordination with senior US intelligence officials (CIA)” and loaded onto “military satellites.”  This individual claimed that the true data, as well as sources within the conservative wing of the Italian secret service, confirmed that Donald Trump was “clearly the winner” of the 2020 election.

On January 1, 2021, Mr. Meadows emailed Mr. Rosen on three separate occasions to provide unsubstantiated claims about election fraud or ask him to take direct action to change the results: 

At 3:08 p.m., Mr. Meadows sent Mr. Rosen a YouTube link referencing the Italy conspiracy, labeled “Brad Johnson:  Rome, Satellites, Servers:  an Update.”  Mr. Rosen forwarded the email to Mr. Donoghue, who responded:  “Pure insanity.”  Mr. Rosen explained to Mr. Donoghue that after receiving the message, he was asked to have the FBI meet with Brad Johnson, who Mr. Rosen learned “is working with Rudy Giuliani.”  Mr. Rosen said he refused the request.

At 4:13 p.m., Mr. Meadows sent another email to Mr. Rosen, writing:  “There have been allegations of signature match anomalies in Fulton county, Ga.  Can you get Jeff Clark to engage on this issue immediately to determine if there is any truth to this allegation.”  Mr. Rosen forwarded this email to Mr. Donoghue with the comment:  “Can you believe this?  I am not going to respond to the message below.” 

At 6:56 p.m., Mr. Meadows forwarded Mr. Rosen a document alleging voting irregularities and problems with Dominion machines in New Mexico and asking Mr. Rosen for his “team to review the allegations contained herein.”

The idea that Trump may very well end up being the GOP nominee for president in 2024 is mind-boggling. He’s a traitor to the constitution and so are his henchmen.

By the way, Meadows is still in the club, hanging with the boys in the Senate dining room:

I asked former WH chief of staff Mark Meadows if it was appropriate for him to email acting AG Rosen pushing election claims.

“I’ll let you answer that,” he said leaving the Senate dining room. “Obviously I’m not going to comment on anything that may or may not have happened.”

— Jeremy Herb (@jeremyherb) June 15, 2021

They’re all getting away with plotting a coup. Nothing is happening to any of them.

Update —

From election law expert Rick Hasen:

It begins on page 33 of these documents released by the House Oversight Committee. It’s very similar to the dangerous, awful brief filed by Texas in the Supreme Court that was summarily rejected by the Court. Yes it cites debunked conspiracy theories and dubious legal theories and the Epoch Times as authority. But let’s not let the ludicrous nature of the complaint overshadow how dangerous this was: here is the President of the United States directing a lawyer to pressure the Department of Justice into filing a brief in the Supreme Court that would have enjoined the appointment of presidential electors by 5 states that Biden won (and that had already appointed electors pursuant to legal state process).

This is nothing less than an attempt to use the courts to steal the election. It is brazen, and dangerous, and an affront to the rule of law. We are lucky that enough election administrators, elected officials, judges, governors and members of Congress blocked these attempts from going forward.

I have, at times, been a little annoyed at some of the unforced errors by some have progressive members of congress like Ilhan Omar and the squad. They are lighting rods and that’s not necessarily a bad thing but I have thought at times that they could have picked their battles better.

But this latest brouhaha about Ilhan Omar is bullshit. She did not say anything antisemitic and her point, if you care at all about facts and truth, is right on. Elizabeth Bruenig breaks it down in the Atlantic:

What did Omar say? Context is key. In 2020, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on International Criminal Court prosecutors who moved to investigate potential U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan as well as potential Israeli crimes in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, arguing that because the U.S. and Israel aren’t members of the ICC, the court has no right to adjudicate such matters. (The ICC recognizes the State of Palestine as a party to its governing statute, a decision that the U.S. insists the ICC lacks the power to make.) Omar vocally opposed the sanctions—as did the European Union, the president of the ICC’s Assembly of States Parties, Senator Patrick Leahy, and, presumably, anyone skeptical of America’s willingness to look into its own savagery abroad.

During a June 7 budget hearing, Omar asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken a series of questions based on the ICC incident. First, Omar praised Blinken for lifting the Trump-era sanctions. Then she pointed out that he nevertheless still opposed an ICC investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan and Palestine—including, in the first case, offenses allegedly perpetrated by the U.S., the Afghan national government, and the Taliban; and, in the second, Israeli security forces and Hamas. Omar asked, “Where do we think victims are supposed to go for justice? And what justice mechanisms do you support?”

To which Blinken replied, more or less, that the U.S. and Israel are competent to adjudicate all of the above. This raised the obvious question Then why haven’t they?, but Omar’s time was up, and she politely yielded to the next representative.

Later that day, Omar’s official Twitter account shared a video and tweeted a paraphrase of the exchange. The tweet read, in its entirety: “We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity. We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban. I asked @SecBlinken where people are supposed to go for justice.”

Omar’s critics then alleged that, by mentioning the U.S., Israel, Hamas, Afghanistan, and the Taliban in a list of parties worthy of investigation for wartime atrocities, she had implied a moral equivalence, or an intolerable similarity between the two good actors (you don’t need me to point them out) and the bad ones.

Distance yourself from king and country, blood and soil; remember that Twitter forces concision, and ask yourself: Has the U.S. committed atrocities in Afghanistan? During his presidency, Donald Trump used his clemency powers to pardon soldiers and mercenaries who had murdered Afghan civilians, which strongly suggests that American soldiers and mercenaries had in fact killed civilians in Afghanistan. An Intercept investigation last year found that CIA-funded death squads have organized lethal raids resulting in the murder of children. And about the torture that the ICC alleges U.S. forces carried out in the aftermath of 9/11—who was it, again, who outright admitted that in those days, “we tortured some folks”?  

The U.S. had its reasons. Everybody always does. Omar wasn’t supplying a list of all the bad actors in the world, or ranking the worst of them. She was arguing that the parties listed have something in common: They’ve all committed acts of violence during conflicts that exceed or violate international standards of just war. The crimes of the U.S. aren’t of the same magnitude as those of the Taliban. But what does that matter to the victims of American forces—or the victims of Israeli forces, or those of Hamas, or of Afghan national forces, or of the Taliban? It was on behalf of those people—the victims of wartime atrocities—that Omar posed her questions, and the only equivalence stipulated was theirs: an equality of pain, a likeness of suffering.

It is indisputable that the US has committed atrocities. Just going back to Vietnam there has been My Lai through Abu Ghraib, torture, Blackwater and beyond. Trump actually pardoned a bunch of war criminals! It’s literally insane to pretend that didn’t happen.

Nobody, including Omar, says that either country is exactly like the Taliban or Hamas. But war crimes are war crimes and the whole point of having an international war crimes regime is to treat the crimes the same regardless of the circumstances or the perpetrators.

Meanwhile, Marjorie Taylor Green “apologized” yesterday for saying that wearing masks is like the Holocaust:

https://twitter.com/AndrewSolender/status/1404561740365537283

This was obviously a put-up job by the House GOP leadership which wants to provoke a big fight in the congress and censure Omar for antisemitism (and the Squad for some other unarticulated crimes) if the Dems try to censure Green for her obvious, clear antisemitism:

Greene’s public apology tour comes as one Jewish House Democrat, Illinois Rep. Brad Schneider, prepares to introduce a censure resolution condemning Greene’s latest comments on the Holocaust. Some Democrats are already privately discussing censure as a potential response to a group of Republican lawmakers pushing a censure resolution against one of their caucus members, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), for her recent remarks on Israel.

Neither party’s leaders have determined their next move on the floor on this matter. But the prospect of a tit-for-tat illustrated that both parties are continuing to grapple with how to respond to incendiary rhetoric in their ranks, with Democratic and GOP leaders alike eager to preserve unity among their own while talking up the discord across the aisle. Greene’s attempt to show remorse could help take some of the heat off her own party as the GOP prepares to go after Omar.

GOP leaders have condemned Greene for her remarks about the Holocaust but stopped short of calling for any disciplinary action. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy also defended Greene when Democrats kicked her off her committees earlier this year for calling some of the nation’s deadliest school shootings a hoax and endorsing social media posts that called for violence against top Democrats.

Greene also did not use her Monday apology to address remarks she made last year baselessly slamming liberal philanthropist and Holocaust survivor George Soros as “a piece of crap that turned in his own people over to the Nazis.”

House Democrats, however, say they could once again target Greene on the floor — particularly if GOP leaders force a vote condemning Omar’s comments. Greene’s museum visit was first reported by Punchbowl News.

Democrats are clear that they do not equate Greene’s long history of inflammatory comments to what Omar recently said about an International Criminal Court probe of war crimes allegations against both the Taliban and the U.S. in Afghanistan and by Hamas and Israel.

GOP leaders haven’t yet decided whether to force a vote on the floor to boot Omar from the the House Foreign Affairs Committee or to censure her, but they are eager to keep the spotlight on Democrats’ intraparty divisions. The topic was discussed at a GOP leadership meeting Monday afternoon, according to sources who were present, and is expected to come up again during a wider Republican conference meeting on Tuesday morning.

Democrats say few of their members would be likely to vote for either of those anti-Omar GOP resolutions on the floor, even among the 12 Democrats who called her out by name in a dramatic statement last week, according to several sources with the discussions. They say the Minnesota Democrat’s clarification was a good faith attempt to move beyond the controversy.

It was a good faith attempt to move beyond the controversy:

“On Monday, I asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken about ongoing International Criminal Court investigations. 

“To be clear: the conversation was about accountability for specific incidents regarding those ICC cases, not a moral comparison between Hamas and the Taliban and the U.S. and Israel.  

“I was in no way equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries with well-established judicial systems.”

Ilhan Omar stated a fact about specific cases of US and Israeli involvement in war crimes. It’s not a pleasant fact but it is true.

Marjorie Taylor Green’s statements might as well have been lifted from the Protocols of the the Elders of Zion.

This is what passes for public discourse these days:

Fox News anchor Julie Banderas on Tuesday found a way to take the low road in the already dreary saga involving model Chrissy Teigen.

Declaring herself to be a “mean girl” on Tuesday, Banderas reacted to Teigen’s apology for her past cyberbullying by offering up a bit of her own bullying behavior.

“She’s not that hot. I mean honestly, she’s really not,” Banderas bluntly said of the former Sports Illustrated cover girl on Fox News daytime chat show Outnumbered. “If she went to my great friend, who’s a great plastic surgeon, he would say, ‘Slow down on the fillers.’ I mean, she was cuter when she was younger, but weren’t we all.”

Teigen has come under fire recently over revelations that she relentlessly bullied Courtney Stodden and other celebrities. The model has since seen her once-popular lifestyle brand largely fall out of favor amid the controversy, with retailers discontinuing her cookware line.

Having already issued one public apology over her treatment of Stodden and others—she once tweeted that she wanted the then-16-year-old Stodden to take a “dirt nap,” for instance—Teigen emerged again this week with another mea culpa, this time confessing she once acted in the manner of a “troll” on social media.

“There is simply no excuse for my past horrible tweets. My targets didn’t deserve them. No one does,” she wrote in a Medium post, adding that she now strives to be the “best version” of herself.

However, with other public figures recently claiming that Teigen’s past behavior made them “suicidal,” Banderas was not in the mood to offer the supermodel any grace, repeatedly mocking Teigen’s physical appearance.

“Her career is dead and I don’t think there’s anything or anyone that can resurrect it, not even a good plastic surgeon,” the Fox News anchor flatly stated as the rest of the panel laughed.

I always liked Teigen and had no idea about her trollish behavior. It’s disappointing. I hope she can redeem herself somehow. Acting like an adolescent bully on the internet is an epidemic and it doesn’t just hit the right wing.

But let’s get serious here. Teigen is trying to apologize for her behavior. This horrible Fox News harpy is doubling down on being a roaring bitch. That’s where the two sides are these days.

And Chrissy Teigen is very hot. That’s just a fact.

The right has worked itself up into a full-fledged hysterical breakdown over “critical race theory” being taught in their pubic schools so they can use it as an excuse to take over school boards and, basically, tell white people that they’re good enough, they’re strong enough and doggone it, people like them. They don’t have even the vaguest clue what it’s about or whether it’s even taught in K-12.

This Alabama columnist asked one of the state GOP legislators to explain the whole thing:

There’s been a lot of talk about critical race theory lately, and I’ve felt at a loss. I’ve heard so many conflicting things about critical race theory, I’ve gotten more and more confused.

So I did what middle-aged white men are prone to do — I asked another middle-aged white man. But not just any. I called an Alabama lawmaker, state Rep. Chris Pringle, R-Mobile, who wants to make it illegal to teach critical race theory in Alabama.

The 2020 Alabama legislative session ended last month, but Pringle is already primed for the next one. He recently pre-filed a bill — almost eight months before the next session is scheduled to start — and he’s been talking it up on the radio.

So what does his bill say?

“It’s pretty simple,” Pringle said. “All it says is you can’t teach critical race theory in K-12 or higher education in the state of Alabama.”

That is a short bill, if not a simple one. But it didn’t answer my question: What is this critical race theory educators would be forbidden to teach? Pringle has seen enough legislation to understand the law requires specificity. Many bills begin by laying out their legal definitions. How would his bill define critical race theory?

“It basically teaches that certain children are inherently bad people because of the color of their skin, period,” Pringle said.

That sounded very serious, indeed. Nazi-like, even. So I asked Pringle if there were any critical race theorists he could point to who have been spreading such toxic garbage?

“Yeah, uh, well — I can assure you — I’ll have to read a lot more,” he said.

I began to get the feeling that Pringle didn’t know as much about critical race theory as I had hoped. Were there other examples he could give me where critical race theory was being put into practice?

“These people, when they were doing the training programs — and the government — if you didn’t buy into what they taught you a hundred percent, they sent you away to a reeducation camp,” Pringle said.

Pringle was a little difficult to follow but this sounded serious. These people — whoever they were— sounded terrifying, and if there were reeducation camps operating in America, that would be big news someone like me should get to the bottom of. I asked Pringle, who were these people?

Pringle is a Realtor, a homebuilder and general contractor and he dug through what he called his “executive suite” (the cab of his pickup truck) looking for an article he’d read. After a few moments of silence, he began to speak again, this time a bit haltingly.

“Here’s an — it doesn’t say who it was, it just says a government that held these — these training sessions …”

Pringle trailed off and I told him that, if he liked, he could send me a link to the article, but then he began to speak again.

“The white male executives are sent to a three-day re-education camp, where they were told that their white male culture wasn’t their —” he trailed off again.

I was worried that we’d lost our connection. These sorts of conversations sometimes end abruptly, but Pringle was still on the line and after a little more hemming and hawing he retreated to a common safe-space of politicians who’ve crawled too far out on a limb: He just wanted to start a conversation, he said.

“I introduced a very brief version of the bill to start the conversation, but it’s very difficult in this cancel society to have a frank discussion about racism in this country and this country’s history,” he said. “I mean, history is being rewritten and I’m not exactly sure of the accuracy of what’s there now and what they’re trying to change it into.”

This was news to me, as I’d seen lots of lawmakers try to talk about race and history in the Alabama State House, but for whatever reason, they were always the Black lawmakers. It was the white lawmakers who usually tried to change the subject. I wanted to ask Pringle about this, but suddenly he was no longer at a loss for words and I didn’t want to interrupt.

“This is still the greatest country that’s ever, ever been in the history of the world,” he said. “And the radical left is trying to destroy that and tear us apart and divide this country based on race and class, which is exactly what they do in communist countries.”

After bragging to me how he had BS-ed his way through his college political science classes by parroting the liberal bilge his professors wanted to hear, Pringle then said he had to get back to his day job and that he had employees waiting on him at a job site. So I let him go.

(I texted Pringle later to ask if he could share it with me. “Sorry but I can’t find it again,” he said. “Must have deleted the link.”)

Of course he did. So what the hell are they talking about?

I had been on the phone for about 15 minutes with someone who should know what they’re talking about before making laws against things, but I was still confused about this supposed radical leftist plot. When I couldn’t get an answer from a middle-aged white man, I took the logical next step. I asked a middle-aged Black man, Alabama Democratic Party chairman and state Rep. Chris England.

England was cordial enough, but I got the impression I was interrupting what had been, until then, a nice vacation at the beach.

According to England, he hadn’t been familiar with critical race theory, either, until his colleagues across the aisle began making so much noise about it. That’s when he began to research it.

“Critical race theory has been around since the ’70s and it’s never been taught in K-12,” England said. “It’s post-secondary education theory that is only discussed in masters level classes.”

If that’s so, I asked, what’s really going on here?

“It’s just politicians trying to manipulate people to garner campaign contributions and votes, whipping them up with something that has no basis in merit or fact,” he said.

But England wasn’t just talking about critical race theory. He was talking about all the political straw men that get dragged out every election cycle. (Remember Common Core?) And there always seems to be a new one.

True that.

And in case you are wondering where this sudden interest is coming from:

Fox has mentioned “critical race theory” nearly 1,300 times in the past 3.5 months. With mentions doubling month over month, the “critical race theory” boogeyman is exploding on Fox News

Fox has admitted its reason for this souped-up coverage: the 2022 midterm elections. And in order to drum up outrage, the network has repeatedly amplified a lie that critical race theory teaches that one race is “inherently superior to another.”

More recently, in its continued efforts to demonize it, Fox News has promoted a pamphlet that echoes the white nationalist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory. Fox’s obsession with what it defines as “critical race theory” has frequently crossed the threshold into the absurd and overly dramatic. Fox host Tucker Carlson called it “a cult,” while host Will Cain said it is “modern-day Jim Crow.”

Fox contributor Miranda Devine claimed that teaching the theory would “warp the minds of American children” and “is a recipe for social upheaval and mental illness.” Fox’s Newt Gingrich said it was being driven by “people who want to brainwash your child.” 

By labeling everything that has to do with race “critical race theory,” Fox is attempting to shut down conversations about race and racism — which is ironic given the network’s claims that it champions free speech.

And even though many conservatives who lambast it don’t have a clue what the theory actually is, their efforts are working as 21 states are either introducing bans or have banned what they call “critical race theory.” Many educators in those states have argued that the bills and laws would essentially “whitewash history” and have criticized legislators for making it difficult to have necessary conversations about race. 

Essentially, these cynical monsters are pushing the idea that public schools are teaching “reverse racism,” telling little 5 years olds that White people are inferior to Black people. They’ve been on this for a while, they just got a new catch phrase to attach it to.

It’s catching on and all the local MAGA/Tea Party groups are organizing around it. I think they believe they can break the teacher’s unions, destroy public school and inculcate white racism in a new generation all in one fell swoop. They never quit.

And yet the MAGA freaks want to recall the Governor and the mainstream media fluffs Ron DeSantis like he’s the second coming. From Bloomberg:

When misfortunes multiplied during the coronavirus pandemic, observers seized on a four-letter word signaling end of days for the largest state with one-eighth the U.S. population and 14% of its gross domestic product. “California doom: Staggering $54 billion deficit looms,” the Associated Press concluded a year ago in May. “California Is Doomed,” declared Business Insider two months earlier. ”Is California doomed to keep burning?” queried the New Republic in October. California is “Doomed” because of rising sea levels, according to an April EcoNews Report. Bulletins of people leaving the world’s fifth-biggest economy for lower-cost states because of high taxes and too much regulation stifling business continue unabated.

No one anticipated the latest data readout showing the Golden State has no peers among developed economies for expanding GDP, creating jobs, raising household income, manufacturing growth, investment in innovation, producing clean energy and unprecedented wealth through its stocks and bonds. All of which underlines Governor Gavin Newsom’s announcement last month of the biggest state tax rebate in American history. 

By adding 1.3 million people to its non-farm payrolls since April last year — equal to the entire workforce of Nevada — California easily surpassed also-rans Texas and New York. At the same time, California household income increased $164 billion, almost as much as Texas, Florida and Pennsylvania combined, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. No wonder California’s operating budget surplus, fueled by its surging economy and capital gains taxes, swelled to a record $75 billion.

If anything, Covid-19 accelerated California’s record productivity. Quarterly revenue per employee of  the publicly-traded companies based in the state climbed to an all-time high of $1.5 million in May, 63% greater than its similar milestone a decade ago, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The rest of the U.S. was nothing special, with productivity among those members of the Russell 3000 Index, which is made up of both large and small companies, little changed during the past 10 years.

While pundits have long insisted California policies are bad for business, reality belies them. In a sign of investor demand, the weight of California companies in the benchmark S&P 500 Index increased 3 percentage points since a year ago, the most among all states, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Faith in California credit was similarly superlative, with the weight of corporate bonds sold by companies based in the state rising the most among all states, to 12.5 percentage points from 11.7 percentage points, according to the Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Corporate Bond Index. Translation: Investors had the greatest confidence in California companies during the pandemic.

The most trusted measure of economic strength says California is the world-beater among democracies. The state’s gross domestic product increased 21% during the past five years, dwarfing No. 2 New York (14%) and No. 3 Texas (12%), according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The gains added $530 billion to the Golden State, 30% more than the increase for New York and Texas combined and equivalent to the entire economy of Sweden. Among the five largest economies, California outperforms the U.S., Japan and Germany with a growth rate exceeded only by China.

Enlarging its No. 1 footprint with factory jobs, California GDP from manufacturing gained 13% over the past five years to $316 billion in 2020, an increase unmatched by any of the 10 largest manufacturing states: Texas was No. 2 with 9% growth, followed by Indiana at 8%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. For all its bluster as being “best for business,” Texas can’t match California’s innovation. California prosperity is rooted in its appeal as a worldwide destination for technology and health-care development. Of the 6,924 corporate locations in the state, 18% are research and development facilities, a ratio that easily beats the U.S. overall (11%), China (15%), U.K. (14%) and Japan (10%). Only Germany, at 19%, has a higher rate, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The percentage of Texas facilities for R&D is less than half California’s at 8.2%.

Corporate California also is the undisputed leader in renewable energy, with 26 companies worth $897 billion, or 36% of the U.S. industry, having reported 10% or more of their revenues derived from clean technology.No state comes close to matching the 21% of electricity derived from solar energy. Shares of these firms appreciated 282% during the past 12 months and 1,003%, 1,140% and 9,330% over two, five and 10 years, respectively, with no comparable rivals anywhere in the world, according to BloombergNEF. The same companies also increased their workforce 35% since 2019, almost tripling the rate for the rest U.S. overall and four times the global rate.

Perennial water shortages and devastating fires drive the perception of dystopia. But California reigns supreme with the  GDP-equivalent of $40.2 billion derived from agriculture, forest and hunting in 2020. That’s greater than the output from the next five largest states — Iowa, Washington, Illinois, Texas and Nebraska — combined, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Even with the economic disruptions caused by the pandemic, California cemented its position as the No. 1 state for global trade, with its Los Angeles and Long Beach ports seeing growth that led all U.S. rivals for the first time in nine years in 2020. Much has been made of the state reporting its first yearly loss in population, or 182,000 last year. Had it not been for the Trump administration preventing new visas, depriving as many as 150,000 people from moving to California from other countries annually, the 2020 outcome would have been more favorable.

Even so,  Republicans, opposed to Newsom’s policies favoring immigration, criminal justice reform and greater benefits for housing, health and child care, want voters to decide whether he should be replaced in a potential recall election later this year. Former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, a Republican who is among those running to succeed him, said Newsom, a Democrat, hurt the state’s small businesses.

That’s not what the data shows. The 373 California-based companies in the Russell 2000 Index, which includes small-cap companies across the U.S., appreciated 39% the past two years and 85% since 2016, beating the benchmark’s 34% and 67%, respectively. The same California companies reported revenue growth of 56% the past five years,dwarfing the benchmark’s 34%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. More important, California companies invested 16% of their revenues in R&D, or their future, when the rest of the U.S. put aside just 1%. 

Investing in the future is California’s way, the opposite of doom.

California has lots of problems too, ofcourse. Homelessness, housing, etc.

But I was happy to see a highway sign on Pacific Coast Highway today saying that more than 75% of Santa Monicans are vaccinated. The good life.

BTW: The state is opening completely today.

The neighborhood brew pub may still be serving carryout or on picnic tables in the parking lot, but Stephen Colbert is back. So I gotta. You need this.

Some of us have been complaining about this for years. Alex Pareen explains at The New Republic why our molars are ground to nubs.

Americans do not know what the Democratic Party stands for.

Two recent post-election analyses attempt to get at a solution. But really, says Pareene, “they are also both really designed to absolve some people, and blame others, for Democratic failures.” Where they agree: both recognize that the party fails to define itself for voters. Republicans do that for them.

The Republican Party does not control the conservative propaganda network that keeps it relevent despite the party’s failures. Conservative media drives the party. But the two are at least symbiotic. Democrats rely on an outdated model of staging events and votes designed to get corporate mainstream media to tell their story for them for free (“earned media”). It is a strategy, Pareene suggests, that dates to when there were only three network news outlets. But after decades of the right “working the refs,” the media’s framing of Democratic narratives often goes sideways.

It doesn’t have to stay that way:

Some political science professors summarized a recent research experiment in Politico Magazine earlier this month. Alexander Coppock, Donald P. Green, and Ethan Porter “conducted a series of randomized experiments to test whether parties can win over new loyalists” with ads that promoted a party rather than a particular candidate. What they found was that, with repeat exposure, “people changed their partisan identification ever so slightly after seeing the ads,” and that “higher doses of party-promoting ads” could influence people’s voting decisions and feelings about Donald Trump. “Partisan identity is usually understood as a root cause of political behavior,” the political scientists wrote. “By moving it, we also appear to have moved real-world political decisions.”

Pareene explains, “These political scientists independently invented party propaganda, exposed Americans to it, and discovered that it can be effective, especially with constant exposure. Conservatives don’t need to learn to do this: It’s how their movement sustains itself.” Democrats may not need their own propaganda network, but they do need to reformat how they communicate with voters.

Political ad agencies Coppock, Green, and Porter contacted were “flummoxed by the request” to create ads promoting the Democratic Party. They’d never been asked. Their stock-in-trade is campaign ads for particular elections and particular candidates. Those are funded, I’d note, by those campaigns or by party campaign arms whose funding swells and retreats with campaign season. Democratic voters’ interest attaches more to candidates than to the party itself. Democrats do not have sustained year-in and year-out messaging in part because they do not have consistent yearly cash flows. Plus, there is no The Democratic Party to buy the ads.

Pareene concludes:

So are Democrats (and their benefactors) simply too blinkered to see the benefit of making a huge investment in propaganda for their own party? It is probably not that simple; if powerful people are refusing to do something that would seem to benefit them, they probably do have good reasons for it. One is that their benefactors might prefer to underwrite propaganda that broadly supports liberal capitalism rather than specifically progressivism. Another is that relying on a news media disconnected from the institutional party or progressive movement gives Democratic leaders a referee to complain about, to point at to justify their compromises, and to hold up as a reason to police their own side rigorously for any hint of left-wing excess. We might someday see some neutered version of the idea—something like the ad campaigns recommended by the political scientists—but for the time being, Democrats still seem quite invested in their often toxic relationship with the corporate media.

But Democrats’ messaging failures involve more than institutional inertia. I call it the campaign-industrial complex (CIC). A lot of people’s incomes depend on campaign spending and on the “dues” members of Congress contribute to the House and Senate campaign arms, the DCCC and DSCC respectively. The CIC considers good fundraisers the best candidates for that reason, almost regardless of other political skills. Winning is less of a goal than keeping the revenues flowing to the “fraternity-like network of former staffers who move from public service into the private campaign industry and back.”

Why do Democrats suck at messaging? That’s why.

A playwright/comedy writer friend shakes his head at how the CIC leaves so much professional story-telling talent lying around unused. The Writers Guild is filled with left-leaning people who make their living telling compelling stories in 30 seconds or 30 minutes. They’re just waiting to be asked to deploy their talents in service to the greater good. But their phones are not inside the Beltway and do not ring. Another exasperated friend writes, “Hire a goddamn ad agency that sells vodka and soap” to sell our ideas. But the fraternity of former Hill staffers, having spent time in D.C., believe they are uniquely qualified to write campaign ads for which so much campaign cash is spent.

They are like tight-assed Lt. Steven Hauk (Bruno Kirby) in “Good Morning Vietnam.” 

(h/t DJ)

There is no bottom:

The experience was so demeaning that Susie Angel did not vote again for two decades.

It was 1991, she recalled, and she was a 21-year-old learning to live independently with cerebral palsy, which she has had since birth. She waited in line at her polling place in Austin, Texas, for hours. Then she waited for a poll worker who could help her complete her ballot. Finally, the worker refused to take her aside, making her name her preferred candidates in full view and earshot of other voters.

Ms. Angel, who has limited use of her limbs and a speech impairment and uses a foot-operated power wheelchair, left understanding that, unlike other Americans, she couldn’t vote privately. It was only when she began working for the Coalition of Texans With Disabilities in 2010, and learned about the adaptive equipment available to her, that she was able to vote independently — an experience that brought her to tears.

Now, Ms. Angel is watching the Texas Legislature pursue sweeping voting restrictions, afraid that she and others with disabilities might again be deterred from voting.

“They’re really making it so we don’t have a voice anymore,” she said. “And without that, we can’t get the things that we need to survive.”

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The Texas legislation, which Democrats blocked but Republicans plan to revive in a special session, is one of a series of Republican voting bills that would disproportionately affect people with disabilities. The Wisconsin Senate approved three last week with more to come, though unlike in Texas, the governor there is a Democrat and is expected to veto them. Georgia and Florida have enacted similar measures.

For years, advocates have worked to mobilize Americans with disabilities — more than 38 million of whom are eligible to vote, according to researchers at Rutgers University — into a voting bloc powerful enough to demand that politicians address their needs. Now, after an election in which mail-in voting helped them turn out in large numbers, the restrictive proposals are simultaneously threatening their rights and testing their nascent political influence.

“It’s only been the last few years that there have been studies done showing that if candidates would appeal to issues that the disability community cares about, there is such a thing as the disability vote,” said Bob Kafka, an organizer with Rev Up Texas, which aims to increase turnout among disabled Texans. “That’s why you’re seeing it playing out in Georgia and here and other places where the disability community is part of the larger fight against voter suppression.”

The fight also underscores the degree to which disability rights, once championed both by Democrats like former Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa and Republicans like former Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, have become one more partisan football, even though there are millions of disabled voters in both parties.

The most recent version of the Texas bill would ban drive-through voting, further limit absentee voting in a state that already has strict eligibility rules, and let poll watchers record video of voters as purported evidence of wrongdoing. Disability rights advocates worry that partisan poll watchers will misinterpret legal accommodations — like a worker helping a disabled voter complete a ballot, or a blind voter using a screen reader — as fraud.

Bills in Wisconsin would restrict who could return voters’ ballots on their behalf; weaken accommodations for “indefinitely confined” voters, who cannot vote in person because of age, illness or disability; and forbid municipal clerks to correct small mistakes on ballot envelopes.

Voters who needed help returning their ballot would have to get it from an immediate family member or legal guardian if they had one in Wisconsin, regardless of distance. If a disabled voter in Milwaukee had a sibling in Ashland, 350 miles away, it would be illegal to rely on a neighbor. People with no family in the state could designate someone else, but no individual could return more than two non-relatives’ ballots.

Stephanie Birmingham of Sturgeon Bay, Wis., who has the bone disorder osteogenesis imperfecta and uses a wheelchair, said the bill seemed to assume “that people with disabilities have good relationships with their family, if they even do have family around,” and that family members were less likely than others to commit fraud.

Breaking these rules would be a felony — a characteristic of bills in several states that advocates said could discourage people from helping friends or neighbors.

“It’s made organizations like ours start questioning, ‘Should we do that?’ because a simple mistake on our end could put them in jeopardy and our organization in jeopardy,” said Chase Bearden, deputy executive director of the Coalition of Texans With Disabilities. “That’s a pretty chilling effect.”

Arizona MAGA cultists are going around posing as election officials “surveying” who people in the county voted for. Apparently, they believe this will “prove” that Donald T4ump is our president for life. Or something.

I’m not sure what state or federal laws might be against this sort of informal “audit” might be but it’s clearly illegal to represent yourself as an election official when you are not.