Month: August 2022

He takes a shot at Sinema

Manchin is right about this. But he’s the last person who should complain about one Senator putting the kibosh on needed legislation for her own reasons:

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said at a roundtable Friday that Democrats were forced to narrow a key provision of the recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act because of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz.

Manchin, touting the benefits of the new law for West Virginia at an event in his home state, alluded to his fellow centrist senator when lamenting that the drug pricing provisions weren’t more aggressive. The landmark policy included in the legislation empowers Medicare for the first time to negotiate prices with the pharmaceutical industry.

On Medicare and prescription drugs, he said: “We could basically — competition — let them go out and negotiate, and we can save a lot of money to a lot of people and take the burden off.”

“We had a senator from Arizona who basically didn’t let us go as far as we needed to go with our negotiations and made us wait two years,” Manchin said in a video of the event that was viewed by NBC News. “Those type of things — I don’t question anybody, everyone’s responding to their own constituent base. But we did get something. And it’s the first time we made a positive move in that.”

This man is just … too much. It’s great that he finally came around a bit. But I’m not sure there’s anyone on earth more obtuse.

They’re going after health care workers again

This is so sick:

Right-wing media figures have spent more than a week encouraging their audiences to harass healthcare workers at Boston Children’s Hospital for providing care to trans youth, leading to fears that the disinformation campaign could result in acts of violence. After reports surfaced of death threats against hospital employees, some on the right have broadened their focus to other children’s hospitals.

On Thursday evening, Fox News’ top star Tucker Carlson devoted two segments to the topic, interviewing far-right Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and anti-LGBTQ activist Chris Elston, who goes by the moniker Billboard Chris. Carlson repeatedly, falsely described providing gender-affirming care as “mutilation of children,” before asking Elston to elaborate.

“We have the biggest child abuse scandal in modern medicine history,” Elston said.

“I don’t think there’s any debate over whether we should be allowed – which doctors should be allowed to mutilate children,” Carlson responded.

Elston and Carlson are both completely wrong here. Numerous studies show that having access to gender-affirming care is associated with improved mental health outcomes, while being denied access is associated with increased rates of suicidality and depression. And while much of that care is non-surgical, experts have found that those who do have surgical procedures experience very low rates of regret.

Carlson added that “we can debate, you know, the trans question,” channeling the antisemitic phrase “the Jewish question,” that has long been used by Nazis and others on the extreme right.

Carlson also downplayed the concept of “stochastic terrorism,” a term that describes a process through which ubiquitous violent rhetoric creates conditions that can lead to acts of violence by individuals. The idea describes an environment in which each individual act of violence is impossible to predict, but the likelihood of some sort of violence becomes far greater.

In his introduction, Carlson praised Libs of TikTok, an extremist, anti-LGBTQ social media influencer account run by Chaya Raichik, which has driven much of the anti-LGBTQ harassment across Twitter and Facebook. On August 11, Raichik shared a video falsely claiming that Boston Children’s Hospital was performing hysterectomies and genital surgeries on minors. Facebook reportedly suspended Libs of TikTok on August 17, but the page has since resumed posting content targeting children’s hospitals. Twitter has yet to take any action against it.

Earlier this year, Libs of TikTok repeatedly suggested that drag events were inappropriately exposing children to sexual content. In several instances, those posts were followed by members of the far-right Proud Boys gang showing up to disrupt the event.

Since Raichik’s post about Boston Children’s Hospital, numerous figures and outlets on the right have joined in the effort.

The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, one of the most virulently anti-LGBTQ pundits on the right, announced that he was organizing an intimidation campaign against hospitals that provide gender-affirming care for trans youth.

Walsh addressed the issue on his show days later, accusing Boston Children’s of lying about the threats they’d received and dismissing his connection to stochastic terrorism.

“When they claim that threats are coming in – that they’re being threatened – you can never take that claim at face value,” Walsh said. “Of course, they’re not above simply lying, and what’s more, we know what they consider a threat to be.”

“What was the word of the day that we learned yesterday? It was, uh, sto – sto – stochastic terrorism, is what it is,” Walsh continued. “So we already know that any criticism is an act of terrorism.”

They are not lying. These people are just projecting again.

Case in point:

Right-wing media figures have spent more than a week encouraging their audiences to harass healthcare workers at Boston Children’s Hospital for providing care to trans youth, leading to fears that the disinformation campaign could result in acts of violence. After reports surfaced of death threats against hospital employees, some on the right have broadened their focus to other children’s hospitals.

On Thursday evening, Fox News’ top star Tucker Carlson devoted two segments to the topic, interviewing far-right Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and anti-LGBTQ activist Chris Elston, who goes by the moniker Billboard Chris. Carlson repeatedly, falsely described providing gender-affirming care as [a blatant, disgusting lie about compassionate hospital services]*, before asking Elston to elaborate.

“We have the biggest [bullshit mischaracterization of gender-affirming care] scandal in modern medicine history,” Elston said.

“I don’t think there’s any debate over whether we should be allowed – which doctors should be allowed to [lying misrepresentation of medical care for trans] children,” Carlson responded.

They’re about 150,000 trans kids in the US. To be sure, trans healthcare for youth is a major issue for the children, the parents and the caregivers directly involved. Any healthy modern political party would simply facilitate access to appropriate treatment and turn its attention to focusing on other issues — like the genuine potential for a medical catastrophe from the return of polio .

So if this is not about trans kids — and it isn’t — what’s it really about? You can troll for votes without bullying children. No, this is about Carlson and others learning how to control and focus a violent mob. A very useful thing if your goal is to smash American democracy and replace it with a Hungarian-style white man’s dictatorship. Yesterday, it was hospitals — and from the death threats and fear generated, certain lessons were learned. Tomorrow Carlson will find another target which will elicit more death threats from his deplorable followers — and American fascists will learn a bit more about what does and doesn’t work to direct them. The idea, of course, is to find out how little provocation is needed in order to incite violence — helps with deniability when what you’re doing comes to the attention of law enforcement (“hey, just asking questions, voicing my opinion, censorship! cancelling!”).

The only reason Carlson gets away with this despicable behavior is that he knows that it is quite possible to get away with far worse. After all, the obscene orange Hitler who incited a mob to seek out and kill his own vice president is still free. So, because there are no consequences for that guy, every day Carlson learns how to get bolder in expressing his own racist dog whistles, his own anti-semitism, and all his other hatreds and bigotries. It leads in only one direction: more death threats, more physical intimidation, and ultimately more physical violence.

As the photo above makes crystal clear, we already have a civil war, even if at present the deadly political violence is not yet a daily occurrence (but hardly a month goes by…). But if Carlson and others continue to get a free pass and get better at stoking their mobs, the violence will become chronic very, very soon.

There is only one way this country can even conceivably start to walk back from the precipice of sustained civil war. Trump must not be held “accountable” — that’s too weak a word for what needs to happen. Trump needs to be swiftly indicted, prosecuted, and if found guilty, jailed for his numerous crimes against this country.

—-

*I see no reason to repeat lies, bullshit, and misrepresentations by Nazi-wannabes. You can click the link if you would like to know what they actually said, but why bother? Their lies are just lies. Don’t you have something more worthwhile to do?

You knew they were going there, right?

And there you have it. Chris Rufo, the mastermind of Republican lawmakers' recent attacks on "critical race theory" and "social and emotional learning" is now staking out the position that a business refusing to serve Black people is just freedom of speech. https://t.co/l1VusYsLUi

— Matthew Chapman (@fawfulfan) August 20, 2022

Here are some replies:

He is framing this as retaliation to David French criticizing Ron DeSantis’s speech codes. I fully expect to see this bubbling up to the surface soon. It’s a winner for the Maga cult.

This should be interesting

This makes no difference except for the historical record. But when it comes to Trump’s crimes, so far that’s all we get:

The Justice Department must make public an internal legal memo commissioned by then-Attorney General William Barr in 2019 to analyze whether he should charge then-President Donald Trump with obstruction related to the Russia investigation, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday.

The ruling from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals comes in a case brought by a government watchdog group that is seeking to get the unredacted version of the memo. The DOJ argued some redacted portions should be shielded from public view.

But the federal appeals court didn’t buy that argument, finding that Barr never seriously considered charging Trump with obstructing the Mueller investigation — saying in the ruling that the memo Barr ordered up was an “academic exercise” and a “thought experiment.”

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation found several instances where Trump’s actions while president could meet the requirements for an obstruction of justice charge, but Mueller left the decision to Barr.

Barr then told Congress he was “consulting” with top DOJ officials on whether there was enough evidence to show Trump committed obstruction. But that was misleading, the courts have found and the Justice Department has since acknowledged.

Barr had already decided the sitting President would not be charged with a crime, Chief Judge Sri Srinavasan of the DC Circuit wrote in the new opinion.

The DC Circuit likened the Trump charging analysis that Barr requested from the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel and others to him asking for a departmental position on whether the late President Richard Nixon broke the law during Watergate — an imaginary request that could be made “because [the attorney general] had simply been curious,” the appeals court wrote.

The court ultimately ruled on the side of the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington after the DOJ tried to argue its redactions were still valid because they protected legal deliberations. Those legal deliberations didn’t exist in this circumstance, the court decided, agreeing with lower court judge Amy Berman Jackson.

Berman famously called Barr “disingenuous” over this issue. It will be interesting to see what it says after all this time.

Read this by Emptywheel. Fascinating.

More sleeping giant news

Speaking with activists here in Pittsburgh, I emphasize how many women entered party politics for the first after the Women’s March in January 2017. What they found in many smaller counties were nonexistent or somnolent local cDemocratic ommities. When they showed up ready to work, they quickly took charge.

One told me her local county had not been organized in a decade. Another told me those before her left her with nothing and she had no support from her state party. Just weeks ago, I received a flurry of requests from Indiana where women in a small county are trying to revive a local party organization and get it battle-ready for the fall.

People. After the Dobbs decision, that stream is going to be a flood. Abortion rights are on the ballot this fall and in 2024. Digby noted Friday that registrations among women are up. Way up.

Jaw-dropping numbers:

Starting in PA, where women have accounted for >56% of new registrants in that time period. Those women new registrants are 62%D to 15% R and 54% are under the age of 25. Compare that to men new registrants at 41% <25 and 43% D, 28% R.

— Tom Bonier (@tbonier) August 19, 2022

I created this little “cookbook” (below) because Democrats can no longer afford for county organizers to learn the basics of election mechanics as they have in the past — by the seats of their pants over multiple cycles. What county chairs get from state parties (if they do) is mostly administrative guidance. What they need is not strategy, targeting and messaging (best left to campaign managers), but to know, figuratively, how to put their pants on one leg at a time and to tie their bootlaces, preferably in that order.

Look again at the map at the top. I can send it, but I can’t make them open and use it. Those grayed counties (excluding New England; long story) have no organization and/or no digital presence. You cannot win if you don’t show up to play. And if you do show up, you’d best bring some “game.”

It’s late August, but better late than never.

From Netroots Nation-Pittsburgh● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●Request a copy of For The Win, 4th Edition, my free, countywide get-out-the-vote planning guide for county committees at ForTheWin.us.

It doesn’t change a thing, and even so…

After a panel late Friday, David Daley (“Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count“) informed me that North Carolina’s Supreme Court had ruled against the GOP-dominated legislature. Any win is a win these days. Take it.

The court, says the Associated Press, took steps to void the state’s photo ID cosntitutional amendment approved by ballot measure in 2018. The legislature that placed it on the ballot was from disricts unconstitutionally drawn on the basis of race:

However, the North Carolina Supreme Court stopped short of striking down the voter ID requirement and another constitutional amendment that limited income tax rates, ruling that a lower court must gather more evidence on the measures before tossing them out.

Voter identification is not currently required in North Carolina, because it’s held up in separate litigation regarding state voter laws. Friday’s ruling doesn’t alter that situation.

The long-awaited ruling, decided 4-3 by the court’s Democratic majority, is a victory for the state NAACP, which sued Republican legislative leaders. It undoes a state appeals court ruling that upheld the amendments, and it sends the case back to Wake County Superior Court Judge Bryan Collins, who previously struck down the amendments.

I hear Tevye and Golde singing,

It doesn’t change a thing
But even so
After twenty-five years
It’s nice to know

Except it’s only been about four years.

The title of Daley’s panel was “Election Subversion: The Role of State Legislatures in the Fight for Democracy.” If there is an angle by which GOP legislatures can rig democracy in their favor, they will. Several ways at once; by any means necessary. The guy behind REDMAP was from here.

It’s still true. The panel noted how much money (an insane amount) Democratic donors throw at federal races they cannot win while local and state races go hungry for cash. Those races down to the school board are democracy’s first line of defense. They go under-defended while “savvy” liberals focus on more marquee contests. Meanwhile, the GOP draws a bye in down-ballot races and builds its bench.

It may be the bias of my own interests, but I encountered multiple organizers and pundits here evangelizing both for local and state races, and for taking the fight into red areas Democrats have ceded to the GOP for too long.

I spent 2016 telling progressives President Hillary can’t solve my legislature problem; President Bernie can’t either. That has to be solved locally. It’s still true.

From Netroots Nation-Pittsburgh

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Request a copy of For The Win, 4th Edition, my free, countywide get-out-the-vote planning guide for county committees at ForTheWin.us.

Meet Fiona’s brother!

He’s officially arrived. Fritz, that is, the brand spanking new baby hippo made his public debut to an adoring crowd of media first, then to the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden’s members.

The two-week-old brother to Fiona was ready for his close-up. Fiona, it seems, is not the only star in this pool.

Around 8:30 a.m. Thursday, Fritz and Bibi waddled onto the Hippo Cove rocks and eased into the shallow water. At first, there were only reporters on the other side of the glass, practically climbing on top of each other to get a photo of the calf. 

He obliged, teasing the assembled by waggling his tiny toes under water and popping his baby ears occasionally over the top of the pool’s surface. Mom was never very far behind.

A few minutes later, zoo members got to share in the surprise unveiling.

“He seems comfortable,” said 26-year-old Elizabeth Nevin, who was at the Cove with her 2-year-old son Isaac. “Like he’s already making himself at home.”

Since the calf was born Aug. 3, he has mostly stayed in his indoor habitat, bonding and nursing with Bibi, completely away from the public’s in-person eye. Through videos and livestreams, the public got to see Fritz tumble around his indoor habitat, cozy up to mom Bibi and munch on lettuce and hay.  

Next to his mama, Fritz looked tiny. He had his signature shininess and big, bulging eyes, a trait that zookeeper Jenna Wingate said comes from Fritz’s dad, Tucker. 

This might be the case, but there was no doubt Fritz is Bibi’s son. 

Upon entering the blue-green pool of the cove, Fritz cuddled close to Bibi. Sometimes he would nurse, other times he would just bop around her, staying in the shadow of his mother’s protection. 

But as the minutes passed, Fritz became more comfortable and showed some of the “spunky” personality Wingate describes. He began blowing bubbles from his nostrils, doing flips and even coming to the habitat’s glass, giving reporters an up-close look at his face.  

But as zookeepers gradually exposed Fritz to the outdoor Hippo Cove with his mom, and noticed how well Fritz and Bibi were doing in the water, they decided it was time. Fritz could spend more time outdoors. More time outdoors meant people could at long last get to see him. 

Story courtesy of Cincinnati.com

… again

Rudy Giuliani tells Newsmax that Trump was just trying to preserve documents by putting them in a safe place. pic.twitter.com/tDJag4loW4

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 19, 2022

Yeah, they’re very safe:

He’s a real brain trust.

Basically, Rudy is admitting that he had sensitive documents, that they weren’t “planted” and that they all think that a storage room at a resort hotel where all kinds of people are wandering around is a safe place for them. Rudy must have been hitting the Merlot again.

Previously non-voting women are becoming engaged

Here are the states with the biggest gender gap among new registrants since the Dobbs decision was handed down. This isn't just a blue state phenomena. In fact, it is more pronounced in states where choice is more at risk, or has been eliminated by the decision. pic.twitter.com/X4Kj2oG550

— Tom Bonier (@tbonier) August 17, 2022

Well, the graph below tells a story.
The story: MANY women non-voters decided to become voters bc there was abortion on the ballot.
So there was urgency.https://t.co/qg2YlXeBKp

— Hyza (@Hyza87) August 17, 2022

The right wing seems to have been under the illusion that most women are not anti-abortion — and that the stakes for them are extremely high.

Keep your eye on that Alaska House race. Peltola is doing much, much better than expected and she’s the only pro-choice candidate in a state that has a pro-choice majority.