Month: August 2022

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan takes on his would-be successor

The Washington Post reports:

Republican Gov. Larry Hogan has ratcheted up the rhetoric about GOP gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox, describing him earlier this week as mentally unstable.

Hogan, who has previously called Cox a “QAnon whack job,” described the GOP nominee as “a nut” during a recent radio interview and reiterated his prediction that Cox has “no chance whatsoever” of being elected as Maryland’s governor in November.

“He’s not, in my opinion, mentally stable,” Hogan, who is term-limited, said Wednesday on WGMD radio, based on the Eastern Shore. “He wanted to hang my friend, Mike Pence, and took three busloads of people to the Capitol.”

Cox, a Republican delegate from Frederick, handily defeated Hogan-endorsed candidate Kelly Schulz last month in a primary largely viewed as a proxy war between Hogan, who has presidential ambitions, and former president Donald Trump, who endorsed Cox. In January 2021, Cox tweeted that he was organizing buses to the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6. During the insurrection, he tweeted that Vice President Mike Pence was “a traitor,” though he later apologized for his language while facing a legislative ethics inquiry.

The popular outgoing governor’s denigrations of Cox have shown no sign of slowing, and coupled with Cox’s own comments this week, signaled a potential shift in tone for the race.

“Hogan has a problem with telling the truth and mounting smear antics,” Cox said in a statement. “As a lifelong Marylander, father of 10 children and experienced state delegate, businessman and attorney at law, the people of Maryland and I trounced Hogan’s lockdown agenda candidate. And I intend to do it again this fall by unifying Maryland to win big for freedom.”

Cox’s campaign is seen as a long shot in Maryland, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 2-to-1 margin. And Hogan’s repeated attempts to paint Cox, a first-term delegate and a relative unknown across the state, as unfit to replace him probably will dampen Cox’s efforts to lure the Democratic voters and independents he would need to win.

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He doesn’t have a chance in hell of luring Democratic voters:

Earlier this week, Cox agreed when his running mate, Gordana Schifanelli, said, “This is not a campaign [of] Republican versus Democrat. This is a campaign between freedom and a socialist-communist politics that has driven the people of this state to the ground.”

Cox said he “absolutely” agreed that Moore promoted socialist and communist ideas, citing a Moore campaign invitation that required proof of vaccination and later labeling the teaching of the history of race in schools and discussion of gender identity as socialist causes.

“The socialist model is a top-down model that requires more government control of our education. And we’re seeing that he is advocating that. You can’t even attend his events without a vaccination passport of an experimental vaccination. That’s an egregious overstep,” Cox told reporters Monday at the opening of his Annapolis campaign headquarters.

He went on to criticize teaching about gender identity to children in third grade or younger, which is not a specific policy Moore endorsed. Cox also criticized Moore for supposedly embracing “CRT,” an acronym for critical race theory, an intellectual movement that examines the way policies and laws perpetuate systemic racism. Critical race theory is not taught in Maryland schools; Moore has not advocated that it should be.

Cox is almost a nutty as Pennsylvania GOP candidate Doug Mastriano. Completely around the bend. But that’s the mainstream of the Republican Party. Hogan is the one who’s out of touch with is party.

is it all an illusion?

Susan Glasser at the New Yorker takes a look at the newfound optimism among Democrats that they may not be destined to have a wipeout in November. She notes that Trump has tightened his grip on the GOP through this season and that some people like Amy Walter of the Cook Report says Dems are smoking “hopium” if they think they have a shot in hell.

I’m not allowing myself to get too excited about this but there is another side to the story and it’s worth looking at:

The conventional wisdom in Washington would indicate that the Democrats are all but certain to lose the House in 2022, and very likely the Senate, too. The yearlong collapse in Joe Biden’s approval ratings has been seen as a virtual guarantee of this outcome. Biden has become the most politically unpopular leader at this point in a Presidency since the advent of modern polling—even more unpopular than Trump was during the “blue wave” election of 2018. That and a worst-in-four-decades inflation outbreak on Biden’s watch have convinced almost all political observers that the elections this fall are a sure thing for Republicans.

But, over the summer, a new school of what might be called “Trumptimism” has taken hold among some Democratic strategists and independent analysts. In the mess of our current politics, they discern a case for optimism—history-defying, experience-flouting optimism that maybe things won’t work out so badly after all in November. “In the age of Trump, nothing is normal,” Simon Rosenberg, the president of the liberal think tank the New Democrat Network and a veteran strategist, told me, on Thursday. “Nothing is following traditional physics and rules, so why would this midterm?”

Rosenberg, a staunchly public proponent of this view for the past few months, argues that Trump’s continued hold over the Republican Party is actually good news for Democrats this fall—and beyond. Trump, he posits, is not so much killing off his political enemies as he is destroying his own host organism, the G.O.P. itself.

Recent events, according to Rosenberg, have started to prove his case, including what appears to be the easing of inflation, lower gas prices, and Congress’s passage of Biden’s long-stalled signature climate-change-and-health-care legislation. The horrific school-shooting massacre in Uvalde, Texas, upset pro-gun-control Democratic voters across the country, and the Supreme Court’s decision to toss out Roe v. Wade is giving millions of Americans a reason to vote in November. “It’s a new, bluer election,” Rosenberg tweeted, on Thursday, as part of a long thread of upbeat-for-Democrats data points. Or, as he put it when we spoke: “There was never really a red wave.”

The Trump factor, according to Rosenberg, is key. For the past several election cycles, nothing has united Democratic voters more than the chance to vote against him. And all summer Trump has been back in the news, thanks to revelations from testimony in the House’s January 6th hearings; the F.B.I. search of Mar-a-Lago, for classified documents improperly taken from the White House; and endless speculation about whether Trump will be indicted or run again for President—or both. “It awakened the anti-maga majority in the country,” Rosenberg insisted.

Rosenberg sees this fall as a genuinely competitive election, not a foregone conclusion. And his predictions for the long-term fate of the Trumpified G.O.P. are bleak. Republicans have lost the popular vote in seven of the past eight Presidential elections, and Trump was the first incumbent President running for reëlection since Herbert Hoover to have his party lose the White House, Senate, and House in just four years. Rosenberg said he remained convinced that divisive primaries, such as the Wyoming election this week, are disastrous for the Republican Party in general elections—even if pro-Trump candidates beat out the few Liz Cheneys every time. “The Republican coalition,” he asserted flatly, “is cracking.” At this rate, he insisted, the Trump party could even become just as much of a “noncompetitive national entity” as the post-Hoover G.O.P. of the nineteen-thirties and forties.

Abortion and Trump are both factors as is the assault on democracy and the batshit crazy candidates the Republicans have foisted on the country.

As I said, I’m not smoking any “hopium.” But I do think there is good reason to believe that all the “metrics” and “fundamentals” may not be operative in this cycle. There’s a lot going on and the Big Argument is being engaged.

Will a presidential run do more harm than good?

Back in 2019, I saw Liz Cheney as the most dangerous woman in America. I was referring at the time to her grotesque insistence that Democrats supported “infanticide” and the absurd threat to shut down the government unless Congress paid for Trump’s stupid wall. And she was more than happy to be a Trumpish attack dog, going after Democrats like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with undisguised glee. Cheney wasn’t just the daughter of one of the primary architects of the Iraq war debacle, she worked in the State Department and helped with its execution. As a member of GOP House leadership, she was a rising star in GOP politics and a likely presidential candidate who had a good shot at becoming the first woman president as the successor to Donald Trump. I sounded the alarm again in 2021.

A lot has certainly changed since then, hasn’t it?

Cheney may have been a good little Trumper for most of his tenure, demeaning Democrats and voting in lockstep but she decided that staging a coup was a bridge too far and we all know where she has landed since then. She was stripped of her leadership post, censured by her state party and lost her re-election bid this week by nearly 40 points. She is, however, now one of the most famous politicians in the country and will no doubt be mentioned in the history books for her bold stand against the undisputed leader of her own party. And, as I predicted years ago, she is being actively discussed as a presidential candidate and appears to be seriously considering it. The reasons for her ascent may be different than I thought they would be but there was always something about Liz that suggested she was aiming for the top job.

Cheney knew she was going to lose her congressional seat and I would guess that she knew that from the moment she spoke out about Trump after the 2020 election. There may have been a moment or two that the GOP leadership thought they were finally finished with him but Cheney is a savvy operator and almost certainly understood that being a strong critic of the man who won her state by 44 points would cost her politically. Once she made the decision to go all-in and join the January 6 committee the die was cast and it was clear her political future was not going to be in the House of Representatives.

In her concession speech on Tuesday night, Cheney announced what appears to be a new movement she’s calling “The Great Task” which was taken from the last sentence of the Gettysburg Address and refers to her crusade to deny Donald Trump the presidency in 2024 and restore the democratic norms that preceded his Big Lie and attempted coup. She converted her fat war chest (consisting mainly of money collected from Democrats) into a leadership PAC and told the media that she is considering a presidential run as a means to accomplishing her goal.

I wish I believed that no Democrats would ever vote for a hardcore rightwinger like Cheney, but I don’t.

The question is: How that’s supposed to work? In the last few days, analysts have offered up a plethora of punditry on the subject. Needless to say, nobody thinks she can actually win the GOP nomination. Trump is still in the driver’s seat and Cheney is the single most hated person in politics among his supporters who make up a majority of the party. But there are other ways to deny Trump his revenge.

The American Prospect’s Robert Kuttner did make the point that if she runs as an Independent in the general election there is an inherent risk. “Cheney is a widely admired figure at a time when voters are hostile to both parties. In a true three-way, almost anything could happen. Cheney might even win.” But his real concern is one that I share: Cheney could split the anti-Trump vote with the Democrat and inadvertently hand the White House back to Trump.

I wish I believed that no Democrats would ever vote for a hardcore rightwinger like Cheney, but I don’t. She is being deified by the mainstream media as a patriotic hero and I’m sure there are some Biden voters who see her as the savior of the Republic. Looking back at the 2000 and 2016 elections should remind us that it only takes a small number of third party defectors to give the White House to the GOP.

Kuttner’s colleague Harold Meyerson disagreed with Kuttner’s premise entirely, asserting that Cheney understands the political arithmetic very well and will run in the Republican primaries with the intention of trying to save the party from itself and Donald Trump. He points to this line from her concession speech:

We have candidates for Secretary of State who may refuse to report the actual results of the popular vote in future elections …No American should support election deniers for any position of genuine responsibility, where their refusal to follow the rule of law will corrupt our future.

Meyerson thinks Cheney is going to make a pitch for Republicans to back Democrats in these positions and will herself vote for the Democrat in the general election. If she’s serious about saving democracy she will do that but I won’t be surprised if she pulls one of those fatuous “I’m writing in Mitt Romney” or some other “good Republican” but we’ll see.

The Atlantic’s Ron Brownstein says her run would be unprecedented because “there aren’t any clear examples of a candidate running a true kamikaze campaign.” He looks at all the roadblocks to her even getting on the primary ballot or being included in the debates but points out that some strategists think she might open up a lane for another candidate to take the nomination from Trump. I’m not exactly sure how that’s supposed to work but unless that candidate is someone who is willing to admit that the 2020 election wasn’t stolen and repudiates Trumpism I don’t see what good it would do. In fact, Cheney herself doesn’t think she can back Florida Governor Ron DeSantis because he’s an election denier.

Brownstein says that most Republican strategists he speaks to believe that Cheney needs to run as an Independent and potentially “loosen his hold on the party, this thinking goes, if she persuades enough centrist and white-collar voters to reject him and ensure his defeat in a general election.” Once again, I have to say that I think that’s tremendously risky because there are a whole lot of centrist, white-collar Democrats who might stupidly vote for her too. She’s certainly not going to tell them not to.

The answer to this question is for her not to run. This is exactly the kind of move that could blow up in the Democrats’ faces and hand the White House back to Trump. Cheney can use her platform, money and influence in some other way to defeat Donald Trump, perhaps by encouraging those centrist GOP voters not to put Trump accomplices in important electoral positions in the states. The Democrats beat him in 2020, they can beat him again. 

Salon

… there’s always something

Charlie Sykes interviewed the Washington Post’s Philip Bump about Ron DeSantis on his podcast yesterday. This excerpt is from his newsletter:

Bump: I say this all the time, and I will continue to say it, the reason that Donald Trump won in 2016, is because he was the guy who was willing to say what the fringe was talking about, and that the establishment wouldn’t talk about because it was ridiculous.

He was willing to say it.

Trump was willing to be the voice of the fringe. He was willing to parrot it back to the base, what they were hearing on Breitbart, and what they’re hearing on Fox News, in a way that the establishment wouldn’t, right? And that has been his success ever since. He’s been engaging and rallying the far right of the Republican Party that didn’t feel like they had a voice, justifiably, in politics.

And that’s what DeSantis is doing as well.

He’s really playing to that same far right and he is, in the same way that Donald Trump was Breitbart to the establishments, Fox News in 2016.

Now, Breitbart is, you know, almost establishment-esque to some extent, and Ron DeSantis is Infowars, right?

I mean, so it is this constant, okay, I’m going to engage where this most fervent element of the base is, and we call that Trumpism, but it’s, you know, really just the fringe, and engaging the fringe has proven to be a successful strategy for winning elections.

And I think that’s what DeSantis is doing

As it happens, while we were talking, Bump was writing a column that elaborated on his point. You can read the whole thing here.

[DeSantis] is making a bet on beating Trump at his own game, appealing to and energizing the right-most flank of the GOP by a relentless public focus on amplifying what the fringe is talking about. Much was made of Laura Ingraham’s public skepticism about whether it was useful to bring Trump’s baggage into a 2024 presidential contest.

But for my money, the more interesting development was Alex Jones’s endorsement of DeSantis — on the grounds that DeSantis, unlike Trump, has credibly appealed to the anti-vaccine fringe.

Trump has lost Alex Jones. He announces today he is off the Trump train: “I am supporting Desantis .. I can look into his eyes on HD video, and I see the real sincerity.” pic.twitter.com/wvpKq2PjQR

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) August 18, 2022

Speaking of DeSantis and the fringe: “DeSantis knocked by Jewish leaders for rallying with Pennsylvania GOP candidate.”

Florida Democrats and Jewish leaders joined religious groups in Pennsylvania in condemning Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., for his plans to appear Friday with Doug Mastriano, the Republican candidate for governor in Pennsylvania.

Mastriano’s ties to Gab, a right-wing social media site that has become a hub of anti-Semitic and racist commentary, have come under fire for the last few weeks.

Meanwhile….

The Florida governor not only suffered a legal defeat yesterday, he was also bench-slapped by the federal judge who ruled that his STOP WOKE Act was unconstitutional.

First sentences in a federal judge’s order blocking FL’s Stop Woke Act:

“In the popular television series Stranger Things, the upside down describes a parallel dimension containing a distorted version of our world. Recently, Florida has seemed like a First Amendment upside down”

— Jay O'Brien (@jayobtv) August 18, 2022

[Judge Mark] Walker said the law, as applied to diversity, inclusion and bias training in businesses, turns the First Amendment “upside down” because the state is barring speech by prohibiting discussion of certain concepts in training programs.

“If Florida truly believes we live in a post-racial society, then let it make its case,” the judge wrote. “But it cannot win the argument by muzzling its opponents.”

Is this #winning?

The DeSantis narrative is that he's the culture warrior who gets results, but two big pieces of culture war legislation (Stop WOKE Act and social media law) are now blocked by courts. And FL may have to pay legal fees.

Might I suggest this isn't what winning looks like? https://t.co/rsLDJpPPyz

— David French (@DavidAFrench) August 18, 2022

Aaand there’s this:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the first arrests made by the state’s new elections police force Thursday: Twenty people previously incarcerated for murder or sexual assault who he said had illegally voted in the 2020 election.

The GOP-led Florida legislature passed a bill creating the Office of Election Crimes and Security earlier this year at DeSantis’s behest. While the 2020 election went smoothly in Florida — DeSantis called it the “gold standard” for elections — the governor has said there are still issues and conservative lawmakers have sought to further tighten voting regulations.

The governor — widely considered a potential 2024 presidential candidate — heralded the arrests, saying the unit had “sprung into action to hold individuals accountable for voter fraud.” DeSantis said they had been arrested for violating the rules of a constitutional amendment passed by Florida voters in 2018 that allows formerly incarcerated people to register to vote — except for those who committed felony sexual assault or murder.

“This is just the opening salvo,” DeSantis said. “This is not the sum total of 2020.”

But voting groups and experts said that if anything the initial arrests indicate Florida’s election system is robust and crimes rare. Some expressed concern that the new unit could have a chilling effect, particularly on vulnerable groups of voters, such as formerly incarcerated people who are legally entitled to vote.

“It’s 20 people out of millions of voters,” Michael McDonald, an expert on voting and a professor of political science at the University of Florida. “These arrests are inconsequential to the integrity of the electoral system.”

It’s just showboating for the base, giving them a little bit of red meat. It’s meaningless in terms of election fraud. But that’s what DeSantis is all about. Everything he’s doing is to appeal to the rabid right and gain the loyalty of MAGA. He is positioning himself as the natural successor and it’s working.

I do like the observation that he’s Alex Jones and Trump was Breitbart. This just reflects the evolution of the GOP base. They are just getting nuttier and nuttier. DeSantis is having to work to keep up.

Good to remember

The politicians who tell you
'Biden is coming for your guns'
are the politicians who are coming
for your Social Security

— John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) August 14, 2022

And your Medicare and whatever else Sen. Rick Scott (R) of Florida thinks is good for America.

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

Casual cruelty vs. showing mercy

Someone shot a neighbor’s cat point-blank last week. No one nearby heard a shot. The cat tended to range widely and was lucky a coyote didn’t dine on it before last week. (Yes, we have coyotes now in WNC.) He went missing for a couple of days before limping home near-empty of blood. By the time he got to the vet, he was too far gone to be saved.

People’s casual cruelty is regularly dispiriting. Like recent hatred politics that way.

A reporter here asked what I thought of the the notion that Democrats need to distance themselves from all the “pronouns” focus from activists and organizers at a convention like this, what some deride as the professional left.

It’s true that there is a lot of that here. There are pronoun buttons even. The Netroots conference has evolved from a bunch of amateur bloggers into more of a networking event for progressive professionals. Some of the younger people here seem to have been sponsored by the nonprofits for which they work. Some, but not all. During panel Q&As, questioners typically identify themselves by their name and organization, and perhaps announce their preferred pronouns. Some, but not all. Panelists identify themselves that way. Some, but not all.

Pronouns are a right-wing bugaboo right now. Ask Ted Cruz. But the truth is that the few thousand attending Netroots are a tiny fraction of the center left and leftier. There is little “my pronouns are” back home or at state party meetings. But Ted thinks he’s a comedian and uses it as a punchline to Other Democrats.

What stands out about people who come here each year is their focus is on promoting values of inclusion, and on valuing each other. There are a host of policies being promoted, sure. But the focus is on making life and this country better for everyone, including the people the right means to exclude. “My pronouns are” may seem a bit clunky, but is an expression of solidarity by those working to broaden us to encompass the marginalized and to make the union more perfect. Each year, it is rejuvenating to be among people dedicated to that kind of mercy.

People here mean to expand the social and political circle of inclusion. The right wants to shrink it, to make the political franchise more exclusive. Until it is just them, of course. To leave everyone not-them on the outside. When conservatives talk about Real Americans, they don’t mean you. In fact, Real Americans is the opposite of “my pronouns are.” But reporters don’t ask if Republicans should distance themselves from that, from casually excluding the majority of the American population.

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

— Micah 6:8 (KJV)

So I want to finish with this story of survival, empathy, and mercy in the wake of recent Missouri flooding (The Guardian):

Cavers in Missouri recently rescued a dog stranded hundreds of feet underground almost two months after the animal disappeared from her family’s home.

A small group of cavers discovered Abby, a 13-year-old pet, while exploring the passages of the 18-mile Berome Moore cave system in Perry county on 6 August. They alerted the local fire department and members of the Cave Research Foundation at the surface of their discovery about 500ft below.

Several of the more experienced cavers went down to take a look.

The lethargic animal “was not in good shape”, according to caver Rick Haley, a teacher and recreational spelunker, in a Facebook post. But he said she was moving her head, and shuffled into a duffel bag he spread on the ground.

“I laid that bag out, unzipped it, put the blanket in and the dog at that point walked right over and sat in the bag, because the dog recognized ‘this is the driest, warmest and softest thing I’ve seen in a long time and I’m just going to lay on it’,” Haley told CNN in a story published online Saturday.

“She didn’t seem to have any injuries. But boy, she was really malnourished. She was skin and bones.”

Abby was quickly returned to the Bonner family who’d missed her since early June.

“Abby is getting back to her old self. That’s pretty normal. I mean she really hasn’t barked yet – I guess she just doesn’t have the energy for it,” said Rachel Bonner, daughter of Jeff and Kathy Bonner.

And to whoever shot Beckham, fuck you.

From Netroots Nation-Pittsburgh

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CNN thrills the wingnuts

First Liz Cheney loses her primary by 38 points
Then Brian Stelter gets fired from CNN
It's like Christmas and News Years in August 🤣🤣🤣🤣

— Vince Langman (@LangmanVince) August 18, 2022

Good riddance, Stelter. You and your ilk have done grave damage to a free press.https://t.co/rtYKJ9AIga

— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) August 18, 2022

I look forward to recognizing Brian Stelter as he runs up to my car at a red light to try and wash my windshield hoping I'll give him some cash https://t.co/1SK0WhEQlY

— Tim Pool (@Timcast) August 18, 2022

“Everything about this rollout points to [Discovery board member] John Malone and [Discovery CEO] David Zaslav,” a source familiar with the situation told The Daily Beast. “Chris Licht did not want to do this.”

In February, he called out Malone, the billionaire mogul who told CNBC last year that after Discovery’s merger with WarnerMedia, he’d “like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing,”

“The people who say the Zucker-era CNN was lacking in real journalism clearly were not watching CNN directly,” Stelter wrote in the Reliable Sources newsletter. “My best guess is that they were watching talking heads and reading columnists complain about CNN. And yes, I’m including John Malone in this.”

I doubt he would say Trump is anointed by God…

I know we’re not allowed to say this, but I’ll say it anyway. What is the real difference between these people and other religious/state leaders like the Ayatollahs? They have a tremendous amount of political power which they couch in religious terms. And America’s right wing Christians don’t even use religious rhetoric much anymore. They are just straight-up GOP partisans. Sarah Posner has the latest evidence:

Right-wing Christian media kicked into high gear in the days following the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, coalescing around a defense of former President Donald Trump based on a smorgasbord of persecution complexes, whataboutism, conspiracy theories, lies, and misinformation about law enforcement and the judicial process. The Christian right and its GOP allies are counting on their base consuming a steady diet of these radio shows, podcasts, social media posts, and email blasts, tuning out any coverage that conflicts with their image of Trump as both a virile hero and a victim besieged by radical leftists at the FBI. For them, God anointed Trump, choosing an “unlikely” leader to restore Christian America. It is precisely because Trump is singularly capable of resurrecting the Christian nation, this thinking goes, that the radical leftists of the deep state want to bring him down. 

On the night of the raid, Tony Perkins, president of the leading Christian right political organization the Family Research Council, tweeted, “Who trusts the FBI to pursue justice? The agency has become so politicized that even if their actions were justified half the nation still would not trust them.” The next day, Franklin Graham, scion of the evangelist Billy Graham, also stoked distrust of the FBI, invoking the 1992 standoff at the Ruby Ridge compound of the anti-government, white supremacist extremist Randy Weaver. “Last night as we watched the events that unfolded at Mar-a-Lago, I couldn’t help but think that the FBI and DOJ are losing credibility and the trust of the American people again,” Graham wrote on Facebook. He then invoked the conspiracy theory, now pervasive in right-wing circles, that new funding in the Inflation Reduction Act to boost collection of taxes owed by the wealthy was “a step in weaponizing the IRS to act against people, organizations, and businesses who have a voice of dissent against government agendas.”

A central theme of the Christian right’s coverage is that the raid was politically motivated to stop Trump from running for president again in 2024, and to dampen his influence in the 2022 midterms. “Was it driven by politics or national security? Why did we not see the same with Hillary Clinton?” asked Perkins on his radio program, Washington Watch, on August 12, the day after Attorney General Merrick Garland publicly explained the legal process by which the search warrant was obtained and executed. Just the fact that Clinton’s home was never the subject of a search warrant — never mind whether there was any basis to seek or obtain one — was evidence enough that Trump had received unequal treatment.

Perkins even lauded the Trump administration for not investigating Clinton because “they didn’t want to create a political circus like we see happening right now.” (Trump, of course, is well-known for not creating political circuses, and for his magnanimous treatment of Hillary Clinton.) Perkins went on to say that Clinton “was not paraded out in handcuffs,” a verbal sleight of hand that suggested (falsely) that Trump was. (He was not even present at Mar-a-Lago the night of the raid.) Then Perkins waved off the ubiquitous “lock her up” chants at Trump rallies, and said, “I don’t even think many conservatives would want political leaders, even of the other side, mistreated, or treated in such a fashion that shakes our very concept of justice and dignity in this country.”

Themes of war — actual and spiritual — abounded, a call to arms for Trump’s Christian followers who are being primed to believe that just as law enforcement came after Trump, it will come after them. Eric Metaxas, a popular evangelical author, Trump promoter, and radio host, called the FBI “thugs.” He interviewed Charlie Kirk, the founder of the right-wing campus group Turning Point USA and also a rising star in the evangelical world, who declared the raid a “rubicon” moment for the left. “It wasn’t a raid, it was a military occupation,” Kirk told Metaxas, adding “I looked at it as a political invasion. I looked at it as they invaded us.” Stephen Strang, an influential evangelical publisher and author of four laudatory books about Trump, wrote, “I believe God raised up Donald Trump and there is warfare going on — satanic activity that is trying to tear down the fabric of this country.” He urged “Americans who are concerned about religious freedom and the threat of communist agendas to this country” to “stand up and voice their support for President Trump.”

On one side is Trump, whom God anointed. On the other are creepy thugs who rummage through his wife’s intimate belongings.

Such Cold War relics as the “communist agenda,” mingled with comparisons to Nazism, are commonplace, and are used to sweep up other alleged government excesses, like COVID restrictions, under a rubric of government oppression. Metaxas hosted the once-liberal feminist author Naomi Wolf, who apologized to his listeners for having voted for President Joe Biden, whose administration, she said, is “tasking our law enforcement with terrorizing private citizens in a way that is really reminiscent of the Stasi and the Black Shirts.” Metaxas accused the FBI of “terrorizing” people, including the anti-vaccine doctor Simone Gold, who he said is “in jail because she is a doctor who had the temerity to talk about the vaccines as a bad thing.” (In reality, Gold pled guilty to trespassing at the Capitol on January 6.)

Other hosts, based on nothing more than their own ignorance about the judicial process, have urged their listeners to be suspicious. Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association, said on his daily radio show this week, “this is confusing to the average person. By the way, this judge, he was not a federal judge per se. He was a magistrate. I didn’t even know those kinds of judges existed.” (Magistrate judges routinely issue warrants and preside over a range of other matters.) In the midst of this ramble about not knowing magistrate judges existed, Wildmon dropped an evidence-free statement about Bruce Reinhart, the magistrate judge who issued the Mar-a-Lago search warrant: “He had posted derogatory things about President Trump, his personal views.” Wildmon offered no proof or examples — but he was apparently riffing on a popular right-wing meme that Reinhart had criticized Trump for disparaging statements he made about the late civil rights icon and congressman John Lewis. But his listeners across the country and on the internet will think that someone who might not even be an actual federal judge and who posted derogatory things about Trump was the one who issued the search warrant.

This toxic brew of conspiracy theories, incendiary language, and veneration of Trump is likely to only get uglier and more dangerous as this and other investigations of Trump progress. Christian right figures are repeating Trump’s claim that FBI agents searched his wife Melania’s closet, feeding right-wing paranoias that the “deep state” is filled with sexual deviants. On one side is Trump, whom God anointed. On the other are creepy thugs who rummage through his wife’s intimate belongings.

They are desperate for a rallying cry. “Jesus loves you” is clearly no longer operative.

It wouldn’t have been hard for him to learn about this earlier

Right wing politicians act like abortion is some kind of fun party for women, one that is easily discarded as no big deal. They give it no more thought than they would give to a highway bill or naming a post office.

This is the result:

A South Carolina lawmaker on Tuesday had to fight back tears as he explained that an anti-abortion law he’d voted for led to a young woman nearly losing her uterus, and even put her life at risk. Republican State Rep. Neal Collins told the state’s House Judiciary Committee that he’d lost sleep after learning about the case of a 19-year-old woman whose water broke after just 15 weeks of pregnancy. He said that because the fetus had a heartbeat, lawyers advised doctors that they could not remove the fetus, despite that being the recommended medical course of action. The young woman was discharged from hospital. “First, she’s going to pass this fetus in the toilet,” Collins said. “She’s going to have to deal with that on her own.” He added that a doctor told him that there was a “greater than 50 percent chance that she’s going to lose her uterus” and “there’s a 10 percent chance that she will develop sepsis and herself die.” “That weighs on me,” Collins added. “I voted for that bill. These are affecting people.”

Huh. It weighs on him. He voted to protect a 15 week old fetus that cannot survive over the health and possibly the life of the fully formed human in whose body it exists.

The good news is that this lurid, horrifying story finally woke him up and he’s decided not to vote for a total ban with only an exception for the life of the mother. If only they would listen to people who actually understand the ramifications of their intrusion into the most intimate decisions people have to make in their lives they might be spared those sleepless nights when they are confronted with the cruelty they’ve inflicted on people.

BTW: This is the bill they are considering:

South Carolina currently has a six-week ban passed in 2021 that went into effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June. Republican lawmakers plan a special sessions over the next month to consider even more restrictions.

The bill bans all abortions except when the life of the mother is in danger. It lists a number of different medical emergencies that would fit into the exceptions.

I’m sure it’s very reassuring to know that these yahoos are determining what constitutes a medical emergency. They know best.

Senator Brian Schatz:

I feel like the media is having a hard time metabolizing the fact that this congress has been historically productive. And acknowledging the size of these accomplishments, and the degree of difficultly, – it’s just hard to do accurately without sounding a bit left leaning.

Like, Postal Reform was such a standing, seemingly unsolvable issue for every congress for a decade it seemed not doable. Done.

We all know the difficulty of passing an infrastructure bill, which while popular and necessary, proved elusive for W and Obama and Trump. Done.

The taking care of veterans who have had toxic exposure, especially burn pits, was also something being pushed for many years with no success. Done.

Violence Against Women Act reauthorization with new provisions for Indian Country. Biggest investment in native communities ever. Done.

We all now know what’s in IRA, and CHIPS, but when you add all of this up, it’s not just a lot of bills. Each one of these was thorny, complicated, difficulty, and ambitious.

Originally tweeted by Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) on August 16, 2022.

In case you don’t know what’s in the IRA and CHIPS, here it is:

[T]he Inflation Reduction Act contains historic provisions to tackle climate change and takes steps toward fulfilling a longtime Democratic policy goal: letting Medicare negotiate the prices of some prescription drugs. Together with the infrastructure package Democrats passed in November, the IRA marks the achievement of a significant portion of Biden’s agenda.

While it’s unlikely to noticeably reduce inflation, at least in the short term, the legislation will have concrete effects: It could affect what kind of car you buy and how you heat your home. It will prevent big price increases this year for some people who purchase individual health insurance. And if you aren’t paying your taxes, there’s a better chance that the IRS will find out.

CHIPS:

Congress has passed a bill that will invest more than $200 billion over the next five years to help the US regain a leading position in semiconductor chip manufacturing.

With bipartisan support, the CHIPS and Science Act was passed by lawmakers in late July, and President Joe Biden signed the bill into law Tuesday.

Once a leader in semiconductor chip manufacturing, the US has lost ground as other countries like China ramped up production, forcing many American manufacturers to import chips — which are essential to the production of cars, smartphones and medical equipment.

The new funding is intended to help companies bring chip manufacturing back to the US and, as a result, help lower costs and prevent supply chain disruptions. The current global chip shortage has limited production of new vehicles, for example, leaving Americans facing stubbornly high car prices.

I am actually fairly shocked that they actually achieved all this under these difficult circumstances. I’m not shocked that the media is giving them virtually no credit for it or that Biden’s approval numbers are so bad. This stuff is rarely rewarded by the public because it sounds very abstract and the Democratic party is not very good at taking credit. (Contrast that with Trump who has managed to convince at least half the country that his scandal-ridden term was the most successful in history.) The hangover from the pandemic is just starting to lift.

What will reward Democrats at the polls is more likely to be the more blatantly political stuff like Donald Trump being a criminal and the right wing Supreme Court turning the country back into the dark ages. Nonetheless, it’s important for Democrats to deliver on their promises because the country desperately needs these things. I’m impressed.