Month: September 2022

He’s getting to be an old hand

How many more crimes will he be charged with?

Stephen K. Bannon, a former top adviser to former President Donald J. Trump, surrendered to the Manhattan district attorney’s office on Thursday to face charges related to a nonprofit that prosecutors say defrauded donors who thought they were helping fulfill the president’s promise of a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The indictment, unsealed Thursday morning, charges Mr. Bannon with two felony counts of money laundering, two felony counts of conspiracy and a felony count of scheming to defraud in connection with his work with We Build the Wall Inc.

If Mr. Bannon is convicted, and a judge imposes the maximum sentence on the most serious charge, he could face between five and 15 years in prison. We Build the Wall itself was also charged.

“Stephen Bannon acted as the architect of a multimillion dollar scheme to defraud thousands of donors across the country — including hundreds of Manhattan residents,” the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, said in a statement.

The New York attorney general, Letitia James, whose office partnered with the district attorney in the investigation, said Mr. Bannon had taken “advantage of his donors’ political views to secure millions of dollars which he then misappropriated.”

She added, “Mr. Bannon lied to his donors to enrich himself and his friends.”

Mr. Bannon, 68, arrived at the district attorney’s office on Hogan Street in a black S.U.V. around 9:10 a.m. While being heckled by a handful of protesters, he raised his left hand and pointed to the scores of reporters and photographers gathered there.

“This is an irony,” he said, adding, “On the very day the mayor of this city has a delegation down on the border, they’re persecuting people here for trying to stop them at the border.” Mayor Eric Adams has sent officials to Texas to investigate a torrent of migrants bused to New York City by the state’s governor.

The charges echo a federal case brought against Mr. Bannon two years ago. Federal prosecutors in 2020 indicted him and three other men of taking donations from the crowd-funded border wall project to pay for personal expenses.

The group said it planned to use the funds to build portions of a barrier dividing the United States and Mexico. Conservative activists, including Mr. Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., appeared at an event for the group, which ultimately brought in $25 million in donations.

The Manhattan indictment centers on allegations that Mr. Bannon and others defrauded donors by secretly funneling donated funds to We Build the Wall’s president, Brian Kolfage, who had pledged not to take a salary.

According to the indictment, several hundred Manhattan residents gave to the group “based on the false representation that none of the money” would pay Mr. Kolfage.

Mr. Kolfage was not charged by Manhattan prosecutors, and is identified in the indictment as “Unindicted Co-Conspirator 1.” He pleaded guilty earlier this year to charges in the federal case.

Federal prosecutors had accused Mr. Bannon of helping conduct the fraud, and pocketing $1 million raised by the organization, using it for personal expenses. But Mr. Trump pardoned Mr. Bannon in January 2021, preventing federal authorities from taking him to trial.

Trump didn’t trust Bannon not to turn on him so he gave him the pardon he demanded. Unfortunately for Bannon, his crimes fall under state jurisdiction too.

Here’s a rundown of some of the charges against Bannon so far:

Stephen K. Bannon, a onetime political adviser and chief strategist to former President Donald J. Trump, has faced several charges since leaving the White House in 2017. Here are some notable cases against him:

Federal fraud charges. In August 2020, Mr. Bannon was charged with defrauding donors who supported building a border wall long sought by Mr. Trump. Prosecutors said Mr. Bannon used funds raised for the construction of the wall on private land to pay for personal expenses. In January 2021, Mr. Trump pardoned Mr. Bannon before he could be brought to trial.

Contempt of Congress. In November 2021, Mr. Bannon was indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts of contempt of Congress, after his refusal to comply with a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. In a trial the following summer, a jury found Mr. Bannon guilty of both counts. He is scheduled to be sentenced in October.

New York State charges. Mr. Bannon surrendered to the Manhattan district attorney’s office and is expected to be charged with money laundering, conspiracy and fraud in connection with the border wall project. The Manhattan district attorney’s office began its own investigation into Mr. Bannon’s role in the project after he was pardoned by Mr. Trump.

It would be good to see him charged with seditious conspiracy but I suppose that’s too much to hope for.

I don’t have much to say that others will not be saying for the next few days. I think I’ll watch “The Crown” tonight.

Americans have a strange fascination with the British monarchy considering our history and I confess to being among them. And I think we’ve always enjoyed it when our presidents met with her:

Elizabeth remained a constant on the world stage, meeting with American leaders before she even became queen. Here is a peek at some of her encounters with U.S. presidents.

Then-Princess Elizabeth met with President Harry Truman in 1951, a year before she ascended to the throne. Elizabeth and Prince Phillip met with the Truman family at Blair House that year during a visit to Washington, D.C.

Princess Elizabeth meets with President Harry Truman (National Archives and Records Administration) (National Archives and Records Administration)

Six years later, Queen Elizabeth spent four days at the White House in October 1957, as she and Prince Philip stayed with President Dwight Eisenhower and First Lady Mamie Eisenhower.

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip meet with President Dwight Eisenhower and  First Lady Mamie Eisenhower at the White House (National Archives and Records Administration)

In 1961, the queen hosted President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy at Buckingham Palace.

Queen Elizabeth meets with President John Kennedy at Buckingham Palace (John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum/National Archives and Records Administration)

The queen never met with President  Lyndon Johnson, but her sister Princess Margaret did in 1965. The next president the queen met was President Richard Nixon, whom she met along with their spouses in the UK in 1970.

Queen Elizabeth and UK Prime Minister Edward Heath with President Richard Nixon and First Lady Pat Nixon in October 1970 (Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library and Museum/National Archives and Records Administration)

In 1976, Queen Elizabeth visited the United States for an American bicentennial celebration, where she shared a dance with President Gerald Ford.

U.S. President Gerald Ford and Britain’s Queen Elizabeth dance during a state dinner in honor of the Queen and Prince Philip at the White House in Washington, U.S., July 7, 1976. (Ricardo Thomas/Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library/U.S. National Archives and Records Administration/Handout via REUTERS)

Nearly a year later, the queen met President Jimmy Carter and other world leaders at a May 1977 summit dinner at Buckingham Palace.

Queen Elizabeth meets President Jimmy Carter and other heads of state at a 1977 summit at Buckingham Palace (Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum/National Archives and Records Administration)

In 1982, President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan visited Windsor Castle. During their stay, Reagan and Queen Elizabeth rode horses together.

The queen visited the White House in 1991, where she joined President George H.W. Bush on the South Lawn to plant a tree. The tree replaced another, which had been planted by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1937 in honor of the coronation of King George VI.

President George HW Bush and Queen Elizabeth plant a tree on the White House South Lawn, replacing a toppled one that was planted in honor of the coronation of King George VI. (George Bush Presidential Library and Museum/NARA)

Among the queen’s meetings with President Bill Clinton was a D-Day commemoration event at the Guildhall in London.

US President Bill Clinton speaks with Queen Elizabeth II of England during the official group photo before a dinner at the Guildhall June 4. World leaders headed D-Day commemorations here. (REUTERS/Kevin Coombs) (Reuters)

President George W. Bush met with Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace in 2003 before Bush met with then-Prime Minister Tony Blair.

U.S. President George W. Bush shakes hands with Britain’s Queen Elizabeth before departing from Buckingham Palace in London, November 21, 2003. Bush and Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair are due to travel to Blair’s constituency of Sedgefield in the north of England on Friday. (REUTERS/POOL/Richard Lewis ASA/AA)

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama met with the queen and Prince Philip in April 2016. The two couples shared a private lunch in Windsor.

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh stand with the President and First Lady of the United States Barack Obama and his wife Michelle (both centre), in the Oak Room at Windsor Castle ahead of a private lunch hosted by the Queen in Windsor, Britain, April 22, 2016. (REUTERS/John Stillwell/Pool/File Photo)

This was the low point:

Then:

The protocol was explained to him, and the Queen is trying to get over to walk in front of the guards without having moron walk in front of her, to no avail. Donnie’s courtesy and listening skills are sometimes deficient. https://t.co/04X9kL6gUp

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) September 8, 2022

The Vampire:

And he brought all of his adult children. No one else ever did that:

Thankfully, her last memory of an American president wasn’t that…

Speaking of Americans:

this remains an all-time story about the queen pic.twitter.com/hI2yNUac0H

— David Mack (@davidmackau) September 8, 2022

And it’s working out quite well for them, isn’t it?

This right wing obsession with voter fraud has been going on for many, many years, long before Trump jumped on the bandwagon to soothe his wounded ego. They’ve been laying the ground work for his assault on democracy for a very long time, brainwashing their voters into believing that there is massive fraud by Democrats, usually people of color in urban areas, to deny them their rightful dominance of the government.

Much of it has always been performative, as a way to make their voters feel better about losing, which is apparently something that right wingers have an extremely hard time accepting, But mostly it’s been in service of their plot to suppress the votes of Democrats through intimidation and various forms of legal and logistical difficulties. It’s obvious.

But the reality of alleged voter fraud is something else entirely. Many studies have found that there are only small incidental examples, none of which could have been decisive. It’s simply not a problem. But that hasn’t stopped Republicans from being obsessed with the issue to such an extent that Donald Trump was able to easily convince his followers that the election had been stolen from him on a massive scale despite no evidence.

The New York Times took a look at the issue this week:

After 15 years of scrapes with the police, the last thing that 33-year-old Therris L. Conney needed was another run-in with the law. He got one anyway two years ago, after election officials held a presentation on voting rights for inmates of the county jail in Gainesville, Fla.

Apparently satisfied that he could vote, Mr. Conney registered after the session, and cast a ballot in 2020. In May, he was arrested for breaking a state law banning voting by people serving felony sentences — and he was sentenced to almost another full year in jail.

That show-no-mercy approach to voter fraud is what Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has encouraged this year during his re-election campaign. “That was against the law,” he said last month about charges against 20 other felons who voted in Florida, “and they’re going to pay a price for it.”

But many of those cases seem to already be falling apart, because, like Mr. Conney, the former felons did not intend to vote illegally. And the more typical kind of voter-fraud case in Florida has long exacted punishment at a steep discount.

Last winter, four residents of the Republican-leaning retirement community The Villages were arrested for voting twice — once in Florida, and again in other states where they had also lived.

Despite being charged with third-degree felonies, the same as Mr. Conney, two of the Villages residents who pleaded guilty escaped having a criminal record entirely by taking a 24-hour civics class. Trials are pending for the other two.

Florida is an exaggerated version of America as a whole. A review by The New York Times of some 400 voting-fraud charges filed nationwide since 2017 underscores what critics of fraud crackdowns have long said: Actual prosecutions are blue-moon events, and often netted people who didn’t realize they were breaking the law.

Punishment can be wildly inconsistent: Most violations draw wrist-slaps, while a few high-profile prosecutions produce draconian sentences. Penalties often fall heaviest on those least able to mount a defense. Those who are poor and Black are more likely to be sent to jail than comfortable retirees facing similar charges.

The high-decibel political rhetoric behind fraud prosecutions drowns out how infrequent — and sometimes how unfair — those prosecutions are, said Richard L. Hasen, an expert on election law and democracy issues at the U.C.L.A. School of Law.

“It’s hard to see felons in Gainesville getting jail terms, and then look at people in The Villages getting no time at all, and see this as a rational system,” he said.

The Times searched newspapers in all 50 states, internet accounts of fraud and online databases of cases, including one maintained by the conservative Heritage Foundation, to compile a list of prosecutions in the last five years. But there is no comprehensive list of voter fraud cases, and The Times’s list is undoubtedly incomplete.

The number of individuals charged — roughly one and one-half per state per year — is infinitesimal in a country where more than 159.7 million votes were cast in the 2020 general election alone.

For all the fevered rhetoric about crackdowns on illegal voting, what’s most striking about voter fraud prosecutions is how modest the penalties for convictions tend to be.

Most fraud cases fall into one of four categories: falsely filling out absentee ballots, usually to vote in the name of a relative; voting twice, usually in two states; votes cast illegally by felons; or votes cast by noncitizens.

Edward Snodgrass, a trustee in Porter Township, Ohio, said he was trying to “execute a dying man’s wishes” when he filled out and mailed in his deceased father’s ballot in the 2020 election. He was fined $800 and sentenced to three days in jail.

Charles Eugene Cartier, 81, of Madison, N.H. and Attleboro, Mass., pleaded guilty in New Hampshire to voting in more than one state, a Class B felony, in the 2016 election. He was fined $1,000 plus a penalty assessment of $240, and had his 60-day prison sentence suspended on condition of good behavior.

At least four Oregonians cast votes in two states in 2016; none were fined more than $1,000, and felony charges were reduced to violations, akin to traffic tickets.

Two federal prosecutors in North Carolina, Matthew G.T. Martin and Robert J. Higdon, made national headlines in 2018 with a campaign to prosecute noncitizens who voted illegally. In the end, around 30 charges were brought, out of some 4.7 million votes cast in 2016. But prison sentences in those cases were few, and usually measured in months; fines, usually in the hundreds of dollars or less.

Still, there are exceptions, often apparently meant to send a message in states where politicians have tried to elevate fraud to a major issue.

Foremost is Texas, where convictions that would merit probation or fines elsewhere have drawn crushing prison sentences. Rosa Maria Ortega, a green-card holder who cast illegal votes in 2012 and 2014, was sentenced to eight years in prison for a crime she says she unknowingly committed. Crystal Mason, who cast a ballot in 2016 while on federal probation for a tax felony, drew five years for violating felon voting laws. The court has been ordered to reconsider her case.

Both prosecutions were the work of the state attorney general, Ken Paxton, perhaps the nation’s most zealous enforcer of voter-fraud laws. Mr. Paxton runs a $2.2 million-a-year election integrity squad that claims a 15-year record of prosecutions, though some of its high-profile cases, like a lengthy one against a South Texas mayor, ended in acquittals.

The cases DeSantis is bring with his “election police squad” will likely end up in acquittals if they even get that far. The state allowed the supposed criminals to register and vote despite it being its charge to stop it under the new laws that ban those voters from voting. But DeSantis got his visuals and for most of his voters, that’s what keeps them united and engaged. They appreciate the bullying.

Most Americans see the truth

The question is if Republicans ultimately care:

Days after Democratic President Joe Biden gave a fiery speech attacking former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies as an extremist threat, a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Wednesday found a majority of Americans believe Trump’s movement is undermining democracy.

Fifty-eight percent of respondents in the two-day poll – including one in four Republicans – said Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement is threatening America’s democratic foundations.

While Trump remains popular among Republicans, his standing within the party has suffered since a mob of his supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a bid to stop lawmakers from certifying Biden’s election victory.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 60% of Republicans don’t think Trump’s MAGA movement represents the majority of the party.

That last finding may be even more significant than the first. I would have thought the vast majority would be thrilled to be associated with Trumps movement. After all, they vote for him and all his minions in large numbers and enable everything they do. Why would they run from the label? Could it be that they are so motivated by their loathing of the rest of America that they will stick with a toxic authoritarian movement they know is destroying democracy come what may? Sure seems like it.

Trump “imprinted his moral pathologies … on the Republican Party”

The Doge of Mar-a-Lago is a walking catalog of personality disorders. Mentally unstable, emotionally stunted, needy, insecure, amoral. And worse.

The worse part, writes Peter Wehner in The Atlantic, is how Donald J. Trump has “imprinted his moral pathologies, his will-to-power ethic, on the Republican Party. It is the most important political development of this century.” (At least, in this country.)

Trump reeled in his party the way he suckered marks into paying hard-won cash for Trump University. Ever prone to the sunk-cost fallacy, conservatives once entrapped who perceived what they’d let happen could not extricate themselves. The party as a whole doubled down then tripled down in supplication to Trump and in fear of the angry MAGA faithful who attended his tent revivals.

Wehner recounts the obvious:

Republican officials showed fealty to Trump despite his ceaseless lying and dehumanizing rhetoric, his misogyny and appeals to racism, his bullying and conspiracy theories. No matter the offense, Republicans always found a way to look the other way, to rationalize their support for him, to shift their focus to their progressive enemies. As Trump got worse, so did they.

Even to the point of downplaying a violent insurrection that put their own leadership’s lives at risk. And now, to the point of dismissing Trump’s theft of state secrets that in theory could put all our lives at risk. If you’ve ever referenced mass insanity on Wikipedia and wondered what it would be like to live through one, now you know.

Karen Stenner, author of The Authoritarian Dynamic, concludes that about a third of people in liberal democracies she studied are, across the political spectrum, psychologically predisposed to authoritarianism.

Stenner defines authoritarianism, which she believes is about 50 percent heritable, as a deep-seated psychological predisposition to demand obedience and conformity—what she calls “oneness and sameness”—over freedom and diversity. Authoritarians have an aversion to complexity and diversity. They tend to be intolerant on matters of race, politics, and morals; to glorify the in-group and denigrate the out-group; and to “reward or punish others according to their conformity to this ‘normative order.’”

The danger, Stenner says, arises when that tendency, which is often latent, is activated by “normative threats,” a deep fear of change, and a loss of trust in our institutions. She also made this point to my colleague Helen Lewis: In normal, reassuring, and comforting conditions, people with authoritarian tendencies could be your best neighbor. But those predispositions “are activated under conditions of threat and produce greater intolerance to differences.”

Donald Trump has made his supporters feel “permanently panicked,” according to Stenner. He “never got past the constant-rage-and-fear stage.”  And it doesn’t help that modern life’s complexity is overwhelming for many people.

Her recommendation to find ways to coax “activated authoritarians” off the ledge is laudable, Wehner believes, but unlikely to reform a party committed to xenophobia, conspiracy theories, and election-rigging as a winning electoral strategy. Mollycoddling MAGA won’t reform a might-makes-right movement whose foot soldiers believe themselves holy warriors.

Wehner agrees that Liz Cheney’s approach is the correct one for the times. We must speak honestly, boldly, about the threat.

MAGA supporters have had countless opportunities to take the exit ramp, and they have always found reasons not to. At some point, when an enterprise is thoroughly corrupt, staying a part of it, helping it along, refusing to ever speak up, is not just a mistake in judgment; it is a failure of intellectual and moral integrity. This doesn’t mean that every area of a MAGA supporter’s life is devoid of rectitude, of course. But it does mean that one important area is. And that needs to be said.

President Biden did just that one week ago. How to know if his punches landed? By the howls.

The right-wing has bred a generation as addicted to grievance as to opioids. Why? It tickles the brain stem, sells advertising, enrichens purveyors, and motivates voters. Right-wing pundits and talk-show hosts know to personalize (rather than generalize) feelings of offense and loss:

Voter fraud frauds have for years scare-mongered Republican voters that should anyone anywhere cast even a single ballot improperly, it “steals your vote.” Your vote.

Trump’s cult was conditioned long before his arrival to see themselves as the only true, the only legitimate “owners” of this country — victims of democracy if it fails to deliver them power. They’ve viewed politics as a zero-sum game in which for Others to rise meant less freedom for them. Sharing is not part of their constitutional bargain. All those references to voting and the right to vote and decisions made by majorities? Well, that’s only for the privileged. And they get to say who is.

Long before Trump, America’s once-conservative party decided that if it loses, the Irresponsibles must have cheated. Conservatives have given themselves over to a Caesar whose instincts and moral pathologies are inimical to republican government. Now what?

Wehner concludes:

I am suggesting that much of MAGA world is authoritarian; that Liz Cheney is right to turn all her political energies to opposing it; and that containing and defeating MAGA—not hoping it will change, not placating its grievances—is now the No. 1 priority for friends of democracy. Maybe we’ll succeed, maybe we’ll fail, but the mission is unavoidable. And honorable.

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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.

Maybe you should

Democrat-leaning Public Policy Polling (PPP) last week found Cheri Beasley one point ahead of Trump-endorsed Congressman Ted “Monster Truck” Budd in the contest to replace North Carolina’s retiring Republican Sen. Richard Burr.  

PPP Polling finds:

In North Carolina Beasley is at 42% to 41% for Budd. The race is close despite Beasley having a net favorability rating 16 points better than Budd’s. Beasley is at +10 (40/30) while Budd is at -6 (34/40).

There’s a particularly large gap when it comes to how much enthusiasm each of their party bases has for them. While Beasley is at 80/3 with Biden voters, Budd is at only 54/19 with Trump voters. North Carolina Senate races in recent years have broken toward the GOP at the end because of superior turnout on their side- it will be interesting to see if Democrats liking Beasley so much more than Republicans like Budd will bring any change to that trend this year.

A mid-August Civitas poll from the conservative John Locke Foundation showed the race a dead heat. Each candidate draws 42.3 percent with 12.6 percent undecided:

“When you go from the last Civitas poll to this Civitas poll, Ted Budd’s lead is gone,” said Mitch Kokai, senior political analyst at the John Locke Foundation. “I think it certainly points to a red wave being much less of a wave than previous polls have.” 

With Civitas showing the race tied, Beasley could actually have more of an edge than PPP’s polling indicates.

Beasley is coming into her own. By now it is legend among North Carolina Democrats that Beasley lost her 2020 reelection to the state Supreme Court by just 401 votes out of 5.5 million cast. Without the COVID-19 pandemic, she might be managing the state’s court system still, as well as presiding over the state’s highest court as chief justice.

Beasley won statewide twice (2008, 2014) as a nonpartisan candidate for the Court of Appeals before being appointed Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court by Gov. Roy Cooper in 2019. But each time she ran down-ticket on the coattails of the top-of-ticket candidate. In 2022, she is the top-of-ticket candidate. Down-ballot candidates are counting on riding her coattails.

The Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade shows us our rights are at risk. We must stay engaged this election cycle. https://t.co/MCiEJ3lIic

— Cheri Beasley (@CheriBeasleyNC) June 28, 2022

Judicial candidates typically run low-profile races and avoid talking stands on issues. They campaign in supporters’ living rooms and raise modest sums for campaigning. It is unseemly to be seen raising large sums as a judge.

Running statewide as a partisan candidate is a different game. It required that Beasley develop a different set of skills. There was a learning curve and Beasley climbed it. Her early campaign ads felt stilted and dated. Because a downside of accepting early money from national groups such as Emily’s List is that the money comes with strings: you also take their campaign consultants.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision stripping abortion rights in late June, however, is in Beasley’s wheelhouse and helped her hit her stride. Her recent TV appearances are more confident. She’s freer to take positions on issues.

Recent campaign ads and social media posts reveal a more relaxed, upbeat, and authentic Beasley more willing to take on Budd.

Having a little fun with my staff during filming, courtesy of my favorite @Beyonce song!

68 days until Election Day! 🐝🐝🐝 pic.twitter.com/l6uJrH5fkZ

— Cheri Beasley (@CheriBeasleyNC) September 1, 2022

Beasley’s June FEC filing shows her leading Budd handily both in fundraising and cash on hand.

Budd, however, will have reams of dark money backing his race to hold the Republican seat vacated by retiring Sen. Richard Burr. Those experienced enough to know are well aware that fundraising alone is no guarantee of winning an election. Budd can also expect support from Donald Trump, if by the time early voting begins on October 20 Budd still wants it.

Larry Sabato still ranks the 2022 U.S. Senate race in North Carolina “Lean R.” Cook’s Political ranks the race “Lean R” as well. For now.

I was an early Beasley supporter for practical reasons as well as for her experience not just as a jurist but as head of the state’s court system. Beasley would be running in what until the Trump era is typically a low-turnout midterm election. Having Beasley, a strong, accomplished Black woman atop the ticket in an off-year could mobilize Black women voters across the state the way they reinvigorated Joe Biden’s primary campaign in South Carolina in 2020.

In case you missed it, I joined @mitchellreports last week to chat about the issues I’m hearing from voters.

People in North Carolina want their next Senator to fight hard to lower costs, and I promise you – I will be that fighter. pic.twitter.com/tkm7RceEWV

— Cheri Beasley (@CheriBeasleyNC) August 15, 2022

“North Carolina Senate races in recent years have broken toward the GOP at the end,” PPP reminds us. Beasley will need to build a bigger lead between now and the start of voting.

Help her build it, won’t you? You can do that here,

Cross-posted from Crooks and Liars.

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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.

They don’t like ’em

This new report suggests that the usual dynamics that has the party tied to the presidents approval rating may not be operative this year:

A big reason we pay so much attention to a president’s job approval rating, even in a midterm election when the president isn’t on the ballot, is the significant correlation between voter opinions of a president and their vote choice in an election. Suppose you think the president is doing a good job. In that case, you are almost certain to vote for a candidate from his party. In contrast, if you dislike the job the president is doing, you are equally certain to vote for a candidate from the other party. 

This parliamentary type of voting has only gotten more pronounced over the last 20-30 years. So much so, noted Ron Brownstein in a recent CNN column that in 2018, “Republicans lost all 10 of the Senate races in states where Trump’s approval rating registered at 48% or below; in every major Senate race that year, the exit polls found that at least 90% of those who disapproved of Trump voted for the Democratic candidate, except in Florida, Indiana and Michigan, where 89% did.”

This year, however, Democratic Senate candidates have been consistently outpolling Biden’s job approval ratings in their states. And, when it comes to the House, the share of voters who say they would vote for a Democrat for Congress is anywhere from 1 to 8 points higher than the percentage of voters who say they approve of the job Biden is doing. For example, the most recent Quinnipiac survey showed Biden’s job approval rating at 40 percent, yet 47 percent of voters said they were supporting a Democrat for Congress in November. 

In other words, many voters who are unhappy with Biden are nonetheless committed to supporting a Democratic candidate in November.

In the Pew survey, 37 percent of voters said they either strongly or somewhat approved of the job Biden was doing in office. Not surprisingly 93 percent of those who strongly approve and 86 percent who somewhat approve say they are voting Democratic this fall. Among the 43 percent of voters who give Biden “very unfavorable” marks, 82 percent of those voters say they are supporting a Republican for Congress.

But, among the 17 percent of voters who say they “somewhat disapprove” of Biden, 43 percent say they are planning to vote Democratic this fall, compared to 29 percent who say they’ll vote Republican. 

In other words, those who are “meh” about Biden are voting for Democrats. This is not something that we’ve seen before. 

In the last five midterm elections for which Pew had data, “somewhat disapprovers” of the sitting president have never been this supportive of his party in the upcoming election. In September of 2010, for example, 16 percent of the electorate said they somewhat disapproved of the job President Obama was doing. More than half of those voters (55 percent) said they planned on voting Republican that fall, compared to 29 percent who said they’d be sticking with Democrats downballot. In 2018, two-thirds of those who said they somewhat disapproved of President Trump said they were voting Democratic. 

The most recent Quinnipiac survey showed similar a similar dynamic. In that survey, Democrats are leading the congressional generic ballot by four points (47 percent Democrat to 43 percent Republican). Among those who just “somewhat disapprove” of Biden, Democrats have a two-point advantage (41 percent to 39 percent). 

A pollster doing work for a non-partisan organization that is not involved in electoral politics shared some of their data with me. That survey also found Democratic candidates were getting a significant share of the vote from those who “somewhat disapprove” of Biden. Among the 11 percent of voters who say they “somewhat disapprove” of Biden, Democrats have 33 point lead on the generic ballot. 

In other words, maybe the way to look at this gap between Biden’s job approval rating and the generic ballot isn’t to say that Democrats are outperforming Biden, but that Biden is under-performing Democrats. 

There’s plenty of reason to think that a good chunk of these “somewhat disapprovers” are Democrats. The pollster who shared the non-profit survey with me said their survey showed these voters to be overwhelming Democratic and ‘skew young.’ They are also much less committed to their November vote. In the Pew survey, 28 percent of ‘somewhat disapprovers’ are undecided about their vote choice this fall. In the Quinnipiac survey, 20 percent of somewhat disapprovers are undecided; twice as high as the overall percent of voters. 

I’d guess quite a few of those “meh” voters are young people. Perhaps the fact that old Joe has lifted a massive debt load from many of them will make them think more highly of him. More importantly, this younger generation of Democrats don’t think there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the parties as so many before them did. They know the stakes. Between the rollback of abortion rights, debt and the right wing assault on democracy I’d guess they are very well aware of the stakes this time.

The report is here.

All in the name of protecting the fetus

Do some meditation (or drinking) before you read this. It’s clear that members of the right truly despise pregnant women. They certainly have no compassion for them. Or the fetuses and babies they claim to revere. This happened to a pregnant woman in Alabama for smoking pot. I’m sure it’s not unique:

Police arrested Ashley Banks on May 25 with an unregistered gun and a small amount of marijuana.

Under normal circumstances, the 23-year-old from Gadsden would have been able to post bond and leave jail until her criminal trial. But Banks admitted to smoking pot on the same day she found out she was pregnant – two days before her arrest. In Etowah County, that meant she couldn’t leave jail unless she entered drug rehab, leaving her in limbo for three months.

She’s not the only one, according to attorneys involved in her case. Several pregnant women and new moms accused of exposing their fetuses to drugs have been held for weeks or months inside the Etowah County Detention Center under special bond conditions that require rehab and $10,000 cash.

Attorneys with National Advocates for Pregnant Women, an organization that opposes laws that criminalize pregnancy, say it’s unfair to impose special conditions on pregnant women who haven’t been convicted of any crimes.

As a result of the policy, the Etowah County Detention Center often holds several pregnant and postpartum women in the jail, against the advice of experts on maternal and fetal health. Dr. Carolyn Sufrin, an OB/GYN and expert on incarceration and pregnancy at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, wrote an affidavit urging the court to release Banks.

“The stress and conditions in jail and prisons, including lack of consistent access to standard prenatal care and mental health care, poor diets, poor sanitation, infestations with bugs and vermin, poor ventilation, tension, noise, lack of privacy, lack of family and community contact, can be detrimental to physical and mental health which can result in poor pregnancy outcomes for both the mother and the baby,” Sufrin wrote.

Banks has a high-risk pregnancy due to a family history of miscarriage. She said she was jailed at around six weeks of pregnancy. About six weeks into her incarceration, she started bleeding and was taken to Gadsden Regional Medical Center, according to court documents. Doctors diagnosed her with a subchorionic hematoma, a condition where blood pools near the wall of the uterus.

The condition increases the chances of miscarriage and preterm delivery, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Banks said jail officials told her she could sleep on the bottom bunk because of her high-risk pregnancy. However, her cell had one bottom bunk and two women assigned to sleep in it. So, the other woman used the bed, according to court documents, and Banks slept on the floor.

She continued to bleed for five weeks in jail. She said she also suffered from hunger and fainting spells. Two times, specialists evaluated her for drug addiction and found she didn’t qualify for free addiction services offered through the state. Her lawyers said investigators then urged Banks to say she had a drug addiction she did not have to bond out.

“Ms. Banks is currently incarcerated indefinitely because the State will not accept her $10,000.00 cash bail and she does not qualify for a residential drug treatment,” her petition said.

Since her bond conditions required rehab, and since rehab wouldn’t take her, she continued sleeping on a jailhouse floor until Aug. 25, when an Etowah County judge released her to community corrections.

They did this to a pregnant woman because they found she had smoked weed. And because she refused to cop to a serious drug habit she did not have, she entered into a Kafkaesque nightmare with no alternative. It’s sick.

She’s not the only one. And according to the rest of the article they also remove women from their newborns and throw them into jail without proper medical care for the same reasons. The conditions are grotesque.

These people are torturing pregnant women in the name of protecting fetuses and babies. And it’s going to get worse as these forced pregnancy laws take effect and they start arresting women for having miscarriages and seeking abortions. I can’t even imagine what it will be like in the 3rd world red states in a few years.

The right wing legal community used Trump’s psychosis to get them here

This is bad. Very bad:

Leonard Leo’s “Honest Elections Project” files Supreme Court brief arguing state legislatures are not constrained by even state constitutions protecting voting rights when they regulate federal elections.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-1271/237126/20220906144631896_21-1271%20tsac%20HEP%20Final.pdf

And, unsurprisingly, ALEC takes the same position—state legislatures should be unconstrained (apparently not only unconstrained by state courts but also “federal judges”):

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-1271/237111/20220906133436404_21-1271_Amicus%20Brief.pdf

Of course John Eastman for Claremont Institute also believes that state courts cannot apply state constitutional provisions to protect voting rights against action of state legislatures in federal elections

This brief was just filed in Moore v. Harper, our North Carolina voting case on the "independent state legislature" theory pic.twitter.com/2jBUR9haVb

— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) September 6, 2022

#ELB: Missouri Files Bonkers Amicus Brief in Moore v. Harper Case Arguing That Not Even Congress Can Limit a State Legislature’s Partisan Gerrymandering https://t.co/Z7B6Fd1jTU

— Rick Hasen (@rickhasen) September 7, 2022

Originally tweeted by Rick Hasen (@rickhasen) on September 7, 2022.

I’ve written a lot about the Independent State Legislature Doctrine, which, in a normal time would be laughed out of court but which may very well be validated by the Alito 6. This is now a Leonard Leo project, which means he will be able to put his billion dollars of dark money behind to get it before the court.

Here’s a video of Leonard Leo making it clear just what a smarmy political operator he really is:

When asked what as a Dem he would do in response to his own blocking of Garland and the appointment of Gorsuch here is what he had to say pic.twitter.com/AwlnmVYHJg

— z3dster𝅸𝅸𝅸𝅸𝅸𝅸𝅸𝅸𝅸𝅸𝅸𝅸𝅸𝅸𝅸𝅸𝅸𝅸𝅸𝅸𝅸 (@z3dster) July 11, 2018

They don’t even try to hide it.

And Michelle goes there: “Once out time is up we move on…”

Obama on President Biden: "You have guided us through some perilous times … the country is better off than when you took office, and we should all be deeply grateful for that." pic.twitter.com/GOYrjxEldc

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 7, 2022

Obama to his former staffers: "I am a little disappointed that I haven't heard of anyone naming a kid Barack yet, or Michelle, but there is still time." pic.twitter.com/QGXkQ5gamk

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 7, 2022

Barack Obama: "When future generations walk these halls and look up at these portraits, I hope they get an honest sense of who Michelle and I were. I hope they leave with a deeper understanding that if we could make it here, maybe they can, too." pic.twitter.com/zwoqcDb5dm

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 7, 2022

Michelle Obama: "What we are looking at today — a portrait of a biracial kid with an unusual name and the daughter of a water pump operator and stay-at-home mom — what we are seeing is a reminder there is a place for everyone in this country." pic.twitter.com/noW86ASkBN

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 7, 2022

I’d happily vote for her.