Month: September 2022

Ian is historic

A frightening word from a meteorologist:

I have lived near the Texas coast for two decades and written about hurricanes professionally for nearly as long. When you do that, you think a lot about what would become of your home should the worst happen.

Well, the worst is happening in Southwest Florida today.

Hurricane Ian has undergone a remarkable period of intensification during the last 24 hours. After crossing the western end of Cuba and knocking that island nation’s power grid offline, Ian started to weaken a bit Tuesday following this brief interaction with land. It also underwent an “eyewall replacement cycle,” in which the centermost bands of the storm contract and are replaced by a new ring of storms farther out. Often this process temporarily weakens a storm, but Ian was hardly fazed.

Following this cycle, by sunrise on Wednesday morning, Ian was larger and more powerful than ever before, with 155 mph winds. At this intensity, it would become the fifth most powerful hurricane to strike the United States in more than 150 years of records when it slams into the Southwest Florida coast later today, likely near Ft. Myers.

Primary threats

As a forecaster you worry about three primary threats from hurricanes—strong winds, storm surge, and inland rainfall.

Usually a hurricane brings one or two of these threats to a region, but not typically all three. For example, in the Houston region during my lifetime here, we have seen extreme rainfall from Hurricane Harvey, in 2017, and a powerful storm surge from Hurricane Ike in 2008. But Harvey didn’t really bring serious wind or surge into the Houston area, and while Ike had some damaging winds, most of the city did not see hurricane-force conditions.

Ian is a monster that will bring all three threats into Southwest Florida with devastating effect.Advertisement

The National Hurricane Center now forecasts a storm surge of 12 to 16 feet from Englewood to Bonita Beach, Florida. The large wind field associated with Ian will destroy structures along the Western Florida coast and likely knock electricity offline to one-half or possibly two-thirds of the state. Because Ian is moving slowly, and expected to slow further as its steering currents weaken, it will deluge the state. Nearly the entire Florida peninsula is at risk for flash flooding, with a large chunk of the middle of the state, including Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, and the Space Coast, at a “high” risk of flash flooding.

Put another way, what doesn’t get submerged by massive waves is at risk of being blown down or subsequently flooded by torrential rainfall.

Nightmare fuel

This is not hyperbole. If you live in Houston you probably know that I have a local meteorology website known as Space City Weather. The site’s tagline is literally “hype-free forecasts for Houston.” I am known as the “no-hype” guy. And let me tell you, Hurricane Ian is the kind of nightmare storm that I worry about most. It is the kind of storm that destroys a community forever, knocks the power out for weeks or, in some locations, months. Beaches are erased. Populations leave and never come back.

There are no silver linings with such weather, but it is true that Ian’s track has steadily bent more eastward than expected. As a result the densely populated Tampa Bay region, with more than 3 million people, is now far enough away to escape a catastrophic storm surge. Instead, Ian will push a wall of water into Ft. Myers and Cape Coral areas. This metro area has a population of about 750,000. To the south of this community, where the worst of the surge and winds will occur, lie the Florida Everglades. While pushing so much salt water into this natural environment has its own consequences, fewer people lie in harm’s way.

As a forecaster, that doesn’t really matter to me. I’m looking at the terrifying, shocking, and yes, breathtaking satellite imagery of Ian and thinking about what might have been had this storm traversed the Gulf of Mexico and struck my community. In my darkest dreams, it’s the worst kind of storm I can conjure.

I feel sick.

I think we all do. This looks devastating…

He was bragging about the coup plot three months before the election

If there is one prominent through-line connecting the two most corrupt presidents in U.S. history, Richard Nixon and Donald Trump, it would have to be the person of Roger Stone. The man has been at the heart of every election scandal for the past 50 years and he’s still at it, even today. It’s quite a legacy for the guy who has Richard Nixon’s face tattooed on his back. It’s lucky he left his chest clear for his last great cause, Donald Trump. Stone’s work on Trump’s behalf provides the perfect coda to a legendary career as a political dirty trickster and world-class black-ops conspiracy-monger.

Stone has had his fingerprints on every nefarious deed the Republicans have pulled in the last half century, starting when he was a kid working on Nixon’s re-election campaign in 1972, and given the job of spying on rival campaigns and finding devious ways to embarrass them in the press. He has said that during the day he was a scheduler but at night, he was “trafficking in the black arts.”

In 1977, at age 24, Stone was elected president of the Young Republicans with the help of his buddy Paul Manafort, after they had reportedly compiled “whip books,” or files of personal information, on all 800 delegates to the convention. He went on to work on all of Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaigns doing what he does best. Stone has claimed, for example, that he served as a go-between when Roy Cohn — the infamous mob lawyer and mentor to Donald Trump — got liberal Republican John Anderson on the New York general election ballot as a third-party candidate in 1980, splitting the vote and allowing Reagan to win the state. Stone has hinted that he delivered a suitcase full of money to a lawyer to make that happen.

Stone then teamed up with Manafort, Charlie Black and the infamous Lee Atwater to form a lobbying and consulting firm that became known as “The Torturer’s Lobby” for its willingness to represent the world’s most infamous dictators, along with such right-wing luminaries as Rupert Murdoch. He worked with Trump for years, as an adviser and lobbyist for his gambling interests and later as manager of Trump’s brief campaign for the Reform Party’s presidential nomination in 2000.

Yes, Stone was deeply involved in the 2000 Florida recount, taking credit for the famous “Brooks Brothers riot” that delayed the vote count long enough for the Supreme Court to intervene (others have disputed that he was actually behind that). Throughout the 2000s he perpetrated underhanded dirty tricks in various campaigns, including the formation of an anti-Hillary Clinton group in 2008 called Citizens United Not Timid, purely for the fun of using the crude acronym to own the libs. By 2015 he was egging on his old pal Donald Trump to run for president again, for real this time. He worked for the Trump campaign, at first in an official capacity and then off the books to practice his “dark arts.”

You may recall that in 2019 Stone was convicted on charges relating to his alleged coordination with WikiLeaks aimed at sabotaging Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. But Attorney General Bill Barr rode to his rescue, overruling the career prosecutors and recommending a light sentence, which Trump then commuted. All four prosecutors withdrew from the case in protest. That was the closest call of Stone’s career, and the only time anyone has ever seriously tried to hold him liable for his toxic influence on American politics. (Trump eventually pardoned him, which Stone no doubt knew would happen. He knows where all the Trump bodies are buried.)

The Jan. 6 House select committee had to postpone Wednesday’s scheduled public hearing, with a major hurricane descending on Florida and dominating the news. But as with previous hearings, the committee teased some of its revelations earlier this week, and we know that Stone’s involvement in the Trump coup plot and the Jan. 6 insurrection will feature heavily in their presentation. Some incriminating clips from an unreleased documentary about Stone shot during the 2020 election campaign and its aftermath have already been released.

In an interview with CNN, the Danish filmmakers have said that committee lawyers had flown to Copenhagen to see what they had regarding interactions between Stone, the Trump White House, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. Reportedly they identified around eight minutes of relevant footage. Even what we’ve seen so far is startling. In July 2020, the documentary crew captured Roger Stone saying:

What they’re assuming is the election will be normal. The election will not be normal. “These are the California results.” Sorry. We’re not accepting them. We’re challenging them in court. If the electors show up at the — at the Electoral College, armed guards will throw them out. “Fuck you. I’m the president. Fuck you. You’re not stealing Florida. You’re not stealing. I’m challenging all of it.”

And the judges we’re going to. Our judges. “I appointed you. Fuck you. You’re not stealing the election.” That’s what — that basically what Bush did to Gore.

So, you know, if they want to run a bunch of fake ballots, we’ll have an investigation. We’ll say, “These ballots are fake. Your results are invalidated. Goodbye.” That’s the way it’s going to have to look. It’s going to be really nasty. But you cannot count on, we’re not going to get an honest election.

So, let’s say that Trump is a little behind right now, which he probably is. That doesn’t bother me. But even if he wins an honest election, we’re not going to have an honest election. They’re going to steal it. They’re stealing this blindfolded right now. So, you know, it’s not the first time it’s happened in this country and it happens around the world.

So, he’s going to have to — he’s going to have to fight for the presidency in the courts. Our next election will be decided in the courts. Because they cheat and we don’t cheat. We’ve never cheated.

Setting aside the unbelievable fatuousness of Stone’s proclamation that “we’ve never cheated,” which is deeply absurd coming from him, this pretty well lays conspiracy to overturn the election, three months before it was executed. He knew Trump was behind and likely to lose. The question before the House committee now is  whether or not Roger Stone and Donald Trump were plotting this together and whether Stone was colluding with the violent extremists with whom he associated to start the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

If there is anyone in American politics who’s capable of doing such a thing, it’s Roger Stone. It would be the ultimate dirty trick of all time, the crowning achievement of a storied rat-fucking career. 

Salon

I was working on a long post about the recent arrest of a woman for calling in a bomb threat to Boston Children’s Hospital. I was suggesting a plan for steps BCH could take to hold people accountable for their threats. Then I saw this tweet about Tucker Carlson’s show. I got really depressed.

Tucker Carlson just named and showed pics of executives at a hospital that provides gender affirming care to trans teens, calling them criminals who deserve the bomb threats they receive. I won’t share the image, but I think we all know where this is headed…

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) September 22, 2022

The right knows how to make threats and face no consequences

• The cunning ones have learned how to “just ask questions” when suggesting violence.
• Others use mob-speak and have learned what law enforcement can and can’t use to charge them.
• Many right wingers know to use the “I was JOKING!” line or the “I didn’t intend to actually DO anything I said!” response when questioned. Some will say, “I was just being hyperbolic! Everyone says stuff like that!”
• Tech savvy right wingers have learned the key words not to say on Facebook or Twitter.
  (Some learn the phrases and then they use the rules against their enemies and report them. Others know how to hack accounts, use banned phrases to get an account permanently banned. This recently happened to my editor at C&L who was targeted.)
• If they are on a social media platform that takes some steps to stop the threats, the offenders go into victim mode and cry they are being censored, “Just for saying mean things to doctors!” That was the actual line used by Tucker Carlson following the bomb threats to BCH!)
• Many move to right wing social media sites that don’t take any action to stop threats.
  (Truth Social’s policy is, “Don’t do it. But if you do, we don’t have to take any action to stop it. If anything bad happens, we aren’t liable.” The Cincinnati FBI shooter made multiple threats on line via Truth Social. )

There is also a VERY savvy group in the right wing that knows how to work the legal system, the media and social media world to coordinate and attack others online. What is fascinating is how they use legal defense experts, MSM’s bias when covering speech, social media’s engagement business model and democratic politicians’ fear of passing any legislation that has anything to do with speech to successfully stop or stall any negative consequences against them for their actions. And, if we do finally figure out a way to ensure there are some negative consequences for them they whine & cry how unfair it is.

They also have an audience that claims victimization when held accountable for the harm that they do. “I’ve been cancelled!”

On the rhetorical side they have trolls that go on the attack when anyone attempts to counter them. I’m sure you’ve all see these types of arguments :

• “Your proposal would have a chilling effect on free speech. Aren’t you FOR the marketplace of ideas? Curious.”
• “You say that people whose words you think causes harm should be identified, yet when we identify people who say things WE think causes harm we are wrong? Interesting.”
• “You supported BLM protests. They turned violent. Should the activists who told people to protest be locked up for talking about the issue? Should the government identify & lock up people who tell others to protest? Should the government prosecute the BLM organizers?”

“You know what you should do…”

I’ve been thinking about what I’d tell the executives at Boston Children’s Hospital & other hospitals being targeted. First I’d ask what they are already doing, because they probably already have a plan. I’d encourage them to implement a comprehensive response to these threats of violence.
I’d tell them what to expect, and to connect to the people who have been doing great work already.
I’d say, “Learn from these people.”

But here’s the deal. Multi-million dollar organizations don’t turn to a bunch of lefty activists for advice. Even ones that have fought and won battles against the coordinated actions of the right wing. Corporations are cautious by nature. They just want the pain of the moment to stop. If that involves deleting their website that talks about gender affirming care, they will.

They go to law enforcement to pursue the people making threats. They still believe that when one woman was arrested for making a bomb threat that it will “Send a message to all the other people to stop doing this.” The message most get is, “Be more vague in your threats, and use a burner phone.”

Now if someone wanted to connect me with the BCH & Vanderbilt execs I’d tell them what I’ve learned about how threats are used in the modern world and how to fight them now.

I’d talk about my COVID reporting and conversations with people in the public health field who were getting threats. I’d show them the reporting from Reuters & Washington Post about how law enforcement didn’t pursue those making them. I’d note that legislators didn’t pass laws to protect people from harassment or doxxing. I’d explain why public health commissions didn’t independently, aggressively investigate the threats. They could see how the burden was put on the victims. And they would understand why so many of them just quit.

So for the multimillion dollar health care businesses I’d show them how when they fail to do something about this it impacts their staff and patients. And since they also care about revenue I’d say “Here is how threats of violence negatively impact your bottom line.”

Prepare for the Bully’s Victim Narrative

One of my biggest pieces of advice to them is to understand that ANY action they take will already have been anticipated by the right. Your actions to protect the health and safety of your staff from harassment and bomb threats will be turned into an attack on free speech.

Remember when the Association of School Boards went to the FBI and said, “We are getting death threats and threats of violence. Please investigate.” We even saw video of a woman threatening violence at a meeting. The right turned those very justified investigations into death threats into a cry of victimhood,

“The FBI is monitoring all of us! Just for our opinions!!!” And the FBI had to put out a statement that they aren’t doing that, only looking into specific credible threats.

It’s all BS, but they use their media and social media to amplify their “I’m the real victim here!” message.

If I were to present to the big cheeses in these hospitals, I’d suggest they learn what happened in other cases of people threatened with violence. I’ve followed up on several cases in tech, journalism, education, public health officials and election workers where people were threatened.

I’d explain how most threats are dismissed by law enforcement. (I’d excerpt the brilliant and shocking reporting from Reuters called Campaign of Fear. ) Yes, a few people were found and charged, but they were extreme cases where a prosecutor could easily prove the case “beyond a reasonable doubt.” but most are dropped.

I’d describe the vicious threats that Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss got. I’d point out that the threats to them were ignored by police. It took national media coverage on the Rachel Maddow show to get criminal charges filed. Then I’d tell them about the successful multi-million dollar defamation lawsuits they won against a OAN, a cable TV media company owned by Herring Networks, Inc.

If they want to figure out how to stop Matt Walsh and Tucker Carlson from spreading lies & slander I’d direct them to talk to the people behind the various voting machine defamation lawsuits.

But first I’d tell them to look into the civil lawsuit of another hospital, St. Lukes in Idaho. The lawsuit filed in May accused Ammon Bundy and Diego Rodriguez of defamation and harassment. I talked to the lawyer working on the case to get an update. It’s still active, but Bundy is taking a page from Trump’s playbook and ignored the court order. The thing to note about that case is it “follows the money” and two political organizations — People’s Rights Network and Freedom Man PAC were also named.

Since social media plays a huge role in spreading disinformation, I’d make sure they talked to the people who tracked down the Dirty Dozen of Disinformation and got them deplatformed. The Center for Countering Digital Hate has done some especially relevant reports that the senior execs should know about. Like,
Don’t Feed the Trolls A Practical Guide to Dealing With Hate on Social Media?

I talked to Imran Ahmed, the founder yesterday and he told me about a new report they did with the Human Rights Campaign, Social Media’s Role in Amplifying Dangerous Lies About LGBTQ+ People
(If you aren’t a “reading” person I suggest they listen to his amazing interview on the Matt Binder Podcast Doomed, listen here. )

I know I have a tendency to talk AT people, so if I was on a Zoom call with these execs I’d ask them if they know how the Feds busted Al Capone. They’d all say “tax evasion!” Then I’d ask them why the Feds had to use that method. Would it have been good to get him for his violent crimes? Does busting someone on tax evasion the only method that can work?

I’d ask them if they saw that Soprano’s episode where Tony tells Christopher to kill someone, but he used vague phrases like “Take care of that thing” because he knew his phone was tapped. I’d ask if they know how law enforcement classifies threats & why they don’t bring certain cases even when experts say laws were broken. (Just for fun I’d ask them if they know how to record a call on their Smartphone if they got a threat right now and where the closest pay phone is.)

The techniques used to threaten people and avoid prosecution are still around. But today the people making threats have expanded by thousands. The techniques to find them have grown but the people making them watch the Soprano’s too, and know how to use mob-speak and a burner phone.

If anyone wants to do something about those who use of threats of violence they have to prepare for the right wing to turn around and doxx and threaten those who investigate them. Because that is what they do.

The right wing “works the refs” in the media on issues of speech. When I talk about a plan to stop the threats and seek justice for the victims, it’s because I want someone with resources and power to help them. But I know that rarely happens, so sometimes all I can do is suggest how to help individuals who have personally experienced threats of violence.

I recently watched the Twitch stream of Clara Sorrenti, better known as Keffals, the woman who stopped Kiwi Farms. She gave the timeline of the threats directed at BCH & Vanderbilt. She knows something must be done about the people harassing and threatening the people at BCH & Vanderbilt, but she hasn’t articulated a plan yet.

• (Personally I think she should be given big time funding from the hospitals for her work. But sadly, one of the things that I’ve learned is that on the left we will only rally around someone after they has been attacked, If that person goes on the offense it makes people in power on the left uncomfortable.)

The thing is people on the left LOVE it when someone stands up to bullies!

There is a whole segment of our population that has been getting away with threatening us individually and collectively for years. Unlike the out of date concept of school yard bullies, these people DON’T back down when you stand up to them. They double down. They make more threats. If they are held accountable, they flip the script. They become the victim.

They avoid accountability for their actions, or attribute their motives to some noble cause. They gaslight followers and work to convince people in authority they did nothing wrong. And when it is made clear the harm they did and the intent behind their threats was deadly, they downplay the harm and claim being held to account for their actions is unfair.

Right now MSNBC is running an ad with Rachel Maddow talking about how threats of violence pushes people out of public life. She’s right. The radical right uses threats of violence to get what they want. They aren’t going to stop until they are stopped.

I was explaining the Elonis v. U.S. Supreme court case on the Scam Economy post show. I pointed out that the very savvy right wing USE this ruling to avoid prosecution for threats of violence. The case said that the prosecution needed to prove intent for a criminal charge. I looked at that and thought. “Okay, since they have made that their standard, let’s use that to our benefit.”

On the left we often give people the benefit of the doubt on things they say since sometimes we don’t make our intent clear when we say something. If we were accused we would want a chance to clarify a statement, explain hyperbole, point out when we are being sarcastic or joking. People need a chance to walk back their threatening, vicious comments. That is what we want for our people accused. Due process is good.

So what happens when we give them a chance to moderate their comments and they don’t? What if we ask if they are joking and they chose to double down on the threats? We USE that admission of intent to give us more confidence when we ensure they face the negative consequences of their actions. I could then say:

“We gave you an opportunity to be better. You chose not to.”

If this whole process sounds too complex, I understand. It’s the advanced part of a broader strategy and plan. We have a plan to fight “the boots” who are threatening us, and we must also have a plan to fight “the suits.” The methods and strategies for fighting one doesn’t always work for the other.

The good news is that there are ways to successfully fight a rhetorically clever, media savvy foe, even ones who want to turn our strengths into weaknesses. If you want to see a current example of what I’m talking about look at how the J6 committee and the DOJ have been anticipating how TFG would react to any action, and then USES his over reaction against him. It’s glorious.

This is what we can do. Use their own words, actions and overreactions against them.

cross posted to Spocko’s Brain

Roger Stone conspires on film

Trump-pardoned Roger Stone signaled before the 2020 election that Team Trump planned to bully its way into remaining in power, win or lose. It’s on film.

“We are actually seeing Roger in the middle of a conspiracy. That is what it is: a conspiracy to overturn the election.” Trump adviser Roger Stone, on video, outlining Trump’s plans to overturn the election results, months before the election. pic.twitter.com/EnVKIoQszE

— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) September 27, 2022

Mediaite recounts the discussion Monday night on CNN:

CNN obtained and aired a clip from an upcoming documentary called A Storm Foretold by Danish filmmakers who tailed Roger Stone for about two years up to and after the 2020 presidential election. The clip was provided to Stone’s assistant and given to the filmmakers, Don Lemon explained on Monday night.

From a transcript of the Stone clip filmed July 9, 2020:

What they’re assuming is, the election will be normal. The election will not be normal.

“Oh, these are the California results? Sorry, we’re not accepting them! We’re challenging them in court! If the electors show up at the Electoral College, armed guards will throw them out. I’m the president. Fuck you! You’re not stealing Florida. You’re not stealing–I’m challenging all of it. And the judges we’re going to are judges I appointed. Fuck you. You’re not stealing the election.”

That’s basically what Bush did to Gore. So, you know, if they wanna run a bunch of fake ballots, we’ll have an investigation and we’ll say, “These ballots are fake. Your results are invalidated Goodbye.” That’s the way it’s gonna have to work. It’s gonna be really nasty, but we’re not gonna get an honest election.

So, let’s say that Trump is a little behind right now, which he probably is. That doesn’t bother me. But even if he wins an honest election, we’re not gonna have an honest election. They’re stealing this blind in Florida right now. So, you know, it’s not the first time it’s happened in this country. It happens around the world. So, he’s gonna have to fight for the presidency in the courts. Our next election will be decided in the courts because they cheat and we don’t cheat. We’ve never cheated.

Now, there’s some un-self-aware, sociopathic chutzpah.

Stone has convinced himself (as Trump convinced himself and others) to do unto their political opposition what Republicans would do in the same situation: cheat. Stone and Team Trump would do “what Bush did to Gore” in Florida in 2000. The Bushies bullied their way into the White House through intimidation of vote-counters and by leveraging the courts. For anyone who needs reminding, Stone was a player in the Brooks Brothers Riot in Miami-Dade County in 2000. He’d done it before for Bush. He would do it again for Trump.

“We are actually seeing Roger in the middle of a conspiracy, basically,” said documentary filmmaker Christoffer Guldbrandsen. “I mean, that is what it is: a conspiracy to overturn the election.”

Pending newer and dirtier tricks from Stone and Trump, a wider audience will be seeing this clip at the rescheduled House Jan. 6 committee’s public hearing postponed by the arrival of Hurricane Ian.

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No, but some of you are

There is a scene I’ve long misremembered from Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). Mrs. Bertholt (Marlene Dietrich) is having drinks with Chief Judge Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy).

Mrs. Bertholt : You see, I have a mission with the Americans, as Mr. Perkins can tell you.
Judge Dan Haywood : Oh, what is that?
Mrs. Bertholt : To convince you that we’re not all monsters.

“No,” Haywood replies sadly, “but some of you are.”

That last line is neither in the script nor in the film. It must come from my inner monologue when I first saw the scene. For that is how I remembered it for decades until I rewatched a DVD of Judgment. I recalled it again last night.

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Tuesday sentenced Kyle Young, an Iowa HVAC technician and Donald Trump fan, to 86 months in prison for his violent assault against former Washington, DC, police officer Michael Fanone and other officers during the insurrection on January 6, 2021. Young brought his 16-year-old son to the riot following Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally.

Young pleaded guilty in May to felony assault for his part in attacking police in the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace tunnel that day. Young helped drag Fanone into the crowd where he was beaten and shocked with a taser Young handed another rioter. Fanone lost consciousness and suffered a heart attack (CNN):

“On January 6, the violence was you,” Judge Amy Berman Jackson told Young before handing down the sentence, adding that he was a “one man wrecking ball” that day who attacked Fanone “under the whirling banner of a ‘Blue Lives Matter’ flag.”

Politico:

“You were not prosecuted for being a Trump supporter. You were not arrested or charged and you will not be sentenced for exercising your first amendment rights,” she said to Young. “You are not a political prisoner … You were trying to stop the singular thing that makes America America, the peaceful transfer of power. That’s what ‘Stop the Steal’ meant.”

Fanone was in the courtroom for the sentencing (Washington Post):

Fanone resigned from the D.C. police late last year, saying fellow officers turned on him for speaking so publicly about the Capitol attack and former president Donald Trump’s role in it. In court Tuesday, Fanone directly confronted his attacker, telling Young, “I hope you suffer.”

“The assault on me by Mr. Young cost me my career,” Fanone said. “It cost me my faith in law enforcement and many of the institutions I dedicated two decades of my life to serving.”

[…]

Young has a long criminal history. While in prison for producing meth, he faced repeated sanctions for violence. His attorney said that after a difficult childhood, Young had straightened out his life, gotten married, raised four children and started working in HVAC installation. Until Jan. 6, he hadn’t been arrested in a dozen years, his attorney said.

Berman noted that while perhaps Young has since become a good husband and father, she sees a continued potential for more violence, the Post reports. Trump and his allies, Berman added, are “cagily predicting or even outright calling for violence in the streets” should he face criminal charges in multiple criminal investigations.

“If I could take it back, I would,” Young said. “Whatever you give me as a punishment I accept, and I probably deserve it,” he told Berman.

Fanone described the moments following the sentencing to CNN.

Fanone: His mother stood up and tried to apologize to me in the courtroom and later on, as I was leaving, his mother and several other individuals that were seated with her called me a piece of shit pic.twitter.com/JmTeX81NzG

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 28, 2022

“And when I was walking back from the podium delivering my victim impact statement, an individual who was seated with other relatives of Mr. Young stood up and called me a piece of shit,” Fanone recounted.

U.S. Marshals escorted the man from the courthouse.

Fanon continued, “A lot of the family members and a lot of the defendants in these cases that are expressing a degree of remorse in order to hopefully gain some leniency from the judge, as was in this case, Mr. Young expressed some degree of remorse. His mother stood up and tried to apologize to me in the courtroom. And then later on as I was leaving the courthouse, his mother and several other individuals who were seated with her in the courtroom again called me a piece of shit.”

“In reality, there’s no remorse there.”

Trump fans are not all monsters.

UPDATE:

NEW: Here’s a phone call Mike Fanone got tonight after his assailant Kyle Young was sentenced to more than seven years in federal prison in his Jan. 6 case. pic.twitter.com/ZOo7YCSDNo

— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) September 28, 2022

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He needs the love

Will Sommer, who follows the crazy right wing for the Daily Beast, was interviewed at Public Notice by Thor Benson on the subject of Trump’s footsie-playing with QAnon:

Notably, Trump is stepping up his QAnon outreach while his favorability numbers with the broader public are tanking. But Sommer suggested ego is playing a large role in his decision to buddy up with a conspiracy theory the FBI has described as a domestic terrorism threat.

A transcript of Benson’s conversation with Sommer, lightly edited for clarity, follows.

Thor Benson

Do you see Trump’s use of QAnon music at his rallies as an increase or escalation of his embrace of QAnon, compared to his previous winks at the movement?

Will Sommer

I do. This is pretty clearly a much more concerted effort. When Trump was still on Twitter, he would retweet Q people a lot.

Trump is retweeting QAnon nutjobs this morning pic.twitter.com/q2m28E6WBb

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 10, 2020

But this is a new level where it’s not just some guy named “where we go one, we go all” who says, “I love Trump!” and Trump says, “Yeah, this guy gets it!” Now he’s reposting images of himself wearing Q pins and stuff like that.

Then there was obviously this use of the “WWG1WGA” song that had already been reported to have this QAnon connection. It’s not like that would be an accident.

Trump has relied on this plausible deniability about QAnon. He would say, “How was I supposed to know?” if he retweeted an account called Q Army or whatever. The reality is that more recently it seems much more deliberate.

Thor Benson

Why do you think he’s doing this?

Will Sommer

I think Trump sees QAnon as the sort of ultimate Trump fan club. These are guys who by comparison make many Trump devotees look pretty lightweight. The average Trump fan thinks he was the greatest president ever and can save America, but these are people who see him as a messianic figure who is basically going to defeat the devil. Of course, they also think all of the people opposed to him are satanic pedophiles.

We can’t see inside his head, but I think he’s in these kind of dire straits legally, potentially politically, and I think he’s trying to throw some bait to rev up his hardest core fans. 

Thor Benson

Do you think Trump is embracing them because QAnon fans might be willing to engage in political violence on his behalf?

Will Sommer

Certainly he wouldn’t be wrong to think so. Trump’s embrace of QAnon at his rally [in Youngstown] came just days after a man obsessed with the conspiracy theory murdered his wife and injured one of his children.

I talked to the daughter of a QAnon-crazed Michigan man who murdered his wife and shot his other daughter on Sunday.

She says his belief in QAnon was a "very big contributor" to the shootings, and warns that the same could happen to another family soon. https://t.co/RxnZEarSXO

— Will Sommer (@willsommer) September 12, 2022

There were many QAnon believers at the Capitol on January 6. Ashli Babbitt thought she was participating in the storm.

If we think it’s in Trump’s best interests to really heighten the polarization in the country and cast everything in these sort of doomsday terms if Democrats retain power, then I think it makes a lot of sense for him to promote QAnon. They literally think this is a battle between heaven and hell. 

Thor Benson

Is QAnon a growing threat, or just a persistent thing now?

Will Sommer

In terms of people who identify as QAnon believers and wear QAnon pins and stuff, I think they’ve gotten a little quieter since Biden took over. But I think the threat is in a way worse, because QAnon has become a respected faction within the Republican Party. We can see this from the fact that basically no Republicans want to denounce QAnon — with a few exceptions like Adam Kinzinger. 

And they’re back… because they simply cannot and will not accept reality. Their refusal to admit this is all a hoax speaks volumes about the cult mentality of QAnon. It’s dangerous and damaging to our democracy. https://t.co/9fYbDQ7bw6

— Adam Kinzinger (@RepKinzinger) February 18, 2021

Trump endorsed JR Majewski in Ohio, who’s a hardcore QAnon believer and who if he wins would grow the QAnon caucus.

More broadly, I think the issue is that the conspiratorial thinking that QAnon represents has become mainstreamed in the party — whether it’s a majority of Republicans believing the 2020 election was stolen, or Marjorie Taylor Greene, who’s a crackpot but seen by many as a rising star and was the first QAnon supporter elected to Congress.

Thor Benson

Is QAnon even about Q or the QAnon mythology anymore? Or is it now just a kind of hardcore, deranged Trump-supporting group?

Will Sommer

That’s a great question. I do think QAnon has sort of moved beyond Q.

Now, you can buy into the basic QAnon mythology — which is that the world’s elites sexually abuse children and drink their blood and Donald Trump was recruited by the military to take them down — but then you can kind of branch off in whatever direction you want. You can make it about vaccines or you can buy into these utopian visions of the future to come once Trump does the storm. There are even wannabe Qs you can choose from. You can get your cryptic messages from Michael Flynn or Sidney Powell or Lin Wood. 

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Thor Benson

What are their main platforms for communicating with each other now?

Will Sommer

I would say it’s Telegram. Since Trump left office, people have generally tried to be less obvious about being QAnon fans. That makes it harder to figure out how widespread it is. A lot of these groups have realized that if you don’t call yourselves QAnon you can still promote all of this QAnon stuff and conspiracy theories online. 

Thor Benson

As someone who focuses on this stuff a lot, what do you think is important to understand about this?

Will Sommer

It can be easy to say this won’t affect your life or will never happen to you or someone you love, but I’ve talked to so many people who have lost family members or friends to QAnon. Often someone will get into QAnon on the basis of really anything — there are yoga communities that have been overrun with QAnon. These are essentially normal people who get sucked into QAnon. 

This is a dangerous, violent, murderous movement that Trump is willing to promote to increase his political odds.

They love him. That’s all he needs to know.

Sadly, not what we really want to know

Perry Bacon (who used to work for 538 and now works at the Washington Post) says that polls are useful but not for prognosticating the one thing we are desperate to know: swing state races. It’s a very interesting analysis and one that we need to keep in mind as we head down the final stretch of what’s looking to be a much closer election than we anticipated a few months ago:

So here’s a guide to three ways we shouldn’t use polls and four ways we should. Let’s start with the misuses of polling:

Polls should not be used to confidently predict the winner in statewide races in swing states. RealClearPolitics, which averages polls from various outlets, correctly projected the winner of 48 of the 50 states in the 2020 presidential election and that Biden would win overall. (The average wrongly suggested that Trump would win Georgia and Biden would win Florida.) The Economist and FiveThirtyEight, which do so-called forecasts that rely on polling, also missed only two states and projected a Biden victory. (They each had Florida and North Carolina for Biden.)

Despite that fairly good showing, we should be cautious about polling, polling aggregation and modeling in swing states. We should not think of these sites as being right 96 percent of the time. Anyone who follows politics closely could have predicted the winner of at least 40 states. Missing 20 percent of the swing states isn’t bad, but it’s not impressive, either. And in some key states (Ohio and Wisconsin in particular) where the 2020 winner was projected correctly, the polls were still way off.

Virtually every poll, forecast and election expert wrongly projected Clinton to win four years earlier, all because they missed a few swing states. Much of the 2020 polling suggested Democrats would win the U.S. Senate elections in Maine and North Carolina, thereby whiffing on more than a quarter of the hardest-to-predict Senate races.

I simply do not think polls can tell us with much certainty whether Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.) will survive his challenge from Republican Herschel Walker; nor can they predict other races in states where the parties are closely divided. And because Senate control in particular is likely to come down to these few races, polls can’t offer much guidance about which party will win the chamber, one of the core questions of the November elections.

In short, the most interesting, talked-about data we get from polls — their findings in close races — simply isn’t that useful or reliable.

This is a huge problem because most people, myself included, find it hard to accept “we just don’t know who’s ahead in this race” when a stream of polls are constantly released that give us the impression that we know who’s really ahead.

Polls should not be used to determine what policies elected officials and activists push for. “Popular” is not a synonym for right, smart or morally correct. The 1963 March on Washington was opposed by a plurality of Americans at the time. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was an unpopular figure at his death. I worry that if King lived today, he would have to read news stories by political analysts about the unpopularity of protests he was leading, with the implication that those protests either shouldn’t happen or should use only poll-tested, popular language.

The Republican lawmakers who are now passing strict bans on abortion are likely very aware of how unpopular their approach is. They believe these bans are justified anyway. Biden’s decision to consider only Black women to replace retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer didn’t initially poll well but had other important rationales.

It is perhaps electorally unwise for politicians in swing states to push unpopular ideas, but most elected officials and activists aren’t politicians in swing states.

Also, public opinion isn’t that set anyway …

Polls should not be used to make specific claims about public opinion on issues Americans aren’t that interested or engaged in. The broader American public is just not very informed about politics and government. Polls asking Americans to, say, rank issues they care about most, choose their preferred policy among several options or pick their favorite candidate among people from the same party, often aren’t capturing any real, deeply rooted public opinion.

Most Americans are aligned with a party (Republican or Democratic) and a general ideology (liberal, moderate, conservative) and have some general inclinations on policy (government spending is too high; Social Security is good). But they can change their minds quickly on a wide range of issues, particularly if leaders in whatever party they are aligned with change theirs.

So what is polling good for?

Polling should used to assess if there is a gap between politicians’ behavior and public opinion on issues that are simple to understand and in the news often enough that it is likely most voters have some real opinions. The U.S. government system was intentionally created to have some checks on popular sentiment, such as the Senate and guarantees of certain rights in the Constitution. But even if the public doesn’t always get its way, it’s useful to understand where the public is and whether government policy is in sync with public opinion.

The volume of polling showing most Americans oppose near-total bans on abortion and the defeat of an antiabortion ballot initiative in Republican-dominated Kansas suggests there is a clear public sentiment on the issue. The abortion restrictions being passed by Republican-dominated states aren’t improper or illegitimate simply because they are unpopular. But without polls (and the defeat of an antiabortion ballot initiative in Kansas), we might assume these bans are passing because of mass support for them — as opposed to them passing despite mass resistance.

Polling should be used to assess changes in public opinion. I am not sure whether 43 percent of American adults approve of Biden, as FiveThirtyEight’s average of polls suggests. Perhaps the real number is 39 percent or 47 percent. Polls do not capture the exact percentage of Americans who support a given idea or candidate.

But many organizations regularly conduct polls using the exact same methods over several months or even years, which means we can trust the changes in public opinion that they show. It is almost certainly the case that Biden is more popular than he was in late July, when the average of those same polls put him at about 38 percent approval.

Why is analyzing change in public opinion important, if we aren’t sure about the overall number? Because much of political coverage and politics itself involves trying to figure out what actions or tactics workedelectorally — and therefore if they should be repeated or discarded. For example, if Biden’s poll numbers had plunged immediately after he announced his student debt cancellation proposal, future politicians might have been nervous about debt cancellations. Instead, Biden’s numbers went up.

The polls haven’t proved that debt cancellation is an electoral boon. But the results we have so far suggest debt cancellation also isn’t election kryptonite.

Polling should be used to assess which elections don’t need as much coverage as others. Despite the mixed record they have for projecting the winner of races in swing states such as Wisconsin, when polls and forecasts show a candidate in a congressional race is an overwhelming favorite or underdog, they are usually correct.

People choosing which candidates to volunteer for or donate money to can rely on these polls to avoid investing in those with no chance to win. News organizations can downplay coverage of these races.

It’s not that likely blowouts shouldn’t be covered at all. I’m glad reporters in Kentucky are tracking the Senate campaign of Democrat Charles Booker, who is running a long-shot race against incumbent Sen. Rand Paul (R). Perhaps the forecasts are wrong and Booker will win. More important, I want to know what issues Booker raises in his campaign, even if he doesn’t have much of a chance.

Polling should be used to identify smaller groups within the electorate and their views. We only have a big, mass-turnout national election every four years. From those elections, we get fairly limited data — essentially how many votes various candidates received, broken down by neighborhood, city and state. With polling, we can see the disparate voting patterns of various demographic groups, such as Black Americans or people who describe themselves as White evangelicals. So-called exit polls conducted around elections capture the broader dynamics of the electorate (most White voters in the South back Republicans, for example), even if they, like other polls, are often wrong in their precise details.

Non-election polling gives important insights into those groups’ political views. For example, the Pew Research Center occasionally does surveys asking thousands of Black Americans questions. The result is a much richer, more complicated portrait of Black views than simply that Black people overwhelmingly back Democratic candidates.

Polls are very useful. They’re just not useful at predicting winners in close races in swing states — the one thing everyone wants them to be useful in doing.

We’re just going to have to fasten our seatbelts, do what we can to help and hope for the best.

The new prime minister is a talented demagogue

The new Prime Minister of Italy.

Wow. pic.twitter.com/fkKTM8I9Fs

— Aaron Ginn (@aginnt) September 26, 2022

Right. Italian mothers are feeling oppressed. Lol.

She’s good, I’ll give her that. In fact, she makes Trump and DeSantis look like amateurs. <<<<shudder>>>>

Texas prepares to re-elect him

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton fled his home in a truck driven by his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, to avoid being served a subpoena Monday, according to an affidavit filed in federal court.

Ernesto Martin Herrera, a process server, was attempting to serve the state’s top attorney with a subpoena for a federal court hearing Tuesday in a lawsuit from nonprofits that want to help Texans pay for abortions out of state.

When Herrera arrived at Paxton’s home in McKinney on Monday morning, he told a woman who identified herself as Angela that he was trying to deliver legal documents to the attorney general. She told him that Paxton was on the phone and unable to come to the door. Herrera said he would wait.

Nearly an hour later, a black Chevrolet Tahoe pulled into the driveway, and 20 minutes after that, Ken Paxton exited the house.

“I walked up the driveway approaching Mr. Paxton and called him by his name. As soon as he saw me and heard me call his name out, he turned around and RAN back inside the house through the same door in the garage,” Herrera wrote in the sworn affidavit.

Angela Paxton then exited the house, got inside a Chevrolet truck in the driveway, started it and opened the doors.

“A few minutes later I saw Mr. Paxton RAN from the door inside the garage towards the rear door behind the driver side,” Herrera wrote. “I approached the truck, and loudly called him by his name and stated that I had court documents for him. Mr. Paxton ignored me and kept heading for the truck.”

Herrera eventually placed the subpoenas on the ground near the truck and told him he was serving him with a subpoena. Both cars drove away, leaving the documents on the ground.

On Twitter, the attorney general said his sudden departure was motivated by concerns for his family’s safety.

“It’s clear that the media wants to drum up another controversy involving my work as Attorney General, so they’re attacking me for having the audacity to avoid a stranger lingering outside my home and showing concern about the safety and well-being of my family,” he wrote in a tweet.

Paxton has been under indictment for securities fraud for seven years and faces a whistleblower lawsuit from former top deputies who accused him of abuse of office. Paxton has denied wrongdoing.

He was forced into a runoff for the Republican nomination for another term in office after high-profile Republicans, including former Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman and Land Commissioner George P. Bush, tried to unseat him. But Republican voters chose him over his intra-GOP challengers, who criticized his legal and personal scandals on the campaign trail.

He’s running from subpoenas. He’s already under indictment and is being sued by numerous former staffers for abusing his office — the office of Attorney General. I don’t know that there’s a better example of the total rot at the heart of the Republican Party. They openly embrace law enforcement criminals.

If he gets the chance he’ll do it

This is what you get when you nominate Christo-fascists for high office. They behave like … Christo-fascists:

State Sen. Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, said in 2019 that women should be charged with murder if they violated his proposed abortion ban.

In an interview with Pennsylvania radio station WITF, Mastriano was pressed about a bill he sponsored that would generally bar abortions when a fetal heartbeat could first be detected, usually around six weeks. Mastriano’s remarks in that interview were previously unreported.

Under his proposed legislation, Mastriano was asked whether a woman who decided to get an abortion at 10 weeks gestation would be charged with murder. Critics of the bill Mastriano backed, and of other “heartbeat bills,” say the approximate six-week timeframe is often before many women know they are pregnant.

“OK, let’s go back to the basic question there,” Mastriano said. “Is that a human being? Is that a little boy or girl? If it is, it deserves equal protection under the law.”

Asked if he was saying yes, they should be charged with murder, Mastriano responded: “Yes, I am.”

After the Supreme Court decision in June overturning Roe v. Wade, the future of abortion rights has played prominently on the campaign trail. But few races will prove more important in determining statewide abortion access than the governor’s contest in Pennsylvania, where those rights will be heavily influenced by whether Mastriano or his Democratic rival, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, win this fall.

Mastriano has downplayed his past support for stringent abortion restrictions after winning the primary this spring, seeking to paint Shapiro as extreme on the issue while claiming his personal views are “irrelevant” because ultimately the Legislature will write any changes to current state law.

His campaign did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.

“My views are kind of irrelevant because I cannot rule by fiat or edict or executive order on the issue of life,” Mastriano told the conservative network Real America’s Voice in an interview he posted to his Twitter page on Monday. “It’s up to the people of Pennsylvania. So if Pennsylvanians want exceptions, if they want to limit the number of weeks, it’s going to have to come from your legislative body and then to my desk.”

Shapiro has said he supports current state law, which bars the procedure after 24 weeks with exceptions. Pennsylvania’s Legislature has been under GOP control for years and is likely to still be run by Republicans after this fall’s election, making it a strong possibility that Mastriano would be able to sign further restrictions into law should he win this fall.

It’s not as if he really walked back his comment. He just said he couldn’t do it unilaterally. Does anyone want to take a chance on a GOP legislature with a far-right extremist governor like Mastriano? I think you have to assume he would do it.