Month: February 2023

And Marjorie Taylor Greene is on it

Here’s something to read while you savor your Friday afternoon cocktail. You’d better be prepared to have another:

Earlier this month, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican, addressed the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee, whose purview runs from this small resort city up along the Washington state border. Before she spoke, a local pastor and onetime Idaho state representative named Tim Remington, wearing an American flag-themed tie, revved up the crowd: “If we put God back in Idaho, then God will always protect Idaho.” 

Greene’s remarks lasted nearly an hour, touching on a range of topics dear to her far-right fans: claims about the 2020 election being “stolen,” sympathy for those arrested for taking part in attacking the U.S. Capitol and her opposition to vaccine mandates.

She then insisted that Democrats in Washington have abandoned God and truth — specifically, the “sword” of biblical truth, which she said “will hurt you.”

The room of partisans applauded throughout, sometimes shouting “Amen!”

The event may be the closest thing yet to Greene’s vision for the GOP, which she has urged to become the “party of Christian nationalism.” The Idaho Panhandle’s especially fervent embrace of the ideology may explain why Greene, who has sold T-shirts reading “Proud Christian Nationalist,” traveled more than 2,300 miles to a county with fewer than 67,000 Republican voters to talk about biblical truth: Amid ongoing national debate over Christian nationalism, North Idaho offers a window at what actually trying to manifest a right-wing vision for a Christian America can look like — and the power it can wield in state politics.

North Idaho has long been known for its hyperlibertarians, apocalyptic “preppers” and white supremacist groups who have retreated to the region’s sweeping frozen lakes and wild forests to await the collapse of American society, when they’ll assert control over what remains.

But in recent years, the state’s existing separatists have been joined by conservatives fleeing bluer Western states, opportunistic faith leaders, real-estate developers and, most recently, those opposed to COVID-19 restrictions and vaccines. Though few arrived carrying Christian nationalist banners, many have quickly adopted aspects of the ideology to advance conservative causes and seek strength in unity.

The origin of North Idaho’s relationship with contemporary Christian nationalism can be traced to a 2011 blog post published by survivalist author James Wesley, Rawles (the comma is his addition). Titled “The American Redoubt — Move to the Mountain States,” Rawles’ 4,000-word treatise called on conservative followers to pursue “exit strategies” from liberal states and move to “safe havens” in the American Northwest — specifically Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and eastern sections of Oregon and Washington. He dubbed the imagined region the “American Redoubt” and listed Christianity as a pillar of his society-to-be.

“I’m sure that this brief essay will generate plenty of hate mail, and people will brand me as a religious separatist,” he writes. “So be it. I am a separatist, but on religious lines, not racial ones.”

Rawles made an exception for Orthodox Jews and Messianic Jews, saying they would also be welcome in the Redoubt because they “share the same moral framework” as conservative Christians. But the post, which has been updated multiple times since, concludes with a list of “prepper-friendly” congregations in the Reformed Church tradition (Rawles is a Reformed Baptist).

“In calamitous times, with a few exceptions, it will only be the God fearing that will continue to be law abiding,” writes Rawles, who declined to be interviewed for this article.

There’s more and it’s all rather chilling. Apparently, much of the population growth in these areas is due to right wingers from big blue states ,moving there to be among their own people (much to the relief of those they left behind.)

This is kind of a terrifying story, not so much for the idea of a group of religious Americans seeking out their own redoubt (which is what they call their movement) because that’s a very old story. Utah anyone? What’s disturbing is that Marjorie Taylor Greene looks more and more like a canny opportunist building a constituency for a much bigger political career. She is a woman with a mission and she seems to know where to go to find the beating heart of the growing fascist alliance.

This woman was first sworn in in 2021. She didn’t get interested in politics until 2018. And look at her. She’s a bonafide national figure. And she’s the worst of the worst,

Right to life only really applies to the zygotes, embryos and fetuses. No one else need apply

“Right to life” zealots insist that pregnant patients must be bleeding out and literally on the verge of death before a doctor can provide life saving procedures:

In Tennessee, Republican lawmakers are considering whether patients should be forced to continue dangerous pregnancies, even while miscarrying, under the state’s abortion ban — and how close to risking death such patients need to be before a doctor can legally intervene.

At a legislative hearing last week, a lobbyist who played a dominant role in crafting the state’s abortion legislation made his preference clear: A pregnant patient should be in the process of an urgent emergency, such as bleeding out, before they can receive abortion care.

Some pregnancy complications “work themselves out,” Will Brewer, who represents the local affiliate of the anti-abortion organization National Right to Life, told a majority-male panel of lawmakers Feb. 14. When faced with a patient’s high-risk condition, doctors should be required to “pause and wait this out and see how it goes.”

Top Republicans like Gov. Bill Lee have defended the state’s abortion law, one of the strictest in the country, as providing “maximum protection possible for both mother and child.” But currently, the ban has no explicit exceptions, not even for the pregnant patient’s health.

It only includes an “affirmative defense” for emergencies, a rare legal mechanism that means the burden is on the doctor to prove abortion care was necessary because the patient risked death or irreversible impairment to a major bodily function.

The penalties for getting it wrong are three to 10 years in prison and up to $15,000 in fines. Doctors could expect to lose their medical license just for being charged. Concern over how the unprecedented law will be interpreted by prosecutors and the courts has already resulted in patients with high-risk conditions having to rush across state lines for care.

Some Republicans are proposing a modest change. An amendment to the law introduced in the House Population Health Subcommittee last week would remove the affirmative defense and clarify that it is not a crime to terminate a pregnancy to prevent an emergency that threatens the pregnant patient’s life or health, among other provisions.

“No one wants to tell their spouse, child or loved one that their life is not important in a medical emergency as you watch them die when they could have been saved,” said Republican Rep. Esther Helton-Haynes, a nurse and the bill’s sponsor.

But the word “prevent” is a sticking point for the anti-abortion groups who wrote the law.

“That would mean that the emergency hasn’t even occurred yet,” Brewer told the committee. He made a distinction between immediate, urgent emergencies — “A patient comes into the ER bleeding out” — and what he calls “quasi-elective” abortions.

Brewer, who has no medical experience, defined those as “abortions that aren’t necessary to be done in the moment but are still performed in an effort to prevent a future medical emergency.” He called for an “objective” standard.

When reached for comment, Brewer said his statements as summarized by ProPublica had been mischaracterized but did not provide additional details. “Ending the life of the baby should not be used as treatment for non-life-threatening conditions or to prevent some unknown possibility in the future,” he said. He did not respond to follow-up questions seeking clarification.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said laws that try to limit or define medical exceptions are dangerous because they interfere with a doctor’s ability to assess fast-moving health indicators in unpredictable situations and don’t account for people’s different thresholds for risk.

Kim Fortner, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist practicing in Tennessee for more than 20 years, testified to the committee and pushed back on Brewer’s characterizations. She described a patient she saw recently whose water broke too early — the fetus still had a heartbeat, but there was virtually no chance it would survive and a very high risk the patient would get an infection.

But because of the law, the woman was sent home without the option of abortion care. She came back with emergency bleeding and sepsis, a life-threatening infection.

“It is not always so clear, and things don’t always just work themselves out,” Fortner said. “It is a significant, in my mind, misuse of resources, if she did not need to have six units of blood that could have gone to the trauma victim or the gunshot wound. Blood is a limited resource. Just because she can wait and come back in and she still lives to talk about it today — one, that won’t always happen, and two, it also is a significant misuse of an ICU bed. It is a preventable occurrence.”

Andy Farmer, a Republican state representative, agreed with her.

“These things need to be addressed early on,” he said, adding that he didn’t want doctors to feel they needed to consult a lawyer before offering care that could stop a condition from progressing into an emergency.

Brewer, however, said he believed giving doctors that kind of power would be too subjective. “Once one doctor is let off the hook in a criminal trial, it would be open season for other doctors who wanted to perform bad faith terminations,” he said.

Brewer’s position appears to be out of step with public opinion on abortion, even in a deeply red state. A recent poll found about 75% of Tennesseans support abortion exceptions, including for pregnancies caused by rape and incest.

Yet his organization exerts outsize influence on Republican state politics. Tennessee Right to Life issues an annual scorecard rating lawmakers on their fealty to “pro-life” positions and plows money into primary campaigns to unseat candidates viewed as insufficiently loyal. Already, they retracted the endorsement of one Republican lawmaker who publicly advocated for clear medical exceptions.

If they haven’t made it clear before now that these nuts believe that women should die rather than ever get an abortion for any reason this should confirm it. That is the goal. No abortions ever, regardless of he consequences to the birthing vessel involved. or the fact that the fetus will die anyway (or in some cases is already dead.)

Some Republicans seem to feel a teensy bit uncomfortable with all that but I’m sure they will fold once they realize these maniacs will work to deny them another term. Nothing is more important than that. I mean, how many women are actually going to die because of this? A few thousand? They never said we wouldn’t get our hair mussed …

Blast from the past

William Saletan discusses the current state of disarray in the GOP over Ukraine and points out that Fox is pushing for disengagement hard. He also mentions a tiny group of GOP officials who are fighting back when they go on the network and says there are more of them.

1. Rep. Nancy Mace, Hannity, Tuesday.

Hegseth, sitting in for Sean Hannity, begins the interview by complaining that Biden is spending more time in Ukraine than on the border or the train disaster in Ohio. He asks: “If you’re the American people, are you confident in this endless endeavor this administration is undertaking?”

Mace parrots the Fox view. She says Biden’s policy is “Ukraine first, and it’s America last.”

But halfway through the segment, when Hegseth asks what America is getting for “the billions we’re spending” in Ukraine, Mace turns serious. She points out that in 1994, we guaranteed Ukraine’s sovereignty in exchange for its agreement to surrender its nuclear weapons. And she says we can shorten the war by accelerating aid to hasten Ukraine’s victory. By the end of the interview, Hegseth is still grumbling, but he’s talking about clarifying the U.S. commitment rather than ending it.

2. Nikki Haley, The Faulkner Focus, Tuesday.

The host, Harris Faulkner, asks incredulously, “What do we do at this point—just open the checkbook? How does that help?”

Haley replies:

No, we don’t open the checkbook. We shouldn’t send blank checks. We shouldn’t put troops on the ground. We should give them the equipment to defend themselves, because this is a war that they’re winning. This is not a war about Russia and Ukraine. It’s a war about freedom. And it’s one that we have to win.

That’s a terrific answer. Haley rebuts the blank-check caricature by 1) noting that the U.S. policy does have limits (in particular, no American troops); 2) pointing out that our investment is paying off on the battlefield; and 3) explaining that the fight to defeat Russia’s aggression in Ukraine represents global security and American values.

3. Mike Pence, Hannity, Tuesday.

Hannity is more hawkish than Fox’s other primetime hosts. He asks the former vice president why we’re spending so much money on Ukraine “if you’re not going to fight . . . to win this war.” The question indicates he could go either way, ditching the pro-Ukraine alliance or leaning into it.

Pence starts with the requisite Biden-bashing, but he moves quickly to the larger point. “We’ve got to stay in the fight,” he says, adding, “It’s absolutely essential that we see it through.” He cites the 1985 Reagan Doctrine, summarizing it in his own words: “We must not break faith with those who are risking their lives to defy Soviet-supported aggression.”

Pence points out that the concerns expressed by Hannity and other critics of Biden—that the administration was too slow to act before Putin’s invasion and in war’s early stages, and that European countries must pay a bigger share of the bill—can be acknowledged and addressed without abandoning Ukraine. By the end of the exchange, Hannity is framing his criticism as a call to action: “Europe, in my view, has to step up. Europe has to provide the necessary weapons to win.”

4. Sen. Roger Wicker, America’s Newsroom, Wednesday.

Wicker begins by defending Biden’s trip to Kyiv. “I appreciate what the president said yesterday and again today,” the Mississippi senator says. Partisanship “stops at the water’s edge, and we ought to all applaud the president for supporting Ukraine.”

Wicker, an Air Force veteran, reminds Fox viewers that Ukraine is defending itself “without any American troops.” It just needs equipment. Like other hawks, he urges Biden to send the equipment faster.

Toward the end of the interview, Wicker does something all too rare in politics. Instead of shifting his position to conform to public opinion, he tells the Fox anchors that public opinion will shift back toward supporting Ukraine if the United States and Europe pursue victory. If “we give them what they need to win,” he says of the Ukrainians, “that’ll do a lot to give us some support in Congress—and in American public opinion—that indeed our money is well spent and being matched by the NATO allies.”

5. Rep. Mike Lawler, America Reports, Tuesday.

Like Wicker, Lawler endorses Biden’s trip. “It was good that President Biden made the trip to Ukraine,” he says. He also points out that many congressional Republicans went to the Munich Security Conference to reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine’s defense. “That’s positive, because we need to show a unified support for Ukraine,” he says.

6. Rep. Mike Waltz, Fox & Friends, Tuesday.

The show’s co-anchor, Steve Doocy, says Putin has just announced that Russia is suspending its compliance with a major nuclear weapons treaty. “That’s not good,” Doocy frets.

“No,” agrees Waltz, an Army Special Forces veteran. But he explains to Fox viewers that Russia is doing this because “it’s one of the only cards Putin has left. His conventional military has been completely decimated. So really, all he has left is his strategic nuclear forces.”

These are just a few of the Republican lawmakers and presidential hopefuls who have appeared on Fox News to discuss the war. It’s unclear how many others are willing to defend Ukraine and how long they’ll continue to support it, particularly if the most powerful media organization on the right keeps agitating against American involvement.

To see how easily a politician can fold under this pressure, look at Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor and likely presidential candidate. On Monday, he appeared on Fox & Friends just a few hours after Biden’s visit to Kyiv. Here’s a recap of that interview.

It starts with a question about Biden’s trip: “Is this a good move?” DeSantis, a Navy veteran, wants to criticize Biden, but he isn’t sure whether to call him too hawkish or too dovish. He tries both. He faults Biden for pulling out of Afghanistan and for having opposed lethal aid to Ukraine years ago. But then he complains that Biden cares more about protecting Ukraine than about “our own border here at home.”

The interviewer, Lisa Boothe, presses DeSantis to consider public fatigue over the war. She says “a lot of Americans are asking, ‘How much more money? How much more time? How much more human suffering?”

DeSantis takes her cue. He accuses Biden of a “blank check policy,” warns that the war could escalate, and says it isn’t “in our interest to be getting into a proxy war—with China getting involved—over things like the border lands, or over Crimea.”

It’s pretty clear that DeSantis hasn’t thought the issue through. For example, he says Russia is too weak to threaten Europe but too dangerous to antagonize without unacceptable risk. He seems to be looking for a position that’s politically safe in the Republican presidential primaries. So he goes with the Fox line.

Saletan is relieved that Republicans are pushing back on the Fox line. I would say that it’s shocking except it isn’t. Look back to the 90s when the warmonger right were literally saying “give peace a chance” over NATOs involvement in the Balkans — all because the commander in chief at the time was a Democrat. This is what they do.

I’m guessing that just as it was then there are enough Republicans tied to the military and national security to ensure that the US won’t abandon Ukraine. But there will be a large contingent of wingnut hypocrites who will fashion themselves as peacenik hippies in order to oppose NATO and the administration complaining that the ,money should be going to Real America — money they would shove directly into rich pigs’ wallets if they had the power to do it. It’s all a game to them. It has been for a very long time.

Not really

As with every other week for the past few months, the big question of the week among the chattering classes has been whether former president Donald Trump still has his mojo among the MAGA crowd. With the ambitious Florida dreamboat Gov. Ron DeSantis committing one culture war assault after another, the entry of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley into the race getting a lot of attention and what appears to be a long line of Republican wannabes undaunted by his former dominance preparing to enter the race, Trump is said to be rocked back on his heels, reeling like an out of shape boxer who’s past his prime.

Is that true? And if it is, does that even matter?

The Washington Post interviewed 150 of Trump’s fans to find out. What a treat. We haven’t had an in-depth report on the average Trump voter in weeks so it’s a big relief to see the media venture out into the heartland once again to take the temperature of these Real Americans. According to the headline of the Post story, “Trump’s grip on the Republican base is slipping — even among his fans.” They report that these people still love Trump but are “becoming less supportive” because they believe he isn’t the best person to “move this party forward,” whatever that means:

That distinction is reshaping the Republican base as the 2024 presidential primary kicks off. The MAGA vs. RINO dichotomy that defined the GOP for much of the last eight years is increasingly obsolete. In its place, a new dynamic emerged from interviews with more than 150 Trump supporters across five pivotal electoral states. In between Republicans who remain firmly committed or opposed to the former president, there’s now a broad range of Trump supporters who, however much they still like him, aren’t sure they want him as the party’s next nominee.The foremost reason is electability.

So many of them are looking to DeSantis who they think can win over moderates and independents by being even Trumpier than Trump but not actually Trump. This is based on his big win in the increasingly red state of Florida. The report suggests that a lot of people aren’t actually all that familiar with DeSantis, calling him “the Florida guy.” (Anecdotally, I have personally come across Republicans who confuse the fabulist NY Congressman George Santos and Ron DeSantis, so I’m not sure the latter has firmly established himself as anything more than a fantasy boyfriend for some of these people.)

Also among those the Post interviewed are ride-or-die Trumpers, people who cannot fathom voting for anyone but their Dear Leader. These are people who carry the threat of sitting out the election if Trump isn’t given the nomination and, as is obvious, it’s not as if Trump would graciously concede and implore his devoted flock to vote for the person who defeated him. It’s unknown how many of these people there are but there are enough of them that they scare the hell out of the Republicans. Watching DeSantis and the rest of the field try to navigate that minefield should be entertaining in a horror movie sort of way.

The eagerness among many in the media to see DeSantis as the second coming of Trump is palpable, even if they are missing the point entirely. He’s leaning hard on the culture wars, just as Trump did, but his cleverest Trumpist maneuver is a strategy defined by former strategist Steve Bannon as, “The real opposition is the media —and the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.” It’s the relentless nature of his bombardment, a new assault each day on one or more of the MAGA crowd’s designated enemies that creates an almost overwhelming sense of disorientation and an inability to properly contextualize what he’s doing. We’ll have to see if DeSantis can keep up the pace and if he has Trump’s talent for owning the libs in a way that makes his supporters feel good about themselves for doing it. DeSantis’ humorless personality doesn’t inspire the same kind of joyous tribalism that defines Trumpism. I suspect that the most compelling thing about it for most of Trump’s followers is that it’s fun. Ron DeSantis, however, doesn’t seem like much fun.

The polls are all over the place and don’t really show us much yet except that Donald Trump will not be nominated by acclamation. This clearly disappointed him but has also almost certainly sharpened his survival instincts. We know how he reacts to losing. And it’s clear that his rivals aren’t prepared to fight him. Trump strategist and Fox News celebrity Sean Hannity has been asking every candidate and potential candidate the simple, anodyne question: How do you differ from Donald Trump? So far, they all pretty much say, “I don’t.”

Hannity: What specific policy areas would you say part with Donald Trump?
Haley: What I am saying is I don't kick sideways, I'm kicking forward.. I’m not going to kick sideways.. I’m kicking forward pic.twitter.com/DrO9XAuguk

— Acyn (@Acyn) February 16, 2023

HANNITY: What are your policy differences with Trump?

TIM SCOTT: Probably not very many at all. I am so thankful that we had President Trump in office. pic.twitter.com/Nd34nwizfJ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 23, 2023

Trump “policies” are a couple of ideas Trump came up with in the 1980s about trade, racism, a handful of inane complaints he concocted to cover for the fact that he didn’t know what he was talking about in 2016 and whatever he decided to tweet on a given morning after watching “Fox and Friends.” There’s no ideology. There’s no agenda. The party didn’t even bother to produce a platform in 2020, instead saying that whatever Trump was was fine with them. There’s no Trumpism. There is only Trump and certain poseurs pretending to be him by acting like narcissists and bullies.

This election is already showing that until Trump is out of politics which, God willing, will be in two more years, the Republican Party is not going to lift a finger to reorient the party away from him. Just as Fox News panicked when their audience left them for failing to properly adhere to Trump’s Big Lie, the party is terrified of alienating the Forever Trumpers (and many of them see political benefit in keeping them deluded and distracted.) Trump may not be the juggernaut he once was but for the moment he’s really all they’ve got. 

How many doubling-downs is it?

It’s not enough that the AR-15 is the weapon of choice for mass shooters, no. Republicans in Congress think that’s cause for celebration. In fact, Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia (what a guy!) handed out AR-15 lapel pins to Republican colleagues “during National Gun Violence Survivors Week,” writes Steve Benen at MaddowBlog:

But as it turns out, the Georgian wasn’t the only one thinking along these lines. The Alabama Media Group reported this week:

From “The Star Spangled Banner” to the hamburger, the United States has a number of official national symbols. An Alabama congressman’s bill would add another: a national gun. Rep. Barry Moore visited a Troy gun shop on Tuesday to unveil legislation making the AR-15 the “National Gun of America.”

In other words, the United States already has a national anthem, a national flag, and national holidays, but we do not have an official national gun. A Republican congressman in Alabama hopes to change that.

H.R.1095 has as of now three Republican co-sponsors. Pistol-packin’ Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Troll-in-Residence Clyde, and International Man of Mystery, Rep. George Santos of New York, all think The United States of Freakin’ America is incomplete without an official mass-murder weapon.

Writers' room: What if we had a GOP rep respond to mass shootings by pushing a bill to make the AR-15 the "national gun"?

Executives: Can we make George Santos a co-sponsor?

Writers: Seems excessive. Would the audience buy it?

Executives: Make it happen https://t.co/iqOrKemHx8

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen) February 24, 2023

They’re trolling, Benen is sure, as that seems to be why they think voters sent them to Congress on your nickel and mine.

“If your instinct is to be disgusted by politicians who’d respond to mass shootings by celebrating the weapon used in too many of the slayings then the Republicans championing this bill are no doubt delighted,” Benen writes:

So why not ignore it? In part because efforts like these tell us something important about Republican politics: Members like Moore and his cohorts seem to realize that stunts like these will elevate them in the eyes of their party. The path to far-right celebrity status is paved with dumb bills that create fundraising opportunities and appearances in conservative media.

They are in Washington, D.C. to be extremist influencers, not legislators, and to further mutilate the very country that, in their delusions, they believe they came to save from effete liberal weenies. And to land future, higher-paying gigs at Fox.

Homeschooled Boy: And on the third day, God created the Remington bolt-action rifle, so that Man could fight the dinosaurs. And the homosexuals.

God Bless America.

Catalyzing $1.7 trillion in private investments

Venture capitalist @NickHanauer (of TED talk infamy and Pitchfork Economics) draws attention to the transformational nature of the Biden administration’s infrastructure plans. Readers of a certain age may recall a time before interstate highways and the impact of that national project.

“Buckle up, America. I’m just back from dozens of meetings at the Whitehouse and Capitol Hill. The amount of investment headed for the American economy is beyond anything we have every [sic] experienced,” Hanauer tweeted.

Hanauer adds, “In two years, the Biden administration made up for most of the last 50 years of policy malpractice. Between CHIPS, IRA, and INFRASTRUCTURE, and the anti monopoly EO’s, we are going to get done what we should have been doing all along.”

Hanauer retweets Jay Turner who follows environmental politics and policy at Wellesley College. Turner follows investments in the electric vehicle (EV) supply chain.

Not surprisingly, the IRA has accelerated investments in the domestic EV supply chain. More than 25 major new projects add up to a potential $32 billion in capital investment and 20,000 new jobs. 2/8 pic.twitter.com/G14CnV6cjx

— Jay Turner (@_jay_turner) February 22, 2023

“The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it will inject $374 billion into the clean technology sector over the next decade,” CleanTechinca reports. “Some expect that could catalyze $1.7 trillion in private investments.”

The boom in domestic battery manufacturing now outpaces plans for EV mfg. Battery mfg capacity is targeting 950 GWh by 2030, including 250 GWh in newly announced capacity since IRA. If each EV has 75 kWh battery pack, that is enough to support 12 million cars per year. 4/8 pic.twitter.com/mihVL8F0m6

— Jay Turner (@_jay_turner) February 22, 2023

Post-IRA investments have been concentrated in Republican-led states. Whether measured by capital investment, target employment, or the amount of federal support awarded to date, states led by Republican governors have claimed an outsized share of new EV projects. 6/8 pic.twitter.com/lzfuKzx4Rx

— Jay Turner (@_jay_turner) February 22, 2023

Imagine. Republican governors are not turning down federal IRA support like they do Medicaid expansion. Of those on the chart (TN, SC, OH, NV, GA), Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia (3 of 5) refuse Medicaid expansion. This lends credence to my maxim that Republicans care less about how much We the People spend than about into whose pockets that spending goes.

Explore the EV supply chain with this dashboard – it is a window into the developing U.S. EV supply chain. Let us know what you think and what we are missing. 8/8https://t.co/LjlY4zl143 pic.twitter.com/Ho05c9VHaD

— Jay Turner (@_jay_turner) February 22, 2023

As conservatives like reminding us, there is no free lunch. Mining for the materials that go into EV batteries, and the manufacturing process itself, and battery recycling/remanufacturing will come with an environmental cost. Still, I’m hoping to nurse along our reliable, 20+ year-old gas-powered vehicles long enough to skip over hybrid technology and go straight to EVs.

Republicans and conservative pundits will in the meantime loudly deride the changeover to “woke” transportation all the way to depositing their returns from $1.7 trillion in private investments all the way to the bank.

A baby Pangolin

A Chinese pangolin has been born in the Prague zoo, the first birth of the critically endangered animal in captivity in Europe, and is doing well after initial troubles, the park said on Thursday.

For the first few days after the baby female was born on Feb. 2, park keepers were worried because it was losing weight.

The reason was found to be that the mother, Run Hou Tang, didn’t have enough milk. Following consultations with experts from Taiwan, a program of artificial feeding with milk from a cat was introduced and the mother was stimulated to produce more of her own.

That turned things around, with the zoo now expressing cautious optimism about the pup, which still has no name but has been nicknamed “Little Cone” because it resembles a spruce cone.

“We have only overcome the first hurdle and others are still waiting for us,” zoo director Miroslav Bobek said.

The baby’s birth weight was just 135 grams (4.76 ounces). Adults can reach up to 15 pounds.

The Chinese pangolin is native to southern China and southeastern Asia and is one of the four pangolin species living in Asia, while another four can be found in Africa.

Prague received the rare animal from Taiwan last year, becoming only the second European zoo to keep the species.

As Ukraine marks year of war, leader vows to secure victoryChina issues peace plan; Zelenskyy says he’ll await detailsUS savors World Cup berth; Carmelo Anthony named ambassadorBlinken heads to Asia, with China, Russia tensions soaring

Guo Bao, the male pangolin, and Run Hou Tang both came from the Taipei zoo, the leading breeder of the mammals that are hunted heavily for their scales and meat.

It’s estimated that almost 200,000 were trafficked in 2019 because of the scales that are used in traditional medicine in Asia and elsewhere.

In a large majority of states, most people think the vast majority of abortions should be legal:

The immediate constriction of access to abortion that followed helped Democrats overperform in the 2022 midterms and probably continues to power Democratic electoral strength. In part, this is because Democrats have a new, potent organizing argument: protecting access to abortion. In part, though, it’s because most Americans — including a majority of people in most states won by former president Donald Trump in 2020 — think abortion should be legal.

PRRI conducted a huge, national poll on views of abortion, covering respondents in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It found that not only that do most Americans believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, but most people in most states hold that position. Even Republicans are more than twice as likely to say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases than to say it should be banned completely.

The results of the state-by-state poll are shown below. In each state, the segment of the population that supports access to abortion (blue) is larger than the segment that opposes it (orange). On average, there are 8.7 people in a state who think abortion should be legal in all or most cases for every one who thinks it should be illegal. In states that voted for Trump in 2020, the average ratio is 5.6 to 1.

It is the case that support for legal abortion correlates to presidential vote, even more than it does to the state’s White evangelical Protestant population. But even in the most Trump-friendly states, most people support access to legal abortion. Only in seven of the 25 states Trump won in 2020 does less than half of the population support abortion access; in two others, exactly half do.

Scott Lemieux comments:

The various built-in advantages Republicans have in our decrepit constitutional order will mitigate the political damage to Republicans somewhat, but Dobbs is going to have effects on American politics that last well beyond a single electoral cycle. And the policy effect of Dobbs will be to make abortion policy less democratic and further from majority public opinion.

…HIT ‘EM HARD:

Progressive Judge Janet Protasiewicz is airing her first general election ads after advancing in Tuesday's primary for Wisconsin Supreme Court.

One spot argues that conservative rival Dan Kelly would uphold WI's 1849 abortion ban & opposes any exceptions https://t.co/Vib41jUryW

— Daily Kos Elections (@DKElections) February 23, 2023

This is a pro-choice nation. Everywhere:

And the stupid crazy

Ron Brownstein interviewed Simon Rosenberg of the NDN , one of the few Democratic analysts who saw that the 2022 Red Wave was hype. Here, he explains how he knew that:

Brownstein: There was a widespread narrative in the media about the red wave. I spoke on the weekend before the election to half a dozen top-level Democratic operatives and pollsters who were anticipating disaster. You and a couple others were really the conspicuous exceptions to that. I’m wondering why the general wisdom, not only in the media, but in much of the party, was so off? And what are the implications of that for 2024?

Rosenberg: When I look back at what happened, I go back to something we’ve been discussing, which is the power of the right-wing propaganda machines to bully public opinion into places that it shouldn’t be going. And I think there was never a red wave, and there needs to be a lot more public introspection done by those of us who do political analysis about why so many people got it wrong.

The only way you could believe that a red wave was coming was if you just discounted the ugliness of MAGA. You had to get to a place where insurrection and these candidates that Republicans were running and the end of American democracy were somehow things that really weren’t important to people; where, as you heard commentators say, “Well, people, I guess, have settled that eggs costing 30 cents more is more important than loss of bodily autonomy by women.” It was always one of the most ridiculous parts of the discourse in the final few weeks of the election.

We had real data backing up everything that we were seeing, and we were sharing that data with reporters. I was writing it in my Twitter feed, which got 100 million views between the middle of October and Election Day. It wasn’t like the data wasn’t available to all the media analysts and others. But what happened wasn’t a failure of data, but a failure of analysis.

Brownstein: So, roll all of this forward for me into 2024. Are you comfortable with Democrats relying on Biden running again? And how do you assess the landscape at this point?

Rosenberg: I think that Biden is running for reelection. And I think that we’re favored in the presidential election. For us to win next year, the economy has to be good. And we have to look like we’ve been successful in Ukraine. Those two things are going to be paramount in him being able to say, “I’ve been a good president, and I may be a little bit old, but I still got 90 miles an hour on my fastball, and I’m able to get the job done right versus they’re still a little bit too crazy.”

What the Republicans should be worried about is we’ve had three consecutive elections where the battleground states have rejected MAGA. And so, if the Republicans present themselves as MAGA again, which looks almost inevitable, it’s going to be hard for them to win a presidential election in 2024 given that the battleground has muscle memory about MAGA and has voted now three times against it.

This was what I saw at the time and believe today although I’m constantly trying to check my biases and make sure I’m not just projecting my own desires onto the electorate. But this week we had a highly successful series of special and off-year elections which indicates that this dynamic is still in play. It’s not just Trump anymore. It’s Marge Greene and the congressional crazies and Dobbs and book bans and Ukraine, things that just seem nuts to a majority of people.

That’s not to say that Democrats don’t have a share of culture war issues that are making some people nervous. But overall, it’s the meanness and craziness of the MAGA agenda that makes the Independents and moderates recoil. It’s a huge factor and it’s not over yet.

I think …

Anything can happen.

It’s a tough contest these days, but Ted Cruz retains the title of most unctuous creep in the Republican party

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) accuses Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of being “engaged in theater” with his appearance:

“It’s a little jarring seeing all of these images of him in a sweatshirt and fatigues next to Biden … It is a costume.” pic.twitter.com/Iii5uQkLQH

— The Recount (@therecount) February 23, 2023