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Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Politics Of The Absurd

Published by Tom Sullivan on June 14, 2024

🎼Look, look at the brain flying

Ubu Don visited Washington, D.C. on Thursday to show off his debraining machine, only to find his fawning Republican nobles had already been debrained.

Digby will be along presently with a more thorough account of yesterday’s Capitol Hill follies starring Republicans’ 34-felony-convicted former president and 2024 presumptive nominee. Suffice to say it’s udderly insane the tolerance MAGA Republican “leaders” have developed for self-humiliation. How these adults can live with themselves having sacrificed all self-respect on the altar of Trump is beyond comprehension.

A major political party in the most powerful country on Earth has lost its collective mind. It’s gone from Andy Borowtiz satire to deeply unsettling. The U.S. Constitution may not be a suicide pact, but the Republican Party now is.

Lickspittles and Toadies

Sarah Longwell of Republican Voters Against Trump described how Republicans who once saw Trump as too corrupt, unfit, and uninformed (you fill in the rest) for the presidency have become Trump lickspittles and toadies. He threatened their lives and fomented an insurrection and yet they press near to touch the hem of his garment.

You may not be taking crazy pills, Dear Reader, but Dear Leader’s supplicants have gobbled whole handsful. Hell, I’m embarrased for them.

You’ve hear by now about Trump’s unhinged, weekend ramble about sharks and sinking electric boats. He’ll soon be telling his rallies about how he once wore an onion on his belt, “which was the style at the time” and no one from his party will blink. (I’m getting dizzy just typing that. They want to hand this blathering idiot the nuclear codes.)

https://x.com/atrupar/status/1801411524453351614

Trump

Trump’s shark story was so bizarre that someone with facility with AI patched it into a famous scene from Jaws.

Trump has in the past smeared American cities from coast to coast. But reports from his meeting with the Republican caucus had him calling Milwaukee, where he’ll be nominated next month, “a horrible city.” What kind of idiot does that? The Trump kind.

Jordan Klepper made a “The Daily Show” bit out if it. Why am I not laughing?

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It’s About Time

Published by digby on June 13, 2024

A record-high 32% of U.S. voters say they would only vote for a candidate for major office who shares their views on abortion. The importance of a candidate’s abortion stance to one’s vote is markedly higher among pro-choice voters than it was during the 2020 presidential election cycle, while pro-life voters’ intensity about voting on the abortion issue has waned. Also, voters’ greater intensity on the issue today compared with 2020 is explained mainly by Democrats, while Republicans and independents have shown little change.

U.S. adults who are pro-choice are also significantly more likely now than two decades ago to say it is important that any future Supreme Court nominees share their views on abortion.

These results come two years after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization leaked draft decision foretold the court’s plan to abolish constitutional protection for abortion.

At the same time, Gallup finds Americans’ support for abortion rights and identification as “pro-choice” holding at the historically high levels seen since the Dobbs decision was leaked.

These findings are from Gallup’s annual Values and Beliefs poll, conducted May 1-23.

Abortion’s Importance as Voting Issue Up, Especially Among Pro-Choice Voters

Gallup has gauged the importance of a candidate’s views on abortion among U.S. registered voters at least once during each presidential election cycle since 1992. The current 32% who say they will only vote for a candidate who shares their views is up four percentage points since last May and eight points since 2020.

Meanwhile, a diminished plurality of voters, 45% (down 11 points from last year), consider abortion to be just one of many important factors, the lowest reading since 2012. Another 19% (up five points) say it is not a major issue for them, which is the third consecutive reading under 20% and well below those taken between 1992 and 2020.

Gallup:

IN a polarized electorate, this is a serious problem for the Republicans who have 100% thrown in their lot with the anti-abortion extremists.( There used to be pro-choice Republicans but now more. )

The increase in pro-choice Americans who say they prioritize the issue when voting may have helped Democrats blunt Republicans’ anticipated gains in the 2022 midterm election and would appear to be an even greater advantage for the party today. One cautionary note is that all of the increase since then in voters saying they will only support candidates who share their position on abortion has occurred among Democrats. A slight majority of Democratic registered voters (52%) now say this, up from 37% in 2022.

It’s a motivator. And now the Republicans in congress have refused to guarantee the right to birth control and IVF as well.

Trump is an ignoramus but he knows that this is a killer and he’s twisting himself into a pretzel trying to get Republicans to play it cool until he can eke out a victory and deliver whatever they want. They just can’t cooperate because the misogynist, patriarchal evangelical MAGA base insists on pushing the envelope.

Is Trump Shaking Down Candidates For Endorsements?

Published by digby on June 13, 2024

Would anyone put it past him?

Last Sunday in Nevada, Donald Trump rather strangely did not endorse a Senate candidate in advance of the primary the following Tuesday. It was especially odd because one of them was his ambassador to Iceland and a super Trump loyalist by the name of Jeff Gunter. After Trump got on the plane back to Mar-a-lago he posted an endorsement of Gunter’s rival, Sam Brown, who went on to win two days later.

The beltway consensus was that Trump waited to see who was likely to win before making his endorsement which is logical. He does that all the time. But according to Gunter, something else was in play. After Trump made the endorsement, Gunter took to twitter to accuse Trump of taking a “big check” from “the swamp” (presumably one of the Senate Super Pacs) to endorse Brown even after he’s been convinced to endorse Gunter by “awesome & fearless MAGA warriors.” He claimed “the snakes are within” either referring to Trump campaign insiders or GOP establishment players or both.

He told the NY Times that he can prove this accusation about the endorsements. We’ll have to see. But would anyone be surprised?

Trump’s Twisted Fantasy

Published by digby on June 13, 2024

Pelosi’s four daughters all say this is a flat-out lie which, of course, it is. After all, this is the guy who also said this:

He made quite a splash at today’s meeting up on Capitol Hill. It was just as nuts as his freak show the other day about boat batteries and sharks. The cult was in full-effect apparently, just loving every minute of Deal Leader’s appearance.

God help us.

Trump’s Looking Forward To The GOP Convention

Published by digby on June 13, 2024

That’s what Trump told the Republican conference on Capitol Hill this morning. Luckily, he may be spared from having to attend the convention in that horrible city:

Donald Trump is preparing for a scenario in which he will be unable to attend the Republican National Convention, a decision influenced in part by the possibility that he could be sentenced to home confinement after his historic conviction late last month. 

Preparations are being made at both Mar-a-Lago, his home in Florida, and in Milwaukee, the host city for the convention next month, should Trump either choose to make appearances from afar or be unable to attend, according to two sources familiar with the planning.

[…]

In case of potential house arrest, the Republican National Committee is already setting up convention-themed staging at Mar-a-Lago, along with a massive screen at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, where most convention activities will take place.

“If you look at what has been released about the stage at our convention, it’s going to be the highest-tech stage ever,” a Republican operative who has toured the convention site said. “It will allow the campaign to utilize people not in Milwaukee to be projected into the hall.”

“This will give President Trump an opportunity to participate in more days of the convention if he chooses to,” the person continued.

The RNC has put its stage construction front and center, with Chair Michael Whatley calling it “the centerpiece of a word-class production and a historic experience,” at a news conference.

It sounds just grand. I wonder if Melania is planning to show up? Even at Mar-a-Lago?

Another Case Of Propaganda Success

Published by digby on June 13, 2024

Voters are just clueless about reality

From Judd Legum:

In a speech in Nevada on Sunday, Trump said that Venezuela “took all of their criminals, and they dumped them into a place called the United States of America.” Trump claimed that soon, America would be more dangerous than Venezuela “unless you make me President, in which case, we’ll be very safe.” A press release by Trump’s campaign on June 9 claimed that Biden had failed to reduce “high crime rates.” 

Trump’s claims are being repeated by other Republicans running for office. “Since Joe Biden took office, crime has skyrocketed across our country,” Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R-SC) posted on X. In a Facebook ad, Rick Becker, a Republican Congressional candidate in North Dakota, claims that “[v]iolent crime rates are through the roof.”

According to a recent poll by The Economist, 63% of American voters say crime is a very important issue. (Another 28% say it is a somewhat important issue.) Criticisms by Trump and other Republicans appear to be breaking through. Only 33% of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of crime, and 52% disapprove.  

But while Trump’s rhetoric on crime might be effective, it is not true. 

New data released this week by the FBI reveals that both violent crime and property crime have dropped precipitously this year. The data, which is subject to revision, compares crime in the first quarter of 2024 with crime in the first quarter of 2023. It shows substantial drops in every category, including murder (-26.4%), rape (-25.7%), robbery (-17.8%), and property crime (-15.1%).

I’ve seen reports on cable today about this but I’d imagine it’s going to be a one day news cycle. But I’ve also noticed that on Next Door there is also a LOT less bitching about crime in our neighborhood. It was endless a year ago at this time along with relentless harping on the homeless. And to be honest, there was a lot of homelessness in our neighborhood. It’s much, much less today and the crime seems to have abated to normal levels at least. (This is a big city, after all.)

I don’t know if this changes the politics of all this. Lived reality doesn’t seem to have much effect on that. The country’s sour mood may not yet be fading. But actual crime certainly is and it will catch up to people sooner or later. Let’s just hope it’s not too late.

You Need This

Published by Tom Sullivan on June 13, 2024

If you think wind prices are high now….

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) speaking with attendees at the 2022 Student Action Summit at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida. Photo by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons.

Andy Borowitz:

Marjorie Taylor Greene Warns That Windmills Will Drive up Cost of Wind

LAS VEGAS (The Borowitz Report)—Speaking at a campaign rally on Thursday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene warned that plans to build more wind turbines in the US would “send wind prices through the roof.”

“If you think you’re paying a lot for wind now, just wait until Biden starts building all the windmills he wants,” she said. “Joe Biden is coming for your wind!”

Painting a dark picture of the havoc wind power will wreak on the American consumer, she said, “It’s simple economics. If you have ten windmills, wind will cost ten times as much.”

In her most dire prediction, she declared, “Mark my words: You will be paying four dollars for a gallon of wind.”

The sad thing is, the Borowitz quotes are plausible (Futurism):

At a Sunday rally for former reality TV star and current presidential candidate Donald Trump, far-right Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene attempted to dunk on electric vehicles, arguing that — well, it’s hard to say what she was arguing, exactly. But rest assured, she doesn’t like ’em!

“If you think gas prices are high now, just wait until you’re forced to drive an electric vehicle,” Greene told rally-goers, who, after a brief pause, began to boo in agreement.

“America is sick of it,” she added.

“You can’t make this crap up,” responded novelist Stephen King. He’s made a fortune making up crap not nearly as scary as Greene.

But while many mocked Greene’s words, we should note that a sizeable amount of the internet referenced that aforementioned conspiracy as they flocked to support the congresswoman.

“Of course they’re raising gas prices as an ‘incentive’ to buy a shitty EV,” another netizen wrote in response to King’s denouncement, further claiming that the alleged incentivization plot is connected to a still-in-pilot-testing California effort to tax gas and electric drivers on miles driven, as opposed to a tax on fuel usage.

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If It’s Not One Thing….

Published by Tom Sullivan on June 13, 2024

You’re carefully taught

It’s a common enough appeal. Common sense. So why is common sense so uncommon? Invoking common sense is often intended to quash inquiry, not stimulate it. Common sense. Game over.

Earth is flat. It’s common sense. You have to produce an ID to get on an airplane. You should have to present one to vote. Remember when it was common, if not common sense, under Jim Crow to ask Black people to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar or recite the Preamble to the Constitution before they could vote?

It’s always something (Bolts Magazine):

In late May, the GOP-controlled New Hampshire legislature adopted a bill that would require people to present their birth certificate, passport, or naturalization papers proving their U.S. citizenship in order to register to vote, with no exceptions. That would be a major departure from longstanding New Hampshire law that allows people to sign sworn affidavits as a substitute if they don’t have proof of citizenship when they register to vote. 

It’s already a crime to register if you are ineligible. It’s already a crime to vote if you are ineligible. But we need to make it crimier. Common sense.

Under current New Hampshire law, voters are asked to provide proof of identity and age (usually a driver’s license), proof that they live where they want to vote, and proof of citizenship (either a birth certificate or a passport) in order to be able to register and vote. Less than half of Americans have a passport, and a new study by the Brennan Center found that nine percent of Americans don’t have any proof of citizenship readily available. The current law in New Hampshire allows people to sign a sworn affidavit attesting that they’re telling the truth about their citizenship and residency. Roughly 6,000 people used affidavits in the 2016 election cycle.

A wave of such bills are in legislative pipelines across the country ever since Donald Trump claimed he lost the popular vote in 2016 to Hillary Clinton because noncitizens (Mexicans in California) were voting by the millions. The truth is that noncitizen voting is “vanishingly rare.” But Trump could not have lost. Common sense said others must have cheated.

I suppose it was a string of tweets that inspired the “common sense” question.

https://x.com/AWeissmann_/status/1800909657155789179

Users replied with this clip, others replied with memes.

For some reason, I woke up on Wednesday with “You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught” from South Pacific playing in my head.

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Total Immunity

Published by digby on June 12, 2024

The Supremes Have It, Why Not Trump?

If you wonder why Alito and Thomas are basically telling the whole country “I do what I want” and daring anyone to try and do anything about it, here’s why:

Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, plans to block an effort by Senate Democrats to unanimously pass a Supreme Court ethics bill Wednesday on the Senate floor.

“I will object,” Graham, R-S.C., told NBC News.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said earlier Tuesday that he would make a unanimous consent request to pass Supreme Court ethics legislation that the panel advanced last July.

Graham’s objection means the bill won’t be able to move forward, because any senator can block a request.

It isn’t clear whether the measure will come up for a vote under the normal process, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he’s considering it.

Even before Graham made his comments, Democrats doubted the legislation would advance. “I think I know the outcome, but we’re going to go through the exercise to make sure that both parties are in the record,” Durbin told reporters Tuesday afternoon.

The Democratic-led Judiciary Committee advanced the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act on a party-line vote nearly a year ago, but it can’t break a filibuster on the Senate floor without 60 votes. Democrats have 51 members, and no Republican is on board with the bill.

In a news release, Democrats said the vote follows “a myriad of apparent ethical lapses by Supreme Court justices, which demonstrate the need for ethics reform.”

Just as Donald Trump realized that as long as he had the Republican Party backing him he could not be convicted in an impeachment trial, so too have the Supreme Court right wing extremists. They essentially have full immunity from consequences for their corruption. I’ll be surprised if they don’t grant it for Trump for all of his legal problems as well. They have shown their true colors. Immunity from accountability is their new superpower.

Political Persecution For Dummies

Published by digby on June 12, 2024

Igor Bobic asked Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley about the Hunter Biden verdict:

“In our constitutional system, you gotta rely upon what the judges and juries decide. I’m sorry for the Biden family but people decide what justice is and you got to conclude that justice was done.”

As for whether that applies to the Trump verdict he said “it’s an entirely different thing. The Justice Department was doing everything they could to cover up his tax problems and his gun problems.”

What? Ok.

Sen. John Thune: “Hunter Biden’s not running for any political office. Donald Trump’s running for president. There are all kinds of different dynamics in two totally different cases,” he said. “The clear thing in the (Trump) New York case, I mean, there’s no argument. … This is politically motivated. The prosecutor ran, he got up there, got the job on the predicate of trying to prosecute the former president.”

Sen. Rick Scott: “First, in this case, this is existing law that people have been prosecuted before and they’ve been connected before, and they’ve been sentenced before,” he said. “In the case of (Donald) Trump, they’ve made up something brand new that nobody’s been prosecuted before. And it was complete political persecution.”

“No one’s ever been persecuted the way Trump was persecuted in New York. No one. No one in this country,” he said.

Poor Trump. He is the victim of a politically motivated witch hunt but Hunter Biden who has been mercilessly dogged by right wingers for years is just another case? Sure.

Meanwhile, here’s Mike Johnson also explaining why it’s “an entirely different thing:”

You see, Biden has weaponized the justice system against Trump by making them prosecute his son, a Democratic Senator and a Democratic Congressman to make himself look good and Trump look bad. He’ll sacrifice his party, his family and his country all for the sake of staying in power no matter what.

He is also a drooling old fool who can’rt string two words together but that’s why it’s so diabolical.

If you want to go deep on the Hunter Biden saga, there is only one journalist who has the complete picture and it’s, unsurprisingly, Marcy Wheeler. She’s followed the case in minute detail and what she’s concluded may surprise you.