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Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Another Special Special

Published by digby on June 12, 2024

Democrats overperform again

Politico reported this morning:

 If last night’s election returns were going to provide any surprises, they weren’t supposed to come out of Ohio’s 6th Congressional District.

In a special election race that got basically zero national attention, Republican state Sen. MICHAEL RULLI was thought certain to rout Democrat MICHAEL KRIPCHAK, a former Air Force officer and once-aspiring actor who quit a Youngstown-area restaurant job to run for Congress.

DONALD TRUMP, after all, had won the blue-collar, mostly rural district previously represented by GOP Rep. BILL JOHNSON by 29 points in 2022. Furthermore, Rulli raised nearly 30 times more than Kripchak’s shoestring budget.

Rulli, in the end, managed only a not-quite-10-point victory over Kripchak — a roughly 20-point swing toward Democrats versus Trump’s 2020 showing. More from AP

With early returns putting the race even closer, our minds immediately turned to SIMON ROSENBERG, the Democratic high priest of hopium, who has counseled anxious Democrats for going on three years now to pay less attention to polls and more attention to how voters actually vote. It paid off big time in 2022, when he was one of the few pundits to predict a GOP midterm fizzle.

We figured this relative Republican bust couldn’t come at a more opportune time for the nervous nellies of the left, who have watched President JOE BIDEN’s poll numbers stagnate for months despite effort after effort to turn things around. So we called Rosenberg up, and he did not disappoint.

“There has been a fairly consistent pattern where Democrats have overperformed expectations, overperformed public polling,” he said. “The single most powerful force in our politics is fear and opposition to MAGA. When the choice of MAGA and other alternatives are presented to voters, MAGA underperforms public polling.”

CNN discussed this today and pooh-poohed it as having any meaning at all. They were especially dismissive of Rosenberg as some kind of left wing crank even as they admitted that he’s been right for several cycles and that Democrats have been over performing since 2020. The consensus is that Trump is a juggernaut when it comes to turnout so he’ll be bringing out hordes of new voters in November. I got the impression that they all think it’s pretty silly to think that the Democrats might be motivated to vote.

I wouldn’t care too much about this (since it’s been their posture since Trump won in 2016 and it hasn’t stopped the Democrats from winning) if it weren’t for the fact that this narrative validates Trump’s insistence that the Biden can’t possibly win unless he steals it. They are helping him set the stage for another pass at declaring the election is rigged by presenting a very tight race as if Trump is dominating. It’s dangerous. And it’s just not factual.

Wingnuts Protest Too Much

Published by digby on June 12, 2024

Knee-jerk hysteria does not denote a confident party

President Joe Biden’s son Hunter was found guilty in federal court of failing to properly fill out a form to buy a gun which he had in his possession for 11 days and never fired. Fair enough. What he did was against the law and a jury of his peers found him guilty. The case was solid. Biden was a drug addict back in 2018 at the time of his crime and he should have admitted it on that form. But people in the midst of an addiction crisis make bad decisions and often get on the wrong side of the law.

Hunter Biden’s response to the verdict was to say that he was more grateful for the support of his family, friends and community than he was disappointed in the verdict. And he added “recovery is a gift from God and I am blessed to receive that gift one day at a time.” Joe Biden reiterated that he loves his son and always will and that he is proud of his recovery. He also said that he respects the outcome of the case and the judicial system. Both Bidens were restrained and solemn in the face of a serious legal outcome which, until recently, was simply expected from a president and his family.

Some Democrats and legal observers wondered about the prosecutorial discretion in bringing the case which is very seldom done in circumstances like this,(as did a couple of the jurors) but across the board they all respected the verdict and the judicial system. Nobody threatened anyone or vowed to take vengeance on them. Nobody accused the prosecutors, the judge or the jurors of being corrupt. Nobody said the proceedings were rigged.

Well, actually, a lot of people said it was rigged — but they were all Republicans who simply couldn’t take “guilty” for an answer. You can understand why. They’ve been sobbing and whining and rending their garments for weeks now over the Trump verdict insisting that the Biden DOJ had implemented a two-tiered system of justice to target Republicans, specifically Donald Trump. And here you have that same DOJ prosecuting the president’s only living son over a crime that Republicans insist is a violation of the second amendment. In fact, if it had been anyone else, much less the son of a GOP president, the NRA would have been holding vigils outside the courthouse. If Republicans still required logic and consistency to persuade their voters this whole thing would have been terribly confusing for them. Lucky for them, all they need is lies and demagoguery.

It’s pretty obvious that talking points were prepared in advance considering the uniformity of most of the commentary. The main complaint was that the trial was orchestrated as a “distraction” from the real crimes of the “Biden Crime Family” and the nefarious deeds of the “Big Guy”, President Biden. The same phrases were repeated by one Republican after another. The responses were not quite as hysterical as the ones we were subjected to in the wake of the Trump conviction but they came close:

Trump himself has not made a comment as of late Tuesday night (although he did fire off one of his rambling, disjointed attacks on the Manhattan district attorney and remonstrated against his own conviction. ) But his campaign put out a statement immediately after the verdict:

“This trial has been nothing more than a distraction from the real crimes of the Biden Crime Family, which has raked in tens of millions of dollars from China, Russia and Ukraine. Crooked Joe Biden’s reign over the Biden Family Criminal Empire is all coming to an end on November 5th, and never again will a Biden sell government access for personal profit. As for Hunter, we wish him well in his recovery and legal affairs.”

Minutes later they sent a corrected version striking that last sentence. We don’t know who may have been upset by that small gesture of human decency but it’s not hard to guess.

The fact is that President Biden could have replaced the prosecutor in the case, David Weiss, when he took office as he did all the other US Attorneys, which is customary at the beginning of any new administration. He could have ordered the case be withdrawn or he could have pre-emptively pardoned his son. He did not do it so as to avoid any appearance of conflict and to allow the Justice Department to maintain its independence as it has been tasked to do for the past half century. He didn’t do it out of respect for the rule of law, something that the Republicans under Trump have completely abandoned, not that they ever had a surfeit of it to begin with.

Taking a page from their leader’s political manual, right wing media and GOP officials at every level have adopted a manic, overwrought posture that’s verging on demented. Obviously, it’s hard for them to rationalize this guilty verdict in light of their recent frenzied insistence that Biden is rigging the judicial system to take down Trump but you’d think they would have at least tried to maintain a tiny bit of dignity. But then, they’ve completely abandoned any pretense of that as well, haven’t they?

According to the NY Times, the Trump campaign is disappointed in the guilty verdict because they thought it was going to be a fundraising bonanza for them if Hunter Biden was acquitted. Even their loyal followers aren’t likely to open their wallets over an alleged two-tiered system that just convicted the president’s beloved son on federal gun charges. How disappointing for them.

Having convinced themselves that Joe Biden is a basket case, they were doubtless even more disappointed that he didn’t break down as they expected him to do. Immediately after the verdict was reached Biden gave a scheduled speech before gun safety advocates (a coincidence since they couldn’t know the verdict would come down at the same time.) He was composed, professional and strong despite the fact that he was talking about the pain of losing loved ones and had to emotionally grapple with the fact that his troubled son was facing even more challenges to his sobriety, something that any parent dreads.

All the Republicans got was this:

Normal people find that to be a sign of love and empathy. The MAGA cult sees it as a sign of weakness. They are wrong.

Salon

We Report, You Decider

Published by Tom Sullivan on June 12, 2024

The return of Sinclair’s Mighty Wurlitzer

Public Notice and Judd Legum’s Popular Information assembled another stew of cookie-cutter commentaries from right-wing Sinclair Broadcasting’s local talking heads. Sinclair repackaged talking points from the Wall Street Journal’s widely panned June 4 article, “Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Sipping,” questioning Joe Biden’s mental fitness. The sourcing is questionable. Conveniently, repetition obliterates questions:

Nevertheless, the Wall Street Journal piece was repackaged by Sinclair Broadcast Group and beamed into the homes of millions of Americans. Sinclair, which is controlled by right-wing media mogul David Smith, owns or operates 185 local television stations across 86 markets. 

Sinclair repackaged the Wall Street Journal story through its centralized news team, known as The National Desk. The segment was then pushed to dozens of local news stations owned by Sinclair. Local anchors introduced the piece by reading from a nearly identical script. Again and again, the anchors say that the Wall Street Journal is “out with new reporting calling into question the mental fitness of President Joe Biden,” adding that the issue “could be an election decider.”

Watch:

By deploying this message across its 185 local stations, Sinclair acts as an effective distribution vector for right-wing propaganda.

A 2018 study published in the American Political Science Review found that stations purchased by Sinclair increase “coverage of national politics at the expense of local politics” and undergo “a significant rightward shift in the ideological slant of coverage.” 

Delivering right-wing attacks on Biden’s mental fitness under the guise of “local news” is an extremely powerful tactic. While many Americans are distrustful of the national media, 71% believe that local news is accurate, including 78% of Democrats and 66% of Republicans. 

You’ve seen this 1984-ish telescreen tactic before:

Great. Now news outlets will report the controversy. Morning Joe did a segment on the Sinclair spin today.

Judd Legum this morning posts a short thread on public misperceptions around crime and cites lack of coverage of falling crime figures as one possible cause. But one wonders how much Sinclair’s coordinated misinformation contributes.

“This week, the @nytimes published 18 STORIES on Hunter Biden’s trial and ZERO STORIES on the new FBI crime stats,” Legum writes under “Show more.”

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A Little Pandering Between Friends

Published by Tom Sullivan on June 12, 2024

Oreos, beer, snack food and sedition

https://x.com/JohnFugelsang/status/1800690946172166633

How gullible do Donald Trump’s footmen think his #MAGA base is? Pretty gullible, judging by their latest conspiracy theory regarding Hunter Biden’s three felony convictions. And conservatives claim it’s liberals looking down their noses at them.

CNN:

In the wake of Hunter Biden’s conviction on federal gun charges Tuesday, right-wing media personalities sought to downplay the jury’s decision, falsely claiming the case was a “fake trial” designed to “cover up” other supposed crimes committed by the president and his family.

The reaction showcased how far to the fringes the right-wing and pro-Trump media ecosystem has drifted in recent years, with high-profile personalities defaulting to conspiracy theories and innuendo in response to inconvenient political news.

Via Greg Sargent at The New Republic:

“Hunter Biden guilty. Yawn,” tweeted MAGA thought leader Charlie Kirk. “The true crimes of the Biden Crime Family remain untouched. This is a fake trial trying to make the Justice system appear ‘balanced.’ Don’t fall for it.”

“The gun charges are a giant misdirection,” added Stephen Miller. He added that the verdict is an easy opportunity for the Justice Department to hoodwink “a pliant media that is all too willing to be duped. Don’t be gaslit. This is all about protecting Joe Biden and only Joe Biden.”

Yes, the people whose 24-7-365 propaganda made “gaslighting” Merriam-Webster’s word of the year in 2022 warn MAGA cultists against being seduced by the lies of devilish nonbelievers. The truth is what Dear Leader declares it (The National Desk):

The Trump campaign released a statement to CNN saying, “This trial has been nothing more than a distraction from the real crimes of the Biden Crime Family, which has raked in tens of millions of dollars from China, Russia and Ukraine. Crooked Joe Biden’s reign over the Biden Family Criminal Empire is all coming to an end on November 5th, and never again will a Biden sell government access for personal profit. As for Hunter, we wish him well in his recovery and legal affairs.”

The media outlet pointed out that Trump’s campaign then sent an updated statement “striking the well wishes to Hunter.”

Ever the sore winner, Donald Trump with his 34 felony convictions sneers at Hunter’s three and alleges fraud in the counting. (Not yet, but give him time.)

Everything is rigged against Trump is a cornerstone of the MAGA faith. Trump may have bent the rules a bit, promoted a little violent sedition. He had to smite the Left for God and country and to stop the steal. But Joe Biden is the Devil incarnate. The Devil issued this statement upon his son’s conviction:

As I said last week, I am the President, but I am also a Dad. Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today. So many families who have had loved ones battle addiction understand the feeling of pride seeing someone you love come out the other side and be so strong and resilient in recovery. As I also said last week, I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal. Jill and I will always be there for Hunter and the rest of our family with our love and support. Nothing will ever change that,” the president said in a statement provided to The National Desk.

Sargent again:

The enormous contortions required to portray the justice system as rigged at every turn show yet again that pretty much everything the MAGA right is saying about these matters is about laying a pretext for Trump, once back in office, to launch prosecutions of Biden and Democrats without cause, under the guise of tit-for-tat payback for something that wasn’t actually done to Trump and his followers. As I’ve argued, Trump and his MAGA allies relentlessly claim that he will seek “revenge” and exact “retribution” with such prosecutions, to reverse-engineer the deceptive impression that Trump was the victim of what he is threatening, i.e. prosecutions without a legitimate basis.

The MAGA media stars promoting law enforcement-as-conspiracy nonsense know what they’re selling is as phony as the penis pills and dietary supplement ads that pay their salaries. Is it propaganda? Yes. It’s also pandering, pandering to people they believe are gullible enough to think they are sincere and to buy their shit.

Jon Stewart on Monday’s “The Daily Show” roasted “hollow corporate pandering” behind campaigns promoting Gay Pride month, DEI programs, and whatever social movement is popular this month to sell Oreos, beer, and snack foods. Only until those pressures subside.

“So, they are very clearly conflicted between the very high moral values that they think we want and the amoral values that serve their shareholders,” Stewart argued. “There is nothing corporations do that is not in service of their bottom line.”

https://youtu.be/TWVbZ0WQ3s8?si=6nGmxXTyo7ZhzhUV

We are conditioned from childhood to consume. The people with something to sell (even sedition) know that and use that, employing the same techniques that treat their followers as uncritical marks, easily led, and too stupid to know it. The right’s bottom line is control.

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A Study In Contrasts

Published by digby on June 11, 2024
The 2016 GOP Convention

As Democrats continue with their perennial handwringing over the election and media bigfoots write the 3,785th article about why, despite polls showing a tied election. Joe Biden should drop out it’s interesting to note that the recently convicted felon heading up the other party’s ticket is being deliriously embraced by voters and officials alike. Not even one Republicans has suggested he step down. Not one newspaper or right wing columnist. Nada.

The Huffington Post’s S.V. Date takes a look at the GOP’s total unwillingness to even consider dumping Trump:

Eight years after a credible effort to dump Donald Trump as their presidential nominee because of his vulgarity, Republicans today appear stuck with the newly convicted felon for November, with no realistic means of taking the nomination away from him at their convention next month, even if they wanted to.

“There will be no move to, no mechanism for and no interest in removing Trump at the convention,” said Richard Porter, a Republican National Committee member from Illinois.

To Fergus Cullen, a former RNC member as a onetime chair of the state party in New Hampshire, the key element of that analysis is “no interest in.”

“The residents of Jonestown chose suicide rather than leave,” he said, likening Trump to the infamous cult leader Jim Jones. “He has a death grip on the RNC and the delegates. Even if polls showed him losing 65-35, they would choose to go down with him.”

That’s an interesting analogy isn’t it? Especially considering that Trump said this just this last weekend:

Back in 2016 they tried to stop him. The rules allowed for it. But Trump has taken care of that. Today he has personal flunkies in almost every position in the party. Even if there was a movement afoot to do it, which there isn’t, there will no path to make it happen under the rules.

I would imagine there might be a few Haley voters in the group who’ll carry some signs but the GOP is winner take all in most states (thanks to trump) and there won’t be much pushback. It will be a Trump coronation with all the bells and whistles. There will be no deviation among the cultists.

We Need A Little Hopium Today

Published by digby on June 11, 2024

Simon Rosenberg has a good one today. He shows that Biden has made some slight gains in the polls in the wake of Trump’s conviction although it’s still essentially tied. He also notes:

538 unveiled its 2024 forecasting model this morning and it gives Biden a 53% chance of winning the election. The key to how we win in this model is our strength in MI, PA, WI, the blue wall states which get us to 269 Electoral College votes, or check as I’ve been calling it.

He also notes that we have reports in the last week or so showing that the economy is rolling, crime is way, way down and (I would add, border crossings are also much lower in the last 6 months.)

Rosenberg concludes:

In the last few weeks we’ve gotten repeated confirmation of the success of the Biden Presidency – inflation is down, food prices are down, crime and murder rates are way down, gas prices are down, the flow to the border is down. We’ve had the strongest economic recovery of any advanced economy in the world, the best job market since the 1960s, the lowest uninsured rate in American history, the deficit is trillions less, the Dow has broken 40,000 and all three indices continue hover in record terrirtory, and domestic oil, gas and renewable production continue to be at all time highs leaving America more energy independent than it has been in decades. Consumer sentiment surged last month. The Wall Street Journal called the American economy the “envy of the world,” and the Economist just wrote about the unprecedented start up boom America is experiencing right now. Biden’s big three investment bills have dramatically accelerated the energy transition necessary to combat climate change and will be creating opportunities and jobs for our workers for decades to come.

Yes, I know. If things are so good why is it so close? It’s because our political culture is sick because of Trump and his MAGA movement which has turned right wing grievance into a profit making cult.

Yes, prices are higher than they were in 2019. So are interest rates. But people are also getting raises, they’re travelling all over the place, buying big consumer items and generally doing fine, which even they admit when asked. They are just disturbed about the state of the economy for everyone else, which gives away the game. This isn’t about individuals’ assessment of their material well-being. It’s about their spiritual and psychological well-being. Trump is making everyone, especially his own followers, unhappy.

But I’d still rather be us than them. Reality does eventually bite.

I’ve Got Your Kitchen Table Issue For You Right Here

Published by digby on June 11, 2024

This is very good news:

The Biden administration Tuesday willannounce rules to block medical debt from being used to evaluate borrowers’ fitness for mortgages and other types of loans, people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post.

The proposed rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau arrive less than five months before Election Day and are poised to be part of President Biden’s closing argument that he is addressing pocketbook issues as voters rank the economy as their top concern.The White House has repeatedly focused on the issue of medical debt, saying it disproportionately harms low-income Americans and communities of color.

“This is going to be an enormous relief for so many people battling bills when it comes to medical visits,” CPFB director Rohit Chopra said Tuesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” teasing the forthcoming rules.

The rules set to be announced Tuesday would ban credit reporting agencies from incorporating medical debt when calculating credit scores, said the people with knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions. The rules would also bar lenders from using medical debt to determine loan eligibility, they said.

The proposal will undergo weeks of public comment — meaning this November’s election will probably determine whether the measures are finalized. GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump did not seek to remove medical debt from consumers’ credit reports during his four years in the White House.

This could be huge for millions of people. Medical debt can be crippling because the numbers are so large. It’s been mitigated by the availability of insurance and the rules promulgated by Obamacare, but it’s still out there. Even if you have good insurance it can be overwhelming. This sort of debt is unavoidable so it shouldn’t be held against you.

Whether the Wingnut 6 on the Supreme Court will allow this to go through is another story. But Democrats have to try to get this sort of thing done. Student loans and medical debt are major problems that are begging for relief and the high court plays with fire every time it denies that these issues affect every American who isn’t a millionaire.

The Greatest Oil Trader Ever

Published by digby on June 11, 2024

2024’s biggest story you’ve never heard about

That’s just fascinating. But this is the only place I’ve heard about it. I’m going to guess that the Biden campaign doesn’t want to say anything ab out it for fear of it backfiring. But it’s something that history will surely record.

Hunter Biden Guilty

Published by digby on June 11, 2024

This isn’t a surprise. I expect that Hunter will see the inside of a jail cell for his crimes of filling out one form wrong and paying his taxes late long before Trump will. After all, Trump just tried to stage a coup and stole nuclear secrets so the punishment must fit the crime.

For the first time ever in history, the right is applauding someone being found guilty on federal gun charges of failing to properly fill out a form. Normally they have a hard time applauding the conviction of mass murderers if they used a precious AR-15 to do it. Nonetheless, they are absolutely convinced that it’s all for Biden’s benefit because it makes him look good:

They are also a little bit bewildered that the leader of the Biden Crime Family allowed this to happen. They assumed that he would get off:

That fine fellow is on the short list for Attorney General in a new Trump administration.

I heard something this morning that I’ve missed before. Apparently, one of the reasons the plea agreement fell apart last year was because they wanted the judge to supervise his parole and she refused. They wanted her to do it because they were afraid that a Trump administration in charge of Hunter Biden’s release would almost certainly say he violated the terms and throw him in jail. This was reported by MSNBC’s Lisa Rubin and I don’t know how much this had to do with the decision to back out of the plea deal.

CNN reported that the Trump campaign put out this statement:

“This trial has been nothing more than a distraction from the real crimes of the Biden Crime Family, which has raked in tens of millions of dollars from China, Russia and Ukraine. Crooked Joe Biden’s reign over the Biden Family Criminal Empire is all coming to an end on November 5th, and never again will a Biden sell government access for personal profit. As for Hunter, we wish him well in his recovery and legal affairs.

Apparently, they then withdrew it and erased that final sentence. I’d guess Dear Leader didn’t like it. Class all the way.

I’m not sure if any of this will make a difference in today’s political world but it’s right nonetheless:

Does anyone care?