Were we better off?
I know that I felt very reassured to know that Trump’s fey son-in-law was handling the logistics of the pandemic crisis.
"what digby sez..."
Digby's Hullabaloo Posts
Boy, that sounds really bad, doesn’t it? The allegedly reformed Frank Luntz who is on TV all the time as a supposed “Never Trumper” is kindly pointing out a real blind spot in the Biden campaign.
Well, actually not:
It is President Biden’s 10th trip to WI as president and 3rd this year. He was in Milwaukee 3 weeks ago and has announced a trip to Madison on Monday.
That tweet has been up for hours and is still not deleted or corrected despite a correction by the community and tons of push back.
As Trump would say, he’s “disinformating” and I’m pretty sure he’s doing it on purpose. This guy is one of the slimiest GOP operatives of the past 30 years and he’s never really come clean.
And he’s as narcissistic as Donald Trump
Poor little Bobby Jr is upset because social media companies didn’t let him spew his dangerous medical disinformation on their platforms. For some reason he blames Biden for that:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed Monday that President Joe Biden is arguably a “much worse threat to democracy” than Donald Trump ― and repeated it for emphasis. (Watch the video below.)
When CNN’s Erin Burnett on her program “OutFront” mentioned fears over the threat to democracy that former President Trump poses, Kennedy, an independent candidate for president, pivoted to the other main-party opponent he’s running against.
“I can make the argument that President Biden is the much worse threat to democracy,” Kennedy said. “And the reason for that is President Biden is the first candidate in history — the first president in history — that has used the federal agencies to censor political speech, so to censor his opponent.”
Kennedy has harped on being banned from social media during Biden’s tenure. He was thrown off of Instagram in 2021 for advancing disproven claims about vaccines but was allowed to return after he announced his long-shot bid for the White House. In 2022, Facebook and Instagram removed accounts of his anti-vaccine nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, for misinformation.
Burnett emphasized the gravity of Trump’s attempt to overturn a “free and fair election” ― but Kennedy continued to attack Biden.
“Trying to overthrow the election clearly is a threat to democracy,” Kennedy said. “But the question was, who is a worse threat to democracy? And what I would say is … I’m not going to answer that question. But I can argue that President Biden is because the First Amendment, Erin, is the most important.”
Burnett asked for clarity that Kennedy was saying he could make the argument that Biden was the worse threat to democracy.
He’s also a moron.
If you have the time watch the whole thing. To think that this freak could tip the election to the fascist Trump is even more depressing than Trump himself.
Update:
That you should take with the usual grain of salt
Scott Simon Rosenberg says, “with this new track there are now 12 polls taken since late February showing Biden leads (via 538)”:
- 48-45 Quinnipiac
- 44-43 Noble Predictive
- 44-43 Economist/YouGov (March 19)
- 47-45 FAU/Mainstreet
- 44-43 Morning Consult (March 11)
- 46-45 Public Policy Research
- 50-48 Ipsos/Reuters
- 45-44 Civiqs
- 47-44 Kaiser Family Foundation
- 51-49 Emerson
- 43-42 TIPP
As I have pointed out many times. none of this counts with the media until the big boys at the NY Times, WaPo, WSJ, ABC etc weigh in and we haven’t seen any polling from them in a month or so. In fact, it’s really the NYT that sets the agenda. But for the moment it does appear that Biden has started to edge up in the polls. Let’s just wait and see,
I’ve been watching the media for the last few days insist that abortion isn’t a top line issue for anyone according to the polls so the Democrats are really in trouble because the public believes the nation is suffering economically even though their own finances have improved tremendously. Having said that the news out of Florida could make a difference. Marc Caputo reports:
On Monday, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that a ballot initiative for a state constitutional amendment protecting access to the procedure can go to a vote this fall. The Republican Party of Florida opposes the measure, which will be on the same ballot as Trump.
That raises the question: Will Florida’s best-known Republican vote yes or no?
Trump isn’t saying.
A written statement from his campaign on Monday evening avoided taking a position on the Florida initiative: “President Trump supports preserving life but has also made clear that he supports states’ rights because he supports the voters’ right to make decisions for themselves.”
As one Trump adviser who has discussed the issue with the former president put it, “There’s no point weighing in, at least not now.”
Rick Scott is running for re-election and only won last time by 10,000 votes so maybe …
They also ruled that Desantis’ 6 week abortion ban can take effect immediately so until this constitutional issue is decided in November, Florida is going to have one of the most draconian laws on the books and Trump is going to be squeezed.
It’s hard to imagine that Florida is in play now but you never know. Despite the pundits’ dismissal of the issue as irrelevant because it isn’t showing the polls as the most important issue, it’s been pretty damned potent so far. And it does appear that Republicans are going to have to spend money on the state which, considering their anemic fundraising, they really don’t want to do.
Trump now must spend even more he does not have
Donald Trump’s campaign got a kick in the teeth on Monday courtesy of Florida Republicans (Mark Joseph Stern, Slate):
The Florida Supreme Court upheld the state’s right to ban abortion on Monday, with devastating consequences for the women of Florida who will live under one of the most draconian abortion bans in the country. With this ruling and two others issued on Monday, however, the court turbocharged the state’s 2024 election, centering the upcoming vote around abortion rights and other personal freedoms. First, by a 6–1 vote, the conservative supermajority abolished the right to abortion under the state constitution, overruling decades of precedent in the process. Its decision greenlights the six-week ban championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republican legislators, effectively ending legal abortion access throughout the entire South when the ban goes into effect on May 1. Next, by a 4–3 vote, the court allowed a ballot initiative that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution onto November’s ballot; this decision gives voters a chance to overturn the six-week ban and establish Florida as the sole haven for reproductive care in the South. Finally, by a 5-2 vote, the court approved another initiative that would legalize recreational marijuana in the state, rejecting DeSantis’ strenuous effort to keep the question off the ballot. The initiatives on abortion and marijuana will require 60 percent approval to pass.
Florida voter enthusiasm just got a shot of nitro down the carburator.
“Today’s rulings prove exactly what is at stake at the ballot box,” said Nikki Fried, the chair of the Florida Democratic Party. “Florida voters understand that voting yes on Amendment 4 in November is our last line of defense.”
The abortion ban ruling will have a dual effect on abortion access in Florida. While the case centered on the constitutionality of the state’s existing 15-week ban, which took effect in the summer of 2022, the court’s ruling will also trigger a far stricter law passed last spring that will outlaw abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, before many people know they’re pregnant. Florida’s six-week ban was written to take effect only if the Supreme Court greenlit the 15-week law.
Over 84,000 people got abortions in Florida last year, exceeding almost any other state. The amendment will give voters a chance to reverse the ban.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody (R) objected to the language in the proposed amendment, saying it was too broad. But in their ruling Monday, the justices wrote that the amendment’s intent and potential scope were more than clear.
“The broad sweep of this proposed amendment is obvious in the language of the summary,” they wrote. “Denying this requires a flight from reality.”
Ignoring for a moment that Republicans’ flight left the airport years ago, “the trio of decisions constitutes a legal and political earthquake,” writes Stern. “Democrats could not have asked for a better set of issues to campaign on.”
Stern continues:
As governor, DeSantis frequently touts his staunch advocacy for freedom, pitching Florida as a refuge for liberty-loving Americans who just want to be let alone. Monday’s decisions, though, highlight his passion for wielding the machinery of the state to interfere with some of the most private decisions a person can make. In seven months, Floridians will have an opportunity to undo both his assault on reproductive rights and his war against legal marijuana if they can reach the 60 percent threshold. These issues are bound to dominate the discourse leading into the election, and Republicans’ positions on both poll terribly with the electorate. A large majority of Americans support legal access to both abortion and cannabis. Florida Democrats are already planning to put these topics at the center of their campaign. It’s no wonder DeSantis fought to keep them from getting a vote. Individual freedom will be on the ballot in November, decided through a democratic process that the governor tried relentlessly to obstruct.
The Biden-Harris campaign released this statement yesterday declaring Florida Ground Zero for Trump’s MAGA Blueprint:
President Biden’s Opening in Florida – “Team Biden-Harris enters the general election cycle in a position of strength. Because our agenda is strong and a proven winner, because our coalition is broad and diverse, and because of our strong financial footing, we are entering the general election with multiple pathways to 270 electoral votes – something Team Trump is not afforded. That includes investing in Florida as a pathway to victory: a state where President Biden has a compelling story of results, Trump and Rick Scott’s extreme agenda is making Floridians’ lives worse, and the Democratic coalition is growing and energized.
Abortion Rights Will Be Front and Center in Florida This Election Cycle
Florida’s Supreme Court just issued a ruling allowing Ron DeSantis’ near-total abortion ban to go into effect next month, ripping away access to reproductive care before many women know they are pregnant. This new, extreme abortion ban – one that Donald Trump personally paved the way for – will now amount to a ban for the entire Southeast. Women in need of reproductive care throughout the region now face a choice between putting their lives at risk or traveling hundreds or thousands of miles to get care.
As we’ve seen in election after election, protecting abortion rights is mobilizing a diverse and growing segment of voters to help buoy Democrats up and down the ballot. With an abortion amendment officially on the ballot this November in Florida, President Biden and Vice President Harris and their commitment to fighting back against Donald Trump and Rick Scott’s attacks on reproductive freedom will help mobilize and expand the electorate in the state, given the overwhelming majority of Floridians support abortion rights. And Florida Republicans will be forced to defend their cruel, indefensible support of this abortion ban.
The rulings mean Donald Trump will have to spend more time and more money he doesn’t have in Florida. He’ll have to work for it. And he’s not one for working.
Biden-Harris released a new ad taking the abortion fight to Trump. The bans are as much a loser for women as they are for him.
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RFK Jr. claims he’ll make North Carolina’s presidential ballot
Claiming you have enough signatures to get onto the ballot by petition is not the same as an official determination by the state Board of Elections. Still, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign on Monday announced it had what it needed in North Carolina.
WRAL:
Kennedy’s We The People Party must collect 13,865 valid signatures before May 17 to be on the ballot under North Carolina election law. The campaign said it has collected more than 23,000 signatures, giving them a buffer in case some of the signatures are not counted.
The signatures have to be validated by elections officials before they become official. If validated, North Carolina would be the largest state that Kennedy has gained access. Kennedy is already on the ballot in Utah and has collected the needed signatures in New Hampshire, Nevada and Hawaii.
An individual candidate must collect more than 83,000 signatures to be on the ballot in North Carolina. But a party has a much lower threshold — 0.25% of the total number of voters who voted in the most recent general election for governor, which would be 13,865 — to place a nominee on state ballots. All the signatures must be from registered voters and at least 200 must come from at least three separate congressional districts in the state.
If Kennedy qualifies, it remains to be seen how this will impact the presidential contest in the state. There is a lot going on here. A lot of moving parts. The Biden campaign last week announced it was opening 10 field offices across the state. It is expanding its state staff. After a rere joint appearance with President Biden last week, Vice President Harris will return on Thursday for her fourth visit to the state to open an office in Charlotte.
Trump’s campaign has not announced when it will open field offices in the state. The Associated Press reported last week that some Republican Party leaders in battleground states raised concerns about a “skeleton” campaign, quoting Pete Hoekstra, the chairman of the Michigan Republican Party.
While former President Barack Obama was the last Democrat to win North Carolina in 2008, party leaders are trying once again to put the state in play. In 2020, Trump won the state by about 1.34 percent, which was his smallest margin of any state he won that year.
Political strategist and CEO of TargetSmart, Tom Bonier, notes that youth voter registration in the state is on a streak, even if Nate Cohn questions whether they will vote BIden.
From my front-row seat, I’m trying to ignore polls. Some of the fundamentals — blocking and tackling — are more important. Trump fatigue is setting in. A reporter at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vice-president announcement found more Republicans than disgruntled Democrats supporting Kennedy. Anybody-but-Trump Republicans may find the anti-vaxxer candidate an appealing alternative.
Plus, Trump’ support in North Carolina’s metro areas is collapsing, according to Carolina Forward:
For over 15 years now, a majority of North Carolina’s counties have been shrinking in population, and many more are essentially stagnant. This is not a prediction or even a trend – it has already happened, and is accelerating. While North Carolina is also one of the fastest-growing states in the nation, the large majority of this growth has accrued to just a handful of urban and suburban counties – all of which are voting Democratic by increasing margins in each election cycle.
According to the U.S. Census, fully 41% of all of North Carolina’s eye-popping population growth as a state from 2010 to 2020 accrued to only two counties: Wake (22%) and Mecklenburg (19%). We have covered this phenomenon in detail here, here, here and here.
This would not be an issue if North Carolina’s heavily Republican, majority-white rural counties were also growing by leaps and bounds. But they are not – in fact, the opposite is happening. Nor are there clear opportunities for finding new GOP voters. The largest county where Republican margins are increasing even modestly is Davidson county, which ranks #17 in the state for population.
It gets worse for the GOP:
North Carolina Republicans are seeing a rapid implosion of their brand in not just North Carolina’s cities, but also its booming suburbs, which together are the source of nearly all the state’s growth. Worse, there is no clear way for them to address it. A brief recap of the two largest counties in the state demonstrates this in stark relief.
- Across Mecklenburg county, Republicans once routinely won and held legislative seats. Today, the party is almost extinct. The list of defeats is a who’s-who of the state political battles of the 2010s: Bob Rucho (who quit); Dan Bishop (also quit); Scott Stone (defeated 2018); Bill Brawley (defeated 2018, and again in 2022); Andy Dulin (defeated 2018); and Jeff Tarte (defeated 2018). Perhaps the most famous example, though, is Pat McCrory, who was the last Republican to win the mayorship of Charlotte for the foreseeable future. In 2023, the Republican mayoral candidate was defeated by 52 points.
- In Wake county, the situation is similar. Republicans have experienced a die-off of legislative candidates: Paul “Skip” Stam (quit); Nelson Dollar (defeated 2018); Marilyn Avila (defeated 2016); Tom Murry (defeated 2014); Chris Malone (defeated 2018); John Adcock (defeated 2018); Gary Pendleton (defeated 2016); Tamara Barringer (defeated 2018); John Alexander (quit). Wake Republicans are no longer capable of meaningfully competing at the county level in Wake, prompting the legislature to change the county’s electoral system instead.
After the 2024 election, there may no longer be a single Republican in Mecklenburg county’s state legislative delegation. Only two Republicans represent Mecklenburg in the state legislature today: Rep. John Bradford (HD-98) and Rep. Tricia Cotham (HD-105). Cotham, of course, was not elected as a Republican at all. Her race, while competitive, is quite likely to flip Democratic this fall. Bradford announced he was quitting the legislature altogether in 2023. Bradford’s seat, House District 98 (once held by Thom Tillis), is also a likely Democratic flip this fall.
And it’s not helping that the North Carolina Republican ticket will include the fringiest of the fringe candidates.
Biden winning in this state will take shaving the GOP margins not just in urban areas but in red, rural counties. TBD.
Update: Misattributed original photo. Swapped it out with another.
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That was a lie. Meidas Touch reports:
David Zere, host of the MAGA Real America’s Voice show Breaking Point, kicked off a firestorm of social media misinformation Friday when he falsely claimed that disgraced former President Donald Trump had paid off the mortgage for the family of slain NYPD officer Jonathan Diller.
Trump used the wake for Officer Diller, who was killed at a traffic stop on Monday, as a photo op, posing for cameras in front of a line of NYPD officers and railing against crime in the U.S.
“We have to get back to law and order. We have to do a lot of things differently. This is not working. This is happening too often,” Trump said, despite violent crime rates being lower now than they were during his presidency.
Zere said in an interview with Jack Posobiec prior to the wake, “The story here is that Trump gave a donation to Tunnels to Towers, I believe he paid off the mortgage for this family.”
Trump himself never claimed he would be donating to pay off Diller’s mortgage, but the lie quickly spread on social media following Zere’s interview. Students for Trump Chair Ryan Fournier posted, “[Trump] has a huge heart and I’ve seen it time and time again.”
Other MAGA accounts chimed in to praise the former President for his supposed act of charity for the fallen officer’s family, calling him a “man of the people” and saying “this is our President who cares.”
In reality, Tunnels to Towers Foundation, a non profit that provides “mortgage-free homes to Gold Star and fallen first responder families with young children, and [builds] specially-adapted smart homes for catastrophically injured veterans and first responders,” quickly announced it would be paying off Diller’s mortgage to provide relief for his family.
The charity put a button link for the public to donate to Diller’s mortgage on the home page of its website:
David Zere then issued a clarification, responding to a Tunnels to Towers post on X promoting their campaign for Diller’s family, saying he “may have been mistaken” about Trump donating to help Diller. However, other major accounts, like Fournier, at the time of writing have not taken down their posts crediting Trump, despite receiving a fact check from X Community Notes.
Neither Zere’s retraction, nor the Community Notes fact check can stop the spread of misinformation once it takes hold in the MAGA corners of social media. The image of Trump as the benevolent dear leader is strong in the minds of his supporters.
But as the family of slain Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick pointed out, Trump has spent the last year on the campaign trail praising January 6th insurrectionists who attacked police officers. In recent months he has taken to calling them “unbelievable patriots” and “hostages.”
Trump has said many times during this campaign that he is seeking immunity for police officers, just as he seeks it for himself. He claims that you just have to put up with the occasional “bad apple” or rogue president in order to allow them to properly do their jobs, which basically means he believes they and he should be able to defy the law if, in their judgment, it’s what they need to do. In other words, it’s not just immunity he seeks for Trump and police, it’s also impunity. With his promises of pardons for the J6 criminals on day one of a new presidency, it appears he now wants the same for his followers
If Trump once again incites his followers if he loses the election (which I think is very likely) there may very well be plenty of police who fight on their side this time. That’s undoubtedly in the back of his mind these days when he stages a performance as he did at that funeral last weekend.
It appears to be on the table:
Rep. Don Bacon on Sunday warned that “it’s possible” that Speaker Mike Johnson could face a vote to oust him if he moves to pass Ukraine aid in the House.
“I’m not going to deny it,” Bacon, R-Neb., said when asked by moderator Kristen Welker on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” whether it’s possible Johnson could lose his speakership over Ukraine aid.
“We have one or two people that are not team players. They’d rather enjoy the limelight, the social media,” Bacon added, though he did not name any members.
“It’s a very narrow majority, and one or two people can make us a minority,” he said.
Bacon favors some support for Ukraine and highlighted his partnership with Reps. Jared Golden, D-Maine, Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Ed Case, D-Hawaii, on a Ukraine aid bill.
“We put a bill together that focuses on military aid — a $66 billion bill that provides military aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan,” Bacon told Welker, calling for a “bicameral, bipartisan solution.”
“If we do this bill, and I think we will, there’s enough support in the House to get this done. And I want to make sure that we have support in the Senate,” Bacon said.
Should the Democrats bail out the Republicans in the name of preventing dysfunction? I don’t think so. We’re in an election year! Let the Republicans stew in their own toxic mess. But I won’t be surprised to see the so-called “frontline” Dems in swing districts decide it’s in their best interest to show themselves as “moderates.” Maybe they’re right. But it’s going to leave a bad taste in the Democratic base’s mouth if they do it and it will make no difference in the long run. Johnson isn’t going to remain as speaker or minority leader. Marge Greene will exert her will sooner rather than later.
The good news (maybe) is that they may get the Ukraine funding done. At least I hope so. It’s dire.
They never miss a chance to be racist garbage
Look at what they’re saying about the mayor of Baltimore:
It was just after 1:30 Tuesday morning when Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D) says he received the call from the city’s fire chief.
“He said, ‘Sir, the Key Bridge collapsed,’’ said Scott, who was awake with a 3-month-old child when the call came in. “I said, ‘Repeat that.’ He said, ‘The Key Bridge collapsed, a ship hit it, it’s gone, sir.’ ”
Scott, 39, said he threw on his official Baltimore city jacket and headed for the scene, calling the governor, the presidents of the state Senate and city council, and the city administrator along the way. When he arrived at the shore of the Patapsco River to see the wreckage, “you could still hear it moving at that point,” he said of the Dali, the 985-foot ship that had taken down the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
Just before daybreak, as Scott began appearing in national television interviews to speak of the “unthinkable tragedy,” the attacks started.
One user on X, called him “Baltimore’s DEI mayor,” a reference to diversity, equity and inclusion programs that have come under attack by conservatives who say they lead to minorities getting jobs over more qualified White candidates. Meanwhile, others attacked Scott for his facial hair and for not wearing a suit. “He looks like your average street criminal,” another X user wrote. Neither user responded to a request for comment.
“He was doing what anyone would expect an elected official to do, and you assign that to DEI. It is bonkers. It is absolutely bonkers,” said Caryn York, president of the nonprofit Baltimore Corps.
The collapse of the Key Bridge has complicated the young politico’s efforts to revive the city’s fortune, and it thrust him into the national spotlight, making him an even larger target for racist commentators. It’s to be expected, Scott said in an interview. “When you’re young and Black in leadership, you know that that kind of stuff is going to come,” he said.
The racist attacks haven’t been reserved for him, Scott noted. Maryland’s governor, Wes Moore (D), who is Black, and the immigrants who lost their lives in the collapse have become targets, too.
Being Baltimore mayor’s has never been an easy job. The city’s high unemployment and crime rates, along with miles of blighted property, have long made it a somewhat thankless task. But as a young Black man, Scott said, he faces an additional challenge: a barrage of racist dog whistles, from being called a “thug” to being accused of fathering “one more Baltimore illegitimate black baby.”
I would imagine on the right wing sites, the racism was even more appalling. This stuff is worse than it’s been in decades.
Jena Griswold, the Colorado Secretary of State was on Chris Hayes talking about the threats she got and revealed that there was a 600% increase in threats to her and staff. 600% WTF?
That day, she received an email declaring: “We are coming for you bitch.” Another person emailed, “If you have kids, I hope they get murdered by illegal aliens,” adding, “Seriously, just die.”
In a voicemail, someone said, “I can’t wait to find you and follow you to your house and expose your address.” Another person left a voicemail saying, “I’d love for you to die.” Some time this month, a person told Griswold on social media, “Take my advice and wear Kevlar … a lot of Kevlar!!!”
‘Just Die’: Colorado Elections Chief Who Took on Trump Sees 600% Spike in Threats, By Andrew Perez, Adam Rawnsley, Ryan Bort, Asawin Suebsaeng March 28, 2024
On these cable news segments we often hear some specific threats, but unless someone counts all the threats, and then tells the media about them, we never know just how huge the problem is. And if we don’t know how huge the problem is, we also don’t know how terrible the response to the problem is.
At the end of the segment Griswold talked about how the DOJ Election Threat Response Task Force has failed. It’s been going since 2021 and has only 20 convictions.
Have you heard about any of those 20 convictions? Did you see any mugshots of the perps who are now serving 3 1/2 years in prison for threatening election officials? No. Because the DOJ didn’t use any photos of the convicted felons in their press release or press conference!
This is a huge failure by the DOJ. They MUST promote their successes to send a message to the general public that if you threaten election officials, their staff and poll workers you will be found, arrested, tried and punished. And I’m not the only one who thinks this. This is from AZ’s new secretary of state,
Even when federal prosecutors secure a victory after charging people making these violent threats, Arizona’s secretary of state argues that barely anyone hears about it — and that’s a major problem.
“In almost every other area criminality is deterred through public campaigns,” he adds. The Justice Department’s election task force issues typically press releases after convictions, but Fontes says press releases aren’t enough to deter people or adequate given the extent of the problem.
Top Arizona Dem: Biden’s DOJ Is Failing to Protect Election Workers From ‘Domestic Terrorism’
As my friend Bill said, that’s like if the feds did a massive drug and weapons bust but didn’t have a photo of the guy they busted or a photo of the 600 pounds of cocaine stacked up next to 275 rocket propelled grenades.
I couldn’t find a photo anywhere online of Joshua Russell of Bucyrus, Ohio who got 2.5 years in prison for death threats made in 2022 to Arizona’s top election official. The only mug shot I found was of Frederick Goltz of Lubbock Texas. He threaten Arizona elected officials and their kids on RW social media. I read all court documents for the entire Goltz case and the media coverage. His lawyers used all the usual explanations, ‘He was joking. He was in another state, he didn’t intend to take action, his comment was taken out of context, he is a good father who cares for his kids.” The prosecution countered all of those and proved he was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Goltz was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison.
This would have been an excellent case for the DOJ to promote nationally as a deterrent, because he threatened to kill kids too. But they didn’t. It was one of the victims who posted on social media that I found the mugshot. The VICTIMS should NOT have to promote the successful prosecution.
In the case of threats to Jena Griswold, the Colorado Secretary of State’s office went to the journalists at Rolling Stone and told them what was happening. THIS IS NOT what law enforcement tells people to do. But when law enforcement isn’t doing their job, they have to. Law enforcement knew of all the threats to Judge Engoron’s clerk during Trump’s trial, but they don’t talk about “ongoing investigations” so the New York state court system’s Department of Public Safety kept count of the threats and told the media.
Here’s Lisa Rubin telling Chris Hayes about the 275 Pages of transcribed voicemail threats. When he saw that the scale and scope of the threats it finally made an impact on Hayes.
The Secretary Of State office had to go the press because law enforcement isn’t doing their job. But even media pressure isn’t enough. There needs to be an look into WHY law enforcement is failing and fix the problem.
Thanks to great reporting from Linda So and Jason Szep at Reuters, we’ve learned that law enforcement often won’t investigate and they dismiss threats as not rising to the level of criminal threat prosecution. Or they declare them “protected political speech” But based on the experts who reviewed the threats, that’s a bullshit excuse. This is a must read piece on the failure of law enforcement to manage threats to U.S. election workers. It’s from 2021 and is damning.
U.S. election workers get little help from law enforcement as terror threats mount Reuters Campaign of Fear Sept. 8, 2021,
What’s really behind law enforcement not wanting to do this?
1) It’s not a priority
2) They don’t have a budget
3) They don’t see it as a big deal, it’s “online” or on social media, so it’s not local or “real world.”
4) It’s a lot of work for a low conviction rate, especially if they have to prove intent.
5) The people getting threatened aren’t important (POC, low-level election workers, women like Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss)
6) The people who are doing the threatening are not seen as domestic terrorists.
7) Lots of cops are MAGA Trumpers
I’ve dug into the reasons and excuses for law enforcement’s failure to act.
1) Show the problem is huge and real.
The Secretary of States offices should talk to more people in the media about scale and scope.
They should describe the actions that need to be taken, and by whom.
There should be talk about who is blocking those actions and what pressures they are using.
(Is this about Trump lovers in law enforcement? Budget? Fear of speaking out?)
4) Determine what pressures can apply to get action. What if the stories about 1,000s of actionable threats isn’t enough?
Do we need to expose the INTENTIONAL internal failures and how they will lead to deaths?
And finally, since I LOVE to talk about successes, not just failures, when a law gets passed or a person is convicted for threats or a victim wins a civil law suit and is compensated for their pain and suffering, promote those stories! Make it a big deal!
(BTW, I’ve been doing this by educating groups on the power of civil legal actions and teaching them how to do follow up stories with the media. What I don’t know how to do, and needs to be done, is a social media plan that addresses the coordinated disinformation and gaslighting and fights back.)
One thing I learned from Glenn Kirschner is that the DOJ wants people to believe they are above pressure, but he said when they get new information, either from the original reporting or from reports from sources like the Secretary of State’s offices, the DOJ is forced to look at it and respond.
Based on this information everyone being threatened needs to USE that information. Get your story out there. Demand of law enforcement, “Where are the arrests?” If law enforcement does HAVE a success, SHOW IT!
Get the media to stop with their OWN excuses. I still see a reflexive move of the media to give the benefit of the doubt to people making threats. I get it, they don’t want to be seen as censors. They want to be able to criticize elected officials, Chris Hayes was still pushing the “You should expect some incoming” as a DA, as a normal experience, until he heard of the 275 transcribed pages of voicemail threats. That finally got through to him. But the media, and the public, need to hear it OVER AND OVER again. As Barb McQuade points out in her book, the right is exploiting our old views of in-person free speech in an actual public square, via an era of anonymous bots pushing lies and threats on social media.
The DOJ Election Threats Task Force should be doing big national stories about the people who are in jail for threats. SO big that FOX news can’t avoid covering them. And when RW social media and FOX try to turn the perpetrators into “misunderstood martyrs” whose “free speech is being censored!”
There needs to be a social media rapid response team that flips that lie around. “This guy IS NOT A “FREE SPEECH” HERO.” THIS GUY THREATENED TO KILL KIDS, HE IS BEING PUNISHED AS THE LAW PROVIDES.”
The social media owners should know this is against their Terms Of Service AND the LAW! Any gaslighting about it being free speech needs to be called out as the BS it is.
I’d repeat what John Keller, head of the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force, had to say in this press conference,
“Death threats are not debate.
John Keller, head of the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force
Death threats do not contribute to the marketplace of ideas.
Death threats are not a protected constitutional right.”
When there are no big stories about convictions for threats, no photos of the people who are going to prison for years following a trial by a jury of their peers, there will be no deterrence. Yes, justice was done, but the public doesn’t know about. Humans need to SEE justice being done.
I asked people for an example of seeing justice getting done. They recommended the ending scene of The Untouchables. I thought that was appropriate, especially since Trump has taken to comparing himself to Al Capone lately.