Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Simon sums it up

The press loves a horse race like the kid in the story assumes in a room full of manure there must be a pony. Naturally, the Washington Post reports “warning signs for Biden, Trump and Haley” in the Michigan primary results from Tuesday night. The race is on! And it’s a nail-biter!

President Biden and former president Donald Trump won the Democratic and Republican primaries in Michigan by huge margins Tuesday night — but there were serious problems for both candidates lurking under the surface.

Trump crushed Nikki Haley by over 40 points.

Biden, meanwhile, won the Democratic primary by an even more overwhelming margin — but 13 percent of voters marked their ballots “uncommitted” following a campaign to persuade voters to not to support Biden in protest of his support for Israel and his refusal to call for a cease-fire in Gaza.

The protesters want a cease-fire. They don’t want Biden to call for one. Biden and his team have been pressing Israel’s Bibi Netanyahu unsuccessfully for a cease-fire for weeks.

The press wants to build suspense, though.

While Trump has won every primary so far, Haley’s ability to keep winning so many votes even though she lacks a clear path to the nomination raises questions about how many of her voters will back Trump in November.

There’s trouble for Biden as well.

More than 100,000 Democratic primary voters marked their ballots “uncommitted,” far exceeding the modest goal of 10,000 votes set by Listen to Michigan, the group that organized the campaign.

It wasn’t just protest votes by Palestinian Americans and allies horrified over carnage in Gaza. Protest votes by Armenians muddy the waters further. They mounted their own “uncommitted” effort over Biden’s support for Azerbaijan “which launched a military offensive in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region last year. The region had been under the control of Armenian separatists for decades.”

With no exit polls conducted in Michigan, what the “uncommitted” vote means is unclear (New York Times):

A vote for “uncommitted” was a serious form of protest against Mr. Biden, but it’s just not the same as voting for Donald J. Trump in the general election. That simple fact limits how much we can read into the results for November, especially as there was no exit poll to offer insight into the attitudes of protest voters.

At the same time, it’s also possible that Mr. Biden’s problems go well beyond those who voted uncommitted in a primary. The typical Democratic primary voter is disproportionately old, white and loyal to Democrats. Mr. Biden might be faring even worse among the kinds of Democratic-leaning voters who stayed home.

But despite overwhelming wins by both Trump and Biden, anything could happen!

Simon Rosenberg doesn’t have to sell papers or advertising. His message to Democrats has remained consistent for months:  “I would much rather be us than them.”

Rosenberg: Trump is underperforming now in 4 states, he’s spending more money than he’s taking in, his party is broke, they’re replacing leadership, dozens of party leaders indicted, House Republicans are abandoning ship, he’s getting crushed in court.. I would much rather be us pic.twitter.com/glfJgTO7zS

— Acyn (@Acyn) February 28, 2024

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New Reuters Ipsos poll:

Worries about political extremism or threats to democracy have emerged as a top concern for U.S. voters and an issue where President Joe Biden has a slight advantage over Donald Trump ahead of the November election, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.

Overall, 34% of respondents said Biden had a better approach for handling extremism, compared to 31% who said Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination.

Sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy. I get why 31% think Trump can better handle extremism — they want a tyrannical authoritarian to put his enemies in camps and he’s promising to do that. But why in the hell does only 34% back Biden on this issue since he’s what’s standing in the way of an extremist wannabe dictator becoming president again? They think he’s old so Trump would be better? What?

Here’s more detail:

Some 21% of respondents in the three-day poll, which closed on Sunday, said “political extremism or threats to democracy” was the biggest problem facing the U.S., a share that was marginally higher than those who picked the economy – 19% – and immigration – 18%.

Biden’s Democrats considered extremism by far the No. 1 issue while Trump’s Republicans overwhelmingly chose immigration.

Extremism was independents’ top concern, cited by almost a third of independent respondents, followed by immigration, cited by about one in five. The economy ranked third.

Trump’s “I know you are but what am I” accusations that Biden is the one assaulting democracy notwithstanding, I certainly hope that the man who continues to perpetrate The Big Lie is not seen by a majority of swing state voters as the one to stop extremism. If that and the economy are the top two issues, with abortion rights thrown into the mix, Biden should eke out a victory.

US president Joe Biden says he hopes a Gaza ceasefire deal can be agreed between Israel and Hamas by Monday, as he took questions from reporters while on a visit to an ice cream shop in New York. pic.twitter.com/nbiGmtpBy2

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) February 27, 2024

Last night as I was scrolling through Xitter I came across a dozen or so posts excoriating Joe Biden for discussing a possible Gaza ceasefire while he was eating ice cream. He was asked about by a reporter and he answered it. And it was possibly good news too. (He said he was optimistic that there would be a ceasefire by the end of the coming weekend.) But he was bad for doing it while he had an ice cream cone in his hand which I guess means he should not have been eating any ice cream when there is a crisis in Gaza or he should have told the reporter to fuck off, in which case he would have been accused of avoiding the subject. This criticism came from both left and right, which was bizarre.

As for the right wingers — whatever. They have to reach for anything they can and this was on the level of “Obama wore a tan suit at the podium” level sophistry from them. From the left, it’s a little bit more serious.

I understand that people are very agitated about this war, and they are right to be so. They’re trying to influence Joe Biden to do something to stop the massacre of innocent civilians in Gaza and are using whatever means they have. I am optimistic that they understand that everything will be worse for Palestinians and everyone else on this world, including themselves, if Donald Trump is president, and aren’t going to cut off their noses to spite their faces in November. (They should probably consult with some Cambodians to see how well that works out in the real world.)

Josh Marshall had some smart thoughts about the Michigan race tonight where this is a huge topic on cable news today and consequently, where the results will be seen through the lens of the Gaza war:

Here are a few thoughts on the Michigan primary tonight, in which both parties’ returns will be closely watched but especially the Democrats’. It will be the first clear electoral test of the degree of dissatisfaction with President Biden over the Israel/Hamas war, especially in the Arab-American and Muslim-American communities.

One thing to keep in mind is that there are a couple movements trying to participate in the backlash against the President. There’s an “Abandon Biden” group which wants to do what it says, which is get as many people as possible to refuse to vote for President Biden in the November election. The consequences of that decision be damned.

The main focus tonight will be on those pushing for an “uncommitted” vote. The key thing to know is that this group very specifically does not have the same professed goal. “Uncommitted” in this case is best understood as providing a safe harbor of sorts for Democrats who want to signal outrage or opposition without refusing Biden support in the November election.

For those of us who think the November election is a binary choice between Biden and Trump with existential stakes on the line, this is an important and valid distinction. Just because you have to be there to vote for Biden in November doesn’t mean you have to squelch all criticism in the meantime. Or at least that’s the idea. For most.

There are also clearly very different forces operating under the “uncommitted” banner. On the one hand they include people like former Rep. Andy Levin, a liberal zionist and one time synagogue President who is a supporter of Biden’s reelection but also an opponent of his Gaza policy and appears to see the “uncommitted” banner as a way to express opposition and outrage while keeping people within the Democratic and Biden tent. For others like Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud and Michigan House Majority Leader Abraham Aiyash, it is more a show of strength, to put up numbers that show Biden the risk of not changing his policy well in advance of November. But many in this latter group are setting the threshold for what Biden has to do so high that they seem to be all but foreclosing the chance to support him.

All that said, “never” supporting Biden — as the “Abandon Biden” movement, and many others in the broader, left-wing protest community, promise to do — is a strong word and one that is, in its nature, hard to climb down from. So as much as I have very strong disagreements and, at the moment, quite negative feelings about the people who are mounting the “uncommitted” campaign, we should not lose sight of the fact that they are very intentionally and conspicuously keeping at least one foot in the Democratic tent. That is the sine qua non thing that everyone who abhors Trump can and should demand from everyone who is not eager to see another Trump presidency.

With that said, let me note a slightly different point.

It comes from this Politico profile of Michigan House Majority Leader Abraham Aiyash, a key supporter of the “uncommitted” push. But it could have come from countless other similar pieces over recent months. Down toward the end of the article the author includes quotes from top Michigan Democrats Debbie Dingell and Gretchen Whitmer essentially saying that at the end of the day not voting for Biden means electing Donald Trump and those who don’t will own that outcome. Aiyash responds by saying: “I think it is very insulting when folks come to Arab and Muslim communities and say, ‘if you don’t support Biden, you are effectively supporting Trump.’ It’s disrespectful to communities that were impacted.”

As I said, Aiyash is not alone in this rejoinder. It’s standard. But it’s also a bridge too far. Every individual and every community has to judge for themselves what their limits are, whether a point of principle or pain is so grave that they are willing to be part of placing Donald Trump back in the White House. Indeed, Aiyash is on his solidest ground in saying that it is a measure of the intensity of his feelings about the situation that he is considering not supporting Biden in November. But it cannot be a disrespect or a further offense to say squarely and directly what the outcome of the decision he and others are themselves considering may well be. It cannot be a disrespect simply to state the reality of the situation.

As is the case in virtually every U.S. presidential election, the choice becomes a binary one. There are two possible outcomes: a Trump presidency or a Biden presidency. There’s no running away from that choice. For members or erstwhile members of the Democratic coalition, sitting it out is a vote for Trump. No getting away from that. The power of this kind of high octane protest politics is precisely that the stakes are so high. It simply doesn’t wash to brandish those stakes and then cry foul when anyone else invokes them back at you.

The argument that it is disrespectful might be stronger if Biden’s team were to say, “Tough luck, you don’t have any other options.” But that’s hardly the case. The Biden administration has been practically falling over itself in an effort to mend fences, and has also been shifting its actual policy — both for domestic political reasons and because the situation on the ground as well as internationally has changed.

Sigh:

U.S. President Joe Biden is facing criticism after he weighed in on the Israel-Hamas war while eating ice-creamhttps://t.co/Eyw7tLldOJ pic.twitter.com/c0xbFM0moO

— TIME (@TIME) February 27, 2024

Oh my…

From Joe Perticone at The Bulwark:

During an appearance yesterday on the Talking Feds podcast, former North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat, caused a bit of a stir when she floated a rumor that Rep. Matt Rosendale may have a three-alarm scandal on his hands.

Just a little rumor: I think their caucus may lose a member in the next couple of days. 

It might be the congressman from Montana. Just to gossip a little bit, there’s a reason why Rosendale backed out of that Senate race. The rumor is that he impregnated a 20-year-old staff person.

Immediately after I heard these words, I reached out to Rosendale’s spokesman Ron Kovach, who replied in an email, “This is 100% false and defamatory and former Senator Heitkamp will be hearing from our lawyers soon.”

Heitkamp didn’t outright claim that Rosendale is guilty of what she alleged she heard: She mentioned only that the story has been going around. That is a big difference as far as lawyers are concerned, if they do end up getting involved.

But Rosendale suddenly leaving Congress would throw the House into an even greater state of chaos, hard as that might be to imagine. Losing another member of the House Republican Conference would leave the GOP majority so thin that if you held it up you’d be able to see the sun shining through it.

Rosendale announced that he was running for the Senate against Jon Tester but dropped out almost immediately a couple of weeks ago. The Party poohbahs were unhappy that he was running because they think they have a chance to pick up the seat so everyone assumed they’d talked him out of it. But maybe that wasn’t it at all. He’s also one of the Crazy Eight who ousted McCarthy who has knives out for all of them so this might be part of it too.

Still, I think they will move heaven and earth to keep him in his seat for now. If he is forced to resign… oh, it’s just too delicious to think about.

Anyway, you just hate to hear it, don’t you? (And, by the way, what 20 year old would want to be with that guy???)

Salon caught Trump’s latest late night freakout. He seems upset:

Donald Trump began his Monday raging about the slew of civil and criminal trials mounting against him, bemoaning specifically local trials like the New York criminal case set to start at the end of March. The former president recently attended a hearing in that case, which was brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and charges him with 34 felony counts related to alleged hush-money payments he made to an adult film actress in 2016. The presiding judge denied Trump’s request to dismiss the case and set a March 25 trial date.

Despite a triumphant Saturday following his win in South Carolina’s GOP primary, Trump’s slate of legal troubles seemed to take center stage for him Sunday. Just before midnight, he took to Truth Social to praise a Fox News show he was viewing about his New York state fraud case, in which he was ordered to pay $355 million in penalties — now $454 million with interest, and encouraged his followers to watch the rerun at 3 a.m. Eastern time. “Wow! The Mark Levin Show just showed how Unconstitutional and unfair the NYSAG CASE against me is,” Trump said in the post. “A TOTAL HOAX — ELECTION INTERFERENCE AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL!”

Trump hopped back on the app at 6:30 am Monday to demand all trials, including Bragg’s, be “halted” and falsely saddle President Joe Biden with blame for his prosecution. “Why didn’t they bring these FAKE Charges THREE YEARS AGO? That would have solved all of their problems,” the former president wrote in part. “(The answer is that they AIMED for the various trials to come up during my campaign for President, 2024!).”

“In other words, all of these FAKE POLITICAL PROSECUTIONS (PERSECUTIONS!) OF CROOKED JOE BIDEN’S POLITICAL OPPONENT MUST BE IMMEDIATELY HALTED!” he concluded. In addition to the nearly three dozen felony charges against him in New York, Trump faces 57 other criminal charges from two federal cases and a Georgia racketeering case.

They must all be halted!!! Trump Has Spoken!!!

I know he does this stuff as a schtick and it’s a way of pounding home the propaganda that he’s being persecuted. But really, this is much more about Trump’s stunning emotional immaturity, verbal incontinence, lack of impulse control, narcissism etc. This is him having a meltdown in the middle of the night as he often does. And for some reason his followers don’t think there’s anything weird about it.

It’s weird. It’s always been weird.

Catherine Rampell tweeted this short thread that I think expresses the fundamental political message that the Democrats have to hammer home: political FREEDOM.

The more significant political fallout of this IVF discourse may not be revelation that GOP is often anti-family (surprise!), but rather the undermining of narrative that Dems are merely “pro-abortion” (rather than pro-reproductive freedom)  

Subtext (or text) of Repub attacks on Dem abortion positions is that they’re driven by childless elites who want to kill babies.

IVF debate suggests Ds are promoting not abortion, but freedom—specifically, reproductive freedom, to choose when to begin or expand your family

If Dems are smart, this is the angle they’ll play up — perhaps taking a page from @SecretaryPete’s 2020 campaign, about how Dems should reclaim “freedom” as a rhetorical device.

Don’t let anybody tell you that the other side is the side that’s got a handle on freedom. We are the party of freedom and we shouldn’t be afraid to go out there and say it. pic.twitter.com/2lTcEtoaah

— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) March 24, 2019

His message should be even more compelling today, as one party considers putting an authoritarian in office.

2024’s political “freedom” fight isn’t about mask mandates. It’s about when citizens can freely dissent, what books kids are free to read, whether women have bodily freedom. 

Meanwhile, this loser is spouting GOP rhetoric from 1987 like it’s still relevant:

https://twitter.com/highbrow_nobrow/status/1762278209922490527?s=20

Well, except for pregnant women, parents, teachers, non-Christians, foreigners, immigrants and businesses. But sure, other than that, they’re all about tolerance.

“When you see Trump with Putin, as I have on a few occassions, he’s like the 12-year old boy that goes to high school and meets the captain of the football team. ‘My hero!’ It’s really creepy.”

– @TurnbullMalcolm , 29th Prime Minister of Australia.
pic.twitter.com/Bzdu0UUDvm

— The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) February 27, 2024

Yes, yes it is.

So is this:

This is the video of Steve Bannon’s speech at CPAC that #Maddow just played.

I post it to remind everyone that beyond being traitorous or dangerous, these people are also just f***ing weird.

And the average voter does not like ‘weird’.pic.twitter.com/8g6hPKXoov

— TrumpsTaxes (@TrumpsTaxes) February 27, 2024

The autocratic shift is not irreversible

“Wisconsin may be stepping back from the abyss,” writes Bill Leuders at The Bulwark. New maps passed by the Republican-controlled legislature and signed by Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers, mean Wisconsin’s legislative races will be the most competititve in years. Republicans previously engineered years’ worth of lopsided representation in a state in which Democrats like Evers can win statewide races. Now, “more than forty incumbent lawmakers, mostly Republicans, [have] to either move or run against each other.”

The change is not because Republicans have had a change of heart. So why did Republicans who rejected Evers’ appointments and refused funding for the University of Wisconsin’s diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts go along now? Because Democrats wrested back control of the state Supreme Court last April when voters statewide “overwhelmingly elected liberal Janet Protasiewicz” to the court:

They feared that the state supreme court’s new liberal majority would choose maps that were even less friendly to their side. “It was a matter of choosing to be stabbed, shot, poisoned, or led to the guillotine,” explained Republican state Sen. Van Wanggaard. “We chose to be stabbed, so we can live to fight another day.” He was speaking figuratively.

Having leverage counts. Ask Donald “91 Counts” Trump. Using it while you’ve got it counts more.

On Saturday at North Carolina Democrats’ State Executive Committee meeting in Rocky Mount, Democratic National Committee vice chairman Ken Martin, also chair of Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), urged the assembled choir to cheer up:

Ken Martin, who was the featured speaker for the state executive committee’s winter meeting, said Saturday that he believes Democrats have the tendency to be the “woe is me” and “the half-glass empty” party.

At the meeting, held at Rocky Mount High School, Martin spoke of hearing party members saying, “This Democrat is too young. This Democrat is too old. This Democrat is too progressive. This Democrat is too conservative.”

Those complaints are hurting the party, he noted.

“We’ve got to stop that,” Martin said. “We’ve got to stiffen our spine, raise our heads, be proud to be Democrats — and we have to start evangelizing and stop agonizing.”

Martin said that the Democratic Party has an amazing story to tell — “and that’s each of your jobs as party leaders,” he added.

What the Rocky Mount Telegram does not report is Martin’s celebration of the DFL’s progressive policy wins in 2023 with a one-seat Senate margin, control of the House, and Democrat Tim Walz in the governor’s mansion. Democrats delivered “huge investments, tax rebates, paid leave, and abortion rights” and more. CBS News reported:

For the DFL, the 2023 legislative session was anything but low-key, with a wave of progressive bills passed. Cannabis was legalized, abortion access became state law, gun control measures, including expanded background checks and a red flag law, were passed. So was paid family leave, free meals for all K-12 students, felon voting rights and driver’s licenses for the undocumented. 

Legislative majorities are fleeting, Martin noted. It is crucial to use them while you have them. Don’t hold back. Underreach is worse than overreach.

“It is essential that we step back and recognize the tremendous progress we’re making. We need to celebrate our successes — and we need to make sure everyone else knows about them as well,” Martin insisted. “You see, if we’re not willing to take joy in our accomplishments, how can we expect anyone else to?”

Look what Biden has accomplished with his one-seat Senate margin and a House Republican blockade.

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Pay no attention to that foreign-born worker

“You can’t grow like this with just the native workforce. It’s not possible,” says Pia Orrenius, vice president and senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

The Washington Post’s online front page this morning blares that immigration is fueling the “roaring” U.S. economy. And you thought there was a border crisis, a crisis hyped by Republicans who believe it can wait for the November election.

“About 50 percent of the labor market’s extraordinary recent growth came from foreign-born workers between January 2023 and January 2024, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of federal data,” The Post reports. By the middle of 2022, rapid growth in the foreign-born labor force “closed the labor force gap created by the pandemic“:

Immigrant workers also recovered much faster than native-born workers from the pandemic’s disruptions, and many saw some of the largest wage gains in industries eager to hire. Economists and labor experts say the surge in employment was ultimately key to solving unprecedented gaps in the economy that threatened the country’s ability to recover from prolonged shutdowns.

She’s the best Biden surrogate so far https://t.co/2UjGRV3kEh

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) February 27, 2024

Even so, apprehensions of migrants at the southern border topped 2 million in fiscal 2023 for the second straight year.

Washington is deadlocked on a solution to the crisis. Senate Republicans and a handful of Democrats voted down a sweeping $118 billion national security package that included changes to the nation’s asylum system and a way to effectively close the border to most migrants when crossings are particularly high. House Republican leadership called the legislation “dead on arrival,” which seemed all but guaranteed after former president Donald Trump came out strongly in opposition.

Opinion polls show that voters widely disapprove of Biden’s handling of the border, and Trump, who is closing in on the Republican nomination, is touting plans for aggressive deportation policies if he wins in November. Republicans have increasingly campaigned on the idea that immigrants have hurt the economy and taken Americans’ jobs. But the economic record largely shows the opposite.

It’s a presidential election year, so Republicans are playing all their greatest xenophobic hits for their conservative base.

Border apprehensions are not an issue Joe Biden can ignore, however. Perception is reality in politics. Both Biden and Donald “91 Counts” Trump, his likely Republican opponent this fall, will visit the border today to blame each other.

Another Washington Post story:

Biden will visit Brownsville, making his second trip to the border since becoming president. His trip is part of a recent effort to take the initiative on the issue of illegal immigration, which polls suggest has been politically damaging for him.

Trump, the leading Republican presidential contender, will visit Eagle Pass, a city that has become a symbol of Republican defiance against Biden’s handling of immigration. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, seized a park in the city earlier this year, shutting out U.S. Border Patrol agents who had long used it as a staging point.

Biden’s visit underscores his political vulnerability after enduring sustained Republican attacks over record levels of migrants at the border. Biden recently embraced a tough bipartisan Senate proposal on immigration, saying he would use its provisions to shut down the border if crossings reached a certain level.

Republicans, who had demanded that border enforcement measures be added to a foreign aid package, blocked the measure after opposition from Trump, who said he feared its passage would help Biden address a political liability.

Republicans want their weapon.

Biden is exploring executive actions available for slowing the migration and asylum volume, but his authorities are limited. The booming U.S. economy is both a product of and an irresistible draw for migrants not just from Mexico, Central and South America, but from elsewhere in the world. Biden cannot remedy political and economic instability south of the border nor the impacts of climate change with a pen stroke. But as president, he’ll get the blame. He just cannot seem to win credit for the booming economy.

The same is true of Biden’s limited leverage over the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. The U.S. has defense commitments with Israel going back over half a century that it will not abandon because Israel’s temporary leader is acting like a monster. Biden has won blame for not cutting off the Netanyahu government cold turkey, and little credit for non-public and as yet unsuccessful efforts to stop the slaughter of innocents. Ukraine may not be a NATO country, but U.S. military aid to fend off Russian aggression is cheap and in ours and NATO’s interests, yet a Republican-controlled House wants none of it. How quickly Russophiles among the Party of Trump have forgotten “fight them over there so we do not have to face them in the United States of America.” And Ukrainians are not asking us to do any of their fighting.

Biden wanted to be president. This is what it’s like.

If Republicans hate the immigrant flow now, just wait until Vladimir Putin’s troops move farther west.

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If you liked East Germany ca. 1958, you’re going to love Texas in 2024

Spying on your neighbors, creating a paranoid society, was a prime method of control in the Soviet era. We used to think that was a bad idea:

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is calling on “licensed professionals” and “members of the general public” to report the parents of transgender minors to state authorities if it appears the minors are receiving gender-affirming medical care. 

The directive was part of a letter Abbott, a Republican, sent Tuesday to the Department of Family and Protective Services, calling on it to “conduct a prompt and thorough investigation” of any reported instances of minors undergoing “elective procedures for gender transitioning.”

Abbott’s letter follows an opinion released Monday by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, which stated that allowing minors to receive transition care such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery is child abuse under state law. 

Paxton issued the opinion after the Legislature failed last year to pass a bill that would have made it a felony alongside physical and sexual abuse to provide such care to minors. An opinion is an interpretation of existing law; it does not change the law itself but can affect how it is enforced.

In Tuesday’s letter, Abbott tasked licensed professionals who work with children — including teachers, nurses and doctors — and “members of the general public” with reporting such claims. He added that state law “provides criminal penalties for failure to report such child abuse.”

[…]

Adri Pèrez, policy and advocacy strategist for LGBTQ equality at the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said Paxton is trying to distract from the problems plaguing his campaign. He is awaiting trial for a 2015 indictment on charges of securities fraud, and he is under investigation by the FBI over allegations of bribery and abuse of office. Paxton’s office did not return a request for comment.

“There’s no court in Texas or the entire country that has ever found that gender-affirming care can constitute child abuse,” Pèrez said.

Brian Klosterboer, a staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas, said in a statement that neither the opinion nor the letter have a legal effect and “cannot change Texas law nor usurp the constitutional rights of Texas families.”

“​​But they spread fear and misinformation and could spur false reporting of child abuse at a time when DFPS is already facing a crisis in our state’s foster care system,” Klosterboer stated. “The law is clear that parents, guardians, and doctors can provide transgender youth with treatment in accordance with prevailing standards of care. Any parent or guardian who loves and supports their child and is taking them to a licensed health care provider is not engaging in child abuse.”

Spreading fear is the whole point.

Here’s a post from the Adam Smith Institute, a right wing think tank considered to have been the intellectual foundation of Margaret Thatcher’s program in the 1980s:

The opening of its files after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Communism staggered the world with the scale of its operations. It was estimated to have had 500,000 informers, although a former Stasi colonel put the figure as high as 2 million if occasional informants were included.

Its purpose was to stamp out ruthlessly any dissent in the German Democratic Republic, described by Sir Alec Douglas-Home as “neither German, nor Democratic, nor indeed is it a republic.” It was in fact a totalitarian Communist dictatorship, like the other Soviet satellite states of Eastern Europe. Its secret police infiltrated most aspects of East German life, such as schools, universities and recreational organizations such as sports and computer games clubs.

Its agents filmed people though holes drilled in hotel rooms or in their apartments. It intercepted people’s mail and telecommunications. It had a Division of Garbage Analysis that searched garbage for signs of Western foods or other suspicious items. It stored people’s scents so that sniffer dogs could track their movements. It trained, armed and sheltered Western terrorists such as the Baader-Meinhof gang. It ran prison camps for political dissenters. It funded neo-Nazi groups in West Germany to desecrate Jewish sites in a bid to discredit the West.

The activity of spying on, intimidating and imprisoning their own citizens is something that had been practised by all Communist governments, including the Soviet Union, its Warsaw Pact allies, Communist China, and Cuba—which received help from the Stasi in setting up its own secret police. More recently it has been done in Venezuela. This is not something that just happens to be done; it is part and parcel of Communist totalitarianism that it cannot tolerate dissent and has to seek out and expunge it, no matter what the cost is to the human rights of their citizens.

It’s not the Commies anymore, is it? They have become what they once despised.