Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Don’t mess with Texas (women)

This week the Texas Supreme Court heard a case brought by 20 women denied emergency care under the state’s radical abortion ban (Texas Tribune):

In August, state District Judge Jessica Mangrum ruled that the near-total abortion ban cannot be enforced in cases involving complicated pregnancies, including lethal fetal diagnoses. The state immediately appealed that ruling, putting it on hold.

Texas law allows abortions only when it is necessary to save the life of the pregnant patient. But this lawsuit, filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights in March, claims that doctors are unsure when the medical exception applies, resulting in delayed or denied care.

“No one knows what [the exception] means and the state won’t tell us,” Molly Duane, senior attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, told the justices Tuesday.

The state argues the judge went too far in her injunction by reading exceptions into the law beyond what the Legislature intended.

Plaintiff Taylor Edwards and Duane spoke to PBS about the suit.

The penalties for doctors who perform abortions outside the ban’s restrictions “could not be more extreme,” Duane said:

We are talking about life in prison, loss of medical license, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in civil fines. So, quite understandably, physicians are terrified. They don’t know when or how close to death a patient needs to be before they can provide abortion care. And they have been begging the Texas Medical Board and the rest of the state for guidance for years.

And it has fallen on deaf ears. So here we are. We came to court. Courts are places that can vindicate constitutional rights, and Taylor has constitutional rights, just like everyone else in Texas.

PBS asked Duane to comment on the state’s position in light of those severe penalties for doctors:

Beth Klusmann, Texas Assistant Attorney General:

If, as she said, a woman is bleeding or has amniotic fluid running down her legs, then the problem is not with the law. That is with the doctors. I mean, that woman clearly would qualify for medical emergency exception.

And so if she has to come to court to make that happen, that is not the state’s fault.

Geoff Bennett:

So, Molly, what’s your response to that argument?

Molly Duane:

Well, my response is that the state has been saying over and over again the exception is clear, yet they have never once told us what they think the exception means.

In fact, contrary to what they said today, they have made every attempt to show that amniotic fluid does in fact need to be running down a patient’s leg before they can come to court.

What Taylor said that her doctor said to her is verbatim what I have heard from every single one of my clients, which is, my doctor said that her hands were tied. And who tied them? It was the state of Texas.

Beto O’Rourke spotlighted some of the women’s stories Wednesday night:

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Texas Republicans forced these women to continue dangerous, nonviable pregnancies that almost killed them.

I hope you’ll read their stories, and then commit to the work of overturning Texas’ extreme abortion ban🧵:

These women are sharing their stories so that we understand the true cost of the total abortion ban in Texas.

My hope is that their courage in coming forward will be matched by our resolve to change the laws so that this never happens again. 

With a year before the ‘24 elections that will decide our state’s future, it’s time for each of us to decide what we’re willing to do.

There are millions of pro-choice Texans who aren’t registered to vote. Getting them on the rolls would have a seismic impact on these elections. 

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This is and needs to be a major issue in 2024, as it was in 2022 when President Joe Biden said this:

Oops he did it again

A certain candidate for the presidency has scrambled a lot of names lately. He’s accused President Joe Biden of being so cognitively impaired that he would lead the U.S. into World War II.

Totally ACED it! (Huffington Post):

Donald Trump would like people to know he “ACED” a cognitive test, and that he totally knows who the current president of the United States is.

The former president claimed in a Truth Social screed Monday morning that he’s been referring to former President Barack Obama as the sitting president “sarcastically,” to suggest that Obama is secretly calling the shots instead of President Joe Biden.

[…]

“No, I know both names very well, never mix them up, and know that they are destroying our Country. Also, and as reported, I just took a cognitive test as part of my Physical Exam, and ACED it,” Trump wrote. “Also ACED (a perfect score!) one taken while in the White House.”

Sure he didn’t say Waffle House?

Every accusation is a confession

Popular Information on Thursday told the tale of one 20-year-old Lanah Burkhardt. She testified to the school board of the Conroe Independent School District in Texas that her exposure at 11 to a Scholastic book featuring the image of “a single kiss” led her to porn addiction:

But Burkhardt went further, arguing that Conroe should remove all Scholastic books from schools and stop hosting Scholastic book fairs. These steps were necessary, Burkhardt argued, to protect children from “sexual obscenity.” According to Burkhardt, “getting rid of Scholastic books and their book fairs will inevitably protect kids.” 

Burkhardt’s appearance was promoted by SkyTree Book Fairs, a newly formed organization marketing itself as “an alternative to the sexually explicit content distributed in Scholastic’s book fairs.” 

While SkyTree Book Fairs presents itself as an independent non-profit organization, it appears to be a hastily assembled offshoot of Brave Books, which publishes children’s books by right-wing pundits and pseudo-celebrities. 

2. The woman was 20-year-old Lanah Burkhardt.

Burkhardt said after reading a Scholastic book that depicted a "single kiss," she "looked for other books that gave me pleasure." This "led to internet searches" that she will "never forget."https://t.co/ozdtf5ulPy

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) November 29, 2023

Popular Information reports that Burkhardt did not disclose that she is an employee of Brave Books. In fact, she’s the company’s “public relations coordinator.” She’s the Nayirah of book banning.

Popular Information offers a sampling of the company’s fare:

Many of the titles published by Brave Books are set in an imaginary world based on the United States called Freedom Island. According to Politico, each book based on Freedom Island contains a “fold-out map marked with villages and mountain ranges,” with the southwestern corner of the map being called the “Car-a-Lago Coast.” The books also include “an afterword for parents” that is “filled with suggested games and discussion questions to drive home political concepts.” 

One of the books sold by Brave Books is “Elephants Are Not Birds” by Ashley St. Clair. The book, which sells for $22.99, follows an elephant named Kevin “as he learns that even though he can sing, he is not a bird.” The villain of the story, a “vulture named Culture,” “gives [the] elephant a beak and a set of fake wings and watches as he plummets out of a tree.” Culture is a recurring character in the books set on Freedom Island who, according to Politico, “tries to poison innocent animals with progressive ideas.” In an interview with the New York Post, St. Clair described the book as “an unapologetic rebuke of transgender acceptance and the growing number of young people identifying as trans.” 

Brave Books also sells a book called “Paws Off My Cannon” by Dana Loesch, a former spokesperson for the National Rifle Association (NRA). According to Brave Books’ website, the book “teaches kids the importance of the Second Amendment” by following the story of Bongo, a gorilla, who is shot at with a coconut cannon by a “villainous hyena.” Bongo’s friend Bonnie then “suggests the village ban all coconut cannons,” but “Bongo thinks that the hyenas are the problem, not the coconut cannons.”

Another book sold on Brave Books’ website is “No More Secrets: The Candy Cavern” by right-wing influencer Chaya Raichik. Raichik runs the X account Libs of TikTok, known for anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. The book is about “Rose the Lamb” and how her teacher is “focused more on candy than teaching.” According to the New York Post, the subtext of the book is “based on longstanding criticisms by parents that schools are encouraging gender transition in young students without informing parents.” Brave Books’ website advertises that “Donald Trump Posted in Support of the Book!” 

But heaven forfend any of your children should attend public schools, those dens of leftist indoctrination.

Every accusation is a confession.

(Will follow up with a clip of Burkhardt praising her training in Biblical Citizenship from “Patriot Academy” East Tennessee if I can locate it again.)

Update: Here it is.

Another Trump innovation

Trump’s abuse of the pardon power is well known. But this analysis by Protect Democracy pinpoints three specific abuses that are unprecedented and provide a major threat in a Trump second term:

During the Trump presidency, we saw three types of henchmen pardons:

Self-protective pardons: Trump dangled pardons for associates implicated in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia, notably former campaign manager Paul Manafort and his former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, providing an incentive for them not to cooperate with the Mueller investigation into Trump and his 2016 campaign. Both were indicted, in Manafort’s case sentenced to years in jail, and later pardoned.

Pardons to reward illegal political activity that accrued to his benefit: Trump pardoned 2000 Mules filmmaker and vocal ally Dinesh D’Souza, who pled guilty to using straw donors to make illegal campaign donations to a Republican Senate candidate. Trump strategist Steve Bannon was charged with defrauding donors who gave money to build a border wall; Trump pardoned him before his trial began.

Pardons that license violence: Trump pardoned four Blackwater contractors convicted of massacring 17 Iraqi civilians, including two children, and two Army officers accused of war crimes in Afghanistan. Trump defended his leniency for war criminals with a social post mocking the military justice system: “We train our boys to be killing machines, then prosecute them when they kill!” 

They note that Trump has also promised to pardon the January 6th insurrectionists. I would guess he’d do it on the very first day.

This isn’t just about these specific individuals. It’s a necessary corollary to Trump’s plans to dismantle the government and put the institutions of government to work to serve his personal and political interests. He has made it clear through actions and words that the people who help him do it will not be held liable and that includes the military and the police. Even during his first term he would tell people that he’d pardon them if they broke the law for him.

There are some guardrails but I wouldn’t count on them holding in Trump 2.0:

First, Congress enjoys the constitutional prerogative to conduct oversight of the pardon power and its potential abuse. Congress should pass legislation that strengthens its ability to do so, improving mechanisms for obtaining information related to presidential pardons during investigations — such as those included in the Abuse of Pardon Prevention Act.

Second, despite Trump’s claim that the president’s pardon power is “complete,” federal courts have long placed limits on that power when it threatens other constitutional provisions and principles — in cases dating back to the 19th century — and could be called upon to do so again.

Third, the Executive Branch itself also maintains a role in investigating and prosecuting potential criminal abuses of the pardon power. Pardons that may function as bribes or to obstruct justice in violation of federal criminal statutes have previously been the subject of Department of Justice investigations, and could again be in the future.

For some reason none of that comforts me.

It’s a major pillar of Trump’s vengeance agenda

Of course Republicans hate  Obamacare and will repeal it it the first chance they get. Why would anyone think otherwise?

Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, Republican presidential primary front-runner Donald Trump revived calls to roll back Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act, if he returns to the White House.

“The cost of Obamacare is out of control, plus, it’s not good Healthcare. I’m seriously looking at alternatives,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social on Saturday.

Trump’s post resurrects an issue on which he and his party are vulnerable. A Sept. 15-19 NBC News poll found that when it comes to health care, voters trust Democrats over Republicans by a margin of 45%-22%. The same survey found that Democrats trail the GOP on many other issues, including the economy, immigration and crime.

After trying and failing to repeal the ACA, and suffering for it at the ballot box, Republican candidates abandoned their calls for eliminating the law in the 2022 midterm elections, recognizing the push as a political loser. But Trump could bring it back in 2024.

“We had a couple of Republican Senators who campaigned for 6 years against it, and then raised their hands not to terminate it,” Trump wrote in his post over the weekend. “It was a low point for the Republican Party, but we should never give up!”

Scott Lemieux takes a look at what the Republicans have in mind:

He doesn’t need to “seriously look” for the Republican Alternative to the ACA, it has been fully developed already:

If you think Republicans would never do this because it would be too unpopular, I would google “Roe,” “against,” and “Wade.”

Again, of course they will do it. The defection of McCain, Collins and Murkowski on that repeal vote is one of Trump’s most humiliating moments as president and he wants revenge. He hated McCain for it and railed against him for years on the stump. This will be at the top of his list and there’s no way in hell the Republicans will stand in his way. They don’t want to.

2 minutes later:

And you wonder why people are so negative about the economy.

Kevin McCarthy appeared at the NY Times Dealbook Summit and suddenly he’s not a total Trump sycophant:

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) jabbed former President Donald Trump while being interviewed at the New York Times’s Dealbook Summit on Wednesday.

McCarthy was joined at the event by other big-name interviewees like Vice President Kamala Harris and controversial tech billionaire Elon Musk.

“I didn’t say he’d be a great president. He’ll be a better president,” McCarthy said on stage when asked about Trump possibly returning to the White House.

“If his campaign is about renew, rebuild and restore, he’ll win. If it’s about revenge, he’ll lose,” McCarthy added, according to NY Times coverage of the event.

McCarthy is widely credited with helping to rehabilitate Trump’s standing in the GOP after the former president had briefly become something of a pariah following the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The Times’s Robert Jimson also reported that McCarthy made clear he plans to vote for Trump if he is on the ballot in 2024, but only characterized their current relationship in vague terms:

McCarthy says he did not expect Trump to support him when he faced an ouster, and says he currently has an “interesting” relationship with the former president. He repeats that he would vote for Trump in the next election. “America would be stronger.”

While on stage at the event, McCarthy also briefly addressed his future in politics and said he is unsure if will run for reelection – adding he will “take the time” to decide.

It sure sounds like he’s getting ready to cash in. Why pretend he has a future in politics? He’s done.

It actually sounds like he is royally pissed that Trump didn’t step up and try to save his speakership. Poor Kev. Did he think that loyalty went both ways?

Multiple GOP lawmakers expect Kevin McCarthy to step down from his seat before the end of the year.

McCarthy privately told donors he is looking to "get the hell out," according to a source familiar with the conversation. https://t.co/wj2lPfYMrd

— Axios (@axios) November 30, 2023

CNN has an early copy of Liz Cheney’s book:

On Jan. 6, before the attack on the Capitol, Cheney describes a scene in the GOP cloakroom, where members were encouraged to sign their names on electoral vote objection sheets, lined up on a table, one for each of the states Republicans were contesting. Cheney writes most members knew “it was a farce” and “another public display of fealty to Donald Trump.”

“Among them was Republican Congressman Mark Green of Tennessee,” Cheney writes. “As he moved down the line, signing his name to the pieces of paper, Green said sheepishly to no one in particular, ‘The things we do for the Orange Jesus.’”

CNN just reminded us of this about Green. He’s not some MMA fighter guy who lucked into politics. He definitely knows better:

Mark Edward Green (born November 8, 1964) is an American politician, physician, and retired U.S. Army major who has served as the U.S. representative for Tennessee’s 7th congressional district since 2019. A member of the Republican Party, Green has chaired the Committee on Homeland Security since 2023.^[1] Before his election to Congress, he served in the Tennessee Senate from 2013 to 2018, representing the 22nd district.

After graduating from West Point, Green was an infantry officer. He then graduated from Boonshoft School of Medicine at Wright State University and became a flight surgeon, serving tours of duty in the War in Afghanistan and Iraq War. He wrote a book about his experience in Operation Red Dawn, in which Saddam Hussein was captured. After retiring from the military in 2006, Green became the CEO of a hospital emergency department staffing company.

This guy is not some illiterate boob. He knows exactly what Trump is and what he did. And he supports him solely for power. He is not alone.

They’re thinking about it

The media breathlessly reported this week that the Koch Network, specifically their Americans for Prosperity Action fund, had finally decided who they would be backing for the GOP presidential nomination, former S. Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. This was reported as if it was a very significant moment signaling the final blow to the campaign of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis whom Haley has been overtaking in some polls in the early states.

There’s only one problem. Both Haley and DeSantis are trailing the front runner, former president Donald Trump, by 50 points nationally which means all this hoopla over the Koch endorsement is about who is going to finish a very distant second place. This has to be the saddest example of horse race journalism in history.

The Koch network does have a lot of money, of course, and according to AFP, they’ve already been running negative ads against Trump since last winter when they announced that they were going to participate in the 2024 election, specifically against Trump. But it took them this long to decide to back a specific candidate, perhaps because the one considered most likely to beat Trump, Ron DeSantis, isn’t their cup of tea.

They come out of the libertarian wing of the party which favors immigration and international trade and doesn’t care for the idea of using state power to strong arm business. DeSantis is MAGA, the successor to the Tea Party which the Kochs bankrolled and astroturfed to victories during the Obama years. He hates everything they stand for (except tax cuts, of course.)

Haley, on the other hand, is a Koch Brothers dream. I’m sure she had them at “going to go after Social Security and Medicare.”

Haley: Any candidate that tells you they’re not going to go after Social Security and Medicare is not being serious. pic.twitter.com/4YgM2X6AGR

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) November 9, 2023

And here everyone thought that the cacophonous eruption of denials at the State of the Union address last year when President Biden said that’s exactly what they planned meant that the GOP had dropped their longstanding determination to end those programs.

As the NY Times Paul Krugman pointed out in his column on Tuesday, she’s a clever shape-shifting politician on the stump but when you look at her policies, she’s a standard issue corporate right winger. And that, of course, means she doesn’t stand a chance of winning the nomination even if she stands the best chance of beating Joe Biden. To paraphrase a famous Republican defense secretary, you go to war with the Republican base you have not the one you might wish to have and the base today has no interest in standard issue establishment Republicans. Her “lane” is the same lane that they all have: hoping for something to happen to Donald Trump.

The Kochs have a dubious record of choosing presidential candidates anyway. Recall that they had groomed Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker for years to be their own personal president and were ready to formally endorse him when he suddenly declared that he wanted to curtail legal immigration and then flamed out completely, leaving the race before it even started. Their network stayed on the sidelines from that point on. And you can be sure when the primary is over and Trump is the nominee they won’t be spending any of their loot to defeat him in the general. Like so many others of their ilk, they’ll pout and sulk a bit and then slink off to count all the money he saved them with his massive tax cuts for the wealthy.

But with all the talk about the Koch Network stepping into the arena on behalf of Nikki Haley, there’s been hardly a mention of another big bucks right wing family coming off of the sidelines for Donald Trump. CNBC reported last week that according to “people familiar with the matter” Bob Mercer and his daughter Rebekah are considering getting back in the game after laying out since 2018. And they’ve got $88 million sitting in their private nonprofit, the Mercer Family Foundation, just waiting to be spent.

Just as the Koch Network is more ideologically aligned with Nikki Haley, the Mercers came out heavily for Trump in 2016, way ahead of most of the rich guys, pumping tens of millions into the campaign. According to Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman they were originally motivated by their burning hatred of Hillary Clinton whom they believe is a murderer but once they got involved, their influence on the Trump campaign was huge.

Former Trump adviser and podcaster Steve Bannon said, “the Mercers laid the groundwork for the Trump Revolution” and that is absolutely correct. They bankrolled Bannon’s publication Breitbart News which served as Trump’s online propaganda arm during the 2016 campaign and spent millions on Cambridge Analytica, Robert Mercer’s data firm, which was reportedly involved in all sort of chicanery in that election. They were personally responsible for putting Bannon and campaign manager Kellyanne Conway in the campaign.

But their high profile involvement also brought them under intense scrutiny which they apparently didn’t like. They are very eccentric people and they soured on Trump for vague reasons and stepped out of the public eye after 2017. But they never stopped donating millions to their pet causes and other far right politicians. And as Salon’s Igor Derysh pointed out in this tour de force examination of the Mercers tentacles in all aspects of right wing politics, their influence and money was essential to the forces that brought the MAGA movement to its peak moment on January 6th.

And they have continued to help fund organizations and individuals that helped perpetuate the Big Lie. He quotes Mobashra Tazamal, a senior research fellow at Georgetown University’s Bridge Initiative which issued a report on the Mercers involvement back in 2021:

“By strategically funneling millions into known hate groups, platforms amplifying racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia, and politicians who pushed forth outright lies of a stolen election, Rebekah Mercer played a role in inciting the violence by providing material support,” she said. “The billionaire family has used their extraordinary wealth to bankroll the rise of violent white nationalism in this country.”

This is what they believe in. This is what they care about. It’s no surprise that they have now decided it may be time to come out of the shadows and once again support Donald Trump. All his recent talk of mass deportations, detention camps, “poisoning the blood of our country” and expelling the “vermin” has to be music to their ears. They figure they may finally be about to get their money’s worth.

Salon

So are radical evangelicals

MSNBC ran the recording of “Why is this happening?” featuring Rachel Maddow over Thanksgiving weekend. Maddow spoke earlier in the month with host Chris Hayes about her new book, “Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism.” The rise of fascism in the U.S. now echoes the Depression-era movement by Americans who saw fascism as an attractive alternative to democracy.

During the discussion Hayes referenced the views of presidents Jackson and Theodore Roosevelt who felt there were elites destined to rule over others. In that sense they were not small-D democrats. He references debates at the time about what democracy is and whether it is good. Or whether rule by some group or some person is preferable. Our sense of consensus was perhaps an illusion, and disagreement was always there.

Hayes referencing FDR got me to look again at FDR’s speech decrying economic royalists.

“In 1776 we sought freedom from the tyranny of a political autocracy—from the 18th century royalists who held special privileges from the crown,” FDR said. He decried economic royalists who “carved new dynasties” to perpetuate their hegemony. But both FDR and Hayes view the struggle from within the confines of American history.

Royalists are royalists. The yearning to be led and the faith of others that they are destined to rule everyone else goes much deeper and is much older than the American Revolution. As old as feudalism. Perhaps DNA-level, metaphorically at least.

Having arrived in the South when a Baptist church on every streetcorner was (again metaphorically) still the norm, it was not hard to notice that conservative Christians especially are raised from a young age to yearn for the Savior’s return. “This, this is Christ, the King,” congregations will sing again this Christmas season in memory of his arrival. More radical congregations drink deep the eschatology of Revelations and look for signs of the Second Coming. The Bible promises His Church will co-rule the Earth with their King. But after two millennia, and especially as they see their cultural dominance slipping and a multicultural America rising, they’ve grown tired of waiting. They want to rule now.

This is the impulse behind the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) that we’ve discussed plenty. A friend pointed yesterday to an upcoming book on the subject, “American Evangelicals for Trump Dominion, Spiritual Warfare, and the End Times.” The book examines “the three main ideas inspiring NCP leaders who supported Trump in 2016 and 2020—Dominion, Spiritual Warfare, and Eschatology (the End Times)—the book examines how these ideas have sustained the evangelicals close to U.S. political power in the Trump era.”

When you hear faith talk from Speaker Mike Johnson, this is where he’s coming from. The less religious on the right who have abandoned any pretense of democracy are secular royalists. They simply dream of a more feudal America in which they rule over you. Jesus-schmesus.

WATCH: A sneak preview of the live #WITHpod show with @chrislhayes and @maddow that will air exclusively on @Peacock starting Friday, Nov. 17. pic.twitter.com/9pnnEeH73i

— All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) November 17, 2023

Hindsight won’t save them

The post above by Dave Weigel just resurfaced on Blue Sky. It reminds us how much in denial senior Republican officials were not simply about Donald Trump’s malevolence immediately after he lost the 2020 election, but before he won the nomination of his party in 2016. Party leaders thought by humoring this misanthropic sociopath Republicans might get what they wanted from him. In four years, they’d learned nothing.

“We don’t need someone who can think. We need someone with enough digits to hold a pen,” Grover Norquist told CPAC in 2012. Trump may have been a buffoon, but he could hold a sharpie. He delivered wish list item #1, a massive tax cut. It may cost them not only their party but their country. A growing list of them could lose their freedom along the way if he’s reelected.

Trump may be an idiot, a coward and a narcissist, but he has a feral instinct for survival they underestimated. Grossly.