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Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Potted Plants Would Do Just As Well

Published by digby on October 1, 2024

Dan Rather also has a few words for his former employers at CBS:

According to CBS News’ editorial standards, moderators Norah O’Donnell, anchor of the “CBS Evening News,” and Margaret Brennan, host of “Face the Nation,” are there to ask questions and enforce the rules. They are not fact-checkers. CBS says it is up to the candidates to fact-check, though “the moderators will facilitate those opportunities” during rebuttal time. While both fact-checking (ABC during the Harris-Trump debate) and not fact-checking (CNN during the Biden-Trump debate) have drawn criticism this year, for the most part, the criticism was unsurprisingly partisan.

CBS is not abdicating completely. In a live blog and on social media, CBS News’ misinformation unit will provide real-time fact-checking. So, the audience is expected to watch the debate and simultaneously monitor a blog?

Simply put, this “rule,” imposed by CBS, incentivizes lying. It invites the participants to bend the truth, since their opponent then has to spend his rebuttal time calling out the lie, rather than giving an opposing view. And the calling out of a lie by an opponent rather than an impartial moderator is less credible.

Angie Drobnic Holan, the director of the International Fact-Checking Network at the Poynter Institute, told the Associated Press, “You’re basically off-loading one of your journalistic responsibilities onto the candidates themselves, so I don’t think that it’s ideal. It takes journalistic courage to be willing to fact-check the candidates, because the candidates are absolutely going to complain about it. I don’t think the moderators’ first goal is to avoid controversy.”

Norm Ornstein, a political scientist with whom I spent many an election night at CBS News, had nothing nice to say about his former employer on X. “I spent 30 years as an election analyst for CBS. It was the gold standard for television news. Those days, and their standards, are long gone.”

It seems clear that CBS is trying to avoid the blowback ABC got after the presidential debate. A journalist, much less a news organization, should not be afraid to take heat. Their responsibility is to call out lies. If they don’t do that on live television, during the most consequential election in modern history, they are the lesser for it. But the biggest loser is the American electorate.

I’m not sure why they even need moderators. Just have a couple of laptops there printing out the questions for the candidates and have the mics shut off automatically after 2 minutes. There’s no need for humans to be involved at all.

Still Clueless And Mad About It

Published by digby on October 1, 2024

Trump’s henchmen aren’t very good at this:

Speaking with Fox Business on Monday, Republican Representative Greg Murphy claimed that attacks by the Democrats on the MAGA leader’s health care plans were futile, almost entirely because Trump and his vice presidential pick, J.D. Vance, don’t actually have a “full, fleshed-out plan.”

“The Harris campaign has just released this new report, it came out this morning, they’re calling it ‘The Trump-Vance Concept of Healthcare: A plan to rip away coverage from people with preexisting conditions and raise costs for millions,’” said guest host Cheryl Casone. “We’re now starting to have that conversation about health care, which is still a main issue for voters across this country. What do you make of the campaign doing this?”

“Well, Kamala and her crew, it’s absolute nonsense. There’s not a full, fleshed-out plan by the president or J.D. Vance, and for them to come out with a book of fiction, they’re just a bunch of damn liars,” Murphy retorted.

Lol. Right. They don’t have a plan. It’s only been 14 years since the ACA was passed. You can’t expect them to have a fill, fleshed out plan. They just plan to repeal what we have and replace it with a concept of a plan. Good enough for government work I guess.

By the way, JD has described his “concept” in some detail:

Think about it: a young American doesn’t have the same health care needs as a 65-year-old American. A 65-year-old American in good health has much different health care needs than a 65-year-old American with a chronic condition. And we want to make sure everybody is covered.

But the best way to do that is to actually promote some more choice in our healthcare system and not have a one-size-fits-all approach that puts a lot of people into the same insurance pools, into the same risk pools, that actually makes it harder for people to make the right choices for their families.

In other words: the Trump plan, according to Vance, is to permit insurance companies to discriminate against people with preexisting conditions.” Which in essence means “Vance is advocating a partial or complete return to the system that existed before Obamacare.” KFF explained how the sort of high-risk pools envisioned by Vance worked prior to the ACA — or more precisely, how they never worked.

“I Just Like His Pahlicees”

Published by digby on September 30, 2024

The reflexive rationalization of the Trump voter: I don’t like everything he says but I just like his policies. What policies you say? They rarely have a specific answer.

Here an example of one of his allegedly great policies they love so much:

That’s Trump being asked a very specific question about a very specific policy and he answered with a long whine about how he was named Michigan Man of the Year (a lie) and how the fake news unfairly denied it.

That’s Trump’s policy. Whining about being treated badly, complaining about immigrants and foreigners and bragging about how well he gets along with dictators. That’s pretty much it. What’s not to love?

Yes, It IS Right Out Of The Handmaid’s Tale

Published by digby on September 30, 2024

A new ruling from Judge McBurney in Georgia overturning the abortion ban and allowing the procedure to continue is amazing.

“While the State’s interest in protecting “unborn” life is compelling, until that life can be sustained by the State — and not solely by the woman compelled by the Act to do the State’s work — the balance of rights favors the woman.” 

“Women are not some piece of collectively owned community property the disposition of which is decided by majority vote. Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted, not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy, even taking into consideration whatever bundle of rights the not-yet-viable fetus may have.” 

“For these women, the liberty of privacy means that they alone should choose whether they serve as human incubators for the five months leading up to viability. It is not for a legislator, a judge, or a Commander from The Handmaid’s Tale to tell these women what to do with their bodies during this period when the fetus cannot survive outside the womb any more so than society could — or should — force them to serve as a human tissue bank or to give up a kidney for the benefit of another.”  

“When someone other than the pregnant woman is able to sustain the fetus, then — and only then — should those other voices have a say in the discussion about the decisions the pregnant woman makes concerning her body and what is growing within it.” 

“There is nothing so urgent or important to the State about the medical records of women who end pregnancies that the privacy rights of those women — and the Fourth Amendment protections that attach to those rights — can be bulldozed away by statutory enactment.” 

“…liberty in Georgia includes in its meaning, in its protections, and in its bundle of rights the power of a woman to control her own body, to decide what happens to it and in it, and to reject state interference with her healthcare choices.” 

“Accordingly, Section 4 of the LIFE Act is hereby DECLARED unconstitutional. The State and all its agents, to include any County, Municipal, or other local authority, are once again ENJOINED from seeking to enforce in any manner the LIFE Act’s PECAP termination ban in Georgia.”

Sadly, I’m quite confident the Georgia Supreme Court will overturn this ruling. But damn. That is exactly the reasoned argument against banning abortion. It’s just obvious.

Here is the full ruling: s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2517…

All The Smoke

Published by digby on September 30, 2024

The elite media doesn’t like this sort of thing but it’s smart. Kamala Harris is doing outreach to Black males through alternative media, which is where many of them, like many Americans generally, get their news. I thought this was particularly well done:

These influencers have a million subscribers on YouTube and more on other platforms. I had never watched their show but Harris had me at hello so there’s not much reason to target me. This is group of voters she needs and she’s going where they are.

Now this feed has 4.1 million followers on Instagram, a million on Facebook and 9.2 million on twitter. Think it makes sense to do this? I do:

I keep hearing that Walz and Harris aren’t doing enough campaigning. I think maybe the media just isn’t seeing it.

And anyway, Harris did a barn burner of a rally in Vegas yesterday:

They’re firing on all cylinders. Let’s hope it works.

A Little Hopium

Published by digby on September 30, 2024

After reading Rick Perlstein’s great essay on the history of polling I’m trying to not take any polling seriously. Our obsession with them, fed by all these new polling sites with averages and projections is really just a parlor game.

Having said that, I can’t help but look at them. I urge you not to follow my example if you value your sanity.

But if you happen to come come across a story or two about the polling, here’s some perspective for you:

Truthfully, it’s all kind of bullshit. But do keep in mind that the right wing players are trying to set expectations by claiming Trump has a lead so that when he loses they can claim it was stolen.

Yes, they are that corrupt.

RIP Kris Kristofferson

Published by digby on September 30, 2024

He was always one of my favorites. The guy was a real renaissance man, a super athlete, Rhodes scholar, military officer, political radical, musician, artist, actor, overall mensch and the coolest guy in the world. What a life. We are lucky to have shared it with him.

Getting In The Way

Published by digby on September 30, 2024

There’s projection and then there’s projection…

Recall that Trump had an ongoing feud with Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, when he was in office. And his administration denied North Carolina what it needed to recover from Hurricane Matthew:

Governor Cooper today expressed his disappointment in the Trump Administration and Congressional leadership after they failed to fulfill North Carolina’s funding request for Hurricane Matthew recovery. In a letter, Cooper urged for more robust aid, especially in the form of housing block grants from HUD, in the upcoming budget process. That letter can be read here.

Last month, Cooper worked with Senator Thom Tillis and Representatives David Price and David Rouzer on compiling an unmet needs request to Congress. This week, state officials learned that of the more than $900 million requested, North Carolina will receive just $6.1 million, less than 1% of the resources needed to help communities and families fix homes, repair businesses and recover from the historic flooding. In today’s letter, Governor Cooper reiterated the critical and immediate need for support and urged the President to visit affected communities to better understand the challenges that remain.

By the way, as the storm was bearing down last week and everyone knew it was going to be big, most Republicans, at the direction of this monster, voted to shut down the government. But then they like to do that:

January 9, 2019

North Carolina Governor, Roy Cooper, is urging President Donald Trump to end the partial federal government shutdown. 

The letter, which Cooper tweeted out Wednesday afternoon states the shutdown should end so North Carolina can continue to rebuild from hurricane flood waters and prevent future damage. 

Cooper also said while we continue short-term recovery help with FEMA’s help, our critical long-term work to rebuild stronger and smarter is delayed with every day that federal funds are held in Washington. 

President Donald Trump hastened to Capitol Hill Wednesday trying to hold jittery congressional Republicans in line on the 19th day of the partial government shutdown. He suggested a deal for his border wall might be getting closer, but he also said the shutdown will last “whatever it takes.”

And you will certainly recall that just a week ago Trump said this:

09/13/2024 04:25 PM EDT

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, California — Former President Donald Trump on Friday threatened to withhold federal disaster response funding from California over Gov. Gavin Newsom’s position on water deliveries to farmers.

Speaking to reporters from a golf course in Rancho Palos Verdes on Friday, Trump said he would strong-arm California’s governor into agreeing to send more water from California’s lush north to farm fields in its drier south.

“Gavin Newscum [Newsom] is going to sign those papers,” Trump said, seemingly referencing a 2020 federal decision to increase water deliveries by weakening endangered species rules that Newsom sued over. “If he doesn’t sign those papers, we won’t give him money to put out all his fires, and if we don’t give him the money to put out his fires, he’s got problems.”

Newsom snapped back within minutes of Trump’s remarks, saying in an X post the former president “admitted he will block emergency disaster funds to settle political vendettas.”

“Today it’s California’s wildfires. Tomorrow it could be hurricane funding for North Carolina or flooding assistance for homeowners in Pennsylvania,” Newsom wrote, referencing two swing states where Kamala Harris and Trump are neck-and-neck in polls ahead of November.

If there is anyone who threatens to withhold disaster aid for political purposes it’s Trump. He did it from the beginning of his term when he made an absolute idiot of himself over Hurricane Maria. Now he’s putting on a show in Georgia and will shortly be blaming Kamala Harris for Hurricane Helene and it appears that the media is prepared to help him by suggesting that she should have been down in North Carolina over the weekend rescuing people in a rubber dinghy or something.

Get ready. They’re going to try to make this into Harris’s Katrina.

Let’s hope the press gets a hold of itself before they can succeed. I’m not sanguine. They just covered Trump’s circus in Valdosta, Georgia as if it was a presidential visit.


“Lock Her Up” Too?

Published by digby on September 30, 2024

At his rally over the weekend, Trump predictably claimed that Kamala Harris should be prosecuted and the crowd predictably started ecstatically chanting “lock her up!”

As NY Magazine’s Jonathan Chait wrote:

It is obviously unsurprising that Trump would conjure up imaginary crimes by his political opponent. In 2016, he made “Lock her up!” a signature campaign chant. In 2020, he branded Joe Biden a criminal. The pretext for Harris’s prosecution is that, as vice-president, she presided over border-enforcement policies that Trump opposes. In 2016, the pretext was Clinton’s violation of State Department email protocol. In 2020, it was disproven charges that Biden profited from his son’s business activity in Ukraine.

Obviously, none of the particulars of these allegations — in Harris’s case, Trump hasn’t even managed to manufacture a pretextual criminal allegation — matter to Trump in the slightest. His view of the law is fully relativist. Actions taken on Trump’s behalf are by inherently legal, and actions taken against him are inherently illegal.

That is why Trump continuously brands his political opponents as criminals. In addition to all three of his Democratic campaign opponents, Trump has called for criminal charges to be brought against a long list of targets, including (but not limited to) Barack Obama, John Kerry, Liz Cheney, anybody who criticizes pro-Trump judges, “lawyers, political operatives, donors, illegal voters, and corrupt election officials” involved in the 2024 election, among many others.

Just this weekend, he called for charges against Google (for allegedly showing too many negative stories about him in searches) and Nancy Pelosi (for the second time; four years ago, he called for her to be charged for tearing a copy of his speech, and this weekend, he said she should be investigated because her husband sold shares of Visa stock prior to an anti-trust investigation against the company).

It is also why Trump continuously encourages criminal behavior by his allies and defends it as lawful. Paul Manafort did “nothing” and was the victim of a “hoax.” The violent coup attempt by Trump allies on January 6, 2021, was actually a riot by overzealous police officers, and the criminals who carried it out were “hostages.” Trump frequently promises to pardon the J6 criminals, in keeping with his first-term policy of granting mass amnesty to political allies who committed crimes.

We all roll our eyes at this BS. He’s been doing it so long we hardly notice it anymore. But we shouldn’t grow inured to the threat. He

He’s obviously very, very angry about being held accountable for his crimes. There is no way that he will let it go and there’s no one to stop it if he wins. The entire Republican party is bought into his “vengeance is mine” trip and have no problem with allowing his co-conspirators to skate. This will be the new “rule of law” in a second Trump administration: “the law for thee but not for me.”