Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Trump has been systematically ensuring that the GOP delegate rules benefit him in the primaries. I’m not saying it’s cheating exactly. But he’s using every lever of his power to make sure nobody else can come even close to him. It’s shady to say the least:

Massachusetts Republicans just handed Donald Trump another win in his quest to tilt state delegate-selection rules in his favor.

Republican state committee members in this Super Tuesday state voted unanimously on Thursday night to pass a primary delegate plan that keeps a winner-take-all threshold likely to benefit Trump.

“It’s obviously a good thing,” Tom Hodgson, a former county sheriff running Trump’s campaign in Massachusetts, said in an interview. Trump, he said, “is in a very good position” here.

The vote on the delegate plan comes as Trump’s campaign has aggressively worked to overhaul state party rules to benefit the former president’s bid for the White House. Their behind-the-scenes work so far has paid off, with states across the country revising state delegate selection rules. Recently in California, the state party’s executive committee voted to award all of the state’s delegates to the candidate who secures more than half of the statewide vote — giving an advantage to Trump and essentially making it harder for challengers to turn the primary into a two-person race.

The Republicans are so far down Trump’s rabbit hole that they can’t even resist allowing him to cheat them. I’ve never seen anything more pathetic.

Defend science

There was nobody to defend Galileo back in the day. There’s no excuse for that sort of thing now. Dr. Peter Hotez wrote this:

Nearly a century ago, when global dominance in scientific research began shifting to the United States from Europe, our nation built an empire firmly grounded in the natural sciences. America’s research universities and institutes flourished and provided the discoveries leading to the Manhattan Project, Silicon Valley’s tech industry, NASA and space exploration, vaccines to fight polio and other global infections, and new treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes and depression.

As a science envoy for the State Department, I saw first-hand how global leaders and technocrats admired the U.S. for its higher education system of scientific training and support. They spoke to me with pride about their time spent at U.S. universities or their hopes and aspirations that one day their sons and daughters might study here.

I have devoted my life to vaccine science. During the pandemic, our team at the Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine developed a low-cost COVID vaccine that was scaled for production in India and Indonesia, where almost 100 million doses were administered.

But here in the United States, thousands of Americans needlessly perished because they refused a COVID-19 immunization during our awful Delta wave in the summer and fall of 2021 and the BA.1 Omicron wave in the winter of 2022. Analyses by myself and colleagues have found that 200,000 unvaccinated Americans died during this period. Overwhelmingly, those deaths occurred in Republican strongholds, including 40,000 in my state of Texas. A closer examination reveals that the redder the county, the lower the immunization rates and the higher the death rates.

The dead were victims of what we too often label as “misinformation,” as though these victims succumbed to random junk on the internet. This was not always the case. The unvaccinated were targeted by a well-financed and newly politicized anti-vaccine movement.

It accelerated at the CPAC conference of conservatives in Dallas in the summer of 2021, when prominent anti-vaccine activists were featured speakers and one Republican lawmaker from the House Freedom Caucus announced that vaccinations would lead to government confiscations of Bibles and guns.

Just before CPAC, another prominent Freedom Caucus member had disparaged vaccinators as “medical brown shirts,” meaning Nazis, and she later attacked me and other scientists by name on Steve Bannon’s podcast. Other caucus members regularly made unsupported and spectacular claims about the benefits of hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin as COVID treatments, while disparaging COVID-19 vaccinations.

Fox News piled on, misleading a huge swath of Americans. The partisan divide driving low COVID vaccinations and high deaths in 2021-22 was so profound that Liz Hamel of the Kaiser Family Foundation pronounced: “If I wanted to guess if somebody was vaccinated or not and I could only know one thing about them, I would probably ask what their party affiliation is.”

Now in 2023 the GOP Senate and House have intensified their efforts to promote conspiracies or denigrate science. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) went on Fox News in August claiming the pandemic “was all pre-planned by an elite group of people.”

Partisan politics is not the only factor driving vaccine disinformation, but this aspect has become the most intractable and lethal. It is also uncomfortable to discuss. I was taught that science and politics do not mix, and that we scientists need to be neutral. But what happens when the data overwhelmingly demonstrate that thousands of Americans died from political targeting?

During the 1930s, Joseph Stalin’s rise to authoritarian control relied on exiling or imprisoning prominent scientists. This had catastrophic consequences for Soviet productivity, especially in agricultural science.

Now American biomedical scientists have become targets. A 2021 survey found that 15% of scientists who engage with the news media about COVID-19 have received death threats. Another in 2022 found that almost 40% of COVID-19 scientists report experiencing at least one confrontation either online or in person, including death threats.

I’ve been singled out regularly by political extremists and Fox News anchors. Such statements reverberate and result in online threats or actual stalking.

How can America preserve its hard-earned dominance in science, especially given the volume of recent attacks on biomedicine?

First, we must protect biomedical scientists. So far there have been few public statements of support from any branch of the U.S. government, and our university leaders and scientific societies are mostly silent. There are no organizations on which biomedical scientists can depend for legal help if they are targets of public smear campaigns. This silence could well shape the plans of young people now choosing careers, as they see how scientists are treated in America.

The U.S. must also recognize how anti-science rhetoric has emerged as a new lethal force and find mechanisms to halt its advance. Pseudoscience carved a path of destruction in the U.S.S.R. almost 100 years ago, and now it is happening again. Beyond the 200,000 deaths that have already occurred, as activism against COVID vaccines morphs into panic about all immunizations, we could see the return of catastrophic childhood infections such as measles or polio. The fact that polio genomes have been detected recently in the wastewaters of New York and London is an ominous warning. Over the last two decades we made steady progress in vaccinating the world’s children, with impressive declines in pediatric deaths. But those gains are fragile.

We must find ways to preserve our achievements in biomedicine and support scientists, even if that means both the scientists and those in positions of power engage political leaders and challenge ideologues to reject their anti-science rhetoric and agenda. Otherwise, almost a century of America’s preeminence in science will soon decline, our democratic values will erode, and our global stature will fall.

We are coming into a period I think of as the Wingnut Inquisition, where any form of modernism is squelched by these throwbacks who can’t stand the idea of any change. The demonization of science is is one of the most dangerous consequences of this movement.

It’s unprecedented:

His decision to stand alongside the striking workers represents perhaps the most significant display of union solidarity ever by a sitting president. Biden’s announcement comes a week after he expressed solidarity with the UAW and said he “understand[s] the workers’ frustration.”

The announcement of his trip was seen as a seismic moment within certain segments of the labor community. “Pretty hard-core,” said one union adviser, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Biden had earlier attempted to send acting Labor Secretary Julie Su and senior adviser Gene Sperling, who has been the White House’s point person throughout the negotiations, to Detroit to assist with negotiations. However, the administration subsequently stood down following conversations with the union. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said earlier Friday it was a “mutually agreed upon decision.”

The president’s plans come as some Democrats have begun to question his response to the strike, recognizing that he needs the full backing of union workers in his presidential reelection bid.

Meanwhile, waaaaah!

Did Dark Brandon step on Trumpies speech? Oh heck.

By the way, there’s a GOP debate that night too. But nobody cares.

I’m sure you’ve read all about the potential impeachment of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz in Wisconsin despite her recent massive electoral win because of her promise to revisit the gerrymander laws in the state which have given Republicans a huge majority.I had not heard that there was a precedent for this back in 2018.

Bolts magazine has the story:

Margaret Workman is watching Wisconsin Republicans threaten Justice Janet Protasiewicz with impeachment from several states away. But she can relate to Protasiewicz like very few can. 

Workman sat on West Virginia’s supreme court in 2018—one of the three Democratic justices in the court’s majority—when Republican lawmakers decided to impeach that entire court. The GOP had flipped the legislature in 2014 for the first time in decades, and it had seized the governorship in 2017; only the supreme court stood in the way of one-party rule in the state. 

“All of a sudden, we had this right-wing legislature wanting to impeach everybody,” she recalls, “and they wanted in my opinion to get rid of us so they could put their own.”

West Virginia’s GOP in 2018 similarly tested the bounds of their power once they had the votes. “Impeaching the entire court was entirely political,” says Robert Bastress, professor at the West Virginia College of Law, “it was motivated by Republicans who had just recently taken over the legislature, and they were flexing their muscle.” 

[…]

The overhaul of West Virginia’s supreme court dates back to 2018, when Chief Justice Allen Loughry, a Republican, was federally indicted on fraud and witness tampering charges that stemmed from allegations of him using state funds for his personal enjoyment and spending excessive amounts of money on furnishing his office. A concurrent fraud scandal also engulfed Justice Menis Ketchum, a Democrat. By mid-2018, Ketchum had pled guilty in a federal case and resigned, and Loughry was suspended from the court. 

But Republicans also went after the remaining members of the supreme court, alleging in part that they were all responsible for the court’s insufficiently clear ethics policies. 

“They had very good reasons for impeaching two of the justices—two of them were convicted of federal felonies—there were no grounds for impeaching the other three,” Bastress says. 

Workman stood her ground after her impeachment and fought the proceedings until a panel of state judges blocked the Senate from holding a trial and ruled that the legislature was violating procedural requirements in its impeachment proceedings. The state Senate, which by then had acquitted the GOP chief justice and was gearing up for a trial against Workman, fought the ruling but the U.S. Supreme Court let it stand. As a result, Workman got to stay on the court, though she then chose not to seek re-election in 2020. 

But by the time a court intervened to stop West Virginia’s impeachment trials, another Democratic justice, Robin Davis, had already chosen to resign rather than let the proceedings against her drag out. To replace Davis, Governor Jim Justice appointed Evan Jenkins, one of the state’s Republican U.S. representatives. 

“What the legislature was attempting to do was to stack the court with what I would call their puppets,” Davis told Bolts. “They were hell bent on getting control of the court.” She says she did not want to participate in what she viewed as “a very unfair, highly political proceeding.”

They are systematically destroying the judiciary, one state at a time.

They may be backing off a bit in Wisconsin, however. We’ll have to see:

Unlike West Virginia in 2018, Wisconsin is a closely divided swing state with obvious stakes for national politics, making it likely that a judicial impeachment would receive far more attention and become a magnet for fundraising and political activism. That also gives Democrats an additional avenue to respond: activating public opinion.

In an interview with Bolts, Ben Wikler, chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, stressed that he is focused on putting pressure on Republican lawmakers. Democrats have also launched a multimillion-dollar campaign to air ads on this situation. 

“Our number one goal in the first phase of this fight is to make sure that every Wisconsin voter knows Republicans are threatening to overturn the election, and to encourage them to contact their legislators to let them know how they feel about it,” Wikler says. “It’s going to remind voters exactly why they voted for Democrats in the midterms and threw out Trump in the first place, which is that the Wisconsin Republicans are a clear and present danger to democracy.”

Politically-speaking, Democrats’ strongest asset in the confrontation over their new supreme court majority is the governor’s mansion: If Republicans manage to remove Protasiewicz, Evers would have the power to appoint a new justice to fill the vacancy, and he would presumably pick another liberal-leaning justice to replace her.

Vos and his allies may still be thinking it’s worthwhile to float impeachment because the threat alone could persuade Protasiewicz to bow to their demand and recuse herself on at least redistricting cases; Protasiewicz has not at this stage indicated what she would do. In addition, if they do impeach and convict Protasiewicz before Dec. 1, it would trigger a special election in 2024, giving conservatives a shot to flip back the court next year. 

Still, even if there is an election in 2024, Evers’ interim appointment would sit on the court for long enough that the court would have time to strike down gerrymanders.

To tie Evers’ hands, Republicans may turn to a very aggressive maneuver. If the Assembly impeaches Protasiewicz, it would suspend her and therefore deprive liberals of their majority until the Senate holds a trial that results in either an acquittal or conviction. But the Senate could indefinitely delay trial on the articles of impeachment and keep Protasiewicz sidelined without allowing Evers to appoint a replacement. The state constitution sets no timeline for how quickly the Senate has to take up articles of impeachment. 

“It’s one of those situations where the constitution assumes good faith, regularity of proceedings, and doesn’t spell it out,” Oldfather says.

Protasiewicz could still try to sue to force a resolution, some legal observers say. But here again, she and state Democrats also have political leverage that may prove more important than possible lawsuits. 

At any moment, Protasiewicz could break the logjam by resigning, allowing Evers to appoint a replacement even if at a personal cost to her. In a bizarre twist due to the particularities of state law regarding the timing of elections (there can be no more than one supreme court seat on the ballot on any given year), if Protasiewicz resigned on or after Dec. 1, Evers’ replacement appointee would get to serve until 2031 without facing an special election (seats on the court are currently scheduled for re-election each year from 2025 to 2030)—hardly an appealing prospect for the GOP. 

Seifner, the University of Wisconsin professor, also envisions a scenario in which Evers could claim the authority to appoint a justice if the Senate is delaying a trial.

“It’s hard to say how the courts or other actors will respond in this unprecedented situation,” says Seifner. “For example, the governor could declare that the legislature’s inaction creates a temporary judicial vacancy, or a court—whether the high court or a lower court—could reject the holdup as an encroachment on the judicial function. There isn’t clarity at this point on who would have the final word.”

Republican lawmakers this week also introduced articles of impeachment this week against the state’s elections chief, Meagan Wolfe, whom they have been aiming to fire all summer. The charges against Wolfe stem largely from conspiracies about the 2020 presidential election that have been debunked. Either Protasiewicz or Wolfe would be the first Wisconsin official impeached in roughly 170 years.

Such extraordinary events, if they unfold in coming months, may also ratchet up what other politicians are willing to consider in other states. Republican lawmakers in Montana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania in recent years have talked about impeaching state supreme court justices whose decisions they disliked, but have ended up not moving forward. 

“You see states learning from one another and adopting the strategies that legislators have found successful in other states to gain an upper hand in their courts,” says Keith of the Brennan Center. “And so if this happens in one state, I would not be surprised to see other states follow.”

Threats often have a chilling effect. That’s why they work.

The Republicans have much more often used the states as their laboratories of fascism. They have organizations devoted to sharing their experiences and modeling their strategies. Wisconsin wasn’t the first and it won’t be the last.

I blame Trump. And Newt Gingrich

Pew has a new survey. America is a culture in distress. After what we’ve been through how could it be any other way? The rightwingers have been brainwashed by Fox, Trump and the erstwhile conservative movement to believe that liberals are destroying their way of life and must be stopped at all costs and the rest of us can see that the right has gone batshit crazy because of it.

A comprehensive new Pew Research Center study of the state of the nation’s politics finds no single focal point for the public’s dissatisfaction. There is widespread criticism of the three branches of government, both political parties, as well as political leaders and candidates for office.  

Notably, Americans’ unhappiness with politics comes at a time of historically high levels of voter turnout in national elections. The elections of 2018, 2020 and 2022 were three of the highest-turnout U.S. elections of their respective types in decades.

But voting in elections is very different from being satisfied with the state of politics – and the public is deeply dissatisfied.

Just 4% of U.S. adults say the political system is working extremely or very well; another 23% say it is working somewhat well. About six-in-ten (63%) express not too much or no confidence at all in the future of the U.S. political system.

Positive views of many governmental and political institutions are at historic lows. Just 16% of the public say they trust the federal government always or most of the time. While trust has hovered near historic lows for the better part of the last 20 years, today it stands among the lowest levels dating back nearly seven decades. And more Americans have an unfavorable than favorable opinion of the Supreme Court – the first time that has occurred in polling going back to the late 1980s.

A growing share of the public dislikes both political parties. Nearly three-in-ten (28%) express unfavorable views of both parties, the highest share in three decades of polling. And a comparable share of adults (25%) do not feel well-represented by either party.

Candidate choices are underwhelming. As the presidential campaign heats up, 63% of Americans say they are dissatisfied with the candidates who have emerged so far. Setting aside the presidential campaign, there has been a downward trend in views of the quality of all political candidates. Just 26% rate the quality of political candidates as very or somewhat good, down about 20 percentage points since 2018.

Majorities back age and term limits and eliminating the Electoral College. Reflecting the public’s frustration with the federal government and political leaders, large shares of Americans support various changes to the political system, including for such long-standing proposals as establishing term limits for members of Congress and scrapping the Electoral College. Age limits – for both federal elected officials and members of the Supreme Court – draw broad support. But there is little appetite in the public for increasing the size of the U.S. House or modifying the allocation of Senate seats.

The new study of Americans’ views of the state of the political system is primarily based on a survey conducted July 10-16, 2023, among 8,480 adults, with additional data from a survey conducted June 5-11, 2023, among 5,115 adults. Both were conducted on Pew Research Center’s nationally representative American Trends Panel.

A little more than a year before the presidential election, nearly two-thirds of Americans (65%) say they always or often feel exhausted when thinking about politics, while 55% feel angry. By contrast, just 10% say they always or often feel hopeful about politics, and even fewer (4%) are excited.

The survey also provides people several opportunities to describe in their own words their feelings about the political system and elected officials. When asked to sum up their feelings about politics in a word or phrase, very few (2%) use positive terms; 79% use negative or critical words, with “divisive” and “corrupt” coming up most frequently.

We also asked people to identify the strengths of the political system, as well as its weaknesses. Among the positive responses, roughly one-in-ten point to the structures of U.S. government, including its system of checks and balances (12%), freedoms and democratic values (9%) and the opportunity to vote in elections (8%).

Yet it is telling that a majority of Americans are unable or unwilling to identify strong points of the nation’s political system. While about a third gave no answer, another 22% write “nothing” – meaning that in their view, the political system does not have any strengths.

This overview covers key takeaways from our study of Americans’ attitudes about the political system and political representation. For more in-depth analysis, we encourage you to explore the full report. All chapters are listed out in the table of contents and at the bottom of the page.

These views and other negative sentiments are widely shared among older and younger Americans, White, Black, Hispanic and Asian adults, people who are highly engaged in politics and those who are less engaged. And in most cases, the partisan differences in these attitudes are relatively modest.

In an era defined by partisan polarization, the parties share little common ground politically. But they do share a deep unhappiness with the current state of politics.

The impact of partisan polarization

Ordinary Americans are more polarized than in the past. Partisan divisions on issues wider than they were a few decades ago, and many Americans hold deeply negative views of those on the “other side” of politics.

Yet the public also is highly critical of the impact of partisan polarization on politics.

More than eight-in-ten Americans (86%) say the following is a good description of politics: “Republicans and Democrats are more focused on fighting each other than on solving problems.”

Asked to describe in their own words the biggest problem with the political system, 22% of Americans volunteer partisan polarization or lack of partisan cooperation. Only critiques of politicians (31%) are mentioned more frequently.

Most people (57%) also believe that conflicts between Republicans and Democrats receive too much attention these days. And 78% say there is too little focus on important issues facing the country.

Persistent concerns over money in politics

The public’s belief that special interests and campaign donors have too much influence on politics is not new. Since the 1970s, large majorities have said that the government “is run by a few big interests looking out for themselves,” rather than for the benefit for all the people.

Yet money in politics emerges again and again as a major source of public frustration.

Most say the cost of campaigns keeps good candidates from running. An overwhelming majority (85%) holds the view that “the cost of political campaigns makes it hard for good people to run for office.”

Members of Congress are widely seen as mixing financial interests with their work. About eight-in-ten Americans (81%) say members of Congress do a very or somewhat bad job of “keeping their personal financial interests separate from their work in Congress.”

Americans feel major donors have too much influence. Large majorities say big campaign donors (80%) and lobbyists and special interests (73%) have too much influence on decisions made by members of Congress.

People in members’ own districts, by contrast, are widely viewed as having too little influence (70% say this).

A sizable majority (72%) – including comparable majorities in both parties – support limits on the amounts of money individuals and organizations can spend on political campaigns. And 58% believe it is possible to have laws that would effectively reduce the role of money in politics. (Explore this further in Chapter 5.)

Views of the parties and possible changes to the two-party system

Neither party is particularly popular with the public. Only about four-in-ten adults have a favorable view of the Democratic Party (37%), while about as many (36%) have a favorable impression of the Republican Party.

An increasing share of Americans express negative opinions of both parties. Currently, 28% of the public has an unfavorable opinion of both the Republican and Democratic parties.

That is little changed from a year ago, but nonetheless is the highest share expressing dislike of both parties in nearly three decades. In 1994, just 6% of Americans viewed both parties negatively.

Many people are open to the idea of having more political parties: 37% say the phrase “I often wish there were more parties to choose from” describes their views extremely or very well. Nearly half of independents and those who identify with other parties (47%) – including 56% of Democratic-leaning independents – say this. (Views of the two major parties, the party system and support for additional parties are discussed in more detail in Chapter 4 and Chapter 9.)

However, there is considerable skepticism that having more parties would make it easier for the country to solve its problems. About a quarter (26%) say it would make it easier to solve problems, while nearly as many (24%) say it would make it harder; a quarter say it would not have much impact.

The survey includes a number of proposals to change the way politics is run in this country. Some have attracted majority public support for many years, including ending the Electoral College system, placing term limits on members of Congress, automatically registering all citizens to vote and requiring all voters to show government-issued photo identification to vote. (Opinions about proposals for changing the political system are covered in Chapter 10.)

Large majorities of Americans also support:

Age limits for federal elected officials. Amid widespread concern over the advanced age of many political leaders, including President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and some members of Congress, 79% of the public favors putting a maximum age in place for elected officials in Washington, D.C. These views also are widely shared across partisan lines.

Age limits for the Supreme Court. Nearly as many Americans (74%) support putting age limits in place for justices of the Supreme Court. Democrats (82% favor) are more supportive of creating age limits for the justices than are Republicans (68%).

Another proposal that would dramatically affect the Supreme Court – increasing the number of justices – attracts considerably less support from the public.

Slightly more Americans oppose (51%) than favor (46%) increasing the number 0f justices on the court. There is a wide partisan gap in these views: Democrats (66%) are more than twice as likely as Republicans (27%) to favor expanding the court.

Other important findings

Recent presidential campaigns viewed as too long, not informative. Americans are not just unhappy about the current state of politics; they also take a critical view of recent presidential campaigns. Nearly eight-in-ten (78%) say recent nominees have not been good candidates, while large majorities also say the campaigns have not focused on the right issues or been informative, and 72% say they “lasted too long.” (Chapter 8)

Growing public concerns over different dimensions of federal-state relations. A majority of Americans (54%) are extremely or very concerned that “the rights and protections a person has might be different depending on which state they are in,” up from 43% just a year ago. Increasing shares also express concerns about the federal government doing too much that is better left to the states, as well as state governments not being willing enough to work with the federal government. (Chapter 2)

Elected officials are held in extremely low regard. When asked why local and national elected officeholders run for office, relatively small shares of Americans say they run to serve the public or address issues they care about. By contrast, majorities say all or most politicians are motivated by selfish reasons, including 63% who say all or most ran for office to make a lot of money. (Chapter 7)

Majority says voting can affect the country’s direction. Nearly six-in-ten (57%) say voting by people like them can affect the country’s future direction, though just 20% say it can affect this a lot. Adults younger than 50 are less likely than older people to say voting can have at least some effect on the country’s future direction. (Chapter 5)

It’s depressing but understandable. And let’s not forget the pandemic. Here we were in a massive crisis that shut down the whole world and the response by many of our leaders was an embarrassment. It’s even worse now, with people like Ron DeSantis saying that if he becomes president the government will not fund any vaccines if we have a similar crisis. It’s more than depressing. It’s downright terrifying.

2024 Laboratories of Autocracy competition

David Pepper, former Ohio Democrats’ state chair, calls GOP-led legislatures such as in Wisconsin, Ohio, and North Carolina laboratories of autocracy. But really, must they be so competitive about which is worst?

Here in N.C., Democrats are trying to organize for 2024 beginning with the March primary. But since rules and the district lines keep moving, how to do it? Voters will need photo IDs this time. Do they know? And which type? Under Covid, use of voting by mail skyrocketed. His Indictedness disapproved. Now N.C. Republicans mean to make voting by mail more unwiedly and mailed ballots less likely to be counted. So Democrats over the next year will advise voters against their use.

State and federal districts will be different in 2024. Again. (I’ve lost count of how many times over the last dozen years.) The N.C. GOP will hold a couple of public hearings about new N.C. districts that are already predetermined. The meetings are meant to be pro forma and unattended. Ask Pepper. This is what his looked like the other day in Ohio:

The Ohio state Supreme Court declared Republicans’ gerrymandered maps illegal too. Seven times. The GOP ignored the court.

If Republicans have their way, confusion will be our epitaph.

Ari Berman at Mother Jones:

In North Carolina, the governor dictates the political makeup of the state and county election boards, which are each composed of five members. Under Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, the boards have three Democrats and two Republicans. The governor appoints the members of the state board and the chair of the county boards. Under the new bill, those bodies would be evenly divided, with legislative leaders choosing the members of the state and local boards.

While that is theoretically more bipartisan, it is a recipe for gridlock that could hand sweeping new powers to Republicans in the legislature, who have a supermajority in both chambers due to the gerrymandered maps they drew in 2021.

If the state election board deadlocks and cannot certify a winner of an election, that power would instead go to the legislature. That means Republicans could determine the state’s presidential electors and potentially subvert the popular vote winner of the state if a Democrat carries North Carolina. “The legislature now gets to decide the outcome of all of our elections,” says Melissa Price Kromm, executive director of North Carolina Voters for Clean Elections, a pro-democracy coalition in the state. “When people vote is the will of the people still going to be accepted in North Carolina?” (State and federal courts could still order that elections be certified, and in presidential elections the legislature would need to comply with the revamped Electoral Count Act passed by Congress in 2021, which makes it harder for rogue legislatures to overturn the will of the voters.)

The bill also makes it easier to overturn elections in another way: only five of eight members of the new state board need to vote in favor of redoing an election, compared to four out of five members under the previous law (the board would grow in size from five members to eight under the new bill).

In addition to subverting fair election outcomes, the bill could lead to a huge decrease in voter access as well. Local election boards currently determine the number of early voting sites in a county, but if those boards deadlock under the new legislation there would only be one early voting location per county. That would dramatically limit the number of early voting sites in large urban counties that favor Democrats, leading to much longer lines at the polls. In 2020, for example, Wake County, home to Raleigh, had 20 early voting sites used by 374,000 voters, according to WRAL News. “There would only be one early voting location in counties with more than a million people,” says Price Kromm. “Can you imagine how long the lines would be?” 

More than half of North Carolinians used early voting in 2022 and Democrats were more likely to cast a ballot that way. “In the state’s 2022 Senate race, writes Daniel Walton of Bolts magazine, “in-person early voters favored Democratic candidate Cheri Beasley by five percentage points, even as she lost the election overall by more than three percentage points to Republican Ted Budd.”

That’s not all. The legislation could also lead to the ouster of the current executive director of the state board of elections, Karen Brinson Bell, who is widely respected but has been targeted by election deniers for extending the deadline for returning mail ballots during the pandemic. If the state board cannot come to an agreement on the board’s executive director by July 15, 2024, Republicans in the legislature would get to make the selection, allowing them to put in place someone who is more allied with the GOP just months before the 2024 election.  

Wisconsin Republicans are attempting to remove Wisconsin Election Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe for similar reasons. Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul declared the state Senate vote to remove her a blatant disregard for state law.

In Texas this spring, Republicans passed a law to strip local control of elections from the state’s largest blue county, Harris, an area greater than Rhode Island.

Berman again:

North Carolina Republicans are pursuing a multi-pronged strategy of election subversion and voter suppression to gain an electoral advantage in the state, which Trump narrowly won and which in recent years has seen close statewide races for governor and US Senate. They also passed another bill in August that undercuts Election Day registration, gives voters less time to cast ballots by mail, and expands voter challenges. That legislation was inspired, at least in part, by conservative activist Cleta Mitchell, one of the architects of Trump’s effort to overturn the election, who consulted with North Carolina Republicans on its drafting.

The fate of all mankind, I see
Is in the hands of fools

Brace for “both sides” on steroids

Some musings on the Menendez case and more. ICYMI (ABC News):

A federal grand jury in New York has returned a sweeping indictment against United States Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., chairman of the powerful Foreign Relations Committee, in connection with improper foreign relations and business dealings.

The investigation focused on a luxury car, gold bars and an apartment allegedly received by Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian. His wife was also indicted.

This is the second time Menendez has been charged with corruption. “A 2015 indictment ended in a mistrial in 2018 after a jury failed to reach a verdict on all counts and a judge acquitted him on some charges.” This time he stands accused of accepting bribes in exchange for using his foreign affairs clout to help Egypt. He says he will not resign.

I joked online Friday that all Menendez need do now is switch parties. The GOP will welcome him openly (see NC state Rep. Tricia Cotham), fundraise for his defense, and claim the indictment is a politically motivated act against a Republican by a “weaponized” Biden Department of Justice.

True colors

I joked about Cotham too soon (Texas Tribune):

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, a longtime Democrat, is now a Republican — turning Dallas into the largest city in the country with a GOP mayor.

“Today I am changing my party affiliation,” Johnson wrote in an op-ed published Friday in The Wall Street Journal. “Next spring, I will be voting in the Republican primary. When my career in elected office ends in 2027 on the inauguration of my successor as mayor, I will leave office as a Republican.”

Johnson served in the Texas Legislature for nine years as a Democrat before he was elected as Dallas mayor in 2019. Though the mayor’s position is technically nonpartisan, Johnson joins Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker as one of two Republican mayors to lead a major Texas city.

Johnson did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson switches to the Republican Party after being elected as a Democrat. We’re seeing more of this lately. Organic? Or dark money forces at play? https://t.co/M4ju4vLpnD

— Don Lewis (@DonLew87) September 22, 2023

James F. Love IV reaches back a few centuries for a historical analogue:

The phrase “Showing his true colors” comes from the 16th Century.

Pirate ships would fly the flag of the ship they were attacking until close, then strike that flag and hoist the Jolly Roger. https://t.co/FJU3FPcY6S pic.twitter.com/zuBMU0HDaq

— James F. Love IV (@JamesFLoveIV) September 23, 2023

Historian Heather Cox Richardson opts for a more contemporary reference:

This is a tactic outlined by Russian political theorists for how to overturn a democracy. https://t.co/0JeuvswvnV

— Heather Cox Richardson (TDPR) (@HC_Richardson) September 23, 2023

There’s a touch of corruption in the fall air, isn’t there, observes Rachel Bitecofer.

You know who else hid money from the IRS and ran his bribes through his wife?! pic.twitter.com/kWJuAPCtbJ

— Rachel Bitecofer 📈🔭🇺🇲🇺🇦 (@RachelBitecofer) September 22, 2023

Judd Legum notes the irony in how swiftly Democrats booted Al Franken over an adolescent prank.

FACT: @SenSchumer called on Al Franken to resign in 2017 even though Franken was never charged with any crime

Now Schumer is defending Menendez despite overwhelming evidence of corruption, calling him a “dedicated public servant” and rejecting calls for Menendez to resign pic.twitter.com/xT7y9mx3z8

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) September 22, 2023

But Menendez with his cash and gold bars is more of an “old boy” that other old boys will defend. Both Schumer and Durbin are well past their “best by” dates.

Meanwhile, Rep. Max Frost (D-Fla.), political activist, national organizing director for March for Our Lives, and the first Gen Z member of Congress, is in the Rose Garden during his first term introducing the president as he announces formation of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

After years of organizing as a young person impacted by gun violence in America, like so many, and introducing my first bill ever to create an Office of Gun Violence Prevention, it was an honor to introduce @POTUS as he turned our calls for action into reality.

For the first… pic.twitter.com/yaOd4snPhd

— Congressman Maxwell Alejandro Frost (@RepMaxwellFrost) September 22, 2023

Which side are you on?

Kidding aside about Menendez switching parties, unless Democrats swiftly make him walk the plank, Trump, the GOP, and press stenographers will use the Menendez indictment to supercharge their narrative that “both sides” are equally corrupt. It will distract from Trump’s four indictments, the coup-related trials, and the threat posed by the Trump’s fascist movement. Bums need to be voted out. Biden himself advocated that on Friday. But a “both your houses” backlash the republic does not need.

Hill Democrats rallying around Menendez could further dampen enthusiasm for voting among young independents at a time when the republic needs their energy most to defeat reactionaries who would burn it down. Frost represents their future. Menendez is a boat anchor.

Cheetah cubs born yesterday!

Carnivore keepers at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (NZCBI) in Front Royal, Virginia, are celebrating a litter of five cheetah cubs born to 8-year-old adult female Echo Tuesday, Sept. 12. Viewers can enjoy watching the cubs grow via the Cheetah Cub Cam. Note that Echo may move her cubs out of the den and around her habitat so they may be out of view at times.

Animal care staff will leave Echo to bond with and care for her cubs without interference, but as opportunities arise, staff will perform quick health checks. During a recent weight check, staff confirmed there are three males and two females. The cubs appear to be strong, active, vocal and eating well.

About Echo and Her Cubs:

Five surviving cubs were born Sept. 12 (a sixth cub did not survive).

She is a second-time mom; Echo had a litter of four cubs in 2020. 

Echo was born at White Oak Conservation in Florida in 2015. 

There are two potential sires, either Asante or Flash; scientists will perform genetic testing to determine the sire when the cubs are old enough to have blood collected.

Echo is trained for ultrasounds, which allowed staff to determine she was pregnant July 28.

The cubs’ genetic data is important for population management as the cubs will eventually enter breeding programs.

NZCBI is part of the Cheetah Breeding Center Coalition—a group of 10 cheetah breeding centers across the United States that aim to create and maintain a sustainable North American cheetah population under human care. These cubs are a significant addition to the Cheetah Species Survival Plan (SSP), as each individual contributes to this program. The SSP scientists determine which animals to breed by considering their genetic makeup, health and temperament, among other factors. Since 2007, NZCBI has celebrated 81 cheetah births; the facility currently houses 30 cheetahs.

Cheetahs live in small, isolated populations mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. Many of their strongholds are in eastern and southern African parks. Due to human conflict, poaching, and habitat and prey-base loss, there are only an estimated 7,000 to 7,500 cheetahs left in the wild. The International Union for Conservation of Nature considers cheetahs vulnerable to extinction.

Speaking of cheetahs, check this out:

cheetahs & a forest ranger. pic.twitter.com/Kkpb2VWi6F

— MIND CHANGER (@Cryptanalysiz) September 21, 2023

I thought this from Politico playbook was actually pretty interesting:

 “The House has really abandoned the McCarthy CR strategy today and has embraced the MATT GAETZ strategy of single subject spending bills.”

That was Gaetz last night on a podcast, explaining what transpired in the House on Thursday. And he was not wrong.

The Florida Republican, who has been pilloried by Speaker KEVIN McCARTHY and his allies for the last two weeks, wakes up this morning as the architect of the House GOP’s newest legislative strategy.

Here’s how it happened.

Yesterday, five House Republicans voted down the rule to advance the GOP’s Pentagon spending bill — the third rule defeat McCarthy has suffered this year.

Voting down a rule used to be a rare event (the last speaker to lose a rules vote was DENNIS HASTERT). But McCarthy believed he had the votes yesterday because Reps. RALPH NORMAN (R-S.C.) and KEN BUCK (R-Colo.), who both opposed the same rule on Tuesday, agreed to support the rule on Thursday.

But what McCarthy and his whip team missed was that Reps. ELI CRANE (R-Ariz.) and MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-Ga.), who voted for the rule on Tuesday, opposed the rule on Thursday.

Within two hours of this humiliating defeat, at the nadir of McCarthy’s awful week, a surprising visitor showed up at his office: Gaetz. He had a plan.

In another closed-door meeting, Gaetz huddled with a larger group of Republicans, including some moderates, and pitched them on the same idea.

Gaetz had spent the week proving to McCarthy that the speaker could not pass a continuing resolution to keep the government temporarily open, no matter how much the speaker refashioned it to appease the hard right. “#NOCR” has become a rallying cry for Gaetz and his crew that has hardened as a government shutdown approaches.

Making things worse for McCarthy was the fact that the never-CR Republicans and the no-on-the-rule Republicans are actually slightly different groups (though the former has more members). In fact, Gaetz voted for the rule for the Defense bill on both Tuesday and Thursday.

But the rule votes increased McCarthy’s desperation and strengthened his chief antagonist. “This opportunity has come to pass only because a handful of us had the stones to take down the defense approps rule today,” Rep. DAN BISHOP (R-N.C.) said last night.

Gaetz told his Republican colleagues that McCarthy should bring single subject appropriations bills to the floor one at a time. He dictated his list of the first four: Defense, Homeland Security, State-Foreign Operations, and the Agriculture-FDA bill.

A few hours later, the Rules Committee put out notice that it would be taking up four bills today at 1 p.m.: Defense, Homeland Security, State-Foreign Operations, and the Agriculture-FDA bill.

WHAT GAETZ FEARS: The premise of the Gaetz plan is to kill what he calls governing by CR. It assumes a government shutdown is inevitable. And instead of using a hard-right CR as the House’s opening move in negotiations with the Senate, the (lengthy) floor debates on the House GOP-crafted appropriations bills will serve that purpose.

Gaetz has a surprising partner in this plan: Rep. MARC MOLINARO, a New York moderate who is one of the 18 House Republicans representing a district carried by JOE BIDEN. Molinaro has been involved in various attempts to solve the shutdown crisis this week, including the bipartisan effort to use a discharge petition to force a vote on a CR. “It is absolutely an option,” he told NBC News yesterday even as he worked with Gaetz on the plan to kill the CR.

Now that his strategy has prevailed, Gaetz said last night that he sees one serious obstacle to keeping it on course and preventing a return to the CR.

“The threat is that five liberal or moderate Republicans say, ‘We don’t want to do the single subject bills,’” he said on the podcast last night. “So we’re just going to go sign what’s called a discharge petition and then just move that thing like shit through a goose.”

Since the Gaetz strategy assumes a shutdown, we suspect that Gaetz is right that there will be a backlash against this plan from plenty of House Republicans as the shutdown approaches and that the discharge petition will start to look like an increasingly appealing option. After all, McCarthy himself noted this week that his rebels have already crossed two of the three major red lines for a member of the House majority: (1) voting against the speaker candidate approved by a majority of the conference and (2) voting against a rule. He suggested that it may be inevitable that the third red line will soon be crossed: supporting a discharge petition.

MEANWHILE IN THE SENATE: The Molinaro-Gaetz plan did not look like a winner to CHUCK SCHUMER last night. As it was being crafted, he moved to begin debate on a bill that can be used to send the House the Senate’s version of a CR, which opens the possibility that McCarthy will have a bill in hand to avert a shutdown before next Sunday.

If you squint hard, you might see a possible scenario in which McCarthy allows a week to be wasted on the Gaetz plan but then — bowing to pressure from the Senate, the public and his own conference — passes the Senate CR with a bipartisan vote at the last minute or after a short shutdown. Of course, McCarthy passing any CR is an outcome that Gaetz and others have promised would trigger a motion to vacate.

THE PLAYBOOK INTERVIEW: KATHERINE CLARK — Speaking of the motion to vacate, we wanted to get a better idea of what Democrats might do if McCarthy faces such a vote, so we sat down with Democratic Whip Katherine Clark in her office yesterday afternoon and pressed her on what it would take to help McCarthy.

On her list: ending the impeachment probe of Joe Biden. The full interview is available here on Deep Dive. What follows are some key excerpts.

— When pressed on what Dems might want in exchange for helping McCarthy: “We want him to live up to the agreement that he made [with President Biden]. We want to get disaster aid out. We want to continue our support for Ukraine. And we want them to end this sham of an impeachment inquiry.”

— On the Dems’ role at this stage in the government funding standoff: “We respected the deal that the president made with Speaker McCarthy. And they signed that deal. And 314 of us voted — in an almost equal bipartisan fashion — to support it. And the ink was barely dry when Kevin McCarthy was back trying to placate the extremists in his conference. And he is just telling the American people what matters is him retaining his speakership and they don’t. And so when people come and say, Are Democrats going to help?, it is beyond frustrating.”

— On McCarthy: “When you have a leader whose sole focus has become remaining that leader, then bad things emanate from that. And that’s the situation where we are. … Nothing about Kevin McCarthy’s behavior as speaker gives me confidence that he is going to turn into the leader that this moment is calling for.”

— On what Dems will do if a motion to vacate comes to the floor: “It is going to be totally dependent on the actions of Kevin McCarthy. … [I] he comes back to [the bipartisan spending deal], we can talk about it, because our goal is to prevent a shutdown. … We’ve been here waiting to have Kevin McCarthy ask for help in governing responsibly. I haven’t gotten that call.”

— On her nicknames, which include “the quiet assassin” and “the velvet assassin”: “There is some sort of stereotype that if you’re friendly, if you’re nice, like, do you really have political strength, political acumen? … I think sometimes, people are uneasy with both of those things residing in a woman.”

I don’t think anyone knows how this is going to come out but I’m fairly sure that Matt Gaetz has delusions of grandeur. They’re trying to appease him, sure. But they loathe him with every fiber of him being and it’s not just the leadership. Even Byron Donalds hates him.

I have to say though that I love the idea that the Dems are going to demand that they rescind the Biden Impeachment inquiry. Hahahaha. How do you like ’em now, MyKev?

Last time there was a government shutdown, 800,000 Americans were furloughed or worked without pay.

But enjoy your weekend. https://t.co/wAz1SpInV5

— President Biden (@POTUS) September 21, 2023

Couldn’t happen to a nicer fascist:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is losing his clout in Florida.

College boards, stacked with DeSantis appointees, are rejecting job candidates with ties to the governor.

The chair of the Republican Party of Florida urged executive committee members to attend all GOP candidate events — giving cover to party faithful who want to attend a dinner at Mar-a-Lago with former President Donald Trump.

And the board that oversees many of Florida’s affordable housing programs this month placed on leave its executive director, who was helped into the job by a top DeSantis adviser.

Interviews with nearly two dozen lobbyists, political consultants and lawmakers revealed that DeSantis’ struggles as a presidential candidate have already eroded his influence in Florida. There is a widespread expectation that his candidacy will end in failure. His standing at home may depend on how long he slogs forward in the presidential campaign — and how he will manage his exit from the race if he eventually drops out.

Now, it may be just a matter of time before Florida Republicans, once unflinchingly loyal, seek distance from DeSantis and his hardball governing methods.

“You don’t get the assumption they are measuring drapes anymore — they are waiting for him to drop out,” one long-time Republican consultant in Tallahassee said of those working for the governor. The consultant, like others quoted in this story, was granted anonymity to freely discuss the sensitive situation.

State Rep. Daniel Perez, the Miami Republican in line to become the next state House speaker, urged his GOP colleagues this week to move more carefully in the future, saying that “the problem with wielding the power of government like a hammer is that the people start looking like nails.”

Perez insisted his comment was not a “message to the governor,” but added, “That being said, the Legislature can’t work alone, the Legislature works with the governor.”

And no matter how he framed his comments, Perez’s words were being viewed as a rejoinder to DeSantis. One Tallahassee lobbyist said it was a signal that the “conveyor belt” Legislature that passed whatever DeSantis wanted is coming to an end.

[…]

Yet some state lawmakers are still bitter that DeSantis’ campaign asked Florida lawmakers to fundraise for him ahead of the GOP debate in August, according to a former Republican officeholder who spoke with them.

“Few members of the Legislature have a relationship with Ron DeSantis,” the person said. “He’s like the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. You can’t get to him. All you hear about is the great and powerful Oz.”

I guess being a cold, insular weirdo doesn’t really get you a lot of support when the campaign falters. But I won’t count DeSantis out. He’s very Nixonian and I could see him making a comeback in 2028. But if he decides to do it I would look for him to make a major change in political philosophy (if you want to call the “war on woke” a philosophy.) If he expects any kind of success in the future he much realize that there’s only one Donald Trump — and he isn’t it. Considering how inflexible he seems to be I’m not sure he can make the leap.

Here’s the latest from the 2016 Great Whitebread Hope:

Stallions are biological. I want to be a stallion! https://t.co/eTHIpYuhA8 pic.twitter.com/heiqL1KCeO

— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) September 22, 2023

Yeah… that’s the caliber of people these Republicans keep throwing at the American people.