Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

I find that the Bulwark’s JV Last has a dark view of current events that often fits my mood even if I’m actually quite a bit more optimistic in general. (See my earlier posts today exhorting everyone to chill a bit about Biden’s chances.) But there are days that I ponder our situation and feel the blackness descending and I appreciate Last’s analytical prowess as he tries to assess just what the hell is happening here. He doesn’t come to any firm conclusions and neither do it but it’s important to at least try to figure it out.

Anyway, here’s today’s dark missive:

1. Decadence

We’re going to keep doing this and I’m sorry. Here are some tidbits from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal poll:

By an 11-point margin, more voters see Trump rather than Biden as having a record of accomplishments as president—some 40% said Biden has such a record, while 51% said so of Trump. By an eight-point margin, more voters said Trump has a vision for the future. And by 10 points, more described Trump as mentally up to the presidency. Some 46% said that is true of Trump, compared with 36% who said so of Biden.

What?

Trump has more of a record of “accomplishment” in office than Biden?

I would pay a lot of money to sit down with that 51 percent of respondents and ask them to tell me five things Trump accomplished in office. I’d even spot them the first four: A tax cut; the appointment of three SCOTUS judges; the killing of Qasem Soleimani; Operation Warp Speed.

Meanwhile, whatever you think about voting for Biden for another term, just on the basis of balls and strikes, this has been one of the more successful first terms most of us have lived through:

-Beating COVID
-American Rescue Plan
-Bipartisan gun reform
-Bipartisan infrastructure
-Inflation Reduction Act
-CHIPs
-Killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri
-Managing the allied support of the war in Ukraine

I would add the withdrawal from Afghanistan which was always going to be a mess but Biden had the guts to do it and we are out. It’s pathetic that people who love Trump and Obama (for different reasons, obviously) are so critical of Biden for doing it. He was forced to follow Trump’s withdrawal plan but understood that if he was going to do it, he would have to do it early and he did it. And Obama never followed through.

As for being mentally up for the presidency, again, I understand people who have doubts about Joe Biden. Fair enough.

But they think Trump is up to the job, mentally?

This guy?

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This guy?

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This guy?

I do not understand how anyone who has been awake for the last seven years could see Trump as “mentally up for the presidency” if Joe Biden is not.

But wait. It gets worse.

Here’s one more piece of data from that WSJ poll:

[N]early three in four say inflation is headed in the wrong direction.

So 74 percent of those polled say that inflation is “headed in the wrong direction.”

Here is the reality:

Inflation has been headed in the right direction, by a lot, for more than a year. That’s just the objective truth.

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This is the part I think is interesting to ponder. When did we become such a nation of whiners?

The People seem hell-bent on being unhappy these days. They complain about the price of gas. When gas prices are down, they complain about the cost of eggs. When egg prices are down, they complain about the cost of real estate. When real estate prices stabilize, they complain about the rise in mortgage rates.

On the one hand, these complaints are annoyingly stupid. On the other hand, they’re a real problem.

That’s because a populace determined to be dissatisfied isn’t capable of self-government in the long run. It will continually seek change. Over time, it will become open to ever more extreme changes. It will lose the ability to make rational, outcome-based choices. And it will become susceptible to strongmen and demagogues because these figures create scapegoats and targets for dissatisfaction.

Historically speaking, strongmen and demagogues have arisen in times of stress, calamity, and desperation. It is an example of American exceptionalism that our own confrontation with authoritarianism has emerged during a time of peace and almost unimaginable prosperity.

I’m not sure what that says about us, but I suspect it says something important. And not good.

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2. Decadence

Why would this be? 2020s America is not Weimar Germany. We are not reeling from a Great Depression. Our recent wars have been—by all historical measures—small scale.

We are in the opposite position: 2020s America is a place of almost inconceivable prosperity. Not everywhere and not for everyone. We do not live in utopia. There are real problems: income inequality and stagnant middle-class wages. Poverty exists. Upward economic mobility is not as easy as it should be, and downward economic mobility is real and scary.

But by historical measures? This is about as fat and happy as a society gets.

So why now? Let’s posit a few options and then you can discuss in the comments.

(1) People are stupider. I’m predisposed to this argument. Obviously.

But are they really? Probably not. Even if “education” was better at the top level at some other time in American history—which I doubt—more Americans are better educated today than at any time in history.

And while lots of people believe stupid things today (Qanon, Flat Earthers, etc.), is that any different than during the ’70s? Or the 1930s? Or the 1850s? Is information in the media less reliable? Again: I doubt it.

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(2) Decadence. Maybe people are less “serious” today. By which I mean that people are so comfortable that they can make choices based on self-actualization rather than managing their daily reality. For example:

Only someone safe in the understanding that no serious harm can come to them is liberated to live at odds from reality. That’s a good-enough definition of decadence.

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(3) Failure of liberalism. Maybe we’ve reached the end of history and discovered that Donald Trump is actually the Last Man.

By which I mean: Perhaps liberalism is not an end-state, but a transitory period that contains the seeds of its own destruction. The appearance of illiberalism across much of the developed world over the last decade would support this thesis.

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(4) Racism. Or maybe the problem is a uniquely American one tied to race. We’ve undergone a rapid demographic transition since 1980.

Even though this transition has coincided with enormous gains in prosperity, racial majorities do not (historically) welcome such changes with arms wide open.

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(5) Reaction. If you asked conservatives this question, they might explain that the current friendliness to demagogues is a natural reactionary movement in response to overreach from progressive ideological successes. This is “The Cathedral” argument from the nat-con right, and it shouldn’t be dismissed just because many of the people making it are cranks.

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Obviously this is a partial list. You can probably come up with other theories. And the real explanation will be some combination of many factors.

Why did the tensions, conflicts, and economic dislocations of the 1940s lead to FDR, and the problems of the 1970s to Reagan—but the peace and prosperity of the 2000s led to Trump and the elevation of demagoguery?¹

The comments to the column feature a lively discussion if you are a Bulwark subscriber.

I can think of some reasons that have to do with the rapid adaption of technology that’s created epic changes faster than we can deal with. And I think our media environment creates a sense of chaos and dissonance. But honestly, you’ve got me. Let’s just say that I’ve certainly noticed this phenomenon and can see it in myself.

I just love this story so much:

In August 2022, James O’Keefe needed to get to Maine for a sailing trip. Rather than take a commercial flight for roughly $200, the conservative undercover-video activistdirected his employees to book a $12,000 helicopter flight direct from New York to the seaside town of Southwest Harbor, using funds donated to Project Veritas, the nonprofit he founded, according to a draft of a private internal audit conducted by an independent law firm.

When bad weather forced the helicopter to make an unscheduled landing in Portland, O’Keefe booked a $1,400 black car for the three-hour drive from the helipad to the sailboat. O’Keefe justified the expenses by saying that he had a meeting near the dock, the audit stated. Two Project Veritas staffers described the person he met with to The Washington Post as a low-level donor.

It wasn’t the first time O’Keefe had covered personal expenses with funds from the donor-supported nonprofit whose self-described mission is investigative journalism, according to the report compiled by Dorsey & Whitney, a firm hired by the Project Veritas board in the wake of its founder’s departure in February. A copy of the report was shared with The Post.

There was $208,980 worth of luxury black-car travel over a two-year period. There was a $600 haul of bottled water during one hotel stay in San Antonio. There was even a $2,500 set of DJ equipment;O’Keefe dreamed of playing a set at Coachella, according to two former employees, and was irritated when his staff couldn’t get him booked at the legendary California music festival.

The audit report raises questions about whether O’Keefe complied with laws that prohibit nonprofit leaders from using the organization’s funds for their personal benefit. The Westchester County, N.Y., district attorney’s office has said it is investigating O’Keefe, as first reported by the Nation.

Before he left Project Veritas in February, under pressure from its board of directors, O’Keefe was surrounded by a “cult of personality” that enabled him to behave as if he were “untouchable,” the audit concluded. The report states that it was based on interviews with 35 current and former Project Veritas staffers conducted by Dorsey & Whitney. O’Keefe did not respond to The Post’s requests for comment.

Hannah Giles, a onetime O’Keefe ally who is now the CEO of Project Veritas, compared O’Keefe’s spending habits to the mega-wealthy financier antihero on the Showtime television series“Billions.”

“If you’re Bobby Axelrod from ‘Billions,’ it’s fine to live like that,” Giles saidin an interview with The Post. “When you’re paying your bills from a little old lady’s Social Security checks, we’re going to have problems.”

Project Veritas gained the admiration of major conservative donors as well as small-dollar grass-roots contributors with undercover videos exposing supposed bias or wrongdoing by journalists, labor leaders and liberal advocates. In 2021 alone, it raised $21,958,641 in contributions, according to the most recent available tax forms.

But the group laid off 25 of its 40 staff members last month, Project Veritas acknowledges.In an Aug. 18 meeting, board chairman Joe Barton told staffers he was concerned that the audit, if made public, could trigger an IRS investigation or even a forced shutdown, according to a recording of the meeting that was shared with The Post.

Barton told The Post his comments reflected the opinion of the larger board. He declined to comment further on the audit.

Last year, two Florida residents pleaded guilty in connection to an FBI probe into the theft of a diary belonging to Ashley Biden that ended up in the possession of Project Veritas during the 2020 campaign. During that investigation, agents searched O’Keefe’s Mamaroneck, N.Y., home and seized electronic equipment, but O’Keefe was not charged with a crime. (Project Veritas never ran a story about the diary, and both O’Keefe and the nonprofit have said they acted legally as journalists.)

O’Keefe, 39, was more than the founder of Project Veritas. He was also the face of the organization, styling himself as a citizen journalist crusading against perceived corruption, hypocrisy or bias in media or liberal politics. Now, though, the nonprofit is suing him over his messy departure, which came amid questions about the group’s finances, and the board-commissioned audit includes vivid accounts of profligate spending as well as what it calls his “volatile” workplace behavior, highlighting O’Keefe’s role in the downfall of the organization.

O’Keefe declined to speak with the auditors, according to the document.

This made me laugh out loud:

In September 2021, according to the report, Hurricane Ida floodwaters threatened to destroy the Project Veritas office in Mamaroneck. The staff scrambled to save equipment and their own lives — one elderly employee was briefly pulled underwater and had to be rescued by colleagues. But O’Keefe had already left the scene, asking employees to prioritize his own evacuation so he could make it to Virginia for a performance of the musical “Oklahoma!” in which he had the lead role, according to staffers cited by the audit.

The fact that James O’Keefe believed he was going to leverage his rat-fucking operation into being a Broadway musical star is just hilarious to me. Fortunately for theatre goers, he is spectacularly untalented and it would never happen. But more importantly, unfortunately for America he has done much damage to individuals and institutions.

God willing, we have seen the last of him. But don’t bet on it. I have two words for you: Roger Stone. Zombie ratfuckers never die.

Maybe saying the word “woke” every other word wasn’t the big winner Ron and Casey thought it was

Politico reports:

Of the 50 donors who gave at least $160,000 in the years leading up to his 2022 reelection campaign, only 16 — less than a third — provided funds to the super PAC Never Back Down, which can receive unlimited contributions, through the end of June. Eight other major donors gave directly to his presidential campaign but not the super PAC.

The top 50 list includes five donors who are now financially supporting rival presidential candidates. And of those who are giving money to the DeSantis campaign or his super PAC, five are splitting their funds with other candidates.

The inability of DeSantis to convert more of his gubernatorial donors into presidential ones is emblematic of a larger shortcoming of his current campaign. And it presents particular problems for the governor precisely because his operation has leaned so heavily on the super PAC to perform basic campaign functions.

Trailing former President Donald Trump by wide margins in Republican primary polls — some of which show him struggling to keep his second-place status — many former contributors to the Florida governor are looking to other candidates or keeping their wallets shut entirely.

“Ron DeSantis outraised both Biden and Trump last quarter, and we continue to see overwhelming enthusiasm from grassroots and major supporters chipping in to help our campaign,” said Andrew Romeo, a DeSantis campaign spokesperson. “We look forward to continued fundraising success this quarter as we capitalize on his strong debate performance and momentum in the early states.”

The funds Never Back Down has raised, however, are overwhelmingly drawn from an $82 million transfer from the Florida-based political committee that backed DeSantis’ reelection bid.

And in recent weeks, some of DeSantis’ biggest past donors have come out publicly to say they are holding back on writing checks to the super PAC. That includes hotel and aerospace executive Robert Bigelow, by far the biggest individual contributor to Never Back Down and to DeSantis’ reelection campaign. Last month, Bigelow told Reuters that he would not give further donations to the super PAC unless DeSantis adopted more moderate policies and “until I see that he’s able to generate more [contributions] on his own.”

And keep in mind that DeSantis and his super PAC have been spending money like drunken sailors. It’s likely that they’ve run through a good bit of what they had banked.

We’ve seen some massive flame outs in politics before, especially on the Republican side. This one looks more and more like for the books. Let’s just hope it’s enough to end his political career altogether. Remember, Scott Walker withdrew from the 2016 race early and then ran for a third term as Wisconsin — and he lost. We haven’t been burdened with him since. Fingers crossed that DeSantis has the same fate.

Following up on my post below, here’s Obama vet Jim Messina on the same topic. And he makes a point I failed to make: the real problem isn’t Biden’s age, it’s the possibility of losing because of third party gadfly campaigns. It’s happened before …

MESSINA TO DEMS: CHILL OUT — Every day, it seems, there’s new fodder for Democrats looking to freak out about President JOE BIDEN’s reelection prospects: Sagging public views of the economy. Persistent voter concerns about Biden’s age. And erosion in the president’s standing among key minority groups, to name a few.

The man who put the last Democratic president back into the White House — JIM MESSINA, manager of BARACK OBAMA’s 2012 reelect — is back with a reassuring message for his fellow Dems, delivered in a new 22-slide presentation exclusively obtained by Playbook: Relax.

We caught up with Messina last night, and he made it clear he doesn’t see the election through rose-colored glasses. Multiple times he pointed out that (1) no matter who the Republican is, it’ll be a close election and (2) the most likely GOP nominee, DONALD TRUMP, has a strong base and can absolutely win.

But the deck makes a compelling, data-driven case that the sky isn’t falling just yet — with one major caveat, which we’ll get to in a moment.

“I thought it was important to say to my friends and clients and other people, let’s just take a step back and try to be really number-specific and really sort of who has what cards in their poker hand,” Messina told Playbook. “And you would just rather be Joe Biden than Donald Trump.”

“Historically, we’re fucking bedwetters,” he added. “We grew up in the ’80s and ’90s when Republicans won elections all the time. Democrats had their hearts deeply broken when HILLARY [CLINTON] lost and people didn’t see that coming. And so, you know, we continually believe every bad thing people say.”

THE KEY POINTS from the deck, titled “Off to the Races,” and our chat with Messina:

— The economic fundamentals are strong. The “misery index,” a bellwether economic measure that combines unemployment and inflation, is now lower than it was ahead of RONALD REAGAN, BILL CLINTON and Obama’s successful reelections. Messina also gives credit to Biden and team for consistently selling “Bidenomics” to voters, even as voter views remain stuck — likening it to the challenges Obama faced in 2012 as the economy slowly emerged from the Great Recession: “People thought we were crazy to go as early as we did with economic messaging.”

— Abortion is a major X factor. Democrats have long played defense on so-called culture war issues, but after the Dobbs ruling, Messina said, Democrats have an issue to rally voters around unlike anything he’s seen in modern politics. And its staying power, he added, is only buoyed by a Republican primary where a national abortion ban is continuingly put forward as a litmus test.

— The election is a choice, not a wish. Pressed on the dismal voter views of Biden, Messina said he is confident the qualms will wash away as the horse race takes shape. “It’s a choice between two parties, two ideologies, between two people,” he said. “And that choice matters. … People didn’t see the Democratic turnout in 2022 coming.” And while Messina assumes it’s a Biden-Trump rematch, he argues that even another GOP nominee can be painted as extreme and Trump-y.

AND THE BIG CAVEAT is whether that choice gets muddied: Messina is joining many other Democrats and some anti-Trump Republicans in fingering third-party candidates as a underappreciated threat to Biden.

“I don’t care what they do. I don’t care how much money they spend. I don’t care who their nominee is. They’re going to get zero electoral votes. The question is who do they take the votes from?” Messina said. “You just can’t split away votes if you want to beat Donald Trump. And I just cannot overstate how crucial it is to make sure that we don’t create a vehicle that takes enough votes up to elect Donald Trump.”

And the grift goes on

Special counsel Jack Smith may be investigating Donald Trump’s defrauding his followers after he lost the 2020 election.

Raw Story (Sarah K. Burris):

Speaking to MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace on Tuesday, Tim Heaphy related suspected financial dealings based on claims that the election was stolen to an operation that was selling snake oil.

“He’s looking for more evidence of the big grift,” he explained. “We laid this out in great detail during one or more of our hearings and it is outlined in the report. A lot of people were profiting from this false narrative that the election was stolen. Save America PAC raised $250 million after the election by telling people that the election was stolen. Sidney Powell set up a nonprofit and legal defense fund in which those same lies led to a lot of people giving money.”

Wallace played a clip of the House committee’s hearing showing screen captures of over 25 email solicitations that the Trump campaign sent out in a single day. There was also an America First Foundation, which raised money and has hired many of the former Trump staff.

It’s all fraud, Heaphy believes:

“If somebody says, ‘If you give me money, I’ll use it to do the following: I’ll give it to refugee resettlement in our community.’ But you don’t use it for refugee resettlement, you use it for other purposes beyond that which you indicated. That is fraud. Wire fraud, mail fraud are crimes that broadly criminalize any scheme that is meant to deprive people of their money based on deception, based on falsity. That’s one of the many things that the special counsel may very well be looking at here.”

Gee, that’s awfully familiar, isn’t it? Former Trump adviser, Steve Bannon, will stand trial next May “on charges that he duped donors who gave money to build a wall along the U.S. southern border” in his “We Build the Wall” campaign:

Bannon, 69, pleaded not guilty last September following his indictment on state money laundering, conspiracy, fraud and other charges. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg took up the case after Bannon’s federal prosecution was cut short by a Trump pardon. Presidential pardons apply only to federal crimes, not state offenses.

Bannon is accused of falsely promising donors that all money given to the We Build the Wall campaign would go toward building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Instead, prosecutors allege that the money was used to enrich Bannon and others involved in the project.

Like cult leader, like cult follower. And the grift goes on.

until its district turned blue

Politico:

A federal court struck down Alabama’s congressional map on Tuesday, after GOP state lawmakers refused the court’s mandate to draw a second majority-Black district.

The three-judge panel wrote that it was “deeply troubled” that the state legislature declined to draw two majority-Black districts. The same court ruled last year that it should draw a second majority-Black district to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court affirmed the ruling from the lower court earlier this year.

Alabama Republicans refused to comply.

The three-judge panel writes:

We do not take lightly federal intrusion into a process ordinarily reserved for the State Legislature. But we have now said twice that this Voting Rights Act case is not close. And we are deeply troubled that the State enacted a map that the State readily admits does not provide the remedy we said federal law requires.

We are disturbed by the evidence that the State delayed remedial proceedings but ultimately did not even nurture the ambition to provide the required remedy.

Their remedial maps remediated nothing. And now?

Roll Call:

A court-appointed special master has about three weeks to submit proposals for a new Alabama congressional map after a panel of federal judges Tuesday struck down the district lines drawn by state lawmakers, finding that the plan didn’t fix a likely violation of civil rights law.  

The ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama directed the special master to file three proposed remedial maps by Sept. 25.

The decision by the three-judge panel comes months after the Supreme Court ruled that Alabama’s previous district lines likely diluted the electoral power of Black voters in the state. The panel included one circuit judge and two district judges.

Alabama, a state with a Black population of more than 25 percent, has one district represented by a Black Democrat and six districts where white voters predominantly elect Republicans.

And now drawing the maps is out of the GOP’s hands. Alabama fought the law and the law won. Except Alabama will of course appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court hoping for a Trump judge to tip the court in its favor.

Special master? North Carolina’s been there, done that.

This is Republicans’ game. How many times have I said it? Ten years or more? This is the Republican M.O.: Find the line. Step over it. Dare someone to push them back. No pushback? New line. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Even then? Elections run on regular cycles. Delay long enough in court and eventually their illegal districts survive another election. There are no longer permanent, 10-year districts. The permanent campaign meets permanent redistricting.

He loved to dress up. Now he’ll be wearing a different costume:

Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, former leader of the right-wing extremist group Proud Boys, was sentenced on Wednesday to 22 years in prison for his role in the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.

Why it matters: Tarrio’s sentencing caps one of the highest-profile prosecutions related to the Capitol riot, and his isthe longest sentence handed down in the Jan. 6 cases.

The previous highest sentencing record related to Jan. 6 was held by Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison in May.

Of note: Prosecutors had sought a 33-year sentence for Tarrio.

Flashback: Tarrio was found guilty in May of seditious conspiracy related to Jan. 6, alongside other Proud Boys members.

Tarrio wasn’t at the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot because he was arrested days earlier for vandalizing a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic Black church in D.C. in 2020.

However, prosecutors have argued that Tarrio maintained command over Proud Boys members after his arrest and cheered on the group as its members stormed the Capitol.

Prosecutors also noted Tarrio took credit for the riot on behalf of the group.

Zoom out: The Justice Department said in the spring that more than 1,030 people have been charged in connection to Jan. 6 in the roughly two years since the attack, and around 570 have pleaded guilty.

The big picture: Two other former Proud Boy leaders also received lengthy sentences last week for their actions on and around Jan. 6.

Joseph Biggs was sentenced to 17 years in prison last week, while Zachary Rehl received 15 years in prison.

Andrew Weissman points out that the judges who’ve been hearing these cases have been seeing Jan 6th cases now for years and they are not inclined to go easy on the “generals” who coordinated and incited this event. It’s hard to imagine they will go easy on the Commander in Chief of the Insurrection.

BTW:

“Biden Regime” lol? The *judge* who sentenced Tarrio is Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump appointee, former counsel to Chuck Grassley, and member of the Federalist Society. https://t.co/lvUfpVInvg

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) September 6, 2023

People are talking about whether, if McConnell resigns, Beshear would try to fill the vacancy with a Dem, despite a KY law saying he'd have to pick from 3 Republicans. What if he just doesn't appoint anyone, like McConnell kept the vacant SCt seat open?https://t.co/AvHO9IWwWX

— Charlie Savage (@charlie_savage) September 5, 2023

McConnell and his Kentucky cronies tried to game the system and there’s no reason why Beshear shouldn’t turn Mitch’s clever little gambit right back on him.

After Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) experienced his second freezing episode in five weeks, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) is decliningto say whether he would follow a state law requiring him to appoint a Republican in the event of a Senate vacancy.

A reporter asked Beshear on Thursday whether, if McConnell were to step down, he would choose a replacement from one of three nominees selected by the state Republican Party, as the statute requires.

“There is no Senate vacancy,” Beshear responded at the news conference. “Senator McConnell has said he’s going to serve out his term, and I believe him, so I’m not going to speculate about something that hasn’t happened and isn’t going to happen.”

Asked whether voters deserve to know his stance on the issue, Beshear said he would not “sensationalize” McConnell’s health.

Heh. Good one.

Beshear, who took office in 2019, is running for reelection this fall against Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron (R), a protégé of McConnell who has also been touted as a possible Senate successor should McConnell retire.

McConnell, the longest-serving Senate GOP leader in history, has insisted he has no imminent plans to leave the Senate.

Republican senators and other allies rallied around him after he froze for more than 20 seconds while speaking to reporters Wednesday in an incident similar to one in July. McConnell’s office attributed the freezing to him feeling “momentarily lightheaded,” and the attending physician of Congress said the senator was cleared to continue working.

Beshear’s remarks raise questions about whether the governor might challenge the 2021 law and seek to appoint a Democratic senator. He vetoed the statute after the state’s Republican legislature passed it, calling the bill “unconstitutional.” The legislature overrode Beshear’s veto.

The law, backed by McConnell, requires a governor to select within 21 days one of three nominees chosen by the state-level party apparatus of the departing senator. A special election must then be held to select a more permanent replacement. The timing would depend on when the vacancy occurred.

In his veto message, Beshear said the law violates the 17th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which gives voters the right to directly cast ballots for senators, rather than state legislatures filling the seats. The amendment also says a state legislature can empower a governor to temporarily fill a vacancy until an election can be held.

“The bill therefore upends a century of precedent by delegating the power to select the representative of all Kentuckians to an unelected, unaccountable committee of an organization that represents only a fraction of Kentuckians,” Beshear wrote in the veto message.

The governor also argued that the law violates a provision of the Kentucky Constitution that says state-level vacancies “shall be filled by appointment of the Governor.”

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“No conditions, qualifications, or limits are placed on that appointment power,” Beshear wrote.

I like Charlie Savage’s idea. Just don’t appoint anyone. Leave the position open until an election. As McConnell said when he did this after Scalia’s death:

“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”

Shouldn’t the people of Kentucky have a voice in who their Senator should be?

The truth is that the law should allow the Governor to choose anyone he deems fit until an election. They changed it because they have a Democratic Gov. and I’m sure they’ll change it back if a Republican wins the Governor’s race this fall. That’s how transparently corrupt they are. In the meantime, should Mitch go down, Beshear should just sit on it. Let the people decide.

I wrote about this for Salon a couple of weeks ago. Here’s Dan Pfeiffer:

Last Sunday, Speaker Kevin McCarthy went on Fox News to preview the launch of an inquiry. Here’s what he told Maria Bartiromo:

If you look at all the information we have been able to gather so far, it is a natural step forward that you would have to go to an impeachment inquiry.

Neither McCarthy nor the other MAGA Republicans chomping at the bit on impeachment can point to a single piece of evidence that President Biden had any involvement in Hunter Biden’s business dealings. This lack of evidence comes after a five-year Justice Department investigation by a Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney and 18 months of investigation by the Republican House.

For some reason, this story has been getting limited attention from the political media. An impeachment inquiry into Biden is significant both in terms of the current politics and historical precedent. Biden would be the Xth President in U.S. history to face an impeachment inquiry, but the first to suffer through the process absent a modicum of evidence of wrongdoing.

This potential impeachment inquiry is a direct result of Kevin McCarthy’s weakness, cowardice, and strategic idiocy. In the long history of dumb things done by Republicans, this might be the dumbest.

1. The Dumbest of Dumb Reasons

But this impeachment inquiry has nothing to do with evidence or accountability. McCarthy wants to embark on a politically perilous and damaging impeachment because he needs to bribe the Right Wing members of his caucus into keeping the government open when funding expires at the end of the month. As an example, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene gave a speech last week and laid out the following demands in exchange for voting to keep the government open:

-Impeachment inquiry vote on Joe Biden

– Defund Biden’s weaponization of government

– Eliminate all COVID vaccine mandates

– No funding for the war in Ukraine

Other members of the Freedom Caucus have refused to support the spending levels included in the debt ceiling deal if it passes this spring as well as supporting a short-term extension to keep the government funded at current levels while negotiations between the House, Senate, and White House proceed. The Republican House is barrelling towards an unnecessary, politically damaging shutdown. McCarthy has little leverage, so he concocted the most galaxy brain idea imaginable. He is arguing to the “Impeach Biden” crowd that a government shutdown would prevent such an inquiry from proceeding. As the Speaker explained:

If we shut down, all the government shuts it down — investigation and everything else. It hurts the American public.

If the government shuts down, so do national parks and infrastructure projects; most government services are restricted if not suspended, and most federal workers are furloughed without pay while Congress bickers.

Allow me to explain why, on every level, this is a dumb idea.

2. Everyone Sees Right Through it

The main problem with McCarthy’s “Keep the government open to impeach Biden” plan is that it’s false advertising.

When the government shuts down because Congress fails to pass a funding bill, it doesn’t completely cease running. Essential services remain in operation. The military stays on duty, Social Security checks continue to go out, and FEMA is prepared to respond to disasters. The workers who make those things happen are deemed “essential” and kept on the job. In the Executive Branch, the Office of Management and Budget is responsible for determining which services and personnel are “essential” and can, therefore, keep working despite no funding.

Congress, of course, can’t shut down because they need to be on the job to work on a deal to reopen the government. And guess who in the House of Representatives decides which duties are “essential?”

Yep, Kevin McCarthy.

The Right Wing already figured this out. Representative Ken Buck said as much to the New York Times last week:

It’s not as if the investigators won’t be considered necessary or essential personnel. [McCarthy] is the one who decides how much of the House we shut down.”

McCarthy opened the door to impeachment as a way to avoid a shutdown, but he cannot meet all of the demands of the Freedom Caucus. He is now under pressure to deem the impeachment inquiry staff and others investigating Biden as essential, which will eliminate any of his existing leverage.

3. The Worst of Both Worlds

To the extent that Kevin McCarthy thought this through, his calculations show that a shutdown is more politically damaging than launching an impeachment inquiry into President Biden. I am confident he is incorrect. But the way he has implemented this strategy increased the likelihood that the government will shut down and start impeachment proceedings. As noted above, the inquiry could be launched in September and then continue unfettered throughout a shutdown. Major parts of government being shut down by a Trumped-up investigation of President Biden would be terrible optics for the GOP. Even if McCarthy resists pressure to keep the investigation going throughout the shutdown, the Freedom Caucus will demand that it continue afterward.

On Fox and in subsequent interviews, McCarthy clarified that he thinks an impeachment inquiry is warranted. By conceding the legitimacy of this thoroughly illegitimate stunt, McCarthy makes it very hard to walk it back.

4. Impeachment Puts the Majority at Risk

McCarthy’s entire strategy for keeping his job is centered on appeasing the Right Wing members of the Freedom Caucus. They could push him out by calling for a motion to vacate. On paper, the more mainstream members of the caucus could easily threaten McCarthy’s job, but they don’t because they fear that the next Speaker could be even more MAGA than the MAGA-lite McCarthy.

However, pursuing impeachment could put the razor-thin GOP majority in even more danger. There are 19 Republican members who represent districts Biden won in 2020. Their path to victory depends on winning over some number of people who plan to vote for Biden. McCarthy has put them in a near-impossible situation — they can either support impeaching Biden and seem like the very MAGA Republicans that the voters plan to reject or oppose impeachment and inflame the GOP base whose votes they also need. According to a Wall Street Journal poll, 52% of voters oppose impeaching Biden, while only 41% support it. That’s bad news for those Republicans in Biden districts.

I can’t shake the sense McCarthy didn’t think this one through.

4. McCarthy’s Plan Will Likely Help Biden

In 2019, Democrats had a moral and constitutional responsibility to impeach Trump for trying to blackmail Volodymyr Zelensky for dirt on Hunter Biden’s business dealings. Impeachment was the right thing to do — politics be damned. Shirking their duty would have been deeply damaging and demobilizing. Unfortunately, impeachment was good for Trump. During the impeachment process, Trump’s poll numbers went up. In the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, his approval rating among Republicans shot to 90% after being in the 80s for much of the last year. Among Independents, “Trump’s approval rating increased to 47% in Jan. 2020 and 51% in Feb. 2020 — after previously being in the 30s.”

Biden could see a similar rise in the polls if the Republicans undertake impeachment. I recently analyzed the polling to see why the 2024 race is tied right now. Here’s what I found:

The primary reason for the statistical tie in the race is that Trump is holding onto more of his 2020 vote than Biden. In the NYT poll, 91% of Trump’s 2020 voters are supporting him again while only 87% percent of Biden’s voters plan to vote for him in 2024. Among Biden’s 2020 voters, 2% plan to vote for Trump, 4% claim they won’t if the race is between Biden and Trump, and 5% intend to vote for a candidate other than Biden or Trump.

An unpopular MAGA Republican House majority pursuing a partisan, unfounded impeachment is a textbook example of something that would cause Dems to come home to Biden.

I know Kevin McCarthy didn’t think through this cockamamie impeachment scam, because he doesn’t think anything through. The man has the foresight of a mole. McCarthy has had a lot of dumb and dangerous ideas in his time, but this might take the cake.

They’re going to do it, just watch. Let’s hope Pfeiffer is right about the outcome.

New CNN poll:

Former President Donald Trump continues to hold what has proven to be an unshakeable position atop the Republican field of candidates vying to take on President Joe Biden next year, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS.

Trump is the top choice for his party’s nomination at the traditional Labor Day start to a more engaged campaign season, ahead of his nearest rival by more than 30 percentage points (52% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independent voters support him, compared with 18% behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis). And Trump is broadly seen as best able to handle a wide range of issues.

More than 4 in 10 in the potential GOP primary electorate say they have definitely decided to support him for the nomination (43% are definite Trump backers, 20% are firmly behind another candidate, and 37% have no first choice or say they could change their minds). Nearly two-thirds consider him one of their top two choices, and 61% say they think he is extremely or very likely to become the party’s nominee, up from 52% at the start of the summer. Most feel the criminal charges Trump faces are not relevant to his ability to serve as president, and a majority of GOP-aligned voters are not seriously concerned about the impact the charges could have on Trump’s electability.

This is a very serious problem:

A minority, 44%, of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say they are seriously concerned that the criminal charges Trump faces will negatively affect his ability to win the 2024 election if he becomes the Republican nominee, while 56% are not seriously concerned about that. A third of those who back Trump have those concerns (34%), rising to 54% among Republicans supporting another candidate.

Republican-aligned adults are less concerned, though, that Trump’s legal fights will negatively affect his ability to serve another full term as president if reelected (32% are seriously concerned about that) or to be an effective president if elected while facing criminal charges (35%).

Broadly speaking, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say that, if true, the charges Trump faces across four criminal cases are not relevant to his fitness for the presidency (70% say so regarding the charges related to hush money payments to an adult film actress, and 64% each say the same about charges related to classified documents, efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and related to his role in January 6.)

And most, 61%, say that Trump faces so many criminal charges largely because of political abuse of the justice system (14% feel his situation is largely due to his own actions, while 25% say it’s hard to tell before trials are held).

It would be one thing if they all just said they want the system to play out, everyone is innocent until proven guilty, yadda, yadda. It’s clear that he did what he’s accused of but it’s fair for his partisans to say they want to see all the evidence in court. But that 61% just assume this is entirely political in the face of everything he says and does publicly means they are putting their heads in the sand. Worse, 68% believe that if the charges are true they don’t disqualify him for office. The man is accused of stealing classified information and attempting a coup and they still think he should be returned to the White House. My God.

This is all they have to say about him:

When asked to name their biggest concern about Trump as a candidate, Republican-aligned voters largely do not cite his legal woes. Just 6% name the indictments he’s facing or his legal situation, and 3% mention worry that he could be convicted or imprisoned. Overall, 18% say they have no concerns about Trump as a candidate or offer a positive comment about him. After that, 8% say their biggest worry is that his opponents will attack him or not work with him, 8% that they are concerned about “his mouth,” tact and abrasiveness, 7% that he’s too disliked and treated unfairly, and 6% name his ego or arrogance.

They are living in an alternate universe and I have a feeling a lot of brains are going to explode if he’s found guilty and/or loses the election. Then what happens?