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Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

What Democracy?

Published by digby on October 1, 2024

Tom Nichols has a typically tart piece in the Atlantic today about the state of the election. This part of it is one of the most depressing aspects of this whole thing. Harris will win the popular vote by millions of votes, you can bet money on that, but once again the electoral college could favor Trump. What kind of a democracy is this?

I think it’s important to ask why this election, despite everything we now know, could tip to Trump.

Perhaps the most surprising but disconcerting reality is that the election, as a national matter, isn’t really that close. If the United States took a poll and used that to select a president, Trump would lose by millions of votes—just as he would have lost in 2016. Federalism is a wonderful system of government but a lousy way of electing national leaders: The Electoral College system (which I long defended as a way to balance the interests of 50 very different states) is now lopsidedly tilted in favor of real estate over people.

Understandably, this means that pro-democracy efforts are focused on a relative handful of people in a handful of states, but nothing—absolutely nothing—is going to shake loose the faithful MAGA voters who have stayed with Trump for the past eight years. Trump’s mad gibbering at rallies hasn’t done it; the Trump-Harris debate didn’t do it; Trump’s endorsement of people like Robinson didn’t do it. Trump once said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose a vote. Close enough: He’s now rhapsodized about a night of cops brutalizing people on Fifth Avenue and everywhere else.

For years, I’ve advocated asking fellow citizens who support Trump whether he, and what he says, really represents who they are. After this weekend, there are no more questions to ask.

I think maybe we’re not asking the right question. We talk a lot about saving our democracy but it’s pretty clear that we don’t really have one at least in the sense of one person one vote and majority rules. We never have.

But there have been improvements from the beginning when only white landowning men could vote. So maybe we actually could take the next step and get rid of the anachronistic electoral college. Sadly, I suspect that won’t ever happen until the Republicans lose one in the electoral college whenthey’ve won the popular vote.

You can just imagine the howls. Actually we did. In 2004 when it looked as though that might happen to George W. Bush they had armies of pundits and talkers out there denouncing the illegitimacy of such an outcome. But it didn’t stick for obvious reasons.

This change is long overdue. Rocks and cows should not have more say over the running of this country than the people who live here. It’s undemocratic to its core.

Maddow Gets Vance

Published by digby on October 1, 2024

As you wait for the debate tonight, watch this if you missed it:

Rachel Maddow shows JD Vance explaining his lack of faith that democracy can deliver on his conservative ideals, and shows the influences behind Vance’s preference that the United States government be gutted and instead run by a dictator.  

This guy is so deeply creepy that I honestly don’t think I can live in a country led by him.

Potted Plants Would Do Just As Well

Published by digby on October 1, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Still Clueless And Mad About It

Published by digby on October 1, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I Just Like His Pahlicees”

Published by digby on September 30, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

Published by digby on September 30, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All The Smoke

Published by digby on September 30, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Little Hopium

Published by digby on September 30, 2024

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

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

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

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

Yes, they are that corrupt.

RIP Kris Kristofferson

Published by digby on September 30, 2024

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