Skip to content

Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Your Life In Magastan

Published by Tom Sullivan on October 31, 2024

Previews of coming infections

“Women are voting early in huge numbers, far outpacing men,” Politico reports this week.

Among the reasons why? Pregnant women are dying.

ProPublica has the story of yet another tragic, preventable death. Josseli Barnica was 28:

Josseli Barnica grieved the news as she lay in a Houston hospital bed on Sept. 3, 2021: The sibling she’d dreamt of giving her daughter would not survive this pregnancy.

The fetus was on the verge of coming out, its head pressed against her dilated cervix; she was 17 weeks pregnant and a miscarriage was “in progress,” doctors noted in hospital records. At that point, they should have offered to speed up the delivery or empty her uterus to stave off a deadly infection, more than a dozen medical experts told ProPublica.

But when Barnica’s husband rushed to her side from his job on a construction site, she relayed what she said the medical team had told her: “They had to wait until there was no heartbeat,” he told ProPublica in Spanish. “It would be a crime to give her an abortion.”

For 40 hours, the anguished 28-year-old mother prayed for doctors to help her get home to her daughter; all the while, her uterus remained exposed to bacteria.

Three days after she delivered, Barnica died of an infection.

Barnica’s death was preventable, say a dozen medical experts. The death of her fetus was not.

Barnica is one of at least two Texas women who ProPublica found lost their lives after doctors delayed treating miscarriages, which fall into a gray area under the state’s strict abortion laws that prohibit doctors from ending the heartbeat of a fetus.

Neither had wanted an abortion, but that didn’t matter. Though proponents insist that the laws protect both the life of the fetus and the person carrying it, in practice, doctors have hesitated to provide care under threat of prosecution, prison time and professional ruin.

This is Texas, y’all. Under a Trump/Project 2025 regime, it’s coming to a state near you.

After reviewing the four-page summary, which included the timeline of care noted in hospital records, all agreed that requiring Barnica to wait to deliver until after there was no detectable fetal heartbeat violated professional medical standards because it could allow time for an aggressive infection to take hold. They said there was a good chance she would have survived if she was offered an intervention earlier.

“If this was Massachusetts or Ohio, she would have had that delivery within a couple hours,” said Dr. Susan Mann, a national patient safety expert in obstetric care who teaches at Harvard University.

I’ve long criticized the left’s condescension that conservatives are voting against their best interests. People vote their identities. This year, women across the political divide have reason to vote both. Donald Trump is promising not what he’ll do for your but what he’ll do to you whether you like it or not. What he’s with Dobbs and brags about is killing women. He’s just getting warmed up. Women know it.

Think they’re joking? When the MAGA right is trolling, they’re not joking. They’re telling you exactly who they are.

https://twitter.com/BulwarkOnline/status/1851678022975234542

Politico:

Across battlegrounds, there is a 10-point gender gap in early voting so far: Women account for roughly 55 percent of the early vote, while men are around 45 percent, according to a POLITICO analysis of early vote data in several key states. The implications for next week’s election results are unclear; among registered Republicans, women are voting early more than men, too. But the high female turnout is encouraging to Democratic strategists, who expected that a surge in Republican turnout would result in more gender parity among early voters.

[…]

“In some states women are actually exceeding their vote share from 2020, which is at this point shocking to me,” said Tom Bonier, a Democratic strategist and CEO of the data firm TargetSmart. “I never would have bet on that.”

A quick tabulation shows women outvoting men in NC by 11 points, FYI.

Not Going Back

Published by digby on October 31, 2024

Yup

I love this alternate version if the “no one has to know who you voted for” campaign:

Musk’s X community is being used to dox election workers & spread lies

Published by Spocko on October 31, 2024

Now that it’s clear that Elon is “Dark Gothic MAGA” he’s using multiple ways to help Trump return to power. Here’s one I spotted the other day, from Doge Designer (a suspected Musk sock puppet account).

He says Elon Musk’s PAC launched an X Community focused on “exposing voter fraud and election interference” and it asks people to post videos or information about “election interference” or “anything compromising election integrity” in the X Community.

What’s this really about? It’s a place to dump false and unverified stories that can be used to create the appearance of widespread voter fraud. It will be used right after the election to demand that the votes not be certified until the “fraud” is investigated. It’s also about “flooding the zone with sh*t” in social media so that the media, who are all still on Twitter/X, will have to address all the “fraud” that is posted. Especially since the Musk X algorithm will be amplifying them.

I went to X’s “Election Integrity Community” and found a handful of posts. Three were looking to dox someone who delivered ballots. MAGAts are going after a postal worker for doing his job. Just like they went after election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss for doing their jobs.

This line of attack, going after someone dropping off multiple ballots, presuming they are fraudulent, is the same one used by the widely debunked film 2,000 Mules.

For years I have been writing about the FAILURE of social media companies to enforce their own rules and guidelines about threats of violence on their platforms. Legislators in most states have FAILED to pass laws to address the harm from doxing and harassments of public health officials & workers during the height of the pandemic.

So what are people like this ballot delivery guy to do when they start getting death threats and harassed? Report them to the DOJ’s Election Threats Task Force. It was set up in 2021 for this purpose.

Post by @spocko@mastodon.online
View on Mastodon

It’s good that the Election Threats Task Force exists, but it’s not enough to change the attitude that it’s okay to threaten, dox and harass people online. Because of that attitude I’ve been suggesting the use of civil cases.

The Georgia courts never criminally prosecuted the people who attacked them. but Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss did sue the people who defamed them. They sued them for millions. And they WON all those cases. “News network” OAN, Gateway Pundit, and as of Oct 31 2024 “A moving company representative and lawyers were expected to be given access to Rudy Giuliani’s Manhattan apartment after the former New York City mayor failed to turn over belongings to two former Georgia election workers who won a $148 million defamation judgment against him.”. Freeman and Moss are the winners.

There is also the case of Mark Andrews, who was featured putting five ballots in a drop box in Lawrenceville, an Atlanta suburb, in the debunked voter-fraud film 2,000 Mules. He sued Dinesh D’Souza, Salem Media, Regnery Publishing, True The Vote, and True the Vote’s Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips for peddling manufactured lies that the 2020 presidential election was stolen by “ballot mules” engaged in election fraud.

The publisher apologized to Andrews and the Salem Media Group stopped distributing 2,000 Mules. The lawsuit for damages to Andrews is still proceeding. (PDF link)

How do we bust Musk & the MAGA attackers of election workers?

I’m the kind of Vulcan who wants to know the logical steps for how to do things, & then prepare for the illogical actions of humans who do NOT WANT TO DO those things. I say to people, “This is our 3rd rodeo.” We’ve seen these tricks before. We know how the bull will buck. We know how the orange-faced rodeo clown will try to distract us from our goal.

I’m betting that MAGA people will find the ballot delivery man, dox, harass and threaten him. The Election Threats Task Force will need to be alerted to investigate. They might not be able to successfully prosecute a criminal case, because the laws against harassment and doxing aren’t in every state, but it is their mission to take on these kinds of cases. They have the resources to track down all the connections to his threats, including those who amplified, organized and spread false & unverified information that was used to target him. But as I said, lots of humans in law enforcement do NOT want to investigate & prosecute anything that has to do with WORDS. Because of that history I’ve been teaching people. & groups how to file civil lawsuits against the people who defamed and threaten them.

I hope that concurrently to the Task Force investigation the doxxed, harrrassed & threatened ballot deliverer goes to the group that won the Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss civil defamation case. Or the group that sued Dinesh D’Souza, & The Salem Media group.

He will need resources to sue Elon Musk, his PAC and the people who carried out the threats. But, there are now multiple successful cases that the lawyers can point to as a reason to keep the lawsuits going for the years it will take. People need to know Musk has lost cases. He doesn’t prepare for the lawsuits that will come following his rash actions and that makes vulnerable. He has a grade school level of understanding of the law & thinks his definition of free speech is a get out of jail free card for when he breaks laws about speech that is not protected..

The other reason I want to see civil cases is so the lawyers for the plaintiffs can keep talking about the case in public. Civil lawsuits don’t go into the black hole of the DOJ and come out 19 month later with a press release about the win. The DOJ is TERRIBLE at promoting their successful prosecution of threats to election workers and officials.

For example, did you hear about Brian Ogstad, the guy who got 30 months in prison for threatening Arizona election workers? Of course you didn’t! The DOJ put out a press release, didn’t you read it? It didn’t have any photos of Ogstad though, so the media that DID pick it up showed images of a ballot box or a building. I searched for him and found the photo below from when he “confronted” the Cullman City Council on it’s COVID-19 response. )

Alabama Man Sentenced to 30 Months for Threatening Maricopa County Elections Office During 2022 Primary

Brian Ogstad, recording with his phone, confronts the Cullman City Council over the City’s COVID-19 response in August 2021. (Cullman Tribune file photo)

Brian Ogstad, a former business professor at Maricopa Community Colleges, sent 18 messages to Maricopa County Election workers between August 2 and August 4, 2022, a majority of which contained threats against the workers’ lives. (Photo taken from X, formerly Twitter)

I wanted to make a short video of the threats Ogstad & others made that was powerful enough to get on Fox News, but it’s hard when the DOJ doesn’t even bother to provide MUG shots of the people they put away for years for their true threats to election workers.

In the past people would ask private entities to enforce their own rules & guidelines about speech, especially on social media where people said things that that were “awful, but lawful.” But Musk ignores rules developed on his own platform to protect the community from harm. The “Election Integrity community” looks like it is violating X’s OWN Civil Integrity rules, which, sadly, no one expects Musk to follow. But based on what I’ve seen so far, the new X community violates multiple state and federal laws. I’m going to dig into it more, but just because Musk is protected under rule 230 of the Telecommunication Act, doesn’t mean he’s above all laws. Stay tuned.

Time to sue Musk

Cross Posted to Spocko’s Brain

The Concept Of A Plan

Published by digby on October 30, 2024

I think we can count on the Obamacare wars to flare up again the minute Trump takes the White House. Mike Johnson is the guy to get ‘er done. He says “we want to take a blowtorch to the regulatory state” which sounds terrific.

By the way, I’m not sure that’s the October Surprise. In fact, I’m guessing we’re going to have a November or December Surprise, if anything. The Supreme Court just decided to let states purge their voter rolls just before the election, in contravention of established law, so it looks like they’re ready to give old Trumpie plenty of rope to hang the country when he brings his bogus election cases before them. And if he loses, he will.

The Ministry Of Love

Published by digby on October 30, 2024

Never Trumper Bill Kristol, like others of his ilk, has had an epiphany. In today’s Bulwark he discusses Trump’s hastily put together event at Mar-a-lago yesterday (it can’t be called a press conference) in which he said of his Madison Square Garden rally:

The love in that room, it was breathtaking. There’s never been an event that beautiful. It was a love fest. It was love for our country.

Gak. Kristol notes that this has a disturbing parallel with Orwell’s 1984 in which the repressive Interior Ministry of Oceania “the place where submission to Big Brother is ultimately enforced” is called The Ministry of Love. That sounds about right.

He’s not a Trump fan, that much is clear. Which means he’s not insane or a coward as so many Republicans are. But I did not expect this:

Yesterday, between Trump’s remarks at Mar-a-Lago and Harris’s speech at the Ellipse, I voted here in Virginia. Watching Harris’s speech later on, I wasn’t merely comfortable with my vote for her. I’ve got to say that I was proud to be a Harris voter. I’m sure she’ll disappoint me if she wins. They always do. But she’s risen to the occasion in this campaign in a way that speaks to much that is admirable about today’s America, the America that Trump and Miller and Bannon hate, but that many of us do love.

I never thought I’d see something like that from a conservative movement warrior like Kristol. Good for him. Let’s hope there are more like him out there.

Terminator Speaks

Published by digby on October 30, 2024

This is a pretty good endorsement aimed at wavering Republicans:

Apparently, Schwarzenneger is one of the most admired Republicans in the country (go figure) so maybe this will help?

I dunno but I’ll take it.

A Seat At The Table

Published by digby on October 30, 2024

In front of an enormous crowd of 75,000 people last night, Vice President Kamala Harris gave what was billed as her “closing argument” on the Ellipse, site of Donald Trump’s infamous insurrection incitement speech on January 6th. There were no insult comedians or crude radio talk show hosts or ancient wrestling stars ripping off their shirts. It was just her, standing before that massive crowd laying out the stakes in the election and offering her vision for the future.

Much of her speech was familiar to those of us who have followed the campaign closely. Her indictment of Donald Trump was crisp and direct and her list of policy objectives was meticulous and thorough. But she was also obviously making a pitch to any swing voters who are still on the fence. She said:

I will always listen to you even if you don’t vote for me, I will always tell you the truth, even if it is difficult to hear. I will work every day to build consensus and reach compromise to get things done.

She went on to promise to listen to people who disagree with her and, unlike Trump who considers them an enemy, she will offer them a seat at her table. She pledged to be a president for all Americans and always put country before party or self.

That kind of rhetoric always sets off alarms in a liberal Democrat like me, having suffered through way too many years of Blue Dog Dems and centrist sellouts who couldn’t get over losing all those Reagan Democrats back in the 1980s and always ended up empowering the GOP. But I think this is different. This is about the Harris Republicans and just as those Reagan Democrats defected 40 years ago because they felt their party had abandoned them, the Harris Republicans are in the same position today.

We don’t know exactly what Harris means by giving them a place at her table beyond promising a cabinet position to a Republican, but I’ve seen little evidence that she’s prepared to offer up corporate tax cuts or waffle on abortion or gay rights any more than Reagan adjusted his agenda in the slightest. She’s treating them respectfully and thanking them for joining the cause which is the right thing to do. We can anticipate that the people invited to sit at the table will be within the boundaries of what we used to call mainstream American politics.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Donald Trump. Over the last few days we’ve learned some new information about who he’s inviting to his table and it’s more than a little bit disturbing.

For instance, on Sunday 60 Minutes interviewed the man Trump has said he plans to make his border czar, the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Trump’s first term (and author of Project 2025’s immigration agenda.) He has made it plain that he is champing at the bit to oversee Trump’s massive deportation plan. And he made some news:

That’s right, they plan to deport the American children of undocumented workers. If they don’t like it, they can stay, of course — without their parents. Sorry kids, you picked the wrong family.

Another person Trump has given a seat at his table is Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the man who offered himself up to the highest bidder and Trump took him up on it. At his Madison Square Garden hatefest over the weekend, Trump told his rabid crowd that while he wasn’t going to go along with Kennedy’s environmental agenda, “I’m going to let him go wild on health, I’m going to let him go wild on the food, I’m going to let him go wild on medicines.”

Kennedy has subsequently explained that what Trump meant by that was that he would get “control” of all the health agencies:

This is a man who, even aside from the worm in his brain and his propensity for collecting roadkill, is one of the biggest conspiracy theorists in the country. To even suggest that he could be put in charge of public health or the USDA is beyond crazy. Whether Trump would actually do such a thing is unknown. He often makes promises he doesn’t keep. But the mere fact that he believes that telling his followers that he will do it is something they want to hear is disconcerting. Remember there will be no guardrails. If Trump wants to let Bobby go wild, his henchmen will find a way to circumvent any impediments.

And then there’s the Big Kahuna, Elon Musk, the man to whom he’s outsourced much of his campaign and who he has promised to name to head a new “Department of Government Efficiency.” At the big hatefest on Sunday, Trump’s transition chief Howard Lutkin asked Musk how much he thought could be cut from the budget of 6.5 trillion and he said about 2 trillion give or take.

According to the Washington Post and everyone else with any knowledge of the budgeting process:

Slashing the budget that steeply would require decimating an array of government services, including food, health care and housing aid — and it could erode funding for programs that lawmakers in both parties say they want to protect, from defense to Social Security.

The thing is that Musk understands exactly what that would mean even if Trump’s starry-eyed cult following is clueless. The billionaires will be fine. The rest of us not so much. Here is an X user reacting to Musk’s plans online and Musks’ response:

MSNBC reported on an X town hall he held on Monday:

When asked about “tackling the nation’s debt,” he mentioned changing the tax code, and then went on to say there would be some financial difficulty imposed on some Americans. “Most importantly, we have to reduce spending to live within our means,” he said, adding that these efforts will “involve some temporary hardship, but it will ensure long-term prosperity.”

Later on, Musk said that he would “balance the budget immediately,” adding: “Obviously, a lot of people who are taking advantage of government are going to be upset about that. I’ll probably need a lot of security, but it’s got to be done. And if it’s not done, we’ll just go bankrupt,” he said, adding that these efforts will “involve some temporary hardship, but it will ensure long-term prosperity.”

You have to love that America is going to be so great that he’s assuming there will be massive violence in the streets. Luckily he can afford a lot of security so that’s good.

The total 2024 discretionary federal budget including military spending which excludes interest payments, Medicare, Social Security and other mandatory programs was $1.6 trillion in 2024, according to the Congressional Budget Office. You do the math. Clearly Musk has not.

Again, will any of this come to pass? Who knows? But if there’s one person Trump owes big time it’s Musk and he’s already thoroughly entrenched in the national security apparatus as a major defense contractor. He might very well want to give him free rein too and, if so, who’s going to stop him? Don Jr?

Those are just three of the big marquee names that Trump is promising to give a seat at his table. I think it’s fair to say that it’s just a little bit more alarming than if Kamala Harris makes Adam Kinsinger the VA Secretary or invites Liz Cheney to give her opinion on Ukraine. These three are certified fascists and/or nutcases who should not be let within a hundred miles of the White House. Harris’s bipartisan outreach to the small group of Republican apostates is downright quaint by comparison. 

Salon