Ron's Gone Wrong, Con't

Ahh, but we can't have an Israel-Palestine conflict without Florida coming in and reminding everyone that the fascist authoritarians running the place like GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis want to make sure that Palestinians have no voice in the Sunshine State.

 

Florida’s university system chancellor, responding to a push by Gov. Ron DeSantis, directed state universities Tuesday to disband campus groups with ties to the national Students for Justice in Palestine organization, marking the first punishments handed down to colleges here amid the Israel-Hamas war.

In a memo to school leaders, the state ordered a “crack down” on campus events led by the pro-Palestinian organization that the DeSantis administration claims amount to “harmful support for terrorist groups” like Hamas, which attacked Israel in early October. Florida, under Republican presidential candidate DeSantis, has staunchly supported Israel during the ongoing war and was monitoring college protests that have since ignited.

“Based on the National SJP’s support of terrorism, in consultation with Governor DeSantis, the student chapters must be deactivated,” state university system Chancellor Ray Rodrigues wrote Tuesday.

There are at least two Students for Justice in Palestine chapters at Florida universities facing cancellation through ties to the national organization, according to Rodrigues, who did not specify where the groups were located in the memo. The University of Florida and University of South Florida, though, both appear to have active SJP chapters.

 

Free speech is not something Florida Republicans believe in, you see. If you thought they only wanted to get rid of SJP, well, they want Black Lives Matter gone too, starting with both Florida GOP senators, Rick Scott and Marco Rubio.

Some Republican lawmakers are calling on Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser to rename the two-block area in front of the White House that was dubbed “Black Lives Matter Plaza” three years ago amid a wave of racial justice protests.

Groups affiliated with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement have faces a backlash after messages sent out following the grisly Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel appeared to support terrorists and express anti-Israel sentiment.

“BLM chapters across the nation have circulated disturbing anti-Semitic rhetoric and images on social media, encouraging the spread of pro-Hamas propaganda,” the group of more than 20 House and Senate members, all Republicans, wrote in a statement accompanying their letter.

“Continuing to honor terrorist sympathizers with a plaza in our nation’s capital is a slap in the face to all Americans, especially Jewish and Israeli Americans.”

Among Republicans signing the letter: Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.), Thom Tillis (N.C.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Rick Scott (Fla.), Josh Hawley (Mo.), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) and Bill Cassidy (La.); and Reps. Elisa Stefanik (N.Y.), Jim Banks (Ind.) and Jeff Duncan (S.C.).

The mayor’s office didn’t immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment on the letter or plans for the plaza.

Immediately after Hamas’s deadly blitz on Israel, which included attacks on multiple kibbutzim and an outdoor music festival, some BLM chapters expressed sympathy with Palestine and appeared to justify the aggression against Israel.

A BLM Chicago chapter posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, an image of a paraglider with the message “I stand with Palestine.” BLM Phoenix shared statements declaring that “Palestinian freedom fighters are not terrorists!,” and “The Palestinian attack was a revolution and attempt to reclaim their freedom.”

BLM chapters are run independently and can be unaffiliated with the broader Black Lives Matter organization, which hasn’t commented on the latest Israeli-Hamas conflict.

 

Sure seems like cancel culture to me. Free Speech only for approved groups is not how it works, gang.

 

And Black Lives Still Matter.

Last Call For Florida Man Draws Challenger

Florida GOP Sen. Rick Scott has finally gotten a serious Democratic challenger for his Senate seat, which given the state of Florida Democrats, means former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell will probably only lose by the low teens instead of being blown out by 20 or 30 points in 2024.

Former Democratic Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell announced Tuesday she will challenge Republican Sen. Rick Scott, a former two-term Florida governor viewed as the favorite in 2024.

Mucarsel-Powell, who came to the U.S. at age 14 from Ecuador, has long been on a short list of potential Democratic candidates. In recent weeks, a number of state and national Democratic leaders have coalesced around her. Florida House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, who was also rumored to be considering a run against Scott, said in an interview Monday that she will remain in the Legislature.

Mucarsel-Powell has talked to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee — which conducted a poll on her behalf — and says she anticipates having enough support to mount a serious campaign, even as national Democrats must defend seats in Wisconsin, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Montana and Arizona.

“Rick Scott is trying to raise taxes on our families. He wrote a plan to end Social Security and Medicare Advantage coverage for our seniors,” Mucarsel-Powell said in the interview.

Scott pitched the plan, which he dubbed the “Rescue America” plan, during the 2022 midterms as he chaired the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee.

The plan included a proposal to sunset all federal legislation after five years, including entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security. It also included language that “all Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game.” He later revised the proposal, but it is expected to be a prime part of Democratic attacks against him.

In May, Scott said in an interview that he welcomed Democrats’ trying to use the plan against him.

“I will fight over my ideas any day,” Scott said at the time, adding that President Joe Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., “all lied about it. I was never going to cut any programs.”

Democrats were slow to coalesce around a candidate this cycle, reflecting the uphill climb in defeating Scott, who has never lost a statewide race. Scott is also one of the wealthiest members of Congress, with the ability to self-finance his campaign, although he has said he will not need to do so in this election.

While a number of long-shot Democrats have jumped into the race, Mucarsel-Powell is not expected to have serious competition for the nomination at this point.

“We’d like to welcome yet another failed congressional candidate to the crowded Democrat primary,” Scott Communications Director Priscilla Ivasco said. “Former Congresswoman Mucarsel-Powell is a radical socialist who voted 100% of the time with Nancy Pelosi during her short tenure in Congress, which is why the voters of South Florida booted her out of office the first chance they got. Floridians already rejected her once and they will reject her again.”

 

Considering Rick Scott currently runs the NRSC and that the threatened audits against his profligate spending in 2022 that failed to capture the Senate have all but mysteriously vanished, paving the way for a possible presidential run, it's possible that Batboy might overreach and blow both shots.

But considering he has unlimited resources for his Senate bid, I expect that he'll have an easy time of it, the same way Mitch and Rand have done here in Kentucky.

Or maybe...he loses.

The Turtle's Long Road

Senate GOP minority leader Mitch McConnell has been having a rough time of it as of late.

 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tripped and fell disembarking from a plane at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport this month, two sources familiar with the incident said.

McConnell, 81, was not seriously hurt, and he was seen later that day at the Capitol, where he interacted with at least one reporter.

The fall, which has not been previously reported, occurred July 14 after the flight out of Washington was canceled while everyone was on board. McConnell, R-Ky., who was a passenger, had a “face plant,” someone who was on the plane at the time but did not witness the fall told NBC News. That passenger also said they spoke to another passenger who helped tend to McConnell.

McConnell has also recently been using a wheelchair as a precaution when he navigates crowded airports, said a source familiar with his practices.

McConnell, a polio survivor who has long struggled to navigate stairs and other obstacles, has had a difficult recent history with falls. He sustained a concussion and a cracked rib in a fall in Washington this year, and he spent six weeks away from the Senate. He fractured a shoulder in a fall in Kentucky in 2019, requiring surgery.

McConnell’s nearly 20-second freeze during a news conference Wednesday renewed concerns about his overall health after the concussion.

“He’s definitely slower with his gait,” said a Republican senator who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. In closed-door GOP meetings, “he doesn’t address it,” the senator said, referring to health issues.

McConnell’s office declined to comment for this article Wednesday night.

McConnell, who told reporters he was “fine” after his freeze-up Wednesday, spoke with President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy after the incident.

“The president called to check on me. I told him I got sandbagged,” McConnell joked to reporters, an apparent reference to Biden’s fall last month.

 

I remind folks that the KY GOP changed the rules for appointing a US Senator should the need arise, while Gov. Beshear would get to make the ultimate choice, tit's the GOP-dominated General Assembly that chooses the list of candidates. 

 

I can't help but think if anything happened to Mitch now, that the GOP may decide Daniel Cameron would make a good Senator even though he's running for Beshear's job this year, as it's ultimately where he's headed. I don't know if Cameron can be replaced on the gubernatorial ticket this late in the game, but the KY GOP will just change the rules anyway and force Beshear to accept it.

Besides, if Mitch wasn't Senate minority leader, Tom Cotton or Rick Scott would be.

Florida Dems Try A Half-Court Shot

Things are so bad in Florida right now for the moribund, decrepit, and non-functional Democratic party in Florida that people are seriously considering drafting NBA legends to try to run against GOP Sen. Rick Scott in 2024.

 

NBA legends Dwyane Wade and Grant Hill have rocketed to the top of the recruitment lists for some Florida Democrats looking for a strong candidate to run against Sen. Rick Scott in 2024.

There have been separate active efforts to get both to consider forays into state politics, which have not been driven by either the state or national parties, three sources familiar with the situation said.

The party operatives and donors see the need for a moonshot-type candidate to reverse the trend of Republican dominance in the state, in which most recently Gov. Ron DeSantis won re-election by a double-digit margin. Yet even they acknowledge that getting either one of them is a long shot.

“Grant Hill has great name ID. He would raise a boatload of money and is one of the smartest guys you will ever meet,” said John Morgan, an Orlando-based trial attorney and national Democratic donor, who has spoken directly with Hill about his desire for him to run. “Grant Hill would beat the s--- out of Rick Scott.”

Scott's team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It is much more likely that a more traditional candidate — such as current or former members of Congress or the state Legislature — ends up being the Democratic nominee against Scott, an incumbent and former two-term governor with the ability to self-finance. But some in the party see recruiting a candidate who is overwhelmingly known and popular in the state — and has the ability to self-fund — as an option that could help reset the political narrative.

Morgan brought up the idea of Hill’s running for the Senate over dinner Sunday night with Larry Grisolano, a partner and the CEO of the David Axelrod-founded Democratic consulting firm AKPD Message and Media, at the home of Bob Mandell, who was the Obama administration’s ambassador to Luxembourg from 2011 to 2016. Morgan said it is rooted in the idea that few other Democrats in Florida could challenge Scott and help the party regain its footing.

“That’s what Larry and I talked about — Grant Hill,” Morgan said. “I’m not sure it’s his time, but he would be great. He’s competitive. I think he sees LeBron James as a billionaire and Magic Johnson almost a billionaire, and it gets his competitive juices flowing. I am not sure he is done with business.”

Hill, who played seven seasons with the Orlando Magic and lives in the Orlando area, has not been publicly political on a regular basis. He campaigned with Hillary Clinton in Jacksonville in 2016 and has criticized former President Donald Trump over comments he made in 2019 slamming the city of Baltimore.

Hill did not respond to a text message seeking comment. He and Morgan are business partners.

 

Now I've been a Grant Hill fan since I was in high school in Durham and Duke beat Michigan for the title, back before Coach K completed his Sith Lord turn. I'd think he'd make a fine Democratic leader. D-Wade too for that matter.

But we're talking about this, I guess (and this is Jonathan Allen here, so salt grains the size of boulders need to be taken) because the biggest political force fighting Ron DeSantis and the Florida GOP right now is the thoroughly evil global entertainment conglomerate founded by the raging antisemite.

The Florida Democratic party is a cruel joke when we need them the most, and they can't even figure out how to win in Miami-Dade. So you know what, I'll take Grant Hill for Senate if that what it takes to get the Dems back on the board in Florida.

It's not like the state has a deep bench, and this is coming from the guy in Kentucky, where at least Dems can win a statewide office or two one.

The Turtle Snaps Back

 GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had his own petty vengeance moment this week as he went after his fellow Republicans who came for his job last month and failed.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has pulled Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who tried to oust him as the Senate’s top Republican in a bruising leadership race, off the powerful Commerce Committee.

McConnell also removed Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who supported Scott’s bid to replace McConnell as leader, from the Commerce panel, which has broad jurisdiction over a swath of federal agencies.

The GOP leader insisted last year that he didn’t take the attempt to end his leadership reign personally, but the latest move sends a clear message to conservatives that challenging McConnell’s leadership carries a cost.

“McConnell got to pick. He kicked me off; he kicked Lee off,” Scott confirmed in an interview.

Scott acknowledged that running against McConnell was the likely reason he was booted from the panel despite his relative seniority on the committee and experience running a major company.

“I probably ran the biggest company almost any senator in the history of the country has ever run. I was governor of the third-biggest economy in the United States, Florida. I’ve got a business background,” Scott said, ticking off his credentials.

But Scott and Lee have teamed up to challenge McConnell’s leadership of the GOP conference on fiscal and spending decisions, and Lee gave one of the nominating speeches for Scott’s bid to take over as GOP leader.

Scott said he learned of the decision in a text message.

One personal familiar with the episode described the Florida senator as “furious.”

Other conservatives agree the leadership fight was a major factor in the decision to remove Scott and Lee from Commerce.

 

While I'm always glad to see Batboy end up in the "and find out" stage of the proceedings, this little tiff doesn't address the problems with Scott's mismanagement of the NRSC, and how he's almost certainly guilty of campaign finance shenanigans that would make "George Santos" blush.

Mitch won't address that, of course. But cutting Scott off from his main source of corporate lobbyist grifting is a calculated move, and both men know it.

We'll see if Scott responds in the future.

The Manchin On The Hill, Con't

If Joe Manchin thought for a moment that blocking Democratic initiatives would earn him points with Republicans, his good colleague Rick Scott is openly running NRSC ads in West Virginia calling for Manchin to announce his retirement now so that the GOP can take his seat.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee is portraying Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) as a Davos-trekking elitist in a direct mail and digital ad campaign directed at West Virginia voters.

Why it matters: The NRSC's early anti-Manchin messaging is part of a pressure campaign designed to dissuade him from seeking a third term. Manchin is the only Democrat who can realistically hold a Senate seat in one of the most conservative states in the country.

"I haven't made a decision what I'm going to do in 2024. I've got two years ahead of me now to do the best I can for the state and for my country," Manchin said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.

Details: The NRSC mailer hits Manchin for traveling to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week. "Instead of working in West Virginia, Joe Manchin is hanging out in Switzerland," the back of the mailer reads.

The digital ad tags Manchin as "Maserati Manchin," attacking him for living a luxurious lifestyle — owning a fancy car, luxury yacht and racking up big bills at gourmet restaurants.

The bottom line: Manchin's decision to travel to a conference of international jet-setters — along with his public teasing of a possible 2024 presidential campaign — aren't consistent with the actions of a senator trying to lock down his seat in West Virginia.

 

Like him or not, Manchin is the only possible Senate win in WV for the Dems. Anyone else would lose by 25 points. West Virginia is MAGA country for the foreseeable future.  He's got to be the number one target for the NRSC, and they aren't waiting a moment to try to bury him.

Not So Slick Rick Licked By Hick

Florida GOP Sen. Rick Scott wasted tens of millions on loser Senate candidates as NRSC chair, failing so far to pick up a single seat and losing Pennsylvania to John Fetterman. He couldn't leave well enough alone and declared that his "leadership" is what the Senate GOP needs, coming at the Turtle for the Senate GOP leadership job anyway.

 

Florida Sen. Rick Scott said Tuesday that he will mount a long-shot bid to unseat Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, opening the latest front in an intraparty battle between allies of McConnell and former President Donald Trump over the direction of the GOP following a disappointing showing in last week’s midterm elections.

The announcement by Scott, who was urged to challenge McConnell by Trump, came hours before the former president was expected to launch a comeback bid for the White House. It escalated a long-simmering feud between Scott, who led the Senate Republican’s campaign arm this year, and McConnell over the party’s approach to reclaiming a Senate majority.

“If you simply want to stick with the status quo, don’t vote for me,” Scott said in a letter to Senate Republicans offering himself as a protest vote against McConnell in leadership elections on Wednesday.

Restive conservatives in the chamber have lashed out at McConnell’s handling of the election, as well as his iron grip over the Senate Republican caucus. The leadership vote was scheduled for Wednesday morning, though it could be postponed if Texas Sen. Ted Cruz succeeds with his effort to delay it until after a Georgia runoff election in December.

A delay could give leverage to Trump-aligned conservatives who are hoping their clout will grow after the outcome of races in Georgia, where former NFL star Herschel Walker is challenging Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, and Alaska, where moderate Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski faces a conservative challenger.

Yet it appears unlikely that their numbers could grow enough to put McConnell’s job in jeopardy, given his deep support within the conference. And Trump’s opposition is hardly new, as has been pushing for the party to dump McConnell ever since the Senate leader gave a scathing speech blaming the former president for the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Still, it represents an unusual direct challenge to the authority of McConnell, who is set to become the longest-serving Senate leader in history if he wins another leadership term.

“We may or may not be voting tomorrow, but I think the outcome is pretty clear,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday. “I want to repeat again: I have the votes; I will be elected. The only issue is whether we do it sooner or later.”

 

Indeed he had the votes as McConnell was reelected this afternoon as Senate Minority Leader, 36-10.  Rick Scott came at the Turtle and missed, and now he's paying the price.

The GOP’s post-election finger-pointing intensified Tuesday, with two senators calling for an audit of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

During a tense, three-hour-long meeting of the Senate GOP Conference, Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said there should be an independent review of how the party’s campaign arm spent its resources before falling short of its goal of winning the majority.

The discussion comes amid an all-out war enveloping the party following last week’s election. Over the past week, the political operations aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and NRSC Chair Rick Scott (Fla.) have clashed openly, blaming the other for the disappointing outcome — even before Scott launched a long-shot leadership challenge to McConnell.

But the recriminations took a new turn on Tuesday, with one of the party’s main political vehicles now facing the prospect of a financial review. According to two people familiar with the discussion, Blackburn told Scott during the meeting that there needed to be an accounting of how money was spent, and that it was important for senators to have a greater understanding of how and why key decisions involving financial resources were made. To move forward, Blackburn said, the party needed to determine what mistakes were made.

Tillis spoke out in support of the idea, arguing that there should also be a review of the committee’s spending during the 2018 and 2020 election cycles, which would allow for a comparison to be made.

It would not be the first time a Republican Party committee underwent an audit: During the 2008 election, the National Republican Congressional Committee’s finances were reviewed as it faced an accounting scandal.

 

Marsha Blackburn is pretty mean to begin with, and you'll find Thom Tillis's prints on the knife used to backstab our old friend Madison Cawthorn in his failed primary reelection bid. If they're serious about a campaign audit of known Medicare fraudster Rick Scott, things could get very ugly, very fast. 

Stay tuned.

America Gets Away Scott Free

So Republicans are very mopey and disappointed as the Red Wave sputtered out, and while the big losers were Trump, Kevin McCarthy and Fox News, the biggest loser on Tuesday night was Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who bet it all on using the National Republican Senate Committee he chaired in retaking the Senate, being the hero, and going straight for Mitch McConnell's job.

Then Batboy got kicked in the nuts by reality.

For nearly two years, former President Donald Trump has demanded Senate Republicans dump Mitch McConnell as their leader but has never offered an alternative.

This week, one was set to emerge: the man in charge of the Senate Republican campaign arm who has been feuding with McConnell for much of the year.

Senator Rick Scott of Florida was poised to challenge McConnell, Republicans briefed on his plans told me, until he decided against a bid Wednesday morning, when it became clear Republicans may not capture the majority and there was to be a Senate runoff in Georgia.

Scott had cut an announcement video declaring his intentions, word had reached some prominent conservatives outside the Senate and a handful of GOP senators had gotten wind of his plan and started calculating just how many votes his longshot campaign could accrue at the leadership vote next week in the Capitol.

He would have been virtually certain to lose. But Scott’s challenge was not so much aimed at unseating the longtime Senate Republican leader as it was channeling the anger of grassroots conservatives, and the former president, who were peeved at McConnell’s criticism of the “candidate quality” of this year’s roster of Senate GOP candidates.

The idea was that those supposed mediocrities would romp to victory, credit Scott for his steadfast support and shame McConnell for his lack of faith — while also starting to loosen the 80-year-old’s grip on his leadership post. But only one of those candidates — Ohio’s J.D. Vance — won his race outright. Arizona’s Blake Masters appears likely to lose, Georgia’s Herschel Walker is in a runoff, and Pennsylvania’s Mehmet Oz and New Hampshire’s Donald Bolduc were defeated.

With Republican hopes for claiming the majority now dependent on a tenuous vote advantage in Nevada, McConnell’s August assessment of the candidates looks prescient. Because of recruitment failures and Trump’s interventions in primaries, the GOP was saddled with candidates who lost, are likely to lose or simply cost McConnell’s super PAC and Scott’s campaign committee tens of millions of dollars in bailouts.

In other words, Rick Scott got left holding the bag, and if say, both Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump want someone to blame for Republicans failing to take the Senate, a convenient scapegoat just wandered up and shit in the front yard.

Watching Republicans rip strips of flesh off each other for the next two years is going to be fun, and everything they deserve.

Just wait until the indictments come.

Last Call For Batboy: The Dark Money Rises (And Falls)

Normally late August in a midterm election year is where the minority party revs up to take multiple Senate seats from a party where the opposing party's President is unpopular, salivating over big gains in the upper chamber.

This year, however, the Senate GOP's campaign arm, the NRSC, is in a complete tailspin, having already burned through most of its cash and now behind in several races they thought were shoo-ins just two-months ago. 

The recriminations and finger-pointing are already underway, and the biggest target is Florida GOP Sen. Rick Scott, the NRSC's current chair and moderately eldritch comic book villain whose biggest contribution to America so far has been his record of being the largest Medicare fraudster in US history at the time in 1999.

Republican Senate hopefuls are getting crushed on airwaves across the country while their national campaign fund is pulling ads and running low on cash — leading some campaign advisers to ask where all the money went and to demand an audit of the committee’s finances, according to Republican strategists involved in the discussions.

In a highly unusual move, the National Republican Senatorial Committee this week canceled bookings worth about $10 million, including in the critical states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Arizona. A spokesman said the NRSC is not abandoning those races but prioritizing ad spots that are shared with campaigns and benefit from discounted rates. Still, the cancellations forfeit cheaper prices that came from booking early, and better budgeting could have covered both.

“The fact that they canceled these reservations was a huge problem — you can’t get them back,” said one Senate Republican strategist, who like others spokes on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. “You can’t win elections if you don’t have money to run ads.”

The NRSC’s retreat came after months of touting record fundraising, topping $173 million so far this election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission disclosures. But the committee has burned through nearly all of it, with the NRSC’s cash on hand dwindling to $28.4 million by the end of June.

As of that month, the committee disclosed spending just $23 million on ads, with more than $21 million going into text messages and more than $12 million to American Express credit card payments, whose ultimate purpose isn’t clear from the filings. The committee also spent at least $13 million on consultants, $9 million on debt payments and more than $7.9 million renting mailing lists, campaign finance data show.

“If they were a corporation, the CEO would be fired and investigated,” said a national Republican consultant working on Senate races. “The way this money has been burned, there needs to be an audit or investigation because we’re not gonna take the Senate now and this money has been squandered. It’s a rip-off.”

The NRSC’s chairman, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, has already taken heat from fellow Republicans for running ads featuring him on camera and releasing his own policy agenda that became a Democratic punching bag — leading to jokes that “NRSC” stood for “National Rick Scott Committee” in a bid to fuel his own presumed presidential ambitions.

Other spending decisions, such as putting about $1 million total into reliably blue Colorado and Washington earlier this month sparked fresh questions after the committee turned around and canceled buys in core battlegrounds.

The NRSC invested heavily in expanding its digital fundraising and building up its database of small-dollar donors. But online giving to Republicans, not just the NRSC, sagged earlier this year from what consultants said was a combination of inflation, changes to Facebook advertising policies, concerns about emails caught in spam filters, and complacency with an anticipated Republican wave. Some Republicans also suspect former president Donald Trump’s relentless fundraising pitches and cash hoarding has exhausted the party’s online donor base.

 

Democrats are doing everything right currently in order to keep the Senate, and the Senate GOP is doing everything they can to help them. It's not just that Dr. Oz, Herschel Walker, Blake Masters and J.D. Vance are terrible candidates, they are abysmal ones. But the NRSC has no money to help them, just when they need to be doing so.

Now, it's still a tough road to keeping the Senate as there's plenty of dark money out there to help GOP candidates across the country and that's starting to kick in in earnest with under three months to go. But if this keeps up, Dems are going to not only pull this off, they may actually gain a seat or three.

The Galtian Republic Of Rick Scott

Former Florida GOP Governor and now Senator Rick Scott really doesn't give a shit if you think he's a crook (he's a Medicare fraudster who scammed the government of billions as a hospital chain CEO) who became the richest man in the Senate, he's here openly saying the GOP's plan is to destroy Medicare and Social Security and raise taxes on tens of millions of working-class Americans to make them "pay their fair share" while wrecking all federal protections on civil rights, voting rights, clear air and water, and leaving everything to the states to decide.

Florida Sen. Rick Scott has been publicly dressed down by Republican leader Mitch McConnell, privately rebuked by his colleagues and repeatedly accused of running the National Republican Senatorial Committee in a way that benefits his own future over the candidates he was hired to get elected.

He has directed a sizable share of his fundraising as NRSC chair to his own accounts, while shifting digital revenue away from Senate campaigns and buying ads promoting himself that look all but identical to spots he does for the national committee.

But during the seven weeks of turmoil since Scott dropped a provocative conservative policy bomb on an unsuspecting party — a plan that called for tax increases and expiration dates for all federal laws, including those establishing Social Security and Medicare — he has not once expressed regret. Instead, the former hospital chain CEO and two-term governor, the richest man in the Senate, argues that he owes his detractors nothing.

“My whole life has been people telling me that, you know, you’re doing it the wrong way. You can’t, you shouldn’t be doing this,” he said in a recent interview at NRSC headquarters. “I’ve been up here for three years. Do you know how many people have come to me and asked me, before they vote, what my opinion is on something and whether it’s good for my state? That would be zero.”

Barbs like these from the inner sanctum of GOP leadership toward his fellow senators and political operatives have cut unexpected fissures into what appears to be a banner election year for Republicans, who are a single seat away from majority control of the Senate. Private grumbling about how Scott has turned the NRSC into the “National Rick Scott Committee” has become widespread enough in some Republican circles that other jokes have been added. “All this, for four percent in Iowa,” is the punchline of one about the harm he could do to Republican fortunes in November in pursuit of national ambitions.

During a Feb. 29 meeting with Senate leadership in McConnell’s office, other senators brought articles that showed members being attacked for various parts of his plan, particularly the tax provision and another imposing term limits. They chastised him in round-robin fashion for the unnecessary headache he had created, said people familiar with the meeting, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Scott answered days later with a Wall Street Journal op-ed — “Why I’m Defying Beltway Cowardice” — and a March 31 speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

“Bring it on,” he said there.

Scott is going after Mitch's job and telling everyone with a bullhorn that he's going to erase federalism and rewind the clock back 100 years. laws, the whole thing since the New Deal vanishes and we're back to robber barons busting unions and strikes with Pinkertons and federal troops and a only a third of the country being eligible to vote.

He also may be the Democrats' best hope for keeping Congress.

The Batboy Manifesto

Since Senate GOP minority leader Mitch McConnell is smart enough to realize that telling the voters all that they stand to lose under a Republican-controlled Senate comes after they bamboozle the bozos at the ballot box, Florida Sen. Rick Scott is there to clue everybody in on the GOP crypto-fascist agenda as head of the Senate GOP re-election campaign, and I can hear Mitch's teeth grinding from here.

Senate Republican leaders have no plans to release an alternative agenda as they try to win back the majority this fall. So Rick Scott is pursuing his own plan.

The Florida Republican senator is devising a conservative blueprint for Republicans to enact should they win Senate and House majorities this fall. Among Scott’s priorities: completing the border wall and naming it after former President Donald Trump, declaring “there are two genders,” ending any reference to ethnicity on government forms and limiting most federal government workers — including members of Congress — to 12 years of service.

It’s a bold move for the first-term senator and National Republican Senatorial Committee chair. But Scott said the 31-page GOP agenda he’s crafted is separate from his work chairing the party’s campaign arm, adding that it’s “important to tell people what we’re gonna do.” It’s a clear break from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has declined to release a GOP agenda heading into the midterms.

“Hopefully, by doing this, we’ll have more of a conversation about what Republicans are going to get done. Because when we get the majority, I want to get something done,” Scott said in an interview. “There’s things that people would rather not talk about. I’m willing to say exactly what I’m going to do. I think it’s fair to the voter.”

The 11-point plan is a mix of longtime Republican positions, such as enacting a national voter ID law and shrinking the federal government, combined with culture war politics that define many GOP voters in the pro-Trump wing of the party. Scott said no one should be surprised that he’s devising his own plans, given his past record.

And the plans carry some risk. It’s not at all clear that the GOP would unify around Scott’s proposals, which include many ideas that would struggle to attract Democratic support, could alienate some independent voters and could even split the GOP. Scott acknowledged as much in introducing his priorities, arguing they may “strike fear in the heart of some Republicans.”

Perhaps even more notable than the plans themselves is that Scott is taking a big gamble just as he enters the most high-profile stretch of his political career. It’s not every day the NRSC chair introduces a policy platform.

Though he comes across as soft-spoken and low-key in person, Scott has thrown himself with zeal into GOP controversy. Most notably, Scott objected last year to certification of President Joe Biden’s win in Pennsylvania. And last week he stymied quick consideration of an overwhelmingly bipartisan postal reform bill.

Scott will be one of the most visible Republicans as he leads the push to take back the majority, and he’s offering a marked contrast from McConnell. When asked in January what the party’s agenda was, McConnell responded: “I’ll let you know when we take it back.”

“There’s things that people would rather not talk about. I’m willing to say exactly what I’m going to do. I think it’s fair to the voter.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), chair of the National Republic Senatorial Committee

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy also plans to release his own agenda in the coming weeks. And while Scott did not criticize McConnell and said he maintains “a very good working relationship” with the GOP leader, he clearly believes there is a void to fill in the battle for the upper chamber.

“As a general rule, you know, probably this year’s election is going to be a lot about the Biden agenda. But I do believe we’re going to win,” Scott said. “We ought to have a plan and what we’re trying to get done when we get the majority.”

 

The plan is basically the heart of MAGA white supremacy, literally eliminating race from government forms, declaring that there are "only two genders", finishing the border wall and naming it after Trump, declaring that Americans should "welcome God into all aspects of our lives" and the big one, "eliminate all federal programs that can be done locally, and enact term limits for federal bureaucrats and Congress." 

 

It's a ludicrous platform that  screams white supremacist fascism, an America where anyone who isn't white, "Judeo-Christian", and cisgender literally has no place in the MAGA future of Rick Scott's America. Non-white folk and non-gender conforming folk simply vanish.

And yet the notion that this will split Republicans in any way is laughable. This presentation was designed for one man, Donald Trump, and it's Rick Scott's opening bid to replace McConnell as Senate GOP leader in January with Trump's support. 

For anyone else, the threat is clear: get on our side now, because eventually we'll win and enact this as law...

Batboy Versus Captain COVID, Round One

Resident Florida Senate GOP Medicare fraudster Rick Scott wants America's governors to return the $360 billion in aid to local and state governments in the Biden American Rescue Plan signed into law yesterday, and Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis is actually blaming Scott for not getting the Sunshine State more of the Democrats' filthy lucre.

 

In an open letter to governors and mayors, sent moments after the U.S. House on Wednesday approved the $1.9 trillion bill, Scott called it “massive, wasteful and non-targeted," urging states to follow his lead and send a message to Congress to “quit recklessly spending other people’s money.”

“By rejecting and returning any unneeded funds, as well as funds unrelated to COVID-19, you would be taking responsible action to avoid wasting scarce tax dollars,” he wrote. “After all, every dollar in this package is borrowed.”

Scott, a former governor of Florida, called his request “simple and common sense,” adding that money slated for state and local governments is “wholly unrelated to responding to the pandemic.”

Scott has a history of bucking federal funds. As governor, he refused to allow Florida to accept Obamacare-related money to expand Medicaid health care coverage.

His letter comes as polls show the legislation is extremely popular. A Morning Consult/Politico poll found 69% of U.S. voters said the "package is the right amount" or "doesn’t go far enough," including 54% of Republicans.

The latter includes, apparently, Scott's successor, Gov. DeSantis, who complained Florida should be getting a bigger piece of the pie.

While Scott was calling for rejection of the assistance, DeSantis announced he has big plans for the stimulus money. And he may well be blaming Scott, at least partly, for not getting Florida more of it.

“The Senate didn’t correct the fact that Florida is getting a lot less than what we would be entitled to on a per capita basis,” DeSantis, in an apparent jab at Scott and Sen. Marco Rubio, said Monday at a press conference.

The polarization on spending comes amid rumors that both DeSantis and Scott have eyes on the White House in 2024. At odds on numerous issues, DeSantis has for almost a year blamed Scott for the massive failures of the state's unemployment system, which was developed and implemented when Scott served as governor.

 

Now this is a fight I want to see more of. Rick Scott made billions in austerity cuts to the state's budget, including billions in health care system cuts (as a former hospital chain CEO, no less) and Ron DeSantis presided over 2 million COVID-19 cases and 32,000 dead.  These two villains actually make Jeb Bush look like a competent politician.

Floridians are of course the big loser, no matter who wins.

Last Call For Russian To Judgment, Con't

In news that shouldn't surprise any of you, dear readers, the Russians are trying to screw with the Democratic primary by promoting Bernie Sanders.

U.S. officials have told Sen. Bernie Sanders that Russia is attempting to help his presidential campaign as part of an effort to interfere with the Democratic contest, according to people familiar with the matter.

President Trump and lawmakers on Capitol Hill have also been informed about the Russian assistance to the Vermont senator, according to people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence.

It is not clear what form that Russian assistance has taken. U.S. prosecutors found a Russian effort in 2016 to use social media to boost Sanders’s campaign against Hillary Clinton, part of a broader effort to hurt Clinton, sow dissension in the American electorate and ultimately help elect Donald Trump.

“I don’t care, frankly, who Putin wants to be president,” Sanders said in a statement to The Washington Post. “My message to Putin is clear: Stay out of American elections, and as president I will make sure that you do.

“In 2016, Russia used Internet propaganda to sow division in our country, and my understanding is that they are doing it again in 2020. Some of the ugly stuff on the Internet attributed to our campaign may well not be coming from real supporters.”

A spokesperson for the Sanders campaign declined to comment on the briefing by U.S. officials on Russia’s attempts to help the Sanders campaign.

Sanders’s opponents have blamed some of his most vocal online supporters for injecting toxic rhetoric into the primaries. At a Democratic candidates debate in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Sanders indirectly blamed Russia, saying it was possible malign actors were trying to manipulate social media to inflame divisions among Democrats.

“All of us remember 2016, and what we remember is efforts by Russians and others to try to interfere in our elections and divide us up,” Sanders said. “I’m not saying that’s happening, but it would not shock me.”

Bernie Sanders would get pummeled by Trump.  Hell, even the Trump people are freely admitting they want to run against Bernie at this point.  What bothers me the most is that the Sanders campaign was told about these efforts last month and made no effort to share that info or to denounce it until somebody leaked it to the Washington Post today.  The Sanders campaign's defense is that the briefing was classified, but that means then that Bernie lied openly in the debates earlier this month when asked about Russian interference.

The bigger issue is of course that Russia continues to openly interfere in US elections, and that the Trump regime keeps actively blocking efforts to beef up defenses against them, saying they are "partisan" machinations to in fact help Democrats win (by stopping Republican cheating!)

Nothing will be done about that while Trump is in charge and Mitch is running blocks for him in the Senate though.  There's a reason they keep leaving the front door unlocked and the lights on.

We're only now finding out about the depth of Russian operations in the 2016 election in places like Florida.

A ransomware attack apparently corrupted some of the data at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office in 2016, but state and federal officials were not told about the attack for years.

The cyberattack — which became public this week after current Palm Beach County elections supervisor Wendy Sartory Link discussed it in a Palm Beach Post editorial board meeting — raises questions not only about what could happen if other elections offices across the state are hit with ransomware attacks, but also about whether the public would know if they were.

Then-Gov. Rick Scott, who is now a U.S. senator, was not notified of the reported ransomware attack in 2016, his Senate office said. The Florida Department of State also said it was not told about the attack in 2016.

The previously unreported incursion occurred in September 2016, Link told the Tampa Bay Times, under the watch of her predecessor, Susan Bucher. Link said she found out about the attack in November 2019 from one of her IT specialists after her former IT director had been fired. Link said she then reported the cyber incident to the state, the FBI and Homeland Security.

Link said she has since been told the office had been infected with a type of ransomware known as a zepto virus. She said she did not believe the attack was tied to Russian interference efforts in the 2016 election.

The Times was not able to reach Bucher on Thursday. In a Thursday interview with the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Bucher, who was suspended in 2019 by Gov. Ron DeSantis after he said she failed to properly conduct recounts in the 2018 election, said she can “swear on a stack of Bibles” that the cyberattack described by her successor did not happen.

Link, who was appointed by DeSantis to replace Bucher, said she has spoken with the fired IT director as well as employees in her office regarding the attack, saying they described seeing files that suddenly couldn’t be accessed or whose names had changed, and pop-up text boxes demanding payments in order to get the files back. She said employees described moving frantically to contain the infection, saying the IT director at the time screamed for employees to shut down the servers.

She lied about the attack happening, so if you believe it wasn't the Russian, despite the overwhelming evidence of voter registration bamboozling in Florida over the last several years, then there's not much I can do.

Under Trump, America has done nothing to stop another round of Russian interference.  At this point the Trump regime is actively gaslighting the world and screaming that the entire thing was a hoax.

There's no way anyone should believe 2020 elections will be fair, free, or accurate.

Senator Batboy's Guide To Health Care

I have to admit, whoever is writing the Trump Show that we're all stuck in presently keeps making such beautifully obscene villain casting choices that even Hollywood is jealous.  Take this week's example where our old friend Rick Scott, recently upgraded from Governor to Senator by many, many Florida Men, is now the Trump regime's pointman on health care.

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott is taking the lead on Republican health care policy as the Trump administration tries once again to end Obamacare. 

President Trump named Scott and fellow GOP U.S. Sens. John Barrasso of Wyoming and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana as his point people on Capitol Hill at a question-and-answer session at the White House. 

"They are going to come up with something really spectacular," Trump told reporters Thursday. 

Scott’s new role is a long way from his political origins in 2009 and 2010, when as one of the earliest critics of Obamacare, he launched ads arguing that pre-existing condition protections would cause premiums to skyrocket.

Scott also was the CEO of the hospital company Columbia/HCA in the 1990s, who resigned four months after a federal inquiry into the company was made public. The company was later fined $1.7 billion in 2000 and 2007 for what was then the largest case of Medicare fraud in history.

And yet somehow he was able to parlay billions in Medicare fraud into a lucrative political career long before Trump was ever elected, just another argument in favor of the theory that the GOP is the problem and Trump is the symptom. Rick Scott should be serving his second decade in prison going on his third.  Instead, he's serving in the US Senate.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what's wrong with America.

Scott goes on to say that he wants to lower prescription drug prices, but the catch is that prices can't be higher than other "industrialized nations" and of course, Scott gets to define what that means.

It sounds great, but of course Scott is a professional conman, fraudster, and grifter.  What his real plan happens to be is one the Dems will reject on the fine print in both the House and Senate so the GOP can run attack ads.  Pretty sick April Fools' joke if you ask me.

It's Dems' own fault if they can't see this trap a mile away.

Last Call For The Recount Account

Donald Trump this morning declared war on Democrats winning elections.

 

This is authoritarianism 101, casting doubt on the legitimacy of elections, and with every other institutional norm Trump and the GOP have eroded in the last several years, once trust in our elections is gone and is replaced by trust in Dear Leader Trump, we don't get that norm back.

And while Donald Trump may not have any actual authority to interfere with the Florida recount, GOP Gov. Rick Scott actually can cause a lot of damage.

So many controversies have bedeviled Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes — culminating in her office’s troubles in the aftermath of Florida’s chaotic 2018 elections — that her days in office are now numbered, insiders and lawmakers say.

She’s losing support from fellow Democrats and faces the increasing likelihood of an embarrassing suspension from office at the hands of either Gov. Rick Scott or his likely successor, Ron DeSantis.

Suspending Snipes from office would put a final exclamation point on one of the most contested midterms in recent Florida history, which has resulted in three statewide recounts — for U.S. Senate, governor and agriculture commissioner — as well as recounts in three local legislative races. Removal proceedings in the GOP-led Florida Senate could also cause a possible rift among Florida state Senate Democrats if the black caucus rallies around Snipes in the same way it did around her predecessor, who was also African-American, more than a decade ago.

“This is not just the most troubled elections office in the state, it’s the most troubled elections office in the nation,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican, who contends that Snipes needs to be removed from office once the recounts that began Sunday in the races for governor and U.S. Senate are over.

But Dear Leader Trump says the recounts need to already be over.  And Scott is looking for a direct link to Snipes's "mismanagement" and the recount.

Democrats say Snipes has privately confided that she plans to quit, but it’s unclear when. “I hope it’s soon,” said one state Senate Democrat who declined to be named. “Otherwise, she’s a goner.” Heading into the election, Democratic campaigns fretted about what her mismanagement would do in the second-largest Democratic county in the state.

Neither Scott's nor DeSantis’ teams will comment on the record about their plans for what many see as Snipes’ looming suspension, because both men are involved in races that are the subject of recounts and lawsuits. They don’t want their comments used against them in court, according to those close to both Republicans.

“I need to be careful with what I say about her,” Scott confided to a source who confidentially relayed the conversation to POLITICO, adding that the governor “is solely focused on winning. He’s senator-elect and he has blinders on to make sure it stays that way.”

Scott’s ire with Snipes is clear. He already linked the controversies of slow counting and what Republicans call “found” ballots in Broward to a liberal effort to “steal” this election; he asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to Investigate.

So far Scott hasn't been able to pin anything on Snipes for the recount, but if Scott loses, I fully expect that neither Rick Scott nor Donald Trump will accept those results, and then we have a nasty little fight almost certainly headed for the courts.  The larger problem is of course the untold damage to the country's election system.

In a month of harrowing news, this development is still almost incalculably bad for American democracy. I now assume that a substantial minority of Americans believe that the results of the elections in Florida, Georgia, Arizona, and California are democratically illegitimate unless the Republican candidate wins. Updating the lessons from the previous post,

1. When electoral procedures lose popular legitimacy, it is nearly impossible to get that legitimacy back. Elections are one great way of building popular legitimacy, and if by assumption they no longer do, what will?
2. Non-electoral sources of power are particularly dangerous when elections no longer legitimately empower politicians. It now falls to the very politicians who are involved in the recount to vouch for its legitimacy. The safest way to defend that legitimacy would be for the losing candidates to rebuke the President, directly and publicly. A public endorsement would be most meaningful if it were to come from, for example, DeSantis. Let us just ponder how likely that is.
3. The downstream consequences from the loss of electoral legitimacy are nearly impossible to predict. I suspect that one consequence will be an ever-greater tolerance for executive malfeasance, on the logic that Congressional representatives and state governments lack democratic legitimacy.

Meanwhile, "They stole the election in Florida" will be the GOP talking point for the next two years, which of course the only way to fix will be a national voter ID law.  And more importantly, does anyone still actually believe Trump will surrender power in case of impeachment or election loss in 2020?

Watch.

The Recount Account, Con't

Florida's Senate and Governor's races are both going to a state-mandated recount after the counts in Palm Beach and Broward counties narrowed the gaps to under .5% leads for Republican candidates.

The Florida secretary of state is ordering recounts in the U.S. Senate and governor races, an unprecedented review of two major races in the state that took five weeks to decide the 2000 presidential election.

Secretary Ken Detzner issued the order on Saturday after the unofficial results in both races fell within the margin that by law triggers a recount.

The unofficial results show that Republican former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis led Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by less than 0.5 percentage points, which will require a machine recount of ballots.

In the Senate race, Republican Gov. Rick Scott’s lead over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson is less than 0.25 percentage points, which will require a hand recount of ballots from tabulation machines that couldn’t determine which candidate got the vote.

The issue is Broward County.  It's home to Fort Lauderdale, north of Miami-Dade County, and home to two million people.  There's a major undervote issue there, and the recount will determine if people did try to vote for these offices or just left them blank because Broward County's ballot was six pages long this year.  Palm Beach County has 1.5 million, and has a similar issue.

The changing margin is due to continued vote-counting in Broward and Palm Beach counties, two of Florida’s largest and more Democratic-leaning counties. On Thursday evening, the supervisors of elections in the two counties told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that vote counting there was mostly complete. Under Florida law, counties have to report unofficial election results to the secretary of state by Saturday at noon, but Nelson’s campaign is suing to extend that deadline. Scott’s campaign and the National Republican Senatorial Committee are also suing both counties for not disclosing more information about the ongoing count, and Scott called on the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate Broward’s handling of ballots.

Unusually, the votes tabulated in Broward County so far exhibit a high rateof something called “undervoting,” or not voting in all the races on the ballot. Countywide, 26,060 fewer votes were cast in the U.S. Senate race than in the governor race.1 Put another way, turnout in the Senate race was 3.7 percent lower than in the gubernatorial race.
Broward County’s undervote rate is way out of line with every other county in Florida, which exhibited, at most, a 0.8-percent difference. (There is one outlier — the sparsely populated Liberty County — where votes cast in the Senate race were 1 percent higher than in the governor race, but there we’re talking about a difference of 26 votes, not more than 26,000, as is the case in Broward.)

To put in perspective what an eye-popping number of undervotes that is, more Broward County residents voted for the down-ballot constitutional offices of chief financial officer and state agriculture commissioner than U.S. Senate — an extremely high-profile election in which $181 million was spent. Generally, the higher the elected office, the less likely voters are to skip it on their ballots. Something sure does seem off in Broward County; we just don’t know what yet.

One possible reason for the discrepancy is poor ballot design. Broward County ballots listed the U.S. Senate race first, right after the ballot instructions. But that pushed the U.S. Senate race to the far bottom left of the ballot, where voters may have skimmed over it, while the governor’s race appears at the top of the ballot’s center column, immediately to the right of the instructions.

In other words, there's a very, very good chance that tens of thousands of voters missed the place on the ballot to actually vote.  On the other hand, the margin is so small that Miami-Dade and Palm Beach recounts -- which will be done by hand for Senate contest -- could save Bill Nelson and send Rick Scott packing.

I feel much less confident about Andrew Gillum's chances in the governor's race versus Pocket Racist™ Ron DeSantis, but again, we're talking about the three counties having more than six million people combined, so anything's possible.

The recount has to be done by Thursday, so we'll know soon.

Last Call For The Recount Account

Recounts in Georgia and Florida are underway as evidence piles up of massive voter suppression in both those states by Republicans in order to steal both gubernatorial races and the Florida senate race. Georgia's Brian Kemp should go to prison for this.

Republican Brian Kemp’s campaign declared victory in the race for Georgia governor on Wednesday, even as election officials continued counting thousands of absentee and provisional ballots, narrowing his lead and prompting Democrat Stacey Abrams to insist she could have the votes to force a runoff election.

As the vote-counting continued, voting rights advocates accused Kemp — who as secretary of state is Georgia’s top election officer — and local officials of disenfranchising thousands of voters on Election Day. Hundreds of complaints flooded in about hours-long lines brought on by broken equipment, a shortage of voting machines and insufficient quantities of printed provisional ballots.

On Wednesday evening, Kemp was ahead with 50.3 percent of the vote to Abrams’s 48.7 percent. Abrams and the Libertarian candidate would need to gain at least 25,000 votes more than Kemp to bring his share of the vote below 50 percent and trigger a runoff.

Today the state is counting absentee, and provisional ballots and Abrams is suing to make sure those ballots are counted.  Kemp has stepped aside as Secretary of State, something he has to do under state law.  There are a lot of ballots -- maybe hundreds of thousands -- that still need to be counted.  But it gets worse:

Another problem was the limited number of voting machines in some locations. More than 1,800 machines sat idle in storage in three of the state’s largest and most heavily Democratic counties. In Fulton County, according to figures provided by elections director Rick Barron, the ratio of machines to registered voters was lower than it had been in 2014, despite predictions that turnout was likely to break records for a midterm election.

While some voters waited in hours-long lines in Fulton County, 700 of those machines sat in stacks in a warehouse in downtown Atlanta, Barron said. The machines were sidelined because they are evidence in a lawsuit alleging the equipment had been exposed to the threat of hacking in 2016.

The federal judge in the case had ordered state and local election officials — including Kemp — and the plaintiffs to weigh the demands of upcoming elections in deciding how many machines to set aside.

Kemp dragged his feet to make sure those machines couldn't be used.  It's purposeful voter suppression of black Democratic votes, period.  The legal struggle continues in Georgia, but the odds of a recount in Florida for not one but three races seems guaranteed now by state law.

Two of the highest profile races in the country -- both in Florida -- are likely headed to a recount soon. 

Sen. Bill Nelson's re-election bid is likely headed to a hand recount given that the incumbent Democrat now trails Florida Gov. Rick Scott by 17,000 votes, within the .25% margin required for a hand recount. Nelson's campaign aides believe he will emerge victorious once all the ballots are counted. 

And on the governor's side, Democrat Andrew Gillum -- after conceding the race on Tuesday evening -- has grown more supportive of a recount of late, in part because his deficit to Republican Ron DeSantis is down to 38,000 votes, within the .5% needed for a machine recount. Campaign aides, though, remain clear eyed about the the long odds that Gillum can make up that deficit. 

Recounts, which have not officially been authorized in either race, put the outcome of two of the most closely watched races of 2018 on hold, with Democrats hoping for a miracle that could get both Gillum, a candidate who garnered considerable attention in his campaign against DeSantis, and Nelson, an incumbent who Democrats had thought would win his seat going into Tuesday night, over the finish line with a win. 

"On Tuesday night, the Gillum for Governor campaign operated with the best information available about the number of outstanding ballots left to count. Since that time, it has become clear there are many more uncounted ballots than was originally reported," Gillum's communications director Johanna Cervone said in a statement. "Mayor Gillum started his campaign for the people, and we are committed to ensuring every single vote in Florida is counted." 

At no point in the statement, though, did Gillum's campaign withdraw the concession and sources close to the mayor highlight that his outlook hasn't changed since his Tuesday night speech. It it is important to Gillum, these sources said, that his supporters know they are fighting for every vote. 

"We want every vote counted, we believe that there are still votes out there for Mayor Gillum and we want to make sure his supporters know we are fighting for every vote," one source said.

The third race is where Democrat Nikki Fried is a few hundred votes ahead of Republican Matt Caldwell for the state's Agriculture Commissioner, a powerful office in the state of Florida because it handles the state's gun licenses and enforces firearms legislation.

We'll know more in the days ahead, but Democrats could win all four of these races and need to fight for every single vote to be counted.

Stay tuned.

Bottom O' The Evenin', GOP Guvna

It's not just the House and Senate that are in play for the Democrats in 2018, but several state legislatures and of equal import, the two-thirds of governor's races across the country.

Democrats got mauled in 2014 and saw Republicans pick up state chief executive seats in deep blue states like Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland and Vermont three years ago.  That's been a particular problem in Illinois, where Republican Bruce Rauner has vetoed several progressive bills and has been in a three-year long budget fight with Democrats.

But now these same governors are in real trouble as the Trump/Roy Moore millstone is threatening to drown them, and Democrats are waiting in the wings to pick up the pieces, and after 2017 losses, the GOP is scrambling to try to run from their own party.

Republican governors and their donors -- still reeling from GOP losses last week in New Jersey and Virginia -- are trying to distance themselves from their party’s problems and plot a 2018 strategy to protect their state-level dominance.

At the annual Republican Governors Association meeting in Austin, Texas, party officeholders downplayed those defeats and dismissed the political fallout of President Donald Trump’s historically low approval ratings and lack of legislative accomplishments. They brushed aside questions about the potential long-term consequences from growing sexual misconduct allegations that have engulfed Republican U.S. Senate nominee Roy Moore in Alabama.

"I think we’ll see Republican governors walking a tightrope in 2018 as they navigate a difficult election year," said Steve Grubbs, an Iowa-based Republican strategist and former state party chairman.

Thirty-six states will hold gubernatorial elections in 2018, with 26 of those now controlled by Republicans. In those races, which often have trickle-down effects on legislative and local elections, Republican candidates will have to decide just how closely to embrace Trump and distance themselves from an unpopular Washington.

"The Trump base is very strong, and alienating that base by pushing Trump away could cost a governor two to five points on election day," Grubbs said. "But there are also suburban voters who are bothered by the positioning of the White House and risk being lost on the other side."

I'm out of tears to shed for "Never Trump" Republicans.  They gladly played into racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, and sexism when it benefited them in 2014 and 2016.  Now the bill for that is coming due and it's time to make them pay up.

Even if Trump’s popularity wasn’t an issue, Republicans are likely to face headwinds next year based on past trends. Midterm elections for a new president generally result in losses, sometimes big ones, and Trump currently has the lowest approval ratings of any president at this point in a first term. 

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, the association’s chairman, is seeking a third term next November. He downplayed the role Trump will play and said he’s encouraging his colleagues to run their "own race." 

Walker and Florida Governor Rick Scott, while meeting with reporters, called for Moore to exit the race before the Dec. 12 special election. Scott called his alleged actions "disgusting," while Walker dismissed suggestions that Moore might hurt the Republican brand. 

“No more so than Democrats had to answer for Anthony Weiner or Eliot Spitzer," he said, pointing to other politicians who have had sex scandals.

The problem of course is that both Spitzer and Weiner resigned and Weiner is in prison.  Trump is still in the White House, and Moore is still running for Senate.  I have a feeling voters are going to care a lot more about Trump than Anthony Weiner in 2018, even New Yorkers.

Not Getting Away Scott Free This Time

Florida GOP Gov. Evil Batboy Skeletor Rick Scott is in a heap of trouble after it turns out his office deleted the voice mails from the nursing home that requested immediate assistance after losing power during Hurricane Irma. Eight people died because of lack of ability to keep cool in the blistering heat, and it's looking more and more like Scott completely failed his constituents.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) is facing criticism after his office revealed that four voicemails sent from a nursing home where eight residents died in the aftermath Hurricane Irma were deleted.

CBS Miami reported on Saturday that Scott's office said the four voicemails, which were all received during a 36-hour period before the first resident died, were handed off to the appropriate agency and then deleted.

Eight people died at The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills, a nursing home that lost power and air conditioning during Hurricane Irma. Authorities said the deaths were heat-related.“The voicemails were not retained because the information from each voicemail was collected by the governor’s staff and given to the proper agency for handling," the governor's office told CBS in a statement.

A vice president at The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills told CBS that she requested "immediate assistance" for the residents at the nursing home.

Last week, Scott's office denied that the nursing home ever indicated its residents were in immediate danger, and stressed that the calls were referred to the appropriate authorities.

“Every call made to the governor from facility management was referred to the Agency for Health Care Administration and the Florida Department of Health and quickly returned,” Scott’s spokesman said last week in a statement to the CBS affiliate.

Two weeks ago it was "the nursing home is at fault, they never contacted us."  Last week it was "They contacted us but we referred them to the Department of Health" (which is blaming the nursing home for not evacuating all residents to a nearby hospital.) Now it's "we deleted the voice mails." 

Oops.

Except this oops cost eight lives.  And remember, the nursing home called four times in 36 hours saying they needed help.

Rick Scott is in trouble, and he should be.

Last Call For No Ground To Stand On

Florida's now infamous "Stand Your Ground" self-defense law cost Trayvon Martin his life and allowed his killer, George Zimmerman, to walk free.  In part, the law helped catalyze the Black Lives Matter movement as a national issue.  Now, Florida's latest iteration of the law has been declared unconstitutional by a Miami judge in what will surely be a major court battle ahead.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch ruled that lawmakers overstepped their authority in creating the law this year that forces prosecutors to disprove a defendant’s self-defense claim at a pre-trial hearing. 

The judge ruled that under Florida’s constitution, that change should have been crafted by the Florida Supreme Court, not the Legislature. 

“As a matter of constitutional separation of powers, that procedure cannot be legislatively modified,” Hirsch wrote in a 14-page order. 

The ruling is a victory for prosecutors who have firmly opposed the law they believe makes it easier for defendants to get away with murder and other violent crime.

The law, an update to the already controversial “Stand Your Ground” statute passed over a decade ago, was pushed by the politically powerful National Rifle Association. Gov. Rick Scott signed the new law into effect in last month. 

First passed in 2005, Florida’s controversial self-defense law has been criticized for fostering a shoot-first mentality – and giving killers a pass at justice. The law eliminated a citizen’s duty to retreat before using deadly force to counter an apparent threat. 

More problematic for prosecutors, the law made it easier for judges — before ever getting to a jury — to dismiss criminal charges if they deem someone acted in self-defense. 

The Florida Supreme Court later ruled that defendants, in asking for immunity from criminal prosecution, must be the ones to prove they were acting in self-defense. 

In Miami-Dade, judges have thrown several high-profile murder cases after pre-trial immunity hearings, but have also allowed many more to go to a jury. 

But the NRA-backed bill, passed in May despite fierce opposition by prosecutors and gun-control advocates, upended the legal framework. 

Now, at those pre-trial hearings, prosecutors shoulder the burden of disproving a defendant’s self-defense claim. State Attorneys contended that it essentially forces them to unfairly to try the case twice, making it easier for criminals to skate on violent charges. 

Under the law, prosecutors must prove by “clear and convincing” evidence that a defendant was not acting in self-defense.

In other words, Florida's GOP legislative super-majority responded to the Florida Supreme Court's ruling that proof of "Stand Your Ground" was on the defendant who used force by changing the law to nullify the ruling and put the burden on the state to disprove self-defense, and GOP Gov. Rick Scott simply signed the law to ignore Florida's state Supreme Court entirely.

It seems patently obvious that Judge Hirsch is correct here, but Republicans given total control simply no longer care about rule of law anymore.  We have plenty of national examples of this from the Trump regime, so why would Florida be any different?

Imagine that I shoot and kill someone in Florida.  The state would have to prove with "clear and convincing" evidence that it wasn't self-defense.  In other words, I'd be treated the way nearly every other state treats police officers who use deadly force.

Keep a close eye on this one, guys.