Last Call For Sour Virginia

No matter what the outcome is in Virginia tonight, Republicans are already screaming about the vote being rigged.

This is how it’s going to be forever: Republicans and conservatives will claim that any election they lose is fraudulent. Donald Trump established this as the playbook for his party-cum-cult. And the full embrace of this authoritarian and dangerous tactic has been evident in the much-watched and tight-as-a-tick governor’s race in Virginia between Republican Glenn Youngkin and Democrat Terry McAuliffe.

Days before the final balloting on November 2, right-wingers and Republicans began hurling the accusation: The Democrats are stealing this election. They had no evidence. They were just beating this tribal drum. But the aim was to create an echo chamber for the delegitimization of the election should McAuliffe, the former governor, prevail.

The strategy is simple: repeat the phony charge over and over to block full public acceptance of an unfavorable result. And this attack has come from multiple directions. Steve Bannon, the once-indicted-and-Trump-pardoned strategist has inserted himself into the race, and appearing on a Virginia-based talk show on October 29 to discuss the election, warned, “They’re Democrats. They’re going to try to steal it. They can’t win elections they don’t steal, right? They understand this. This is what they did in ’20. It’s time now to start calling them out.”

At a Youngkin rally on October 27, country singer John Rich, who was campaigning for the Republican, suggested to the crowd that a Democratic conspiracy involving Stacey Abrams was afoot: “Why the hell is Stacey Abrams in Virginia right now? What is that? What is she doing up here? We know what she’s doing up here. She’s working on it… Do you really think California voted for Gavin Newsom again? I don’t think so. Stacey Abrams was probably out there, too.” Abrams had been campaigning in Virginia for McAuliffe, much as Rich was doing for Youngkin. (Newsom survived the recall election with 61.9 percent of the vote.)

That same day, conservative talk show host John Fredericks huffed, “Everything’s moving in Youngkin’s direction and the Republicans, but a lot of people fear that this is going to get stolen, they’re gonna try and cheat. We’ve got all kinds of irregularities right now going on.” In another show, Fredericks claimed that Democrats were going into nursing homes to “extract votes from people that were incapacitated.” He did not produce any proof of this nefarious plot.

On one recent episode of Fredericks’ show, John Mills, a former cybersecurity official at the Defense Department who now provides commentary to the conspiratorial-minded and pro-Trump Epoch Times, claimed that security is intentionally poorly designed at vote-counting facilities and “people can walk in and out.”

Amanda Chase, a Republican state senator from Virginia who has campaigned with Youngkin, has been a constant champion of the-Democrats-are-cheating disinformation. On her Facebook page, she declared, “I know how their [sic] cheating. We know. Watching closely.” Appearing on Newsmax, she asserted, “I know how Democrats are cheating, and that information has been given to the Youngkin campaign.” She also told this far-right network that an unidentified man had showed her “exactly how they’re stealing elections in Virginia.” She maintained, “They’re moving, in cyberland, they are switching inactive voters to active voters, all in the same week, it’s undetectable. I know what they’re doing…and now the Youngkin campaign has all that information.” When Virginia attorney general Mark Herring, a Democrat, demanded Chase hand over any material she possessed indicating improbities in the election, a Chase spokesperson told Talking Points Memo, “We don’t owe Herring a thing.” Chase also posted on Facebook a debunked charge that voters had been turned away from early voting in Virginia because they had been sent absentee ballots they never requested.

 

My prediction is this: Trump will demand an audit no matter who wins, and if McAuliffe's early voting lead holds out for a win, we'll see actual violence in the state. Virginia should be prepared to deal with both.

So should all of us.

The Road To Gilead, Con't

The Roberts Court heard oral arguments on Monday over Texas's ridiculous crowdsourced anti-abortion law, and it didn't exactly go well for the Lone Star State, as Vox's Ian Milihiser explains.

 

Texas’s anti-abortion law is, Chief Justice Roberts wrote previously, “not only unusual, but unprecedented.” It effectively prohibits all abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy, but does so through a scheme that, in Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s words, was “engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny.”

Under a doctrine known as “sovereign immunity,” private plaintiffs typically are not allowed to sue a state directly in federal court. But the Court held in Ex parte Young (1908) that private plaintiffs may sue the state official tasked with enforcing the law that such a plaintiff wishes to challenge. So, for example, if a law permitted the state attorney general to bring criminal proceedings against abortion providers, a party challenging the law would sue the attorney general.

But SB 8 explicitly forbids any “officer or employee of a state or local governmental entity” in Texas from enforcing it. Instead, it may only be enforced through private lawsuits. These lawsuits may be filed by “any person” who is not an employee of the state against anyone who either performs an abortion or who “aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion.” Plaintiffs who prevail in these lawsuits receive a bounty of at least $10,000, which must be paid by the defendant.

So the idea is that no one can sue to stop the law because no state official is a proper defendant.

This structure, it should be noted, does permit abortion providers to perform an abortion that violates SB 8, wait until they are sued, and then argue in Texas state court that SB 8 is unconstitutional. The problem with that approach, as Hearron told the justices, is that “no rational abortion provider would violate this law.”

Anyone who does so could be bombarded with thousands of lawsuits, forced to hire an army of lawyers to defend against them, and then be ordered to pay a bounty of at least $10,000 — which means that there is no upper limit on that bounty.

The abortion provider plaintiffs’ primary argument is that, under Young, they may sue state court judges who hear SB 8 lawsuits, and the state court clerks who docket those cases. Yet, while the justices did spend a good deal of time discussing whether judges and clerks are proper defendants, their most revealing questions focused on whether a law like SB 8 should be allowed under any circumstances.

The three most conservative justices — Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch — appeared likely to uphold Texas’s scheme, although Thomas did ask some tough questions of Stone, the Texas lawyer. Thomas noted that SB 8 is unlike other laws permitting lawsuits against private defendants because other laws typically only allow plaintiffs who’ve been injured in some way to file suit.

SB 8, by contrast, effectively deputizes anyone who is not a state official to enforce the state’s anti-abortion law — regardless of whether a particular plaintiff was actually injured by the person they are suing. As Thomas put it, SB 8 plaintiffs are “acting in concert with the state” to enforce the state’s law.

The three liberal justices, meanwhile, left no doubt that they view SB 8 as unacceptable. Sotomayor, for example, pointed to the Court’s school segregation decision in Cooper v. Aaron (1958), which held that the Constitution “can neither be nullified openly and directly by state legislators or state executive or judicial officers nor nullified indirectly by them through evasive schemes.”

Justice Stephen Breyer, meanwhile, quoted early 20th century Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who said, “I do not think the United States would come to an end if we lost our power to declare an Act of Congress void. I do think the Union would be imperiled if we could not make that declaration as the laws of the several States.” SB 8, Breyer suggested, would prevent the Court from striking down state laws.

Roberts, meanwhile, seemed to share the liberal justices’ concerns. He imagined a slightly different version of SB 8, where the minimum bounty was $1 million instead of just $10,000 — and warned that no one would reasonably be willing to risk violating such a law because the cost of losing would be so high. He also criticized Texas for passing a law that allows abortion providers to be sued anywhere in the state, rather than following the ordinary rules governing which legal venues are appropriate.

So that leaves Kavanaugh and Barrett as the justices in the middle, and both appeared sympathetic to the plaintiffs’ arguments.

 

Indeed, Justices Kickstand and Karen seemed rather worried about the argument that blue states could do to guns what Texas is trying to do to abortion: set up a bounty system to stop gun purchases in the state, and use citizens to enforce it. This made Kavanaugh very upset, actually. 

If SB 8 is upheld, and the Court permits the use of private bounty hunters to limit constitutional rights, another state could easily use this mechanism not just to restrict abortions and reproductive care, but also to chill other constitutional rights. As the Firearms Policy Coalition argued in its amicus brief, “it takes little in the way of creative copying for States hostile to the Second Amendment — New York, California, New Jersey, Hawaii, etc. — to declare that the ownership or sale of a handgun is illegal ... and set up a bounty system with the same unbalanced procedures and penalties adopted by Texas in this case.”

This possibility seemed to bother Kavanaugh, who asked about whether a state could authorize a million-dollar bounty against anyone who sells an AR-15, a popular form of semi-automatic rifle.

Even more significantly, Kavanaugh appeared to echo the liberal justices’ concerns that Texas is gaming the system. “There’s a loophole that’s been exploited here,” he told Stone, and suggested that the question before the Court in the Whole Woman’s Health case is “should we extend the principle of Ex parte Young to close this loophole?”

Stone, meanwhile, had a disastrous exchange with Kavanaugh where he argued that someone targeted by an SB 8-style law would have to lobby Congress to enact a federal law protecting their constitutional rights. It “would be difficult to get legislation through Congress,” Kavanaugh deadpanned in response to Stone — an acknowledgement the federal government’s dysfunctional legislative branch is not likely to do much of anything at all.

Barrett, meanwhile, played her cards a little closer to her chest than Kavanaugh, but she seemed bothered that there was no adequate way to challenge SB 8 unless the federal judiciary intervenes. At one point, she expressed concern that abortion providers “cannot get full review” of the law in state court. At another, she questioned whether an SB 8 defendant would be able to get a broad injunction blocking the law in state court.

So, while it remains to be seen how each justice votes, it appears that there may be as many as six votes to allow a lawsuit against SB 8 to move forward. The possibility that any constitutional right could be undermined by an SB 8-style law appeared to bother at least some of the conservative justices who ordinarily vote against abortion rights.

 

The good news is the right to sue Texas over this appears to be in the cards. The bad news is if the court overturns Roe v Wade next year, it's a moot point since Texas and any other Republican state will be able to ban abortion outright. 

A win to allow Texas to be sued and the law enjoined would be cold comfort for tens of millions of women headed to the forced breeding scenario of Gilead.

The Manchin On The Hill, Con't

President Joe Biden Manchin has decreed that we will not have a House vote today on the infrastructure bills, or soon, or maybe at all.

Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) on Monday called on Democrats to slow down in their work to advance a $1.75 trillion plan to overhaul the country’s health care, education, climate and tax laws, raising new doubts about the party’s timeline to advance a critical piece of President Biden’s economic agenda as soon as this week.

Speaking to reporters, Manchin lamented some of the “social” spending in the still-forming package, the means by which Democrats have crafted it, and the potential that it could add to the deficit while spurring new inflation. He called for more time to evaluate its broader fiscal effects.

“I will not support a bill that is this consequential without thoroughly understanding the impact it will have on our national debt, our economy and the American people,” Manchin said. “Every elected representative needs to know what they are voting for and the impact it has, not only on their constituents, but the entire country.”

“I’m open to supporting a final bill that helps move our country forward,” the senator added. “But I’m equally open to voting against a bill that hurts our country.”

In making his remarks, Manchin also rebuked liberal House Democrats who have refused to vote on a parallel measure to improve the nation’s roads, bridges, pipes, ports and Internet connections. These left-leaning lawmakers, represented by the powerful Congressional Progressive Caucus, have held up the infrastructure plan in the hopes of securing Manchin’s firm commitment on their other spending priorities — a strategy that the senator chastised on Monday.

“Holding this bill hostage is not going to work,” he said, urging an immediate vote on the $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan.

Manchin’s statement immediately generated new uncertainty about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s plan to hold a vote this week on both of Biden’s long-sought economic packages. Liberal lawmakers have held firm in insisting that the chamber must vote on both bills in tandem, a position that some maintained despite the senator’s stern criticism.

“We intend to pass both bills in the next couple of days,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said during an interview Monday on CNN.

Reacting to Manchin’s allegation that liberals had held the infrastructure bill “hostage,” Jayapal dismissed the critiques, urged lawmakers to “keep tempers down” and stressed that Democrats should trust that the president can ultimately deliver the 51 votes necessary to pass it in the Senate.

“Pramila Jayapal is right,” Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.), a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, added in a tweet shortly after her interview ended on CNN. “Let’s vote these two bills out of the House this week.”

The White House, meanwhile, saw in Manchin’s comments a cause for optimism. In her own statement, press secretary Jen Psaki said that the $1.75 trillion bill meets the senator’s criteria to combat inflation, create jobs and cover its costs in full.

“As a result, we remain confident that the plan will gain Senator Manchin’s support,” Psaki said.

 

Manchin cutting off the Biden administration, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer by holding this press conference on Monday is a clear sign that he continues to hold all the leverage.  Rep. Jayapal and the House progressive caucus are already signaling that they will no longer hold the Senate bipartisan bill up, and that they recognize Manchin has all of the power here because unlike Jayapal, he's ready to destroy both bills.

People keep forgetting this. Manchin has the motive, the means, and the opportunity to commit a double homicide here and he's said at every opportunity that he will pull the trigger.

Biden is trying to ignore him, Jayapal is trying to go around him, but any solution is going to have to go through him.

That's just the damn truth. And should Jayapal and Pelosi relent and the House vote on the Senate plan get wrecked a third time and delayed once again, I don't think any of it's going to pass.

At all.

Last Call For The Big Lie

Pew Research has come out with a comprehensive poll measuring a number of culture war subjects, but by far the most disturbing trend is the Big Lie and the near guaranteed violence it will cause in the future.

 

After the violent attacks on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, the prospect of political violence threatening a peaceful transfer of power has become more than an abstract question. As noted above, nearly one in five Americans (18%) agree with the statement “Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” Republicans (30%) are more likely to agree with this than independents (17%) and Democrats (11%). Among Republicans who most trust far-right news sources, agreement increases to 40%, compared to 32% among those who most trust Fox News and 22% among those who most trust mainstream news sources.

White evangelical Protestants (26%) are the religious group most likely to agree that true American patriots might have to resort to violence in order to save our country, while 23% of those who follow non-Christian religions, 22% of Hispanic Catholics, 19% of white Catholics, 19% of other Christians, 17% of white mainline (non-evangelical) Protestants, 16% of Black Protestants, and 13% of religiously unaffiliated Americans agree.

The belief that violence could be an option is stronger among those who support former President Donald Trump and view changing culture as a threat. Among those who think the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, 39% agree that true American patriots might have to resort to violence in order to save our country, compared to only 10% among those who do not think the election was stolen.

Those who agree that things have changed so much they feel like strangers in their own country (29%) are more likely than those who disagree (12%) to agree that violence might be necessary, and those who think American culture has mostly changed for the worse since the 1950s (23%) are more likely than those who think it has changed for the better (14%) to say so.

Christian nationalist sympathies matter, as well: Among those who believe God has granted America a special role in human history, 27% agree that violence might be necessary, compared to 12% among those who do not think God granted America a special role.

 

No matter how you slice it, it represents tens of millions in this country who say that violence is now an option that they support for political power, including nearly 40% of Big Lie Republicans.

Political terrorist violence is inevitable, frankly.

The Disenfranchisement Is The Point

The indispensable Adam Serwer on Florida reverting to its historical norm:

 

The political leadership of Florida is today gripped by a new “lost cause.” Despite the fact that Donald Trump triumphed in the Sunshine State in 2020, in an election that Governor Ron DeSantis called “the smoothest, most successful election in the country,” the Republican-controlled legislature imposed a series of new voting restrictions in the aftermath of the election. The impetus for these restrictions was the falsehood that Trump had won reelection but had been deprived of victory by “voter fraud.”

Trump, along with his allies in the right-wing media, has inundated conservative voters with ludicrous claims that the election was “rigged.” These claims cannot be proved, because they are false; in fact, the Trump camp has always known that they were false, and that their supporters would believe them nonetheless. The allegations, though, need not be substantiated in any factual sense, because they are fundamentally an expression of the conviction that Trump should have won, not because he actually won the most votes but because the other side’s votes simply should not count. This belief justifies not merely restrictions on the right to vote but the right to simply overturn elections, as Trump supporters attempted to do when they ransacked the Capitol on January 6.

The novel restrictions cannot be a solution to endemic voter fraud, a problem that DeSantis’s boasts implicitly acknowledge does not exist. They are a solution to a different problem: the fact that the other side gets to vote at all.

None of these attempts to restrict the franchise has been as overtly racist or close to as successful as the efforts of the Redeemers. But as long as the risk of competitive elections exists, a party driven by the belief that its rivals are illegitimate will seek to eliminate them. That this effort is today led by the Republican Party, during Reconstruction the defender of Black rights in the South, is one of history’s great and tragic ironies.

Florida’s rule limiting the teaching of this history is not the worst of the state-level efforts at censorship—it states that teachers “may not suppress or distort significant historical events, such as the Holocaust, slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction” but also bars them from teaching that “racism is embedded in American society and its legal systems in order to uphold the supremacy of white persons.” It is obvious that the former cannot be taught without recognizing the history of the latter, and that under the ambiguous wording of the rule, teachers will fear that doing so will risk professional consequences.

But to acknowledge this history would be to raise uncomfortable questions about its legacy in the present. Rather than doing so, this movement has settled on the belief that its fundamental political rights are threatened when those its members fear exercise their own. In the name of “free speech,” Florida censors its educators; in the name of “democracy,” it disenfranchises its citizens. This is because, as Florida’s so-called Redeemers understood, power does not need to resolve its contradictions when it can simply silence them.

 

Where we are headed as a nation and as a people is "Democrats don't count". 

 

That is, Democratic votes don't count, Democratic Congresses and Presidents don't count, Democrat-appointed judges don't count, and Democratic voters' rights and civil rights don't count, because Democrats aren't American, aren't human, aren't permissible.

 

"Our elections won't be free and fair as long as Democrats are involved!" they scream, and so Democrats will soon no longer be involved.

 

Just silence them, just cancel them, just punish them enough and they'll get with the winning side, the only side, the MAGA side, the Republican Christian Evangelical Dominionism Patriarchy side. Whatever happens to Democrats, the Enemy, well, they deserved it.

If there's anything the last 150 years of American history has shown, it's that racists assholes sure do love getting creative with their ways to keep white supremacy the de facto law of the land despite all the efforts to change that.

All of it is tied together, the efforts to disenfranchise Black voters, the efforts to limit executive regulatory power in favor of a gerrymandered House and GOP-centric Senate, the efforts to completely destroy trust in elections so that people won't mind authoritarian measures, all of it is designed to create a permanent white supremacist Christofascist state.

They are exceedingly close to winning what they've wanted for generations: the end of civil rights, voting rights, and of democracy.

Another #MeToo Moment, Con't

Our "friends" over at The Intercept sure told us that 21-year-old Kansas state Democratic Rep. Aaron Coleman was a good egg, despite multiple previous accusations of blackmailing an ex with revenge porn, because he wanted progressive policies like Medicare for all. Turns out that Coleman can add "accusations of sexual assault" to the list now.

Kansas Rep. Aaron Coleman, who has a history of alleged abusive behavior, was arrested Saturday night on a charge of domestic battery.

Overland Park police took Coleman into custody at 8:15 p.m. Saturday and he was booked into the Johnson County Jail at 12:45 a.m. Sunday, according to jail records.

Coleman’s arrest on Sunday prompted new calls for his resignation.

The 21-year-old Democratic lawmaker has been accused multiple times of inappropriate behavior, including by a former girlfriend who said he slapped and choked her. The circumstances of Saturday’s arrest weren’t immediately known.

Coleman appeared to remain in custody as of Sunday afternoon, according to jail records. A call to his phone went unanswered. He is set to appear in court at 1:30 p.m. Monday.

The episode led to fresh demands for Coleman’s resignation on Sunday. House Minority Leader Tom Sawyer, a Wichita Democrat, called the developments “extremely disturbing news.”

“We are watching closely to make sure we gather all the facts. His constituents and the State of Kansas would be better served if he were to resign and get the help he badly needs,” Sawyer said in a statement. “However, I want to reiterate again that the House Democratic Caucus does not condone this behavior in any way, shape, or form.”

The freshman lawmaker already faced a legislative inquiry earlier this year over allegations of inappropriate behavior, but the investigating committee ultimately issued only an informal letter of warning that amounted to a mild reprimand. At the time, lawmakers involved in the inquiry noted that the alleged behavior had occurred before he was elected.

Just months later, Coleman now faces allegations of criminal behavior while in office.

House Speaker Ron Ryckman, an Olathe Republican, said that given what little information is known, “I am concerned for everyone involved.”

“I know that law enforcement will thoroughly investigate and assess the situation so that we can take appropriate action,” Ryckman said in a statement.

Coleman broke into Kansas politics in 2020 with an upset primary defeat of Rep. Stan Frownfelter in Kansas City, Kansas. Allegations of abusive behavior were made public, but Coleman, running in a heavily Democratic district, faced no Republican opponent on the ballot.

He ran as a left-wing candidate, supporting progressive policies that have virtually no chance of advancing in the Republican-controlled Legislature. But since before his election, accusations of personal misconduct and episodes of bizarre behavior have dominated the attention paid to him, turning him into a quasi-outcast in the House.

Earlier in October, the Kansas Department of Labor warned Coleman to stay away from its Topeka headquarters after the agency said he repeatedly tried to gain access to employee-only parts of the building.

But the most serious concerns about Coleman have often centered on his behavior in relationships, in particular his relationships with women. Before Coleman took office in early 2021, seven incoming Democratic legislators -- all women -- called on him to resign. They demanded Coleman face “accountability for violence against women.”

Coleman has previously been under a temporary order not to communicate with the former campaign manager of a political opponent, who had said Coleman sent her harassing messages, came to her home twice and tried to get her evicted. A former staff member in Sawyer’s office has also described threats Coleman made against her and that he had called her and threatened physical violence against Sawyer before the election.

Coleman has previously tweeted that Gov. Laura Kelly would face an “extremely bloody” Democratic primary. “People will realize one day when I call a hit out on you it’s real,” he tweeted. He later deleted the tweet.

 

Nobody in the Kansas House leadership, Democrat or Republican, seems really eager to get rid of this little carbuncle, but I think this might be his ticket out.

And into a cell.

StupidiNews!

• The island nation of Tonga reported its first COVID-19 case as PM Pohiva Tu'i'onetoa is urging everyone to get vaccinated and is warning of a potential national lockdown.
• Former Trump adviser Roger Stone is threatening to primary Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis unless DeSantis delivers a "comprehensive and accurate" audit of 2020 election results.
• President Joe Biden and G20 leaders delivered a unified statement from the climate change summit in Glasgow on Sunday, but nations offered few concrete commitments on carbon emissions.
• White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has tested positive for COVID-19, skipping the Glasgow climate change summit last weekend as a precaution.
• The FBI says a pirate hacker tried to extort $150,000 from Major League Baseball over exposing a possible streaming security flaw in game broadcasts.
  

Last Call For Getting It In Gear

As Steve M. notes, Democrats have completely failed to turn things around on the perceptions of the infrastructure bill, of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and of their 2022 chances.

The last two Democratic presidents also found themselves in the weeds in their first two years in office. Both watched their parties suffer bloodbaths in their first midterms. But both presidents won reelection, right? So we're not doomed, are we?

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were immensely talented politicians at the top of their game. They were young, vigorous, and charismatic. They were great speakers.

Joe Biden is ... Joe Biden. He's not vigorous, charismatic, or a great speaker. If he's losing the confidence of Americans, does he have the ability to persuade them that he's a steady hand who can steer the country out of trouble?

And does he understand that he should start trying to do that soon?

This moment is reminding me of the fall of 1988, when Michael Dukakis, the Democratic presidential nominee, blew a 17-point post-convention lead in the polls under relentless attacks from the GOP. Dukakis lost that race because he didn't punch back and he didn't find a way to change the subject when the GOP attacks dominated the news cycle. Joe Biden doesn't seem to know how to make news in a way that helps him. Vice President Harris doesn't seem to have that skill either, or she's not trying because it's believed that she shouldn't upstage the president, or it's been decided that she should keep a low profile because she's not sufficiently well liked, although maybe she'd be liked if some effort were made to change the way the public sees her. Or maybe everyone in the Democratic Party thinks things are going as well as they possibly could.

I don't believed we're doomed -- but we're doomed if Democrats keep doing what they're doing while expecting change to just happen. Democrats need to fight back. They need to fight as hard to win news cycles as Republicans do -- no, harder, because the right-wing media will always amplify Republican propaganda, and the mainstream media prefers right-wing messaging whenever Democrats are actually trying to govern. Democrats have to understand that they're in a more difficult struggle than they were during the Trump years, because the press likes Democrats when they're out of power and Republicans have clearly failed, but the press despises Democrats when they're in power. That sucks, but it's reality, and Democrats need to start acting as if they recognize reality.

 

Both Clinton and Obama learned to play the game, but only after both suffered catastrophic midterm losses (and Obama suffered them twice, with 2014 being the lowest turnout in my lifetime.)

Both the Virginia race and the vote on Biden's Build Back Better plan happen on Tuesday.

We need to pull off both.

Insurrection Investigation, Con't

So it turns out that the Trump team was counting on the insurrectionist mob they created to "convince" VP Mike Pence to refuse to certify the election for Joe Biden, and if the mob killed Pence, well, he had it coming.

 

As Vice President Mike Pence hid from a marauding mob during the Jan. 6 invasion of the Capitol, an attorney for President Donald Trump emailed a top Pence aide to say that Pence had caused the violence by refusing to block certification of Trump’s election loss.

The attorney, John C. Eastman, also continued to press for Pence to act even after Trump’s supporters had trampled through the Capitol — an attack the Pence aide, Greg Jacob, had described as a “siege” in their email exchange.

“The ‘siege’ is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so that the American people can see for themselves what happened,” Eastman wrote to Jacob, referring to Trump’s claims of voter fraud.

Eastman sent the email as Pence, who had been presiding in the Senate, was under guard with Jacob and other advisers in a secure area. Rioters were tearing through the Capitol complex, some of them calling for Pence to be executed.

Jacob, Pence’s chief counsel, included Eastman’s emailed remarks in a draft opinion article about Trump’s outside legal team that he wrote later in January but ultimately chose not to publish. The Washington Post obtained a copy of the draft. Jacob wrote that by sending the email at that moment, Eastman “displayed a shocking lack of awareness of how those practical implications were playing out in real time.”

Jacob’s draft article, Eastman’s emails and accounts of other previously undisclosed actions by Eastman offer new insight into the mind-sets of figures at the center of an episode that pushed American democracy to the brink. They show that Eastman’s efforts to persuade Pence to block Trump’s defeat were more extensive than has been reported previously, and that the Pence team was subjected to what Jacob at the time called “a barrage of bankrupt legal theories.”

Eastman confirmed the emails in interviews with The Post but denied that he was blaming Pence for the violence. He defended his actions, saying that Trump’s team was right to exhaust “every legal means” to challenge a result that it argued was plagued by widespread fraud and irregularities.

“Are you supposed to not do anything about that?” Eastman said.

He stood by legal advice he gave Pence to halt Congress’s certification on Jan. 6 to allow Republican state lawmakers to investigate the unfounded fraud claims, which multiple legal scholars have said Pence was not authorized to do.

 

As Josh Marshall reminds us, this is basically the biggest piece of evidence yet in the "Trump regime soft coup" column.

These exchanges capture something we suspect and know in some way. But here we’re getting the details, the documentary evidence. Eastman didn’t recoil when the President’s rally escalated to violence. He clearly saw the inside coup plot and the insurrectionists on the street as part of the same effort. This isn’t surprising to most of us. The insurrectionists were laying siege to Pence in the Capitol because Pence wasn’t going along with the plan. And the answer was to go along with the plan. Eastman recognized the insurrection as the paramilitary wing of the coup plot he was part of and as the Capitol was under siege used it as a cudgel to force Pence’s hand.

Again, this won’t come to a shock to many of us. But here we’re getting the receipts. At least the first of them. To date the actions of Eastman, the President, his various coconspirators – during the hours of the assault on the Capitol – have largely been a black box even as we’ve learned more and more granular detail of the ransacking of the Capitol itself. We’ve had brief glimpses in reported accounts. There was the notorious phone call between Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Trump in which McCarthy demanded Trump call off his insurrectionists. Trump notoriously responded, “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.”

In real time, Trump’s message was the same as Eastman’s. You brought it on yourself and they’re my guys. The way to lift the siege is to do the right thing and support the coup. They both recognized the insurrectionists as their foot soldiers and expressed as much in real time to the members of Congress under siege. And of course they did since they were their foot soldiers.

It’s hardly surprising that both Trump and Eastman were cheering on the assault on the Capitol in real time or seeing it in the same terms. They were part of the same war room. They were leading it. Directly or indirectly McCarthy was the source of those quotes from the conversation with the President. It was reportedly anger and expletive filled. Of course he later fell in line. Much of the resistance to the investigation was his effort not to be placed under oath to reveal what happened on that day and the fact that he resisted it.

 

Finally, the Washington Post has the law enforcement timeline as January 6th terrorists set off every intelligence alarm in the country with their impending attack.

 

 

The head of intelligence at D.C.’s homeland security office was growing desperate. For days, Donell Harvin and his team had spotted increasing signs that supporters of President Donald Trump were planning violence when Congress met to formalize the electoral college vote, but federal law enforcement agencies did not seem to share his sense of urgency. On Saturday, Jan. 2, he picked up the phone and called his counterpart in San Francisco, waking Mike Sena before dawn.

Sena listened with alarm. The Northern California intelligence office he commanded had also been inundated with political threats flagged by social media companies, several involving plans to disrupt the joint session or hurt lawmakers on Jan. 6.

He organized an unusual call for all of the nation’s regional homeland security offices — known as fusion centers — to find out what others were seeing. Sena expected a couple dozen people to get on the line that Monday. But then the number of callers hit 100. Then 200. Then nearly 300. Officials from nearly all 80 regions, from New York to Guam, logged on.

In the 20 years since the country had created fusion centers in response to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Sena couldn’t remember a moment like this. For the first time, from coast to coast, the centers were blinking red. The hour, date and location of concern was the same: 1 p.m., the U.S. Capitol, Jan. 6.

Harvin asked his counterparts to share what they were seeing. Within minutes, an avalanche of new tips began streaming in. Self-styled militias and other extremist groups in the Northeast were circulating radio frequencies to use near the Capitol. In the Midwest, men with violent criminal histories were discussing plans to travel to Washington with weapons.

Forty-eight hours before the attack, Harvin began pressing every alarm button he could. He invited the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, military intelligence services and other agencies to see the information in real time as his team collected it. He took another extreme step: He asked the city’s health department to convene a call of D.C.-area hospitals and urged them to prepare for a mass casualty event. Empty your emergency rooms, he said, and stock up your blood banks.

Harvin was one of numerous people inside and outside of government who alerted authorities to the growing likelihood of deadly violence on Jan. 6, according to a Washington Post investigation, which found a cascade of previously undisclosed warnings preceded the attack on the Capitol. Alerts were raised by local officials, FBI informants, social media companies, former national security officials, researchers, lawmakers and tipsters, new documents and firsthand accounts show.

This investigation is based on interviews with more than 230 people and thousands of pages of court documents and internal law enforcement reports, along with hundreds of videos, photographs and audio recordings. Some of those who were interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions or sensitive information.

While the public may have been surprised by what happened on Jan. 6, the makings of the insurrection had been spotted at every level, from one side of the country to the other. The red flags were everywhere.

 

In the last week, we've learned that the Trump regime was openly recruiting insurrectionists and working with them, hosting White House meetings along with Republican members of Congress, all for January 6th. Now we know that the plan all along was to pressure Pence to go along with the plan in order to stop the riot.

 

A terrorist insurrection was planned, authorized, and facilitated by Donald Trump while he was in the White House, for the express purpose of him remaining in power.

 

I don't really care how bad you think the Democrats are, this was a goddamn armed terrorist coup and it almost worked.

We only still have a country because Mike Pence was a coward.

There's your scary story for Halloween.

 

Sunday Long Read: Hate The Sinners

This week's Sunday Long Read comes from Becca Andrews and Mother Jones, telling us the story of how student victims of sexual abuse at Chicago's Moody Bible Institute became the guilty parties of tempting the "pure and good" fellow students who abused them.

Megan Wohlers thought she had done all she needed to do. And even if she had missed something, she thought, she was on a Christian campus, full of other believers—someone would certainly intervene.

It was the fall of 2016 when the sophomore at Moody Bible Institute, one of the country’s most prestigious evangelical colleges, started the process of getting help. She was afraid for her own safety, and the safety of those closest to her. Her ex-boyfriend seemed undeterred by her pleas for him to move on. So, she tried to be systematic: She spoke with the public safety department at the school, and she wrote a letter to her ex, demanding that he leave her, her family, and her friends alone. She gave copies of the letter to a professor, the Title IX office, and Dean of Students Timothy Arens, as well as her parents, for documentation’s sake. The dean also promised to speak separately with the boy and tell him to back off. Surely, it would be enough.

It wasn’t.

Now, five years later, Wohlers, the once-starry-eyed teenager who’d dreamed of going to Moody since she was 10, whose father was an alumnus, whose ambition was to go to Central Africa to spread the gospel, is one of 11 women who have decided to make public their experiences with sexual abuse at the college. “The school encourages transparency and vulnerability with each other,” Wohlers tells me, “but the truth of the matter is people don’t open up to other people about what’s going on in their lives, and then when you do open up to administration, you get shamed and blamed.”

It is time, they’ve decided, for others to witness what they see as a systemic failure to address sexual misconduct at the school that describes itself as “the world’s most influential Bible college,” the place “where God transforms the world through you.” It is time to expose the people who were tasked with protecting them—under the laws of the country, under the laws of God—who at best looked the other way, at worst blamed them for the violence perpetrated against them.

And finally, it is time, they argue, to move beyond the purity culture that has defined and infected Moody—and imperiled women on campus—for far too long. “All the responsibilities are on the girls to be pure,” says Anna Schutte, who graduated from Moody in 2020. “You know, if a guy has a porn addiction and a sex addiction, you should pray for him. But if a girl gets assaulted, it’s her fault.”

 

As I've said before on multiple occasions, my parents are people of deep spiritual conviction and faith, and I envy them. Me, I've seen religion used too many times to justify the worst in humanity and not the best.

Last Call For Actually Being Silenced

This is what "government-sponsored cancel culture on public university campuses" actually looks like, America.

 

Three University of Florida professors have been barred from assisting plaintiffs in a lawsuit to overturn the state’s new law restricting voting rights, lawyers said in a federal court filing on Friday. The ban is an extraordinary limit on speech that raises questions of academic freedom and First Amendment rights.

University officials told the three that because the school was a state institution, participating in a lawsuit against the state “is adverse to U.F.’s interests” and could not be permitted. In their filing, the lawyers sought to question Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, on whether he was involved in the decision.

Mr. DeSantis has resisted questioning, arguing that all of his communications about the law are protected from disclosure because discussions about legislation are privileged. In their filing on Friday, lawyers for the plaintiffs said the federal questions in the case — including whether the law discriminates against minority groups — override any state protections.

Two university representatives said they could not comment on pending litigation. Mr. DeSantis’s office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The university’s refusal to allow the professors to testify was a marked turnabout for the University of Florida. Like schools nationwide, the university has routinely allowed academic experts to offer expert testimony in lawsuits, even when they oppose the interests of the political party in power.

Leading experts on academic freedom said they knew of no similar restrictions on professors’ speech and testimony and said the action was probably unconstitutional.

One of the professors in the latest filing, Daniel A. Smith, testified with the University of Florida’s permission in two voting rights lawsuits against Florida’s Republican-led government in 2018. One suit forced the state to provide Spanish-language ballots for Hispanic voters. The other overturned a state-imposed ban on early-voting polling places on Florida university campuses.

But university officials reversed course after a coalition of advocacy and voting rights groups sued in May to block restrictions on voting enacted this year by the Republican-controlled State Legislature. Among other provisions, the new law sharply limits the use of ballot drop boxes, makes it harder to obtain absentee ballots and places new requirements on voter registration drives.

Among other claims, the plaintiffs argue that the law disproportionately limits the ability of Black and Hispanic voters to cast ballots.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs sought to hire three University of Florida political scientists as expert witnesses: Dr. Smith, the chair of the university’s political science department; Michael McDonald, a nationally recognized elections scholar; and Sharon Wright Austin, who studies African American political behavior.

In rejecting Dr. Smith’s request, the dean of the university’s college of arts and sciences, David E. Richardson, wrote that “outside activities that may pose a conflict of interest to the executive branch of the state of Florida create a conflict for the University of Florida.” A university vice president overseeing conflicts of interest issued the other two rejections.

One lawyer for the plaintiffs in the case, Kira Romero-Craft, said that reasoning “goes against the core of what the University of Florida should stand for in terms of academic freedom.”

“It seems reasonable for us to understand whether the executive office of the governor had any role in participating in that decision,” she said.

 

If you don't think Ron DeSantis's office told the University of Florida to bar the testimony or face more cuts and punishment, you're living in a dream world. Either implicitly or explicitly, these professors were stopped from providing expert testimony.

That's The Sound Of...No Police?

Remember when angry Trump cultists nearly ran a Biden bus off the road in Texas last year without a police car in sight? Turns out the police told Biden campaign officials on the bus to handle the road rage problem themselves, because the police weren't going to lift a finger to stop the attack from potentially killing people.

 

As supporters of then-President Donald Trump surrounded and harassed a Joe Biden campaign bus on a Central Texas highway last year, San Marcos police officials and 911 dispatchers fielded multiple requests for assistance from Democratic campaigners and bus passengers who said they feared for their safety from a pack of motorists, known as a “Trump Train,” allegedly driving in dangerously aggressive ways.

“San Marcos refused to help,” an amended federal lawsuit over the 2020 freeway skirmish claims.

Transcribed 911 audio recordings and documents that reveal behind-the-scenes communications among law enforcement and dispatchers were included in the amended lawsuit, filed late Friday.

The transcribed recordings were filed in an attempt to show that San Marcos law enforcement leaders chose not to provide the bus with a police escort multiple times, even though police departments in other nearby cities did. In one transcribed recording, Matthew Daenzer, a San Marcos police corporal on duty the day of the incident, refused to provide an escort when recommended by another jurisdiction.

“No, we’re not going to do it,” Daenzer told a 911 dispatcher, according to the amended filing. “We will ‘close patrol’ that, but we’re not going to escort a bus.”

The amended filing also states that in those audio recordings, law enforcement officers “privately laughed” and “joked about the victims and their distress.”

Former state Sen. Wendy Davis, who was running for Congress at the time, is among the four plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The new complaint also expands the number of people and entities being sued to include Daenzer, San Marcos assistant police chief Brandon Winkenwerder and the city itself. A spokesperson for the city did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Friday. Daenzer and Winkenwerder could not immediately be reached.

 

And without the police escort, the bus was attacked and nearly forced off the highway.  I don't expect Texas courts to do much of anything, but remember, if 911 dispatchers and police can openly refuse to serve you because of your political affiliation, you live in an authoritarian state.

The Vax Of Life, Con't

More and more employers are now requiring employees to take the COVID-19 vaccine, regardless of incoming federal mandates being fought over in the nation's courts.

The latest Gallup COVID-19 tracking survey finds 36% of U.S. employees saying their employer is requiring all its workers without a medical exemption to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The percentage has steadily increased each of the last three months, rising from 9% in July.

In addition to those saying their employer is mandating vaccination, the Oct. 18-24 survey finds 39% of U.S. workers saying their employer is encouraging but not requiring them. This percentage has declined from 62% in July as those who say their employer requires vaccines has risen.

Meanwhile, 25% of U.S. workers say their employer has not indicated a vaccine policy, a proportion that has been relatively steady since Gallup first asked the question in May.

More U.S. employees say they favor mandates (56%) than are opposed to them (37%). The percentage in favor has grown from 46% in May, while there has been little change in the percentage opposed. Fewer today than in May (7% vs. 15%, respectively) say they neither favor nor oppose vaccination requirements.

Most U.S. workers hold strong opinions on vaccination requirements. A combined 75% either strongly favor (45%) or strongly oppose (30%) them. In May, 60% of workers had strong opinions in either direction. Back then, those with strong opinions were equally likely to favor as to oppose vaccine requirements, 29% to 30%. The growth since May, then, has come in the percentage who are strongly in favor.

A key concern for employers is whether vaccine requirements will cause employees to leave their organization to find a job with a COVID-19 vaccination policy that matches their personal preferences.

Nearly one in three U.S. workers are poised to look for a new job if their employer sets a policy on COVID-19 vaccinations with which they disagree. This includes 16% who are strongly opposed to vaccination requirements and 15% who are strongly in favor of them, determined as follows:

Thirty percent of all U.S. workers are strongly opposed to employer vaccine requirements, and of these, 52% -- equivalent to 16% of all U.S. workers -- say they would be "extremely likely" to look for a job with a different organization if they disagreed with their employer's policy on vaccine mandates.

Forty-five percent of U.S. workers strongly favor employer vaccine requirements, and 33% of this group says they are extremely likely to look for a different job over disagreements about employer vaccine policy. That translates to 15% of all U.S. workers.

Those figures are likely upper bounds of potential job losses tied to COVID-19 vaccine policy, as many will find themselves in sync with their employers' stance -- or not follow through and leave their job even if they disagree. For example, some workers strongly opposed to vaccination requirements may ultimately decide to get vaccinated in order to keep their job. Also, some workers concerned about COVID-19 transmission at work may decide to stay at their job even if their employer does not mandate vaccinations for all workers there.

 

The two big takeaways are that most Americans now support vaccine mandates by employers, and that the percentage of Americans opposed to vaccines remains steady at 30%.

As more and more of the unvaccinated get sick and die though, we're seeing more surviving Americans become more sold on vaccines and mandates for them as a good idea.

Still, 70-75% vaccinated is most likely the best we'll get as a nation right now.

Finally, the vaccine is better than "natural immunity" and significantly so.

 

Earlier this month, the conservative radio host Dennis Prager announced he had contracted the coronavirus. This was, as far as he was concerned, good news. The unvaccinated Prager had hoped to protect himself against COVID-19 the old-fashioned way: by getting sick.

“It is infinitely preferable to have natural immunity than vaccine immunity,” Prager said, echoing an anti-vaccine argument echoed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other pro-Trump figures who have turned coronavirus vaccination into a culture war that, public health officials say, could prolong the pandemic for everyone.

Prager is wrong, suggests a new study published on Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that finds that natural immunity offers far weaker protection than does a vaccine. The new study finds that people who had natural immunity from having recently fought off COVID-19 and who were not vaccinated were 5.49 times more likely to experience another COVID-19 infection than were vaccinated people who had not previously been infected.

“The data demonstrate that vaccination can provide a higher, more robust, and more consistent level of immunity to protect people from hospitalization for COVID-19 than infection alone for at least 6 months,” a CDC press release said.

 

Five and a half times less likely to contract COVID again, but my idiot GOP Congressman continues to lie to his constituents about this. 

Massie of course staunchly refuses the vaccine and is spreading disinformation on purpose while Kentuckians die from the virus.

But that's what he wants: dead constituents don't use federal government resources, and he hates that more than anything.

Last Call For These Disunited States, Con't

I've been talking about the biggest single threat from the Robert/Trump court being the elimination of nearly all federal agencies by declaring them unconstitutional, and now the Supremes have the case they can use to render agencies like the EPA, CFPB, OSHA, FDA and the regulations they use to protect us completely null and void.

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate power plant emissions, in a case that legal scholars say could undermine Congress’s constitutional authority to delegate power to federal agencies. Some argue that such regulation — not just by the EPA, but in President Biden’s vaccine mandate as well — is unconstitutional because of a somewhat arcane legal doctrine called the “nondelegation doctrine.” This theory holds that Congress cannot delegate broad policymaking authority to government agencies.

Why does this argument matter? Our research finds that if the Supreme Court were to invalidate either the EPA’s authority or the vaccine mandate under this doctrine, it might unravel nearly every major law Congress has passed since World War II. Nearly every one of these laws involves delegating authority to U.S. agencies.

Let’s look at this more closely. The nondelegation doctrine was an approach the Supreme Court sometimes relied on to strike down laws until the 1930s. According to this constitutional doctrine, Congress can delegate powers to government agencies only if it also gives those agencies clear, specific directions about what actions to take. Because legal commentators regularly say the Supreme Court has not used this doctrine to strike down any policies since the 1930s, they usually describe it as “moribund.”

But did it ever exist? Recent research shows, in fact, that the Supreme Court did not often use this doctrine before the 1930s — and that the Founders themselves often delegated authority to executive agencies, indicating they believed delegation was consistent with the Constitution.

Nevertheless, as legal scholar Nicholas Bagley has pointed out, U.S. state and federal courts are increasingly relying on this doctrine to challenge and strike down laws. What’s more, several members of the Supreme Court, led by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, have signaled that they’re open to striking down laws based on this doctrine. In fact, the court’s majority mentioned concerns about delegation when it struck down the Centers for Disease Control’s eviction moratorium.

Their next opportunity to use it might come with the EPA case or when opponents challenge the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate after regulations are issued, since in both cases some opponents are relying explicitly on the doctrine. Or they could use it when, as expected, they hear Kelley v. Becerra, the latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act, which is making its way through the courts and close observers expect to succeed in the U.S. District Court.

So what would a reinvigorated nondelegation doctrine do to the U.S. government? Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her minority opinion in Gundy v. United States that if the Court starts striking down congressional delegations of authority, “then most of Government is unconstitutional.”

 

It would mean the end of every major law passed since World War II, folks.  The Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act,  the Fair Housing Act, the Affordable Care Act, nearly 75 years of robust federal action would come to an end.

Red state Americans, us Black and Brown folks out here in Trump country? We would truly be at the mercy of the states.  We'd have no protections at all. We'd be well on our way to permanent fascism, with Jim Crow and second-class status the law of the land for millions who would never be allowed to leave.

And this is where we are headed, and have been for years.

The 2022 Money Game

Axios's Lachlan Markay gives us the GOP Super PAC plan for 2022, and it's all about very, very rich people buying targeted digital advertising for the candidates they want to win.

Republicans are increasingly rethinking how to use one of the most potent political tools of the modern era, the super PAC, GOP operatives tell Axios.

Why it matters: Super PACs are generally thought of as vehicles for massive political ad buys. But Republicans are employing them in more targeted efforts to build the party and its candidates a more robust grassroots fundraising operation.

What's happening: The trend is evident in Ohio, where Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance enjoys the backing of super PAC Protect Ohio Values. It's largely financed with $10 million from billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel. 

POV hasn't spent a dime of that massive war chest on TV or radio advertising, even as groups backing Vance's primary rivals spend huge sums on broadcast ads attacking him. Instead, POV's direct pro-Vance advocacy has come in the form of digital ads and text messages. It's spent hundreds of thousands more on data modeling, polling and research — activities traditionally housed in a campaign itself.

The result is a primed list of donors and supporters that Vance's campaign itself can tap for financial backing.  It started doing so last week, when the campaign began sending fundraising emails to the Protect Ohio Values email list — a perfectly legal maneuver, as long as the campaign paid fair market value to rent it.

What they're saying: “Having substantial early support lets us do innovative things we wouldn’t otherwise have the time to do, and helps us act as a force-multiplier over the course of a race,” POV executive director Luke Thompson told Axios.

The big picture: Republican super PACs have outspent their Democratic counterparts in five of the six election cycles since the Supreme Court's "Citizens United" decision, according to OpenSecrets data.

But there are fewer restrictions on money raised by campaigns directly, and they pay lower rates for broadcast advertising. In general, that makes each campaign dollar more valuable than each super PAC dollar. Republicans want to translate more of their independent groups' huge "soft" money support into "hard" dollars for their candidates and party committees.

 

So Super PACs are covering the digital ad game on Facebook and Google, and campaign dollars go to traditional ad buys.

But of course, that means basically unlimited money for wealthy donors to buy ads for candidates like Vance, who belong in a comic book rogue's gallery more than Congress.