Wrapped in the flag and shredding the Constitution Carol Anderson, the Charles Howard Candler professor of African American Studies at Emory University (“One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy“) reminds Jason Statler (LOLGOP) that the 2016 election that brought you Donald Trump “was the first presidential election in 50 years without the protection of the Voting Rights Act.” “REMINDER: The kind of fascism MAGA wants is the kind of fascism we’ve already seen here,” Statler posts. Anderson continues: And so Black voter turnout went down by 7 percent. And to chalk that up to just, “They couldn’t stand Hillary, and not that you had states that were now requiring really strict voter IDs, and the way that they were requiring these voter IDs was to figure out who had what types of IDs and then to write the law to privilege the kinds that whites disproportionately had. It was a way that they shut down early voting sites. It was the way that they shut down early voting days, the times when people could vote early. None of that went into that calculation of what could cause a 7 percent drop.
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Contemplate the fact that on this most important Christian holiday of all, most white evangelicals are supporting the second guy. Finally this:
But then there was this so:
A bracing response to right wing critics From the editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer: A more-than-occasional arrival in the email these days is a question expressed two ways, one with dripping condescension and the other with courtesy: Why don’t our opinion platforms treat Donald Trump and other politicians exactly the same way. Some phrase it differently, asking why we demean the former president’s supporters in describing his behavior as monstrous, insurrectionist and authoritarian. I feel for those who write. They believe in Trump and want their local news source to recognize what they see in him. The angry writers denounce me for ignoring what they call the Biden family crime syndicate and criminality far beyond that of Trump. They quote news sources of no credibility as proof the mainstream media ignores evidence that Biden, not Trump, is the criminal dictator. The courteous writers don’t go down that road. They politely ask how we can discount the passions and beliefs of the many people who believe in Trump. This is a tough column to write, because I don’t want to demean or insult those who write me in good faith.
Sadly, it’s been a poor day for the media. On Face the nation today Mike Turner spewed the right’s propaganda that the Biden administration banned religious symbols on the Easter eggs for the White House egg roll, proclaiming that it was denying the religious freedom of the children. In fact: This came up with McCaul when he was asked if Trump selling Bibles for profit was appropriate and he claimed he hasn’t seen it so he didn’t have anything to say about it. Then he started in on the Easter eggs. Insane. This one isn’t getting much push back either: Does this all seem just a little bit desperate to you? I think so. But if the media doesn’t point out that these people are blaming Biden for being sacrilegious when these policies were in place under every administration, including under their God Trump, then a fair number of normie voters will think it’s true. They need to inform people when these Republicans lie. I know that’s a tall order but it’s their job.
Mark Esper says he won’t vote for Trump and every crazy thing he does make it more likely he’ll vote for Biden: Donald Trump’s former Secretary of Defense revealed on Friday that he will not be voting for his former boss, who announced he had fired him in a tweet. On Friday’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, the host asked Mark Esper whether he would be voting for Joe Biden in the 2024 election. “I’m definitely not voting for Trump, but I’m not there yet,” he replied. When Maher pressed him, Esper doubled-down. “There’s no way I’ll vote for Trump, but every day that Trump does something crazy, the door to voting for Biden opens a little bit more, and that’s where I’m at,” Esper said. Shortly after the 2020 presidential elections, Trump tweeted that Esper had been “terminated,” and would be replaced by Christopher C. Miller.
“Get it over with quick” Via the Daily Beast: REP. TIM WALBERG (R-Mich.) said during a town hall meeting last week that the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza “should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima,” in reference to the United States using atomic bombs on Japan, which happened at the end of World War II. Walberg said: “Get it over quick.” According to The Detroit News, Walberg’s office said that his comments about nuclear strikes were a metaphor to “support Israel’s swift elimination of Hamas.” The town hall took place in Dundee Village Hall on Monday, with video footage from the event posted on YouTube and X, formerly Twitter, as HuffPost points out. Some of his comments can be heard on the social media footage while he is not seen on camera. Walberg made the remarks after dismissing the idea of delivering more humanitarian aid to Gaza, the Palestinian territory, where half of the population is at “imminent” risk of famine. “We shouldn’t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid,” he said.
Low-GDP Russia sticks with what works Heather Cox Richardson spotlights a report warning that Russian disinformation efforts are as vigorous as ever. The report focuses on Ukraine but its implications apply more widely. Russia lacks the West’s resources and collective GDP. So its geopolitical strategy leans heavily on an asymmetrical advantage in information warfare: This means that the strategy that matters most for the Kremlin is not the military strategy, but rather the spread of disinformation that causes the West to back away and allow Russia to win. That disinformation operation echoes the Russian practice of getting a population to believe in a false reality so that voters will cast their ballots for the party of oligarchs. In this case, in addition to seeding the idea that Ukraine cannot win and that the Russian invasion was justified, the Kremlin is exploiting divisions already roiling U.S. politics. Since I am “reading” Barbara McQuade’s “Attack from Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America,” Richardson’s post is well-timed.
Gopers falling apart This is a point worth making over and over again: Former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton joined Biden at the star-studded event moderated by late night host Stephen Colbert in New York City, and The Atlantic’s Mark Leibowitz told the “Morning Joe” host that he was struck by that show of unity around the president. “There is a coherence of purpose when you see three presidents up there,” Leibowitz said. “When you contrast that to, I mean, you will not see a living former Republican president or nominee anywhere near a Trump rally going forward. I mean, this is not a party that has a past, you know, before Donald Trump came on the scene.” Scarborough agreed, saying that former Trump officials were among the ex-president’s harshest critics. “That’s such a great point,” Scarborough said. “Let me interrupt because you’re making such a great point, I want to ruin it right now. No, you just said, we have three Democratic presidents, you would never find a Republican president onstage with Donald Trump.
Please no… Lara Trump, the co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee and the daughter-in-law of former President Donald Trump, has released a new song and it’s getting absolutely panned even by many of her own social media followers. Lara Trump last year unveiled her musical ambitions when she offered up a widely ridiculed cover of Tom Petty’s classic hit “I Won’t Back Down,” and her new track, titled “Anything is Possible,” is taking similar abuse from internet critics. The song itself is intended as an inspiration ballad that features lyrics such as “Don’t think, just jump / You can’t give up / Know that anything is possible.” However, many of Trump’s Twitter followers apparently think having a successful musical career is far from possible for her given their comments. “‘Anything’ isn’t possible,” quipped one user. “Auto tune could not even fix that hag karaoke voice of yours. Just leave us alone and walk away. You have money and can get on a private plane and go anywhere.