Archives for 2024

From the Bulwark.  Yeah, I know.  Still worth reading.

h/t Jackie for the article.

1. Trump’s Not Taking the L. . .

The last two weeks—the unveiling of the Harris-Walz ticket, and Kamala Harris’s surge in the polls—feels like some surreal dream state. Everything has changed. Have you noticed Harris has pushed Donald Trump right out of the comfy lead he’s held for an entire year? He’s noticed. From FiveThirtyEight to RealClearPolitics—pick your polling average—they all now show Harris out in front after only two and a half weeks.

Trump is no longer on track to win the election—which he has been for more than six straight months. Instead, the momentum, money, voter registration, volunteering, grassroots organizing, polling, and online engagement all favor the Democrats and it looks now like Trump could easily lose.

But that won’t happen, because Trump doesn’t lose. He beat Joe Biden in 2020—remember? So if he’s not the rightful victor on November 5, an entire army of Republicans is ready to block certification of the election at the local level.

No need to worry about mayhem on January 6, 2025 when Congress meets in joint session; the election deniers plan to stop a result right away if it looks like Harris is winning. Their goal: Refuse to certify anywhere—even a county that Trump won—and prevent certification in that state, which prevents certification of the presidential election.

A Harris victory could become a nightmare.

An investigation by Rolling Stone identified “in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania . . . at least 70 pro-Trump election conspiracists currently working as county election officials who have questioned the validity of elections or delayed or refused to certify results.” Of those 70, 22 of them already have “refused or delayed certification” in recent past elections. Nationwide, Republicans have refused to certify results at least 25 times since 2020, in eight states—the most in Georgia.

The article describes social media posts from the zealots who have infiltrated election administration as showing “unapologetic belief in Trump’s election lies, support for political violence, themes of Christian nationalism, and controversial race-based views.”

There are more than enough such individuals in these key posts to bring us to a constitutional crisis.

“I think we are going to see mass refusals to certify the election” in November, Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias told Rolling Stone. “Everything we are seeing about this election is that the other side is more organized, more ruthless, and more prepared.”

Sit with that.

Then there is this. Trump’s self-destructive attacks on Georgia’s popular governor made the headlines from his Atlanta rally last Saturday, but he also singled out for praise three little-known Georgians—Janice Johnston, Rick Jeffares, and Janelle King—calling them “pitbulls fighting for honesty, transparency, and victory.”

Who are Johnston, Jeffares, and King? They are three of the five members of Georgia’s State Election Board. Three days after Trump’s speech, this past Tuesday, those three Republicans approved a new rule requiring a “reasonable inquiry” prior to election certification that—while vague and undefined—could be exploited to delay certification and threaten the statewide election certification deadline of November 22.

2. How Is This Happening All Over Again?  (read at the link)

3. Who Can Stop It?  (read at the link)

Final Note

As Elias told an interviewer, there are things we can do, as citizens willing to invest some time, to take action.

This isn’t a threat from abroad. This year—and likely for years to come—we will all have to continue to fight against what our fellow Americans are doing to subvert elections. Because without free elections—and facts and truth—we cannot be a free country.

We are forewarned.

Read the whole thing here: Get Ready Now: Republicans Will Refuse to Certify a Harris Win

At first blush, President Biden’s remarks in his interview, stating lack of confidence that there will be a peaceful transfer of power, seems kind of in line with the premise here  I will be interesting in hearing what everyone thinks.

Opinion for Discussion: Republicans Will Refuse to Certify a Harris WinPost + Comments (156)

She was clearly at the center of the effort to convince Biden to quit.  Her appearance on Morning Joe shortly after Biden issued his letter stating that he’s staying in the race, where she said it was “his decision”, was a turning point.  She claims that she didn’t call people (specifically not Schumer), but like the relationship where someone is the person who kisses and someone is the person kissed, people called her.

And it was all because we must win – Trump cannot be in the White House again.  She was laser focused on that, and events so far have shown that she was right.

Pelosi has a book, and she’s giving interviews.  Here’s a good one with Ezra Klein (video podcast).  Here’s David Remnick’s interview in the New Yorker.  The podcast especially is worth a listen, because when she’s not scripted, she’s a great combination of Catholic Baltimore mom (uses “poopy” and the bill was “a stinker”) and just cutthroat politician.

PelosiPost + Comments (150)

Journalism, again!

I hope you will all read this and share it with anyone you know in Ohio.  It’s about the person who is running to un-seat Sherrod Brown.

I don’t publish this incautiously. I know some will say this column is petty, or partisan. It’s not about that. It’s about me being a journalist with exclusive access to information about a candidate for statewide office. I’d publish it no matter which party he represented. I can say that I’ve been at this work for many years, and I’ve never received anything remotely similar from Sherrod Brown. Or Mike DeWine. Or Rob Portman, John Glenn or George Voinovich.

No, this is about Moreno the person, not Moreno the Republican. When he found himself facing the national crisis of an attempted assassination of a former president, his immediate response wasn’t to remain calm and wait for the facts. He didn’t become pensive or unifying. He jumped to a preposterous conclusion and went on the attack.

Letter from the Editor (the whole thing)

Former Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson liked to say that the true measure of a leader comes when they face a crisis, and he would know, having handled more than a few.

Leading was easy when times were good, he’d say. A crisis tests a leader’s steel and ability to make sound decisions under stress.

Former car dealer Bernie Moreno wants to be your leader in Ohio. The Republican is asking for your vote in his battle to supplant Democrat Sherrod Brown in the U.S. Senate.

With Moreno’s effort and Jackson’s adage in mind, I offer the following for your consideration.

I went on vacation at Walt Disney World last month with my wife, our children and grandchildren. We had planned it for a year, and one of my goals was to completely break free of my job for a week to immerse myself in the joy of being together. I disconnected my work email from my phone and turned off my notifications. I left texting intact, though, for family communication on days we went our separate ways.

The first day of the vacation was July 13, which also was the day someone tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump. That’s a national crisis if ever there was one. No one wants our country to be a place where elected officials – former or current – are assassinated. Such attempts undermine our sense of national security and, with many, cause us to re-examine our national discord. Many politicians responded with messages of unity.

Even though I was disconnected, I knew about the assassination attempt soon after it happened. I am a news guy after all. But I was in the Magic Kingdom with grandkids. My focus was their joy and wonder. Some time later, I checked my phone and saw a message had arrived at 8:18 p.m., exactly two hours and seven minutes after the assassination attempt. It was from Moreno.

When “journalists” like you labeled Trump another Hitler and claim there will never be another election or that America ends if he’s re-elected, what did you think was going to happen?

Again, this is barely a couple of hours after the attempt. No one had a clue yet about the would-be assassin’s motive or, or even, his identity. The nation was in shock that such violence had occurred once again and wanted details about Trump’s condition. But Moreno picked that moment to send the above text.

Before I go further, I should mention a previous exchange I had with him. A couple of years earlier, on our Today in Ohio podcast, I was talking about Moreno as a candidate for Senate in the race that ultimately sent JD Vance to Washington. This was in the early days of the campaign, before Moreno had abandoned many of the principles for which Northeast Ohio knew him, before we realized how desperate he was for Trump’s approval. I marveled on the podcast that Moreno, who once urged Republicans to accept the 2020 election results, completely reversed himself and called the 2020 election stolen. I likened his reversal to the behavior of 1930s Nazis, who knew the truth about Hitler but kept standing by him for their political gain. Moreno found the comparison offensive, which might explain why he sent me a text mentioning Hitler.

Regardless, here I was, vacationing in Walt Disney World with news of the assassination attempt fresh in my head, reading a text from Moreno saying it was my fault.

I responded at 9:13:

Yeah, Bernie. Stick with the fascist playbook. Try to blame the journalists.

And I put my phone away.

The next day, I saw that Moreno had followed up with a barrage of messages deep into Saturday night. At 9:21 p.m. came:

You own this. Thanks to you I now have to take extra care to protect my family. I hope you get lots of money for your click bait crap.

At 9:49:

YOU OWN THIS!!! Apologize to your readers for your rhetoric. Anything short of that shows how shallow and hollow you are as a man.

He sent two more messages that, for some reason, he unsent before I could read them. Too offensive? Too mild? Only he knows, but Apple’s messaging app recorded their arrival and deletion.

At 10:08 p.m. he was still at it, texting me a social media link of someone criticizing the media for accusing Trump of inciting violence.

He finished up at 12:39 p.m. the next day with a link to a column I wrote about Trump – one that was popular across the globe – and this message:

Resign. You’re a disgrace to your profession.

I never responded again. One, I was on vacation, and two, I have found the best response to unhinged messaging is to ignore it. I regularly receive unhinged messages, which seem to get sloppier the later they arrive in the night.

Normally, I would have let Moreno’s messages fade into the background without thinking about them again, as I do with most offensive messages I receive. In this case, I keep returning to the fact Moreno seeks your vote. Part of my job is to inform the electorate about candidates. For three weeks, I’ve been nagged by a feeling that my duty here is to share his texts?

I don’t publish this incautiously. I know some will say this column is petty, or partisan. It’s not about that. It’s about me being a journalist with exclusive access to information about a candidate for statewide office. I’d publish it no matter which party he represented. I can say that I’ve been at this work for many years, and I’ve never received anything remotely similar from Sherrod Brown. Or Mike DeWine. Or Rob Portman, John Glenn or George Voinovich.

No, this is about Moreno the person, not Moreno the Republican. When he found himself facing the national crisis of an attempted assassination of a former president, his immediate response wasn’t to remain calm and wait for the facts. He didn’t become pensive or unifying. He jumped to a preposterous conclusion and went on the attack.

Which brings me full circle, back to Frank Jackson’s adage about how leaders show their mettle in a crisis.

Read Moreno’s messages again.

Is this how a leader should respond to a crisis?

I’m at [email protected]

Any other journalism this week that you would like to report?

Otherwise, open thread!

Another Saturday, Another Piece of Journalism from Chris Quinn at Cleveland’s The Plain DealerPost + Comments (85)