Scary Data on Public Opinion

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.

 Robert Pape at the University of Chicago:

One might have expected fires to fade, the FBI arrests to have a chilling impact on violence to support Trump, or the de-platforming of Trump himself from Facebook and Twitter to lower the temperature. But our most recent nationally representative survey of 1,070 American adults fielded by the National Opinion Research Council in June, paints a different, if not alarming, picture. We found, most strikingly, that nine percent of Americans—believe the “Use of force is justified to restore Donald J. Trump to the presidency. More than a fourth of adults agree, in varying degrees, that, “The 2020 election was stolen, and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president.”

We also learned that 8.1 percent — that equates to 21 million American adults — share both these radical beliefs. From a statistical point of view, this number is extrapolated from a range between 6% (15 million) to 11% (28 million), where we have 95% confidence that the true number falls within.

There is remarkable consistency in the responses. Specifically, of the roughly one tenth of those who think force is justified to restore Trump, 90% also see Biden as illegitimate, and 68% also think force may be needed to preserve America’s traditional way of life.

We also learned that 8.1 percent — that equates to 21 million American adults — share both these radical beliefs. From a statistical point of view, this number is extrapolated from a range between 6% (15 million) to 11% (28 million), where we have 95% confidence that the true number falls within.

...

The research shows, two central beliefs occur among adamant insurrectionists statistically significantly than more commonly found in the general population:

• 63% believe in the Great Replacement: “African American people or Hispanic people in our country will eventually have more rights than whites.”
• 54% believe in the QAnon cabal: “A secret group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles is ruling the US government.”

Andrew Cuomo, the Goner

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state elections.

  Jonah E. Bromwich and Luis Ferré-Sadurní at NYT

A woman who accused Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of groping her breast in the Executive Mansion last year has filed a criminal complaint with the Albany County sheriff’s department, the sheriff’s office said on Friday.

The criminal complaint from the woman, an executive assistant whose name has not been publicized, increases the possibility that the governor could face criminal charges related to his behavior.

Legal experts have said that his conduct toward the assistant, as described in a 165-page report released by the New York State attorney general’s office this week, could be charged as forcible touching, a misdemeanor.

Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, has repeatedly denied ever inappropriately touching the woman, or any of the others who have accused him of sexual misconduct. On Thursday, he said he would cooperate with the State Assembly’s request for information as it concludes its investigation into his conduct and prepares to draft articles of impeachment against him.

Marina Villeneuve and Jennifer Peltz at AP:

A majority of state Assembly members support beginning impeachment proceedings against Gov. Andrew Cuomo if he doesn’t resign over investigative findings that he sexually harassed at least 11 women, according to an Associated Press count Wednesday.

At least 86 of the body’s 150 members have said publicly or told The AP that they favored initiating the process of ousting the third-term Democratic governor if he doesn’t quit. It takes a simple majority to authorize an impeachment trial.

Casey Seiler at the Albany Times-Union:

In a joint statement released Friday morning, 41 county Democratic chairs called on Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to "immediately resign" in the wake of a devastating report from the state attorney general's report that concluded the governor was a serial sexual harasser.

The statement comes less than 48 hours after the party's state chairman, Jay Jacobs, made the same call.

 

 

California Republicans Unmasked

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state elections. The biggest off-off-year election is the CA recall. 

Last night, four candidates in the California recall/replacement election held a debate. Ben Christopher and Laurel Rosenhall at CalMatters:

Few issues united the four Republicans on stage like their disdain for public health mandates.

“I happen to have great faith in the ability of people to make decisions of their own,” said [former Rep. Doug] Ose, who spoke with the technical knowledge of a longtime lawmaker and, at times, a table-pounding indignation. “Instead of giving people mandates, we need to give them options.”

[Assemblyman Kevin] Kiley denounced the “hoopla” of the lotteries the governor rolled out to entice vaccine-wary Californians to get inoculated and warned of the “steps we’re taking towards mandates and passports.”

Late last month, Newsom announced that state employees and health care workers would be required to get vaccinated or be subject to regular COVID testing.
...
Despite being infected with COVID early on in the pandemic, Cox said he opposed the governor’s recent action to coax health care workers to get vaccinated. He also asserted that people who have already contracted the disease don’t need the vaccine, contrary to guidance from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

[Kevin] Faulconer, who has long distinguished himself across California GOP-dom as a relative moderate, stressed that he and his entire family had been vaccinated and he encouraged everyone who hasn’t been to get the jab, too. But encouragement is as far as the state should go.

“I do not favor mandates, I favor education,” he said. “You’re not going to mandate your way out of the coronavirus.”

Evidently, that wasn’t quite far enough for co-moderator Hugh Hewitt, a conservative commentator, who asked Faulconer whether he would outright ban schools from requiring students to wear masks.

“I will look into doing it, 100%,” said Faulconer without unequivocally saying that he would.

Andrew Cuomo in Trouble

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state elections.

From the NYS Attorney General:

We, the investigators appointed to conduct an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, conclude that the Governor engaged in conduct constituting sexual harassment under federal and New York State law. Specifically, we find that the Governor sexually harassed a number of current and former New York State employees by, among other things, engaging in unwelcome and nonconsensual touching, as well as making numerous offensive comments of a suggestive and sexual nature that created a hostile work environment for women. Our investigation revealed that the Governor’s sexually harassing behavior was not limited to members of his own staff, but extended to other State employees, including a State Trooper on his protective detail and members of the public. We also conclude that the Executive Chamber’s culture—one filled with fear and intimidation, while at the same time normalizing the Governor’s frequent flirtations and gender-based comments—contributed to the conditions that allowed the sexual harassment to occur and persist. That culture also influenced the improper and inadequate ways in which the Executive Chamber has responded to allegations of harassment.

Katie Glueck at NYT:

Lawmakers who had previously been fearful of publicly criticizing Mr. Cuomo, aware of his capacity for retribution, are now calling for his resignation. Elected officials who represent core Cuomo constituencies — including Black voters and white suburban voters — have increasingly urged him to step aside. Eric Adams, the Democratic mayoral nominee whom Mr. Cuomo was eager to embrace earlier this summer, encouraged the Assembly to “move forward with impeachment proceedings if the governor will not resign,” and top labor leaders are increasingly breaking with the governor.

Most significantly, President Biden — a longtime friend of Mr. Cuomo’s — and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has long been close with the Cuomo family, for the first time on Tuesday urged him to step aside.

 

All Hell

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.

 Whitney Wild, Paul LeBlanc and Rashard Rose at CNN:

Two DC police officers who responded to the US Capitol insurrection have died by suicide, authorities announced on Monday, bringing the total to four officers who have taken their own lives in the aftermath of the January 6 riot.

"Officer Gunther Hashida, assigned to the Emergency Response Team within the Special Operations Division, was found deceased in his residence on Thursday, July 29,"

Metropolitan Police Department spokesperson Kristen Metzger told CNN in a statement.
"We are grieving as a Department and our thoughts and prayers are with Officer Hashida's family and friends," Metzger said.

Metropolitan Police Officer Kyle DeFreytag was found dead on July 10, according to department public information officer Sean Hickman.

Hashida had joined the Metropolitan Police Department in 2003 and DeFreytag had been with the department since November 2016.

The deaths mark four known suicides by officers who responded to the Capitol during the attack, and three known suicides by a DC officer specifically.

We are joined by @LloydGreen9 discussing how Steve Bannon's warning on January 5 that "All hell is going to break loose" could be applied to the Congressional investigations and mounting legal troubles Trump is facing.
https://t.co/xmyJl1H6yD

— Background Briefing w/ Ian Masters (@ianmastersmedia) August 2, 2021

Dan Evon at Snopes:

On July 29, 2021, a few days after four police officers testified before a bipartisan committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, a quote supposedly spoken by former U.S. President Donald Trump’s one-time chief political strategist Steve Bannon started circulating on social media, along with messages calling for the select committee to subpoena him:

This is a genuine quote. Bannon said: “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. Just understand this. All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. It’s gonna be moving. It’s gonna be quick.”

This quote comes from an episode of “Bannon’s War Room” that aired on January, 5, 2021, the day before a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to prevent or delay the certification of then-President-elect Joe Biden’s election victory. You can hear this quote for yourself at around the 29:30 mark of episode 631 of Bannon’s War Room.

ARRAIGNMENT scheduled for 1pm today in Jan 6 case of Anthony Puma of Michigan

Prosecutors allege Puma posted on Facebook on Jan 5 that "War is coming" and "Hopefully we are storming the House of Representatives tomorrow at 1pm" pic.twitter.com/MWrg5pLlZo

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) August 3, 2021

Trump Warchest

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses campaign finance.

 In 2020, Trump scammed contributors by tricking them into multiple donations that they never intend

Shane Goldmacher and Rachel Shorey report that Trump committees have nearly $102 million in cash on hand -- more than each of the party committees.

The next strongest online fund-raiser among Republican politicians was Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who delivered the G.O.P. response to President Biden’s first address to Congress in the spring. Mr. Scott raised $7.8 million online.

Mr. Trump’s advisers inaccurately announced on Saturday that “his affiliated political committees raised nearly $82 million” in the first six months of 2021.

That figure counted at least $23 million in transfers to his new political action committees that had actually been raised last year in other Trump-affiliated accounts, according to an analysis of federal filings.

Jason Miller, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, defended the operation’s accounting. “If we didn’t announce this entire amount, you’d be asking why we’re ignoring all of this period’s receipts,” he said of the transfers.

All told, WinRed’s filings showed that Mr. Trump had collected more than $56 million online into various accounts in the first six months of the year.

The biggest share, $34.3 million, came into a shared account with the Republican National Committee, which is known as the Trump Make America Great Again Committee; Mr. Trump’s political action committee is set to receive 75 percent of what went into the shared account, and the party received 25 percent.

In addition, Mr. Trump raised more than $21 million online directly into two new Save America political action committees that he controls.

Peter Stone at The Guardian:

Just days after his defeat last November, Trump launched a new political action committee, dubbed Save America, that together with his campaign and the Republican National Committee quickly raked in tens of millions of dollars through text and email appeals for a Trump “election defense fund”, ostensibly to fight the results with baseless lawsuits alleging fraud.

The fledgling Pac had raised a whopping $31.5m by year’s end, but Save America spent nothing on legal expenses in this same period, according to public records. Run by Trump’s 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, Save America only spent $340,000 on fundraising expenses last year.

In another move, Trump last month announced he was filing class-action lawsuits against Facebook, Google and Twitter, alleging “censorship” due to bans by the platforms after the 6 January Capitol attack that Trump helped stoke. But the move prompted several legal experts to pan the lawsuits as frivolous and a fundraising ploy.

Trump’s new legal stratagem raised red flags, in part because he teamed up with America First Policy Institute (AFPI), a non-profit group led by ex-White House official Brooke Rollins. At a press briefing with Trump, Rollins publicly told supporters they could “join the lawsuit” by signing up on a website, takeonbigtech.org, a claim belied by details on the website which featured a red button with the words “DONATE to AFPI”.

“Donald Trump is a one-man scam Pac,” said Paul S Ryan, vice-president of policy and litigation with Common Cause. “Bait-and-switch is among his favorite fundraising tactics,” Ryan stressed, noting that Trump’s Save America Pac told “supporters he needed money to challenge the result of an election he clearly lost”, and then wound up not spending any on litigation last year.

“Now he’s at it again, with frivolous lawsuits filed [in July] against Facebook, Twitter and Google, accompanied by fundraising appeals,” Ryan added. “This time he’s got the unlimited dark money group America First Policy Institute in on the racket.”

A Bad Week for Trump

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.

Lloyd Green at The Guardian:

On Friday, Donald Trump received two more unwelcome reminders he is no longer president. Much as he and his minions chant “Lock her up” about Hillary Clinton and other enemies, it is he who remains in legal jeopardy and political limbo.

...

First, on Friday morning, news broke that the justice department had provided Congress with copies of notes of a damning 27 December 2020 conversation between Trump, Jeffrey Rosen, then acting attorney general, and Richard Donoghue, Rosen’s deputy.

As first reported by the New York Times, the powers at Main Justice told Trump there was no evidence of widescale electoral fraud in his clear defeat by Joe Biden.

He replied: “Just say that the election was corrupt [and] leave the rest to me.”

That goes beyond simply looking to bend the truth. As George Conway, a well-connected, prominent anti-Trump Republican, tweeted: “It’s difficult to overstate how much this reeks of criminal intent on the part of the former guy.”

...

Unfortunately for Trump, Friday’s news cycle didn’t end with the events of 27 December. A few hours later, the DoJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), its policy-setting arm, once led by Bill Barr, Trump’s second attorney general, opined that Trump’s tax returns could no longer be kept from the House ways and means committee.