DL Open Thread: Sunday, Feb. 25, 2024

Did Trump Over-perform, Under-perform In SC?  I lean towards under-perform, sorta like Josh Marshall.  But the MSM is peddling a different story:

I’m not going to speculate what it means for the general election. But this is a lot of persistent opposition for a candidate who has always been running as a de facto incumbent. Even if you set that de facto incumbency aside, it’s quite a lot for a candidate who is, whatever technicalities you want to get caught up in, the presumptive nominee. 40% of Republican primary voters are still showing up to say they don’t want Trump even when they know they’re definitely going to get him.

The Death Of An Oklahoma Nonbinary Teen:

The death of Nex Benedict, a nonbinary teenager in Oklahoma, after a fight in school bathroom earlier this month has led to an outpouring of grief and anger among the LGBTQ community—and fresh attention to the climate of hostility faced by trans students in the state and beyond.

Surveillance camera footage released by the police shows Nex walking through the school hallways sometime after the fight, escorted by an adult. Sue Benedict, Nex’ guardian and grandmother, was soon summoned to the school and advised to take Nex to the hospital, where she called the police.

During the ensuing hospital interview, the police officer tells Nex and Benedict that the school was supposed to have contacted the police immediately after the fight. But he also advised that it might not be in their their best interests to pursue criminal charges, since Nex could be seen as having started the physical fight. Benedict agrees to talk it over with Nex. The officer leaves after about 20 minutes; Nex went home that night.

The next day, at 1 p.m., Benedict called 911 for an ambulance, reporting that Nex’s breathing was shallow and that their “eyes are kind of rolling back,” according to a call recording released by the police department, which has been posting updates on social media. Nex died at the hospital shortly afterward.

Benedict told the Independent earlier this week that Nex had been bullied for being transgender since the start of the 2023 school year. She remembered telling Nex to “‘be strong and look the other way, because these people don’t know who you are.’”

Russia’s Useful Idiots.  Idiocy isn’t just for Tucker Carlson any more:

Smirnov’s indictment is a big deal and blows up a huge chunk of the GOP’s impeachment drive. But, more important, his allegedly phony accusation did not occur in a vacuum. It is part of a larger story of the rotten relationship between Russian intelligence and the Trump cosmos.

A year before Smirnov dropped this (counterfeit) dime on the Bidens, Rudy Giuliani—who at the time was Donald Trump’s personal lawyer—took a trip to Ukraine that he publicly said was for the purpose of digging up dirt on the Democratic presidential contender. Giuliani was particularly focused on the unfounded claim that Biden, as veep, had orchestrated the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor to end a probe of Burisma. Giuliani’s agenda included pressing the Ukrainian government to launch investigations that could yield derogatory information about Biden.  In the following months, Giuliani’s endeavor was aided by Russian operatives spreading disinformation about the Bidens. In fact, Trump’s own intelligence establishment and his Treasury Department would later publicly declare that Russian agents were mounting an operation to discredit Biden to help Trump win reelection.

It appears likely that Smirnov’s supposedly false statements to the FBI were connected to this covert Kremlin campaign. According to the prosecutors in the Smirnov case, in 2023 he told the FBI he had been in touch with Russian officials. Later, during an interview with the FBI after he was arrested, Smirnov admitted that officials associated with Russian intelligence had been involved in “passing a story” about Hunter, according to court filings.

Add all this up and it looks as if Russia succeeded in inserting an explosive allegation—$10 million in secret payments to the Bidens!—into the MAGA bloodstream and boosted the GOP impeachment crusade against the president. In other words, the Republicans—and all their comrades at Fox and other right-wing media outlets that trumpeted Smirnov’s allegation against the Bidens—have been useful idiots for Moscow.

The Smirnov case has generated plenty of headlines and has caused the leading Republican impeachers—namely, Reps. James Comer and Jim Jordan—to look foolish.  But it’s important to view the Smirnov affair in this wider context: Republicans and the MAGA right have eagerly participated in Kremlin scheming to undermine Biden.

Delaware Superior Court Judge Strikes Down Early Voting.  Rethugs win again in denying people access to voting.  Because, when people vote, Rethugs invariably lose.

Superior Court Judge Mark Conner on Friday ruled the state’s early voting and permanent absentee voting statutes are unconstitutional.

In the ruling, Conner determined the state’s Constitution only allows for the general election to be held on one day….and early voting defied the Constitution’s mandate to secure secrecy of the voter, preserve purity of elections and prevent fraud, corruption and intimidation.

He also determined state lawmakers overstepped their authority in approving the 10-day voting period.

Just one more reason to defeat Mike Ramone, Mike Smith, and Lyndon Yearick in November.  The Senate has a super-majority required to pass a Constitutional Amendment.  The House almost does.  The Rethugs voted in lockstep to defeat the amendment that would have permitted early voting.

What do you want to talk about?