DL Open Thread: Thursday, March 7, 2024

Biden And D’s Should Target North Carolina.  Even in a world of fascist nutjobs now deemed acceptable within the Rethug Party, this guy is over the line:

The Republican Party under Donald Trump has habitually elevated extreme right-wing candidates who can’t find enough support outside of hardcore partisans to win elections. But Mark Robinson, who won the GOP nomination for governor of North Carolina Tuesday night, is a special case even by the modern GOP’s standards.

Robinson, North Carolina’s current lieutenant governor, has hurled hateful remarks at everyone from Michelle Obama to the survivors of the Parkland school shooting. He’s called the LGBTQ community “filth.” He threatened to use his AR-15 against the government if it “gets too big for its britches,” and he wants to outlaw all abortions as well as return to a time when women couldn’t vote. He’s also ridiculed the Me Too movement, women generally, and climate change.

It seems Robinson is willing to entertain all manner of conspiracy theories, too. He’s a Holocaust denier and has a history of antisemitic remarks. He’s suggested that the 1969 moon landing might have been fake, that 9/11 was an “inside job,” that the music industry is run by Satan, and that billionaire Democratic donor George Soros orchestrated the Boko Haram kidnappings of school girls in 2014.

He was Trump’s endorsed candidate.  Trump won North Carolina by 1.4% in 2020.  Before, I might add, the Dobbs decision.  North Carolina has as many electoral votes (15) as Georgia.  It would be political malpractice for Biden and the D’s to not hammer Trump and Robinson hard.  I think they’ve got at least a 50-50 shot.

Court Issues Death-Knell Opinion Against Minority Businesses.  Just another example of how the successful packing of the courts turns back progress:

A federal judge in Texas has ordered a 55-year-old federal agency created to help minority-owned businesses to open its doors to all races, a ruling that potentially imperils dozens of government programs that also presume racial minorities are inherently disadvantaged.

In a 93-page opinion rendered Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Mark T. Pittman ruled that the Minority Business Development Agency’s presumption that businesses owned by Blacks, Latinos and other minorities are disadvantaged violated the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection. He permanently enjoined the agency’s business centers, which have assisted minority-owned businesses in accessing capital and government contracts, from extending services based on an applicant’s race.

I don’t foresee similarly-packed courts overturning this decision.

Polls Really Do Seem To Overstate Trump Strength.  Don’t know why, but Super Tuesday polls were merely the latest to continue that trend:

1. It wasn’t just individual polls that were off or outlier polls that missed it on Super Tuesday, it was the full polling average in half of the states that 538 provided a polling average for. They were way, way off, not only by double digits but in one of those cases, by more than 20 percent.

2. It isn’t just a matter of whether the state primary was open or closed—that systematic error in the Super Tuesday polls, erroneously favoring Trump, showed up in both open and closed primaries, meaning the massive polling failure can’t be explained by for ex. the difficulty of guessing the voter make-up or making likely voter screens in open-primary states.

3.  (W)ith those polls in so many Super Tuesday states being way off from the results, it wasn’t just a random error in either direction–it was a systematic error in all 5 of those states showing a massive, double-digit overestimate of Trump’s support, that did not occur in the other direction.

Trump’s Extremism Is The Story.   One that the lamestream media is not telling:

Trump’s speech weaponized fear and misinformation, painting a dystopian picture of America under siege from within. Phrases like “weaponized law-enforcement hunts for conservatives” and “Hamas and Antifa will terrorize our streets” are not just fear-mongering; they’re strategic. They serve to rally his base by depicting a nation in crisis, one that only he can save. This narrative, while false, has been given a veneer of legitimacy through repeated coverage that fails to critically engage with his lies.

In its quest for balance—or fear of appearing biased—the mainstream media has frequently failed to challenge Trump’s narratives, instead giving airtime and column inches to his speeches without sufficient context or fact-checking. In doing so, journalists are inadvertently amplifying his message. This normalization process transforms his extreme statements that would have once sparked outrage into appearing mundane. The coverage of Trump’s CPAC speech is a prime example, with many outlets focusing on its political implications rather than its dangerous distortions of reality.

Failure to confront these narratives head-on leaves the public unprepared for the potential outcomes of a Trump victory in November. It’s not just about the return of a controversial figure to the White House; it’s about what his presidency would signify and enable: the further erosion of democratic institutions, the oppression of millions of people, and the potential for violence.

As we inch closer to the November election, the press must reassess its role in covering Trump. It’s not enough to simply report what he says; there must be a concerted effort to contextualize, analyze, and push back on false information. The public depends on the press not just for information but for the tools to critically engage with that information. Without this, democracy cannot function.

Chemours Audit Alleges Misconduct By Company Officers:

The Chemours Board of Directors issued a news release Wednesday night, March 6, 2024, after the company’s audit committee presented preliminary findings to the full board on Tuesday concerning an internal review which they say was sparked by a call to the company’s Ethics Hotline.

The review accuses the company’s CEO, CFO, and Controller of conspiring to manipulate the timing of payables and receivables to improve the appearance of free cash flow targets. That in turn would improve the numbers upon which incentive compensation is determined.

For the record, Chemours has now released one more audit than Bethany Hall-Long.

Dog Bites Man:  Millsboro Stinks:  Let’s try to dredge up the reason why:

Millsboro residents are hoping to get answers by asking social media users: “What’s that smell?”

W-wait.  Do Millsboro residents always get their answers from social media users?  But, I digress:

Still, social media commenters (guess they really are the frontline reporters there) who have “lived here (their) whole life” and “worked in chicken houses,” say the smell in Millsboro is not one of the usual culprits. Those agricultural odors and poultry smells can be surprisingly sharp to even the most seasoned Sussex nose, but there is one other thing to consider.

The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control has been dredging the Indian River, just south of Cupola Park in downtown Millsboro, and depositing the sediment nearby. At a town council meeting earlier this week, Burke said the dredging is likely what’s causing the particularly strong smell.

When asked if she knew what was causing the smell in Millsboro, Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control spokesperson Nikki Lavoie said it could be a lot of things.

Do we have the Bestest DNREC in the Whole Wide World, or what?  “It could be a lot of things.”  Yes. Yes it could.  Which is why the good folks of Millsboro get their information from social media commenters.

What do you want to talk about?