Primary election tomorrow! Here’s a Detroit News piece about the.. well… GOP undecided, I guess you could call them.
Matt Gertz/Media Matters:
Right-wing media blackout for Mastriano’s alliance with anti-Semites
Republican gubernatorial candidate in Pennsylvania Doug Mastriano’s alliance with Andrew Torb has been ignored by the right-wing media. a virulent antisemite who runs Gab, a social media site infamously visited white nationalists, including the shooter who killed 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 2018. By ignoring Mastriano’s friendly relationship with bigots, the right-wing media is complicit in ensuring the likes of Torba are accepted into the right-wing movement and Republicans. The party it supports.
Mastriano, an electoral conspiracy theorist, right-wing extremist and January 6 rioter, was hugged Gab praised Torb for “what you’ve done” in an interview with the notorious Jew-hater and paid the platform $5,000 for consulting services, Media Matters reported earlier this month. The revelations sparked a week of criticism of the gubernatorial candidate, and on Thursday, Mastriano and Torba published notices in response to the storm.
But as New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait pointed out, Mastriano did not denounce Torba as anti-Semitic or say he would end their cooperation. Instead, Mastriano wrote, “Andrew Torba does not speak for me or my campaign. I reject anti-Semitism in any form,” before attacking the press for reporting on their association and his Democratic opponent, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro.
Republicans admit that their passion served no purpose other than to weed veterans out of displeasure.
Matt Pearce/LA Times:
American media wants to save democracy. Does it help?
Typically the narrowest Associated Press has hired a democracy news editor. “We want to be really clear with people about the threats we see to democratic institutions,” executive editor Julie Pace. said last year On CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” host Brian Stelter has blasted prominent media figures for their coverage of what he calls an “attack on democracy.”
The Washington Post’s “Democracy Dies in Darkness” tagline, adopted in 2017, was the paper’s first official tagline in more than a century of print journalism. The article was followed by the creation of a democracy team, with a new emphasis on addressing threats to electoral integrity, access to ballots, and rules-based government.
Publish opinion commentators such as Perry Bacon Jr. and Margaret Sullivan have advocated that journalists abandon their usual bipartisan coverage of politics to more directly cast pro-Trump electoral threats as threats to the Republic.
There are signs that some of these attitudes have reached newsroom rank and file. While 76% of American adults surveyed in a recent Pew Research Center study said that journalists should always try to give equal coverage to all sides, most journalists interviewed disagreed.
WaPo:
The Wisconsin DOJ is investigating a voter fraud stunt involving election officials negotiating absentee rules
With a few clicks of a mouse this week, a conservative activist took down Wisconsin’s election machine ahead of the August 9 primary.
Harry White of Dover, Conn., he said demanded absentee ballots on the names of two high-profile politicians should be sent to his own address trying to show voter fraud is easy to do. He contacted local authorities on Wednesday to explain in more detail what he had done and demand immediate changes, then told as many people as possible about what he believed to be a serious vulnerability.
The stunt showed that a single person and a computer or smartphone could shake up the state’s election system and forced election officials to weigh whether changes to the state’s absentee voting procedures would make voting more difficult.
It also caught the attention of law enforcement. A spokeswoman for Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) said Friday that his office is investigating the matter after consulting with the Racine County District Attorney.
“I broke the law by proving that laws don’t work. Logically, I have circled around you.
Michelle Goldberg/NY Times:
The anti-abortion movement is denial
It is always painful to struggle with a reality that contradicts your deepest beliefs.
A major theme of recent feminist writing has been the gap between the rhetoric of sexual liberation and the oppressive experiences of many women with casual sex. I have met many idealistic Jews who have been raised to always give Israel the benefit of the doubt and who are appalled to see the occupation of Palestine up close. Many people convinced themselves that since the impetus for the pandemic school closures was noble, the results would not be disastrous.
Perhaps some members of the anti-abortion movement are currently grappling with a similarly troubling gulf between intent and consequence. It is, at least, the most sensitive reading of the angry denials of prominent abortion opponents in the face of a predictable consequence of the abortion ban: delayed care for traumatic pregnancy complications.
Since Roe v. Wade was canceled last month, has been solid dam horror stories, including several women refusing abortions due to life-threatening pregnancies. Rakhi Dimino, a doctor in Texas, where most abortions have been illegal since last year, told PBS that she sees more patients with sepsis or bleeding “than I’ve ever seen.”
A couple of UK articles on how the Conservatives see the next prime ministerial contest:
Patrick O’Flynn/Viewer:
The Decline and Fall of Rishi Sunak
Rabbit’s victory is almost a done deal
As a product of Winchester – the public school most associated in elite circles with brilliant mathematical and analytical minds – as well as Oxford, Goldman Sachs and various hedge funds, it was clear that Sunak operated at a higher intellectual level than his opponents. .
Sunak had every imaginable skill needed to solve complex problems, accumulate evidence, and develop optimal strategies. This put her far above the ridiculous Rabbit woman who talked about cheese imports and pork markets.
Well, how Sunak’s campaign creates a squeal u-turn after squealing and holds public office which in turn is insufferably arrogant or patently intellectually inconsistent, it turns out that the skills that made a lot of people, including himself, a lot of money, aren’t entirely transferable to the political realm. And that’s putting it mildly.
A harsher version would be to say that Rishi Sunak is a no-brainer in politics. How else can one regard a Prime Minister who apparently has not noticed that at least half the Tory tribe is vehemently opposed to the removal of Boris Johnson?
Patrick O’Flynn/Viewer:
Triumph from Truss
Rishi Sunak looks doomed in Tori leadership contest
Because Sunak has been the choice of so many political commentators before office, endless column inches and broadcast minutes continue to be spent on the idea that he remains the possible next prime minister. This conceit is unlikely to last the weekend. Once again the herd has moved to use the metaphor Nadhim Zahavi used to explain to Johnson why he is doomed.
Rabbit’s triumph must have dire consequences for Sunak. At first he faces a completely barren, almost pointless, five-week summer slog with further hunting and TV interviews. Interest in his policy ideas will fade very quickly, even if people like Dominik Raab continue to loyally distribute awkward social media posts in his favor. Perhaps the Raab family should step in to tell Pater that the sea is no longer closed and the beaches are calling.
See also: Poll: Tory voters prefer Truss altar