We want the freedom to poison you

An Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos reports that the jury in the case of the nasty guy versus E Jean Carroll awarded her an additional $83.3 million. A previous trial determined he had assaulted her and he was ordered to pay $5 million. This trial was about him lying about her and thus defaming her while he was in the Oval Office. In this trial the prosecutors asked for $24 million, which was thought “an unusually high punitive award.” What the jury awarded is significantly higher. There is no doubt it will be appealed. As the last opponent in the Republican primary Nikki Haley has turned to target the nasty guy. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported that’s been a gift to Biden. He’s now tweeting out excerpts of her speeches.

Without a doubt, Trump is decisively winning the Republican primary and, short of suffering a sudden heart attack, will claim it. But in the process, something very unsettling is happening for his campaign: The primary contest is exposing all of his general election vulnerabilities. That's not going to get any better moving forward. As long is Haley stays in the race, she is simultaneously cultivating the anti-Trump vote and fueling Biden's general election campaign.

The nasty guy threatened Haley’s donors. In response the never-Trumper crowd gave her a big boost in donations. A way to limit her damage is to get her out of the race as fast as possible. The nasty guy’s allies tried to get the Republican National Committee to simply declare him the nominee, as I wrote about before. That effort has been withdrawn. The longer Haley is able to hang in there – and the longer there are actual primaries – the weaker the nasty guy will be for the general election. Good. Eleveld reported:

As the New Hampshire results rolled in Tuesday night, veteran political journalist John Harwood tweeted, "We're in early stages of massive analytic shift from ‘Biden's in big trouble’ to ‘Trump's in big trouble.’”

Reasons for the shift: The economy is humming and people are noticing. Biden’s numbers match or are better than when the “red wave” narrative started appearing in the spring of 2022. On the other side a CNN exit poll in New Hampshire showed that of Haley voters, “94% would not be satisfied with a Trump nomination.” Which means “nearly all of Haley's 43% share of the New Hampshire electorate consists of potential Biden voters.” I happened to think of a caution: That “share of the New Hampshire electorate” is those who actually voted, which I believe was below 20%. Also, New Hampshire isn’t Montana or even swing state Wisconsin. I had written about a case before the Supreme Court that has the potential of disrupting all of the federal government consumer protections rules. Joan McCarter of Kos reported on some of the dark money behind the case. One of the drivers is, of course, Charles Koch. Another is Leonard Leo. They’re asking the Supremes for “individual freedom” (as in corporate freedom) from having to follow rules that protect us from such things as bad food, bad water, and bad medications, Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, includes several interesting numbers in each post. In yesterday’s post he wrote (alas, without source):

Percent of Gen Z adults (age 18-25) who identify as LGBTQ+ according to polling by the Public Religion Research Institute: 28%

That is of great interest to me because when I was much younger (though older than 25) the estimate (which is all we had then) of the number of LGBTQ people was 5%, or about one in 20. Now it is more than one in four! Interesting how people identify themselves when the social pressure to conform to heterosexual norms is significantly lessened. I had written that conservatives loathe Taylor Swift because she is urging her fans to get involved in voting. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported her efforts are fruitful enough that conspiracy theories are being spread about her, that she’s being used by the White House in a way she doesn’t recognize. Concluded Einenkel:

The fact of the matter is that most of the people Swift is inspiring to get involved in our political process are exactly the type of young Americans who conservatives loath. But if you are trying to get even a few of those younger voters, calling their favorite singers psychological operatives is probably going to have the same success as when conservatives’ parents and grandparents told them Elvis Presley’s hip-swinging would be the end of morality.

Republicans and conservatives in general get loud (and campaign on) all those not white people wanting to enter the southern border. There’s lots of talk of deporting them. Biden is accused of letting them in the country so they would vote for him (never mind only citizens can vote). SemDem of the Kos community wrote about a conservative white family from Germany that intentionally overstayed their visa. They’re undocumented and threatened with deportation. And conservatives are pressuring to allow them to stay. The family says they came to America to flee “religious persecution.” The persecution is being denied the option to homeschool their kids, which is illegal in Germany. German public schools didn’t have the right “family values” for them. German religious schools didn’t either. And conservatives are now champions of illegal immigration for some people, the ones who happen to look and act like they do.