Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of August 23

How California police chased a nonexistent ‘antifa bus’

On the morning of 2 June, however, Honsal, the Humboldt county sheriff, emailed staff to say he had “confirmed with CHP that the bus is currently in Redding” and that CHP had a “surveillance team” monitoring. At the same time, journalists, disinformation experts and some law enforcement officials were debunking the antifa bus rumors across the US.

Still, at a press conference on 4 June, Honsal publicly raised concerns about antifa threats, saying his agency had “substantiated law enforcement reports” that “antifa did have people in buses” and suggesting the groups “want to disrupt things and want to cause violence”.

some similar shit happened here in Seattle around the same time last year.

Fox News: Seattle 'autonomous zone' has armed guards, local businesses being threatened with extortion, police say

Seattle Times: Police walk back report that Capitol Hill protesters extorted businesses

The Seattle Police Department walked back its claim, widely repeated in the news media, that denizens of the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone are extorting businesses.

"That has not happened affirmatively," Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best in a news conference Thursday afternoon, adding that the police department had based earlier claims on anecdotal reports, including in the news and on social media. "We haven't had any formal reports of this occurring."

That contradicts earlier statements from the police.

In a news conference Wednesday, Assistant Seattle Police Chief Deanna Nollette said police have heard from Capitol Hill community members that some protesters have asked business owners to pay a fee to operate in a roughly six-block area around the precinct. Best repeated the claim in a video address to officers Thursday morning.

The claim seems to have gained traction after it was published in conservative blog The Post Millennial, in an article written by former Seattle City Council candidate Ari Hoffman. The article quoted unnamed police officers who alleged protesters were extorting businesses for protection money. Hoffman said his sources were "rock solid" and that he had first heard of the alleged extortion on conservative talk radio station AM 770 KTTH.

Apathetic voters could hand California recall to Republicans: ‘Folks seem unaware’

Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly two to one in California – but while the former are distracted and disengaged this year, the latter are riled up, political strategists and pollsters say. By voting at higher rates, Republicans could capture the governor’s seat for the first time in a decade.

the way this recall process works in California is particularly stupid:

That means that if 49.9% of voters support Newsom’s staying in office, he could be replaced by a candidate earning far fewer votes, such as the Republican frontrunner and rightwing radio host Larry Elder, who leads the polls among replacement candidates with just 18% support.

and in a mind-bogglingly stupid move, there are no well-known Democrats running in the recall, and the California Democratic Party is not endorsing anyone and recommending people leave that question on the ballot blank.

this means that, if Newsom is recalled, it's extremely likely the plurality winner for his replacement will be Larry Elder or another candidate favored by the right. there are some left-of-center candidates but none with serious name recognition or establishment backing, so none of them are likely to beat Larry Elder's 15-20%.

the sane thing to do would have been to hedge their bets and have some Democrat run in the recall, with a message of "don't recall Newsom, but vote for so-and-so as his replacement just in case" pushed by the state Democratic establishment.

in that scenario, if Newsom loses the recall election 51/49 or whatever, the 49% who voted to keep him probably overwhelmingly voted for that endorsed successor, which would be more than enough to win over Larry Elder et al.

oh, also, if there's a Republican governor of California and one of California's US Senators dies in office (such as the 88 year old Dianne Feinstein), then that Republican gets to pick their replacement. so Newsom's "don't bother running a candidate, there's no way I'll lose this recall" hubris could conceivably cost Democrats their majority in the US Senate.