Ex senator Joe Lieberman’s “No Labels” Unity Party is considering candidates to run in the 2024 election - possibly throwing the election to Trump. With our nation hanging in the balance, can we risk it?
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Donald Trump’s cult like followers continue to worship and send money to his campaign, in spite of the indictments and multi million dollar judgments against him.
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Donald Trump has been lying about his businesses for his entire career and now he’s squealing like a stuck pig since a New York court called him on it.
Manhattan Justice Arthur F. Engoron ruled Feb. 16 that Trump engaged in a yearslong conspiracy with top executives at the Trump Organization to deceive banks and insurers about the size of his wealth and the true value of such properties as Trump Tower in Manhattan and his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
Engoron ordered the disgraced former president to pay $355 million of his fortune, plus interest, which makes a total of $454 million. And that’s on top of $88.3 million he owes E. Jean Carroll for lying about his 1996 sexual assault of the writer. That includes $5 million in damages a federal jury in Manhattan assessed in May 2023 for the sexual assault, and $83.3 million by another jury in January for continuing to defame Carroll after the original verdict.
Trump said the civil fraud decision was “election inference” and “weaponization against a political opponent,” complaining to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida that he was being penalized for “having built a perfect company, great cash, great buildings, great everything.”
New York Attorney General Leticia James sued Trump in 2022 under a New York statute that gives the attorney general wide scope to investigate and prosecute corporate fraud. She alleged that he lied for years about his wealth on financial statements he used to secure loans and make deals as he built the real estate empire that vaulted him to fame and the presidency. Trump has said repeatedly the loans were paid back and the banks he dealt with made money, and he accused James of singling him out for political reasons.
Trump claims he was singled out for prosecution, but the New York Times noted that the New York attorney general’s office has relied on the law for years in high-profile cases, including against UBS, ExxonMobil and Juul — as well as Trump University and the Trump Foundation, which forced Trump to shut down both scams and pay $25 million to Trump U clients.
It is a federal crime to make false statements on loan applications, but because James sued Trump and his business associates under the state law, the claims were decided in a bench trial — one decided by a judge, as the state law requires, rather than by a jury.
Trump disregarded that explanation and complained that he was denied a jury trial. Still, knowing that Engoron would decide the case, Trump showed contempt for the 74-year-old judge throughout the trial, in an apparent attempt to provoke Engoron.
Engoron started the trial in late September 2023 with a summary judgment that ruled the Trump Organization had committed fraud by inflating property values by as much as $2.2 billion to get better loan and insurance terms. The bench trial began in October to examine other counts and determine penalties.
Engoron let Trump boil through the three-month trial with insults at the judge and Attorney General James, though Engoron fined Trump $15,000 for disparaging remarks about the judge’s clerk. Finally, on Feb. 16, Engoron ordered the former president and his company to pay $355 million, which he determined were savings from the lower interest rates and windfall profits from the recent sale of two properties, as “ill-gotten gains” that should be paid to the state, with interest.
“The frauds found here leap off the page and shock the conscience,” Engoron wrote in a 92-page decision. “The English poet Alexander Pope first declared, ‘To err is human, to forgive is divine.’ Defendants apparently are of a different mind,” he continued. “Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological.”
He said the “defendants are incapable of admitting the error of their ways … Indeed, Donald Trump testified that, even today, he does not believe the Trump Organization needed to make any changes based on the facts that came out during this trial.”
Engoron added, “the Court intends to protect the integrity of the financial marketplace and, thus, the public as a whole. Defendants refusal to admit error — indeed, to continue it, according to the Independent Monitor — constrains this Court to conclude that they will engage in it going forward unless judicially restrained.”
Among other things, the court bans Trump and the Trump Organization and its affiliates from applying for loans from any financial institution chartered by or registered with the New York State Department of Financial Services for three years, and Eric and Don Jr. can’t serve as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity for two years.
Meanwhile, Trumpublicans who narrowly control the House of Representatives continue to look for pretexts to impeach President Joe Biden, based on imagined corrupt relationships of the president to his son Hunter and brother Jim, even after a sketchy FBI informant, Alexander Smirnov, on whom the Trumpers were basing their case, was indicted on charges that he lied to federal investigators about the Biden family’s business dealings.
These lies included claims that Joe Biden and his son each sought $5 million bribes from Ukrainian energy company Burisma when Biden was vice president, in exchange for protecting the firm from scrutiny by Ukraine’s national authorities. Now, Smirnov, a 43-year-old Israeli American, has admitted that “officials associated with Russian intelligence” fed him that information.
Republicans have based their attacks on President Biden on that apparent Russian disinformation. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), partnered with House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) in May 2023, demanding the Justice Department release an FBI-generated Form FD 1023, which could reveal a “criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden … involving an exchange of money for policy decisions.” That form contained statements that the FBI warned were unverified, but the Republicans insisted it be published.
“That to me is really the heart of this matter,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said Jan. 11 on Fox “News.” “The most corroborating evidence we have is … from this highly credible, confidential human source.” On Feb. 21, after the source of the information was disclosed, Jordan insisted the revelations about Smirnov’s Russian connection don’t “change the facts.”
But other witnesses have sworn under oath that President Biden wasn’t involved in any of his son’s or his brother’s schemes.
The facts that need to be established now include when Grassley, Comer and Jordan discovered that Smirnov, their “star witness,” was a Russian agent, and whether the Republican inquisitors suborned perjury during the investigation. For people who claim to be Christians, they sure do seem to bear a lot of false witness.
Republicans need to swear off the lies, the bullying and unfounded slurs about the “Biden Crime Family” and instead straighten up, drop the impeachment nonsense and pass the budget that should have made it through Congress six months ago. — JMC
From The Progressive Populist, March 15, 2024
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EDITORIAL
Bill for Trump’s lies comes due
FRANK LINGO
Peace and the planet
DON ROLLINS
A puzzle, a wonder and a miracle
RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
The weeds fight back. What’s next?
DISPATCHES
Trump underperformance in South Carolina is anti-MAGA triumph.
Trump’s weekend at CPAC was tour de force of bigotry and incompetence.
Childcare crisis grips US as IRS chief says wealthy tax dodgers cost $150B a year.
Trump will destroy health care, and his voters don’t care.
Make big money peddling COVID misinfo
Catholic leaders protest Texas AG’s lawsuit targeting El Paso migrant ministry.
ART CULLEN
Vilsack’s lament
ALAN GUEBERT
From ink to electrons, the retirement of print journalism
SARAH ANDERSON
Poor, low-income voters are a sleeping giant
JOHN YOUNG
Agent Orange’s inspiration: “Be like Vlad”
DICK POLMAN
Putin’s bootlicker condones political murder. He wants to bring Kremlin values to the White House.
JOE CONASON
Behind the special counsel smear of Biden
JOHN CULLEN
Old enough to know better
DAVID McCALL
Solidarity saved him
LES LEOPOLD
Did Wall Street just end the class war?
ROBERT KUTTNER
Dealing with the bad stewards
THOM HARTMANN
Why the corporate tax bracket should go back to 52%
SONALI KOLHATKAR
Cash bail system violates due process
HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
Scrooge returns: No food for children during the summer
SAM URETSKY
Supreme Court takes on ballot access
FARRAH HASSEN
The rent is still too high
WAYNE O’LEARY
The empire reenergized
LINDSAY K. SAUNDERS
Having a child shouldn’t cause financial catastrophe
JAKE JOHNSON
Labor leaders condemn GOP fiscal commission as anti-worker ‘power grab’
JUAN COLE
Biden, tired of being called ‘Genocide Joe,’ finally blinks
GENE NICHOL
The attorney general’s jam
ELWOOD WATSON
Women and the future of politics
JAMIE STIEHM
Lincoln’s life lesson on saving democracy
BARRY FRIEDMAN
The summer of our discontent/party one
SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson
All Tuckered out
SUSAN HARLEY
Free tax filing: A crucial step toward unrigging our economy
RALPH NADER
Biden & Blinken — rule of illegal power over rule of law
JOHN CLAYTON
You’re not the boss in wilderness
ROB PATTERSON
Max is anything but that
SETH SANDRONSKY
Book it: Reading about heterodox economics
FILM REVIEW/Ed Rampell
‘Kipkemboi’: Kenya’s genius, from a mud hut to Wall Street
From The Progressive Populist, March 15, 2024
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The special counsel assigned by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents finally produced his report that concluded “no charges are warranted” in the case. But Robert Hur, a Republican appointee in Donald Trump’s Department of Justice, took the opportunity to criticize Biden’s mental acuity, portraying the president as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
The slur went beyond Hur’s commission, particularly since Hur is not qualified to diagnose neurological conditions, but it blew up in the media to amplify questions about the president’s fitness for office at age 81.
We are expected to ignore that Biden’s all-but-certain opponent in November is a sociopath and compulsive liar who not only has trouble remembering which countries foreign leaders rule — Donald Trump also has said Nikki Haley was in charge of security at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, confusing his Republican rival with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and he said Jeb Bush launched the war in Iraq after 9/11, among his recent “senior moments.”
Of course, Trump also faces 91 felony charges in state and federal jurisdictions and he has been found liable for rape and defamation of his sexual assault victim, as well as fraud in his financial dealings. And his evangelical Christian supporters believe he was sent by God, who apparently overlooked Trump’s cheating on all three of his wives, as well as hundreds of contractors he refused to pay for work during his business career, so we guess it shouldn’t bother us.
The Former Guy is desperate to get back in the White House to stay out of prison. And if he gets back into the White House, the wannabe dictator has threatened to ignore the United States’ NATO responsibilities and let his friend, Russian President Vladimir Putin, take Ukraine and possibly Poland by force, as well as other Eastern European nations, as Putin tries to put the Soviet bloc back together.
Trump’s political operation has embraced Russian-style disinformation, which uses media to produce enough distrust to ensure the public can never mobilize around a coherent narrative. “The Democrats don’t matter,” Trump’s political strategist, Steve Bannon, said in 2018 when he outlined plans to dismantle the “deep state.” “The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with sh*t.”
The zone has been flooded ever since.
PolitiFact in January reached a milestone of 1,000 facts checked on statements made by Trump, when he claimed after his New Hampshire primary win that Democrats used the COVID-19 pandemic to “cheat” in the 2020 presidential election. The claim was rated “Pants on Fire.”
PolitiFact started examining Trump’s statements in 2011, when he was amplifying “birther” conspiracy theories to undermine then-President Barack Obama’s eligibility. Since then, about 76% of Trump’s statements examined by PolitiFact have earned ratings of Mostly False, False or Pants on Fire, which puts him in a class by himself. “It’s not unusual for politicians of both parties to mislead, exaggerate or make stuff up. But American fact-checkers have never encountered a politician who shares Trump’s disregard for factual accuracy,” PolitiFact reported Feb. 1.
Trump’s median rating of False is worse than a cross-section of frequently checked Democratic and Republican politicians. Politicians with median ratings of Half True include Obama, Biden and Hillary Clinton; three senators who ran for president, Mitt Romney, R-Utah, Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; and two longtime congressional leaders, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
“It’s been an astounding eight years in American politics,” said Jennifer Mercieca, a Texas A&M University communication professor and a historian of American political rhetoric. “He’s built his entire political identity on the fact that he doesn’t owe anyone the truth about anything.”
PolitiFact, for all its work, can’t match the Washington Post for comprehensive review of Trump’s contempt for the truth. The Post’s Fact Checker team recorded 30,573 “untruths” told by Trump during his presidency. The team, led by Glenn Kessler, noted on Jan. 24, 2021, “What is especially striking is how the tsunami of untruths kept rising the longer he served as president and became increasingly unmoored from the truth.”
Kessler noted that the Fact Checker staff has been unable to continue that comprehensive pace, but they did review all the public statements during Biden’s first 100 days, and counted 78 false or misleading statements. That compares to 511 such statements in Trump’s first 100 days. Fact Checker noted that, unlike Trump, Biden generally does not repeat claims that have been fact-checked as false.
Onr of Trump’s biggest lies was that the economy was never stronger than during his presidency. The facts: by just about any important measure, the economy under Trump was not doing as well as it did under Presidents Eisenhower, Johnson or Clinton — and, as Trump rode the economic recovery that started under Barack Obama, Trump also rode the COVID pandemic into the economic dumps. Unemployment shot up to 14.7% in April 2020. By the time Trump was turned out of the White House in January 2021, Trump left a 6.7% jobless rate, after a net loss of 2.67 million jobs.
Since then, Biden got the COVID pandemic under control, resolved supply-chain problems left over from Trump’s adminstration, passed an economic package that helped to create more than 14 million jobs, and unemployment dropped below 4% for the past two years. However, Republicans continue to undermine public confidence in Biden’s ability to manage the economy.
People who have spent time with Biden know the president is in full possession of his faculties — completely lucid, with an excellent grasp of detail, Paul Krugman noted in the New York Times. “Of course, most voters don’t get to see him up close, and it’s on Biden’s team to address that. And yes, he speaks quietly and a bit slowly, although this is in part because of his lifetime struggle with stuttering. He also, by the way, has a sense of humor, which I think is important.”
“Most important is that Biden has been a remarkably effective president. Trump spent four years claiming that a major infrastructure initiative was just around the corner, to the point that ‘It’s infrastructure week!’ became a running joke; Biden actually got legislation passed. ... Biden’s technology and climate policies — the latter passed against heavy odds — have produced a surge in manufacturing investment. His enhancement of Obamacare has brought health insurance coverage to millions.
“If you ask me, these achievements say a lot more about Biden’s capacity than his occasional verbal slips,” Krugman wrote. We agree. — JMC
From The Progressive Populist, March 1, 2024
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An incurable disease? The mystery of MAGA
EDITORIAL
Biden floats in the flooded zone
DON ROLLINS
Student absenteeism: Fixes and frustrations
RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
The race doesn’t always go to the Swifties (but that’s the way to bet)
ART CULLEN
Calm yourself: What would Mel Brooks do?
ALAN GUEBERT
America’s love/hate relationship with one of our biggest trading partners
CANDACE BAKER
Lawmakers must fully fund the WIC program
JOHN YOUNG
Swifties are the least of GOP’s problems
JAKE JOHNSON
‘Hell no’: Trump allies’ plan to privatize Medicare draws alarm and outrage
JOE CONASON
What Taylor Swift is teaching us now
DAVID McCALL
Fighting for time to heal
SVANTE MYRICK
This Black History month, fight for the freedom to learn
SAFIYA SIMMONS, LAURA
COLLINS & SUZETTE GARDNER
Changing the culture around paid leave starts at school
FRANK LINGO
Exciting ecological innovations
THOM HARTMANN
Do the rich dudes want the court to ban Trump or not?
SONALI KOLHATKAR
The real reason your grocery bill is still so high
GRASSROOTS/Hank Kalet
Criminalizing the homeless again
BOOK REVIEW/Ken Winkes
Hard work over the decades
HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
What would Kant do? A brake on renegade individualism
KATIE KLINGSPORN
Where have all the doctors gone?
WAYNE O’LEARY
The corporatization of American health care
ROBERT C. KOEHLER
Diversity in the crosshairs
GENE NICHOL
Violating academic freedom, again
JUAN COLE
Top 3 things Biden could do instead of intensively bombing Iraq and Syria
JOEL D. JOSEPH
US should recognize a Palestinian state
JASON SIBERT
No turning back on Iran’s nukes
JAMIE STIEHM
The woman driving Trump mad
BARRY FRIEDMAN
Trump’s inner voice
SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson
Pieces of Ron
RALPH NADER
Provoking Trump to defeat himself Jujitsu style
LAURA PRITCHETT
They struggle to come to America: One woman’s story
ROB PATTERSON
Support the workers in the entertainment industry that helps us get by
SETH SANDRONSKY
Langston Hughes and language of human liberation
FILM REVIEW/Ed Rampell
A filmic feast for the eyes: The gastronomy of L’Amour
From The Progressive Populist, March 1, 2024
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Republican politicians have been hollering about the “crisis” at the southern border since Joe Biden took office. But the last thing Republicans want is a deal that might secure the border before the presidential election in November.
As Republican governors in Texas and Florida have engaged in trafficking immigrants by sending buses and planeloads of asylum seekers to cities in the north with no advance notice, those cities have struggled to manage the migrants, who are not legally allowed to work until their immigration status is determined.
House Republicans voted against funding for more Border Patrol agents and additional personnel at ports of entry in 2022, and have talked about defunding the Department of Homeland Security. Republicans are threatening to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over policy differences.
In the Senate, negotiators are working on a bipartisan deal to address the issues, which would restrict asylum and humanitarian parole system. But House Republicans say they will only accept a border deal that resembles the hardline immigration bill that passed the House in 2023 – known as HR 2 – even though Senate Democrats and the White House strongly oppose that plan, as a non-starter.
Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) gave away the game in early January when he told CNN he would not vote for a bill to solve problems at the border because it could help President Biden’s approval ratings. “Let me tell you, I’m not willing to do too damn much right now to help a Democrat and to help Joe Biden’s approval rating.”
When Senate Republicans in January indicated they were close to a deal with Senate Democrats, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) reportedly told the House Republicans in a conference call that the border can’t be secured without a Republican in the White House, and later said he would “absolutely not” accept the Senate deal.
Johnson may be following orders from Donald Trump, who is urging his congressional allies to hold the line. As he wrote on his platform, “Truth Social,” Jan. 17, “I do not think we should do a Border Deal, at all, unless we get EVERYTHING needed to shut down the INVASION of Millions & Millions of people, many from parts unknown, into our once great, but soon to be great again, Country!”
This is a pattern that goes back to 2013, when the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration reform bill that would have prioritized border security but would have set up path to legal status and eventual citizenship for the estimated 11 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the US. House Republicans would not allow the bill to be debated in the House.
When President Barack Obama asked Republicans to propose their own immigration bill, Republicans refused. But they still insisted that Obama do something about illegal immigration. So when Obama used his executive authority to restrict immigration, Republicans called Obama a tyrant.
In 2016, Trump killed prospects for immigration reform by casting immigrants as threats to the nation, Andrea Flores, immigration policy adviser in the Obama and Biden administrations, noted in a column in the New York Times Jan. 15. “As president, [Trump] restricted the number of immigrants coming to the United States, separated families, and dismantled our immigration courts, hampering the ability to process asylum seekers at the border. And yet in 2019, under his watch, there was a 90% increase in migrant apprehensions along the southern border compared to the year before.”
The proposed deal in the Senate would simultaneously restrict and expand executive authority, Flores noted in the Times. “For starters, Mr. Biden could lose key powers that presidents have used for decades to regulate immigration in times of crisis. Worse, if Mr. Trump is re-elected, he will have new tools at his disposal that he could use to terrorize immigrants and make the chaos at the border even more acute,” Flores wrote.
Trump has promised to place immigrants in detention camps and conduct mass deportations, and he has adopted Nazi rhetoric in accusing immigrants of “poisoning the blood of our country.”
(Ironically, Trump’s mother was an immigrant from Scotland.)
“I agree with lawmakers that the status quo is unsustainable and that reforms are needed,” Flores noted. “But this deal will not alleviate Mr. Biden’s border challenges unless Congress builds legal migration pathways that weaken cartels who have profited the most from new asylum restrictions.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis alienated many Florida businesses, including farmers who rely on immigrant labor, when he signed into law a bill in 2023 that criminalizes the transport of undocumented people into Florida, penalizes businesses that employ immigrants, requires hospitals to ask about immigration status on intake forms, invalidates out of state driver’s licenses or other forms of government ID issued to undocumented people, and prevents local governments from issuing identification cards to undocumented people. That has caused many immigrants to flee the state.
Now Republicans are trying to backpedal their xenophobia. “This bill is 100 percent supposed to scare you,” said state Rep. Richard Roth (R), who voted for the bill but appeared at an event in Hialeah, Fla., in January 2023 to play down the threats to businesses. “I’m a farmer, and the farmers are mad as hell. We are losing employees. They’re already starting to move to Georgia and other states.” But he urged business owners to tell “your people” that it’s “more of a political bill than it is policy. It does give more police state powers going forward to deal with immigration, but still this is mainly a political bill.”
In Texas, Republicans hope to win over Latinos who have tended to vote Democratic, but a new law Gov. Greg Abbott (R) pushed through the Legislature last year criminalizes undocumented immigrants in Texas, which will give a new generation of Tejanos the experience of being stopped by local and state police for driving while Brown, or speaking their mother’s or grandmother’s language in a public place. And they’d better have a state-issued ID.
The US Supreme Court had to scale down Abbott’s ambitions to dominate the border, as the court on Jan. 22 in a 5-4 vote ordered Texas to allow federal border agents access to the state’s border with Mexico, where Texas officials have deployed miles of concertina wire and National Guard troops prevented Border Patrol officers from attempting to rescue migrants struggling in the river at Eagle Pass Jan. 12. Three migrants drowned.
Since 2021, Abbott’s Operation Lone Star initiative has challenged federal authority on the border. Abbott has deployed state troopers across the 1,200-mile Texas-Mexico border; ordered state police to arrest migrants who are suspected of trespassing; installed 70,000 rolls of concertina wire along the Rio Grande; and spent $1.5 billion to build a dozen miles of border walls.
The US needs immigrants, who play a big part in harvesting and processing our food supply, along with other jobs awaiting. We need an orderly process of examining applicants at ports of entry, giving migrants a fair, timely hearing in immigration courts, and identifying bad actors and deporting them. Get it done, Congress. — JMC
From The Progressive Populist, February 15, 2024
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COVER/Sarah Jane Tribble and Tony Leys, KFF Health News
Federal program to save rural hospitals feels ‘growing pains’
EDITORIAL
Republicans need border crisis
JIM HIGHTOWER
When private enterprise fails, public enterprise must step up.
Let’s send all billionaires to Mars!
Forget millionaires, a few billionaires are now stealing our country.
Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t just dream; he organized!
FRANK LINGO
Because. One. Man. Lied.
DON ROLLINS
The GOP sells its soul once again
RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
There’s lots of land, but who owns it?
DISPATCHES
Report finds inflation is largely due to corporate greed.
Progressive lawmakers unveil bill to attack ‘disease’ of corporate greed.
Senate Finance chief rips GOP’s ‘backroom scheme’ to cut Social Security, Medicare.
Biden marks Roe anniversary with new protections for abotion.
Bipartisan plan could ease child poverty ...
ART CULLEN
Requiem for the caucuses
ALAN GUEBERT
‘Elect me because I’ll send you more federal money than the other guy’
CLARA MOORE
The Child Tax Credit changed my life. Lawmakers have a chance to bring it back
JOHN YOUNG
Biden gets right to the heart
JUDITH GRAHAM
America’s health system isn’t ready for the surge of seniors with disabilities
JOE CONASON
If Black voters abandon Biden, what will they get instead?
JOEL D. JOSEPH
Apple should settle with Masimo or buy it
DAVID MCCALL
Advancing worker safety
LES LEOPOLD
Is the heart and soul of Trump’s MAGA base really the White working class?
ROBERT KUTTNER
How progressives went to pot
CHUCK COLLINS
The rich own nearly all stocks. Level the playing field with ‘baby bonds’
THOM HARTMANN
Can democracy survive the morbidly rich?
SONALI KOLHATKAR
The right to housing, not vacation homes
GENE NICHOL
Party of shame and sedition
HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
Tweak the algorithm: A battle cry for our times
SAM URETSKY
Health professionals bridle as managers take over
SETH SANDRONSKY
The changing face of Catholic health care
WAYNE O’LEARY
The return of business republicanism
SAM PIZZIGATI
How to restore trust in the US? Tax the rich
JUAN COLE
Could Israel’s Gaza atrocity spiral into a Red Sea war and sink Biden’s reelection?
N. GUNASEKARAN
Climate change and socio-economic disruption in Asia
JASON SIBERT
Reevaluate ties with Israel
JAMIE STIEHM
Mean Girls in the House
BARRY FRIEDMAN
I am the reason Amazon drivers can’t pee
LEEANN HALL
Biden’s new transit rule is good news for people and the planet
RALPH NADER
Five omnicides facing our unprepared world
STEPHEN TRIMBLE
A terrible dilemma faces the Great Basin
ROB PATTERSON
‘Sly’ ups my esteem for Stallone
BOOK REVIEW/Ken Winkes
Hitler had his fans in 1930s America
ED RAMPELL
Roger Stone’s storm and stormtroopers
From The Progressive Populist, February 15, 2024
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EDITORIAL p. 2
The year to fight fascism
DON ROLLINS p. 4
More than a staging area
RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen p. 5
Will truth survive in 2024?
DISPATCHES p. 5
Our 30th year (with an asterisk)
House Chaos Caucus outraged government might not shut down after all.
Trump got $7.8M+ from foreign governments while he was in the White House.
Job growth expands in December
Trump’s fake cure for COVID responsible for nearly 17,000 deaths.
$8.5T untaxed assets show why we need a billionaire tax.
ART CULLEN p. 6
A prayer to Toribio
ALAN GUEBERT p. 6
Doubling down on death, taxes, and crop insurance
KAREN DOLAN p. 7
Celebrating the resilience of low-income women
JOHN YOUNG p. 7
Only one poll mattered in 2023
JOE CONASON p. 9
How the Trumps indict themselves
DAVID McCALL p. 10
Putting money in workers’ pockets
LES LEOPOLD p. 10
It’s 2024. Where’s the party of the working class?
ROBERT KUTTNER p. 11
A guide to the latest efforts to undermine trust in Social Security
FRANK LINGO p. 11
2023 review and 2024 outlook for Earth
THOM HARTMANN p. 12
Why don’t Americans know who’s manipulating our political system and why?
SARAH ANDERSON p. 13
10 working-class victories to celebrate in 2023
HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas p. 15
A valentine to immigrants
GRASSROOTS/Hank Kalet p. 15
The real rot in higher ed
JAKE JOHNSON p. 15
Infections and falls more likely at private equity-owned hospitals: study
WAYNE O’LEARY p. 16
The looming Vietnam apology
JOEL D. JOSEPH p. 16
Sandra Day O’Connor was irreplacable
SHAILLY GUPTA BARNES p. 17
As we look to 2024, here’s what hope looks like
JAMIE STIEHM p. 18
Five angry men on the Supreme Court
BARRY FRIEDMAN p. 18
We are all in the next building
SETH SANDRONSKY p. 18
A world away?
RALPH NADER p. 19
Biden, Pope Francis, and the matter of faith
HEATHER HANSMAN p. 20
Ski bum culture hits reality
ROB PATTERSON p. 20
It was 60 years ago when the Beatles began to play in the USA
SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson p. 20
Elon’s final solution
DOUGLAS BURNS p. 21
What Tom Harkin would do if he were running for office in 2024
From The Progressive Populist, February 1, 2024
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The New Year brought the third anniversary of Trump’s Failed Insurrection, with more retrospectives evoking memories of that day, when Donald Trump, in a Jan. 6 speech on the Ellipse, called upon his supporters to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell” to get Congress to reject the election returns. The resulting riot shattered the nation’s record of peaceful transfers of power.
Still, Trump and his accomplices for three years have been lying “bigly” about unfounded claims that the election was stolen by Joe Biden, despite 60 courts ruling there was no evidence of significant voting discrepancies that would change the election results. Since then, state and federal grand juries have indicted Trump on 91 felonies, but more Republicans find they can’t quit their cult leader, no matter how many felonies he may have committed trying to remain in the White House, or how many times he applauds dictators, and promises to be a force for retribution if he regains power.
A poll conducted for the Washington Post and the University of Maryland and publised Jan. 1 found more Republicans are sympathetic to those who stormed the Capitol and/or are likely to absolve Trump of responsibility for the attack than they were in 2021. The percentage of Republicans holding Trump responsible has fallen from 27% in December 2021 to only 14% in the poll taken Dec. 14-18, although 53% of US adults overall still believe Trump was responsible for the attack on the Capitol, as 56% of independents and 86% of Democrats blame Trump.
Republicans also have mellowed on the protesters, as only 18% said they were “mostly violent,” compared with 50% overall, including 54% of independents and 77% of Democrats.
Many said their views have changed because they now believe the riot was instigated by law enforcement to suppress political dissent — a baseless conspiracy theory that has been promoted heavily in right-wing media and by Trump in his speeches and in his legal fight against the four-count federal indictment he faces in D.C. federal court.
Some Democrats, nervous about polls that show Biden and Trump essentially tied, wish Biden would step aside and let a younger candidate take over as the Democratic candidate for president. But the incumbent has given no sign that intends to give up. Instead, Biden traveled to a college campus near Valley Forge, Pa., on Jan. 5 to warn voters that Donald Trump was a fundamental threat to democracy.
“Today we’re here to answer the most important of questions: is democracy still America’s sacred cause?” Biden said. “Today, I make this sacred pledge to you: the defense, protection and preservation of American democracy will remain, as it has been, the central cause of my presidency.
“America, as we began this election year, we must be clear: democracy is on the ballot.”
Biden emphasized that Trump has made clear in his campaign that his “assault on democracy isn’t just part of his past—it’s what he’s promising for the future. He’s been straightforward. He’s not hiding the ball.”
“The guy who claims law and order stands for lawlessness and disorder,” he added. “Trump’s not concerned about your future, I promise you. Trump is now promising a full scale campaign of revenge and retribution, his words, for some years to come.”
Biden also warned that Trump has again refused to commit to respecting the results of the 2024 election.
“America, as we began this election year, we must be clear: Democracy is on the ballot,” the president said. “Your freedom is on the ballot. Yes, we’ll be voting on many issues and the freedom to vote and have your vote counted. The freedom of choice. Freedom to have a fair shot. A freedom from fear. We will debate, disagree. Without democracy, no progress is possible.”
He added, ”Think about it: The alternative to democracy is dictatorship.”
Biden followed up Jan. 8 with a speech from the pulpit of Mother Emanuel AME Church, where in 2015 nine Black parishioners were shot to death by a White stranger they had invited to join their Bible study.
At Mother Emanuel, Biden said “the word of God was pierced by bullets of hate, of rage, propelled not just by gunpowder, but by a poison, a poison that has for too long haunted this nation.”
That’s “White supremacy,” Biden said, the view by some Whites that they are superior to other races. “It is a poison, throughout our history, that’s ripped this nation apart. This has no place in America. Not today, tomorrow or ever.”
Biden noted that, after the Civil War, the defeated Confederates couldn’t accept the verdict of the war, which they had lost. So they embraced what’s known as “the Lost Cause, a self-serving lie that the Civil War was not about slavery but about states’ rights. …
“Now … we’re living in an era of a second lost cause. Once again, there are some in this country trying ... to turn a loss into a lie — a lie, which if allowed to live, will once again bring terrible damage to this country. This time, the lie is about the 2020 election, the election which you made your voices heard and your power known.”
Biden also took advantage of an interruption by an audience member who shouted, “If you really care about the lives lost here, then you should honor the lives lost and call for a ceasefire in Palestine!” Other audience members chanted: “Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now!”
Biden replied, “I understand their passion. And I’ve been quietly working — I’ve been quietly working with the Israeli government to get them to reduce and significantly get out of Gaza. I’ve been using all that I can to do that,” followed by applause.
Biden has taken heavy criticism from Arab Americans and young Americans for his support of Israel after the Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 civilians in Israel by Hamas terrorists. Many Palestinian supporters have said they couldn’t vote for Biden as they believe he implicitly supported Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s bombing of Gaza that reportedly has killed tens of thousands of civilians. But the choice next November will be between Biden, who has counseled caution in the war against Hamas, and Trump, who has promised to deport Muslims from the US, put immigrants in concentration camps, and he undoubtedly would give Netanyahu a free rein in Gaza.
The choice in November 2024 will be democracy or fascism. Joe Biden has compiled an impressive progressive record in his first three years and he has restored the economy from the ravages of the COVID pandemic that Donald Trump mishandled. Trump promises vengeance against his political opponents, whom he has called “vermin,” and many of those “opponents” already have been threatened by Trump supporters.
Trump has gone full Fascist and he proposes to take the Republican Party with him. Republicans who follow Trump disgrace the memory of their fathers and grandfathers who fought and defeated the forces of fascism in World War II. — JMC
From The Progressive Populist, February 1, 2024
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1. Forensic psychologists discussing the state of Trump's relationship with the electorate and the shared psychosis between him and his followers. This shared psychosis was discussed in terms of a virulent and highly contagious disease that Republicans are unusually susceptible to.
2. The Dallas Morning News broke the story confirming that Russian Oligarchs loyal to Vladimir Putin were funneling millions of dollars to Republican PAC's. Is it too late to save the Republican Party? Is it now the Party of Putin?
The approach of the Christmas Holiday Season has not slowed the
Donald Trump has been airing his authoritarian fantasies during the course of his campaign to restore him to the presidency, as he tries to avoid criminal prosecution for various felonies. At first, his signature line was, “I am your retribution.”
At the Conservative Political Action Conference March 4, Trump told the room packed with his cultists that they, not him, were the real targets of his supposed oppressors.
Trump defined MAGA’s enemies with a special emphasis on prosecutors.
“From the beginning, we have been attacked by a sick and sinister opposition, the radical left communists, the bureaucrats, the fake news media, the big money special interests, the corrupt Democrat prosecutors,” he said. “Oh, they’re after me for so many things. Oh, those prosecutors. Some are racists. Some hate our country. They all hate me. They’ll get me for anything, anything.”
“In 2016, I declared I am your voice,” he said. “Today, I add I am your warrior, I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. I am your retribution.”
Since then, Trump and his allies have begun mapping out plans for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents in a second term. The former president has named individuals he wants to go after, and his associates are drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against protests that might develop.
In private, Trump has told advisers and friends in recent months that he wants the Justice Department to investigate onetime officials and allies who have become critical of his time in office, including his former chief of staff, John F. Kelly, and former attorney general William P. Barr, as well as his ex-attorney Ty Cobb and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley, according to people who have talked to him, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations, the Washington Post reported. Trump has also talked of prosecuting officials at the FBI and Justice Department.
In public, Trump has vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” President Biden and his family. The disgraced former president has frequently made corruption accusations against the Bidens that are not supported by available evidence.
Trump’s associates have been drafting plans to dispense with 50 years of policy and practice intended to shield criminal prosecutions from political considerations, the Post reported. Critics have called such ideas dangerous and unconstitutional.
Much of the planning for a second term has been unofficially outsourced to a partnership of right-wing think tanks in Washington, led by the Heritage Foundation. Dubbed “Project 2025,” the group is developing a plan, to include draft executive orders, that would deploy the military domestically under the Insurrection Act, the Post reported. The law, last updated in 1871, authorizes the president to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement.
The plan also reportedly includes Trump proceeding with plans to greatly expand the number of government employees exempted from protection under the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, which was signed into law in 1883 to reduce the number of government jobs awarded as political patronage.
In October 2020 Trump signed an executive order to create a new “Schedule F” classification making “policy-making positions” at-will employees who could be thrown out of work by administrators. President Joe Biden rescinded the order shortly after taking office.
Not only would high-profile employees who publicly disagree with the president be targeted for removal, but also lower level employees tasked with collecting the data and evidence underlying much of what the federal government does — whom MAGA Republicans consider part of the “Deep State” — could be removed.
Trump has frequently argued that punitive steps against his perceived enemies would be justified by the current prosecutions against him. Trump has claimed the criminal charges he is facing — a total of 91 felonies across four state and federal jurisdictions — were made up to damage him politically, though the cases look solid.
“This is third-world-country stuff, ‘arrest your opponent,’” Trump said at a campaign stop in New Hampshire in October. “And that means I can do that, too.”
During an interview on Dec. 5, Fox News’ Sean Hannity tried to help Trump tone down the authoritarian rhetoric. Hannity asked Trump whether he would abuse power if he was returned to office and noted that Trump has been using the line, “I am your retribution” in his campaign. Trump responded by praising Al Capone, who he called “one of the greatest of all time, if you like criminals,” but Trump failed to promise that he wouldn’t abuse power.
Hannity tried again, asking Trump to promise the public that he wouldn’t abuse power as retribution against anybody. “Except for Day 1,” he replied. Trump followed this by saying, “I want to close the border and drill, drill, drill.” Trump then acknowledged that Hannity wanted him to say he’s not going to be a dictator, before repeating that he will be a dictator “on Day 1.”
Some Republicans said the former president was joking when he told Hannity he wouldn’t be a dictator “other than Day 1.”
Trump’s authoritarian rhetoric has not cracked his dominance of the Republican Party, but it has raised concerns among critics in both parties. “I think people who like Donald Trump like Donald Trump regardless of what he says and he entertains them with bombast, which they find humorous and compelling,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who voted twice to convict Trump following his Senate impeachment trials. “His base loves the authoritarian streak. I think they love the idea that he may use the military in domestic matters and that he will seek revenge and retribution. That’s why he’s saying it and has the lock, nearly, on the Republican nomination.”
And why would Trump give up on his dream of being a dictator? His heroes are dictators, such as Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Mohammed bin Salman and Kim Jong Un. In Trump’s view, they know how to run their countries, and he wants to follow their examples.
Many on the center-left are concerned about Joe Biden’s age and his inability to get the price of groceries down to pre-pandemic levels, despite Biden’s success in leading the economic recovery that has kept the unemployment rate 4% or below since December 2021. But remember, Trump is a 77-year-old aspiring fascist who faces 91 felonies in four jurisdictions, including efforts to overturn the election — and he wants to deport Muslims and put his critics in jail, while he uses the presidency as his “Stay Out of Jail” card.
We remain hopeful American voters will make the correct choice, and Trump’s only “Day 1” is when he reports to jail. – JMC
From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2024
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How close were you? The lone gunman approaches
EDITORIAL p. 2
Trump the fascist Joker
DON ROLLINS p. 4
Prison for the holidays
RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen p. 5
Boomer pols: Be more like the Carters
DISPATCHES p. 5
More jobs drop unemployment rate further.
Study shows corporate profiteering ‘amplified’ global inflation.
It’s high time, as 6 Democratic governors urge DEA to reschedule marijuana by year-end.
Rural jobs grew in September, but still lag.
Senate Republicans hand Putin victory.
Chattanooga VW workers announce push to join UAW.
ART CULLEN p. 6
Woke made Sen. Ernst choke
ALAN GUEBERT p. 6
Soybeans’ big players looking to a bruising year ahead
SONALI KOLHATKAR p. 7
The high cost of low holiday prices
JOHN YOUNG p. 7
How extortion machine fueled the Big Lie
KAZMYN RAMOS p. 8
The importance of home
JOE CONASON p. 9
What the numbers now tell about Biden’s economy
DAVID McCALL p. 10
Workers need a fighting chance
LES LEOPOLD p. 10
Wall Street or the working class: The Democrats must choose
ROBERT KUTTNER p. 11
Charlie Peters and the odyssey of neoliberalism
MARC G. RATCLIFF p. 11
The poignant path to despotism
THOM HARTMANN p. 12
If Democrats ran red states fewer people would die
SARAH ANDERSON p. 13
Scraping away the anti-worker, anti-racial equity vestiges of the Reagan era
JOSEPH B. ATKINS p. 14
Keeping the line to heaven
HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas p. 15
Dangerous ideas need stiffling
SAM URETSKY p. 15
Congress finally agrees on George Santos
FRANK LINGO p. 15
Climate conference offers little hope
WAYNE O’LEARY p. 16
Refugee roulette in Israel
JOEL D. JOSEPH p. 16
Henry Kissinger made the biggest mistakes in U.S. history
JAN SCHAKOWSKY p. 16
Hey House GOP, keep hands off Social Security and Medicare!
JASON SIBERT p. 17
Second Cold War will have no winners, except arms makers
JAMIE STIEHM p. 18
Haley best to vie vs. Trump — and Biden
BARRY FRIEDMAN p. 18
If Biden were Trump
LINDSAY KOSHGARIAN p. 18
The Pentagon just can’t pass an audit
RALPH NADER p. 19
Israeli government’s mass terrorism fortified by Biden and Congress
SAVANNAH ROSE p. 20
Outrage in Wyoming erupts over public land auction
ROB PATTERSON p. 20
Finally sold on reading Ebooks
MOVIE REVIEW/Ed Rampell p. 21
Polynesian happiness on the soccer field of dreams
AMY GOODMAN p. 22
Carbon colonialism, COP28 and the climate crisis
GENE NICHOL
The expanded NC Republican sedition caucu
From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2024
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