Dispatches

GOP ‘FAIR TAX’ PROPOSAL IS ANYTHING BUT.

What’s worse than the Freedom Caucus running the House of Representatives? The Freedom Caucus running the House and getting their policy ideas from the Church of Scientology. Believe it or not, that’s where the “Fair Tax” idea — a national sales tax to replace the income tax — was born a few decades ago, and become a GOP hobby horse. At one point John McCain advocated for it. Mike Huckabee centered it in his failed presidential runs.

Joan McCarter of DailyKos noted (1/19) it lost traction with most of the GOP over the years, introduced by some whack-job every session of Congress but never making it out of committee. That’s possibly going to change this Congress, because one of the concessions the maniacs wrung from Kevin McCarthy in exchange for them allowing him to hold the gavel was having a floor vote on this proposal. Wheeeee!

The proposal eliminates all federal taxes and dissolves the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and institutes a 30% national sales tax on pretty much everything. Which is just about as regressive a tax system as you can get. The sponsors are claiming that the tax is “just” 23%, but it’s actually 30%, as the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) explains. Something with a $100 price tag would cost, with the tax, $130. The proponents of the Fair Tax use that $130 as the “gross payment,” and then say that the $30 you paid in tax is just 23% of the final bill. Yes, that’s deceptive arithmetic, and no, it is not at all fair.

This obviously hits lower- and middle-income people the hardest, the ones who don’t have savings and investments and all those financial cushions against monthly bills. It would provide for “prebates,” monthly cash allowances to be distributed by the Social Security Administration (SSA), for the lowest-income people. Sure, make the chronically underfunded and struggling SSA pick up that monthly burden. That makes sense.

Those cash payments, by they way, would create a bigger welfare system than has ever existed before, and might help the lowest-income people. But that would mean that the sales tax would have to be increased on middle-income people to pay for it, and the wealthiest get off really lightly. Some estimates from a few decades ago suggest that the tax would have to be as high as 60% to cover all the revenue lost when every other federal tax is eliminated.

In 2004, ITEP estimated that “if the Fair Tax was enacted and the national sales tax rate was set at 45%, the poorest 80% of Americans would face net tax hikes from the proposal while most of those among the richest 20% would enjoy net tax cuts.” They’re in the process of reevaluating that in 2023 terms now. The Tax Policy Center analysis in 2011 determined that a consumption tax like this would “reduce the tax burden for the top 1% (who make an average of $1.6 million per year) by a stunning 40%.”

HOUSE GOP FRACTURES OVER FIRST IMMIGRATION-RELATED PROPOSAL. It’s not only the ridiculous impeachment articles against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that may get thwarted by a handful of House Republican holdouts. Washington Post’s Greg Sargent says the proposal stomping out asylum—even for unaccompanied migrant children—is also (thankfully) at risk, Gabe Ortiz noted at DailyKos (1/23).

Sargent said Republicans had planned to fast-track the bill to the House floor as early as this week as part of the corrupt bargaining that won Kevin McCarthy his speakership vote after 15 tries. But that imminent vote won’t be happening anymore after “backlash from more moderate Republicans” who had expressed worry about the bill.

Sargent writes “the scope” of House Republicans’ very first immigration-related bill “has rattled dozens of House Republicans, many of whom worry it would prevent migrants and unaccompanied children fleeing violence from seeking asylum in the United States—a traditionally protected tenet of the country’s immigration laws.” These days, respecting those US asylum laws gets to count you as a “moderate.”

While dozens have cosponsored Texas US Rep. Chip Roy’s “Border Safety and Security Act,” the chamber’s slim majority means that the few publicly concerned by the proposal have some major leverage, like Texas’ Tony Gonzales. He seems to be emerging as a major thorn in McCarthy’s side because in addition to pushing back against Roy’s bill, he’s also said he’s opposed, at least for now, to the impeachment effort against Mayorkas.

“We can’t allow the Republican Party to be hijacked,” he said in Sargent’s piece. “Trying to ban legitimate asylum claims—one, it’s not Christian, and two, to me, it’s very anti-American. So a lot is at stake.”

There is a lot stake, and seeking to tear up asylum law and provisions for children under anti-trafficking legislation (keep in mind this is the same party that claims it’s very, very concerned about kids) is profoundly anti-democratic, and against the values we say we espouse as a nation. It’s also true that in this Congress, Gonzales and those opposing the bill are the outliers, not the other way around. Remember that as Republicans were preparing to take control of the chamber last November, noted white supremacist Stephen Miller was spotted walking into McCarthy’s office. McCarthy himself had promised right-wing rags that pro-immigrant bills won’t pass his chamber.

Sargent writes the bill now heads back into committee following a request from Rep. Don Bacon (Neb.), another Republican who’d expressed concerns. “We’re convinced that if it goes through committee, some of the areas that we’re worried about, like asylum rules, will hopefully get fixed or improved,” he told Sargent.

For a bill to go back to committee can sometimes spell doom. It can be a legislative graveyard to be forgotten, and die on a pile of other proposals. But members of the House Homeland Security Committee now include Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), a co-sponsor of the bill. Republicans of this type have often considered anyone being able to successfully be granted relief under our asylum system a “loophole.” There are certainly major improvements we can make to our immigration system overall, but this bill ain’t it. Greene’s cosponsorship tells us all that already.

MORE THAN 70% OF DEMS BACK GOVERNMENT-RUN UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE: POLL. A new poll released by Gallup (1/23) found that 72% of Democratic voters support a “government-run healthcare system,” compared to just 26% who backed continuing a “system based mostly on private health insurance,” such as the “healthcare marketplace” created by the Affordable Care Act under the Obama administration in 2010. Under the law, 27.5 million Americans still were without health insurance as of 2021, Julia Conley noted at CommonDreams (1/23).

President Joe Biden suggested in 2020 that he would veto Medicare for All legislation if it passed in Congress and reached his desk, and he said during the 2020 presidential campaign that the proposal to improve Medicare and expand it to all Americans was “unrealistic,” adding that voters would prefer the option of keeping their employer-based health insurance if they have it.

The Gallup poll suggested that a majority of Democratic voters—contrary to repeated claims by corporate media and Democratic leaders—hold views on healthcare that are closer to those of Medicare for All proponents such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), among a growing number of progressives in Congress.

The poll also found that across the political spectrum, 57% of respondents said the government should ensure all people have healthcare coverage—the highest number to say so in a Gallup poll since 2018.

Nearly half—46%—of independents also backed a government-run national healthcare program, but 50% were opposed, and the vast majority of Republicans backed a private health insurance system.

The poll comes days after another Gallup survey showed that under the current healthcare system, in which private insurance companies are expected to raise premium prices by between 6% and 12% this year, nearly 40% of Americans said they or a family member avoided or delayed seeking medical care in the last year due to cost.

Just 12% of respondents in another poll released last September said they believed the US healthcare system is run “very” or “extremely” well.

WATCHDOGS WARN HOUSE GOP BILL WOULD ‘LOCK IN ANOTHER CENTURY OF OIL AND GAS. Climate watchdogs warned that a bill House Republicans are advancing is a thinly veiled effort to open more public lands and waters to planet-wrecking oil and gas drilling.

The Strategic Production Response Act, sponsored by new House Energy and Commerce Committee chair Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), aims to curtail presidential authority to release oil from the US’ strategic reserve—something President Joe Biden did on a major scale last year in an attempt to curb gas prices, Jake Johnson reported at CommonDreams (1/23).

But Joshua Axelrod, a senior advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) who focuses on public lands, noted in a blog post Monday that “despite its title, the bill neither responds to any existing problem nor advances any coherent or achievable energy policy.”

“Under the guise of limiting the use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), the Strategic Production Response Act appears, in fact, to be focused on establishing a federal oil and gas leasing mandate that eclipses all past efforts to hand over public lands and offshore areas to oil and gas companies,” Axelrod wrote. “How? Under the proposed language, no non-emergency drawdown of the SPR can take place without the development of a plan from the Secretary of Energy and other relevant agency heads to ‘lease for oil and gas production ... [on lands and waters] by the same percentage’ as the planned SPR drawdowns (up to 10%).”

“Put more clearly: If 1% of the SPR is to be drawn down, a plan to lease 1% of available public lands or offshore areas must first be developed,” Axelrod added, cautioning that—if passed—the measure would “lock in another century of oil and gas.”

In a letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm expressed strong opposition to Rodgers’ bill, arguing it would cause “more oil supply shortages in times of crisis and higher gasoline prices for Americans.”

Jordan Schreiber, the director of energy and environment at the progressive watchdog group Accountable.US, echoed that warning.

“McCarthy and his MAGA majority are making it clear right out of the gate—they’d rather play politics than provide much-needed relief for American consumers,” said Schreiber. “This bill hamstrings the executive branch, taking away a critical tool in combating rampant price gouging at the pump while making it easier to give our public lands away to the very companies responsible for artificially high prices. Instead of holding accountable Big Oil CEOs for causing last year’s record-setting gas prices, the new majority is hellbent on making political statements as American families suffer.”

Biden’s Interior Department has come under fire from environmentalists for auctioning off huge swaths of public lands and waters for oil and gas extraction despite the president’s campaign vow to put an end to such drilling.

Nonetheless, Republicans awash in Big Oil campaign cash have repeatedly accused the Biden administration of being insufficiently aggressive when it comes to turning federal lands and waters over to the profit-soaked fossil fuel industry.

Rodgers, who received $218,367 from individuals and PACs associated with the oil and gas industry during the last election cycle, said in a floor speech in January that “it’s time to cut the red tape and expand energy production here at home.”

In recent days, branches of the Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity have been boosting Rodgers’ legislation on Twitter, urging the GOP-controlled House to pass it.

With Democrats narrowly controlling the Senate, the bill—one of several Big Oil-friendly measures Republicans are planning to advance in the coming months—is unlikely to make it to Biden’s desk.

Axelrod of NRDC argued it is “not hyperbole” to conclude that Rodgers’ legislation proposes “a leasing plan so massive in scale it would eclipse all historic precedent and pave the way for federal oil and gas leasing well into the next century.”

“The agencies implicated by this proposal have jurisdiction over 3.1 billion acres of onshore and offshore areas, suggesting that the 10% limit on acreage that could be leased translates into 314 million acres. That’s more than eight times as many acres currently under lease,” Axelrod wrote.

TRUMP GOES FULL QANON, OFFERS ONE OF HIS RESORTS FOR CONSPIRACISTS’ SPRING CONFERENCE. Former President Donald Trump isn’t even trying to hide his QAnon affiliations anymore. In fact, he’s stepping up his relationship with the fringe conspiracist group and going full Q by allowing the organization to have its “ReAwaken America” tour at one of his resorts, Rebekah Sager noted at DailyKos (1/20).

The Daily Beast reports that in mid-May, QAnon will hold one of its weekend-long conferences at the Trump Doral hotel in Miami. Most of the conferences are sold out, according to a website that sells tickets, but it appears the Miami dates are still available.

The ReAwaken America is hosted by Clay Clark, a right-wing, Oklahoma-based entrepreneur and serious anti-vaxxer. The conference bills itself as part conservative Christian revival, part political rally, and of course, a big part QAnon expo—complete with merch.

NPR reports that it usually features prominent names in the MAGA world—MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, former Trump national security adviser Michael Stone, Roger Stone, Trump loyalist Kash Patel, often Eric Trump, and always a long list of unnamed conspiracist speakers.

In October, AP covered one of the ReAwaken conferences where Flynn spoke, warning the crowd of about 3,000 that they were in a “spiritual war” and a “political war.”

“I want you to look around and you’ll see a group of people that love this country dearly,” Clark said. “At this Reawaken America Tour, Jesus is King (and) President Donald J. Trump is our president.”

Trump has long supported QAnon and endorsed many candidates who are openly Q in their beliefs, but since his loss in 2020, things have gotten even more odd with the former president.

Using Truth Social, Trump has verified 47 QAnon accounts, all with over 10,000 followers, NewsGuard reports. Not to mention a 60-post QAnon meme stream in August—all in one day.

In December, Trump famously posed for a photo with prominent QAnon promoter Liz Crokin at Mar-a-Lago.

“There always seems to be a correlation between the amount of times Trump is amplifying QAnon accounts and periods where I’d say he’s under stress,” Media Matters senior researcher Alex Kaplan told The Daily Beast. “QAnon accounts are usually ones that are giving him praise and reassurances, which I’m sure he likes.”

As Daily Kos’ David Neiwert writes, Trump has “perfected this tango in the case of the QAnon movement, pretending at first to know nothing about them—despite having winked and nudged in their direction for years—but telling reporters: “I heard that these are people that love our country.”

PELOSI OFFICE TRESPASSER SAYS HIS CONVICTION WAS UNFAIR BECAUSE JURY MEMBERS WEREN’T ‘PEERS.’ Richard “Bigo” Barnett was convicted (1/23) by a jury on all eight counts in his indictment including felony charges of civil disorder and obstruction of an official proceeding during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. “You likely remember Barnett as the guy who had pictures taken of him with his feet up on then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk, and subsequently bragged about taking mail from Pelosi’s office and leaving a note saying, “Nancy, Bigo was here, you b!@#!,” Walter Einenkel noted at DailyKos (1/23)

The 62-year old Arkansas resident‘s initial defense was that he didn’t physically open the doors of the Capitol building and really just went inside to use the bathroom, and therefore anything that he happened to do once inside was not his fault. He also whined about being imprisoned as a result of his actions. By the time Barnett was in court, his defense amounted to the idea that his alter ego, a.k.a. “Bigo,” broke all the laws but he himself did not. In fact, Barnett said that guy—Bigo—was simply a “f***ing idiot” and shouldn’t be held accountable for his actions. Real manly stuff. It’s sort of a reality television defense. Obviously, the jury did not buy the idea that saying you were play-acting at being an insurrectionist gives you immunity from breaking the law.

Barnett faces a wide gamut of sentencing possibilities. When leaving the courthouse after the verdict, Barnett and his legal counsel had an even newer defense that they hope to gin up some money for an appeal.

Barnett came outside and said his conviction was the result of an unfair trial. What was unfair about his trial? According to “Bigo,” the jury was not a cross-section of his “peers.” CBS Congressional News Reporter Scott MacFarlane was outside of the courthouse and asked Barnett what he meant by that. Barnett’s attorney Joe McBride decided to step in here to explain:

MCBRIDE: “Number one, Washington, D.C. is not a state; number two, he’s not surrounded by a jury of his peers, a jury of people from Arkansas. A place where he came from.”

“Or a jury with a political composition of anything that’s like the rest of the United States. Washington, D.C. is something like 95, 96 percent Biden voters, right? So that we believe that plays a crucial role in the political factors ever present in these cases.”

The proportion of votes Biden received in D.C. in 2020 was 92%. But considering it was an Arkansas judge who originally released Barnett into the custody of his aiding and abetting girlfriend before a federal judge threw him into a jail to await trial, I can see why wanting to get some cover away from the place where you broke the law might be appealing. McBride goes on to basically say a change of venue will be every convicted Jan. 6, client’s basis for appeal.

So to summarize: The only way that Barnett and his attorney believe he can get a “fair” trial is if the jury is made up of anti-Joe Biden Arkansans from the area where Barnett “came from.”

INSURRECTIONIST WHO BRAGGED HE SHOULD HAVE DEFILED PELOSI’S CHAIR DURING J6 BREAK-IN SENTENCED TO PRISON. After the bloat of insurgents were kicked out of the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, some of them went home or to their phones to brag about what they did. In virtually every case, these braggarts then found themselves arrested on various charges of breaking the law. Whether they could comprehend it at the moment or not, they broke a lot of laws. Even the most clueless were no better than pawns in a billionaire elite’s plan to overthrow our democratically elected government, Walter Einenkel noted at DailyKos (1/19).

One such blowhard, Pennsylvania’s own James Douglas Rahm Jr., was sentenced to one year in prison, three years’ probation, and an order to pay restitution for the damages caused in the attack on Capitol grounds (1/18). Rahm is 63 years old and is probably best known as being one of the many insurgents to livestream some of their felonies, and then boast about it online later. In Rahm’s case, he wrote: “Walked right through Pelosi’s office. I should have sh*t on her chair.”

US District Judge Thomas F. Hogan did not care whether or not Rahm really wanted to defecate on a person’s office chair or not, telling the convict, “Whether you were exaggerating or boasting, I don’t know, but I hope we have learned in this country that words do matter—whether they’re from the president or someone else.”

According to the *Philadelphia Inquirer*, Rahm’s lawyers tried to downplay all of their client’s talk as “idle” bragging, and Rahm himself told the court: “When I put my foot over that threshold, my stomach dropped to the floor. I knew only a terrorist should be in there.” Of course, as prosecutors and Hogan pointed out, this bad tummy feeling Rahm says he had seemed to clear right up as once inside, he filmed himself saying things like, “We’re in. We’re taking our f***ing house back. We’re here. Time to find some brass and kick some frickin’ ass.” He also had all kinds of what some might call the opposite of remorse after the event on Facebook.

Under a comment suggesting he go back inside the building and “(give) Pelosi a kiss,” Rahm writes: “Pissed in her office,” followed by a thumbs-up emoji, court docs show.

Rahm was arrested on Feb. 5, 2021, and charged with violent obstruction of Congress. He was convicted on Oct. 13, 2022, after pleading guilty to “obstruction of an official proceeding, a felony, and four related misdemeanor offenses, including entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building.”

Rahm’s lawyers pleaded for only probation and argued he had been punished enough. According to Rahm, his construction business lost clients and now he could only collect trash, and his own mother stopped speaking to him for half a year. Unfortunately for Rahm, he has a history of receiving probation “at least four times after being convicted in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s in a string of crimes ranging from drug possession to assault.” Hogan seems to believe that doing a little time might be best. Rahm’s adult son went along with his dad and faces similar charges.

From The Progressive Populist, February 15, 2023

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