Dispatches

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NEARLY TWO-THIRDS OF AMERICANS THINK TRUMP ACTED ILLEGALLY — BOOSTING HIM IN GOP PRIMARY. A solid majority of Americans think Donald Trump is a criminal, including 53% who say he intentionally violated the law and another 11% who believe he did so unintentionally, Kerry Eleveld noted at Daily Kos (4/10).

To no one’s surprise, the new ABC News/Ipsos survey released April 9 also found large partisan disparities, with 87% of Democrats saying Trump intentionally did something illegal and 57% of independents agreeing, while just 19% of Republicans think Trump intentionally violated the law.

The poll also showed public opinion modestly increasing against Trump since news of the charges first broke on March 30, and the 34 counts were revealed on April 3. As of April 1, 50% of the public said the charges against Trump were either very or somewhat serious, while 52% believe that now.

The poll also found meaningful movement among independents, with the number who said the charges against Trump are very or somewhat serious increasing 11 points since April 1, from 43% then to 54% now.

While the charges have likely done little to improve Trump’s chances in a general election, they appear to be helping his quest to win the GOP nomination, though it’s perhaps too early to say decisively. Civiqs tracking of Trump’s favorable ratings shows Trump’s standing improving slightly among both Republicans and independents since he announced on March 19 that he expected to be arrested.

Since that declaration, Trump’s overall favorable rating has netted a narrow 2-point gain to 35% favorable, 58% unfavorable.

The modest bump derives mostly from a 2-point net gain among independents (32% favorable, 58% unfavorable) and a single point of improvement with Republicans (75% favorable, 14% unfavorable). Trump’s favorability rating among Republicans is clearly heading in a positive direction.

Civiqs tracking reflects what several post-indictment polls and focus groups have found: Trump is consolidating the GOP base behind him. From a short-term standpoint, Trump’s latest foray into commanding negative attention continues to improve his standing among Republicans, but it remains to be seen whether that trend will continue if additional indictments start piling up in several other criminal investigations into the twice-impeached 2020 loser.

STRONG JOB GROWTH IN MARCH, BUT HOURS DROP AND WAGE GROWTH SLOWS FURTHER. The March employment report gave clear evidence the Fed’s rate hikes are weakening the labor market, Dean Baker noted (4/7). Job growth was strong—with 236,000 jobs created—and the unemployment rate fell back to 3.5%, near the half-century low hit in January.

The employment-to-population ratio rose by 0.2 points to 60.4%, a post-pandemic high, but the index of aggregate hours fell for the second consecutive month. Perhaps most importantly, wage growth slowed further, with the average hourly wage rising at just a 3.2% annual rate over the last three months.

The unemployment rate for Black workers fell to 5% in March, the lowest rate on record. The unemployment rate for Black women fell to 4.2%, also a record low. Groups facing discrimination in the labor market disproportionately benefit from low unemployment, Baker noted.

“The current pace of wage growth is well below what we saw in the period before the pandemic when the inflation rate was running below the Fed’s 2% target. With productivity growth averaging close to 1.4% and the current slower pace of wage growth, it is very difficult to envision a story of a sustained inflation rate above the Fed’s target,” Baker wrote. “If the goal of the Fed’s rate hikes was to get wage growth down to a non-inflationary pace, it seems to have accomplished its mission.”

GOP TRIES CUTTING GEN Z’S SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS ON ’24 PLATFORM. Republicans are never going to stop plotting against Social Security, but they are trying to get a little more savvy about how they talk about their plotting, Joan McCarter noted at Daily Kos (4/10). Since President George W. Bush declared in 2005 that he was going to use the “political capital” he gained from his reelection to privatize Social Security, then lost both the House and Senate in 2006, the GOP has been more measured in its approach.

They now want to focus the pain on Gen Z, because what Republican doesn’t relish a little generational warfare against those damned kids? Raising the retirement age for people now in their 20s is all the rage among would-be 2024 Republican hopefuls. Nikki Haley and Mike Pence are both talking about raising the retirement age for people just starting out in their careers. Pence has even floated the idea of private savings accounts for those workers as a sweetener, and because that’s been the goal of their scheming all along: to divert all that sweet old-age insurance money into their wealthy hedge fund-owner friends’ pockets.

The problem for the GOP is that the idea remains really unpopular with all voters, of all ages. A new Demand Progress poll, first reported at Semafor, shows a large plurality of voters over age 45 are opposed to any hike in the retirement age—a full 48% of them. In fact, 40% think the current retirement age of 67 is too high and should be lowered, and only 8% back hiking the retirement age. For younger voters, the sentiment is even stronger, with 54% saying the current retirement age should be lowered.

Republicans are trying to present their anti-Social Security plots as “saving” Social Security, attempting to cast the GOP as the party that really cares about the future of the program. They’re also trying to reassure the people they count as their base—i.e. older voters—that they won’t feel any of the pain from the “reforms” they are suggesting. When Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan were trying to take the White House, they used a similar ploy, insisting that nothing they were proposing would affect current retirees, only people who were then in their early 50s.

The Demand Progress poll is by no means an outlier. A recent Fox News poll showed the same support for the program just as it is. In fact, a whopping 82% of respondents in that poll oppose raising the retirement age. Overall support for the program has grown in the past decade, according to Fox News polling, with 71% agreeing that it is more important to fund the program with no changes than to reduce the deficit (26%).

“When Fox asked the question in 2013, just 54% said ‘keep the programs untouched,’ while 40% prioritized reducing the federal deficit,” Kerry Eleveld wrote. “That’s a net turnaround of roughly 60 points in the last decade toward the position that Democrats hold on continuing to fully fund the programs.”

“The GOP’s basic premise—that they can keep pushing these cuts and minimize damage to their electoral prospects by just picking on the kids—is obviously wrong. But if they want to motivate more young people to vote, well, they should go right ahead with these plans,” McCarter wrote. “Young voters have already chosen their side: the Democrats. From abortion to gun safety to student loans, Republicans are digging their demographic hole ever deeper.”

ARMY SERGEANT FOUND GUILTY OF MURDER OF BLM PROTESTER, BUT GOV. ABBOTT DOESN’T BELIEVE AUSTIN TRIALS COUNT. A Travis County jury in Austin, Texas, unanimously convicted Daniel Perry, an Army sergeant moonlighting as a rideshare driver who shot and killed a Black Lives Matter the summer of 2020. While Texas prides itself as a “stand your ground” state, Hunter noted at Daily Kos (4/9), Perry’s act of murder appeared to be brazenly premeditated. In social media posts Perry sneered that he might “kill a few people on my way to work. They are rioting outside my apartment complex” and that he “might go to Dallas to shoot looters.” He argued with a friend over whether that would be legal; that friend warned him that “we went through the same training” and “Shooting after creating an event where you have to shoot” is “not a good shoot.”

Two weeks later Perry ran a red light and “accelerated” into a Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Austin. As protesters approached Perry rolled down his window and emptied his handgun at 28-year-old Air Force veteran Garrett Foster, who was legally carrying an AK-47 rifle. Perry would tell police afterwards that Foster was raising his weapon, but witnesses at the scene said Foster’s rifle barrel was pointed down. The Travis County jury determined that Perry had intentionally murdered Foster.

Within 24 hours, after Tucker Carlson on Fox “News” challenged Gov. Greg Abbott to pardon Perry, Abbott vowed that he would pardon Perry as “swiftly” as he is able to. “Texas has one of the strongest ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive District Attorney,” tweeted Abbott. Texas governors can’t unilaterally pardon convicts, but Abbott announced that he had requested the Board of Pardons and Paroles to review Perry’s conviction and “instructed the Board to expedite its review.”

Abbott appeared to presume the outcome was already predestined: “I look forward to approving the Board’s pardon recommendation as soon as it hits my desk.”

RADLEY BALKO HAS RECEIPTS ON YEARS OF TENNESSEE REPUBLICAN BIGOTRY AND ABUSES OF POWER. Competition for the title of worst state legislature in the country is fierce, but Republicans who control the Tennessee House have been making their case recently, expelling two young Black members over a peaceful protest on the House floor and falling just short of expelling an older white woman who joined in. The expulsions follow the passage of the state’s gross, headline-grabbing anti-drag law and have also drawn attention to how Tennessee Republicans have recently attacked local control of government in Nashville after the Metro Council rejected being the host city for the Republican National Convention, Laura Clawson noted at Daily Kos (4/7). But Radley Balko makes the case that Tennessee Republicans have been in the fight to be The Absolute Worst for a while now.

“The Tennessee legislature responds to the Tyre Nichols murder by … overriding police accountability measures passed by voters, stripping civilian review boards of their power, and making it more difficult to investigate abuse and excessive force,” Balko kicked off his Twitter thread on the Tennessee legislature (4/6). That’s very much in line with the approach to democracy and local control shown in the Nashville RNC situation. But it’s not the only way Tennessee Republicans have distinguished themselves, and he has receipts.

“Our legislature honored Candace Owen (shortly after she praised Hitler) for her ‘criticism of creeping socialism and leftist political tyranny,’” Balko tweeted, “but refused to honor Renata Soto because she worked with groups who help undocumented immigrants.”

Tennessee Republicans passed a resolution congratulating Ben Shapiro for moving his company to the state, but blocked a resolution honoring a murdered 17-year-old because, in addition to being a basketball player who founded an LGBTQ student group and worked two jobs, she was rumored to have been involved in a “small marijuana sale.”

Speaking of basketball, one of the representatives Tennessee Republicans haven’t expelled in recent years was a fellow Republican accused of having sexually assaulted three teenage girls decades earlier while he was their basketball coach. Rep. David Byrd ultimately didn’t seek reelection after a furor that included Rep. Gloria Johnson, the lawmaker who was almost expelled for a decorum violation on April 6, filing an expulsion resolution.

Another Republican who got to leave by not seeking reelection rather than by being expelled was former Tennessee House Speaker Glen Casada, who resigned as speaker after a scandal involving his chief of staff using cocaine in the statehouse, sending racist texts to people, including Casada, and doctoring an email to try to frame a student activist for violating a no-contact order. The student activist in question was Justin Jones, one of the Democrats expelled on April 6, and the no-contact order came after Jones was accused of throwing a cup of coffee into an elevator Casada was in. But wait, Casada’s story isn’t over! He and the same chief of staff were indicted for fraud, theft, and bribery in 2022, after he had resigned as speaker but while he was still in the legislature. He didn’t run for reelection, but did serve out his term.

Yet another Tennessee Republican was not expelled after it came to light that he had prescribed opioids for family members, including his second cousin/lover.

These are some high-quality folks representing the Republican Party in the Tennessee legislature.

Their track record of appalling actions goes back a ways, too. In 2013, two Republican lawmakers reportedly freaked out that a renovation to the Capitol building might have added a footwashing sink for Muslims to one bathroom. In reality, it was a mop sink.

“Tennessee Republicans have been largely flying under the radar, drawing less attention than their fellow Republican legislators in other states and in Congress,” Clawson concluded. “But it turns out they’ve been right there all along.”

‘ZOMBIE’ ABORTION BANS HAVE A BAD WEEK IN THE MIDWEST, BUT IT’S A VERY DIFFERENT STORY IN IDAHO. Two states moved in opposite directions on abortion rights on April 5. On the same day, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a repeal of Michigan’s 1931 abortion ban and Gov. Brad Little signed Idaho’s new “abortion trafficking” ban, which effectively places limits on interstate travel by minors. Both moves came the day after Wisconsin voters elected Judge Janet Protasiewicz to the state Supreme Court after a campaign focusing on that state’s 1849 abortion ban. A challenge to that ban will be heard in a county circuit court in May, and is expected to eventually go to the state Supreme Court, where Protasiewicz’s election shifts the balance of power from conservatives to liberals, Laura Clawson noted at Daily Kos (4/6).

“Who would like to see me slay a zombie?” Whitmer said at the bill signing, describing the law—which, like Wisconsin’s abortion ban, remained on the books after the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, only to resurface nearly five decades later after the court overturned Roe—as a “threat coming back to haunt us all.” Michigan voters had passed a constitutional amendment affirming reproductive rights in November’s elections, but repealing the 1931 law was an additional step to safeguard those rights for the future. And it was a step made possible only by the fact that, at the same time they voted on the abortion measure, voters also elected Democratic majorities in the Michigan House and Senate and reelected Whitmer.

The Idaho “abortion trafficking” law is clearly aimed at keeping teens from traveling out of state for abortions since abortion is banned in the state, but Republicans closely followed model legislation from the National Right to Life Committee to create the pretense that this is about something other than restricting interstate travel. Under the new law, an “adult who, with the intent to conceal an abortion from the parents or guardian of a pregnant, unemancipated minor, either procures an abortion … or obtains an abortion-inducing drug” can be sentenced to two to five years in prison.

But it’s not about interstate travel, the law doth protest too much. Instead, “Recruiting, harboring, or transporting the pregnant minor within this state commits the crime of abortion trafficking.” Republicans are counting on Republican-packed courts to okay that on the grounds that it insistently doesn’t say anything about the necessity of crossing state lines if you’re an Idaho resident trying to get an abortion.

Protesting still more, Little wrote in a letter to the state House speaker, “The ‘abortion trafficking’ provision in the bill seeks only to prevent unemancipated minor girls from being taken across state lines for an abortion without the knowledge and consent of her parent or guardian.”

Republicans might as well erect a billboard saying “We know the ‘abortion trafficking’ law walks right up to the line of what even the most right-wing judges would say is unconstitutional, but hey, Justice Kavanaugh, we kept you in mind!”

”It’s remarkable that lawmakers believe that young Idahoans don’t have the capacity to make reproductive healthcare choices for themselves or deserve bodily autonomy, but believe that those same young people should have the capacity to raise and care for children on their own, without any major social or economic support,” the Northwest Abortion Access Fund said in a statement. It’s remarkable in the sense that it should be remarked on, but it’s a standard Republican position.

Idaho has already seen an exodus of doctors that played a role in forcing one hospital to close its labor and delivery services.

REPUBLICANS VOTE AGAINST FREE SCHOOL LUNCH, TURN AROUND AND VOTE FOR FREE LUNCH FOR THEMSELVES. On March 27, the North Dakota Senate failed to pass HB 1491, 23-24, with only Republicans voting against it. HB 1491 would have earmarked $6 million to help provide school lunches for children from low-income families. Republicans like state Sen. Mike Wobbema argued that North Dakotans shouldn’t have to pay for “parents being negligent.”

On April 6, only five business days later, the very same “Republican-dominated” North Dakota Senate passed SB 2124, 26-21. Walter Einenkel noted at Daily Kos (4/7). This bill raises the amount of money North Dakota senators and their staff can be reimbursed by the state for meals. It’s like lunch money that North Dakotans pay for! For adults!

The bill also directs the office of management of the state to “establish a policy to set the lodging reimbursement at an amount equal to 90% of the rate established by the US general services administration for lodging reimbursement in this state. A political subdivision may reimburse an elective or appointive officer, employee, representative, or agent for actual lodging expenses.”

Guess who voted to get themselves some free meals?

Mike Wobbema again:

“We talk about personal responsibility as one of the major principles that the Republican Party stands on. Yes, I can understand kids going hungry, but is that really the problem of the school district? Is that the problem of the state of North Dakota?”

CITY OF WACO FORCED DEADBEAT DONALD TO PAY HIS RALLY EXPENSES. Donald Trump takes so little accountability for anything—whether it’s paying for his crimes or paying his bills—that it feels like a small win for justice whenever it actually happens. So, it’s worth noting Waco forced him to pay $60,714.27 for use of the city-owned venue, as well as police, fire, and traffic services for the March 25 rally, Aldous Pennyfarthing noted at Daily Kos (4/7).

Trump held a rally in Waco, Texas, at the end of March to whine about the universe and remind everyone what it was like to have a squishy wad of pure, shambolic id as president. He didn’t say anything of particular import—if you want to get the gist, just cue up any one of Adolf Hitler’s old speeches while mainlining meth and ranch dressing into your carotid artery—but he did pay his rally-related expenses.

Because Waco was ready for him.

Of course, Trump actually paying his bills is decidedly a man-bites-dog story. Because, well, those are both examples of things that hardly ever happen—unless Trump suddenly feels peckish and is more than 30 yards away from the nearest bucket of cheesy fries, of course. But a new “exclusive” report from Dave Levinthal, editor-in-chief of Raw Story, details how Waco officials forced Trump to pay his rally bills, even as he continues to stiff municipalities across the country—entities that still send him invoices as if he’s a normal human being with a conscience or something.

[W]hen Trump wanted to conduct an “unprecedented” 2024 presidential campaign rally on March 25 in Waco, Texas, municipal officials there didn’t dawdle in ensuring the former president’s committee would cover tens of thousands of dollars in unanticipated city expenses, according to government documents obtained by Raw Story through a Texas Public Information Act request.

Knowing full well they had legal leverage over Trump — Trump’s requested rally venue was the city-owned Waco Regional Airport — the city manager and city attorney’s office made the Trump campaign sign a binding 10-page contract eight days before his event.

Hey, you have to like any sentence that includes “binding” and “Trump,” even if it’s just about forcing him to pay for stuff.

The contract Raw Story obtained outlined exactly what would be expected of the Trump campaign if he wanted to use the city to rile up his frothing orc horde during the 30th anniversary of the Branch Davidian tragedy.

“All expenses incurred by the City for public safety, sanitation and transportation personnel and resources required to preserve public order and protect public health, safety and welfare, together with any other expenses or costs that may be incurred by the City as a result of the Event shall be paid for by DJTFP24 [Donald J. Trump for President 2024],” the contract read.

In addition, reports Raw Story, the contract required the Trump campaign to pay $24,000 up front for renting the city-owned venue. Meanwhile, city-incurred expenses such as police, fire, and traffic services amounted to $36,714.27. The grand total: $60,714.27.

So did it work?

“The bill was paid in full prior to the event. No balance remains,” Waco Director of Parks and Recreation Jonathan Cook told Raw Story. And on March 23—two days before the event—the Waco Tribune-Herald carefully reported the same. “City spokesperson Monica Sedelmeier said Thursday the campaign was billed $60,714 for city services, a debt now retired,” the local paper in the conservative city noted—before diving breathlessly into the details of preparation.

Wow. Miracle of miracles. Could the second coming of David Koresh be far behind?

From The Progressive Populist, May 1, 2023

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