The Republican National Committee this week reaffirmed its loyalty to GOP mob boss and standard-bearer Donald Trump, who is now facing 71 criminal counts in two cases, one at the federal level and the other in Manhattan, Kerry Eleveld noted at DailyKos.com (6/17).
The RNC made its reverence to Trump clear after he was federally arraigned June 13 for mishandling national security secrets. At least one Republican presidential candidate expressed concern about taking a pledge to support the party’s nominee—who could conceivably be a convict by next summer.
“I’m not going to vote for him if he’s a convicted felon,” former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson told Politico. “I’m not going to vote for him if he’s convicted of espionage, and I’m not going to vote for him if he’s (convicted of) other serious crimes. And I’m not going to support him.”
The RNC has made pledging one’s loyalty to the GOP nominee a criteria for participating in the first Republican presidential debate on Aug. 23.
But when Hutchinson’s campaign aides raised concerns about pledging support to a man who is accused of committing the worst national security breach in modern times, the RNC basically told them to take a hike.
“Candidates who are complaining about this to the press should seriously reconsider their priorities and whether they should even be running,” RNC senior adviser Richard Walters told Politico. He added that candidates are simply being asked to “respect the decision of Republican primary voters.”
Unfortunately for Hutchinson, Republican primary voters appear to be practically giddy about nominating a twice-impeached, criminally indicted coup plotter.
A recent CBS News/YouGov poll found that just 38% of likely Republican primary voters view Trump possessing classified documents after leaving office as a national security risk. Naturally, 80% of the rest of the country does think it’s a risk, including 91% of Democrats and 69% of independents.
The results of an NPR/PBS/Marist survey released June 16 also demonstrate a growing electoral divide between Republican voters and independents where Trump is concerned.
Half of independents now believe Trump broke the law, up 9 points since March; Republicans are headed in the opposite direction, with 50% saying Trump did nothing wrong, a 5-point increase since March.
A 58% majority of independents now believe Trump should drop out of the presidential race, while 83% of Republicans think he should stay in.
In other words, Republican primary voters are almost hermetically sealed from the rest of the country. Whatever that might mean for the Republican primary, it’s electorally fraught for Republicans in the general election.
BERNIE KERIK PITCHED TRUMP CHIEF OF STAFF ON ‘$5 to $8’ MILLION PLAN TO REVERSE TRUMP’S 2020 LOSS. Bernie Kerik had a plan to keep former President Trump in office after losing the 2020 election — and he knew how much it would cost. Roughly.
Per an email surfaced in a defamation lawsuit brought against Rudy Giuliani, Kerik wrote to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in a Dec. 28, 2020 missive that he would need “between $5 to $8M” to put a plan into action that would pressure state legislators into throwing their electors behind Trump, TalkingPointsMemo.com reported (6/15).
It was one feature of a broader effort to co-opt state legislatures into a scheme that would have seen them try to send slates of fake electors to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. A “strategic communications plan” attached to Kerik’s email indicated he would need millions of dollars to work alongside Giuliani to “pressure” state lawmakers into cooperating.
Kerik is a longtime Giuliani confidante who served as commissioner of the New York City Police Department during Giuliani’s mayoralty. Thanks to a recommendation from Giuliani, he went on to serve as the interim interior minister of Iraq during the country’s occupation by US forces. In 2010, Kerik went to prison after pleading guilty to a slew of charges including tax fraud and making false statements to the White House in conjunction with his vetting for federal posts. Kerik was pardoned by Trump in 2020.
The message with Kerik’s multimillion-dollar ask and strategic plan emerged in a defamation lawsuit that Giuliani faces, brought by two Georgia poll workers, Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman. Giuliani spent months in late 2020 and early 2021 claiming that the mother-daughter pair were caught on video unloading ballots from a suitcase at an arena in Fulton County, Ga., while saying falsely that one of the two had a criminal record. The allegations against Moss and Freeman, and Trump’s claims that Georgia was stolen from him, were shown repeatedly to be baseless.
Hunter noted at DailyKos.com (6/16), “The most intriguing part of all of this, though, is that at least Kerik believed Trump’s point man for plots to overturn the election was–yep–Meadows. It was Meadows that Kerik was giving updates to, and it was Meadows that Kerik was repeatedly contacting to shake both petty cash and seven-figure sums from.
“Not Trump’s campaign. Not Trump himself. Not the Republican Party apparatus that was a hub of cash and lawyers relentlessly devoted to getting Donald Trump out of legal trouble. As far as Kerik was concerned, it was Trump’s White House chief of staff who was coordinating election nullification efforts.
“And Meadows has been as silent as a mouse as multiple state and federal investigations swirl and America sees numerous violent backers of the election-erasing scheme convicted for their own parts in a seditious conspiracy.”
TEXAS NULLIFIES LOCAL RULES REQUIRING WATER BREAKS FOR WORKERS AS TEMPS SOAR. In a week when parts of Texas were getting triple-digit temperatures and weather officials urged Texans to stay cool and hydrated, Gov. Greg Abbott gave final approval to a law that will eliminate local rules mandating water breaks for construction workers, TexasTribune.org reported (6/16).
House Bill 2127 was passed by the Texas Legislature during this year’s regular legislative session. Abbott signed it June 13. It takes effect Sept. 1.
Supporters of the law have said it will eliminate a patchwork of local ordinances across the state that “bog down” businesses. The law’s scope is broad but ordinances that establish minimum breaks in the workplace are one of the explicit targets. The law will nullify ordinances enacted by Austin in 2010 and Dallas in 2015 that established 10-minute breaks every four hours so that construction workers can drink water and protect themselves from the sun. It also prevents other cities from passing such rules in the future. San Antonio has been considering a similar ordinance.
Texas is the state where the most workers die from high temperatures, government data shows. At least 42 workers died in Texas between 2011 and 2021 from environmental heat exposure, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Workers’ unions claim this data doesn’t fully reflect the magnitude of the problem because heat-related deaths are often recorded under a different primary cause of injury.
This problem particularly affects Latinos because they represent six out of every 10 construction workers, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
Unions expect heat-related deaths to go up if mandated water breaks go away.
“Construction is a deadly industry. Whatever the minimum protection is, it can save a life. We are talking about a human right,” said Ana Gonzalez, deputy director of policy and politics at the Texas AFL-CIO. “We will see more deaths, especially in Texas’ high temperatures.”
HB 2127, introduced by state Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, is perhaps Texas Republicans’ most aggressive attempt to curb progressive policies in the state’s largest, liberal-leaning cities. Under the new law, local governments would be unable to create rules that go beyond what state law dictates in broad areas like labor, agriculture, business and natural resources.
Beyond eliminating mandated water breaks for construction workers, opponents of the legislation argue that it will also make it more difficult for cities and counties to protect tenants facing eviction or to combat predatory lending, excessive noise and invasive species. Labor unions and workers’ rights advocates opposed the law, while business organizations supported it, including the National Federation of Independent Business, a lobbying group with more than 20,000 members in Texas. Abbott said it would “provide a new hope to Texas businesses struggling under burdensome local regulations.”
Supporters of HB 2127 say that local regulations on breaks for construction workers are unnecessary because the right to a safe labor environment is already guaranteed through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Water breaks are better solved by OSHA controls, argued Geoffrey Tahuahua, president of Associated Builders and Contractors of Texas. Tahuahua believes local rules impose a rigid scheme that, unlike OSHA guidelines, does not allow the flexibility needed to tailor breaks to individual job site conditions.
David Michaels, who was head of OSHA from 2009 to 2017, disagreed with the approach of HB 2127 proponents.
“Under OSHA law, it is employers who are responsible to make sure workers are safe,” said Michaels, now a professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health. “And we have compelling evidence that they are doing a very poor job because many workers are injured on the job, especially in Texas.”
Michaels pointed out that OSHA does not have a national standard for heat-related illnesses and issues citations only for over-exposure to heat after an injury or death, but not before that occurs.
“The better solution would be to have a national standard, but since we do not, local ordinances are very important for saving lives,” he said. “Prohibiting these local laws will result in workers being severely hurt or killed.”
BIDEN ADMIN IMPLORES STATES TO SLOW MEDICAID CUTS AFTER MORE THAN 1M ENROLLEES DROPPED. Too many Americans are losing Medicaid coverage because of red tape, and states should do more to make sure eligible people keep their health insurance, the Biden administration has told the nation’s governors, KFF Health News reported (6/13).
More than a million Americans have lost coverage through the program for low-income and disabled Americans in the past several weeks, following the end of pandemic protections on April 1, according to the latest Medicaid renewal data from more than 20 states.
After a three-year pause, most states have now resumed checking which Medicaid recipients remain eligible and dropping those who no longer qualify or don’t complete required paperwork. About 4 in 5 people dropped so far either never returned the paperwork or omitted required documents, federal and state data show.
Xavier Becerra, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, decried those numbers in a letter sent to state governors on June 12.
“I am deeply concerned with the number of people unnecessarily losing coverage, especially those who appear to have lost coverage for avoidable reasons that State Medicaid offices have the power to prevent or mitigate,” he wrote.
The Biden administration outlined several optional steps states can take to ensure everyone who still qualifies for the safety-net health insurance program stays covered. For instance, states can pause the cancellations to allow more time to reach people who haven’t responded. Health insurance companies that manage Medicaid plans can help their enrollees fill out the paperwork.
Some states were already choosing to take extra time. Though Wyoming began renewals in May, the state is being “deliberately cautious” and won’t drop people for incomplete paperwork until July or August, state Health Department spokesperson Kim Deti said. Oregon won’t start those cancellations until October.
Officials in other states have demonstrated no eagerness to slow the cuts.
About 10% of Arkansas’ Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program enrollees have already been dropped, nearly all because they didn’t complete paperwork. Arkansas is speeding through the redeterminations in just six months, while most other states are taking about a year, as HHS recommended. Despite outcry from some federal lawmakers and advocates, Medicaid officials in Arkansas wrote on June 8 that they would continue to “swiftly disenroll” people who no longer qualify.
That could be disastrous, said Joan Alker, executive director of Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families. “My big worry is that we could lose millions of families quickly. It’s going to be very hard to get them back.”
Becerra also wrote that he is “particularly concerned” about children losing coverage, although the administration doesn’t know exactly how many kids have been dropped. States don’t have to report numbers by age to federal authorities, said Dan Tsai, director of the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services.
Tens of thousands of kids are losing coverage, according to data from states that shared it. In Indiana, of the 53,000 dropped in the first month, a third were kids. In South Dakota, more than half were kids. In Arkansas, nearly 55,000 kids were dropped in the first two months.
PA GOP LAWMAKER’S LAWSUIT AGAINST NEWSPAPER BACKFIRES AS IT EXPOSES DAMNING 2020 ELECTION EMAILS. A series of damning emails about the 2020 election were exposed as a result of a lawsuit filed against a local newspaper by Pennsylvania State Sen. Dan Laughlin, RawStory.com noted (6/16).
As the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, Laughlin filed a lawsuit last year against the Erie Reader alleging that he had been defamed in an opinion column published by the newspaper.
The lawsuit opened up Laughlin to legal discovery and depositions — and wound up churning up several emails related to former President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign to get Pennsylvania Republicans to overturn President Joe Biden’s win in their state.
Among the most notable communications was between Pennsylvania State Sen. Doug Mastriano and then-One America News anchor Christina Bobb, who has since become part of Trump’s legal team.
Mastriano, a staunch Trump ally who last year failed to win his race to become Pennsylvania’s governor despite Trump’s support, told Bobb that he was worried about Trump’s proposals to have state legislatures throw out certified election results, as other Republicans had told him such a scheme would be “illegal.”
The emails reveal that Trump personally called Mastriano to push him on the legality of the scheme and gave him materials that falsely accused Dominion Voting Systems of rigging the election for Biden.
Other emails show that Laughlin was not happy about some of the actions that fellow Republicans were taking to get Trump back into the White House, including an attempt by US Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) to get every single mail-in ballot thrown out.
“We’re not saying a word on this crap,” Laughlin wrote in December of 2020. “Mike Kelly is hurting our party right now.”
House Republicans in Harrisburg — including those who in December 2020 signed a letter asking Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation to reject the state’s electors — were noticeably silent about Trump the week of his arraignment in Miami on federal charges, which included concealing classified documents, obstruction, making false statements, and related counts.
MAJOR LABOR UNIONS ENDORSE BIDEN FOR 2024. On the eve of a Philadelphia rally hosted by labor leaders, the AFL-CIO and 17 unions on June 16 endorsed Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for reelection in 2024, Jessica Corbett reported at CommonDreams (6/16).
During the 2020 campaign and since taking office, Biden has pledged "to be the most pro-union President leading the most pro-union administration in American history." He has won praise for various appointments—including Julie Su for labor secretary, which still lacks US Senate approval—and actions to improve the lives of exploited workers.
Although Biden has at times angered organized labor—particularly in December when he signed a congressional resolution preventing a nationwide rail strike as industry workers were fighting for paid sick leave—AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler still stressed that "there's absolutely no question that Joe Biden is the most pro-union president in our lifetimes."
"From bringing manufacturing jobs home to America to protecting our pensions and making historic investments in infrastructure, clean energy, and education, we've never seen a president work so tirelessly to rebuild our economy from the bottom up and middle out," Shuler said. "We've never seen a president more forcefully advocate for workers' fundamental right to join a union."
"Now, it's time to finish the job," she declared. "The largest labor mobilization in history begins today, supercharged by the excitement and enthusiasm of hundreds of thousands of union volunteers who will work tirelessly to reelect a president they know has our backs and will always fight for us."
Coming nearly 17 months before the 2024 election, the announcement is the earliest presidential endorsement in history for the AFL-CIO—which represents 60 unions and more than 12.5 million workers.
Biden-Harris campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez said the president—a former vice president, US senator, and county council member—“has been an unwavering champion of the labor movement his entire career” and the “historic groundswell of support” from the AFL-CIO and unions is “an unprecedented show of solidarity and strength for our campaign.”
Along with the AFL-CIO, unions individually endorsing the Biden-Harris campaign include the Actors' Equity Association; American Federation of Government Employees; American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); American Federation of Teachers (AFT); Communications Workers of America; International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; International Union of Operating Engineers; International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental, and Reinforcing Iron Workers; Laborers' International Union of North America; and National Nurses United (NNU).
From The Progressive Populist, July 1-15, 2023
Blog | Current Issue | Back Issues | Essays | Links
About the Progressive Populist | How to Subscribe | How to Contact Us