Dispatches

TRUMP’S OMINOUS PLAN FOR REVENGE. Donald Trump and his inner circle have been mapping out plans to use the federal government, including the military and Justice Department to “punish critics and opponents” if he manages to get back into the White House, the Washington Post reported (11/5). Trump has even created his own Nixon-style enemies list of people he wants to be investigated or prosecuted as soon as he has the authority.

That list includes all those people who held positions of power in the first Trump White House, but who refused to side with Trump in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. That list includes former Attorney General William Barr, former chief of staff John Kelly, and former Joint Chief of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, as well as at least one of Trump’s former attorneys. According to Kelly, “There is no question in my mind he is going to go after people that have turned on him.”

In addition, Trump wants to prosecute officials and staffers at the Department of Justice and FBI who have been involved in the investigations into his criminal acts. All that’s in addition to the numerous “special prosecutors” Trump intends to appoint, including one to continue the Republican harassment of Biden and his family.

Included in Trump’s plans is invoking the Insurrection Act on day one, not to put down any actual rebellion, but to deploy the military to quell any protests over his return to power. In addition, Trump intends to revoke DOJ rules that keep the department’s decisions separate from the will of the White House and turn it into a tool for persecuting those judged insufficiently loyal.

This isn’t just something Trump is mumbling to himself or a few supporters, Mark Sumner noted at Daily Kos (11/6). All this and more is part of “Project 2025,” a plan being assembled by a group of authoritarian right-wing think tanks creating a blueprint for a Trump dictatorship. The plans invoke both “punishment” and “revenge,” which are common themes of Trump’s statements and speeches. Trump is only part of a right-wing organization preparing to crush American democracy for good.

At a campaign stop in October, Trump claimed that the 91 felony counts now lodged against him are just political. “This is third-world-country stuff, ‘arrest your opponent,’” said Trump. “And that means I can do that, too.”

Trump has not been subtle about these plans. He’s openly discussed these themes of revenge at his rallies, using apocalyptic terminology like calling this the “final battle” and encouraging his supporters to conduct a “war” against government agencies like the DOJ. He’s offering his followers not just an overthrow of the current order, but the opportunity to engage in violence and be part of the authoritarian regime to come.

“All of this is terrifying,” Sumner noted, “and it’s only made more so by how the media is playing up any poll suggesting that Trump can win that second term while playing down the message that he is spreading to his supporters. Coverage of Trump’s threats, growing lies, and statements that are increasingly divorced from reality is spotty at best. Coverage of anything that suggests Trump is winning, that voters are dissatisfied with Biden, or that Democrats are in trouble gets guaranteed front-page treatment.

“The media played this game in 2016, and the damage it did to the nation then may be irrevocable. In 2023, it is still trying to pretend that Trump is a reasonable opponent and that putting a thumb on the scales to hide his drive for an end to democracy is acceptable so long as it generates more clicks, views, and papers sold.

“In 2006, Hamas won an election in Gaza and made sure it never faced democratic opposition again. That’s exactly what Republicans intend for America in 2024.”

TELLING THE TRUTH COSTS MEADOWS. All Seasons Press paid Mark Meadows a $350,000 advance to write his supposed tell-all book about his time as chief of staff in Donald Trump’s White House. Now the publisher is suing Meadows for that money back and a whole lot more.

After Meadows got limited immunity in order to compel his testimony to a grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s attempts to nullify his 2020 presidential election loss, Meadows testified under oath that there was no evidence of “fraud” that would have put the election’s results in doubt, that he repeatedly told Trump that the claims were baseless, and that Trump was “dishonest” when he claimed to have won the election.

The problem for All Seasons Press is that all of this directly conflicts with what Meadows claimed in his book, “The Chief’s Chief,” had happened. In other words, Meadows lied his ass off when writing the book. From The Hill:

“Meadows’ reported statements to the Special Prosecutor and/or his staff and his reported grand jury testimony squarely contradict the statements in his Book, one central theme of which is that President Trump was the true winner of the 2020 Presidential Election and that election was ‘stolen’ and ‘rigged’ with the help from ‘allies in the liberal media,’ who ignored ‘actual evidence of fraud,’” the company writes in the filing. ...

The suit notes that the opening sentence to one chapter in Meadows’s book was, “I KNEW HE DIDN’T LOSE.”

“When you pay a habitual liar $350,000 to write a book, you can hardly act surprised when it turns out to be riddled with lies,” “Hunter” noted at Daily Kos (11/6). “It should be noted that All Seasons Press is an imprint premised on giving conservative bullsh*tters money to write conservative bullsh*t; highlighted on their site at present is a book exploring what it means to be Tucker Carlson, and another subtitled ‘The Woke Mob Took My Job But Gave Me My Voice,’ which you just know is going to be a barn-burner. (Spoiler alert: It does not appear a “woke mob” was responsible for taking her job.)

“The problem for All Seasons is that they were attempting to sell Meadows’ book on the basis of Meadows’ MAGA-pleasing claims that he “KNEW HE DIDN’T LOSE,” but when Meadows sat down in front of a grand jury and swore under oath that the exact opposite was true, it turned his already vapid fan fiction tell-all into nothing but a doorstop. It was fine when he was lying but nobody could prove it; having him testify that his book was full of made-up bullsh*t makes all the other criticism irrelevant.”

The company is asking for the $350,000 it paid Meadows as an advance for the book, $600,000 in out-of-pocket damages, and at least $1 million each for reputational damage suffered by the company and loss of expected profits for the book, which they argue plummeted given Meadows’s involvement in numerous investigations regarding Jan. 6, 2021.

“Good on them for trying, but I’m not sure they’re going to pull nearly $3 million out from a man who already had a national reputation as a craven opportunist and liar long before they signed him to a contract to tell the ‘truth,’ wink-wink, about an attempt to topple the government,” Hunter wrote.

But Meadows did apparently sign a contract claiming that “all statements contained in the Work are true,” so they’ll probably get his $350,000 back, but they’re still stuck with 140,000 copies of what was a 200,000 first printing, so good luck with that.

GUSHING: US OIL OUTPUT UNDER BIDEN BEATS TRUMP RECORD. Republicans claim oil production in the US has taken a nosedive under Joe Biden, but, like so many things the Greedy Oligarchs Party claims, it just isn’t so. The latest US Energy Information Administration report (10/31) listed monthly crude oil output in August at 13,053,000 barrels per day (bpd), which breaks the previous record of 13 million bpd in November 2019, during the Trump administration. Production fell under 10 million bpd at the start of the COVID pandemic and wavered between 9.7 million and 11.1 million bpd until February 2021, when production recovered after Biden took office.

“BerglandJournalist,” a contributor to DailyKos.com, noted (11/6), “We need to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels and move toward renewable energy sources, for economic, national security and especially climate change reasons. We have made some progress especially under Biden and with the new IRA legislation, but have a long way to go.

“That said, the latest (August 2023) EIA monthly crude oil output numbers provide a certain amount of joy in ‘owning the conservatives’ who mistakenly think oil production has taken a nosedive under a Democratic administration. …

“For all of you with Trump-loving friends who have bemoaned Biden energy and environmental policies that they believe have led to higher gas prices and a decline in oil production since the glory days of Trump and a ‘drill, baby, drill’ mentality, we now have hard data: oil production is now at an all-time high under this president.

Again, that’s not something to necessarily rejoice in. But it sure is fun to be able to respond to whiny Trumpster posts about energy costs and oil production with a meme like this.

FAMILIES GO HUNGRY SINCE REPUBLICANS AND JOE MANCHIN ENDED CHILD TAX CREDIT. The US Department of Agriculture reported that in 2022 the US experienced more than a 30% spike in food insecurity among Americans and a 44% increase among children after child tax credits were allowed to expire, Walter Einenkel noted at Daily Kos (11/4). That means 30.8 million adults and 13.4 million children weren’t always sure they would have food on the table. These percentages don’t technically include the “11.7 million adults (4.6% of adults)” that “lived in households with very low food security, and 783,000 children (1.1% of children) [that] lived in households with very low food security among children.” This is the highest spike since the dark days of the 2008 financial crisis.

Almost 1 in 5 American households with children were food insecure in 2022, as pandemic-era programs have been coming to an end, and states with Democratic representation willing to use that federal money to help fund food programs that benefit children will run out of those funds. According to experts, as bad as this news is, it could have been worse (and will get worse) if the more expansive SNAP benefits pushed for by Democrats weren’t in place. Produce Blue Book spoke with Kyle Waide, president and CEO of Atlanta Community Food Bank:

“SNAP is proven to help alleviate food insecurity and it is imperative that these vital programs continue. We are advocating that Congress not only protect SNAP but also increase funding for The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) which helps food banks like ours meet the increasing need in our communities.”

Tom Vilsack, US secretary of agriculture, released a statement along with the report, calling it “a wake-up call to those wanting to further roll back our anti-poverty and anti-hunger programs,” adding, “No child should go hungry in America. The report is a stark reminder of the consequences of shrinking our proven safety net.” He emphasized the need to push forward on the Biden administration’s call to improve social safety net programs as well as public health and nutrition research.

The cause is understood to be the end of the expanded child tax credit and rising food costs. The pandemic-era $3,600 tax credit helped bring child poverty down by 46% percent in 2021, and gave families and parents peace of mind. Even with Democrats willing to make compromises, the expanded child tax credit was allowed to sunset at the end of 2021, when conservative Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) joined every single Republican senator in letting the tax credit return to $2,000.

ECONOMY ADDS 150,000 JOBS IN OCTOBER, UNEMPLOYMENT REMAINS BELOW 4%. The October jobs report presents a mixed picture of the economy, Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research noted (11/3). The establishment survey showed the economy generating 150,000 jobs for the month, a number that would have been roughly 30,000 higher without the UAW strike. However, the household survey showed unemployment ticking up to 3.9%. This was a bad rise in unemployment, as it was accompanied by a drop of 348,000 in the number of people employed and a 0.1 percentage point decline in the labor force participation rate.

Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute noted the bright side of the 3.9% unemployment rate. “We should step back for a second and think about the fact that the unemployment rate has been at or below 4% for TWENTY-THREE months. Next month will mark two years! This is a breathtaking testament to the power of bold fiscal policy to create a robust jobs recovery.”

Ordinarily, the growth reported in the establishment survey would be considered very healthy, and perhaps even too strong given the low unemployment rate, Baker noted. However some aspects raised concerns.

First, there was a drop in the length of the average workweek. The index of aggregate weekly hours actually fell 0.3% in October. This is great news from the standpoint of productivity growth. We had two consecutive quarters of extraordinary reported productivity growth (3.6% and 4.7% in the second and third quarters, respectively). If we can maintain positive GDP growth in the fourth quarter, with little growth in hours, that would mean a third consecutive quarter with strong productivity gains.

However, the drop in hours also suggests a weakening in the demand for labor. The index of aggregate hours declined in almost every sector. (Leisure and hospitality was the major exception.) In addition, the one-month diffusion index, showing the percentage of industries adding jobs, fell from 61.4 to 52, the lowest reading since June 2020 during the lockdowns.

There was also a downward revision of 101,000 to the prior two months’ data. This brings the three-month average job gain to 204,000 (214,000 without the UAW strike).

The annualized rate of wage growth for the last three months was just 3.2%, the same as for the quarter ending in September. This is below the pace of wage growth we saw in 2018 and 2019, which averaged close to 3.4%.

TRUMP REMINDS VOTERS HOW WEIRD, WEAK AND LAUGHABLE HE IS. The fact that democracy as we know it would be fundamentally altered if Donald Trump were to win the 2024 election is a major driver of anxiety among pro-democracy voters across the country, and for good reason.

But here’s at least one tactic for defeating Trump: mocking him rather than playing into his strongman image, Kerry Eleveld noted at DailyKos (11/3). Trump’s MAGA faithful love the fact that Democrats (own those libs!) and so-called RINOs alike fear him. What Trumpers don’t like is being laughed at. And the good news is: The older Trump gets, the weirder and more addled he appears. As Daily Kos’ Mark Sumner wrote recently, the age issue is catching up with Trump as he more routinely mangles words and burps out head-scratchers, such as proclaiming that America will be on a collision course with “World War II” if President Joe Biden wins reelection.

But then there’s video like the one circulated by the anti-Trump group Republican Accountability Project, where Trump is just, well, laughably bizarre. And in many ways, it doesn’t matter that we don’t have any idea what the heck he’s attempting to relay to the audience at this recent campaign rally in Houston, Texas.

One of the most notable parts of the video is the crowd’s reaction—or lack thereof. Attendees fall mostly silent as Trump enacts some strange, infantile-esque contortion of trying to lift his clenched palms above his head. At one point, Trump squeaks out, “Heh, Mom, I’m sorry.” Um, okay. This is their guy? This is the person they’ve bet all their marbles on — the only one capable of righting the ship and restoring America to its former glory, in their view? Wow. Seems pretty desperate, not to mention embarrassing.

In a recent “Pod Save America” podcast, the former Obama-bro hosts talked about the worthiness of poking fun at Trump as a strategy, even as we remain clear-eyed about the threat he poses. They recalled a 2020 attack ad from Team Biden highlighting world leaders literally laughing at Trump at international events.

The ad’s main goal was not to promote Biden. Instead, it aimed to remind soft Republicans and anti-Trumpers what a weak, weirdo figure he cut on the world stage. Doubling down on the tactic in 2024 will be an important part of reassembling the anti-Trump coalition that prevailed in 2020. Democrats absolutely need agitated anti-Trumpers to get to the polls and cast a vote against him—and that vote must be for Biden rather than some third-party alternative.

REPUBLICANS ARE TANKING IN BATTLEGROUND HOUSE DISTRICTS. Fresh off congressional Republicans’ new job approval rating of 12% comes a poll showing Republican incumbents in battleground districts are in dire shape, Kerry Eleveld noted at DailyKos (11/3).

Overall, Republicans in Congress now have a net -22 favorability rating among voters in some 60 battleground districts, 10 points worse than their -12 rating in July, according to the new survey from the progressive consortium Navigator Research.

Congressional Democrats, by comparison, held steady at a -10 favorability rating in both surveys.

Perhaps the most telling part of the survey related to named incumbents in the competitive congressional districts. Democratic incumbents who were identified by name held a job approval rating of +8, at 40% approve-32% disapprove (relatively unchanged since their +7 approval in July).

Named Republican incumbents, by comparison, held a -10 job approval rating at 33% approve-43% disapprove—8 points worse than their net -2 approval rating in July.

An interesting side note: “MAGA Republicans,” specifically, have a higher “very favorable” rating at 24% than either Republicans (11%) or Democrats (18%). But MAGA Republicans also score the highest “very unfavorable” rating at 50%, compared to Republicans (-40%) and Democrats (-42%). In essence, MAGA Republicans are equally as polarizing as their standard-bearer Trump.

The bottom line here: In the battleground districts that will decide control of the House next year, voters are relatively pleased with the performance of their Democratic members, and relatively displeased with their Republican members. And not by a small margin—by a double-digit margin.

From The Progressive Populist, December 1, 2023

Populist.com