A Trump aide was caught on security camera moving boxes from a Mar-a-Lago storage room before and after the DOJ subpoenaed Trump for top-secret documents: NYT
Cheryl Teh – October 13, 2022
Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images A Trump aide was caught on security camera moving boxes from a Mar-a-Lago storage room before and after the DOJ subpoenaed Trump for top-secret documents: NYT
Walt Nauta, a longtime Trump aide, was seen moving boxes out from a storage room the FBI searched.
The incidents were caught on security footage, The New York Times reported.
Nauta was seen moving boxes before and after the DOJ demanded top-secret files be returned in May.
A Trump aide was caught on security camera moving boxes out of a storage room in Mar-a-Lago, per a report from The New York Times. The Times did not view the security footage and Insider was not independently able to verify its contents.
The Times spoke to three people familiar with the matter, who said longtime Trump staffer Walt Nauta was seen on Mar-a-Lago’s security footage moving boxes out of a storage room that was later searched by the FBI. This took place both before and after the Department of Justice issued a subpoena in May ordering Trump to hand over classified documents, per the NYT’s sources.
Intrigue has swirled around what was kept in the storage room, and whether anything was removed from it before the DOJ searched Trump’s property. The Times’ piece dropped hours after The Washington Post reported that Trump himself explicitly directed employees to move boxes of White House documents from the storage room. These boxes were taken from the storage area to the former president’s private residence after Trump advisers received the DOJ’s subpoena in May, per The Post.
The FBI also interviewed Nauta several times before it raided Mar-a-Lago on August 8, according to one of The Times’ sources.
The DOJ is currently investigating whether Trump broke three federal laws — including the Espionage Act — by keeping the files at his Florida residence. In an August court filing, the Justice Department said it had evidence “that government records were likely concealed and removed” from the storage room at Mar-a-Lago, and that “efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.”
Nauta’s lawyer, Stanley Woodward Jr., declined to comment on The Times’ reporting. Taylor Budowich, Trump’s spokesman at his post-presidential press office, told The Times the Biden administration was “colluding with the media through targeted leaks in an overt and illegal act of intimidation and tampering.”
Budowich and Woodward Jr. did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment.
Republicans Plan to Use Debt Limit Leverage to Reduce Social Security, Medicare: Report
Michael Rainey – October 12, 2022
Republicans in the House are planning to use a potential showdown next year over raising the federal debt limit to make changes in Social Security and Medicare, Bloomberg’s Jack Fitzpatrick reports.
The developing plan hinges on Republicans winning control of the House in the midterm elections, an outcome that is looking likely. Four GOP lawmakers who are vying for leadership of the House Budget Committee in the event of a Republican victory told Fitzpatrick that the need to raise the debt ceiling could give them the leverage they need to force Democrats to make concessions.
“The debt limit is clearly one of those tools that Republicans — that a Republican-controlled Congress — will use to make sure that we do everything we can to make this economy strong,” Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO), the senior Republican on the current Budget Committee, said.
Republicans are still discussing exactly what changes they might try to enact. “What would we consider a win?” said Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-PA), who is interested in the top spot on the Budget Committee. “What would we consider to be a fiscally responsible budget?”
Although the details are still up in the air, one theme is clear: House Republicans want to reduce federal spending, and the major entitlement programs are a target. Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) Carter said that Republicans’ “main focus has got to be on nondiscretionary — it’s got to be on entitlements.”
Shrinking the safety net: One option reportedly being discussed is raising the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare, the two largest mandatory spending programs. Each faces financial squeezes in the coming years as the baby boomers age and continue to retire. Under current rules, the Social Security system would be forced to cut benefits starting in 2034, while Medicare could run short of funds by 2028.
Earlier this year, the Republican Study Committee released a plan to raise the eligibility age for Social Security to 70 and the eligibility age for Medicare to 67. The increases would be phased in over time and once the target is reached, the eligibility age would then be indexed to life expectancy. The lawmakers also called for increased means testing in the Medicare program, and a privatization option for Social Security.
Other options being considered include more stringent work requirements and income limits for what Smith called “welfare programs,” including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program more commonly known as food stamps. And new caps on discretionary spending could limit spending increases over 10 years.
One thing that won’t be cut: defense spending. Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-TX) told Bloomberg that he wants to cut nondefense spending in order to provide more money for the military.
Willing to risk “catastrophe”? Republicans say they are leery about pushing too far in their demands, but many experts think that any effort to use the debt limit as leverage in negotiations is unacceptably risky. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that defaulting on U.S. debt payments — which would occur if the U.S. failed to raise the debt ceiling — would cause a “catastrophe” in the global economy.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) accused the GOP of taking huge risks in order to cut important social programs. “House Republicans are openly threatening to cause an economic catastrophe in order to realize their obsession with slashing Medicare and Social Security,” a Pelosi spokesperson told Bloomberg. “As House Republican leaders’ own words constantly reveal, dismantling the pillars of American seniors’ financial security is not a fringe view in the extreme MAGA House GOP, it is a broadly held obsession at the core of their legislative agenda.”
House Budget Committee Chair John Yarmuth (D-KY) also criticized Republican plans. “Holding the full faith and credit of the United States hostage to implement an extreme and unpopular agenda is not governing, it’s desperation,” Yarmuth said in a statement. “Congressional Republicans are so hellbent on gutting Social Security and ending Medicare as we know it that they are willing to risk economic catastrophe to get it done. This is a desperate attempt to shower the wealthy and big corporations with even more tax giveaways by intentionally sacrificing the needs of American families.”
Democrats do have one option for disarming Republicans ahead of a debt ceiling showdown: They could attempt to raise the ceiling on their own during the lame-duck session at the end of the year, potentially denying the GOP the use of that weapon. But both Yarmuth and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) told Bloomberg there has been no discussion among Democrats about such a plan.
The bottom line: Taking a page from the tea party playbook from a decade ago, expect to see Republicans attempting to force spending reductions in the next Congress — reductions that could involve fundamental changes in the way the country’s top safety net programs operate.
Members of Nevada Senate candidate’s family endorse opponent
Gabe Stern – October 12, 2022
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Less than a month before Election Day, 14 members of Nevada Republican Senate candidate Adam Laxalt’s family sent a letter endorsing his opponent, Democratic U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.
“We staunchly believe that Catherine is well equipped with her own ‘Nevada grit’ — a quality that she will take forward in representation of our home state for six more years across the halls of Congress,” the letter states.
Instead, it talks of Cortez Masto’s understanding of “the daily realities of dogged hard work” and mentions her experience in public education as well as her commitment to law enforcement.
The family members also wrote that Cortez Masto’s career demonstrates she is “an authentic advocate of Nevada.”
It marks the second time that some of Laxalt’s family has endorsed his opponent. During his unsuccessful gubernatorial run in 2018, a dozen family members endorsed Democrat Steve Sisolak in an op-ed to the Reno Gazette-Journal. That letter more explicitly criticized Laxalt, saying he “leveraged and exploited” the family name throughout his campaign.
That letter prompted 22 of his family members to send another op-ed, defending Laxalt and calling the other letter “vicious and entirely baseless.”
The grandson of former U.S. Sen. and Nevada Gov. Paul Laxalt and the son of former Sen. Pete Domenici, R-New Mexico, Laxalt is seen by many as the best opportunity for Republicans to pick up a seat that could give them the majority in the Senate.
In a tweet on Wednesday afternoon, Laxalt said it is “not surprising” that family members, most of whom he said are Democrats, are supporting Cortez Masto.
“They think that Nevada & our country are heading in the right direction. I believe Nevadans don’t agree,” he said.
The Laxalt family joins a growing list of endorsers from across the aisle, Cortez Masto spokesperson Sigalle Reshef said in a statement, citing law enforcement organizations and rural lawmakers who have endorsed the Democratic candidate.
Stern is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Former Trump employee tells FBI Trump ordered Mar-a-Lago boxes to be moved -report
Sarah N. Lynch and Kanishka Singh – October 12, 2022
Trump holds rally in Nevada
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A former employee of Donald Trump has told federal agents the former president asked for boxes of records to be moved within his Florida residence after receiving a government subpoena demanding their return, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
The testimony of the key witness, coupled with surveillance footage the Justice Department also obtained, represent some of the strongest known evidence to date of possible obstruction of justice by the former Republican president.
The FBI conducted a court-approved search on Aug. 8 at Trump’s home at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, seizing more than 11,000 documents including about 100 marked as classified.
The employee who was working at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida was cooperating with the Justice Department and has been interviewed multiple times by federal agents, the newspaper reported, citing people familiar with the situation. The witness initially denied handling sensitive documents and in subsequent conversations with agents admitted to moving boxes at Trump’s request, the newspaper reported.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
A Trump spokesperson said the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden had “weaponized law enforcement.”
“Every other President has been given time and deference regarding the administration of documents, as the President has the ultimate authority to categorize records, and what materials should be classified,” Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich told the newspaper.
Budowich accused the Justice Department of leaking “misleading and false information” to the media.
The document investigation is one of several legal woes Trump is facing as he considers whether to run again for president in 2024.
New York state’s attorney general recently filed a civil lawsuit accusing Trump and three of his adult children of fraud and misrepresentation in preparing financial statements from the family real estate company.
The Trump Organization also is set to go on trial on Oct. 24 on New York state criminal tax fraud charges.
Separately in Georgia, a grand jury in the Fulton County is probing efforts by Trump to overturn the former president’s 2020 election defeat.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Lincoln Feast)
Ian Urbina, Outlaw Ocean Project, Contributor – October 10, 2022
Cambodian migrant workers on a Thai fishing ship wait during an inspection. (Fábio Nascimento/The Outlaw Ocean Project, Thailand)
While forced labor still exists throughout the world, one place where it’s especially pervasive is the South China Sea — especially in the Thai fishing fleet, according to a 2016 investigation by the New York Times. Partly this is because in a typical year, Thailand’s fishing industry is short about fifty thousand mariners, according to the U.N. in 2014. As a result, tens of thousands of migrants from Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar are whisked into Thailand each year to make up this chronic shortfall. Then, unscrupulous captains buy and sell the men and boys like chattel.
With fewer fish close to shore, maritime labor researchers predict that more boats will resort to venturing farther out to sea, making the mistreatment of migrants more likely. The work aboard the fishing boats is brutal. And in this bloated, inefficient and barely profitable national fleet at a time of rising fuel prices, captains require crew members to simply do what they are told, and have little patience for complaints, no matter how long the hours, how little the food, or how paltry the pay. In short, these captains rely on sea slaves.
The Outlaw Ocean Project, a nonprofit journalism organization based in Washington, D.C., got onboard a Thai distant-water vessel that uses enslaved labor. There, three dozen Cambodian boys and men worked barefoot all day and into the night on the deck of a purse seiner fishing ship.
The third episode of the podcast series “The Outlaw Ocean,” from CBC Podcasts and the L.A. Times, tells the harrowing stories of sea slavery.
Rain or shine, shifts were between 18 and 20 hours long. At night, the crew members cast their nets when the small silver fish they target — mostly jack mackerel and herring — are more reflective and easier to spot in darker waters. During the day, when the sun is high, temperatures topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit, but the crew members worked nonstop. Drinking water was tightly rationed. If they were not fishing, the workers sorted their catch and mended their nets, which are prone to ripping.
One boy, his shirt smudged with fish guts, proudly showed off his missing two fingers, severed by a net that had coiled around a spinning crank. Cre members’ hands, which virtually never fully dried, had open wounds, slit from fish scales and torn from the nets’ friction. Infections areconstant. Captains never lack amphetamines to help the crews work longer, but they rarely stock antibiotics for infected wounds.
A Cambodian worker on a Thai fishing ship. (Fábio Nascimento/The Outlaw Ocean Project, Thailand)
On boats like these, deckhands areoften beaten for small transgressions, like fixing a torn net too slowly or mistakenly placing a mackerel into a bucket of sablefish. Dispatched into the unknown, they are beyond where society could help them, usually on so-called ghost ships — unregistered vessels that the Thai government has no ability to track. Deckhandstypically do not speak the language of their Thai captains, do not know how to swim, and, being from inland villages, sometimes have never seen the sea before.
Virtually all of the crew has a debt to clear, part of their indentured servitude, a “travel now, pay later” labor system that requires working to pay off the money they often had to borrow to sneak illegally into a new country. The debt just becomes more elusive once they leave land.
There is a modern assumption, especially in the West, that we got rid of slavery. But debt bondage is still very much present. The Cambodian boys and men who are held captive are killed if they try to escape. This is what modern-day slavery looks like. Until we modernize our understanding of that, we won’t know how to identify it, much less do anything about it.
(Ian Urbina is the director of the Outlaw Ocean Project, a nonprofit journalism organization based in Washington, D.C., that focuses on environmental and human rights concerns at sea globally)
Another Challenge to New York’s Gun Law: Sheriffs Who Won’t Enforce It
Jesse McKinley and Cole Louison – October 9, 2022
Sheriff Robert Milby in his office in Lyons, N.Y., Sept. 15, 2022. (Lauren Petracca/The New York Times)
LYONS, N.Y. — Robert Milby, Wayne County’s new sheriff, has been in law enforcement most of his adult life, earning praise and promotions for conscientious service. But recently, Milby has attracted attention for a different approach to the law: ignoring it.
Milby is among at least a half-dozen sheriffs in upstate New York who have said they have no intention of aggressively enforcing gun regulations that state lawmakers passed last summer, forbidding concealed weapons in so-called sensitive areas — a long list of public spaces including, but not limited to, government buildings and religious centers, health facilities and homeless shelters, schools and subways, stadiums and state parks, and, of course, Times Square.
“It’s basically everywhere,” said Milby, in a recent interview in his office in Wayne County, east of Rochester. “If anyone thinks we’re going to go out and take a proactive stance against this, that’s not going to happen.”
On Thursday, a U.S. District Court judge blocked large portions of the law, dealing a major blow to lawmakers in Albany who had sought to blaze a trail for other states after the Supreme Court in June struck down a century-old New York law that had strictly limited the carrying of weapons in public. Between the court challenge and the hostility of many law enforcement officers, New York’s ambitious effort could be teetering.
The judge, Glenn T. Suddaby, agreed to a three-day delay of his order to allow an emergency appeal to a higher federal court. But even before Suddaby ruled, a collection of sheriffs from upstate New York were already saying they would make no special effort to enforce the law, citing lack of personnel, an overbroad scope and possible infringements on the Second Amendment.
Nationwide, conservative sheriffs have been at the front line of an aggressive pushback on liberal policies — often framing themselves as “constitutional sheriffs,” or as self-declared arbiters of any law’s constitutionality. Sheriffs in other states have also been part of efforts to prove a fallacious conspiracy theory that former President Donald Trump won the 2020 election.
In New York, dissent has walked a fine line between loud complaints and winking resistance, including pledges of selective — and infrequent — enforcement.
“I have to enforce it because I swore to uphold the laws, but I can use as much discretion as I want,” said Richard C. Giardino, the Republican sheriff in Fulton County, northwest of Albany. “If someone intentionally flouts the law, then they’re going to be handled one way. But if someone was unaware that the rules have changed, then we’re not going to charge someone with a felony because they went into their barbershop with their carry concealed.”
Such criticism has been heard from Greene County, in the Hudson Valley, to Erie County, home to Buffalo, the state’s second-largest city, as well as from groups like the New York State Sheriffs’ Association, which called the new law a “thoughtless, reactionary action” that aims to “restrain and punish law-abiding citizens.”
“We will take the complaint, but it will go to the bottom of my stack,” said Mike Filicetti, the Niagara County sheriff, who appends a Ronald Reagan quote to his emails. “There will be no arrests made without my authorization and it’s a very, very low priority for me.”
The law took effect Sept. 1, and, at least anecdotally, has been used only sparingly since. Jeff Smith, the sheriff in mostly rural Montgomery County, west of Albany, said his office has had no calls for enforcement of the new law, noting that “almost every household” in his jurisdiction had some sort of gun.
Smith, a Republican, said he understands the motives of lawmakers to quell violence and mass shootings, but that the gun law inadvertently targeted lawful gun owners.
“The pendulum swung way too far,” he said.
An element of the New York law makes it a crime to carry a firearm onto any private property, including homes, unless there is “clear and conspicuous signage” indicating that the owner allows such weapons. Some sheriffs have printed their own signs and distributed them to gun-friendly businesses and residents.
“I don’t think you could find one case in this country, in United States history, where a sign said ‘SCHOOL ZONE NO GUNS PERMITTED,’ and it stopped an active shooter,” said Giardino.
For supporters of the law, the opposition is insincere, considering that sheriffs’ demands for law and order are often coupled with complaints that the state is in disarray, that crime is rampant and that the Legislature has empowered lawbreakers.
“To turn around and say, ‘For the laws that we don’t like, or we may disagree with politically, we will refuse to enforce,’ to me is the height of hypocrisy,” said state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, a Brooklyn Democrat who voted for the bill.
John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety, said sheriffs weren’t just endangering the public, they were also “endangering their colleagues in law enforcement.”
Myrie added that if sheriffs are angry, they should direct their ire at the Supreme Court, noting that the majority decision in the case, New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, was written by Justice Clarence Thomas, an avowed conservative — and specifically noted a historical basis for restrictions in “sensitive places.”
Kelly Roskam, the director of law and policy at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, said that the Supreme Court left many unsettled questions that lower courts must address. One particular challenge is a lack of clarity in the court’s test for constitutionality: whether a sensitive place is identical to or sufficiently similar to one that existed at the time of the Second Amendment’s adoption in the late 18th century.
“We face different problems with firearms than those who ratified the Constitution did,” she said. “You’re likely to see challenges to these laws, and different judges will come to different conclusions.”
The nation has a long history of banning guns in certain places, said David Pucino, the deputy chief counsel at Giffords Law Center, which seeks to stem gun violence, with dozens of states restricting concealed weapons in places like airports, courthouses and locations that serve alcohol.
“The statements that we’ve been seeing here are ideological statements,” Pucino said of the sheriffs. “And that’s not an appropriate basis for a sheriff to enforce or not enforce laws.”
The dispute evinces a larger rift between Democratic lawmakers in Albany — heavily represented by downstate liberals — and more conservative law enforcement and elected officials upstate. The schism was intensified by the pandemic, with some sheriffs defying COVID-19 occupancy rules for Thanksgiving dinners in 2020, while other Republican county officials refused to abide by mask mandates in schools.
“The people who are doing this, a lot of them are New York City legislators and they don’t have a clue,” said Todd Hood, the sheriff of Madison County, east of Syracuse, who says that “firearms are what made our country great.”
“There are different people up here,” said Hood, a Republican. “It’s run totally different.”
Jeffrey A. Fagan, a law professor at Columbia University, said that Albany lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, performed a critical test of the Bruen decision’s limits, even if the law is overturned.
“What New York did in response to Bruen was just about as strong or any other state in the country,” he said. “The governor and the Legislature were sticking their chins out in service of making a very important point.”
For her part, Hochul says she and her staff consulted with a raft of state and county law enforcement officials before the gun bill’s passage. “It was an intense process, but it was necessary,” Hochul said in late August, on the eve of the law taking effect.
The rollout was not without hiccups, including concerns from some military re-enactors who have canceled events out of fear of running afoul of the new law. Officials in Adirondack Park, the 6-million-acre swath of greenery and small towns in the state’s North Country, also pressed Hochul on whether guns would be allowed there.
For his part, Milby, a Republican elected in November, reiterated that his officers, fewer than 100 in a county of nearly 100,000 people, would not be actively pursuing offenders of the new law, although they would respond to calls about concealed weapons if they came in.
More than anything, he said his office is getting “an awful lot of calls” from residents confused by the law, many of whom are “very pro-Second Amendment.”
“It’s basically been clear as mud since Sept. 1,” he said.
And as for who was to blame, Milby said the opinions in Wayne County were crystal clear long before Thursday’s decision.
“There’s a very strong sentiment in this county that the governor has just thumbed her nose at the Supreme Court, in what’s being touted as an unconstitutional conniption fit,” he said. “She’s absolutely overstepped.”
I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid for an abortion or if he blew up the planet Alderaan
Rex Huppke, USA TODAY – October 6, 2022
There’s a report that Herschel Walker, the staunchly anti-abortion Republican running in Georgia’s Senate race, got a woman pregnant then paid for her abortion back in 2009.
Dana Loesch, a conservative radio host and former spokesperson for the National Rifle Association, put it best this week when she said: “I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles. I want control of the Senate.”
Abortions are unacceptable – except for this one
Amen, sister. Abort those eagle babies! Like Loesch, I believe deeply in the sanctity of life and oppose all abortions – except for this one, which I will accept to prevent it from costing my party control of the Senate.
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker speaks at a rally in Athens, Ga., in May 2022.
The report came from The Daily Beast, and all they had to back it up was: a receipt from the abortion provider; a canceled check Walker sent to the woman five days after the procedure; and the get-well card Walker sent the check in. Walker denies the whole thing and claims he doesn’t know the woman, who, as The Daily Beast reported Wednesday, is also the mother of one of his children.
I’m going to have to side with Walker on this one, because I want my party in power and believe it’s a sin to use the word “hypocrisy.”
Control of the Senate is what matters here, and he played football!
As a matter of fact, I don’t think Loesch went far enough in defending Walker with her hypothetical eagle abortion clinic.
Like the many Republicans who’ve rushed in to stick up for Walker in the wake of the abortion news, I don’t care if the former football star is an ancient, trans-dimensional, shape-shifting entity of pure evil that takes the form of a clown named Pennywise and terrorizes a small town in Maine. I want control of the Senate, and I’m sure Walker regrets any past desire to feed on humans.
Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker signs memorabilia for supporters in Columbus, Ga.
The destruction of a planet or two is fine if it leads to power
Heck, I don’t care if Walker oversaw the construction of a moon-size space station that blew up the 2-billion-person planet of Alderaan, then later got in an argument with his son and chopped his right hand off. We have to secure that Georgia Senate seat so we can stop President Joe Biden’s immoral agenda!
I’m not the least bit bothered if Walker, in the year 1219, let loose the Mongol hordes on the Khwarazmian Empire in Persia after the shah, Ala ad-Din Muhammad II, broke a treaty. Control of the Senate is of tantamount importance to the moral fabric of our nation.
Ruling Mordor isn’t so bad when you think about it
The possibility Walker may have been described in the epic Anglo-Saxon poem “Beowulf” as the monster Grendel, “accursed of God, the destroyer and devourer of our human kind,” doesn’t bother me a whip if it leads to a Republican becoming Senate majority leader. And the additional claims that he slaughtered the inhabits of the mead hall of Heorot, built by King Hrothgar? A minor detail if the power to cut corporate taxes is in play.
No, I see no logical or moral inconsistency between my firmly held religious beliefs and the lack of concern I would feel if I learned Walker had remained a noncorporeal evil for centuries before rising again in the land of Mordor and building the dark fortress Barad-dûr not far from Mount Doom. And if he gathered massive armies of orcs and trolls then tricked the elven-smith Celebrimbor into forging the Rings of Power? Well that’s a small price to pay to defeat Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is a pastor and has probably never paid to abort endangered baby eagles.
Basically, nothing matters as long as we win
The discovery that Walker is, in fact, the Dark Lord Voldemort, “He Who Must Not Be Named,” and is plotting, with the help of Death Eaters, to rid the world of Muggles, would in no way impact my support for a candidate whose qualifications include being somewhat famous.
The dark wizard Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) lords over the wizarding world in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I.”
I want control of the Senate. Getting Herschel Walker elected is key to that end. And if that means being OK finding out he once snapped his fingers while wearing the Infinity Gauntlet and instantly wiped out half of all life in the universe, well … so be it. I’m not about to let the morality I use to disguise my craven thirst for power get in the way of my craven thirst for power.
“If Republicans return to Washington’s business as usual, if we have no bigger plan than to be a speed bump on the road to America’s collapse, we don’t deserve to govern,” Scott wrote in the plan’s introduction. “We must resolve to aim higher than the Republican Congresses that came before us. Americans deserve to know what we will do.”
Scott’s decision to put his name to a series of specific proposals for what Republicans could and should do if they retake the Senate and House this fall stands in direct contrast to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has pointedly refused to offer an alternative policy agenda.
When asked last month what the GOP’s agenda would be if they took control of Congress, McConnell told reporters: “That is a very good question and I’ll let you know when we take it back.”
Scott seems to acknowledge the fact that he is rebelling against his party leadership, writing: “Like the ‘Contract with America’ before it, the Washington insiders will hate this plan.” (The Contract with America was the Republican agenda unveiled during the 1994 midterms, when the GOP won control of the House.)
Why did Scott do it then? Well, at least in part (a large part) because of politics. Scott, the former governor of Florida who was elected to the Senate in 2018, has his eye on bigger prizes. He’s currently serving as the chairman of the Senate Republican campaign arm and has done very little to knock down talk that he would be interested in a presidential bid down the line.
This plan feels like the sort of thing that could become the basis of a Scott presidential run, whether in 2024 or 2028.
So what’s actually in the plan? A fair amount of it is just red-meat rhetoric sure to make the base of the party happy. But amid the spin – and the attacks on Democrats, “wokeness” and the media – there are some actual policy proposals. Let’s go through them.
1. Kids in public schools would say the Pledge of Allegiance and be required to stand for the National Anthem. They also would have to “honor” the American flag.
2. The Department of Education would close. “Education is a state function,” wrote Scott.
3. The government would never be able to ask you to disclose your race, ethnicity or skin color “on any government form.” (On a related note, the US Census Bureau is on line one, Sen. Scott.)
4. The US military would engage in “ZERO diversity training” or “any woke ideological indoctrination that divides our troops.”
5. If a college or university uses affirmative action in admissions, it would be “ineligible for federal funding and will lose their tax-exempt status.”
6. “Strict” mandatory minimum sentences would be required in every case in which a police officer is seriously injured.
7. Any “attempt to deny our 2nd Amendment freedoms” would be strongly opposed.
8. The wall along the US southern border would be completed and named after former President Donald Trump.
9. Immigrants to the US would not be able to collect unemployment benefits or welfare until they have lived in the country for seven years.
10. So-called sanctuary cities would be stripped of all federal funding.
11. The federal budget would be balanced and, if not, members of Congress would not be paid.
12. All Americans would pay some income tax “to have skin in the game.” (At present, roughly half of Americans do not pay taxes because their taxable income doesn’t meet a minimum threshold.)
13. Federal debt ceiling increases would be prohibited unless accompanied by a declaration of war.
14. All federally elected officials, as well as all federal workers, would be subject to a 12-year term limit.
15 All federal legislation would have a sunset provision five years after it passes. (People currently on Social Security or Medicare might be particularly interested in that one.)
16. Funding for the IRS, as well as its workforce, would be cut by 50%.
17. Politicians would be banned from becoming lobbyists when they leave office.
18. Voter ID would become the law of the land. “All arguments against voter ID are in favor of fraud,” according to Scott.
19. Same-day voter registration would be banned.
20. “No federal program or tax laws will reward people for being unmarried or discriminate against marriage.”
21. No government form would offer options related to “gender identity” or “sexual preference”
22. Biological males would be banned from competing in women’s sports.
23. “All social media platforms that censor speech and cancel people will be treated like publishers and subject to legal action.”
24. No tax dollars could be used for “diversity training or other woke indoctrination that is hostile to faith.”
25. No dues would be paid to the United Nations or “any international organization that undermines the national interests of the USA.”
26. “The weather is always changing. We take climate change seriously, but not hysterically. We will not adopt nutty policies that harm our economy or our jobs.”
There’s more in there, but those are the main points.
It’s an attempt – both rhetorically and from a policy perspective – to make permanent many of the changes that Trump ushered in during his four years in office. It’s a promise of all the things you liked about Trump without some of the bombast and unpredictability. It’s a blueprint for Trumpism without Trump.
‘DEATH WISH’? What Trump and his wannabes did in one weekend should scare us all.
Rex Huppke, USA TODAY – October 3, 2022
In the Republican Party of Donald Trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, only those faithful to Trump’s cult-like MAGA movement are safe.
Democrats are called the enemy, labeled killers. And even Republicans who don’t embrace MAGA dogma – any lost election was stolen, Trump is always right . – have a death wish.
Trump, the current front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination should he decide to run, took to Truth Social on Friday night and attacked Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell because he voted for legislation sponsored by Democrats: “He has a DEATH WISH.”
Trump threatens McConnell, hurls racist nickname at Elaine Chao
Trump then launched a racist attack on McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, who served in Trump’s Cabinet when he was president: “Must immediately seek help and advise from his China loving wife, Coco Chow!”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and his wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, in 2020.
We know from Jan. 6, 2021, that Trump has potentially violent followers who take cues from him, so there’s no way to see the “DEATH WISH” comment as anything more than a veiled threat.
With racist garbage about the wife of a high-ranking member of the party Trump claims to represent, the former president shows the world his true nature for the 10 millionth time. And by misspelling “advice” as “advise,” Trump shows the world, also for the 10 millionth time, that he can’t be bothered with little things like attention to detail.
Michigan Republicans line up to kiss Trump’s ring
This is dangerous rhetoric, but rather than stand up to it, many Republicans remained silent over the weekend. In fact, several Republicans joined Trump at a Saturday rally in Michigan, including GOP candidates for the state’s three highest offices: Tudor Dixon, running for governor; Matthew DePerno, running for attorney general; and Kristina Karamo, running for secretary of state.
Greene, of Georgia, was also there and, as if to impress Trump with violent rhetoric of her own, told the crowd: “I’m not going to mince words with you all. Democrats want Republicans dead, and they have already started the killings.”
That is absolute insanity. And like Trump’s comments directed at McConnell, it’s sickeningly dangerous. Not to mention false.
Trump and Greene make it clear that no one disloyal is safe
Saying a Republican has a “DEATH WISH” because he did his job and voted for legislation puts a target on the back of that Republican. Saying Democrats “have already started the killings” provides a justification for violence against anyone who happens to be a Democrat. Openly spouting a racist nickname against a woman of Asian heritage tells people, during a time of rising anti-Asian hate crimes, that it’s OK to be hateful.
Former President Donald Trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene at a golf tournament in Bedminster, N.J., on July 30, 2022.
And this all happened over the course of TWO DAYS!
Republicans keep their mouths shut in face of Trump’s hatefulness
How courageous. Republican leaders won’t say a thing, even to defend themselves, even when it’s clear Trump and his MAGA minions have loyalty only to themselves.
For the sizable swath of voters and politicians who remain loyal to Trump despite his falling approval numbers, this is not the behavior of a political party. This is the behavior of a cult: fealty to one individual; zero tolerance for any who stray from the core beliefs; threats of violence toward any who step out of line; characterizing those who disagree as existential threats.
MAGA followers think you are not a Democrat; you are a member of a party now actively killing Republicans. You are not a mainstream conservative; you are a person with a death wish.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2022.
How can Americans of good conscious not come together to shut this down?
How is it possible those of us who see how wildly messed up this all is can’t come together as one in condemnation? How is it possible for Republicans to continue supporting a malignant figure who would unleash his hateful hounds on them in a heartbeat?
As Trump and pathetic wannabes like Greene have committed outrage after outrage after outrage, each time sinking to new depths, there’s a common refrain: Ignore them. Don’t give them the attention they crave.
Like it or not, Trump and Greene have power and stand to gain more
That’s fine if you’re fending off a meaningless internet troll, but as I’ve said already, Trump is likely to be the next Republican candidate for president. And he is, of course, a former president. He’s not nobody.
Greene is a big-time fundraiser for Republicans and someone routinely praised by Trump and revered by his loyal followers. As much as we’d like her to be nobody, she’s not.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.
These cartoonish MAGA knuckleheads have power, and if we don’t denounce them, if we don’t vote them into oblivion, they stand to gain more. Real danger could follow because as they made clear over just one weekend, they will come for you if you’re an apostate Republican. They will come for you if you’re a Democrat because they’ll be told you’re coming for them.
Let’s stop dancing around it and call the MAGA movement what it is
They will come for any who question them. Because they’re not a political movement..
They’re a dangerous and swiftly worsening cult.
And they need to be denounced by everyone, including Republicans who still value basic human decency. Then they need to be rejected by voters, en masse and with thunderous force.
As the high court readied itself for another consequential term, Kagan used a series of public appearances to describe how she believes the court should function – and to warn that Americans will lose faith if the institution is viewed as another political branch.
But one need not squint too hard to see Kagan’s meaning.
“The court shouldn’t be wandering around just inserting itself into every hot button issue in America, and it especially, you know, shouldn’t be doing that in a way that reflects one ideology or one…set of political views over another,” she said Sept. 19 during a question-and-answer session at Salve Regina University in Rhode Island.
U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan addresses the crowd alongside Jim Ludes, vice president for strategic initiatives at Salve Regina University, during a visit to the school’s campus on Monday, Sept. 19, 2022.
“A court does best when it keeps to the legal issues, when it doesn’t allow personal political views, personal policy views to an affect or infect, its judging,” said Kagan, who was nominated by President Barack Obama in 2010. “And the worst moments for the court have been times when judges have allowed that to happen.”
Her remarks come after a term in which the court’s 6-3 conservative majority consistently decided the biggest cases – on abortion, guns and religion – in ways that aligned closely to conservative political ideology. The rulings caused outrage on the left, led to protests outside some of the justices’ homes and sent the court’s approval rating into a tailspin.
Chief Justice John Roberts defended the court’s work last month, arguing that while its opinions are open to criticism from the public, the institution’s legitimacy shouldn’t be called into question “simply because people disagree with an opinion.”
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan participates in a panel discussion with Hari Osofsky, dean of the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, in the Law School’s Thorne Auditorium, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022.
“Lately, the criticism is phrased in terms of, you know, because of these opinions, it calls into question the legitimacy of the court,” Roberts said at a judicial conference in Colorado. “If they want to say that its legitimacy is in question, they’re free to do so. But I don’t understand the connection between opinions that people disagree with and the legitimacy of the court.”
That view has drawn pushback from critics who say it’s only partly about the outcome of individual cases. It’s also the case, they say, that the high court repeatedly upheld its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision until former President Donald Trump nominated and won confirmation for three justices, giving conservatives a super majority. Trump repeatedly promised to nominate judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade.
Without mentioning Roberts, Kagan indicated her point was broader: That Americans need to have confidence the Supreme Court’s decisions are based on judicial philosophies and doctrines that are applied evenly – regardless of whether the outcome matches the party platform of the president who nominated the justices in the majority.
“The thing that builds up reservoirs of public confidence is…the court acting like a court and not acting like an extension of the political process,” she said.
“I’m not talking about the popularity of particular Supreme Court decisions,” Kagan said at the Northwestern event last week. “What I am talking about is what gives the people in our country a sort of underlying sense that the court is doing its job.”
