Which 2024 GOP candidates would pardon Trump if they won the presidency?
Cristina Corujo – June 14, 2023
As former president Donald J. Trump was pleading not guilty to all 37 federal charges related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents Tuesday in Miami, some of his Republican rivals were asked about whether they would pardon Trump if he were convicted.
Hours before Trump’s arraignment, biotech executive Vivek Ramaswamy said he’d pardon the former president as soon as he’s sworn in.
“This is my commitment, on Jan. 20th 2025 if I’m elected the next U.S. president — to pardon Donald J. Trump for these offenses in this federal case,” Ramaswamy said.
Ramaswamy even went to the Miami federal courthouse where Trump was arraigned and held a press conference, during which he challenged his Republican opponents to sign an agreement committing to do the same if any of them win.
Nikki Haley
Nikki Haley, who served as ambassador to the U.N. in the Trump administration, said she would be “inclined” to pardon her former boss, although she added that “it’s really premature at this point, when he’s not even been convicted of anything.”
During a radio interview with Clay Travis, Haley, who is also the former governor of South Carolina, said that “if the claims in the indictment are true, Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security, and that’s not okay.”
Chris Christie
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said of Trump on “The Brian Kilmeade Show” Wednesday, “I can’t imagine if he gets a fair trial that I would pardon him,” adding, “to accept a pardon, you have to admit your guilt.”
Christie also dismissed the idea that Trump could use the Presidential Records Act as a defense. “He’s dead wrong,” Christie said, and added, the Presidential Records Act “does not cover national security and national intelligence documents.
Christie, who was the first major Republican politician to endorse Trump in 2016 and a key adviser during Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign, now says he was “wrong” about Trump and called the evidence in the indictment “pretty damning” during Monday’s CNN town hall.
Asa Hutchinson
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who has also slammed Trump, and called on him to drop out of the 2024 presidential race, said that a pardon “should have no place in the campaign.”
In an interview Wednesday with Scripps News, Hutchinson said that pardoning the former president would be a “misuse of the pardon power” and should have no place in the office of the president.
After Trump was indicted last week, Hutchinson called on him to drop out of the race, excoriating him for “his willful disregard for the Constitution” and “his disrespect for the rule of law.”
Larry Elder
Conservative talk radio host Larry Elder told Scripp News it’s “very likely” he would support pardoning Trump for the federal charges he is facing. But Elder, who supported Trump’s presidency, said that Trump’s electability is at stake, and he said that if he felt that the former president were “electable,” he “wouldn’t be running.”
Presidential candidates who have not weighed inRon DeSantis
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump’s main political rival in the primary so far, has not said publicly whether he’d pardon Trump. DeSantis has criticized the Justice Department as “weaponized” in pursuing prosecutions “against factions it doesn’t like” but also said over the weekend, after Trump had been indicted, “As a naval officer, if I would have taken classified [documents] to my apartment, I would have been court-martialed in a New York minute.”
CBS News has reached out to DeSantis’ campaign to ask if he would pardon Trump if he were convicted in the documents case.
DeSantis has also been asked whether he’d pardon those convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol. He told conservative radio hosts Clay Travis & Buck Sexton if he’d consider pardoning defendants convicted for their participation in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots. DeSantis said his administration “will be aggressive at issuing pardons… on a case-by-case basis.”
Mike Pence
Former Vice President Mike Pence has not weighed in on a pardon for the former president, but in a conversation with the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board on Tuesday, the day Trump was indicted, Pence said he had read the indictment, and “these are very serious allegations.” He added, “I can’t defend what is alleged. But the President is entitled to his day in court, he’s entitled to bring a defense, and I want to reserve judgment until he has the opportunity to respond.”
But he expressed concern about “the suggestion that there were documents pertaining to the defense capabilities of the United States and our allies, our nuclear program, to potential vulnerabilities of the United States and our allies,” and added, “Even the inadvertent release of that kind of information could compromise our national security and the safety of our armed forces.”
Although he has not made clear if he would pardon Trump, Pence told radio hosts Travis and Baxton Wednesday afternoon that he took “the pardon authority very seriously.”
“It’s an enormously important power of someone in an executive position and I just think it’s premature to have any conversation about that right now,” Pence said.
Tim Scott
Asked whether he’d pardon Trump, the South Carolina Republican said he wouldn’t “get into hypotheticals,” but he added, “We are the city on the hill. We believe that we are innocent until proven guilty.”
Donald Trump
The former president has not publicly mentioned pardoning himself since he was indicted last week. If he were to win the presidency, his ability to pardon himself remains an open question. In 2018, when conditions were different — that is, while he still occupied the White House — Trump claimed he could.
“As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong,” he tweeted in 2018.
Cardiologists Say People 50 and Older Should Do This One Thing Every Day To Support Their Heart
Emily Laurence – June 15, 2023
When it comes to being proactive about preventing cardiovascular disease (and many other health maladies), it’s our daily habits that matter most. Having a smoothie for breakfast once a month or going to the gym for the first few weeks every January won’t undo the damage of living an unhealthy lifestyle the rest of the time. Ready to hear something encouraging? It’s never too late to start putting healthy habits in place.
If you are 50 or older, cardiologists say it’s not too late to start prioritizing heart health and putting habits in place that lower your risk of cardiovascular disease, which is the number one cause of death in the U.S. This is especially important because the risk of cardiovascular disease increases as we age. “If you have high cholesterol, LDL accumulates in blood vessels and causes plaque formation that increases the risk of heart attack and stroke,” says Dr. Norman Lepor, MD FACC FAHA FSCAI, cardiologist, Director of the National Heart Institute in Beverly Hills, Clinical Professor of Medicine at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, and Attending Cardiologist at Smidt Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute.
Dr. Lepor says the buildup of plaque is kind of like the accumulation of junk in a storage unit; over time, it piles up and eventually, it becomes a problem. But establishing healthy habits can prevent this—including if you’re over 50.
#1 Best Daily Habit for Heart Health for People Over 50, According to Cardiologists
Not sure where to start when it comes to building healthy heart habits? Dr. Christopher Davis, MD, an interventional cardiologist and founder of Reveal Vitality, says one great place to start is with stress management. “In a society filled with stress and anxiety, one of the most important habits I recommend to promote cardiovascular health is some type of breathwork or meditation practice to balance the autonomic nervous system,” he explains.
Dr. Davis emphasizes that experiencing prolonged amounts of high stress truly can have serious repercussions on the heart. He explains that high levels of anxiety and stress increase blood pressure and heart rate, increasing the risk of blood clots, which can be life-threatening.
Dr. Lepor has his own daily habit in place for managing stress: jogging. Personally, he devotes 50 minutes a day to jogging, but science has shown that even 30 minutes of intense cardiovascular exercise (like jogging) five days a week can decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease.
Finding one way to manage stress every day is a great first step in supporting your heart. Once that’s in place, you can start implementing another daily healthy habit, like exercising. Both cardiologists emphasize that diet is also hugely important when it comes to heart health. They recommend prioritizing foods that are minimally processed and nutrient-rich, such as following the Mediterranean diet, which numerous scientific studies have shown is beneficial for heart health. This way of eating prioritizes vegetables, fruit, whole grains, plant proteins, fish, nuts and olive oil.
In addition to eating well, Dr. Davis says that it’s important to consistently get good sleep. “If sleep is an issue, make sure to adhere to recommended sleep hygiene guidelines like lowering the temperature of the room, and avoiding computers, or other laptop-like devices prior to bedtime as the blue light emitted from these devices can cause issues with sleep,” he says.
Dr. Lepor says that it’s also important to get your blood pressure checked regularly, which can be done at the doctor’s office or even at home. Some people may not even realize that they have high blood pressure and are, therefore, at a higher risk of experiencing a heart attack or stroke. Sometimes, pharmaceuticals are necessary for lowering blood pressure and mitigating these risks.
Your heart health is largely in your hands. What we do every day impacts our cardiovascular health (and body as a whole) for better or worse. It’s never too late to start putting healthy habits in place. Making small, incremental changes like the ones the cardiologists shared here can have a major impact. In fact, they just might save your life.
Dr. Norman Lepor, MD FACC FAHA FSCAI, cardiologist, Director of the National Heart Institute in Beverly Hills, Clinical Professor of Medicine at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, and Attending Cardiologist at Smidt Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute
Xi Jinping’s new world order is collapsing before our eyes
Matthew Henderson – June 15, 2023
China’s President Xi Jinping speaks during the introduction of members of the Chinese Communist Party’s new Politburo Standing Committee – NOEL CELIS/AFP
While the UK and US, each embroiled in democracy’s perverse consequences, struggle to thwart Putin’s mad ambitions in Ukraine, their respective China strategies face forceful challenge from Beijing. Xi Jinping is pushing brinkmanship to the edge in the Taiwan Straits and doubling down, as in Honduras, on its global efforts to isolate Taiwan.
Meanwhile, leading Western technology companies, alarmed by geopolitical uncertainty and facing hostile data “legislation,” are marching out of China in droves. Microsoft has already taken LinkedIn out and is moving an expert AI team to Canada to avoid local pressure on them.
Risk has been defined as exposure to hostile intentions and capabilities. This dictum omits one vital issue: whether the party at risk is aware of what is going on. Arguably much of the “free” world is either ignorant, or in denial, about Xi Jinping’s policy drivers, intentions and capabilities.
This in itself is acutely risky. A tipping point in China Risk is rapidly approaching, and with it an opportunity to turn this to the West’s advantage.
Xi Jinping is forging ahead with plans for a revisionist New Era in which China becomes the sole super-power in an authoritarian, post-democratic world order. His immediate tactics include expedient alliances with other enemies of the West to defeat sanctions and other preemptive counter-measures short of military conflict.
He is striving to exploit Western political and economic division and disarray, not least through his tacit support for Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. His spuriously neutral Ukraine peace initiative lacks substance – indeed, this may be deliberate – but it symbolises his ultimate aspiration to global authority.
However, Xi is still a long way from achieving this. Though propaganda trumpets China’s triumph over the Covid virus and prospects for renewed growth, part of Xi’s aggressive haste stems from the realisation that the Chinese Communist Party state remains riddled with vulnerabilities.
China rapidly globalised its economic influence by exploiting the West’s illusion that, once admitted to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), it would engage in trade according to WTO rules and norms. But from the outset it denied foreign businesses free and fair access to its domestic market and used massive state subsidies to capture market dominance for its own products and systems across the world.
Subsequent geopolitical and economic tensions have progressively worsened due to China’s human rights abuses, political interference, cyber espionage and IP theft, mistrust and sourcing disruption caused by the pandemic, alignment with Russia, and threats to Taiwan.
This has led to an accelerating exodus of major Western companies from China to more reliable regional bases in South-East Asia, India and Bangladesh. The low cost of factory labour in China, formerly a major draw for FDI, no longer applies. Factory wages in South China are now around three times higher than in equivalent South Asian industries.
The Chinese economy has long been struggling under Xi Jinping’s Marxist ideological chokehold. Covid lockdown early in the pandemic was a kneejerk CCP crisis management response to potential social disturbance. Imposed disastrously late, it slowed transmission but failed to boost immunity.
“Zero Covid” proved powerless against the omicron variant but was not abandoned until the export-led national economy had been badly damaged by needlessly-prolonged coercive lockdowns.
Unsurprisingly, promised recovery has not been realised. Exports are depressed and the property market is in disarray, with more and more major players being delisted on the Shanghai stock exchange. The tech sector remains traumatised by Xi’s politically-motivated crackdown in 2021, which has wiped out many jobs for educated young workers at a time of serious youth unemployment.
Debt remains toxic, demographics are intractable (despite a huge surge in mortality among the under-immunised elderly soon after Zero Covid rules were abruptly relaxed). Environmental stresses, particularly water security, are worsening.
Seemingly ignoring these headwinds, Xi Jinping’s model for economic resurgence is a distinctly ideological formula called the Dual Cycle economy. The idea is to stimulate domestic technical innovation and production, leveraging this to give China a lead in global markets for cutting-edge technologies, while concurrently driving down dependency on technical cooperation with the West.
This construct ties in existing nationalist, anti-market measures and a protectionist, sanction-proofing subtext, sitting badly with claims that China is now open to the world for “business as usual”. Recent use of arbitrary data-protection legislation to seize records, detain staff and freeze important ESG and other compliance work done by foreign consultancies in Shanghai and elsewhere also undermines this claim.
Xi is hoarding gold, securing energy supplies and building up China’s military capabilities, in particular those used to threaten Taiwan. To argue that he will not, for some time at least, invade Taiwan for fear of the economic consequences misses the real point.
Xi would prefer to annex Taiwan without a fight, but he needs to be able to flex enough military muscle to undermine US support to the point that the Taiwanese lose faith in it and accept the inevitable. But this will not pay for itself, and scaring off FDI won’t fill any coffers.
Xi shows little capacity to tackle the fundamental unsustainability of the Chinese economy. Failure to do so could sweep away his dreams of a revisionist New Era. There has been much talk lately of “de-risking” from China. This is a two-way process; it should entail renewed, concerted economic pressure, including enhanced sanctions, against a regime that is already far more of a global threat than Russia.
As an Indian commentator has observed, the imperative is to reinforce national power and work in step with China’s sole global “balancer,” the US. The “Atlantic Declaration” is welcome; now it needs to grow some teeth.
Trump makes legal claims about classified documents, experts push back: Fact check
Alexandra Hutzler – June 15, 2023
Earlier this week, former President Donald Trump, speaking to supporters hours after his arraignment, outlined potential legal arguments as he defends himself against his second indictment.
Trump took the stage at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club just hours after his appearance in a Miami courtroom, where he pleaded not guilty to 37 felony counts in relation to his alleged mishandling of classified documents.
Trump unloaded on the charges and in the process mischaracterized aspects of the Presidential Records Act and the Espionage Act, experts told ABC News.
Here’s a more in-depth look at the former president’s claims.
He cites the Presidential Records Act
“Under the Presidential Records Act, which is civil not criminal, I had every right to have these documents,” Trump said.
The 1978 law, not mentioned in the indictment, states just the opposite, as it requires records created by presidents and vice presidents be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) at the end of their administrations.
“On the contrary, the former President had absolutely no right to have taken any presidential records with him to Mar A Lago,” Jason R. Baron, former director of litigation at NARA, told ABC News in an email.
“Under the Presidential Records Act, the Archivist of the United States assumed legal custody of all Trump White House official records immediately upon President Biden’s swearing in as President,” Baron said. “Every piece of paper constituting an official document, whether it was classified or unclassified, should have been turned over to NARA. Moreover, when NARA staff asked for the return of the records improperly taken, the former President should have immediately given NARA every official document in his possession.”
PHOTO: Former President Donald Trump delivers remarks at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in Bedminster, N. J., on June 13, 2023. (Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images)
Among the documents found at his Florida estate, according to prosecutors, were ones marked “top secret” and some about the country’s nuclear programs.
“I think it is misleading because the Presidential Records Act just isn’t the statute at issue,” Margaret Kwoka, a law professor at Ohio State University, told ABC News of Trump’s remarks.
“There’s no reason to think that the Presidential Records Act somehow overrides the Espionage Act,” Kwoka added. “And so this is not, in my view, going to provide a very strong sort of basis for defense against the charges in the indictment.”
He alludes to a judge’s decision in a case involving former President Bill Clinton
“Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s decision states under the statutory scheme established by the Presidential Records Act, the decision to segregate personal materials from presidential records is made by the president during the president’s term and in the president’s sole discretion,” Trump said.
Trump has repeatedly pointed to a case involving former President Bill Clinton in the wake of the indictment.
In 2010, the conservative group Judicial Watch sued the National Archives and Records Administration, arguing audio tapes kept by Clinton for interviews he did with historian Taylor Branch during his years in office — and which he afterward allegedly kept in a sock drawer — were “presidential records” and should be made available to the public.
U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson dismissed the case, and Trump and his allies have taken to quoting different parts of her opinion in their defense.
The Presidential Records Act does contain an exception for personal records, according to Baron, including items such as “diaries, journals, and other personal notes that were never used in the transaction of government business.”
“President Trump had the right to keep those types of records. But the argument being made by some that he had some kind of absolute authority while president to declare classified records or other official records about government business as his personal records is absurd in its face,” he said. “It is also contrary to law. The decision by Judge Jackson cited prior precedent from the D.C. Circuit that stands for the opposite proposition.”
That citation included in Jackson’s opinion reads, in part, that the Presidential Records Act “does not bestow on the president the power to assert sweeping authority over whatever materials he chooses to designate as presidential records without any possibility of judicial review.”
“Judge Jackson went on to speculate about the level of deference to be afforded a president making a categorical decision about whether records of his were personal, but she never ruled on that issue,” Baron said. “Instead, the case was dismissed on the grounds that plaintiff had no standing to compel the Archivist to seize materials not in the government’s possession.”
There are also significant differences between the materials in question in the two cases.
“In that case, the records were very different and really did seem arguably personal,” Kwoka said of the Clinton matter. “We’re just sort of nowhere near the situation that we’re discussing today with the records that President Trump kept.”
PHOTO: Former President Donald Trump delivers remarks at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in Bedminster, N. J., on June 13, 2023. (Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images)
He claims he was still negotiating with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
“I was supposed to negotiate with NARA, which is exactly what I was doing until Mar-a-Lago was raided,” Trump said.
Trump continued to make an argument he and his team have been for months, asserting he’s allowed to negotiate with NARA over which documents are personal and what’s presidential after leaving office.
NARA, in a June 9 statement, said the law requires a president to separate personal and presidential documents “before leaving office.”
“There is no history, practice, or provision in law for presidents to take official records with them when they leave office to sort through, such as for a two-year period as described in some reports,” NARA said.
He says he’s being treated like a spy
“The Espionage Act has been used to go after traitors and spies. It has nothing to do with a former president legally keeping his own documents,” he said.
Trump has been charged under 18 U.S.C. § 793(e) of the Espionage Act, which prohibits unauthorized retention and disclosure of national defense information, and does not require that information be classified or disseminated to a foreign government.
Neither did the indictment charge him with disseminating information with the intent to harm the U.S.
Still, Trump and his allies have repeatedly claimed he’s accused of being a spy.
“This is not an uncommon argument for defendants to make,” David Aaron, a senior counsel at Perkins Coie and former federal prosecutor with the Justice Department’s national security division, told ABC News. “The title Espionage Act is kind of a misnomer because it includes much more than espionage.”
“Espionage is a different section entirely of Title 18. He’s charged simply with willfully retaining national defense information,” Aaron said. “He’s not charged with disclosing classified information to foreign governments or to anyone else, although there are references in the current indictment to his alleged disclosure to unauthorized people.”
GOP Strategist Shreds Whatabouting Republicans With Her Own ‘What About?’ Questions
Lee Moran – June 15, 2023
CNN conservative commentator Alice Stewart ripped Republicans defending Donald Trump’s classified documents indictment by trying to spin it into attacks on his political rivals, including President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence.
“The difficulty is that many Republicans are consumed with espousing ’whataboutisms,’” Stewart, a former adviser to multiple GOP presidential candidates, wrote in an opinion piece published Wednesday.
“’What about Joe Biden? What about Hillary Clinton? What about Pence?’” Stewart imagined them saying, before adding her own “what about” questions:
“What about Donald Trump being responsible for his own actions? What about his absconding with intel secrets? What about the former president facing retribution for his lifetime of shameful and illegal behavior?”
Stewart also told supporters of the 2024 GOP front-runner Trump to “take your head out of the sand” about his chances of regaining the presidency.
“Take off your bedazzled rose-colored glasses and take a good hard look at the reality of this losing proposition,” she demanded, saying it was “time to turn the page on Trumpism.”
The US is now facing a third inflation wave, economist explains
‘Greedflation’ comes when companies use the excuse of higher input costs to hike prices, but are really profit-led, UBS’s Paul Donovan said.
Brad Smith – Anchor – June 15, 2023
Although US consumer prices provided further signs of relief for consumers in April, there are still factors keeping inflation elevated — and corporations may be reaping the benefits of that.
“We’ve had a really unfortunate situation where we’ve had three very, very different inflation waves caused by very different things,” UBS Global Wealth Management Chief Economist Paul Donovan told Yahoo Finance (video above). “And they’ve just come one after the other. So it looks like you’ve had this continuous period of inflation.”
The first wave, primarily in consumer durable goods, “was demand-led,” Donovan explained. “That’s over. Durable goods prices in the States are falling. You’ve got outright deflation.”
That was followed by a second wave of supply-led inflation, he added, “and that was the energy shock coming out of the war in Ukraine.” And then “the third wave of inflation — the one we’re getting now — is this unusual profit-led inflation story.”
Sometimes called “excuseflation” or “greedflation,” profit-led inflation occurs when consumer-facing companies toward the end of the supply chain persuade shoppers to accept price hikes by pointing to plausible explanations (such as historically-elevated inflation). However, Donovan said, the true reason for these elevated prices could have more to do with expanding margins and keeping investor sentiment high than with increased input costs.
“It’s using excuses,” Donovan said. “It’s using a cover.”
A shopper, who lamented that groceries have recently become much more expensive, holds the receipt from his purchase at a discount supermarket on June 15, 2022, in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
Why inflation remains sticky
The main drivers of higher prices are the costs of goods sold — which includes both material and labor costs — and corporate profits.THE TAKEAWAY
As supply and demand shocks begin to wane, economists look to another potential culprit of sticky inflation: corporate profit margins.
Fortunately for consumers, prices for materials have slid tremendously. The World Bank expects a 21% decline in commodity prices in 2023 relative to 2022 — which, it noted, would be the sharpest drop since the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, prices still hover well above average levels from 2015-2019. During the first quarter of 2023, certain companies continued to institute price increases even as they witnessed flat or declining comparable sales volumes.
“I think what you see going on as much as anything is, one, obviously we’ve taken some pricing to cover the inflation that we’ve been dealing with,” PepsiCo (PEP) CFO Hugh Johnston told Yahoo Finance. “As consumers move to smaller size packages, it affects volume a little bit as well. But overall, the demand for our products continues to be quite high.”
Elevated labor costs may be the larger quandary for an inflation-fighting Federal Reserve — and a viable explanation for businesses pushing through price increases.
“What I think will be the bigger story this year for the broader economy, especially for the Fed, will be these stickier labor costs,” Charles Schwab Senior Investment Strategist Kevin Gordon told Yahoo Finance.
“Look at unit labor-cost growth — it is still way above trend, pre-COVID trend — and the fact that you’re not really seeing an easing in productivity growth or lack thereof because it’s still deeply negative,” he said.
“So that convergence, I think, will be really important because companies can only stomach those higher labor costs for so long, especially if you’re not getting that revenue back and that revenue surge.”
However, corporate profits have also played a large role in price increases since the disruptions from the coronavirus pandemic took hold.
According to an analysis published by the Economic Policy Institute, corporate profits replaced unit labor costs as the largest contributor to unit price growth in the nonfinancial corporate sector from the second quarter of 2020 to the fourth quarter of 2021, when compared with historical averages from 1979-2019.
“[Corporations] sneak in a margin increase,” Donovan said. “And you can see this with, for example, the rise in retail profits as a share of GDP. That’s one instance where we’re seeing this expansion of margin under the cover of, ‘Oh, it’s a general inflation problem. We can’t help it.’ But actually, they’re expanding margin and just basically persuading consumers to accept that.”
How long before companies rethink ‘excuseflation’?
Another reason companies may feel comfortable raising prices has been the continued strength of consumers.
During the first quarter of 2023, a host of company executives said US consumers were “healthy” and their spending remained “resilient“, while also detailing price increases and profit preservation efforts to investors and equity analysts.
“After slowing in the back half of 2022 a bit, we saw the pace of payments picked back up in quarter one, especially in the latter parts of the quarter,” Bank of America (BAC) CEO Brian Moynihan said during the company’s Q1 earnings call. “Consumers’ financial position remains generally healthy. They’re employed with generally higher wages, continue to have strong account balances, and have good access to credit.”
In June, however, Moynihan acknowledged that spending has “slowed down” following a succession of Federal Reserve interest rate increases. There’s also evidence that higher prices are weighing on consumer confidence.
For instance, consumer sentiment slid 7% in May, “erasing nearly half of the gains achieved after the all-time historic low from last June,” Joanne Hsu, director of the University of Michigan’s Surveys, said in its most recent report. “That said, consumer views over their personal finances are little changed from April, with stable income expectations supporting consumer spending for the time being.”
People shop at Lincoln Market on June 12, 2023, in the Prospect Lefferts Gardens neighborhood in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
While profit-led inflation can help preserve near-term profits for a company, it could also be detrimental to a brand’s image if consumers see the reasons for raising prices as disingenuous — particularly as social media provides a new outlet for consumers to push back.
Donovan said that a company’s brand can be damaged if it’s accused of “profiteering” at a time when people are suffering.
“Remember, we’ve had two years of negative real-wage growth across the developed world — people are feeling the pain,” he said. “So I think that social media can help inflame profit-led inflation by creating excuses that companies can use. But it can also work by threatening brand values to cause companies to rethink some of their pricing strategies.”
Because of that, profit-led inflation won’t last forever, Donovan said.
“At some point, either governments or consumers realize that this is going on, and they say, ‘Hold on, that’s not fair,’ and then you start to damage brand values,” he said. “You’re seen as cheating or unfairly treating the consumer. And that’s exactly the point that we’re now starting to get to.”
Youngkin, commenting last week on Trump’s Espionage Act indictment for mishandling classified documents, wrote on Twitter that Trump was being victimized by selective prosecution that ignores some people’s lawbreaking.
Stewart, host of “The Problem with Jon Stewart” retweeted a clip from his show acknowledging the existence of a “two-tiered justice system” before schooling the Republican governor on Trump’s place in it.
“He has lived his entire adult life in the space twixt illegal and unethical. He’s in the tier where you get the platinum arraignment package — no cuffs, no mugshot, all-you-can-eat fingerprint ink.”
The former “Daily Show” host later analyzed the New York state attorney general’s civil lawsuit against Trump’s now-defunct charitable organization, which Trump was ordered to settle for $2 million.
“Yes. It’s all selective prosecution,” Stewart said. “And when you’re in the good tier, you can do whatever you want and you’re probably going to be fine.”
“In fact, you might even be elected president — twice.”
Two more property insurance companies scaling back coverage in Florida
Rich Jones – June 15, 2023
Florida homeowners have fewer options for property insurance. Just two weeks into hurricane season, The Farmers Group and AIG say they’re scaling back policy coverage.
Both companies point to their vulnerability to natural disasters like hurricanes and flood.
Over the past 18 months in Florida, 16 property insurance companies have decided to stop writing new business to new homeowners in one form or the other.
WOKV Consumer Warrior Clark Howard says insurers are pulling out of Florida and California because the risks have become incalculable.
“Florida and California will need to offer state-backed reinsurance so that insurers can issue actuarially sound policies.”, Clark said.
Clark suggests shopping for insurance through an independent agent and then get quotes for a high deductible, the highest your mortgage company will allow you take.
“You’re eliminating for the insurer what they refer to as nuisance claims. So you become a less risky, less costly person for them to insure.”, Clark said.
Clark says the Florida Legislature is going to need to step in and address Citizens Insurance, the insurer of last resort. He says the state will have to take over the role of reinsurance, eliminate Citizens, which could allow regular insurers to come back.
“That insurers would be liable for losses up to a ceiling, whatever that is. And then after that the Florida reinsurance would cover it.”, said Clark.
Beware of ticks this summer and pay attention to these signs of Lyme disease.
Beware of ticks this summer and pay attention to these signs of Lyme disease.
While the arrival of summer brings the opportunity to spend more time lounging on your lawn or hiking woodsy trails, we’re not the only ones excited about the long, warm days ahead: Ticks are most active from April through September. And while no one wants a bug bite, ticks are significantly more threatening than most.
While treatable with antibiotics if caught early enough, if it’s left untreated, Lyme disease symptoms can spread to the joints, heart and nervous system, which is why it’s important to catch it early (or, ideally, to avoid getting it at all).
Below, infectious disease experts share the most common early symptoms of Lyme disease so you don’t end up with a chronic case of it ― and how to avoid getting it in the first place.
The Top Early Signs Of Lyme Disease
Dr. Tammy Lundstrom, an infectious disease specialist at Trinity Health in Michigan, and Dr. Sarah Park, an infectious disease clinician who works at the life sciences company Karius in Honolulu, suggested looking out for the following early signs of Lyme disease.
A ‘Bullseye’ Rash
Formally called “erythema migrans,” a rash that looks like a bullseye or target is the most common early Lyme disease symptom, according to Lundstrom.
“It can be very faint, however,” she said. “It also may be absent in 20-30% of cases and can be hard to see on darker skin tones.”
Park added that this rash typically appears within three to 30 days following a tick bite.
Flu-Like Symptoms
Between COVID, the flu and even the common cold, if you find yourself with achy joints, chills, a fever, a headache or other flu-like symptoms, Lyme disease may not be the first thing on your mind. But these symptoms could be signs of it.
“These symptoms can easily be mistaken for a common viral infection such as a cold or flu,” Lundstrom said. “However, the onset of these symptoms paired with potential tick exposure ― for example, hiking in the brush, woodsy areas or tall grass ― occurring three to seven days afterward can signal Lyme disease is a possible cause. Be sure to consult with a medical professional, especially if you identify the bullseye rash or develop other noted symptoms.”
Fatigue
Sudden fatigue could also be an early Lyme disease sign.
“Fatigue is an early sign that is frequently dismissed and assumed to occur from not enough sleep or regular everyday activities like working out,” Park said.
Non-Bullseye Rashes
Other rashes that don’t look like a target could be an early sign of Lyme disease, too.
“A bullseye rash may first appear as a small red bump or a solid red patch that gradually expands, but not everyone develops this type of rash,” Park said. “Other skin manifestations like hives or discomfort similar to a sunburn can also occur.”
Fatigue is one of the hallmark signs of Lyme disease.
Fatigue is one of the hallmark signs of Lyme disease.
How To Prevent Lyme Disease
While Lyme disease is treatable when caught early enough, the best case scenario is that you don’t get it at all — which is why it’s key to protect yourself from ticks, be aware of the early signs of Lyme disease, and know when and where you’re most likely to get it.
“The illness is caused by ticks in the nymph stage, not adults,” Lundstrom said. “They may be very small, around the size of a poppy seed, and hard to see, but it is important to do a thorough check for ticks after outdoor activities. This includes skin folds and your hair. Early recognition and treatment are key to preventing chronic symptoms such as arthritis, headaches, neck stiffness and facial drooping.”
In addition to checking for tinier ticks (remember: the size of a poppyseed!) Lundstrom recommends wearing long pants and long-sleeved shirts when hiking.
“Treat clothing with 0.5% permethrin or buy pretreated hiking gear, and use EPA-registered insect repellent containing DEET,” she added. “Walk in the center of trails for less contact with brush and grass, and always examine skin and clothing carefully and shower to wash off unattached ticks upon returning from a hike.”
If you prefer a DEET-free alternative, Lundstrom said picaridin, IR3535, Oil of Lemon Eucalyptus (OLE), para-menthane-diol (PMD), or 2-undecanone are options to look for in an EPA-registered repellent.
It’s also important to do regular tick checks if you live in an area with more Lyme disease and to seek help right away if you’re noticing any signs that could be symptoms of the disease.
Finally, know that in most cases, a tick has to be attached to your body for 36 to 48 hours before Lyme disease can be transmitted, which is why checking for and removing ticks quickly can make all the difference when it comes to Lyme disease prevention.
While a Lyme disease vaccine may be a possibility at some point in the future, for now, it’s a reality we’re living with. So know the signs, wear protective clothing and bug spray, and do regular tick checks this summer. Trust us, you won’t regret it.
CORRECTION: A prior version of this article incorrectly referred to ticks as insects, but they are arachnids.
The Struggle for Food Sovereignty in Immokalee, Florida
Julia Knoerr – June 14, 2023
The majority of migrant farmworkers live below the federal poverty line, without easy access to healthy foods or affordable housing. To survive, many in this tight-knit community have found strategies for mutual aid and collaborative resilience.
People wait in line for food at the annual Thanksgiving in the Park gathering where residents of the farmworker community of Immokalee are provided with a free Thanksgiving meal. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
After leaving three children in Guatemala, Maria Vasquez spent 15 years working in the agricultural industry in Immokalee, Florida. She worked in the fields for three years picking jalapeños, watermelons, cucumbers, melons, tomatoes, and pumpkins before spending 12 years processing tomatoes in a warehouse.
Although Vasquez handled food every day for work, she couldn’t afford to buy groceries. Instead, she began exchanging food with friends and learning about Immokalee’s community-based resources through word of mouth.
Immokalee is known as the tomato capital of the United States, yet 28 percent of the town’s 24,500 residents—the majority migrant farmworkers from Central America, Mexico, and Haiti—live below the federal poverty line and without easy access to healthy foods. This poverty rate is more than double the statewide average, and it’s compounded by higher-than-average food prices, a housing crisis, and minimal public transportation options.
A volunteer distributes bags of free food at the Meals of Hope weekly Thursday distribution at Immokalee’s Farmworker Village. (Photo credit: Julia Knoerr)
To face these challenges, Vasquez connected with local organizations committed to mutual aid and self-reliance. She began attending meal distribution events at Misión Peniel, a ministry of Peace River Presbytery that supports the Immokalee farmworker community, and joined the mission’s women’s group to build connections.
When she gave birth to a son with Down syndrome in 2015, she gave up the demanding hours of agricultural work to care for him and began providing cleaning services for the mission. She volunteered at the community garden behind the building run by Cultivate Abundance, an organization that addresses food insecurity and livelihood challenges in low-income, migrant farmworker communities, until the group hired her on as a garden aid.
Like Vasquez, many in this tight-knit community have found strategies for collaborative resilience as the pandemic and Hurricane Ian have made food access even more challenging in recent years.
A combination of informal mutual aid networks, small-scale farms, foraging, and donated meals from local organizations such as Misión Peniel and Meals of Hope keep the community nourished. Additionally, Cultivate Abundance is growing crops such as amaranth, Haitian basket vine, and chaya (a nutritious shrub native to the Yucatan peninsula) to move beyond charity and equip community members with culturally relevant, locally recognized produce.
These efforts not only bolster food security, but they also support the community’s autonomy to grow their own food and engage in collective healing. While many Immokalee residents report that they practice grueling labor each day and have experienced xenophobia, sexual violence, and rent gouging in their recent pasts, the garden behind Misión Peniel offers a safe space for community members to speak their own languages, share memories from their home countries, practice meditation, and return to their ancestral cultural knowledge to grow their own food as stewards of the land.
One of Cultivate Abundance’s community gardens sits behind Misión Peniel and has helped the organization produce over 59 tons of produce since beginning operations in 2018. (Photo credit: Julia Knoerr)
Food and Housing Insecurity in Immokalee
Immokalee’s Main Street boasts a few blocks of small markets featuring products from the community’s predominant Mexican, Guatemalan, and Haitian diasporas, as well as money-transfer services for migrants to send money home. Old school buses transporting farmworkers to work pull into the parking lot of La Fiesta supermarket, a key intersection in town bordering on the land owned and occupied by Misión Peniel and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a high-profile farmworker advocacy group.
Here, wild chickens cluck at all hours of the day, their chorus mixing with broadcasting from Radio Conciencia 107.7, the CIW’s community radio station. Green space is scarce, and beyond the town’s center, sidewalks fade into neighborhoods of run-down trailers and busy roads lined with fast food restaurants.
Though Immokalee sits just 30 miles from Naples, one of the wealthiest cities in Florida, wages remain a primary barrier to residents’ adequate food access. The most recent Census found an average per-capita annual income of $16,380 in Immokalee between 2017-2021. Nearly 39 percent of the town’s population was born outside of the U.S., and the number of farmworkers varies based on the season; some sources estimate that as many as 15,000–20,000 migrant seasonal farmworkers typically live in the area.
In the winter months, the majority of those workers are there to pick tomatoes. From 1980 to 2009, farmworkers received 50 cents per bucket picked rather than a guaranteed minimum wage, meaning they had to harvest at least 150 buckets per day to make enough income.
Cultivate Abundance’s banana circle offers different varieties of banans and plaintains. (Photo credit: Julia Knoerr)
CIW’s Fair Food Program, which began in 2010 to create a fairer food industry for workers, farmers, buyers, and consumers, improved those conditions. The program is known nationally as a model for providing farmworkers with human rights, and requiring that growers selling to participating buyers (such as McDonalds, Walmart, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s) clock workers’ time and pay them minimum wage (currently $11 per hour in Florida), as required by federal law. Participating buyers also agree to pay at least a penny more per pound of tomatoes they buy, translating to a bonus that gets split among qualifying workers.
However, not all buyers participate in the Fair Food Program. The CIW continues to advocate for a consumer boycott of Publix, Kroger, and Wendy’s, which have all refused to join. Julia Perkins, education coordinator for the CIW, says even with these gains, many workers struggle to feed themselves. Agricultural work is inconsistent, and an individual’s income will vary greatly by season.
“When there is a lot of picking to be done, when it’s not raining a lot, [if] it’s the first pick, you can do pretty well for a number of weeks,” Perkins says. “[But] not well enough to feed you for the rest of the year.”
The pandemic exacerbated farmworkers’ struggle for adequate income. The market for wholesale crops declined because industries like cruises, hotels, and restaurants shut down, lowering the prices of commodities and increasing grocery store prices.
Farmworkers experienced the brunt of the economic downturn—lower demand for the crops they picked meant fewer jobs, and inflation limited their wages’ reach. If farmworkers fell sick with the virus and couldn’t go to work, they received no pay, and as they remained essential workers, they couldn’t shelter in place.
Furthermore, many Immokalee residents are undocumented, meaning they didn’t qualify for federal stimulus checks under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), nor have they received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to help them purchase food.
Beyond wages, housing often demands 60 percent of Immokalee residents’ income, according to Arol Buntzman, chairman of the Immokalee Fair Housing Coalition. The same five or six families have owned the majority of Immokalee properties for years and charge weekly rent for each individual, including small children, living in 50-year-old trailers. Multiple families and strangers often share rooms.
In September 2022, Hurricane Ian further increased the cost of rent. Intensifying the already severe housing shortage, Hurricane Ian destroyed housing in Naples and Fort Myers, leading some residents of those towns to move to Immokalee and outbid farmworkers, which Buntzman says in turn raised rents even more.
Feeding Farmworker Families
To address these growing needs, nonprofit and religious organizations have been providing fundamental support through basic health and food services.
Julyvette Pacheco, office manager at the food security organization Meals of Hope, saw need increase in the wake of Hurricane Ian, compounded by inflation. Her organization used to feed 200 families in Immokalee every week, but after the hurricane, that number rose to 350.
“Something we have been noticing since the hurricane,” Pachecho says, “is that people are not patient. When they come here, most of them are struggling. They need food, they have been waiting.”
Meanwhile, Cultivate Abundance addresses food insecurity by growing produce reflective of migrants’ foodways and empowering them with skills to grow their own. The main garden behind Misión Peniel is one-tenth of an acre and has produced more than 59 tons of fruit and vegetables since its start in 2018.
During the garden’s inception, members of the mission’s women’s group contributed to a participatory decision-making process about the type of produce they valued, and community members can now volunteer in the garden in exchange for produce to take home. Whether through their families or professional lives, staff members share connection to the agricultural industry and have built partnership with other local farms and gardens.
Lupita Vasquez-Reyes, Cultivate Abundance’s community garden and outreach manager, grew up in Immokalee as the daughter of migrant farmworkers from Mexico. After 20 years away, she returned in 2019, just one year after the garden started in collaboration with Misión Peniel. Vasquez-Reyes says the group has worked to build intentional solidarity with an intersectional approach to diversity in the garden. The beds now boast a wide variety of medicinal herbs and produce, including edible weeds like yerba mora that many would discard.
Lupita Vasquez-Reyes (left) showcases the garden’s offerings, including many plants requested by community members or grown from shared seed. Corn (right) is an essential crop for many community members, who dry corn daily to make masa and use the silk for its medicinal qualities. (Photo credit: Julia Knoerr)
Vasquez-Reyes points to plantains, bananas, corn, chaya, edible mesquite pods, Barbados cherries, tree tomatoes native to Guatemala, and a vertical garden of herbs and lettuces. Epazote is a bitter herb that Vasquez says is helpful to make beans and other legumes easier to digest. Cactus pads have been planted to support climate and storm resilience, and a compost pile ensures that nothing goes to waste.
Cilantro is the biggest hit. “People get so joyous about being able to have it fresh,” Vasquez-Reyes says. “If we didn’t have cilantro, we probably wouldn’t have the success we have here.”
Cultivate Abundance also functions as a garden center for residents, giving out seedlings, recycled soil, fertilizer, and extra materials. Vasquez-Reyes says container gardens are accessible and can easily move with community members with very limited living space or permanence.
Landlords often deter tenants from gardening due to water costs, so many people hand water and collect rain to decrease their dependence on grocery stores.
Thursday is the official harvest day at the Misión Peniel garden; all produce goes to the mission’s meal distributions that have a policy of turning no one away. Cultivate Abundance also maintains a small budget to purchase produce from other local organic farms to supplement their own harvests for meal distributions.
Collaborating for Survival
Vasquez-Reyes says that Haitian, Guatemalan, and Mexican migrants tend to share similar conditions in Immokalee, inspiring a cross-cultural exchange of knowledge and networking. That might look like sharing food, sharing food bank tips, and comparing grocery prices between stores.
Community members will also often forage for weeds with high nutritional content or medicinal uses, according to Vasquez-Reyes. Sometimes they will return to trailer camps where they lived previously to forage plants and will then exchange information with friends about where to find different food sources.
Herbs grow vertically at Cultivate Abundance, where cilantro is the most popular crop. (Photo credit: Julia Knoerr)
Maria Vasquez is one community member who has built a strong network of mutual care. Seven blocks over from Misión Peniel, Vasquez has a small garden at her trailer where she grows everything from amaranth to chile de árbol, mostaza [mustard plant], and epazote and shares it with people in great need. This invitation often leads them to try new foods.
“A little while back, there was an older woman who I came to help. I brought her amaranth; I brought her cilantro,” Vasquez says in Spanish.
Today’s food system is complex.
It took her some time to gain her neighbor’s trust, but now that neighbor, who has diabetes, checks in with Vasquez if she doesn’t see her every day. “She said she had never eaten amaranth; she knew of it, but it was only for the animals,” Vasquez says. Now, she’s started cooking it, as well as other vegetables Vasquez introduced her to.
This knowledge sharing has gone directly back into the garden. Vasquez brought taquitos made with yerba mora one day for Cultivate Abundance staff to sample, and now the herb grows in the garden.
To Vasquez-Reyes, these strategies move away from a fear-based, scarcity approach to poverty and hunger. “We’ve been functioning in food insecurity in this country from a very harmful place, and we’re not centering what people are living,” Vasquez-Reyes says. “That includes the violence, but it includes also the resilience and the self-reliance component of what people are already doing—the networks, the economic alternatives.”
Vasquez-Reyes hopes the garden can also provide space for community members to give voice to their stories in their own healing processes surrounding their experiences as immigrants and laborers fueling an industry of mass consumption. These reflections often emerge as core memories of working in the fields, talking freely about the places they are from, or sharing family members’ stories.
For Vasquez-Reyes, the goal is to reimagine a better world. The practice of growing chemical-free, slow food itself flips the narrative of agriculture as an industry rooted in commodity production. Rather, Vasquez-Reyes says, Cultivate Abundance’s intentional, small-scale approach allows community volunteers and staff to again grow food in partnership with the land.
When planting the milpa (corn, squash, and beans), community members will share blessings and even make video calls to family members in their home countries who are simultaneously preparing the same crops. Through these types of exchanges, the garden space nurtures the community’s nutritional needs, their identities, and their souls.
“It’s not survival of the fittest; it’s collaborative survival,” Vasquez-Reyes says. “That’s the real sustainability.”
This reporting was supported by the Pulitzer Center.
Read a Spanish-language version of the story on El Nuevo Herald.
People wait in line for food at the annual Thanksgiving in the Park gathering where residents of the farmworker community of Immokalee are provided with a free Thanksgiving meal. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
