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The truth about Biden, the GOP, Social Security, and Medicare [Judd Legum, Popular Information]

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• President Joe Biden has been criticized by major media outlets and Republican officials for his claims that Republicans are proposing cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
• The Republican Study Committee (RSC) proposed a 2023 budget that would cut Social Security and Medicare benefits by increasing the retirement age and changing the benefit formula.
• Congressman Buddy Carter (R-GA) and Senator John Thune (R-ND) have both called for cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
• Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) proposed a plan to “sunset” all programs after five years, including Social Security and Medicare.
• Biden’s real vulnerability on the issue stems from his own efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare years ago.
• However, Biden has since changed his position and proposed to increase Social Security benefits, not freeze them.

Published February 14, 2023
Visit Popular Information to read Judd Legum’s original post The truth about Biden, the GOP, Social Security, and Medicare

“Apartheid” in Jackson, Mississippi [Judd Legum, Popular Information]

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• Mississippi House, dominated by white Republicans, voted to create a separate court system and police force for portions of Jackson, Mississippi, the second-Blackest city in the US.
• Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said the proposal “reminds me of apartheid” and is an attempt to “colonize Jackson.”
• The bill would expand the Capitol Complex Improvement District, covering about 50,000 people, and divert 18.75% of sales tax that would otherwise go to Jackson to a Capitol Complex Improvement District project fund.
• The lead author of the bill is Representative Trey Lamar (R), who lives more than 150 miles north of Jackson.
• The Capitol Police force has faced criticism for being involved in multiple shootings and deploying “overzealous tactics” with “little accountability.”
• Mississippi’s bill parallels decades-long efforts to deny Washington D.C. statehood, which is rooted in a desire to limit the power of Black voters.
• Congress has taken control of D.C.’s finances, debts, courts, and prisons, and retains the right to review and nullify any legislation passed by the district’s local government.
• This exclusion of D.C. residents from a voice in Congress contributes to the underrepresentation of voters of color in the American political system.

Published February 9, 2023
Visit Popular Information to read Judd Legum’s original post “Apartheid” in Jackson, Mississippi

How Koch manipulates the media [Judd Legum, Popular Information]

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• Charles Koch’s political organization, AFP Action, released a memo claiming that the Republican Party is nominating bad candidates who are advocating for things that go against core American principles.
• The memo signals a break between the Koch political network and MAGA Republicans, particularly Trump.
• Despite Koch’s repeated announcements of reorienting his political strategy away from far-right Republicans, including Trump, he has quietly resumed business as usual.
• Koch has spent millions of dollars to legitimize Trump and his allies.
• After 147 Republican members of Congress voted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, the Koch network announced that the vote would “”weigh heavy in our evaluation of future support.””
• However, over the next two years, AFP Action spent $63,401,608 supporting Republican candidates for federal office, $5,576,858 opposing Democratic candidates, and zero dollars supporting Democratic candidates.
• 86.7% of AFP Action’s spending bolstered candidates who were endorsed by Trump.
• In 2016, Koch generated headlines for saying he would not financially support Trump, who had secured the Republican nomination, but ended up providing critical financial support to Trump’s successful campaign.

Published February 7, 2023
Visit Popular Information to read Judd Legum’s original post How Koch manipulates the media

Trumpism Without Trump [David A. Graham, The Atlantic]

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• Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, and Mike Pompeo are all reportedly on the verge of announcing a run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, much to the fury of Donald Trump.
• Trump has accused DeSantis of being “very disloyal” and has alleged that he tearfully “begged” Trump for his endorsement in his first run for governor in 2018.
• Trump has remade the GOP in his own image, yet his personal appeal to its voters appears to be waning.
• Candidates who have tried to run as Trumpists in competitive elections have largely struggled.
• Despite this, the would-be nominees are constructing a Trumpism without Trump, based on exploiting cultural resentment.
• Trump’s grip on the GOP is still strong, and many leaders of his party have never left his side.
• Trump is now threatening to make a third-party bid if he doesn’t win the Republican nomination and doesn’t approve of the Republican nominee.

Published February 7, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read David A. Graham’s original post Trumpism Without Trump

The Institutional Arsonist Turns on His Own Party [Peter Wehner, The Atlantic]

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• Donald Trump may lose the GOP presidential primary and, out of spite, wreck Republican prospects in 2024.
• A *Bulwark* poll found that a large majority of Republicans are ready to move on from Trump, but more than a quarter of likely Republican voters are ready to follow Trump to a third-party bid.
• Trump has flirted with third-party runs before, including in 2000, and he refused to rule out a third-party run in 2015.
• Trump has no attachment to the Republican Party or, as best as one can tell, to anything or anyone else.
• Trump could ensure that Republican presidential and congressional candidates lose simply by criticizing them during the campaign, accusing the Republican Party of disloyalty, and signaling to his supporters that they should sit out the election.
• House Republicans have elevated and showcased Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has embraced QAnon conspiracy theories, insisted that 9/11 was an inside job, and voiced support for executing prominent Democrats.
• Republicans will abandon Trump only when he’s deemed to be a surefire political loser.
• Donald Trump delights in watching the world burn.

Published February 5, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read Peter Wehner’s original post The Institutional Arsonist Turns on His Own Party

February 3, 2023 [Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American]

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• Mike Pence recently proposed replacing the New Deal with a “better deal” by privatizing Social Security and cutting domestic spending.
• Republicans believe that cutting taxes and staying out of economic affairs will lead to wealth trickling down and creating more jobs.
• Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves refuses to accept an expansion of Medicaid, which is putting 38 rural hospitals in danger of collapsing.
• The Fifth Circuit recently ruled that a federal law prohibiting people who are under a domestic restraining order from owning a gun is unconstitutional.
• President Joe Biden and the Democrats are reviving the theory embraced by members of both parties between 1933 and 1981, which involves the federal government regulating business, providing a basic social safety net, investing in infrastructure, and protecting civil rights.
• Biden is also bringing supply chains home, rebuilding foreign alliances, and investing in research and development.
• The January 2021 jobs report showed an astonishing 517,000 new jobs added and unemployment falling to 3.4%.
• Biden believes that the next three to four years will determine what the country looks like for the next four to five decades.

Published February 4, 2023
Visit Letters from an American to read Heather Cox Richardson’s original post February 3, 2023

 

The GOP Is Just Obnoxious [David Frum, The Atlantic]

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• Mehmet Oz, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, mocked his opponent’s affliction during the campaign, leading to his defeat.
• Many other unsuccessful Republican candidates in 2022 offered voters weird, extreme, or obnoxious personas.
• Ron DeSantis, the Florida Governor, indulged in obnoxious stunts in 2022, but was an incumbent executive with a record of accomplishment.
• James Poniewozik’s 2019 book, *Audience of One*, argues that Trump’s ascendancy was the product of a huge shift in media culture.
• Republicans have built career paths for young people that start on extremist message boards and lead to jobs on Republican campaigns.
• Republicans have endured four bad elections in a row, and have failed to flip a single chamber in any state legislature.
• Democratic candidates don’t try to energize their base by “owning the conservatives”; they don’t have an obvious “base” the way that Republicans do.
• The Republican Party needs to start with something more basic: at least pretend to be nice.

Published February 1, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read David Frum’s original post The GOP Is Just Obnoxious

Republicans’ 2024 Magical Thinking [McKay Coppins, The Atlantic]

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• Donald Trump has become a problem for the Republican party, and many GOP officials and strategists are hoping for something to happen that will make him go away.
• Some Republicans are hoping for Trump’s “mortal demise,” while others are hoping for a donor revolt or legal troubles to sideline him.
• However, Trump’s legal troubles could actually boost him with the party’s base, and a coordinated donor revolt has not materialized.
• In 2016, Trump’s rivals failed to beat him because they were convinced his self-inflicted demise was imminent.
• The current field of GOP presidential prospects could end up splitting the anti-Trump electorate, and few of the top figures in the party have demonstrated an ability to take on Trump directly.
• Even if another Republican captures the nomination, there’s no guarantee that Trump will go away, as he has suggested he might run an independent spoiler campaign if his party refuses to back him.

Published January 30, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read McKay Coppins’s original post Republicans’ 2024 Magical Thinking

‘We Used to Be Called Moderate. We Are Not Moderate.’ [Russell Berman, The Atlantic]

• The most important people in Washington during the upcoming debt ceiling crisis will be the House Republicans closest to the political center, known as the “moderates”.
• The Republican Main Street Partnership, a political organization founded 25 years ago by then-Representative Amo Houghton of New York, has rebranded itself to stay relevant in today’s GOP, dropping the words “moderate” and “centrist” from its mission statement.
• The Main Street Caucus, the largest of the three groups of self-identified “pragmatists”, elected a more conservative chair and vice chair.
• The “pragmatists” have already blocked two bills backed by some on the far right from coming up for a vote.
• The “pragmatists” could use a discharge petition to bypass the party leadership in the fiscal battles to come, but many of them are sounding like McCarthy, who has said the president must endorse spending cuts in order to lift the borrowing limit.
• Former Representative Charlie Dent predicted that Republicans would win few if any concessions from Democrats for raising the borrowing limit this time around.

Published January 27, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read Russell Berman’s original post ‘We Used to Be Called Moderate. We Are Not Moderate.’

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