Dispatches

HOW BAD WAS TRUMP AT HANDLING DISASTERS? Donald Trump and his allies have been misinforming the public about the federal response to Hurricane Helene after it ravaged six southeastern states Sept. 26-29, be it with lies or conspiracy theories, Walter Einenkel noted at DailyKos.com (10/7).

Trump’s first administration was a disaster for our environment—but he and his friends are far from done. Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s agenda for a potential second Trump administration, includes dismantling the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Agency—the U.S. agency that forecasts weather—and greatly limiting the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s ability to respond.

Here are some examples of how poorly the Trump administration managed our country’s toughest times in his first term.

They didn’t staff the federal agencies tasked with disaster response. Trump’s administration did not sufficiently staff FEMA or NOAA with administrators for months after he came into office. Worse, he imposed a government-wide hiring freeze that affected hundreds of unfilled positions at the National Weather Service, and that was called “a contributing factor” in a renewed decline in NOAA staff.

Trump initially refused to send aid to California during wildfires because it was a blue state. When wildfires ravaged California in 2018, Trump attacked the state for its “mismanagement” of the fires. Meanwhile, a former senior director on Trump’s National Security Council staff told E&E News that when Trump resisted sending wildfire assistance to the Golden State, staffers “went as far as looking up how many votes he got in those impacted areas … to show him these are people who voted for you.”

Trump delayed and obstructed getting federal aid to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. The Trump administration’s initial neglect in helping Puerto Rico was outshined only by his administration’s continued delays in sending allotted aid for years after. At every step, Trump looked to block further aid to the U.S. territory. Trump also reportedly joked about trading Puerto Rico for Greenland as he faced criticism for his response to Hurricane Maria.

Hurricane Dorian and the infamous black marker. In 2019, during the leadup to Hurricane Dorian, Trump made an incorrect assessment that the state of Alabama was in the projected path of the approaching storm. His assessment was then corrected by the National Weather Service office in Birmingham, leading Trump to double down on being wrong. Eventually, he held a press conference where he showed a conspicuously doctored map of Dorian’s path to support his lie. The sloppy use of black marker on the map became emblematic of how unserious Trump’s approach to disaster was.

Trump used flooding in Michigan to try and stop absentee voting. When flooding hit Michigan in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump tweeted out a threat to withhold federal aid if absentee ballots were sent out to voters ahead of the 2020 primary and general elections. Of course, the only thing being sent out at the time were applications for absentee ballots.

COVID-19. Research finds that Trump’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic led to hundreds of thousands of excess deaths. His incompetence began early on as he downplayed the severity and spread of the global pandemic. He then offered up a barrage of fake cures and other misinformation, from shilling for the ineffective hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin to disinfecting the blood with something like Clorox.

Trump’s history of (mis)managing disasters is pretty craven, and his lies about the current administration’s management of this newest natural disaster are a true new low for that lowlife.

On the other hand, here is an example of leadership.

As Hurricane Milton, upgraded to Category 5 with winds of 175 mph approached the western Florida coast, President Biden tweeted (10/7): “I just approved an emergency declaration from the State of Florida and ordered federal assistance to supplement response efforts that may arise due to emergency conditions resulting from Hurricane Milton.

“We expect this storm to again make landfall in western Florida and are working quickly to preposition federal response personnel and assets.”

Meanwhile, the reluctance of House GOP leadership to return to Washington, D.C., to pass additional disaster relief reflects Republicans valuing their partisan agendas over the urgent needs of their constituents.

CONSERVATIVES STRUGGLE TO SEE THE BAD IN GOOD JOBS REPORT. The Oct. 4 jobs report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics exceeded expectations, with 254,000 jobs added, dropping the unemployment rate to 4.1%. This was far better than the Dow Jones-forecasted 150,000 jobs.

So, of course, the right had to frame it as confusing and catastrophic, Morgan Stephens noted at DailyKos.com (10/4).

After a panel on Fox Business’ “Mornings with Maria” predicted the worst minutes before the report dropped, participants struggled to find a way to spin it—and the swift stock market surge that followed—into something to fear.

Host Maria Bartiromo was desperate for someone to agree that she would be wrong to say “good news is once again good news.” It took a few minutes to recalibrate their rage, but the panel did get there, lamenting low unemployment and increased consumer spending.

“This good news brings into question, ‘how much longer will this easing of inflationary pressures last,’” shouted guest economist John Lanski. “I think the economy is slowing,” he added later. “Until we get past the elections, I don’t think we have a clear reading regarding what businesses plan to do on spending, on staff, and capital equipment.”

Except economics is based on numbers and data, and the numbers and data say President Joe Biden’s plan for a post-pandemic “soft landing” continues to succeed.

At least one pundit was willing to admit the report bodes well for the country, even if he expected the worst.

“I thought there would be more red flags than at a communist parade in this report, and there’s not a single one,” said MDB Capital Holdings president Lou Basenese on Fox News. “There’s not one data point in here that I can point to that’s not good.”

Likening Democrats to communists is uninspired, and sooo 1950s-era McCarthy witch hunts, but at least Basenese admitted he was wrong. But as Basanese continued to share his optimism, “America’s Newsroom” host Bill Hemmer cut him off.

Ohio Sen. JD Vance couldn’t resist blaming immigrants for taking American jobs. Trump’s running mate was swiftly corrected by Justin Wolfers, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, who literally wrote a (text)book on economics.

“Senator, I don’t want to get caught up on facts, but the share of American-born folks in their prime working years who have jobs is higher than at any point during the Trump administration, and indeed, it’s the highest it’s ever been since the BLS started publishing these numbers,” Wolpers tweeted.

The Trump-Vance campaign’s feigned ignorance and blatant, debunked lies on the economy are surging as polling indicates women are learning to trust Vice President Kamala Harris more on the economy. Wall Street also supports her, while billionaires who aren’t conspiracy theorists are opening their wallets in support of her campaign. Not to mention, economists have repeatedly blasted Trump’s economic plan for his second term, insisting high tariffs would increase inflation, not quell it.

Elise Gould, a senior economist at the progressive Economic Policy Institute, also championed the “strong” figures.

In a blog post on Oct. 3, a day ahead of the BLS report, Gould detailed the strength of the labor market, despite the real pain that many workers and families still feel in their day to day lives:

“It is indisputable that the U.S. labor market is strong. The share of the population ages 25–54 with a job is at a 23-year high, median household incomes rose 4.0% last year, and real wage growth over the last four years has been broad-based and strong. The economy has not only regained the nearly 22 million jobs lost in the pandemic recession, but also added another 6.5 million.

“Are some folks still having a hard time? Absolutely. Even when the unemployment rate is low, there are still sidelined workers, and it remains difficult for many families to make ends meet on wages that are still too low. Unfortunately, that’s a long-term phenomenon stemming from a too-stingy U.S. welfare state, rising inequality, and the legacy of anemic wage growth during past economic recoveries. But when comparing the labor market with four years ago (during the pandemic recession) or even before the pandemic began, the answer is clear: More workers have jobs and wages are beating inflation by solid margins.”

With the Federal Reserve easing interest rates, in part based based on the strength of the hiring trends alongside lower inflation, the jobs report was welcomed as a show of strength for progressives who have argued since the COVID-19 pandemic that pro-worker policies—as opposed to endless fealty to the demands of corporate powers and Wall Street—alongside public investments can work together to create strong economic foundations for the nation, Jon Queally noted at CommonDreams.org (10/4).

DOCKWORKERS SUSPEND STRIKE AFTER WINNING TENTATIVE DEAL WITH 62% WAGE BOOST. The union representing East and Gulf Coast dockworkers suspended its strike on Oct. 3 after reaching a tentative agreement with shipping giants that reportedly includes a 62% wage boost over six years, Jake Johnson noted at CommonDreams.org (10/4).

The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) said in a joint statement with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) that the union would suspend its strike until Jan. 15 so the two sides can “return to the bargaining table to negotiate all other outstanding issues.”

“Effective immediately, all current job actions will cease and all work covered by the Master Contract will resume,” the statement added.

The tentative deal followed three days on the picket line during which dockworkers—who are essential to the functioning of the U.S. economy—cast their fight as a critical struggle against multinational corporations that raked in huge profits during the COVID-19 pandemic and enriched their investors as wages failed to keep pace with inflation.

According to one estimate, the dozens of ports affected by the strike handle a combined 25% of the United States’ international trade.

The Associated Press reported that the two sides reached a tentative deal after “the ports sweetened their wage offer from about 50% over six years to 62%.”

The union originally sought a 77% raise, but in recent days Harold Daggett, the union president, said the ILA would pursue a 61.5% raise for workers over the course of a new contract. Daggett rejected the shipping industry’s previous wage offers as “insulting.”

Under the contract that expired Sept. 30, starting pay for dockworkers was $20 an hour.

Any final agreement must be ratified by union members, who also demanded protections from automation and other benefit improvements. Reuters reported that automation is among the “key issues that remain unresolved.”

The Biden administration declined to intervene on the side of industry to halt the strike, and President Joe Biden issued a statement earlier this week noting that “ocean carriers have made record profits since the pandemic and in some cases profits grew in excess of 800% compared to their profits prior to the pandemic.”

“Executive compensation has grown in line with those profits and profits have been returned to shareholders at record rates,” said Biden. “It’s only fair that workers, who put themselves at risk during the pandemic to keep ports open, see a meaningful increase in their wages as well.”

UAW SLAMS TRUMP-VANCE AS ‘MENACE TO THE WORKING CLASS.’ The United Auto Workers reiterated its warning that the Republican presidential ticket of Donald Trump and JD Vance is a threat to working-class Americans in response to a refusal by Vance to commit to honoring a $500 million federal grant for an electric vehicle plant in Michigan, Jessica Corbett noted at CommonDreams.org (10/4).

Both Trump and Vance—a venture capitalist turned U.S. senator from Ohio who often postures as a working-class ally—are campaigning in Michigan, a key swing state, in early October.

The Detroit News reported that on the campaign trail, Vance was “noncommittal” about the promised funding, part of $1.7 billion distributed by the Biden administration. The $500 million grant would help General Motors convert its Lansing Grand River Assembly Plant into an EV facility.

The UAW, one of several labor unions that have endorsed Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, fired back Oct. 3, echoing its previous criticism of Trump and Vance.

“Donald Trump was the job-killer-in-chief while in the White House,” the union said in a statement. “His failed United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement—or Trump’s NAFTA as we prefer to call it—has led to the mass exodus of good, blue-collar jobs from the United States. In sharp contrast, the Biden-Harris administration has bet on the American worker and thanks to their policies, hundreds of thousands of good manufacturing jobs are returning to the United States.”

“Now, Trump and JD Vance are invading Michigan and threatening the $500 million investment the Biden-Harris administration made in the General Motors Grand River Assembly Plant and the union jobs that investment would provide,” the UAW continued. “The bottom line is that Donald Trump and JD Vance are a menace to the working class and are openly threatening to double down on Trump’s legacy of job destruction.”

TRUMP LIED ABOUT HAITIAN IMMIGRANTS. NOW HE WANTS TO DEPORT THEM. Donald Trump has not only vilified Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, falsely claiming they were stealing and eating pets, but now he’s also threatening to kick them out of the country.

In an interview with NewsNation (10/3), Trump said he would revoke the immigrants’ Temporary Protected Status, which legally allows them to temporarily live and work in the United States while their home country remains torn apart by conflict, Morgan Stephens noted at DailyKos.com (10/4).

“Absolutely, I’d revoke it,” he said.

“It has nothing to do with Haiti or anything else,” he added. “You have to remove the people, and you have to bring them back to their own country.”

During his first term as president, Trump removed Haiti from Temporary Protected Status, despite an earthquake having devastated the country in 2010. Behind closed doors, he asked lawmakers why the U.S. would admit more immigrants from Haiti and “sh*thole countries” in Africa instead of from nations like Norway.

Then, of course, there’s the Sept. 10 presidential debate, during which he repeated a racist hoax about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, saying, “They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets.”

It’s a lie that he and his campaign continued to push even after being told it was baseless. Then again, a lack of facts has never stopped them from trying to hitch every issue to immigration, from housing shortages to crime and gun violence.

Earlier this year, President Joe Biden gave TPS back to Haitians due to government instability and gang violence in Haiti.

Introduced by Congress through the Immigration Act of 1990, TPS was signed into law by Republican President George H.W. Bush. The act allows not only immigrants fleeing conflict-torn countries to stay and work legally in the U.S. but also those fleeing environmental disaster and other extraordinary and temporary circumstances. The designation is granted for up to 18 months at a time, then the secretary of Homeland Security determines if TPS should continue depending on the conditions in the country.

As of March 2024, around 863,880 residents with TPS lived in the U.S., with about an additional 486,000 initial or renewal applications pending. Data also shows that immigrants from Venezuela, El Salvador, and Haiti are the top three beneficiaries of TPS. The three largest populations of TPS residents are in Florida, Texas and New York.

According to a 2017 report from the Center for Migration Studies, a nonpartisan think tank that studies immigration, the industries that employ the greatest number of TPS beneficiaries from El Salvador, Honduras and Haiti were construction, restaurants and food services, landscaping, day-care services and grocery stores.

Experts on immigration reform, such as the Center for Migration Studies, have argued that extending TPS is vital until the immigrants can “safely return home and can successfully reintegrate into their home communities.” They also advocate that long-term TPS recipients should be afforded a path to permanent U.S. citizenship.

With immigration being one of the top issues for voters in the 2024 election, it’s evident that Trump’s cruel rhetoric isn’t an empty threat. It’s a preview of what his second term would involve.

ANALYSIS: TRUMP TAX PLAN WOULD MAKE RICH PEOPLE RICHER, POOR PEOPLE POORER. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s proposal to further reduce the U.S. corporate tax rate from 21% to 15% would make the bottom half of the nation’s income distribution poorer while boosting the fortunes of those at the very top, according to an analysis published Oct. 3 by economists at American University.

The analysis, released just over a month before the high-stakes Nov. 5 election, projects the impacts of corporate tax rate plans put forth by Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee. Harris has called for increasing the corporate tax rate to 28%, Jake Johnson noted at CommonDreams.org (10/3).

If implemented, the economists found, Trump’s plan would “modestly reduce” the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP), decrease government revenue, and “significantly increase inequality,” given that wealthier households “are the primary owners of corporate stocks” that would benefit from the former president’s tax cuts.

The “share of national income going to the top 5% would increase by around 1.6%, while the share of the bottom 50% would fall by roughly 4.8%,” the analysis estimates.

Harris’ plan, by contrast, would “mildly” raise U.S. GDP, increase federal revenue, and “decrease inequality, reducing the share of income earned by the top 5% of the distribution by about 1% and increasing the share of income earned by the bottom 50% of the distribution by about 4.7%, compared to current policy.”

The analysis came a day after the Congressional Budget Office released a report showing that the richest 1% saw their share of the nation’s wealth grow to 27% between 1989 and 2022 while families in the bottom half of the distribution held just 6% of the country’s wealth in both 1989 and 2022—a wealth gap that further slashing corporate taxes would exacerbate.

Trump’s call to reduce the corporate tax rate to 15% was the “centerpiece” of an address he delivered last month at the Economic Club of New York, as Bloombergreported at the time.

When Trump took office in 2017, the statutory corporate tax rate was 35%. Later that year, Trump and congressional Republicans rammed through an unpopular tax-cut package that slashed the corporate rate to 21% and led to a surge in tax avoidance. The law has been hugely regressive, delivering major benefits to the rich and very little to the working class.

Cutting the corporate tax rate to 15% would hand roughly $50 billion in annual tax cuts to the 100 largest and most profitable U.S. companies, according to a recent analysis by the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

TRUMP SEETHES as LIZ CHENEY JOINS HUNDREDS OF REPUBLICANS FOR KAMALA HARRIS. Donald Trump attacked former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney following her appearance at a Wisconsin event supporting Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris (10/4). But around the United States, more and more Republicans are crossing party lines to back Harris, Oliver Willis noted at DailyKos.com (10/4).

“[T]hese two fools, because the Republican Party no longer wants them, endorsed the most Liberal Senator in the U.S. Senate, further Left than even Pocahontas or Crazy Bernie Sanders — Lyin’ Kamala Harris,” Trump wrote Thursday on his Truth Social platform, referring to Cheney and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, who also endorsed Harris.

“What a pathetic couple that is, both suffering gravely from Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Trump added.

At the event in Ripon, Wis., where the Republican Party got its start in 1854, Liz Cheney said that Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021, motivated her to endorse Harris. Cheney previously served on the House select committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“He praised the rioters. He did not condemn them. That’s who Donald Trump is,” Cheney said.

The Cheneys are not alone. Former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger announced his support for Harris during his speech at the Democratic National Convention in August.

“Donald Trump has suffocated the soul of the Republican Party,” Kinzinger said.

The Harris campaign launched “Republicans for Harris” in early August, describing the effort as a “campaign within a campaign” to reach out to Republican voters ready to move away from Trump. Former Trump administration officials Stephanie Grisham and Olivia Troye were among the supporters who composed the group, along with a host of former Republican governors, senators, and representatives.

Later in August, more than 200 officials who worked under Republican lawmakers such as John McCain and Mitt Romney and under both Bush presidencies announced they were behind Harris, calling a possible second Trump term a “disaster for our nation.”

Pro-Harris efforts from Republicans are also at work in states key to winning the election.

Republicans for Harris has held events in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan, in addition to other states. In Arizona, Republican support has also gone to Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, who is running for that state’s Senate seat against Republican Kari Lake, an election denier.

Republican voters supporting Harris have featured in a series of campaign ads as well. The most recent ad features a former Trump voter highlighting Trump’s habit of blaming his failures on others, without taking responsibility for his actions.

By contrast, Trump has touted the support he has received from figures like former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. But, like Trump, those figures have been more closely associated with promoting conspiracy theories than traditional Democratic Party issues.

At her event with Cheney, Harris said that respect for the rule of law, free and fair elections, and the peaceful transfer of power were shared by voters across party lines.

“If you share that view, no matter what your party, there is a place for you in this campaign,” Harris said.

GLOBAL WATER WOES ‘CANARY IN THE COAL MINE’ FOR CLIMATE CALAMITY, METEOROLOGISTS REPORT. The climate crisis is destabilizing the world’s water cycle, depriving millions of people of the freshwater resources they need while inundating others with deadly and catastrophic floods, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) stated in its third State of Global Water Resources report, released (10/7), which found that 2023 was the driest year for the world’s rivers in more than three decades, Olivia Rosane noted at CommonDreams.org (10/7).

“Water is the canary in the coalmine of climate change,” WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said in a statement. “We receive distress signals in the form of increasingly extreme rainfall, floods, and droughts which wreak a heavy toll on lives, ecosystems, and economies.”

A total of 3.6 billion people struggle to access sufficient water for at least one month per year, according to U.N. Water, and this number is projected to swell to over 5 billion by 2050. In 2023, which was also the hottest year on record, river catchment areas around the world were at their driest in 33 years. As in the two years before, more than half of all catchment areas saw abnormal conditions, with most of them seeing below-average water flow.

Especially hard-hit river systems included the Mississippi and Amazon basins, which shrank to record-low water levels, as well as riparian systems in much of Northern, Central, and South America. Argentina’s GDP shrank by 3% due to drought, the WMO found. Meanwhile, the report showed how major river systems in Asia—the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Mekong river basins—were drier than usual across almost all of their reach.

Another threat to freshwater access is the melting of glaciers. In 2023, the world’s glaciers lost their greatest amount of mass in 50 years at over 600 metric gigatons of water. This ice loss was primarily driven by melting in western North America and Europe’s Alps. Switzerland’s glaciers shrank by 10% in two years.

“The worldwide loss of glacier volume, equivalent to 600 gigatons of water according to the latest WMO report, is alarming,” said report contributor Robert Reinecke of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. “It is the greatest loss we have witnessed in the past five decades.”

Saulo added: “Melting ice and glaciers threaten long-term water security for many millions of people. And yet we are not taking the necessary urgent action.”

While 2023 saw drought and ice melt, its high temperatures combined with the shift from La Niña to El Niño halfway through and the positive phase of the Indian Ocean Dipole also fueled extreme precipitation events.

“It was either too dry or too wet—and neither is encouraging,” Reinecke said. “We have to expect both extremes more frequently as global temperatures continue to rise.”

From The Progressive Populist, November 1, 2024

Populist.com