Missouri GOP gubernatorial candidate Eric Greitens
Missouri GOP gubernatorial candidate Eric Greitens
Leading Off:
●MO-Gov: Every election cycle, there's always some donor somewhere who winds up in trouble with the law or the tabloids, and when the story breaks, the opponents of whomever that guy gave money to call on the recipient to return the contribution or give it to charity. The unlucky candidate typically acquiesces after a few bad headlines, reluctantly cuts a check for $1,000 or $2,000, and life moves on.
But when the original donation is for a cool $1 million, boy does that ever change the calculus. In Missouri, there are no campaign contribution limits whatsoever, and wealthy conservatives have showered lavish gifts on their favored Republican candidates for governor (obviously for no consideration in return whatsoever, no siree!): Billionaire Rex Sinquefield, for instance, has given seven figures to former prosecutor Catherine Hanaway. But it's a different million-dollar donation that's at issue here, one from Silicon Valley venture capitalist Michael Goguen to former Navy SEAL Eric Greitens.
The problem? Goguen is being sued by a woman named Amber Laurel Baptiste, who has accused him of breaching an agreement to pay her $40 million as recompense, she says, for making her his sex slave over a 13-year period. Baptiste claims that Goguen had promised to rescue her from the human traffickers who had brought her to the U.S. (the two met at a strip club) but alleges the opposite happened. During their relationship, Goguen was married twice; while he disputes the abuse charges, both he and Baptiste concur that the $40 million settlement was aimed at stopping Baptiste from going public with a lawsuit against him alleging he had injured her during sex.
But after paying one $10 million installment, Goguen refused to pay out any further, calling the deal "extortion." That led to Baptiste's suit—the very sort of thing he was hoping to avoid in the first place—and it also led to his departure from his employer of 20 years, Sequoia Partners, one of the top venture firms in the country. (The company claims it was mutual.)
It's a massive public mess for Goguen, of course, but also for Greitens. As of the end of last year, Greitens had $3.4 million in his campaign war chest and faces an extremely competitive GOP primary, so parting with $1 million would be a massive blow. And even if he could just send the money back, the sheer size of the donation magnifies the "taint factor," since why else would Goguen give Greitens so much if he weren't hoping to elect a governor beholden to him?
At a Republican debate Thursday night, Greitens' rivals pounded him. Hanaway said he should give Goguen's donations to a women's shelter, while Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder pointed out that a super PAC supporting John Kasich just said it would turn over $250,000 it received from Goguen to charities fighting human trafficking. Greitens refused to budge, saying that "unlike career politicians, I'm not going to convict someone in the court of public opinion."
That phony high-minded dodge won't save him, though. "Innocent until proven guilty" is a foundational principle inside the courthouse, but it doesn't work on the campaign trail. Greitens can expect to hear about this from now through the Aug. 2 primary, and there's only one way to make the bleeding stop if he wants the chance to take on Democrat Chris Koster in the general election. But the cure is almost as painful as the disease, and it shows why even the greediest politicians shouldn't want to live in a world with limitless campaign contributions.
Senate:
●AZ-Sen: The Merrill Poll, a group we've never heard of before, finds GOP Sen. John McCain locked in a tight general election. McCain leads Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick 41-40; ex-state Sen. Kelli Ward, McCain's primary challenger, was not tested. Merrill describes itself as "an independent public opinion poll conducted by Dr. Bruce Merrill, a professor emeritus at Arizona State University who is nationally recognized for his work in survey research." We haven't seen many other general election polls in recent months. The Behavior Research Center gave McCain a 38-37 edge in February, while Strategies 360 found McCain leading 51-36 in December.
●PA-Sen: With a new endorsement from Sen. Bob Casey, Democrat Katie McGinty has pretty much completed a clean sweep of the Pennsylvania establishment; previously, Gov. Tom Wolf and ex-Gov. Ed Rendell, among many other current and former officials, had given her their backing. But will that actually translate into victory? Recent polling has been scant, but a survey earlier this month from Harper Polling, a Republican outfit, found McGinty trailing her chief rival for the nomination, ex-Rep. Joe Sestak, by a 33-17 margin.
However, we've also now entered a new phase of the campaign. Both candidates are now airing TV ads ahead of the April 26 primary, and each is getting some outside support: EMILY's List says it'll spend $1 million on McGinty, while a mysterious super PAC called Accountable Leadership has reportedly shelled out $500,000 for Sestak. In a big state with multiple media markets like Pennsylvania, though, those sums are not especially large, so it's hard to say how this one will play out. Indeed, given the paucity of polling and the difficulty of getting a read on a primary like this, we may not know until election night.
Gubernatorial:
●VT-Gov: I don't think many people were clamoring for Democrat John Moran, who lost his seat in the state House in 2014, to run for governor. In any case, Moran has announced that he won't make the race. However, the Democratic primary may get a little larger soon. WPTZ reports that ex-state Sen. Peter Galbraith, who is better known for his diplomatic career, "is expected to make his announcement at the Statehouse" in the next few days. Ex-state Sen. Matt Dunne and former state Secretary of Transportation Sue Minter have been running for months.
House:
●CA-20: When longtime Rep. Sam Farr announced that he was retiring from this safely blue Central Coast seat a few months ago, a number of local politicians made noises about running to succeed him. However, when Monterey County prosecutor Jimmy Panetta, the son of ex-Rep. and former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, got in, all the other prospective candidates ended up deferring to him. Filing closed Wednesday and unsurprisingly, Panetta faces no credible opposition. Panetta also earned Farr's endorsement the next day.
●FL-01: While state Sen. Greg Evers, state Rep. Matt Gaetz, and Escambia County Supervisor of Elections David Stafford have all expressed interest in running for this safely red seat, Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward avoided saying anything about his plans. However, Hayward now tells the Sunshine State News that he "hasn't ruled it out." Pensacola is the largest city in the district, so Hayward would probably start out with some good name recognition if he got in.
●NC-12: North Carolina's new congressional filing deadline is March 25, but plenty of prospective candidates are still holding off on running. The state's new map has not yet been approved in federal court, and no one's sure when new district lines will finally be set in stone. State Rep. Rodney Moore says he plans to run against Rep. Alma Adams, whose district was dramatically redrawn, in the June Democratic primary, but he admits he's waiting to see what the courts do. Fellow state Rep. Tricia Cotham also says she's in a holding pattern, but she quietly filed with the FEC. (Hat-Tip Politics1). Ex-state Sen. Malcolm Graham is the only notable Democrat who has officially declared that he's facing Adams in this safely blue Charlotte seat.
Grab Bag:
●Where Are They Now?, FL State House: Ex-GOP Rep. David Rivera, who always seems to be under investigation for something, is trying to resurrect his political career by returning to the Florida state House. Rivera was elected to Congress in 2010, but he got tossed 54-43 after he was linked with an illegal effort to prop up Justin Lamar Sternad, a ringer who was running in the Democratic primary to face Rivera. Rivera ran for his old Miami-area congressional seat the next cycle, but he took just 7 percent in the primary.
On Wednesday, a day after Rivera's former roommate Marco Rubio exited the presidential contest, Rivera announced that he would seek the open HD-118. Rivera of course still has about a billion ethical black clouds hanging over him. Ana Alliegro, an on-again off-again Rivera girlfriend who went to prison for breaking campaign finance laws as Sternad's campaign manager, told police that a few weeks ago, the ex-congressman fell asleep at her house. When Alliegro asked him to leave, she says that Rivera grabbed her arm and took away her phone: Rivera denies he was even there.
Rivera is still under federal investigation for his role in the Sternad affair, and he's fighting other charges from his last tenure in the state House. (If we summed up everything, we'd be here all month.) HD-118 backed Obama 51-48 so even if Rivera somehow survives the GOP primary, he has a lot to worry about in the fall.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir and Jeff Singer, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, and Stephen Wolf.
One small step ... President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle take their first steps on Cuban soil after arriving at Havana
One small step ... President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle take their first steps on Cuban soil after arriving at Havana
On Sunday afternoon, Barack Obama became the first President of the United States to visit Cuba in 88 years. What follows are some pictures from the first hours of President Obama’s historic visit.
President Barack Obama talks to tourists and Cubans at his arrival to the Havana Cathedral
A Cuban man wearing a tee-shirt with a Cuban flag emblem and carrying the Stars and Stripes waits in the rain to wave to President Barack Obama
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Donald Trump’s son receives a letter containing white powder. The letter is deemed “Suspicious”.Armando calls in to describe in detail his visit to a recent Trump rally in Boca Raton, FL , at which he saw a crowd eager to become a mob. Look for his article on the event coming Sunday to Daily Kos. Donald Trump suggests that he and his followers could become the greatest, hugest, sore losers ever if the convention in Cleveland doesn’t go their way. As many in the Republican establishment labor to steal the nomination from Donald Trump (who just might have something up his sleeve, too) David combs over the rules and reminds us Rules Matter, especially if you own a DIY rulebook. Also — how do we get to the “people’s choice” in this country? Think a ‘brokered’ convention is undemocratic? Think again.
For all of my 51 years, Cuba has been that "forbidden place" 90 miles off the coast of Florida. Every president who took office since 19-whatever quickly made clear that commie Cuba bad, bad Cuba commie, commie bad Cuba and that's final…almost as a rite of passage to the Oval Office. And the longer time went on, the weirder it all seemed…especially when we built our own gulag on their soil more than a dozen years ago. And Saudi Arabia, which is FAR worse, is our bestest buddy in da whole wide world? Weird weird weird.
Yesterday President Obama and the family flew to Cuba, marking an official end to the weirdness between our two countries. Yeah, human-rights and other contentious issues remain, but neither of our government's hands are clean, so let's work on the proverbial "go-forward basis.” My main point here is: holy shit, I never thought I'd see the day...
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¿Que bolá Cuba? Just touched down here, looking forward to meeting and hearing directly from the Cuban people.
• Meeting with members of civil society, including human rights activists.
• The First Family attends a Major League Baseball exhibition game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban National Team at the Estadio Latinoamericano.
I don’t know about you, but it's been a looong time since I could remember a better start to a week than this one. Thanks, Obama!
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
There’s a reason beyond garden-variety partisanship that Senate Republicans resist even holding hearings on President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Their gambit evades a full and open debate over the conservative judicial agenda, which is to use the high court in an aggressive and political way to reverse decades of progressive legislation.
The central irony here: The very conservatives who use “judicial activism” as a battering ram against liberals are now the aggressive judicial activists. It’s precisely because Garland’s record reveals him to be a devout practitioner of judicial restraint that an intellectually frank dialogue over his nomination would be so dangerous to the right. It would expose the radicalism of their jurisprudence.
In the minutes after Chicago media outlets called the Cook County State’s Attorney’s race for Kim Foxx on Tuesday night, a young African-American man wearing a t-shirt reading “Adios Anita” took the stage at her victory party, beaming, chanting out to the exuberant crowd “two down, one to go!”—a reference to the firing of former police chief Garry McCarthy as well as Foxx’s ousting of Anita Alvarez, both coming in the wake of the video release of Laquan McDonald’s killing by Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke. [...]
Of course, Foxx also owes much of her victory to the hard work of her team of staff and volunteers—dubbed “Team Foxx”—as well as the support of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, progressive groups like Grassroots Collaborative and United Working Familes, and major endorsements ranging from the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times to Sen. Dick Durbin.
But by organizing youth of color in the city around a transformational racial justice program, and by relentlessly participating in actions highlighting what they see as a broken criminal justice system led by Alvarez, these groups helped create the political space for Foxx’s campaign to grow into a city-wide movement to unseat an incumbent prosecutor in a primary—a remarkably unusual feat.
Can we imagine a free and peaceful country? A civil society that recognizes rights and security as complementary forces, rather than polar opposites? Terrorist attacks frighten us, as they are designed to. But when terrorism strikes the United States, we’re never urged to ponder the most enduring fallout from any such attack: our own government’s prosecution of the Terror Wars.
This failure generates all sorts of accompanying moral confusion. We cast ourselves as good, but our actions show that we are not. We rack up a numbing litany of decidedly uncivil abuses of basic human rights: global kidnapping and torture operations, gulags in which teenagers have grown into adulthood under “indefinite detention,” the overthrow of the Iraqi and Libyan governments, borderless execution-by-drone campaigns, discriminatory domestic police practices, dragnet surveillance, and countless other acts of state impunity.
The way we process the potential cognitive dissonance between our professed ideals and our actual behavior under the banner of freedom’s supposed defense is simply to ignore things as they really are. They hate us for our freedom, screech the bald-eagle memes, and so we must solemnly fight on. But what, beneath the official rhetoric of permanent fear, explains the collective inability of the national security overlords to imagine a future of peace?
Incentives, for one thing. In a perverse but now familiar pattern, what we have come to call “intelligence failures” produce zero humility, and no promise of future remedies, among those charged with guarding us. Instead, a new array of national security demands circulate, which are always rapidly met. In America, the gray-haired representatives of the permanent security state say their number one responsibility is to protect us, but when they fail to do so, they go on television and growl.
To take but one recent example, former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld appeared before the morally bankrupt pundit panel on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to explain that intractable ethnic, tribal, and religious conflict has riven the Middle East for more than a century—the United States, and the West at large, were mere hapless bystanders in this long-running saga of civilizational decay. This sniveling performance came, mind you, just days after Politico reported that, while choreographing the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Rumsfeld had quietly buried a report from the Joint Chiefs of Staff indicating that military intelligence officials had almost no persuasive evidence that Saddam Hussein was maintaining a serious WMD program.
And the same refrain echoes throughout the echelons of the national security state. Self-assured and aloof as the affluenza boy, the FBI, CIA, and NSA fuck up, and then immediately apply for a frenzied transfer of ever more money, power, and data in order to do more of what they’re already doing. Nearly fifteen years after the “Global War on Terror” began, the national security state is a trillion-dollar business. And with the latest, greatest, worst-ever terrorist threat always on the horizon, business is sure to keep booming.
”I could care less,” Mississippi lawmaker tells citizen
Becky Guidry learned about a tax cut passed by the Mississippi state senate and sent an email urging state representative Karl Oliver to vote against the cut because when it came up in the Mississippi House of Representatives because, she wrote, it would hurt “critical services such as child care, foster care.” The bill would eliminate the corporate franchise tax and cut income taxes, resulting in $575 million in tax cuts over 15 years in a state that already has a revenue shortfall.
Oliver responded with an email suggesting, bad grammar aside, that Guidry should go back to Illinois where she came from. He wrote:
"I see you are not a native to the Great State of Mississippi nor do you and I have similar political views. The people of our Great State overwhelmingly share my same or similar views on Government responsibility. I appreciate you going to the trouble to share yours with me, but quite frankly, and with all due respect, I could care less. I would, however, recommend that there are a rather large number of like minded citizens in Illinois that would love to see you return."
Oliver shamelessly claimed in a subsequent comment to the Jackson Clarion-Ledger that he did not suggest that Guidry go back to Illinois.
TWEET OF THE DAY
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Nixon went to China. Reagan went to the USSR. Obama is in Cuba.
Bart Stupak successfully hijacked the healthcare debate, again, threatening to bring the whole bill down if he can't take abortion coverage away from millions and millions of women. The situation is still very much in flux, but it would appear that his push for an enrollments correction resolution was floated by leadership, and possibly tanked by the pro-choice caucus, who according to the twitterverse, threatened to bolt if he got his vote.
Monday through Friday you can catch the Kagro in the Morning Show 9 AM ET by dropping in here, or you can download the Stitcher app (found in the app stores or at Stitcher.com), and find a live stream there, by searching for "Netroots Radio.”
Americans overwhelmingly support President Obama's opening to Cuba.
Americans overwhelmingly support President Obama's opening to Cuba.
This week, Barack Obama will become the first the U.S. president to visit Cuba in 88 years. His trip will mark a new milestone in the rapidly changing relationship between the two old Cold War foes. In the 15 months since the nations restored diplomatic ties, embassies have opened in Washington and Havana. Commercial air travel will soon be re-established, with up to 20 American flights daily to Havana and 10 more to other Cuban destinations. New Commerce Department regulations announced last week will significantly ease travel for Americans headed to Cuba while allowing Cuban athletes, artists, and performers to draw salaries in the United States without needing to defect. And while Americans like Cosmo Kramer can't yet import Cuban cigars into the U.S., within limits they can smoke 'em if they got 'em in Cuba and countries in Europe.
Nevertheless, the outdated and increasingly counterproductive U.S. policy of preferential treatment of Cuban emigres is still the law of the land. And as President Obama acknowledged last week, 25 years after the collapse of the USSR, the decades-long American embargo designed to counter Soviet influence in Havana will remain in place for the duration of his tenure:
"Ultimately, in order to bring down the entire embargo that is going require congressional action. There is bipartisan support to do so, but it is not yet at a critical mass."
"My strong prediction is that sometime in the next president's administration, whether they are a Democrat or a Republican, that the embargo in fact will be removed, because it makes sense for us to be able to sell into Cuba, to do business with Cubans, to show U.S. business practices and how we treat workers and how we approach issues of human rights, that that will help bring about the kinds of changes that are needed."
As a quick glance at the data shows, there's little doubt that the majority of the American people stand with President Obama in tossing America's failed Cuban policy into the dustbin of history.
It happened right after the South Carolina primary. I always liked then-Sen. Barack Obama—I just thought he didn’t stand a chance. After all, America was not sufficiently “mature” enough to elect a black man as its president. When Obama won South Carolina, I was still a Hillary Clinton supporter. But then Bill Clinton opened his mouth. It wasn’t what he said, but how he said it. It’s that feeling most people in America understand very well. It’s the dismissal of an accomplishment that would be considered exceptional if worn by someone with white skin. I knew then that effective immediately, I would be a supporter of Barack Hussein Obama. I hoped he would win, but I was ready for the loss.
The election of President Obama proved that the majority of Americans were willing to look past their prejudices and vote their intellect. I remember going to house party after house party in many middle-class and upper middle-class, mostly white neighborhoods. I remember the discomfort I felt because these were Obama-bots throughout those Houston suburbs. Their expectations were simply too high for the Obama presidency. These were all good people who were basking in their liberal tolerance. Of course, as a black man, I’m well-versed in the blowback that I knew would occur. The latent carnal prejudice of many of these same supporters would color the presidency, which would ultimately degrade the efficacy of his administration.
The Obama campaign taught us a lot. Obama seeded the communities that he knew would likely be crucial to his campaign. He went to universities throughout Texas and ensured kids had access to his inspirational book, and that these children had their parents reading his book.
I was on board with Bernie Sanders’ campaign from the beginning. The Obama campaign taught me that the candidate anointed by the establishment was not a shoo in. I never bought into the fallacy that the “socialist” moniker was a bigger stumbling block than race. After all, we embrace our socialist Europeans much more than we do our black Democrats. Yes, Democratic socialist Bernie Sanders can win.
President Obama signs the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
President Obama signs the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
On January 29, 2009, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law. The Act did not protect women from discriminatory pay, but only plugged a hole in the existing patchwork of federal laws. Women now have a longer time period to file a discrimination claim. Instead of getting 180 days from the time of the original act of pay discrimination, they now have 180 days from the last paycheck. To give you an idea of the patchwork, look at the long title of the law:
A bill to amend title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, and to modify the operation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, to clarify that a discriminatory compensation decision or other practice that is unlawful under such Acts occurs each time compensation is paid pursuant to the discriminatory compensation decision or other practice, and for other purposes.
The long title shows a list of federal laws that needed to be amended to protect a woman who suffered 20 years of pay discrimination but had no recourse because her employer managed to hide the pay disparity from her.
In August 2012, Public Policy Polling conducted a survey on behalf of Daily Kos and SEIU (Service Employees International Union) that found support for a Constitutional guarantee of equal rights to be almost unanimous.
Do you think the Constitution should guarantee equal rights for men and women, or not?
It should.....................................................…. 91% It should not.................................................... 4% Not sure ......................................................…. 5%
A 2001 Opinion Research Corporation poll showed that 72 percent of Americans thought such equal rights were already guaranteed by the Constitution.
Protesters outside a Trump rally in Boca Raton, Florida.
Protesters outside a Trump rally in Boca Raton, Florida.
We’ve all seen the images of Trump rallies on television. How could we not, given the cable news networks deciding to be All Trump! All The Time! But last Sunday I had a chance to attend a Trump rally in Boca Raton, and decided to go take an in-person look.
First, I needed to request a “ticket” to the rally. Not surprisingly, the process is basically an email collection scam. Anyway, I signed up for my ticket and headed to the rally on Sunday.
I arrived early and found that many others had done so as well—including protesters (see photo above). The protesters were shunted off to a “protest zone” a good distance from the entrance to the rally. Nonetheless, many persons wandered over, including a group of counterprotesters.
There was a lot of chanting and shouting between the protesters and counterprotesters, but there was a legion of police officers who made sure no one came near each other. Physical altercations were not going to happen, thankfully.
However, there was also a concerted effort by the authorities to keep any protesters outside of the event, even when they had tickets for the rally. There would be no Chicagos in Boca Raton.
Clearly the police decided they would prefer to be criticized for a heavy hand in keeping potential combatants apart than to have any incidents of violence.
I decided to wander into the event to get my first glimpse of a Trump rally crowd. I’m not sure what my expectations were as I went in, but I certainly expected an overwhelmingly white crowd. In fairness, that’s certainly not unique to Donald Trump in Republican circles. Every GOP rally will be overwhelmingly white. But I guess I was wondering about the “working-class whites” line the media has been trumpeting.
When you go to the grocery store, do you pay attention to what the person in front of you is purchasing? Do you watch carefully to see how they pay? Oftentimes you will hear someone tell a story about how they saw someone purchase lobster, or an expensive cut of meat with food stamps. These anecdotal stories also drive anger toward the poor for wasting taxpayer money. And the accusations expand from there: The poor use the money for tattoos, drugs, and other frivolous items.
One of the key items in the bill is a drug testing requirement, which has been proven to be a waste of time, resources, and money in other states that have tried it. This won’t be a rehash of several other diaries from the past year, but suffice it to say: Drug testing welfare recipients is a true waste of time and only benefits the drug testing companies.
The meat of the bill—and the truly degrading part—is here:
No TANF cash assistance shall be used to purchase alcohol, cigarettes, tobacco products, lottery tickets, concert tickets, professional or collegiate sporting event tickets or tickets for other entertainment events intended for the general public or sexually oriented adult materials. No TANF cash assistance shall be used in any retail liquor store, casino, gaming establishment, jewelry store, tattoo parlor, massage parlor, body-piercing parlor, spa, nail salon, lingerie shop, tobacco paraphernalia store,vapor cigarette store, psychic or fortune telling business, bail bond company, video arcade, movie theater, swimming pool, cruise ship, theme park, dog or horse racing facility, parimutuel facility, or sexually oriented business or any retail establishment which provides adult-oriented entertainment in which performers disrobe or perform in an unclothed state for entertainment, or in any business or retail establishment where minors under age 18 are not permitted.
Who knows where the state of Kansas is getting its information about how poor people are spending their TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) money, but it’s a safe bet the vast amount of them aren’t spending their benefits frivolously. And one item that is not on the list will surprise no one: If you are receiving welfare in Kansas, you can purchase a firearm with your your benefits.
Theodore Roosevelt speaking from the balcony of the Hotel Allen, Allentown, Pennsylvania, 1914
Theodore Roosevelt speaking from the balcony of the Hotel Allen, Allentown, Pennsylvania, 1914
Corporate special interest groups in our country such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have figured out that they can sway government in their favor if they market themselves as “good” and paint certain people as “evil.”
This is why today we live in a world where our richest businessmen and businesses are marketed as “good,” capable of doing no wrong, and all government is marketed as “bad.” In this world, government exists only for the purpose of business owners and we’re told we should just sit back and let the benefits trickle down. Only they haven’t. In fact, the opposite has happened. The rich have gotten richer and more powerful at the expense of everyone else.
We’ve seen this before. The late 1800s and early 1900s saw the rise of rich monopolies that hurt the average person. Railroads favored certain large trusts over small farmers. Upton Sinclair wrote The Junglein 1906 exposing the health violations, labor abuses, and unsanitary conditions of the meatpacking industry. Foods and drugs were mislabeled and consumers deliberately misled.
As a result, Theodore Roosevelt, a progressive Republican, introduced a platform based on a few simple ideas that would become known as the Square Deal. On April 5, 1905, he delivered his Square Deal speech in Dallas, Texas, where he laid out his philosophy:
It is all-essential to the continuance of our healthy national life that we should recognize this community of interest among our people. The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us, and therefore in public life that man is the best representative of each of us who seeks to do good to each by doing good to all; in other words, whose endeavor it is not to represent any special class and promote merely that class's selfish interests, but to represent all true and honest men of all sections and all classes and to work for their interests by working for our common country.
This is what everyone wants: A square deal for all.
