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(MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

President Donald Trump is enlisting business leaders including many of his top donors to help guide the White House through its attempt to gradually reopen parts of the economy shuttered by the coronavirus pandemic.

The White House published a list of executives this week dubbed Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups who will be asked to join conference calls with the president on how to reopen the economy. The list includes dozens of Trump donors and several major benefactors to Republican candidates.

Members of the new task force and their spouses gave a combined $467 million to Republican candidates and conservative groups since the 2016 election cycle, according to contribution data from OpenSecrets. Together theyve given tens of millions to Trumps joint fundraising committee and millions more to pro-Trump super PACs.

About half of Trumps advisers in the financial services industry are big GOP donors. Its headlined by Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman, the top Republican donor so far this cycle. Schwarzman, who advises Trump, recently gave $10 million to Senate Republicans top super PAC and $3 million to pro-Trump super PAC America First Action. Schwarzman told Yahoo Finance the country will need to implement mass testing before Americans will be comfortable going back to work. Trump has told lawmakers that some parts of the country, particularly rural areas, can reopen without expanded testing.

Industry executives Warren Stephens, Paul Singer, Charles Schwab and Kenneth Griffin are also being asked to advise Trump. They are all multi-million dollar GOP donors. Republican National Committee Finance Chairman Todd Ricketts and venture capitalist Doug Leone, whose wife Patricia is a prolific Trump donor, are also named.

Retail, among the industries hit hardest by the pandemic, received significant representation. In addition to naming Home Depot CEO Craig Menear to its list, the White House also listed Home Depot co-founders Bernie Marcus and Ken Langone. Both of those billionaires no longer work for the home improvement company, but they are major Republican donors. Langone urged Fox News viewers last month to comply with health officials recommendations and stay home. Marcus, who gave $5 million to a pro-Trump super PAC in 2016, said this week that the government-imposed shutdown cant go on too much longer.

Trumps biggest campaign backer and the top Republican donor of all time, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, headlines Trumps advisers in the hospitality industry. Treasure Island Hotel and Casino owner Phil Ruffin is also named. A friend of Trumps, Ruffin is a six-figure donor to Trumps joint fundraising committee and owns 50 percent of the Trump International Las Vegas hotel.

In sports, World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Vince McMahons wife, Linda McMahon, is Trumps top donor and leads America First Action, the only official pro-Trump super PAC. Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White also gave $1 million to the super PAC. White is trying to hold an event in early May as health officials warn against mass gatherings. Florida recently allowed WWE to hold events if they are closed to the public.

Among Trumps transportation industry advisers, a lesser known North Carolina company called LDJ Global Strategies is looped in with industry giants like United Airlines, UPS and Uber. The company is led by Louis DeJoy, who is leading fundraising efforts for the Republican National Convention. He and his wife, Aldona Wos, are major donors to Trump and the Republican National Committee. Trump picked Wos to be U.S. Ambassador to Canada, continuing the presidential tradition of nominating campaign donors to cushy diplomatic posts.

In the agriculture industry, Mountaire Farms Chairman Ronald Cameron is a major donor to pro-Trump and GOP super PACs. Also on the list, California carrot producer Barbara Grimm-Marshall gave over $740,000 to Take Back the House, a joint fundraising committee for Republican congressional candidates led by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). McCarthy congratulated Grimm-Marshall when she was appointed to a Department of Agriculture advisory committee last summer.

In construction, California real estate executive Geoffrey Palmer gave $4 million to America First Action. Palmer held a fundraiser for Trump in his Beverly Hills home last year.

Trumps advisers gave a total of $8.3 million to Democratic candidates and causes since the 2016 cycle compared to $467 million to Republicans. Jon Gray, an executive at Blackstone Group, and his wife Mindy, are among the few Democratic donors. Only 21 names on Trumps list have not made a political contribution. The list does include some individuals who have clashed with Trump in recent years, such as AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

It is unclear how the White House decided on who to include. Some members of the task force didnt know they would be asked to join until their names were published on the White House website. By organizing the group of industry leaders the way it did, the White House skirted transparency rules, Politico reported.

Trump originally said the president can decide when the nation reopens parts of its economy. But that decision is up to state and local authorities. Trump released guidance Thursday that says states with low numbers of confirmed coronavirus cases can reopen by May 1. However, the guidance confirms governors have the final say on when to lift stay-at-home orders and other restrictions. Public health officials are warning that the U.S. does not have nearly enough testing capacity to lift restrictions.

COVID-19 has killed over 30,000 Americans. More than 22 million Americans filed for unemployment over the last month, erasing job gains made over the last decade. The widespread economic damage and job losses caused by the coronavirus is putting pressure on governors to lift restrictions.

Sarah Bryner and Dan Auble contributed to this report.

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At OpenSecrets.org we offer in-depth, money-in-politics stories in the public interest. Whether youre reading about 2020 presidential fundraising, conflicts of interest or dark money influence, we produce this content with a small, but dedicated team. Every donation we receive from users like you goes directly into promoting high-quality data analysis and investigative journalism that you can trust.Please support our work and keep this resource free. Thank you.

Karl joined the Center for Responsive Politics in October 2018. As CRPs money-in-politics reporter, he writes and edits stories for the news section and helps manage a team of diligent writers. A native of Brooklyn, New York, Karl graduated from State University of New York at New Paltz in 2016 with a B.A. in journalism. He previously worked at The Globe, a regional newspaper based in Worthington, Minnesota. His email is [emailprotected]

Read more:
Trump advisers on reopening economy gave half-billion to Republican efforts since 2015 - Center for Responsive Politics

The history of moonshining, especially in the mountains of Appalachia, is often related as a colorful part of our culture, overalled barefooted hillbillies minding their hidden stills and eluding revenooers, federal revenue officers out to put them out of business.

There were violent episodes, however, with people on both sides losing their livelihoods and sometimes their lives.

In 1877, a Lt. McIntyre, a federal agent, died while on a mission to arrest moonshiners and put a thriving bootleg operation out of business in a remote section of Fannin County. He and other law enforcement officers had raided the home of Ayres Jones in the far backwoods so isolated that the nearest neighbors were miles apart.

The federal agents had burst through the door of Joness home only to find his wife and several children there. McIntyre waited. At some point, shots were fired into the home, and McIntyre was struck. The shooter or shooters fled into the woods, and the feds either lost them or gave up their pursuit so they could look after their lieutenant. Although it was said the shots were fired into the house, McIntyres body was found in the backyard.

Ayres Jones was the suspected shooter and became the target of an intensive manhunt. Federal agents and members of the military days later again invaded the Fannin County mountains where they suspected Jones was hiding. More than 50 strong, they again burst into his home with only Joness wife and children present. They also entered other homes in the area to see if friends were hiding the suspect.

The troops made no bones they were on a mission for revenge, and those who were arrested claimed they were treated badly, cursed, roughed up and targets of serious threats. They also said they saw no warrants for entering their homes or for arrest.

Most of those arrested were taken to Cartersville, then to Atlanta to wait in jail for trial. One woman testified she was made to walk 80 miles to Cartersville.

A judge in Atlanta, however, released most, if not all, of those taken into custody.

That didnt keep the Feds from remembering the murder of Lt. McIntyre, nor his suspected killer, Ayres Jones.

Three years later, a young Gainesville man, J.B. Gaston, a U.S. deputy marshal, set out to find and prosecute Jones. So determined was Gaston that he and another federal agent, James Findley of Gainesville, rode horseback three days to the Frogtown section of Fannin County, where their suspect lived. When they could ride horses no farther, the agents began to walk seven miles through rugged terrain to Joness home, arriving at 10 oclock at night.

They feared a barking dog would arouse the suspect, so they broke down his door and pulled him from bed. Joness sons and daughters also were in the house, and one of the sons escaped into the woods. Gaston and Findley also arrested Joe Whitt in addition to Jones.

The agents with their prisoners in tow immediately began their long trek through the thickly wooded mountains to where they had left their horses. They feared the son who had escaped or other friends of Jones would attempt a rescue, but it never happened.

The suspects were later taken to Atlanta, where they were prosecuted for the murder of Lt. McIntyre.

That Gaston-got-his-man success apparently jump-started J.B. Gastons career and made him a hero in the eyes of homefolks in Hall and other North Georgia counties.

He became U.S. commissioner for North Georgia, serving 32 years. That was a little unusual because he was a prominent Republican in an era when Democrats dominated politics. Republicans werent too popular as they were responsible for enforcing Reconstruction rules in the South after the Civil War.

Born in Lumpkin County in 1849, Gaston moved to Hall County in 1871. He became active in politics, and was elected 9th District delegate to the Republican convention. Gainesvillians admired him so much they elected him mayor twice. During his terms as mayor, a new City Hall was built, as well as the towns waterworks.

Judge Gaston became influential in state Republican politics. In 1908, he was credited with carrying the 9th District for presidential nominee William Howard Taft, who defeated the Democratic nominee, William Jennings Bryan. Heavily Democratic Hall County was shocked Bryan won the county by only 78 votes.

Gaston died in June 1916 after suffering a brain hemorrhage while attending yet another Republican convention in Chicago. At the time he was chair of the Gainesville School Board. His funeral was at First Baptist Church, where he had been active for many years. His wife and eight children survived. He is buried under a large magnolia tree in Alta Vista Cemetery.

Watch for more local history in this column next Sunday.

Johnny Vardeman is retired editor of The Times. He can be reached at 2183 Pine Tree Circle NE; 770-532-2326; johnny.peggy@gmail.com. or vardeman1956@att.net

View original post here:
This is the story of the Republican from Gainesville who finally caught an infamous moonshiner - Gainesville Times

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV)

The race for the Republican nomination in Utahs hotly contested 4th Congressional District looks to be a wide-open affair, but former radio host Jay McFarland and former NFL player Burgess Owens have a slight lead on the rest of the field according to a new poll.

The same poll shows Democrat Ben McAdams seems almost certain to fend off an intra-party challenge.

The Utah Political Trends survey from UtahPolicy.com and KUTV 2 News conducted by Y2 Analytics shows McFarland with 31 percent support among likely Republican primary voters, while Owens gets 22 percent.

GOP activist Kathleen Anderson and State Representative Kim Coleman are tied with 17 percent support. Chris Biesinger and Trent Christensen each get 6 percent, while Cindy Thompson sits at 1 percent.

While that 9-point gap may seem like a big lead, the survey has a margin of error +/- 9.3 percentage points, so the race is technically a statistical tie among the top four candidates. McFarland seemingly has a big lead, but given the wide margin of error, any of the top four candidates can lay a partial claim to the status of a frontrunner in the race.

So far, McFarland, Owens and Christensen have qualified for the June primary ballot by gathering signatures while Anderson, Coleman, Biesinger and Thompson are hoping to book a trip to the June primary through next weeks GOP state convention. Depending on the results from the convention, its possible that three, four or five of the seven Republicans in the field will appear on the primary ballot.

The lead in the survey by McFarland and Owens can likely be chalked up to their relatively high name recognition among voters. McFarland was a longtime host of a daytime talk show on local radio while Owens has consistently appeared as a guest on conservative media outlets, primarily Fox News Channel.

McFarlands electoral strength lies mostly with voters in the middle of the ideological center, with 34 percent of moderate Republicans, 31 percent of voters who are middle of the road in their politics and 57 percent of moderate liberals backing him.

Owens, McFarland, Anderson and Coleman are splitting up support from the right-wing of the party. Owens gets 28 percent from strong conservatives, McFarland is supported by 22 percent, Coleman is backed by 21 percent and Anderson gets 20 percent from that group.

Incumbent Democrat Ben McAdams is facing a longshot convention challenge from Daniel Beckstrand next week. If McAdams does not secure the support of at least 60 percent of the delegates at the convention, he would be forced into a primary election.

If Beckstrand does somehow make it to the June primary, the survey suggests McAdams would win in a landslide, with 97 percent of likely primary election voters saying they would cast a ballot for McAdams.

KUTV 2News is partnering with Utah Policy.com and Y2 Analytics and will be providing polling results on a regular basis throughout the election season. You can sign up for UtahPolicy.coms daily email newsletter here.

Link:
Poll suggests Republican race in 4th District looks to be a wide-open contest - KJZZ

Anyone who pays passing attention to politics is probably familiar with former Rahm Emanuels suggestion that you never want a serious crisis to go to waste. Though to my knowledge rarely so explicitly stated before, it surprised no armchair geneticists who have learned how embedded in the DNA of Democrats are desires to control the lives of others.

Unfortunately, too many Republicans are vulnerable to the same. Thats likely why San Antonio Express-News Smart Money columnist Michael Taylor believes a universal basic income (UBI) is imminent.

A UBI is when government sends every citizen a regular cash payment. Mr. Taylor humorously declared Andrew Yang, who campaigned on the issue, the winner of the 2020 democratic presidential nomination, even though he dropped out in February.

Mr. Taylor trips up a bit however in making his case.

The vessel by which he thinks this new strain of welfare will become reality is the direct payment made to some families via the $2 trillion stimulus passed into law to mitigate the financial fallout resulting from the coronavirus-induced shutdowns.

Mr. Taylor asserts that such a cash transfer is a previously untried solution to alleviating the effects of a recession.

To the contrary, Uncle Sam did just that in response to the dot.com bust and the financial crisis. Neither proved effective when judged against the intent of their respective passages, the vast majority having been saved or used for debt reduction instead of being spent.

To be sure, were in a different situation now, with government literally cutting off peoples means of supporting themselves and their families. By the same token, it informs Mr. Taylors prediction. Nevertheless, its depressing that he can imagine the oncoming recession lasting through the summer.

When did faith in a free societys enterprising market system give way to self-fulfilling prophecies of doom? Whats more, why are so many conservatives joining this chorus? Mr. Taylor cites Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, who proposed sending $1,000 to Americans, through either unemployment insurance or tax rebates, for the duration of the crisis.

Coincidentally, one of the more prominent selling points of a UBI is that we live in a world akin to that of the Terminator movie franchise, in which Cyberdine Systems Skynet is going to take over and flood society with Terminators. BOO! ROBOTS!

Mr. Taylor errs again when he attempts to buttress his prediction by citing Alaskas Permanent Fund dividend. As he alludes, this fund is tied to revenue from the states #1 industry, oil and gas. The comparison suffers however, from the same flaws that trip up proponents of socialism: scale and federalism.

Theres a silly meme floating around stating that, while were sending our folks a one-time payment, England and Denmark are paying a certain percentage of their citizens salaries, and Canada is sending their people a couple grand every month. I responded with the numbers 327, 56, 6 and 38.

Those are the populations (in the millions) of those countries, respectively. This is the pertinent bit that seems to elude BernBots.

Alaska is our third-least populous state. Like the Scandanavian countries socialists drool over, their population pales in comparison with the US. This is where we benefit from the federalist system set up by the Founding Fathers. States can enact almost whatever policy they want without foisting their failures on the rest, though the latter are free to mimic successes.

While he teases the reason some conservatives find a UBI appealing, that it would not require giant bureaucracies of the welfare programs it would ideally replace, to label it a small-government idea because of its simplicity is woefully off the mark.

There is nothing small-government about any state program that requires for its existence the taxation of resources, particularly in our convoluted way, from the productive private sector.

And thats to say nothing of what French political economist Frederic Bastiat would have called the not seen innovations that never happened due to such confiscation.

Alas, politicians have little incentive to worry about such tradeoffs. They need not be bothered about the negative consequences of putting taxpayer revenue at stake for something that polls well in focus groups. This includes Republicans like Sen. Cotton.

The Wall Street Journal recently reminded readers that conservatives regularly fight an uphill battle against Democrats who define their lives through politics. They have to be more politician-y in order to counter the lefts brazen appeal to peoples base instincts, those that need to be coddled, and assured that their struggles are not their fault, but rather that of The Man.

Moreover, the envy that consumes the left inoculates them from any moral compunction against commandeering the earnings of productive citizens.

The GOP has a handful of principled members for sure, and some whose experience in business no doubt instilled in them an aversion to treating resources willy-nilly, and assuming that government is a benevolent partner.

There are others however, whose background consists of nothing but government, or law, or academia.

Their experience dealing with scarce resources is nearly non-existent. Theyve never had to create value, best their competitors, on a limited budget, under the threat of losing it all. Theyve either ridden piggyback on businesses via lawsuits, or fallen back on taxpayers.

That makes them more susceptible to snake oil like a UBI.

Incidentally, the aforementioned editorial was a salute to Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn on the news of his retirement in 2014. The Journal ran it again in memoriam, as Dr. Coburn succumbed to prostate cancer.

Few elected officials respected the taxpayer more, holding his colleagues feet to the fire regarding their profligate ways. We need more folks like him who have the ability to say one of the simplest words in the English language.

No.

Read this article:
Selling the Republican Soul for a UBI - Foundation for Economic Education

WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) The Small Business Administration says its run out of money and cannot accept any new applications for a loan program to help small businesses through the coronavirus crisis.

I dont want a small West Virginia business having the door shut on their face because we ran out of money, West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said of the Paycheck Protection Program.

Capito says small businesses are key to our recovery.

Because this is whats going to really get our economy moving once we get the green light, Capito said.

But Senate Democrats have so far blocked a $250 billion addition to the loan program. West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin says the blame lies with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.

Mitch is not talking and conferring at all with anybody in the Democratic party, and leadership, or any of us that basically want to work with him, Manchin said.

Democrats say they want Republicans to increase funding for others who need immediate help fighting the pandemic.

Were going to have to be thoughtful about how to advance the agenda for families, for workers, for small business and of course for those front line heroes who are out there every day, Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey said.

But House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy says Democrats should take a look at the latest unemployment numbers.

I dont know what more that it takes. You got five million reasons today, you got 22 million reasons for this month, McCarthy said.

McCarthy says Democrats should vote to expand the loan program now and come back to the other issues later. Democrats say theyre willing to compromise if Republicans meet them in the middle.

Read more:
Democrats and Republicans divided on extra Paycheck Protection Program funding - KLBK | KAMC | EverythingLubbock.com