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Scenes from a MAGA meltdown: Inside the ‘America First’ movement’s war over democracy By Andy Kroll, ProPublica
VOL. 8,
NO. 173
Riverside County supervisors support pay hikes for selves, other elected officials By Paul J. Young, City News Service
This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
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he Board of Supervisors Tuesday tentatively approved double-digit pay hikes for themselves and five other Riverside County elected officials based on comparative surveys, but several members of the public complained the raises were self-serving and without merit. “I don’t believe this board deserves any type of increase,” Rancho Mirage resident Brad Anderson said ahead of the 4-1 vote on the two ordinances establishing revised pay scales. “This is about pandering to the ... (county) employees, rather than the people who live in this county.” Only Supervisor Kevin Jeffries, the most senior member of the board, opposed the hikes, which he has consistently refused for himself since first elected in 2012, making him the lowest paid of the entire board. “This puts us in a bad position with the public,” Jeffries said. “I truly believe this is a terrible mistake, and it’s not going to sit well with taxpayers out there who probably make, at best, 60% of what we are proposing for ourselves. This is not the path we should take. You shouldn’t take a vow of poverty to serve as an elected official, but it is a choice to be in the political arena.” The initial vote by the board, which must be followed by a second reading of the modified salary ordinances and See Pay raises Page 28
Breach at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. | Photo courtesy of Brett Davis/Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)
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tanding in a cafe decorated with tiny American flags and antique cabinets as big as bodyguards, Peter Meijer paused as he considered what to say to the man in the “Stand for God” shirt who had just called for his bodily harm. It was a snowy morning in February. Meijer was the keynote speaker at a coffee-and-donuts meeting hosted by the Republican Party chapter in Kent County, Michigan, the most populous county on the west side of the state. Dressed in a candidate-casual uniform of jeans, a flannel shirt and an outdoorsy blazer, Meijer was seeking the Republican nomination for an open U.S. Senate seat, a race that could determine control of Congress’s upper chamber, in a state that could decide the presidential election. If
Republicans wanted to win in November, Meijer told the 40-odd people in attendance, they needed to move on from the past and focus on their shared enemy. “Is there anyone who thought that Jan. 6th was good for the Republican Party?” he asked. “Did it help us win in 2022?” “We weren’t gonna win,” someone yelled. “It was rigged.” “The election was stolen,” another person said. “It doesn’t matter.” I watched this exchange from a table near the back of the room. Until that moment, the crowd met Meijer’s stump speech with polite nods and gentle applause. But when he brought up elections and Jan. 6th, the mood turned from Midwest nice to hostile.
Not long ago, this setting was friendly terrain for Meijer. For decades, voters here rewarded sensible, probusiness, avowedly conservative politicians. Meijer fit the archetype of a West Michigan Republican when he first ran for Congress in 2020. He was also basically Michigan royalty as an heir to the Meijer grocery store fortune. In one of the state’s most competitive districts, he won his debut congressional race by a comfortable 6-point margin. At the Kent County event, however, many attendees seemed to feel nothing but scorn for him. That anger flowed from a single decision Meijer had made in Congress: He voted to impeach then-President See MAGA meltdown Page 14
Donald Trump. In response, he faced a far-right primary challenger who had served in the Trump administration and said Biden’s 2020 victory was “simply mathematically impossible.” Meijer narrowly lost. Now, as a Senate candidate, he was trying to make amends, even pledging to vote for Trump — whom he had once called “unfit for office” — if the former president won the Republican nomination. But to some, he was still a traitor. “How did you vote to impeach Trump when he said in his [Jan. 6] speech, ‘I want a peaceful demonstration,’” a man angrily asked. “You don’t have to go any further than that to know that he was right and
State Senate approves lawmaker’s bills to mitigate effects of fentanyl use, abuse By City News Service
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n Inland Empire lawmaker’s bills to ensure medical providers have tests to identify a person suffering fentanyl poisoning, as well as provide expanded access to drug therapy, were approved Wednesday by the California State Senate. Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, R-Beaumont, introduced Senate Bills 1442 and 1468 in the current legislative session as part of her effort to prevent further casualties from fentanyl exposure. “As a mother, it’s heartbreaking to listen to families describe the tragic deaths of their loved ones,” Bogh said. “I appreciate the Senate’s efforts to join together and fight against these senseless deaths. The opioid crisis doesn’t know political boundaries, and neither should the fight we lead against it as lawmakers. I thank my colleagues for their willingness to stand against this crisis and support my efforts.” SB 1442 establishes avenues for the state to fund and distribute fentanyl tests to healthcare providers, including See Fentanyl Page 28