Evening Wrap

The aforementioned proposals are all real examples from Indiana, where House lawmakers spent Monday advancing a veritable buffet of legislation, the Indiana Capital Chronicle reported. By which I mean: There’s something for everyone! Do you wish lazy high-schoolers would pull up their bootstraps and get full-time jobs already? There’s a bill for that! Do you worry about the lack of random inspections at dog breeding facilities? There’s a bill for that! Do you long to drink cocktails at home, but not quite enough to make them at home? Yep — there’s a bill for that, too!

For decades, the state of Missouri has seized Social Security benefits from foster kids to help defray the cost of their care. Usually, the kids have no idea. This is legal under federal law, which permits foster care agencies to serve as financial representatives for children who are eligible for benefits, either because they have a disability or because their parents have died. And it’s a sizable chunk of change. Last year alone, the state confiscated at least $6.1 million, the Missouri Independent reported.

Senate Republicans said Thursday they would continue negotiations on a bipartisan immigration package despite pressure from Donald Trump to scuttle the measure ahead of this year’s presidential election. Debate over the deal, which would trade GOP-backed border security measures for $106 billion in global security funding, is at a “critical moment,” U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) told our bureau in D.C.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Wednesday to halt a pending execution in Alabama, clearing the way for the state to put to death a prisoner using nitrogen gas, an untested method that critics say is inhumane, the Alabama Reflector reported. 

Whatever slim chance remained for a relatively sane election year evaporated into the ether Tuesday night as Trump triumphed in the New Hampshire GOP primary, besting Nikki Haley by 11 points, per the New Hampshire Bulletin. That margin is a lethal blow for Haley’s campaign, which outspent Trump two to one in hopes of wooing New Hampshire’s moderate Republicans and independent voters and still failed to finish within 10 points of first place. There is no plucky comeback in store here. This is not the turning point of the primary. This is the end, and everyone knows it.

We need to talk about New Hampshire, but first, we need to talk about abortion.

Wisconsin Republicans on Monday celebrated the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade as only Republicans could: With a public hearing for a proposed voter referendum on a 14-week abortion ban, the Wisconsin Examiner reported. This was a largely pointless endeavor, both because the bill stands zero chance of making it past Gov. Tony Evers and because everyone — students, doctors, Democrats, Republicans, abortion advocates, anti-abortion groups — hates it.

I am fully primed to talk to you about kids, thanks to a week of school closures and many, many days with my own kids. Kids! They are why this introduction is short!

The strangeness of the system extends all the way to the primary process, which traditionally begins with presidential hopefuls flocking to the Iowa State Fair to consume piles of fried food while pretending to care about ethanol subsidies in hopes of winning the hearts and minds of white Midwesterners. Whoever survives that gantlet is rewarded with a trip to New Hampshire, where presidential aspirations live and die by one-on-one conversations with voters. So ingrained is this concept that there’s an adage Granite Staters invoke to explain whether they’ll support a given candidate.

Case in point: Private equity firms buying up hospitals, saddling them with debt, using the proceeds to pay off wealthy investors and then selling the properties, leaving communities to deal with the remnants. This has been a thing for at least two decades, but it’s increased rapidly since 2012, both in spending and in scale. Private equity investors now own nearly 400 U.S. hospitals, accounting for roughly a third of the country’s for-profit facilities, Stateline reported.

The results of Monday’s GOP caucuses were both historic and wholly predictable. As expected, Donald Trump triumphed, garnering 51% of the vote to finish 30 percentage points ahead of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. His margin of victory more than doubled the previous record of 12.8 percentage points, set by Bob Dole in 1988; likewise, his slim majority of voters was the highest-ever support for a single candidate in a competitive caucus. Collectively, the nation reacted with a yawn. By the numbers, it was an unprecedented showing. Politically, it’s just another day at the MAGA circus.

Former President Donald Trump scored his first victory of the primary season with a mere 30-point drubbing of his nearest rivals in the Iowa Caucuses, the Iowa Capital Dispatch reports. Trump more than doubled the other candidates in the field – combined.