“The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN)
is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”
Donald Trump, February 17, 2017
A discussion of the most interesting, useful and entertaining recent articles and observations on Trump, the Republicans, and politics generally from the enemies of the American People:
Curious development on the Russian Front. Former 2012 Republican nominee Jon Huntsman is said to accept post as ambassador to Russia:
“Russian officials would be a little worried about that part of Huntsman’s background [ties to a supposedly anti-Russian think tank],” Mr. Simes said. “What they will like about him is that he was a former ambassador to China, he is independently wealthy, and he will have access to the president.”
Like many, I sort of found Huntsman to be a “reasonable” Republican and (out of the possibilities) welcomed this appointment. Crowd question: am I wrong about Huntsman? One dissenter:
Overall, Huntsman’s record suggests someone who is more of a political chameleon than a foreign-policy figure who is on Trump’s wavelength. Centrist? Realist? Neocon? Huntsman can be all these things, or none of them, depending on what’s suitable for his own interests. “I don’t think he can be characterized as having any strong views on any key issues,” the former Republican official told me. Is that really what Trump wants at State?
Jesus, who knows “what Trump wants”? That is beyond Freud.
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Neil Gorsuch and the future of the Supreme Court. Richard L. Hansen has a good piece up explaining how Supreme Court nominee Gorsuch might do some real damage on some of the vital issues facing the Court and the country. One important issue to keep an eye on is Steve Bannon’s recent promise to wage an unending battle for “deconstruction of the administrative state.” This agenda, more than anything else, may explain why Gorsuch was nominated:
In another opinion, [Gorsuch] challenged the notion that courts should defer to administrative agencies when they interpret the law. It may seem like a dry legal issue but it is central to many conservatives, including Justice Clarence Thomas.
"Judge Gorsuch has been a stern critic of a fixture of the Supreme Court's administrative law jurisprudence -- the idea that, where a federal agency is enforcing an ambiguous statute, courts should defer to how the agency understands the statute even if the courts read it differently," said Stephen I. Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court contributor and professor of law at the University of Texas School of Law.
"If he were to form part of a majority to scale back that principle, it would be a major sea change in the relationship between the executive branch and the courts, and one that would likely impose significant new constraints on the scope of federal regulatory authority on all topics -- from immigration and criminal law enforcement to environmental protection, consumer product safety, and drug regulation," Vladeck said.
"His position on this is more extreme than Justice Scalia," said Dan Goldberg of the progressive Alliance for Justice, "it would be hard to overstate the damage it would cause this nation and the American people."
Well . . . then a Justice Gorsuch will find himself in an epic battle with the otherwise mild-mannered Justice Stephen Breyer, who literally wrote the book on Administrative Law. This is going to be like an odd Game of Thrones episode where the two least known characters fight to decide the fate of the world based on plot details that no-one else remotely understands. (OK, here is an obligatory, great clip)
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The big Gorsuch debate. A small confession — out of the horrible possibilities that Trump could have gone to, I was happier to see him nominate this Neil Gorsuch guy. Why? Because he strikes me more as a Roberts nominee than as a Thomas or Alito nominee . . . or, someone much, much worse that Trump could have nominated. And, bigger confession, I don't personally get worked up about having to see the Democrats filibuster this guy. Don’t get me wrong: I am livid that Republicans criminally blocked Obama’s Garland nomination . . . but I also can't fool myself. Republicans went to the mat on this issue, and they won. The public did not punish them for their stance, at least not sufficiently on the electoral college level. And, more crucially, Dems are not going to rectify that injustice . . . Dems are not going to block a Trump/Republican pick because Dems act sufficiently outraged or obstructionist. Republicans are going to have this pick.
So, two points: First, there are a number of pieces arguing that Democrats should be as happy as they can be with a Gorsuch pick. I don't know if anyone can predict whether that is right, but some of the arguments are here, here and here. They are worth a read.
But — after all of the above and a lot of personal thinking — I still think that Democrats need to filibuster Gorsuch and let Republicans eliminate the filibuster in a “nuclear option” move. I simply agree with WashPo columnist Eugene Robinson:
This is purely about politics. . . . If the Democratic Party is going to become relevant again outside of its coastal redoubts, it has to start winning some elections — and turning the other cheek on this court fight is not the way to begin.
Trump’s pick, Judge Neil Gorsuch, has the résumé required of a Supreme Court justice. But so did Judge Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s last nominee, to whom Senate Republicans would not even extend the courtesy of a hearing, let alone a vote. . . .
I’m not counseling eye-for-an-eye revenge. I’m advising Democrats to consider what course of action is most likely to improve their chances of making gains in 2018, at both the state and national levels.
The party’s progressive base is angry and mobilized.
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. . . I believe Democrats should wage, and lose, this fight. The 60-vote standard looks more and more like an anachronistic holdover from the time when senators prided themselves on putting the nation ahead of ideology. These days, so many votes hew strictly to party lines that it is difficult to get anything done. The Senate is supposed to be deliberative, not paralyzed. . . .
Democrats cannot stop Gorsuch from being confirmed. But they can hearten and animate the party’s base by fighting this nomination tooth and nail, even if it means giving up some of the backslapping comity of the Senate cloakroom. They can inspire grass-roots activists to fight just as hard to win back state legislatures and governorships. They can help make 2018 a Democratic year.
I agree. The most important thing right now is unifying and energizing the Democratic base. The base will not understand any affirmative vote, or non-filibuster effort, concerning this nomination . . . a nomination designed to consummate a theft. It doesn't matter if Dems can win; it matters that they demonstrate an unwavering willingness to fight. And . . . the filibuster is dead anyway. It has no remaining force because either party would override it as necessary. We already are at a 51 vote threshold to confirm a Supreme Court nominee. Let’s not pretend otherwise.
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Please tell me that at this point we can beat the Republicans on the healthcare fight. OK, the fight has been joined. Republicans won complete control of the federal government and the big Obamacare fight is on. Dear God, please tell me that Democrats can win this fight. I mean, look at what the Republicans have admitted just this week. Paul Ryan dismissed expanded health coverage as a “beauty pageant,” and HHS Secretary Tom Price dismissed universal health insurance coverage as “not really the end goal here, is it?” Umm . . Republicans are not even pretending to have a universal health insurance bill. For pete’s sake, is this something that Dems know how to exploit politically?
Because it is not even a health insurance bill . . . it is a tax cut bill:
Let’s abandon the pretense.
Republicans’ “health care” bill is not really about health care. It’s not about improving access to health insurance, or reducing premiums, or making sure you get to keep your doctor if you like your doctor. And it’s certainly not about preventing people from dying in the streets.
Instead, it’s about hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts — tax cuts that will quietly pave the way for more, and far larger, tax cuts.
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WTF is going on with the State Department? SOS Rex Tillerson recently announced that he was traveling to Asia on official State Dep’t business and is refusing to take any press with him. “Veteran journalists who cover the State Department say they've never seen anything like it.” Also, Tillerson and the State Department seem to be deliberately cut out of the loop, facing budget cuts, not consulted on routine foreign matters or visiting officials, and with SOS Tillerson still unable to appoint a deputy. Julia Ioffe has a good piece exploring the state of disarray and demoralization at the State Department under Trump:
Sometimes, the deconstruction of the administrative state is quite literal. After about two dozen career staff on the seventh floor—the State Department’s equivalent of a C suite—were told to find other jobs, some with just 12 hours’ notice, construction teams came in over Presidents’ Day weekend and began rebuilding the office space for a new team and a new concept of how State’s nerve center would function. (This concept hasn’t been shared with most of the people who are still there.) The space on Mahogany Row, the line of wood-paneled offices including that of the secretary of state, is now a mysterious construction zone behind blue tarp.
With the State Department demonstratively shut out of meetings with foreign leaders, key State posts left unfilled, and the White House not soliciting many department staffers for their policy advice, there is little left to do. “If I left before 10 p.m., that was a good day,” said the State staffer of the old days, which used to start at 6:30 in the morning. “Now, I come in at 9, 9:15, and leave by 5:30.” . . . . People aren’t sleeping well. Over a long impromptu lunch one afternoon—“I can meet tomorrow or today, whenever! Do you want to meet right now?”—the staffer told me she too has trouble sleeping now, kept awake by her worries about her job and America’s fading role in the world.
None of this is random, coincidental or hyped. The Trump administration is looking to severely damage and discredit the U.S. State Department. Our job now is to find out why? This is serious stuff, and can't be reported as budget squabbles or internecine rivalries. Something deeper is going on . . . and if history is any guide, it reflects something that fringe Right Wing groups have been discussing for a while. I have my ideas, but I would love first to hear from others.
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Starving the personnel Beast? We are all familiar with the traditional Republican “Starve the Beast” plan. But Trump is suggesting that he is intentionally taking it to a different level by withholding staffing, not just funding:
Some 1,100 political positions require Senate confirmation, and so far Trump has nominated just a handful. None of the deputy secretaries or undersecretaries at the Department of State have been named, for instance. . . . At the Pentagon, the No. 3 job, undersecretary for policy, remains unfilled. At Homeland Security, two key posts overseeing Trump's immigration crackdown — the directors of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, are held by acting directors. Trump has yet to name a FEMA director or TSA administrator. . . . Other high level posts at the Treasury, the Department of Justice and Department of Health and Human Services are likewise filled by acting heads or remain vacant.
Recently, Trump has asserted that all of these unfilled jobs are intentional:
“A lot of those jobs, I don’t want to appoint someone because they’re unnecessary to have,” Trump said. “In government, we have too many people.”
It is hard to know if this is just Trump bluster designed to distract from obvious incompetence. But, on the other hand, this is wholly consistent with his nihilistic, detached statements on governing. The bottom line is that we need to get Trump out of this office. He does not belong there.
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V.P. Mike Pence is a beady-eyed liar. I never bought for a moment that former NSC Chairman Mike Flynn “lied” to Mike Pence and “forced” Mike Pence to repeat his lies to the public (about Flynn’s Russian contacts). Any sane observer of Mike Pence during the campaign and now has to recognize Pence as an unapologetic, low rent, and habitual liar:
That gets to the crazy-making part of the night: Mike Pence. Throughout the debate, Pence kept furrowing his brow, shaking his head, scoffing, laughing out loud, saying things like “that’s absolutely false” and “oh, that’s nuts” whenever Tim Kaine brought up true things that Donald Trump had either said or done. Pence’s skepticism of the world that Kaine was describing—a world many of us thought we inhabited—was so adamant that it was hard not to question our own sanity . . . .
Mike Pence just gaslit the American people, and it looks like he’s going to get away with it. Still, we at Slate tried to pull together all the head shakes, scoffs, “absolutely nots,” and outright rejections of reality that we could find during the debate into one video. That video ran at a length of more than 15 minutes, or about one-sixth of the entire program.
Now we have unambiguous proof of Pence’s serial lying. 1. Mike Flynn was working for, and being paid by, the Turkish government during the campaign and afterwards. 2. That information was publicly and widely reported weeks ago. Yet, here is beady-eyed Pence lying that he never heard anything about this before:
PENCE: Well, let me say, hearing that story today was the first I heard of it. And I fully support the decision that President Trump made to ask for General Flynn’s resignation.
BAIER: You’re disappointed by the story?
PENCE: The first I heard of it, and I think it is, ah, it is an affirmation of the president’s decision to ask General Flynn to resign.
But VP Pence knew these facts from the public reporting and by a letter November 18,2016 to him from Congressman Cummings:
Elijah Cummings, the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent Pence a letter on November 18 requesting more information about the potential conflicts of interest posed by Flynn's lobbying work.
Cummings sent the letter four days after both The Daily Caller and Politico reported that Flynn's consulting firm, Flynn Intel Group Inc., had been hired to lobby for Turkish interests.
"Recent news reports have revealed that Lt. Gen. Flynn was receiving classified briefings during the presidential campaign while his consulting firm, Flynn Intel Group, Inc., was being paid to lobby the U.S. Government on behalf of a foreign government's interests," Cummings wrote.
"Lt. Gen. Flynn's General Counsel and Principal, Robert Kelley, confirmed that they were hired by a foreign company to lobby for Turkish interests, stating: 'They want to keep posted on what we all want to be informed of: the present situation, the transition between President Obama and President-Elect Trump.' When asked whether the firm had been hired because of Lt. Gen. Flynn's close ties to President-elect Trump, Mr. Kelley responded, 'I hope so.'"
Pence's office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Pence is a liar.
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Trump’s appointee leads on “crony capitalism.” Throughout the campaign, Trump repeatedly promised that he would bring billionaire Wall Street tycoon Carl Icahn in to run entire parts of the economy. In one example below, Trump touted Icahn’s potential role: “We are going to get the best dealers in the world . . . these are the people we need negotiating for us. Not diplomats and not people who have no business ability,” and “In fact, I had dinner with him the other night. I said, “Carl, you’re great at this. I’m great at this. There aren't too many of us. . . . Would you like to, supposing I let you run, you know be involved with . . . China? Be involved with Japan?”
In December 2016 Trump brought Icahn into the administration as a “special adviser to the President” overseeing regulation. As a long time critic of the EPA, Icahn’s role is wide reaching:
According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Icahn has already assisted the transition with vetting candidates for the EPA chief. The nomination eventually went to Scott Pruitt, the attorney general of Oklahoma. Icahn's experience with the EPA comes from several investments in oil and gas companies.
Icahn will also have a role in selecting the new head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the report.
So, less than two months in, how has this Icahn appointment worked out? Pretty much as expected:
CRITICS ARE CHARGING that billionaire investor Carl Icahn has used his position as Donald Trump’s deregulatory czar to strong-arm the ethanol lobby into agreeing to a change that will save one of Icahn’s companies $200 million a year.
If so, this would be the most obvious example yet of crony capitalism in the Trump era.
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Icahn is the majority owner of CVR Energy, a refiner which does not have the infrastructure to blend ethanol. As a result, CVR must buy renewable fuel credits to comply with their obligation.
In its most recent SEC filing, CVR stated it spent $205.9 million last year on renewable fuel credits. Shifting the point of obligation to blenders would relieve CVR of that expense. “That’s big money, even to a billionaire,” Slocum told The Intercept.
Not surprisingly, Icahn has long wanted the renewable-fuels industry to agree that the obligation should belong to the wholesalers, not the refiners.
And all of a sudden this week, the top renewable-fuels trade organization reversed its previous position and announced that it had reached an agreement with Icahn, on his terms.
Get ready for a lot more of this . . . .
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Obamacare already allows insurers to sell across state lines. Since every Republican “plan” to replace Obamacare hyperventilates about allowing insurers to sell across state lines — except the most recent Ryan plan (because of reconciliation issues) — it is an interestingly overlooked fact that the ACA already allows this to happen.
Selling insurance across state lines is a vacuous idea, encrusted with myths. The most important myths are that it’s illegal today, and that it’s an alternative to the Affordable Care Act. The truth is that it actually is legal today and specifically enabled by the Affordable Care Act. The fact that Republicans don’t seem to know this should tell you something about their understanding of healthcare policy. The fact that it hasn’t happened despite its enablement under the ACA should tell you more about about why it’s no solution to anything.
“I never understood the appeal of this idea. It only makes
sense if you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
— Healthcare economist Austin Frakt
So, yes, the ACA allows insurers to sell across state lines . . . provided that both states agree. That turns out to be a buzz kill:
For the last 10 months, states have been legally allowed to let insurers sell plans outside their borders.
ObamaCare’s little-known provision that allows insurers to sell plans across state lines was tucked inside the 1,000-page law at the time of its passage, though it didn’t go into effect until January 2016.
Under the law, two or more states can band together into what’s called a “healthcare choice compact.” That means people can buy health coverage from another state that wouldn’t be subjected to the rules of their home state, as long as those states agree.
But “no states have signaled interest in the policy, insurance experts and regulators say. And the federal government never even finished writing the rules for how it would work.”
You see, Republicans want the ability to sell across state lines against the will of the various states. Why? Well, it is the same reason why this Republican plan doesn’t work; just think about your credit card’s interest rate:
On the face of it, lowering state-level barriers to health insurance sales would launch a race to the bottom akin to what happened with credit-card regulations after 1978. That’s when the Supreme Court ruled that credit card regulations could be exported by banks located in one state to customers located anywhere else. . . . . The result was that credit card-issuing banks set up shop in places like South Dakota and Delaware, which had virtually no usury laws, effectively nullifying other states’ limits on credit card fees and interest rates.
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But the prospect is that Blue Shield of California would no longer be issuing policies to Californians; the state’s residents would have the choice of Blue Shield of Texas or Louisiana, or nothing. As industry expert Richard Mayhew of Balloon-juice.com observed early this year, if a law was passed granting a national license to any insurer in any state, “the state with the weakest and most easily bought regulatory structure would have 98% of the viable insurance companies headquartered there within nine months.”
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As the Georgetown University study team observed, laws allowing cross-state health insurance sales have no organized champions. Consumers aren’t clamoring for them; insurers aren’t interested in them; doctors and hospitals don’t care; and state regulators aren’t inclined to cede their oversight to interlopers from somewhere else. Their only backers are preening political candidates who don’t understand health insurance and hope you don’t, either.
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Just to let your eyes roll. “White Evangelicals Say They Face More Discrimination Than Muslims.”
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And for those who miss Prince: One silver-lining is that YouTube is now awash with some amazing live clips that the Purple One notoriously had kept under wraps. His objection was protecting artists’ “ownership” of content (with associated money rights). He had a very valid point, but he was also quirky as all hell. Personally, I am glad to see his estate releasing restrictions so that much of these performances can see the light of day. The below is is just one example that I noticed today; it is not remotely the best. With Prince, you can keep scrolling through the side bar for further magic:
[For those interested, last week’s Dispatches can be found here.]