A new Quinnipiac Poll shows the majority of American voters (52-40 percent) believe that U.S. Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III lied under oath during his confirmation hearings, and a similar majority (51-42 percent) say he should resign. By 66-30 percent, they want an "independent commission investigating potential links between some of Donald Trump's campaign advisors and the Russian government."
Justin Elliott, Derek Kravitz and Al Shaw at ProPublica write—Meet the Hundreds of Officials Trump Has Quietly Installed Across the Government:
A Trump campaign aide who argues that Democrats committed “ethnic cleansing” in a plot to “liquidate” the white working class. A former reality show contestant whose study of societal collapse inspired him to invent a bow-and-arrow-cum-survivalist multi-tool. A pair of healthcare industry lobbyists. A lobbyist for defense contractors. An “evangelist” and lobbyist for Palantir, the Silicon Valley company with close ties to intelligence agencies. And a New Hampshire Trump supporter who has only recently graduated from high school.
These are some of the people the Trump administration has hired for positions across the federal government, according to documents received by ProPublica through public-records requests.
While President Trump has not moved to fill many jobs that require Senate confirmation, he has quietly installed hundreds of officials to serve as his eyes and ears at every major federal agency, from the Pentagon to the Department of Interior.
Unlike appointees exposed to the scrutiny of the Senate, members of these so-called “beachhead teams” have operated largely in the shadows, with the White House declining to publicly reveal their identities.
While some names have previously dribbled out in the press, we are publishing a list of more than 400 hires, providing the most complete accounting so far of who Trump has brought into the federal government.
E.J. Dionne Jr. at The Washington Post writes—Welcome to Trump’s Fantasyland:
We shouldn’t blithely move on to other matters until we deal with the institutional carnage inflicted upon us by President Trump.
The current president of the United States has accused former president Barack Obama of committing a felony by having him wiretapped. But Trump refuses to offer a shred of evidence for perhaps the most incendiary charge one president has ever leveled against another. Trump recklessly set off a mighty explosion and his spokespeople duck and dodge, hoping we’ll pretend nothing happened.
If our republic had a responsible Congress, its leaders would accept their duty to demand that a president who shakes his country and the world with such an outlandish allegation either put up proof or apologize.
Unfortunately, we have no such Congress.
Thomas B. Edsall at The New York Times writes—Donald Trump’s Political Stew:
On Feb. 27, The Conversation, an academic website, published “The Democratic Party is Facing a Demographic Crisis,” by Musa al-Gharbi, a Lazarsfeld fellow in sociology at Columbia. Al-Gharbi challenges a widespread Democratic assumption (succinctly articulated in a recent book by Ruy Teixeira, “The Optimistic Leftist”) that guided the two Obama campaigns as well as Hillary Clinton’s 2016 bid. From that vantage point, the party is the beneficiary of demographic destiny: A swelling population of single women, knowledge workers, minorities and millennials guarantees the emergence of a majority left coalition.
Instead of a “Rising American Electorate,” al-Gharbi describes a party on a steady downward trajectory over the last three presidential elections. [...]
One of the mainstays of Democratic optimism is the conviction that a growing body of young voters — more liberal than their elders — will soon dominate elections, just as the baby boomers did before them. In point of fact, however, millennials are slowly, incrementally becoming a less reliable Democratic constituency.
Ronald Brownstein, writing in the Atlantic, found “there’s no guarantee Democrats can reap big benefits from millennial mistrust of Trump.”
Jessica Valenti at The Guardian writes—Don't let feminism get hijacked for racist ends:
This is an administration that plans to gut funding for violence against women programs – an administration led by a man who brags about groping women and who seems happy to hire men who have been accused of beating women. This is not a White House that cares about keeping women safe; instead they feign “feminist” concern in order to excuse targeting immigrant men.
Stoking racial hatred by invoking the protection of women – white women, in particular – is nothing new in the United States, of course. The fear of rape has historically been used to justify horrific violence against American black men, a shameful practice that lingers even today: when Dylann Roof killed nine people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church in South Carolina in 2015, he told churchgoers, “you rape our women”.
Charles M. Blow at The New York Times writes—A Ticket to Hell:
He was not book smart or well mannered. He was all gut and elbow and verbal barbs. For too many, he was refreshingly anti-polish and anti-convention.
And, as is Trump’s wont and calling card, he oversold his voters a bill of goods that he would never be able to deliver. The Pied Piper of pipe dreams did in politics what he had done in business: He got people to buy into a success mythology in which he was a wizard. In this mythology, ethics, honor and truth are casualties.
Everything is going to be the greatest and the best and the most successful simply because he deems it so.
But now, the legend of Trump, the one most rigid in his own mind, is rubbing up against the harsh reality of presidential politics, where cooperation is needed and accountability is demanded. In this new world, Trumpism appears brittle, hollow and impotent. [...]
And now his oversold promises are being exposed for the lies they were — draining the swamp in Washington, forcing Mexico to pay for his ridiculous southern border wall, the incredibly defective Obamacare repeal and replacement proposal.
Karen A. Tramontano at The Washington Monthly writes—America Is Failing Workers Left Behind by the New Economy:
Rejecting trade agreements outright will not end global competition for U.S. workers who will continue to confront corporate relocation and dislocation; the global economy is here to stay. What the United States is failing to do is to help American workers whose jobs have been displaced by the complex forces unleashed by globalization and automation.
Today’s highly competitive global economy regularly produces winners and losers, as competitive pressures lead to thousands of jobs being created and destroyed every day. And while trade has a role to play in this dynamic, it is not the only explanation for this volatility and instability. It is just one among many factors, which include technological change, industrial shifts, tax incentives, global workforce expansion, the pursuit of low-cost labor, and customer tastes and desires, among others.
Still, when it comes to the debate over the costs and benefits of trade, proponents of open trade focus disproportionately on its benefits without paying equal attention to the plight of those on the losing end of the stick. This is not a fair approach. Moreover, ignoring those who have been negatively affected by the impact of trade and other factors has led to the intractable debate we find ourselves in today.
No magic bullet will solve the challenges associated with worker dislocation. But any attempt must first start with a broad acknowledgment that our current system—a collection of vastly outdated, underfunded, and underperforming programs—is not working.
Mary Dejevsky at The Guardian writes—Never mind watching the TV—if WikiLeaks is right, the TV is watching you:
Most people who have ever used a company computer and called IT will remember the unease they felt the first time the tech people “took control” of their computer and they had to watch as the cursor meandered around the screen, guided remotely by someone else. It turns out that the “someone else” may not always be the guys in your own back office. Until now, the very suspicion would have been regarded as an early sign of paranoia. No longer.
At a time when consumers everywhere are being urged to avail themselves of the “internet of things”, it turns out that the CIA got there first (by a long way). And it is not just we who have the ability to control our appliances – from our computers to our phones to our televisions, even our front-door locks, heating systems and, potentially, our cars – but the thousands beavering away on the government payrolls at Langley, Virginia, and Cheltenham, England.
Brian Beutler at The New Republic writes—The Republicans Did This to Themselves:
In 2016, Republicans were awarded the power they sought. Their unexpected victory made it impossible for them to coyly promise a #BetterWay to structure the health care system, without ever saying how. It forced them, at last, to lay their cards on the table.
The legislation House Republicans introduced Monday, after weeks of internal struggle and secretive negotiations, suggests (as most liberals assumed) that they were never close to consensus at all. It has outraged right-wing pressure groups and baffled conservative health care experts. Health insurance consultant Bob Laszewski called the proposal “mind boggling.” [...]
The problem this bill is meant to solve is that the entire professional right lied to the GOP base for seven years about the horrors of the Affordable Care Act, vowed to right all of its illusory wrongs, and now must answer for these hysterics. This bill lets Republicans in Congress pretend they were playing it straight with the American people the whole time.
Miriam Pemberton at Other Words writes—Throwing money at the Pentagon while gutting other programs that protect Americans shouldn't make anyone feel safer:
Giving the military more money seems like a no-brainer way to increase security. But apply a little brain power and you quickly see what’s wrong with this idea.
It’s true, as Trump says, that our troops are having trouble “winning wars” like they used to. But the Pentagon that sent them into war already has more money than it did during the Bush or the Reagan build-up years. And more money than the next seven countries put together.
Besides, what will the military do with all that extra money?
It’s hard to say, because the Defense Department’s accounting systems are so poor (read: designed to hide waste) that it’s the only federal agency that still can’t pass an audit. Its own Defense Business Board identified $125 billion in Pentagon waste without breaking a sweat. (The Pentagon buried the report, though.)
Zak Cheney Rice at Policy.Mic writes—L.A. County voter turnout was 11.45% on Tuesday. That won't cut it in Trump's America:
Los Angeles County had an election Tuesday, less than two months after anti-Donald Trump protests galvanized the city. Only 11.45% of registered voters showed up.
According to the L.A. Times, the City of Angels set a record for the lowest voter turnout in a mayoral election in L.A. history. The previous record was 18%, set in 2009 when Antonio Villaraigosa ran for re-election:
These numbers should worry progressives. Donald Trump is president, and Republicans control the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Local elections have emerged as some of the few sites where left-leaning voters can advance their agenda. There's little hope for success — pending an all-out political revolution — if progressives don't vote.
John Nichols at The Nation writes—The Best Way to Fight Back Against Trump: Instead of freaking out over every outrageous tweet, we should challenge extremist GOP policies—and forge our own alternatives:
Resistance to Trump must balance the monitoring of his reckless acts with the work of challenging the savage policies put forward by both his administration and the Republican-controlled Congress while forging alternatives to Trumpism.
Outrage, of course, is inevitable—and important. It mattered that the news that Sessions had falsely denied meeting with a Russian official in his Senate testimony was met with widespread public calls for recusal and resignation. Sessions did recuse himself from investigations into the Trump team’s ties with Russia, but that didn’t address the fact that he lied under oath to senators about his meetings—an offense for which he should resign—or that he continues to abuse the Justice Department’s mission by supporting an administration move to rescind protections for transgender students and withdrawing support for a Texas voting-rights suit.
Daniel Moraff at In These Times writes—Want to Elect Socialists? Run Them in Democratic Primaries:
Thousands of local left-to-progressive formations are springing up or growing, from DSA to Indivisible to the Working Families Party. Many of them will, in 2018, have the ability to draft and run candidates for office. They will have two choices: one, run a candidate in the Democratic primary, with a far lower win number than the general, no spoiler issue, no third-party stigma, and a chance to win—joining the long list of leftists elected as Democrats. Two, go the independent route and hope that where hundreds upon hundreds of left third-party challengers have failed, they will succeed. [...]
The 2018 election cycle is an enormous opportunity. The millions who have marched against President Trump are looking to those elections as the next great opportunity to stop him. Those on the Left, by taking a lead role in pushing our candidates, can seize and direct this energy. Choosing this moment to adopt electoral strategies that have virtually no prospect of winning elections in 2018 would squander the opportunity at hand. [...]
A strategy of using Democratic primaries to win power does not preclude other organizing outside the Democratic Party in non-partisan races at more local levels. Kshama Sawant's success in Seattle as a Socialist Alternative-backed city council member is instructive for running in these types of races.