I really, really want to work for Trump!! I mean, I know he'll throw me under the bus but... it's worth it, right? Right??
James Hohmann/WaPo:
THE BIG IDEA: Credibility is like virginity. You only get to lose it once.
By Sunday morning, their memories had cleared up. “I am telling you that he did not use that word. And I’m telling you it’s a gross misrepresentation,” Perdue said indignantly on ABC’s “This Week.”
“I didn’t hear it, and I was sitting no further away from Donald Trump than Dick Durbin was,” Cotton said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
They didn’t stop there. Both men then impugned the Illinois senator’s integrity by alleging he has a history of making stuff up.
Now we know the real story: “Three White House officials said Perdue and Cotton told the White House that they heard ‘shithouse’ rather than ‘shithole,’ allowing them to deny the president’s comments on television over the weekend,” according to Josh Dawsey, Robert Costa and Ashley Parker...
Cotton and Perdue will be defined by this moment, in part, because other senators will remember their attacks on Durbin. This will make them less trustworthy as potential partners and thus less effective as members of Congress.
Frank Bruni/NY Times:
One day it’s all sun and sycophantic fun on one of the president’s fancy golf courses, where you’re telling yourself that to marvel at his putts and swoon over his swing are small prices for influence and will pay off in the end.
The next you’re in the middle of a surreal feud among your fellow Republicans about whether he used “shithole” or “shithouse” to describe poor countries of dark-skinned people, and you look like a sellout and fool for having thought and said better about him.
That’s the story of Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Its moral couldn’t be clearer. There’s no honor or wisdom in cozying up to Donald Trump — just a heap of manure.
Jennifer Rubin/WaPo;
Sens. Cotton and Perdue are outed for lying on Trump’s behalf
Honorable men would resign after such a remarkable revelation of their crummy character; neither Cotton nor Perdue will. We still await the appearance of a single staffer of either who would quit in protest.
USA Today editorial:
It's bad enough that the president of the United States is an inveterate liar. It's even worse when members of Congress and his Cabinet feel compelled to lie on his behalf.
Five days after word leaked out that President Trump used bigoted and vulgar remarks during an Oval Office meeting on immigration, it's clear who's telling the truth. Spoiler alert: It's not the president and his enablers.
Politico Pulse:
THE UNINSURED RATE WENT UP IN 2017 — That's according to a new Gallup survey that found the uninsured rate among U.S. adults was 12.2 percent last year, up from a record-low 10.9 percent in the last quarter of 2016.
— It was the biggest one-year jump in a decade. Gallup has been tracking adults' uninsured rate since the start of 2008, and it peaked at 18 percent in late 2013 — right before the ACA coverage expansion began. The uninsured rate then steadily fell between 2014 and 2016, as the Medicaid expansion kicked in, other ACA provisions took effect and the Obama administration heavily promoted the law.
Bloomberg:
Some officials view the department as capitulating to a small group of Republicans who are intent on helping President Donald Trump undermine the integrity of the FBI and, by extension, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
The well of awfulness of this administration has no bottom.
Routine reminder that if Trump and Kelly let a white supremacist like Stephen Miller set policy, then that means they are… hmmmmm….
NY Times Upshot:
Still Not Convinced You Need a Flu Shot? First, It’s Not All About You
Adults also need to get vaccinated to provide herd immunity for others, especially babies and older people.
Many of those people end up in the hospital. In a good year, we might see as few as 114,000 people hospitalized with flu-associated illnesses. In a bad year, that number rises to more than 700,000.
In 2014, more than 57,000 people died of influenza/pneumonia. It was the eighth-most common cause of death, behind diabetes (just under 80,000 deaths). It’s also the only cause of death in the top 10 that could be significantly reduced by a vaccine. Lowering risks of heart disease, cancer or Alzheimer’s are much, much harder to do.
In 1995, the worst year of the AIDS epidemic in the United States, fewer than 51,000 people died of it. In 2014, just over 6,700 deaths were attributable directly to H.I.V. Yet it is H.I.V., not the flu, that people dread far more.
Because the flu is so common, we tend to minimize its importance. Consider the contrast with how the United States responded to Ebola a few years ago. We had a handful of infections, almost none of them contracted here. One person died. Yet some states considered travel bans, and others started quarantining people.
One win in 4 (WI SD 10) specials last night, but all in red areas. Carolyn Fiddler has more:
Democrats have just pulled off the first election upset of 2018. In northwestern Wisconsin’s Senate District 10, Democrat (and reality TV show Wife Swap alum) Patty Schachtner defeated Republican Adam Jarchow 55-45 percent to flip a seat the GOP has held since 2000. Tuesday’s shocking upset arguably puts the Wisconsin Senate majority in play this fall (which is now 18 Republicans to 14 Democrats, with one vacancy).
NY Times Upshot:
After a Debacle, How California Became a Role Model on Measles
Changing minds on vaccination is very difficult, but it isn’t so important when a law can change behavior.
Our best data on vaccination rates, in California and elsewhere, relies on records collected from schools at kindergarten entry. California requires these records from all schools, public and private, so they provide a comprehensive measure.
In 2014, for California over all, about 93 percent of entering kindergartners were vaccinated for measles. This wasn’t bad. It could have been better — a place like North Carolina is at about 98 percent — but this was a high enough rate to be in the range of herd immunity.
The trouble is that herd immunity is about the vaccination rate among the people you interact with, and you’re not interacting with the entire state of California. Local vaccination rates matter. If the overall state vaccination rate of 93 percent was because each area had a vaccination rate of 93 percent, that would be one thing. But if it’s because a bunch of areas had very high rates, and a bunch had lower ones, that’s quite another. And this second case was California in 2014.
Michael McDonald/USA Today with a game-changing idea on voter registration (sorta endorsed by Rick Hasen):
I agree with Donald Trump, we should have voter ID. Here's how and why.
Having the government take responsibility for voter registration is actually a very old idea. It is how elections were run during America’s first century as a country. Local governments created lists of the people who owned property or paid taxes, which defined the eligible voters.
Making the government responsible for registering voters again would solve many election administration problems. True universal registration would obliterate the burden on individuals to register, and to re-register whenever they move. Numerous studies find reducing voter registration costs increases voter turnout. Democracy works best when its citizenry is engaged.