Thursday Reads: “Health Care” and “Religious Liberty” According to the GOP
Posted: May 4, 2017 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics 48 Comments
Woman reading a newspaper, Gianni Strino
Good Morning!!
Before I get started on my post, I want to share a bit of personal news. You all know how proud I am of my brother John the filmmaker and five-time Emmy award winner. Nearly a year ago I wrote about the brutal and senseless murder of my sister-in-law Kristine’s mother in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Tomorrow is the anniversary of her death.
My brother and sister-in-law have spent the past year turning their pain and loss into a film about what happened. I have seen parts of it, and I think it’s impressive. It’s a multidimensional story–the life of a truly special woman and the impact of her death as well as an exploration of the background and possible motives of the man who murdered her, including ways in which the mental health and justice systems likely failed him.
John and Kristine have set up fundraising page with a goal of raising $50,000 in two weeks to enable them finish the film. There is more information about the film and about John and Kristine’s family at that link. I’m not asking you to contribute; I just wanted to share this and provide a link to a brief preview of the film. John has posted a longer piece at Vimeo.
Now to the news of the day.
House Republicans have scheduled a vote on their disastrous “health care” bill today. For a healthier lifestyle you should use organic natural products which you can find at health food stores. I have to wonder if Trump’s presidency has driven them to commit ritual suicide. This monstrosity probably can’t pass the Senate, and many of those who vote for it are likely to lose their seats in the House.
Some reactions from journalists who cover health care regularly:
Jonathan Chait: The GOP Health-Care Bill Is an Abdication of Responsibility and a Moral Disgrace.
The heart of the bill is the same one that was polling at under 20 percent and failed two months ago: a near-trillion dollar tax cut for wealthy investors, financed by cuts to insurance subsidies for the poor and middle class. They have added a series of hazily defined changes: waivers for states to allow insurers to charge higher rates to people with preexisting conditions and to avoid covering essential health benefits, and a pitifully small amount of money to finance high-risk pools for sick patients.
The implications of these changes are vast. The Brookings Institution notes that if a single state eliminated the cap on lifetime benefits for a single employee, then employers in every state could actually follow suit, thus bringing back a horrid feature of the pre-Obamacare system, in which people who get hit with expensive treatment from Top Christian Drug-Alcohol Rehab Centers suddenly discover that their insurer will no longer pay for their care. This would affect not only those getting insurance through Medicaid or the state exchanges, but also through their job.
The ambiguity of the details is the strategy. Republican leaders have been “assuring centrists that the Senate would make changes to allay their concerns and insisting that few states would actually use the waivers allowing higher premiums for pre-existing conditions,” reportsTheWallStreet Journal. Sean Spicer says it would be “literally impossible … to do an analysis of any level of factual basis.” Representative Fred Upton told reporters that if the Congressional Budget Office says the bill is underfunded he will push for more money — after it passes his chamber.
They are rushing through a chamber of Congress a bill reorganizing one-fifth of the economy, without even cursory attempts to gauge its impact.
Jonathan Cohn: Obamacare Repeal Is Really Just A Giant $1 Trillion Cut To Health Care Programs.
Republicans are trying very hard to disguise what the American Health Care Act would actually do.
They keep insisting their bill, which would repeal the Affordable Care Act, would “lower premiums and improve access to quality, affordable care,” as House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) put it last month.
Any time analysts point out the ways in which those promises are misleading or false ― or cite the Congressional Budget Officeprediction that the AHCA would leave about 24 million peoplewithout health insurance ― Republicans insist that a combination of new tax credits, state innovation, and so-called high-risk pools will take care of people better than the current system does.
This is not true. And perhaps the clearest evidence is in those CBO numbers.
Much more at the link.
Sarah Kliff: Congress is voting Thursday on a bill to replace Obamacare. The CBO still hasn’t scored it.
The House of Representatives will vote on the American Health Care Act, the bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, on Thursday in the early afternoon. House Republicans are hurtling toward a vote on a bill that is disliked by most Americans, opposed by nearly every major health care group, and not yet scored by the Congressional Budget Office.
This is an unusual situation, and a puzzling one. Republicans will vote tomorrow for a health care bill without knowing how many people it covers or how much it would cost. They risk setting themselves up for embarrassment when the numbers actually do come out and don’t look good.
As leadership scrambles to whip the votes for the American Health Care Act, it’s worth stepping back to ask: What the heck is the rush?
The best explanation I’ve found comes from my colleague Andrew Prokop. When Republicans started this year, they had a strategy to move two big policy packages, one on health care and another on tax reform. There would only be two chances to use the budget reconciliation process that allows a bill to pass with only 51 Senate votes (for complex procedural reasons explained here), so each would get one shot.
Health reform would go first, they thought, because it would be simpler. It was a legislative strategy built when the Republican health care plan looked markedly different:
They thought it would be legislatively easier to write an Obamacare repeal bill than tax reform, because they intended to put off the hard work of creating an actual replacement for Obamacare until later. This was the “repeal and delay” strategy — pass a quick repeal, set it to go into effect in a few years, and write the replacement in the meantime.
But then GOP leaders encountered a problem. Their members, in both the House and the Senate, turned out to really hate the “repeal and delay” strategy, because it meant getting rid of Obamacare and its benefits without the “replacement” the party had long promised they’d offer being ready.
Republicans want to move quickly on health care so they can fit in tax reform too, another immense and complex policy lift.
David Leonhardt: The New Study That Shows Trumpcare’s Damage.
When Massachusetts expanded health insurance a decade ago, state officials unknowingly created an experiment. It’s turned out to be an experiment that offers real-world evidence of what would happen if the House Republicans’ health bill were to become law.
The findings from Massachusetts come from an academic paper being released Thursday, and the timing is good. Until now, the main analysis of the Republican health bill has come from the Congressional Budget Office, and some Republicans have criticized that analysis as speculative. The Massachusetts data is more concrete.
Unfortunately for those Republicans, the new data makes their health care bill look even worse than the C.B.O. report did. The bill could cause more people to lose insurance than previously predicted and do more damage to insurance markets. The $8 billion sweetener that Republicans added to the bill on Wednesday would do nothing to change this reality. President Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan are continuing to push a policy that would harm millions of Americans.
Read about the study at the NYT link above.
Ernest Witkamp: Woman reading newspaper
One more from Erica Green at the NYT: A Little-Noticed Target in the House Health Bill: Special Education. Green explains how the effects the gutting of Medicaid will have on the education system. Read it at the link.
As I write this, Trump is announcing his big new unconstitutional executive order, making the dreams of Mike Pence and the evangelical community come true by repealing the so-called “Johnson amendment.”
NYT: Trump to Weaken IRS Rule Against Church Political Activity.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is seeking to further weaken enforcement of an IRS rule barring churches and tax-exempt groups from endorsing political candidates, in a long-anticipated executive order on religious freedom that has disappointed some of his supporters.
As he marks the National Day of Prayer at the White House Thursday, Trump is planning to sign an executive order asking the IRS to use “maximum enforcement discretion” over the regulation, known as Johnson Amendment, which applies to churches and nonprofits.
The order also promises “regulatory relief” for groups with religious objections to the preventive services requirement in the Affordable Care Act, according to a White House official. Those requirements include covering birth control and could apply to religious groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor, who have moral objections to paying for contraception.
The White House did not release the full text of the order, and it was not clear just how the pledges would be carried out. The order, which essentially would make it even less likely that a religious organization would lose its tax-exempt status because of a political endorsement, falls short of what religious conservatives expected from Trump, who won overwhelming support from evangelicals by promising to “protect Christianity” and religious freedom.
One more read from HuffPo: Pence: Trump ‘Has Literally Filled This White House’ With Anti-Abortion Leaders.
NEW YORK― Vice President Mike Pence declared victory for the anti-abortion movement Wednesday night, boasting that President Donald Trump has “literally filled” his administration with politicians who oppose reproductive rights.
“Life is winning in America,” Pence said at a gala for the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List. “President Trump has been keeping his promises to stand for life. He’s literally filled this White House and agencies with pro-life leaders.”
Pence, who led the fight against reproductive rights as a congressman and governor of Indiana, went on to list the members of what he called the anti-abortion “A-team”― Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, Housing Secretary Ben Carson, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Trump’s counselor Kellyanne Conway, who spoke at the gala before Pence.
Also listed on his “A-team” was Charmaine Yoest, the former CEO of Americans United for Life, who is assistant secretary of health and human services, and Teresa Manning, a former lobbyist for the National Right to Life Committee who is expected to be appointed to oversee the nation’s family planning program at HHS.
“For the first time in a long time, America has an administration that’s filled top to bottom with people who stand without apology for life,” Pence said.
Except if you’re a woman, a black person, member of the LGBT community, a muslim, and on and on. Let’s face it, unless you’re an evangelical man or a male white supremacist, your life has no value, according to Trump and Pence.
It should be an interesting day ahead. What stories have you been following? For some tips and ideas about dental treatments, here is Dentist Fort Wayne.
Tuesday Reads
Posted: May 2, 2017 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics 65 CommentsGood Morning!!
Today is a big day for Trump. He’ll be talking on the phone to his idol Vladimir Putin. He must be on pins and needles. I can just imagine his inner dialogue: “I wonder if he likes me? I think he likes me. He’s such a strong leader! And he’s so dreamy!” Politico:
Trump is scheduled to speak to Putin at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Oval Office, according to the daily guidance email sent late Monday evening by the White House. The two men spoke most recently a month ago following a terrorist attack in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Leaders from both nations have conceded that U.S.-Russia relations, which Trump had suggested that he might be able to revive, have in fact sunk to low levels not seen since the Cold War.
But Trump is the master of “the art of the deal,” so I’m sure he’ll fix those problems “very quickly.”
From Axios, a summary of the Wall Street Journal article today (behind the paywall) on Jared Kushner’s latest ethics problems:
Jared Kushner failed to specify his part-ownership of Cadre, a real estate startup also backed by Goldman Sachs, George Soros, Peter Thiel, and Vinod Khosla, as well as debt consolidation loans bad credit direct lender adding up to at least $1 billion from multiple big banks, per the WSJ‘s review of government financial disclosure forms….
One visible example: Kushner has been tapped to head the American Technology Council, whose participants may very well include Thiel or Khosla-backed companies.
Ivanka has problems too, according to Huffington Post: Ethics office says it wasn’t consulted about Ivanka Trump job.
The New York Times and Politico reported March 20 that the president’s older daughter was working out of a West Wing office. A White House official told CNN that she would get a security clearance but would not be considered a government employee.
The next day, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer assured reporters that Ivanka Trump would follow the ethics restrictions that apply to federal employees. He said she was acting “in consultation with the Office of Government Ethics.”Related: Ivanka Trump White House job raises ethics questions
But the ethics office, in a letter made public Monday, said it was not consulted. Director Walter Shaub said he reached out to the White House and to Ivanka Trump’s lawyer on March 24 to tell them that Ivanka Trump should be considered a federal employee, subject to those rules….
The rules require Ivanka Trump to disclose her financial holdings and either sell assets or recuse herself from matters in which she has a financial interest.
Shaub gave his account in a letter to Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tom Carper of Delaware, who had asked him about the ethics rules for Ivanka Trump’s White House job.
More details at HuffPo.
Meanwhile The New York Times is refashioning itself as a Trump propaganda site with today’s loving profile of Ivanka. The piece begins with a description of Ivanka’s failed effort to get her father to apologize for his bragging about sexual assault on the “Access Hollywood” tape.
Ivanka Trump made an emphatic case for a full-throated apology, according to several people who were present for the crisis discussion that unfolded in Mr. Trump’s 26th-floor office. Raised amid a swirl of tabloid headlines, she had spent her adult life branding herself as her father’s poised, family-focused daughter. She marketed her clothing line with slogans about female empowerment and was finishing a book on the topic. As she spoke, Mr. Trump remained unyielding. His daughter’s eyes welled with tears, her face reddened, and she hurried out in frustration.
I guess she’s not that successful at “softening” him. On her White House role thus far:
The two trade thoughts from morning until late at night, according to aides. Even though she has no government or policy experience, she plans to review some executive orders before they are signed, according to White House officials. She calls cabinet officials on issues she is interested in, recently asking the United Nations ambassador, Nikki R. Haley, about getting humanitarian aid into Syria. She set up a weekly meeting with Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary.
In interviews last week, she said she intended to act as a moderating force in an administration swept into office by nationalist sentiment. Other officials added that she had weighed in on topics including climate, deportation, education and refugee policy….
Ms. Trump, 35, a former model, entrepreneur and hotel developer, says she will focus on gender inequality in the United States and abroad, by aiming to create a federal paid leave program, more affordable child care and a global fund for women who are entrepreneurs, among other efforts. Her interest in gender issues grew out of a “Women Who Work” hashtag and marketing campaign she devised a few years ago to help sell $99 pumps and $150 dresses. On Tuesday, the career advice book she worked on before the election, whose title echoes her hashtag, will be published.
By inserting herself into a scalding set of gender dynamics, she is becoming a proxy for dashed dreams of a female presidency and the debate about President Trump’s record of conduct toward women and his views on them.
Ivanka Trump, Ivanka Clothes, Trump Failures, political cartoon
Oh really? I certainly don’t see her as a “proxy” for Hillary. WTF?! The Times also seems to call into question what Planned Parenthood funding does (emphasis added):
…recently, with congressional Republicans threatening to cut all funding to Planned Parenthood (even though the women’s health organization says it receives no federal funding for abortions), Ms. Trump approached its president, Cecile Richards, to start a broader dialogue. She also had a proposal: Planned Parenthood should split in two, Ms. Trump suggested, with a smaller arm to provide abortions and a larger one devoted to women’s health services.
White House officials said Ms. Trump was trying to find a common-sense solution amid the roar of abortion politics. But Planned Parenthood officials said they thought Ms. Trump’s advice was naïve, failing to understand how central reproductive choice was to the group’s mission. Ms. Richards sharply criticized Ms. Trump for not publicly objecting to the Republican health care bill that failed in March, and Ms. Trump felt stung.
Tough shit. Toughen up Ivanka. You wanted the job, now do it. And why is the Times suggesting that Planned Parenthood might be lying about how it uses federal funds?
The White House is still cleaning up from Trump’s “dizzying day of interviews” yesterday. Politico:
President Donald Trump questioned why the Civil War— which erupted 150 years ago over slavery — needed to happen. He said he would be “honored” to meet with Kim Jong-Un, the violent North Korean dictator who is developing nuclear missiles and oppresses his people, under the “right circumstances.”
The president floated, and backed away from, a tax on gasoline. Trump said he was “looking at” breaking up the big banks, sending the stock market sliding. He seemed to praise Philippines strongman President Rodrigo Duterte for his high approval ratings. He promised changes to the Republican health care bill, though he has seemed unsure what was in the legislation, even as his advisers whipped votes for it.
And Monday still had nine hours to go.
“It seems to be among the most bizarre recent 24 hours in American presidential history,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian. “It was all just surreal disarray and a confused mental state from the president.”
The interviews — published by Bloomberg, Face the Nation and the SiriusXM radio network — seemed timed to the president’s 100-day mark but contained a dizzying amount of news, even for a president who often makes news in stream-of-consciousness comments. Trump’s advisers have at times tried to curb his media appearances, worried he will step on his message. “They were not helpful to us,” one senior administration official said. “There was no point to do all of them.”
It’s frightening that no one can control him, even his loyal daughter and son-in-law.
More from Politico on the Civil War question: Historians see a dark underside to Trump’s Civil War riff.
The president’s comments on Monday struck some historians as darker than a history goof, with the president seeming to minimize the painful history of slavery in the United States and to talk up Jackson’s role as a strongman leader who proudly owned many slaves.
“It’s the kind of comment that will get applause from neo-Confederate circles in the South,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University.
Confederate flags were a common sight at Trump rallies during the 2016 campaign, and monuments to Confederate leaders are common in Southern states.
Some in Trump’s circle, including chief strategist Steve Bannon, have sought to liken Trump to Jackson, a populist. In March, Trump visited Jackson’s gravesite in Nashville, Tennessee, where he declared himself “a fan.”
“Steve Bannon has made Jackson the epitome of the hardscrabble, American folk hero,” added Brinkley. “And Trump has bought into Steve Bannon’s version of Andrew Jackson.” ….
“What I saw in that comment was his belief, his attraction to a kind of strongman history,” said David Blight, a Civil War historian at Yale University. “It’s so completely out of any knowledge or context to suggest that somehow Jackson would have headed off the Civil War.”
Here’s a bit of positive news: Michael Slager, Ex-Cop Who Shot Walter Scott, to Plead Guilty in Civil Rights Case.
A white former South Carolina police officer will plead guilty Tuesday in a federal civil rights case over the fatal shooting of unarmed black motorist Walter Scott, two attorneys close to the case told NBC News.
The state of South Carolina, meanwhile, will drop a pending murder charge against Michael Slager, who was fired after cellphone footage of Scott’s killing went viral. Slager’s first murder trial ended last December in a hung jury.
Slager, 35, has claimed he pulled over Scott on April 4, 2015, due to a broken taillight. The incident escalated, he has claimed, when Scott, 50, wrestled away his Taser and fled. The cellphone video, recorded by a bystander, shows Slager shooting Scott in the back while he was running away.
The defense in Slager’s first trial claimed the former North Charleston police department patrolman feared for his life and fired in self-defense.
Slager’s federal trial was set to begin on May 15, and jury selection was slated to begin May 9. A federal judge in March ruled that jurors in Slager’s federal trial would be allowed to view the video.
I’ll put a few more links in the comment thread. What stories are you following today?
Lazy Saturday Reads: 100 Exhausting Days
Posted: April 29, 2017 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, U.S. Politics 32 Comments
Francis Luis Mora (1874-1940) Morning News
Good Afternoon!!
Today is the 100th day of the Trump regime. Of course everyone (except Trump) knows that the 100 days measure of presidential achievement goes back to Franklin Roosevelt.
NPR’s Tamara Keith: The First 100 Days: ‘A Standard That Not Even Roosevelt Achieved.’
The idea of measuring an American president by the accomplishments of his first 100 days in office goes back to 1933 and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s dash to staunch a banking crisis and pull America out of the Great Depression.
In a July 24, 1933, fireside chat, he assessed the early months of his administration.
“I think that we all wanted the opportunity of a little quiet thought to examine and assimilate in a mental picture the crowding events of the hundred days which had been devoted to the starting of the wheels of the New Deal,” Roosevelt said.
He had signed a record 15 major pieces of legislation in those first 100 days. But it’s not as simple as the legend would make it seem.
“Presidents since Roosevelt have been held up to a standard that not even Roosevelt achieved,” said historian Patrick Maney, a professor at Boston College who has written books about Presidents Clinton and FDR….
“Only two or, at most, three of those measures actually originated in the White House,” Maney said of the 15 major pieces of legislation signed by Roosevelt. “Almost all the rest had originated in Congress and many — including federal relief for the unemployed, the Tennessee Valley Authority — had been up for debate for years.”
Roosevelt, initially at least, opposed the creation of the FDIC. Now it is one of the enduring legacies of his first 100 days.
Desire Dehau Reading a Newspaper in the Garden, 1890, Henri Toulouse Lautrec
But there’s no doubt that Roosevelt achieved far more than the current occupant of the White House. Business Insider assesses the record here: Trump’s First 100 Days: Here’s how they compare with Obama’s, Bush’s, and Clinton’s. You can check that out at the link. Trump has signed more bills and executive orders, but they are less substantive than in past presidencies. He obviously has no significant legislative achievements.
Here’s an assessment from Rosa Brooks at Foreign Policy: Donald Trump Is America’s Experiment in Having No Government.
If you think like a citizen, the first 100 days of the Trump administration will reduce you to weeping and wailing.
But if you think like a scientist, you will see things differently. You’ll see that the United States of America has developed an excellent fourth grade science fair project.
This project is called “A Four-Year Experiment in Not Having a Government.”
Until recently, the United States has had a “government” with “policies.” That is: We have had an adult president, we have had other adults occupying senior government positions, and those adults have sought to develop reasonably coherent and consistent approaches to governing based on the assumption that the usual rules of physics, mathematics, and so on must be taken into account when developing policies, and the corollary assumption that “facts” and “evidence” can be said to exist.
The United States was reasonably successful when it had a government. It was by no means perfect but laws were passed, taxes were collected, revenues were used to fund public services, treaties and international negotiations were concluded, and so on.
But do we need an American government?
Perhaps not! Perhaps the United States and the world can chug along just fine without one. Thanks to the Republican Party, we’re in the middle of a once-in-a-lifetime experiment to find out.
The study began by placing a child in the White House. Child labor laws passed by previous U.S. governments (and the Constitution) preclude sending a fourth grader to the White House, but we have done the next best thing by electing Donald Trump, a 70-year-old who makes decisions based on TV shows, doesn’t read, and announces new policy positions via late night tweets IN ALL CAPS.
So true. Please go read the rest.
Aristarkh Lentulov Reading the Newspaper, 1930s
Also happening today: the people’s march on climate change.
CNN: Protest to take on Trump’s climate policies — and the heat — in DC march.
Thousands of people who support action on climate change are expected to brave the sweltering heat Saturday and march through the nation’s capital as part of the People’s Climate March.
“We resist. We build. We rise,” a slogan for the event reads.
With temperatures expected to hit 90 degrees, the march is set to begin at 12:30 p.m. near the Capitol. Protesters then plan to move to the White House and end up at the Washington Monument, according to the proposed route map.
Hundreds of sister marches are also planned across the US and around the world.
They’re being held to coincide with President Donald Trump’s 100th day in office and take on his environmental policies.
“We’ve already seen just how effective people power is against this administration: Trumpcare? Withdrawn. Muslim ban? Blocked,” the group’s website says.
“Now Trump’s entire fossil fuel agenda is next, and we believe that the path forward is based in the voice of the people — which is expressed first and foremost through mass protests and mass marches.”
I hope it goes well. My brother, sister-in-law, and two nephews are in DC for the event.
Tonight is the annual White House Correspondent’s Dinner–sans Trump. Hasan Minhaj of “The Daily Show” will give a speech, presumably a humorous one. There also will be a competing event, Samantha Bee’s Not The White House Correspondent’s Dinner.
Thomas Sergeant Perry Reading A Newspaper, Lilla Cabot Perry
The Washington Post: Where to watch the 2017 White House correspondents’ dinner online and on TV.
The red carpet starts around 5 p.m.; The Washington Post will have a red carpet feed on Facebook Live. Typically, everyone heads into the dinner around 7 p.m. — the awards and speeches kick off at 9:30 p.m., and everything wraps at approximately 11 p.m.
C-SPAN’s coverage will start at 9:30 p.m. You can also watch the whole thing on C-SPAN’s live stream or on YouTube. The Washington Post will also have a live stream.
CNN, Fox News and MSNBC will air portions of the dinner throughout the night, and also provide coverage of President Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania, scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m.
Oh boy, I can hardly wait to hear Trump brag about election night for the umpteenth time, like he did yesterday in his speech to the NRA.
The Washington Post: In Trump’s absence, ‘nerd prom’ challenged by Bee’s bash.
Washington’s once-glitzy “nerd prom” is about to get overshadowed.
Late-night TV star Samantha Bee was pulling in celebrities for the first “Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner” on Saturday — a tongue-in-cheek play on the real bash, where journalists, the president and, in recent years, lots of bold-face names have mingled.
But President Donald Trump was skipping the White House Correspondents’ Association gala, instead marking his 100th day in office with a rally in Pennsylvania. No president had declined an invitation since Ronald Reagan in 1981, and he was recovering from an assassination attempt. Still, Reagan phoned in some friendly, humorous remarks.
WHCA dinner organizers wanted to put the focus on the First Amendment and the role of the press in democracy. The scheduled headliners were Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, set to present journalism awards. Woodward told The Washington Post the two planned to speak about “the First Amendment and the importance of aggressive but fair reporting.”
Look for the celebrities at Bee’s event: TV stars such as Alysia Reiner of “Orange Is The New Black,” Retta of “Parks and Recreation” and Matt Walsh of “Veep” were expected at her after-party.
By Serge Hollerbach
From Vulture, which is cosponsoring Samantha Bee’s event: Samantha Bee on Why Her Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner Won’t Just Be an Anti-Trump Roast.
As host of the weekly comedy show/savage commentary on current events, Bee is usually fired-up and ready to sound a barbaric WTF about everything from Russian hacking to why Democrats are good at protesting but absolutely terrible at voting. But during an interview with Vulture Thursday morning, from her dressing room backstage at Constitution Hall, the actual Bee was pretty soft-spoken and relaxed. The relaxed part is impressive considering that, on Saturday, she’ll host the Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, a made-for-television event that, thanks to the diluted nature of this year’s actual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, being held that same evening, has become the most talked-about event of what is usually the buzziest weekend in D.C.
That buzz is humming at a much lower frequency this year. Considerably fewer celebrities are rolling into town for the festivities, several media outlets have cancelled the parties they normally host, and, for the first time in more than three decades, the president will not appear at the dinner. (President Trump announced in February that he would not attend the annual formal, glad-handy event; instead, he will hold a rally that evening in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.)
Before Trump bailed, Bee says she and her Full Frontal team sensed there might be a void and started to figure out how they might fill it. On Saturday, they will do so by hosting the TV- and Twitter-ready alternate dinner at D.C.’s Constitution Hall, where it will be recorded in the afternoon and air that night at ten on TBS. An uncensored version will stream on Twitter starting at 11 p.m., and proceeds generated will be donated to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
I’m going to end there. I decided to keep things light today, because I’m just plain exhausted from the past 100 days. I’ll have a few more newsy items in the comment thread.
What are you reading and/or doing today?
Thursday Reads
Posted: April 27, 2017 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, U.S. Politics 37 Comments
Paul Gustave Fischer (1860-1934): “In the Train Compartment”
Good Afternoon!!
I’m struggling to get going this morning. Having a madman as president is exhausting. Some days I just can’t deal with the news. As usual when this happens, breaking news has overtaken me. There’s a new investigation of General Michael Flynn.
CNN: Pentagon warned Flynn in 2014 against taking foreign payments; IG launches investigation.
Former national security adviser Michael Flynn was warned by the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014 against accepting foreign payments as he entered retirement, according to new documents obtained by the House oversight committee.
The inspector general of the Department of Defense also opened an investigation of Flynn earlier this month, according to an April 11 letter released by the oversight committee Thursday.
“These documents raise grave questions about why General Flynn concealed the payments he received from foreign sources after he was warned explicitly by the Pentagon,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, in a statement. “Our next step is to get the documents we are seeking from the White House so we can complete our investigation. I thank the Department of Defense for providing us with unclassified versions of these documents.”
The news comes two days after Cummings and House oversight chairman Jason Chaffetz said Flynn may have broken the law by not disclosing payments he received from RT-TV, a station widely considered to be a propaganda arm of the Russian government.
At Politico, a little more on the warning Flynn received in 2014.
The intelligence agency informed President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser in a letter that, as a retired military officer, he was still subject to the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which bars government officials from accepting gifts or payments from foreign governments.
Flynn was notified in the letter that he was prohibited from the “receipt of consulting fees, gifts, travel expenses, honoraria, or salary … from a foreign government unless congressional consent is first obtained.”
In a letter dated earlier this month, the Pentagon’s IG informed the House Oversight Committee it was investigating the matter.
Carmichael, Stewart: Dundee Women Reading the War News
Also breaking mid-morning at The Hill: Dems issue shutdown threat over ObamaCare repeal vote.
House Democrats will oppose a short-term spending bill if Republican leaders attempt to expedite an ObamaCare repeal bill this week, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) warned Thursday. For those with high arched problems on their feet I suggest to get running shoes for high arches so that you can keep healthy with no problem.
Hoyer, the Democratic whip, spoke with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) Thursday morning to warn him of the Democrats’ position.
The threat is significant because GOP leaders will likely need Democratic votes to pass a short-term spending bill in the face of opposition from conservatives historically opposed to government funding bills.
“If Republicans announce their intention to bring their harmful TrumpCare bill to the House Floor tomorrow or Saturday, I will oppose a one-week Continuing Resolution and will advise House Democrats to oppose it as well,” Hoyer said in an email.
“Republicans continue to struggle to find the votes to pass a bill that will kick 24 million Americans off their health coverage, allow discrimination against those with pre-existing conditions, and impose an age tax on older Americans. That’s why they are trying to jam it through the House before their Members can hear from the American people this weekend about their opposition to this horrible legislation.”
This might be a relief to the remaining rational Republicans who don’t want to deal with constituents who will lose their health care if they vote for the bill–even though it would likely die in the Senate.
From last night, the House Intelligence Investigation of Trump and Russia is reportedly back on track. CNN: House Russia investigators agree on schedule, get new access to documents after ‘reset.’
“We’re working in a bipartisan manner, we’re going to be thorough, professional and meticulous,” House Russia investigation leader Mike Conaway told CNN on Wednesday. Conaway added that he is in discussions to get access to the top-level intelligence typically reserved for the “Gang of Eight” in Congress, but he declined to elaborate.
Conaway and Rep. Adam Schiff, the lead Democrat on the investigation, met and agreed on a likely witness schedule, culled from a witness list that investigators say includes 3-4 dozen names. Conaway told House intelligence committee members Tuesday that they should plan on spending more time in Washington as the investigation gears up….
Rep. Denny Heck, a Washington Democrat on the investigation said that Democrats agreed on rescheduled the private hearing with FBI Director James Comey and NSA Director Mike Rogers, and Republicans agreed to reschedule the public hearing with former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.“We also are now having made available to us documents that were not heretofore available to us before,” Heck said. “So every indication is that we are now leaning into this. And I think (Conaway) ought to be given the space to do the right thing”
I sure hope it’s true.
Unknown reader, Andre Derain
Another Fox News host has gone on a sudden “vacation” after making sexual suggestive remarks about Ivanka Trump. Something that I recently found out – furry RP with animal tail butt plugs is a thing! https://loveplugs.co/collections/animal-tails.
Mediaite reports: Coincidence? Jesse Watters Announces He’s Going On Vacation Following Ivanka Flap.
In the wake of heavy criticism he’s received over remarks he made about Ivanka Trump and a microphone, Fox News’ Jesse Watters announced at the end of tonight’s broadcast of The Five that he’s taking a short vacation.
Watters has come under fire for making what was perceived by many as a penis joke about Ivanka. After watching a clip of her speaking at a women’s conference, the Fox News host said that he really likes “how she was speaking into that microphone” while flashing his signature smirk. It also appeared that he was making some hand gestures.
He later told Mediaite that he was describing the First Daughter’s voice, which he says is “low and steady and resonates like a smooth jazz radio DJ.”
Gabriel Sherman suggests there may be “a management shakeup at Fox News.”
As Fox News is roiled by lawsuits and the ouster of Bill O’Reilly, the network’s co-president Bill Shine has retained the backing of the Murdochs. On Monday, Rupert Murdoch took network co-presidents Shine and Jack Abernethy to lunch at Marea, a seafood restaurant near Fox’s midtown headquarters — a highly public show of support.
But privately, Shine is expressing concern about his future at the network. According to three sources briefed on the conversations, Shine has told friends he recently asked Rupert’s sons James and Lachlan — the CEO and co-chairman, respectively, of network parent company 21st Century Fox — to release a statement in support of him, but they refused to do so. The sources said Shine made the request because of withering press coverage of Fox News in recent weeks. A source added that Shine has privately complained that Rupert “isn’t fighting for him” in the press, which is why he wanted explicit support from the sons.
Through a Fox News spokesperson, Shine denied personally going to James and Lachlan for a statement. A Murdoch spokesperson said Shine did not directly ask for a statement.
By refusing to back Shine at this tumultuous moment for the network, the Murdochs may finally be signaling that they’re prepared to make the sweeping management changes they’ve so far resisted after forcing out CEO Roger Ailes last summer. Shine’s continued leadership has angered many Fox News employees, especially women, who view him as a product of the misogynistic Ailes culture. Shine joined the network in 1996, served as Sean Hannity’s producer, and rose through the ranks to become Ailes’s deputy. In that role, sources say he had the power to stop multiple instances of sexual harassment, including that of former Fox booker Laurie Luhn, but did not do so. He’s currently a defendant in a federal lawsuit filed this week by former Fox host Andrea Tantaros.
More at the New York Magazine link above.
At Breakfast by Laurits Andersen Ring
Last night Rachel Maddow gave a helpful explication of yesterday’s complicated article on Jared Kushner’s sleazy business deals: Bribe Cases, a Jared Kushner Partner and Potential Conflicts. Here’s the introduction:
It was the summer of 2012, and Jared Kushner was headed downtown.
His family’s real estate firm, the Kushner Companies, would spend about $190 million over the next few months on dozens of apartment buildings in tony Lower Manhattan neighborhoods including the East Village, the West Village and SoHo.
For much of the roughly $50 million in down payments, Mr. Kushner turned to an undisclosed overseas partner. Public records and shell companies shield the investor’s identity. But, it turns out, the money came from a member of Israel’s Steinmetz family, which built a fortune as one of the world’s leading diamond traders.
A Kushner Companies spokeswoman and several Steinmetz representatives say Raz Steinmetz, 53, was behind the deals. His uncle, and the family’s most prominent figure, is the billionaire Beny Steinmetz, who is under scrutiny by law enforcement authorities in four countries. In the United States, federal prosecutors are investigating whether representatives of his firm bribed government officials in Guinea to secure a multibillion dollar mining concession. In Israel, Mr. Steinmetz was detained in December and questioned in a bribery and money laundering investigation. In Switzerland and Guinea, prosecutors have conducted similar inquiries.
The Steinmetz partnership with Mr. Kushner underscores the mystery behind his family’s multibillion-dollar business and its potential for conflicts with his role as perhaps the second-most powerful man in the White House, behind only his father-in-law, President Trump.
Here’s Rachel’s report:
I have more links to share. I’ll post them in the comment thread. What stories are you following today?
Tuesday Reads
Posted: April 25, 2017 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, Foreign Affairs, U.S. Politics 40 Comments
Good Afternoon!!
This is Trump’s last week before he hits the 100 day mark and things are getting weird. I can’t tell if he’s planning to start a war or if this is all just bluster to distract from the fact that he has accomplished so little.
Trump held a lunch meeting with representatives of the UN Security yesterday, and he didn’t invite anyone from the State Department. You can read his remarks at the White House press office website. During the meeting, he “joked” that he could easily replace Nikki Haley as UN Ambassador if he wanted to. On Wednesday, Trump has asked the entire US Senate to meet at the White House for a secret briefing on North Korea. On Friday in New York Secretary of State Tillerson will chair a UN Security Council meeting on North Korea. And of course you’ve heard that Trump will hold one of his weird campaign rallies instead of going to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night. Meanwhile, a US submarine is lurking in South Korea waiting for the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson and its “armada” of warships to arrive; and North Korea is ramping up their military exercises.
Some pertinent reads:
Foreign Policy via The Chicago Tribune: Trump breaks bread with UN dignitaries he sought to starve.
From day one, the TrumpWhite House screamed its desire to emasculate the United Nations, pushing for draconian budget cuts that would kneecap the world body and ease Washington’s retreat from multilateralism.
Yet President Donald Trump’s U.N. envoy, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, has turned Turtle Bay into one of the administration’s favored soapboxes, providing an unexpected boost to the organization the White House set out to marginalize.
In her first months on the job, Haley has used the U.N. as a perch to deliver some of the administration’s most visceral attacks against Russia, Syria and North Korea. It was Haley who delivered the first hint that the U.S. would use military force to punish the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad for using chemical weapons.
There is no reason to think Trump is ready to fully embrace an institution he derided before his inauguration as an ineffectual talk shop. The president blithely bypassed the U.N. Security Council when it launched Tomahawk missiles at Syria, seeing little need to secure the U.N.’s blessing and shrugging off claims that missile strikes constituted a violation of international law.
Haley is attracting lots of press attention but hasn’t really accomplished much.
Haley has made the U.N. “the center of attention” but she has not made it the “center of action”- at least not on the diplomatic front, said Richard Atwood, the New York director of the International Crisis Group.
One senior European diplomat said that Haley’s office – handicapped by a shortage of senior and mid-level policy makers in the State Department and in New York – often lacks the bandwidth to delve deeply into a range of issues before the U.N.
“I worry that U.N. watchers are dazzled by Haley, but miss the fact that Trump still seems intent on undercutting” key pillars of the multilateral system, said Richard Gowan, a U.N. scholar at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Articles like the one above might be the reason Trump “joked” about firing Haley.
https://twitter.com/SteveKopack/status/856541291609550848
The Washington Post reports:
If there’s one member of President Trump’s team who has been a wild card early in his presidency, it’s Nikki Haley. The United Nations ambassador has been a surprisingly strong presence, often making news about U.S. foreign policy in ways that seem somewhat, well, un-Trump.
On Monday, Trump joked about firing her — quickly clarifying that she’s doing a “fantastic job.”
“She’s doing a good job. Now does everybody like Nikki?” Trump asked at a meeting of U.N. Security Council ambassadors and their spouses. “Otherwise she could easily be replaced. Right?”
Trump added: “No, we won’t do that. I promise. She’s doing a fantastic job.”
Is Trump jealous of the attention Haley has been getting?
Trump is reputed to be wary of aides getting too much publicity and overshadowing him.
Russia and Syria are perhaps the best examples of Haley’s message getting out in front of the White House’s. After the chemical weapons attack in Syria, Haley went to the United Nations on April 5 and held up photos of the children who were targeted. The next day, Trump himself said such images had affected him and changed his viewpoint, and he launched military strikes against the Syrian government the day after that.
Haley has also been more forward when talking about regime change in Syria, even as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has emphasized that defeating the Islamic State is Goal No. 1.
And indeed, as Tillerson has sought to avoid the media, Haley seems to be filling the void and making news — sometimes with a more hawkish bent than the rest of the Trump administration. Vanity Fair has mused about whether Haley could find herself at odds with the State Department.
Newsweek: Donald Trump Calls for New United Nations Sanctions on North Korea.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday the U.N. Security Council must be prepared to impose new sanctions on North Korea as concerns mount that it may test a sixth nuclear bomb as early as Tuesday.
“The status quo in North Korea is also unacceptable,” Trump told a meeting with the 15 U.N. Security Council ambassadors, including China and Russia, at the White House. “The council must be prepared to impose additional and stronger sanctions on North Korean nuclear and ballistic missile programs.”
“This is a real threat to the world, whether we want to talk about it or not. North Korea is a big world problem and it’s a problem that we have to finally solve,” he said. “People put blindfolds on for decades and now it’s time to solve the problem.”
U.S. officials have told Reuters tougher sanctions could include an oil embargo, banning North Korea’s airline, intercepting cargo ships and punishing Chinese banks and other foreign doing busiThenness with Pyongyang.
The Guardian: North Korea won’t bow to Donald Trump’s threats. It needs assurances, by Lawrence Douglas. Douglas describes what happened when Muammar Gaddafi tried to “turn Libya into a nuclear stronghold.”
Thanks largely to the diplomacy of the Clinton and Bush administrations, Gaddafi voluntarily abandoned his nuclear weapons. The diplomatic effort required both forcefulness and great delicacy. While imposing crippling economic sanctions on Libya, the United States also pursued back-channel negotiations to convince Gaddafi that the sanctions would be lifted in exchange for his giving up on his nuclear ambitions.
The quid pro quo and the promise of future cooperation could not work without forging bonds of trust between two distrustful and antagonistic parties. And yet the diplomacy succeeded. Gaddafi dropped the weapons program and the sanctions were promptly lifted.
Then came the Arab Spring, NATO got involved in Libya, and before long Gaddafi was dead. Kim Jong-un doesn’t want the same thing to happen to him, Lawrence says.
All this means that the chance of negotiating a peaceful end to North Korea’s weapons program is vanishingly small. Alas, Donald Trump seems intent on destroying whatever chance might remain. As Bill Clinton understood, the only possible path to peaceful disarmament is by building trust where there is only suspicion and hostility. This requires patience and planning. Trump appears incapable of either.
Trump evidently believes that a show of toughness and a display of brinkmanship will convince Kim Jong Il to negotiate. The thinking betrays a disturbing ignorance. The threat of force can only work to deter a nation from developing nuclear weapons. Once that threshold has been crossed, the threat is worse than empty. It can serve only to strengthen the North Koreans in their belief in the indispensability of their warheads.
Worse still, Trump seems temperamentally incapable of strategic thinking. When he openly confesses that he only learned of the complexity of the Chinese-North Korean relationship after being briefly tutored by Xi Jinping, China’s president, he does more than reveal an embarrassing lack of preparation. He sends a powerful message to America’s adversaries.
It is much the same message that is sent when a commander-in-chief misplaces a carrier group, cannot correctly name the country he has just struck with missiles, and launches his most vociferous verbal volleys against allies such as Australia and now Canada while expressing squeaky admiration of strongmen like Erdogan.
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All In The Family
In other news, Trump family members are getting a lot of press. You may have already read the delicious profile of Melania that Vanity Fair published a few days ago: Inside the Trump Marriage: Melania’s Burden. Here’s a taste:
After two high-maintenance wives, Donald Trump seems deliberately to have chosen as his third a woman who would be both bombshell and cipher, a physical testament to his manhood and amazingness. She would be decorative and polite, not needy and annoying. “I’m not a nagging wife,” Melania has declared a couple of times—her manifesto. According to some of Trump’s friends and associates, she has stuck to it.
“She enjoys her role of stepping back and letting him take center stage,” says decorator friend William Eubanks, who spent Thanksgiving with the Trumps at Mar-a-Lago, along with romance-novel-cover model Fabio and boxing promoter Don King. According to Lisa Bytner, who did P.R. for Trump Model Management when it was launched in 1999, and became a friend of the couple’s, Trump found in Melania the perfect mate. “She doesn’t make waves,” says Bytner. “She speaks only when spoken to. She’s just very sweet.” Except, in public, when called upon to defend her husband’s demeaning attitudes toward women, or to be a mouthpiece for some of his offensive claims, such as birtherism.
And yet, woefully pliant as Melania may be, even she may have a breaking point. Over the course of reporting this story, for which her close friends declined to talk, an uneasy picture has emerged of their marital union. Melania’s unhappiness and the couple’s apparent lack of closeness are becoming more noticeable. Despite assurances from her spokesperson, Stephanie Grisham, that Melania is embracing the role of First Lady, most signs point to a distinct lack of interest. And while Grisham says Mrs. Trump plans to move to the White House once their son, Barron, “finishes out the school year,” there have been indications that she is in no particular rush.
Read the rest at the link–it’s fascinating.
Graydon Carter on Trump Family Values.
You’re not alone if you think you are living through an Allen Drury novel—or, depending upon your age, Dr. Strangelove or Wag the Dog. Sean Spicer, the poor fellow, is living through his own episode of South Park. In the B.T. (Before Trump) era, most people I know went about their daily lives reasonably confident in the knowledge that the papers or news sites they read that morning were all they needed to stay informed for the rest of the day. But now, A.T., all that has changed. Those same people check their phones with the regularity of lovelorn teenagers—wincing as they look to see what fresh horrors the great man in the White House has unleashed. Trump may thrive on conflict and disorder, but most of us do not.
Read the whole thing at Vanity Fair.
At Huffington Post: The Guide To Becoming Jared Kushner.
When Charles Kushner was heading to federal prison in 2005 for illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering, his son Jared got some advice from Howard Rubenstein ― the dean of New York damage control ― on how to rehabilitate the Kushner name, Charles would later tell a family friend.
Step one: Buy a New York newspaper. Don’t be too particular, Rubenstein told Jared, according to the family friend’s recounting of their conversation with Charles. Any newspaper will do. Step two: Buy a big Manhattan building. Any building will do. Step three: Marry the daughter of a rich New York family. Anyone will do.
The younger Kushner went on to do just that. He bought the New York Observer in 2006, made a debt-laden $1.8 billion purchase of 666 Fifth Ave. in 2007 and married Ivanka Trump in 2009. (A Kushner Companies spokesman denied the family friend’s account. Rubenstein said: “That’s preposterous. I never said that or anything like that.”)
Finally, the “First Daughter” went to Germany and heard boos and hisses when she tried to claim that her dad cares about women’s issues. New York Magazine:
Ivanka Trump came to Berlin prepared to discuss how micro-finance can #empower female entrepreneurs in the Third World to lean into innovation, and lean out of poverty. (Or so a snarky blogger might uncharitably summarize her recent op-ed in the Financial Times.) But moments after taking her place beside German chancellor Angela Merkel and IMF managing director Christine Lagarde on a panel at the W20 summit, Trump found herself discussing her own motives for being there.
“You’re the First Daughter of the United States, and you’re also an assistant to the president,” the panel’s moderator, Wirtschaftswoche editor-in-chief Miriam Meckel, began. “The German audience is not that familiar with the concept of a First Daughter. I’d like to ask you, what is your role, and who are you representing, your father as president of the United States, the American people, or your business?”….
Trump could not say precisely what her new job as a senior White House official entailed, but defined her goals as “empowering women in the workplace” and achieving “incremental positive change.”
The largely female crowd was willing to politely entertain Trump’s attempt to rebrand herself as a feminist crusader. But when Ivanka tried to rebrand her father as the same, the audience’s patience gave out.
“I’m very proud of my father’s advocacy,” she said of the president’s official (but, so far, entirely passive) support for paid family leave, before calling her father “a tremendous champion of supporting families and enabling them to thrive.”
Boos and hisses ensued.
What else is happening? Please share your thoughts and links in the comment thread and have a great Tuesday despite the insanity that surrounds us.
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