Author: Kara Hurvitz

Hi there! If you're reading this, you're probably wondering who I am and why you should listen to me. (It's a fair cop.) So here's a little about me: I'm an advocate, educator, and activist with degrees in law and social work. By day, I help people access needed health care and health care coverage. By night, I fight crime--nah, just kidding; I write the NNR and related essays. Why the NNR? Well, I want to do everything I can to help folks stay informed, connected, and empowered during this difficult time, and this project lets me put work I already do to good use. Plus, I get to snark about the news and current administration. Everyone wins!

National News Roundup: Truncated Holiday Special! (Part 1)

December 26, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

I promised myself I would still do the news over the break, because I want y’all to stay informed. But it’s the holidays, and we all want to take a little time to dream about a world that’s less of a trash fire than this one — and besides, loved ones have convinced me that Perhaps It is Good Activism to Take Some Time Off. So we’re doing a Holiday Special this week as a compromise: Brief bullets with the best, the worst, and the weirdest. I promise it’ll be better than Star Wars!*

Standard standing reminders still apply, though: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m only summarizing the news within my area of expertise. This week’s news contains some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise — I’m a lawyer, not an ambassador! — but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the Special!

The Weirdest:

Voting by Fish Bowl.* A Virginia election initially went to a Democrat by literally one vote early last week, which would have given them a seat in the lower chamber of their House and eleven additional votes. But then the Republican incumbent convinced three judges that a random uncounted vote should go to him, we were back to a tie. Then they were planning to decide who wins by drawing names out of a hat, but the Democratic candidate announced that she is filing a motion to reconsider the uncounted ballot decision. I would be too, frankly, and I hope she’s successful.
I Guess We’re Fighting with the United Nations Again?* The United Nations collectively and overwhelmingly told Trump where to stuff his Jerusalem resolution this past week, voting 128–9 on a nonbinding resolution of their own to overrule it. Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, handled this by telling the United Nations — a group we founded in 1942 — that she and Trump would be “taking names.” (Oh, and she said it on Twitter, because that’s the platform of choice for issuing international threats nowadays.) But 128 nations is a lot of names, so I’m not convinced the administration plans to follow up on that.
Congress Punts on (Almost) Everything. After the tax bill happened (and there’s more on that below) Congress basically agreed to punt everything else until next year, putting a stopgap in place that funds the government until mid-January. That said, though, the stopgap bill also provides emergency funding for CHIP and community health centers until March, and they did “lay groundwork” for a DREAM Act bill sometime in the new year. So a few things got done, though not very much, before Congress began a ten-day break.

The Worst:

Tax Reform Remix.* After some intrepid Democrat staffer found several Byrd Rule violations in the House bill after the House voted on it on Tuesday, it became clear that last-minute changes would need to be made to the bill. The Senate passed the cleaned-up version on Tuesday night, and the House vote went through a second time on Wednesday. Trump signed the bill on Friday, so this is now a done deal, and my header isn’t lying; it’s the actual worst. We’ll get it repealed in the new year.
Mueller Mutterings.* Conservative criticism of special counsel Robert Mueller is reaching something of a fever pitch, prompting the top Democrat in the Senate Intelligence Committee to make a Senate speech warning against firing him. (I’m still holding out hope that Trump wouldn’t be foolish enough to try that, because it won’t be great for him either if he does, but that doesn’t always stop this administration.) On the plus side, the House Judiciary Committee Democrats voted in experienced NY Rep Jerry Nadler to replace the resigning John Conyer; Nadler has served on the committee for twenty-five years, and is an extremely solid choice for handling anything that comes up.

The Best:

A Very Mnuchin Christmas (and Other Petty Slights). Here at Schadenfreude Central, you can enjoy the fact that a guy sent Steve Mnuchin a gift-wrapped box of horse manure for Christmas this year, along with a note observing that he was returning the favor for the tax reform bill. Meanwhile, the UK government is trying to talk Prince Harry out of inviting the Obamas to his wedding, for the simple reason that he’s most emphatically not inviting the Trumps and they don’t want to deal with an orange-hued Twitter tirade. But since Prince Harry bonded with the Obamas at the Invictis Games this past year and appears to be actually friends with them — and his wedding is not an official state event — I hope he gets his way on this. The Trumps, by the way, are definitely not getting an invite, and nobody is acting like that option is even on the table.
Some Actual Good News. The six J20 protesters charged with felonies for protesting on Inauguration Day were found not guilty this week, ending a four-week trial and a nearly year-long process. Incredibly, the prosecutor conceded in its trial arguments that there was no evidence that these six people committed any of the violent actions charged — two were street medics, and one was a photojournalist covering the protests — but argued that they participated in a protest where other people did, so they should be held accountable. (Quick editorial note from your resident attorney author: While it’s true in many jurisdictions that people who conspire to commit a felony can be charged for anything that happens during the commission of that felony — including murder if it goes horrible awry — it’s pretty disturbing both philosophically and legally to argue that a plan to protest is a conspiracy to commit a felony.) With all sincerity, these verdicts are an important bastion against the criminalization of ordinary protest, for the simple reason that there was no evidence any of defendants had done literally any rioting. If any of these convictions had stuck, they could be used to convict people simply pinned in the wrong spot when a protest goes south — an experience that happens to many, many peaceable protesters if someone in the crowd starts a riot.

And that’s the Holiday Special, folks! We’ll do A Very News New Year next week, probably on the ordinary release date, and then we’ll be back to our regular routine by 1/9. Until then, keep on keepin’ on!

*The Christmas Special, that is. No promises about Last Jedi; I still haven’t even seen it.

National News Roundup: Week 47 (December 10–16)

December 19, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

By Randall McNair (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons

The theme of this past week’s news was largely “brace yourself for raining shoes” — and several boots and a sandal have yet to drop as I write this. This week, keep your eyes peeled for Mueller mayhem, final votes on tax reform, and personnel changes on Capitol Hill. But in the meantime, here’s some info on what has happened already.

Standard standing reminders apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m only summarizing the news within my area of expertise. This week’s news contains some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise — I’m a lawyer, not an FBI agent! — but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Constitutional Crisis Corners:

This week was pretty quiet on the Russia Collusion Investigation front, in part because rumors started circulating that Mueller was about to be fired — but here’s what has happened:

Mueller Email Adventures. Over the weekend, the Trump administration accused Mueller of unlawfully obtaining tens of thousands of emails from them because he went through the third-party General Services Administration. But as several legal experts note, public email accounts have no expectation of privacy, and it would be prosecutorial misconduct not to request the records. These claims fuel concern that the President is looking for an excuse to fire Mueller, despite his lack of authority to do so (and his claims to the contrary).
Text Message Kerfuffle. Some unflattering texts between two FBI agents have Republicans clamoring to have a second special investigator investigate Mueller. This appears to be a whole lot of nothing — a subordinate calling Trump an ‘idiot’ and expressing a preference for Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election hardly implicates Mueller in 2017, particularly when Mueller removed the FBI agent as soon as he learned of the texts. But the story does appear to be another indication that the administration is gaining steam in a push to discredit or oust the special prosecutor.

Your “Normal” Weird:

The Latest in Harassment Personnel Changes. With last week’s sweeping resignations come new seat-holders, and boy howdy is some of the process looking weird! I think I touched upon this last week, but the governor of Michigan has announced they won’t hold a special election at all, opting to leave John Conyer’s former seat open for an entire year and simply having ordinary elections in 2018. Meanwhile, Minnesota’s governor has appointed Lt Governor Tina Smith to take Al Franken’s seat, but it’s unclear when Franken plans to leave (and her appointment has created chaos in the state’s politics). And it’s completely unclear who is favored to replace Trent Franks, despite a primary election happening in only two months. So it’s been a bit of a wild ride all around.
Trump Harassment Shuffle. There was lots of surreal and decisive movement on the Trump is a Serial Harasser front this week, though I’m still not sure what if anything will come of it. Among the highlights: Fifty-six female Democrats asking the House Oversight Committee to investigate allegations of Trump’s sexual abuse; Trump making surreal and sexualized statements about a sitting Senator; Nikki Haley saying that the people accusing Trump of sexual misconduct ‘should be heard’; and Kamela Harris joining the group of Senators saying Trump should resign.
Jones Upset Aftermath. Democratic candidate Doug Jones won the Alabama Senate seat this week in an incredibly close election, making him the first Democrat to hold a senate seat there in literally decades. It’s incredibly exciting, and some much-needed good news, and it highlights some major personnel changes happening in the Senate’s near future. But despite Democrats urging otherwise, Jones probably won’t join the Senate until 2018 — the votes need to be certified, and Roy Moore also isn’t conceding despite the RNC’s signal that it won’t pay for a recount. And on top of all of that, the Alabama Supreme Court held that the state doesn’t have to preserve voting data, which might make a recount take forever if it does happen. Since Republicans are unlikely to delay the tax vote (despite Dems delaying in 2010 in a similar situation), this means he won’t be able to help with next week’s travesty.

The Bad:

Tax Reform Remix. The tax reform roller coaster appears to be nearing a stop this week, but that’s not a good thing, as it’s currently slowing down right near a gilded circle of hell. Mnuchin released a one-page report this week, which Forbes (rightfully) says he should be ashamed of releasing; among other things, the report confirms that the tax cuts are so expensive that they cannot pay for themselves, and “welfare reform” (i.e. Medicaid and Medicare cuts) will be necessary to pay for it all. That, unfortunately, did not stop Bob Corker and Mark Rubio from eventually hopping aboard for the final version of the bill, leaving the GOP so confident they had the votes that they let McCain take the week off. Though the final version of the tax reform bill does soften a lot of the House version’s harshest edges, it still includes a repeal of the health insurance mandate, and it’s very likely to widen wealth inequality in the country. The Washington Post put out a good comprehensive summary of the final version, which is definitely worth a read (or at least a skim) if you get a chance. But the short version is: If you aren’t rich, it isn’t gonna be great.
Net Neutrality Neutered. The FCC vote on net neutrality this week went ahead as expected on Thursday, despite requests from 18 attorneys general to postpone in light of a fraudulent comment investigation. The vote resulted in a repeal of net neutrality regulations by 3–2. This is bad news for activists, for reasons I’ve noted before (as well as for people who simply want to watch their Netflix in peace), but it isn’t the end of the line — there are several different efforts already in play to undo the repeal, which I’ll write more about that below.
CDC Seven Forbidden Words. News broke this weekend that the CDC was given a list of ‘forbidden’ words by the Trump administration which cannot appear in official reports; more to the point, that list included words like “evidence-based,” “fetus,” and “transgender.” This is not the first instance we’ve seen of bizarre agency censorship — the EPA in particular has been noted for this all over the place, and the USDA has done it too — but there’s something uniquely alarming about the idea that our Center for Disease Control can’t note what works when combating epidemics. DHHS has denied the story, which I wish still meant something in 2017; since it doesn’t, we’re left wondering whether this was an actual policy, an attempt at a policy that backfired, or just a rumor that snuck past the Washington Post goalie.

The Good:

Federal Judge Withdrawals. Several deeply embarrassing federal judge nominations went the way of the dinosaurs this week! The first to go were Brett “Does it count if my wife practiced law?” Talley and Jeff “I Literally Told You I Illegally Discriminate” Mateer, who were both unceremoniously screened out by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. But after another nominee, Matthew Spenser Peterson, couldn’t answer extremely basic questions about legal procedure — like “I don’t know what a motion in limine is” level of basic — he withdrew his nomination today. Hallelujah, it’s raining turkeys!
Net Neutrality Preservation Plans. Immediately after the FCC vote on Thursday, both politicians and attorneys general were springing into action. Senator Markey announced that he is filing a Congressional Review Act resolution to undo the FCC vote (which already has fifteen sponsors). On the legal end of things, several attorneys general are suing the FCC in connection with the fraudulent comment investigation, with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman leading the charge and potentially as many as eighteen other states supporting the suit. Following Markey’s lead, the governor of Washington announced a cooperative plan to preserve net neutrality, to the extent that the FCC doesn’t preempt state action; Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson also joined Schneiderman’s suit.

And that’s basically the news that was fit to email this week — some good, some bad, most unfinished. It’s like the Big Dig of news weeks! And speaking of unfinished, the next few weeks are going to be a bit wonky here at Roundup Center, because both Christmas and New Year’s Day fall on a Monday. The tentative plan is to issue the Christmas roundup on December 26, and I’ll check in from there on how to handle New Year’s. Until we meet again, happy holidays!

National News Roundup: Week 46 (December 3–9)

December 12, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

FORTEPAN / Saly Noémi, via Wikimedia Commons

I’ll be honest, y’all, I’m running out of ways to say “this week sucked.” But Amy Siskind and I agree: This week gives your vacuum cleaner a run for its money. (Although to be fair, you should probably throw that thing away anyway; it hasn’t been working the same since the Great Staircase Incident of ‘03.)

Standard standing reminders apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m only summarizing the news within my area of expertise. This week’s news contains some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise — I’m a lawyer, not a spy! — but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Constitutional Crisis Corners:

This week was a bit quieter on the Russia Collusion Investigation front, though there were a few stories:

Manafort’s Ghost-Writing Adventures. A week after Mueller’s team agreed to Paul Manafort’s release pretrial, news broke that Manafort had been ghost-writing an op-ed about his work in the Ukraine as recently as November 30 — which violates the judge’s gag order on speaking publicly about the case, and has Mueller withdrawing support for the bail agreement. Manafort is denying he ghost-wrote anything, as is the pundit who supposedly commissioned the op-ed. But frankly, that bail agreement was such a colossally bad idea that it should be withdrawn anyway, so I can’t work up the energy to get too fussed about this.
Records May or May Not Have Been Subpoenaed. Among the more confused stories of the week is a news story that Mueller was subpoenaing Trump’s bank records, which was followed by a news story that Mueller was not subpoenaing them. Some outlets split the difference and reported that Mueller subpoenaed records of someone close to Trump. So it’s still not quite clear what happened, but someone probably subpoenaed some records about something?
Donald Trump Jr.’s Privilege. Trump Jr. spent almost eight straight hours testifying this week, largely about his role in things related to Russia. But among the things to come out of that meeting was his claim that he didn’t have to answer questions about conversations with his father because of attorney-client privilege. (Spoiler: That’s literally the opposite of how attorney-client privilege works; you waive the privilege by including people other than the attorney in the conversation.) So, uh… that happened, because Congress let it.
KT McFarland on Ice. Not the morbid kind; the Senate has just placed her nomination as ambassador to Singapore on hold because Flynn’s plea suggests she wasn’t exactly truthful to them. (As we recently learned, she also described Russia as “throw[ing] the U.S.A. election” to Trump.) At the moment, she’s one of nearly 200 positions that haven’t been greenlit for one reason or another. But she’s also part of an increasingly coherent mess of Officials Who Have Somehow Been Sketchy about Russia — and though it can be hard to keep track, the New York Times has your back and put together some helpful infographics.

Your “Normal” Weird:

Harassment, Politics, and You (Part II). Yet again, we experienced an utterly bizarre week in terms of Congressional harassment. In the early part of this week, House Democrat John Conyer stepped down, and then Michigan’s Republican governor, Rick Snyder, announced he was going to leave that district unrepresented until 2019. Conyer’s resignation was followed fairly quickly by a similar announcement from Senator Al Franken. Disturbingly, none of this was the most sensational Congress news this week, because House Republican Trent Franks resigned as well, apparently due to offering his aides $5M to impregnate them (and if you haven’t read Alexandra Petri’s piece on this, do yourself the favor because it will give you back your will to keep reading the news). Meanwhile, Roy Moore enjoys the support of both Trump and the RNC’s funding streams again, and Trump himself is a sitting President with nineteen sexual misconduct claims against him. (Several senators and some of his accusers have called on Trump to resign just like the other politicians did, but I’m not sure we can hang our hats on that actually going somewhere.)
Gay Cake Oral Arguments. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the Colorado cake case this week, which pits the rights of same-sex couples to enjoy freedom from discrimination in public accommodations against the rights of store owners to freely express religious practice. Overall, the justices seem pretty evenly divided and Justice Kennedy’s swing vote is looking incredibly hard to predict. That’s really rare by this point, because the court had an unusual amount of consensus before there was a ninth justice, and a lot of decisions were 6–3 immediately after Gorsuch joined. Hopefully we’ll know specifics eventually, though the SCOTUS decision might not come out for months.
Shutdown is Shut Down (For Now). The House passed a shutdown prevention measure this week, but only kicked the can down the road about two weeks — we’re going to be right back where we started before it’s even Christmas. All of it feels like a stopgap at best and myopic at worst, but I guess that’s what calling our reps is for. Either way, it’s the second time they’ve punted on creating a long-term solution in the past few months, and that’s an awful lot of not ensuring the government can stay functioning for one season.

The Bad:

Embassy Imperative. Trump announced this week that he is ordering the United States Embassy to Israel moved to Jerusalem, a move he had been forecasting for some time but I was hoping he wouldn’t actually do. While technically he’s correct that he was enacting a law passed in 1995, all of our Presidents since the law’s inception in 1998, from Clinton to Dubbya to Obama, have exercised a waiver and kept the embassy in Tel Aviv for almost twenty straight years. This is because moving it is a really, really bad idea, and it’s no surprise that the State Department is downplaying the decision. Perhaps relatedly, conflict is already breaking out at the Gaza border over the decision, with Palestinians protesting by the thousands and Israeli forces launching air strikes in response. The conflict is as heartbreaking as it is predictable.
Consumer Protection Bureau Sadness. Despite not even officially, definitely being in charge, Mick Mulvaney is starting to mess things up for the Consumer Protection Bureau. This week’s news is that he suddenly dropped enforcement of a suit against a mortgage company whose misleading practices damaged thousands of consumers — at the damages stage, when the court had already issued a multi-million dollar in the Bureau’s favor. Unsurprisingly, banks think he’ll mean good things for them, and they’re probably right. I suppose it’s not even news by this stage that somebody who hates the agency ends up in charge of every single agency we have, but it’s still depressing to it happen yet again. Meanwhile, Trump is tweeting about how he’s going to make the bureau do things, which is both obnoxious and illegal. Must be Tuesday.
New DHS Secretary. The Senate confirmed new Secretary of Department of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielson this week. I went back and forth on whether this was a Good news event or a Bad one for quite some time; on the one hand, it’s comforting to see our normal appointment process being followed, and Nielsen is an experienced security staffer from the Dubbya administration. But on the other hand, she’s currently deputy chief of White House staff, which means she’s very used to taking orders from John Kelly — so this may be as simple as trying to replace Elaine Duke with someone who will listen to his orders more often. The simple truth is that a lot depends on details we don’t yet have — so we’re stuck waiting to see what happens, and in the meantime I’m going to assume the worst so that I’m better prepared.

The Good:

Trans Military Win. A federal court that had previously blocked part of Trump’s ban of trans military service issued another holding today, this time requiring the military to accept trans applications starting January 1. The decision ultimately rests on refusing a stay of a prior order, with the judge finding that the military is unlikely to be irreparably injured by admitting trans applicants. The holding only decides what happens for now while the appeal is pending, but it’s still a nice respite and a sign that the judge doesn’t think the ban will last.
The Silence-Breakers. TIME named its Person of the Year this week, and counter to Trump’s claims, they put “the silence-breakers” on the cover — women who helped popularize the Me, Too movement in the past few months and created accountability for several high-profile cases of sexual harassment. (The founder of the movement, Tarana Burke, was included in the article but not on the cover.) The movement definitely has created a larger conversation about sexual harassment and accountability, and we definitely haven’t seen the last of its effects playing out as Franken, Franks and Conyer step down this week. And regardless of what you think of the movement, I think we can all agree that it’s nice they didn’t give it to a white supremacist this year.

So that’s what happened this past week; hopefully next week will be better, though I’ll be back with another roundup either way. And seriously, get rid of that vacuum cleaner.

National News Roundup: Week 45 (November 26-December 2)

December 5, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

You know how sometime in the last few months, there has probably been a point when I have said “comfort food at the ready” and then you read the news and thought “Wait, that wasn’t so horrible, maybe I’ve become inured to the true terribleness of our situation by my cocoon of low expectations”? This week, I am sad to report, will not be that week — it’s less “comfort food at the ready” and more “Sorry your friend Lando Collins sold you out but at least the carbonite makes the hurting stop.” If you get a moment, I really recommend reviewing materials on trauma resilience, emotional first-aid, and self-care this week.

Standard standing reminders apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m only summarizing the news within my area of expertise. This week’s news contains some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise — I’m a lawyer, but not the merger kind! — but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Constitutional Crisis Corners:

This week saw multiple really big stories on Russia Collusion Investigation front, though what will result from them remains to be seen. Here are the two main highlights:

Manafort Released. Mueller’s team agreed to Paul Manafort’s release pretrial at the beginning of the week, removing provisions requiring GPS monitor and limiting domestic travel. Although four properties valued at $11.46M have been offered as collateral, that doesn’t seem to much reduce flight risk of a guy with a net worth estimated over $50M. It was a move that baffled and infuriated me until the end of the week, when we suddenly got more context about what was going on with Flynn.
Flynn Plea Bargain. Michael Flynn struck a plea bargain on Friday, pleading guilty of lying to the FBI and assuring his full cooperation with the Mueller investigation — which so far has already included disclosure that Jared Kushner knew he was meeting with Russian officials. Trump responded by letting slip on Twitter that he knew about Flynn’s lies to the FBI before Flynn was fired, which people note suggests obstruction of justice — and then, in a wild twist, it turned out that Trump’s chief counsel had written the tweet. He then followed this up by claiming it’s not possible for the President to obstruct justice (despite Nixon literally being impeached for this in the 1970s). So I’m sure it’s an interesting time to work at the White House, at the very least.

Your “Normal” Weird:

Harassment, Politics, and You. This has been an utterly bizarre week in terms of Congressional harassment. In the early part of the week, Prominent House Democrat John Conyers stepped down from the House Judiciary Committee due to allegations of sexually harassing his aides. (He is being replaced by New York Democrat Jerrold Nadler.) Though Nancy Pelosi has been calling for his resignation, both he and Al Franken remain in their positions on Capitol Hill for now, and TIME is opining that we probably have only seen the tip of the Congressional harassment iceberg. Also, Veritas tried to catch the Washington Post in a sting operation with a fake Moore rape charge. Meanwhile, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi skipped a meeting with Trump this week because he insulted them and tweeted that it would be a waste of time. So of course he responded by putting two empty seats next to himself at the meeting, because harassment’s clearly the name of the game this week.
Other Trump Oddities (A Partial List). Though they are far from the most noteworthy things to happen this week, there was an awful lot of bizarre Trump behavior that got swept under the rug because so many other things are on fire right now. Among the highlights: Trump claimed the Access Hollywood tape was fake; apparently is still theorizing that Barack Obama was born abroad; tweeted videos from a British anti-Muslim extremist currently facing hate crimes charges; and insulted British Prime Minister Theresa May when she took exception to said shared videos.
Opioid Crisis Conway. Let’s see if I can make it through this section without vomiting in my mouth even a little bit. Jeff Sessions announced several bits of news about the opioid crisis this week, but the most obnoxious story is that Kellyanne Conway apparently is the official White House spokesperson for the opioid crisis. I really don’t have words for what a bad idea this is, so I’m just going to trust that y’all know why we maybe shouldn’t leave a debilitating national epidemic in the hands of a person with no relevant experience who already has another full-time job, thinks microwaves monitor people, and is under investigation for violating the Hatch Act. Let’s move on, before I strain something.
State Department Speculation.* Rumors circulated this week that Trump was about to oust Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State and replace him with Mike Pompeo. (Pompeo is currently the head of the CIA, but the plan apparently also involved replacing him with Arkansas senator Tom Cotton.) This type of change would be what we in the legal field like to call “abjectly terrifying,” given the current delicate situation with Korea and both men’s reputations for being war hawks, and it also evidences a disturbing trend of normalizing Trump’s habit of ignoring Cabinet appointment procedure. But for now, both Trump and Tillerson are saying that no changes are imminent, and Tillerson made it through a potential Friday Firing intact for the time being. So I’m not quite sure what’s happening from here, but I’m going to keep my fingers permanently crossed that it doesn’t involve Secretary Pompeo.
CVS Bought Aetna. Yep, you read that right. CVS (as in the pharmacy convenience store chain) just agreed to buy Aetna (as in the health insurance company). I honestly have no idea what this even means; nobody in pharma has ever successfully bought the health insurance provider before. It’s possible it will lower healthcare costs, like the company says; it’s also possible that this will lock out competitors and make prices skyrocket. Maybe it will create porcine flight technology. I have no idea, y’all; this is really weird.

The Bad:

North Korea News (Again).* North Korea fired a ballistic missile again this past week, for the first time in more than two months. What differentiates this missile from the previous ones is that it was much more powerful; experts estimate North Korea can now successfully reach anywhere in the mainland United States. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is still stressing diplomacy, but we should all be watching this carefully.
How Not to Honor Veterans (Also A Partial List).* Trump was incredibly insulting to Navajo veterans at an event honoring them this week, receiving them with a portrait of Andrew Jackson in the background and pausing to call Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas” in the middle of his statements for no discernible reason. (As several people on the Internet have noted, Pocahontas was Algonquin, Warren claimed to have Cherokee heritage, and Trump was honoring Navajos, so it’s a racist conflation of several different cultures on top of all the other forms of offense happening). The insult to injury is that the role Navajo code talkers played in World War II is a really remarkable and oft-overlooked part of our national history, which we of course didn’t get to hear about or honor because he was too busy using actual war heroes as a means to criticize Elizabeth Warren. Then, for an encore, he reduced the national monument known as Bear Ears, which has major tribal significance, by 85% — removing over one million acres all told. So now the Navajo Nation is suing Trump to preserve it, and moral of the story, if Trump invites you to the White House he’s probably about to do a jobby in your proverbial stew.
Senate Tax Reform News (Again Again). The Senate tax reform bill passed through committee by 12–11 along partisan lines this week, and then after some initial mishaps on Thursday, they passed the whole enchilada 51–49 at 2 AM on Saturday morning (with Bob Corker being the sole Republican holdout, since Collins, Murkowski, Flake, and McCain all came onboard). Folks, I won’t sugar-coat this; they passed this bill in the middle of the night with a bunch of its provisions scrawled in the margins and after refusing to give anybody enough time to read the thing. To say that this was not good governance would be a major understatement, and it’s deeply disappointing to see “moderate” Republicans fold like card tables to preserve their donations. About the best that I can say is that the Senate version has some major departures from the House version, and the House can’t rubber-stamp those changes (more on that below), so now it’s gone to conference committee, and that’s already off to a rocky start.
Travel Ban Back Online. Right alongside the tax reform news in the This Sure Is Hard to Stomach queue was the Supreme Court’s decision to remove injunctions on the travel ban today. Though the decision did not touch upon the merits of the case, it is the first time all the provisions of the final travel ban have been put back in play, and it’s particularly hard to swallow only a day or two after Trump retweeted viral anti-Muslim videos. I’m still halfheartedly hoping that SCOTUS wants to gather data to consider when pondering this case on the merits — a theory supported by the fact that Ginsberg and Sotomayor didn’t write out a full dissent — but it’s not a great day for Team People Who Don’t Hate Immigrants.

The Good:

An Australian Proposal. During a floor debate on codifying same-sex marriage in Australian Parliament (which was passed by referendum recently), an Australian lawmaker proposed to his long-term partner, who was watching from the gallery. The Australian House says this is the first time a marriage proposal of any type has happened on the floor, and it’s pretty cool that the first time it happened was in this context! Also, I want to live in a country where the Deputy Speaker’s response to something like this happening on the floor is “I should note for the Hansard that that was a yes, a resounding yes.”
AMT Owed. I’m not yet sure if this counts as good, or just hilarious, but New York Magazine reported today that the Senate accidentally screwed up a really major provision of the Tax Reform bill they just passed — which means the House can’t vote on the bill as-is without seriously angering donors. More specifically, here’s what apparently happened: An older version of the bill abolished the corporate Alternate Minimum Tax entirely, but in order to court hold-outs McConnell had to add a lot of expensive provisions. Since the bill can’t add more than 1.5 trillion to the debt in order to use the reconciliation process (and avoid a filibuster), one of the drafters put the AMT back into the draft. Only problem is, they forgot to lower it at all even though the whole point of this exercise was to create tax breaks, so they lowered the regular tax rate to 20% and then set the minimum tax rate at 20%! Obviously, going back to the drawing board means more opportunities to get moderate Senators and House members off-board. But even if we don’t see major gains from this, it’s still some good, good schadenfreude.

And that’s what I have this week — I’m super sorry about it all. But maybe Lando Collins will join the Rebel Alliance by Episode 6, if we can hold on that long…

National News Roundup: Week 44 (November 19–25)

November 28, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

By Florian Prischl (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons

Well folks, we managed a long stretch without an actual true Bad News Cycle, so I suppose we were about due — but that doesn’t make it suck less. Comfort food at the ready, y’all. This is a rough one.

Standard standing reminders apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m only summarizing the news within my area of expertise. This week’s news contains some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise — I’m a lawyer, but not the merger kind! — but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Constitutional Crisis Corners:

Not a lot happened on the Russia Collusion Investigation front this week, but there are a few rumors:

Rumor Sampling. Multiple outlets are speculating that Jared Kushner’s newly-reduced responsibilities may suggest his star is waning, or he is worried about incoming investigations (or both). There are also rumors that Rosenstein may need to be recused, at the same time that rumors circulate that Trump’s lawyers think the investigation is nearly complete. And since Mueller charged both Gates and Manafort under a little-used and underpowered law, people are speculating about what else the investigator might have in store.

That said, the real news here at Constitutional Crisis Corner is movement on the Threat to Free Speech front:

FCC and Net Neutrality Repeal. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai formally announced his plan to repeal net neutrality this week, which he’s selling as a return to freedom to the Internet. In reality, it potentially endangers all first amendment rights of citizens dissenting from the current government, and there is already an investigation into fraudulent implementation. On a surface level, the policy is merely unfair and disadvantaging to consumers, because it allows Internet provider companies to set rates of speed and price based on what sites the user is accessing and prioritize their own subsidiaries. But it’s also a dangerous plan on a political level, because it would make it much, much easier to control the flow of information and ability to use the Internet to politically organize. The commission votes on the proposal in mid-December, so now is an important time to call your reps.

Your “Normal” Weird:

Merger Management.* The Department of Justice filed to oppose a merger between ATT and Time Warner this week, which is commonly believed to be a retaliatory action motivated by the fact that Time Warner owns CNN. This is a really weird move, to say the least, and it will be very interesting to see what courts do with it.
Trump Foundational Issues.* The Donald J. Trump foundation made the news this week because it’s attempting to wind down after admitting to self-dealing last year. There’s just tiny flaw in this plan: It’s not allowed to do that, because it’s under investigation. In fact, since Trump first announced an intention to wind down the nonprofit after investigation had been announced, it seems pretty likely that the investigation is why it was winding down in the first place. So that’s not sketchy at all.
Trump TIME.* Trump tweeted that he turned down an offer of TIME’s Person of the Year for 2017, which was quickly discredited by TIME when they observed they don’t notify their choice until December 6. I honestly have no idea what motivates the most powerful man in America to lie about whether or not a magazine thinks he’s important, especially when he was already awarded the honor last year, so I’m not even gonna try to wrap my brain around it. It was weird, y’all.
Competing Commission Heads. In a surreal move I’m honestly surprised hasn’t happened before, Trump named current White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney as the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This was, however, a few hours after the departing director of the CFPB promoted his chief of staff to deputy director and said she would be the acting director. Under the law that created the bureau, Dodd-Frank (which Trump has been trying to neuter for half a year now), the director chooses their own interim replacement. But the Department of Justice is arguing that another law generally authorizes the President to fill interim federal positions, so CFPB-led pick Leandra English is suing to stop them. Either way, the whole thing is surreal and disturbing. Welcome to 2017, where the laws are made up and the cases don’t matter.
Haitian TPS News. In what I can only describe as an ambiguous move at best, the Department of Homeland Security announced this week that it will extend Haitian TPS for another year and a half, but then end it permanently in July 2019. This leaves about 57,000 Haitian nationals here in the United States scrambling to figure out a plan; since Haiti is still lacking a lot of infrastructure and having significant public health issues, many may not want to return immediately (if at all). The decision is particularly confusing because eighteen months is an unusually long time to wind down a TPS program — but it’s a common extension window. All in all, it’s a very mixed decision for relevant immigrant populations, and it adds tension to populations awaiting a TPS decision in the near future (such as people from Honduras and El Salvador).

The Bad:

Tragedy in Egypt. Over three hundred people were killed, and another hundred were injured, when Muslim extremists bombed a mosque in Egypt this past week. Though militant attacks on mosques are rare in the region, the act of terrorism illustrates the increasingly-common practice of targeting of Sufi religious groups. Officials are describing it as the deadliest terrorist attack in Egypt’s modern history.
CHIP’s Still Down. Congress still hasn’t extended CHIP, which expired on September 30 while everybody was fighting about the ACA. As a result, forty-two states are facing a difficult situation, and twelve states will run out as soon as next month. I honestly cannot overstate how appalling it is to still have no solution for the situation nearly two months after it first arose — it’s rooted in simple negligence, not controversy, and there are nine million children receiving health insurance through the program nationwide.
Puerto Rico Power Struggles. A full two months after Hurricane Maria devastated the island, Puerto Rico still strives to have enough power and water for its residents. This is compounded by the fact that Whitefish Energy is ceasing work on Puerto Rico’s electrical grid, claiming that the island owes them money for services already rendered. For those of y’all playing the home game, why yes, that is indeed the same two-person company that was inexplicably awarded a contract through suspicious means a few months ago, and they are in fact failing to finish service during the worst electrical outage in U.S. history. I think we found a new definition of ‘chutzpah,’ y’all. On the plus side, at least this has rekindled the conversation about solar power as an option.
State Department Woes. Things are apparently still a mess in the State Department, between Tillerson firing his security chief, his department redesign chief quitting three months into the jobs, and a dozen State Department officials accusing Tillerson of violating federal law that prohibits allies’ use of child soldiers. This is, of course, on top of the record numbers of State officials who have already left the department, so it’s not surprising that morale’s in the toilet over there.
Racism Still in Sessions. While everybody was distracted by their turkey, Jeff Sessions has been hard at work this week. Among the fun new policies are ending federal prison contracts with 16 different halfway houses (because who needs rehabilitation when you’re just gonna lock ’em back up again, amirite?) and offering additional grant funding to jurisdictions that facilitate immigration enforcement. These are, of course, just the latest in a long string of horrid and reactionary policies, but in aggregate it’s all sufficiently terrible that I’m proud I didn’t defenestrate my computer. This time.
DeVos’s Proposed Civil Wrongs. Betsy DeVos is considering several changes which would limit the scope of discrimination investigations in schools. The major highlights of the draft include directing investigators not to look at systemic issues, granting schools ultimate authority to dismiss cases, and removing the appeals process. So, you know, basically all the parts that would which make it a civil rights investigation at all. On the plus side, the draft won’t be finalized until next year, so there’s plenty of time to call and complain repeatedly.

The Good:

New Orleans Mayor. LaToya Cantrell was elected the first female mayor of New Orleans this week, an exciting milestone for a city over 300 years old. Cantrell will be a sitting city council member until May, and has been an activist in the area since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. This is a welcome form of progress in an otherwise difficult week.
Recent Constitutional Wins. There have been a few different promising court cases in the last few days. In Baltimore, a federal court judge held that the ban on transgender military service members is unconstitutional — and took this holding further than the previous court decision by including coverage of sex reassignment surgery in the holding. There was also a recent court case finding that Trump’s executive order to block funding to ‘sanctuary cities’ was an unconstitutional overreach of authority. The language of the order is very strong, perhaps because it’s the latest in a long chain of similar court holdings on the topic.

And that’s what I have this week — sorry, no take-backs. Here’s hoping you stay your preferred level of engaged and enraged until we meet again next week!

National News Roundup: Week 43 (November 12–18)

November 21, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

I would classify this week as a trash can fire rather than a full-blown dumpster fire, which is about the best I can say for it. You can only smell the noxious fumes from a room or two away, and the fire will be out soon. Next week is a new week.

Standard standing reminders apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m only summarizing the news within my area of expertise. This week’s news contains some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise — I’m a lawyer, not a postal worker! — but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Constitutional Crisis Corners:

It was yet another vaguely surreal week on the Russia Collusion Investigation front. We didn’t see as much big news, but we’re still dealing with aftermath of a lot of different interrelated developments:

Sessions Testimony Happened. As forecast last week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions testified before the House Judiciary Committee, which appeared to be a frustrating exercise for everyone involved. As many outlets have noted, Sessions testimony has been inconsistent, which he contextualized in this week’s hearing as a lack of memory. Confusingly, he also said that he didn’t remember being asked about meeting with Russia but was confident that he shot down the idea. All in all, it was a lengthy but inconclusive hearing, and last week’s snark about the “I don’t recall” refrain turned out to be pretty prophetic. Sessions will probably be asked to testify again.
Kushner Russian Backdoor What-Now?* Among the embarrassing fallout from the Trump Jr tweetstravaganza is confirmation that Kushner didn’t provide all relevant documents in his federal investigation — he was missing several items concerning Wikileaks and a “Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite.” Kushner now has until November 27 to get the rest of the documents in.
Trump Jr. Fallout.* There was some fallout from Trump Jr.’s most recent mea tweeta other than Kushner problems too. Most notably, Dems in the Senate are calling for another hearing on the subject, and the House Intelligence panel is considering issuing a subpoena to Twitter for more information. Also, the Atlantic has pointed out that the news on its face likely violates campaign finance law. (And Daddy took the elephant corpses away, but more about that below.)

Your “Normal” Weird:

DHS Learns How Postage Works. From the Surrealist Bureaucratic Nightmare department, the Department of Homeland Security tried to deny over a hundred “late” DACA applications that were postmarked before the deadline — in some cases, several weeks before the deadline. (Many of these initially-denied applications were also sitting in the department mailbox by October 5, but USCIS marked them late anyway after — I kid you not — failing to check the mailbox again in the late afternoon.) Thankfully, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security and Overall Less Rabid Official Elaine Duke ordered the DHS to accept these applications shortly before a complaint was due to be added to the DACA suits — which is the only reason this news goes in the ‘weird’ column instead of the ‘bad’ one.
Increasingly Improbable Moore Strategies.* As the Roy Moore saga unrepentantly unfolds in real time, the establishment GOP is turning to increasingly improbable (and ill-advised) political strategies to try to contain it. Among the options being floated are asking the appointed interim senator to resign to trigger another election (which probably is unconstitutional), expelling Moore if he’s elected (which probably is constitutional, but hasn’t been done since the Civil War), and convincing Sessions to resign and run against Moore as a write-in candidate. The Washington Post names just ousting him once he’s elected as the most probable outcome, and they’re probably right, but as Nate Silver notes, Moore might not win in the first place. All in all, these are very strange times.

The Bad:

California Shooting. A man went on a shooting spree this week in Rancho Tehma, killing five people and injuring several others. Though the shooting involved an elementary school, among other random locations, the school responded very quickly, and the shooter was only able to injure one student before moving on to a new location. More focus has been given on the domestic violence that apparently kicked off the shooting spree, the lack of appropriate police action around gun complaints previously filed, and the assailant’s prior history of violent crimes.
Tax Reform Bill News.* There’s a fair amount of news on the tax reform bill front, and sadly none of it is good. On the Senate side, news broke that they plan to fold ACA reform into the tax reform bill, and more specifically want to repeal the insurance mandate — yes, again. This would have the practical effect of messing with insurance markets, so those of us in the health sector are still not fans. But the House side is even worse, because their version passed this week. As I noted last week, it has a lot of differences from the Senate’s version (not even considering the health insurance piece), but given that Forbes literally described the House version as “the end of all economic sanity in Washington,” that’s not much of an endorsement. Meanwhile, the Senate is busy yelling insults at each other while they move the bill to the floor, so it’s anyone’s guess what is going to happen from here.
More Marchers in the Sexual Miscreant Parade. The latests on the list of people associated with sexual assault are Democratic senator Al Franken, which is definitely less than fun, and television personality Charlie Rose. Liberal people disagree about what to do with Franken from here, with some calling for his resignation or expulsion and others saying he should remain where he is, and I myself am so torn on this issue that I’m not sure I have any pithy advice on the topic. (Leann Tweeden accepted his apology, for what it’s worth, but I’m not sure that should be worth very much.) Meanwhile, Moore is up to nine women accusing him of assault or predatory behavior towards minors, and shows no inclination towards dropping out of the race.

The Good:

The Elephant in the Room. After the Interior Department announced it was lifting the ban on elephant corpse trophies this week, substantial resulting outcry from conservation groups caused Trump to put a halt on the process pending further review. Given Donald Trump Jr’s well-known love of gruesome hunting trophies, I’m enjoying imagining that this is how punishment looks in the dysfunctional Trump family — I doubt the Wikileaks hoopla went over well with the family patriarch.

And that’s what I have this week, in its inane, vaguely obnoxious mediocrity. Next week will be a new week, and I’m hoping it will be a good one (but I’ll accept anything shy of terrible). Either way, you’ll be hearing from me again soon!

National News Roundup: Week 42 (November 5–11)

November 14, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

This week has been weird, y’all. Like, “conservatives are smashing their Keurig machines to stick it to liberals” weird. (Joke’s on them; environmentalists hate those things!) I got nothin’.

Standard standing reminders apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m only summarizing the news within my area of expertise. This week’s news contains some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise — I’m a lawyer, not a diplomat! — but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Constitutional Crisis Corners:

For a second week in a row, the Russia Collusion Investigation remains the biggest news of the week. We saw a lot of different interrelated developments:

Carter Page’s No Good, Very Bad Testimony.* The transcript of the aide’s testimony before the House Intelligence committee, which was released at the beginning of the week, was… let’s just say, less than helpful to himself, half the Trump administration, and anybody who wants to dispute the validity of the Steele dossier. And, more to the point, it was less than helpful to Jeff Sessions, who had been claiming he knew nothing about any contact with Russia before Carter said he told Sessions he was going to go talk to some Russians.
Sessions to Testify Again. In likely relation to that first bullet point, Sessions is scheduled to testify yet again this week after bipartisan requests were made on various media circuits. This is hardly a surprise, particularly because Democratic Senators were calling him to testify last week as well, but it will certainly be interesting to see what he says. My money’s on record numbers of “I don’t recall, Senator.”
Gates Gag Orders. The presiding judge on the Manafort and Gates cases issued a gag order this past week, barring the parties, potential witnesses, and legal counsel from making statements about the case. This is probably at least in part because of public statements already made by defense attorneys, given the judge’s pointed comment about avoiding attorney statements “on the courthouse steps.” That said, this kind of order is not an unusual move in a criminal case, especially when the court will need to empanel a jury eventually — but it does show the judge is serious about moving the case forward.
Trump Jr. Tweets His Own Prosecution Case. Again. An incredible story broke today that Donald Trump Jr was corresponding with Wikileaks, the site that published the DNC emails package, well into 2017. Then Donald Trump Jr. topped that story, in much the same fashion he did when news broke that he’d met with a Russian lawyer, by tweeting out all the messages. If all of this is bizarre and confusing to you, you’re in good company; Vox has a good contextual summary that makes it almost make sense.

Your “Normal” Weird:

Rand Paul Mystery Assault. In a weird turn of events, Rand Paul apparently got assaulted by his Kentucky neighbor, a local doctor, over what may or may not be a landscaping dispute. Further confusing the issue, Paul supposedly hadn’t spoken with his neighbor in years before the attack. Whatever the motivation, Paul had six broken ribs, and his recovery is expected to take months.
Voter Fraud Commission Suit. The voter fraud commission is being sued by one of its own members, Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, who is alleging that Democrats on the panel are being intentionally kept out of the loop on proceedings. As Dunlap put it in an interview, “I’m asking for a schedule, not the nuclear secrets of the country.” This is apparently the eighth suit to be brought against the commission, which is probably some kind of record even among Trump officials.
Not Qualified Squared. One of Trump’s picks for appellate judge, Brett Talley, has been pretty unpopular. For one thing, he’s only been a lawyer three years and he’s never tried a case, which is probably why the American Bar Association deems him not qualified. But we learned this week he’s unqualified for a second reason, too: He’s married to the White House legal counsel’s chief of staff, which he conveniently forgot to mention on the Senate questionnaire form. But to be fair to Talley, he might not have known he had to disclose it. After all, he’s only been a lawyer three years.
Trump’s Messy Trip to Asia.* Ho boy, where to even start with this one. Trump went to Asia over the past week, but not a lot got accomplished, other than some business deals with China. He did, however, manage to insult America, meet with (and defend) Vladimir Putin, tweet mean girl insults at North Korea, and discredit the CIA. But that didn’t stop him from announcing that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping could solve “probably all” the world’s problems. (Disturbingly, aides claim that this was the toned-down version of Trump’s trip — though nobody threatened nuclear war, so it absolutely could have been worse.)

The Bad:

TPS News. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke announced the fate of temporary protected status for Nicaragua and Honduras this past week, ending the status for 2,500 Nicaraguans but giving 57,000 Hondurans six months to get their affairs in order. Bizarrely, former Secretary John Kelly pressured Duke to end Honduran TPS immediately, despite literally making the same decision about Haitian TPS six months ago. (We’re now waiting for final word on Haitian TPS yet again, which is due by November 23, along with El Salvadoran TPS, which will be announced in January.) You can read more about temporary protected status, and why it has become a symbolic battle on immigration philosophy, in this thorough Vox article on the topic.
Senate Version of the Tax Reform Bill.* The Senate released its version of the tax reform bill this week, in all its 253-page glory. Forbes put out a good summary, but here are the main things to know: 1) It has a lot of changes from the House version, which will probably necessitate the two bodies duking it out even if the Senate bill passes; 2) One thing that didn’t change is that the middle class is again the biggest loser; and 3) Trump likely wants the House version and that probably signals the rest of us do not.
Roy Moore Joins the Sexual Miscreant Parade. There has been a huge amount on sexual harassment and assault in the news in the recent past, with this past week being no exception. The biggest, most political story to hit is that Roy Moore, the Republican candidate in the Alabama special election for the Senate, is alleged to have solicited sexual acts from multiple underage women while in his thirties. (I wrote up some thoughts on how and why the Moore story will have political implications, so I won’t rehash it again here, but the short version is that apparently not everybody has a problem with sexual predation of an eighth grader if the story comes from a Yankee.) But in addition to Moore, there’s also the growing Hollywood horror list, which is now up to 23 names since the Harvey Weinstein story first broke about a month ago. These stories, and their aftermath, illustrate the sheer pervasiveness of sexual violence in our culture. But news also broke this week that Gal Gadot, who is in negotiations for a Wonder Woman sequel, felt empowered to refuse to work with a name on that list, which seems like a sea change; maybe we’re entering a new era of accountability.
Pruitt Will Roll back the Clean Power Plan. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt signed a proposal to roll back the Clean Power Plan this week, in sheer defiance of his own agency’s recent report and all common sense. Meanwhile, Pruitt is being sued over climate change, and Syria joined the Paris Accord, leaving us literally the only country in the world that isn’t cooperating. And people are destroying their Keurigs on viral video, so it’s a strange and disturbing time for environmentalism all around.

The Good:

ACA Numbers Don’t Lie. Despite some intentional sabotage by the Trump administration, ACA enrollment reached historic highs this season on its first day of enrollment, more than doubling the previous year’s numbers. In addition to suggesting that healthcare is on people’s minds, these numbers are another piece of evidence that the ACA has become much more popular with the average American in the past year. On a related note, in this past Tuesday’s election Maine voted to expand Medicaid under the ACA by referendum, finally getting around their governor’s perpetual veto. (Their governor, Paul LePage, is already dragging his feet on implementation.)
Bob Is My Constituent. We saw some truly amazing victories on Election Day this past week, and I can’t oversell how excited I am about them all! Most obvious were the heaps of Democratic victories, including in both Virginia and New Jersey’s gubernatorial elections. But even more historic was the veritable tide we saw of successful female candidates, successful candidates of color, and successful openly trans candidates in particular. Also, I have particular delight in the story of Danica Roem, who is the first openly transgender state lawmaker, and who defeated Bob Marshall, an extremely outspoken and well-entrenched opponent of trans rights. When she was asked on election night whether she was glad to have defeated his agenda, Ms. Roem apparently replied: “I don’t attack my constituents. Bob is my constituent now.”

And that’s what I have this week — it managed to be weird, terrible, and kind of awesome in turns throughout the week. I could get used to having positive news, though I’m not holding my breath for too long of a streak. Either way, I’ll catch y’all next week!

Roy Moore and the Southern Lawn Crayfish Problem

November 13, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

Photo by me, courtesy of the Audubon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium in New Orleans, LA

We live in a big country, and that means regions can have a lot of particularly disparate experiences. For example, did you know that places in the American South experience lawn crayfish? That’s what it sounds like, by the way; it’s an invertebrate related to the common crayfish that lives in your lawn. Many people from the North, myself included, look at that and say “Why is my seafood dinner hanging out next to my begonias?” But in the South, that’s just a thing.

I mention this because we’ve had a solid week now of the Washington Post reporting on the story that Roy Moore, the Republican special election candidate for the Alabama Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions, solicited sexual acts from multiple underage women when he was an ADA in his thirties. And much like the lawn crayfish, some prominent people in the South have accepted and defended Moore doing his squirmy, unsettling thing, while all of us in the metropolitan North demand to know what on earth is going on. It’s a predictable, regional mess that can have real life consequences for us all, so I’m writing a bit more about it today. Here are some examples and analyses of the past week’s horrorshow defenses, which have pretty much been The Worst Game of Handmaid’s Tale Bingo:

“There’s nothing wrong with the story as reported.” The most prominent variant on this claim came from Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler, who compared Moore’s actions to Mary and Joseph in an interview with the Washington Examiner. It reflects one of the most important underpinnings of this entire thing: as locals have started saying, they already knew he was preying on teenagers. In the incredible political atmosphere of 2017, grass roots deconstructionist Republicans feel safe simply stating that molesting children is normal per the Bible. (Although in this case, I’m not sure I’d point to a famous instance of a virgin birth to prove my point about sexual misconduct.)
“It was so long ago, and people shouldn’t be held accountable for mistakes made in their youth.” Never mind that he was in his thirties, and a licensed attorney at the time of all four allegations; that isn’t relevant. Jim Zeigler, the guy responsible for the Joseph and Mary quote, even included a messed up Romeo and Juliet argument that Moore simply habitually loved younger women in his youth, citing the fact that his current wife of 35 years is 14 years his junior. (As if marrying a young adult when you’re an established professional, whom you make your own legal secretary, creates an equitable relationship rather than an additional lever for control.)
“If this is true, it’s reprehensible.” This one is particularly insidious, and it’s one of the biggest reasons I think this story should not have been published. Republican officials know they can say this with abandon to thread the needle, because in Alabama, the statute of limitations on childhood sexual abuses is long gone. We are never going to have “more facts,” because there will never be a trial, which means everybody in the Tea Party faction of the GOP who doesn’t live in Alabama can get away with this scandal’s version of offering “thoughts and prayers.”
“This was in some way the teenagers’ fault.” I was waiting for this one in particular to show its ugly head from the moment I read this story, for obvious reason. And sure enough, we have an Alabama state rep calling for the women who spoke to the Post to be prosecuted, saying that they enabled Moore by not reporting him if these stories were true. Keep in mind that Moore was an ADA when these allegations would have happened. Would you go tell the police that their colleague tried to illegally get sex out of you, or your daughter? Relatedly, I will be extremely surprised if these women aren’t doxxed and threatened with rape or death, which is Reason #2 this story should not have been published in this timeframe.
“It’s too late for you to interfere; he’s already our candidate and you can’t make us remove him.” This one is the biggest crayfish in the yard, and it has the unfortunate credibility of being absolutely true. It’s too late for the RNC to remove him from the ballot and Alabama officials have no desire to remove Moore for something they already knew about and probably condone. In fact, we’re already seeing Alabama Republicans respond to pressure at this stage by mobilizing their local base. Even worse, when it’s known that Luther was the favored establishment candidate, and the establishment tries to intervene past when it’s effective, local politicians are accurately stating that there was an attempt to tamper with the elective process. The Tea Party base is not noted for favoring truth, but that doesn’t mean they don’t respond to it when it’s in their favor.

Basically, this was a gross miscalculation that assumed Alabama natives would have the same rules of conduct we can expect in Washington, DC — a faulty and potentially dangerous assumption. I get why the Post, and possibly the establishment GOP, thought they could ride the tide of sexual harassment allegations and voting referenda from Tuesday to damage Moore’s chances in a close special election. But those things didn’t happen in Alabama — the location that elected Jeff Sessions over and over. It’s not an area known for listening to women’s voices. I don’t know why they thought that living in Trump’s post-decency political realm would make that any better.

National News Roundup: Week 41 (October 29 — November 4)

November 7, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

Ernest Blaikley [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Well, okay, this week wasn’t the worst we’ve ever seen — but it’s been a deeply surreal (and intermittently horrifying) week nonetheless. Between two deadly attacks in New York and Texas, the ill-advised DNC infighting, and the GOP Tax Cut Opus, we’re sort of cruising along on the Why Is This Reality Highway. But that’s better than stewing in Darkest Timeline juices literally all week, so I guess I’ll take it.

Standard standing reminders apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m only summarizing the news within my area of expertise. This week’s news contains some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise — I’m a lawyer, not a tax person! — but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Constitutional Crisis Corners:

For a second week in a row, the Russia Collusion Investigation remains the biggest news of the week. We saw a lot of different interrelated developments:

Mueller Indictments Monday (And Tuesday. And Wednesday. And Thursday…). It’s been about a week since Mueller Monday dropped, and we’re still chugging along on a lot of related matters. Manafort and Gates are both now under house arrest, with bail set at $10 and $5 million respectively, Republicans are again calling for Mueller’s resignation for “conflict of interest,” as far as I can tell pretty much because the dude knew Comey at all, though the majority of Americans think Mueller is doing a good job. Mueller has estimated he’ll need about three weeks for the trial itself, which is likely to happen in May. Meanwhile, Trump doesn’t remember nothin’ about the convicted campaign adviser, though other advisers say otherwise, and there are an ever-increasing cast of characters to track. There are rumors that a Flynn indictment may be coming soon, but at the moment those are only rumors.
Social Media Testimony* Facebook, Google, and Twitter all testified before the House Intelligence Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee this week, and appeared to be jockeying for the title of “most irresponsible social media platform.” You can get good in-depth coverage from Recode, though the coverage might make you tear your hair out. Among the highlights of the grilling were admissions that: 1) Russia literally paid for some of the Facebook ads in rubles; 2) Twitter only searched its logs because Facebook announced it was compromised; and 3) Google doesn’t screen out Russia Today, which is literally the propaganda arm of the Kremlin, from running ads on YouTube because it “contains no violations to YouTube’s community guidelines.” Also, just to make America hate them more, none of the platforms’ CEOs showed up to the testimony.
Clovis Withdraws.* In the wake of intensified scrutiny due to his campaign role as newly-convicted George Papadopoulos’s supervisor, USA top “scientist” nominee Sam Clovis withdrew his nomination this week. I’m vaguely curious what skeletons are lurking in that guy’s closet, but since the literal point of withdrawal is to make us less likely to find out, I guess I’ll have to stay curious. On the plus side, this leaves us all free to focus on that EPA nominee who said the air is too clean to be healthy for kids. So there’s that.
Sessions Probably Caught in Perjury (Again).* It’s a sad state of affairs when we’re discussing the Attorney General’s second instance of lying to a tribunal, but here we are. Sessions said repeatedly under oath that he had no knowledge of anyone on the campaign meeting with Russian officials, but George Papadopoulos testified that he had let Sessions as well as Trump know — and Trump apparently tweeted photos of that meeting at the time that it happened, so we know all three individuals were present. And yet another foreign policy adviser, Carter Page, testified that he met with Russian officials as well. Unsurprisingly, Senate Democrats want to interview him again given this week’s bombshells.

And of course, we also saw several Threats to Human Rights this week:

Divergery Lottery. Despite barely being able to pronounce the program, Trump had a lot to say about the Diversity Visa lottery program this week after a terrorist attack in New York City. In a tweet that literally CCed Fox and Friends, Trump announced that he “wanted merit-based” immigration instead of “democrat lottery systems.” This reflects a, shall we say, imperfect understanding of how the diversity visa system actually works; the program underpinnings were created in the 1960s in response to older quota systems and the system does have rigorous vetting already built into the process. Also, and most importantly, Trump can’t scrap the current diversity lottery program because it was created by Congress twenty-seven years ago (which, by the way, was during a Republican majority and a Republican presidency, not that it matters). Presidents don’t have constitutional authority to scrap laws created by legislatures, however much they might pretend otherwise.
Disturbing “Justice” Statements. Trump also had a lot to say about people’s criminal defense rights, by which I mean he thinks nobody has any. He wanted the suspect of Tuesday’s terrorist attack, a lawful permanent resident of the United States who committed crimes on United States soil, sent to Guantanamo Bay because — and I quote — “we … have to come up with punishment that’s far quicker and far greater than the punishment these animals are getting right now” (emphasis mine). I sincerely hope everyone reading this is already aware, but any time a formal statement from public officials involves calling human being ‘animals’ it is not a great sign for civil rights. After he walked that one back, Trump moved onto saying that the suspect in custody should be put to death, which is troubling on multiple fronts because the suspect hasn’t had a trial yet (and, ironically, Trump’s statements might make it harder for prosecutors to do their jobs). All these statements are, of course, on top of the various other fascist things Trump has said in this week and past weeks, which include everything from trying to block the Russia investigation to demanding criminal investigation of political opponents. It’s… not a great look for any administration, let alone one with a 59% disapproval rating.
‘Give Me a Lawyer Dog’. Trump’s blatant disregard for our justice system is made even more concerning by a slip opinion concurrence from the Louisiana Supreme Court this week; the concurrence was on a decision to not to hear the case, so this was presumably this judge’s way of getting his $0.02 in even though the court wasn’t going to write anything with legal value. The concurrence stated that a defendant saying “Give me a lawyer, dog” did not count as invoking his sixth amendment right to an attorney because — and I quote — “defendant’s ambiguous and equivocal reference to a ‘lawyer dog’ does not constitute an invocation of counsel.” Though in this particular instance there were repugnant charges involved, I seriously cannot stress enough how little that should matter when we’re discussing someone’s constitutional right to ask for an attorney while answering police questions. And claiming that he might have been asking for a canine who has passed the bar is just insulting to the rest of us; it’s like the judge isn’t even trying to hide that he’s giving the questioning officers blatant cover. Do you want a police state, Louisiana? Because this is how we get police states.

Your “Normal” Weird:

DNC vs HRC. Okay, y’all. We have multiple major elections this upcoming Tuesday, including two gubernatorial races, and the Virginia race in particular is reported to be particularly close and nasty. So hopefully the DNC is mobilizing to support the Democratic candidates who are running in these important interim elections, right? LOLNOPE, they’re too busy erroneously crucifying Hillary Clinton because she formed some fundraising committees with the DNC and may have therefore gotten strategic advantage in 2016! Because that super matters over a year later, and our fascist administration definitely won’t latch onto that to call for the arrest of people you later announce are law-abiding citizens after all. Thanks, Donna Brazile! Maybe you should let Tom Perez take things from here.
Rick Perry’s Strange View of Lightbulbs.* Rick Perry made the baffling claim this week that fossil fuels help with sexual assault because of the “light that shines. . . [of] righteousness” on the act. Though he was specifically talking about power in Africa, and there is some evidence to suggest that bringing power to developing countries can lower instances of assault, that still doesn’t explain why fossil fuels would be better or more tenable than other forms of electricity. As my researcher put it: “I guess if conservatives think that fossil fuels shine with the light of righteousness, that explains a lot about why they prefer it over greener energy.”
Mercy, Mercer.* News broke this week that business tycoon and Trump patron Robert Mercer is stepping down from his hedge fund and selling his share in Breitbart News. Though this likely at least in part due to increasing investor discomfort with supporting an actual white supremacist, it may also have something to do with the $6,800,000,000 the company owes the IRS in taxes (and that’s not a typo; yes, that number really does say six point eight billion). At any rate, it will be interesting to see what other shoes drop from Renaissance from here.

The Bad:

Violence in New York and Texas. This week saw two instances of mass murder in the United States, killing over 30 people total. On Tuesday afternoon, a man in a rented truck plowed into a crowded Manhattan bike path, killing eight people and injuring eleven more seemingly at random. ISIS eventually claimed credit for the attack, but ISIS would claim credit for an F line signal delay if they thought New Yorkers hated it enough, so who knows whether they were actually involved. (Trump nonetheless is threatening them like they were involved, and also initially threatened to send the suspect to Guantanamo Bay). Further compounding this tragedy, on Sunday morning, a suspect walked into a small Southern Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas and opened fire on praying congregants, killing twenty-seven people and injuring over twenty more. (The suspect was later found dead three or four miles away, and police are currently investigating whether the wounds were self-inflicted.) Though the New York attack is being attributed to terrorism, the Texas attack appears to be rooted in domestic violence, as the perpetrator’s wife’s family attended services there and had been previously threatened by the gunman several times.
Tax Cuts and Jerks Act. The Tax Cut and Jobs Act was released for review in the House this week, and it… is a thing. A big and confusing thing, in fact, but major news outlets have charts and FAQs that have your back. In general, as the New York Times notes, most tax bills have fairly clear winners and losers, and you can probably guess who gets the short end of the stick on this bill (spoiler: It’s not rich people). That said, as forecast, the bill is not popular with Wall Street, in part because it’s not clear that it can be implemented as written. And though the plan does leave 401(k)s alone, it messes up real estate and the deficit instead — and Ryan hasn’t ruled out messing with the ACA as well. Meanwhile, fetuses would become eligible for tax plans. I seriously got nothin’.
EPA Blocks Its Own Scientists (Again). The EPA is once again blocking its own scientists, this time by removing several scientists from its advisory boards. Pruitt is making the bizarre claim that this is because the sitting members who have received grants have a conflict of interest, seeming to imply that the scientists are personally enriched by research grants. (Even Bloomberg seems to know that this is not how that field works. I would ask whether the man has ever personally received a research grant, but I think we all know the answer to that.) Just for extra swamp, he is replacing them with members of the industries the board regulates instead. This is, of course, coming on the immediate heels of a U.S. report finding that humans have caused climate change, but I’m sure that’s entirely unrelated.
CHIP On Our Shoulders. The House did pass a bill funding the Children’s Health Insurance Program this week, but it has a lot of issues and the Senate is having none of it. More specifically, the bill is yet another attack on the ACA; it creates funding for CHIP by shortening the grace period for ACA enrollees and dipping into an ACA public health fund. It seems likely that the Senate will come up with a different plan entirely, but this of course creates uncertainty again for the CHIP program — and in the meantime, nearly nine million kids may or may not run out of funding for their healthcare. So that’s not awesome, to say the least.

The Good:

MA Bans Bump Stocks. My home state of Massachusetts made the news this week by passing the nation’s first law banning use, sale, and ownership of bump stocks, which were used in the Las Vegas shootings to turn semi-automatic weapons into makeshift automatic firearms. Though I’ll be the first to acknowledge that Massachusetts gun laws create some unique prosecutorial issues and are far from perfect, I also feel strongly that no one should have the capacity to build their own automatic weapons, so I’m pretty okay with this development.
Feeding Puerto Rico. Chef José Andrés, who leads a food security activist group called World Central Kitchen, has been undertaking extensive efforts to make sure Puerto Ricans have food. At the time that I write this, Mr. Andrés’s kitchen network has served over 2.3 million meals and sandwiches to the residents of Puerto Rico in a four-week period — which would be a very impressive number even without the power issues present there. The organization relies heavily on food trucks for door-to-door distribution, bringing food to remote locations on an island with damaged infrastructure. Efforts are now winding down, but presence will remain on the island in more remote locations for the foreseeable future.
Rogue Twitter Folk Hero. A random and recently-let-go Twitter employee won hearts this week by deleting Trump’s account on their way out the door, though it took Twitter quite some time to admit that — they initially chalked the issue up to “human error.” Predictably, Trump’s followers were incensed and the rest of Twitter had a field day. If I ever have occasion to meet this employee, I’m totally going to buy them a thank-you coffee.

And that’s what I have this week. We could go on either direction from here, and I personally am going to keep fingers crossed for a better news week next week. But in the event that it’s terrible, I’ll still be here, snarking all about it!

National News Roundup: Week 40 (October 22–28)

October 31, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

FOTO:FORTEPAN / Saly Noémi, via Wikimedia Commons

Happy Manafort Monday, y’all! But don’t let the name fool you, because the real news of the week is that I got you news of an unsealed Papadopoulos conviction for Halloween. I super hope you like it, because we have a strict No Return policy here on game-changing secret convictions.

Standard standing reminders apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m only summarizing the news within my area of expertise. This week’s news contains some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise — I’m a lawyer, not a uranium miner! — but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Constitutional Crisis Corners:

The Russia Collusion Investigation is, without a doubt, the biggest news of the week:

Mueller Indictments Monday. The first two indictment lists have been issued to former Trump campaign staffers Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, totaling twelve indictments between them (mostly relating to money laundering and tax fraud). Both Manafort and Gates have turned themselves in and pled not guilty on all counts. (Fun fact: Manafort is actually facing investigations on three different fronts right now.) But the biggest news of the day is that former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos secretly pled guilty a few weeks ago, and both the charges and the deal are really, really significant. The charges were lying to the FBI about collusion with Russia — I believe the words “dirt on Hillary Clinton” literally appear multiple times in the documents. And the plea deal itself provides that “the Government agrees to bring to the Court’s attention at sentencing the defendant’s efforts to cooperate with the Government, on the condition that your client continues to respond and provide information regarding any and all matters as to which the Government deems relevant” (emphasis mine). In other words, “as long as he tells us literally everything we’ll make sure he never goes to prison.” Manafort may be the bigger name, but Papadopoulos is the bigger story for today. (If/when Mueller manages to flip Manafort, though, that will definitely change.)
Uranium What Now?* In a (probably vain) attempt to distract from news that Mueller was about to announce indictments, the Trump administration began trying to claim that actually Hillary Clinton was colluding with Russians during the 2016 election (not Trump). As far as I can tell, this involved conflating the fact that the Clinton Foundation received a donation from some people who are tangentially tied to a uranium mining company and the fact that Bill Clinton was once paid by Russia for a speaking engagement in Moscow. It’s all… pretty flimsy at best. I recommend reading the Washington Post demystification article, because the whole thing is attenuated and ridiculous.
Bill Browder Appreciation Hour.* The other Russia-related news of the week is that Bill Browder, a famous critic of Putin’s human rights abuses who disclosed the horrors that led to the Magnitsky Act, was briefly barred from the United States this week. Though he had originally been granted a visa application, U.S. officials revoked it when Russia had him placed on an Interpol list — and yes, that would be the same Russian officials on whom Browder is famous for blowing the whistle. Browder did eventually get his visa reinstated, and the administration is maintaining that the first decision was an automatic response to the listing. But since it was changed after a massive bipartisan outcry, it’s hard to tell if that was accurate. At any rate, it appears to be mostly fixed now, and it’s probably a good thing that happened before the Mueller news broke.

And honestly, the Russia news can’t come soon enough, because we also saw more Threats to Human Rights this week:

“An Immoral Travesty.” That is how Diane Feinstein described Customs and Border Patrol’s actions regarding a ten-year-old girl with cerebral palsy, and she frankly isn’t wrong. The story has gained national attention for its extreme facts: CBP stopped an ambulance at an immigration checkpoint, and when they learned there was an undocumented person inside, tracked ten-year-old Rosamaria to the hospital, apprehending her immediately after she received emergency medical surgery. Putting aside the obvious health implications of forcing an ambulance taking someone to an emergency room through a checkpoint, which frequently can take a very long time, the story illustrates what a strong disincentive immigrant families experience to seek medical help in places with heavy CBP presence.
Somehow We’re Still Talking about the NFL.* We also had a bit more ridiculous anti-protest news in the form of a comment from a Texans owner Robert McNair that “we can’t have inmates running the prisons.” Setting aside what that suggests he thinks about the entire business of professional football, it’s obviously a very problematic statement, and he’s now apologized for it twice. Also, and more importantly, that particular outburst was sparked by conversations in which the NFL decided not to have an anthem mandate, so at least the NFL is still approaching the issue in a nuanced way.

Your “Normal” Weird:

Nobody Likes Whitefish. Oh gosh, where to start with this one. So the contract for restoring Puerto Rico’s electricity somehow wound up being awarded to a tiny company in Montana that just so happened to have ties to Ryan Zinke. Also, the contract prohibited the government from auditing the project. Needless to say, FEMA wasn’t a fan, and by the end of the week Puerto Rico was canceling the contract. The whole thing was very strange, and more than a little fishy. (See what I did there?)
Republican Resistance Grows.* A growing number of retired or retiring prominent Republicans — such as George W. Bush, John McCain, Bob Corker, and Jeff Flake — have all spoken out quite bluntly against Trump in the past week or two. Several of these figures will continue to hold a position of power for over a year, and some fellow Republicans with no obvious retirement plans are starting to react — which may be a reflection of the growing unease within the party that Bob Corker describes generally. Overall, we might be witnessing a shift away from Republican cooperation with the President’s agenda, and it’s worth watching carefully as a result. (The Washington Post also has an interesting piece on what Corker and Flake’s impending retirements might mean for the Senate.)
JFK Document Partial Release. After bragging that he planned to release documents relating to the assassination of John F Kennedy (which have been mandated for release since 1992), Trump didn’t actually release all relevant records this week; he withheld thousands of assorted documents for “national security” reasons. That said, he did release thousands of related documents, so I guess that’s something?
Refugee Decisions Quietly Made. Without much fanfare, the very last of the former travel ban was mooted this week, with the Trump Administration letting the refugee provision expire (and the Supreme Court dismissing the corresponding case accordingly.) But there’s another 90-day window of review for 11 countries facing “higher scrutiny,” which means refugee applications from those countries will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis; this is in addition to the incredibly low 45,000 cap set for total refugee resettlement in fiscal year 2018. The Trump administration is refusing to even name the 11 countries, which is really unusual; I can’t imagine this is the end of the travel ban legal battles.

The Bad:

401k Shuffle. Despite repeated promises from Trump, Congress is considering limiting 401k retirement contributions as part of its tax reform package. This is odd, not only because it’s unpopular with Wall Street, but also because it appears to discourage saving for retirement at all — and we already have problems with people saving too little. The 401k saga is likely unfolding the way it is because it’s an obvious way to offset tax cuts, and probably ultimately will result in more incoming government money than other options. But if everybody stops saving for retirement, it has the capacity to start costing the government large amounts in the long-term unless Medicare and social security are dismantled as well, because those are entitlement benefits — once people reach a magic age, they’re all allowed to ask for it and a lack of retirement planning means they’re more likely to need it. This is sort of like saying “we need people to buy our candy bars, let’s make it harder to pay for dental visits” and then hoping somebody else has to pay for all the dentures.
EPA Blocked Its Own Scientists from Speaking. The headline kind of says it all on this one; the EPA canceled its own scientists’ presentation at a conference on climate change. When pressed for an explanation, the agency said that the scientists were attending; they just wouldn’t be presenting because “it wasn’t an EPA conference.” But it sounds like everyone attending understood what was really happening; other scientists (fairly) described it as “a blatant example of . . . scientific censorship.”
Too Big to Sue.* The Senate voted this week to repeal a landmark Consumer Federal Protection Bureau regulation that limited mandatory arbitration clauses in bank account agreements. For those of you reading this who haven’t tangled with mandatory arbitration clauses before, they are a common corporate tactic to limit suits and force people through a “negotiation” process when they have grievances. It sounds good on its face, except that the deck is often stacked in the company’s favor because they have a relationship with the arbiters and the consumers don’t. In fact, it is because these clauses heavily advantage businesses and disadvantage consumers that the newly-repealed law was put in place in July in the first place; though Republican talking points suggest otherwise, the regulation merely required banks to draft user agreements that allowed consumers to retain the option to organize class action lawsuits. Adding insult to injury, it was a 50–50 tie, meaning that Pence cast the tiebreaking vote.
Opioid Not-Actually-An-Emergency. Despite earlier promises to the contrary, the Trump administration failed to declare an opioid national emergency this past week. What they did instead was declare a “public health emergency,” which sounds similar — except there’s no money attached (as there would be for a national emergency), because the public health fund is empty. And Trump appears to think we can solve this by Just Saying No. Basically, it’s the difference between “The house is on fire, let’s call firefighters” and “The house is on fire, let’s call my buddy Steve.” Except in this scenario, Steve thinks you can put out house fires by telling the fire to stop burning things.
Budget Proposal Movement. The House passed last week’s budget proposal by a very narrow margin this week; just like in the Senate, every single Democrat voted against it. Though the budget vote does not create fully-formed law — they still need to write the actual tax reform — this is a concrete first step, and that is not necessarily a good thing. But as mentioned last week, it might prove to be the bribe that makes the Republican party actually move to oust Trump, so it might be a mixed thing. We’ll have to see what happens from here.

The Good:

Alexander-Murray Makes the Grade. The Congressional Budget Office released a score on the Alexander-Murray stabilization bill, which was introduced a few weeks ago and intends to stabilize the ACA and associated market. It’s estimated that the bill would save the federal government almost 4 billion dollars, which is pretty encouraging news! Though nothing is a done deal by any means, this information may make it easier to pass the bill through Congress, because it’s a fiscally attractive option as well as a helpful remedy for shoring up markets and the ACA itself.
GAO is AOK. News broke this week that the GAO will be investigating the voter fraud commission at the request of prominent Democrat Senators Michael Bennet, Amy Klobuchar, and Cory Booker, who wrote a letter asserting that the commission appeared designed to perpetuate voter suppression. The office warned that appropriate staff won’t be available to investigate for another five months, but it’s promising that the office accepted the request at all — let alone within a week of the request.
Trans Military Rights Preserved (For Now). A DC federal court granted a preliminary injunction today that pausing Trump’s order banning trans military service, noting that it constituted an impermissible removal of due process for a protected class. This is exciting both because it pauses the order and because a preliminary injunction requires the plaintiffs to show that they’re likely to win their case — so the court was essentially opining that this order was unconstitutional. I’ll be very interested in seeing what happens with this decision.

And that’s what I have for now! But the news is still moving very quickly, so daily news summaries like WTFJHT remain a very good idea for the foreseeable future. We tend to see a rough week after we get inspiring news, because this administration does not take lumps gracefully — and some are still worried that Trump’s about to fire Mueller — so let’s batten down the hatches and prepare for more storms. And hopefully we’ll meet under sunny skies again next week!