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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

FORTEPAN / Saly Noémi, via Wikimedia Commons

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!

National News Roundup: Week 39 (October 15–21)

October 24, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

By Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons

I saw an article that described this week as a “terrible week for Trump.” Needless to say, as a general rule, a bad week for Trump is a good week for the rest of America, and this week appears to be no exception. Though we’re not out of the woods by any means — in fact, some really concerning things did happen this week — we reached a bit of a summit in the slow slog back to a healthy country. It’s nice to have some news to report this week that’s actually good.

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 Facebook staff! — 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 was pretty all over the map this week — the short version is that the investigation is working, kind of, but what we’re learning is not awesome:

Best Fake Russian Propaganda in Texas. A surreal story hit this week about an extremely effective Russian propaganda machine on Facebook that was successfully convincing Texans they wanted to secede from the country. The group had over 225,000 followers and was only taken down last week, which is kind of horrifying. Perhaps most importantly, they reached out to a real, existing Texas secessionist group and asked them to participate in anti-Hillary rallies during the 2016 election. So that’s…. a thing that happened and fooled almost a quarter million people.
Social Media Ad Disclosure. In light of the first news item of the week, it’s not surprising that Congress has introduced a bill to force social media platforms to disclose who buys ads. The bill, called the Honest Ads Act, would require social media platforms to conform to the process used for television and radio ads. It would also require tech companies to maintain a record of who purchases ads, which is not surprising since destroyed records have been a real issue in the Russia investigation.
Sessions (Lack of) Testimony. Attorney General Jeff Sessions testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week regarding Trump, Comey, Russia, and a variety of other investigation-related things. Credible outlets issuing live coverage pretty much uniformly reported that he cited privilege and dodged questions about most of these topics, although Sessions did disclose that he has not met with Special Counsel Robert Mueller at all. And, most notably from my perspective, he refused to commit to avoiding jailing reporters for doing their job, which I can’t believe isn’t getting more air time. All in all, it was very noteworthy testimony based on what he didn’t say.
Social Media to Testify. And speaking of both social media and testifying, Twitter and Facebook are both scheduled to testify before congressional committees on November 1. (Well, their general counsel, at any rate; trying to get the apps to testify probably wouldn’t be very fruitful!) It will be interesting to see what happens with their testimony, to say the least.

This has really not been a good week on the Threats to Civil Rights front either:

Somehow We’re Still Talking about the NFL.* The latest is that Trump launched a petition against the NFL because it won’t make a rule forcing players to stand. Though the owner of the Jaguars thinks Trump is jealous of the league, I think this is much more about testing boundaries to see when and how he can successfully silence voices of color — in part because he’s testing boundaries First Amendment issues of every stripe right now. I’m honestly kind of pleasantly surprised that the NFL isn’t playing ball with him. (See what I did there?)
DeVos Has No IDEA. Betsy DeVos rescinded 72 guidance documents this past week that provide special education protections under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Rehabilitation Act. It’s a particularly obnoxious move given her apparent “confusion” on the topic during her confirmation hearing as well as a recent Supreme Court case requiring more guidance on the topic for schools, not less.
Immigrants Need Not Apply.* Among other challenges faced by lawful permanent residents who immigrate to this country, this administration recently implemented challenging delays to service in the military and a full bar to service for some branches. They are no longer allowed to enlist in some part-time branches, and cannot begin basic training before lengthy background checks are completed. Because military service opens the door to many types of opportunity and career advancement in this country, policies that bar people from enlisting have a variety of collateral consequences. Simply put: It’s one more form of discrimination on the pile.

Your “Normal” Weird:

The Trump Reality Show Continues. I’m not going to dwell, simply because the most sensationalist chest-thumping seems like a vacuous distraction rather than a credible threat. But this week Trump continued the ongoing reality show, issuing more threats to McCain after the latter criticized his bonkers foreign policy and badly botching condolence calls after several soldiers were lost in Niger. Adding to the surreal reality-show feel of current politics, Dubya also said his piece about Trump (although he declined to mention him by name at any point). It’s been strange, y’all.
Tax Reform News.* The Senate passed a tax reform initiative this week along partisan lines, squeaking out the bare minimum of votes needed despite bloc opposition from Democrats (and Rand Paul). I place this under the ‘weird’ column rather than the ‘bad’ column for several reasons: First of all, few people have even seen the bill, despite its success on the floor; as this first fact suggests, the bill is being rushed for a variety of reasons (which I can only hope to speculate about, since the Hill is a such bizarre quagmire right now). But they are using the reconciliation process — which you may remember from the summer’s ACA Repeal Greatest Hits — to pass Go and collect their $200 without working with Democrats. And that process is inherently kind of tricky and complicated, which makes it odd that they are trying to rush and also use it. Senator Corker’s recent outbursts have caused some pundits to speculate that tax reform is the only thing keeping the GOP on board with Trump’s egregious and dangerous Presidency; if they’re right, the tax reform efforts are also odd because they’re being treated like a final hurdle to impeachment.

The Bad:

9/11 Executive Order Part 2. With very little fanfare, Trump signed an executive order on Friday that piggybacked on a 2001 order responding to 9/11. The 2001 order declared a state of national emergency in response to recent terrorist attack and granted the President power to recall retired troops into service. Trump’s order also declares a state of emergency, Because Reasons, and allows him to recall up to 1,000 retired Air Force personnel, because the branch apparently has had staffing issues for some time. The order’s vague reference to an ‘emergency’ is very concerning, given that no obvious terrorist-based emergency has happened; some readers are also interpreting it to permit recall of other branches as well. (And if you’re noting the staffing shortages referenced in this section and asking yourself why this administration is also limiting who is allowed to serve based on citizenship, I too am asking that.)
Water Struggles in Puerto Rico.* Puerto Rico still does not have clean water, and desperate denizens are starting to try their luck at hazardous waste sites. Though CNN is claiming the water is safe to drink, health officials remain very concerned about its consumption for obvious reasons. The EPA has placed guards at some of the Superfund sites while it conducts more testing of the water.
California is Still Burning. As I write this on Monday evening, wildfires are still burning in California wine country, though fires are being reported as 90% contained. Experts are estimating at least 8,400 structures have been damaged, including some schools, and the death count has risen to 42 people. Experts think the fires will be out very soon, and I really hope they are right.

The Good:

Courts are Having None of this Nonsense There were several very prominent court wins this week, and they are all very edifying! Federal district courts in both Hawaii and Maryland have suspended the new travel ban, finding that the changes to the order do not overcome the issues that have plagued the ban since its inception. (And if you’re confused about the ridiculous number of versions of this ban, ABC has your back with a helpful summary and timeline.) But we also heard from the federal district court judge who was handling Joe Arpaio’s case; she held that his pardon does not vacate his conviction. The language of that four-page opinion is satisfyingly crisp; I particularly enjoy her note that the pardon “does not blot out guilt.”
ACA First Aid. Only a few days after Trump announced that he won’t be covering ACA subsidies moving forward, bipartisan senators reached a deal on a stabilization package that would fund the subsidies for two years. Though there are still a lot of uncertainties, and Republican response was predictably mixed, experts appear to be cautiously optimistic about the likelihood that this will both pass and fix a number of issues long-term. This week also saw the introduction of the Protect Access to Birth Control Act, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like; it overrides Trump’s attempt to limit the coverage mandate. (Interestingly, Senator Patty Murray was an author of both bills.) And though it’s not a legislative action per se, the IRS has announced they will strictly enforce insurance disclosure mandates this year — a move that will likely help stabilize markets a bit and encourage people who can afford health coverage to seek it. All of these actions signal continual commitment to retaining the ACA from legislators.

And that’s what I have; some good, some bad, overall a bit less horrifying than normal. But the news is still moving very quickly, so daily news summaries like WTFJHT remain a very good idea for the foreseeable future. Let’s see if we can keep this streak going!

National News Roundup: Week 38 (October 8–14)

October 17, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

Still Life — A Boot on a Newspaper, by Ernest Blaikley [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Preparing a draft on Sunday night, I turned to my editor and unironically said, “Oh wait, I’m not done with the Constitutional Crisis section yet, because I need to add a note about Larry Flynt under the Russia Investigation header.” As a friend of mine observed to me today, “This may or may not be the darkest timeline, but it’s sure as hell the weirdest.” (Although my money’s on both being true, for the record. I recommend comfort foods.)

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 firefighter! — 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 was unfortunately pretty stymied this week:

What Russian Sanctions? Trump missed his own deadline for implementing Russia sanctions this week, deeply aggravating the members of Congress who drafted the sanctions bill. The sanctions, as you may remember, were designed to force Trump to punish Russia for tampering in the election, but since he so obviously benefited from said tampering it’s unsurprising that he dragged his feet on this. Still very frustrating, though.
Social Media Scarpering. This week we learned that Twitter deleted data that would be relevant to the Russia investigation, which is frustrating to say the least. But there was evidence that Facebook isn’t really cooperating either, and took down thousands of posts that could have helped the investigation to minimize their role. So, uh… thanks, guys. That was helpful.
Yes, That Larry Flynt Ad Really Happened. You didn’t have a Nyquil-induced fever dream; Larry Flynt really did take out a full-page ad in the Washington Post this week offering $10M for “information leading to the impeachment and removal from office of Donald Trump.” Putting aside how fascinating it is that the guy who literally runs Hustler finds Donald Trump distasteful, I haven’t yet heard anything about leads from the ad. I promise I’ll keep y’all posted.

This has really not been a good week on the Threat to Free Speech front:

It’s Disgusting, All Right.* Trump threatened to take away NBC’s license over a story they ran this week, saying it was “frankly disgusting” that they are allowed to report things freely. Then he doubled down, saying that licenses “must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked.” The FCC had nothing to say about this veiled threat, which is less than comforting. We need to be calling our reps about this, because it’s a serious threat that we can’t ignore.
No News Is Bad News.* A guy who tried to cause an explosion in a North Carolina airport received surprisingly little media attention this week, despite being taken into custody and charged and despite being found with at least one explosive on his person. He presumably would have been in the news more if he weren’t white. This kind of underreporting is concerning and dangerous.

But on the plus side, there is a new dark horse in the Why Is He Still President? corner:

Are You Tired of Hearing about the 25th Amendment Yet? So there’s been a lot of talk this week about the 25th Amendment — Senator Corker’s infamous New York Times interview sparked much more discussion about the President’s various odd behaviors, and whether he might be Constitutionally unfit to lead. As some articles note, impeachment requires cooperation from the Republican party, and though the 25th Amendment has historically been applied to physical health, a lack of mental stability might prove a convenient out for Republicans with serious buyer’s remorse. Though some experts think it unlikely, weirdly, Steve Bannon is one of the proponents. Strange times, y’all.

Your “Normal” Weird:

Kelly Still Works Here. So Kelly gave a press briefing on Friday clarifying that he’s not getting fired, not firing anybody, and not quitting. Actually, what he said was that he “d[idn’t] think [he was] being fired today” and that he’s not quitting “unless things change.” Apparently, in today’s day and age, the fact that the White House Chief of Staff is “not so frustrated in this job that he’s thinking of leaving” is worth a press conference. Which… is not wrong, actually. Unfortunately.
United States Leaves UNESCO.* Continuing the Trump Administration Embarrasses Us At the UN theme, the Trump Administration announced this week that the United States is leaving UNESCO next year. This is actually the second time the US has done this, because Reagan made the same decision in the 1980s. Trump cited “anti-Israel bias” as his reasoning, which is particularly galling when you consider that UNESCO was created in direct response to World War II atrocities and publishes a Holocaust education guide.
SCOTUS Dismisses the Travel Ban Case. The Supreme Court dismissed the travel ban case this week, saying that it was moot because the original terms had expired. Without going too far into the weeds, needless to say, I don’t agree with this assessment when there’s a new, more permanent form of the (arguably same) travel ban in effect as I write this. There’s still a related matter pending, but it seems likely it will be dismissed as well. Though it seems likely there will be a legal challenge to the third travel ban, this is a frustrating and vaguely strange setback.
The Wall of the Deal. Trump is still trying to use Dreamers as a bargaining chip to get his wall funded, which is pretty much the literal opposite of a clean DREAM Act and as a result was summarily dismissed by Democrats about thirty seconds after he asked. Then he announced that maybe he’ll push back the March 5 deadline if nobody will cut a deal with him. His negotiation tactics are like a surreal version of Getting to Yes where you just spin a wheel and offer whatever comes up when it stops. Meanwhile, Senator Thom Tillis has introduced a bill that… might be making traction? It’s hard to say, honestly, with Trump spinning his Art of the Deal Wheel in the background every five minutes, but it’s worth watching.

The Bad:

More Natural Man-made Disasters. Deadly wildfires rage in northern California, forcing thousands to flee the area and killing over 40 people. As I write this, fourteen fires are still raging, though experts think the crisis may be close to over. The fires have raged for a week straight, and destroyed over 200,000 acres of land. The governor of California has called this “one of the greatest traged[ies] California has ever faced.” Meanwhile, as the west coast reels from that, Trump is threatening to abandon aid to Puerto Rico and the Pentagon accidentally included a reporter on spin emails for five days. Both locations will continue to need aid for quite some time to come.
Clean Power being rolled back.* The EPA formalized plans to roll back the Clean Power Plan in the past week, impacting carbon emissions in about 25 states. The New York Times has a helpful article for explaining what this means in practical terms, but suffice to say: It doesn’t mean anything good.
Contraception Mandate Narrowed. At the end of last week, Trump signed an executive order stating that employers no longer have to cover contraceptives under the ACA if they have religious objections. This change could cause hundreds of thousands of women to lose medical coverage, which creates considerable medical risk despite the administration’s claims that oral hormones and other contraceptives aren’t safe. Also, because apparently nobody covering this has bothered to point it out, plenty of people take oral hormones as medication for actual medical ailments, and the entire point of employer-based insurance is to cover people’s medical costs.
Bombs in the ACA Marketplace. Remember how Trump has been threatening to stop paying subsidies for like a billion years now? This past week, he formally announced he was doing exactly that, effective immediately. The timing of this is pretty rough; it’s only a couple of weeks before the enrollment window was set to open, and it comes on the immediate heels an executive order to allow alternative health plans that provide less coverage under the current legislature. It’s possible this is a ploy to get Democrats to amend the ACA, but in the meantime the one-two punch has a lot of capacity to screw up the marketplace and the ACA more generally, at least in some states. We’ll need to continue to call our reps to try to get bipartisan infrastructure in place, and also watch the lawsuits on this carefully — see more information on the latter below.
Iran Certification News.* As forecast earlier in the week, Trump disavowed the Iran nuclear agreement, but stopped short of leaving entirely. Instead, he told Congress to alter the deal, threatening to leave at a later date if changes aren’t made. We’ll need to watch what our reps do with this as well, but it’s a lighter blow than we were led to expect, and frankly I’ll take whatever I can get at this point.

The Good:

ACA Lawsuits. The silver lining to this past week’s ACA shenanigans is that there is already a growing pile of lawsuits filed on both executive orders and the subsidy announcement. The ACLU, Washington Attorney General, and California Attorney General are all suing Trump over rolling back the contraceptive mandate, arguing (probably correctly) that it violates the Establishment and Equal Protection clauses of the Constitution. Meanwhile, eighteen states and the District of Columbia are suing over the subsidies, seeking an injunction that would force the President to keep paying them. The National Governors’ Association issued a statement on the topic as well, indicating that they will be coordinating with Congress directly to facilitate a bipartisan fix on the subsidy issue. There are clearly a number of moving parts on the board already to try to fix both of these issues.
Animal Kingdom News. Homo sapiens is not exactly a shining star species right now, but several other members of the animal kingdom popped up in the news in better contexts! In particular, for your dose of warm fuzzies, you can read about this octopus who wanted to thank their rescuer in person. Erm, make that “in octopus.” Also, a duck in Devon got into a drunken bar brawl with a local dog. On the plus side, the duck pulled through! Which is my new catchphrase for annoying my editor. I’ve already used it on her four times.

And that’s what I have, in all its terrible and deeply strange glory. Daily news summaries like WTFJHT remain a very good idea for the foreseeable future. Here’s hoping that next week brings better tidings!

You, Too: How to Keep Helping After #IBelieveYou

October 16, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

We are living in a heyday of toxic masculinity. Yesterday’s “Me, too” status movement — a movement predicated on the simple idea that sexual harassment and sexual assault are really, really common — was about the ongoing updates of Harvey Weinstein’s predatory practices throughout his career. But it’s reductive and untrue to say the movement was just about that; it was also about repeated threats to remove coverage of birth-related health treatments. It was also about threats to criminalize currently-legal abortion practices. It was about having a President who famously proudly announced he sexually assaults women. It was about news outlets publishing “warning” soundbites about “witch hunts” from other famously-known sexual predators like they are a credible voice of reason. As a culture, we create a safe haven for people like Harvey Weinstein, who demonstrably are able to aggress again and again and again without consequence over a multi-decade career.

Changing that takes action and focus. It takes coalition-building. It takes creation of accountability.

But here’s the good news: Yesterday’s movement was an excellent first step, as was the #IBelieveYou hashtag that people were posting in response. As the sheer volume suggests, sexual harassment and assault are appallingly common — across generations, across socio-economic status, across orientations, and across the gender spectrum. Silence is a necessary component of system navigation for sexual predation; a problem that isn’t identified cannot be fixed. It’s just that silence is not the only component.

So what are we doing from here? Now is a great time to turn social momentum into social action. But that’s easier said than done, especially when it’s so unclear what people can be doing to help! So here are some modest, concrete suggestions on how to do that:

Learn How to Become an Active Bystander. This one is on all of us, but it’s especially anyone who is placed in the role of a bystander to violence — people who are observing a casual interaction take place, especially in less high-stakes social contexts. (A friend of mine observed that he wasn’t sure how to handle violence in inherently power-stratified environments like the workplace, which is a very fair observation, and I’ll get to that below.) The potentially helpful role of bystanders, especially in instances of sexual violence, is very well–documented — and so is its corollary the bystander effect, which by definition helps perpetrators maintain a status quo. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center maintains a resource list and information packet for learning how to be an active bystander, as does Partners to Social Change and RAINN. Take some time to read up on what concrete actions are helpful to others in dangerous situations!
Learn How to Talk to Survivors. Statistically speaking, you probably know somebody who is a survivor. It’s a good idea to learn emotional first-aid generally in our current political landscape, but at minimum, it’s a great idea to take a few minutes to review resource suggestions on how to navigate assault situations specifically so that you know how to handle it when someone discloses this history to you. (The good news is, if you said “I believe you” yesterday, you are already doing a very important piece of this!)
Learn to Spot Attempts to Enlist Assistance to Violence. A systemic structure of sexual violence (or any structure of violence, honestly) relies on complicit assistance from everyday people. Those people are not monsters; they’re just people who aren’t aware what’s up and can be enlisted as tacit support as a result. And sometimes it’s not possible to speak up without taking on substantial risk, especially in our current environment, but you should always be making that conscious choice instead of just not noticing when your silence is taken as support. Take yourself out of the pool of people who are accidentally helping whenever you can — learn to recognize instances where your support is being enlisted indirectly through social interaction. This can be in big ways, but it can be in little ways, too — the stereotypical “women, amirite?” phrase exists for a reason; it’s building consensus and reinforcing the beliefs held by the speaker. No, that person is not right, and it’s okay to tell them so!
Go Forth and Do the Things You Learned in the Wild! Listening is an important first step, and learning is an important second step, but ultimately these things are building towards action. Now is the time to put the things you learned into practice when it’s practicable to do so — which is uncomfortable and it sucks, but not as much as people getting assaulted. Several of the resources listed above have concrete suggestions and steps for how to handle specific situations. It’s really, really valuable and important to spend some time figuring out how to integrate them.
Call Your Reps, Call Your Reps, Call Your Reps, Reps, Reps. A lot of the systemic changes happening right now are on a giant scale, and that’s big and scary and awful. But it also means that you can help by simply exercising your civic rights as a citizen on issues of policy. Stay attuned to issues like coverage changes to the ACA and the abortion bill in the House, and call when you can. If you can’t call, use resistbot to text faxes. If you can’t do either, stay informed. These things might feel like they aren’t related but they really, really are.

I have about a billion other thoughts on this topic, and I might ultimately say more, but for now, I think I’ve hit the major highlights. Thank you for paying attention and join the conversation, and please stay in the fight! We need to all participate if we’re going to build a better culture.

National News Roundup: Week 37 (October 1–7)

October 10, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

This week started out really rough and ended up really strange — we had a lot of very traumatic and troubling events in the earlier half of the week, but by the end of the weekend Trump was taking credit for inventing the word “fake.” It’s sort of like being stuck in a horror movie where the killer stabs someone on Monday and then comes back on Friday to ask the survivors “What’s the deal with soap?” (Also, I know the news cycle has practically become minute-by-minute these days, but this is ridiculous.)

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 a lot of detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise — I’m a lawyer, not a football player! — 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 saw a lot of movement this week:

But Her Emails (Take 2).* More information came to light on last week’s White House Aide Private Server story, and none of it is great. There was apparently a third email address on a private server that both Jared and Ivanka used (and failed to report using) while working as aides. This is understandably not thrilling Democrats — House rep Elijah Cummings is asking for a formal FBI review, and fellow reps Ted Lieu and Don Beyer wrote to White House counsel Don McGahn to request their clearance be revoked. Then, just for extra cake icing, the story broke that Ivanka Trump narrowly avoided a criminal indictment in 2012 when a Trump attorney convinced the New York District Attorney to drop the case. So that all happened.
Senate Findings.* The Senate Intelligence Committee announced its findings this past week, which is probably the biggest non-story to happen since the last update. Though mostly the committee simply announced that the investigation was ongoing, they did emphasize that they trust the conclusions of interference announced by the CIA and that Russian interference in American elections is likely to be ongoing as well.
Facebook, Google, and Mueller (Oh My).* A grab bag of other random stuff also happened this week! We learned a bit more about the role of social media in the election, more specifically that Google also aired the ads and that Russia targeted specific states with its social media misinformation campaign (though Facebook won’t release specifics because of the Mueller investigation). And speaking of Mueller, he’s been very busy; his team is investigating the reach of the Presidential pardon, hoping to preempt any kind of preemptive shenanigans, and met with the author of the infamous “pee tape” dossier (not that official news outlets are willing to call it that). Meanwhile, experts connecting dots are starting to see a pretty sketchy picture.

We also are still in a stalemate on the Threat to Free Speech front:

Trump Still Hates Sports. The bizarre battle between our President and the NFL continues for yet another week, with Mike Pence walking out of a game he conveniently decided to attend because players on the other team protested during the anthem (or, more accurately, because Trump told him to). By the way, as Slate notes, the political stunt cost taxpayers over $200,000, and that kind of publicly-funded race-baiting by a Presidential administration is completely unprecedented as well as a gross misuse of taxpayer funds. Basically, it’s an intentional and ongoing Presidential move to chill free expression that I’m tired of talking about even though it remains incredibly important that we pay attention to it.

Your “Normal” Weird:

House is Bad at Balancing Budgets.* The House narrowly passed a budget resolution this past week, and it’s exactly as terrible as you might expect. Major priorities appear to be cuts to entitlement programs, increased spending for the military, and an overhaul of the tax system to benefit wealthy taxpayers. That said, this resolution is far from codified law, particularly because the Senate’s drafting process is looking very different than the House’s, and the two legislative bodies ultimately have to agree on the same bill. The tax cuts are likely to raise the deficit significantly, which makes them unpopular with both some fiscal conservatives and most Democrats. We’ll need to keep watching and see what comes out of the Senate in the near future.
The Trump Show Continues. The Trump Administration Reality Show was particularly strange this week, especially towards the end of the week. The brightest gem in the collection was definitely Trump claiming he made up the word ‘fake,’ which I can’t even begin to guess about (though you have to admit, he does kind of redefine the term). But that bizarre behavior had lots of friends — there was also Trump’s absurd decision to pick a fight with Republican Senator Bob Corker, which is going to hurt him in at least three different ways politically (in addition to Corker’s incredible tea-sipping commentary and impromptu tell-all interview). And just to cap out an already deeply weird week, there’s now a three-way fight happening about who is the true First Lady of this administration, leaving Andy Cohen — the producer of ‘Real Housewives’ fame — to tweet that “Even I AM SPEECHLESS.”
Rex Tillerson Holds a Press Conference About Saying What We’re All Thinking. After news broke that Rex Tillerson called Trump a ‘moron’ at a Pentagon meeting and considered resigning over the summer, Tillerson and Friends ended up holding a press conference — and merely addressed the idea that he was about to resign, leaving whether he actually disparaged Trump’s intelligence as an exercise for the reader. Though some of the press were speculating that he might be another Friday Firing faux-resignation, Tillerson appears content to stay in his post until Trump literally fires him.
Tim Murphy Scandal Unfolds Like It’s 1998. Pennsylvania rep and All Around Slimeball Tim Murphy landed in hot water this week, when news broke that he was pressuring his mistress to have an abortion after she became pregnant with his child. Though he initially claimed he would simply not seek re-election, eventually he folded to mounting pressure and agreed to resign more promptly. Between someone actually being forced to resign over immoral choices and the whole thing taking weeks (rather than hours) to unfold, it was a very nostalgic sort of scandal!

The Bad:

Trump Went to Puerto Rico and it was the Actual Worst. Trump did end up taking a trip to Puerto Rico on Tuesday, which ended up being an odyssey of blatant mischaracterizations, surreal t-shirt-cannon style paper-towel launching, and countless offensive and tactless comments — but not very much actual help. After it was over, FEMA removed statistics about how much of the region has power and water (which, according to an official Puerto Rican website, is about 15% power and 55% water respectively, in case anyone was curious). Meanwhile, it’s unclear whether Congress will provide more aid to the island, which is still sorely needed post-visit. Though government responses have been sluggish, several nonprofit entities have been working tirelessly; I’ll write more about that below.
Trans Rights Should be Civil Rights. Sessions reversed course on another Obama-era protection this week, this time on a directive clarifying that gender expression is covered under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The directive gave protection against workplace discrimination for transgender Americans, which has effectively been removed; it’s realistic for trans Americans to expect that workplace discrimination based on their gender expression has effectively become legal again. The Sessions memo made it clear that this would be the Department position on all legal issues related to sex moving forward. Ordinarily I would put a pithy statement here, but I’m still really mad about it, so I’ll content myself with saying that it is not ideal.
Trump’s Alarming Non-Diplomacy with North Korea.* Trump continued his disturbing gambit with North Korea this week, saying that Tillerson was “wasting his time” on diplomacy. Meanwhile, Russia is apparently claiming North Korea has missiles that can reach the west coast of the US, and Trump referred to this week as “the calm before the storm” but wouldn’t say more about what that meant (though it was probably in reference to either North Korea or abandoning the Iran nuclear deal, which he’s expected to do next week). Though Ted Lieu opined publicly (and probably accurately) this week that Trump has “no strategy on North Korea,” Trump did tell military leaders this week that “our goal is denuclearization.” Hopefully he doesn’t intend to achieve that by goading Kim Jong-un into chucking his entire arsenal at us.
Continuing UN Embarrassment. The United States joined twelve other UN countries this week in refusing to condemn the death penalty for certain kinds of conduct — namely, apostasy, blasphemy, adultery and consensual same-sex relations — when the penalty is applied in a discriminatory manner. The resolution passed anyway, by a sound majority of 27 to 12. What we did support was a failed amendment by Russia asserting that the death penalty was “not necessarily a human rights violation.” ‘Murrica.
What Is Even Happening in the EPA.* News broke this week (well, for some definitions of ‘broke’) that Pruitt does many things that hurt the credibility and functionality of the EPA, such as spending lots of time with industry executives and spending agency funds on questionable things such as frequent travel to his home state and a $25,000 phone booth (yes, really). But Trump managed to one-up himself with his pick for deputy director, who is a literal coal lobbyist. As in, “he was registered as a lobbyist two months ago.” What’s particularly noteworthy about this pick is that Bannon is no longer advising Trump and yet his nominations look identical to when he was — either Bannon actually does still have Trump’s ear, or Trump hates the EPA so much that he doesn’t need to have any kind of deconstructionist agenda to actively try to destroy it.

The Good:

NRA-Approved Gun Control Reform.* In the wake of the Vegas tragedy, Senator Feinstein introduced a bill this week that would ban bump stocks, which are a form of gun modification that allows a semi-automatic weapon to function as a rapid-fire automatic firearm. A similar bill is anticipated in the House this week as well. Though this is far from a complete guarantee of public safety, it has the rare distinction of being a restriction favored by the NRA — my cynical guess is that the association has its own reasons for not favoring weapon modifications, but at the moment I’m just grateful that the restriction is likely to go forward.
Outpouring for Puerto Rico. Though Puerto Rico is still in rough shape, and it’s unclear whether Congress will act further to help, the call is being answered by a lot of different entities. As Lin-Manuel Miranda notes, the Hispanic Federation is doing a lot of excellent work getting first responders on the ground in affected areas. The Royal Caribbean cruise line has been sending supplies and evacuating people. Florida has opened three disaster aid centers for displaced Puerto Ricans. Feeding Children Everywhere is sending 4.4 million meals in the next few weeks. The governor of Illinois has offered assistance from the Illinois Coast Guard. The USNS Comfort arrived on Tuesday, bringing thousands of beds and medical supplies. MoveOn.org has a national fundraising effort, and Pat Rothfuss’s nonprofit, Worldbuilders, teamed up with Mercy Corps to fundraise and coordinate relief as well. Though none of these things can take the place of more comprehensive federal government action, they all reflect the efforts and sentiment of a nation that stands with its fellow citizens. I continue to encourage folks to do what they can to help, either with one of the above efforts or through other means.

National News Roundup: Week 36 (September 24–30)

October 3, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

The news is a horrible, toxic trash fire this past week, and I don’t think I’m even capable of sugar coating that. Puerto Rico’s in a bad way, over 500 people were seriously injured (and 59 were killed) by one dude with way more automatic weapons than any one dude should ever have, and Trump still hasn’t been to the Caribbean but he somehow found time to go to the golf course. I recently posted an article about how to deal with weeks like this, and that’s about the best I got for you right now; I’m really sorry, folks. No judgment if your comfort food this week is an entire bag of Cheetos.

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 accountant! — 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 was mostly pretty quiet this week, but we did have a little bit of movement:

But Her Emails. The big story of idiocy this week was the news that at least six White House advisers used private servers for sending and receiving emails in their official White House capacity. Some of the advisers, such as Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus, are already gone — but several, such as Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Gary Cohn, and Steven Miller, are still present. Kushner in particular is estimated to have sent and received about a hundred emails between January and August, which is kind of horrifying when you consider that he went on several diplomatic trips in that time. The White House, as you can imagine, was just shocked to discover that — nope, sorry, that’s what would happen if we weren’t living in the darkest timeline. As it happens, the same administration that crucified Hillary Clinton over this hasn’t issued statements or censures of any kind to its own people — the best we’ve gotten on this so far is an internal probe being led by White House counsel’s office — and if you’re currently sitting here asking “But isn’t Don McGahn, current White House counsel, rumored to be about to quit over Jared Kushner?” Why yes, yes he is.

We also are still in a stalemate on the Threat to Free Speech front:

Trump Still Hates Sports. The bizarre battle between our President and the NFL continues for yet another week, with players still talking about protests mid-week and Trump asserting that team owners are afraid of their players. By the following Sunday, several teams had released statements and many players found ways to protest during or before the anthem for a second week in a row. Meanwhile, nobody has signed Colin Kaepernick and some of the players are getting death threats. And the Black Lives Matter message that Kaepernick was trying to send with his original protests is getting lost somewhere in the shuffle. But, on the plus side, there’s this heartwarming story about a kid who proudly wore a Kaepernick jersey and the NFL players who surprised him with an X-box.

Your “Normal” Weird:

Trump’s Surreal Tax Plan.* Trump released a more fleshed-out version of his tax plan this week, which Paul Ryan apparently thinks “[w]e really can get . . . done this year” — and if you’re expecting a tax version of ACA repeal-and-replace, sadly, you’re not far off the mark. Forbes put out a summary of the three biggest elements, all of which come with challenges: Consolidating down to three tax brackets (which raises taxes for the poorest Americans and lowers them for the richest); reducing corporate taxes; and getting the whole thing done under a reconciliation process — just like they were trying to do with ACA repeal. Also, though this wasn’t mentioned in the Forbes article, a provision buried in there to remove the estate tax could save the Trump family as much as $1 billion on taxes moving forward. But despite all the corporate tax revisions, the proposed plan is getting a lukewarm reception from Wall Street. And depending on how the plan is handled by Congress, all of its changes might end up being temporary anyway — the reconciliation process won’t allow a deficit increase of more than $1.5 trillion.
…and the Rotted Pork Likely to Be Snuck In. Remember how I mentioned that the GOP is hoping to do all this under the reconciliation process, which is the same process they used to try to pass ACA reform? Guess what else that means! (If you guessed “they’re going to try to do ACA repeal under the tax reform process,” you win! And by ‘win,’ I mean ‘congratulations, here’s several more months of healthcare-based night terrors!’) It looks like Graham’s obnoxious plan to kick the can down the road isn’t generally popular within the GOP, but that could change at any time — especially if the GOP push to remove the filibuster entirely gains traction instead.
The Price was Wrong. After much brouhaha about Tom Price’s use of charter flights on the government dime (which Rachel Maddow correctly notes would ordinarily result in a disgraced resignation), Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price did indeed resign last Friday. My researcher correctly called this ahead of time, noting that we haven’t had a Friday firing in a while, but I had trouble making Price’s resignation jive with my understanding of the Trump administration’s blatant laissez-faire attitude about self-enrichment at government expense. Then, when I was compiling my notes this past week, I remembered that DHHS had been criticized by the administration at the beginning of last week for a leaked draft of an “ideological” report concluding that refugees help economies more than they hurt them — and suddenly it all made sense again.

The Bad:

Nature-Made and Man-Exacerbated Puerto Rican Crisis. You may remember from last week that Hurricane Maria left Puerto Rico entirely without power, with the governor of Puerto Rico warning that the infrastructure damage may takes months to repair. This was exacerbated by President Trump’s actions, or rather, his lack thereof; he initially refused to waive the Jones Act, which would have made it easier to send aid on foreign-owned ships; he kept other officials from visiting; and he still hasn’t set foot on the island as I write this twelve days after the hurricane. (Trump did eventually waive the Jones Act provision last Thursday, eight full days after the hurricane hit the island.) The island is still in really bad shape and having a lot of difficulty getting food, water, and supplies to its residents. This left an increasingly frustrated and desperate mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulín Cruz, to eventually send what she called a public ‘mayday’ call, saying, “People are dying in this country. I am begging, begging anyone that can hear us, to save us from dying.” Trump responded to this plea for help by criticizing Cruz for her “poor leadership,” calling her a “politically motivated ingrate” who was “nasty to Trump.” In the meantime, the Royal Caribbean cruise line and Lin-Manuel Miranda are picking up his slack. Which is definitely the most 2017 sentence I’m going to write this week. (Note: If you want to be a better human than our 45th President on this issue, several sources recommend donating to The Hispanic Federation’s efforts.)
Immigration Inconsolate. The administration took a number of follow-up swings at immigrants this week, in addition to the horrifying treatment of U.S. citizens in PR detailed above. First news broke that the administration wants to set this year’s refugee cap at 45,000 people total, which is 65,000 lower than President Obama set the cap before leaving office in 2016, and literally the lowest cap ever set since we started the practice in 1980. Then for an encore, the administration finalized plans to collect social media info of permanent and naturalized immigrants, which both infringes on the rights of U.S. citizens and also is just a disgusting and nebulous invasion of privacy, since it will mainly be used on people who already lawfully reside in the United States. And after that, the administration wrapped up a four-day retaliatory ICE raid on places they deemed sanctuary jurisdictions called “Project Safe City,” which resulted in 500 arrests from ten locations. (My state of Massachusetts, perversely, was targeted because of a recent Mass Supreme Judicial Court decision.) A little under half of those arrested had no criminal history at all, despite the name of the operation.
Moore is Less (but More in AL). Roy Moore carried Alabama in the primary for special election this week, defeating GOP favorite Luther Strange. Though some Democrats were cautiously happy about this, the victory has troubling implications for both parties if Moore can’t be defeated in the actual election, as he’s an extremely far-right candidate favored by Steve Bannon. That said, Moore faces an unusually strong Democratic opponent, so the seat is far from guaranteed. (The special election is December 12, so there will be a lot of time for things to progress from here.)
The CHIPs Are Down. The LA Times reported on Sunday that Congress had failed to renew the Children’s Health Insurance Program — a program that provides coverage for nearly nine million children annually — before breaking for the weekend. It will be another week or more the error can be rectified. The worst part? It apparently wasn’t even on purpose, because the Senate Finance Committee had already had a deal on the table for five years of funding. The Senate was just distracted by the Graham-Cassidy circus and failed to enact CHIP funding in the three full days they had after they decided not to vote on Graham-Cassidy. I can’t even with this Congress, y’all.
Mass Shooting in Las Vegas. A country music concert on the Strip in Las Vegas turned deeply horrific yesterday, when a gunman with 23 firearms in his thirty-second-story hotel room indiscriminately rapid-fired at thousands of people. Over five hundred people were injured, and fifty-nine people were killed. The shooter was identified posthumously as Steven Paddock, a 66-year-old white man from Mesquite, Nevada. He had no criminal record and no documented mental health issues. He also had no documented ties to any terrorist organizations (ISIS initially claimed credit for his attack, but ISIS would claim credit for Hurricane Maria if they knew who to call about it, so they’re not exactly credible). The attack left the nation reeling and re-opened conversations about gun control just as Congress was due to consider a bill rolling back silencer provisions, which likely will be tabled in the wake of the tragedy. Trump has said he plans to visit Las Vegas on Wednesday.

The Good:

Graham-Cassidy Bill is Dead in the Water. Mitch McConnell announced on Tuesday that the Senate would not vote on Graham-Cassidy this past week, which means they aren’t voting on this bill at all (because reconciliation requires a vote by Saturday). This is unfortunately not the same as definitely not repealing Obamacare, as was noted above, but at least now we officially know Graham-Cassidy has gone the same route as the July bills. In the aftermath, Lindsey Graham had some interesting things to say about healthcare, Trump lied about a mystery senator in the hospital, and both Trump and Ryan went back to yelling about the filibuster rule. So it was a big of a mixed bag, but at least we can sleep a bit easier for now.
Dems Flip Seats. The Hill reported this past week that Democrats flipped seats in two state special elections this week, in Florida and New Hampshire. This is in addition to two seats flipped earlier in the month in New Hampshire and Oklahoma, for a total of eight flipped seats in state elections since May. It’s slow progress, but concrete progress nonetheless.

Just like last week, the news required multiple drafts this week — the news cycle is still pedals-to-the-metal at the moment. Daily news summaries like WTFJHT remain a very good idea for the foreseeable future. Here’s hoping that next week brings better tidings!