Tag: Healthcare

National News Roundup: Week 21 (June 11–17)

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

This week, the vast majority of news that flew by was Russia-related. I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing — I guess at minimum, it’s good that people are paying attention. The non-Russia-related news was mostly pretty rough, as a warning, though it’s important for us to know it anyway.

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 also contains multiple headlines outside my area as a legal generalist — still a lawyer, not a spy! — but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Constitutional Crisis Corners:

Surprisingly, movement on both relevant crises this week was net-positive for the second week in a row. Let’s hear it for our system limping along under an auspice of democracy!

Still standing despite a repeated pummeling, at least for now: The Russia Collusion Investigation, which is probably going to be a recurring theme for the foreseeable future.

  • Russian Hacker Highlights.* The latest news on the actual election hacking from 2016 is that there’s evidence that Russian hackers breached voting systems in 39 different states before the November election. Most notably, evidence was found that in at least one state hackers tried to change or delete voter data. About 90,000 records were compromised. To make heads or tails of what we know, I recommend this helpful timeline.
  • From Senate, No Love.* In a turn of events that honestly surprises the socks off of me, the Senate had some concrete things to say about Russia and sanctions this week. Most notably, the Senate bilaterally agreed to issue sanctions against Russia for their interference with the 2016 election, and to limit President Trump’s ability to unilaterally lift said sanctions. The bill was originally intended to focus only on sanctions on Iran, but bipartisan support for the Russia-related provisions dramatically increased after more news broke about the sheer breadth of Russian interference in American politics. (Ironically, the only people in the entire Senate to vote against this measure were Bernie Sanders, Mike Lee, and Rand Paul.) The bill would still need to pass in the House and be signed by Trump, and I think we can expect a veto on this one; more news as it develops.
  • Sessions Testimony Session. Well, the Sessions testimony… happened… but to be honest, the inconclusive nature of his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee only raises more questions. Though he was pretty consistent that he never discussed the election with any Russian representatives, and claims there was no third meeting, some of Sessions’s comments can be read to suggest he wouldn’t recuse himself from an investigation into obstruction of justice. This is a much narrower understanding of his recusal than had previously been believed, and is bad news bears for any ongoing investigations about Trump’s behavior post-election. (You can catch full real-time coverage through the Washington Post and the Hill, by the way, Politico also put out a transcript for the truly dedicated. That said, though, I warn you that the third one is mostly just pages and pages of Sessions making up executive privileges, refusing to answer questions, and smirking as Burr interrupts Kamela Harris.)
  • Obstruction of Justice Inception. Unsurprisingly, a rumor was circulating this week that Trump might try to get Mueller fired because Mueller was starting an investigation into obstruction of justice — nothing goes with illegal obstruction quite like a side order of illegal obstruction, that’s what I always say. (Yo dawg, I heard you like obstruction of justice.) Since Mueller leads an independent investigation, Trump doesn’t have the power to do this — that’s pretty much exactly what ‘independent investigation’ means in practical terms — but it’s certainly believable that he might try to harass Rosenstein into it. Several members of Congress appeared to take the rumor seriously, or at least were quick to publicly note that they were pretty unimpressed by this idea. The White House ended up denying the rumor, and who only knows if they were seriously considering it or not.
  • Trump’s Attorney Now Has an Attorney. President Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, hired an attorney of his own this week to help him navigate the Russia investigation. Nothing says “nothing to see here” like an attorney hiring his own attorney because he represented someone! (For those of you reading this who are not aware, generally attorneys can expect that their work product in the course of representing someone will not be subpoenaed and they cannot be compelled to testify — this is commonly known as ‘attorney-client privilege.’ So if he’s hiring his own attorney, that…suggests there’s some reason why he might be personally liable, not professionally liable as Trump’s attorney. So that’s fun.)

In addition to all your by-now-ordinary Russia weirdness, we also saw some breaking excellent news on The Emolument Clause! More specifically…

  • Emoluments Suits Multiply. Continuing the momentum from last week, nearly 200 Congressional Democrats are now suing the President for violation of the Emoluments Clause as well, becoming the largest group of representatives ever to sue a sitting President. The group is arguing that they are uniquely suited to resolve the standing issue that makes these cases hard to prosecute, because a President is constitutionally required to obtain the consent of Congress before accepting gifts. (This is the third suit of its type since Trump took office, and though there may be standing issues both the Virginia/DC case and the CREW case are still ongoing.) The suit was filed shortly after the Justice Department officially took the position that the President is allowed to accept money from foreign governments. Needless to say, it will be interesting to see what the courts do with this.

Your “Normal” Weird:

The Bad:

  • Gun Violence in Multiple States. This week we saw multiple heartbreaking instances of gun violence on the same day. The most publicized incident was the politically-motivated shooting of a Republican representative at a Congressional softball practice, which thankfully had only one fatality (the gunman, during a shootout with police). The incident did injure multiple people, including Representative Steve Scalise and police officers Crystal Grines and David Bailey. There was also a fatal shooting at a UPS building in San Francisco, resulting in the deaths of four UPS staff members including the shooter. Unlike the Alexandra shooting, police are still trying to determine the motivations in that incident, which does not appear to be politically-motivated. Lastly, there was also a shooting in Brooklyn on the same day, resulting in one injury.
  • Unprecedented AHCA Process. The National News Roundup haven’t covered this story much lately, simply because after all this time, there’s just not much info — but that’s because Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is exploiting a provision called Rule 14 to refuse to release the text of the Senate’s version of the AHCA before the vote. Even Secretary of Health and Human Services (and resident bridge troll) Tom Price hasn’t seen the Senate bill. This is deeply concerning, both because there’s not a lot to suggest the AHCA has changed much and because it goes against the heart of our democratic principles to try to pass such major legislation in utter secrecy. It is imperative that we stay on top of this and also call our representatives — all of us; even those of us with Senators in liberal areas! It’s still looking likely that they’ll release some information to the Congressional Budget Office in the next week, so we might know more (and see a vote!) soon.
  • Sessions v. Medical Marijuana. Sessions personally made sure he asked Congress to let him prosecute medical marijuana cases this week (because apparently sick people aren’t getting steamrolled fast enough for him under the AHCA). At the moment, there is federal law essentially prohibiting this prosecution, though apparently he isn’t going to let pesky things like “existing laws” or “human decency” get in his way. Just as a quick reminder, there is ample evidence that medical marijuana does not lead to increased recreational consumption and can have significant health benefits for people with very serious illness. (Also, on a personal note, this topic is hard for me to write about neutrally because a cannabis-based prescribed drug helped my father-in-law hold down food in the last stages of his cancer treatment.) At any rate, this is a terrible idea that’s probably not truly motivated by public safety, and you can read the whole horrible memo here, though I’m not sure it will improve your day at all.
  • Black Lives Still Matter. This was a rough week in terms of violence against black people, between police shooting a 30-year-old pregnant woman in Seattle named Charleena Lyles instead of deescalating the situation and a jury acquitting Minnesota police officer Jeronimo Yanez of all charges in the shooting of Philando Castile. (The Philando Castile case is particularly upsetting to many people because it happened during a routine stop for a broken taillight, because there’s no concrete evidence that he failed to comply with instructions during the stop, and because his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, had live-streamed and narrated the entire incident.) Needless to say, our country still has a lot of work to do to create more responsible police interaction with people of color.
  • London Woes. This was also an extremely rough week for England, which has been having a hard time of things for a few weeks now. First there was a fire in a high rise in London, burning a 24-story building to ash and killing at least 58 people. Then there was an attack outside a mosque, also in London, in which a driver tried to run down people exiting the building; the attack is believed to be an act of retaliation for the London bridge attacks. The vehicular attack killed at least one person and injured ten others.

The Good:

And that’s all for now, but the news comes in pretty fast. Stay tuned for more updates and anecdotes next week! (No guarantees about more dog videos.)

National News Roundup: Week 9 (March 19–25)

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

What an incredibly weird week we just had — I’m not even sure what happened for half of it, though that might be because foreign policy is not generally my bag, professionally speaking. That said, I can glean enough to know that this past week was less of a Willy Wonka terrorboat and more of a Six Flags wild mouse, which some weeks is the best we can expect.

Standing reminders apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I generally only summarize news in my area of expertise. As noted above, though, this week involves a fair amount of foreign policy news, which is outside my expertise as a legal generalist. But it is also important, so I hope folks are up for some offroad adventures! (They are signaled with asterisks, and I won’t be offended if you skip over them.) Also, I can’t claim to make this week’s news make sense even when it was within my area of expertise, though I’m happy to reap the benefits. Okay, onward to the news.

The Weird:

  • James Comey and the Hearing of No Secrets.* So James Comey went firmly on the record about all kinds of bonkers things at his hearing this week, noting that the FBI is investigating both Russian interference in the election and also the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia in the election process (!). (He also said that there was no evidence of Obama tapping Trump Tower, but that feels like an afterthought in light of everything else going on.) The whole thing is admittedly a less interesting read than anything involving a basilisk, but consider reading his two sections of the hearing transcript anyway, because it kind of needs to be seen to be believed.
  • …wasn’t the weirdest intelligence news this week.* That honor belongs to Devin Nunes, who decided to go on record and claim Trump’s story about wiretapping was substantiated with zero evidence. He also bypassed the intelligence committee to go straight to Trump with the news, which he then defended with a half-hearted apology. Then McCain got in on the action to opine that Congress can no longer be trusted to have appropriate intelligence oversight, which was a fun thing to hear the same week Comey announced an investigation into collusion with Russia. Also, later Nunes went back on the story due to lack of evidence.
  • Collusion Betting Brackets.* No lie, I’ve started to see folks put together brackets betting on who is going to end up in prison for high crimes first — probably because there is just so much news on it this week. There’s the week’s latest Flynn bombshell, which involves more-or-less kidnapping enemies of the Turkish state for “covert extredition,” Stone’s knowledge of wikileaks in advance, and Manafort working to aid Putin, then volunteering to share what he knows (presumably in a bid to avoid imprisonment). Also, the leading Democrat on the intelligence committed indicated that he has information on Trump’s direct collusion with Russia, though there are no specifics on that though. Oh, and Flynn didn’t sign Trump’s ridiculous ethics pledge, which barely seems worth mentioning against this kind of larger backdrop.
  • Angela Merkel’s Infinite Patience.* This week’s ridiculousness involved Trump giving her an invoice for Germany’s use of NATO resources, despite the fact that a) Trump famously hates NATO for fun and profit, and b) as Merkel correctly notes, NATO doesn’t work that way. This also happened the same week that Tillerson snubbed NATO for China. Frankly, the only thing surprising about any of this is that Trump could remember what NATO was doing twelve years ago.
  • The Wacky World of the AHChoo Vote. This past week in healthcare was honestly pretty scary while it was happening, but now that it’s over it’s just a big ole bowl of schadenfreude flakes. Basically, both the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus and more moderate Republicans refused to play ball, which continued throughout the week despite increasingly disturbing attempts to make the AHCA more to the Freedom Caucus’s liking (and Presidential threats regarding consequences). This was in part because constituents made their strong dislike of the bill known, which moderate House members realistically assessed as far more of a threat to their 2018 election prospects. The vote, which was originally scheduled for the seven-year anniversary of the ACA for spite reasons, got pushed back to Friday. Then Ryan pulled the vote on Friday because he didn’t have enough support for the bill to pass (and because Trump essentially made him), saying that “we’re going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future.” And I’m just so broken up about that as a healthcare professional, let me tell you.
  • Gorsuch A Circus. The twenty-hour Gorsuch hearing took a far weirder set of twists and turns than expected, though predicted results are far more…well, predictable. Highlights include the Supreme Court of the United States issuing a decision on 10th circuit precedent during the hearing, Schumer unexpectedly pushing to filibuster, and Gorsuch calling 19th-century lawmakers ‘racists’. Mostly, though, this hearing was a three-day slog where Democrats tried to get an angle on Gorsuch and he didn’t give them one, and also people were generally still mad about Merrick Garland. That said, though, Schumer did ask to delay the vote in light of all of the bonkers collusion news going on elsewhere on the Hill.
  • “I’m President and You’re Not.” I bet you already know that this is a direct quote rather than parody, because by now we’re all used to the Toddler-in-Chief’s outrageous interviews. But, uh, this sure is a thing he said nonironically to TIME magazine this week.

The Bad:

  • Adjusting the Privacy Settings.* The Senate voted this week on repealing an Obama-era Internet privacy rule that went through along party lines — the resolution will pass privacy reins over from the FCC to the FTC and prohibit the FTC from creating the kind of stricter standards for Internet privacy that the FCC had created. The provision still needs to go through the House, though, so we’ll see what happens to it.
  • Brown Bear, What Do You See?* (I see a mean bill coming for me.) Okay, okay, theatrics aside, the Senate also voted this week to permit more aggressive hunting of predators such as bears and wolves in Alaska, permitting them to be hunted aerially and in proximity to their cubs. Unlike the first bill, this one has already passed in the House, which means it will be finalized if/when Trump signs it into law (which he’s expected to do sometime next week).
  • Electronics Travel Ban. Though the travel ban was slapped down last week, immigration experts can tell you that the unpleasantness is far from over. Trump put another travel restriction in place this week, this time specifically on what electronics can be brought aboard flights to and from eight Muslim-majority countries. The ban, however, only applies to foreign airlines, rather than U.S.-owned companies, which is prompting some media sources to speculate it’s not about terror at all.
  • Sanctuary Slamdown. The Department of Homeland Security put out their first report on sanctuary jurisdictions this week, which was a fascinating and informative read on multiple levels. It was issued around the same time that news outlets began reporting that ICE is targeting sanctuary jurisdictions, presumably as part of a two-pronged “embarrass and/or harass into compliance” campaign. (Note: Though Boston is listed in the third section of the report, there are still no reports coming in of ICE raids in this area.)
  • Supremacy Stabbing in NYC. A middle-aged man in New York City, Timothy Caughman, was fatally stabbed this week simply because he was black (and in the wrong place at the wrong time). We know this because the person who stabbed him turned himself into police and told them so. It’s honestly a pretty heartbreaking story, as well as a bellwether of the emboldened hatred this administration has fostered.
  • Your Weekly Authoritarian Recap. Amy Siskind continues to tell you what’s happening in Trump’s America, and this week was a particularly chaotic slog.

The Good:

  • North Carolina Checks Itself (Hopefully Pre-Wreckage). Remember how the governor of North Carolina refused to give up power, and then eventually dramatically stripped gubernatorial power for his successor on his way out the door? In what is apparently becoming the new normal process, the North Carolina high courts called foul on that this week. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next, as a practical matter — particularly because North Carolina has proven such an interesting testing ground in other ways.
  • Special Education win. Though it made the most headlines for its connection to Gorsuch, the case SCOTUS decided this week was fairly big news in its own right! The short version is that it confirms that all schools must provide a meaningful attempt to education children who need special education based on the individual children’s circumstances. This decision is likely to be particularly meaningful for children in public school as we see further changes to the entire system in the upcoming year, so I’m pretty excited about it.
  • They Started Using Singular They: The AP Stylebook is including use of the singular ‘they’ pronoun in its guide moving forward, which is an interesting change from a literary perspective.
  • Big Trucks and Healing Potions. Oh, and speaking of interesting literary devices, Trump also took a break from his busy ACA-killing schedule this week to take photos behind the wheel of a giant truck. Predictably, a new meme was born, and the Internet’s response was pure gold. Between that and the #GOPDnD trend on Twitter, it’s been a good week for memes. And I encourage you to lose yourself in them, because they are hilarious and you’re now done with this week’s news!

National News Roundup: Week 7 (March 5–11)

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

Travel ban, ACHA, and Russia, oh my! Buckle in, y’all, because we had another bad news week right on schedule, and this one’s pretty much a Gish Gallop of awful. Standard disclaimers still 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. I may touch on news I think folks should know that is outside my area as a legal generalist, but if we undertake any offroad adventures I’ll do my best to signal that for you upfront by giving that headline an asterisk. Okay, disclaimers over, and I’m sorry for what I’m about to do to your inbox.

The Weird

  • Sounds Nice where Pruitt Lives.* Perhaps this one goes in the ‘bad’ column, but I’m still having trouble wrapping my brain around the fact that it happened, so we’ll say it’s weird news instead — the head of the EPA went on the record as saying that “measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do” and as a result, he “would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.” He also said some strange things about carbon dioxide emissions, while he was at it. I have zero background in science, but even I can tell that Pruitt is clearly not inhabiting the same reality the rest of us. It sounds nice where he is, though.
  • SCOTUS Punts on Opining re: Trans Inclusion in Schools. Okay, admittedly this isn’t actually that weird, but SCOTUS sent a case about whether a seventeen-year-old could use a boy’s bathroom in his school back down to the circuit courts again. The case posture had been influenced by the guidance just withdrawn by Sessions, so it’s not surprising that it went back down. Hopefully we’ll hear more soon.
  • Don’t Buy Any Conestoga Wagons from Ben Carson. Ben Carson made the news in his first week, which surprisingly was not due to running HUD into the ground. Instead, folks focused on statements he made comparing slave transport by cargo ship to opportunistic immigration. Then he doubled down, so that was fun. And that’s about it for the weird news, because it’s really just terrible turtles all the way down.

The Bad

  • AHCA (and other signs of illness). Well, the GOP revealed their new healthcare plan this week, and it’s no wonder that they kept it under lock and key — it’s a half-baked hodgepodge of terrible. The bill has caused significant strife within the Republican party, which is about the best thing I can say for it; some (like Senator Murkowski, for example) are concerned that the medicaid changes will leave their constituents high and dry, while others (like Senator Rand) are angry that the bill doesn’t go far enough. That said, it still passed through the Ways and Means committee in the middle of the night, so it’s sitting with the Budget committee now. Early analyses seem to agree that the bill will cause huge gaps in coverage and tank risk pools (which this surprisingly good infographic does a good job of explaining concretely); it also inexplicably contains several tax cuts that only impact wealthy Americans. You can read the text here, but it’s a long and miserable slog, so if you like yourself and don’t work in healthcare I’m not sure I would recommend it. This short-form summary hits most of the highlights, and this excellent lengthy summary goes provision-by-provision (and if you’re feeling snarky, this op-ed is a good, if slanted, summary as well). For now, be aware that most of the proposed changes (with the exception of the final tax credits provision and a few others) were in the plan outlined by Ryan a week or two ago.
  • Anti-Missile Mayhem*. We deployed an anti-missile program in South Korea this week, which landed us in some hot water with China. But this administration seems preternaturally good at wriggling out of incidents with China, so hopefully that will happen again?
  • Budget Cuts Ahoy. The growing list of things this administration is threatening to cut billions of funding from now includes both HUD and the National Guard, because apparently we don’t need either of those things as much as we need an expensive Great Wall of Mexico. Both of those articles make me want to throw plates at my walls, by the way, so read at your own risk — but neither plan has been finalized yet, so there’s still time to try to get them changed (which I suppose is a silver lining of sorts).
  • The Russian Plots Thicken. Honestly, if this were a movie I would say we have too many plotlines going at once — the plots haven’t so much thickened as cemented in the pan because they were left on the stove way, way too long. This week we learned that Trump met directly with Kislyak on the campaign trail, though he suffered the same amnesia afterward as the rest of his team (and can I just say, Kislyak must be the most forgettable ambassador on the planet). Apparently they discussed working together on addressing Syria, which definitely isn’t disturbing at all. Also, Trump and friends continue to claim he was being wiretapped by Obama (and we’re all already tired of the phrase “deep state”), which Comey officially asked the Justice Department to reject. Leading up the rear, the FBI is still investigating Trump’s ties to Russia, which apparently has reached a “new stage of investigation” (whatever that means). Oh, and Flynn apparently came out this week as a Turkish foreign agent. No, really. Kind of recontextualizes those “Lock Her Up!” chants he led, doesn’t it?
  • Sessions Cleans House. Sessions abruptly ordered all remaining U.S. Attorneys who were hired under the Obama administration to resign on Friday. I’m sure this definitely has nothing to do with last week’s recusal or numerous calls for his own resignation because he perjured himself in his confirmation hearing.
  • Travel Ban Redux. Trump signed a new executive order this week intended to put the travel ban back in place. The new version is basically a Diet Coke version of the original executive order — mostly the same provisions, with some of the most consequence-laden elements removed — and there are already several suits being brought about it.
  • Privatized Prison Party is Still the Worst Party. The FCC reversed course on a fifteen-year effort to cap the costs of phone calls in federal prisons, making it harder for people to afford conversations with family members being held. The Nexus-run company ‘Libre’ was also in the news, because its privatized GPS system is alleged to be causing confusion at best and outright fraud at worst among immigration detainees.
  • Autocratic State of the Nation. Amy Siskind’s weekly authoritarianism watch review is a miserable, scary slog this week, but you should read it anyway.

The Good

  • SCOTUS and Racial Bias. The Supreme Court may have punted on the issue of trans inclusion, but they did issue an opinion on whether racial bias can taint jury deliberations (spoiler: it can). The vote was 5–3, which means it created precedent despite the even number of justices, and can be cited in later cases. It’s an interesting case and a surprising decision, and after this week I’ll definitely take it.
  • Correspondence with Guest Costars. A political correspondent in South Korea made news this week because of his adorable surprise guests. It’s a pretty great video, and you should go watch it — now that we’ve reached the end of the news we can all probably use a nice unicorn chaser.