By Dana Milbank @ The Washington Post, March 13
[....] “It’s incredible,” Tom Fitton, the head of Judicial Watch, told me after Monday’s hearing. “They’re taking the same position as the Obama administration on Clinton.” [....]
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By Dana Milbank @ The Washington Post, March 13
[....] “It’s incredible,” Tom Fitton, the head of Judicial Watch, told me after Monday’s hearing. “They’re taking the same position as the Obama administration on Clinton.” [....]
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) also stopped and spoke to reporters at length Monday night, calling the GOP bill "disgusting and immoral" and saying it "must be defeated." "To think that in the year 2017, Republicans want to throw 24 million people off their health insurance, raise premiums for older people and at the same time provide $285 billion in tax breaks for the top two percent," he said gravely. "This bill should not see the light of day. If it passes, and people lose their health insurance, thousands of Americans will die."
The release of the CBO report on the House health care bill is overshadowing this news:
By Robert Pear @ New York Times, March 13
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Monday confirmed Seema Verma, a health policy expert from Indiana, to lead efforts by the Trump administration to transform Medicaid, expand Medicare and upend the Affordable Care Act.
By a vote of 55 to 43, the Senate approved the nomination of Ms. Verma to be administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which spends more than $1 trillion a year on programs providing health care to more than one-third of all Americans.
Unlike most people who have held the job, Ms. Verma has extensive experience in Medicaid, a program that was expanded by former President Barack Obama’s health care law and now provides coverage to more than 70 million low-income people.
Ms. Verma was an architect of Indiana’s Medicaid program, widely seen as a model by conservatives, and worked closely with Vice President Mike Pence when he was the state’s governor. Indiana expanded Medicaid eligibility, but emphasized “personal responsibility.” That means that beneficiaries pay premiums, contribute to health savings accounts and receive incentives for healthy behavior [....]
By Landon Thomas, Jr. @ Dealbook @ New York Times, March 12
[....] “And now we have seen this huge spike in small-business confidence since the election,” Mr. Korzenik said, pointing to a chart. “So I have to ask you: Do you feel more confident now?”
There was a moment of silence, broken only by a howling northwestern Ohio wind that rattled the floor-to-ceiling windows in the bank’s boardroom.
Then, with rapid-fire speed, came the responses.
The president of a trucking company spoke of a “tremendous dark cloud” lifting when he realized he would no longer be feeling the burden of rules and regulations imposed by the Obama administration.
The owner of an automotive parts assembler gave thanks that he would not be receiving visits from pesky environmental and workplace overseers.
And the head of a seating manufacturer expressed hope that, finally, his health care costs would come down when the Affordable Care Act was repealed.
“My gut just feels better,” said Bob Fleisher, president of a local car dealership. “With Obama, you felt it was personal — like he just didn’t want you to make money. Now we have a guy who is cutting regulations and taxes. And when I see my taxes going down every quarter — well, that means I am going to start investing again.” [....]
The buck doesn't even slow down on Trump's desk: Trump has accused Obama of lying about his birthplace, secretly aiding ISIS, secretly being a Muslim, and wiretapping Trump’s phone. On Friday, the president added another charge to his indictment: Obama deliberately designed the Affordable Care Act to fall apart — and cause massive suffering — as soon as he left office. 2017 “would be a disaster for Obamacare,” Trump said “That’s the year it was meant to explode, because Obama won’t be here. That’s when it was supposed to be, get even worse. As bad as it is now, it’ll get even worse.”
HISTORY MAKING: It must be Saturday — President Trump — who regularly lambasted his predecessor for spending too much time playing the sport — is golfing for the ninth time since taking office seven weeks ago. On the campaign trail he promised he wouldn’t golf if he was elected President because he’d be too busy.
By Maggie Haberman @ The New York Times, 45 minutes ago
- Preet Bharara, the Manhattan federal prosecutor who was told to submit his resignation along with 45 others on Friday, has no plans to do so.
- His decision forces a potential showdown with President Trump and the Justice Department.
Alt. title: After Warily Circling, Trump and Angela Merkel Prepare to Meet
By Mark Lander @ The New York Times, March 10
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has been adroit in handling Vladimir Putin of Russia, but Mr. Trump “is a different kind of testosterone-driven guy,” a German newspaper publisher said.
I can't wait! We're counting on you for some upside-the-head reality, Angela!
Two of the biggest tax cuts in Republican proposals to repeal the Affordable Care Act would deliver roughly $157 billion over the coming decade to those with incomes of $1 million or more, according to a congressional analysis... People making $200,000 to $999,999 a year would also get sizable tax cuts. In total, the two provisions would cut taxes by about $274 billion..
It's not that complicated; there is one party that honors the principle of one person one vote (at least more often than not), and there is another party that does anything it can get away with to attack that principle.
Trump is fanatically demanding and leading with fanaticism to defend the blood purity and unprecedented impenetrable security of the Homeland, and the TSA Gestapo is manaically executing his pitiless decrees.
By Douglas Perry @ The Oregonian/Oregon Live, March 10
[....] China's trademark office this week provided preliminary approval to 38 "Donald J. Trump" trademarks, ranging from golf clubs and massage parlors to concierge services and retail shops. Dan Plane, a Hong Kong-based intellectual-property consultant, told The Associated Press he had "never seen so many applications approved so expeditiously" in China.
"For all these marks to sail through so quickly and cleanly, with no similar marks, no identical marks, no issues with specifications -- boy, it's weird," Plane said.
"[B]y pursuing new trademarks," NPR reported, "the Trump Organization, which the president continues to own, may be laying the groundwork for expansions in China."
The trademark approvals bring back into the spotlight the U.S. Constitution's emoluments clause [....]
By Elise Hu, @ NPR/All Things Considered, March 10
Two people died in demonstrations and frenzy following a historic ruling in South Korea to remove its first female president. The nation's acting president is calling for unity and calm as the impeached former President Park Geun-hye packs her bags.
"Conflicts during demonstrations is not right," said acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn.
Hwang spoke following clashes with police that broke out outside the nation's highest court after a panel of judges voted unanimously to uphold a legislative impeachment of Park.
"Our judges hope our sentence ... brings ideological divides and confusion in the state to an end," Chief Justice Lee Jung-mi said before reading out the decision.
Outside South Korea's Constitutional Court on Friday morning, thousands of South Koreans crammed onto the street to await the ruling. In an outdoor concertlike atmosphere, the chief justice was beamed onto giant screens as she read the announcement.
"The respondent, President Park Geun-hye, is expelled," Chief Justice Lee Jung-mi said.
The decision led crowds to break out in elation (among anti-Park camps) and emotion (among Park supporters).
Some 70 percent of South Koreans in a pre-ruling poll got what they'd wished for — Park's ouster [.....]
@ Washington Post, March 8
A wildflower superbloom is underway in the desert Southwest in March after seven inches of winter rain. Anza-Borrego State Park in California hasn’t experienced a bloom so prolific since at least 1999 according to park officials [....] It’s “a very rare event,” one hiker noted on the Anza-Borrego Desert Natural History Association website [....]
with video and photos
Sorry, all I have is the link so I'll try to add later after work, or feel drop in stuff, but this is big--AP is reporting that, before Flynn was hired as NSA the Trump transition time was advised that Flynn had failed to his foreign agent status on behalf of Turkey. This looks like the next bomb going into the weekend--or not.
“One of the reasons for Brexit, for Trump’s victory, for the rise of ultra-nationalist rightwing candidates all over Europe, is the fact that the global economy has been very good for large multinational corporations, has in many ways been a positive thing for well-educated people, but there are millions of people in this country and all over the world who have been left behind.”
Alt. title: The political lexicon of a billionaire populist
By Marc Fisher @ The Washington Post, March 6
The language of the Trump administration rubs many politicians of both parties the wrong way. It’s designed to break through partisan paralysis, pull the country into an America-first nationalism and persuade Trump supporters that the new president meant it when he announced at his inauguration that “the hour of action” has commenced.
As the story goes, Hillary wasn't willing to spend a lousy $5 mill on analytics, Trump was, and so he won.
(Kinda like the Orban cannon that brought down the Byzantine Empire? perhaps an overstretch comparison)
Anyway, the author provides several links to debunk this story & Cambridge Analytica's effectiveness. Of course folks on the winning side can say pretty much anything, but that don't make it true.
Here, there and everywhere.
More important, what do folks suggest Hillary should have done? Kriegel, her analytics head, focused on *testing* effectiveness of different channels, not just going with gut feelings. You can say her tests were wrong, or perhaps more intuition was needed, but what's the rational approach rather than "guess your ass off"?
Nate Silver has done a nice 8-part series of campaign retrospective, which points out in a number of places that "conventional wisdom" wasn't wisdom at all and not borne out by the facts, where in a couple places it was. But if anything the campaign taught us, we're quite susceptible to nonsense and seldom know what we really know.
Yes, it's time to consider how much Wikileaks is working in tandem with whom.
Matthew Yglesias: In the months since Election Day, it has become increasingly apparent that a reasonably large number of Republican Party legislators either didn’t understand that the campaign against Obamacare was based on lies or else had never really considered the implications of that reality.
Either way, the problem with passing a law that is going to make people’s health coverage worse while promising that it will get better is pretty obvious: People will notice when they lose insurance or when their deductible skyrockets.
Analysis by Philip Bump @ Washington Post, March 8
Among the many questionable claims that have come from the White House over the past month and a half, one of the most questionable came from an unexpected source: Chief of Staff Reince Priebus. Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month, Priebus asserted that the policies President Trump had outlined to that point met with the approval of 80 percent of the American public. We considered that claim and determined it to be true — if you considered only Republicans to be Americans.
An expansive new poll from Quinnipiac University allows us to look at the question more closely [....]
Yes, just 8 years agi weas tried to work with them and between obstruction and sowing chaos, they accused Obama of destroying the Constitution. Well, we've learned some lessons, it appears. Pull my finger and kick the football just aren't appealing. And Obama has set some things in motion that are difficult to unravel. Guess they thought Kenya boy would go for easy self-immolation. Revenge, in this case, is a dish best served slow and easy, the best way to make someone in too much of a self-assured hurry to eat shit.
By Ted Barrett @ CNN, March 7 (with video)
In a sign of the growing concern about acts of hate against Jewish facilities across the country, all 100 senators sent a letter Tuesday urging "swift action" by federal law enforcement agencies to address the issue.
"We write to underscore the need for swift action with regard to the deeply troubling series of anonymous bomb threats made against Jewish Community Centers (JCCs), Jewish Day Schools, synagogues and other buildings affiliated with Jewish organizations or institutions across the country," said the letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and FBI Director James Comey.The missive cited figures from the Jewish Federations of North America that there have been 98 incidents against JCCs and Jewish Day Schools at 81 locations in 33 states just in the first two months of 2017 [....]