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So How Are Millennial Men Doing?

by Allison05T Posted on April 3, 2017

Mother Jones

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James Pethokoukis has a pair of posts up today that reignite a longstanding question: What’s the right way to measure inflation? And what does that mean about earnings and income mobility over time?

These are both complicated questions, but we can start with a very simple chart. If we want to compare, say, 30-year-old men to their fathers, and their fathers to their fathers, we can do it pretty easily. The Census Bureau collects data on median cash earnings (i.e., not counting health care, employment perks, or government benefits) and then all we have to do is adjust for inflation. But which measure of inflation?

The CPI story is grim: In the previous generation, young men earned about 8 percent more than their fathers. That’s not great, but it’s better than nothing. However, in this generation, millennial men earn 10 percent less than their fathers.

The PCE story is different. In the previous generation, young men earned 22 percent more than their fathers. That’s pretty good. In the current generation, millennial men earn about the same amount as their fathers. Stagnation like that is bad news, but at least millennials aren’t literally losing ground.

So which should we believe? There are arguments for both, and it’s a political hot potato too since inflation measures show up in all sorts of benefit calculations. It would be nice if the economic community could thrash out agreement on an overall best measure, and then make it available as a standard series going back 70 years, but if it turns out that the new measure leads to (for example) lower cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security benefits, you can expect a massive pushback. Republicans have shown a particularly aggressive form of this kind of political hackery in the past, approving of new inflation measures that would decrease benefits, but opposing the same measures if they meant that people might pay higher taxes.

All that conceded, we really should be able to agree on a good, general-purpose inflation measure. We can still have lots of different measures for specialized purposes, but the headline inflation rate should be something that, say, 90 percent of economists can agree about. (There will always be a few outliers.)

In a way, though, this doesn’t matter too much for the question of how millennial men are doing. On one measure, their market earnings have dropped from 124 percent of per-capita GDP to 72 percent. On the other measure they’ve dropped from 108 percent to 72 percent. That’s pretty grim either way.

For more on this, Pethokoukis points us, first, to a new study by Bruce Sacerdote, which suggests that consumption has increased substantially over the past several decades, once you adjust for inflation bias and include the growth of government benefits. On a less happy note, he also points us to a study by Scott Winship about income mobility. Winship concludes that although there’s still a fair amount of income mobility within the broad middle class, there’s very little at either end. Poor kids stay poor, and rich kids stay rich.

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So How Are Millennial Men Doing?

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Tom Price Intervened on Rule That Would Hurt Drug Profits, the Same Day He Acquired Drug Stock

by TimothyBeavers Posted on April 1, 2017

Mother Jones

This story originally appeared on ProPublica.

On the same day the stockbroker for then-Georgia Congressman Tom Price bought him up to $90,000 of stock in six pharmaceutical companies last year, Price arranged to call a top U.S. health official, seeking to scuttle a controversial rule that could have hurt the firms’ profits and driven down their share prices, records obtained by ProPublica show.

Stock trades made by Price while he served in Congress came under scrutiny at his confirmation hearings to become President Trump’s secretary of health and human services. The lawmaker, a physician, traded hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of shares in health-related companies while he voted on and sponsored legislation affecting the industry, but Price has said his broker acted on his behalf without his involvement or knowledge. ProPublica previously reported that his trading is said to have been under investigation by federal prosecutors.

On March 17, 2016, Price’s broker purchased shares worth between $1,000 and $15,000 each in Eli Lilly, Amgen, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, McKesson, Pfizer and Biogen. Previous reports have noted that, a month later, Price was among lawmakers from both parties who signed onto a bill that would have blocked a rule proposed by the Obama administration, which was intended to remove the incentive for doctors to prescribe expensive drugs that don’t necessarily improve patient outcomes.

What hasn’t been previously known is Price’s personal appeal to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services about the rule, called the Medicare Part B Drug Payment Model.

The same day as the stock trade, Price’s legislative aide, Carla DiBlasio, emailed health officials to follow up on a request she had made to set up a call with Patrick Conway, the agency’s chief medical officer. In her earlier emails, DiBlasio said the call would focus on payments for joint replacement procedures. But that day, she mentioned a new issue.

“Chairman Price may briefly bring up … his concerns about the new Part B drug demo, as well,” she wrote. “Congressman Price really appreciates the opportunity to have an open conversation with Dr. Conway, so we really appreciate you keeping the lines of communication open.”

The call was scheduled for the following week, according to the emails.

An HHS spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment from Price. DiBlasio and Conway didn’t respond to questions about the phone call.

The proposed rule drew wide opposition from members of both parties as well as industry lobbyists and some patient advocacy groups. It was meant to change a system under which the government reimburses doctors the average sales price for drugs administered in their offices or inside clinics, along with a 6 percent bonus. Some health analysts say that bonus encourages doctors to pad their profits by selecting more expensive treatments.

Critics argued that the rule might cause Medicare enrollees to lose access to lifesaving drugs. Lawmakers worried the federal government was potentially endangering patients and turning them into guinea pigs in a wide-scale experiment in cost savings.

However, supporters of the rule said the experiment in payments was the kind of drastic action needed to rein in soaring health costs. “We are actively reforming every other aspect of our health-care system to pay for value except pharmaceuticals,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., said at the time. “Drug manufacturers are the only entity that can charge Medicare anything they want.”

The six companies that Price invested in were steadfastly opposed to the rule. McKesson formally warned investors in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that such a change could hurt share prices. The firms lobbied the government to kill the plan.

And at two of the six companies Price invested in, people who used to work for the congressman were part of the lobbying effort.

Price’s former chief of staff, Matt McGinley, lobbied House members for Amgen, disclosure records show. Another former Price aide, Keagan Lenihan, lobbied on behalf of McKesson, where she was director of government relations at the time. Lenihan has since reunited with Price, returning to government to work as a senior adviser to her old boss at HHS.

Neither McGinley nor Lenihan responded to requests for comment.

Although Price said he wasn’t aware of his broker’s trades at the time they were made, he would have learned of his holdings no later than April 2016 when he signed and filed his latest financial disclosure forms. In earlier disclosures, Price signed forms listing his other health-related holdings, which included some drug stocks.

Price’s personal intervention raises more questions about the overlap between his investments and his work as a member of Congress.

According to House ethics guidelines, “contacting an executive branch agency” represents “a degree of advocacy above and beyond that involved in voting” on legislation where a financial conflict of interest may exist.

“Such actions may implicate the rules and standards … that prohibit the use of one‘s official position for personal gain,” the guidelines state. “Whenever a Member is considering taking any such action on a matter that may affect his or her personal financial interests, the Member should first contact the Standards Committee for guidance.”

Tom Rust, chief counsel for the House Ethics Committee, declined to comment, saying any consultations with members of Congress are confidential.

In December, after Trump was elected and named Price as his choice to lead HHS, Obama administration health officials scrapped their plan to change the drug reimbursement system. “The complexity of the issues and the limited time available led to the decision not to finalize the rule at this time,” a spokesman said.

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Tom Price Intervened on Rule That Would Hurt Drug Profits, the Same Day He Acquired Drug Stock

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How Devin Nunes Is Threatening the Constitution

by MckinleySerrano Posted on March 29, 2017

Mother Jones

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With his bizarre antics and partisan-driven decisions the past week and a half, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the under-siege chairman of the House intelligence committee, has not only triggered a breakdown in the congressional oversight process; he has nearly sparked a constitutional crisis. This may sound hyperbolic, yet Nunes is undermining one of the core principles of the American republic: checks and balances. And there perhaps is no area of government where counterbalance is more needed than national security.

At the heart of the US political system is a bargain. The fundamental notion of the Constitution is that the government serves the citizenry and is accountable to the voters. Yet with the development of the modern national security state—and even before—the executive branch gained the power to engage in secret actions. The spies, covert operators, and eavesdroppers of the intelligence community and the military could perform their duties far from the prying eyes of citizens. This means a vast part of the government operates in secrecy and is free from public scrutiny. How can a democracy allow this? The answer is simple: congressional oversight. In theory, the common folks who are kept in the dark elect senators and representatives who monitor all the secret stuff on their behalf. The Capitol Hill overseers preserve the secrets, but they act as surrogates for the rest of the nation and ensure the covert warriors, spooks, and snoops are acting effectively, honorably, and lawfully in pursuit of the public interest.

That’s the rosy-eyed version. True congressional oversight of the intelligence community didn’t kick in until the 1970s, after a variety of spy-related scandals—secret assassination plots, coups, Watergate, and more. And in the decades since, Capitol Hill monitoring of the intelligence community has sometimes been lackadaisical. (It is almost an impossible task for the House and Senate intelligence committees to track the vast intelligence community, which now consists of 17 agencies.) At other points, there have been conflicts between the committees and the spies. In the 1980s, the late-Sen. Barry Goldwater, the Republican chair of the Senate intel committee, repeatedly clashed with Bill Casey, Ronald Reagan’s free-wheelin’, law-breakin’ CIA chief. Three years ago, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic chair of the committee, had an explosive confrontation with John Brennan, the CIA director at the time, over her committee’s investigation of CIA torture. But in each case, oversight continued, with the House and Senate panels often displaying a bipartisanship not found in other corners of Congress.

It’s been an imperfect system. In 2013, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper misled the Senate intelligence committee when he publicly testified that US intelligence did not collect data on Americans. (The Edward Snowden revelations showed otherwise, revealing a massive operation to collect metadata regarding the phone records of Americans.) But at the least, the pretense of intelligence oversight from the legislative branch allows for the clandestine operations conducted by the executive branch through intelligence agencies and the military. And this is but one element of the overall oversight Congress is supposed to mount as a check on the president and executive power. Oversight, an implied obligation within the Constitution, is a crucial function of the House and Senate.

Enter Nunes. He has recently demonstrated he cannot function in an independent, nonpartisan, or forthright manner when conducting intelligence oversight. As chair of the House intelligence committee, he is in charge of the panel’s investigation of Vladimir Putin’s attack on the 2016 campaign and the interactions between the Trump camp and Russia. This is a tough and sensitive assignment. Nunes was on Donald Trump’s presidential election team, and now he is probing the actions of Trump’s associates—and perhaps Trump himself—in an exercise that could produce information that threatens the Trump presidency. He is doing so while Trump is essentially waging war on the investigation. (For months, Trump has dismissed or downplayed the intelligence community’s assessment that Moscow assaulted the election to help Trump. On Monday night, Trump tweeted that the Russia story is a “hoax.”) In such a highly charged political environment, it would be challenging for anyone to lead an effective and independent investigation.

Still, Nunes has underperformed. He initially was reluctant to examine contacts between the Trump gang and Moscow. Then, during the committee’s first public hearing (when FBI chief James Comey undercut Trump’s claim that President Barack Obama had illegally spied on him and revealed the bureau was investigating Trump associates for possibly coordinating with Russians), Nunes behaved as a partisan. As if he were channeling Trump, he said virtually nothing about the main issue: Putin covertly intervening in a presidential election. Instead, he fixated on the (bad!) leak that had exposed former national security adviser Michael Flynn as a liar and forced his resignation. Nunes also repeatedly asked Comey if he would investigate Hillary Clinton and the Clinton campaign, if evidence of contacts between the campaign and Russia emerged. (There has been no evidence of that.) After the hearing, Nunes inexplicably claimed he had never heard of two key figures in the Trump-Russia scandal: Roger Stone and Carter Page.

All of this raised questions about Nunes’ ability to handle an investigation that was scrutinizing people and actions related to the president he supports. Then things got worse. Two days later, Nunes held a surprise press conference—without consulting his staff or fellow members of the intelligence committee—to declare he had reviewed documents indicating that classified intelligence reporting based on lawfully authorized collection aimed at foreign targets might have revealed the identities of Trump transition team members (perhaps Trump himself) who were picked up via what’s known as “incidental collection.” Nunes rushed to the White House to brief Trump, who subsequently declared this “somewhat” validated his claim that Obama had illegally wiretapped him. (It had not.)

The episode appeared to be a stunt designed to provide Trump cover for his baseless charge against Obama—and perhaps to change the channel after the hearing that revealed the FBI investigation. And in the wake of his initial presser, Nunes kept bumbling his descriptions and explanations. It remained unclear if he had uncovered any wrongdoing. He ended up apologizing to his fellow committee members and essentially acknowledged he had gone off half-cocked. He came across as amateurish and erratic. (Three weeks earlier, Nunes had worked with the White House to counter news stories reporting on ties between Trump associates and Russia.)

And there was more. In the middle of this imbroglio, Nunes announced he had canceled the committee’s next public hearing, scheduled for March 28, which was going to feature Clapper, former CIA chief John Brennan, and former Justice Department official Sally Yates, who in January had privately informed the White House that Flynn had lied when he said he had not spoken to the Russian ambassador about the sanctions Obama imposed on Russia as punishment for its hacking-and-leaking operation targeting the Clinton campaign. Nunes offered no good explanation for the scheduling move. (He claimed the committee could not fit in the hearing because of a private session scheduled with Comey and NSA chief Mike Rogers. But when that closed-door hearing was canceled, Nunes did not revive the Clapper-Brennan-Yates hearing.) Democrats on the committee concluded that Nunes had killed the public hearing to spare the Trump White House further embarrassment. That did seem a likely assessment.

By now, Democrats were calling for Nunes to recuse himself from the Russia investigation or quit his post as committee chair, and a handful of Republicans—namely Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham—were questioning Nunes’ actions and ability to handle this probe. It was a shit storm, and it was hard to see how the House committee could proceed with a credible investigation or perhaps continue to function at all. Nunes blew up the bond of trust within the committee. He had acted in an impetuous manner. He seemed to care more about Trump’s political standing than about the investigation. (On Fox News, he explained his actions by saying that Trump has “been taking a lot of heat in the news media.”) He also undermined the committee’s credibility. Citizens looking for answers about the Trump Russia scandal will find it hard to accept any conclusions from Nunes at face value.

So Nunes has harmed one of the key oversight mechanisms in the US government: his own committee. This means the check-and-balance process is weaker. That’s not good at a time when the country faces serious national security issues and other matters and when the overall credibility of government is low. Whether Nunes recuses himself or not—for now, he says he won’t—his committee’s investigation is on the verge of irrelevancy, with its credibility shot. (On Tuesday, Nunes announced he was postponing further witness interviews until Comey returned for a private hearing, putting his probe on hold. This week, he also canceled regular committee meetings.) That leaves only the Senate intelligence committee in the driving seat for the Russia investigation. Its chairman, Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican from North Carolina, was also reluctant to assume this mission, but so far there has been no open conflict within the committee, and Democratic members say the probe is moving forward. (The Senate committee will hold its first hearings related to this inquiry on Thursday.) The FBI investigation is also proceeding, but whether this is a counterintelligence probe or a criminal inquiry—or both—the investigation is not designed to yield a public accounting. (The FBI does not produce public reports.) That is the job of the congressional committees. Unfortunately, Nunes has essentially and maybe intentionally sidelined his own probe. In doing so, he renders it less likely the American public will learn the full truth. Moreover—and perhaps worse—he has demonstrated that the system designed to provide accountability for secret government might now be unworkable.

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How Devin Nunes Is Threatening the Constitution

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Trump: Failure of Health Care Bill Is All Democrats’ Fault

by DinahPoupinel Posted on March 24, 2017

Mother Jones

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It’s laughable watching President Trump whine endlessly this afternoon about how his health care bill didn’t get any Democratic votes. Not one! The Democrats just wouldn’t work with him to craft a bill! Boy, that sure makes things tough.

Needless to say, neither Trump nor Paul Ryan ever tried to bring Democrats into this bill. It was purely a Republican plan from the start, and neither of them wanted any Democratic input. That’s just the opposite of Obamacare, where Democrats tried mightily to get Republican buy-in, and still ended up getting no Republican votes in the end. Not one!

Anyway, Trump’s plan now is to wait for Obamacare to implode and then Democrats will have to do a deal. I guess it hasn’t occurred to him that he could do a deal with Democrats right now if he were really serious about fixing health care. But no. Trump says he intends to move on to tax reform, because that’s something he actually cares about.

In the meantime, it’s very unclear what will happen to Obamacare. With so much uncertainty surrounding it, it’s hard to say how insurance companies will respond. They might give up and pull out. Or they might stick it out and wait. It’s pretty close to a profitable business now, so there’s probably no urgency one way or the other for most of them. And anyway, somewhere there’s an equilibrium. Having only one insurer in a particular county might be bad for residents of that county, but it’s great for the insurer: they can raise their prices with no worries. There are no competitors to steal their business, and the federal subsidies mean that customers on the exchanges won’t see much of a change even if prices go up. In places where they have these mini-monopolies, Obamacare should be a nice money spinner.

April will be a key month, as insurers begin to announce their plans for 2018. We’ll see what happens.

POSTSCRIPT: It was also amusing to hear Trump say that he learned a lot during this process about “arcane” procedures in the House and Senate. Like what? Filibusters? Having to persuade people to vote for your bill? The fact that the opposition party isn’t going to give you any votes for a bill that destroys one of their signature achievements? Reconciliation and the Byrd rule? I believe him when he says this was all new to him, which means he never had the slightest clue what was in this bill or how it was going to pass.

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Trump: Failure of Health Care Bill Is All Democrats’ Fault

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5 Reasons to Go Green this St. Patrick’s Day

by KennithLardner Posted on March 17, 2017

More common than a Kiss Me, Im Irish shirt on St. Patricks Day, the color green is all around us. Whether its the leaves in the trees, in your beer, or the scarf of someone sitting across from you on public transit, its hard to go a day without seeing green.

Here are five reasons to embrace green, not only for St. Patricks Day, but all year.

Physiological benefits

It has been proven that time in nature can help relieve stress, minimize depression and increase ones overall health. By putting down your smartphone and heading out to connect with nature, you can expose yourself to some much-needed vitamin N (for nature).

Even just seeing the color green can have calming effects. Its also been shown that people with a green workspace or bedroom have fewer stomachaches than those without.

Carolinian forest (Photo by Simon Wilson)

It helps landscapes and species

In addition to its mental benefits, connecting with nature is a great way to increase your appreciation for the world around us. Surround yourself with green by planting a garden, caring for plants indoors, learning about the plants around you, going for a hike or simply strolling through a nearby forest or park.

By thinking green and doing your part for nature, youre helping to conserve species populations and the land they call home. Volunteering or donating to help conservation efforts across the country helps conserve landscapes for future generations.

Its good for you, and its tasty too

Eating green is a great way to do your part for the environment and Im not just talking about kale. Eating sustainable produce, meat and grains, especially locally harvested, can reduce your carbon footprint.

It can help you learn

Research has shown that green can help with learning comprehension. Next time youre reading new material, try laying a transparent sheet of green paper over the text. Green is said to help you absorb material more efficiently as well as increase reading speed.

It helps power plants and our planet

There once was a time where all plants on earth were comprised of grasses, ferns and horsetails green plants that used chlorophyll to capture sunlight and turn it into food and energy. All these ancient green plants had cellulose or wood in their cells. Eventually, stems gave rise to wood, to trunks. This gave rise to the first trees and to forests.

These oases of green became the lungs of our planet. They became our rain-makers, air-conditioners, water reservoirs, chemical recyclers and keepers of biodiversity. They also became major sinks of carbon dioxide. By literally growing green, these plants formed the infrastructure for life as we know it today.

So this St. Patrick’s Day, forget the green-colored drinks and try going green in a new way.

This post was written by Raechel Bonomo, editorial coordinator at the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC),and originally appeared on NCCs blog,Land Lines.

Post photo credit: Clovers (Photo by wiseGEEK)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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5 Reasons to Go Green this St. Patrick’s Day

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A Mini Version of Trump Is About to Take Over the USDA

by ClayLafountain Posted on March 15, 2017

Mother Jones

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Back in 2002, a racially divisive fertilizer and trucking magnate shocked the political world by winning Georgia’s governorship, after being down in the polls the entire campaign. As governor, Sonny Perdue refused to divest himself of his companies, declaring, “I am a small business owner, I’m in the agri-business … That’s about as blind a trust as you can get. We trust in the Lord for rain and many other things.” (Hat tip, Politico.)

Perhaps savoring the similarities with himself, President Trump tapped Perdue as his pick for secretary of the US Department of Agriculture way back in January, promising “big results for all Americans who earn their living off the land.” The nomination promptly languished for six weeks, with no date set for Senate confirmation hearings amid complaints of unreturned calls to the White House from sources close to Perdue. On Friday, Perdue’s nomination took a major step forward when the former governor filed ethics papers required by the Senate.

His Public Financial Disclosure Report reveals a Trumpian tangle (though on a much smaller scale) of business interests and obligations, including three Georgia-based agribusiness and berths on the boards of directors of two agribusiness trade groups. In other words, Trump plucked his agriculture secretary from the very industry the USDA exists to regulate. Unlike the president—and himself, during his time as Georgia governor—Perdue (no relation to the Maryland chicken family) pledged to place the businesses in a blind trust (legal, not theological) and step down from the boards.

While the existence of Perdue’s fertilizer, trucking, and grain-trading firms were already well-known, his presence on those two trade-group boards has drawn little attention. Both groups will presumably be thrilled to see one of their own to take the USDA helm.

The National Grain and Feed Association represents the nexus of industries around livestock feed—grain-trading firms, meat companies, and seed/pesticide purveyors. Perdue sat on its board alongside execs from agribiz giants Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, and Dreyfus. The group’s member list reads like a Big Ag version of the Yellow Pages—it includes meat heavyweights Tyson and JB; seed/pesticide titans Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer Cropscience, Dow, and DuPont; and feed giants like Purina Animal Nutrition.

As for the Georgia Agribusiness Council, Perdue serves as the board of directors’ secretary. The council’s “star sponsors” include Bayer Cropscience, Syngenta, Coca-Cola, and Croplife America, the pesticide industry trade group.

As Politico notes, Perdue did plenty of favors for friends while occupying Georgia’s governor’s mansion. The journal found “more than a dozen instances when he gave positions to business associates and campaign donors, and other occasions when he rewarded his state staff with opportunities in his agriculture and shipping empire after he left office.” Even as Perdue awaits confirmation, one of his Georgia associates is already waiting for him in Trump’s USDA, Politico reports: “Heidi Green, a partner of Perdue’s shipping business who also worked for him in Georgia state government, landed a political appointment as senior adviser at USDA in January. She’s now being mentioned as a likely candidate to serve as his chief of staff.”

Meanwhile, a recent report from Environmental Working Group characterized Perdue as “mired in ethical lapses, self-dealing and back-room deals that raise troubling questions about his fitness to run the department.” Two of the many examples cited by EWG—a $100,000 tax break gained Perdue through well-timed legislation; an appointment to a powerful post for his cousin and business partner, now the junior Senator from Georgia, David Perdue—I teased out in this January post.

EWG also shows that Perdue appointed execs from his fertilizer and grain-trading businesses to powerful state boards—again, without divesting himself of those businesses. Then there’s this:

While in office, Perdue failed to meet his own ethical standards by repeatedly taking gifts – including sports tickets and first-class flights— from registered lobbyists. Shortly after taking office, Perdue signed his first executive order, which prohibited any state official from accepting gifts worth more than $25 from lobbyists.

However, a query of lobbyist expenditures shows that Perdue received at least 53 gifts from registered lobbyists over the monetary limit – totaling more than $23,000–between 2006 and 2010, including a $2,400 flight to a NASCAR race. In 2003, the Office of the Inspector General – an office established by Perdue’s second executive order – investigated whether Perdue’s personal use of state helicopters was appropriate, ultimately leading the Office of the Attorney General to prohibit such uses.

Even so, Perdue doesn’t carry quite the baggage of some of Trump’s more outlandish cabinet picks, like Andy Puzder, who ultimately declined to face a Senate confirmation hearing for the labor department post. He’ll likely zoom through confirmation hearings in the Senate, and get a brisk slap on the back from his cousin and erstwhile business partner, Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.).

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A Mini Version of Trump Is About to Take Over the USDA

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Conservatives Aren’t Yet Sure How to React to the CBO Health Care Report

by Evelyne61U Posted on March 14, 2017

Mother Jones

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What do people think about the new CBO report on RepubliCare? I don’t mean us bleeding heart liberals. Naturally we think it’s great since it confirms that the Republican bill will decimate health care in America. But what do conservatives think?

HHS Secretary Tom Price says the CBO report is ridiculous. It “defies logic,” he says:

But over on Capitol Hill, Paul Ryan says he finds the CBO’s report “encouraging.” It exceeded his expectations and “gives us even more room to work on good, fine-tuning finishing touches.” Hoo boy. Even Fox News isn’t buying this:

This is some serious happy talk. Ryan must be taking lessons from Trump. In a statement, Ryan says the report confirms that the Republican bill will “lower premiums and improve access to quality, affordable care”—which is, um, a pretty creative reading of the report. More to the point, Ryan is thrilled that the CBO confirms that the bill will provide “massive tax relief.” This is true—though the tax relief is all for the rich—and it’s telling that Ryan doesn’t need to provide any spin on this point.

But what about all those people who will lose coverage? Ryan says, “I recognize and appreciate concerns about making sure people have access to coverage.” He doesn’t say he plans to do anything about this, but at least he appreciates the concerns. You know who else appreciates those concerns? Breitbart News:

The Drudge Report is pretty much ignoring the whole thing for the moment, as if they’re waiting for some kind of conservative consensus to form before they wade in. National Review is pretty silent too, though Dan McLaughlin writes that “The projections of who will and won’t be insured don’t actually mean anything.” The Weekly Standard’s Chris Deaton has a carefully neutral post up that says millions of Americans “would opt out of purchasing coverage once the federal government stops penalizing them for doing so.” That’s not quite what CBO says, though I admit you have to read the report carefully to recognize this.1

Basically, no one outside of Congress or the White House really wants to defend the Republican bill. There are a few half-hearted gibes at the CBO, but nothing more. I’ll be curious to see if tribal defenses kick in more strongly by tomorrow, once everyone has had a chance to suffer through all the liberal jeers and taunts.

1CBO says that subsidies after 2020 would be “significantly smaller” than they are now and that “some people would forgo insurance in response to higher premiums.” However, they are oddly cagey about exactly how big an effect this would have compared to the elimination of the individual and corporate mandates. I’m not sure what the reason for this is.

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Conservatives Aren’t Yet Sure How to React to the CBO Health Care Report

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If Barack Obama Calls You Asking for Money, Don’t Do It

by SilviaBeavis Posted on March 14, 2017

Mother Jones

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President Barack Obama did not record a robocall raising money off the new White House travel ban—no matter what you may have read on the internet.

The report that Obama was asking Democrats for money to fight President Donald Trump caught fire on the right-wing internet over the weekend, inflamed by celebrity Trump supporters such as the actor Scott Baio. The pro-administration subreddit “The_Donald” has even put up a post asking users to report such calls to the Federal Trade Commission. Many of those stories cited a Friday tweet by former North Carolina congressional candidate Thomas Mills, who reported that he had received a call not long after the new Trump order had gone into effect. (Mills, who is a Democrat, confirmed to Mother Jones that he had received a robocall.)

But according to the former president’s office, if you got a robocall with Obama’s voice on it, it wasn’t from him.

“These pre-recorded calls were not authorized by President Barack Obama, have no connection to the former President, and have been reported to appropriate law enforcement authorities,” Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis said in a statement. “We will continue to monitor for and report any misleading or fraudulent uses of the President’s image.”

If you get a robocall from President Obama, record it and send it to tmurphy@motherjones.com.

Update: Thanks to reader Greg Flynn, we have audio of one of these calls purporting to be on behalf of President Obama. (If you follow the prompts, you’ll be asked to donate in increments of $100 or $200.) Here it is:

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If Barack Obama Calls You Asking for Money, Don’t Do It

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Jeff Sessions Will Recuse Himself From Russia Probe

by KathleeKobayash Posted on March 2, 2017

Mother Jones

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions will recuse himself from any investigations into contact between the Russian government and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Sessions announced at a press conference Thursday afternoon. Sarah Isgur Flores, Sessions’ spokeswoman, told Mother Jones that neither the attorney general nor any of his staff would take part in any internal discussions on whether or not an independent special prosecutor would be appointed to investigate the 2016 campaign. That decision would presumably be left to acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente.

The hastily called press conference came as lawmakers from both parties called for Sessions to recuse himself from any investigations into Russia’s role in the election. During Sessions’ confirmation hearing, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) asked him what he would do if reports that Trump campaign associates and Russian officials had been in contact during the campaign turned out to be true. Sessions responded by denying that he had any contact with the Russians: “I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign, and I didn’t have—did not have communications with the Russians.” But on Wednesday, news broke that Sessions had twice met with the Russian ambassador.

As reporters waited for Sessions to begin his press conference at DOJ headquarters Thursday, televisions tuned to CNN replayed the exchange with Franken—followed by a segment with the chyron, “Calls grow for attorney general to resign.”

When he took the podium shortly after 4 pm ET, Sessions claimed that he was innocent of any wrongdoing and had not purposefully misled the Senate during his confirmation hearing. “My reply to the question of Sen. Franken was honest and correct as I understood it at the time,” he said.

Sessions said that he would be writing to the Senate Judiciary Committee in the next day or two to explain his testimony. He added that his decision to remove himself from any investigations into the 2016 presidential campaign came following his review of ethics rules and input from his staff. “In the end, I have followed the right procedure, just as I promised the committee I would,” he said.

As for his September meeting with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in his Senate office, Sessions said he didn’t recall many details, before naming terrorism and Ukraine as topics that came up. Sessions also said that he and Kislyak had discussed a visit Sessions paid to a Russian church in the 1991 and that Kislyak had told him he was not religious. “I thought he was pretty much in an old-style Soviet ambassador,” Sessions said.

When asked by reporters whether he and the ambassador had discussed the 2016 presidential campaign during their meeting, Sessions joked that “most of these ambassadors are pretty gossipy” but then switched into lawyer mode and said, “I don’t recall.”

This is a developing news story that will be updated.

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Jeff Sessions Will Recuse Himself From Russia Probe

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Robots are raising your kale now.

by RochellDaecher Posted on February 27, 2017

A New Jersey startup called Bowery grows leafy greens stacked in columns five high under the watchful eyes of an AI system.

The operation, which officially launched last week, uses 95 percent less water than traditional methods and is 100 times more productive on the same footprint of land, according to the company.

Bowery calls itself “post-organic,” a label to describe its integration of tech and farming practices and its pesticide-free produce. That distinguishes it from large-scale organic farms, which do use pesticides — they’re just organic ones.

Bowery

Its AI system automates ideal growing conditions for crops by adjusting the lighting, minerals, and water, using sensors to monitor them. It can alter conditions to tweak the taste — emphasizing a wasabi-like flavor in arugula, for instance.

More than 80 crops are grown at the farm, including baby kale, butterhead lettuce, and mixed greens. The produce is delivered to New York stores within the day after harvest, and the greens go for $3.49 a box — on par with the competition.

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Robots are raising your kale now.

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