Tag Archives: republican

Why Trump’s Antitrust Pick Is Great News for Pesticide Companies

by NorbertoXPF Posted on March 31, 2017

Mother Jones

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The Trump administration appears ready to bless a pair of megamergers that will dramatically reshape the markets for seeds and pesticides. First, before he even took office, the president met with the CEOs of German chemical giant Bayer and US seed titan Monsanto, and boasted of the flimsy jobs plan they promised if their proposed merger goes through. Trump has also had chummy relations with chemical giant Dow, in the middle of its pending merger with erstwhile rival DuPont. This week, Trump announced his choice to lead the Department of Justice’s antitrust division: a lawyer/lobbyist who, for nearly three decades, has been shuffling through the revolving door between large corporations and the government agencies that shape and execute merger policy.

Makan Delrahim now serves as deputy counsel to Trump, helping shepherd the Supreme Court nomination of Neil Gorsuch through the Senate. He moved to the White House from his perch as a partner at lobbying powerhouse Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. There, his recent clients include pharma giant Pfizer, the tobacco and real estate conglomerate Vector group, and casino player Caesars Entertainment. As International Business Times‘ David Sirota reported last week, Delrahim also recently lobbied on behalf of heath insurer Anthem as the company beseeched the Justice Department to approve its now-stalled proposal to merge with erstwhile rival Cigna. (If he’s confirmed, Delrahim will lead the very office he lobbied on retainer for Anthem—though he’ll likely have to recuse himself from any decision involving Anthem.)

Before his stint as a lobbyist, Delrahim served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Antitrust Division under President George W. Bush in the early 2000s, and of Bush’s Antitrust Modernization Commission until 2007.

Delrahim is by all accounts a devoted conservative who jumped on the Trump train relatively early. In a March 2016 New York Post, he noted that Trump was not his first choice for president, but urged voters to “coalesce” around Trump as he began to dominate the Republican primaries. “I’m willing to take my chances with The Donald,” he declared, citing the death of right-wing Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and the need for a like-minded replacement.

Like Scalia, Delrahim is widely viewed as friendly to mergers. In a memorandum to clients, the corporate law firm Davis Polk characterized him as “in line with previous Republican-appointed” DOJ antitrust enforcers, hewing to a “pragmatic, economically based approach to antitrust enforcement,” wary of “over-zealous enforcers and courts,” and attuned to the “need to promote and preserve efficiency-maximizing collaborations” among corporations. Such views mark a “significant shift from the view expressed” by President Barack Obama’s antitrust enforcers, who, the law firm noted, expressed skepticism about “proclaimed benefits and efficiencies” of mergers.

Over the next several months, the Trump DOJ will have to vet a slew of proposed corporate megamergers, including two that involve the agribusiness space: the planned marriage of two US chemical behemoths, and the German chemical giant Bayer’s takeover of US seed titan Monsanto.

The ag deals Delrahim will be charged with vetting—Dow-DuPont and Bayer-Monsanto—have been shrouded in regulatory uncertainty since they were first announced, because they would lead to an extraordinary concentration in seeds, genetically modified traits, and pesticides. If the deals go through, three companies—Dow-DuPont, Bayer-Monsanto, plus Syngenta (itself recently taken over by a Chinese chemical conglomerate)—would sell about 59 percent of the entire globe’s seeds and 64 percent of its pesticides. Here in the United States, the consolidation would be even more severe. Bayer-Monsanto alone would own nearly 60 percent of the US cottonseed market; between them, Bayer-Monsanto and Dow-DuPont would sell 75 percent of the corn seeds planted by US farmers and 64 percent of soybean seeds.

As I noted here, these companies are all hotly marketing “precision agriculture” services, where they crunch data picked up from farmers’ field equipment and provide them with advice on what seed varieties to plant and pesticides to apply. Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant laid out the strategy in a conference call with investors a few months before the Bayer deal. Monsanto, he said, is pursuing an “integrated solution strategy” that creates a one-stop shop for “seeds, traits, chemistry, and data science tools to farmers around the world.” Dow, DuPont, and Syngenta have all rolled out their own, similarly closed-loop precision-ag arms. These arrangements give the tiny field of players even incentive to create, say, crop varieties that work only with one of their own proprietary pesticides.

One possibility is that the Department of Justice could approve the deals, on condition that the companies sell off overlapping business segments. The European Union recently signed off on the Dow-DuPont merger, after the companies agreed to what Bloomberg called “hefty concessions, including the sale of large parts of DuPont’s global pesticide business.” But such divestitures don’t automatically reduce consolidation. German chemical titan BASF, itself a large player in pesticides, has “expressed interest in snapping up some of the companies’ divested assets,” reports the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, if Bayer and Monsanto are forced to sell off some business lines to push their deal through, both BASF and Syngenta are ready to pounce on those juicy morsels, Bloomberg reports.

Also, such sell-offs don’t address the fact if the deals go through, what had been four R&D programs will be reduced to two, giving “short shrift to innovation competition,” says Diana Moss, president of the American Antitrust Institute. Moss argues that such hyperconsolidation limits farmers’ choices in the seed and chemical markets, driving up prices. Eventually, higher costs for these vital farm inputs will be passed on to consumers.

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Why Trump’s Antitrust Pick Is Great News for Pesticide Companies

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Republicans Scramble to Advance Bill Targeting Planned Parenthood

by ElbaKuester Posted on March 30, 2017

Mother Jones

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Vice President Mike Pence and a Republican senator recovering from surgery were whisked onto the Senate floor on Thursday to help advance legislation that would allow states to withhold federal family planning funds from health care providers who also offer abortions, including Planned Parenthood.

Two Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, voted against the bill, leaving it with just 49 votes. Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), who had been recovering from back surgery at home in Georgia, arrived at the Capitol to cast the 50th vote. That resulted in a tie that allowed Pence to cast the tie-breaking vote on a procedural motion on the bill, which can now advance to a final vote.

The bill would overturn an Obama administration rule that prohibits states from withholding federal family planning money from abortion providers like Planned Parenthood. The use of federal funding for most abortions is already illegal thanks to the Hyde Amendment, a budget rider first passed in 1976. The Obama-era rule protects funds for health care services like contraception, cancer screenings, and annual gynecological exams for low-income patients.

“Mike Pence went from yesterday’s forum on empowering women to today leading a group of male politicians in a vote to take away access to birth control and cancer screenings,” said Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in a statement. “Four million people depend on the Title X family planning program, and this move by DC politicians would endanger their health care. This would take away birth control access for a woman who wants to plan her family and her future.”

Last month, the House voted to approve its version of this measure. If the Senate passes the bill, it will move to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature. On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly promised to defund Planned Parenthood.

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Republicans Scramble to Advance Bill Targeting Planned Parenthood

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Don’t Be Fooled: The North Carolina "Compromise" Doesn’t Actually Protect Transgender Rights

by DelmarFloyd725 Posted on March 30, 2017

Mother Jones

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North Carolina is at it again. On Thursday, state lawmakers approved legislation repealing HB 2, the controversial law that banned cities and counties from passing nondiscrimination ordinances and barred transgender people from using public bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity.

Under a deal that Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and struck with Republican leaders in the legislature Wednesday night, HB 2 would technically be repealed. But it would be replaced with new legislation that LGBT rights advocates say is just as bad. The new bill, which now heads to the governor’s desk for approval, would prohibit any entity other than the state government from regulating access to bathrooms or changing facilities. Essentially, it would prohibit cities from taking action to protect the rights of transgender people to use the appropriate bathroom. Additionally, it would prohibit local governments from passing any regulations regarding access to public space or private employment practices until 2020. (HB 2 was originally passed in response to a Charlotte ordinance that was designed to protect LGBT rights.)

LGBT advocates and their allies say the new proposal isn’t a compromise at all—they’re actually calling it HB 2.0.

“This so-called compromise it not a repeal,” said Reverend William Barber, the head of North Carolina’s NAACP, on a conference call set up by opponents of the deal. “It’s a Trojan horse, and we can never compromise on fundamental civil rights.” Barber has been one of the most prominent voices in the fight against HB 2.

HB 2 sparked a nation-wide backlash, including an economic boycott, after it was signed by GOP Gov. Pat McCrory last year. Republican lawmakers have downplayed the financial impact of conferences and events avoiding North Carolina in response to HB 2, but the Associated Press reported earlier this week that the state will lose an estimated $3.76 billion over 12 years.

*

The last-minute compromise comes as the National Collegiate Athletic Association is determining where to hold its championship events for the next five years. In response to HB 2’s passage last year, the NCAA removed seven scheduled sporting events from North Carolina. It’s given the state a Thursday deadline to repeal the law if it wants to be considered for the future events. The NCAA didn’t respond to questions about whether the new legislation is sufficient to address its concerns.

In a statement, Cooper said the bill is “not a perfect deal” but begins “to repair our reputation.”

LGBT advocates aren’t buying it. They point out that Cooper was elected in large part because his GOP predecessor was was a strong supporter of HB 2.

“Governor Cooper and legislators must be grownups…and not vote for or sign a bill that merely doubles down on discrimination,” Chris Sgro, executive director of Equality NC, said on the call. “We know that it doesn’t matter if you have a ‘D’ or ‘R’ next to your name. If you vote for this bill, you won’t be a friend to the LGBT or civil rights community.”

The bill, assuming Cooper signs it, appears likely to end up in court. The compromise legislation “in many ways mirrors the Colorado law that was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1996,” said Chad Griffin, the president of the Human Rights campaign. “That was a law that also banned any city, town, or county in the state of Colorado from protecting gay or bisexual people from discrimination.”

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the time period over which North Carolina would lose $3.76 billion.

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Don’t Be Fooled: The North Carolina "Compromise" Doesn’t Actually Protect Transgender Rights

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“The Republican Party Is a Party Without a Purpose”

by PaulineLoughman Posted on March 25, 2017

Mother Jones

Philip Klein unloads on the GOP in the pages of the conservative Washington Examiner, calling Obamacare repeal “the biggest broken promise in political history”:

What’s so utterly disgraceful, is not just that Republicans failed so miserably, but that they barely tried, raising questions about whether they ever actually wanted to repeal Obamacare in the first place.

Republicans for years have criticized the process that produced Obamacare, and things certainly got ugly. But after having just witnessed this debacle, I think Paul Ryan owes Nancy Pelosi an apology.

One has to admire the commitment that Democrats and Obama had to delivering something they campaigned on and truly believed in. They spent 13 months getting the bill from an initial concept to final passage, and pressed on during many points when everybody was predicting doom. They had public hearings, multiple drafts of different bills, they kept negotiating, even worked into Christmas. They made significant changes at times, but also never lost sight of their key goals. They didn’t back down in the face of angry town halls and after losing their filibuster-proof majority, and many members cast votes that they knew risked their political careers. Obama himself was a leader, who consistently made it clear that he was not going to walk away. He did countless rallies, meetings, speeches — even a “summit” at the Blair House — to try to sell the bill, talking about details, responding to criticisms of the bill to the point that he was mocked by conservatives for talking so much about healthcare.

The contrast between Obama and Democrats on healthcare and what just happened is stunning. House Republicans slapped together a bill in a few weeks (months if we’re being generous) behind closed doors with barely any debate. They moved the bill through committees at blazing speed, conducted closed-door negotiations that resulted in relatively minor tweaks to the bill, and within 17 days, Trump decided that he’d had enough, and was ready to walk away if members didn’t accept the bill as is…

There was a big debate over the course of the election about how out of step Trump was with the Republican Party on many issues. But if anything, this episode shows that Trump and the GOP are perfect together — limited in attention span, all about big talk and identity politics, but uninterested in substance.

Failing to get the votes on one particular bill is one thing. But failing and then walking away on seven years of promises is a pathetic abdication of duty. The Republican Party is a party without a purpose.

Go read the whole thing.

Trump, Ryan, and McConnell’s total lack of commitment to repealing Obamcare really does stand in stark contrast to Obama, Pelosi, and Reid’s total commitment to passing it in the first place.

On the eve of the House ACA vote in 2010, Obama went to Democrats and implored them to cast a vote many knew would be political suicide.

Sometimes I think about how I got involved in politics. I didn’t think of myself as a potential politician when I get out of college. I went to work in neighborhoods, working with Catholic churches in poor neighborhoods in Chicago, trying to figure out how people could get a little bit of help. And I was skeptical about politics and politicians, just like a lot of Americans are skeptical about politics and politicians are right now. Because my working assumption was when push comes to shove, all too often folks in elected office, they’re looking for themselves and not looking out for the folks who put them there; that there are too many compromises; that the special interests have too much power; they just got too much clout; there’s too much big money washing around.

And I decided finally to get involved because I realized if I wasn’t willing to step up and be true to the things I believe in, then the system wouldn’t change. Every single one of you had that same kind of moment at the beginning of your careers. Maybe it was just listening to stories in your neighborhood about what was happening to people who’d been laid off of work. Maybe it was your own family experience, somebody got sick and didn’t have health care and you said something should change.

Something inspired you to get involved, and something inspired you to be a Democrat instead of running as a Republican. Because somewhere deep in your heart you said to yourself, I believe in an America in which we don’t just look out for ourselves, that we don’t just tell people you’re on your own, that we are proud of our individualism, we are proud of our liberty, but we also have a sense of neighborliness and a sense of community — (applause) — and we are willing to look out for one another and help people who are vulnerable and help people who are down on their luck and give them a pathway to success and give them a ladder into the middle class. That’s why you decided to run. (Applause.)

And now a lot of us have been here a while and everybody here has taken their lumps and their bruises. And it turns out people have had to make compromises, and you’ve been away from families for a long time and you’ve missed special events for your kids sometimes. And maybe there have been times where you asked yourself, why did I ever get involved in politics in the first place? And maybe things can’t change after all. And when you do something courageous, it turns out sometimes you may be attacked. And sometimes the very people you thought you were trying to help may be angry at you and shout at you. And you say to yourself, maybe that thing that I started with has been lost.

But you know what? Every once in a while, every once in a while a moment comes where you have a chance to vindicate all those best hopes that you had about yourself, about this country, where you have a chance to make good on those promises that you made in all those town meetings and all those constituency breakfasts and all that traveling through the district, all those people who you looked in the eye and you said, you know what, you’re right, the system is not working for you and I’m going to make it a little bit better.

And this is one of those moments. This is one of those times where you can honestly say to yourself, doggone it, this is exactly why I came here. This is why I got into politics. This is why I got into public service. This is why I’ve made those sacrifices. Because I believe so deeply in this country and I believe so deeply in this democracy and I’m willing to stand up even when it’s hard, even when it’s tough.

Every single one of you have made that promise not just to your constituents but to yourself. And this is the time to make true on that promise. We are not bound to win, but we are bound to be true. We are not bound to succeed, but we are bound to let whatever light we have shine. We have been debating health care for decades. It has now been debated for a year. It is in your hands. It is time to pass health care reform for America, and I am confident that you are going to do it tomorrow.

With Obama, Pelosi, and Reid, Democratic voters had representatives who were as committed to their goals as they were. Republican voters should realize today that they are not so lucky.

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“The Republican Party Is a Party Without a Purpose”

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Trump Beats Obama LOLOLOLOLOL

by Tera258437 Posted on March 25, 2017

Mother Jones

The American Action Network PAC aired a bunch of ads on basketball games tonight congratulating Republican members of Congress for voting to repeal Obamacare. Here’s my artist’s conception of Obama’s response.

Pete Souza/The White House via ZUMA

Meanwhile, Rep. Joe Barton (R–TX) earns quote-of-the-day honors for this explanation of why, after Republicans had unanimously voted to repeal Obamacare repeatedly over the past six years, they couldn’t get it done this time:

Sometimes you’re playing Fantasy Football and sometimes you’re in the real game. We knew the president, if we could get a repeal bill to his desk, would almost certainly veto it. This time we knew if it got to the president’s desk it would be signed.

LOLOLOLOLOL. And Trump himself comes in a close second:

I’m a team player….It’s very hard when you need almost 100 percent of the votes and we have no votes, zero, from the Democrats. It’s unheard of.

Unheard of! LOLOLOLOLOL.

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Trump Beats Obama LOLOLOLOLOL

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The Latest: Trump Still Insisting on Vote for Doomed Health Care Bill

by Brittany9138 Posted on March 24, 2017

Mother Jones

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So here’s where we are. Apparently things are getting worse, not better, for the Republican health care bill. More and more members of the House are publicly saying they’ll vote No, and it’s threatening to turn into a bandwagon. Who wants to vote in favor of a terrible bill that’s going down to defeat anyway?

Paul Ryan and the rest of the House leadership is considering pulling the bill rather than suffering through an embarrassing loss, and Ryan has told President Trump he doesn’t have the votes to pass it. Trump still wants a vote, though, so he can take down the names of the No voters and swear eternal vengeance on them. He’s already declared war on the Freedom Caucus.

Anyway, the vote is only about an hour away (3:30 pm Eastern), and it hasn’t been officially postponed yet. Sean Spicer just told the press corps that it was still going forward. Paul Ryan may know when to beat a tactical retreat, but Trump is not really a tactical retreat kind of guy. Most likely, he’s going to insist on a vote no matter what. And the bill will go down.

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The Latest: Trump Still Insisting on Vote for Doomed Health Care Bill

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Kansas Republicans Just Defied Donald Trump and Voted to Expand Medicaid

by SallyLandon Posted on March 24, 2017

Mother Jones

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On the same day the House was supposed to pass a bill dismantling Medicaid, Kansas Republicans took a big step toward expanding the program in their state.

In a voice vote Thursday morning, a committee in the Kansas Senate approved legislation that would enable the state to take advantage of an Obamacare provision offering Medicaid health insurance coverage to a wider group of poor people. The federal government would provide the vast majority of the funding.

Many deep-red states like Kansas have rejected Medicaid expansion based largely on their ideological objections to Obamacare. But as I reported earlier this week, a new bloc of moderate Republicans in the state—back by the health care industry and business community—have teamed up with Democrats to push Medicaid expansion. They point out that the state has given up, to date, nearly $2 billion in federal funds that could have helped both improve the health of the state’s low-income communities while also boosting its economy.

The Kansas House overwhelming passed Medicaid expansion earlier this year. The full state Senate is expected to vote on the issue Monday, according to KCUR. But they would likely need to cobble together a veto-proof majority, since Gov. Sam Brownback (R) has vocally opposed to adopting the program. In fact, Brownback released a letter Thursday, signed with seven other Republican governors, asking Congress to pass the repeal of Obamacare, which would eventually end funding for new sign-ups in the Medicaid expansion and would prevent states such as Kansas signing up in the meantime.

It’s unclear if Congress will heed Brownback’s request. The GOP’s bill to repeal and replace Obamacare was supposed to get a vote in the full House sometime Thursday, but with both conservatives and moderate Republicans balking, the vote was delayed. The Trump administration set a deadline for a Friday vote, saying the White House would otherwise abandon the effort. Congress is currently debating the measure, but vote counts from various news outlets suggest Republicans currently lack enough votes to pass the bill.

Read more about the fight for Medicaid expansion in Kansas here.

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Kansas Republicans Just Defied Donald Trump and Voted to Expand Medicaid

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Friday Is D-Day For the Republican Health Care Bill

by BlancaWestbrook Posted on March 24, 2017

Mother Jones

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From Politico:

President Donald Trump is demanding a vote Friday in the House on the Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said. If the bill fails, Trump is prepared to move on and leave Obamacare in place, Mulvaney said.

This makes sense on a whole bunch of levels:

As a threat against conservatives: Vote for the bill or else Obamacare stays around forever and it’s your fault.

As a boredom minimizer: I doubt very much Trump himself cares one way or the other about health care, and he’s probably tired of all boring technical talk that surrounds it (EHBs, continuous coverage, age bands, etc. etc.). He also instinctively understands that the whole thing is a shit show that’s making him more and more unpopular.

As politics: The current debacle has shown that there’s just no sweet spot acceptable to both moderate and conservative Republicans. Why keep beating yourself up over it?

As revenge against liberals: Trump has said that 2017 is the year Obamacare unravels. He will now do everything he can to make that come true, and there’s a fair amount he can do.

As substance: It frees up time for taxes and trade, things Trump is more interested in.

Besides, I don’t think Trump wants to stay in Washington over the weekend. The Mar-a-Lago golf course beckons. So let’s just put this baby to bed one way or the other, OK?

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Friday Is D-Day For the Republican Health Care Bill

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The lead poisoning of Flint’s children pales in comparison to rates found in parts of California.

by GQFtieuvme Posted on March 23, 2017

Nanette Barragán is used to facing off against polluters. Elected in 2013 to the city council of Hermosa Beach, California, she took on E&B Natural Resources, an oil and gas company looking to drill wells on the beach. Barragán, an attorney before going into politics, learned of the potential project and began campaigning for residents to vote against it. The project was eventually squashed. In November, she won a congressional seat in California’s 44th district.

To Barragán, making sure President Trump’s environmental rollbacks don’t affect communities is a matter of life or death. The district she represents, the same in which she grew up, encompasses heavily polluted parts of Los Angeles County — areas crisscrossed with freeways and dotted with oil and gas wells. Barragan says she grew up close to a major highway and suffered from allergies. “I now go back and wonder if it was related to living that close,” she says.

Exide Technologies, a battery manufacturer that has polluted parts of southeast Los Angeles County with arsenic, lead, and other chemicals for years, sits just outside her district’s borders. Barragán’s district is also 69 percent Latino and 15 percent black. She has become acutely aware of the environmental injustices of the pollution plaguing the region. “People who are suffering are in communities of color,” she says.

Now in the nation’s capital, Barragán is chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s newly formed environmental task force and a member of the House Committee on Natural Resources, which considers legislation on topics like energy and public lands and is chaired by climate denier Rob Bishop, a Utah Republican. She knows the next four years will be tough but says she’s up for the challenge. “I think it’s going to be, I hate to say it, a lot of defense.”

Meet all the fixers on this year’s Grist 50.

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The lead poisoning of Flint’s children pales in comparison to rates found in parts of California.

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The Republican Health Care Bill Is In Deep Trouble

by LawannaHargreav Posted on March 23, 2017

Mother Jones

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Jonathan Chait has a question:

No, no, no, no, no! Remember when we thought it might be better if Donald Trump won the Republican primary because Hillary Clinton would be sure to beat him? Then James Comey came along.

Shit happens, people, and there’s no predicting it. I doubt that the Republican bill can pass the Senate, but it might. The only thing we should care about is taking every possible opportunity to stop it, whenever and wherever we have a chance. Period.

(Besides, I doubt that voting for this bill will do much harm to Republicans when the midterms roll around. That’s still 20 months away, and besides, at least the yes voters can say they did everything they could to repeal Obamacare but leadership screwed it up.)

And speaking of the Republican bill, apparently the whip count really is falling short. So now the vote has been postponed to Friday. Maybe. It all depends on whether Paul Ryan and Donald Trump can figure out something else to capitulate on in order to win the votes of the crackpots in the Freedom Caucus.

Oh, and one more thing: CBO has rescored the bill. The original version reduced the deficit by $337 billion. The new one reduces it by only $150 billion. But that’s already out of date. They’ll have to score it again after Ryan and Trump finish negotiating with the conservatives. But it’s worth noting that Ryan doesn’t have a lot of headroom left if he also needs to negotiate with moderates who want a slightly less brutal program. Another $150 billion and the bill won’t reduce the deficit anymore. And if it doesn’t reduce the deficit, it can’t be passed under reconciliation.

But wait! One final thing: earlier I noted that the Republican bill is allowed to repeal only the elements of Obamacare that directly affect the budget. So if Republicans try to add provisions that repeal, say, essential benefits or pre-existing conditions, the Senate parliamentarian is likely to rule that they have to be jettisoned. However, as the presiding officer of the Senate, VP Mike Pence has the final word on this. He could just declare the parliamentarian wrong and allow the vote to go forward.

But what justification would he offer? As it happens, Republicans already have one handy. Last year, a number of them made the argument that the “direct effect” rule should be applied to the whole bill, not to its individual parts. In other words, Obamacare can be repealed completely because Obamacare as a whole directly affects the budget. If Republicans go down this road, that’s what you’re likely to hear.

However, my guess is that if Pence does this, he’ll lose a whole bunch of votes from moderate senators who won’t be a party to something that effectively kills the filibuster. So it probably can’t pass the Senate either way.

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The Republican Health Care Bill Is In Deep Trouble

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