Tag Archives: washington

Republicans Don’t Care About the Deficit, Part 543

by Elida531785 Posted on January 6, 2017

Mother Jones

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The Washington Post reports today on the latest harangue from those hardline, deficit-hating, no-compromise, tea-party Republicans:

In a dramatic reversal, many members of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus said Thursday they are prepared later this month to support a budget measure that would explode the deficit and increase the public debt to more than $29.1 trillion by 2026, figures contained in the budget resolution itself.

….“I just came to understand all the different ideas about where we go next,” said Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus that typically opposes massive spending increases. Schweikert now says he will probably vote for the budget resolution.

Here’s the text of the budget resolution:

As always, Republicans only care about deficits when a Democrat is president. This time around they didn’t waste even two days before they made that crystal clear. I wonder how many times they can pull this bait-and-switch before the public and the press stops taking them seriously on their alleged horror of the spiraling national debt?

Republicans want to cut spending on the poor and cut taxes on the rich. That’s it. Deficits haven’t bothered them since the Reagan era. But I have to admit that this latest U-turn is pretty brazen even for them. It was only a few short months ago that they were swearing on a stack of Bibles that debt was eating our nation alive and they would never, ever vote for a budget that increased the deficit.

But it turns out there was an asterisk. If the deficit is produced by cutting Obamacare taxes on the rich and repealing Obamacare benefits for the poor, then it’s OK.

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Republicans Don’t Care About the Deficit, Part 543

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CIA Says Russians Celebrated Trump’s Victory

by BerryC7650437138 Posted on January 6, 2017

Mother Jones

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The Washington Post passes along the juiciest bit of the CIA’s classified report on Russian hacking:

Senior officials in the Russian government celebrated Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton as a geopolitical win for Moscow, according to U.S. officials who said that American intelligence agencies intercepted communications in the aftermath of the election in which Russian officials congratulated themselves on the outcome.

The ebullient reaction among high-ranking Russian officials — including some who U.S. officials believe had knowledge of the country’s cyber campaign to interfere in the U.S. election — contributed to the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Moscow’s efforts were aimed at least in part at helping Trump win the White House.

Then NBC News got into the act:

The official agreed to talk to NBC News after the Post published leaked details of the review because the official felt that the details the paper chose focused too much on the Russian celebration and not enough on the thrust of the report.

Two top intelligence officials with direct knowledge told NBC News that the report on Russian hacking also details Russian cyberattacks not just against the Democratic National Committee, but the White House, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the State Department and American corporations.

….The report, on which Obama was also orally briefed, explains what intelligence agencies believe are Moscow’s motives, including, in part, a desire to disrupt the American democratic process. But the intelligence analysts who prepared the report also concluded that the hacks were payback for the Obama administration’s questioning of Vladimir Putin’s legitimacy as president.

Tomorrow Donald Trump will get his own briefing on the CIA report. That oughta be good. And in other Trump-related news, we got yet another outraged tweet about cars today:

It’s true that Toyota is moving production of the Corolla to Mexico. But here’s the thing: they’re moving it from Canada. This is not exactly breaking news, either: the Canadian media reported all this nearly two years ago.

Right now, about half of the Corollas sold in the US are made in Mississippi and the other half in Canada. When the new plant is finished, about half will be made in Mississippi and the other half in Mexico. Nothing changes. We’re still importing the same number of Corollas. And the Canadian plant will be reconfigured to build more profitable SUVs and mid-sized cars.

Unless it infuriates you that we’re importing some Corollas from Mexico instead of Canada, this is a nothingburger. On the other hand, if you just want to demagogue Mexico, I guess it’s tailor made.

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CIA Says Russians Celebrated Trump’s Victory

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Paul Ryan Says the GOP Will Vote to Defund Planned Parenthood

by AnnettaBernhard Posted on January 5, 2017

Mother Jones

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During a news conference on Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said the process to dismantle Obamacare will include stripping all federal funding for Planned Parenthood, but he did not provide much further detail.

His remarks come two days after a Republican-led House investigative panel released a report that recommended the health care provider be defunded. The investigative panel—created to examine allegations that Planned Parenthood was selling fetal tissue for profit—was then disbanded, because it was not reauthorized for a new Congress. Planned Parenthood was never found guilty of any wrongdoing at the state or federal level, despite multiple GOP-led investigations.

Democrats immediately denounced the move. “I just would like to speak individually to women across America: This is about respect for you, for your judgment about your personal decisions in terms of your reproductive needs, the size and timing of your family or the rest, not to be determined by the insurance company or by the Republican ideological right-wing caucus in the House of Representatives,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “So this is a very important occasion where we’re pointing out very specifically what repeal of the Affordable Care Act will mean to women.”

The measure to cut funding will appear in a special fast-track bill expected to pass Congress in February, during a session that allows legislation to bypass filibuster. The bill would need only a simple majority of senators to pass, rather than a 60-vote supermajority. Should the measure pass, according to the Washington Post, the largest women’s health care organization in the country would lose 40 percent of its funding. Planned Parenthood received $528 million in federal funding in 2014, and the government is its largest single source of funding.

A federal law known as the Hyde Amendment forbids the use of any federal funds for abortions. The money Planned Parenthood receives is for preventative screenings, birth control, and general women’s health care for their 2.5 million patients.

Rep. Diane DeGette (D-Colo.) promised that Democrats would “stand against this with every fiber of our beings.”

A similar measure passed the House and the Senate in 2015 but was repealed once it reached President Barack Obama’s desk. Obama has long supported the preservation of Planned Parenthood’s federal funding. In December, he issued a rule that barred states from withholding funds from Planned Parenthood based on the fact that they provide abortion care.

President-elect Donald Trump has indicated that he opposes continuing federal funding for Planned Parenthood, so a presidential veto would be unlikely. Similarly, Vice President-elect Mike Pence has been staunchly anti-abortion throughout his political career—he signed a measure to defund Planned Parenthood in Indiana during his tenure as governor, and he was successful in slashing funding for the provider in his state.

Reacting to Ryan’s proposal, Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action fund, told reporters, “It’s likely no accident that this attack was launched the day after Vice President-elect Mike Pence, a long-time opponent of Planned Parenthood, held a closed-door meeting with Speaker Ryan and the Republican leadership.”

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Paul Ryan Says the GOP Will Vote to Defund Planned Parenthood

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Republicans Haven’t Canceled Their Ethics Office Hit Job, Just Delayed It

by Arnold57Slilbdja Posted on January 3, 2017

Mother Jones

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According to the Washington Post, House Republicans have backed off their plan to gut their ethics committee:

House Republicans scrapped plans to weaken an independent ethics watchdog on Tuesday after a backlash from President-elect Donald Trump, as a new period of Republican-led governance started taking shape on a tumultuous note.

The House GOP moved to withdraw changes made the day before to official rules that would rein in the Office of congressional Ethics. Instead, the House will study changes to the office with an August deadline.

Trump took to Twitter to slam House Republicans for voting behind closed doors Monday night to weaken the independent ethics office. The vote defied House GOP leaders and complicated Trump’s “drain the swamp” campaign mantra.

Oh please. The backlash was in full swing last night, long before Trump’s tweet. And anyway, Trump didn’t object to Republicans gutting the ethics office. He just thought they should do it later, when fewer people might notice. And that’s what they’re doing. They’ll “study changes” and then gut the office in August, when everyone is on vacation.

Can we please stop pretending that everything in the country is happening as a direct result of Trump’s tweets? For God’s sake.

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Republicans Haven’t Canceled Their Ethics Office Hit Job, Just Delayed It

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Raw Data: Working-Age Population Growth

by BOYSamanth Posted on December 23, 2016

Mother Jones

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The Washington Post reports that 2016 “had the lowest rate of population growth of any year since the Great Depression.” The US population, it turns out, grew by slightly less than 0.7 percent compared to 2015. There’s some good news and bad news about this. First the bad news: the working-age population is growing even more slowly than that. Here it is for the 21st century:

Our working-age population continues to grow, but only at a rate of about 0.5 percent per year. But here’s the good news: at least we’re not Russia. Their working-age population started declining half a decade ago and is now “growing” at the rate of -0.8 percent per year:

And then there’s Japan. Their working-age population is also declining, but it didn’t even start the 21st century in positive territory. Currently their working-age population is growing at the rate of -1.2 percent per year:

The working-age population in the US isn’t growing very fast, but it’s growing faster than almost any other developed country.

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Raw Data: Working-Age Population Growth

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This May Be Trump’s Most Frightening and Dangerous Tweet Yet

by GracielaFitzwate Posted on December 22, 2016

Mother Jones

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With one tweet on Thursday, Donald Trump proved how dangerous and unstable his presidency could be.

Out of the blue, Trump weighed in on one of America’s most important national security issues: nuclear weapons. He tweeted:

In just 118 characters, Trump seemed to be reversing decades of bipartisan policy aimed at stopping the spread of nuclear weapons around the world. For decades, the United States has worked with Russia, the other major nuclear power, to reduce both nations’ nuclear arsenals. Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama have each negotiated treaties with Russia reducing nuclear stockpiles. Today, the United States and Russia each possess about 7,000 nuclear weapons, and there continue to be efforts to shrink these stockpiles.

Yet with a single tweet, Trump suggested he would move in the opposite direction and expand the US nuclear arsenal. To what end? Trump did not follow up with any other thoughts. But many experts contend that nuclear weapons will not bring greater security to the United States, given that the greatest risks these days come from nonstate actors, crises in the Middle East, and cyberwarfare.

Moreover, global efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons—as enshrined in the international Non-Proliferation Treaty—are predicated on Washington and Moscow collaborating to downsize their nuclear arsenals. By declaring that the United States would enlarge its nuclear arms collection, Trump was undermining the attempts to stop the spread of these weapons throughout the world.

The Trump team’s response did not make the situation any better. Spokesman Jason Miller issued a statement saying Trump was referring to “the threat of nuclear proliferation and the critical need to prevent it—particularly to and among terrorist organizations and unstable and rogue regimes.”

Uh, no, he wasn’t. And, still, this was an illogical point. Adding more nukes to the US stockpile will hardly stop terrorists or rogue regimes from seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. Miller was replying with a non sequitur.

Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund and a nuclear arms expert, says, “Can a tweet start and arms race? This one just might have.” He adds, “There are groups like Heritage Foundation arguing to expand our nuclear arsenal. If Trump was reflecting their thinking for not just new weapons but more weapons and new missions, we are entering new and very dangerous territory.”

With this tweet, Trump gave new fuel to two questions: whether he intends to drastically change US policy on nuclear arms control, and whether he and his team are capable of handling serious matters. It doesn’t get much more serious than nuclear weapons, and here was Trump seemingly shooting from the hip, without any apparent deliberation, on a critical national security matter—and with his staffers then forced to issue a nonsensical statement to back him up. It was clown time…with nuclear weapons.

Trump has suggested in years past that he believes a nuclear war is inevitable. So any tweet from him on this subject deserves great scrutiny—at least as much as his tweets about Alec Baldwin, SNL, and the musical Hamilton. The posting of this tweet, and his staff’s inability to explain it, are frightening signs that Trump is not ready for the task of controlling weapons that can destroy the world.

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This May Be Trump’s Most Frightening and Dangerous Tweet Yet

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Trump Apparently Scares the Hell out of Gingrich

by Andres53Mddbjv Posted on December 22, 2016

Mother Jones

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In an interview with NPR on Wednesday, Newt Gingrich claimed that Donald Trump was ditching the catchphrase “drain the swamp”—the popular expression he used during the campaign when he promised to eliminate big money interests and corruption in Washington. The statement follows a number of actions by the president-elect that appear to back Gingrich’s assertion, as Trump appoints to his cabinet an increasing number of billionaires and millionaires with unprecedented potential conflicts of interest.

“I’m told he now just disclaims that,” the former House Speaker and loyal Trump adviser said. “He now says it was cute but he doesn’t want to use it anymore…I’d written what I thought was a very cute tweet about the ‘alligators are complaining,’ and somebody wrote back and said they were tired of hearing this stuff.”

But on Thursday, Trump took to Twitter to rebut the claim, all but calling Gingrich out by name for apparently going off message:

Shortly after, Gingrich posted this very sad video message confessing his “big boo boo.”

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Trump Apparently Scares the Hell out of Gingrich

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Business Community Shocked That Trump Might Impose Import Tariffs

by Melody56Xyn Posted on December 22, 2016

Mother Jones

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CNN reports that the business community is shocked at the idea that Donald Trump might impose import tariffs when he takes office:

Two sources who represent business interests in Washington tell CNN that the man in line to be White House chief of staff, Reince Preibus, has told key Washington players that one idea being debated internally is a 5% tariff on imports….Priebus, the sources said, was warned such a move could start trade wars, anger allies, and also hurt the new administration’s effort to boost the rate of economic growth right out of the gate.

One of the sources said he viewed the idea as a trial balloon when first raised, and considered it dead on arrival given the strong reaction in the business community — and the known opposition to such protectionist ideas among the GOP congressional leadership. But this source voiced new alarm Tuesday after being told by allies within the Trump transition that defending new tariffs was part of the confirmation “murder board” practice of Wilbur Ross, the President-elect’s choice for commerce secretary.

You know, I mostly feel kind of sorry for all the working-class folks who voted for Trump because they fell for his con. But you know who I don’t feel sorry for? The business community, which largely supported Trump because they thought they were too smart to be conned. He won’t really impose tariffs. He won’t really take revenge on companies that move jobs overseas. He won’t really crack down on all those illegal immigrants we give our dirtiest jobs to.

They just wanted their tax cuts and their pet regulatory changes. They didn’t care about all that racist, nativist, protectionist blather. It was just for show, anyway, wasn’t it? Ha ha ha. Right?

Well, Paul Ryan may save them in the end. We won’t know for a while. But these are rich, educated folks. They knew who Trump was. They knew he was spectacularly unqualified. They knew he was thin-skinned. They knew he was unstable. They knew he was egotistical. They knew he was vengeful. They knew he was dangerous. But they supported him anyway because they wanted their tax cuts. If they eventually find themselves on the business end of Trumponomics, I’m just going to lie back and snicker at them.

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Business Community Shocked That Trump Might Impose Import Tariffs

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Corey Lewandowski Opens Lobbying Shop to Cash in on Trump. Here’s What He Once Said About Lobbyists.

by WilhemiLandry Posted on December 21, 2016

Mother Jones

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In February, Corey Lewandowksi, who was then Donald Trump’s campaign manager, was interviewed by Trump’s future campaign chairman (and now senior White House adviser) Stephen Bannon about the role lobbyists play in Washington. Lewandowski’s response was unambiguous and venomous. Trump’s election, he declared, would mark the end of influence-peddling by political insiders. Here’s how he put it:

This is the fundamental problem with the ruling class in Washington, DC—the party bosses, the K Street crowd, the lobbyists who control all these politicians. They will do anything to maintain their power. They will do anything. They will say anything. They will spend whatever it takes because they know that if Donald Trump becomes the nominee and ultimately the president of the United States, the days of backroom deals are over. He will only be responsible to the American people. And so what you have is a series of people who’ve made a very, very good living by controlling politicians through their donations and making sure they get the legislation done—or not done—in Washington, DC to best benefit their clients. And those days are coming to an end.

But maybe not just yet.

On Wednesday morning, Lewandowski announced that he and another former Trump campaign veteran, Barry Bennett, are opening up a lobbying and political consulting firm in the swamp their ex-boss vowed to drain.

Without a hint of irony, the first sentence of Lewandowski’s press release points out that his offices will be just one block from the White House. He didn’t note that this is also one block from K Street, the ground zero of Washington influence-peddling, or Swamp Central. The next sentence touts Lewandowski’s close relationship with Trump. As in, we’re going to cash in on my insider connection to the guy in the White House.

For Lewandowski, this is actually a return to lobbying. As Mother Jones reported in March, Lewandowski was a registered lobbyist in the mid-2000s. In fact, Lewandowski lobbied for green energy subsidies. (One of his former clients told Mother Jones that Lewandowski was helpful to the funding of a publicly owned solar project in Massachusetts.) And he did this, as he headed up the New Hampshire chapter of government-bashing Americans for Prosperity.

It’s not clear if Lewandowski will once again register as a lobbyist. The firm’s announcement describes it as a full-service government relations and political consulting firm. But even if he sticks to the “consulting” side of things, his new gig might still make Trump campaign reunions awkward. On Tuesday, Kellyanne Conway, who led the Trump campaign in its final months, lashed out at Washington culture and “political consultants” in particular.

“Draining the swamp is not just about lobbying and politicians, it’s also about consultants,” Conway told conservative radio host Laura Ingraham, adding that she viewed political consultants as a “staff infection.” By the way, Conway has long been a political consultant.

This is the fundamental problem with the ruling class in Washington, D.C. – the party bosses, the K Street crowd, the lobbyists who control all these politicians. They will do anything to maintain their power. They will do anything. They will say anything.
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Corey Lewandowski Opens Lobbying Shop to Cash in on Trump. Here’s What He Once Said About Lobbyists.

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How Are Democrats Supposed to Appeal to the White Working Class?

by FredricGilfilla Posted on December 21, 2016

Mother Jones

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Over at Vox, Sean Illing interviews Justin Gest, a professor of public policy at George Mason University. Gest says that the white working class doesn’t fit neatly into either party: Republicans don’t like their protectionism and Democrats don’t like their nativism. This feeds their sense of marginalization:

White working-class people were left, not necessarily dismissed, but they’ve received a lot of lip service from both political parties over the years who were never truly prepared to go all in on the things they most cared about. But perhaps even more importantly, neither party did much to symbolically represent white working-class people in terms of the candidates they selected and the language they used.

….Politics is all about perceptions, and perceptions are so much more important than reality in terms of predicting voting behavior….If we’re trying to understand the political behavior of white working-class people, their sense of marginality and beleaguerment is real, and in their minds it’s meaningful — and that’s what matters in terms of our efforts to make sense of it.

In other words, you can tell them all day long that other people have it even worse, but that doesn’t make things any better. In the entire history of the world, it’s unlikely that this approach has ever made anyone feel any better.

But this raises a question that’s poked at me for years. Let’s just agree that the way we talk is important. Liberals certainly agree that it’s important when it comes to marginalized groups like women, blacks, Muslims, and so forth. They want dignity and respect, and you can’t use language that demeans them if you’re trying to win their votes.

Fine. But at some point you also need some substance. Eric Holder fought back against the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. Democrats passed—and Obama signed—the Lilly Ledbetter Act. Hillary Clinton supported an increase in the number of Syrian refugees we accepted even though it was politically dangerous.

So if liberals want to appeal to the white working class, they need some substantive policies to go along with a change in attitude. But what would those be? This is where I keep coming up short.

Stop negotiating trade deals? OK, but we all know that this won’t really accomplish much—and has plenty of downsides.
Bring back the manufacturing jobs? There’s almost unanimous agreement that there’s no way to do this.
Increase unemployment benefits and other forms of social welfare? That’s not what they want. They want good jobs.
Childcare and maternity leave benefits? See above. Besides, Democrats already support this. Republicans are the roadblock.
Offer retraining and relocation benefits? I recommend you keep your distance when you suggest this. Most struggling working class folks (a) don’t want this and (b) have heard it a million times and don’t believe it.
Move lots of government agencies out of Washington DC and into the heartland? Maybe, but the overall impact would be small and would mostly provide middle-class service jobs anyway.
Bring unions back? That would be great, but Republicans will never let it happen.
Get tough on immigration? Rhetorically this worked pretty well for Trump, but the truth is that the white working class in the upper Midwest hasn’t actually lost many jobs to Mexican immigrants—maybe none at all. In the end, I doubt that Trump will reduce illegal immigration much, and even if he does it won’t have more than a minuscule impact on the white working class in Wisconsin.
Tax cuts? There aren’t a lot of taxes to cut for families at working-class income levels. Besides, from a purely political standpoint, Democrats will never out-tax-cut Republicans.

Maybe there’s some genuinely great idea that I haven’t heard of. If so, I’m all ears. Beyond that, the only real possibilities seem to be some mix of moving rightward on social issues and paying less attention to the concerns of people of color. Those are nonstarters, I hope.

So what’s the answer? These guys want us to bring back the 50s, and that’s not possible. Are we supposed to adopt a campaign of pure gasbaggery, like Trump, with no actual substance to go along with it? Or are there truly some simple, concrete, and highly effective policies we could adopt to help out the white working class?

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How Are Democrats Supposed to Appeal to the White Working Class?

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