I have exactly one hour before I need to be dressed for a black-tie wedding. So let’s do this!
WHAT JUST HAPPENED IN THE UK? The UK held elections this week, and from what I can tell, it was bananas. My friend and UK-native Nick Walter volunteered to explain what is going on over there, and he went above and beyond:
On a day when American politicians publicly vied to show who had a better knowledge of English constitutional events a thousand years ago, the Brits showed that their institutional memory was less than twelve months. The Conservative government of Theresa May called this election to try to gain a decisive majority to help the government in the Brexit negotiations, precipitated by the fiasco of the referendum last June. One snag: after the last election, the Conservatives, then governing with the help of the Liberal Democrats, passed the Fixed Terms Parliament Act, which provided that elections could only be held at five-yearly intervals, not on the whim of whoever was in power. (This had been a petty dig against the outgoing Labour government, as the last Labour Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, had publicly flirted with the possibility of holding a snap election to consolidate his majority.) So the Conservatives had to pretend that never happened and ask Parliament for approval to hold a new election. Oops. For the benefit of American readers, Blackstone tells us that Parliament is all-powerful and is meant to hold the ruling government to account. So the Labour Party acquiesced and Parliament rubberstamped.
Now time for some more context on why we are in this mess in the first place. After the disastrous vote in June last year, and David Cameron’s musical departure from Downing Street, the new government—under Theresa May—announced that it intended to plough ahead with Brexit without seeking authority from Parliament. Parliament was supine, but two private citizens who did not believe that the government could withdraw from the EU without the assent of Parliament filed a legal challenge, which was successful in the Supreme Court. You should read the Supreme Court decision. It’s good. When Parliament finally got around to debating Brexit, it was not the Commons, but the Lords—the Lords—who stood up for the principle that the rights of foreign nationals should be protected, thereby softening the impact of this disaster for British citizens. Parliament then caved anyway and allowed the government to go ahead with Brexit, rather than exercising its responsibilities as a representative democratic body and saying, “No, we thought about this in 1806, and we don’t like it.”
Back to the crise du jour. When May called the election, it was expected she would cruise to victory, and, with luck, be able to negotiate a better deal for the UK than she would have with only a wafer-thin majority in the Commons. Instead, after a terrible campaign, the UK has a hung Parliament: no party has a majority. The Conservatives are now going to try to govern in coalition with the Democratic Unionists in Northern Ireland. The point of this election was to try to improve the national bargaining position for Brexit, and we just did the only thing that could have made it worse. In the meantime, the most successful politician in Britain right now is Jeremy Corbyn, a far-left politician who was on the wrong side of the cold war, has frequently refused to condemn terrorism, and can hardly bring himself to sing the national anthem. Faced with this situation, the rational person would emigrate to any country managing its affairs more competently.
TRUMPCARE IS ON THE VERGE OF PASSING THE SENATE: While we have all been reasonably obsessed with the drama of a former FBI chief publicly calling the president a liar (and then the president saying that that FBI chief committed perjury), the Senate has solidified its strategy of writing their version of the health care bill in total secret, with the goal of passing it as quickly as possible -- without a single hearing or markup. Since there is no public bill, we are relying in part on leaks and in part on speculation to figure out what is in this bill, but it will vary only in degree from the cruelty of the House bill. It seems they are looking to impose similar cruel slashes to Medicaid and other health spending, but just phase it in slower, over a five or seven year period. And they will also allow states to waive key elements of Obamacare’s rules -- most importantly, that all insurers cover basic essential health care -- but will not allow waivers for the community rating provision (ie, charging the sick and the healthy the same). But this could still make insurance for the sickest unaffordable, because “in states that waive the requirement of coverage for essential health benefits (EHBs), insurers could reduce the cost of covering people with preexisting conditions by nixing the EHBs upon which those people rely.” CAP healthcare expert Topher Spiro explains, “Before the ACA, some plans didn’t cover prescription drugs and many plans didn’t cover mental health or opioid addiction treatment. Under the Senate bill, insurers in some states could drop such benefits again. If you have diabetes, or cancer — or any preexisting condition that requires drugs — or an opioid addiction, you could be forced to pay thousands of dollars for prescription drugs or care out of pocket.”
The possibility of this getting 50 votes is absolutely and positively real, especially with the very troubling news this week that two key GOP “moderates” are open to ending the Medicaid expansion (and thus kicking millions of people off of their health insurance). They are pushing to get this done in the next few weeks. “I don’t think this gets better over time,” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) told Politico, describing the need to move quickly toward a vote. “So my personal view is we’ve got until now and the Fourth of July to decide if the votes are there or not. And I hope they are.” Chait: “Rushing to pass a bill that won’t take effect for many years may seem like a joke, but both elements serve the common purpose of minimizing democratic accountability for its extremely unpopular choices.”
This means we have three weeks to kill this. Which means we need to spend every day of the next three weeks working our assess off to terrify Republicans about the consequences of passing this monstrosity. Senate staffers are telling reporters that call levels are back to normal, pre-Trump era (15 calls or so a day). Among this group of readers, we can easily explode that number. Especially you and your friends in Ohio, Colorado, Nevada, Maine -- start working those phones. I know a bunch of you are in those states (at least OH, CO, and ME -- shoutout to the Nelsons, Wulsins, Fricks + Frick Friends, and Richards). This link has phone numbers of the offices AND of the Health aides that you should target (and it will get you FIRED UP, so read it). Let’s do this. Next week I’ll try to send out a proposed script you can use, but if you have a personal story about how Medicaid or the individual marketplace or the cap on annual or lifetime benefits has affected you or your friends and family, USE THEM. Remember that in pre-Obamacare days, birth control wasn’t free; insurance regularly did not include prescription drugs; insurance imposed annual and lifetime caps, so you were essentially cut off if you got too sick or injured; insurance did not typically cover mental health or substance abuse treatment. All of those things are gone because of Obamacare--and are in danger of returning from this bill. MAKE THOSE CALLS.
HOUSE INVITES ANOTHER FINANCIAL CRISIS: On Thursday, as James Comey was announcing to the world that the president is a dangerous liar who can’t be trusted, the House passed the most significant rollback of financial regulations in a generation, without a single Democratic vote. “It guts rules intended to protect mortgage borrowers and military veterans, and restrict predatory lenders. It also weakens the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ability to oversee and enforce consumer protection laws against banks around the country—upending a mix of powers that have helped the CFPB recover nearly $12 billion for 29 million individuals since opening its doors in July 2011. The bill also weakens or outright cuts a number of bank regulations enacted through Dodd-Frank to keep risky investing behavior in check in order to avoid the economic devastation of another financial crisis or taxpayer-funded bailout,” including the Labor Department rule requiring financial advisors to work in the best interests of their clients. Thank god this will need 60 votes to pass the Senate.
THIS IS CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS: I very much do not have time to get into this, but earlier this week, intelligence chiefs (Dan Coats, director of national intelligence, and Adm. Mike Rogers, head of the National Security Agency) refused to say whether or not Trump had ever asked them to intervene in the FBI’s Russia investigation. They had no legal basis for refusing to answer (and admitted as much); they simply felt to do so would be “inappropriate.” This is BS. The Senate Intelligence Committee oversees these agencies; it should require under penalty of contempt that these men answer these questions, which are not privileged and not classified and to which the American people deserve answers.
Endorsements:
- This video of Ted Cruz getting kicked off stage midway through his speech at the Faith and Freedom convention. This video has everything: His stupid voice; his stupid eyebrows; his faux-sincere pauses; his deeply awkward realization that his time has been cut off. Man, I love this video.
- This astute observation of Trump’s habit of constantly promising delivery “in the next two weeks.” “From overhauling the tax code to releasing an infrastructure package to making decisions on Nafta and the Paris climate agreement, Trump has a common refrain: A big announcement is coming in just ‘two weeks.’ It rarely does.
- My college friend Will Derry, who is getting married in one hour and I need to go get dressed!
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