THIS WEEK IN POLITICAL NEWS -- 11/19/17

A HEARTBREAKING WEEK: I may have brought on this week’s Al Franken-based heartbreak by asking friends and family over the last few weeks which celebrities we would be most devastated to find out were serial sexual harassers. Popular answers included Lin Manuel Miranda, Barack Obama, Tom Hanks, Stephen Colbert, etc. But when I read Leann Tweeden’s account of being forcibly kissed by Franken during a skit rehearsal on a USO tour in 2006, and when I saw the horrific and puerile and humiliating photo of him reaching for her breasts while she was sleeping, I realized Franken was the politician at the top of my Please Don’t Be Awful list -- and the article was devastating. Franken is, in my view, one of the best senators we have: driven by the right intentions, smart, dogged, and effective. And seemingly feminist! He is great for women, having championed actual legislation that is actually useful for women (the ACA being the most important)! His writing is hilarious and clear and inspiring. And yet, not long ago, he intentionally humiliated a woman by reducing her to the sexual object of his “humor.” This is the sort of “humor” that men use constantly, and women are forced to laugh along or be thought of as a prude or a killjoy. I can’t count the number of times in my life I have been cast as a “feminazi” for calling out a joke like this -- or, just as frequently, the times I have stayed silent out of fear of being so labeled. I look at that photo and am filled with the familiar anger that we are expected to put up with being reduced to sex objects just to be in on the joke.

And yet. And yet. I am not sure what to do about Franken. I’m not sure he should be forced to resign. Part of my hesitation is surely partisan and political: I like Franken’s politics, and I want him to remain the effective senator he is. Would the answer be much clearer and simpler if he was a rabid right-winger who could be relied on to vote against the interests of women time and time again? Probably! But I’m not sure that’s the end of the story: That I may feel differently about a different politician’s fate doesn’t necessarily mean I am a hypocrite. Or maybe it does -- but it doesn’t make the answer to the resignation question automatically clear.

It seems clear to me that Franken is not the same as Trump and Roy Moore, and Harvey Weinstein. Those men are all predators. They have serially and repeatedly used whatever power they have to prey on women less powerful and/or whose livelihoods hang in their control. Franken, on the other hand, is at heart a prankster whose retrogressive sense of humor puts him in the company of, probably, all male comics, especially of the 1970s/80s era. He thought the photo would be funny, because he failed to consider Ms. Tweeden’s humiliation, meaning that he failed to take her full humanity into account. That’s bad. It’s really bad. But he is not a predator. Should “not a predator” be the bar we set for senators? I’m not sure. Still, the distinction seems, to me, important. It is not hypocritical to think Trump/Moore/Weinstein should be treated differently than Franken, because they are different. Instead of using his power to repeatedly prey on women, Franken is using what power he has to, as far as I can tell, fight for women’s rights and empower them politically.

The bottom line is that I really don’t know what should happen to Franken, even after spewing all these words. I appreciate his apology, which seems genuine and which Ms. Tweeden has accepted (it is notable that she has not called on him to resign). From reading his book, I get the sense (I hope?) that this has been a difficult week for him and that he is reevaluating his behavior. I wish I could link to other thoughtful things I’ve read on this but I haven’t seen much (I’m sure they exist and I have just missed them). I’d certainly be interested in hearing your thoughts!

PS. This post by Masha Gessen presents a far more cogent (and concise) analysis of this stuff. Read it!

WHERE WE STAND ON GOP TAX CUTS: A lot happened this week in the GOP’s efforts to effect a massive transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the wealthiest individuals and corporations. Here’s a synopsis in disjointed form:

• The House voted on party lines to approve its millionaire’s tax cut this week. Here’s a good primer on what’s in it (though I quibble with the notion that reducing the number of brackets “simplifies” the tax code. The brackets have nothing to do with what makes taxes complicated.). One fun thing the House version includes is a special hammer to those quintessential plutocratic fat cats: grad students. It does this by taxing the tuition waivers schools provide to grad students (and some undergrads, especially residential advisors). So if a grad student is making $30,000 in income but getting a tuition waiver valued at $50,000, she would pay taxes on $80,000 of income. On the other hand, Ivanka won’t have to suffer the indignity of paying any tax on the hundreds of millions of dollars she will inherit at the end of her garbage father’s life. So that’s a plus. (The House bill also eliminates the deduction for the interest on college loans.)
• Now the Senate takes up its own version, which has a few changes, the most important of which is to finagle the numbers so that the math purports to conform to the budget reconciliation (i.e., add “only” $1.5 trillion to the deficit over the 10 year window, and $0 after 10 years). More on that below. But the bottom line is that, like the House version, the Senate bill overwhelmingly benefits the rich -- and harms less well-off Americans, as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities finds: “Specifically, the bill boosts the average after-tax income of households with more than $1 million of income by about twice as much as most low- and middle-income groups, giving tax cuts to millionaires that average more than $48,000 apiece in 2027.  At the same time, it raises taxes on 19.4 million households with incomes below $200,000 and leaves another 53.7 million households with virtually no tax change — which means that about 40 percent of households below $200,000 would see either no meaningful tax cut or a tax increase.”
• The most newsworthy difference is the Senate has decided to repeal Obamacare’s individual mandate. They want to do this because, with fewer people getting health insurance (because some will choose to go without it and others will be priced out with premium increases), the government will not have to pay as many subsidies, and will thus save money (money that can then be shoveled back into a tax cut for the rich). “The Congressional Budget Office currently estimates that eliminating Obamacare’s individual mandate will cause 13 million more people to become uninsured, and save the government $338 billion over 10 years.” The CBO also estimates that eliminating the mandate would drive premiums up an additional 10% over baseline. So the middle- and upper-middle-class families who do not qualify for government subsidies for their health care will be hit the hardest. Given that the CBPP estimates that the average family earning between $50,000 and $75,000 would save only about $750 on their taxes under the GOP plan, those savings would be all but wiped out by health insurance premium increases. You guys, this is simply insane.
• So, how does the Senate make the numbers work -- so that, on paper, the tax cuts do not explode the deficit past the 10-year window? Chait explains: “Their solution to this problem is to have all the individual tax cuts in their bill expire suddenly after 2025, while the corporate tax cuts — and the increase in individual income taxes — are permanent. On paper, they have passed a gigantic tax increase on most Americans after 2025. But Republicans can say it won’t take effect because Congress will vote to extend the tax cuts then. They are using a hypothetical future vote to get around the deficit neutrality requirement.” This is deeply cynical: Use 50 votes to get tax cuts for the rich and well-connected, and then demand the other party cooperate to prevent a tax hike on the rest of us in the future. “They are using a 50-vote bill to pass the things Republicans care about, and setting up other, 60-vote bills to fix them.” In other words, the GOP is depending on Democrats to defuse the time bombs they themselves have set.
• Oh and there’s this: The CBO warns that the tax cuts could trigger a $25 billion cut to Medicare. “It all comes down to the “pay-as-you-go,” or PAYGO, rule — a 2010 law that says all passed legislation cannot collectively increase the estimated national debt. In other words, if Republicans want to pass a tax cut, they have to pay for it with mandatory spending cuts — or, inversely, if Congress boosts funding for entitlement programs, it has to increase taxes. . . . There are ways Congress can get around this — namely by passing a law that wipes the scorecard clean for the year. But the politics of Republicans voting to undermine a deficit-management law won’t be easy.”
• Passage in the Senate will be tricky, as senators like Susan Collins and Bob Corker have intimated reluctance to vote for a bill that adds to the deficit and/or revokes the individual mandate and raises premiums. And also because it is not generous enough to rich business owners. Wait, what? Yep, Senator Ron Johnson objects that the bill is not a sweet enough deal for pass-through income: “I just have in my heart a real affinity for these owner-operated pass-throughs,” he said. Remember that the bill singles out these types of businesses (LLCs, etc) for a low rate that could allow wealthy individuals to simply reclassify themselves as pass-through entities and evade individual income taxes rates altogether. Johnson wants to lower those rates even more; since that would cost far more, Johnson says he wishes the budget had set the deficit limit at $2 or $3 trillion, rather than a measly $1.5 trillion. Yes -- the same senator who objected to Obama’s $1 trillion stimulus package to get us out of the greatest recession since the Great Depression because it added to the debt; the same senator who objected to Obama’s proposed budget because it would “increase the deficit by $128 billion [with a b]”; the same senator who squawked just last year that “the most significant threat to our national security is our debt,” calling it a “looming crisis” that “hangs over my evaluation of every other problem America must confront”  -- that same senator now shrugs at the notion of a TWO OR THREE TRILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT in the name of cutting taxes on businesses. Jesus these people.
• Dylan Matthews lays out a variety of options the GOP could have used to cut everyone’s taxes, or to cut the corporate tax rate, all while complying with the Senate rules and not raising middle class taxes and imperiling health insurance for millions. His article is worth a read: This stuff is really not that hard! But they have instead chosen to prioritize moving quickly and in secret and rewarding their donor base above all else.

Endorsements:

• From my previous endorsements, you can imagine how devastated I was (and am) by the Franken news. So on Thursday evening I watched Jerry Seinfeld’s new stand-up show on Netflix, “Jerry Before Seinfeld.” I am specifically endorsing the first 5 minutes, which entail a lengthy grammar-based bit. And we all know grammar jokes are to political grief what a pint of Ben & Jerry’s is to heartbreak.
• Brian Buetler: “We are well-past the point at which it’s safe to say the Trump campaign did indeed collude with the Russians.”
• This exchange between Sherrod Brown and Orrin Hatch about the GOP’s tax cut for the rich. That Hatch has no actual answer other than to literally protest too much is revealing. (P.S. Sherrod Brown is definitely on my Please God Don’t Be An Asshole list, for sure, especially because I love his relationship with wife Connie Shultz.)
• This NYT deep dive on the disintegration of the New York City subway system. Every single sentence is enraging. It’s a must-read (especially for my New York readers).

THIS WEEK IN POLITICAL NEWS -- 11/12/17

 EFFORT TO SLASH RICH PEOPLE’S TAXES MARCHES ON:  A new analysis released this week finds that a full THIRD of middle-class families would see their taxes INCREASE under the House GOP’s tax cut proposal. The Senate GOP’s version, released on Thursday, hardly improves matters. It “would raise taxes on millions of middle-class families, according to a preliminary New York Times analysis. The plan would also disproportionately benefit high earners and corporations.” Mitch McConnell was forced to acknowledge that, yes, the GOP’s “middle-class tax cut” will actually raise taxes on some middle-class families. What’s more, the Senate bill does not solve the fundamental problem that it is not passable under the Senate’s budget reconciliation rules, which seems sort of like a big problem.

So why is the GOP pressing forward with such a political shit sandwich? Perhaps because the proposals are designed to directly benefit Trump and his family -- and many thousands of other billionaires -- through at least five specific measures. Let’s start with the two obvious ones: The plan eliminates the estate tax, which right now only applies to the top 0.1% of the population (individuals with $5.5 million or couples with $11 million). “If [Trump] were really worth the $10 billion-plus that he claimed during the campaign, which I’m sure he’s not, it would save his heirs more than $4 billion.” FOUR BILLION DOLLARS. Second, we have the elimination of the Alternative Minimum Tax, which ensures that rich people pay at least some taxes. The only tax return we have of Trump’s, from 2005, shows that he would have saved $31 million (and paid only $7 million) if the AMT were eliminated. Third is the cut on income from pass-through entities, like LLCs, which is how the Trump Organization is structured. “[G]iven that [Trump] seems to have stakes in at least 500 pass-through entities, it looks like reducing his rate to 25 percent from 39.6 percent would save him a ton of money.” The final two are smaller but revealing in their brazen commitment to carve out special benefits for Trump. First, the plan preserves a current “conservation easement” subsidy that allows golf club owners to rake in millions just for keeping their golf courses. The Obama administration sought to eliminate this subsidy, but apparently the GOP couldn’t find space -- among the elimination of tax benefits for adoptive families, for veterans, and for those with rare diseases among others -- to cut this specific subsidy in their “reform” package. And then there’s this: “The Republican plan bars most businesses from deducting interest payments from their tax bills — but preserves that privilege for commercial real estate.” So golf club owners and commercial real estate developers get special tax benefits -- because this is a middle-class tax cut, obvi. But you have to credit the GOP: They are not even trying to conceal their reasons for pushing this bill: Lindsey Graham told a reporter that, among other bad consequences of failing to pass the tax cut bill, “financial contributions will stop.” And Rep. Chris Collins told reporters, "My donors are basically saying, 'Get it done or don't ever call me again.’” White House economic advisor Gary Cohn was just as blunt: “The most excited group out there are big CEOs, about our tax plan.”

TRUMP’S SUCCESSFUL ASSAULT ON THE JUDICIARY: The Times reports: “Republicans are systematically filling appellate seats they held open during President Barack Obama’s final two years in office with a particularly conservative group of judges with life tenure.” This is the kind of story (like any story about climate change) that fills me with such fear and dread that I would rather just ignore it -- and that’s why I’m quoting from only the first two paragraphs. Trump has already appointed 8 appellate judges, “the most this early in a presidency since Richard M. Nixon.” What’s more, “[o]f Mr. Trump’s 18 appellate nominees so far, 14 are men and 16 are white.” So that’s just awesome. Even more awesome is soon-to-be-judge Brett Talley, a guy who has been practicing law for THREE YEARS, whose claim to fame is as a right-wing blogger, and who has never argued a motion, let alone tried a case, in federal court. He has been nominated to be a district court judge -- i.e., a trial court judge -- and his nomination was unanimously approved by every Republican on the Senate judiciary committee. If he has no actual relevant experience, they must have been drawn to his incisive judicial mind, right? “In 2013, he wrote on his blog that armed revolution was an important defense against tyrannical government. . . . In 2013, about a month after a gunman killed 20 children at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., Mr. Talley on his blog pledged his total support to the National Rifle Association, ‘financially, politically and intellectually.’” So how did Talley possibly get on the list to be a nominee? Well, his current job is at the DOJ -- in the office that selects Trump’s judicial candidates.

ROY MOORE WAS AN AWFUL MAN BEFORE THIS WEEK: This week, the Washington Post published an extensive report, with 30 sources and four women speaking on the record, alleging that Alabama Senate candidate and all around cretin Roy Moore sexually assaulted a 14-year-old and “dated” other teenagers when he was a District Attorney in his 30s. Following the story, a former colleague of Moore’s, who worked with him in the DA’s office, said, “It was common knowledge that Roy dated high school girls, everyone we knew thought it was weird. We wondered why someone his age would hang out at high school football games and the mall.” Predictably, Moore’s Republican colleagues have been slow to fully denounce him. Most of them have said that he should step aside from the race “if the allegations are true.” It is unclear what proof these people are looking for, if the word of four women who do not know each other and have literally nothing to gain by coming forward is insufficient. And this comes after Fox News and its allies spent weeks not only rightfully covering the Weinstein story but insisting that it was somehow a Democratic scandal because he had giving money to Democrats. The Washington Post’s Amy Argetsinger asks: “Here's what I don't get: Even if your logic is purely partisan and your politics purely tribal, denouncing Weinstein while defending Roy Moore means you're basically taking the word of the famous Hollywood women but not the small-town Republican women.” Jamelle Bouie exposes the “if true” dodge for what it is: “[I]f true defers the issue to Moore himself. Either he makes it true by acknowledging and affirming the allegations, or he doesn’t, in which case those Republicans won’t have to act. If true renders the question inert. If true is moral cowardice.”

It’s true that some Republicans have backed away from Moore in the wake of these revelations this week. But let’s remember that Moore was a truly despicable man supremely unqualified for the Senate well before this week. First, he made his name by defying court orders as a judge, contravening court orders to put up a statute of the 10 Commandments outside his office and, later, refusing to allow same-sex marriage in Alabama even after the Supreme Court had ruled that such refusals violate the Constitution. He is an anti-Muslim bigot: He declared that Muslims should not be permitted to serve in the U.S. Congress; he called Islam a “false religion;” and he falsely claimed that parts of the United States are ruled by sharia law. He said that homosexuality is an “inherent evil” and argued that it should be illegal. He has suggested that 9/11 was a result of God’s anger at homosexuality and abortion. That the GOP embraced this man at all is unbelievable; that so many are standing by him now (including this truly deranged woman on Fox) is disgusting.

MUELLER UPDATE: Robert Mueller is now investigating whether the United States national security advisor was secretly plotting to kidnap an American resident and render him to a foreign government in exchange for millions of dollars. Yep. From the WSJ: “Under the alleged proposal, Mr. Flynn and his son, Michael Flynn Jr., were to be paid as much as $15 million for delivering Fethullah Gulen to the Turkish government, according to people with knowledge of discussions Mr. Flynn had with Turkish representatives.” Flynn met with Turkish government officials in December 2016, after he had been publicly named as the incoming national security advisor, to discuss the kidnapping. Perhaps this has something to do with reports that Mueller already has enough evidence to indict Flynn?

GOOD NEWS: “A government report from last week showed that 601,462 people had enrolled in the Affordable Care Act’s individual marketplaces during the first four days of open enrollment, up 79 percent from the same period a year ago. 23 percent of those customers are new to the marketplace.”

GOOD POINT: This weekend, while overseas, Trump appeared to take Russia’s side over the “political hacks” in the American intelligence agencies who say that Russia intentionally interfered in the 2016 election, insisting sympathetically that Putin is “insulted” by the claim. After the intelligence community restated its conclusion that, of course, Russia did interfere in the election, Trump tried to back off slightly -- but he still refused to admit Russia’s role in the election, and then  argued in favor of removing sanctions from Russia (he still has not imposed the Congressionally-mandated sanctions from this fall, I believe) in the hope of being better  friends with the Kremlin. Watching all of this, Josh Marshall reacted on Twitter: “The country has been in a sort of fog for a year. Proving collusion 18 months ago is kind of beside the point. We’re watching it in real time. President Putin has a tight hold over the President. He is actively working to block an understanding of what happened in 2016 and prevent what will happen in 2018. This isn’t hyperbole. Have you even seen a business man asked about the mobster who owns him? It’s very similar. A foreign adversary actively worked to elect a candidate. He got elected and has consistently done everything possible to support and defend the foreign adversary. He takes the foreign adversary’s side against his own govt. There’s no other explanation for what we see beside the bad explanation. It’s like an active crime scene.”

Endorsements:

• Another must-read from Lindy West. Her ability to craft sentences that I want to shout out an open window continues to amaze me.
• This hilarious screed about Carter Page. Some truly epic insults in this one.
• Jia Tolentino revisits the story of the SIXTEEN women (I didn’t even remember it was that many) accusing Trump ON THE RECORD of sexual misconduct, harassment, and rape -- and our shameful failure to listen to them.
• My colleague Ilann Maazel’s idea of a Save America Act, which should include barring outside presidential income, mandating disclosure of tax returns, and, oh, you know, just a small thing barring a president from launching a nuclear first strike on his own.

THIS WEEK IN POLITICAL NEWS -- 11/4/17

INDICTMENT WEEK EDITION

Ed. Note: How is it that my baby can sense exactly when I am sitting down to write, and decide that it is the perfect moment to wake up/cry/insist on being held? My kid has a sixth sense and does NOT want me writing this thing, apparently. Nevertheless, I persisted.

INDICTMENTS!: Monday morning feels like forever ago, and I’m sure you all know what happened: Mueller unsealed indictments of Paul Manafort and his right-hand man Rick Gates for money laundering and tax evasion. His team also unsealed a guilty plea by erstwhile Trump foreign policy aide George Papadopolous, who pled guilty to lying to the FBI about his attempts to coordinate with Russian officials during the campaign. So, yeah, the Papadopolous story is, for purposes of the larger investigation, the bigger deal here. Lawfare summarizes what we learned on Monday: “To wit, during that period, members of the Trump campaign team were actively working to set up a meeting with Russian officials or representatives. And from a very early point in the campaign, those meetings were explicitly about obtaining hacked, incriminating emails. . . . [A]t the same time as Papadopoulos admits he was working Russian government officials for Clinton emails and for a Trump-Putin meeting, Manafort was allegedly still laundering the money he had obtained by illegally representing one of Putin’s allied strongmen.”

So what do we make of all of this? I think we can safely put to bed the question of whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to interfere in the election, because the answer is unquestionably yes. A foreign policy aide spent weeks courting Russian officials, and when told that Russia had “dirt” -- including “thousands of emails” from Clinton -- in its possession, he went to his supervisors at the campaign and urged them to set up a meeting with Putin. Those advisors told him he was doing “great work,” and only dismissed the idea of Trump himself attending such a meeting, saying that someone lower on the totem pole should do it. And then, wouldn’t you know it, policy aide Carter Page visits Moscow a couple of months later and met with Russian officials -- a trip he told Jeff Sessions about. At the same time, a different Russian with high-level government contacts gets invited to Trump Tower to meet with Jared, Manafort, and Don Jr. promising to bring dirt on Clinton and armed with government-approved talking points -- and the campaign (Don Jr.) is eager for that dirt. And then we have the stories about Trump associates seeking out Wikileaks to better distribute the emails that Russians hacked from the DNC. Collusion simply means working together. Given all of this, how can anyone say that the Trump campaign was anything other than eager to work with Russian officials to get damaging information on Trump’s election opponent? Ezra Klein lays all of this out extremely clearly here. (It’s also important to note that “collusion” is not necessarily a crime. But in any other world, it is a massive, unprecedented scandal that should end the Trump presidency.)

MUELLER’S WORK EXPOSES MORE LIES: ThinkProgress points out a “hidden bombshell” in the Papadopolous plea. In March 2016, he attended a meeting at which Trump was present and announced that he could set up a meeting between Trump and Putin. The Times reports that Trump listened with interest, and did not say no to the idea. But earlier this year, when questioned by reporters, Trump said that he had no idea any of his aides, other than Michael Flynn, had any contacts with Russians during the campaign. The plea deal strongly suggests that Trump was lying.

This also adds to evidence that Sessions has lied about his knowledge of Russian contacts. Recall that, during his Senate confirmation hearing, Sessions (unprompted) told Al Franken that he was “not aware of any of those activities,” when asked if he knew of any Trump aide having contact with Russians. And just last month, he reiterated that he was not aware of any “continuing exchange of information between Trump's surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government,” and that he “do[esn’t] believe they occurred.” (Both of these statements were made under oath.) But Trump aide J.D. Gordon, who was at that March 2016 meeting that Trump and Sessions both attended, told the Times that Papadopolous “went into the pitch right away,” highlighting his talks with a high-level Russian official and proposing to set up a meeting with Putin. Gordon said Sessions supposedly nixed the idea and warned the others not to talk about it “because it might leak.” And Carter Page, another Trump foreign policy aide, told the Times that he told Sessions in the spring of 2016 of his plans to travel to Russia in the summer of 2016. Franken sent a letter to Sessions on Thursday: “This is another example in an alarming pattern in which you, the nation’s top law enforcement official, apparently failed to tell the truth, under oath.”

THE RULE OF LAW BENDS BUT REMAINS UNBROKEN, FOR NOW: This week, a deranged man killed eight people in New York City when he intentionally rammed a truck onto the pedestrian and bike path on the West Side Highway, in an apparent terrorist attack. The attacker was captured alive, after police shot him in the abdomen. Almost immediately after the attack, Lindsey Graham insisted that this man -- a legal U.S. resident who was captured in the U.S. -- should be held as an enemy combatant, without the legal rights afforded to all criminal suspects apprehended in America. Graham explained: “The one thing I like about President Trump, he understands that we’re in a religious war. The last thing I want this guy to hear tonight is ‘You have a right to a lawyer.’ The last thing [he] should hear is his Miranda rights.” John McCain agreed. For his part, Trump suggested the attacker should be thrown into Gitmo, after calling our justice system “a joke and a laughingstock.” Perhaps I am biased, given my profession, but this last statement strikes me as one of the most disgusting and disgraceful things Trump has ever said. At least he was forced just 24 hours later to acknowledge that the “laughingstock” of a justice system is better equipped to try terrorist suspects than Gitmo. And indeed, the DOJ has already charged the suspect, a tacit acknowledgment by Sessions that the federal justice system can easily handle these cases -- something that directly contradicts his (and Trump’s) years of fearmongering about trying terrorist suspects in federal court.

Still, Trump continued to attack the DOJ and FBI all week, angrily insisting that the DOJ should be investigating and prosecuting Hillary Clinton. But Benjamin Wittes sees a silver lining: In an interview this week, Trump said, “[T]he saddest thing is, because I am the President of the United States, I am not supposed to be involved with the Justice Department. I’m not supposed to be involved with the FBI. I’m not supposed to be doing the kind of things I would love to be doing and I am very frustrated by it.” In any other moment, the spectre of a president demanding the prosecution of his political opponents would be earth-shattering, crisis-inducing stuff; as Wittes puts it, “In these radio comments and these tweets, Trump is announcing just how badly he wants to corrupt the DOJ.” But the silver lining, the reason for hope and pride, is Trump’s frustration -- his acknowledgment that he is, in fact, constrained by chains. “The chains are the workaday women and men of federal law enforcement, and their expectations that the political echelon at the Justice Department will shield them from becoming the President’s janissaries and enforcers.” Wittes’ entire take is worth reading.

ON TAXES, RICH GET A WINDFALL -- BUT IT COULD BE WORSE: Yesterday, the House GOP finally released its tax plan, after a few days of delays to figure out their untenable position:

“Republicans have promised their donors $5 trillion worth of tax cuts. But their budget only allows for revenue loss of $1.5 trillion. What they call “tax reform” is a process of trying to stuff the $5 trillion tax cuts into a $1.5 trillion bag.” From my not-super-well-informed reading, the plan certainly heavily favors the mega-wealthy, but it could be worse. There are even a few things that seem like good ideas, most notably starting to cut back on the mortgage interest deduction, a tax break that skews heavily to the wealthy and helps distort the housing market in dangerous ways. And it keeps the highest tax bracket at 39.6%, although it raises the income threshold for that bracket to $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for couples. But it has some deeply regressive elements, like repealing the estate tax and getting rid of the Alternative Minimum Tax. “There is perhaps no better example of how much this will benefit the rich than that fact that Donald Trump would have paid $31 million less in taxes in 2005 (the one year for which we have his tax returns) without the AMT.” It also punishes the millions of Americans with student loans, barring them from deducting the loan interest from their income (but it does allow people to open college savings accounts for their “unborn children”). And it has a host of majorly unpopular provisions to try to pay for its massive cuts for corporations and the rich, repealing the deduction to offset adoption costs; the deduction for costs to small business to make their business accessible to the disabled; the deduction for long-term medical care and other illness-related expenses; even the tax incentive to hire veterans. All while raising taxes on the middle class: The exemplar middle class family the House GOP is holding up to show a tax cut -- a family making $59,000 would see a $1,182 tax cut, they say -- would in fact get slammed with a tax increase by 2024. As Chait puts it, “The plan reads as if it was reverse-engineered from 30-second political attack ads.”

It is important to note that “the bill will almost certainly not remain in its current form.” That’s because of the Senate’s rules. The Senate’s budget reconciliation rules -- where Republicans can pass legislation with only 50 votes and do not have to rely on Democrats -- apply only where a proposed bill does not add to the deficit after 10 years. So the GOP has two options to pass its tax bill: (1) make sure the tax cuts don’t add to the deficit, or (2) make the tax cuts temporary, expiring after 10 years. (So the Bush tax cuts, for example, expired after 10 years.) With unified GOP control of the government this year, they were intent on passing permanent -- and thus deficit-neutral -- tax cuts. But the House plan adds trillions of dollars to the deficit, and they have no idea how to solve the problem to get permanent tax cuts without Democratic votes. As Chait writes, they appear to have essentially given up: “The months they have spent trying to maneuver around Senate rules and avoid the mistake of the Bush years have come up mostly empty. They are going to leave it to the Senate to devise an answer to a problem they could not solve. In its most important aspect, then, the House tax-cut plan is a complete failure of governing.” (Note that McCain, Collins, and Corker have all made statements suggesting they will oppose this bill: McCain has insisted on bipartisanship and regular order; Collins opposes eliminating the estate tax; and Corker has vowed to vote down any bill that adds to the debt. If they remain true to these positions, then the bill has no chance of passing the Senate.)

Endorsements:

• For New York voters: On Tuesday, along with voting for our next mayor, we have the chance to vote for a constitutional convention to rewrite the state’s constitution. There are definite risks to holding a convention, and there are lots of very reputable groups urging you to vote against it (including the New York Times and the New York Civil Liberties Union). But I am endorsing it, though not without a bit of trepidation. The bottom line is that this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix the disaster that is New York’s politics, primary of which are election reform (specifically, gerrymandering and campaign finance). My boss, Richard Emery, wants the constitutional convention to abolish the legislature entirely and replace it with an entirely new unicameral body, and he makes a convincing case for it here. As he puts it, “A clean slate is literally the only way to build a new culture of transparency and responsiveness in legislative activity that can fulfill the promises that politicians in New York invariably break.” There are risks, of course. The convention could be taken over by lobbyists, corporate interests, and/or far right-wingers. But any changes the convention comes up with will be put back on the ballot to be voted up or down by New York voters, and I feel relatively confident that the Forces of Justice could successfully mobilize to defeat a disastrous constitution (then again, facing off against big moneyed interests is scary, and 2016 taught us that we can’t ever be sure what will happen with an election). So the risks are real, but so are the upsides. Right now, the entire government is run by the Three Men in a Room. That is an insane, corrupt, disgusting way to run what should be one of the most progressive and enlightened states in the country. So I encourage you to vote YES on the constitutional convention -- and then to stay super engaged to make sure we pick the right delegates and put pressure on them to make the right decisions. (On the other hand, this Working Families Party column urging a No vote raises some very good points…)
• I am not one to endorse Joe Scarborough, but he lays out a very clear timeline of Team Trump’s involvement with Russia that makes this whole thing much clearer and simpler, so check it out.
• Brian Beutler on the blatant and outrageous way Trump is attempting to obstruct justice.
• Find out what prompted Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stein to write the following chilling sentence: “Make no mistake: With this filing, Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ Justice Department has declared war on attorneys and groups who dare to oppose it in court.” (Seriously, read this.)