THIS WEEK IN POLITICAL NEWS -- 4/13/17

The Ignoring-Foreign-Policy-Because-It’s-Terrifying Edition

COURTS DOING GOOD: This week we open with some good news, of judges protecting the rights of minorities and showing what a central bulwark for justice courts can be. We start with a federal judge in Texas who found that the state’s strict voter ID law, first passed in 2011, was passed with the intent to discriminate against minority voters and thus violated the Voting Rights Act. The court found that the bill was passed “at least in part because of its adverse effects” upon minority groups. The court noted that the GOP majority rejected amendments that would have allowed a wider range of photo IDs, while at the same time offering “no substance to the justifications . . . for the draconian terms of SB 14.” As the Times notes, “The finding of intentional discrimination could once again put Texas under federal supervision for years, making it the first state brought back into so-called preclearance since the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling.” Next, the Seventh Circuit became the first federal appeals court to hold that “discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a form of sex discrimination prohibited under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” Writing in concurrence, Judge Richard Posner fought against the judicial philosophy of “originalism”: “We should not leave the impression that we are merely the obedient servants of the 88th Congress (1963– 1965), carrying out their wishes. We are not. We are taking advantage of what the last half century has taught.” Finally, in the Fourth Circuit, the court was forced to dismiss the case of a transgender student who sued his school for refusing to let him use the bathroom of his preference, after he graduated and thus mooted the case. (This sounds like bad news, and it is, but it has a silver lining. We’re getting there.) I’ll let my friend David Lebowitz explain the background:

As background for those who aren’t familiar with this case, the Fourth Circuit last year held that Gavin Grimm, a transgender boy, was entitled to a preliminary injunction preventing his school district in Virginia from enforcing a policy banning him from boys’ bathrooms, thus forcing him to use only single-person bathrooms at school or else wait until he was at home to use the toilet. The opinion relied on federal Department of Education guidance issued under the Obama administration, which interpreted Title IX to prohibit policies like the one put in place by Gavin’s school district, which was implemented at a public meeting where his pleas for compassion and recognition were ignored in favor of bigoted fear-mongering.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, but then Trump’s Department of Education revoked the Obama-era rule that the Fourth Circuit had relied on, and so the Supreme Court sent the case back to the Fourth Circuit. Because Gavin is a senior about to graduate, the court formally revoked the injunction and dismissed the case. So all of this is insanely frustrating and disheartening, and I know I promised you good news. Well, Judge Andre Davis wrote a stirringly beautiful opinion commenting on the injustice of the case. It’s only 3 pages long, so you should read it. It really is a beautiful piece of writing, and a reminder of the power of courts and the law to enforce dignity, equality, and fairness to those whom the rest of society so often seeks to oppress. Here’s a highlight:

Our country has a long and ignominious history of discriminating against our most vulnerable and powerless. We have an equally long history, however, of brave individuals—Dred Scott, Fred Korematsu, Linda Brown, Mildred and Richard Loving, Edie Windsor, and Jim Obergefell, to name just a few—who refused to accept quietly the injustices that were perpetuated against them. It is unsurprising, of course, that the burden of confronting and remedying injustice falls on the shoulders of the oppressed. These individuals looked to the federal courts to vindicate their claims to human dignity, but as the names listed above make clear, the judiciary’s response has been decidedly mixed. Today, G.G. adds his name to the list of plaintiffs whose struggle for justice has been delayed and rebuffed; as Dr. King reminded us, however, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” G.G.’s journey is delayed but not finished.

Boom.

ZOMBIE TRUMPCARE RISES FROM THE DEAD?: In a sudden about-face with no real explanation, Trump declared this week that he was committed, once again, to getting healthcare “reform” done before moving on to tax cuts, reversing his position after Trumpcare went down to ignominious defeat last month. His new strategy, it seems, is to try to deliberately destroy the Obamacare insurance markets, which he thinks will force Democrats to come to the negotiating table. So this week, he insisted that HHS announce that it would not necessarily continue making payments to insurance companies to subsidies low-income customers, just one day after HHS told the Times that it would continue those payments. Apparently unsure how this whole “we can hear you when you speak out loud” thing works, Trump laid out his strategy to the Wall Street Journal: “Obamacare is dead next month if it doesn’t get that money. I haven’t made my viewpoint clear yet. I don’t want people to get hurt … What I think should happen and will happen is the Democrats will start calling me and negotiating.” This is an odd strategy, given that the intentional destruction of Obamacare will only redound to the benefit of Democrats. As Chait puts it, “Trump is threatening Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to meet his demands or else he will give them a majority in Congress.” But really, whatever Trump thinks about Obamacare, Trumpcare is very much dead: Rep. Charlie Dent, an influential member of the “moderate” Republican caucus in the House, told reporters on Tuesday that they did not want to pass a Republican-only healthcare bill, admitting that the GOP would “need to start over” on their healthcare plans. As long as the moderates are running scared of repealing Obamacare entirely--and they’re scared because their constituents are up in arms (I see you, Mike Coffman)--the law remains safe.

SESSIONS’ PATH OF DESTRUCTION: Today there were a spate of stories about how Trump is “moderating,” shutting out the Bannons of his team and turning toward the “moderates” like Gary Cohn. Do not believe these stories. Bannon may be on his way out**, but the most destructive Attorney General in modern American history is just getting started—and his initial moves have been terrifying and awful and must not be ignored. Just in the last two weeks, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III has announced that he will “review” all DOJ’s consent decrees with police departments around the country. “In a two-page memo released Monday, Sessions said agreements reached previously between the department’s civil rights division and local police departments—a key legacy of the Obama administration—will be subject to review by his two top deputies, throwing into question whether all of the agreements will stay in place.” As Radley Balko points out, the worst consequence of this is Sessions’ decree that the DOJ will essentially no longer investigate and issue reports on civil rights abuses by police departments. But these reports serve essential functions: “The Justice Department reports on police abuse in Chicago, Baltimore, Ferguson and Cleveland weren’t just damning and outrageous, they gave voice to what minority communities in those cities have been saying for years. They created a record. They legitimized the abuses of marginalized people who never had the platform to be heard.” Sessions has also announced his intention to revive the war on drugs, and has specifically compared marijuana to heroin. He has hired a committed drug warrior to be his right-hand man; as the Post reports, “The two men are eager to bring back the national crime strategy of the 1980s and ’90s from the peak of the drug war, an approach that had fallen out of favor in recent years as minority communities grappled with the effects of mass incarceration.” (Note that even as Sessions salivates over fighting “urban” crime with increased drug prosecution, the White House has appointed Chris Christie to lead a fight to help solve the opioid crisis—through, obviously, therapy and other non-punitive means. Gee, I wonder what could possibly account for the difference in strategies?) Finally, and most disgustingly and almost shockingly cruelly, Sessions has abruptly terminated a “Justice Department partnership with independent scientists to raise forensic science standards and has suspended an expanded review of FBI testimony across several techniques that have come under question.” This is a group of experts trying to tamp down on the junk science that has sent thousands of people to prison. Sessions simply refuses to engage with this panel’s work, which in a 2009 report determined that literally thousands of prosecutions have rested on scientifically dubious practices, like bitemark evidence and handwriting analysis. “I don’t think we should suggest that those proven scientific principles that we’ve been using for decades are somehow uncertain and leaving prosecutors having to fend off challenges on the most basic issues in a trial,” Sessions said. Of course, the upshot of this examination was to show these “principles” are far from “proven.” “[T]he department has literally decided to suspend the search for the truth,” said Peter S. Neufeld, co-founder of the Innocence Project, which has reported that nearly half of 349 DNA exonerations involved misapplications of forensic science. “As a consequence innocent people will languish in prison or, God forbid, could be executed.” So, that’s great.

** “I like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late,” Trump said. “I had already beaten all the senators and all the governors, and I didn’t know Steve. I’m my own strategist and it wasn’t like I was going to change strategies because I was facing crooked Hillary.” OUCH.

DEMOCRATS SHOWING POTENTIAL HOUSE STRENGTH: This week, one of the nation’s most conservative House districts, in Kansas, faced a special election to replace Rep. Mike Pompeo, who is now Trump’s CIA director. In November, Trump won the district by over 27 points. This week, the Republican won by only 7. Given that the DCCC spent literally $0 on the Kansas race (judging it impossible to win, given its supremely conservative bent), the surprisingly close race augers well for the midterms -- and for some additional special elections coming up, starting with next week’s race in the Atlanta suburbs. There, 30-year-old Democrat Jon Ossoff has raised a staggering $8 million, and he is virtually guaranteed a spot in the runoff in June. The question will be whether we can surpass 50% on Tuesday, foreclosing the need for a runoff, in a race against 17 Republican challengers. And a populist Berniecrat is running a surprisingly compelling campaign in Montana, to fill the seat vacated by our new Interior Secretary. I want to go back to Kansas though to end with this observation from Charles Pierce, commenting on the instant post-game sniping of “Berniecrat” Democrats, angry that the DCCC didn’t spend in the race at the “establishment” wing of the party:

What happened in Kansas should be an occasion for unalloyed celebration. There are good arguments to be made that had the Democratic National Committee come tromping into that district with both feet, it would have done more harm than good. Leaving things to local activists, augmented by boots on the phone from all around the country, was a very sensible strategy. And it almost worked in a district so ridiculously conservative that one of the Koch brothers actually lives there. The impulse within some progressives to skunk up the garden party is a wonder to behold. Truly, it is.

If you know anyone in the Atlanta suburbs, or in Montana, urge them to VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE.

#HEADDESK MOMENT OF THE WEEK: We could also call this “The Donald J. Trump Story recounted in one quote”:

He said they hit it off during their first discussion. Mr. Trump said he told his Chinese counterpart he believed Beijing could easily take care of the North Korea threat. Mr. Xi then explained the history of China and Korea, Mr. Trump said.

“After listening for 10 minutes, I realized it’s not so easy,” Mr. Trump recounted. “I felt pretty strongly that they had a tremendous power” over North Korea,” he said. “But it’s not what you would think.”

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Best Video of the Week: Rachel dives into Sean Spicer’s shocking (and sometimes hilarious) incompetence, culminating in this week’s epic 4-part forgetting-the-Holocaust gaffe.

Bonus Videoish of the Week: The Spicer Holocaust story is not complete without this amazing 10 second GIF of reporter Ashley Parker reacting to Spicer’s word salad in real time.

But Also Don’t You Dare Miss: Alexandra Petri on Spicer’s multi-part attempt to walk back his Hitler comparisons. Seriously, this is one of my favorite Petri columns ever.

Must Read of the Week: Budget director Mick Mulvaney exposes the GOP’s actual priority: maintaining (or expanding) income inequality.

#BothSides-ism Is Stupid: Part 1,000.

THIS WEEK IN POLITICAL NEWS -- 4/6/17

Little Nuggets Edition (i.e., I didn’t have the time or attention this week to do a lot of news gathering)

THIS CRAP AGAIN: “Ever since President Trump tweeted, in the early morning of March 4th, that ‘Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory,’ the White House and its defenders have labored to find a justification for the false allegation.” So this week, the Right is bringing back its favorite Obama boogeyman, Susan Rice, that advisor who committed the unspeakable crime of going on TV and using talking points given to her by the intelligence agencies to talk about the Benghazi attacks. DRAW AND QUARTER HER. Anyway. The White House and Nunes have been working together to try to make the Russian interference investigation into an indictment of “unmasking” procedures of Americans -- including Trump officials -- by intelligence agencies, and that effort reached its apex this week with a story published by a shockingly repulsive man best known for being a rape apologist (sample quote: “Have you guys ever tried ‘raping’ a girl without using force? Try it. It's basically impossible. Date rape does not exist.” Yes, he just told his twitter followers to “try” raping women)* alleging that She-Devil Susan Rice had personally demanded the unmasking of various Trumpers. And naturally, the entire right wing apparatus launched into gear taking this totally seriously. As Ryan Lizza reports, such unmasking of the identities of Americans incidentally caught on the surveillance of foreigners is routine: “‘Masking and unmasking happens every single day, dozens of times, or hundreds of times. I don’t even know the numbers,’ Jim Himes, a Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told me. ‘There needs to be a process followed. It’s a fairly rigorous process, involving lots of review by counsels and that sort of thing.’”

*Here Cernovich is today claiming that Assad’s chemical weapons attack against his own people is “fake.” Truly a great guy.

FACT ABOUT DRONE STRIKES: “During President Obama’s two terms in office, he approved 542 such targeted strikes in 2,920 days—one every 5.4 days. From his inauguration through today, President Trump had approved at least 75 drone strikes or raids in 74 days—about one every day.”

UPDATE ON TRUMP FLEECING AMERICA: Remember how, before Trump, every single president has gone to extraordinary lengths to remove all possible appearances of conflict of interest (see, e.g., Carter selling his peanut farm). And remember how, in a radical departure, Trump decided instead to keep all his various money-making ventures but to put them in a “trust” controlled by his sons? And how he staged that ridiculous press conference featuring dozens of empty manilla folders to serve, somehow, as proof of all the legal ins and outs he was creating a “complete separation” between himself from his business? Even though it was obviously a sham at the time, new reporting by ProPublica revealed it this week to be a 100% sham, in that Trump has changed those trust documents to allow him to plunder any of his businesses, at any time, for any amount of money he wants: “The previously unreported changes to a trust document, signed on Feb. 10, stipulates that it ‘shall distribute net income or principal to Donald J. Trump at his request’ or whenever his son and longtime attorney ‘deem appropriate.’ That can include everything from profits to the underlying assets, such as the businesses themselves.” Jonathan Chait remembers who, ultimately, is to blame for the fleecing of America: “The Republican Congress has granted Trump unlimited license to use his office to enrich himself and his family, and to enmesh his family in the business of governing.” P.S. When Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, was asked about holding hearings into Trump’s efforts to enrich himself and his businesses through the presidency (recall that he has visited Trump-branded properties nearly one out of every three days of his presidency so far), Chaffetz shrugged, “‘He’s already rich,’ Chaffetz said. ‘He’s very rich. I don’t think that he ran for this office to line his pockets even more. I just don’t see it like that.’” Good to know rich people can’t be corrupt!

OTHER THINGS:

• First, Syria: as I write this, it looks like Trump has just launched a missile strike against Syrian infrastructure targets. This comes one day after Assad’s chemical weapons attack, and just hours after Trump so eloquently said, when asked whether Assad should leave power, that “something should happen.” Also one week after Secretary Tillerson suggested that the White House had no issue with Assad remaining in power. Also, it should be noted that Trump spent a lot of 2013 insisting that any attack on Syria needed congressional approval. (Remember all those pieces of shit who said that a Clinton presidency was far more likely to lead to war than Trump? Yeah, so do I.) OH, and let’s not forget that, even as Trump says that the chemical attack was “a disgrace to humanity,” citing in particular the deaths of children, recall that he is doing his damndest to bar all Syrian refugees -- the very people targeted by Assad -- out of this country (and out of safety) forever. It is outrageous and disgusting and awful and we should all feel deeply, deeply ashamed.
• Second, health care: Read this Chait piece about how the GOP is at each other’s throats over their failed Obamacare repeal.
• Third: Bannon: So apparently Trump didn’t like all those references to “President Bannon,” even though they were obvious plays at Trump’s hilariously fragile egos (and they worked!). And so Bannon was kicked off the National Security Council, where he had no place being to begin with. And the White House’s excuse is hilarious: It says that Bannon was there to keep an eye on Michael Flynn, whom they “all knew . . . had issues,” and now that Flynn’s out (over a month ago), Bannon doesn’t need to be there. Which makes you wonder why in the hell Flynn was appointed to begin with. Anyway, now reports are coming out that Bannon and Kushner are in an all-out battle, with Bannon calling Kushner a “globalist” (i.e., liberal Jewish cosmopolitan) and a “cuck.” (If you don’t get that last insult, click here.) THESE PEOPLE ARE THE WORST.
• Fourth: Today the Senate destroyed the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. Gorsuch will be on the seat that should have been Garland’s. I still find myself so dispirited by this entire thing that it is difficult to read and write about it. Make no mistake, Gorsuch will be far worse than Scalia, as far right and and just as smug as Alito (at least Scalia believed in the Fourth Amendment). The end of the filibuster is in many ways terrifying (so much for all those Republicans who ran on a platform of being a check on Trump), but I think we had no choice here. And I have been persuaded by various pieces of writing, like this piece by Eric Levitz, that the elimination of the filibuster is ultimately a necessary progressive step. That’s all the reaction I can really muster right now.

Good Read of the Week: Josh Barro: “Republicans are now endorsing enough of Obamacare that we can say they are for Obamacare. Period.”

Best Thing on the Internet: A columnist tries to scrub his anti-Trump history, in an attempt to get an administration job. It doesn’t go well.

THIS WEEK IN POLITICAL NEWS -- 4/2/17

TRUMP IS WINNING ON IMMIGRATION: Over the last few weeks, it’s been easy to start feeling a little victorious about The Resistance. We’ve stopped the Muslim ban (twice); we’ve stopped the Obamacare repeal; it looks like tax cuts are going to be a heavier lift than the GOP expected; and we’ve generally exposed the hollowness of the GOP and the pathological mendacity of the occupant of the Oval Office. But, as Slate’s Jamelle Bouie reminds us, on the major policy area Trump ran on -- cracking down on immigration -- Trump is steadily notching “victories” and changing our country: “[I]t’s in this area of punitive action that the president has something close to free rein. He’s taking full advantage of it, moving through with his promised agenda of harassment, deportation, and other attacks on vulnerable communities.” We have seen Trump arrest for deportation DACA recipients who had no criminal records. We recently learned of two Texas neurologists, a married couple, who were told they had 24 hours to leave the country after living here legally, on work visas, for 10 years -- all due to paperwork errors that were at least in part the fault of the immigration agencies and not the doctors themselves. A particularly cruel and disgusting new practice has ICE arresting immigrants at their interviews for their green cards. “WBUR has confirmed that at least three of those arrested were beginning the process to become legal permanent residents. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says the agency had orders to detain each of the five individuals for deportation.” ICE agents are also arresting immigrants at courthouses, including scooping up those going to court to seek a protective order against abusive spouses. Attorney General Sessions and DHS Secretary John Kelly justified this practice by blaming “sanctuary” cities and states that make ICE enforcement at public places like courthouses necessary. This stuff is happening all over the country, but in small bursts that make mobilization and resistance difficult, with scattered news attention and hard-to-verify details. Our immigrant communities are already dramatically changing their lives -- drafting legal papers with instructions for their citizen children in the case of their arrest; refusing to report crimes to police, for fear of being deported; keeping children out of school; declining to sign up for food stamps and other necessary benefits for their children, etc. We can’t forget that, in 70 days, Trump has been incredibly successful in immiserating the lives of hundreds of thousands of people here, and will continue to do so as long as he is in office.  

RUSSIA INVESTIGATION UPDATE: This story is at once constantly unfolding and exhausting to follow. I am a little sick of writing about it, so this week’s update will be short. The major developments this week: First, Michael Flynn offered to testify to Congress about what he knows about Russian interference in the election in exchange for immunity. Right now, Congress seems to be pretty lukewarm on the offer. Second, it was confirmed that Devin Nunes’ dog and pony show about “discovering” “evidence” that “somewhat vindicated” Trump’s lie about being wiretapped was just that -- a dog and pony show of almost shocking cynicism. It turns out that three White House staffers apparently took intelligence, possibly unmasked Americans identified in that intelligence, and then gave it to Nunes, who then rushed over back to the White House to claim he had discovered shocking (!) evidence that the intelligence agencies under Obama had been improperly unmasking Trump associates. (Most absurdly: “Nunes said that most names were masked in the files he reviewed but that he could still identify Trump campaign officials from context.” So there wasn’t even an unmasking problem!) The lies wrapped in lies wrapped in BS here are staggering. “Put more bluntly: Members of the Trump White House selectively leaked classified intelligence that doesn’t actually support their boss’s claim to a credulous congressman who uncritically parroted the information in a press conference just hours later.” And substantively, it’s pretty shocking that Nunes -- who is supposed to be investigating the Trump administration -- appears to have colluded with that administration in order to deflect attention away from the investigation and provide cover to the president. Third, the Times reported today that Flynn “failed to list payments from Russia-linked entities on the first of two financial disclosure forms released Saturday by the Trump administration.” There was probably more this week but given the Rule of Three, I’m moving on.

GOP CONGRESS GUTS INTERNET PRIVACY: Trump is expected to sign a bill that passed both houses of Congress without a single Democratic vote that allows cable and phones companies to sell your private browsing and app history, without your permission or even awareness, to the highest bidder. The bill overturns Obama-implemented FCC rules that, among other things, (i) “required broadband companies to first get consent before sharing their customers' sensitive information, including browsing history and location data, with advertisers and other third-party companies”; (2) “forced broadband providers to tell customers about the data they collect and why they collect it, and to identify the kinds of third-party companies that might be given access to that information”; and (3) “required broadband companies to protect consumer information from hackers and data breaches.” Because all of those things are just terrible, right? The Electronic Frontier Foundation spells out the scary implications of the repeal of these rules, including hijacking your searches to send you to sites that paid the ISP a kickback; pre-installing software on your phone and recording every website you visit; and injecting undetectable, undeletable tracking cookies in all of your online traffic. Now major cable and phone companies are promising not to do bad things, and vowing that the repeal bill won’t change any of their practices. This is some BS. It’s not like the GOP just thought up this repeal on its own: It was obviously lobbied, and intensely, by these same companies to gut these privacy rules. The companies want these changes, they paid dearly for them, and they are certainly going to take advantage of them once Trump signs them into law.

A Note on Pence’s Marital Rules: This week the internet was abuzz with the news that Mike Pence (at least as of a few years ago) refused to dine alone with women other than his wife or to attend functions where alcohol was served without his wife. Many on the right praised the rule, or at least shrugged, baffled by the with which outrage that many people on the left (especially women) reacted to the story. (Although just pretend if Keith Ellison, Congress’s sole Muslim, had the exact same rules and also cited his religion as the reason for it. I think the right might feel a little differently.) Cosmopolitan’s Jill Filipovic had the best and most comprehensive explanation for why this practice is harmful to women and reveals a fundamental distrust of and disgust with women. You really should read the whole thing, but here are the excerpts that had me pumping my fist in the air:

• “If Pence can’t eat alone with a woman — which also implies he’s not allowed to be alone with a woman — the end result is that he’s going to work with, mentor, and promote men over women. . . . If men like Pence won’t engage with women one-on-one in informal settings, it’s the women who miss out — because it’s still men who run the show.”
• “Just as disturbing as the wake of women whose careers may have been stymied by Pence’s policies is the assumption underlying it: that women, simply by existing, are inherently sexually tempting.”
• “All of this bleeds into policy. If ‘wife or whore’ is the lens through which you see women, and with it the assumption that wives have babies while whores have illicit sex, you’re probably less likely to support the smorgasbord of policies that help real-life women — women who don’t fit into manmade boxes — live full, happy, pleasurable lives.”

Also, the always wonderful Alexandra Petri’s take on this shouldn’t be missed. (“This idea that what is negotiable is whether or not women belong in the room, not whether or not men can be expected to keep themselves from dropping to all fours and growling, is intensely frustrating.”)

A Tweetstorm on Tom Price’s Corruption: Tom Price, Trump’s HHS Secretary, seems to have had an incredibly shady history when it came to profiting off his position in Congress. Here, ProPublica reporter Charles Ornstein assembles all the myriad ways Price appeared to improperly profit from his power in Congress. (It’s just a list on Twitter, and will take 35 seconds to read. So read it!)

Best Video on the Internet This Week: Toddler meets robot.

Good Read of the Week: Donald Trump And America’s National Nervous Breakdown.