THIS WEEK IN POLITICAL NEWS -- 6/9/17 PART TWO

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!

THIS WEEK IN POLITICAL NEWS -- 6/8/17 PART ONE

Holy Shit James Comey Edition

Tonight’s Part One of TWIPN will focus only on Comey’s testimony. But there’s a lot of other news had wanted to write about, so I am planning to write a follow-up Part Two tomorrow. We’ll see if that actually happens.

THE BIG PICTURE: Former FBI Director James Comey testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee today. Here are the most important bombshells of his testimony, starting with the un-effing-believable prepared remarks that were released in advance of the hearing yesterday:

1. Trump repeatedly pressured Comey to say that he was not under investigation, and Comey refused.
2. Trump told Comey at a private one-on-one dinner, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.” At the end of the dinner, Trump again said, “I need loyalty.”
3. Comey’s viewed the dinner with Trump was “an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship.”
4. Comey discussed Trump’s request that the Flynn investigation be dropped with other FBI leadership, but he did not tell Sessions, because he believed Sessions was essentially compromised on the Russia investigation (more on that below).

And now the most important parts from the live testimony today:

1. Comey testified unequivocally that Trump’s request regarding the Flynn investigation was a “direction.”
2. Comey appeared to confirm that Mueller was investigating whether Trump’s actions amount to obstruction of justice: “I'm sure the special counsel will work towards to find out the intention there and whether that's an offense.”
3. Comey repeatedly called Trump a liar, and used the word “lie.” At the very start of the hearing, he said that Trump’s initial stated reasons for firing him -- “that the organization [the FBI] was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader” -- “were lies, plain and simple,” and that they were attempts to “defame” Comey and the FBI. A few minutes later, Comey explained that he was driven to document his interactions with Trump after the very first meeting because “I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting so I thought it important to document.” And then when Angus King walked him through a series of statements Trump had made, Comey repeatedly explained that those statements were “not true.”
4. Comey admitted that he had leaked his own memos to counteract Trump’s lies about his firing. This is a big deal, and will be the focus of the Republicans’ pushback, painting Comey as a “leaker” instead of a truth-teller. As Josh Marshall reminds us, “Trump and his team have conflated leaks which people have every legal right to do (and they can also be fired for it) with classified leaks, which are illegal. Trump . . . come[s] out of a world of pervasive NDAs and attorney-client privilege and want to think that people who work in the executive branch have that kind of obligation to President Trump. They don’t.”
5. Comey confirmed that Russia interfered in our election: “The Russians interfered in our election during the 2016 cycle. They did with purpose. They did it with sophistication. They did it with overwhelming technical efforts. It was an active measures campaign driven from the top of that government. There is no fuzz on that. It is a high confidence judgment of the entire intelligence community and the members of this committee have seen the intelligence. It's not a close call. That happened. That's about as unfake as you can possibly get.”
6. Most Republicans continue not only to not care, but to actively cover for Trump. More on that below.

QUESTIONS COMEY COULDN’T ANSWER IN AN OPEN SETTING: Chris Hayes put together all the questions Comey could not answer in an open setting:

1. The Steele dossier (ie, the “pee tape”).
2. Whether Flynn was/is a “central figure” in the investigation into Russian interference.
3. Russian bank VEB, whose official Kushner met with after the election (and then failed to report it when asked under oath to disclose all contacts with foreign officials).
4. Whether Trump colluded with Russia.
5. Whether there was contact between Trump associates and Russian officials.

JEFF SESSIONS IS IN TROUBLE: In his prepared testimony, Comey said that he discussed the February 14 meeting with Trump (the one where Trump asked him to shut down the Flynn investigation) with FBI colleagues but not AG Sessions, because they believed Sessions would soon be recused from the Russia investigation. Today, he testified that he and his FBI colleagues were “aware of facts that I can't discuss in an open setting, that would make [Sessions’] continued engagement in a Russia-related investigation problematic.” But in fact, Sessions didn’t recuse himself for another two weeks, on March 2, and then said it was because he had been a Trump campaign surrogate (and that was one day after the Washington Post reported that Sessions had lied, under oath, in his confirmation hearing about meeting with the Russian ambassador). So why was Comey convinced two weeks earlier, before the Post story, that Sessions would recuse? And more tantalizingly, why coudn’t Comey comment about it in an open setting? Josh Barro comments: “Obviously, Sessions' role as a surrogate and adviser to Trump during the 2016 campaign is not classified and is not a matter that Comey would have had to reserve for a closed session. So, Comey's account of Sessions' recusal directly contradicts Sessions' own public account of why he recused himself.” P.S. In a closed meeting this afternoon, Comey reportedly said that Sessions may have had a third undisclosed meeting with Ambassador Kislyak.

THE CRAVENNESS OF THE GOP, PART 6,749: This testimony is a big deal. We have the head of the FBI testifying, under oath, that Trump repeatedly attempted to get him to shut down an investigation into his friend; repeatedly pressured him to make public pronouncement about his (Trumps’) own supposed innocence; and then fired him when he refused. Yet most of the Republicans on the committee were intent on covering for Trump. The first line of defense was that Trump used the word “hope,” when he said “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” insisting that it was not a “demand” and so couldn’t be an attempt to interfere with the investigation. Comey make quick work with that one -- telling Sen. Risch that he “took it as a direction.” But also, kids, let’s not forget that when Comey didn’t comply, he was fired. I don’t quite understand the parsing of the words, when we know the outcome. When a mob boss comes by and says to you, “Nice shop you’ve got here. I sure hope it doesn’t burn down in a fire,” and then you don’t pay him, and then it burns down in a fire, I don’t think the use of the word “hope” is the salient part of that interaction here. I think it’s the fire.

Anyway, the two most despicable displays were from Marco Rubio (shocker) and John Cornyn, the Texas senator who was Trump’s top pick to replace Comey before being talked out of it (probably because he looks like he comes from “central casting”). Rubio asked only leading questions demanding a yes or no answer -- not the tactic one takes when one is searching for the truth, rather than corroborating a pre-determined narrative. Rubio pressed Comey on why he didn’t take more action to tell the President to, essentially, knock it off with the illegal interference stuff. And then he concluded by saying that Trump only asked “three things” of Comey: (1) for loyalty; (2) “He asked you on one occasion to let the Mike Flynn thing go because he was a good guy,” something Trump said publicly on TV the very next day (that Flynn had been treating badly); and (3) “can you please tell the American people what these leaders in congress already know, which you already know and what you told me three times, that I'm not under personally under investigation.” Rubio’s minimizing is truly breathtaking. Oh, and then he lied, saying that “the only thing never leaked [to the press] is the fact the president was never personally under investigation.” That’s not true; that Trump wasn’t the target of an investigation was reported in multiple places. Tonight, Rubio tweeted out his outrage that a Miami paper accurately reported his Trump water-carrying.

And then John Cornyn used his time to ask about Hillary Clinton’s emails. I shit you not.

This is the best the GOP can come up with; Paul Ryan declared today that Trump can’t be faulted because he just is an idiot who doesn’t know anything: “He’s just new to this.” This is insane, as Brian Beutler points out: “Ryan wants us to imagine Trump sitting alone in the White House with only his intellect and his muscle memory as his guides. He asks us implicitly to forget that Trump has a White House counsel, a vice president with years of governing experience, and an attorney general who campaigned with him for a year, all at his behest to instruct him. He asks us, again implicitly, to forget that Trump pierced the veil meant to separate the White House and FBI, to corrupt the rule of law, and that he then fired FBI Director James Comey, lied about why, and confessed—to NBC’s Lester Holt, and to senior Russian officials in the Oval Office—that he did it to remove “the cloud” of Comey’s investigation of his campaign.” As Matt Yglesias notes, “This is part of an ongoing process of Republicans lowering the bar for Trump’s statements and conduct in a way that is both nonsensical and dangerous. . . . Either he has the character, intellect, temperament, and disposition to do the job properly or he doesn’t.” (Read this very good Ezra Klein article on the American crisis that is Trump’s presidency.)

COOL GRAPHIC OF THE DAY: Here’s an amazing visual of how the three main cable networks covered the Comey hearing.

BONUS RESEARCH: During his questionning, GOP Sen. Risch suggested that the use of the word “hope” was never enough in court to convict someone of obstruction. My friend David Lebowtiz makes eviscerating stupidity look easy:

Jim Risch -- since you seemed curious, yes, statements like those Director Comey described in his testimony are legally sufficient to constitute obstruction of justice. See, e.g., United States v. McDonald, 521 F.3d 975, 979 (8th Cir. 2008) (affirming sentence enhancement for obstruction of justice where defendant told witness "I hope and pray to God you did not say anything"); United States v. Johnson, 46 F.3d 636, 638 (7th Cir. 1995) (same, for statement ”I hope you aren't doing what I think you're doing”); U.S. v. Lazzerini, 611 F.2d 940, 942 (1st Cir. 1979) (upholding obstruciton conviction for "[c]onveying of information in a specially arranged and urgent visit . . . that a party on trial was a friend . . . and a 'nice guy'"); United States v. Jenkins, 122 F. Supp. 3d 639, 655 (E.D. Ky. 2013) (upholding obstruction enhancement for statement “I just hope you don't really get up on the stand and testify on me babe that would hurt me so bad that would broke what little heart I have left.")

FOR FURTHER READING: It is now 35 minutes past my bedtime, and I am waking up in six hours, so I need to wrap this up. But I didn’t have time to read Lawfare’s coverage of today’s hearing, and I’m sure there was great stuff up there. So check it out.

PREVIEW FOR TOMORROW/LATER THIS WEEKEND: If I can summon the energy, tomorrow or later this weekend I’ll cover the other bombshell bananas congressional testimony today; the rapidly moving efforts to repeal Obamacare (efforts that are LIKELY TO SUCCEED if we don’t focus all our energies over the next three weeks; the House vote Thursday to repeal Dodd Frank (because who wants to prevent another financial crisis anyway?); and hopefully the British elections.  

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

Endorsements Only Edition

I had a busy week so this week’s edition is just a collection of things I particularly enjoyed reading that I strongly, emphatically recommend to you, my Dear Readers. Also, this is your reminder that if you have a friend or a crazy uncle who you think could enjoy getting these weekly missives (or to whom sending them unwanted would bring you pleasure), please send me their email address and I’ll sign them up. Archives going back to 2011 are at this very sophisticated and attractive website. Finally, feel free to send me anything you find interesting or want to make sure I check out!

READING ENDORSEMENTS:

• The Washington Post on Trump staffers’ truly creepy “Dear Leader” paeans to the president. Add to this the super creepy introductory remarks from VP Pence to Trump’s Rose Garden announcement on the Paris Accords, and of course EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s remarks at the same event. This degradation of language is the most alarming sign, in my view, of our descent into authoritarianism, whether or not Trump has been able (yet) to effectively actually damage our democracy. (Also note that Pruitt posted his remarks to Facebook, but they are nowhere to be found on the EPA’s website. In fact, there’s no mention of the Paris Accord in the EPA’s recent News items.)
• Charles Pierce on the Rose Garden speech. Not to be missed.
• Matt Yglesias on Trump’s bullshit. This is a really, really great piece, looking at what bullshit is, what political purpose it serves, and why Trump’s use of it is so effective and dangerous.
• This column on how the AHCA’s proposed “work requirements” are not just cruel, but are a crucial part of the GOP’s plan to kick off as many people from the Medicaid rolls as possible -- with devastating effects.
• Obviously, the Paris withdrawal is disheartening, if for no other reason than it is a giant middle finger to the rest of the world and a clear-cut withdrawal of American leadership from global affairs. The question is whether the withdrawal itself will have devastating consequences for the environment and our ability to control the coming climate crisis. The answer is likely yes, but here’s an interesting counter-narrative: A handful of experts think it may be better for Trump to withdraw from the Paris accords rather than staying in but failing to meet their targets.
• This really, really interesting tweet storm on the gendered nature of the GOP’s anti-Paris/anti-science stance. Super intriguing.
• Another tweet storm, this one about Hillary Clinton and our reaction to her post-election conduct. You think that the last thing you want to do is read about HRC. But you’d be wrong in this case. Really. I promise. (And it doesn’t take long to read.)
• The Washington Post is keeping a running timeline on the Russia stuff.
• Slightly off topic, but I can’t tell you how impressed I was by this Adam Serwer column on the myth of Robert E. Lee. I fancy myself a bit of a Civil War buff, and I learned SO MUCH from this piece. We have all been raised to think of Lee either as a true hero and patriot or, at worst, a reluctant Confederate. Guess what, kids? We’ve been taught wrong.

LISTENING ENDORSEMENTS:

• These are not political, but NPR’s Invisiblia podcast and Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast are both about to begin new seasons. If you missed last season of either show, I STRONGLY recommend both. Favorite episodes of both: The Problem with the Solution (Invisibilia), and these two episodes on higher education (Revisionist History).
• Dispatch is letting me relive high school by getting back together and releasing a new album, and their lead single is a perfect driving-in-the-summer song.