Amid the Russiagate Hubris, a Gift for Democrats in 2020
Republicans are celebrating the cliff notes version of the Mueller investigation, which --we’re told-- proves the President is not a Russian asset. While the other 16 investigations into Trumpworld continue, the administration has decided to intensify efforts to punish its enemies and/or move forward with its agenda (sometimes that's the same thing).
The GOP’s enemies list is a long one, starting with Democratic officials, including autistic children, and ending with Obamacare.
First up, the GOP wants to investigate the Obama administration for failing to react to evidence Russia was interfering in the 2016 election.
I’m sure they’ll want to start with testimony from Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who reacted to a classified briefing on the subject by questioning the facts gathered by intelligence agencies and refusing to participate in a bipartisan denunciation of Russian meddling.
Next up are Democrats and others who had the gall to suggest something not right was going on.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has called for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff to step down from the post or resign from Congress, while Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham announced he would investigate whether the Justice Department and FBI influenced the 2016 election to try to stop Trump.
Also --surprise,surprise-- on the clap back list was the press.
Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign's director of communications, sending a memo to TV news producers with a blacklist of guests who regularly have criticized the president on talk shows.
The president weighed in from the White House lawn accusing the media of biased coverage and attack them as the “enemy of the people.” His conservative supporters echoed the sentiment with Fox News‘ Sean Hannity tweeting “We will hold every fake news media liar member accountable.”
White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders shared a mock NCAA tournament “Mueller Madness bracket,” featuring media figures and critics of the president, and asked her followers to select “which of the angry and hysterical @realDonaldTrump haters got it most embarrassingly wrong.
Ok funny, not funny, given Cesar Sayoc’s recent guilty pleas on 65 charges for sending pipe bombs to CNN and other prominent critics of President Trump.
Having dealt with their more high profile enemies, the administration moved on policy matters, presumably to punish those 99 percenters who can’t see the light.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos appeared before congress, giving the bad news in prepared testimony before a House subcommittee considering the Department of Education's budget request for the next fiscal year.
While projecting a $60 million increase for charter school funding and creating a tax credit for individual and companies that donate to scholarships for private schools, DeVos' budget proposal would still cut more than $7 billion from the Education Department.
State grants for special education would see a 26% reduction, along with millions of dollars in cuts to programs for students who are blind.
Programs due to be completely axed include grants for schools for professional development and reducing class sizes, along with elimination of support for the Special Olympics.
Via the Detroit Free Press:
In the case of the $17.6 million cut to help fund the Special Olympics, a program designed to help children and adults with disabilities, DeVos suggested it is better supported by philanthropy and added, "We had to make some difficult decisions with this budget."
"Do you know how many kids are going to be affected by that cut?" asked U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wisconsin, while also pointing out a recent report by a nonprofit group that concluded the U.S. government has spent as much as $1 billion on charter schools that never opened or they closed because of mismanagement or other reasons.
We also learned yesterday about Trump’s nominee to be the next secretary of the interior, David Bernhardt’s role in suppressing conclusive data about two pesticides found to be a threat that “jeopardized the continued existence” of not just a few species, but over 1,200 species, ranging from tiny fish to colorful birds to kit foxes.
The Trump administration’s Department of Energy announced plans to roll back standards established near the end of Obama’s presidency for improving minimum energy efficiency requirements for light bulbs.
Consumers will pay as much as $12 billion extra over the next five years, and dirty energy companies will profit from the increased demand.
Any wave of bad ideas from the GOP usually includes a nod to the second amendment and something not beneficial for women, and with the pending Violence Against Women Act red flag provisions keeping guns out of the hands of domestic abusers they’re getting a two-fer.
At the request of House Republicans, the National Rifle Association will issue a “key vote” alert on the legislation, a metric the group’s supporters use to evaluate support for political candidates. The NRA believes the legislation could lead to firearm confiscations over misdemeanor domestic violence or stalking convictions. Oh, darn.
Oh, and there's this twerp...
Finally, the administration has decided to to ask a federal appeals court to invalidate the Affordable Care Act, a move that will leave 15 million Americans uninsured, impose deep cuts for another 15 million covered through Medicare expansion, and eliminate protections for as many as 52 million people with a pre-existing conditions.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — who celebrated her 79th birthday on Tuesday — had already planned to move to change the conversation with the unveiling of the Democrats’ own health care plan on Tuesday. The bill aims to lower health insurance premiums, strengthen protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions and ban the sale of what Democrats call “junk insurance.”
The Justice Department’s move gave the unveiling an urgency that not even she could have anticipated.
“The Republicans did say during the campaign that they weren’t there to undermine the pre-existing condition benefit, and here they are, right now, saying they’re going to strip the whole Affordable Care Act as the law of the land,” Pelosi told reporters Tuesday, adding, “This is actually an opportunity for us to speak to the American people with clarity.”
Given that Republicans have yet to craft anything in the same ballpark as the ACA, despite promising to do so for a decade, this promise is a complete non-starter.
Health care in one form or another is at the top of every poll about voter concerns going into 2020. While the GOP has made a name for itself for failed attempts at repeal, and the administration has sought to undermine health care coverage, Democrats are busy debating what the next step should be.
As Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer gleefully noted, Trump just put "a two-year anchor around the neck of every Republican."
Keep your eyes on the prize folks, the criminal justice system may or may not be the President’s Achilles heel. Health, education, economic inequality and the environment are what people are talking about over the “kitchen table.”
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Lead image: Screenshot from the Late Show with Stephen Colbert removing collusion from the no-no list (h/t Jamess @ DailyKos)