Swamp News, Week 7
Week 7 in The Swamp has been pretty dark and dismal. From the new travel ban to the Republicans’ rollout of their proposed replacement for the Affordable Care Act and swift movement toward repealing Obamacare, Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans have displayed more graphically than ever before their utter lack of compassion and human decency and their complete disregard for the people who elected them to positions of leadership. Trump’s tweeting and lying have continued unabated, with his unfounded accusations against President Obama; and anyone needing further evidence of his indifference toward the lives and careers of his fellow citizens need look no further than the 46 U. S. attorneys asked to resign with only hours’ notice.
Here’s the rundown of the chaotic week that’s left us all feeling a little PTSD.
- The week got off to a rollicking start with a Twitter meltdown on Saturday, March 4. In a series of three tweets, Trump claimed—with ZERO evidence—that President Obama had ordered the phone lines in Trump Tower to be tapped during the campaign. A week later, we’ve still seen no evidence to support the outrageous claims; but surely by now no one expects that DJT would have retracted his statements. On the contrary, he has doubled down to the point of asking Congress to investigate his claims. According to a former U. S. senior official, presidents cannot order wiretap warrants. Investigators would have to request such a warrant from a federal judge, and a federal judge would issue the warrant only “if he or she had found probable cause that Trump had committed a federal crime or was a foreign agent.” (CNN) But these are only facts! Who needs facts when you have tweets?
- On Monday, Trump signed the long-promised, much-anticipated revised travel ban. The new ban blocks migrants from six of the seven predominantly Muslim nations listed in the first ban; Iraq was omitted from the new order. According to the New York Times, the new ban was immediately denounced by 134 foreign policy experts who say that even the scaled-back version “will weaken U. S. security and undermine U. S. global leadership.” Nevertheless, the new order remains in effect and continues to inflict undue stress and heartache on innocent travelers.
- And then just when we thought the week couldn’t possibly get any worse, the Republicans rolled out the American Health Care Act, their proposed replacement for the Affordable Care Act. Even though, in typical Republican fashion, the bill strongly favors the wealthy and Paul Ryan has been gushing about how many people will be booted off Medicaid, DJT is giving it his full support. The bill has been roundly condemned by liberals and conservatives, healthcare providers and even Trump’s base; but since this is Trump’s first major legislative fight and since a defeat would greatly damage whatever shred of credibility he retains among those who elected him, we should expect him to marshal all of his resources to be sure he wins this one—even though millions of Americans will lose. This is clearly the story to watch, and none of us can remain silent on it. Be sure your representatives and senators hear from you!
- While Trump has successfully distracted all of us with his crazy early-morning tweetstorms and while many of his high-level appointees have been tied up in senate confirmation hearings, he has freed himself up to do some serious hiring and private installing of about 400 federal employees whose positions do not require senate scrutiny or approval. These “beach-head” teams, as they’re called because they act as Trump’s “eyes and ears at every major federal agency” include “obscure campaign staffers, contributors to Breitbart and others who have embraced conspiracy theories, as well as dozens of Washington insiders who could be reasonably characterized as part of the ‘swamp’ Trump pledged to drain.” The list also contains at least 36 known former lobbyists. Sound like a spy ring? Or is it just me? Here’s a link to the article from Pro Publica: https://www.propublica.org/article/meet-hundreds-of-officials-trump-has-quietly-installed-across-government
- Among the most damaging elements of the Republican bill to replace the ACA is its proposed cuts to Medicaid, and that is also the part that has our Ed Munster-esque house speaker, Paul Ryan, quivering with delight. According to the linked article from the Huffington Post, “House Speaker Paul Ryan sees repealing Obamacare as a historic opportunity to reduce the welfare rolls.” Nearly 70 million Americans currently receive health care under Medicaid, but the new bill would drastically reduce that number and also make changes to the way Medicaid works. So while the ACA expanded Medicaid to include more low-income people, the AHCA would push back the coverage for millions. What Mr. Munster, er Ryan, doesn’t seem to consider is that those are millions of real lives he’s playing politics with. Grrrrrrrr
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/paul-ryan-medicaid_us_58c2fce1e4b054a0ea6a8da2?
- During the first week of March, Democratic lawmakers have written at least five letters requesting information on the numerous conflicts of interests and ethics violations surrounding Trump and his team. The sad part here is that with Republicans in power in every part of the government (that’s actually the saddest part), the Democrats have been reduced to letter writing and making requests for information as their only means of pursuing their concerns—and the concerns of many informed voters. I think we all know what the odds are that they’ll get any answers or action, but let’s encourage our Senator Nelson to be one of those who never give up fighting to do as much good as possible, because the charges against Trump and his team are a threat to the future of our democracy.
- The week that began with a twitterstorm did not go out quietly. On Friday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions abruptly requested, without warning, the resignations of 46 US attorneys. Replacing the previous administration’s attorneys is common practice; however, the process is usually far more orderly and is spread out over a period of months. These attorneys were given only hours to clean out their desks and vacate their offices by midnight on Friday. Only one, Preet Bharara, refused to tender his resignation and was therefore fired by Trump on Saturday. According to CNN, he was the “scourge of Wall Street corruption, gangs, terrorists and cyber criminals — and the most high profile US Attorney in the nation.” His work earned him the nickname “Sheriff of Wall Street.”
- And we now know that Michael Flynn, in addition to his other ethical issues, worked as a foreign agent for the Turkish government as recently as last fall and that Trump’s campaign was warned but didn’t heed the warnings. Sean Spicer attempted during Friday’s press briefing to explain without explaining: you know, the usual. He said no one could possibly have been aware of this rather important fact and that his boss was certainly unaware of it. Flynn didn’t publicly register as a foreign lobbyist until Tuesday of this week, even though his firm signed the contract more than 7 months ago, and the contract ended 3 months ago. According to Spicer, there’s some sort of honor system in this administration for tending to those pesky legal details, so his boss is not guilty of any negligence. You know, the usual.
- The New York Times reports that “the lawsuits are starting to pile up” over the Trump family’s alleged violations of our constitution’s emoluments clause, the part that says no one is allowed to reap personal financial gain from service in public office. Someone should tell that to Eric Trump, who boasted this week, “I think our brand is the hottest it’s ever been!” Yeah, the presidency sure is good for business, isn’t it, Eric? In an interesting plot twist, the attorney many of the groups filing suit were counting on to be their champion is Preet Bharara: “the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York and an aggressive prosecutor of corruption.” Now why does that name sound soooo familiar? Oh, yes, he’s the guy Trump fired yesterday (See #7). It’s getting complicated. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/opinion/sue-while-the-conflicts-are-hot.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0
- Another face that’s frequently shown up in this week’s news is that of Roger Stone, one of Trump’s longtime confidants and an adviser to Trump’s presidential campaign and who is now known to have conversed with Guccifer 2.0, “the person or persons believed to be responsible for hacking the Democratic National Committee.” Stone, however, claims the conversation was “completely innocuous”—“so perfunctory, brief and banal I had forgotten it.” He added, “The content of the exchange is, as you can see completely innocuous and perfunctory.” Well, his vocabulary is clearly light years more sophisticated than his pal Donald’s, but he is cut from the same misogynistic cloth. His Twitter responses to his critics include “You stupid, stupid, bitch”; and that’s the only one nice enough to include in this list. If you can stomach more, Google “Roger Stone tweets” and remember that the words you see were written by someone who has the ear of our “president.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/roger-stone-guccifer_us_58c320c9e4b0d1078ca6dbf8?8ol84cxr&
I have to admit, I’m feeling pretty discouraged by this week’s Swamp News; but I can’t afford to allow that discouragement to slow me down, and neither can you. Let’s keep up the phone calls, letters, and emails. Let your voice be heard this week! Until next time, stay strong!