HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY: NYT and WaPo reporters confess incompetence on Twitter.
Really, it isn’t so much honesty as it is self-beclownment by Maggie Haberman and Glenn Kessler.
Archive for 2017
January 30, 2017
ANALYSIS: TRUE. The Left Has Lost The Working Class.
Trumps’s popularity with blue collar voters doesn’t come as a particular shock to anyone who followed the campaign. Private sector union bosses supported Hillary Clinton, but their members backed Trump. Trump’s crowds cheered protectionism and his infrastructure plans. Trump’s advisor, Steve Bannon, has clearly signaled that Trump wants to focus on protecting the American working class (many of whom are considered “blue collar”) first and foremost.
To some extent, Democrats aren’t to blame for this shift. The decline of American manufacturing and the accompanying collapse of collective bargaining (only 6.7 percent of private sector employees are unionized) are the result of economic forces outside any political party’s control.
Nevertheless, it’s worth stopping to take note of the remarkable distance between working class voters and the Democratic Party. At least since the 1920s, Democrats have thought of themselves as the party of workers — for a long time because that’s actually what they were. They inherited the Progressive Movement from the Republicans under Woodrow Wilson (reluctantly, in some ways), and then the New Deal cemented their status as guardians of the proletariat. The 1960s brought Medicare and, in the 1980s, they pushed back against Reagan’s pro-business deregulation and market reform efforts.
But starting in the 1960s, Democrats struggled to balance working class politics with identity politics. Identity politics (favored for different reasons by academic and corporate interests alike) won. The Democratic Party now represents a coalition of minorities, well-educated upper middle class urban professionals, and powerful interests in Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and to an extent on Wall Street. Much of what’s left of the left’s working class support comes from public sector unions — a perverted application of collective bargaining principles that President Franklin D. Roosevelt believed hurt working class American taxpayers.
FDR was right about that.
Plus: “The election was the referendum on wealth inequality leftwing intellectuals have been predicting since shortly after the financial crisis. It’s just that Trump and the GOP won it.”
MICHELLE BACHMAN: ‘I Don’t Care What Age They Are or Whatever,’ Trump ‘Needs to Deport’
KNOWN WOLF? Suspect in Quebec mosque terror attack was of Moroccan origin, report shows.
One of two gunmen who shouted ‘Allahu akbar!’ as they opened fire at a mosque in Quebec City was of Moroccan origin, a witness and local media reported Monday, revealing the first details about the attackers in the massacre that killed six people.
The terror suspects were identified as Mohamed Khadir and Alexandre Bissonnette, the Canadian TV network TVA Nouvelles reported. They were arrested soon after the shooting at the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre Sunday night and were expected to appear in court later Monday, police told reporters.
One of the gunman actually turned himself in, calling 911 less than 20 minutes later and giving officers his location in d’Orleans so they could arrest him, police said.
More to come.
UPDATE (From Glenn): Apparently, the only shooter was Bissonette, with Khadir being uninvolved. Authorities won’t give a motive.
WHY AREN’T YOU TALKING ABOUT JOINING MEXICO, YOU RACISTS? Should California, Oregon and Washington join Canada? #Calexit talk envelops West Coast.
Related: John Fund: California Shouldn’t Secede, It Should Divide In Two.
Plus: Secession is for losers.
BREAKING: Trump to announce Supreme Court pick at 8pm Eastern tonight.
CORRECTION: Tomorrow night.
FAKE NEWS: More False Claims About ObamaCare.
IMMIGRATION OFFICERS’ UNION PRESIDENT ON TRUMP BAN: I Don’t See It As A Bad Thing. “Palinkas said he believes restricting access from the seven predominantly Muslim countries that were designated as harboring terrorists under former President Barack Obama will disrupt sleeper cell activity on U.S. soil.”
AT AMAZON, Deals in Weight Training Essentials.
JAYVEE: ISIL has evolved into something more dangerous.
This is what happens when you allow a terror group years to recruit and perfect their techniques.
WELL, WE CAN HOPE: Congress might be able to axe a lot more Obama regulations than you thought.
We already knew Congress could do a lot to roll back the administration’s last-minute rules and regulations using the Congressional Review Act. Under a process that the Senate minority cannot filibuster, Congress can easily undo any regulations that have been published in the Federal Register in the last 60 legislative days. That means anything back through June 13.
Republicans in Congress have already announced their intention to roll back five relatively obscure rules, and several more high-profile ones are sure to follow. But on Thursday night, Kim Strassel came across something more interesting about how the CRA works. If she’s right, this law is a lot more powerful than I thought, and apparently more powerful than most members of Congress thought as well.
For each rule, the CRA requires the federal agency making it to issue a report to Congress. And it turns out that the 60-day time limit for Congress to roll back that rule starts either when the rule is published or Congress receives the report on it — whichever comes later. . . .
Assuming this is all accurate, it will be very interesting to see which older rules are now vulnerable due to such an oversight in issuing a report. The failure to cross T’s and dot I’s could be very costly for those portions of the liberal agenda that Obama sought to advance through the regulatory process.
As Strassel explains, when Congress undoes a federal rule under the CRA, the agency in question is forbidden to issue any rule “in substantially the same form” unless Congress passes a new law to authorize it. This means that if a rule is undone through this process, the next Democratic president who tries to restore it will probably be taken to court, and lose.
Good.
DEREK HUNTER: The press still doesn’t get it. It’s hard to make a man understand something that his salary requires that he not understand.
OH, CANADA: Canada says Quebec City mosque attack that killed 6 is terrorism.
“We condemn this terrorist attack on Muslims in a center of worship and refuge,” Justin Trudeau said in a statement. “It is heart-wrenching to see such senseless violence. Diversity is our strength, and religious tolerance is a value that we, as Canadians, hold dear.”
The incident took place Sunday night. More than 50 people were in the mosque at the time of the assault. Police said two suspects were arrested and they don’t believe there are further suspected perpetrators at large.
The identities of the suspects were not released and a motive has not been been established. Mass shootings in Canada are relatively rare.
If the suspects aren’t part of a larger group, their identities ought to be revealed.
Disappearing people to secret prisons? Hey, this is Donald Trump’s DHS, not Rahm Emanuel’s Chicago Police Department. “Chicago police covertly detained more than 7,000 people at a secret interrogation warehouse straight out of a Bond movie — more than double the amount of prisoners originally believed to be held and grilled there, according to a report. Of the 7,185 arrestees questioned at Homan Square between 2004 and 2015, only 68 were allowed access to legal counsel.”
No nationwide protests over that.
JONATHAN TOBIN: Why the Supreme Court fight is sure to go nuclear.
The so-called nuclear option would happen if Republicans fully quash the filibuster, a process Democrats began eroding in 2013 when they nuked the filibuster for most judicial and executive-branch nominees.
The Democrats had the majority then, and heedless of the possibility that the tables might soon be turned, former leader Harry Reid decided to short-circuit the ability of the minority to frustrate the will of President Obama by forcing Democrats to get 60 votes on nominees.
The Democrats used the shift to pack the lower courts with Obama nominees. But, as Schumer now admits ruefully, that gives Republicans an edge now that they control Congress and the White House. It means that no matter how much Democrats rail against Trump’s Cabinet choices, every single one of them is likely to be confirmed.
However, Reid left one exception when he altered the rules: the Supreme Court. So while Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell might abhor trashing tradition, he might have no choice but to use his power to end the filibuster altogether.
Unless he can persuade eight Democrats to back Trump’s SCOTUS nominee while keeping all 52 Republicans in line, McConnell will have to go nuclear.
After all the outrage over Trump’s immigration “ban,” will anyone still be listening to the Left when they howl over the nuclear option which they themselves made possible?
THE HILL: Trump puts Mexican president in a political vise.
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto is facing tremendous pressure to take a firm stand against President Donald Trump, just a week after the new U.S. leader took office.
Trump is highly unpopular in Mexico, perceived as someone who has repeatedly insulted the country. He has done little to change that sentiment, taking a hard stance on U.S.-Mexico relations.
That’s bad news for Peña Nieto, whose political fate is in the balance.
At the center of the controversy is one of Trump’s signature campaign pledges, to build a border wall paid for by Mexico.
Payment for the wall has also become a central issue in Mexico, where Trump’s demand is seen as an affront to national pride and an irrational demand that the government cannot afford to comply with.
So tax remittances. Oklahoma already does so, despite the complaints of “Money Transmitters.” I don’t understand why Trump wants a tariff instead.
RECRUITING: The British Army Can’t Find Enough Soldiers.
Much like the U.S. military across the pond, the British military is struggling to find new recruits to take on new missions. Figures show 15,140 regular troops left the British military during the past 12 months, but only 13,450 new troops came in.
It’s a particularly acute problem for the British Army. The British parliament released data showing that 6,910 new recruits joined the Army over the past 12 months. The target was 9,580 — adding up to a shortfall of 28 percent.
Most notably, 2,380 troops signed up for the infantry against a target of 3,480 — the largest gap.
These are not large numbers Britain requires, particularly for a nation of some 61 million people.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN DOCTORS ONLY TAKE CASH? Everybody, Especially Patients, Wins.
Time has a great story about bringing basic market forces to medicine. Titled “What Happens When Doctors Only Take Cash,” the article uses the Oklahoma City Surgery Center as a model for a different way of doing business. Co-founded by the outspoken libertarian Keith Smith and Steven Lantier, two anesthesiologists, the center takes no insurance whatsoever. Instead, they take cash only and advertise and guarantee their prices and services. The result is pretty goddamned amazing:
The all-inclusive price for every operation is listed on the website. A rotator-cuff repair for the shoulder costs $8,260. A surgical procedure for carpal tunnel syndrome is $2,750. Setting and casting a basic broken leg: $1,925….
The Surgery Center would charge $19,000 for [patient Art Villa’s] whole-knee replacement, a discount of nearly 50% on what Villa expected to be charged at his local hospital. And that price would include everything from airfare to the organization’s only facility, in Oklahoma City, to medications and physical therapy. If unforeseen complications arose during or after the procedure, the Surgery Center would cover those costs. Villa wouldn’t see another bill.
The savings for Villa’s surgery were so awesome that his company footed the bill. Others are following suit.
Faster please — the insurance-for-everything model has been a disaster.
YEAH, IN PARTICULAR THE GREEN CARD THING WAS A MAJOR UNFORCED ERROR: Jonathan Adler: President Trump may hire “only the best people” but he did not rely upon them to draft and implement his latest Executive Order.
Whatever one thinks of the underlying policy, the degree of administrative incompetence in its execution is jaw-dropping. . . .
Under normal circumstances, I believe that the policy embodied in the Trump EO is lawful under existing precedent and would survive judicial review. That is, I believe the executive branch may decide to identify specific countries from which immigrants and others seeking entry into the country must receive “extreme vetting” and that the President may order a suspension of refugees from particular places (as Obama did with Iraq in 2011). Despite some of the President’s comments during the campaign about wanting a “Muslim ban,” this EO does not come anywhere close to effectuating such a ban, as it largely focuses on countries that were previously identified as sources of potential terror threats.
I stress “under normal circumstances” because these are not normal circumstances. The cavalier and reckless manner in which this specific EO was developed and implemented will likely give judges pause — and with good reason. Courts typically give a degree of deference to executive branch actions under the assumption that polices are implemented after serious consideration of relevant legal and policy questions. Indeed, the more serious the government interest allegedly being served, the more serious one expects the government’s internal review to be (unless, of course, there are exigent circumstances necessitating immediate action, but that was not the case here).
Yes, this is Trump’s first screw-up (as opposed to policy that people don’t like). He needs to be sure there aren’t more.
Plus: “Many of the things the Trump Administration wishes to do to reverse Obama Administration policies, particularly those embodied in duly promulgated regulations, will require careful and patient lawyering. The failure to properly vet and flyspeck administrative actions will leave them vulnerable to legal challenge.”
One of the reasons the Reagan Revolution bogged down in court on many fronts was precisely this sort of failure. Don’t do it again.
MARGARET WENTE: Ladies, Check Your Privilege. “For all the barriers that women face, we have abundant freedoms and privileges that are not available to men. For example, if we choose not to spend our entire lives scrambling up the ladder of career success, nobody will care. If we want to marry men who make more money than we do (and let’s face it, most of us do, no matter what we say), nobody will think we’re being exploitative. No one looks sideways if we decide to stay home for a while to be full-time moms and housewives. Conversely, stay-at-home men have low, low social status (and, often, low self esteem). In many ways, women have a far wider range of socially acceptable life choices than men have.”
WE SHOULD BE SO LUCKY: The Final Obama Scandal.
For years, the Obama administration told the American people that the haul from the bin Laden compound was massive and important. In an interview on Meet the Press just days after the raid, Barack Obama’s national security adviser, Thomas Donilon, said the material could fill “a small college library.” A senior military intelligence official who briefed reporters at the Pentagon on May 7, 2011, said: “As a result of the raid, we’ve acquired the single largest collection of senior terrorist materials ever.” Sources who have described the cache to THE WEEKLY STANDARD over the years have claimed that the number of captured documents, including even extraneous materials and duplicates, totals more than 1 million.
Can it really be the case that this release “closes the book”? The short answer: No, it can’t.
“[Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper and the old administration may want this to be closed, but it’s far from closed,” says Representative Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI). “Now the truth will begin to come out. It’s just the beginning.”
Anything not exposing sources, revealing methods, or threatening current operations ought to be released.
DAN MCLAUGHLIN: Refugee Madness: Trump Is Wrong, But His Liberal Critics Are Crazy. “Trump’s order is, in characteristic Trump fashion, both ham-handed and underinclusive, and particularly unfair to allies who risked life and limb to help the American war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it is also not the dangerous and radical departure from U.S. policy that his liberal critics make it out to be. His policy may be terrible public relations for the United States, but it is fairly narrow and well within the recent tradition of immigration actions taken by the Obama administration. . . . Trump isn’t making this up; Obama-administration policy effectively discriminated against persecuted religious-minority Christians from Syria (even while explicitly admitting that ISIS was pursuing a policy of genocide against Syrian Christians), and the response from most of Trump’s liberal critics has been silence.”
#DELETEUBER: Resist Trump or ‘Pay a Price’
Dan O’Sullivan inadvertently created a playbook for getting corporations to stop playing nice with Donald Trump.
O’Sullivan was the first to tweet the hashtag #DeleteUber, although he insists he didn’t invent the idea for an Uber boycott and doesn’t take credit for the phenomenon the hashtag became. His initial string of #DeleteUber tweets, all replies to Uber’s surge pricing announcement, have over 7,000 retweets.
congrats to @Uber_NYC on breaking a strike to profit off of refugees being consigned to Hell. eat shit and die https://t.co/19gbpIc9m9
— HUNTER S. FAILSON (@Bro_Pair) January 29, 2017“Let this be a warning: if you are a corporation who thinks you will ride out Trump, and quietly make money at his side, you will be made to pay a price,” O’Sullivan told The Daily Beast.
#DeleteUber wound up becoming the No. 1 trend in the country on Saturday night after the company turned off surge pricing to and from JFK International Airport, where thousands were protesting the Muslim ban.
Uber did what it always does during surge demand — raised prices to ensure that there would be enough drivers to meet the extra demand created by anti-Trump protestors.
Next time they can stand in the rain and wait for the bus.