Far too much media coverage of politics focuses on the horserace angle--who's ahead, who's behind, who's up or down. It relies on false equivalency: if Politician A says X, then the reporter goes to Politician B, who's sure to say Y. That's lazy journalism, and it doesn't actually inform the public about which position (if any) is actually true, or adheres to the facts as we know them. At TWiA, our mission is to discuss politics through the prism of policy--to look, in other words, at the real-world implications of the things that politicians say and do, to make connections others might miss, and to explain it all in language a lay person can understand. Also to offer suggestions of how you can help somebody in need, to report on what's awesome, and to keep tabs on bears. If you like TWiA, share or repost or tell a friend, and be sure to leave comments, even if they're arguments. Especially if they're arguments.
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This Week in Facts
Friday marks one month since that morning when so many of us woke up to the horrible news that Donald J. Trump would be the next president of the United States, despite demonstrating throughout a long campaign that he's entirely incapable of doing the job, intellectually stunted and uncurious, an authoritarian would-be strongman, a sexual predator, a racist, a swindler, a liar, and...well, you get the idea.
As one of TWiA's rotating headers states, our "starting point is that facts are facts, science is real, data are real, and we can and must learn from history."
Since we continue to believe that, a Trump presidency is anathema to TWiA. We fear for the nation that we love. We're no longer convinced that progress is gradual but certain. We never anticipated a United States run by a Hitler-like presence--and it's possible that to believe we're entering such an era is an overreaction to the election.
However...
Last week, Scottie Nell Hughes, a CNN commentator and Trump surrogate went on a radio show and said this:
On one hand, I hear half the media saying that these are lies. But on the other half, there are many people that go ‘No it’s true. "And so one thing that has been interesting this entire campaign season to watch, is that people who say "facts are facts,"— they’re not really facts.
Everybody has a way—It’s kind of like looking at ratings, or looking at a glass of half-full water. Everybody has a way of interpreting them to be the truth or not true. There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore, as facts.
And so Mr. Trump’s tweets, amongst a certain crowd, a large part of the population, are truth. When he says that millions of people illegally voted, he has some facts—amongst him and his supporters, and people believe they have facts to back that up. Those that do not like Mr. Trump, they’ll say that those are lies, and there are no facts to back it up.
"There's no such thing, unfortunately, anymore, as facts."
That's an astonishing assertion, the kind of comment that could wake George Orwell from the dead to go on TV and declare, "You people said I was wrong because it didn't happen in 1984. I might have been a few decades off on the date, but not on the results!"
The Weekly Sift takes a slightly deeper dive into Hughes's bizarre assertion, and we won't duplicate all of their work. But there's an important connection that they haven't made, so we'll make it.
According to a tweetstorm by Elliot Lusztig quoted at the Sift:
Hannah Arendt in her book The Origin of Totalitarianism provides a helpful guide for interpreting the language of fascists. She noted how decent liberals of 1930s Germany would “fact check” the Nazis’ bizarre claims about Jews like they were meant to be factual. What they failed to understand, Arendt suggests, is that the Nazi Jew hating was not a statement of fact but a declaration of intent.
So when someone would blame the Jews for Germany’s defeat in [World War I], naive people would counter by saying there’s no evidence of that. What the Nazis were doing was not describing what was true, but what would have to be true to justify what they planned to do next.
Did 3 million “illegals” cast votes in this election? Clearly not. But fact checking is just a way of playing along with their game. What Trump is saying is not that 3m illegals voted. What he’s saying is: I’m going to steal the voting rights of millions of Americans.
As we wrote last week, we fully expect Trump to ramp up Republican voter suppression tactics, perhaps to heights not seen in this country in many decades. But to us, the important part of Lusztig's comment is this: "What the Nazis were doing was not describing what was true, but what would have to be true to justify what they planned to do next."
Because Trump isn't the only would-be Nazi out there. They're coming out of the woodwork--real Nazis, and people who don't call themselves Nazis but act like them.
And then Sunday night, this happened:
"A North Carolina man was arrested Sunday after he walked into a popular pizza restaurant in Northwest Washington carrying an assault rifle and fired one or more shots, D.C. police said. The man told police he had come to the restaurant to “self-investigate” a false election-related conspiracy theory involving Hillary Clinton that spread online during her presidential campaign."
Wait, what?
Yes, it's true. Absurd rumors started on the far-right fringes, and were picked up and amplified by "fake news" sites. The stories were shared millions of times on social media. When we read this New York Times story back in late November, we worried about exactly this sort of thing happening. In our imagination, it was worse than it turned out to be, because on Sunday, fortunately, nobody was killed. Edgar Welch, the gunman, has a criminal record and a long history of drug and alcohol abuse, including an incident in October when he hit and "severely injured" a teenager with his car (so much for being a protector of children), but was still able to get his hands on three guns for his DC trip.
The "pizzagate" story continues to spread around the morally malarial swamps of the far right, where people live in a bubble that encourages violence--and those people own most of America's guns. There's no way to know if this incident will be the last at Comet Ping Pong.
Among those spreading hateful, malicious lies connecting Clinton with "sex-trafficking" are Michael T. Flynn, the ex-general who Trump has tapped as his chief national security adviser, and Flynn's son Michael G. Flynn, who's working for the transition. On Sunday night--after the attack--the junior Flynn tweeted that the "pizzagate" still has not been "proven false." In other words, continuing to put the staff and clientele at Comet Ping Pong in danger for no reason. (In his first good personnel decision to date, on Tuesday Trump fired Flynn the younger from the transition team--but in a worse decision, didn't kick Gen. Flynn out as natsec adviser.)
It shouldn't have to be said that if Hillary Clinton and John Podesta were actually implicated in a pedophilia ring, it would have been covered by serious news outlets and legal action would have long since been taken. But the Trump community has decided that facts aren't facts, that fact-checkers are necessarily suspect, and that the mainstream media is not to be trusted but obviously bogus sources like Breitbart, Inforwars, and Drudge are. Given that resistance to real facts and reliance on not-real "facts," it's hard to see how America moves ahead as the enlightened, liberal democracy it's been for all these years. And given that the far-right swamp is full of gun-owners who believe that patently ridiculous things are true, it's hard to see how Americans aren't killed in increasing numbers by deluded "self-investigators."
There used to be a pro-gun bumper sticker that said, "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." Maybe it's time to retool that as "If guns are outlawed, only conservatives will have guns (many of which will be stolen by criminals)."
Side Note: The fact-free future isn't just the domain of the Trumpists. Over the weekend, according to Steve Benen at Maddowblog, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R/WI) said, "that the Obama administration’s regulatory agenda is 'really just crushing jobs.'" Not to be outdone, VP-elect Mike Pence said, "“[W]e’re working on President-Elect Trump’s commitment to repeal and replace ObamaCare. It’s all going to begin right out of the gate by repealing this disastrous policy that’s been killing jobs.”
Coincidentally, immediately before the weekend, the newest jobs report came out, showing that the unemployment rate is down to 4.6% and we've hit a literally unprecedented 74 straight months of private sector jobs growth. To Mr. Pence's incorrect point, the ACA went into effect in March 2010. Since that month, there hasn't been a single month of negative job growth. By all available measures, the ACA has not killed a single job, but has created plenty. Politico reported on Friday that "The president is handing his successor an economy that’s now the envy of the world."
The economy is doing well, and continuing the existing policies--as we'd have done under a Clinton presidency--would keep things moving in a positive direction for the foreseeable future. Trump, however, has different ideas, most of which involve enriching himself and his pals at the expense of everybody else. So although the economy will continue to improve during his first months in office, thanks to momentum, we don't necessarily expect to see it heading upward a year from now.
Facts and Republican policy positions have been at odds for a long time. But a country in which two of the three most powerful elected Republicans in the country can say frankly idiotic things about the economy, and pay no penalty for their lies, is a strange and disturbing place to those who value truth.
Below the Fold: More lies, this time about the vote, intelligence failures, #NoDAPL, your money, and bears.
This Week in Voting
Speaking of lying VP-elects--well, we only have the one--he's busy demonstrating why no one should have said he would be the "adult" in Trump's White House, since his regard for the truth appears to be just as flimsy as his boss's. On Sunday morning's This Week, this exchange occurred:
STEPHANOPOULOS: As I said, President-Elect Trump has been quite active on Twitter, including this week at the beginning of this week, that tweet which I want to show right now, about the popular vote.
And he said, "In addition to winning the electoral college in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally."
That claim is groundless. There's no evidence to back it up.
Is it responsible for a president-elect to make false statements like that?
PENCE: Well, look, I think four years ago the Pew Research Center found that there were millions of inaccurate voter registrations.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Yes, but the author of this said he -- he has said it is not any evidence about what happened in this election or any evidence of voter fraud.
PENCE: I think what, you know, what is -- what is historic here is that our president-elect won 30 to 50 states, he won more counties than any candidate on our side since Ronald Reagan.
And the fact that some partisans, who are frustrated with the outcome of the election and disappointed with the outcome of the election, are pointing to the popular vote, I can assure you, if this had been about the popular vote, Donald Trump and I have been campaigning a whole lot more in Illinois and California and New York.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And no one is questioning your victory, certainly I'm not questioning your victory. I'm asking just about that tweet, which I want to say that he said he would have won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally. That statement is false. Why is it responsible to make it?
PENCE: Well, I think the president-elect wants to call to attention the fact that there has been evidence over many years of...
STEPHANOPOULOS: That's not what he said.
PENCE: ...voter fraud. And expressing that reality Pew Research Center found evidence of that four years ago.
STEPHANPOULOS: That's not the evidence...
PENCE: ...that certainly his right.
But, you know...
STEPHANOPOULOS: It's his right to make false statements?
PENCE: Well, it's his right to express his opinion as president-elect of the United States.
I think one of the things that's refreshing about our president-elect and one of the reasons why I think he made such an incredible connection with people all across this country is because he tells you what's on his mind.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But why is it refreshing to make false statements?
PENCE: Look, I don't know that that is a false statement, George, and neither do you. The simple fact is that...
STEPHANOPOULOS: I know there's no evidence for it.
PENCE: There is evidence, historic evidence from the Pew Research Center of voter fraud that's taken place. We're in the process of investigating irregularities in the state of Indiana that were leading up to this election. The fact that voter fraud exists is...
STEPHANPOULOS: But can you provide any evidence -- can you provide any evidence to back up that statement?
PENCE; Well, look, I think he's expressed his opinion on that. And he's entitled to express his opinion on that. And I think the American people -- I think the American people find it very refreshing that they have a president who will tell them what's on his mind. And I think the connection that he made in the course...
STEPHANOPOULOS: Whether it's true or not?
PENCE: Well, they're going to tell them -- he's going to say what he believes to be true and I know that he's always going to speak in that way as president.
So according to the man who'll be a heartbeat (or an impeachment) away from the presidency in a few weeks, Americans find it "very refreshing" that the president doesn't distinguish between truth and lies; that he says whatever flits into his tiny brain, without regard for whether it has any basis in reality. Whatever serves him in the moment is what dribbles from his lying lips, and we're supposed to think it's a good thing that he's telling us what's on his "mind."
We've lived through a lot of bad vice presidents--Spiro Agnew and Dick Cheney, even--but we've never felt so insulted by one. To be told that we simply shouldn't care that the president's going to lie with regularity, that we should look upon it as a positive... there are no words to describe how disgusting that is. If shame hadn't been baked out of the Republican soul, Pence would be afraid to show his face anywhere in the world.
This Week in Intelligence
The stories above are important--a presidency that exists in a fact-free vacuum is one that can do incredible damage to the nation and the planet, as this one seems intent on doing. But the two most important stories--stories that should really be on the front page of every newspaper and lead every newscast--are these: 1) The conflicts between Trump's business interests and his presidential responsibilities, and 2) Russian involvement in US elections.
This week, TIME Magazine named Trump its Person of the Year for 2016. Trump has long lusted after this "honor" (which has also been enjoyed by Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Vladimir Putin, among other Trump-like luminaries). Part of the deal when TIME calls someone that is sitting for an interview. And in this year's interview, Trump was asked about Russian interference in American politics. Michael Scherer writes, "For reasons that remain unclear, Trump still refuses to acknowledge the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Putin’s agencies were responsible for stealing the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign emails released on WikiLeaks. 'I don’t believe it. I don’t believe they interfered,' Trump says. Asked if he thought the conclusion of America’s spies was politically driven, Trump says, 'I think so.' Since the election, Trump has chosen not to consistently make himself available for intelligence briefings, say aides."
Believing something isn't true that everybody in the American intelligence community who's looked into it says is true is a problem. Refusing intelligence briefings is a bigger problem. Not that we want Trump to know classified information, since he's likely to tweet it out in the middle of the night. But if he's to be president, we'd like him to have a realistic view of the world. Apparently, that's asking too much.
President George W. Bush lied the nation into a long-lasting, expensive war of choice in Iraq. But at least he made the choice. Trump is already exhibiting a likelihood of getting us into a war by mistake, out of sheer, stubborn stupidity. That war could be against a considerably tougher adversary than Iraq.
On Friday--after what would have been our deadline, if we had made our deadline, the Washington Post reported this:
The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.
Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.
“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. “That’s the consensus view.”
The White House wanted to issue a clear warning that Russia was trying to interfere in our election, but congressional Republicans wouldn't go along with it. The Post reports:
In a secure room in the Capitol used for briefings involving classified information, administration officials broadly laid out the evidence U.S. spy agencies had collected, showing Russia’s role in cyber-intrusions in at least two states and in hacking the emails of the Democratic organizations and individuals.
And they made a case for a united, bipartisan front in response to what one official described as “the threat posed by unprecedented meddling by a foreign power in our election process.”
The Democratic leaders in the room unanimously agreed on the need to take the threat seriously. Republicans, however, were divided, with at least two GOP lawmakers reluctant to accede to the White House requests.
According to several officials, McConnell raised doubts about the underlying intelligence and made clear to the administration that he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics.
So where does that leave us? With a president opposed by a majority of American voters, elected by a narrow electoral college win but a popular vote loss verging on 3 million votes, who was elected in part through Russian computer hacking and manipulation of the American media, and through the influence of "fake news" sites. The last Republican president was also elected despite a popular vote loss, and only with the intercession of a right-leaning Supreme Court decision that was so plainly flawed that its own authors took the unheard-of position that this decision, unlike other SCOTUS ones, should not be considered precedent for any future cases. That president, need we remind anyone, was a disaster on the foreign policy front as well as on the economy.
Republicans argued throughout President Obama's two terms that he was illegitimate, in spite of the fact that he was one of the only presidents in our history elected twice by popular vote majorities (vs. pluralities), with no hint of scandal in the electoral process. How can they claim any legitimacy for Trump?
This Week in #NoDAPL
The protests raised the consciousness of millions, here and around the world, and the Dakota Access pipeline has been stopped. For now. As the Washington Post reports, "The Army said Sunday that it will not approve an easement necessary to permit the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under Lake Oahe in North Dakota, marking a monumental victory for the Native American tribes and thousands of others who have flocked in recent months to protest the oil pipeline."
The Army Corps of Engineers will explore alternate possible routes for the pipeline, and will require a full environmental-impact statement with public input. The incoming Trump administration could still overturn the rule, but Trump claims to have sold his interest in a company that was involved in pipeline construction (there is no evidence for this claim), so he might not be interested enough to bother. One can hope.
We should also remember that those protesting the pipeline, and worrying that it could foul their drinking water by going under Lake Oahe and the Missouri River, do so with good cause. Trains carrying oil from North Dakota--which is where the Dakota Access oil would come from--have a tendency to blow up, and pipelines carrying that oil have a tendency to rupture. According to reporting at TakePart:
Those spills—an average of four a year—caused more than $40 million in property damage, the center said, citing data from the United States Department of Transportation.
The deeper story is the new relationship First American tribes have forged with Washington, thanks to their friendship with President Obama. WaPo reports:
Former assistant secretary for Indian affairs Kevin K. Washburn, who left the administration in January, said in an interview that Obama changed the federal culture around tribal affairs during his eight years in office.
“There’s definitely a sense within the administration if you’re on the wrong side of tribes, you better be able to explain yourself,” said Washburn, now a professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law, “because the federal government’s been on the wrong side of tribes for 200 years, and it hasn’t been successful.”
It continues:
But Raina Thiele, who volunteered for Obama in 2008 and worked for his reelection bid, said Native American concerns resonated with Obama. Thiele later worked in the White House’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement and as a liaison to Native American communities.
“For him, it made a lot of sense, based on both who he is and what he cares about, that he can lift up this population that has not been treated very well,” Thiele said.
Obama made a series of pledges during that first campaign, including that he would hold an annual White House conference with tribal nations, establish a White House liaison and require greater consultation between agencies and sovereign nations. He kept them all, and has settled more than 100 lawsuits with tribes since taking office.
Slavery is often referred to as America's original sin. That stands, but it should not be forgotten that the dehumanization and subjugation of people did not apply only to those with black skins, but to the indigenous population as well. The disgraceful record of slaughter and imprisonment and confinement on reservations can't be erased. In the years since, though, it's safe to say that the Native population has never had a better friend in Washington than President Obama.
Chances are the relationship will Washington will be strained after January 20. Trump's history with the Native population is historically antagonistic. And just this week, advisors to Trump pushed a plan to "privatize" reservation land--a move they claim will make it easier for tribes to exploit natural resources, but that will also make it easier to take away control of those lands from the tribes (not to mention that for many, "ownership" of land is a concept that has always been and remains anathema). Reuters reports:
Native American reservations cover just 2 percent of the United States, but they may contain about a fifth of the nation’s oil and gas, along with vast coal reserves.
Now, a group of advisors to President-elect Donald Trump on Native American issues wants to free those resources from what they call a suffocating federal bureaucracy that holds title to 56 million acres of tribal lands, two chairmen of the coalition told Reuters in exclusive interviews.
The group proposes to put those lands into private ownership - a politically explosive idea that could upend more than century of policy designed to preserve Indian tribes on U.S.-owned reservations, which are governed by tribal leaders as sovereign nations.
This Week in National Security
This week, President Obama gave his last major foreign policy address, at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, FL. He talked about some of the national security accomplishments of his presidency--decimating Al Qaeda and making it impossible for them to mount significant attacks, killing Bin Laden, bringing the vast majority of troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, working with a multinational coalition to wrest territory and resources away from ISIL, significantly reducing its leadership and recruiting efforts, ending the counterproductive use of torture, trying terrorists in civilian courts, emptying most of Gitmo's population, stopping terror attacks before they happen, and punishing the perpetrators of others. It's an impressive record of achievement.
During the speech, he also delivered warnings to the incoming administration, which seems intent on reversing some of the gains we've made--handing recruitment tools to terror organizations by accepting the terrrorists' frame that we're in an existential battle against Islam, once again embracing torture, targeting the families of terrorists instead of just the terrorists themselves, etc.
Obama says that when we're at our best, as a nation, we're also at our strongest. We value the rule of law, we value a free and open society, we welcome immigrants and those of different faiths, and those values, in turn, help keep us safe. Turning our backs on those values will increase the dangers we face.
That might be what president-elect Trump wants. He ran, after all, on a campaign of fear, hate, and division. So far, his national security team looks like a team dedicated to making America less safe, less free, and less open. In his speech, Obama is trying to do what he can, on his way out the door, to limit the damage these impulses might do. We can only hope those soon to take power are listening.
The full text of the speech is here: it's worth reading or watching.
Side Note: Trump has also filled his natsec team with retired generals. America has a long tradition of civilian command of the armed forces, and that tradition has served us well. Generals have, by definition, proved that they're good at what they do what they do, but what they do is lead armies. By stocking all his natsec positions with generals, he's making it look like he intends the country to be on a perpetual war footing. That's a very worrying proposition.
This Week in Health Insurance
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R/KY) said this week that Obamacare repeal would be the Senate's top priority under the new administration. How many people stand to lose their health insurance if that happens? Estimates range from 23 to 30 million Americans.
And what's the advantage, financial or otherwise, to repeal? Uhh... ideology. There's no practical or fiscal upside. In fact, healthcare has been a booming field under the law, and hospitals are worried about the impact of having to care for patients who are suddenly uninsured. This is purely a Republican tantrum against a widely effective program that happens (like most effective social programs) to have been signed into law by a Democratic president. Too bad elected Republicans have lost the capacity for shame.
This Week in Your Money
Ever wonder what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has done for you? Its latest achievement is to extend the protections offered to your credit and debit cards to prepaid cards (which a lot of people are paid with these days) and electronic payment services like PayPal. Aaron Klein writes for Brookings: "Expanding these existing consumer protections for financial activities, whether or not they flow through traditional banks, the CFPB implemented a tried-and-true regulatory regime that will foster innovation, competition, and the provision of new and better services to help people access their money in a faster and more secure manner. Even better, the CFPB issued the rule proactively, instead of waiting for a crisis to occur—the latter being too often the case in policymaking."
This, of course, isn't the CFPB's only victory in making financial transactions safer and more consumer-friendly. The bureau is one of the real success stories of the Obama era [and one of the many things to thank Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D/MA) for]. Of course, Republicans fought it tooth and nail, because giving power to consumers means taking some away from the big banks, but that's how Democrats roll.
This Week in RIP
Safe travels to American hero John Glenn, somewhere out among the stars.
This Week in Bears
Here's Nora the polar bear, enjoying her first snowfall since moving to the Portland zoo this year.
And here's a guy who doesn't know when he's got it good. Not only does he have company, but he doesn't need to worry about home invasions or burglars.
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