Trump
gregladen | March 21, 2017As I've pointed out before, New Yorkers have been dealing with Donald Trump for a very long time. Chris Hayes, on All In, came up with some great examples, the last one of which is ... well, just watch:
gregladen | March 15, 2017A potpourri of miscellany:
Human Caused Climate Change and the Oceans
It is great to see our local political non-print non-TV news agency, MNPost, covering an important climate change story with local connections. I'll be writing John Abraham's research up myself shortly.
An intriguing and important-sounding new research paper caught my eye on Sunday, with its finding that the world’s oceans have been warming at a much faster pace than is generally recognized.
Because seawater holds more than 90 percent of the excess heat that arrives from the sun but, thanks to greenhouse gases, isn’t…
gregladen | March 9, 2017From the early days of Trump:
Trump: The response to my candidacy out here [in Los Angeles] has been incredible! Off the charts! The polls are unbelievable! Everybody loves me here -- loves me! My hotel phone is ringing off the hoo from major actresses! Major!
Question shouted from the audience: Any of them voters?
Trump: Who cares? They're huge! Not Pamela Lee, but that ballpark. A lot of people have been asking what this election is really about. Well, it's not about the economy, stupid! And it's not character, stupid! And it's not authenticity, Stupid! It's not even about the issues,…
gregladen | March 9, 2017In Health Care Insurance Reform We See The History of the Republican Party
Very few American policy initiatives have been as popular as Obamacare. The fact that several years of Republican opposition to the Affordable Care Act did not result in any alternative policies or specific revisions to the law suggest that Republicans were aware of that. Touting opposition and threatening to repeal worked with their base, but actually doing something would lead to widespread outrage and loss of votes, possibly loss of actual elections.
The worst nightmare of Republican members of the House and…
gregladen | March 7, 2017The Crisis We Await
The exact way the Trump presidency ends is not clear. Anything could happen.
Trump had zero idea of what he was getting into with this president thing, and the stresses must be amazing. Clearly, he is being driven over the edge by relatively minor day to day events. Nothing has yet actually happened in this administration. If you ignore self inflicted wounds and self generated drama, and all the protesting against Trump, the world has been pretty quiet. It is as though all the bad guys, all the individuals who do the things that become major international issues or…
gregladen | February 24, 2017Last night, I went to an event, apparently organized by an indivisible group, in Plymouth Mass.
Plymouth is in Minnesota's 3rd Congressional District, and is represented by Congressman Erik Paulsen. Paulsen took over, years ago, from a "reasonable Republican" that even Democrats in CD03 remember fondly. But Paulsen has quietly and without fanfare served as a Tea Party Republican since being elected. During the time that he and Michele Bachmann served in the same Congress, in physically adjoining districts, Paulsen and Bachmann voted the same way on almost every bill, and the few…
cmonforton | February 16, 2017President Trump's pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was confirmed today by a Senate vote of 52-46. The former attorney general of Oklahoma has been hostile to new EPA safeguards for air and water, most notably by suing the EPA 14 times over his career. The Senate's approval of Pruitt has environmental and public health advocates wondering what the future will be for environmental protection.
Maine Senator Susan Collins was the only Republican senator to oppose Pruitt's nomination:
"His actions leave me with considerable doubts about whether his vision for the EPA is…
gregladen | February 16, 2017Below is a nice video from Move On Dot Org, as well as a link to a petition of theirs.
I would like to take this opportunity to caution everyone who is trying to figure out what is going on in the White House to avoid being misled by confusion, ignorance, or intentional misdirection. I have five points.
1) Be prepared to hold multiple competing hypothesis in mind at once. I promise you this: Whatever you think now, or come to realize over the coming months, is not a good historical description of what happened (or is happening). We can look back to Watergate to understand this. For…
gregladen | February 15, 2017Everybody is all upset about Trump and his Republicans, but in truth, that seems to matter little. Here in Minnesota we had a local house district open, there was a special election, and the Democrats didn't even try to win it, apparently. So they lost it. It was probably winnable.
Same with GA-06. This is one of four seats opening up because of Trump appointments. Will the Democrats try to win these seats?
Of course not. The Democratic Party does not seem to care that the Republicans are in charge, and will not fight them vigorously. The official word from the DCCC is "... we have to…
gregladen | February 15, 2017As the Republican led US Senate has voted to confirm (or deny) the party leader's cabinet picks, they've done a poor job, approving, for example, people who have acted in direct opposition to the areas of government they are expected to serve, or in some cases, being abjectly incompetent. The Republicans in the Senate were not vetting the nominees. Some of the Democrats were, but even there, we saw failures of conscious.
The Senators need to be reminded that the critical choices made by the Trump administration tend to be poor ones. Look, for example, at the first NSA choice. General…
gregladen | February 15, 2017I am reading Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin, whom you may know from her occasional and always informative appearances on various TV news shows as a ranking Presidential Historian.
I started reading it because I wanted to see in some detail what was going on in American politics during the decade or so prior to the start of the Civil War. What I did know about it indicated that there would be interesting parallels, and important differences, between then and right now. It turns out that this suspicion was well founded, and I am probably…
gregladen | February 10, 2017The most recent polling indicates that Donald Trump has a 43% approval and 53% disapproval rating. So he is not exactly loved by the American people, which is odd because he seems so lovable. And, he has told us that the American people love him. And his victory in the November election was unbelievably big league. But, that's how it is, according the scientific polling.
Approval and favorability are apparently slightly different, but the pattern holds. The same polling tells us that the American people have a 45% favorable attitude about the president, which would be tremendous for any…
gregladen | January 30, 2017Two Polls came out a few days ago, but I'm afraid that the news cycles have been swamped and they may have been missed. Here are some simple graphics. Plenty more data can be found at Public Policy Polling, and see RM on MSBNC below for more.
gregladen | January 30, 2017A brief update: This morning, Senate Republicans set aside the rules that say that both parties must be present, with at least one member, for a committee vote to advance a Presidential nominee for a cabinet appointment.
In other words, as outlined below, our system is based not only on enforceable laws but also on rules that only work if everyone involves agrees to not be the bully on the playground who ignores the rules. The Republicans are the bully on the playground.
The system requires honest actor playing by agreed on rules. So, without the honest actor, you get this. This fits…
gregladen | January 25, 2017This is a press release from the Natural Resources Committee Democrats, US House of Representatives concerning President Trump's decision and actions to push ahead with two highly controversial petroleum pipeline projects.
These projects had previously been stopped because they did not meet environmental standards, or because they violated tribal agreements. It is still quite possible that these reasons still matter, and that President Trump cant' simply wish the projects back into existence. Or maybe he can. It remains to be determined.
Here is the statement:
Washington, D.C. – Ranking…
gregladen | January 24, 2017From ClimateTruth.org, in response to Trump gag orders on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA):
“President Trump and his administration have ignored scientific reality, and now they’re trying to hide it.
“Merely five days into Donald Trump’s presidency, the administration is silencing the agencies tasked with protecting our environment, our health, and our food supply. This gag order sets a dangerous precedent and is sending a chilling message to civil servants throughout the country.
“We knew the Trump administration would go…
gregladen | January 24, 2017It is generally felt that Trump's claims of voter fraud, especially, apparently, by illegal aliens -- Or some kind of alien, not sure -- could be a prelude, or excuse for some kind of widespread voter suppression campaign. In any event, these repeated claims were once thought of as an odd and embarassing bit of yammering by the President elect, but now they have become a keystone of the White House's current activism, foregrounded by the hapless Sean Spicer, who appears to not believe the claims himself.
From NBC:
The White House doubled down on President Donald Trump's widely debunked…
gregladen | January 24, 2017The science is clear: Human caused global warming is happening and is serious. Building and expanding infrastructure to make it easier to burn fossil fuels is a very bad idea. The Keystone XL pipeline and the Dakota Access pipeline were two such projects, and in recent years, the environmental community, politicians, and others managed to stop these projects.
Today, President Trump signed an executive order that brings these projects back to life and moves them forward.
From Rhea Suh, president of the National Resources Defense Council:
“It’s appalling that Trump wants to throw open our…
gregladen | January 19, 2017The West Wing Version:
Josh, Toby, Leo, and Donna are in Leo's office. They have just gotten word that a major auto manufacturer plans to build a plant in Mexico, and will likely close a corresponding plant in Michigan. Josh is pacing, Leo is behind his desk, Donna is standing near the door, and Toby is sitting in a chair smoking an unlit cigar. All four had just come from a poker game with the President and others.
Josh Leyman: Screw the auto industry. If they decide to move another plant to Mexico, we just slap a 35% tariff on them!
Leo Mcgarry: That won't go well, Josh, and you know it.…