Dipping A Toe In The Water

One of the better behind the scenes books I've read on the Presidency is "The President's Club," by Michael Duffy and
Nancy Gibbs. The book looks at Presidential transitions as well as the relationships between sitting and past Presidents. It is a really great read, and I would recommend it highly to anyone.

One of the things you find through this book is how supportive of one another these men (someday maybe I'll get to say people there, huh?) have been on one another. Upon further reflection that seems to be obvious, making you wonder why you haven't noticed it before. Regardless of party affiliation prior Presidents have not criticized sitting Presidents. In fact, since Truman accessed Hoover as a resource current Presidents have reached out to their predecessors with relatively frequency and appreciation.

Our most recent President, Barack Obama, is many things, but ignorant of history and tradition is not one of those things. That said, you could argue that no President in modern times has had to deal with an Administration replacing them which was more diametrically opposed than Trump replacing Obama. This article, ever so briefly, shows the difficult job facing Obama in his post Presidency years. Go too far, you seem like a sore loser. Don't speak up enough and risk your vision for the country going up in flames. President Obama undoubtedly has major reservations, to say the least, about the direction President Trump will take the country. That puts him in a group with over 60% of the population. He just has a bigger bully pulpit, and more risk in making his views known.

Traditionally sitting Presidents have turned to their predecessors because no one but those men know what they are going through. And in that same tradition, former Presidents have deferred to sitting Presidents with respect, because only they truly know how impossible the job is. Somehow I have a sneaking suspicion that this current Administration will bring about a change in this tradition, along with many others. At any rate it should be something to pay attention to.

Sanctuary Cities - Governing is Hard Work!

The term Sanctuary Cities has been in the news intermittently over the last few years, often with people having different understandings of what these cities actually are doing. Within his first week President Trump's Administration issued an executive order to push so called "sanctuary cities" to follow federal orders for detaining illegal immigrants. Shortly after the order was released many of these cities, like Chicago, responded, saying they wouldn't be following the orders.

The big challenge with an order like this is determining who has the responsibility, and who has the authority. The fundamental issue in question is whether these cities will follow Federal orders to detain illegal immigrants who have not committed any other crime outside of being in the country illegally. Opponents of the order argue that such a detainment is unconstitutional in many cases, and that they want to be on the side of constitutionally appropriate actions. Proponents of the order argue that to ignore federal immigration orders to detain illegal immigrants is equally problematic. Miami's Mayor already reversed the city's previous course, ordering local law enforcement to comply with federal detainment orders. Other major city Mayors, such as Rahm Emmanuel in Chicago, quickly responded by saying they would not follow through with the orders.

What President Trump has threatened, through his administration, is that the government would withhold federal funds from any city which fails to comply with the order. An initial review of the money that goes to the jurisdictions targeted by the Trump Administration shows that over 60% of the targeted funding goes to ten places, including California, Cook County Illinois, and the aforementioned Miami-Dade County. It is relatively easy to see that any substantial withholding of federal funds for these areas could quickly become problematic; one only needs to look at the way that the risk of losing federal funds in the past has driven states to a uniform drinking age and to federally approved maximum speed limits. Money drives everything, and the Federal Government's funds make most local and state jurisdictions run. We like to say that we give power to the states, but in spite of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution the Federal Government carries a big stick in terms of funding, and historically it has been willing to use it liberally. 

A major question which has been raised in the aftermath of the Executive Order related to detaining illegal immigrants: who is responsible for paying for the care of individuals who are detained in this way? Miami's Mayor has raised the stakes, calling on the Trump Administration to fund his city's enforcement of Federal requests. Based on early responses it doesn't appear to me that the Trump Administration has given this order, or the ramifications of the order, full thought. The Administration seems fixated on pushing out orders which in some way, shape or form fulfill his many campaign promises, but in many of these instances there appears to have been little to no clear thought given to how to implement the orders, or what the latent consequences of these orders would be. The recent drama centering around NAFTA, "the wall" and Mexico is one clear example of campaign rhetoric running head first into the complexities of governing. Another example was seen across days eight and nine in office, in response to his order halting admission into the US from seven Muslim majority countries. That order was quickly halted while the judiciary was able to look more fully into it, but the spill out of the order was exacerbated by a great deal of confusion as to what it meant, and how it was to be enforced. At a minimum it made the Administration appear unprepared and struggling to determine how to lead. At worst, for his Administration, it provided an early flash point for a diverse base that could lead an opposition movement to rally to. 

At this point it is far too early to pass any uniform judgement on how this Administration will govern, or what their true motives are. That said, it doesn't feel like much of a reach to look at the level of chaos and confusion which has followed many of these early orders and come to the conclusion that there are two leading possibilities. The first is that the Administration will learn from these early stumbles and will start to be more deliberate in designing these orders with planning for how they will roll out. The second is that this Administration, with its complete dearth of governing experience, will continue to allow these follies to permeate everything they do. The latter possibility, when coupled with President Trump's extremely well established thin skin, need to be "right," and impulsiveness, leads to a wealth of scary possibilities. There is a small rumbling within the GOP which indicates to me that some Republicans may fear this exact scenario. Time will tell if they develop the backbone to stand up to the Trump Administration, or if they will need things to get much worse before they do so in an attempt to save themselves, much like their historical predecessors did during the Nixon Administration. 

The Affordable Care Act

From the get go I was always frustrated when people termed the Affordable Care Act "Obamacare." President Obama did the best he could with it, ultimately trying to defang the term by saying he liked it and would take the credit. But ultimately the terminology was designed by the far right wing media with one goal in mind: to play to their base. That base is many things, but regardless of how many are racist, or dislike the idea of "welfare," or just don't like "liberals," the one thing that base agreed on was that Obama was terrible. Tying his name to the act was extremely effective. For further proof, look at these interviews, conduct by Jimmy Kimmel Live:

I know that it's a bit for humor, but man oh man does that have to make you shake your head. What isn't humorous is how the Trump Administration is barreling head first towards gutting the law, without a replacement in place, while the majority of American's firmly want the law to stay the same or, at least, not be messed with until something better is lined up.

Today, in brief, I want to present you with what I believe are two plausible scenarios, in light of Trump's Executive Order entitled "Minimizing The Economic Burden of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Pending Repeal." What this order does, in sum, is direct the Department of Health and Human Services to ... well, we don't really know. That's how vague it is. But it puts the department, and other departments on notice, and the changes could be relatively big.

I suspect that one change will be the Trump Administration doing away with the ACA's requirement that birth control and contraceptives be covered. Now, as we all know, "Social Conservatives" have, for years, complained about Roe v Wade and the "scourge" of abortion on our society. What I'm about to say may seem like an out there projection, but I suspect that not only will the Trump Administration do away with the birth control and contraceptives interpretation, but that it will do so not just to attack women's rights (under the guise of freedom of religion), but also in a backhanded attempt to stir up support for trying to take on Roe v Wade again. In all the news recently, this report might have been lost in the shuffle. In short, abortion rates in this country are at their lowest rate since Roe v Wade was decided. I strongly suspect that the ACA's mandate that birth control and contraceptives be covered is a major contributing factor for this. I also strongly suspect that if that requirement, along with wellness visits and other covered aspects, are done away with then the numbers will rise again.  And, as those numbers rise, the social conservatives in the US government (disproportionately white men, for what it's worth) will rise up and talk about the need to overturn Roe v Wade again.

A second change I suspect will be coming soon to the ACA relates to the individual mandate. Without getting too bogged down in the weeds, the ACA says that all persons, regardless of pre-existing conditions, can get coverage. The people who want insurance the most, of course, are those with pre-existing conditions. But if only those people sign up the cost of insurance would be astronomical, both to the insurance company and then, ultimately, to the purchaser of insurance. There has been a ton of noise in the Alt Right media about the premium increases under President Obama, but the fact is that the cost of insurance, while still on the rise, has slowed under the ACA, although their rise at the end of 2016, heading into this year paints a less optimistic picture.

Much of the cost control mechanism for the act, however, is due to the individual mandate. Without it, younger, healthier people would likely opt out of insurance, increasing the cost to insurance companies per person insured, and increasing the cost sent back to the purchaser of insurance. If the Trump Administration effectively eliminates the individual mandate, then, without "repealing" the law, the cost of insurance will skyrocket. That, in turn, would allow them the ability to claim that the law is completely broken, and repeal it even if they don't have a worthy replacement.

Simply put, this administration is playing politics with American's income, health care, and well being, less than two full days into their term in office. Repealing the ACA, even parts of it, would likely lead to 18 million Americans losing their insurance. You can bet that whatever takes its place will benefit Trump's friends and backers the most. Now, that is not very far from any level of politics. And the ACA is far from perfect. But to repeal it without a viable, ready to go on the day of repeal, replacement plan would likely be devastating for millions of Americans. To play politics with it to strive towards a social end, like a pincer attack on abortion rights, is downright unethical and immoral.

The Nature of Alternative Facts

January 21, 2017 was the first full day of the Trump Presidency. Anyone paying attention should have been concerned on a number of fronts, but one thing, in particular, jumped out at me. It was a press conference, held by Trump Administration Press Secretary Sean Spicer. In it, Spicer inexplicably decided to take reality head on, while simultaneously announcing a war against journalism. One thing is for certain: the next four years are unlikely to be boring, even if they trend towards the horrifying nature of staring at a train wreck even when every part of your being wants to look away.

Spicer held this press conference, but didn't take any questions. There may have been many reasons for this, but I suspect the biggest reason is that he knew that he didn't have a leg to stand on, so he didn't want to get called out. Honestly, it was likely the best thing he could have done, because what he did in the interim was ridiculous by anyone's standards.  Let's take a look at some of Spicer's quotes, from the press conference, to see what the big stink is.

"Yesterday ... some members of the media were engaged in deliberately false reporting."

This is a bold start, to say the least. Within the first five sentences of his initial press conference, the new White House Press Secretary is calling out members of the media for intentionally making stuff up. That's quite a charge to leverage, and I hope he was able to back it up. Let's check back in:

"One was a particular egregious example in which a reporter falsely tweeted out that the bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. had been removed from the Oval Office."

So far, Spicer is one for one ... sort of. This was reported by Time Magazine's Zeke Miller, who shortly thereafter issued a correction of the initial report. I'll set aside what it says about this new Administration that something like this a) seems plausible, and b) wouldn't surprise anyone, and simply say that Miller should have taken the time to confirm this, prior to reporting it to the pool. Spicer went on to say that Miller's reporting was "irresponsible and reckless," which I suppose is true, but the strength of his words also tell you how afraid the Administration is of any press which appears to indicate they are being racist. I'll give Spicer this one. Let's see what else he's got:

"Secondly, photographs of the inaugural proceedings were intentionally framed in a way, in one particular tweet, to minimize the enormous support that had gathered on the National Mall. This was the first time in our nation's history that floor coverings have been used to protect the grass on the Mall. That had the effect of highlighting any areas where people were not standing, while in years past the grass eliminated this visual. This was also the first time that fencing and magnetometers went as far back on the Mall, preventing hundreds of thousands of people from being able to access the Mall as quickly as they had in inaugurations past."

Well, one for two isn't bad, right Sean? Nearly ever aspect of this last paragraph has been proven to be patently false: Obama's 2nd inaugural was the first one with the floor coverings, and the Secret Service confirmed that nothing was different in this year's security set up regarding fencing and magnetometers, so that excuse doesn't fly either. But, wait, it gets better:

"Inaccurate numbers involving crowd size were also tweeted. No one had numbers, because the National Park Service, which controls the National Mall, does not put any out. By the way, this applies to any attempts to try to count the number of protesters today in the same fashion."

There are two great things here, as far as I'm concerned. The first is a report that the Trump Administration effectively shut down the National Park Services' Twitter handle. What egregious offense did the NPS engage in, you might ask? Oh, you know, simply retweeting a shot of Obama's 2009 inauguration crowd up against Trump's inauguration crowd. Now the spin is on, saying they were worried they were hacked, that they shouldn't have retweeted the picture, and so on and so forth. Basically, the NPS simply retweeted a picture of their own grounds, and got in trouble for doing so because it didn't fit the narrative that the Trump Administration wanted. Silencing people for simply reporting as objective a fact as you can have. A picture. Not unlike this picture (Trump's inauguration is on the left, Obama's 2009 inauguration is on the right):

Photo from CBS

The second thing I'd like to point out from that quote is that Spicer is not just satisfied with invalidating any attempt to accurately track the number of people at the inauguration, he wants to have it both ways. That's why he mentions the protesters in DC (and, one would presume, around the globe). He is setting up a reality in which he (and, perhaps most tellingly, his boss ... I'll get to that in a second) can say how big and great and, yes, huge his turnout was, while simultaneously squashing any reports of other events which would make it look small by comparison. Of course, like a poker player on tilt, Spicer continued:

"We do know a few things, so let's go through the facts."

Hold on, I have to jump in and note that Mr. Spicer set up an argument that there was no way to report on the number of people, because, and I quote him directly "no one had numbers, because the National Park Services ... does not put any out." And then he's going to, you guessed it, start throwing out numbers. Enjoy:

"We know that from the platform where the President was sworn in, to 4th Street, it holds about 250,000 people. From 4th Street to the media tent is about another 220,000. And from the media tent to the Washington Monument, another 250,000 people. All of this space was full when the President took the Oath of Office."

Well, we have photographic evidence that all of the space wasn't full when the President took the Oath of Office. So not only is Mr. Spicer making up numbers, immediately after telling all of us that there are no numbers to be had, but then he is blatantly lying about something we have objective evidence about. But wait, there's more:

"We know that 420,000 people used the D.C. Metro public transit yesterday, which actually compares to 317,000 that used it for President Obama's last inaugural. This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration -- period -- both in person and around the globe." 

Wait, what? We don't have any numbers and never will somehow just led to a definitive (note the use of the word "period" in his statement) declaration of this being the largest inaugural audience ever. Oh, and also, those numbers he just quoted are, just as you might guess, completely inaccurate, because Spicer quoted the full day D.C. Metro number for Trump's inauguration day, but then quotes the number of riders in 2013 only through 11am (for Obama's second inaugural). If we go through 11am the numbers are Trump 193,000 against 317,000 for Obama's second inaugural. If we go for the full day numbers it would be Trump 570,000 against 782,000 for Obama's second inaugural (and a whopping 1.1 million for Obama's first inaugural, which is a more apt comparison anyways).

Spicer goes on about other inaccuracies, and I could write about all of them, but this is already longer than I wanted. Ultimately Spicer lays this line out there:

"There's been a lot of talk in the media about the responsibility to hold Donald Trump accountable. And I'm here to tell you that it goes two ways. We're going to hold the press accountable, as well."

And now, my head spins and I get a little sick to my stomach. Free press, to help hold our leaders accountable, is a hallmark of this country and our way of life. It seems that Spicer thinks that by coming to the podium, giving one small bit of truth regarding the erroneous report that Dr. King's bust had been removed. and then blatantly lying and making stuff up, he is holding the press accountable. What he has done, instead, is indicate that this Administration will attempt to live in a post-factual world. That can't be much of a surprise, as that is all Donald Trump did throughout his campaign to win the Presidency. But it has to be disheartening to the few who were holding out hope that he might pivot towards reality.

The most shocking thing of all this (although, again, it can't be surprising), is that Trump is this obsessed with meaningless things. He is President, barring his death or removal from office, for four years, at least. If only half of the people who did show up for his inauguration had showed up, who cares? This isn't a reality TV show, nor a popularity contest. The man is now the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth, and he spent much of his first 48 hours in office fixated on how to make the number of people who attended his inauguration, and who watched it, seem bigger than it actually was. Numbers are objective. By any objective measure his inauguration was less attended and watched than many before it. There were far fewer people in town for his inauguration than were in town for the Women's March the day after. These are facts. This shouldn't be a surprise, because this administration comes to office as the most unpopular in modern times, and with the weakest mandate ever. He lost the election by over three million votes. He won the Electoral College, so he earned the office in that way, but he does not have any mandate to speak of. What Trump needs to figure out, and fast, is that his legacy, and the well being of our country, will depend on his actions, not the "ratings," however he perceives them.

Unfortunately, I'm not optimistic that will be the case. On Sunday Kellyanne Conway, Trump's counselor, told NBC's Meet the Press moderator, Chuck Todd, that what Spicer did wasn't lie. What he did, instead, was present "alternative facts." Todd, rightly, pointed out that alternative facts are falsehoods. Needless to say, we need the press now more than ever, especially if the Trump Administration's standard operating procedure is going to be to make stuff up as it suits them. And especially because the Alt-Right echo chamber will be there to amplify whatever they make up to people who don't have the desire or ability to think critically on their own.

Welcome to The Moderate Point of View

Hello there. Welcome to my new blog. I've written on the internet for sometime, on and off again. Today I decided to launch a new place to write about politics. Anyone who has been paying attention to the nature of political discourse in this country over the last two plus decades should be able to recognize the way that things have been going isn't good. Starting with the Clinton administration, driving through the Bush administration, and recently climaxing with the transition from President Obama to our newest President, Donald J. Trump, the state of political discourse in this country has gone from bad, to worse, to outright toxic.

I have many thoughts on this, and many opinions to share. For the purposes of this introduction, I'll simply say this: I hope that some of my thoughts can help in some way. We live in an imperfect world; we all know that. We all have our own "hot button topics," and we consciously partake in the hot take culture that we, through out patronage and clicks (on the remote or internet), have created. I fear, however, that we've gone too far with the nature of this last election, and the road that lays ahead of all of us over the next four years. If we are to take an active part in this democracy then it is up to us, the people of this country, to push and push hard for the brighter future we all desire. We are, undoubtedly, stronger together than apart.

I will declare this up front: I am not a Donald Trump supporter. I cannot imagine what it would have taken to get me to vote for the man. I want to own that, in this post, so that anyone who might want to accuse me of being anything, in light of this declaration, can have at it. I identify as a moderate Republican, lining up more as an independent these days than anything else. My voting history is just that: mine. I'm not going to use this space to look backwards, at least not too often I hope. The goal here is to look accurately at the present, and project what might come in the future. Looking backwards is helpful of course; those who don't are often doomed to repeat the same mistakes that their ancestors made. But, throughout this entire exercise I hope to bring a moderate, rational point of view to a discourse that has become increasingly polarized, irrational, and hate filled in the last two decades.

I welcome your thoughts and comments. You can leave them on the blog itself, or send me an email directly. I cannot promise how often I'll find the time to post here, but I will also utilize the twitter handle @themoderatepov to comment on the world around us. I hope that this can become a part of a broader discussion, at least within my own small world, to enhance the nature of discourse and, in my own way, to help us all get back on track. The future of our society very well may depend on it.