The Economy – Page 48 – immigrationcourtside.com

NY TIMES: Idaho Town In Trump Country Owes Economic Revival To Foreign-Born Workers!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/03/us/a-small-idaho-town-bucks-the-perception-of-rural-struggle.html?hpw&rref=us&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

Kirk Johnson writes:

“Labor issues also show the tenuousness of the situation.

Much of southern Idaho’s growth since the recession has been linked to dairy products. And most of the workers in the dairies that supply that raw material are foreign-born, mostly from Mexico.

“You can’t talk about success in Idaho without talking about foreign-born labor,” said Bob Naerebout, the executive director of the Idaho Dairymen’s Association.

Chobani’s founder, Hamdi Ulukaya, said his company had worked with Idaho colleges to provide technical training for workers to solve its own labor shortage as its factory was going up. He said he saw a huge opportunity for Idaho to build on food technology and safety as a larger industry cluster if partnerships and training could continue.

“Our biggest challenge is that we have to find a way to keep the young in Idaho,” Mr. Ulukaya said.

Shawn Barigar, the mayor of Twin Falls, said his community could not afford to lose any workers. The battle for survival, he said, whether rural or urban, will allow for only the strong and determined to survive and prevail.

“Whatever might be in the future, I think there are ways to adapt and not go away,” he said.”

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As several articles have pointed out, contrary to the views of immigration restrictionists, America’s continued economic success and greatness as a nation probably depends on more, rather than fewer, foreign workers.

PWS

04/03/17

LA TIMES CONFRONTS TRUMP IN FOUR PART EDITORIAL SERIES — Here Are Parts 1 & 2 — 1) “Our Dishonest President;” 2) “Why Trump Lies”

“Our Dishonest President”

“These are immensely dangerous developments which threaten to weaken this country’s moral standing in the world, imperil the planet and reverse years of slow but steady gains by marginalized or impoverished Americans. But, chilling as they are, these radically wrongheaded policy choices are not, in fact, the most frightening aspect of the Trump presidency.

What is most worrisome about Trump is Trump himself. He is a man so unpredictable, so reckless, so petulant, so full of blind self-regard, so untethered to reality that it is impossible to know where his presidency will lead or how much damage he will do to our nation. His obsession with his own fame, wealth and success, his determination to vanquish enemies real and imagined, his craving for adulation — these traits were, of course, at the very heart of his scorched-earth outsider campaign; indeed, some of them helped get him elected. But in a real presidency in which he wields unimaginable power, they are nothing short of disastrous.

Although his policies are, for the most part, variations on classic Republican positions (many of which would have been undertaken by a President Ted Cruz or a President Marco Rubio), they become far more dangerous in the hands of this imprudent and erratic man. Many Republicans, for instance, support tighter border security and a tougher response to illegal immigration, but Trump’s cockamamie border wall, his impracticable campaign promise to deport all 11 million people living in the country illegally and his blithe disregard for the effect of such proposals on the U.S. relationship with Mexico turn a very bad policy into an appalling one.

. . . .

On Inauguration Day, we wrote on this page that it was not yet time to declare a state of “wholesale panic” or to call for blanket “non-cooperation” with the Trump administration. Despite plenty of dispiriting signals, that is still our view. The role of the rational opposition is to stand up for the rule of law, the electoral process, the peaceful transfer of power and the role of institutions; we should not underestimate the resiliency of a system in which laws are greater than individuals and voters are as powerful as presidents. This nation survived Andrew Jackson and Richard Nixon. It survived slavery. It survived devastating wars. Most likely, it will survive again.

But if it is to do so, those who oppose the new president’s reckless and heartless agenda must make their voices heard. Protesters must raise their banners. Voters must turn out for elections. Members of Congress — including and especially Republicans — must find the political courage to stand up to Trump. Courts must safeguard the Constitution. State legislators must pass laws to protect their citizens and their policies from federal meddling. All of us who are in the business of holding leaders accountable must redouble our efforts to defend the truth from his cynical assaults.

The United States is not a perfect country, and it has a great distance to go before it fully achieves its goals of liberty and equality. But preserving what works and defending the rules and values on which democracy depends are a shared responsibility. Everybody has a role to play in this drama.

This is the first in a series.”

Read the entire editorial here:

http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-ed-our-dishonest-president/

“Why Trump Lies”

“Donald Trump did not invent the lie and is not even its master. Lies have oozed out of the White House for more than two centuries and out of politicians’ mouths — out of all people’s mouths — likely as long as there has been human speech.

But amid all those lies, told to ourselves and to one another in order to amass power, woo lovers, hurt enemies and shield ourselves against the often glaring discomfort of reality, humanity has always had an abiding respect for truth.

In the United States, born and periodically reborn out of the repeated recognition and rejection of the age-old lie that some people are meant to take dominion over others, truth is as vital a part of the civic, social and intellectual culture as justice and liberty. Our civilization is premised on the conviction that such a thing as truth exists, that it is knowable, that it is verifiable, that it exists independently of authority or popularity and that at some point — and preferably sooner rather than later — it will prevail.

Even American leaders who lie generally know the difference between their statements and the truth. Richard Nixon said “I am not a crook” but by that point must have seen that he was. Bill Clinton said “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” but knew that he did.
The insult that Donald Trump brings to the equation is an apparent disregard for fact so profound as to suggest that he may not see much practical distinction between lies, if he believes they serve him, and the truth.

His approach succeeds because of his preternaturally deft grasp of his audience. Though he is neither terribly articulate nor a seasoned politician, he has a remarkable instinct for discerning which conspiracy theories in which quasi-news source, or which of his own inner musings, will turn into ratings gold. He targets the darkness, anger and insecurity that hide in each of us and harnesses them for his own purposes. If one of his lies doesn’t work — well, then he lies about that.

If we harbor latent racism or if we fear terror attacks by Muslim extremists, then he elevates a rumor into a public debate: Was Barack Obama born in Kenya, and is he therefore not really president?
If his own ego is threatened — if broadcast footage and photos show a smaller-sized crowd at his inauguration than he wanted — then he targets the news media, falsely charging outlets with disseminating “fake news” and insisting, against all evidence, that he has proved his case (“We caught them in a beauty,” he said).

If his attempt to limit the number of Muslim visitors to the U.S. degenerates into an absolute fiasco and a display of his administration’s incompetence, then he falsely asserts that terrorist attacks are underreported. (One case in point offered by the White House was the 2015 attack in San Bernardino, which in fact received intensive worldwide news coverage. The Los Angeles Times won a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on the subject).

If he detects that his audience may be wearying of his act, or if he worries about a probe into Russian meddling into the election that put him in office, he tweets in the middle of the night the astonishingly absurd claim that President Obama tapped his phones. And when evidence fails to support him he dispatches his aides to explain that by “phone tapping” he obviously didn’t mean phone tapping. Instead of backing down when confronted with reality, he insists that his rebutted assertions will be vindicated as true at some point in the future.

Trump’s easy embrace of untruth can sometimes be entertaining, in the vein of a Moammar Kadafi speech to the United Nations or the self-serving blathering of a 6-year-old.

. . . .

Our civilization is defined in part by the disciplines — science, law, journalism — that have developed systematic methods to arrive at the truth. Citizenship brings with it the obligation to engage in a similar process. Good citizens test assumptions, question leaders, argue details, research claims.

Investigate. Read. Write. Listen. Speak. Think. Be wary of those who disparage the investigators, the readers, the writers, the listeners, the speakers and the thinkers. Be suspicious of those who confuse reality with reality TV, and those who repeat falsehoods while insisting, against all evidence, that they are true. To defend freedom, demand fact.

This is the second in a series.”

Read the complete editorial here:

http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-ed-why-trump-lies/

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Stay tuned for parts 3 & 4 in this LA Times editorial series.

PWS

04-03-17

HISTORY: Matthew Yglesias In VOX Shows How Immigration Made America Great, Right From Our Beginning — It Wasn’t Always About Generosity To Others; It Was Mostly About What Made Us More Successful & Prosperous!

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/4/3/14624918/the-case-for-immigration

“George Washington set in motion a strategy so radical that it made this country the wealthiest and strongest on Earth — it made America great.

Immigration.

He embraced a vision for an open America that could almost be read today as a form of deep idealism or altruism. “America is open to receive not only the opulent and respectable stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and religions,” he told newly arrived Irishmen in 1783. He assured them they’d be “welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.”

But Washington’s vision wasn’t primarily about charity or helping others. It was about building the kind of country that he wanted the United States to become. Greatness would require great people. America would need more than it had.

The contemporary debate around immigration is often framed around an axis of selfishness versus generosity, with Donald Trump talking about the need to put “America first” while opponents tell heartbreaking stories of deportations and communities torn apart. A debate about how to enforce the existing law tends to supersede discussion of what the law ought to say.

All of this misses the core point. Immigration to the United States has not, historically, been an act of kindness toward strangers. It’s been a strategy for national growth and national greatness.

. . . .

Last but by no means least, while it’s certainly true that Americans care about the average well-being of American citizens, we also care about something else — greatness, for lack of a better word.

In per capita income terms, the United States has, by most measures, been overtaken by Switzerland. The Netherlands is relatively close behind, and when you consider inequality and quality of public services, the typical Dutch person may well enjoy a higher standard of living than the typical American. This kind of thing matters. But at the same time, there is a reason that when Americans feel anxiety about national decline, they tend to think of China and not Switzerland. The Netherlands is a great place to live, but it hasn’t been a great nation since the early 17th century.

Aggregates matter, in other words.

If Americans had listened to the counsel of the Know-Nothing movement in the 1850s and drastically curtailed immigration from outside of Protestant Europe, it would probably still be a rich country today. But it would be a very different kind of rich country from the one we know — one with fewer, smaller cities mainly focused on exporting agricultural goods and other natural resources to the wider world. A place more like Canada or a supersize version of New Zealand, rather than an industrial and technological powerhouse that intervened decisively in two world wars and anchored a coalition of liberal states to defeat communism.

Going forward, demographers forecast that immigration — both the people it provides directly and the children that immigrants bear and raise — is the only reason America’s working-age population isn’t declining. This is doubly true when you consider that immigrants’ work in the household and child care sectors likely serves to increase native-born Americans’ childbearing as well.
A declining working-age population, seen already in Japan and some southern European countries, poses some serious challenges to a national economy. It tends to push interest rates down to an incredibly low level, making it difficult for central banks to respond to a recession. It also makes it more difficult to sustain public sector retirement programs and elder care more generally.

There are some offsetting upsides (less strain on transportation infrastructure, for example), and, like anything else, the problems are solvable. Fundamentally, however, an America that is shrinking is a country that is going to be a lesser force in the world than an America that is growing. It’s true, of course, that an America that continues to be open to immigrants will be a progressively less white and less Christian country over time. That’s a threatening prospect to many white Christian Americans, who implicitly identify the country in ethnic and sectarian terms. But America’s formal self-definition has never been in those terms.

And for those who believe in the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the value of America’s ideals, accepting a future of decline and retreat in the name of ethnic purity should be unacceptable. That the more homogeneous America will be not just smaller and weaker but also poorer on a per capita basis only underscores what folly it would be to embrace the narrow vision. That hundreds of millions of people around the world would like to move to our shores — and that America has a long tradition of assimilating foreigners and a political mythos and civil culture that is conducive to doing so — is an enormous source of national strength.

It’s time we started to see it that way.”

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I had these same feelings about many of the “happy cases” that came through my courtroom in Arlington over the years. I was constantly impressed with the courage, dedication, determination, and under-appreciated skills of the folks who came before me. And, I felt inspired and optimistic that they had chosen, notwithstanding hardship and obstacles, to join our national community and help make America even greater. Building America, one case at a time.

PWS

04//03/17

POLITICS/ENTERTAINMENT: Even With The Demise Of Ringling Bros. Opportunities For Clowns Abound — Daniel W. Drezner On “The Beclowning Of The Executive Branch!”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/03/31/the-beclowning-of-the-executive-branch/?hpid=hp_regional-hp-cards_rhp-posteverything%3Ahomepage%2Fcard&utm_term=.0c04325e77c7

Daniel W. Drezner writes in the Washington Post:

“Fewer than a hundred days into the Trump administration, there are two, actually three, competing narratives about how the government is being run. The first narrative is the Trump administration’s claim that things are running so, so smoothly. A brief glance at the poll numbers suggests that not many people are buying this, so we can discard it quickly.

The second narrative, made by the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board among many others, is that America’s system of checks and balances turns out to be working pretty well. President Trump’s more egregious moves have been checked by federal courts and even by the court of public opinion at times. A historically unpopular and costly health-care bill did not pass the House of Representatives, which seems like the right outcome. Irresponsible foreign policy statements made by the president during the transition have been walked back. Efforts by the Trump White House to deny or scuttle investigations into foreign meddling into the election have resulted in congressional investigations, pushback by the intelligence community and recusals by Trump appointees. The administration successfully managed to pick a Supreme Court nominee who is not a laughingstock.

There’s a lot to this argument. But if I may, I’d like to proffer just a sampling of the news stories that have broken in the past 24 hours to suggest a third and more troubling narrative: the president and his acolytes are beclowning the American state.

Think I’m exaggerating? Consider the following: . . . .”

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Read Drezner’s complete article at the above link.

In a “normal” Administration, any one of the items described by Drezner would be a jaw-dropper. But, in Trump’s Washington, it’s just another day under the Big Top. After all, “the show must go on.”

PWS

04/02/17

NYT: Tilting At Windmills — Trump’s Coal Mining Fantasyland — “Foreman says these jobs are going boys and they ain’t coming back, To your hometown, To your hometown!”**

**Bruce Springtsteen — My Hometown

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/business/coal-jobs-trump-appalachia.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0

Hiroko Tabushi writes in the NY Tmes:

“In Decatur, Ill., far from the coal mines of Appalachia, Caterpillar engineers are working on the future of mining: mammoth haul trucks that drive themselves.

The trucks have no drivers, not even remote operators. Instead, the 850,000-pound vehicles rely on self-driving technology, the latest in an increasingly autonomous line of trucks and drills that are removing some of the human element from digging for coal.

When President Trump moved on Tuesday to dismantle the Obama administration’s climate change efforts, he promised it would bring coal-mining jobs back to America. But the jobs he alluded to — hardy miners in mazelike tunnels with picks and shovels — have steadily become vestiges of the past.

Pressured by cheap and abundant natural gas, coal is in a precipitous decline, now making up just a third of electricity generation in the United States. Renewables are fast becoming competitive with coal on price. Electricity sales are trending downward, and coal exports are falling.

All the while, the coal industry has been replacing workers with machines and explosives. Energy and labor specialists say that no one — including Mr. Trump — can bring them all back.

“People think of coal mining as some 1890s, colorful, populous frontier activity, but it’s much better to think of it as a high-tech industry with far fewer miners and more engineers and coders,” said Mark Muro, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program.

“The regulatory changes are entirely outweighed by these technological changes, not to mention the price of natural gas or renewables,” Mr. Muro said. “Even if you brought back demand for coal, you wouldn’t bring back the same number of workers.”

. . . .

“In 1980, the industry employed about 242,000 people. By 2015, that figure had plunged 60 percent, to fewer than 100,000, even as coal production edged up 8 percent. Helped by automation, worker productivity more than tripled over the same period, according to data from the federal Energy Information Administration and the Brookings Institution.

And a recent study by the International Institute for Sustainable Development and the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment predicted that automation was likely to replace 40 to 80 percent of workers at mines.

Automation makes mines more “safe, efficient and productive,” said Corrie Scott, a Caterpillar spokeswoman. “While mines would not need as many drivers, they will need more people who use and understand the latest technology,” she said.

“However way you spin it, gas and renewables are going to continue to replace coal,” said Nicolas Maennling, senior economics and policy researcher at Columbia University and an author of the automation study.

“And in order to stay competitive, coal will have to increase automation,” he said. “What Mr. Trump does will make little difference.”

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Yup, I understand the President is a leader, not a technocrat. That’s why a good political leader surrounds him or herself with competent staff and also draws on the huge wealth of technical expertise available in the Federal Civil Service.

Surrounding yourself instead with idealogical know-nothings and sycophants like Bannon, Miller, and Priebus is pure political malpractice at the highest level.

(Note that I didn’t include Conway in the group. I think she’s probably the smartest of the bunch. She was the “brains” behind what has to go down as one of the most unexpected electoral triumphs in American political history, regardless of whether or not you like the result. And I wouldn’t accuse her of being a sycophant. But, she is totally loyal to a fault, and therefore keeps throwing herself on her sword over and over for The Leader. I also didn’t include Spicer. He has his bad days, for sure. But, he has the hardest job in Washington, and that includes The Leader himself. I actually doubt anyone could do it better. He won’t last too long. But, after he’s gone, not only Melissa McCarthy is likely to miss him.)

PWS

03/30/17

WSJ: Needed: More Legal Immigration — Sorry DT, You, Sessions, Bannon, Miller, And Your Nationalistic Xenophobia Are Weighing Down The U.S. Economy And Costing Jobs!

https://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-growing-labor-shortage-1490829265

“President Trump approved the Keystone XL pipeline on Friday, and good for him, but will there be enough workers to build it? That’s a serious question. Many American employers, especially in construction and agriculture, are facing labor shortages that would be exacerbated by restrictionist immigration policies.

Demographic trends coupled with a skills mismatch have resulted in a frustrating economic paradox: Millions of workers are underemployed even as millions of jobs go unfilled. The U.S. workforce is also graying, presenting a challenge for industries that entail manual labor.

Construction is ground zero in the worker shortage. Many hard-hats who lost their jobs during the recession left the labor force. Some found high-paying work in fossil fuels during the fracking boom and then migrated to renewables when oil prices tumbled. While construction has rebounded, many employed in the industry a decade ago are no longer there.

. . . .

Some restrictionists claim that cheap foreign labor is hurting low-skilled U.S. workers, but there’s little evidence for that. One Napa grower recently told the Los Angeles Times that paying even $20 an hour wasn’t enough to keep native workers on the farm.

. . . .

President Trump would compound the problem by reducing legal immigration or deporting unauthorized immigrants whose only crime is working without legal documentation. Low-skilled immigrants (those with 12 years of education or less) are estimated to account for nearly a third of the hours worked in agriculture and 20% in construction.

If President Trump wants employers to produce and build more in America, the U.S. will need to improve education and skills in manufacturing and IT. But the economy will also need more foreign workers, and better guest worker programs to bring them in legally.”

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Gee whiz, Donald, I’ll freely admit to not knowing much more about labor economics that you and your advisors do. But when the WSJ, the organ of GOP corporate America, says you’re barking up the wrong tree, perhaps you should listen, before it’s too late. Just a thought.

PWS

03/30/17

Make China Great — For Years, China’s Leaders Have Been Trying To Get The Upper Hand On The US — Now, Trump Is Doing The Job For Them, According to Thomas L. Friedman In The NY Times!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/opinion/trump-is-a-chinese-agent.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

Friedman writes:

“Now more Asian nations are falling in line with China’s regional trading association — the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership — which has no serious environmental, intellectual property, human trafficking or labor standards like TPP. A Peterson Institute study said TPP would “increase annual real incomes in the United States by $131 billion” by 2030, without changing total U.S. employment levels. Goodbye to that.
But Trump took his Make China Great campaign to a new level on Tuesday by rejecting the science on climate change and tossing out all Obama-era plans to shrink our dependence on coal-fired power. Trump also wants to weaken existing mileage requirements for U.S.-made vehicles. Stupid.

O.K., Mr. President, let’s assume for a second that climate change is a hoax. Do you believe in math? There are now 7.5 billion people on the planet, and there will be 8.5 billion by 2030, according to the United Nations population bureau — and most will want to drive like us, eat protein like us and live in houses like us. And if they do, we’ll eat up, burn up, smoke up and choke up the planet — and devour our fisheries, coral reefs, rivers and forests — at a pace we’ve never seen before. Major cities in India and China already can’t breathe; wait for when there are another billion people.

That means that clean power, clean water, clean air, clean transportation and energy-efficient buildings will have to be the next great global industry, whether or not there is climate change. The demand will be huge.

So what is China doing? Its new five-year plan is a rush to electric cars, batteries, nuclear, wind, solar and energy efficiency — and a cap-and-trade system for carbon. Trump’s plan? More coal and oil. Hello? How can America be great if we don’t dominate the next great global industry — clean power?

The U.S. state leading in clean energy innovations is California, which also has the highest vehicle emissions standards and the strictest building efficiency codes. Result: California alone has far more advanced energy jobs than there are coal miners in America, and the pay is better and the work is healthier. In January 2016, CNNMoney reported that nationally the U.S. “solar industry work force is bigger than that of oil and gas construction, and nearly three times the size of the entire coal mining work force.”

“More than half the electric vehicles sold in the U.S. are sold in California,” said Hal Harvey, C.E.O. of Energy Innovation. “If there are two jurisdictions hellbent on transformation, it is China and California. There have been 200 million E.V.s sold in China already. They’re called electric bicycles, which cost about $400 — quiet, not contributing to congestion or pollution, and affordable.”

China is loving this: It’s doubling down on clean energy — because it has to and it wants to leapfrog us on technology — and we’re doubling down on coal, squandering our lead in technology.

It was bitterly ironic that on the same day that President Trump took America on a great leap backward to coal, The Wall Street Journal reported that “Tencent Holdings Ltd. bought a 5% stake in Tesla Inc., giving the backing of China’s most valuable company to the Silicon Valley electric-vehicle maker as it prepares to launch its first car aimed at the mass market. … Having a powerful friend in China could help Tesla as it eyes further global expansion. Big Chinese tech companies have backed a wave of green-car start-ups in the country recently.”

. . . .

So you tell me that Trump is not a Chinese agent. The only other explanation is that he’s ignorant and unread — that he’s never studied the issues or connected the dots between them — so Big Coal and Big Oil easily manipulated him into being their chump, who just tweeted out their talking points to win votes here and there — without any thought to grand strategy. Surely that couldn’t be true?”

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Friedman didn’t even get to my recurring thought. As we push Mexico, our second leading trading partner away, China will be waiting with open arms. What better than to fuel up some technology and capital-driven economic competition for the U.S. right here in North America, right across our Southern Border. And, once Mexico sees that the Chinese aren’t going to lean all over them on immigration and Central American migration, and that Beijing has no particular interest in trying to publicly humiliate Mexico’s leaders, the incentive for Mexico to cooperate with us on reducing migration and border issues drops to somewhere below zero.

I’m certainly no economist or foreign trade expert. But, I’m getting the feeling that neither are our President and his team. They just go around stirring things up, making gaffes, insulting friendly foreign leaders and organizations, and then, apparently, relying on their secret weapon, “Czar of Everything Trumpian” Jared Kushner to work behind the scenes to assure folks that nobody meant anything they said or did. Wow! What a way to make policy.

PWS

03/29/17

LINDY WEST IN THE GUARDIAN: The Party of “No Care!” — With Trump & The GOP, There Are No Positives, Only Negatives!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2017/mar/28/america-party-less-caring-21-century-republicans-gop?CMP=fb_gu

“I don’t know that America has ever seen a political party so divested of care. Since Trump took office, Republicans have proposed legislation to destroy unions, the healthcare system, the education system and the Environmental Protection Agency; to defund the reproductive health charity Planned Parenthood and restrict abortion; to stifle public protest and decimate arts funding; to increase the risk of violence against trans people and roll back anti-discrimination laws; and to funnel more and more wealth from the poorest to the richest. Every executive order and piece of GOP legislation is destructive, aimed at dismantling something else, never creating anything new, never in the service of improving the care of the nation.

Contemporary American conservatism is not a political philosophy so much as the roiling negative space around Barack Obama’s legacy. Can you imagine being that insecure? Can you imagine not wanting children to have healthcare because you’re embarrassed a black guy was your boss? It would be sad if it wasn’t so dangerous.

That void at the heart of the party, that loss of any tether to humanity, is breeding anxiety on both sides of the political divide. According to the Atlantic, Florida Republican Tom Rooney recently turned on his cohort with surprising lucidity: “I’ve been in this job eight years and I’m racking my brain to think of one thing our party has done that’s been something positive, that’s been something other than stopping something else from happening. We need to start having victories as a party. And if we can’t, then it’s hard to justify why we should be back here.”

Vindictive obstructionism, it seems, is not particularly nourishing for the soul.”

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West has a pretty good point. Every day, the Administration repeals, cuts, removes, reduces, blocks, restricts, revokes, disses, insults, backs away from, abrogates, disputes, defunds, threatens, shrinks, deregulates, withdraws, withholds, threatens — only the rich and corporations “get” anything or are taken care of. Everyone else is on his or her own with neither help nor encouragement from the Government. Or in the worst case, the most vulnerable among us, migrants, Muslims, the poor, gays, children, the sick, the disabled, are actually picked on, bullied, shamed, and blamed by Trump and his minions.

PWS

03/29/17

James Hohmann In WashPost: How Trump Is Winning The War Even While Losing Some Key Battles — “Deconstruction Of The Administrative State” Moving At Full Throttle With No End In Sight! PLUS EXTRA BONUS: My Mini-Essay “On Gorsuch, Deference, & The Administrative State!”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/03/27/daily-202-how-trump-s-presidency-is-succeeding/58d88409e9b69b72b2551039/?utm_term=.dbeab923d833

Hohmann writes:

“– Liberals mock Trump as ineffective at their own peril. Yes, it’s easy to joke about how Trump said during the campaign that he’d win so much people would get tired of winning. Both of his travel bans have been blocked – for now. An active FBI investigation into his associates is a big gray cloud over the White House. The president himself falsely accused his predecessor of wiretapping him. His first national security adviser registered as a foreign agent after being fired for not being honest about his contacts with the Russian ambassador. His attorney general, at best, misled Congress under oath.
— Despite the chaos and the growing credibility gap, Trump is systematically succeeding in his quest to “deconstruct the administrative state,” as his chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon puts it. He’s pursued the most aggressive regulatory rollback since Ronald Reagan, especially on environmental issues, with a series of bills and executive orders. He’s placed devoted ideologues into perches from which they can stop aggressively enforcing laws that conservatives don’t like. By not filling certain posts, he’s ensuring that certain government functions will simply not be performed. His budget proposal spotlighted his desire to make as much of the federal bureaucracy as possible wither on the vine.

— Trump has been using executive orders to tie the hands of rule makers. He put in place a regulatory freeze during his first hours, mandated that two regulations be repealed for every new one that goes on the books and ordered a top-to-bottom review of the government with an eye toward shrinking it.
Any day now, Trump is expected to sign an executive order aimed at undoing Obama’s Clean Power Plan and end a moratorium on federal-land coal mining. This would ensure that the U.S. does not meet its commitments under the Paris climate agreement.

The administration is also preparing new executive orders to re-examine all 14 U.S. free trade agreements, including NAFTA, and the president could start to sign some of them this week.

— Trump plans to unveil a new White House office today with sweeping authority to overhaul the federal bureaucracy and, potentially, privatize some government functions. “The Office of American Innovation, to be led by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, will operate as its own nimble power center within the West Wing and will report directly to Trump,” Ashley Parker and Philip Rucker report. “Viewed internally as a SWAT team of strategic consultants, the office will be staffed by former business executives and is designed to … create a lasting legacy for a president still searching for signature achievements. … Kushner’s team is being formalized just as the Trump administration is proposing sweeping budget cuts across many departments, and members said they would help find efficiencies.”

Kushner’s ambitions are grand: “At least to start, the team plans to focus its attention on re-imagining Veterans Affairs; modernizing the technology and data infrastructure of every federal department and agency; remodeling workforce-training programs; and developing ‘transformative projects’ under the banner of Trump’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan, such as providing broadband Internet service to every American. In some cases, the office could direct that government functions be privatized, or that existing contracts be awarded to new bidders.”

********************************

On Gorsuch, Deference, & The Administrative State

by Paul Wickham Schmidt

Hohmann’s points make quite a bit of sense to me — until he gets down to his rather remarkable conclusion that progressives should have invested more in a fight against Gorsuch. What? Just how would they have done that? The GOP has the votes to confirm, as they will do, and there is nothing the Dems can do to stop it, except to look feeble, petty, and out of touch in the attempt.

The confirmation hearings revealed nothing that was not already known. Gorsuch should be a reliable conservative vote on the Court, perhaps, but not necessarily, even more than Justice Scalia. Surprise!

We just had an election during which McConnell’s scheme to block the nomination of Chief Judge Merrick Garland to the Supremes, the control of the Senate, and the ability of the next President to appoint a liberal (Hillary) or a conservative (Trump) as Scalia’s replacement were big issues. And, guess what? Whether Dems like it or not, the GOP won both the Presidency and the Senate and thereby the ability to appoint their man (in this case) as the next Justice.

What’s remarkable about that? It would have only been remarkable if President Trump had nominated someone less conservative than Judge Gorsuch. And, certainly, if Hillary had won and the Democrats won the Senate she could legitimately have chosen to resubmit Judge Garland or chosen an even more liberal candidate who would have duly been confirmed by the Democrats over the GOP’s objections. Elections have consequences, particularly when your party loses control of both of the political branches of Government.

I continue to suspect that while Justice Gorsuch will be very conservative, at some point in the future he will be persuaded to side with the so-called “liberal Justices” against some position that is key to the GOP — perhaps, the scope of Executive authority. At that point, the same GOP Senators who gushed on about his “judicial independence” will be screaming “betrayal,” while the Democrats will be congratulating him on “conscientiously following the law.”

Look at how Chief Justice Roberts went from poster boy for judicial conservatism to “dupe of the left” just by failing to veto Obamacare as the GOP had been counting on. All politicians want judges who exercise their “judicial independence” in a predictable way consistent with the political philosophy of the party that appointed them. Once on the bench, however, with lifetime tenure and only their judicial colleagues to answer to, few actually live up to all of the exceptions of their political appointers.

Moreover, I don’t agree with the supposedly “liberal” position that Executive Branch administrative judges (like I was) and bureaucrats (which I also was) should have the power to impose their views on legal issues, even if not particularly sound ones, on the Article III Judiciary. Chief Justice John Marshall must be turning over in his grave, while Thomas Jefferson dances on top of it, at this bizarre voluntary surrender of judicial authority known as “Chevron.”

There is always pressure on Executive Branch officials, be they administrative judges or just “regular agency bureaucrats,” to construe the law in ways that favor Executive policies and Executive power over the power and prerogatives of the other two branches of Government and often over the rights of individuals in the U.S.

Deciding difficult questions of law, where the answers are not clear, is what Article III Judges are paid to do, and what they are supposed to do under the Constitution! At one time, this is what they actually did! The pre-Chevron “Skidmore doctrine” already gave the Article III Judiciary adequate latitude to recognize the expertise of certain Executive Branch officials and to defer to their interpretation when it appeared to be the best one, or at least as good as any of the alternatives.

But, Chevron basically substituted the concept of “any plausible interpretation” for the “best interpretation.” That’s simply not the way an independent judiciary should function under the separation of powers established in our Constitution.

I say all of this as someone who spent the bulk of my professional career as a public servant within the “administrative state” and who, unlike the Bannons of the world, believes in the power of the Federal Government to do good things for the general population. But, I have also seen first-hand the weaknesses and biases of the Executive when it comes to interpreting the law.

Meaningful independent judicial oversight over the “administrative state,” which includes “de novo” (basically unrestricted) review of Executive legal decisions by the Article III Judiciary, is a requirement for fairness and due process under our Constitution.

Finally, the Dems should abandon Schumer’s ill-conceived idea of a “Gorsuch filibuster.” Of the minority of Americans who actually care about the Gorsuch confirmation, only a minority of those are opposed. In other words, the Dems are about to proceed on a futile parliamentary maneuver that really only speaks to a small number of voting Americans, who are already in their “base.” Absolutely no need to do that.

What is needed if the Dems don’t want another Gorsuch appointment is to start winning more elections, particularly in the U.S. Senate and for the Presidency the next time around. That will require more than feeble posturing, tilting at windmills, and some additional “Trump fails.”

The Democrats need some dynamic leadership (which currently is conspicuously absent) and some real, down to earth programs and proposals to solve America’s problems (something which I haven’t heard to date). What can the Dems do that the GOP can’t, and why should folks care?

Otherwise, the next nominee for the Supremes could be along the lines of Judge Jeannie or Judge Napolitano. And, the Dems will continue to be powerless to stop it.

PWS

03/27/17

WashPost: “Rural America” Isn’t As “White” As Most People (& Politicians) Think — “People Of Color” Are 20% — And, Even More Than Their White Counterparts, They Are Being Ignored By The Rest Of Us!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/theres-a-big-part-of-rural-america-that-everyones-ignoring/2017/03/24/d06d24d0-1010-11e7-ab07-07d9f521f6b5_story.html?utm_term=.62b8967c82ea

Mara Casey Tieken, an Assistant Professor of Education at Bates College, writes:

“Last year’s earthshaking election brought new attention to rural America. This attention is overdue — rural America has long been largely ignored by reporters, researchers and policymakers — and much of it is useful, as this increasingly urban-centric country tries to understand and reconnect with those living far from cities.

But so far, the narrative emerging about rural America has been woefully incomplete, because so much of the media coverage has focused on only one slice of it: rural white America. Some stories are clear about their scope: Their authors have intentionally chosen a particular geographic and racial population to explore and explain. Others are less obvious in their focus, though details — region of the country or photographs — soon make explicit what is merely implied or assumed. Either way, though, a particular racial narrative is being told.

There’s another rural America that exists beyond this rural white America. Nearly 10.3 million people, about one-fifth of rural residents, are people of color. Of this population, about 40 percent are African American, 35 percent are nonwhite Hispanic, and the remaining 25 percent are Native American, Asian, Pacific Islander or multiracial. And this rural America is expected to grow in the coming decades, as rural areas see a rapid increase in Latino immigration.
This rural America, much like rural white America, can be found from coast to coast. But these rural Americans tend to live in different places from rural whites: across the Mississippi Delta and the Deep South; throughout the Rio Grande Valley; on reservations and native lands in the Southwest, Great Plains and Northwest.

This rural America has a different history from rural white America: a history of forced migration, enslavement and conquest. This rural America receives even lower pay and fewer protections for its labor than does rural white America. And, as my own research shows, this rural America attends very different schools than rural white America, schools that receive far less funding and other resources.
In fact, the relationship between rural white communities and rural communities of color is much like the relationship between urban white communities and urban communities of color: separate and unequal.”

********************************

Actually, seems like rural communities of all ethnicities share some strong common interests. They need jobs, education, roads, and services which are essential but not necessarily “cost-effective” and therefore have to be underwritten largely by those in “blue states” and urban areas.

Hard to seen how any part of rural America rationally aligns with Trump & the GOP, the party of handouts for the rich, destruction of public education, dirty air, polluted water, money wasted on xenophobic immigration enforcement, big weapons, lousy to non-existent health care, Wall Street, and no realistic plans for job creation.

But, for much of American post-Civil-War history, politicians of both parties have been amazingly successful at enticing white rural America to ignore it’s logical community of interest with African American, Native American, and Hispanic rural residents and to instead vote to prop up an establishment whose genuine interest in helping rural America is ephemeral at best.

PWS

03/26/17

Adios Amigo! — Xenophobia Trumps Rationality, Humanity, As ICE Boots Law-Abiding Indiana Hispanic Businessman Whose Wife Voted For Trump — “Mixed Family” Learns The Hard Way They Aren’t Welcome In The Trump-Pence America!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/03/25/she-thought-trump-would-deport-bad-hombres-instead-hes-deporting-her-law-abiding-husband/?hpid=hp_no-name_hp-in-the-news:page/in-the-news&utm_term=.b30be44bad1e

Peter Holley reports in the WashPost:

“Stories such as Beristain’s — in which law-abiding parents are deported because of their immigration status — have inundated the news media in recent months. The Twitter account “Trump Regrets” has amassed nearly 260,000 followers by retweeting disappointed and angry Trump voters.

“Previously,” as The Post’s Samantha Schmidt and Sarah Larimer reported last month, “the Obama administration prioritized the deportation of people who were violent offenders or had ties to criminal gangs. Trump’s executive order on Jan. 25 expanded priorities to include any undocumented immigrants who had been convicted of a criminal offense.”

“Personally, I think the president should be giving him a handshake,” Flora said. “Either Trump was lying when he said we were only deporting bad guys, or Trump’s view of bad guys is so expansive it can literally include every single immigrant.”

Days after Beristain’s arrest, Flora said, he filed a “stay of removal” to prevent deportation, but it was rejected March 15.

“Once the case is finalized and done, there’s really no reason to keep him around in their eyes,” Flora said, referring to ICE. “They think, ‘Why take up jail space for no reason if all the legal options have been exhausted?’ ”

Flora said the decision to deport Beristain is a “wildly disproportionate” response when measured against the law he broke nearly two decades ago.

“If you asked 100 people to paint you a picture of a bad guy, no one would draw anyone remotely resembling Roberto,” he said.
Helen Beristain told the Tribune that — in their effort to get her husband U.S. citizenship — the couple has had 10 attorneys over the past 18 years. Many of those attorneys, she said, told them that they had no choice but to wait for immigration laws to change.

Instead of changing in the couple’s favor, the laws evolved to make her husband more vulnerable to deportation, a development the Beristains never expected. She told the Tribune that Trump’s deportation measures — the one’s she thought her family would be exempt from — are harming “regular people.”

“I understand when you’re a criminal and you do bad things, you shouldn’t be in the country,” Helen told the CBS TV affiliate WSBT. “But when you’re a good citizen and you support and you help and you pay taxes and you give jobs to people, you should be able to stay.”

“We were for Mr. Trump,” she added. “We were very happy he became the president. Whatever he says, he is right. But, like he said, the good people have a chance to become citizens of the United States.”

***********************************

And, folks can thank restrictionist, white nationalist “fellow travelers” like then-Senator, now Attorney General Jeff Sessions, egged on by the likes of current Presidential Advisors Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, for blocking sensible immigration reform efforts in Congress. So, we’re spending taxpayer money and Government resources to make American a worse place by deporting members of the business community who have done nothing but good things for the country and those around them. You’d have to reside somewhere deep in the bowels of the “GOP Swamp” to make sense of this type of policy.

PWS

03/26/17

immigrationcourtsidePOLITICS: Somewhere Out In Ohio Yesterday Afternoon . . .

at about 3:45 PM EST, an already well-tanned man was sunning himself, dragging on a cigarette, enjoying a big glass of red wine, with tears of joy streaming down his face, his feet propped up, and thinking “YES, there is justice in this world!”

MATT FLEGENHEIMER and THOMAS KAPLAN write in the NY Times that Speaker Paul Ryan is now in “damage control mode” after he and President Trump were “stiffed” by their own party (no Trumpster, you can’t blame this on the Dems, who were kept “locked in the hallway” while this circus was going on, probably having to check Fox News to see what time the vote was scheduled), suffering a stunning, but well-deserved, defeat on their horrible bill to “repeal and replace Obamacare:”

“The episode not only demonstrated an inability to honor a longstanding pledge that powered Republicans through a string of election cycles. It was also a remarkable setback for Mr. Ryan as the body’s principal arm-twister, in his first major test as the speaker under a Republican president.

In January, he coasted to re-election with almost unanimous party support, prompting allies to gloat that he had tamed the hard-line House Freedom Caucus far more deftly than his predecessor, John A. Boehner.

By Friday, his bill had at once alienated those archconservatives and more moderate members who abandoned the legislation as Mr. Ryan and Mr. Trump began caving to demands of the far right, to little effect.

“We were a 10-year opposition party, where being against things was easy to do,” Mr. Ryan said at a sheepish news conference shortly after the bill was pulled, adding with uncharacteristic candor that Republicans were not yet prepared to be a “governing party.”

“We will get there,” Mr. Ryan said, “but we weren’t there today.”

His job will not get easier. With disparate coalitions in his conference, outside groups like the political arm of the Heritage Foundation pushing lawmakers to pursue conservative purity, and a less-than-popular president whom some members have appeared more willing to buck recently, there are few establishment forces helping Mr. Ryan keep the peace.”

*****************************

PWS

03/25/17

BREAKING: NQRFPT! — Trumpcare Tanks! — Prez Tells Ryan To “Pull” Doomed Bill!

NQRFPT = “Not Quite Ready For Prime Time” a term sometimes used to describe certain cases on the Arlington Immigration Court docket.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/house-leaders-prepare-to-vote-friday-on-health-care-reform/2017/03/24/736f1cd6-1081-11e7-9d5a-a83e627dc120_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_housevote715a:homepage/story&utm_term=.e92b3451c27c

The WashPost reports:

“House Republican leaders abruptly pulled a Republican rewrite of the nation’s health-care system from consideration on Friday, a dramatic acknowledgment that they are so far unable to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

“We just pulled it,” President Trump told the Washington Post in a telephone interview.

The decision came a day after Trump delivered an ultimatum to lawmakers — and represented multiple failures for the new president and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.).

The decision means the Affordable Care Act remains in place, at least for now, and a major GOP campaign promise goes unfulfilled. It also casts doubt on the GOP’s ability to govern and to advance other high-stakes agenda items, including tax reform and infrastructure spending. Ryan is still without a signature achievement as speaker — and the defeat undermines Trump’s image as a skilled dealmaker willing to strike compromises to push his agenda forward.

“I don’t blame Paul,” Trump said, referring to Ryan.”

****************************************

Read this article from Vox News about how Speaker Ryan “conned” the “Great Conner” into “going all in” on this terrible piece of proposed legislation which directly violated a number of Trump’s specific campaign promises (not that truthfulness has ever been much of a concern for Trump). Additionally, and perhaps not surprisingly, Trump was somewhat handicapped during negotiations by the fact that according to “those in the know” he never even read the bill he was touting. After all, “why sweat the details?”

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/24/15039664/paul-ryan-donald-trump-ahca

NWS President’s Trump’s statement that he “didn’t blame” Ryan, if I were “Speaker Paul,” I’d watch my back (and, perhaps, also my front). The President is not widely known as a “good loser.” To paraphrase one of my college buddies who grew up in South Philly, “Nobody cops a sneaky on DT and gets away with it.”

PWS

03/24/17

“POGO RULES!” GOP: “We Have Met The Enemy And It Is Us!” — “Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight” Threatens To Shoot Self In Foot — “Great Negotiator” Ends Negotiations Perhaps 40 Votes Short — GOP Leadership To Force Friday Vote On Health Care — They Might Well Lose!

All the reasons why our country is in extreme peril with the GOP “in charge” (so to speak) of the political branches were on vivid display this week. Inept leadership at both the House and White House levels went head to head with the hard core “Bakuninist Wing” on the right which cares not a fig about the overall good of the country or, apparently, about the future of their party either.

It’s still possible, but not probable, that the votes to pass the horrible GOP version of health care “reform” will materialize tomorrow. If it ever became law, it would guarantee misery to the most vulnerable Americans — tens of millions ultimately would lose coverage (about 14 million initially, more to follow) while those who could afford it would likely pay higher premiums than now for less coverage. In simple terms, the GOP’s rich cronies would get huge unneeded and undeserved tax breaks while those Americans (including many short-sighted Trump supporters) most in need would be pushed over the edge. What’s not to like about that?

Asked to explain how stripping 14 million Americans of their health care “Makes America Great,” the GOP has no answers, only evasions. And, with good reason — the real scheme — benefit the rich at the expense of the not so rich and poor — is highly unpalatable. Never let truth get in the way of bogus campaign slogans.

And, if the House bill does pass, it clearly will be DOA in the Senate. Based on this week’s performance, it’s unlikely that the House, Senate, and White House could ever reach a mutually satisfactory agreement.

Meanwhile, Obamacare is at its most popular and clearly has dramatically reduced the number of uninsured individuals in the U.S. The AMA, AARP, American Nurses Association, and American Hospital Association have all panned the current House proposal. Not to mention that the longer the House GOP “massages” the bill, the worse its “score” from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office gets. The latest version would decrease budget savings by hundreds of millions while still leaving an amazing 24-26 million uninsured.

Obamacare has flaws. But, they could be fixed within the existing framework. However, that would take statesmanship, skill, bipartisan teamwork, and commitment to the public good. Those concepts have simply ceased to be part of the modern GOP agenda.

So, prepare for a “political reality show” tomorrow in the House. Trump has threatened to leave Obamacare in place if the House bill doesn’t pass. Apparently, the theory is that without support from the Executive and Congress, Obamacare will eventually be strangled and die a slow painful death leaving many without insurance but, at least in theory, allowing some of the blame to be shifted to the Obama Administration. No matter how the vote comes out, responsible government and the common good are almost guaranteed to be the losers.

You can read the 8:29 PM Thursday CNN report on the “final ultimatum” from Trump below.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/23/politics/house-health-care-vote/index.html

PWS

03/23/17

WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL: Betrayal! Ryan, GOP “Gift” To Wisconsin Seniors: Jacked Up Premiums, Suffering, Premature Death! I/O/W “Pay More For Less”

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/health-med-fit/report-wisconsin-s-older-adults-would-pay-thousands-more-under/article_9fdb9c69-1339-5c33-9c77-0bf868071cde.html#utm_source=host.madison.com&utm_campaign=/email/&utm_medium=email&utm_content=26CD42536544E247751EC74095D9CEDC67E77EDB

David Wahlberg reports:

“In Madison, a 64-year-old currently pays $1,852 a year through “Obamacare” after receiving $5,991 in tax credits, according to a Citizen Action of Wisconsin report released Tuesday.

Under the Republican plan, the same person would pay $7,764 a year in premiums after $4,000 in tax credits. That is $5,912 — or more than three times — more, the report says.

Republicans’ proposed American Health Care Act, which the House is expected to vote on Thursday, would reduce tax credits for some groups and allow insurers to charge older adults more.

Those changes mean a 64-year-old in La Crosse would have net premiums of $14,515 a year, up from $1,519 now, the Citizen Action report says. That is $12,996 — or more than eight times — more.

The Republican plan would “result in people suffering and dying prematurely,” said Dr. Cynthia Haq, a professor of family medicine and population health sciences at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.

“People will have to forgo health insurance coverage,” Haq said. “They will not seek care. They will not get preventive services. They will not be able to manage their chronic diseases. As a result, they’ll show up in the emergency departments of hospitals in extreme crisis.”

***************************************

As I have said previously, it’s going to be a crowded field for “King of the Swamp” honors this year, but Ryan with his inane health care proposal — which even his own party is balking at from both ends of the spectrum — certainly has his eye on the title!

How many will have to suffer and die before the folks in his congressional district finally get him “off the dole” and give him a chance to make his way by doing something more productive in the “real world” that he so much admires yet has avoided for most of his adult life?

PWS

03/21/17

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