The Health Of The Congress

Remember folks, above all Donald Trump is vindictive.  He expects complete subservience and calls it "loyalty", and those who do not meet that standard he either bullies, punishes, or both.  Six months into his term and everyone has essentially failed him, and he will fire and replace who he can rid of and terrorize the people he can't.  He sees Congress not as a co-equal branch of the government, but as people who work for him that he can't fire (yet.)

But he can punish them for failing him, and he will always start with open threats.

The other part of President Trump's tweet this morning that will get a lot of attention from members of Congress: he hinted he might overturn an Obama-era rule that allows members of Congress and their staffers to get subsidies for their health insurance, which they have to get through an Affordable Care Act health exchange. That's what he meant by "BAILOUTS for Members of Congress."

The back story: The ACA requires members of Congress and their staffs to get health coverage through its exchanges, but it was never clear on whether they should get subsidies to pay for most of their premiums, the way employers pay for most of their workers' health premiums. The Obama administration issued a rule that allowed them to get those subsidies — because if it hadn't, members of Congress worried that talented staffers would leave rather than pay the full cost of the premiums. 

But conservative groups have been urging the Trump administration to withdraw the rule, insisting that members of Congress and their staffs shouldn't be shielded from rising ACA premiums. It's now clear that Trump is thinking of taking their advice, although a senior administration source says no final decision has been made.

So for now this is one of Trump's many threats, as that what he feels is "leadership".  Whether or not he'll carry through is something else, but this is his M.O. and he'll keep using it as long as it works for him.

Vladimir You Don't Even GO Here!

OK, this is hysterical and I'm glad the Washington Post is giving us a badly needed laugh over the ridiculous idiocy in the White House right now.




I laughed at this for a good couple of minutes. It felt pretty good, actually. I hope it helps some of you as well.

Political Block Busters

The courts have come out to say that political figures, government public servants, after all, cannot block people on social media for opposing viewpoints under the First Amendment.

Does the First Amendment bar public officials from blocking people on social media because of their viewpoint?

That question has hung over the White House ever since Donald Trump assumed the presidency and continued to block users on Twitter. The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University has sued the president on behalf of blocked users, spurring a lively academic debate on the topic. But Trump isn’t the only politician who has blocked people on social media. This week, a federal court weighed in on the question in a case with obvious parallels to Trump’s. It determined that the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause does indeed prohibit officeholders from blocking social media users on the basis of their views.

Davison v. Loudoun County Board of Supervisors involved the chair of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, Phyllis J. Randall. In her capacity as a government official, Randall runs a Facebook page to keep in touch with her constituents. In one post to the page, Randall wrote, “I really want to hear from ANY Loudoun citizen on ANY issues, request, criticism, compliment, or just your thoughts.” She explicitly encouraged Loudoun residents to reach out to her through her “county Facebook page.”

Brian C. Davidson, a Loudon denizen, took Randall up on her offer and posted a comment to a post on her page alleging corruption on the part of Loudoun County’s School Board. Randall, who said she “had no idea” whether Davidson’s allegations were true, deleted the entire post (thereby erasing his comment) and blocked him. The next morning, she decided to unblock him. During the intervening 12 hours, Davidson could view or share content on Randall’s page but couldn’t comment on its posts or send it private messages.

Davidson sued, alleging a violation of his free speech rights. As U.S. District Judge James C. Cacheris explained in his decision, Randall essentially conceded in court that she had blocked Davidson “because she was offended by his criticism of her colleagues in the County government.” In other words, she “engaged in viewpoint discrimination,” which is generally prohibited under the First Amendment. Cacheris elaborated:

Defendant’s offense at Plaintiff’s views was therefore an illegitimate basis for her actions—particularly given that Plaintiff earned Defendant’s ire by criticizing the County government. Indeed, the suppression of critical commentary regarding elected officials is the quintessential form of viewpoint discrimination against which the First Amendment guards. By prohibiting Plaintiff from participating in her online forum because she took offense at his claim that her colleagues in the County government had acted unethically, Defendant committed a cardinal sin under the First Amendment.

In response to Randall’s claim that Davidson retained the ability to express his views elsewhere, Cacheris cited the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Packingham v. North Carolina, in which the court asserted that social media may now be “the most important” modern forum “for the exchange of views.”

“The Court cannot treat a First Amendment violation in this vital, developing forum differently than it would elsewhere,” Cacheris wrote, “simply because technology has made it easier to find alternative channels through which to disseminate one’s message.”

So what does this mean for Trump?  It depends on what he means his official Twitter account is for.

There’s just one lingering issue with this comparison: It isn’t clear whether Trump intends his personal Twitter page to function as a public forum the way Randall did. (Trump has a presidential account, @POTUS, from which he does not block users—but he doesn’t use it for interesting communications.) Public officials have more latitude to censor expression in personal, private forums than they do in forums that they use to speak in their official capacity. Trump’s lawyers will almost certainly argue that his personal Twitter feed is a private forum, not a government project.

But that argument will likely fail. As Trump’s recent tweets banning transgender military service demonstrate, the president uses Twitter not just to convey official policy but also for lawmaking. This habit would seem to turn his feed into a quintessential public forum. And so, under the First Amendment, he lacks the power to block those users who tweet their discontent at @realDonaldTrump.

The WHite House too has said that such declarations on Trump's persona Twitter account amount to official public statements by the administration, and that means in no way is Trump's account "private".

It would seem obvious that the account must remove all blocks for that reason, but then again Trump doesn't really care about the law, does he.