Last Call For No Sanctuary At All

Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott has followed through on his threat to sign a law banning sanctuary cities into law this weekend, and now we'll see how the judiciary will react to it ahead of the law going into effect on September 1.

Opponents of the law were quick to condemn the signing. Thomas Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said that the law was a "colossal blunder" and that the lawmakers who championed it were small-hearted.

"MALDEF will do its level best, in court and out, to restore Texas, the state where MALDEF was founded, to its greater glory, and to help Texas to overcome 'Abbott's Folly,' " he said in a written statement.

Saenz said the law would alienate "nearly half the state population" and make people subject to widespread racial profiling. He said the law undermines voters' rights to choose elected officials who set local policy, makes the job of local law enforcement more difficult by straining relationships with immigrant communities and would cost Texas in trade and tourism, as well as legal challenges.

"This racist and wrongheaded piece of legislation ignores our values, imperils our communities and sullies our reputation as a free and welcoming state," Terri Burke, executive director of the ACLU of Texas said in a prepared statement. "We will fight this assault in the courts, at the ballot box, and in the streets if we have to."

So what does the law actually do?  It's complicated, messay, and almost surely parts of it will be struck down.

The law will ban cities, counties and universities from prohibiting their local law enforcement officers from asking about immigration status and enforcing immigration law. It will create a criminal charge for police chiefs, county sheriffs and constables who violate the ban and will charge local jurisdictions up to $25,000 for each day they are in violation.

The law will also allow police officers to ask about a person's immigration status during any legal detention, which could include a routine traffic stop. Opponents have likened the law to Arizona's "papers, please" legislation, parts of which were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Elected or appointed officials who violate the ban could be removed from office -- another portion of the law that is likely to face legal challenges.

Abbott addressed possible challenges in his roughly five-minute Facebook Live signing, saying the key provisions in the bill have been tested at the U.S. Supreme Court and approved.

"It simply makes sense," he said. "Citizens expect law enforcement officers to enforce the law, and citizens deserve lawbreakers to face legal consequences."

Proponents of the ban say it is necessary to keep criminal immigrants off Texas streets. If local law enforcement officials don't turn over unauthorized immigrants to federal authorities, they argue, those people could go on to commit more serious crimes.

But as I've said before, really the law is about fear.  Local cops being drafted as immigration agents will make it all but impossible for Texas to get cooperation from the Latino communities in the state, not to mention stories of overeager cops looking to racially profile and round up "illegal" immigrants will be a nightmare scenario for the state's Republican majority, but this is the path Abbott and the Texas GOP have chosen.

We'll see what the federal courts have to say, but I'm thinking that demographic shift towards the Dems in Texas might start happening sooner than people have expected.

California Dreamin' (Of November In '18)

Sarah Wire at the LA Times reminds us that every single member of California's House GOP delegation voted for Trumpcare 3.0, and if there's any place where Dems can pick up districts that weren't in play before the vote, the Golden State is ripe with opportunity for Team Blue next November.

More than half of the Golden State’s Republicans were among the members who were leery of the bill when it was changed to accommodate the far-right Freedom Caucus, including allowing states to scrap protections for people with preexisting conditions. But an amendment that added $8 billion to offset insurance costs for some people with preexisting conditions appears to have swayed some of the holdouts, including Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Turlock), who earlier this week said he would vote against the bill.

House Republican leaders, including House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield), insist the bill will still cover people with preexisting conditions such as asthma, pregnancy or cancer. Conditions such as those were used by insurance companies to deny coverage prior to Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act. But most healthcare experts and patient advocates dispute that. The House did not wait for an official report from the Congressional Budget Office on how much the bill would cost or how it would affect Americans.

New tax credits created under the bill could not be spent on any policy that covers abortions, which will significantly affect any Californian who receives federal assistance to pay for insurance. Under California law, all insurance policies offered in the state must include abortion coverage.

As expected, all 39 California House Democrats voted against the bill.

Seven of the 14 Republicans in California’s delegation represent districts that picked Hillary Clinton for president in November, and Democrats have already announced they will focus on winning those seats.

Democrats are expected to lambaste their Republican colleagues in the 2018 midterm election for supporting the bill, just as Republicans did to win a wave of seats after the Affordable Care Act passed.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) opened with a warning during a Thursday morning news conference. "Most people don't even know who their congressperson is in many places. And now they'll find out. They will find out that their congressperson voted to take away their healthcare," she told reporters before the vote.

By the way, those seven Republicans (in order of largest Clinton margin to smallest):

• David Valadao (CA-21, Hanford)
• Ed Royce (CA-39, Fullerton)
• Darrell Issa (CA-49, Oceanside)
• Steve Knight (CA-25, Palmdale)
• Mimi Walters (CA-45, Irvine)
• Jeff Denham (CA-10, Modesto)
• Dana Rohrabacher (CA-48, Costa Mesa)

Getting rid of Issa (the wealthiest person in Congress by far, worth a quarter-billion plus!) has to be the top target of California Dems, with Rohrabacher a close second.  Let's help make this happen, guys.  I know I have more than a few readers on the West Coast, if not in and around these districts, so let's go get some seats back.

The Great Yates Debates

Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates was canned by the Trump regime less than two weeks into the new "administration" presumably over her refusal to support the clearly unconstitutional Muslim immigration and refugee ban program, but the real reason may have been what she found out about fired Trump National Security Adviser Mike Flynn when she took over in January.  Now Yates will testify to the Senate today about what she found out about Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak in those key first days.

Lawmakers want to question Yates about her conversation in January with White House counsel Donald McGahn regarding former national security adviser Michael Flynn. People familiar with that conversation say she went to the White House days after the inauguration to tell officials that statements made by Vice President Pence and others about Flynn’s discussions with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were wrong, and to warn them that those contradictions could expose Flynn or others to potential manipulation by the Russians.

Yates’s testimony Monday is expected to contradict public statements made by White House press secretary Sean Spicer and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, who described the Yates-McGahn meeting as less of a warning and more of a “heads up’’ about an issue involving Flynn.

In February, Spicer told reporters that Yates had “informed the White House counsel that they wanted to give a heads up to us on some comments that may have seemed in conflict. . . . The White House counsel informed the president immediately. The president asked him to conduct a review of whether there was a legal situation there. That was immediately determined that there wasn’t.’’

The same month, Priebus described the Yates conversation in similar terms, telling CBS’s “Face the Nation’’ that “our legal counsel got a heads up from Sally Yates that something wasn’t adding up with his story. And then so our legal department went into a review of the situation. . . . The legal department came back and said they didn’t see anything wrong with what was actually said.’’

People familiar with the matter say both statements understate the seriousness of what Yates told McGahn — that she went to the White House to warn them that Flynn could be compromised — or blackmailed — by the Russians at some point if they threatened to reveal the true nature of his conversations with the ambassador.

Those people said that although Yates’s testimony may contradict Spicer and Priebus, her appearance Monday is unlikely to reveal new details about the FBI’s investigation into whether any Trump associates coordinated with Russian officials to meddle with last year’s presidential election, in part because many of the details of that probe remain classified. Former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. is also scheduled to testify at Monday’s hearing. Lawmakers had invited another Obama administration official, Susan E. Rice, to testify but she declined.

In other words, as acting AG, Yates immediately took a look at the situation with the ongoing investigation into Mike Flynn and his relationship with the Russians and immediately notified Trump's White House counsel that Flynn was compromised, and that keeping him around as National Security Adviser was a direct threat to the country.

The Trump regime is terrified of this, to the point of looking to sacrifice Flynn to the Gods of Political Expediency as soon as Yates testifies, according to the gang at Politico 2.0.

On Monday, Sally Yates, the deputy attorney general under President Obama, is expected to tell a Senate panel how she warned top White House officials that Gen. Flynn misled the Vice President and others about his conversations with the Russian ambassador. It should be an uncomfortable morning for the West Wing.

The White House's strategy to push back:

1. Brand Yates as a Democratic operative who was out to get Trump from the beginning and willing to torque the facts to advance her agenda;
2. Put as much distance as possible between Flynn and the man whose side he rarely left during the campaign (which could be a tall order.)
3. Portray Flynn, and no one else, as responsible for this mess.

Here's the case against Flynn that administration officials — including Flynn's former allies — have been making anonymously to reporters:

• Flynn's only priority was getting the president on board with his agenda.
• The White House and the national security process is infinitely more synchronized and functional without him. He isn't missed.
• Flynn pushed his own points of view — selectively presenting information to Trump in ways favorable to his own positions — rather than serving as an honest broker as national security advisors should.
• His lawyer's statement that Flynn "certainly has a story to tell" and that he'd only tell it if granted immunity, looked "desperate," according to a senior administration official. (Harvard Law professor Alex Whiting made the same case back in March in a post on the site Just Security that's well worth a read.)

Our thought bubble: It's worth noting that the one person in the White House who remains reluctant to undermine Flynn is the man who fired him. President Trump says Flynn is the victim of a Democrat/media-fuelled "witch hunt," and has publicly endorsed Flynn's request for immunity.

Get ready for a nasty week in Washington, even by this regime's standards.

StupidiNews!

• The Trump regime's immigration ban is headed back to court today, all 15 judges on the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals will hear a challenge to a Maryland judge's freeze on the order.
• The father of slain Texas teenager Jordan Edwards is suing the former police officer who killed his son last month, the suit claims the officer was not trained properly.
• Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem says that the Abbas regime will abide by a Russian plan calling for "de-escalation zones" in the country as long as rebel forces also abide by them.
• French President-Elect Emmanuel Macron is vowing to bring France together after his overwhelming 2-1 margin victory on Sunday, congratulated by world leader across the globe.
• Amazon and Apple may finally be reaching an agreement to put Amazon Prime video on Apple TV after a more than two-year battle between the rivals.

Last Call For The Big Turnoff

By the time the Trump regime's reign is over, the resulting damage to our media integrity will be overwhelming, and will take decades to fix at best.  Even though we're only 100 days and change in, the mass consolidation of news outlets that slowed under Obama's FCC has now been fast-tracked under Trump FCC chief Ajit Pai and the industry is now heading steadily for virtual monopoly.

Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc (SBGI.O) is nearing a deal to acquire Tribune Media Co (TRCO.N) for close to $4 billion after prevailing in an auction for one of the largest U.S. television station operators, according to people familiar with the matter.

A potential deal for Tribune comes just weeks after the U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted to reverse a 2016 decision that limits the number of television stations some broadcasters can buy.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, named by President Donald Trump in January, is planning to take a new look at the current overall limit on companies owning stations serving no more than 39 percent of U.S. television households.

Sinclair's deal for Tribune Media also represents a blow to Rupert Murdoch's ambitions to expand Twenty-First Century Fox Inc's (FOXA.O) broadcast assets.

Fox Networks Group chairman Peter Rice confirmed at the Milken Institute Global Conference last week that Fox was looking to buy Tribune Media because "having more scale and more control of distribution is important."

We're already down to a handful of media giants, Comcast, Viacom, Disney, News Corp, and Time Warner in who produces and distributes news in the US.  With the FCC reversing both limits on broadcast station ownership and net neutrality, deals where the companies that are left must band together in consolidation is now happening quickly.

None of this will be good for the American consumer or for what's left of our democracy.

The French Connection Election

Chalk up one time where our Gallic friends have shown wisdom far beyond their American counterparts as not only did the French media not fall for Putin's obvious last-minute WikiLeaks screw job to help Marine Le Pen, the French voters didn't fall for it either, and while turnout was low for French standards at about two-thirds of those eligible, the French overwhelmingly elected Emmanuel Macron to be France's next leader.

Centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron has decisively won the French presidential election, projected results say.

Mr Macron defeated far-right candidate Marine Le Pen by about 65.5% to 34.5% to become, at 39, the country's youngest president, the results show.

Mr Macron will also become the first president from outside the two traditional main parties since the modern republic's foundation in 1958.

He said that a "new chapter of hope and confidence is opening".

Mr Macron's supporters gathered to celebrate in central Paris after the bitterly fought election concluded on Sunday amid massive security.

The Macron team said that the new president had had a "cordial" telephone conversation with Ms Le Pen.

In a speech she thanked the 11 million people who had voted for her. She said the election had shown a division between "patriots and globalists" and called for the emergence of a new political force.

Macron looks like he'll end up winning by 30 points, far exceeding even the rosiest poll projections.  If I didn't know any better, I'd say Putin's win in America backfired miserably in France.  The good guys (and the EU) needed a win badly here, and got it.  Le Pen's win, combined with May in the UK, would have left Germany in an untenable position and the future of the EU in extreme doubt, without two of its three strongest economic and political members.

By the way, WikiLeaks is now pushing the story that Obama ordered the CIA to help Macron (they still work for Obama you see, because chapeau de papier peint) in the best case of projection since the Cannes Film Festival.

Viva la Revolution, indeed.

Sunday Long Read: The Scarlet Letter

Nate Silver has our Sunday Long Read this week as he takes an exhaustive look at the data on the effect of FBI Director James Comey's October Surprise letter on the polls, and concludes that Comey's interference and the media explosion surrounding it probably cost Clinton the election ten days later.

Hillary Clinton would probably be president if FBI Director James Comey had not sent a letter to Congress on Oct. 28. The letter, which said the FBI had “learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation” into the private email server that Clinton used as secretary of state, upended the news cycle and soon halved Clinton’s lead in the polls, imperiling her position in the Electoral College. 

The letter isn’t the only reason that Clinton lost. It does not excuse every decision the Clinton campaign made. Other factors may have played a larger role in her defeat, and it’s up to Democrats to examine those as they choose their strategy for 2018 and 2020. 

But the effect of those factors — say, Clinton’s decision to give paid speeches to investment banks, or her messaging on pocket-book issues, or the role that her gender played in the campaign — is hard to measure. The impact of Comey’s letter is comparatively easy to quantify, by contrast. At a maximum, it might have shifted the race by 3 or 4 percentage points toward Donald Trump, swinging Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida to him, perhaps along with North Carolina and Arizona. At a minimum, its impact might have been only a percentage point or so. Still, because Clinton lost Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by less than 1 point, the letter was probably enough to change the outcome of the Electoral College. 

And yet, from almost the moment that Trump won the White House, many mainstream journalists have been in denial about the impact of Comey’s letter. The article that led The New York Times’s website the morning after the election did not mention Comey or “FBI” even once — a bizarre development considering the dramatic headlines that the Times had given to the letter while the campaign was underway. Books on the campaign have treated Comey’s letter as an incidental factor, meanwhile. And even though Clinton herself has repeatedly brought up the letter — including in comments she made at an event in New York on Tuesday — many pundits have preferred to change the conversation when the letter comes up, waving it away instead of debating the merits of the case. 

The motivation for this seems fairly clear: If Comey’s letter altered the outcome of the election, the media may have some responsibility for the result. The story dominated news coverage for the better part of a week, drowning out other headlines, whether they were negative for Clinton (such as the news about impending Obamacare premium hikes) or problematic for Trump (such as his alleged ties to Russia). And yet, the story didn’t have a punchline: Two days before the election, Comey disclosed that the emails hadn’t turned up anything new. 

One can believe that the Comey letter cost Clinton the election without thinking that the media cost her the election — it was an urgent story that any newsroom had to cover. But if the Comey letter had a decisive effect and the story was mishandled by the press — given a disproportionate amount of attention relative to its substantive importance, often with coverage that jumped to conclusions before the facts of the case were clear — the media needs to grapple with how it approached the story. More sober coverage of the story might have yielded a milder voter reaction.

And this is really the crux of the issue here:  if the Comey letter doesn't get released here, Clinton most likely wins the Rust Belt states (WI, MI, PA) and the electoral college, even if Trump had still won Florida and NC.  She would be President.

Comey will have a lot to answer for (his testimony this week was a gigantic load of self-serving twaddle) but the media has a lot to answer for as well,and Silver lays out a very convincing case for both Comey and the media taking the responsibility for Clinton's narrow loss.

Clinton would have won with 278 electoral votes with these 3 states, and if she had taken NC and Florida as well she would have won with 322, more than Trump's actual 2016 total of 306.  It wouldn't have been close really, she would have won by more than 100 EVs in that case.

Bottom line: yes, Clinton made mistakes, but the Comey letter made the difference.

A Hard Lesson In College

Trump's now infamous question to the black community -- "What have you got to lose?" if we voted for him -- was always apparent when he chose to staff his team with white supremacists and card-carrying Nazis.  Never forget hoever that the reason these odious beliefs are tolerated by Trump is that he believes the same himself, and always has.

President Donald Trump signaled Friday that he may not implement a 25-year-old federal program that helps historically black colleges finance construction projects on their campuses, suggesting that it may run afoul of the Constitution.

In a signing statement on the $1.1 trillion omnibus government spending bill, Trump singled out the Historically Black College and University Capital Financing Program as an example of provisions in the funding bill “that allocate benefits on the basis of race, ethnicity, and gender.”

Trump said his administration would treat those programs “in a manner consistent with the requirement to afford equal protection of the law under the Due Process Clause of the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment.”’

Previous presidents, including Barack Obama and George W. Bush, often issued such statements when they signed legislation to signal they may ignore or disregard parts of laws passed by Congress.

In his first signing statement, Trump outlines a range of provisions in the spending bill that he says would “unconstitutionally” limit his authority as commander in chief — and indicates that where the bill conflicts with the White House’s interpretation of the president’s powers under the Constitution, he will go with the Constitution.

If you need to ask yourself why Trump would choose to single out HBCUs as deserving of having their federal funding revoked because of "reverse racism", ask yourself who voted for him and why.  It's one thing for a chief executive to harbor personal biases and understand that they still have to faithfully execute the law, but it's another thing entirely to make this clear to everyone that you believe this in public signing statement.

This is an open threat, mind you.  It's one we should expect Trump to carry out.

Last Call For The Greyball Special, Con't

Two months ago the NY Times revealed how ride-sharing giant Uber was using software called "Greyball" to evade police in cities where the service was limited or prohibited entirely by law, and had been using it for years.  It seems the Sessions Justice Department wants to have a few words with Uber about Greyball and its use as the company is now facing a criminal probe.

The U.S. Department of Justice has begun a criminal investigation into Uber Technologies Inc's use of a software tool that helped its drivers evade local transportation regulators, two sources familiar with the situation said.

Uber has acknowledged the software, known as "Greyball," helped it identify and circumvent government officials who were trying to clamp down on Uber in areas where its service had not yet been approved, such as Portland, Oregon.

The company prohibited the use of Greyball for this purpose shortly after the New York Times revealed its existence in March, saying the program was created to check ride requests to prevent fraud and safeguard drivers. The Times report triggered a barrage of negative publicity for the company.

The criminal probe could become a significant problem facing the company that is already struggling with an array of recent business and legal issues.

An Uber spokesman and the Justice Department declined to comment. Uber lawyers said in letters to Portland authorities, which Portland made public in a report last week, that the Greyball technology was used ”exceedingly sparingly” in that city, before the service was approved there in 2015.

The nature of any potential federal criminal violation, and the likelihood of anyone being charged, is unclear. The investigation is still in its early stages, the sources said.

Bloomberg news service reported the existence of a federal probe last week, but did not identify it as criminal.

Not sure who to root for here as it's the Trump regime versus arguably the worst, most entitled techbro asshole company in Silly Valley, but I'm hoping both sides will find a way to be permanently damaged by the probe and any resulting trials.

We'll see what happens, but for now I'm rooting for a meteor impact.

We Don't Need No Education, Con't

And we finally have one Arizona Republican go there on public education: One GOP state lawmaker says it's time for the Grand Canyon State to toss compulsory public education laws and redefine K-12 schooling as a privilege, not a right.

He is Paul Mosley, an extremely conservative freshman Republican member of the Arizona House of Representatives from Lake Havasu City, which is in Mohave County. When it comes to education, his campaign website says this: 

A good quality education is essential in preparing the next generation. I believe that parents understand the needs of their children better than bureaucrats and I am a proponent of education choice. Competition in education is good and I support district schools, charter schools, private schools, home schooling and tuition tax credits.  

But he has another idea about education, too, and, he says, it is a top priority. In an interview with the Arizona Capitol Times, he said wants the state to pass a law that eliminates compulsory education. He was quoted as saying:

“Education used to be a privilege. People used to believe getting an education was something you had to be privileged to get, that you had to work hard to get. Now we basically force it down everybody’s throats.” 

And he said this:

“The number one thing I would like to repeal is the law on compulsory education … I believe education is still a privilege, and the kids who don’t want to be there are a larger distraction to the kids who do want to be there. 

“We’re telling kids they have to go to school, and we put fences around the schools to protect them now, and we give them a meal or two and sometimes send a backpack of food home with them. So now schools are not only tasked with educating our children, but also feeding our children. What happened to the personal responsibility of a parent to feed and educate their kids?”

You catch that?  Mosley wants to define who does and who does not get to have the "privilege" of public education.  In a border state like Arizona, you can guess exactly who Mosley would like to deny education to.

That's the endpoint of the GOP attack on education in this country, to reserve it for those who are "privileged" enough to deserve it.  The rest of America's kids, well, maybe a little child labor will fix them right up.  Or you know, prison for the bad ones.  (Same difference if the GOP has their way.)

But don't be fooled for a second by the "charter school" crusaders and the "accountability reformers". The goal is to turn public education into something only the right people are allowed to have.  It's much easier to control the uneducated, you see.

Fascism In Fashion

In America, dissent against the Trump regime is now literally punishable by a year in prison.

A jury on Wednesday convicted three Code Pink protesters on charges that they disrupted the confirmation hearing of Jeff Sessions for attorney general — including a Virginia woman who said all she did was break out in laughter. Each could face up to 12 months in prison. 

The Virginia woman, Desiree A. Fairooz, was found guilty of the two charges she faced: disorderly conduct and parading or demonstrating on Capitol grounds. 

The jury also convicted two other activists in the group she was with, Tighe Barry and Lenny Bianchi, who were dressed as Ku Klux Klan members with white hoods and robes and stood up before the Jan. 10 hearing started. 

They were acquitted on a count of disorderly conduct but were convicted on two separate charges of parading or demonstrating, Mr. Barry said.Continue reading the main story

The verdicts were returned shortly after noon Wednesday. A two-day trial in United States Superior Court in Washington ended on Tuesday. 

Ms. Fairooz, 61, of Bluemont, Va., said she was “really disappointed.” She said her lawyer, Samuel A. Bogash, would file post-trial motions seeking to set the verdict aside. She said it was too early to discuss an appeal. 

“We’ll face that music when we get to that,” Ms. Fairooz said. She added that she was undeterred and would continue to protest.

She was in the Senate gallery at Sessions's confirmation hearing.  She laughed.  She's now facing a year in federal prison for this crime.  The jurors felt that the statue, as written, demanded her conviction.

Several of the jurors indicated they disagreed with the decision of Capitol Police Officer Katherine Coronado to take her into custody because of the laugh.

“We did not agree that she should have been removed for laughing,” the jury foreperson stated. Some jurors indicated they believed Coronado made a mistake.

“The officer, she was a rookie officer, and I think it was her first time involved in an arrest,” another juror stated. “Make of that what you will.”

The jurors indicated they felt they had to convict Fairooz because of the way the laws are written, with yet another juror describing them as “so broad.”

At least three jurors said it was fair to say they felt forced into convicting her. “There’s almost no way that you can find them not guilty,” one said.

“There’s not a lot of wiggle room,” said the jury foreperson.

Justice Department attorneys claimed during the trial that laughter was enough to merit a criminal charge against Fairooz, asserting that “heads turned around” when Fairooz let out what they characterized as a “scoff,” “outburst” or “burst” of laughter. But they mostly focused on how Fairooz acted after she was confronted by the police officers.

“Why am I being taken out of here?” Fairooz asked. “I was going to be quiet, and now you’re going to have me arrested? For what?” Fairooz also referred to Sessions’ record as “evil,” Shelby’s comment as “ridiculous,” and appeared to hold up her sign, which could violate the ban on picketing.

This is the textbook definition of fascism, by the way, arresting and jailing political dissidents for the crime of being political dissidents.  Just so you know, that's the real legacy of Trump's first 100 days.

StupidiNews!

• Hillary Clinton will be returning to political action this month, launching a PAC to help fund "resistance" to Donald Trump.
• Medical researchers at Temple University may have taken a major step towards curing HIV after using gene-editing technology to remove the virus's DNA from cells in animals.
• In a 419-1 vote, House Republicans and Democrats have overwhelmingly approved new sanctions on North Korea over Pyongyang's continued weapons testing.
• Crude oil prices have dropped to under $45 per barrel as expanding US shale oil production is countering OPEC's November output reductions.
• California is looking to become the first state to tax commercial rocket launches in addition to existing federal taxes.

Third Time's A Horror Show, Con't

Trumpcare 3.0 has passed the House entirely by Republican votes, as the House GOP feels the legislation is now sufficiently cruel enough to the poor.

Republicans are excited about repealing Obamacare. They are not as excited about their legislation that will do it. 

The House passed the American Health Care Act on Thursday afternoon by a razor-thin margin of 217-213 after Speaker Paul Ryan and his deputies engaged in an aggressive whipping operation, with President Donald Trump working the phones to move fellow Republicans into the “yes” category.

But Republicans have been saying this particular bill was set to pass because it’s a now-or-never situation — especially after the embarrassing collapse of the first effort in March — and they’re been finding solace in the idea that the legislation won't be the final product anyway. 

Rep. Luke Messer, an Indiana Republican, called it a "green flag" and a "start." 

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) also pushed the idea that Republicans just need to pull the trigger on this bill because it will change. “This thing is going to go to the United States Senate. It’s going to change in my view,” he said on NPR. “At some point you just have to move, and we think this is it. This will create some momentum.” 

"We like the fact that it needs to be repealed," said Scott Reed, chief strategist at the Chamber of Commerce, when asked whether they support the legislation. "... We need to move the process forward."

As I mentioned before, the bill is, as written, a complete disaster for Americans, and above all a massive, trillion-dollar tax cut for the rich.

The bill would end the Medicaid expansion in 2020, a program that millions of Americans who earn less than 138 percent of the poverty line (about $15,000 for an individual) currently rely on. The end result would be that people eventually get moved into the individual market, where they would have to pay for private insurance coverage. They would get some help from AHCA’s tax credits, but likely not enough to afford to purchase a plan — keep in mind, these are people who are only earning $15,000 or less per year. 

People already in the marketplace would see significant change, too. Right now, Obamacare’s tax credits are based on income, with those who earn less getting more help. Under Obamacare, people who earn less than 200 percent of the poverty line (about $24,120 for an individual or $49,200 for a family of four) get the most generous help, enough money so that a midlevel plan would cost no more than 6.4 percent of their income. 

Under AHCA, which doesn’t base tax credits on income alone, those people would get substantially less help. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the average 40-year-old who earns $26,500 would see her tax credit fall from $4,800 to $3,650 under AHCA. 

For an older Obamacare enrollee, the problem would be even more acute, because insurers would be allowed to charge the oldest enrollees five times as much as the youngest enrollees. This would have the result of raising premiums for Obamacare enrollees in their 60s. 

CBO estimates that a 64-year-old earning $26,500 would see their annual tax credit decline from $13,600 to $4,900. The amount they pay out of pocket for their premiums, meanwhile, would go up from $1,700 in annual premiums under current law to $14,600 under AHCA. Right now, with the tax credit, that person spends very little of her own money on a premium. Under the new bill, she’d spend nearly half her annual income on health insurance.

So what now?  That's up to what Mitch McConnell can get through the Senate with budget reconciliation.  That will most likely be the "real" bill, which will include most of the House provisions, and then the negotiations will begin.  The problem is that the Senate has to pass something awful enough that the House will still vote for it.

This process still has a long way to go.  But Republicans now own the first step for tens of millions to lose their health insurance.  Whether or not voters decide to actually do anything about it in a midterm year, well the odds are extremely low of that coming to pass.

Going Into Overtime (And Ripping It Out)

Don't look now America, but Paul Ryan and the House GOP just voted to give employers the option to end time-and-a-half pay for hourly overtime and replace it with comp time, which employers would be under no rules to actually allow workers to take.  That's right, the cleverly-titled Working Families Flexibility Act just passed the House and is on its way to the Senate.

The measure, backed by Republicans, would let employers give workers paid time off instead of time-and-a-half pay the next time they put in extra hours. The vote tally was largely along party lines, with no Democrats voting in favor of the bill. Six Republicans also voted against it. 

G.O.P. leadership has touted the legislation, called the Working Families Flexibility Act, as an attempt to codify flexibility for employees. 

"I don't think there's anything more powerful than giving them more control over their time so that they can make the best decisions for themselves and their families," Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington said Tuesday morning in a press conference held by Republican leaders in the House. 

The Trump administration also came out in support of the measure on Tuesday. The White House said in a news release that the president's advisers would recommend Trump sign the bill into law if it was presented to him in its current form. 

But Democrats stand in strong opposition. Their chief concern is that employers have the final say on when comp time can be used, which means bosses can defer compensating employees for overtime work.

The GOP House passed similar legislation in 2013, and Mitch McConnell's been trying to pass legislation to end overtime pay for quite some time now, most recently in 2014.   Now that Trump is in the White House and is indicating that he'll sign the measure, only a Senate Democratic filibuster stands between you and "white working-class hero" Trump taking your overtime pay.

But hey, her emails.

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