Seventeen and Counting

WTF:  Just when you thought that Obamacare was safe, limping along but safe, Reed O’Connor, a US District Court Judge in Texas ruled that it was unconstitutional.  His ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by 18 Republican State Attorney Generals and 2 Republican governors. The judge “explained” that his decision was based on a provision included in the Tax Cut bill which essentially got rid of the individual mandate by eliminating the penalty for people who don’t acquire health insurance.  He concluded that absent the fine, the entirety of Obamacare is unconstitutional. Though the Trump administration tacitly supported the lawsuit by opting not to defend Obamacare, it has decided to leave the program in place for now pending the resolution of court challenges that are likely to make it all the way to the Supreme Court. It is highly likely, though not certain, that SCOTUS would uphold the constitutionality of Obamacare, though it’s also possible that the soon to be Democratic House, together with Democratic Senators and a few Republican ones, will pass some kind of “fix”  rendering the decision moot even before it makes it to the court’s docket.  On the political front, Judge O’Connor’s very partisan decision was conveniently timed, it spared Republicans from incurring additional mid-term election losses while at the same time adding confusion into the already fraught Obamacare sign-up process, a process with a Saturday deadline in states without their own exchanges. Due to the judge’s decision some people who had put off enrolling until the last minute probably gave up, assuming that the program was dead.  For his part, Trump who still doesn’t understand how insurance works and never really considers the long term impact of acting on his impulses, tweeted out “Wow, but not surprisingly, Obamacare was just ruled UNCONSTITUTIONAL by a highly respected judge in Texas. Great news for America!” He might as well have tweeted “oh goody 20 million Americans are about to lose their coverage and go broke or die!” Without intending to, Trump may have just paved the way for more Democratic victories in 2020 something that might not be much of a concern for him given his increasingly questionable future but should concern the rest of the party. Trump is also fixated on his wall, with his demands for more funding hardened in place by last week’s public put down by Nancy and Chuck. He continues to threaten a partial government shutdown if the government spending bill that must be passed by Friday night doesn’t include $5 billion of wall money.  He’s not going to get that money, Democrats are not going to waver, a significant number of Republicans aren’t all that into the wall either and a good number of those forty Republican members of Congress who lost their seats and have already turned over their offices to the incoming class of freshman Democrats aren’t interested in showing up for any late session votes, particularly one that interferes with their Christmas holiday.  It certainly doesn’t help that Trump sent his most strident and bombastic staff member Stephen Miller out to the Sunday morning talk shows to argue his case. If your holiday plans include visits to any Federally operated museums or other facilities, consider going to Florida instead but be aware that the price of Mar a Lago New Year’s Eve tickets have been hiked to $2500 or more.  For that price you’ll get to ring in the year with Trump who is heading off to Palm Beach on Friday for a sixteen day holiday, a vacation that will go forward whether or not the government remains open.   

Revolving Door:  The loser of the Chief of Staff Lottery is Budget Director Mick Mulvaney.  After former NJ Governor Chris Christie turned down the spot and it became clear that no one other than Jared Kushner was all that interested in what ordinarily would have been a highly coveted spot, Mulvaney agreed to sign on.  Mulvaney plans to also continue as Budget Director and at his request his Chief of Staff  title will be preceded by “Acting,” giving him the ability to save face when he is either dumped or chooses to leave.  As to Kushner, Trump was probably persuaded that appointing his son-in-law was a step too far once it was revealed that after Michael Cohen was forced out of the Trump orbit, Kushner had assumed responsibility for the relationship with National Enquirer’ David Pecker who has now admitted to squashing stories about Trump’s “women” problems to help his presidential prospects.  Scandal ridden Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke finally resigned but not before he hosted the Interior Department holiday party, one attended by as many lobbyists and future employers as he could squeeze into one ballroom. Zinke blamed his demise on Democrats and the press for all the attention they focused on his illegal and unethical activities.  Sadly, his anti-environment agenda will live on without him. Somehow or other Homeland Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is still around perhaps because her most totally tone deaf statement ever thoroughly impressed Trump. In that statement, Nielsen blamed the death of seven year old Guatemalan Jakelin Gaal, who survived her difficult trip to the US only to die while in the custody of US Border control, on her father for putting her at risk by bringing her to the US, a conclusion shared by the oddly pated Stephen Miller who also blamed the young girl’s death on liberal judges.  

What Me Worry?  Trump had a really, really awful week.  Everything he ever touched is now being investigated including his campaign, his inauguration, his private businesses, his charitable foundation and his children.  To the extent that you have the stamina to read through the list, today’s Wired Magazine contains a summary of all 17 of the known Trump and Russia investigations. Though Trump may still hope to end or starve Special Counsel Mueller’s Russia investigation, a number of these cases are being pursued in other Federal or state jurisdictions so that absent a wholesale dismantling of the Justice Department it would be extremely difficult and politically impossible to stop them from proceeding. Moreover, there is little Trump can do to halt any of the state investigations particularly those going on in New York where the incoming Attorney General Letitia James has vowed “to make his life a nightmare.”  Nevertheless, Trump can win or at least try to win in the court of public opinion and though polls indicate that his popularity is down and that the majority of Americans believe he is a liar, his base and their Republican representatives remain inexplicably loyal.  To that end, he sent Rudy Giuliani out this weekend to spew an especially undecipherable mélange of word spaghetti which included, among others, an assertion that the campaign finance crimes that one time Trump lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to, those payments he made at Trump’s direction, are insignificant, civil boo boos that really don’t matter; a reminder that Cohen is a convicted liar; an admission that though Trump lies too, his lies don’t count because lying all the time to the public is just fine, it’s lying under oath that’s the problem; and a repetition of the oft repeated “collusion is not a crime” but if any took place it was before the election so it doesn’t matter.  Giuliani may have also confirmed that Trump was still “discussing” the Moscow Trump Tower project in January 2016, several months longer than previously disclosed though his statement was so jumbled that it was hard to tell if he was sneaking in a new admission or just overcooking his pasta.  He also claimed that Michael Flynn who is due to be sentenced this week for lying about his conversations with Russian Ambassador Kislyak was tricked into his guilty plea and didn’t really lie, an assertion that is based on Flynn’s lawyers’ pre-sentencing statement that since Flynn voluntarily spoke to the FBI agents without any representation from the White House Counsel’s office he couldn’t have known that lying to the FBI wasn’t kosher, an absurd assertion given Flynn’s experience, prior position as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency and the number of Law & Order episodes that even he must have watched.  Though Giuliani didn’t mention coffee boy George Papadopoulos, he too wants us to believe that he was railroaded into his guilty plea.  Fresh out of the Federal penitentiary, Papadopoulos announced plans to run for Congress in 2020.  Those plans may have already hit a speed bump, apparently he is again under investigation by Congress and the FBI for some contacts with the Kremlin related to a letter that claims he said he was "doing a business deal with Russians which would result in large financial gains for himself and Mr. Trump."  Though it’s not clear that Russian Maria Butina who pleaded guilty to acting as an unregistered agent for Russia last week had any direct ties to Trump, she’s admitted that her responsibilities included getting close to conservatives, using the National Rifle Association as an entry point to a curiously receptive group of Republican party decision makers.  As part of her plea agreement she has promised to cooperate with Federal authorities.  One of the things that she is probably being queried about is who orchestrated her convenient selection out of a crowd to ask a question about Russian sanctions of Trump early in his campaign, a question that he seemed atypically prepared to coherently answer. And lastly, late yesterday, the Washington Post published an article summarizing a “sweeping” analysis prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee that details how extensively the Russians used social networks including FaceBook, Twitter, and YouTube to advance Trump’s 2016 election prospects. The report is due to be officially released by the Senate this week. A particularly frantic Trump twitter storm is on the immediate horizon.