Week in Review: The Russians are Coming!!
Week in Review is a SubOptimal look at the past week’s political and cultural news that comes out every week between Friday and Sunday.
Nothing but also Something
The major political story of the week that dominated 90% of coverage was yet another chapter in the Trump/Russia collusion narrative. If you have been reading SupOptimal Week in Review, you will notice I have not given really any time to the Trump/Russia narrative. That is because up to this point there has been no shred of solid evidence that pointed to the idea that the Trump campaign was in collusion with Russia to help get Trump elected. Anyone who would be willing to give an honest opinion of the situation up to this week would have said the same thing, even lefty executives and commentators like CNN’s Van Jones. The story this week alters that conclusion slightly but not even close to enough to declare this a Watergate level scandal.
The story, in short, is that Donald Trump Jr. through connections with someone he knew from the Mrs. Universe pageant met with a Russian lawyer claimed to have incriminating research on Hillary Clinton. By all accounts, no information about Mrs. Clinton changed hands and the meeting was a waste of time. If you want to read the full details of the story, check out the reports from NPR.
In my opinion, based on reading the experts I trust neither Donald Jr. or the Trump administration are in any kind of legal trouble based on the information we know now. David French, a Harvard law graduate and former attorney at ADF, writes in National Review, “Let’s define our terms. The word “collusion” doesn’t have precise legal meaning. It’s largely a political term that refers to claims and allegations that the Trump team worked in some way with Russians as part of the alleged Russian effort to elect Trump. In other words, to claim that Trump officials colluded with Russians is not the same thing as claiming that they violated the law. As with many political operations, including dealings with foreign governments, their actions can be unsavory without being illegal. No American — Democrat or Republican — should defend the expressed intent of this meeting. Indeed, that seems to be the case here. Yes, the left side of the Internet is lighting up with claims that receiving information is the same thing as receiving an unlawful foreign campaign contribution, but the argument (based on current facts) is frivolous. The law is designed to capture contributions of definable value, like money or other assets. What is the definable value of “information”? Defining speech as a reportable or even illegal “thing of value” would raise serious constitutional concerns.”
So how does this change the Trump/Russia collusion picture? Up to this point, the only concrete connections we had between Trump and Russia were sketchy relations that campaign staffers such as Rob Manafort, Carter Paige, and Michael Flynn had with Russia prior to the campaign. With only that evidence in hand, the situation could rightly be classified as a nothingburger. The Trump/Russia collusion story up to this week has been nothing but political theater in which the networks drive up their ratings by talking it up as a Watergate level scandal and Trump solidifies his base by smacking them down for overreacting. The meeting between Donald Jr. and the Russian lawyer changes the picture because we now know that the Trump campaign attempted the collude with Russia or was at least willing.
The Donald Jr. meeting only slightly alters the picture. Anyone out this week claiming that this is evidence that proves that President Trump worked with Russia to rig the election is either off their rocker crazy or works for CNN, but I repeat myself. Willingness to commit a crime is not proof that the crime was eventually committed. The only crimes committed by Trump or his team up to this point were crimes against intelligence and reason. First, it was hiring morons who had clear connections with Russia to work on the campaign. Second, publicly praising Vladimir Putin and taking a soft stance on Russia the entire campaign. Now we know that Donald Jr. could not think through how bad of an idea it would be to meet with someone who claimed to be working for the Kremlin in order to obtain information on Hillary Clinton.
The New Version of Senate Healthcare Reform
I will put a disclaimer right here at the beginning: if you do not want to read me rip literally everyone in the Republican Senate not named Rand Paul just skip this section.
A couple weeks ago the Senate released its version of healthcare reform they wanted to bring to a vote. It was a flaming pile of garbage to say the least as I wrote in past Week in Review posts. Senate leadership was forced back to the negotiating table when a number of conservative and moderate senators came out publicly against the bill. This week Senate leadership came out with the revised version of the bill. Here are the differences:
Concessions given conservatives:
- To win conservatives over McConnell attached a version of an amendment proposed by Mike Lee and Ted Cruz. If this amendment was put in place as prosposed, it would be a substantial improvement to the legislation. The problem is that the amendment McConnell added onto the bill is not the same amendment that Cruz proposed. Basically the idea was that if a company offer a plan with all the unnecessary bells and whistles that are required under Obamacare they are allowed to offer plans that do not have all the bells and whistles that are much cheaper for customers. This amendment would give customers choice in the plans that they want and allow companies to compete for customers dollar to drive down the cost of premiums. The problem came in when Senate leadership strapped a price control onto the amendment that forces companies to raise the rates of compliant and non-complaint plans equally every year which renders the amendment useless. So long story short these non-compliant plans would be so unstable that they probably would not even be offered by most insurers. I have a lot of respect for the work that Senator Lee and Senator Cruz have put in to get this amendment into the bill but with how the amendment was put into the legislation I am not sure how they can take credit for it as if if makes the bill any better. (To be clear Senator Lee has not said he is supporting the bill yet but it is pretty clear if he was the deciding vote he would vote yes.)
Concessions given to moderates:
- Tacks on $45 billion in funds to “help combat the opioid abuse crisis”
- $70 billion in additional funds to help states “reduce premiums and hold down out-of-pocket medical funds”
- Keeps in place the 3.8% tax on investment income and 0.9% payroll tax
- Retains limits on tax deductions insurance companies can take for compensation of executives
Do you see a stark comparison in the concessions made to each side? On one hand conservatives in the Republican caucus got an amendment that once strapped down by price controls would have little to no positive effect on the bill. On the other hand, moderates were handed pretty much everything they asked for which sums up to hundreds of billions of dollars in changes to the bill. Moderates were handed everything they wanted in negotiations after they already force fed conservatives enshrinement of all of the ACA regulations and putting off Medicaid reform until 2026.
Despite these lobsided negotiations all of the conservatives except Rand Paul are on board but some moderates are STILL not supporting the bill. Rob Portman, Shelly Moore Capito, Dean Heller, Lisa Murkowski, and Susan Collins have all expressed concerns about the new version. Appeasing these moderates would make this bill, which is already not worth passing, so useless in reforming the healthcare system Republicans might as well just work with Democrats to throw money at Obamacare or just go for government single-payer healthcare.
Senator Dean Heller is facing a extremely tough reelection campaign in 2018 and is not going to vote for any version of healthcare reform. Senators Murkowski and Collins want the bill to continue to fund Planned Parenthood. The main concern among the moderate holdouts is the Medicaid reforms that they describe as “too deep of cuts” or “do not offer enough options.” If the current version of the bill’s Medicaid reforms do not appease the moderate block, I am not sure what will.
The Medicaid reforms in the bill do not cut a penny from the program until 2026. When 2026 does eventually arrive, money is not actually cut from Medicaid there is just a cap set on how much the program can grow over time but in Washington that is described as a cut unlike the rest of the world. With all of that said, the Medicaid reforms will most likely never even happen. The chances that Republicans will hold Congress and the White House until 2026 are slim and as soon as Democrats are in power they will immediately nix the Medicaid reforms in this bill. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been reportedly selling the bill to moderates based on the idea that the Medicaid reforms will never happen.
These moderate senators demanding that the Medicaid reforms in the legislation be toned down or eliminated are basically admitting they have been lying for the last 7 years when they told us they want to repeal and replace Obamacare. If someone comes to you and says they want help balancing their household budget, but then proceeds to tell you they are not willing to change their house payment, car payment, or food spending. Would you not begin to question if they actually want to balance their budget? That is basically what is happening here with the moderate block of Republican senators and healthcare reform. These same politicians have run for the last eight years on reforming the healthcare system by repealing and replacing Obamacare. Now the ball is in their hands and they admit that they are not willing to touch any of the Obamacare regulations, pre-existing conditions mandates, or make any serious reforms of Medicaid. You have to begin to ask yourself if they actually want to reform healthcare at all. The answer is that they never did and they just said so to get our votes. Senator McConnell can not wait for this bill to die so he can run over to make a deal with the Democrats because he does not have the political courage to actually pass serious reforms.
John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary magizine, said recently, “If Republicans fail to pass healthcare reform, the most important political development in the 20 years will have been the implementation and survival of Obamacare.” I would take this argument made by Podhoretz one step further. Whether or not Republicans put their Obamacare-Lite stamp on it this year, Obamacare will survive and big government healthcare is here to stay.
