Passing Strange

January 5th, 2017. Washington, DC. In a 237 to 187 vote, the US House of Representatives has passed the REINS Act (Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny), and the PEOTUS has vowed to sign it if it comes to his desk, even though the bill undermines the separation of powers and limits the power of the presidency with respect to setting a regulatory agenda in and through the federal regulatory agencies process. I mean, who wants to see the POTUS, through his agency appointments, issue new rules relating to things like air quality and food safety? The REINS Act has been identified by the GOP congressional leadership as the first in a series of “reforms” designed to “fix” (read undermine) the regulatory system. Backed by the Koch PACS and Presidential Advisory designate Carl Icahn (whom New York Magazine has referred to as a blinding supernova of conflict of interest) the bill says that additional congressional approval is needed for any rule that would impose compliance costs of more than $100M per year. If congress fails to approve a rule within 70 days after promulgation, the rule becomes null and void. Here again, yet another GOP anti-democratic Trojan horse. Surely, adding another layer of approval by electeds rather than appointed and career civil servants makes it better and not worse, right? Unfortunately, no. Under the present system, congress established federal regulatory agencies with the specific idea that important decisions about protecting the public required a deep technical expertise and a process insulated from horse trading and power plays. Under the present system, congress already has the authority to control the regulatory system by writing laws that determine which activities get regulated; they say what tasks the agencies should undertake. The agencies, for their part, determine technical criteria and the like, often taking years of open and inclusive process to formulate a particular safeguard. So, then what would REINS do to the regulatory process? Instead of more democratic oversight, REINS moves decisions into back rooms where what had been decided by expertise, rationality, and openness is replaced by secrecy and influence peddling. Under REINS, any rule that was years in the making can just die after 70 days with no public hearings. As a result, industry would have much less incentives to work with regulatory agencies, because they could just end run them with assurances of congressional inaction.

January 2nd, 2017, Washington, DC. In a surprise move today, the Republican Conference of the US House of Representatives voted to strip away the independence of the Office of Congressional Oversight, such that the office will now report directly to the House Ethics Committee. Although there was no debate on the matter, it has been reported that both Speaker Ryan and Majority Leader McCarthy spoke out against the measure. Perhaps their reticence had something to do with the optics of having the House relieve itself of independent ethics oversight as an effective ‘first act’ after the Republicans had just won control of both houses of Congress. The full house will vote on the rules associated with the measure tomorrow, and the rules will be in effect without further review for two years. Update: January 3rd, 2017: Full House has rejected the measure.

January 1, 2017, New York, NY. President Elect of the United States, Donald J. Trump shows his magnanimity by Tweeting Happy New Year blessings, not only to those who like him, but also to his many “enemies” and those who fought him and “lost so badly”. I’ve never seen a President Elect behave this way. No President has unanimous support. All Presidents have political opponents. The point is to look and behave like everyone’s President, because for good or ill that’s what he’s about to be. This faux olive branch does nothing to project American unity. He’s simply baiting and belittling his opposition. Imagine if Barack Obama had done such a thing… Love (not really!)!

December 29, 2016. Washington, DC. Let’s begin by again attempting to humiliate the first black president, by confusing the world, and weakening our international prestige. It’s probably not a surprise to anybody that the president elect is ignoring the ‘one president at a time’ policy that stems from the Logan Act of 1799 (private individuals may not engage in communications with foreign governments with the intent to act against the position of the United States). It’s not surprising, for two reasons: first because it’s consistent with the GOP’s thinly veiled racist refusal to acknowledge Barack Obama as the legitimate POTUS; second, because it is consistent with Trump’s absolutely corrosive effect on any and all rules, traditions, and precedents of our government. The peaceful transfer of power is a cornerstone of our constitutional democracy. A private citizen of one party is elected president, and on the appointed day, his/her successor from another party steps down. The violations started with Trump’s phone call with the President of Taiwan immediately following his election (thereby changing up our position with respect to the one China policy); it continued with his direct involvement with US manufacturers concerning offshoring practices; and it appears again now with his meddling in US Israeli relations around the UN Security Council Resolution calling for Israel to halt settlement building (Trump called the President of Egypt urging him to withdraw the draft resolution). In response to remarkably gentle public chiding from the Obama administration, Trump has questioned President Obama’s conduct during the transition, even though his behavior is consistent with every president in American history, and Trump’s behavior, as usual, is completely unprecedented. In response to these events, Representative Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael, CA) has introduced ‘The One President at a Time Act’ to amend the Logan Act so that it is crystal clear that a President Elect may not conduct foreign affairs until after he/she has been sworn into office.

December 22nd, 2016. New York, NY. Donald Trump’s bumbling on US nuclear weapons policy took its most alarming turn this past Thursday when he decided to reframe the US nuclear weapons policy off the cuff, and via Twitter. Trump tweeted that “the US must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding Nukes.” Before anyone had a chance to puzzle out what the hell he was talking about, i.e., how expanding our nuclear arsenal for the first time since 1967 could somehow make the world come to its senses (whatever that means), he followed up the next day on Morning Joe, telling Mika Brzezinski, “Let it be an arms race,” and he went on to say, “we will outmatch them at every pass, and outlast them all.” Luckily, incoming Press Secretary Sean Spicer put the matter entirely to rest, insisting that there would be no arms race, because Trump would not allow one: ”He’s going to ensure that other countries get the message, and that he’s not going to sit back and allow that…what’s going to happen is that they will come to their senses and we will all be just fine.” Thanks for that Sean! For a minute there, I was getting worried. But how the hell does calling for an arms race deter an arms race?

December 9th, 2016. Grand Rapids Michigan. Security experts were very surprised to see that Trump is still using private security on his post-election ‘Victory Tour.’ Starting with Grand Rapids, the private security team has been present at each of the seven rallies so far. No other president elect has continued to use private security after Election Day. Former Secret Service agents say that there is no way the USSS can be happy about it, especially since the private security guards have not had adequate training to date. Again, this is all a major break from tradition, in that all modern presidents have entrusted their personal security entirely to the Secret Service, and their event security to local law enforcement. Trump’s robust private security force travels the country with the president elect, supplementing the USSS, and mostly working to identify and (sometimes roughly) remove possible protesters, or even just people Trump and his allies have a bad feeling about. Dozens of protesters have complained about racial profiling and undue force or aggression at the hands of Trump’s team during the campaign, and some of these are proceeding to class action lawsuits. Why is this necessary? The purpose of this “composite detail” appears to be about more than just security, which the USSS can obviously handle, and more about suppressing dissent.

December 1st, 2016, Battle Creek, Michigan. Kellogg company announced that it will not be advertising on Brietbart, because the media company does not align with their values. Nothing unusual about that. Companies vote with the money all the time. For example, all sorts of companies weighed in on North Carolina’s anti-gay and transgender rights law, and companies like Microsoft, Coca Cola, and Alcoa openly support Obama’s climate change initiative. Also, conservatives have taken this even further, by vociferously fighting for the right of Hobby Lobby to deny insurance for employee birth control based on the values of the company. But wait! In response Brietbart has called upon its readers to boycott Kellogg products! How can a media company make it a practice to threaten potential advertisers just because they don’t want to do business with them? Breitbart CEO Steve Bannon called the Kellogg decision “a disgraceful act of cowardice to placate left wing totalitarianism” and said the move was “ideological warfare against conservative readers whose values propelled Donald Trump into the White House.” A consumer boycott because a company won’t advertise with a white supremacist media company? Here’s hoping this remains strange.

November 27, 2016. Despite the fact that he won the election, President Elect Donald Trump Tweeted the claim that millions of people voted illegally. Specifically the Tweet read: In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally. This wholly unsubstantiated claim is in response to the current tally showing that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by over 2.5 million votes (now up to 2.8 million). The obvious ‘strangeness” here is that it is wholly unprecedented for a President elect to claim widespread voter fraud–particularly in regard to the voting that carried him to office. Such a declaration can only further undermine faith in the most fundamental of all democratic institutions: voting! As a man who very likely has NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder), it is not good enough that he won the Electoral College (and hence the Presidency). He wants to insist that his victory was total and complete, which it of course was not. Consequently, the people who do not support Mr. Trump–which constitutes a majority of the citizens of the United States–should not in any way expect acknowledgement or recognition of their concerns or disagreements with the President elect. The will of the American people, for Mr. Trump, no longer speaks in individual votes, but must rather be expressed in the undivided Geist of the Volk.