The following article by Myriam Alexander-Kearns was posted on the Center for American Progress website February 7, 2017:
AP/Charles Rex Arbogast Carter Howard watches a cartoon during his asthma treatment in Northbrook, Illinois, on October 15, 2013.
The 115th Congress and the Trump administration have already set their sights on gutting the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and other cornerstone protections that ensure that our air is safe to breathe and our water safe to drink. They have promised to get rid of pollution limits for power plants instead of shifting to clean energy and nullify pollution limits for oil and gas drilling—as they also promise to drill anywhere and everywhere. These actions alone would greatly endanger public health and environmental quality. If that was not enough, however, congressional Republicans and the administration are also set on eliminating health insurance coverage for millions of Americans. This extreme rollback of federal regulations and services would allow more pollution, affect public health, and, at the same time, remove health care options for treatment when people get sick. Continue reading “The Trump Administration’s Two-Pronged Assault on Public Health”
The following article by Steven Rosenfeld was posted on the National Memo website February 5, 2017:
President Trump, flanked by Vice President Mike Pence and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, at the Homeland Security headquarters. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Two weeks into Donald Trump’s belligerent presidency, one must ask: Where will this administration’s launch its first serious international conflict?
The White House’s announcement Friday of narrow economic sanctions against Iran, in response to its dumb test firing of a missile, came after Trump made it sound like Iran had done something outsized and horrific. It hadn’t. Still, the president tweeted hours before announcing the sanctions, “Iran is playing with fire” and, “They don’t appreciate how ‘kind’ President Obama was to them. Not me!” Continue reading “6 Countries Trump Has Already Insulted And Provoked”
The following article by Lawrence Hurley with Reuters was posted on the National Memo website February 7, 2017:
Democratic U.S. senators on Monday sharpened a potential line of attack against Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court by questioning whether he would be sufficiently independent as a justice in light of President Donald Trump’s vigorous use of unilateral presidential power including his travel ban.
Their comments came after Trump criticized James Robart, the U.S. district court judge who put on hold the Republican president’s Jan. 27 order temporarily barring entry into the United States of people from seven Muslim-majority nations and halting the U.S. refugee program. Trump called Robart a “so-called judge” who made a “ridiculous” decision. Continue reading “Democrats Question Independence Of Trump Supreme Court Nominee”
The following article by John Sides was posted on the Washington Post website February 7, 2017:
President Trump speaks on Monday before signing an executive order while surrounded by small business leaders in the White House. (Andrew Harrer / Sipa USA)
Since his inauguration, Donald Trump’s net approval rating — already at a historic low for an incoming president — has taken a further hit. According to the Pollster average, about 50 percent of Americans disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president while 43 percent approve, for a net approval rating of -7. In Gallup’s polling, Trump’s net approval is -10.
The following article by Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman was posted on the New York Times website February 5, 2017:
Kellyanne Conway, left, Hope Hicks, Jared Kushner, Stephen K. Bannon, Reince Priebus and Stephen Miller, all members of President Trump’s senior staff, last month at the White House. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
President Trump loves to set the day’s narrative at dawn, but the deeper story of his White House is best told at night.
Aides confer in the dark because they cannot figure out how to operate the light switches in the cabinet room. Visitors conclude their meetings and then wander around, testing doorknobs until finding one that leads to an exit. In a darkened, mostly empty West Wing, Mr. Trump’s provocative chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, finishes another 16-hour day planning new lines of attack.
Usually around 6:30 p.m., or sometimes later, Mr. Trump retires upstairs to the residence to recharge, vent and intermittently use Twitter. With his wife, Melania, and young son, Barron, staying in New York, he is almost always by himself, sometimes in the protective presence of his imposing longtime aide and former security chief, Keith Schiller. When Mr. Trump is not watching television in his bathrobe or on his phone reaching out to old campaign hands and advisers, he will sometimes set off to explore the unfamiliar surroundings of his new home. Continue reading “Trump and Staff Rethink Tactics After Stumbles”
The following article by Fred Barbash and Derek Hawkins was posted on the Washington Post website February 7, 2017:
Throughout Donald Trump’s campaign and now into the first weeks of his presidency, critics suggested that he cool his incendiary rhetoric, that his words matter. His defenders responded that, as Corey Lewandowski said, he was being taken too “literally.” Some, like Vice President Pence, wrote it all off to his “colorful style.” Trump himself recently explained that his rhetoric about Muslims is popular, winning him “standing ovations.”
The following article by Aaron Blake was posted on the Washington Post website February 6, 2017:
If you would like to see a man struggle, witness Vice President Pence:
Pence was asked on “Face the Nation” to account for President Trump having likened Vladimir Putin’s alleged killing of political opponents to the United States’. Trump had told Bill O’Reilly: “What, you think our country’s so innocent?”
CBS’s John Dickerson asked Pence, “Do you agree?” And Pence had to draw a long, pronounced breath. Then, asked four times whether the United States is “morally superior” to Russia, Pence avoided and danced around the question before relenting (kind of):
DICKERSON: Do you think America is morally superior to Russia?
PENCE: What — what you have in this new president is someone who is willing to, and is, in fact, engaging the world, including Russia, and saying, where can we find common interests that will advance the security of the American people, the peace and prosperity of the world? And he is determined to come at that in a new and renewed way.
DICKERSON: But America morally superior to Russia — yes or no?
PENCE: I believe that the ideals that America has stood for throughout our history represent the highest ideals of humankind.
(CROSSTALK)
PENCE: I was actually at — I was at Independence Hall yesterday. And I stood in the very room where the Constitution of the United States was crafted, the very building where the Declaration of Independence was held forth. Every American, including our president, represents that we uphold the highest ideals of the world.
(CROSSTALK)
DICKERSON: Shouldn’t we be able to just say yes to that question, though?
PENCE: I think it is, without question, John.
DICKERSON: That America is morally superior to Russia?
PENCE: That American ideals are — are superior to countries all across the world. But, again, what the president is determined to do, as someone who has spent a lifetime looking for deals, is to see if we can have a new relationship with Russia and other countries that advances the interests of America first and the peace and security of the world.
Suffice it to say, this is not an easy question right now for Pence — or anybody in the Trump administration. That’s because American exceptionalism is at the core of the Republican Party’s brand and identity in the 21st century. Squaring that with Trump’s suggestion that the United States doesn’t have the moral high ground on the killing of its opponents requires all the politician-speak one can muster — and ignoring pretty much everything you’ve ever said about why the United States is morally superior to the likes of Russia.
Just look at Pence’s comments about both Russia and American exceptionalism in one speech back in February 2015 at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC):
“And as we gather here tonight a new iron curtain is descending down the spine of Europe as modern Russia seeks to redraw the map of Europe by force. Unlike the former Soviet Union that respected the strength of West, Putin’s Russia ignores talk of sanctions, claims land, and supports rebels in Ukraine with impunity.”
“You either choose to view America as the shining city on the hill that inspires the best in all mankind, or you don’t.”
“The truth is you cannot command the respect of the world when you spend years apologizing to our enemies and abandoning our friends. Lecturing the American people about the Crusades while refusing to call Islamic extremism by name is an abdication of leadership.”
The last comment in particular sticks out. Pence didn’t like the equivalence between radical Islam today and the Crusades back in the 13th century. Now he’s being asked to explain Trump’s comparison of Putin and the American government.
And then there’s the polling.
Back in 2015, the Pew Research Center asked whether the United States “stands above all others,” was one of the greatest countries, or whether there were other countries that were better.
Fully 48 percent of conservative Republicans said it was the greatest country in the world, compared to 17 percent of liberal Democrats. Just 8 percent of conservative Republicans disagreed that the United States is at least “one of the greatest countries.”
The GOP’s embrace of patriotism and American exceptionalism ramped up after 9/11 and especially when Democrats began to question the war in Iraq. Some on the right fought back by arguing that this was unpatriotic or that war skeptics opposed U.S. troops.
Giuliani is now a key Trump confidant, and Trump is espousing almost that exact view that Giuliani ascribed to Obama. And now the likes of Giuliani and Pence are left to explain it.
The following article by Phillip Bump was posted on the Washington Post February 6, 2017:
Speaking to the U.S. Central Command on Monday, President Trump went off his prepared remarks to make a truly stunning claim: The media was intentionally covering up reports of terrorist attacks.
