June 29, 2018

BREAKING: Federal Court Strikes Down Kentucky's Medicaid Work Requirement

Source: Talking Points Memo



By Alice Ollstein | June 29, 2018 3:38 pm

The Trump administration’s approval of Kentucky’s strict Medicaid work requirement, set to go into effect July 1, was vacated on Friday by a federal judge in Washington D.C. and sent back to the Department of Health and Human Services for reconsideration.

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg sided with the dozen-plus low-income Kentuckians who challenged the new rules, and said that the Trump administration acted in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner by approving them.

“The Secretary never adequately considered whether Kentucky HEALTH would in
fact help the state furnish medical assistance to its citizens, a central objective of Medicaid,” Boasberg wrote.

Kentucky was the first state in the nation, and in the nation’s history, to win permission from the federal government to implement Medicaid work requirements. Three other states have since followed: Indiana, Arkansas and New Hampshire. Nearly a dozen are currently awaiting approval from the Trump administration.


Read more: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/breaking-federal-court-strikes-down-kentuckys-medicaid-work-requirement

June 29, 2018

FBI Agent: Federal Investigators May Have Learned Of Manafort Storage Unit From AP Reporters

By Tierney Sneed | June 29, 2018 2:22 pm

In testimony about the events leading up to a search of Paul Manafort’s storage unit, a FBI agent revealed Friday that federal prosecutors and the FBI may have been tipped off to the possibility that Manafort maintained storage lockers after an April meeting with four Associated Press reporters.

The revelation came in a hearing in front of U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis on motions ahead of the trial in the case brought against Manafort in Virginia, which is set to being next month.

The meeting between the AP reporters and investigators was previously known, and pointed to by Manafort in a court filing about media leaks related to the case.

However, FBI special agent Jeff Pfeiffer went into new detail about the actions took after he took after the meeting that culminated in the search of the storage unit in Virginia. Manafort has requested that the judge suppress the evidence from the search, because before getting a warrant, Pfeiffer entered the unit with the permission of a Manafort employee who had a key to it.

The meeting was set up on April 11, 2017, for prosecutors and FBI agents to receive information being offered by the AP reporters, Pfeiffer said during questioning by Uzo Asonye, an attorney representing special counsel Robert Mueller’s team. One of the AP reporters, who were in the midst of their own Manafort investigation, mentioned that Manafort had a storage unit. Pffiefer in his testimony said that it was either that meeting or other investigative efforts that led him to learn of the units.

more
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/fbi-agent-ap-tipped-doj-off-to-manafort-storage-unit

June 29, 2018

Trump is kowtowing to the Kremlin again. Why? - By The Washington Post Editorial Board

By Editorial Board
June 28 at 4:45 PM

THE REASONS for the tension between the United States and Russia are well-established. Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine, instigated a war in eastern Ukraine, intervened to save the dictatorship of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, interfered in the U.S. presidential election campaign to harm Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump, poisoned a former intelligence officer on British soil and continues to meddle in the elections of other democracies. Yet on Wednesday in the Kremlin, President Vladimir Putin brushed it all aside and delivered the Russian “maskirovka,” or camouflage, answer that it is all America’s fault.

Meeting with John Bolton, the president’s national security adviser, Mr. Putin declared that the tensions are “in large part the result of an intense domestic political battle inside the U.S.” Then Mr. Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov insisted that Russia “most certainly did not interfere in the 2016 election” in the United States. On Thursday morning, Mr. Trump echoed them both on Twitter: “Russia continues to say they had nothing to do with Meddling in our Election!”

Why is Mr. Trump kowtowing again? The U.S. intelligence community has concluded that Russia did attempt to tilt the election using multiple campaigns, including cyberintrusions and insidious social media fakery. Would it be so difficult to challenge Mr. Putin about this offensive behavior? A full accounting has yet to be made of the impact on the election, but Mr. Bolton did not mince words last year when he described Russian interference as “a true act of war” and said, “We negotiate with Russia at our peril.” And now?

Summits can be productive, even — maybe especially — when nations are at odds. In theory, a meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin, now scheduled for next month in Helsinki, could be useful. But a meeting aimed at pleasing Mr. Putin is naive and foolhardy. A meeting aimed at pleasing Mr. Putin at the expense of traditional, democratic U.S. allies would be dangerous and damaging.

Just as Mr. Bolton was flattering Mr. Putin, Russia was engaging in subterfuge on the ground in Syria. The United States, Russia and Jordan last year negotiated cease-fire agreements in southwestern Syria, along the border with Jordan and the Golan Heights. In recent days, the United States has warned Russia and its Syrian allies not to launch an offensive in the area, where the rebel forces hold parts of the city of Daraa and areas along the border. The State Department vowed there would be “serious repercussions” and demanded that Russia restrain its client Syrian forces. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, saying an offensive would be unacceptable. All to no avail; Syria is bombing the area.

This is what happens when Mr. Trump signals, repeatedly, that he is unwilling or unable to stand up to Russian misbehavior. We are on dangerous ground. Either Mr. Trump has lost touch with essential U.S. interests or there is some other explanation for his kowtowing that is yet unknown.

###

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-kowtowing-to-the-kremlin-again-why/2018/06/28/72a5e718-7ae2-11e8-80be-6d32e182a3bc_story.html

June 29, 2018

Trump SCOTUS pick should be grilled about Mueller probe 'before their rear end hits the chair,'...

Trump SCOTUS pick should be grilled about Mueller probe 'before their rear end hits the chair,' says top Dem strategist

Michael IsikoffChief Investigative Correspondent,Yahoo News•June 29, 2018

A senior Democratic strategist says that the first question for President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court — “before their rear end hits the chair” — should be whether he or she was required to pledge loyalty to the president on key issues related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

Ron Klain, who has helped coordinate Democratic party strategy through multiple Supreme Court battles, said on the Yahoo News podcast Skullduggery that Senate Democrats should seek to smoke out the nominee’s views on questions central to the future of the Mueller probe. Among them: whether the president can be indicted, whether he can be forced to testify under subpoena and whether he can pardon himself.

“The very first question this nominee should be asked before their rear end really hits the chair … should be, ‘Did anyone in the administration, did the president, did anyone in the administration ask you your views on these questions?” Klain said. “[Did anyone] ask you your views on Mueller’s jurisdiction or the exemption of the president from potentially being indicted while sitting or the definition of obstruction of justice or anything related?”

Klain, who served as chief of staff to Vice Presidents Joe Biden and Al Gore and was once chief counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee, acknowledged that there were “accepted historical dodges” for Supreme Court nominees when responding to politically contentious questions. Typically, the nominee will say that they can’t respond to hypothetical questions about an issue that might come before the court.

But Democratic senators can pin the nominee down with sharply crafted “fact” questions, Klain said before offering examples: “Were you asked about this in the vetting process? Did you offer a view on this in the vetting process?” That, Klain said, “is not a question the nominee has a right to resist. And that should be question No. 1 here.”

more
https://www.yahoo.com/news/mueller-probe-loyalty-pledge-will-key-confirmation-hearings-top-dem-strategist-says-132428991.html

June 29, 2018

Migrant crisis: EU leaders plan secure migrant centres

Source: BBC News



59 minutes ago

Secure centres for migrants may be set up in EU states to process asylum claims under a deal reached after marathon talks at a summit in Brussels.

The controlled centres would be set up by EU states on a voluntary basis and migrants whose claims were rejected would be "returned". Refugees could be resettled in EU states which agreed to take them.

The deal follows weeks of diplomatic wrangling over migrant rescue ships, and which country should take them in.

Coastguard officials said on Friday that around 100 people were thought to have drowned off the Libyan coast, with 14 rescued.

They were found in waters to the east of the capital, Tripoli.

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44652846

June 29, 2018

Top Ivanka Ally Leaves White House, Signals Giving Up On Paid Family Leave

By Kate Riga | June 29, 2018 9:47 am

Maggie Cordish, one of Ivanka Trump’s closest allies and a lead staffer on paid family leave, is quitting, according to a Thursday Politico report. There are no plans to replace the staffer.

The two women have been good friends since college, and President Donald Trump is close with Cordish’s father.

Along with a loss of support for Ivanka Trump, Cordish’s departure also signals that the White House is largely giving up on its paid family leave push.

Though a White House spokesperson denied that implication to Politico, Republicans have been unsuccessful in moving paid family leave legislation forward.

Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Mike Lee (R-UT) and Joni Ernst (R-IA) have reportedly been working on legislation that would allow people to borrow from their social security to fund paid family leave, but the idea is strongly opposed by Democrats and even some Republicans.

###

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/top-ivanka-aide-leaves-white-house-signals-abandonment-of-paid-family-leave

June 29, 2018

If The Diagnosis Fits... - by Gene Lyons

Full article posted with the permission of the author. -- Don

June 29, 2018 4:00 am

Sociopaths live as permanent imposters. They function largely by imitating the behavior of others. Amoral and utterly lacking in normal emotional bonds, such individuals know right from wrong; they just don’t give a damn. Their world divides into user and used; morality consists of fear of getting caught. And whatever happens, somebody else is always to blame.

The formal term is “narcissistic personality disorder,” defined by the Mayo Clinic as “a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence lies a fragile self-esteem that’s vulnerable to the slightest criticism.”

Sound like anybody in the news?

How such individuals often self-destruct is by venturing out past the boundaries of imitable behavior. My book “Widow’s Web” describes the bizarre antics of an Arkansas woman who murdered her husband in his bed, concocting a series of wild alibis involving hit men out of Chicago that detectives never credited for a minute. But they also never found a murder weapon. Friends and family didn’t know what to think.

That is, until four months after her husband’s death, when the widow threw a champagne party celebrating her non-indictment and called in the press. See, just as the relentless skepticism of homicide cops was new to her, she’d no idea how to play the challenging role of victim’s wife. Photos of her gleefully popping champagne with her new boyfriend on the front page of the statewide newspaper stunned relatives and friends who’d been previously unable to imagine her guilt.

Then they got scared, fearing they could be next. Indeed, Mary Lee Orsini was only getting started.

More from the Mayo Clinic: Sociopaths typically “have a sense of entitlement and require constant, excessive admiration.” They “believe they are superior” and “belittle or look down on people they perceive as inferior.” They characteristically “behave in an arrogant or haughty manner, coming across as conceited, boastful and pretentious,” and “react with rage or contempt and try to belittle (critics) to make themselves appear superior.”

Mostly that’s because such individuals harbor “secret feelings of insecurity, shame, vulnerability and humiliation.”

“Moral imbeciles” was the 19th-century term. Penitentiaries are full of them, as is any institution where conscienceless kissing up, kicking down and shameless prevarication pay off. Alas, there’s no known treatment. Sociopaths are best understood as one of nature’s bewildering little tricks, like ticks and water moccasins.

The classic study is Hervey Cleckley’s 1941 book, “The Mask of Sanity.” But it’s when the mask slips that things can get strange.

My God, she had a champagne party and invited Channel 4?!

Who knew, for example, that millions of Americans would react with shame and horror to the policy of tearing brown-skinned urchins “invading” the United States from their mothers’ arms? Not Donald J. Trump, for whom such children are equivalent to vermin “infesting” the country, like cockroaches, or rats.

My God, he kidnapped 2,500 children and held them hostage?!

Utterly lacking in normal human compassion, Trump had no way of anticipating how his barbarous policy would look to ordinary citizens. His clumsy efforts to lie his way out of the political trap his cruelty and incompetence created only made things worse.

Anyway, it looks as if a line may have been crossed. Never one for understatement, Esquire’s political blogger Charles P. Pierce writes: “You can feel the difference in the air. The members of the governing party, uneasy about the prospects for this year’s midterms anyway, are fairly trembling at the moment, seeing in their mind’s eyes a hundred 30-second spots of weeping toddlers behind chain-link walls …

“The country’s head is clearing. The country’s vision is coming back into focus, and it can see for the first time the length and breadth of the damage it has done to itself. … The hallucinatory effect of a reality-show presidency is dispersing like a foul, smoky mist over a muddy battlefield.”

George F. Will, The Washington Post’s longtime Republican columnist, has had it, urging readers to support Democrats in November to protect the Constitution from Trump: “… to vote against his party’s cowering congressional caucuses is to affirm the nation’s honor while quarantining him.”

GOP campaign consultant Steve Schmidt has formally renounced the Republican Party, no longer the party of Lincoln, but the party of Trump.

Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker laments that kidnapping children “should be appalling to anyone with a heartbeat, but guess what? It isn’t.”

She notes that while 58 percent of Republicans endorse Trump’s actions, two-thirds of Americans do not.

You do the arithmetic. The overall GOP share of the electorate is noticeably diminished. Other polls show that upward of 75 percent of Americans actually favor immigration, correctly seeing it as essential to the nation, as it has been throughout our history.

Trump’s mask is definitely slipping.

###

http://www.nationalmemo.com/if-the-diagnosis-fits/

June 29, 2018

GOP 'Credit-Card' Policies Rack Up $4 Trillion More In Debt - by David Cay Johnston

June 29, 2018 4:00 am

Thanks to the Trump tax cuts for the rich and the corporations they control, the federal debt is growing faster than dandelions in spring, a report Tuesday from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) warned. That’s a complete reversal of what candidate Trump promised voters.

Trump ran for office denouncing the federal debt as dangerously high and asserting that he could pay it all off in eight years. Instead, his tax cuts, together with profligate military spending—far more than the Pentagon says it needs—are growing our government’s debt.

“If current laws generally remained unchanged, CBO projects, growing budget deficits would boost that debt sharply over the next 30 years,” the new report stated. “It would approach 100% of GDP by the end of the next decade and 152% by 2048. That amount would be the highest in the nation’s history by far.”

The most ominous part of the new CBO report examines how the individual tax cuts are, at least for the moment, temporary. They expire after seven years while the corporate tax cuts are permanent. The seven-year limit understated the real costs, as calculated using Congressional budgeting rules.

more
http://www.nationalmemo.com/gop-credit-card-policies-rack-up-4-trillion-more-in-debt/

June 29, 2018

Abortion is already emerging as a top issue in the midterms with Supreme Court vacancy

By James Hohmann
June 29 at 9:34 AM

THE BIG IDEA: President Trump summoned to the White House Thursday night the two Republican women who will likely determine whether his nominee to replace Anthony Kennedy gets confirmed by the Senate and, possibly as a result, whether abortion could again be outlawed in America.

Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who both describe themselves as supporters of reproductive rights, torpedoed Obamacare repeal last summer and voted against confirming Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, forcing Vice President Pence to cast the tie-breaking vote. But they’ve been reliable votes for the president’s judicial nominees, including several who had clear records as antagonistic to abortion.

Collins and Murkowski were joined in the Oval Office by the three Democratic senators who voted last year to confirm Justice Neil Gorsuch and are up for reelection this fall in a red state Trump carried by double digits: Indiana’s Joe Donnelly, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp. They were accompanied by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who will run point on shepherding through whomever Trump picks.

-- As the senators met with Trump, Fox News hosted a live debate in Orlando between the two Republican candidates for Florida governor. Moderator Bret Baier opened by noting that Kennedy’s retirement puts the future of abortion in play. “Both of you here on stage said that you would sign ‘the heartbeat bill’ here in Florida, which would ban abortions after a fetal heart beat is detected. That is viewed as a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade,” Baier said. “Given that, do you believe that the next Supreme Court justice should vote on overturn Roe v. Wade?” Neither answered directly, but both made clear that this is their hope.

“I am thrilled — thrilled! — that President Trump has a second opportunity to remake the U.S. Supreme Court,” replied Adam Putnam, the state agriculture commissioner. “Yes, I’ve said I would sign ‘the heartbeat bill.’ Yes, we need a constitutionalist on the bench … who will … protect and defend life. … I’m honored to have the support of the Florida Family Action Council … because they know that, as governor, I will pursue a pro-life agenda.”

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2018/06/29/daily-202-abortion-is-already-emerging-as-a-top-issue-in-the-midterms-with-supreme-court-vacancy/5b3586b11b326b3348addbb5/

June 29, 2018

The Plan to Overturn Roe v. Wade Is Already In Motion

June 29, 2018 at 6:52 am EDT By Taegan Goddard

“Now that President Trump has the opportunity to appoint a new justice to the Supreme Court, some abortion opponents hope that Roe v. Wade will end up overturned or gutted — and they have already been working towards that moment,” CNN reports.

“Over the past year, state legislatures in Iowa, Louisiana and Mississippi have advanced strict limits on abortion that some lawmakers believe could trigger a successful challenge to the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide.”

However, leaders of the antiabortion movement tell the Washington Post “that they are in no hurry to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision, saying they plan to stick with their long-standing strategy of pushing for incremental restrictions despite the tantalizing prospect of a more conservative Supreme Court.”

###

https://politicalwire.com/2018/06/29/the-plan-to-overturn-roe-v-wade-is-already-in-motion/