Mr. Rosenstein mounted a step-by-step defense of Mr. Mueller’s conduct. He noted that department rules prevented Mr. Mueller from taking political affiliation into consideration when hiring for career positions, and he distinguished between officials holding political views and making investigative decisions out of bias.
.. “We recognize we have employees with political opinions. And it’s our responsibility to make sure those opinions do not influence their actions,” Mr. Rosenstein said
.. “Based upon what I know, I believe Director Mueller is appropriately remaining in his scope and conducting himself appropriately, and in the event there is any credible allegation of misconduct by anybody on his staff, that he is taking appropriate action.”
.. If Mr. Trump were to try to fire Mr. Mueller based on any developments so far, the president would likely first have to fire or force the resignation of Mr. Rosenstein and then hunt for a replacement willing to carry out his orders, echoing Richard Nixon’s so-called Saturday Night Massacre during the Watergate scandal.
.. The campaign against the special counsel, at the very least, provides a rallying cry for the president’s supporters to counter the drumbeat of news about Russian interference in the election and possible links to the Trump campaign.
.. Moreover, the voices of doubt are no longer confined to the party’s far-right wing. They include Republican mainstays like Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Charles E. Grassley of Iowa.
.. The president’s own legal team also appears to be part of the campaign.
The Republican War on Children
Would you be willing to take health care away from a thousand children with the bad luck to have been born into low-income families so that you could give millions of extra dollars to just one wealthy heir?
.. The other day Senator Orrin Hatch, asked about the program (which he helped create), once again insisted that it will be funded — but without saying when or how (and there don’t seem to be any signs of movement on the issue). And he further declared, “The reason CHIP’s having trouble is that we don’t have money anymore.” Then he voted for an immense tax cut.
.. The number of taxable estates is also, by the way, well under one one-thousandth of the number of children covered by CHIP.
.. but children’s health care is relatively cheap compared with care for older Americans. In fiscal 2016 the program cost only $15 billion, a tiny share of the federal budget.
As you see, then, my question wasn’t at all hypothetical. By their actions, Republicans are showing that they consider it more important to give extra millions to one already wealthy heir than to provide health care to a thousand children.
.. And when you hear about family farms broken up to pay estate tax, remember: Nobody has ever come up with a modern example.
.. Then there’s the argument of Senator Chuck Grassley that we need to eliminate estate taxes to reward those who don’t spend their money on “booze or women or movies.” Yes, indeed, letting the likes of Donald Trump Jr. inherit wealth tax-free is a reward for their fathers’ austere lifestyles.
.. there’s considerable evidence that aiding lower-income children actually saves money in the long run.
.. Children who get adequate care are more likely to be healthier and more productive when they become adults, which means that they’ll earn more and pay more in taxes. They’re also less likely to become disabled and need government support. One recent study estimated that the government in fact earns a return of between 2 and 7 percent on the money it spends insuring children... broadly similar results have been found for the food stamp program: Ensuring adequate nutrition for the young means healthier, more productive adults, so that in the long run this aid costs taxpayers little or nothing... That is, however, exactly what’s happening. And it’s as bad, in its own way, as that same party’s embrace of a child molester because they expect him to vote for tax cuts.
No Wonder Millennials Hate Capitalism
The anti-Communist Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation was alarmed to find in a recent survey that 44 percent of millennials would prefer to live in a socialist country, compared with 42 percent who want to live under capitalism.
.. But given the increasingly oligarchic nature of our economy, it’s not surprising that for many young people, capitalism looks like the god that failed.
.. the rich people who would benefit from the measures passed by the House and the Senate tend to be older (and whiter) than the population at large.
Younger people would foot the bill, either through higher taxes, diminished public services or both. They stand to inherit an even more stratified society than the one they were born into.
.. there’s also an ideology at work, one that sees the rich as more productive and deserving than others... consider what Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, told The Des Moines Register about the need to repeal the estate tax, which falls only on heirs of multimillionaires and billionaires. “I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing, as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies,” he said... Senator Orrin Hatch .. He went on to rant against the poor: “I have a rough time wanting to spend billions and billions and trillions of dollars to help people who won’t help themselves — won’t lift a finger — and expect the federal government to do everything.” It was unclear whether he was talking about the nearly nine million children covered through CHIP or their parents... You don’t have to want to abolish capitalism to understand why the prospect is tempting to a generation that’s being robbed.
Health Care in Iowa Shows Peril for Both Political Parties
At his town-hall meeting in Guthrie Center, Mr. Grassley got an earful from residents whose premiums have risen and choices dwindled as insurers that offer plans in the state’s ACA marketplace have fled, potentially leaving Iowa without any major companies offering plans in 2018.
The defections have turned Iowa into a poster child for Republicans who assert that former President Barack Obama’s health law has failed and must be replaced.
“Iowa is in a world of hurt, and something has to be done because Obamacare is a total disaster,” said Guthrie County resident Vinita Smith, a Republican retiree who used to work as a clerk in the state legislature.
.. Democrats, meanwhile, argue that Iowa’s coverage gains under the Medicaid expansion that took place under the Affordable Care Act—about 150,000 Iowans were added to the program— could be swept away by the GOP effort to slash billions from the program.
.. Iowa insurers had particular trouble setting up networks with low prices because there are few providers and hospitals to compete against one another in the state’s many rural areas.
Insurers who participated in the Iowa exchange expected to be reimbursed by under what is know as a risk-corridor program set up by the ACA. But Republicans limited funding for the payments, and insurers received a fraction of the money they requested.
Meanwhile, an Obama administration decision to allow states to let people keep insurance plans they already had—even if they didn’t comply with ACA requirements—permitted younger and healthier people to stay on those less-robust plans. That drove older and sicker people to plans that did comply, leaving those insurers with higher costs and heavier financial losses.
.. “The individual market was broken before the ACA