Their fellow legislators have silently accepted his outrages in exchange for policies they’ve always wanted.
At his inauguration Mr. Trump said his presidency was about “transferring power from Washington, D.C., and giving it back to you, the American people.” But he and his allies in Congress are transferring power to Wall Street, fossil fuel companies, the chemical industry and other special interests, and are stoking an anti-populist bonfire to incinerate protections for consumers and workers.
.. On Tuesday night the Senate, with a tiebreaking vote from Vice President Mike Pence, followed the House in voting to overturn a rule that would have allowed consumers to file class-action lawsuits against banks and other financial institutions, rather than be forced to take their disputes to arbitration.
.. Mr. Trump signed an executive order allowing insurers to sell skimpy health insurance plans that do not protect people with pre-existing conditions and that will destabilize the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces.
.. His administration shortened the open enrollment period when people can buy insurance policies for next year, and slashed spending on advertising and outreach efforts.
.. Congress overturned a rule restricting the ability of coal companies to dump their mining debris into streams and other waterways, threatening rural communities, forests and wildlife.
.. The head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, rejected a staff recommendation to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos, which has been linked to developmental problems in children, and started the process to overturn the Clean Power Plan, the Obama-era proposal to reduce planet-warming emissions from power plants.
.. Congress repealed a Securities and Exchange Commission rule that sought to expose and limit corruption by requiring oil and mining companies to disclose payments to foreign governments.
How Trump broke conservatism
Chief among them is Trump’s assault on truth, which takes a now-familiar form. First, assert and maintain a favorable lie. Second, attack and discredit sources of opposition. Third, declare victory based on power or applause.
So, Trump claimed that Florida Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson’s account of his conversation with a Gold Star widow was “totally fabricated.” (Not true.) Wilson, after all, is “wacky.” (Not relevant.) And Trump won the interchange because Wilson is “killing the Democrat Party.” (We’ll see.)
The pattern is invariable. President Barack Obama is a Kenyan; the Mexican government deliberately dumps criminals across the border; “thousands and thousands” of people in New Jersey celebrated the 9/11 attacks ; Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz’s father consorted with Lee Harvey Oswald; vaccination schedules can be tied to autism; Obama was “wiretapping” Trump Tower during the presidential campaign; Obama asked British intelligence to spy on Trump; at least 3 million immigrants voted illegally in the 2016 election. Any source that disputes Trump is personally defamed or dismissed as “fake news.” And how is truth ultimately adjudicated? “The country believes me,” Trump said earlier this year. “Hey, I went to Kentucky two nights ago. We had 25,000 people.” Confronted by a reporter about his routine deceptions, Trump answered, “I can’t be doing so badly, because I’m president and you’re not.”
.. Conservatives were supposed to be the protectors of objective truth from various forms of postmodernism. Now they generally defend our thoroughly post-truth president. Evidently we are all relativists now.
.. The problem is not just the constant lies. It is the dismissal of reason and objectivity as inherently elitist and partisan.
a pernicious form of tyranny: a tyranny over the mind.
.. The alternative to reasoned discourse is the will to power... This is the frightening direction of Trumpism. It is the corruption that good men such as White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly are enabling.
Making sense of Russia, uranium and Hillary Clinton
“Multiple current and former government officials told the Hill they did not know whether the FBI or [Justice Department] ever alerted committee members to the criminal activity they uncovered,”
.. This is a key point. In response to the Hill’s report, the Senate Judiciary Committee has asked the agencies that signed off on the deal to disclose what, if anything, they knew about the FBI’s investigation. If it were to turn out that Clinton and others were aware of the FBI’s findings — and ignored them — that could be difficult to explain.
.. The FBI investigation was still four years from completion at the time that the uranium deal was approved.
.. Ronald Hosko, who served as the assistant FBI director in charge of criminal cases when the investigation was underway, told the Hill he did not recall ever being briefed about Mikerin’s case by the counterintelligence side of the bureau, despite the criminal charges that were being lodged.
“I had no idea this case was being conducted,” a surprised Hosko said in an interview.
Likewise, major congressional figures were also kept in the dark.
Former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who chaired the House Intelligence Committee during the time the FBI probe was being conducted, told the Hill that he had never been told anything about the Russian nuclear corruption case, even though many fellow lawmakers had serious concerns about the Obama administration’s approval of the Uranium One deal.
.. If people like Hosko and Rogers did not know about the FBI’s investigation, then Clinton probably didn’t, either.
.. The New York Times reported in 2015 that “as the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation.”It is virtually impossible to view these donations as anything other than an attempt to curry favor with Clinton. Donations alone do not, however, prove that Clinton was actually influenced by money to vote in favor of the Uranium One sale — or to overlook the FBI investigation. Again, there is no evidence that she even knew about the investigation... Similarly, it is virtually impossible to view foreign dignitaries’ habit of lodging at Trump’s Washington hotel as anything other than an attempt to curry favor with the president. Reservations and room service alone do not, however, prove that Trump’s foreign policy is actually influenced by money.
Tarantino on Weinstein: ‘I Knew Enough to Do More Than I Did’
“I knew enough to do more than I did,” he said, citing several episodes involving prominent actresses. “There was more to it than just the normal rumors, the normal gossip. It wasn’t secondhand. I knew he did a couple of these things.”
“I wish I had taken responsibility for what I heard,” he added. “If I had done the work I should have done then, I would have had to not work with him.”
.. His own former girlfriend, Mira Sorvino, told him about unwelcome advances and unwanted touching by Mr. Weinstein. Another actress told him a similarly upsetting story years later. He also knew that the actress Rose McGowan had reached a settlement with the producer.
.. But Mr. Tarantino said he had failed to consider whether the women he knew were part of a larger pattern of abuse.
.. When he and Ms. Sorvino started dating in 1995, she told him that not long before, Mr. Weinstein had massaged her without asking, chased her around a hotel room and even showed up at her apartment in the middle of the night, a story she recently shared with The New Yorker.
.. But the thing I thought then, at the time, was that he was particularly hung up on Mira.” She had won accolades for her performance in “Mighty Aphrodite,” and “I thought Harvey was hung up on her in this Svengali kind of way,” Mr. Tarantino said. “Because he was infatuated with her, he horribly crossed the line.”
.. Hollywood has been “operating under an almost Jim Crow-like system that us males have almost tolerated,” he said. “We allowed it to exist because that’s the way it was.”
.. Don’t just give out statements. Acknowledge that there was something rotten in Denmark. Vow to do better by our sisters.”