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Congressional honor? A breeder of hope? Hold not your breath …

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Is hope a descendant of honor?

If if is, perhaps a little hope can be derived from recent statements of members of Congress in response to the lunacy of the GOP candidate for president. Donald “I am your voice” Trump has rashly criticized two Americans who lost their son to combat in a foreign land. Trump did this, apparently, because Khizr and Ghazala Khan are Muslim Americans from Pakistan.

Some Republican members of Congress have repudiated Trump’s remarks.

From Sen. John McCain of Arizona: “While our party has bestowed upon him the nomination, it is not accompanied by unfettered license to defame those who are the best among us.”

From Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, who is seeking re-election: “I am appalled that Donald Trump would disparage [the Khans] and that he had the gall to compare his own sacrifices to those of a Gold Star family.”

From an aide, speaking for House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin: “The speaker has made clear many times that he rejects this idea, and himself has talked about how Muslim Americans have made the ultimate sacrifice for this country.”

Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, who is seeking re-election, said the Kahns “deserve to be heard and respected.”

Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado, who is seeking re-election, said he was “deeply offended when Donald Trump fails to honor the sacrifices of all of our brave soldiers who were lost in that war.”

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham of South Carolina, whose campaign for the GOP presidential nomination sputtered and died:

 This is going to a place where we’ve never gone before, to push back against the families of the fallen. There used to be some things that were sacred in American politics — that you don’t do — like criticizing the parents of a fallen soldier, even if they criticize you. If you’re going to be leader of the free world, you have to be able to accept criticism. Mr. Trump can’t.

GOP members of Congress have pounced on Trump’s repeated denunciations of the Kahns. I suppose that’s honorable behavior. And I suppose it suggests hope that coherent, intelligent, moral thought would from arise somewhere in the Republican Party. (Note: Democrats are not immune from incoherent, unintelligent, amoral thought.)

But it would be more honorable if GOP congressional critics of Trump’s irrational behaviors had also withdrawn their endorsements of his candidacy and subsequent nomination. But few, if any, have done so.

Why is that?

Politics.

Jennifer Steinhauer of The New York Times explains:

For congressional Republicans, Mr. Trump’s inflammatory remarks are a vexing challenge. On one hand, they want to distance themselves just enough to try to grab support from voters of both parties who do not intend to vote for Mr. Trump but may split their tickets. But they do not want to outright flip on their prior endorsements of Mr. Trump, because they need his supporters’ votes to win, too. …

Republican leaders believe they need to continue to support Mr. Trump, if only to provide cover for the party’s candidates up for re-election. Republicans struggle to name policy positions of Mr. Trump that they prefer to those of his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, but they often settle on their fear of the type of justices a President Clinton would name to the Supreme Court.

In other words, GOP congressional leaders need re-election to retain power in the House and Senate. So they may criticize Trump but won’t rescind endorsements for fear of alienating Trump voters — whose votes members of Congress need.

If you point this out to them, their likely reply: “Hey, I want to be in Congress not for me — I just want to be able to do the business of the American people.”

Bullshit.

How much “business of the American people” has Congress accomplished (and Democrats are complicit) in recent years? So far this year, GOP leaders have only accomplished not doing their job — giving a fair hearing and a vote to the duly nominated candidate for the Supreme Court vacancy.

As honor dwindles, so does hope.



Clinton, Trump plans to fix nation’s infrastructure offer little

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Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president, says she wants to spend $275 billion over five years to rebuild American roads and bridges. As noted here last year, that’s nowhere near enough money. Donald “I am your voice” Trump, the GOP nominee, says he’ll spend twice as much.

Neither candidate is overly specific on the details of how to fund those repairs.

But the amounts suggested are piddling. Take Clinton’s $275 billion, for example. What will that buy?

aging-infrastructureAccording to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, the United States has “4.12 million miles of road in the United States, according to the Federal Highway Administration, including Alaska and Hawaii. The core of the nation’s highway system is the 47,575 miles of Interstate Highways, which comprise just over 1 percent of highway mileage but carry one-quarter of all highway traffic.” [emphasis added]

The association provides a variety of estimates for road construction and reconstruction, varying by number of lanes, urban vs. rural, rebuilding vs. milling and repaving, and so on.

Using a middle-of-the-road (an appropriate cliché here, I suppose) figure of $5 million per mile, Clinton’s proposed spending would buy reconstruction of about 45,000 miles of highways — only 1 percent of America’s traffic-bearing byways.

That’s just highways. What about the rest of the nation’s overwhelming infrastructure woes? So far, we have failed to invest in them. Bridges. Dams. Ports. Chemical plants. Refineries. Wastewater systems. Clean water facilities. Airports. Railroads. Hazardous waste (and nuclear waste). Schools. Energy production. Public parks and recreation.

The American Society of Civil Engineers in its May 10 report estimates that failure to act on all infrastructure needs costs each American family about $3,400 annually. According to the society, the United States needs “an additional investment of $157 billion a year between now and 2020.” [emphasis added] The bill due now — in 2016 — is $1.6 trillion. Not acting in a meaningful way before 2020 would add another $1.1 trillion.

Jeffrey Goldfarb, writing for Thomson Reuters’ “Breaking Views,” says, “Multiple efforts to plow more money into the country’s infrastructure following the financial crisis have been steamrolled by conservative members of Congress. They fear adding to the national debt, which stands at some $19 trillion.”

But shouldn’t GOP conservatives, who likely would advocate for improving the nation’s economy to the benefit of business, see significant infrastructure spending as a worthwhile investment? Money’s cheap to borrow these days.

From Goldfarb:

Dogmatically fixating on America’s balance sheet on this subject badly misses the point. Even assuming a conservative 5 percent return, most U.S. infrastructure investment probably would pay for itself easily. It costs Uncle Sam just 2.3 percent to borrow for 30 years. Factor in inflation and the real interest rate is close to zero. There would be potentially millions of new, well-paying jobs. The extent of the stimulating effect on the economy is debatable, but there almost certainly would be one. Those kinds of numbers should be easy enough for the party of business, the GOP, to understand.

A much bigger investment in America’s infrastructure than either Clinton or Trump propose is badly needed. Failure to act only adds many more billions to the trillion-dollar cost every day.


In just a decade, ‘content’ trumped ‘news’

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Ten years has seen the evisceration of newsrooms; the alteration of form, function, and distribution of information; and the emergence of a distorted public discourse. Oh, joy.

Since 2007, I’ve written about the stark reductions in numbers of reporters and editors in America’s daily print newsrooms. During that time, I’ve witnessed more than 20,000 newsroom jobs vanish. Now, it seems, only about 30,000 men and women toil in those newsrooms.

MediaI chose toiled deliberately. First, those who remain have had to meet the continued and unchanged corporate demand for product or content once produced by twice their number. Second, the job has changed: In addition to the still-present demand for print content, those 20,000 face the imposition of onerous digital deadlines and unbelievable expectations of quantity. Post so many stories a day, or an hour, they’re told. That, of course, has impacts on the quality of those stories.

For many, those who remain even have different titles — they are no longer reporters or editors. They have become “community content editors,” “content coaches,” “presentation team members,” “engagement editors,” “headline optimizers,” “story scientists,” or “curators in chief.”

Yes, the operations of those places once known as “newsrooms” are rapidly and radically changing. But that obvious observation obscures a few emerging realities about how information (once known as “news”) is crafted and distributed.

The American Society of News Editors (née American Society of Newspaper Editors) has for more than 40 years surveyed the workforce in newsrooms to determine diversity percentages and issues. Since 2006, ASNE has reported in that survey how many professionals work full time in the newsrooms of newspaper organizations.

But not this year. So much has changed in newsrooms — job titles, management perceptions of newsroom functions, etc. — that ASNE has stopped trying to figure out how many men and women work there. From the ASNE release:

First, we no longer estimate the number of journalists working in newsrooms. Previously, ASNE survey results included a projection for the number of journalists working in newsrooms based on what for years were relatively standard employment levels. Today, the structure of modern newsrooms makes it impractical and error-prone to try to estimate the number of working journalists. …

A second major change is that we did not ask news organizations to classify employees by job category. Editors have told us this change was needed because roles and titles are continually transforming. [emphasis added]

Those uncountable people may now work in media companies that are not necessarily companies whose principal products are the stories reported and written by journalists. True, digital-native media companies have journalistic output, but entertainment and infotainment functions are likely to dominate. The amorphous universe of content boils down to media companies telling readers and viewers what they want to know in far greater quantity than what ye old editors of sound mind and judgment once told those readers and viewers they need to know.

Social media sites, once mere transmitters of content, are emerging as content creators. Witness the emergence of social media like Snapchat, Instagram, and others who have begun hiring men and women with journalism skills to produce that content. Ads can be sold against that home-grown material. The new social-media company motto: “There’s gold in them thar content.”

And, of course, there’s Facebook, that duplicitous mountebank of algorithms raking in advertising sheckels while claiming it’s not a media company. It’s the Bigfoot of Distribution for new and legacy media companies alike. Yet it can’t tell the difference between child pornography and iconic war photography.

So those producing the content, what the content is, and how the content is distributed to consumers has been altered drastically in just a decade. The arena of public intercourse once customarily fed by, among others, the output of journalists has been replaced by a cacophonous clamor for content often unfettered by accuracy or taste.

And still the journalism companies or content creation companies (choose your fave) struggle to make money. No money, no content. That’s the deal. Right now, too many companies are trying too many schemes to make money. So far, a home-run business model has yet to emerge.

Even accredited “journalism” programs, of which there are more than 100, face struggles regarding these changes, both in purpose and identity. Although the plurality of those programs remain schools of “journalism and mass communication,” name changes are emerging to reflect the changes in the media industries they serve. A few examples:

West Virginia University’s Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism to the Reed College of Media

University of Colorado’s School of Journalism & Mass Communication ceased to exist; journalism subsumed into the College of Media, Communication and Information

Northwestern’s fabled Medill School of Journalism has become Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications.

More will come. Even my own program, the Russell J. Jandoli School of Journalism and Mass Communication, changed its name this month to the Jandoli School of Communication. Journalism programs are trying to figure out what they are in a time of radical change in media purpose, function, and production.

A decade of turmoil has altered how consumers want information delivered, the kind they want, and the ways it’s paid for (or, sadly, not). It’s influenced intelligent discourse (and not for the better) about almost everything. Hell, Trump has risen in this horrendous, angry, meme-dominated, and truth-absent public sphere, hasn’t he?

Storm tides are still rollin’ in, folks. That will continue until more people make better decisions about how information enters consumers’ lives — and what kind of information it is.


Next time, ask the Reagan question before you vote

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On January 1, 2019, as President Trump approaches his third state of the union address, people in America should pop the Reagan question: Are you better off than you were four years ago?

Those in the United States should ask, for example:

“Is my health insurance costing me more out of pocket than under Obama? Am I getting better, more affordable benefits?”

“Can I still get health insurance?”

“Have work restrictions been placed on my Medicare benefits? Has my state limited Medicare benefits?”

“Has my property tax bill gone up or down?”

“Has the rusty bridge carrying my daughter’s school bus been fixed?”

“I live in a city. Has my child developed asthma in the past year?”

“What’s the interest rate on a new car now?”

“Do I have to pay more for my prescription medications?”

“Am I on a different side of The Wall now?”

“Is it more difficult for me to vote now? Do I have to show a photo ID to vote if I didn’t in 2016?”

“Is being a member of a union useful to me any more?”

“Is there a union for me to join?”

“Will my child in the military need to fight a war in southeast Asia? Or eastern Europe? Or guard an oil well in the Mideast?”

“Will I (or my child) have to worry about being drafted into military service?”

“I had a job in 2016. Do I have one now?”

“I didn’t have a job in 2016. Do I have one now?”

“Can I be sure that the food I eat is as safe as it was in 2016?”

“Did we add more nuclear bombs to the U.S. arsenal? Does Iran have a bomb now? Does North Korea? What about Israel?”

“Do we sell more or fewer weapons to Saudi Arabia?”

“Is my child getting a better education now? Are there more or fewer computers in her school? Are the teachers better?”

“Are more potholes being fixed?”

“Are TSA lines at the airport longer?”

“Are we spending more or less on foreign aid?”

“Is the federal deficit higher or lower now?”

“What’s the price of gasoline? Of bread? Of milk?”

“Did the Keystone pipeline get built?”

“Are my Social Security benefits still the same?”

“Have any big bank executives been charged with crimes?”

“Do I have the same doctor?”

“What about my student loans? Higher? Lower?”

“Do colleges cost more now?”

“Has the post office in my town been closed?”

“Do I still have to wait a long time to get an appointment at a VA clinic?”

“Has a federal treaty with my tribe been broken or ignored again?”

“What’s my tax bracket now?”

“Can I hire a refugee from the Mideast to work for my company?”

“Has the gender, racial, or ethnic mix of teachers at my child’s school changed?”

“Do I have to worry about Russia again?”

“Who’s looking out for my family?”


Despite campaign promises, Donald can’t revive coal industry

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President Donald wants to revive America’s coal industry. He says regulations, most notably from the Environmental Protection Agency, have forced coal plants to close. So he wants to do away with those damn unfriendly regulations (such as the mercury and air toxics standards, the proposed cross-state pollution standard and the proposed limitations of carbon dioxide emissions). After that, Appalachian coal will again be riven from the earth, reviving the industry.

Nope. Won’t happen. Coal lost. Natural gas, thanks to fracking, won.

Coal plants are old; their median age is 44 years old. More than 90 percent of coal plants were built in the 1980s or earlier. Those comprise 697 of the total 765 utility-level coal plants. In 2015, utilities closed 94 coal-fired generating plants with a capacity of more than 13,000 megawatts. Their average age at retirement was 58 years old. 2016 will see more than 5,000 megawatts of capacity closed at 41 coal plants.

No problem, President “Last Shot for Miners” Donald might suggest. Cut regulations. Reopen mines to let the coal flow. Build more plants to burn coal.

Utility industry executives aren’t that stupid. Building a new 600-megawatt, coal-fired power plant would cost $2 billion. Such a plant could take four to six years to permit and construct. No executive would promote spending that much money over that much time for a plant with a design lifetime of half a century.

That’s because anything President Donald does (even if he serves two terms) to promote coal use by American utilities could be undone at the stroke of a pen by a new president with a different view of energy policy.

But no problem, President Donald might argue. Export American coal! That’d bring the mines back! Coal rules! Economic boost to Appalachia and Wyoming!

No, not really.

The United States remains a net exporter of coal. But in 2015, coal exports fell for the third consecutive year. The world uses less coal, so global coal prices are down. Other countries export coal with lesser mining costs, cheaper transportation, and favorable exchange rates. U.S. coal producers are now at a global disadvantage.

American energy consumers have voted against coal with their money. Wind and solar have made substantial inroads in producing electricity. Solar panel prices have become competitive.

So President Donald will not revive the American coal industry. But he promised hard-luck coal miners and their families in Wyoming, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania he’d bring their jobs back.

Instead of yelling “Put her in jail!” at President Donald’s rallies, perhaps those miners ought to have shouted, “How, Donald?”


Narcissism, promises, and job approval: a bad mix for President Donald

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An inability to focus on consequences that do not center on him. Check. An absence of empathy for others. Check. A lack of impulse control coupled to a need to lash out at perceived offenses (and offenders). Check. A vainglorious view of himself. Check. An ever-present, almost childlike, need for praise. Check.

Build the Wall TrumpPresident-Elect Donald is a narcissist. That’s the conclusion of Alan J. Lipman, a clinical psychologist, chronicled in a commentary on CNN. But we already know that, don’t we? We’ve seen it repeatedly at his rallies and in his Twitter rants. But so far, he’s insulated himself from the consequences of his narcissism. Even past Republican critics, such as the speaker of the House, and big-money donors who did not support his candidacy are falling in line, creating an imaginary unity.

President-Elect Donald’s egregious behaviors have become acceptable because so many legislators and donors have too much at stake (power, influence, government contracts, etc.) to suggest the emperor-elect is naked.

But there’s one judge of presidential behavior, character, and leadership President-Elect Donald has yet to face — George Gallup’s question:

Do you approve or disapprove of the way ____ is handling his job as president?

Beginning at noon on January 20, President Donald will face that poll question. Each day. Day after day. How will he and his aberrant Twitter account react to the repeated judgments of a rolling panel of 1,500 anonymous respondents?

Gallup first asked that question about Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930s. His organization has continued asking it since. Nowadays polling organizations do daily tracking polls of perception of presidential job performance. Politicians, especially presidents, keep close track of such polls (despite, when poll numbers are low, the occasional dark muttering that “polls don’t mean anything”).

A year ago, the Pew Research Center looked at presidential job approval ratings (both its and Gallup’s) back to Eisenhower. It noted several findings. Among them:

  • Views of the opposing party have become increasingly negative. No surprise there. Antipathy for the other party deepened during the Reagan era. Thank Reagan image maker Michael Deaver for accelerating it, and House Speak Newt Gingrich for amplifying it. Lest we forget, Lee Atwater, as a Reaganite and Bush No. 1 campaign manager, divided the parties further.
  • Scandals don’t necessarily precipitate a sudden drop in approval. Clinton hit 71 percent while mired in the Monica scandal and hit 71 percent again when impeached. Reagan dropped to 49 percent amid the Iran-Contra scandal but left office at 63 percent. Nixon, hammered by Watergate, fell from 68 percent after re-election to 24 percent.

The “Access Hollywood” video depicting Candidate Donald as a misogynistic dimwit didn’t keep him from being elected. So presidential displays of rampant sexism and arrogant racism by him or members of his advised and confirmed administration are unlikely to crank up or down his job approval rating.

But what about promises made but broken? Ask Bush No. 1 about that. “Read my lips: No new taxes” did not lead to a second term. Politifact has listed President-Elect Donald’s top 10 promises, beginning with building The Wall and sending The Bill to Mexico. But politicians are always vague, right?

“Voters generally do not punish candidates for being vague, and in partisan elections voters actually prefer ambiguous candidates over precise ones,” Stanford University political scientists Michael Tomz and Robert Van Houweling found in a study. “The reason, we find, is that ambiguity allows voters to ‘see what they want to see’ in members of their own party.”

Presidential candidates are always damnably vague. But presidents are judged on actual performance by the rolling panel of 1,500 poll respondents. As it becomes apparent to the 62,979,879 citizens who voted for President-Elect Donald that what he says and what he does differ, will they ignore his tweeted deflections from the facts? When asked how President Donald is doing, will they begin to rank him lower?

Presidential approval ratings rise and fall over a term (or two) as seen in this Gallup chart. They can be influenced by how Americans perceive their financial well-being (“It’s the economy, stupid”), unexpected or tragic events (September 11, 2001), or the perception of too much corruption (Watergate).

That’s why late last year I suggested Americans ask themselves the Reagan question midway through President Donald’s term. Their answers will likely determine his job approval rating, and whether he’ll be around for a second term.


Obama, Holder to lead fight against gerrymandering

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Competition is good. Free markets are good. Give everyone a shot at the brass ring. Get rid of regulations that stifle competition and opportunity.

CATEGORY: PoliticsLawGovernment3Thus spake many a Republican (and often a Democratic) politician, saying they only want to hand business interests in America a clear road to economic growth and apparent prosperity for all.

So why do those same politicians, at federal and state levels, balk at attempts to introduce competitiveness in elections?

What, you say? American state and federal elections are not competitive? Senate re-election rates have averaged nearly 90 percent in the past 16 years; House rates are higher still. Two years ago, Congress had an 11 percent approval rating … but a 96 percent re-election rate.

Why is that? Gerrymandering — the manipulation of election districts to afford one political party an advantage over the other. Gerrymandering is the death of routinely competitive elections throughout the nation. Congressional districts are redrawn after the decennial census because of population shifts. That means the next round of political warfare over district boundaries begins in 2021. (Actually, it never ends. Redistricting is complicated and time-consuming, and the process varies from state to state.)

The National Democratic Redistricting Committee wants 2021 to lead to fairer district maps. (Caveat: Democrats are no mere innocents in redrawing districts; Republicans, however, have made advantageous redistricting into an art form.)

The committee will have two formidable spear carriers in the effort — a former attorney general of the United States, Eric H. Holder Jr., and an about-to-be former president of the United States, Barack Obama.

Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin, writing in The New York Times this week, point out that President Obama is unlikely to fade into cushy retirement as some of his predecessors have.

For Mr. Obama, the redistricting campaign signals how personally engaged in electoral politics he intends to be after leaving office, unlike many former presidents who enjoy something of a cooling-off period. Mr. Obama has also appeared to concede in recent weeks that he spent a limited amount of time tending to the Democratic Party as an institution during his time in office, and in a television interview explained almost apologetically that the presidency is a time-consuming job.

Holder said the two friends won’t be alone in the effort. Joe Biden, the about-to-be former vice president, and several former and current cabinet members will be on board. These are not happy campers who are leaving federal service. President Obama is not likely to remain silent in the face of a Republican president and Congress relentlessly undermining and overturning his achievements.

But redistricting may be a special preoccupation among Mr. Obama and his allies: For them, Mr. Holder said, there is considerable resentment of how an entrenched House Republican majority undermined the president’s goals over three-quarters of his tenure.

“The tasks that he had placed before him were made a lot more difficult, progress a lot more difficult, than it needed to be,” Mr. Holder said of Mr. Obama. “That’s because of the Congress that he had to deal with, which was a function of the 2010 redistricting effort.”

Gerrymandering in redistricting needs to end – even when Democrats have to surrender their “safe” seats in the process. President Obama, a skilled politician fueled no doubt by Republican obstructionism over the last eight years, still has a remarkable political and fundraising machine at his beck and call.

Gerrymandering now has powerful, motivated opponents. Maybe in 2021 redistricting will become fairer.


President Donald’s already shrunken government

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The Trump transition team has yet to name all its executive branch officials, moving to fill only about 4 percent of positions needing Senate approval.

trumpPresident Donald has yet to flesh out the rest of the executive branch despite Vice President Mike Pence’s claim that “We’re wrapping up this transition on schedule and under budget,” according to Politico’s Influence newsletter.

The heat of media scrutiny has fallen on top-level Cabinet posts, and deservedly so. But President Donald as of yesterday, when he was still president-elect, has moved to fill only 4 percent of the 690 executive branch appointments requiring Senate confirmation.

From an analysis by Bloomberg’s Jonathan Bernstein:

Look at the big four departments. There’s no Trump appointee for any of the top State Department jobs below secretary nominee Rex Tillerson. No Trump appointee for any of the top Department of Defense jobs below retired general James Mattis. Treasury? Same story. Justice? It is one of two departments (along with, bizarrely, Commerce) where Trump has selected a deputy secretary. But no solicitor general, no one at civil rights, no one in the civil division, no one for the national security division.

And the same is true in department after department. Not to mention agencies without anyone at all nominated by the president-elect.

According to Politico’s Michael Crowley, the lack of necessary appointments in the national security apparatus prompts the question of whether President Donald’s administration will be prepared to deal with unexpected or unanticipated crises.

The abrupt withdrawal of a top Trump National Security Council appointee and the dozens of high-level personnel holes across key foreign policy and defense agencies have national security experts posing a dark question: Will Donald Trump be ready to manage a national security crisis from Day One?

Sources close to the transition describe Trump’s national security staffing as a “black box,” leaving everyone from Obama administration officials to Trump job seekers and foreign diplomats guessing at who will land crucial positions shaping policy and managing crises.

Much of the speculation focuses on the NSC, which plays the vital role of coordinating foreign policy and national security within the White House. NSC aides refine and advise the president on competing policy options generated throughout the federal government.

But the Trump team has also not yet announced any appointments below the Cabinet level for the departments of State or Defense, leaving many more important posts open days before Trump’s inauguration.

In Crowley’s piece, Philip Gordon, who held senior National Security Council jobs in the Obama and Clinton White Houses, explains why this is dangerous.

Unlike State, which can rely on its bureaucracy, the NSC has to be ready on Day One as most of its old team leaves. In a normal world, even before a single presidential phone call or meeting or decision the NSC team would prepare background, points, facts, etc. They will not have a team ready to do that. But it’s not clear Trump operates that way or would use any of the stuff anyway.

President Donald’s administration arrives far from fully formed. Will he be able to take advantage (given the GOP controls Congress) of that media-proclaimed honeymoon known as the First 100 Days?

Writes Bernstein:

When it comes to policy, Trump will be only a vague presence in the executive branch during the months when presidents normally have the best chance to get things done. It’s not news to anyone that bureaucrats are skilled in resisting the preferences of presidents. But an entrenched bureaucracy against a secretary (and in most cases, a secretary with little government experience or little policy expertise or both) and a bunch of empty desks? That’s no contest. Congress and interest groups may still have plenty of clout inside the departments and agencies, but Trump, at least until he has some people there, will have little.

[E]ven if there’s no catastrophic failure, lack of leadership will, as should be no surprise, yield inertia and low morale, leading to steadily worse performance.

Perhaps the failure to fill these positions represents President Donald’s attempt to shrink the size of the federal government as he promised. If so, he’s wrong: These are the positions he could use to actually accomplish that.



If they lie, journalists should stop covering the White House. Let the interns do it.

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President Donald’s press secretary boldly and bluntly lied to the White House press corps last week. Yawn.

sean-spicer-white-houseWell, so what? Politicians and their spear carriers have prevaricated, evaded, fibbed, misinformed, misdirected, and dissembled since the dawn of government.

But Sean Spicer lied. He did not disguise the lie. He told lies easily contravened. He did so acting as the representative of the president of the United States. He did so just days after promising he wouldn’t lie.

Media navel gazers pounced. The Washington Post’s media columnist, Margaret Sullivan, said Spicer’s lies represented “remarks made over the casket at the funeral of access journalism.” Ari Fleischer, press secretary to President George W. Bush, said on NPR, “The American people question whether the press report things accurately and fairly. … And so the press has invited this vulnerability onto itself, and we’re watching this live now on TV.”

What should the press do about press conferences conducted by either President Donald or Spicer? After all, war has been declared by Spicer: “[S]ome members of the media were engaged in deliberately false reporting” and “We’re going to hold the press accountable, as well.”

It’s significant that a president who constructed his campaign on falsehoods should begin an administration with a spokesman who lied. Apparently, consistency reigns at the White House.

But too much boo-hooing by media navel gazers obscures what journalists are supposed to do: Tell stories that shed light on the human condition. Such stories aren’t found in the White House briefing room. Journalists, instead of sitting in a room well-lit for television and listening to a politician or the politician’s flack, should hit the bricks. Do your jobs. Parking yourselves in front of politicians as they pontificate isn’t the right job.

Access journalism — a kind of symbiotic relationship between reporter and source — is dead in regard to covering a president, says WashPo’s Sullivan. She points to access journalism as a matter of stories “achieved by closeness to the source” – sitting in press briefings and conferences by the president or his representative.

Access journalism in general, and in particular when dealing with politicians, sports superstars, and celebrities, has been dead for a long time — probably since Twitter became of age. President Donald has joined King James (that’s Lebron, of course), and Beyonce in believing we don’t need no steekin’ press. Messaging to voters, fans, and consumers has passed from gatekeeper back to source.

So what about Spicer’s lies? Trump’s? KellyAnne’s? What should the members of the press do instead of quivering in the-sky-is-falling fear over the future of journalism? (Or the future of their access to the power-brokers?) When presented continually with “alternate facts,” what’s a journalist to do?

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The White House press briefing room

Cancel the White House Correspondents Association dinner. Stop televising press conferences. (Oh, but what about the ratings? Viewers love conflict and controversy. Those are money-makers for the news business.) Best idea yet, from NYU’s Jay Rosen: Send in the interns. Let them cover the White House.

Take all that high-priced talent preening for the small screen, take all the columnists and pundits, take all the long-time D.C. “elite” reporters and broadcasters and send them packing to do actual journalism rather than try to ask long, convoluted questions of the president of the United States — especially since those questions rarely lead to meaningful, intelligible answers.

If President Donald, surrounded in the Oval Office by white men, signs an executive order reinstating the global gag rule about abortion, the high-priced talent that normally hovers around the White House sniffing for access ought to be out on the road.

Who does the rule affect? In what way? How do abortion opponents and proponents deal with the rule? What is the cost of adherence to the rule? Enforcement of the rule? How does the doctor-patient relationship change? Who now advises pregnant women? And how? How does this impact women financially?

White House pronouncements from a lectern in the West Wing’s press briefing room (if President Donald doesn’t move it) can be handled by interns. They’re used to taking press releases. Or use a remotely operated single camera (drones are popular in the White House). Or leave C-SPAN to cover them.

Journalists should be following the shoe-leather code of Jimmy Breslin, quoted by E&P’s Joe Strupp 13 years ago in a piece headlined “Hard Times: Journalism’s Credibility Problem”:

You still walk, you climb stairs and all the stories are at the top of the stairs. You get into trouble when you get there using an elevator. They [reporters] don’t climb the stairs anymore, they don’t understand the shoe leather, they don’t teach that in their high-class schools. They are highly trained people who sit in their offices and write term papers. They won’t sully themselves going to a greasy housing project or standing out in the rain for a few hours.

The fundamentals that produce credible, reliable journalism about the human condition  haven’t changed. Yes, the electronic means of reaching a source, crafting the story, and distributing the story are new and different and exciting.

Get out of the newsroom. Forgo the nonsensical White House briefings. Talk to the people at the sharp end of stick, not the White House bullies announcing the existence of the stick. You do the former; let the interns do the latter.

After all: Who are journalists supposed to be working for? And why? Readers should be asking those questions of journalists everywhere. Because this is a time when people really need answers.

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. — H.L. Mencken


Few rules, fewer regulators — Donald’s shrink-the-government plan

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The end game of the heavily mediated engine driving American political strife boils down to these questions:

CATEGORY: PoliticsLawGovernment3What is the appropriate size of the federal government? Who should decide that? Who should run the “right-sized” government based on what values determined by whom?

Big, big money was wagered in the 2016 election cycle on the outcome of this game as gazillionaires of the right and left poured donations (wonder how many are legal?) into competing PACs, SuperPACS, and 501C’s.

The Democrats shouted: We need social equality. In wealth. In health care. In opportunity. We need government to enable and enforce equality — as well as quality of goods and services. We need to protect those who cannot protect themselves. We need a better (perhaps larger) government. Control unfettered capitalism!

The Republicans shouted back: Damn Nanny-Staters. People should seek, strive, and work for opportunity. To those with the desire to work hard come rewards — so their reward, i.e. their wealth, should be greater than that of those who do not strive, who do not risk, who do not work hard. We must slash regulations to release the free-market engine of innovation. We need a smaller (as small as possible) government. Unshackle capitalism!

Does the federal (and state and local) government have too many rules and regulations? Perhaps. It’s clear President Donald thinks so:

We’re gonna be cutting regulation massively. The problem with the regulation that we have right now is that you can’t do anything. You can’t, I have people that tell me they have more people working on regulations than they have doing product.

President Donald wants federal agencies to trim their rule books by as much as 75 percent — “maybe more.”

trumpHe’s also frozen hiring at federal agencies save for national security, public safety, and the military. That may mean no new hires (or even replacement hires) for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration whose regulators try to keep workers safe. Or inspectors for the Food and Drug Administration to check for issues with the food Americans eat. Or scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency who search for ways to protect the environment. Perhaps even for Federal Aviation Administration employees, who try to keep people safe in aircraft.

That’s President Donald’s formula: Cut rules and regs, and freeze agencies’ abilities to enforce whatever’s left.

Americans need more oversight of the manufacture of the goods and products corporations sell them. That’s because in the absence of oversight and in the presence of enough financial motivation a sufficient number of corporations will cheat consumers in ways large and small. Think Volkswagen’s diesel scandal. Think subprime mortgage lending. Think Enron. And more.

But President Donald promises cheating won’t happen.

We’re going to have regulation, and it’ll be just as strong and just as good and just as protective of the people as the regulation we have right now. The problem with the regulation we have right now is that you can’t do anything.

Welcome to the Old West recreated by President Donald: In the absence of rules and sheriffs, bandits will multiply.


The overlooked battlefield in the war against the press

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CNN reporter Jeremy Desmond asked Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, under fire because of four deaths at his jail, for an interview. On Friday, Clarke replied on Twitter:

Donald Trump has labeled CNN as fake news. When Pres. Trump says CNN is ok again, then I might.

democracy-in-americaThe sheriff — an elected public official — has refused to respond to a press request for an interview. This particular sheriff has a nationwide reputation as a supporter of President Donald and has been considered for a position in the Donald administration.

No law compels anyone, elected or not, to speak to a journalist. But those who voted for Clarke ought to wonder how, and by whom, his performance should be examined. More troubling, however, is this: Clarke is unlikely to be the last city, county, or state elected public official, feeling empowered by President Donald’s disdain for the press, to withhold information the public is lawfully entitled to.

Imagine a reporter in a small town in a state somewhere between the coasts. She asks the town clerk (an elected public official) for the agenda of the next meeting of the town council. The town clerk refuses — without explanation. The council itself decides to change its meeting date and time without posting a legally required public notice of its intent to meet. The reporter asks the town clerk for a copy of the minutes of the council’s unannounced meeting and is again refused. The reporter calls the chair of the town council and asks for an interview. She is rebuffed.

Expect occurrences of this scenario, which journalists have experienced time and again, to increase.

Public records laws exist in all 50 states. They allow members of the public to obtain documents and other records from local, county, and state officials and agencies. Generally, the requester need not cite a reason for the request — because information in government hands belongs to the public.

That’s the law. Consider this from the state of Washington’s public records law:

The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies that serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may maintain control over the instruments they have created.

That reporter knows this. Yet because her newspaper’s management over the past years has halved (or worse) its staff of journalists, and because the newspaper’s ad revenue has tanked so badly, the newspaper’s bosses are unlikely to spend money to hire a lawyer to pursue the issue.

How many local, county, and state elected public officials will respond to press requests, let alone citizen requests, for information with a bald refusal? What news organization will have the cojones and the cash to contest the refusal in the Age of Donald?

Consider again this from the Washington state public records law:

The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know.

President Donald’s recent gag order on federal agencies has contravened this basic principle. (Note, too, that the information being gagged has been produced with taxpayer dollars.)

The war on the press that’s most worrisome is not the war being waged by President Donald and his barkdog minions, Stephen Bannon and Kellyanne Conway. Their actions encourage small-town and big-city public officials alike to ignore open records laws and reasonable requests for information. Further, federal officials may feel empowered to delay acting on Freedom of Information Act requests until the usefulness of the information sought has passed.

It’s likely the war against the press will be fought at the local and state level, but the war at the federal level will get the most ink and airtime.


The ‘enemy of the American People’ doesn’t work at your local newspaper

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It engenders anger to know the president of the United States says that what I did for a living for 20 years — and what I’ve spent 25 years teaching — represents the acts of “an enemy of the American People.”

CATEGORY: JournalismPresident Donald, titularly “the most powerful man in the world,” will eventually learn not to pick fights with people who buy ink in 55-gallon drums — and have plenty of digital and video ink to spare.

He’s awakened a slumbering watchdog. Recall journalism’s reactions to President Nixon’s overt and covert deceits. The nation’s best newspapers rose to challenge the president — and Nixon lost. Trust in the executive branch withered. Remember, too, the swell of entrants to the nation’s journalism programs (well, after “All the President’s Men” hit the big screen). Will that happen again in President Donald’s first term?

President Donald’s fortunate in the timing of his presidency. The last 20 years have left journalism in a weakened, altered state. Reasons are many — management reacting too late to the challenge of the internet, a decline in interest in the field among the young, and massive losses of revenue prompting executives to pare the workforce of daily print journalists by 20,000 positions, about 39 percent.

Further, journalism (at least consistent, probing, serious journalism over time) has become a coastal activity. It’s notable that the areas mostly likely to suffer catastrophic flooding from climate disruption — the coasts — is where journalism is a dominant professional activity. The “new” media outlets thrive (or try to) in New York City and Washington, D.C. Joshua Benton, writing for Nieman Lab, explains:

Think of the most prominent digital-native news companies, like Vice Media, BuzzFeed, Business Insider, Gawker Media, Mashable, Vox Media — all of them are in New York or D.C. (Vice adds a sort of geographic diversity by being in Brooklyn instead of Manhattan, I suppose. But you could still visit a dozen of them without your Uber bill climbing too high.) There are smaller hubs in the Bay Area (for tech reporting), Los Angeles (all about video), and even Miami (for Spanish-language and Hispanic-targeting media), but the increase in concentration is unmistakable. Journalism jobs are leaving the middle of the country and heading for the coasts.

The students I teach who wish to be journalists find the jobs available concentrated on the coasts. Benton again:

Let’s start by thinking of the pre-web news business. Physical distribution of newspapers and over-the-air distribution of TV signals meant location was all-important for daily news. Journalistic talent was arrayed to match, with substantial newsrooms in every city.

Digital changed that. I took a look recently at the job openings posted on JournalismJobs.com to see how many of them were based in New York City or Washington, D.C. Among television jobs, only 8.8 percent were based in one of the two news capitals. (The states with the most jobs? Texas, Ohio, and Florida.) For newspaper jobs, that number was 10.5 percent. But among digital media and startup jobs, nearly 4 in 10 — 38.9 percent — were located in New York, D.C., or their suburbs.

When The Washington Post looked at Bureau of Labor Statistics data last year, it found that the share of American reporting jobs that were in New York, Washington, and Los Angeles went from 1 in 8 in 2004 to 1 in 5 in 2014.

From 100 miles west of the Atlantic coast to 100 miles east of the Pacific coast, journalism has foundered. Newspaper managements have cut the journalistic workforce to dysfunctional levels. Small community papers, regional papers, even some of the metro dailies have had to make difficult decisions on what to cover and how. Newspapers have shut down.

If you live in the rural or suburban interior of the United States, what has become of your local newspaper? According to the Pew Research Center, the number of daily U.S. newspapers has declined from 1,457 in 2004 to 1,331 in 2014. That’s 126 communities that have lost a valuable source of information.

Non-coastal journalism today has difficulties covering school board meetings, let alone worry about the acts of President Donald.

Think of the actions of government closest to residents of a community. Taxation. Law enforcement. Budgeting for schools and government costs. Protection (or not) of the community’s natural resources. Economic development.

Because far fewer journalists work at their craft for the benefits of their communities, government actions often go uncovered and unexplained. Your property tax bill just appears. The governmental process of setting your community’s tax rate is … well, unaccounted for.

That’s the work of journalists. Hold governments — especially local governments — accountable for what they do. But there’s another reason for keeping close tabs on local, regional, and state governments — they are the training wheels for national politics.

Both the national Democratic and Republican party organizations fuel efforts to select and train candidates at the local and state levels to build, I suppose, the next generation of national party candidates and politicians incapable of effectively governing. But increasingly such local and state activity goes uninspected because too few journalists have time to closely track it.

When President Donald, or anyone, next declares journalists “the enemy of the American People,” look at the costs of your local schools, the effectiveness of your children’s education, the condition of your town’s roads and bridges, the cost of local government, the efficiency and effectiveness of police and fire departments, the bidding process for winter road salt and other town supplies, the economic growth (or decline) of downtown, the availability of health care and family practice physicians … it’s a long list. The officials who now quietly decide those local government functions behind closed doors may someday be sitting in Congress, used to not being closely covered by journalists.

If you think you ought to know more about these local and state officials and what they do, ask who the enemies really are. You’ll find they aren’t the reporters and editors at your local newspaper.


If Congress decides to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure, keep tabs on who gets it

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The grades are in. The nation’s infrastructure is close to failing.

The 2017 report card of the American Society of Civil Engineers, posted today, gives the infrastructure on which America depends for commerce, defense, recreation, flight, food, water, waste — almost everything — an overall grade of D+.

From the ASCE report:

aging-infrastructureThe 2017 grades range from a B for Rail to a D- for Transit, illustrating the clear impact of investment – or lack thereof – on the grades. Three categories – Parks, Solid Waste, and Transit – received a decline in grade this year, while seven – Hazardous Waste, Inland Waterways, Levees, Ports, Rail, Schools, and Wastewater – saw slight improvements. Six categories’ grades remain unchanged from 2013 – Aviation, Bridges, Dams, Drinking Water, Energy, and Roads.

The areas of infrastructure that improved benefited from vocal leadership, thoughtful policymaking, and investments that garnered results.

Scholars & Rogues has long considered addressing the nation’s infrastructure needs essential for the nation’s economic, cultural, resource, and domestic security (see here, here, here, and here). But it’s a topic that until recently has not received the attention its badly needed remediation demands. The ASCE report demands close inspection by citizens and politicians alike — followed by “thoughtful policymaking.”

President Donald wants to spend at least one trillion dollars on infrastructure repairs. First and foremost, that’s not enough: The 2017 ASCE report recommends two trillion dollars over 10 years to fix most of what’s flawed. Then, of course, there’s the need to budget for continuing maintenance of a regenerated infrastructure.

Questions abound beyond defining the desperate need for action most Americans now recognize.

Who decides on what?

Aside from the nagging issue of how to find $1 trillion to spend, who will decide what specific parts of the infrastructure to fix using what decision process?

Gosh — I’ll bet lobbyists will somehow be involved. Politico’s Influence newsletter carried this tidbit earlier this week:

As Trump lays the groundwork for shepherding a $1 trillion infrastructure package through Congress, companies and industries are strategizing on how to get their priorities included in the legislation. The latest move comes from the American Chemistry Council, which commissioned a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers on how an infrastructure spending boost could fuel a chemical manufacturing “renaissance.” The report identifies shortcomings in the truck, marine and rail infrastructure the industry relies on. The council’s member companies include giants like Dow, DuPont, Honeywell, 3M, Merck and Monsanto. Cal Dooley of the American Chemistry Council, Mike Joyce of the American Trucking Associations and Mark Lustig of PriceWaterhouseCoopers were on the Hill on Wednesday with Reps. Garret Graves (R-La.) and Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) to roll out the report. [boldface emphasis in original; italics added).

Yep — name an aspect of the nation’s infrastructure and there will be lobbyists looking for a share of the spending pie for their clients. Lobbyists, if not tracked closely, will heavily influence what’s done, where, and for how much.

Should private entities get public money?

Consider the purchase of public highways — especially toll roads — by private companies — even foreign companies. The Indiana Toll Road was in bankruptcy “eight years after inking a $3.8 billion, 75-year concession for the road with the administration of Governor Mitch Daniels.” As that toll road degrades, who is responsible for maintaining it? The Australian company that leased it? The state that gave it up? Or the feds through congressionally authorized infrastructure funding?

Many sectors of the American infrastructure are the product of public-private partnerships, perhaps with local and state tax breaks thrown in. If Congress deems those sectors essential for the nation’s security, how is financial responsibility apportioned?

How transparent will contract accounting be?

Repairing and renewing the nation’s infrastructure — with its enormous price tag — requires rigorous oversight on how that money is spent. The taxpayers should get their money’s worth without paying for fraud, corruption, or incompetence.

Such big projects — fixing a large dam, for example — require the expertise of large companies. Keep an eye on the nation’s top contractors if they’re selected to work with public money on infrastructure projects.

Here are a few lists (here and here) of America’s largest construction companies. You’ll recognize many of them. Money will eventually flow to them (and their subcontractors). If they’re hired, who will be the inspectors general charged with insuring good work for a fair price? (And who will appoint those IGs using what process?)

What are the chances of fraud?

 In the case of infrastructure, money flows downstream. Congress first authorizes, generally every five years, a list of long-term projects. Then each sitting of Congress may (or may not) appropriate money for some or all of the authorized projects. For roads and bridges, for example, the federal Department of Transportation sends the appropriated money to state DoTs. Then, generally, the state DoTs tell their regional DoT sections to seek bids and award contracts.

That’s the honeypot. Opportunities for large (and not-so-large) contracting firms to make money on the public’s dime exist through various forms of fraud — bid suppression, complementary bidding, bid rotation, or customer or market allocation.

Fraud is now news where I live in western New York state. Gov. Cuomo (who’d like to be president some day) drove allocation of a $1 billion fund to help revive the economy of Buffalo and environs. But U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara alleges a large contractor received a $750 million contract in return for bribes, disguised as consultant fees, to a lobbyist in a position to influence the contract award process.

That’s a billion dollars of opportunity and temptation for fraud. Consider the opportunity and temptation inherent in infrastructure spending of $1 trillion to $2 trillion.

Think monopolies. Think collusion. A large-scale effort to address long-term infrastructure issues in the short term just begs for significant anti-competitive behavior.

If Congress allocates $1 trillion in one fell swoop, will there be sufficient construction and engineering firms for truly competitive bids? If all 56,000 bridges deemed structurally deficient by ASCE need repairing over a short term, will bridge repair firms collude? Will they divvy up the work among them or deliberately lose some bids to win others?

If Congress says “Go!” in the next four years, will President Donald and his Cabinet and beachhead cronies be part of this? Are taxpayers going to see the most epic fleecing of the State of all time?

Oh, well. Such conjectures assume Congress even decides to buy into Donald’s $ 1 trillion plan.

Meanwhile, as you drive to work over a pothole-filled toll road, ask yourself a few questions:

How old are the pipes bringing water (and fire protection) into my home or business? How old are the sewer pipes? The electrical lines connecting my home or business to the grid?

How old is the bridge I drive over each day? Or worse, the one a school bus carrying my child drives over?

How clean is the water coming into my house? (Think Flint, Michigan.) How safe are the rails my Amtrak commuter train rides?

You’ll come up with a long list of infrastructure issues that affect you directly and personally.

So what do you do?

Step 1: Tell Congress to authorize projects and appropriate money for them.

Step 2: Follow the money.

I don’t want to live in a nation of D+. Do you?


Unnamed sources? Journalists should teach readers why they were used

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On Thursday, four journalists for CNN reported:

The FBI has information that indicates associates of President Donald Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, US officials told CNN.

CATEGORY: JournalismInformation. Indicates. Associates. Communicated. Suspected. Operatives. Possibly. Coordinate. Information. US officials.

Huh? Could this lede be any more vague? This lede is all may have — which leaves open the possibility of may not have.

The story, reported by Pamela Brown, Evan Perez, Jim Sciutto, and Shimon Prokupecz, contains unnamed sources in 10 of the story’s 18 paragraphs. The FBI director is named, but only in reference to stories reported earlier. White House spokesman Sean Spicer and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov are named, but only in chiding the findings of the story. Two paragraphs near the end of the story contain no sources and appear to be the conclusions of the reporters.

National-security and law-enforcement reporting is among the most difficult for news organizations. Such reporting relies heavily on lengthy professional experience that produces useful access to agency sources. Trust has be to built between the journalists and the agencies under review. That takes time.

So why don’t such stories teach readers and viewers that?

Where is the paragraph that explains to readers why this story is built on factual quicksand? In the era of journalists being declared “enemies of the American people,” how stories have been constructed can be as important as the story itself. Simply putting together a story quoting “sources” and leaving credibility dependent only on the experience, standards, and reputations of the news organization and its journalists is insufficient.

Check the bios: Three of these journalists have considerable experience in reporting in the national security arena. But why couldn’t a paragraph of explanation be included to teach readers and viewers how the story was reported and under what constraints the journalists operated? For example:

CNN used unnamed sources for this story because many, if not most, law-enforcement, Justice Department, and national-security organizations have policies forbidding their officials to speak on the record. In this case, none of the officials would allow their names or titles to be used. They agreed to speak with CNN only on that condition. CNN granted anonymity because no other means were available to obtain the information for this story. CNN understands, as should readers and viewers, that unnamed officials may have unrevealed reasons for sharing information.

Perhaps someday, such a story might have a lede like this:

The FBI said today senior officials of President Donald Trump’s administration and his campaign apparatus spoke with Russian agents to coordinate the release of information damaging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, [a real name and title] told CNN.

But that’s not the real world of national-security and law-enforcement reporting. Journalists should explain what it’s really like, and perhaps readers and viewers would be more willing to grant some slack to stories built on anonymous sources.


Live in a rural area? Can you find a doctor when you need one?

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The vascular surgeon who removed my gangrenous gall bladder last month received his early medical training in Lahore, Pakistan. He’s been a member of the medical community in my rural valley for more than three decades.

eimyxgertMy primary-care physician for the past 20 years received his medical training in Taiwan. My urologist for a decade was an Iranian-American. The surgeon who removed a subcutaneous growth from my right elbow is a Pakistani-American. So is the internist who treated a pulmonary issue. He’s been here more than two decades.

Those who live in rural areas likely know, or have, doctors with surnames they might think uncommon. Yet all my foreign-born physicians are American citizens with deep ties to the community in which I live. They’ve taken good care of me.

But why have these wonderful doctors settled here, in rural America?

Rural areas tend to be medically underserved. The federal Health Resources & Services Administration says such areas need more than 15,000 medical professionals, spread across medical, dental, and mental health disciplines. About 50 million Americans, about 20 percent, live in rural areas. But only 9 percent of physicians do, according to the National Center for Biotechnological Information. According to The New York Times, about 25 percent of all physicians practicing or training in the United States — more than 200,000 — are foreign-born, but in most rural areas, that share is significantly higher. The Association of American Medical Colleges predicts the United States will be short between 60,000 and more than 90,000 physicians between now and 2025.

Reasons abound for the shortage. Medical school in America is expensive: Doctors-to-be may choose specialties to be able to afford to pay back a median student loan of $183,000, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. (They still may have undergraduate loans averaging about $30,000 to pay off, too.) So they tend to gravitate to the highest-paid specialties — orthopedists, cardiologists, dermatologists, gastroenterologists, and radiologists (see the list). Doctors-to-be may prefer an urban (and perhaps more affluent) lifestyle than a rural one.

Rural areas remain underserved despite Affordable Care Act incentives for med school students to entertain a career in primary care, particularly in rural areas. Hence doctors born outside the United States are highly recruited by health-care entities in rural and other underserved areas.

Recruiting foreign-born physicians to these areas has become more difficult. Reports Miriam Jordan of The New York Times:

[A] recent, little-publicized decision by the government to alter the timetable for some visa applications is likely to delay the arrival of new foreign doctors, and is causing concern in the places that depend on them.

While the Trump administration is fighting, in the courts of justice and public opinion, for its temporary travel ban affecting six countries, the slowdown in the rural doctor pipeline shows how even a small, relatively uncontroversial change can ripple throughout the country.

… The procedural change regards temporary visas for skilled workers, known as H-1B visas. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services recently announced that it would temporarily suspend a “premium processing” option by which employers could pay an extra $1,225 to have H-1B applications approved in as little as two weeks, rather than several months.

Companies using that option, the government said, have effectively delayed visas for others who did not pay the extra fee.

The H-1B visa is the vehicle many rural areas use to recruit — as quickly as possible after vetting qualifications — foreign-born physicians. The H1-B program has its flaws and could use an overhaul. But if physicians who are born-and-bred American citizens continue to shun underserved areas in their own nation, the H1-B program is needed to bring qualified foreign-born medical personnel to those areas — such as where I live.

It’s not just doctors and nurses who are needed in underserved areas. Consider an accident or a heart attack far from medical help. How does the patient get to that help?

I’ve lived in rural areas most of my life. EMTS are like diamonds — rare and valuable to the community. In my village, there’s a permanent sign asking residents to volunteer to be emergency medical technicians — EMTs.

In Maine, where the rural population is aging, EMTs are in short supply. But the state’s immigrant population, particularly in Portland, houses people who are medically trained — some were even doctors in their homelands. So a program is underway to train many as EMTs.

Reports The Times’ Katharine Q. Seelye:

Thanks mainly to a small influx of immigrants, the state’s population inched up last year by about 2,000 people over 2015, despite the anti-immigrant sentiments expressed by Gov. Paul R. LePage. But the state recorded 1,300 more deaths than births, a downward trend in which Maine and West Virginia lead the nation. Like other graying states in New England, Maine is struggling to keep its young people living and working here.

This is where the E.M.T. program comes in.

“This program is a win-win-win,” said David Zahn, chairman of the global languages department at the community college, which started the program.

He said he basically put two and two together. Surveys showed that employers, especially municipal and private ambulance services, needed more E.M.T.s; other surveys showed that many immigrants in the Portland area are underemployed and have medical backgrounds.

Maine’s program may not fit in other states. But the value inherent in its immigration population ought to be obvious, even to ideological troglodytes.

A rural ambulance has taken me to my local hospital a dozen times in the last 14 years. Medical practitioners born elsewhere but now American citizens have kept me alive and well.

More federal attention needs to be paid to the health-care and medical needs of rural and underserved communities. Those potential immigrant physicians President Donald does not wish to welcome should continue to be part of the solution as their predecessors have for decades.



Anniversary journalism? Well, mostly it just sucks.

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In early April 1970, I walked into the newsroom of my hometown newspaper and asked the editor if he knew anyone at the state department of natural resources. I’d just received my undergraduate degree in geology. I could do that kind of work for a while before I returned to university for master’s and doctoral degrees and to eventually live happily in Alaska as its state geologist.

best-earth-day-poster-ideas-pictures-2016I walked out of that newsroom as a journalist. (I lied about being able to type.) The editor needed another sportswriter but couldn’t hire one full time. He needed an environmental writer (the first Earth Day was two weeks away) but he couldn’t hire a full-time one.

I could do both, he judged. He hired me. I wrote about Sen. Gaylord Perry’s first teach-in on April 22. For the next six weeks, I wrote “green” and follow-up Earth Day stories in the afternoon, and local sports in the evening.

But come June, the editor asked for fewer “green” stories and more sports stories. By July, I’d more or less become a full-time sports writer.

In March 1975, five years later, I was asked to produce a slew of Earth Day anniversary stories. Then, a few weeks after Earth Day, no more stories. Ditto 10 years later and 15 years later.

That introduced me to anniversary journalism. I witnessed that with the rise of fall of Earth stories every five years in my newspaper and many, many others.

I grew to detest anniversary journalism. Why every five years? Why not four? Or six? Some are annual, such as the assassinations of John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. I grew tired of the JFK stories highlighting “where were you when Kennedy was shot” angles. (I rebelled against those stories and their less-than-meaningful content.)

A few days ago, however, I took part in anniversary journalism of the participatory kind (which I hate even more). S&R celebrated its 10th anniversary, and I wrote a post acknowledging what writing for S&R for so long has been like.)

But it prompted me to reflect: Why the persistent distaste for anniversary journalism?

That’s a two-part question: Do I hate anniversaries (I don’t have birthdays anymore; this year I celebrated the 32nd anniversary of my 39th birthday), or do I detest journalism about anniversaries?

Consider the passage through life. Are there days and events that seep into the soul, that resonate somehow and permeate that which makes you, well, you? Marriage to a loved one. Births of children. Three decades at the same job. We all stop to reflect on New Year’s Day, don’t we? Hence the resolutions?

I watched Mercury, Apollo, and space shuttle launches with my mom. Then Challenger exploded, and 11:33 a.m. on January 28, 1986, became an anniversary. I think of that sad event every year on that day.

Anniversaries can bring joy, sadness, ambition, and reflection. That’s what journalism about anniversaries ought to do — show us that meaning, that human experience.

So maybe I’ll back off my criticism of anniversary journalism.

Then again, in three years, Earth Day will be … 50 years old. In 2020. An election year. President Donald presumably will be seeking another term. The repercussions of his budget and regulation cuts on the EPA and its member agencies will be fodder for Earth Day political as well as anniversary stories.

Oh, I can’t wait … Meanwhile, if you’re interested, Earth Day 2017 is today. Maybe someone’s writing about – even if it isn’t a five-year anniversary.


United Airlines and its ‘calculated misery’: happy customers just aren’t needed to make money

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The future of Oscar Munoz, the CEO of United Airlines, has just been re-accommodated.

You remember him, of course. After airport dragoons dragged a boarded, seated, paying customer off a United aircraft, Munoz’s first PR apology contained what Scholars & Rogues has called the “word of the year”: “I apologize for having to re-accommodate these customers.”

telemmglpict000125651009-large_trans_nvbqzqnjv4bqbe6o56qrl4zbrlmqqi7ubfvse9jsn00kzbur3ixhagoWell, that’s cost him. Munoz had been groomed to move upstairs from CEO to chairman of United Continental Holdings, the airline’s owner. (You do remember, of course, that Continental agreed to merge with United seven years ago.) Well, Munoz won’t get that top job.

United’s twin clusterfucks of policy execution (overbooking issues) and PR aftermath (“re-accommodated”) have derailed Munoz’s career — well, a little. He may lose about $500,000 from his bonus, because it’s tied in part to what airlines call KPI — key performance indicators as indicated in consumer satisfaction surveys. But don’t shed a tear for Munoz — he received $18.7 million in total compensation for 2016, more than triple that of 2015.

But that’s not the only consequence for United executives. From Barry Meier’s New York Times story:

The company, United Continental Holdings, is also adjusting its incentive compensation program for senior executives to make it “directly and meaningfully tied to progress in improving the customer experience.” [emphasis added]

Really, United? We’re supposed to buy that? The cruel, inhuman removal of bloodied, injured Dr. David Dao from United Express flight 3411 marks a nadir of United’s attitude towards its customers. United could care less, because it has no need whatsoever to improve the customer experience.

United and other airlines — thanks to industry consolidation and deregulation that permitted it — have learned they don’t need happy customers to make money. It’s called “calculated misery,” and airlines make money knowing how low they can go.

Think of the word “upgrade.” That usually means you’re rising to an unexpected higher plateau of service — often without an increase in cost. At United and other large airlines, it’s the opposite — you pay to avoid a lower, less tolerable level of service. In other words, airlines calculate the amount of misery you’re willing to pay to avoid. This is calculated misery, a term first coined by Tim Wu in The New Yorker. Says Wu:

But the fee model comes with systematic costs that are not immediately obvious. Here’s the thing: in order for fees to work, there needs be something worth paying to avoid. That necessitates, at some level, a strategy that can be described as “calculated misery.” Basic service, without fees, must be sufficiently degraded in order to make people want to pay to escape it. And that’s where the suffering begins.

The necessity of degrading basic service provides a partial explanation for the fact that, in the past decade, the major airlines have done what they can to make flying basic economy, particularly on longer flights, an intolerable experience. [emphasis added]

Pay, and enjoy. Don’t pay? Be miserable. United doesn’t care. Tim Wu again:

That push for profit yielded increased fees for baggage and reservation changes (following industry-wide trends), and unprecedented segmentation between regular and elite customers. While it has always differentiated between business and economy fliers, post-merger United took its complex caste system to new levels.

For its very highest-paying Global Services customers, United layered on the benefits: segregated gate agents, dedicated phone lines; short or skipped security lines: in sum, the complete avoidance of the crowds everyone else deals with. Meanwhile, United took away services at the bottom, shrinking seats, imposing punitive fees, removing pre-boarding for parents with children, and increasing the numbers of boarding classes.

That’s not an effective corporate strategy for “improving the customer experience.”

 United continues to lobby anyone who’ll listen (and take its campaign donations) to retain its ability to provide passengers with that “intolerable experience” they’ll pay to avoid.

 United (and other airlines, of course, through its industry flak association) have opposed government-dictated change that could, in fact, improve customer experience.

United has spent more than $1 million in the last decade on state politics, mostly to oppose legislation creating passenger bills of rights.

United lobbied in 2014 against rules that would require it to disclose more clearly the fees it charges. After President Obama proposed such rules requiring price clarity, the industry lobbying group, Airlines for America, asked President Donald to delay such regulation. Donald did. United, as a member of Airlines for America, got its way.

United has lobbied against regulations setting minimum seat dimensions. The year before, it said it would reduce seat widths further to increase revenue.

United lobbied on a bill proposed by a budget carrier to allow an airline to charge passengers to use aircraft bathrooms.

United lobbied against a bill, the Families Flying Together Act, that would compel airlines to seat family members together on flights. It lost that fight; the bill passed. Airlines for America called it “bad for airline customers, employees, the communities we serve and our overall U.S. economy.” Imagine that.

United has lied to the federal government.

In September 2014 comments to federal officials, the Chicago-based airline outlined its opposition to proposed rules that sought more disclosure of the fees airlines charge to customers. One of the rules at issue was designed to compel airlines to more explicitly disclose fees charged for reserving specific seats.

“Including advance-seat-assignment charges among the ‘basic ancillary service’ fees that must be disclosed as part of initial fare displays makes no sense,” the airline wrote to the Department of Transportation. “Every ticket, of course, guarantees a passenger a seat on the plane, with no additional mandatory seat-assignment charges.” [emphasis added]

In the past 20 years, the air transport industry has spent $1.25 billion on lobbying.

Since the 2012 election cycle, donors from United and its affiliates have given more than $2.4 million to federal candidates and political committees. The total includes nearly $500,000 that has flowed to lawmakers on the House and Senate committees that regulate the airline industry. In that time, the company has succeeded in blocking many legislative measures designed to help passengers. [emphasis added]

United’s claim that it will tie executive compensation to “improving customer experience” is mere lip service. Too much history and decades of lobbying against making flights a more humanizing experience shows United’s skies are more what Tim Wu calls “hellscape” than friendly.

Maybe this is all Jimmy Carter’s fault. He signed the legislation that deregulated the airline industry in 1978. Previously, all fees were regulated. You knew what you’d pay for a ticket. After deregulation, low-cost carriers emerged. Consolidation followed in the past decade. Without as much competition (and profiting from lower fuel prices), none of these airlines gives a damn whether passengers are happy — unless they’re paying for elite levels of service.

United’s Oscar Munoz has fallen on his $18 million sword for the company. He’ll take a pay cut. He won’t get the the chairman’s seat. But he’ll never need to fly United in basic economy. Ever.

Neither he nor his corporate cronies have learned a damn thing – other than how to botch a crisis PR circumstance. And no one got fired.

When you next climb onto a United aircraft, not much will be different. You’re still paying more to avoid what’s worse.


Export U.S. coal to Asia? Not so fast, say three West Coast states — and Canada?

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News item from October 2016:

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A coal company with mines in Montana and Wyoming said Thursday that it’s begun exporting fuel to Asia through a Canadian shipping terminal, after its years-long effort to secure port access in the U.S. Pacific Northwest has come up short.

Coal TrainThat’s not surprising. The use of coal in America, as S&R explained last year, has stalled — and it’s not going to rebound despite President Donald’s promise to revive the coal industry. So the owners of big coal mines in Montana and Wyoming are looking to export coal to Asian markets to shore up revenues.

But the states of California, Washington, and Oregon have opposed coal export terminal projects in Oakland, Calif.; Bellingham, Gray’s Harbor, and Longview, Wash.; and Port of Morrow, St. Helens, and Coos Bay, Ore. So coal corporations have decided to ship through Canadian ports on its western coast. For now, maybe.

Enter President Donald. First, he slaps a tariff — as much as 24 percent — on Canadian timber destined for the U.S. construction industry. Then he threatens to end NAFTA before negotiating a replacement only to renege on that campaign promise after phone calls with the presidents of Mexico and Canada.

Canada’s not happy — especially the premier of British Columbia, Christy Clark.

The westernmost Canadian province sees high volumes of American coal pass through its ports en route to Asia — more than 6 million tons through the Port of Vancouver. In a letter she sent to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, she wrote:

For many years, a high volume of U.S. thermal coal has been shipped through BC on its way to Asia. It’s not good for the environment, but friends and trading partners cooperate. So we haven’t pressed the issue with the federal government that regulates the port.

Clearly, the United States is taking a different approach. So, I am writing you today to ban the shipment of thermal coal from BC ports. [emphasis added]

Christy notes the high use of Canadian ports is the direct result of three western American states refusing to allow (as yet) new coal export terminals.

As you may know, over the past five years, every proposed coal export facility on the West Coast of the United States has been rejected or withdrawn, typically as a result of ecological or environmental concerns. . . . Oregon, Washington, and California have all made significant commitments to eliminate the use of coal as a source of electricity for their citizens. In fact, in August 2016, Governor Jerry Brown of California signed Bill 1279 that banned the provision of any state transportation funding for new coal export terminals.

It appears Canada may no longer be a willing partner for American coal companies wishing to export coal to Asia. No economically feasible alternatives to get coal to Pacific Rim markets exist for those companies, either.

Coal in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin is en route to becoming a stranded asset — obsolete and under-performing. U.S. electrical production is now derived only 40 percent from coal — a declining number. Further, U.S. energy consumption, despite a growing population and upward GDP, has flatlined.

From Bloomberg’s Mark Chediak:

The lull couldn’t have come at a worse time for the industry, which is already struggling with the end of their historic monopolies. Power-sipping appliances, LED lighting and a shift away from heavy industry all have contributed to the slowdown, and that’s forcing traditional generators from Duke Energy Corp. to Southern Co. to re-examine how they can make money.

“Efficiency cuts utilities’ revenues and not their costs, and this is a big problem,” said Amory Lovins, chief scientist and co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a non-profit clean energy research group based in Colorado. “The whole business model is upside down.”

If the Canada closes its west coast ports to American coal, the industry takes another hit after natural gas, efficiencies, and renewables have delivered theirs.

Too many factors undermine President Donald’s desire for the coal industry to reclaim its once-dominant position in American industry. Donald and his administration’s climate-change-ain’t-real and bring-back-coal philosophies won’t save the coal industry. As it withers over time, perhaps carbon-dioxide production will decrease, too.


Freedom of the press means little if audiences are trapped in bubbles

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It’s nice, I suppose, in this era of Trumpian Twitter bashing of the press, that journalists trumpet right back about bolstering freedom of the press, citing its absolutely necessity to the survival, let alone the maintenance, of democracy in the Republic.

google-bubbleIt’s nice, I suppose, that a satirical comedian hosts a “Not the White House Correspondents Association Dinner” (in prime time, no less) to, as she said, “celebrate the freedom of the press.” (She did this, of course, while occasionally mocking pack journalism and chiding CNN for not “setting free” its high-priced on-air talent to be journalists instead of entertainers).

It’s nice, I suppose, that the failing New York Times headlined the actual Donald-less White House correspondents’ dinner with us vs. them gusto: “For Journalists, Annual Dinner Serves Up Catharsis and Resolve.”

And it’s nice, I suppose, that the famed, once-young lions of an earlier Golden Age, Woodward and Bernstein, were trotted out at the latter dinner to extol the virtues of a free and vigilant press.

Bernstein: “Richard Nixon tried to make the conduct of the press more the issue in Watergate instead of the conduct of the President and his men. We tried to avoid the noise and let the reporting speak.” [emphasis added]

Woodward: “Our reporting needs to get both fact and tones right. (T)he effort today to get the best obtainable version of the truth is largely made in good faith. … Mr. President, the media is not fake news. Let’s take that off the table as we proceed. … Whatever the climate, whether the media is revered or reviled, we should and must persist, and I believe we will. Any relaxation by the press will be extremely costly to democracy.”

Yes, yes, a free press, by all means. Yes, yes, follow the path to Truth no matter where it leads. Yes, yes, Speak Truth to Power.

But a free press won’t amount to squat as long as it has audiences who hear only what they want to hear, read only what their Facebook-sculpted algorithms tell them to read, and worship blissfully at the Church of Confirmation Bias.

Questions abound about the entwined roles of journalists and audiences.

Have journalists forgotten they serve as the nation’s teachers as well as its story-tellers? To what extent has modern journalism, meaning online publication, effectively taught audiences about the meaning and context of the information its published material carries? Has commentary (it’s cheaper to produce than reporting, isn’t it?) shortchanged  deep, insightful analysis of events and issues? Does journalism have to explain how it does its job in ways it hasn’t before?

For example, if journalists continue to use anonymous sources, shouldn’t it do a better job of telling audiences why? Audiences need more instruction about the functions, necessities, intellectual worth, and values of journalism than they used to. That’s because audiences aren’t what they used to be.

The audiences for news have largely devolved into competing armies of culture warriors refusing to acknowledge the validity of even an iota of an idea from the other side(s).

When will such audiences learn how to take off their goddamned blinders?

A new study suggests audiences, whether they’re Blue or Red, will actually pass up money “to distance themselves from hearing or reading opposing ideals and information.”

Approximately two-thirds of respondents declined a chance to win extra money in order to avoid reading statements that didn’t support their position …

The aversion to hearing or learning about the views of their ideological opponents is not a product of people already being or feeling knowledgeable, or attributable to election fatigue in the case of political issues, according to the researchers.

“Rather, people on both sides indicated that they anticipated that hearing from the other side would induce cognitive dissonance,” such that would require effort or cause frustration, and “undermine a sense of shared reality with the person expressing disparate views” that would harm relationships, [the study’s authors] reported.

Too many members of audiences of media messages (such as news stories) refuse to break out of personalized filter bubbles constructed by algorithm-driven search engines and social media. Perhaps that would require conscious effort (you know, work) to think for oneself. That behavior has consequences for democracy.

All those Facebook clicks have constructed personalizations too many audience members are unwilling to reject. So what, you say? Ask Eli Pariser:

The effect of the algorithm is as strong as an individual’s own choices about which links in the [Facebook] News Feed to click. If you think that you’re doing something important by looking at your News Feed and deciding which items to click, the algorithm exercises an equally strong bent. And the bent is toward politically aligned information.

Hence filter-bubbling search engines (yo, Google) and keep-you-happy Facebook algorithms contribute mightily to the ideological, social, cultural, and political blinders too many audience members willingly or unwittingly wear.

Does this mean a significant percentage of journalism’s audiences is just dumb? Lazy? Unaware? Too busy? Too poor? Too rich? Do these audiences, thanks to the dumbing-down influences of cable news, just want shouting matches? To be merely entertained? Is bread and circus what they seek? Is that what too many news entities  deliver too often instead of actual news?

Whatever the answer(s) is, the mediated fragmentation of audiences has commingled with social polarization over the past few decades, leaving journalism with audiences who just may not give a damn. Add to this the demonizing drumbeat of President Donald about the fake, failing press.

The press needs to spend a little less time worrying about its freedom and more time about understanding the audiences that freedom was designed to serve. Too many of the press’s audiences (and, to some extent, many supposedly journalistic organizations) have lost their sense of civic duty.

So, audiences, for heaven’s sake, get off Facebook, get smarter, and learn to tolerate a broader outlook on life. Remember: Think — it ain’t illegal yet.


Donald’s new executive order gives really rich people another dark-money weapon

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President Donald signed an executive order this week, intending to relax tax-law consequences on churches that endorse political candidates. In his zeal to “protect and vigorously promote religious liberty,” he opened the door to yet another avenue for really rich people to subvert democratic choice in U.S. elections.

https://www.legalzoom.com/sites/legalzoom.com/files/uploaded/articles/maintaining_tax_exempt_status_in_a_nonprofit.jpgDonald’s language a few months ago foreshadowed this: “I will get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment and allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear of retribution.” Well, he can’t do that. Congress makes law, not presidents.

However, his executive order “discourages the IRS from going after churches aggressively for their political expression.” The Johnson Amendment “prohibits tax-exempt charitable organizations such as churches from participating directly or indirectly in any political campaign to support or oppose a candidate. That means no donations to candidates’ campaigns and no public statements explicitly on behalf of or against a candidate.” The penalty can be loss of tax-exempt status. However, IRS enforcement historically has been spotty. Trump’s order ensures enforcement will continue to be rare.

Enter the gazillionaires who want to anonymously spend enormous amounts of money to covertly influence elections and legislation.

The Johnson Amendment does not focus solely on churches. Its prohibitions against endorsing candidates are aimed at “tax-exempt charitable organizations such as churches.” That means lax IRS enforcement of political activities by tax-exempt charitable organizations allows creation of such organizations with covertly political intent.

Imagine just one or two really rich people creating such a 501(c)(3) charitable group, funding it with tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of dollars, subverting the stated intent of the group (charitable activities), directing all money into political attack ads … and receiving a tax deduction.

Just one or two gazillionaires? That’s happened. According to the Center for Responsive Politics:

A politically active nonprofit that supported Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) failed 2016 presidential bid raised nearly $22 million in two years, 93 percent of which came from either one or two anonymous donors. [emphasis added]

Wait, there’s more:

Conservative Solutions Project, a 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organization with no employees or volunteers that isn’t supposed to be primarily political, spent millions of dollars on ads, research and polling to boost the Florida senator’s candidacy, but it appears to have done little or no social welfare — unless one counts portraying Rubio as a champion on taxes and foreign policy as being a public good. That raises questions of whether CSP crossed a legal line by acting mainly as a political group — and also whether it existed to benefit a single person, violating the IRS’ “private benefit” rule. [emphasis added]

Now, thanks to President Donald’s admonition to the IRS to back off enforcing Johnson Amendment prohibitions on charitable organizations, individuals with a lot of money now have a new toy to play with — anonymously.

That’s the argument of Brendan Fischer of the Campaign Legal Center in an email about “super dark money” to supporters:

Without this prohibition, wealthy donors could use groups organized as charities or religious organizations to secretly influence elections — and to get a charitable tax deduction for doing so. … Places of worship and charities have essential roles to play in our society, but channeling secret money into elections isn’t one of them.” [emphasis in original]

Remember, Donald did this all in the name of “religious liberty.” Well, he certainly answered the prayers of some wealthy conservative donors (and maybe a few liberals).


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