Small bites

1.  Travel ban #3:   President Trump recently issued a third version of his travel ban, the strategy presumably being to try to stay a step ahead of the courts so that you always have a new one when they block the last one.  But now #3 has been blocked by a federal judge in Hawaii.

2.  Opioid crisis:  We are in the midst of the worst opioid death epidemic in our nation's history.  In 2016, there were 64,000 deaths from overdoses, an increase from 40,000 five years ago.   President Trump was asked by a reporter whether he would declare a national emergency.   He said yes.  But he also said the same thing in August -- and did nothing in the ensuing two months.  Meanwhile both the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Office of Drug Control Policy are currently without directors.

3.  Trump lies:   This, of course, is not news;  but it has repeatedly been debunked by fact-checkers.   Yet the president just keeps repeating the lie that "We are "the highest taxed nation anywhere in the world."
    What's news is that he was challenged by a Scripps reporter, on camera, who asked the president why he keeps repeating that "when it's been repeatedly seen as objectively false?"  Without missing a beat, Trump replied, "Well, some people say it differently;  they say we're the highest among developed countries.   You can say it that way, but I prefer to say the highest, and I really think it's true."  He blathered on a bit, then turned to another reportere for a question, so the Scripps reporter could not follow up.
   But MSNBC's Chris Hayes had the facts on his show a few hours later.   Showing a bar graph of 33 developed countries and their tax rates, the U.S. was fourth from the bottom, with Denmark at the top as the highest taxed nation.  At 26% the U.S. is even 8% lower than the median of 34%.
   Many acknowledge Trump's political skill at reading the mood of a crowd and responding with what they want to hear.   I think we've under-acknowledged his skill at lying -- so adroitly, so smoothly -- so that the uninformed believe him, and the informed tear their hair in frustration and anger.

4. Climate change:   A rise in sea levels of 6 feet by 2021 would make nearly 2 million homes uninhabitable in the US, adding up to a lost value of almost a trillion dollars, according to a report from ZillowZG.   They also estimated the price level of affected homes.  Unlike our stereotype assumption, only 39% are in the category of luxury beachfront second homes.    About one-quarter would be in the lowest-priced category, owned by people with few resources to take preventive measures or to rebuild.

5.  Trump's many positions on fixing Obamacare.   Pass the vertigo pills.  The multiple, rapid position-reversals that President Trump did on the subsidy payments were just mind-reeling.  Monday, he announced that he was ending the payments, an undisguised act of further sabotage to make the markets fail.  The next day, Senators Alexander and Murphy announced their compromise plan that, if passed by congress, would continue payments with some other changes that satisfied both Republicans and Democrats.    Trump was asked about it in a press event, and he praised their work and the bipartisanship and said he looked forward to moving forward on it.   He all but claimed personal credit for fixing something he himself had caused just days before.
   A few hours later, back at the White House -- and getting conservative pushback -- he switched again, putting out a statement that he definitely was not endorsing the bill but still praising bipartisanship.   But his press secretary didn't get the word until after she had told reporters what an important first step this was and encouraging Congress to continue.  Then later Trump tweeted out messages that went even further against it, ranting about what a disaster Obamacare is and deriding the subsidies as "enriching pharmaceutical insurance companies."
   Trump has no principles, doesn't understand health policy, and doesn't really care.   For him it's all about winning.   He's for what looks in the moment like a win.  No matter what it does, winning is catnip for him.

6.  Confusing the message:   President Trump has been touting tax reform as "benefiting the middle class and denying that the rich will get a "net tax cut."  But a Wednesday interview with Treasury Secretary Mnuchin contradicted this claim.  Mnuchin said:  “The top 20 percent of the people pay 95 percent of the taxes. The top 10 percent of the people pay 81 percent of the taxes.  So when you’re cutting taxes across the board, it’s very hard not to give tax cuts to the wealthy with tax cuts to the middle class. The math, given how much you are collecting, is just hard to do.”
   I'm sure we could find a math whiz up to the task, if that were really the problem.  Paul Krugman put it this way:  "It's not difficult to see how the plan is tilted toward the very top.  The main elements of the plan are a cut to the top individual tax rates;   a cut in corporate taxes;  an end to the estate tax;  and the creation of a new loophole that will allow wealthy individuals to pretend that they are small businesses, and get a preferential tax rate.  All of these overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy, mainly the top 1%."

Ralph