The American press must not be complicit as President-elect Donald Trump attempts to neutralize and game the fourth estate, critics said this week.
“Rather than doing their jobs and being adversarial to Trump, rather than responding to this sort of bullying with some dignity and return aggression, it is a very good bet that they will respond with greater submission.” —Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept
From his unusual “off-the-record” summit with corporate media executives and reporters at Trump Tower on Monday, to his on-again, off-again meeting with the New York Times, to his employing scripted video briefings in place of press conferences, Trump has in the past two days further exhibited his disdain for, and willingness to sidestep, the establishment press.
Even before the election, the Huffington Post‘s Michael Calderone wrote: “With executive power at his disposal, and a reputation of retaliation, it is not a stretch to imagine Trump disrupting the press’ traditional—and vital—role of covering the White House.”
Recent developments suggest that prediction is coming to pass, as observers pointed out online:
Notably, the drama between Trump and the media “is unfolding at a keen moment of weakness for the press, which has already been buffeted by falling revenue and mounting public disaffection,” Emily Bazelon writes in a piece for this week’s New York Times Magazine.
News organizations aren’t doing themselves any favors in this regard, Glenn Greenwald wrote Tuesday at The Intercept, excoriating the “media stars and network executives” who agreed to Monday’s off-the-record meeting with Trump in the first place.
“If you’re a journalist, what is the point of speaking with a powerful politician if you agree in advance that it’s all going to be kept secret?” Greenwald wrote. “Do they not care what appearance this creates: the most powerful media organizations meeting high atop Trump Tower with the country’s most powerful political official, with everyone agreeing to keep it all a big secret from the public? Whether or not it actually is collusion, whether or not it actually is subservient ring-kissing in exchange for access, it certainly appears to be that.”
Furthermore, Greenwald added, considering their subject, members of the press need to develop thicker skin. “The media was quite critical of Trump, and he hates them back,” he wrote. “If they don’t want to be disliked by powerful politicians—if confronting hostility of this type traumatizes them this way…then they should go find other work.”
“This is a moment of high danger for the press; we’re heading into a dark period for American democracy and American journalism.” —Jay Rosen, New York University
And he expressed pessimism that corporate media outlets will respond to this or other affronts with sharper teeth, citing one journalist who said after the “unprecedented” meeting with Trump: “I know I will get over it in a couple of days after Thanksgiving.”
“Rather than doing their jobs and being adversarial to Trump, rather than responding to this sort of bullying with some dignity and return aggression, it is a very good bet that they will respond with greater submission (the way they all stayed passively in their assigned press pens during Trump rallies),” Greenwald wrote. “The supreme religion of the U.S. press corps is reverence for power; the more Trump exhibits, the more submissive they will get.”
(Perhaps proving the point, Media Matters reported Tuesday that despite “multiple new reports highlighting potential conflicts of interests” involving Trump and his businesses, “[b]roadcast morning news shows mostly ignored” the issue.)
And that’s dangerous, the Guardian‘s Ed Pilkington argued Tuesday in a lengthy exploration of whether Trump’s “tactics mortally wound[ed] the fourth estate.”
According to Pilkington:
“This is a moment of high danger for the press,” New York Univeristy journalism professor Jay Rosen told Pilkington. “We’re heading into a dark period for American democracy and American journalism.”
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As shock waves went global over Donald Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton, world leaders on Wednesday offered their takes on the outcome, which has the potential to “upend the international order.”
While offering his congratulations, French President François Hollande said the result “opens a period of uncertainty.” He said that “certain positions taken by Donald Trump during the American campaign must be confronted with the values and interests we share with the United States.” He added that “what is at stake is peace, the fight against terrorism, the situation in the Middle East. It is economic relations and the preservation of the planet.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Agence France-Presse reports,
Merkel added, “I think we have to face it that American foreign policy will be less predictable for us, and we must be sure that America will be inclined more often to decide alone.”
Her remarks, Huffington Post writes, “are likely issued as a pointed warning to Trump, who has called for all 1.6 billion members of a religion to be banned from the U.S. to prevent terror attacks.”
In the U.K., “where Trump’s victory had echoes of last June’s referendum in which voters showed dissatisfaction with the political establishment by voting to leave European Union,” Reuters writes, Prime Minister Theresa May, who shuttered her government’s climate change office, stated that she looks forward to working with the Republican and that their two countries will “remain strong and close partners on trade, security, and defense.”
As for reaction in Greece, AFP reports: “A source close to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras admitted to being ‘worried about the questions of respect for human rights and minority rights’ in the U.S..”
Addressing the fate of the nuclear deal Iran and world powers agreed to in 2015, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that the accord “cannot be overturned by one government’s decision.” Trump previously said his “number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran.”
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Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted to Trump’s win saying the real estate mogul is “a true friend of the State of Israel,” while Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett said he hoped a Trump presidency would mean that “[t]he era of the Palestinian state is over.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his congratulations to Trump, saying the win could help build “a constructive dialogue between Moscow and Washington on the principles of equality, mutual respect, and real consideration for each other’s position.”
In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he hoped to “take India-U.S. bilateral ties to a new height.”
In Japan, where residents expressed “worry” over the upcoming administration and the Nikkei stock index plummeted, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe—who’s pushed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal Trump campaigned against—said, “Japan and the United States are unwavering allies, firmly bound by the bonds of our universal values—freedom, democracy, basic human rights, and the rule of law.”
Among those offering warm praise were noted anti-migrant officials in Europe.
Hungary’s right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who previously called migrants “poison,” wrote on his Facebook page that Trump’s win was “great news. Democracy is still alive.”
Czeck President President Milos Zeman—who previously declared that “integration of the Muslim community [in Western Europe] is practically impossible”—said he was “very happy” about Trump’s win, adding that he “agree[s] with his opinions on migration as well as the fight against Islamic terrorism” and appreciates Trump’s avoidance of “political correctness.”
Marine Le Pen, head of France’s Front National, tweeted, “Congratulations to the new President of the U.S., Donald Trump, and the American people—free!” while the party’s vice president, Florian Philippot, tweeted a photo of Le Pen and stated, “Their world is collapsing. Ours is being built.”
Taking stock of what a Trump presidency could mean, one Irish observer writes, “This is a New Frontier indeed.”
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Ohio lawmakers approved a bill late Tuesday that bans abortion once a fetal heartbeat can be detected. The bill is now headed to Governor John Kasich’s desk. If signed, it will be one of the strictest abortion laws in the country.
The so-called heartbeat bill means that abortion could be prohibited as early as six weeks after conception—a point at which many women may not even realize they are pregnant—effectively making it illegal in the state.
Lawmakers passed the bill largely along party lines, “emboldened by anticipation of [President-elect] Donald Trump’s upcoming federal and Supreme court appointments,” as Cincinnati.com reports. Republicans in the state have tried to advance the heartbeat bill in some form since 2011.
In Ohio, Republicans control both legislative chambers, as well as the governor’s office. Kasich is well known for his anti-choice stance, having previously sought to strip funding from Planned Parenthood, but he has also expressed skepticism over former iterations of the heartbeat bill.
NARAL Pro-Choice America launched a petition calling on Kasich to veto the legislation.
“This was completely unexpected, and senators had less than 90 minutes to review the amendment before voting,” the organization wrote.
The measure was tucked last minute into an unrelated child abuse bill and has no exceptions for rape or incest. As Cincinnati.com notes, the change “would put the state in violation of current constitutional standards for abortion rights.”
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Planned Parenthood wrote on Twitter, “Ohio anti-abortion extremists know how unpopular their agenda is, so they have to sneak it into unrelated bills.”
“After years of passing anti-abortion laws under the guise of protecting women’s health and safety, they lay bare their true motives: to ban abortion in the state of Ohio,” said Planned Parenthood Action Fund spokesperson Dawn Laguens.
Just hours after the bill passed, protesters gathered outside the Governor’s mansion, holding signs that read, “Abortion Access Now,” “My Body, My Rights, My Choice,” and “Trust Women.”
Federal courts have struck down similar measures in North Dakota and Arkansas, but Republican lawmakers said the Ohio bill could survive a legal challenge with the incoming administration.
“A new president, new Supreme Court appointees change the dynamic, and there was consensus in our caucus to move forward,” Ohio Senate President Keith Faber told the Columbus Dispatch.
Ohio’s approval comes amid more anti-choice moves around the country. On Monday, the Texas Department of State Health Services released an online pamphlet rife with medically debunked myths about abortion, including its alleged link to cancer and suicide risks. According to state law, doctors are required to give the information to all patients seeking abortions.
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Drug-pushing, multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical companies should be “investigated and prosecuted,” declared Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in response to revelations that out-of-state drug wholesalers have been pouring highly-addictive and lethal opioids into rural West Virginia towns, reaping profits while countless suffer.
Reporter Eric Eyre with the Charleston Gazette-Mail published a two-part investigative series this weekend exposing what looks like the Big Pharma behemoths profiting off the state’s overdose epidemic.
According to “previously confidential drug shipping sales records sent by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey’s office,” and obtained by the Gazette-Mail, “drug wholesalers showered the state with 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills” over a six-year period. At the same time, “1,728 West Virginians fatally overdosed on those two painkillers.”
“The unfettered shipments amount to 433 pain pills for every man, woman, and child in West Virginia,” Eyre notes.
Drawing attention to the “Big Three wholesalers,” McKesson, Cardinal Health, and AmerisourceBergen, Eyre writes: “As the fatalities mounted—hydrocodone and oxycodone overdose deaths increased 67 percent in West Virginia between 2007 and 2012—the drug shippers’ CEOs collected salaries and bonuses in the tens of millions of dollars. Their companies made billions.”
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During those years, the Big Three “earned a combined $17 billion in net income” while they “collectively shipped 423 million pain pills to West Virginia, according to DEA data analyzed by the Gazette-Mail.”
And despite suspicious cases—such as one “mom-and-pop pharmacy in Oceana [that] received 600 times as many oxycodone pills as the Rite Aid drugstore just eight blocks away”—rules to flag such cases are routinely ignored by drug companies as well as the state Board of Pharmacy meant to police them, the investigation found.
“Large, multi-billion dollar corporations should not make billions pushing addictive drugs,” Sanders declared on Twitter Tuesday in response to the news report. “They should be investigated and prosecuted.”
But such justice is rare, due to the pharmaceutical industry’s “stranglehold” on Congress, as Joseph Rannazzisi, former head of the Drug Enforcement Agency’s (DEA) Diversion Control Division, recently explained.
An investigation by the Guardian in October highlighted how heavily-lobbied lawmakers have effectively shielded Big Pharma “pill mills” by passing legislation that prevents the DEA from “[going] after a pharmacist, a wholesaler, manufacturer or distributor,” Rannazzisi said, such as those now exposed by the Gazette-Mail investigation.
“Distributors have fed their greed on human frailties and to criminal effect,” former West Virginia Delegate and retired pharmacist Don Perdue (D-Wayne) told Eyre. “There is no excuse and should be no forgiveness.”
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A coal lobbyist and a Boeing executive are to be nominated to deputy positions at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Defense (DoD), respectively, making President Donald Trump’s campaign promises to “drain the swamp” continue to look like a lot of hot air.
Andrew Wheeler, the lobbyist to be nominated as deputy EPA administrator, works for an oil and gas industry-serving law firm and is a registered lobbyist for Murray Energy, the largest privately-owned coal company in the country, according to The Hill. He also served on the staff of climate change denier Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), and will join several fellow former Inhofe staffers at Scott Pruitt’s EPA.
Patrick Shanahan, meanwhile, is a top Boeing executive with no military or political experience. “He is, however, familiar with defense procurement from the business side,” reports the Seattle Times, which notes that Shanahan “ran Boeing’s military rotorcraft division in Philadelphia for two and a half years, where he was responsible for the Apache and Chinook helicopter programs as well as the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor airplane.” (On Friday, it was reported that an attack possibly from a U.S.-made Apache helicopter killed 31 Somali refugees off the coast of Yemen.)
The coal lobbyist and Boeing executive join former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson and a plethora of former Goldman Sachs executives in Trump’s cabinet. These latest hires continue to confirm suspicions that Trump’s policy isn’t so much to drain the swamp, as to fill it.
Trump’s broken promises to drain the swamp weren’t forgotten by observers:
“Personnel is policy,” as Washington Post correspondent James Hohmann tweeted:
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Daniel Ricciardo has conceded that it’s going to take a lucky break to enable him to take a podium for Renault before the end of the current season.
The Australian has finished in the top six in the most recent four Grand prix races, and came close to stepping on to the podium at Mugello only to be thwarted in the closing laps by Red Bull’s Alex Albon.
Ricciardo says that with Mercedes so dominant and Red Bull there to pick up the best of the rest, it’s going to take something extra for Renault to make it into the top three in the remaining seven races of the season.
Read also: Ocon: Renault swap justified by Ricciardo’s ‘better pace’
“Not to be pessimistic but I think on pace we are just not quite there,” he told RACER magazine this week. “The reality is that at best we can be the fourth-quickest car on track.
“You need a bit of a reliability issue or a lap one debacle or something [to finish on the podium],” he continued. “[To get it through] reliability would be a little nicer.
“I don’t wish a crash on anyone, so if one of them wants to have an issue when I’m running fourth at any point that’s cool, I’ll take it,” he added. “Certainly we can realistically aim for a Q3 at every track no matter what the layout.
However he admitted that Renault were “definitely not” at the level of Mercedes, and also praised his former team mate Max Verstappen’s driving so far this season.
“I think Max is driving very well and he is very comfortable with that car that he has underneath them,” he said.
Ricciardo finished fifth in Russia, which he said had never been the strongest track on the calendar for either himself or the Renault team.
“To put in a good result here personally but also have the car underneath me here, really from FP1 onwards, that says a lot,” he explained. ““I can certainly be more confident moving forward.”
Riccardo did incur a time penalty during the race for going off track while executing a planned pass on team mate Esteban Ocon, and then not following the required procedure for coming back, for which he accepted full responsibility.
“I just locked up and went wide,” he shrugged. “It was actually quite good in hindsight, it lit a bit of a fire under my bum and I just got on with it.
“That was cool. I was proud to not let it get to me. I think we made a really good race of it after that.”
Ricciardo exits the team at the end of the year and will move to McLaren, replacing the Ferrari-bound Carlos Sainz. Ricciardo’s spot at Enstone will be taken by the returning two-time world champion Fernando Alonso.
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It’s a year later, but whenever Scott Baio needs a pick-me-up, he relives Nov. 8, 2016.
“I go online and I type in the words ‘moment Trump won’ and I watch the videos,” the 57-year-old “Joanie Loves Chachi” and “Charles in Charge” star said. “I’ll watch an hour of videos every once in a while and it’s great. It’s the best thing I could watch.”
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Baio, an ardent supporter of President Trump who spoke at the Republican National Convention, distinctly recalls how he “didn’t want to watch” TV on election night, since he thought that Trump was going to get “killed” at the polls.
“I went upstairs into the bedroom and had my cellphone with me and I didn’t have any radio or television on. And I just laid there and was literally praying out loud.”
After his brother texted him saying Trump led Democratic presidential nominee Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonWhite House accuses Biden of pushing ‘conspiracy theories’ with Trump election claim Biden courts younger voters — who have been a weakness Trayvon Martin’s mother Sybrina Fulton qualifies to run for county commissioner in Florida MORE in a key state, Baio said he figured the election gods were somehow answering his prayers.
“I thought to myself, ‘OK, [Trump’s] turned it around. If I get up and leave now, I’m going to jinx it because by me laying here, it’s working’ — like the universe cares about me laying on my bed,” Baio said.
“At that point I couldn’t take it anymore, and I said, ‘God, forgive me for breaking the mojo here, but I have to go downstairs and watch.’ ”
When the election was ultimately called for Trump, Baio said he was in complete shock, but felt “incredible.”
“He won when every person on the planet said he wouldn’t,” Baio said.
“What a roller coaster for me, and I’m sure millions of other people,” Baio said. “I was just floored by the whole thing.”
Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge has been elected to lead the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) as the group hashes out its leadership ahead of the 2018 elections.
Rutledge takes over the group that has raised $14 million since the start of 2017, a RAGA official told The Hill, an internal record that far eclipses the $9 million it raised by this point in 2015.
“I am honored to be elected by my colleagues to lead RAGA during such a consequential cycle in which we have 30 races across the country. Just as I have done in Arkansas, Republican attorneys general will defend the rule of law and serve as the champions of opportunity,” she said in a statement.
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“Whether it is Arkansas, or across our nation, job creators and hardworking Americans rely on Republican AGs to ensure that the federal government will roll back burdensome regulations.”
Rutledge took over as Arkansas’s attorney general after the 2014 elections — before that, she had a long career in law, both in private practice, as a county prosecutor, and in state government.
She also previously served as a lawyer for Republican political groups like the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Republican National Committee.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will take over as the group’s vice chairman. The rest of the new executive committee includes Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi; Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr; Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill; Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt; Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry; Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson; and Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes.
Republicans currently hold 29 attorneys general positions across the country and RAGA supports efforts to reelect incumbents and boost the ranks of Republican attorneys general, a pivotal statewide office that will be at the center of many of the major policy pushes emanating from state governments and from the White House.
The RAGA recently lost a tough race in Virginia, where Democratic Attorney General Mark Herring secured another term over former federal prosecutor John Adams.
Republicans, “beside themselves” with excitement over their new power in Congress and, in less than three weeks, the White House, announced on Wednesday their plans for a swift attack on the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare.
Repealing the ACA, said Vice President-elect Mike Pence after meeting with House Republicans, will be the incoming administration’s “first order of business,” with a goal of getting legislation to President-elect Donald Trump by Feb. 20. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) also spoke at the news conference, and said that the program, which allowed over 20 million Americans to gain health insurance coverage, “is a story of broken promise after broken promise after broken promise.”
The Senate on Wednesday also voted “to take the first official step toward repealing President Barack Obama’s signature health care law,” as CNN reports. The chamber “voted 51-48 Wednesday to begin debating a budget that, once approved, will prevent Democrats from using a filibuster to block future Republican legislation to scuttle the healthcare law,” the Associated Press adds.
As expected, Obama on Wednesday also went to Capitol Hill where he held a closed door meeting with Democrats to urge them to fight against Republican efforts to repeal the law and instead “look out for the American people.”
“I think the president made a strong point that the individual provisions of the Affordable Care Act are popular and that we know we’re right on policy and we have to be able to get this message out to the American people,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) following the meeting, The Hill reports. Added Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer: “They want to repeal it and then try to hang it on us. Not going to happen. It’s their responsibility, plain and simple.”
The Republican attack on the ACA, along with planned assaults on Medicare and Medicaid, “would make America sick again and lead to chaos instead of affordable care,” Schumer said, invoking Trump’s campaign slogan.
The Guardian writes: “The dueling events on Capitol Hill illustrated the high stakes over healthcare reform, seen as Obama’s proudest domestic policy achievement but now facing demolition by a unified Republican government.”
DNC chair hopeful Keith Ellison, meanwhile, used his Twitter platform to denounce the Republican attacks on the healthcare program in a series of tweets, saying that the party is “playing politics with your health.”
Trump, for his part, also took to Twitter, where he “warned fellow Republicans to not fall into the trap of taking ownership of the health law’s shortcomings and cautioned them ‘don’t let the Schumer clowns out of this mess,'” as Politico reported:
While Ryan said “We have a plan” to replace the ACA, it’s not clear what that is, thus asks Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.):
Meanwhile, advocates for a Medicare-for-all healthcare system argue that the focus should not be about keeping or repealing Obamacare.
According to Don McCanne, senior health policy fellow with Physicians for a National Health Program, “the debate should be over whether we continue to tolerate our overpriced system that leaves so many out, when we can adopt a proven health care financing system that makes health care truly accessible and affordable for everyone. That, of course, would be a single payer national health program—an improved Medicare that covers everyone.
“Do we simply continue to debate tweaks to a system in shambles, or are we finally going to fix it with an equitable system that actually covers everyone while containing costs through the beneficial tools of public financing and public administration?”