I didn't watch President Trump's speech to Congress on Tuesday. I think this piece by Deadspin's Tom Scocca summed my feelings (particularly early in the piece). I felt better not having seen the speech itself nor the pundits afterward. Like always, I did a lot of reading on the not-a-State-of-the-Union address to Congress. I'll try to hit the highlights in bullet point form.
• Even before becoming president, Trump was obsessed with appearance. His hotels had the appearance of glitz/glamour. His name plastered on everything gave the appearance of wealth and importance. This speech was the first in which I felt he put on the appearance of being a serious president. I had several issues with some of it, but for the most part, this was not the Twitter personality, ranting, Baldwin parody subject Donald Trump. It was an appearance of respectability, but whether there's much depth to it or not has yet to be determined.
• I respect his decision to recognize Black History Month, the rise of anti-Semitism and the shooting in Olathe. However, here's an example of "appearance." Reporters have been asking him about the rise of anti-Semitism for weeks. At his big press conference last week, a Jewish reporter asked him about it. He denounced the question as "not a simple question" and got mad at the reporter (the question was "Do you denounce anti-Semitism?") Then, the Olathe shooting took place more than a week ago. He or his administration has been asked about it plenty. Yes, the answer was correct. But he took so long to respond that it meant little.
• Infrastructure is one of the few areas of agreement between Democrats and Republicans. It was smart to get this out of the way early on for Trump and to hit it again later on. His goal of $1 trillion in investment is great on paper, but the devil is in the details of how to make that happen. Obama repeatedly tried it but got no help from Republicans.
• Several claims without evidence: drugs pouring over our borders at an "unprecedented rate," the stock market rising because of his administration, the F-35 dropping in cost (he claimed a planned cost reduction as the result of his efforts), a lobbying ban similar to — if not weaker than — Obama's lobbying ban, and 94 million Americans out of the labor force. Some of those are easily disproven, like the labor force statistic and the "vast majority" of terrorists coming from overseas. Neither is true.
• I've said it before: Coal isn't coming back. The market has spoken: Natural gas is cheaper and cleaner. It's not about regulations, it's about a cheaper and cleaner alternative. That's a lifestyle and culture shock for people in Appalachia.
• A one-sentence evidence on how what Trump says sounds good, but ultimately means little: "I am calling on this Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare with reforms that expand choice, increase access, lower costs and, at the same time, provide better health care." Those are great goals. But you can't provide better health care without increasing costs. Likewise, you can't lower costs without removing quality of health care. You can't expand choice and access while also pleasing your fellow Republicans. It's a rosebush of thorny contradictions.
• Education as the civil rights issue of our time is... stolen directly from the last two presidents. If it is, then what makes Betsy DeVos the right person to address it? His statement about school choice included private religious schools, which would likely end up siphoning money away from public schools. That is worrisome to teachers I know on both sides.
• I was worried by the creation of VOICE -- Victims of Immigration Crime Enforcement. What this means is he's creating an office to track the crimes committed by illegal immigrants. One liberal analyst pointed out three possible assumptions of this office: 1) There's so much crime by immigrants that it demands a special office to investigate it. 2) There is something unique about these crimes by immigrants that demands a special office or 3) The creation of a politically minded office intended to smear immigrants will be popular with Americans. The first true are false assumptions. In short, this is veiled racism and should be read for what it is -- it's an office created to investigate/track crimes of brown people. I don't like to be that blunt, but... what's so special about these crimes or these people?
• I want to spend as little time on the soldier's widow issue as possible, because my feelings are fairly complicated. I think it's wonderful to applaud the fallen soldiers and the families that they left behind. It was an empathetic moment for Trump in a career largely devoid of them. On the other hand, it's very fair and possibly even accurate to say that it was Trump's poor decision making that cost Senior Chief Owens his life in Yemen. Both can be true. That said, what was with the weird comment about Owens being happy because he broke a record for applause?
• Overall, I thought it was fine. It was the best speech Trump's given by far. But that's a low bar to climb. It wasn't this pivot point, either. I'll believe that when he stops using Twitter and gets down to the nitty gritty of how to solve the contradictions he made in his speech. So far, he's done a lot of things that don't take much political effort. I'll be more impressed when he has consistent discipline or is willing to stick his neck out for something.
Russian to Judgment
One is chance, two's a coincidence, and three's a trend. Paul Manafort resigned as Trump's campaign manager due to his ties to Russian oligarchs. Lt. Gen. Flynn resigned as national security advisor for lying to Vice President Pence about his conversations with the Russian ambassador. Now Attorney General Jeff Sessions is under fire for lying to Congress about speaking with the same Russian ambassador.
As of this writing, I expect Jeff Sessions to remain in office. I can't see Republicans getting all that upset about Sessions lying to Democrats. Flynn had to go because he lied to Republicans. I do think we're seeing movement on him "recusing himself" from the FBI investigation of Russian ties to the Trump campaign. But even those are couched in qualifying statements — Paul Ryan said Sessions should recuse himself IF he is the subject of the investigation. That's... a pretty big loophole.
Sessions made an argument overnight that because of the wording of the questions, he had not spoken with any Russian officials in his role as a Trump advisor. Rather, he spoke with the Russian ambassador as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. On the face, this sounds like at least a plausible defense. But the Washington Post did some strong reporting, contacting 20 of the 26 members of the Senate Armed Services Committee to find out if they had conducted a one-on-one meeting with the Russian ambassador last year — including the chairman of the committee, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. All 20 of the respondents said they had not.
Party On or Party Poopers?
There's a stark difference in how Democrats and Republicans see the economy. According to the University of Michigan's respected consumer sentiment surveys, Republicans feel the economy is not just going to grow, but at an unprecedented pace. Not to get bogged down in the weeds with numbers, but their expectations for a Trump economy are higher than the poll's history -- which dates back to 1952. They're higher than the post-WWII boom! Democrats are the opposite, naturally. Democrats are wildly pessimistic, at levels near that of the Great Recession.
Democrats are probably wrong — If Barack Obama left the economy in such good shape, Donald Trump can't wreck it overnight. There has to be more to the doubts than just fear, and I haven't seen any troubling major indicators yet. But Republicans are probably wrong, too. Their chief economic drumbeat of deregulation won't create the economic boom to rival the last 60 years. So what does that mean? Everyone just needs to take a deep breath and reconsider what they think of the economy.
Summary Judgments
Fun tool by the Washington Post about which bridges are in need of repair in your county, and how your county stacks up nationally. For those of you like me who have written stories about transportation issues, including these very problems, this is like a Christmas gift of data. • • • Gannon is a one-word epithet for many conservative Republicans in Kansas. In short, the state has a Constitutional clause that education funding must be suitable. The Legislature has tried to shortchange education before and lost in court. They slowly tried to do it again and naturally got sued again. There were two parts in question: lawmakers weren't funding education equitably (fairly between big and small districts) and adequately (enough at all). The first question was settled a while ago, and resulted in a relatively small chunk of money helping to balance it out. The second question was solved on Thursday, and while there isn't a money amount attached to it, lawmakers are going to have to redo the budget. Effectively, the court told the state legislature to either put in a lot more money (probably $500-$800 million!) or prove that kids can get a good education with less money. They have until June 30. Good luck, lawmakers. • • • Running has been pretty successful lately. I did 3.5 miles yesterday, but I really felt it. This next week is going to be tough: I'm going to be on vacation before my first 4-mile run next Saturday. I'm excited about the first run of the year, but it's also my first 4-miler. • • • No great stories about the kids this week. Sorry. • • • News Judgments is probably going to be off next week. I will be on vacation and don't really want to think about it. If I have time, I may write. But don't expect an update next week.
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