The Great American Hoax Hoax

Perhaps the most obvious hoax on the American people is that which claims that most news reports that oppose their beliefs are hoaxes while none of the reports that reinforce their beliefs are hoaxes. There are many examples of this phenomenon, of course. One that continues to thrive in July of 2017 regards whether news reports of a Trump-Russia connection are a hoax. Whether we are labeling these reports as humorous deceptions or malicious deceptions, there are informative news reports that present verified facts; they are not "hoaxes."

I’m not sure whether many people are amenable to changing their mind about whether the news reporting on the Trump-Russia connection is factual. It’s extremely difficult to let go of a belief that any of us have embraced. If you aren’t interested in knowing information that might question the Russian-Trump "hoax" belief, I respect that. I know I have strongly held beliefs that I’d have a hard time giving up. I believe that direct statements and observable actions by politicians tell us what these people are saying or doing; anything else is a secondary source that is likely to cherry pick “facts” or is a theory about what we don’t actually know to be true. Sometimes those primary sources are telling the truth, but all you can say about what they’ve said is “this is what they said; this is what they observably did.” I’d have a difficult time changing that belief about primary “evidence” being the best source of information! I also believe that conspiracy theories are damaging the U.S. as a nation and that the Russians are exploiting this phenomenon. At least that’s what I’ve heard a Russian operative say in a recorded interview.

I’m thinking we might want to consider what Donald Trump, Jr. has shared directly of his email messages and his personal comments rather than citing the “reprobates” at CNN, for example. To wit: He tried to collude with Russian operatives to get “dirt” on Hillary Clinton but (at least as of July 15th) claims he got nothing and instead was lobbied to lift sanctions on Russia. Both activities are illegal; neither attempt by the Russian operatives was reported to the CIA at the time. Someone left that room with a folder of papers that arrived with one of the Russian operatives who attended the meeting. Who took the papers had not been confessed as of July 15th. There should be no speculation but a lot of further investigation.

President Trump is now saying that, yes, the meeting took place; yes, his son and son-in-law (and others) were eager to know what dirt the Russians had on Clinton. However, Trump, Jr. did not do anything wrong. “Opposition research” is the name of the game in politics, and Trump, Jr. didn’t realize it was illegal to deal with the Russians on this. (The Trumps are new to politics, after all, say the apologists. For the rest of us, ignorance of the law does not confer innocence.) Jared Kushner has gradually added over 100 incidents in which he met with Russians when providing his security clearance application form. The additions have come after he was given a security clearance. Reports of these situations are not hoaxes. Trump, Jr. and Kushner have acknowledged these facts. That they did not report these facts in a timely way is not proof that they did or did not know it was wrong to deceive. Knowing the intent for the deception (or oversight) is extremely difficult to prove, so jumping to conclusions about innocence or guilt about intent is not appropriate. However, it's what they did that matters.

Back to one of my beliefs: Avoid all second-hand sources, whether it’s CNN or FOX, Hannity or Maddow. Look at the collection of email exchanges that Trump, Jr. released and clearly stated are what went on (including his “I love it!” statement regarding Russians interfering with U.S. elections). Listen to what Trump, Jr. and the others who attended that meeting are saying about what transpired. Even information about who was in that meeting has been released like a slowly dripping faucet that needs a new washer. There may be more details coming, but Trump, Jr. has already made it clear that there is a “Trump-Russia thing” (to quote Trump, Sr's term).

All of the intelligence agencies in the U.S. government had independent investigations regarding whether Russia (via operatives or directly with Putin’s leadership) interfered with the 2016 U.S. elections (not just with the presidential election). All of the intelligence agencies came to similar conclusions: Russia did interfere and they know many of the situations where this took place (e.g., state elections as well as federal). It is not a hoax that Russians interfered. It is almost surely not true that all federal agencies are in collusion against Trump and, therefore, are going after an innocent Russia or an innocent member of Trump's entourage. Look for transcripts of summaries of those reports; listen to the directors’ public comments on the subject.

CNN has been accused (and found guilty) many times of rushing forward with a story that is unconfirmed in order to have a larger audience. That they pushed forward with a Trump-Russia story before we had the facts we have now would not surprise me, but the timeline suggests that CNN’s Van Jones spoke before having the facts that were revealed the week after his sidewalk comment that there was little substance to reports of the Trump, Jr. meeting with Russian operatives and less substance in Democrats’ response to what was known at that time.

Many Americans believed that those closest to Trump and his campaign would not have met directly with Russian operatives, but now know they were wrong. CNN’s Van Jones could have been post-rationalizing about his nothing-burger comment on the day after O’Keefe published his edited version of Jones’s dialogue. However, the nothing-burger comment and its post-rationalizing was made before all the factual revelations came to light. At the time of the nothing-burger comment, a lot of people thought that Liberals were attempting to light a bonfire without any wood. Jones was apparently one of those people. And, let’s face it, the Democrats are not getting out a coherent message that people are listening to.

Believing this hoax theory after the Trump entourage's confessed activities were made public is amazing, but not surprising. It’s a belief that some Americans are holding on to, though fewer since Trump, Jr's statements indicate that there’s a lot of burger in that sandwich.

Cuts to Medicaid? What do we need to understand before applauding or condemning?

At the time of this writing, many people are expressing outrage at the proposed cuts to Medicaid funding. Before taking constructive action, we need to know a whole lot more than that the Trump White House budget calls for “a large cut to Medicaid and Medicare funding.” This terse statement, which can be found in many news summaries, is utterly insufficient to deciding whether to be incensed or encouraged… or somewhere in between.

The proposed deep cuts to the Medicaid budget are bound to have a profound impact over the next decade... should nothing change to prevent what's proposed for 2020 and beyond. The proposed Trump budget calls for a 25% reduction in federal Medicaid expenditures by 2026, relative to what is currently estimated on the books. The proposal, which is based on the current House version of the AHCA, is not that easy to summarize in a single statement. What the Kaiser Family Foundation "opines" must be based on a lot of assumptions about how those reductions will impact various states and where individual states will choose to cut their Medicaid rolls. Are those in skilled nursing facilities likely to be "discharged" as the means of adjusting to the eventual 25% cut in federal Medicaid funding? There is no state that has made that kind of decision. Questions about how to adjust over the next decade have barely been asked and have definitely not been answered by each of the 50 states. Perhaps I'm missing something?

Because the Republican Congress follows confederate ideology, the solutions to this gradual, federal budget cut must come at the level of individual states. The federal government will provide less; states can decide whether to supplement with state funds or to cut the number/type of people who are eligible. In the current version, any state that has not already expanded eligibility would be forbidden from doing so. For example, some states, under the ACA, extended Medicaid eligibility to cover *anyone* living in poverty. Other (mostly Republican-dominated) states did not. The default is that the individual must meet more than the financial criteria (less than 133% of poverty level).

Across the United States, only 23% of non-elderly recipients of Medicaid are not employed. 63% have at least one family member who is employed full-time. [Henry J. Kaiser Foundation website, "Distribution of Nonelderly with Medicaid by Family Work Status"] Of those 23% who are not currently working and are *able* to work, what percentage of them would find employment that paid so much that they would no longer need Medicaid? I can't find anywhere that provides the data and an answer to this question.

The Congressional Budget Office estimate for this AHCA change in Medicaid coverage is that it represents an $800 billion total reduction in Medicaid costs between now and 2026. As a reference, for fiscal year 2016, total Medicaid spending was $574.2 billion. [Henry J. Kaiser Foundation website, "Total Medicaid Spending"]

Of course, I hope that the proposed changes at the federal level do not happen. We already have great disparity in Medicaid services between states. A gradual 25% cut at the federal level would undoubtedly exacerbate that disparity.

For now, I think we should all be planning ahead, to the extent we can put aside our own resources. With or without the AHCA, something has to change with Medicare and Medicaid. Either the withholdings for those programs have to increase or some other major change in healthcare for older adults and poor people has to happen. Insurance has to pay for itself. We will also need to pressure federal and state officials to develop plans that answer the question of what we do with the people who become ineligible for Medicaid and do not have the means to pay for essential care for themselves and their families. And the answers have to be viable; they cannot fly in the face of facts.

How can we determine President Trump’s actual agenda?

With the release of the first Trump White House budget, we know what some in the White House are trying to accomplish. There is, however, a great deal of discord within the White House staff and cabinet. It’s still not clear how many of the proposals come from Mr. Trump’s overarching objectives and how many are the work of members of his entourage, some of whom might be “fired” at any time. And, our Tweeter-in-Chief has been known to say two opposite things in the span of less than 24 hours. So in terms of specific ways that his nationalist and anti-regulations agenda will be carried out, this budget is our best indication of his agenda to date. It includes

• big increases in Dept. of Defense
• big increases in Dept. of Homeland Security
• big wall
• big decreases in health/medicine
• big decreases in science and technology
• big decreases in education
• big decreases in environmental protection
• big decreases in foreign aid

How do we translate these budget priorities into the Trump White House agenda? Fortunately, the budget document that was submitted to Congress explains the rationale pretty clearly. This gives us the assumptions they’re making and their “agenda.” Two examples give an idea of the agenda with respect to domestic policy.

Example #1: Trump put Scott Pruitt at the head of the EPA— a spokesperson for climate change deniers who sued the EPA about a dozen times, and Trump has now proposed an EPA budget cut of 31%. As outlined in the budget document, this guarantees there will be no further federal support for cleaning up toxic sites (like the Great Lakes, which hold 20% of the world’s fresh water). Pruitt’s EPA has already removed all the confirmed data on climate change (such as the relative contributions of natural meteorological variations on Earth, natural variations in solar energy release, and human use of fossil fuels) that was on the EPA website.

Pruitt and his advisors are “working on” a replacement for the 2016 EPA website. They say that the new website will focus on commerce (turning away from the EPA as our environment protector). Pruitt intends for the new site to explain how economic growth requires greater use fossil fuels, which will happen if businesses can pollute more (Some environmental regulations are already being repealed.) At the same time, the EPA has an updated section of the overall website that specifically addresses the importance of reducing pollution by U.S. businesses: https://www.epa.gov/p2/p2-resources-business [May 2017].

Pruitt recently claimed that carbon dioxide is not a “greenhouse gas.” (Pruitt has no background in chemistry, biology, or atmospheric sciences, so it is not surprising that he would make such a fundamental “misstatement.”) The EPA budget greatly decreases support for renewable energy options. The most recent headline regarding Trump’s position is that he is moving away from contending that the claims about climate change are part of an international hoax. This, after hearing from G17 leaders that he needs to adhere to the Paris Climate Agreement and why.

White House Assumptions & Rhetoric: If businesses can be free to pollute more, they will create more jobs and enjoy larger corporate profits. This is a specific instance of how trickle-down economics is purported to work. If toxic sites are going to be cleaned up, it’s on each state to find the budget to do so. If fossil fuel drilling and mining do not have to meet standards for toxic and polluting releases into the air, water, and land, then those in the fossil fuel industry will expand their drilling and mining (which feeds back into the first two assumptions).

Agenda:

#1-- Support the fossil fuel industry’s dominance as a provider of U.S. energy.

#2-- Convince working-class people that more manufacturing jobs will come their way as a result of significantly more jobs in the fossil fuel industry and, indirectly, more jobs in the business sectors that choose to increase the pollution they create.

(Republican caveat: There is also talk of Washington dictating to states that they cannot have more stringent laws regarding environmental protection, which flies in the face of Republicans’ strong push for states’ rights over federal rights.)

= = =

Example #2: Science, health, and technology are taking huge hits. Trump’s right-wing cronies are not fans of scientific research in many areas. The explanations for these reductions are mentioned in the budget proposal document. However, one recent White House comment is that these cuts are, in part, because scientists within the federal government have gone “too far” in their research on climate change. Here are a few of the agencies that are being cut to or through the bone.

National Science Foundation: 11% reduction in budget
This is how university innovation is funded: through NSF grants. Academic scientific research and early prototyping of applications are a major way that the United States develops advances in science, health, and technology. The majority of American businesses that used to have their own research labs have changed their innovation model so that they take the results of academic research (free and open to all because they’ve been federally funded) and develop their own products and services. (That is not to say that there is no research in these businesses, only that the investment is modest compared with what it used to be.) This new model substantially reduces the risk to businesses that used to have a one-in-ten internal research outcome that could be turned into profitable product lines and services.

Department of Health and Human Services: 16% reduction in budget
The stated intention is to cut Medicaid severely, to greatly reduce eligibility for children’s health insurance, and to eliminate the low-income energy assistance program. There is no acknowledgment that most Medicaid recipients have jobs, jobs that do not pay enough to be able to afford health insurance and co-pays for medical services. Instead, White House officials suggest that Medicaid can be cut significantly if recipients would “just get jobs.” According to the Congressional Budget Office, there will be about 23 million more people without health insurance. This, compliments of the House AHCA proposal. Trump has vacillated on his policy intentions regarding healthcare coverage for Americans. It appears that the vacillation may be due to gauging the reaction to his political base of supporters (who seem equate reduced coverage with reduced income taxes), but some of that vacillation appears to be due to learning-on-the-job about these federal services’ benefits to his base.

National Institutes of Health: 19% reduction in budget
These are the experts who regularly make breakthroughs in medicine and related health problems. It’s also the NIH that funds university research in important problems, from technology that will help elderly people live longer and more safely in their homes to prevention and cure of cancers. Notice how these would be ways to reduce the government’s costs for the AHCA, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: 17% reduction in budget from last year, bringing it to the lowest level in 20 years.
The cuts significantly reduce the ability of the CDC to discover new ways to effectively prevent diseases and to respond to emergent epidemics. The budget explanation states the intention to nearly eliminate all CDC aid to populations most at risk regarding health,  such as Native Americans living in tribal “reservations,” where poverty is endemic, and those in socioeconomically “disadvantaged” areas. “Disadvantaged” is a euphemism for disproportionate lack of economic opportunity and availability of services that would lead to improved opportunity and health outcomes.

White House Assumptions & Rhetoric: Federal funds have to come from somewhere to finance increased military costs, homeland security strength, and construction and maintenance of The Wall. It (apparently) isn’t important for the U.S. to be a leading contributor in advances in technology, science, and medicine. Science is highly over-rated as a source of facts. (I’m not sure where they think “facts” originate.)

Agenda:

#1— Fund nationalism (for example, increased investments in the DoD and DHS) through a significant reduction in support for Americans’ health.

#2— Put Americans at ease that science, technology, and health advances aren’t that important to their day-to-day lives.

Signs of Patriotism

I was recently asked whether Liberals’ vocal opposition to President Donald Trump is unpatriotic. Actually, the question was, “Why are Liberals so unpatriotic?” The questioner made the argument that not “getting behind” President Trump was especially dangerous in this time of war. The questioner argued that Liberals’ criticism is putting the country and its military in greater danger, even going so far as to suggest that Liberals’ criticism is encouraging terrorists to attack the U.S.

This was my response:

Christopher Hemphill said, “Although poles apart ideologically, they are both unashamed of their patriotism.” Most fundamentally, patriotism is a feeling of strong attachment to one’s country— not to a particular politician, a particular political party, or particular culture within that country. We are all, in some sense, idealists. We have a vision for what our country could/should be. We have notions of what needs to change and what we need to hold on to. The “United States of America” means different things to different Americans.

With an understanding of what “patriotism” actually means, we can proceed to consider how those of a particular political ideology might or might not be patriots. But, first, let’s consider the “concerns.”

• Criticizing a president during a war: There has been no U.S. war in which our freedom of speech, including our right to oppose the positions taken by our government or our president, has not been our highest right. That right is established in the very first amendment to the U.S. Constitution: There can be no law “... abridging the freedom of speech....” Did Republicans criticize President Obama for eight years about his approach to the existing Afghanistan and Iraq Wars? Yes, they did. Were they being unpatriotic? No; they were exercising their First Amendment rights. It is an important sign of the health of a nation when it allows, listens to, and considers diverse opinions and ideas, especially in times of severe adversity such as war.
  
• Putting the U.S. and its military in danger: What puts the U.S. in danger is not citizen criticisms of its president, legislators, or judiciary. Did Conservatives’ criticism of U.S. strategies in 2008–2016 put the U.S. in additional danger? Did those criticisms put our military in further danger? No. It is the Commander-in-Chief who puts our military forces “in harm's way.” It is our generals, in executing a war, whose strategies and tactics have the greatest impact on the safety of our troops.
  
• Encouraging terrorists to attack: Currently, the U.S. is dealing with a few kinds of terrorists: Islamic extremists, White Nationalists, and Russian operatives are probably the big three.

• Islamic extremists: On September 11, 2001, Islamic extremists coordinated attacks on three locations in the United States: two planes headed toward the World Trade Center in New York City, one plane headed toward the Pentagon, and one plane commandeered to hit the Capitol Building or White House. This terrorism did not happen because some Americans were critical of President G. W. Bush. Since then, acts of Islamic terrorism on U.S. soil have been by radicalized individuals. One can theorize about what caused them to become radicalized, but we know it is not because, say, Conservatives were criticizing President Obama.

• White Nationalists: Hate crimes against Muslims, Jews, Blacks, Latinos, and LGBTQ people have increased within the U.S. as White Nationalist groups announced that they have a political figure to look up to, one who would support their latent aspiration to make the U.S. a White-dominant, Christian nation (by some interpretation of what Christianity means— an interpretation that a lot of Christians find abhorrent). Was it criticism of their favorite candidate, Donald Trump, that made extremists begin to damage synagogues, mosques, churches that serve Black communities, social places for members of the LGBTQ community? Of course not! If there is no loud criticism of these hate crimes and the anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, anti-Black, (etc.) rhetoric coming from politicians (in particular) and voters, these White Nationalists will feel even more empowered. It is our patriotic duty-- whether we’re Conservatives or Liberals-- to condemn such domestic terrorism.

• Russian Operatives: There are many kinds of terrorism. But one kind we often don’t think about is cyber-terrorism. When a foreign government or its operatives attempt to destabilize another country’s way of governing, the results have the potential to be far more damaging to a nation than an AK-47 going off in a school yard or a fire set in place of worship. During the 2016 presidential and congressional campaigns, Russians took advantage of the existing hostilities between Liberals and Conservatives to undermine those federal elections. They took advantage of a predisposition of so many Americans to believe anything bad about one of the candidates, including a whole lot of stuff that simply was not true. Easy work for the Russians. They just made stuff up and trafficked in innuendos. Many Americans were so eager to believe the nonsense that they didn’t even stop to find the actual facts in order to determine whether any of the social media posts were true. The Russians took advantage, in particular, of Conservatives’ criticism of President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton to further sow seeds of distrust about the U.S. elections. But, should we blame the Conservatives for this? Of course not! Dissent is at the foundation of what it means to be an American. There will always be tyrants who try to use our freedom of speech and freedom of thought against us. However, we should not blame Conservatives who were critical of President Obama or Secretary of State Clinton for Russia’s motivation to conduct political cyber-terrorism.
  
• Standing united behind the president: In 2008, President Obama won the popular vote by a margin of 52.9% to Senator McCain’s 45.7%. He won the Electoral College vote by 365 to 173. In other words, neither the popular vote nor the Electoral College vote was close. Was it unpatriotic for those who did not believe in President Obama’s vision for the U.S. to criticize that vision? Of course not! It was their patriotic duty to speak their minds.
  
  Now we have President Trump in office. Secretary Clinton obtained 48.2% of the popular vote to President Trump’s 46.1%. The Electoral College gave President Trump a 304 to 227 (for Secretary Clinton) win. Here we have a popular election in which one candidate won by almost 3,000,000 popular votes while another candidate dominated the Electoral College vote. Is it unpatriotic for those who do not support President Trump’s vision for the U.S. to criticize his vision or his behavior in office? Of course not! It is their patriotic duty to speak their minds.
  

While I’ve mostly used examples of the ways in which Conservatives’ criticisms and complaints are examples of patriotism, you can turn that around to understand that Liberals’ criticisms and complaints are also examples of patriotism, that this exercise of our First Amendment rights does not cause terrorist attacks or harm to U.S. troops. It is what our U.S. troops fight for every time a president places them in harms’ way: a fight for our Constitution (and all its Amendments) and our way of life.