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Disgraced ABC journalist Brian Ross is now attacking those who think a case can be made that the Obama administration ordered surveillance of political opponents. Ross has a long history of shoddy sourcing, outright fabrications, and all around cringeworthy reporting. This time he has set his sights on Conservative Review Editor-in-Chief Mark Levin. This is not going to end well for the Dan Rather of ABC news.

On ABC News This Week Ross had this to day about Levin, moments before playing a video clip of Levin discussing the brewing scandal.

White House officials this morning say they do not know the basis for the president's allegations a top secret intelligence briefing or whether it came from reading an article on the conservative Breitbart Web site posted Friday that detailed speculation from a conspiracy-loving talk show host, Mark Levin. [emphasis added]

Levin, who was chief of staff to Ed Meese at the Justice Department, took to Facebook to hit back at Ross.

What was Levin exactly talking about regarding Ross lack of professionalism? Where do we begin? You know its going to be bad when Gawker, yes that Gawker, calls you out for a lack of integrity.

When there's breaking news, especially about terrorism and national security, ABC News' Brian Ross is there. And under no circumstances should you listen to anything he says. His latest breathtakingly reckless report: Some Tea Party guy on the internet has the same name as the Dark Knight Rises shooter, so, you know, they have the same name. So there you go. Tea Party.

As Mediaite has noted, not long after authorities released the shooter's incredibly common name, James Holmes, Ross ran it through his extensive network of plugged-in sources (Google) and came up with this nugget, which he relayed, live on the air, to Good Morning America's millions and millions of viewers:

Ouch. Biased much?

Both ABC News, and Ross had to apologize for the gaffetastic rush to blame the Tea Party.

As Gawker pointed out, this isnt Ross only bit of less-than-truthful reporting.

Talk about conspiracy theories. In 2001, Ross reported that Saddam Hussein and Iraq were behind the string of anthrax mailings in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Ross said that he had three sources on some days, and four sources on others, according to Salon.

All of those factual claims each and every one of them, separately were completely false, demonstrably and unquestionably so. There is now no question about that. Yet neither ABC nor Ross have ever retracted, corrected, clarified, or explained these fraudulent reports reports which, as documented below, had an extremely serious impact on the views formed by Americans in those early, critical days about the relationship between the 9/11 attacks, the anthrax attacks and Iraq.

Back in 2010 there were reports that Toyota cars were losing control on the highway. Thats when ABC did an investigative piece on the reports. You may remember that ABC News staged footage of a Toyota going completely out of control? Yep, you guessed it, that was Ross too.

Toyata demanded a retraction.

Then there was the time that Ross claimed a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner masterminded the underwear bombing. Well, after people pointed out that the jihadi in question was actually in Saudi custody, which Gawker pointed out was easily found in an AP story, Ross had to publish a retraction.

ABCNews.com reported Monday in error that former Guantanamo prisoner #333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, was one of four leaders of the al Qaeda group which claimed responsibility for the attempted bombing.

Al-Harbi appeared in a propaganda tape released by the group in January 2009. According to published reports, he surrendered to Saudi security forces one month later in February 2009, well before the August arrival in Yemen of accused underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Those are just a few of Ross greatest hits. When even Gawker, that bastion of defamatory reporting, calls you Americas Worst Reporter, you know youve hit rock bottom. Maybe getting your own house in order before throwing shade would be Ross best course of action.

Read more:
Why even liberals should cringe at Brian Ross' baseless attacks on Mark Levin - Conservative Review

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton delivers a videotaped address at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting last month in Atlanta. Erik S. Lesser / EPA

Obama and both Hillary and Bill Clinton were closely watching the DNC's recent elections. Former Vice President Joe Biden and top Obama aides like Valerie Jarrett worked the phones for Perez, whom the former president personally lobbied to enter the race. And other DNC candidates sought the blessing of the Clintons for their bids.

Obama has thrown his weight behind a major campaign on congressional redistricting, run by his former attorney general Eric Holder. And he can ultimately decide the fate of Organizing for Action, the group that grew out of his presidential campaigns. OFA recently relaunched to criticism from many Democrats, who say it undercut the official party.

Bill Clinton, meanwhile, has been an active campaigner for down-ballot Democrats, and he is known to wield his celebrity and fundraising prowess to snub Democrats who have crossed him or his wife.

"Keep fighting," Hillary Clinton said in a recent video message to Democrats. "I'll be right there with you every step of the way."

See more here:
Five New Power Centers: A Guide to the Fractured Democrats - NBCNews.com

One of the most bizarre aspects of the all-consuming Russia frenzy is the Democrats fixation on changes to the RNC platform concerning U.S. arming of Ukraine. The controversy began in July when the Washington Post reported that the Trump campaign worked behind the scenes last week to make sure the new Republican platform wont call for giving weapons to Ukraine to fight Russian and rebel forces.

Ever since then, Democrats have used this language change as evidence that Trump and his key advisers have sinister connections to Russians and corruptly do their bidding at the expense of American interests. Democratic Senator Ben Cardin, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spoke for many in his party when he lambasted the RNC change in a July letter to the New York Times, castigating it as dangerous thinking that shows Trump is controlled, or at least manipulated, by the Kremlin. Democrats resurrected this line of attack this weekend when Trump advisers acknowledged that campaign officials were behind the platform change.

This attempt to equate Trumpsopposition toarming Ukraine with some sort of treasonous allegiance to Putin masks a rather critical fact: namely, that the refusal to arm Ukraine with lethal weapons was one of Barack Obamas most steadfastly held policies. The original Post article that reported the RNC platform change noted this explicitly:

Of course, Trump is not the only politician to oppose sending lethal weapons to Ukraine. President Obama decided not to authorize it, despite recommendations to do so from his top Europe officials in the State Department and the military.

Early media reports about this controversy from outlets such as NPR also noted the irony at the heart of this debate: namely,that arming Ukraine was the long-time desireof hawks in the GOP such as John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio, but the Obama White House categorically resisted those pressures:

Republicans in Congress have approved providing arms to the Ukrainian government but the White House has resisted, saying that it would only encourage more bloodshed.

Its a rare Obama administration policy that the Trump campaign seems to agree with.

Indeed, the GOP ultimately joined with the hawkish wing of the Democratic Party to demand that Obama provide Ukraine with lethal weapons to fight Russia, but Obama steadfastly refused. As the New York Times reported in March, 2015, President Obama is coming under increasing pressure from both parties and more officials inside his own government to send arms to the country. But he remains unconvinced that they would help. When Obama kept refusing, leaders of the two partiesthreatened to enact legislation forcing Obama to arm Ukraine.

The general Russia approachthat Democrats now routinely depict as treasonous avoiding confrontation with and even accommodating Russian interests, not just in Ukraine but also in Syria was one of the defining traits of Obamas foreign policy. This fact shouldnt be overstated: Obama engaged in provocative acts such asmoves to further expand NATO, non-lethal aid to Ukraine, and deployingmissile defense weaponry in Romania. But he rejected most calls to confront Russia. Thatis one of the primary reasons the foreign policy elite which, recall, Obama came into office denouncing and vowing to repudiate was so dissatisfied with his presidency.

A new, long article by Politico foreign affairs correspondent Susan Glasser on the war being waged against Trump by Washingtons foreign policy elite makes this point very potently.Say what you will about Politico, but one thing they are very adept at doing is giving voice to cowardly Washington insidersby accommodating their cowardice and thusroutinely granting them anonymity toexpress themselves. As journalistically dubious as it is to shield the worlds most powerful people with anonymity, this practice sometimes ends up revealing what careerist denizens of Washington power really think but are too scared to say. Glassers article, which largely consists of conveying the views ofanonymous high-level Obama officials, contains this remarkable passage:

In other words, Democrats are now waging war on, and are depicting as treasonous, one of Barack Obamas central and most steadfastly held foreign policy positions, one that he clung to despite attacks from leading members of both parties as well as the DCNational Security Community.Thats not Noam Chomskydrawing that comparison; its an Obama appointee.

The destructive bipartisan Foreign Policy Community was furious with Obama for not confronting Russia more, and is now furious with Trump for the same reason (though they certainly loath and fear Trump for other reasons, including the threat they believe he poses to U.S. imperial management through a combination of ineptitude, instability, toxic PR, naked rather than prettified savagery, and ideology; Glasser writes: Everything Ive worked for for two decades is being destroyed, a senior Republican told me).

All of thisdemonstrates how fundamental a shift has taken place as a result of the Democrats election-related fixation on The Grave Russian Threat. To see how severe the shift is, just look at this new polling data from CNN this morning that shows Republicans and Democrats doing a complete reversal on Russia in the span of eight months:

The Democrats obsession with Russia has not just led them to want investigations into allegations of hacking and (thus far evidence-free) suspicionsof Trump campaign collusion investigations which everyone should want. Its done far more than that: its turned them into increasingly maniacal and militaristic hawks dangerous ones when it comes to confronting the only nation witha larger nuclear stockpile than the U.S., an arsenal accompanied by a sense of fear, if not outright encirclement, from NATO expansion.

Put another way, establishment Democrats with a largely political impetus but now as a matter of conviction have completely abandoned Obamas accommodationist approach to Russia and have fully embracedthe belligerent, hawkish mentality of John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Bill Kristol, the CIA and Evan McMullin. It should thus come as nosurprise that a bill proposed by supreme warmonger Lindsey Graham to bar Trump from removing sanctions against Russia has more Democratic co-sponsors than Republican ones.

This iswhy its so notable that Democrats, in the name of resistance, have aligned with neocons, CIA operatives and former Bush officials: not because coalitions should be avoided with the ideologically impure, but because it reveals much about the political and policy mindset theyve adopted in the name of stopping Trump. Theyre not resisting Trump from the left or with populist appeals by, for instance, devoting themselves toprotection ofWall Street and environmental regulations under attack, or supporting the revocation of jobs-killing free trade agreements,ordemandingthat Yemini civilians not be massacred.

Instead, theyre attacking him on the grounds of insufficient nationalism, militarism, and aggression: equating a desire to avoid confrontation with Moscow as a form of treason (just like they did when they were the leading Cold Warriors). This iswhy theyre finding such common cause with the nations most bloodthirsty militarists not becauseits an alliance of convenience but rather one of shared convictions (indeed, long before Trump, neocons were planning a re-alignment with Democrats under a Clinton presidency). And the most ironic and over-looked aspect of this whole volatile spectacle is how much Democratshave to repudiate and demonize one of Obamas core foreign policy legacies while pretending that theyre not doing that.

Read more from the original source:
Democrats Now Demonize the Same Russia Policies that Obama Long Championed - The Intercept

By Brett Guthrie By Brett Guthrie March 6 at 1:57 PM

Brett Guthrie, a Republican, represents Kentuckys 2nd District and serves as vice chairman of the health subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

With Congress moving forward to repeal and replace Obamacare, it is no surprise that the laws advocates are worried about their Washington-centered approach to health care being scrapped. It was surprising, however, to see former congressman Henry Waxman take up his pen to decry potential reforms to the Medicaid program especially since the policies he criticized were ones he once supported.

In a recent opinion piece for The Post, Waxman lambasted the idea of curbing federal spending on Medicaid by adopting a per-capita allotment reform. Waxman said it would be an unprecedented abandonment of federal responsibility that would pass the buck to the states and deny care to the most vulnerable among us. He claimed that imposing a per-capita cap or block grant would rip health-care coverage from the most vulnerable and dramatically shift the burden of costs to the states.

The policy idea behind a Medicaid per-capita cap is that the federal government would continue to provide matching funds for each individual enrolled in a states Medicaid program, but unlike in the current arrangement, the federal government would set a limit on the maximum allowable amount per enrollee. There would be spending limits per state in each of the main Medicaid eligibility groups: the elderly, people with disabilities, children, and nondisabled, nonelderly adults. These caps would be based on each states historical average cost for an enrollee in each eligibility group.

It is true that this change would significantly change Medicaids financing, but Waxmans critique of adopting a per-capita cap rings hollow. Although congressional Republicans support this idea, it also gained traction two decades ago with a Democratic president. In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton proposed putting federal Medicaid spending on a more sustainable path by adopting a per-capita cap reform. And when a Democratic president proposed them, Waxman applauded per-capita reforms.

At a 1996 congressional hearing, Waxman noted that under a per-capita cap reform, the federal government would maintain its commitment to sharing in the costs of providing basic health and long-term care coverage to vulnerable Americans. He correctly pointed out that states would have both the incentives and the tools to manage Medicaid more efficiently, and the continued federal commitment would help when states face cost increases for reasons beyond their control, including recessions, regional economic downturns, natural disasters, and outbreaks of contagious disease.

We know how the Clinton-era effort ended: The president and Congress failed to pass reforms that would restrain Medicaids growth. As a result, todays Medicaid program is about three times larger than it was when Clinton proposed his reforms. The program consumes about 1 in every 6 state dollars. Next year, overall Medicaid spending is projected to be larger than the entire defense budget, and by the end of a decade, federal and state spending on Medicaid will total roughly $1 trillion each year. The program is projected to continue to grow at a rate faster than the economy or incoming revenue, an objectively unsustainable path.

Modernizing Medicaids financing by putting the program on a budget isnt draconian, its common sense. The fever-pitched fear-mongering against any effort to constrain Medicaid spending shows just how far to the political left Waxman, and the Democratic Party, have drifted. If more spending and more government were the answer, Medicaid patients would have access to world-class health care. Yet, research from an array of scholars has shown that too few providers accept Medicaid patients to meet existing needs and that Medicaid coverage often fails to improve health outcomes for many patients. We must focus on modernizing this Great Society program so it can offer real access to providers and improved health outcomes for decades to come.

No single bill will fix all the challenges Medicaid faces, but Congress and the president have a historic opportunity to adopt permanent reforms. Working together with governors and state Medicaid reformers, we can empower states with new statutory flexibilities. We can modernize the waiver process so states can focus on managing their programs based on the needs of their patients, not managing paperwork for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. We can create better tools and incentives for states to reduce costs, boost quality and improve health outcomes.

The basic architecture of Medicaid has remained largely unchanged over the past 50 years. We now have an opportunity to improve and modernize the program so it remains strong for the next 50 years. In the meantime, Democratic attempts to score political points by manufacturing fear of per-capita cap reforms not only are misguided, they are hypocritical.

Read the rest here:
Democrats' hypocrisy on Medicaid reform - Washington Post

Democrats may place a greater value on a functioning government than Republicans doand thats commendablebut its putting the Democrats at a disadvantage, and is perversely undermining Congress itself.

By Seth Masket

The minority party in Congress usually doesnt have a whole lot of great options. They can either try to work with the majority and bend signature pieces of legislation a bit more to their liking, or they can stand united against the majority so that voters remember their opposition in case the majoritys plans go awry. Either way, though, theyre usually going to lose. But minority Democrats right now have a chance to do something that would actually help Congress in the long run. What they can do is act unreasonable.

Allow me to explain. As I noted in this earlier piece, Congressparticularly the Senateis an institution governed strongly by longstanding norms. Any effort to represent the views of 50 different states, or 435 congressional districts, and still manage to reach conclusions is necessarily going to be complex, and it will seem chaotic and cacophonous even when its running well. But each chamber of Congress has developed norms over the decades that allow members to speak their piece and serve their constituents while still making decisions and keeping the government functioning. Generally, adherence to such norms can be frustrating in the short run but allows for a more functional chamber in the long run that works better for everyone.

Congressional Republicans have been far more willing than their Democratic colleagues to engage in violations of some of these institutional norms in recent decades. Such norm violations include a presidential impeachment, several government shutdowns over budget disputes, and refusals to raise government borrowing limits, threatening the credit of the United States and actually lowering its credit rating. More recently, the Republican Senate majority refused to consider President Barack Obamas nomination of Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court, even though there was nearly a year left in Obamas presidency.

The Democrats, while occasionally playing hardball, have generally responded by operating within longstanding institutional norms. Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to consider impeachment proceedings for President George W. Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney. Democrats havent initiated any budget shutdowns or threatened credit defaults. They have, in most cases, sought to protect their institutions and their norms by acting like the adults in the room and refusing to engage in reckless behavior.

This behavior is, in the long run, not only bad for Democrats, but for the institution.

OK, time for some game theory. No, seriously. If youve ever taken any sort of economics or political science class involving game theory, youll probably be familiar with a very simple classroom exercise involving the prisoners dilemma, which is a useful metaphor for most political exchanges. In a prisoners dilemma, two players are competing against each other, and each has just two optionscooperate or defect. If they both cooperate, they both get a nice reward (say, $1 each). However, if Player 1 defects while Player 2 cooperates, Player 1 gets an even bigger reward while Player 2 pays a penalty. (The reverse happens if Player 1 cooperates while Player 2 defects.) If both players defect, neither gets a reward nor pays a penalty. Thus, each player wants the other to cooperate, and both prefer jointly cooperating to both defecting. But since each cant trust the other to cooperate, the usual outcome is for both to defect, leading to no payoff for either player. (The ferryboat scene in Dark Knight remains my favorite example of the prisoners dilemma, but there are plenty of others out there.)

Playing this game many times, though, can lead the players to develop norms of trust. Neither is happy with the low payoff, so reaching some sort of agreement about cooperation can be beneficial to both.

This hasnt been the pattern in Congress. On a range of issues and tactics, Republicans have defected while Democrats have cooperated. This leads to a greater payoff for Republicans, whether were talking about election results or policy preferences. It means that the Congress slowly but steadily becomes less representative of the nation it represents. And, more generally, it means that the institution becomes worse. When institutional norms are repeatedly violated without penalty, it means those norms are functionally impotent; further norm violations become even more likely.

We might perhaps expect voters to exert some discipline over congressional Republicans here. After all, government shutdowns and impeachments generally dont poll well. People dont like to see dysfunction. Yet voters have shown little interest in actually punishing Republicans for this behavior. The government shutdown of 2013, for which voters largely blamed Republicans, was followed a year later by further Republican gains in Congress and state legislatures.

Why have Democrats continued to play this strategy? Clearly, they have a different set of incentives than Republicans here. Perhaps they place a greater value on a functional government than Republicans do. That may be commendable, but it has put the Democrats at a disadvantage, and it is perversely undermining the institution itself. If congressional Republicans are going to pay any price for these transgressions, and if the institution is going to have some chance of becoming more functional, it is congressional Democrats who need to take charge here. But how?

A classic article outlines an alternative version of the prisoners dilemma that spans many iterations. In this game, it may make sense for one player to act irrationally in the short run, forgoing some payoffs, giving that player a reputation of unpredictability or even craziness. This can improve that players negotiating position further down the road. Arguably, Republicans have been pursuing this path for some time now. It could make sense for Democrats to adopt a similar strategy, at least to the point that Republicans believe that Democrats are as willing to damage the institution as they are.

One application of this strategy would be maximal opposition to President Donald Trumps appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. This could take the form of a filibuster, which Republicans do not have the votes to end. Republicans have signaled that they are perfectly fine with the Court shrinking to eight members if they dont get a ninth who satisfies their preferences; Democrats can signal the same thing. They can say, We already have a nominee for this position in Garland. Confirm him and we will be open to considering Gorsuch for the next open seat.

A potential risk of such an action would be that Senate Republicans eliminate the filibuster on Supreme Court Justices. Two thoughts on that. First, if Senate Republicans are prepared to eliminate the filibuster as soon as an important vote comes up, then the filibuster is already functionally dead anyway. Let it go. Second, theres good reason to believe that Republicans arent about to kill the filibuster. Control of the Senate has bounced around a good deal, and Republicans only hold a four-seat majority. Its not unreasonable for Republicans to think theyll be in the minority again soon, and it would be a useful tool to hold onto.

Now, what would happen in the long run? Basically, if presidents are unable to place people on the Supreme Court unless their party controls a supermajority in the Senate, the Court is going to shrink pretty quickly and substantially. Eventually, members of both parties will find the situation unacceptable and work toward an amicable solution. More generally, if Democrats push this strategy on a range of policies and nominations and signal a willingness to put government functionality at stake, it could force Republicans to reassess their position and possibly restore some longstanding norms.

Now, there are certainly risks to this strategy. For one thing, an increasingly dysfunctional Congress could just end up ceding more authority to the presidency. Obama made an aggressive unilateral move on immigration reform in 2014 in large part because Congress couldnt or wouldnt do anything on the subject. Another risk is that, with both parties behaving recklessly toward Congress, some serious long-term damage to the institution could result. But these risks may be worth taking to get a functional Congress and a responsible party system again.

Thanks to John Patty and Sean Gailmard for helpful ideas and feedback.

Read this article:
The Case for Democratic Recklessness - Pacific Standard