Mediaboss Marketing

Last weeks bombshell report from the New York Times was unlike the majority of purported bombshells about the Russia scandal over the past six months wholly deserving of the round-the-clock coverage it received from the media. The report provided the most damning evidence yet that members of the Trump campaign were at the very least willing to coordinate with individuals ostensibly associated with the Russian government in order to defeat Hillary Clinton.

More than a year after the fact, the Times revealed lastTuesdaythat Donald Trump Jr. held a meeting last summer with someone who he was told was a Russian government attorney who possessed official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia. The meeting, which was attended by Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort along with a lobbyist and former Soviet counterintelligence officer,according to NBC News has the makings of a major scandal.

Even if the various accounts of the meeting are true i.e., that the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, had no meaningful information and quickly changed the subject this doesnt change the fact that the presidents eldest son accepted a meeting with someone who was allegedly part of the Russian governments effort to meddle in the U.S. presidential election. As conservative writer David French writesin National Review:

Yes, it is a big deal when senior representatives of an American presidential campaign meet with a purported representative of a hostile foreign power for the purpose of cooperating in that foreign powers effort to influence an American presidential campaign.

Though the Trump-Russia collusion narrative still warrants skepticism, anyone who still maintains that Russiagate is fake news after this latest report is either deluding themselves or deliberately lying or perhaps both. The Russia scandal is very real, and it has been clear for some time now that Putins government meddled in the presidential election by hacking emails from the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta, chair of Hillary Clintons campaign.

What has long been unclear (and remains doubtful), however, is whether the Trump camp had any kind of involvement with this effort notwithstanding feverish speculation from Democrats. We still dont know whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government (Veselnitskaya was not, after all, a Russian government attorney), the latest revelation about Donald Trump Jr. leaves no doubt that the Trump camp was capable of such acontemptible act.

The implications of the New York Times expos are clear enough, but it wouldnt be a Russiagate story without being followed by some hyperbolic allegations of treason. Many liberals seized on the report not only as proof that the Trump campaign acted unethically and maybe unlawfully, but that Trump Jr. had actually betrayed his country. We are now beyond obstruction of justice,saidSen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, Hillary Clintons former running mate. This is moving into perjury, false statements and even potentially treason. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., meanwhile,tweeted: If this isnt treasonous, Im not sure what is.

Of course, as just about every law expert has pointed out, there isno proofthat Trump Jr. actually committed treason, and claiming that he did is going well beyond any available evidence. Although the presidents oldest sonpotentially violated campaign finance laws,there is still no evidence that he or his father or anyone else within the Trump camp are traitors who deliberately aided the Russians.

Indeed, if this incident has proven anything conclusively it is not that Trump and company are collaborators in a vast Russian conspiracy, but that Trump and company are some of the dumbest and most politically incompetent individuals ever to set foot in the White House. As Anthony Fisher observesin The Week:Far from being cunning uber-villains of Machiavellian genius straight out of a James Bond film, [Trump insiders] are in fact clumsy buffoons, prone to taking meetings under shady pretenses and failing miserably at keeping their stories straight afterward.

Former undercover KGB agent Jack Barsky had asimilar take,noting that watching the Trump presidency is like watching a Bugs Bunny cartoon with Daffy Duck in charge. Trumps advisers, he continued, are fundamentally unable to tie their own shoelaces.

On Wednesday, the top buffoonrespondedto the latest controversy surrounding his son by calling it a political witch hunt, andthen suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin would actually have preferred Clinton over him as president.If Hillary had won, our military would be decimated, said Trump. Thats why I say, why would he want me? Because from day one I wanted a strong military, he doesnt want to see that.

The reason why Putin wanted Trump to win, of course, is because he recognized that the billionaire was an incompetent clown who could be easily manipulated andthat he would likely destroy the United States global reputationand turnthe country into a pariah state. So far, President Trump has not disappointed. According to a recent Pewsurveythat spanned 37 countries, Americas global image has plummeted over the past year, and a median of just 22 percent of respondents have confidence in Trump to do the right thing when it comes to international affairs, compared to 64 percent in the final years of Barack Obamas presidency. Trump received significantly lower ratings in every single country except for surprise Russia and Israel.

Last week the Australian journalistChrisUhlmanndescribedTrump at the G20 summit in Hamburg as isolated and friendless, notingthat he has managed to isolate his nation, to confuse and alienate his allies and to diminish America. Our president,Uhlmann continued, haspressed fast-forward on the decline of the United States as a global leader.

This is all doubtlesstrue: The Trump administrationhas done moreto diminishAmericas standingin the world over the past six monthsthan Putin could have ever hoped for.But all thisprovesis that Trumpis an ignorant and incompetent buffoon whosereactionary agendais disastrousfor America. Andthe latest revelations about Donald Trump Jr. only provethat he is as clueless, incompetent and ethically challenged as his father.

Go here to read the rest:
Sorry, liberals: Donald Trump Jr. didn't commit treason he's just incompetent - Salon

An email from high-profile NSW Liberals members said Alex Hawke, along with Julian Leeser, was leading factional efforts to destroy reform. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

High-profile members have attacked what they call the current culture of rorts and lobbyists in the New South Wales Liberal party, accusing MPs Alex Hawke and Julian Leeser of trying to protect factions to stop party reform.

An extraordinary email is a prelude to the NSW Liberal Futures Convention at the weekend, where ordinary members will vote on whether they will get a say on the preselection of MPs.

Five days out from the event, retired major general Jim Molan, the former Liberal preselection candidate and Operation Sovereign Borders architect, and Walter Villatora, a key campaigner for preselection reform, have sent a scathing assessment of attempts to water down reforms.

Their email launches an attack on some of their own party MPs and the state divisions ruling body, the NSW state executive.

It accuses the Liberal factions and the MPs of trying to orchestrate a fake compromise only because they are embarrassed by the current culture of rorts and the stench of commercial conflicts by lobbyists.

The email is part of an organised campaign in the NSW division, which is one of only two state Liberal divisions that does not have some form of plebiscite for preselection.

The core supporters of reform have long attacked the NSW state executive and its

On Monday, a key campaigner for reform, John Ruddick, predicted in Guardian Australia that the party could split over the issue if ordinary members were not given a say.

Ruddick was threatened with expulsion from the party over the issue and eventually resigned over the issue and the rules for selecting leaders.

While Tony Abbott has championed the cause of reforms since he left office, Villatora, as his federal electorate conference president, was behind the current Warringah motion, which will be the first item for debate at the weekend conference.

The factional bosses are like the rich man who likes to sit in the front row at church but puts $5 in the plate the lowest amount he can without the sound of coins, the email says. It is a variation on the theme of State Executive whose governance model is six words: What can we get away with?

The faction holds power by a constant tactic of delay, distract, dissemble, dilute, demoralise and expel those who dare speak up about this dreadful state of affairs.

The Warringah motion calls for ordinary members to get a vote in all preselections and for party office bearers. Currently, preselections are decided by a vote by a small number of delegates.

Opponents of the Warringah motion argue it will encourage branch stacking so the Leeser and Hawke motions impose an activity test for members, a waiting period for voting and a grandfathering clause to ensure open voting would only apply to future members.

The offices of Leeser and Hawke have been contacted for comment.

Read the original post:
NSW Liberals members call for reform saying party has 'culture of rorts' - The Guardian

Medicaid provides health care to 75 million Americans. It's also a hideously expensive program that is at the center of the raging health-care debate in Washington. Republicans want to scale back the program, and Democrats warn that doing so will cause nothing short of mass death.

But that is not a credibleor responsibleclaim.

ObamaCare extended Medicaid eligibility to able-bodied adults at up to 138 percent of the poverty level. To do this, the federal government promised to pick up 100 percent of the tab for the first three years, and then 90 percent in perpetuity in participating states. Republicans want to trim back Medicaid eligibility to the pre-ObamaCare days, when "only" the poor, children, the disabled, the elderly, and pregnant women qualified.soho42 via Foter.com

Conservatives also want to take the opportunity to fundamentally reform the program, which consumed half of most state budgets and a tenth of the federal budget even before the ObamaCare expansion. To this end, Republicans want Uncle Sam to stop handing states on average 50 cents for every Medicaid dollar they spend and instead give them a fixed lump sum on a per-patient basis and tie its growth to general inflation.

If Senate Republicans' plan is enacteda big "if" at this stagefederal Medicaid spending would drop from $4.6 trillion between 2018 and 2026 to about $3.9 trillion.

This reduction is hardly draconian. However, given that liberals want health-care spending to go in only one directionupit's hardly surprising that they'd fight this. But their claim that the cuts will kill Americansabout 208,500 over the next decade, per a Vox analysisis pure sensationalism.

Let's think about it.

Vox's calculations are based on straightforward projections from a Congressional Budget Office report that estimates that scaling back ObamaCare spending would mean loss of insurance for some 22 million Americans. Vox also claims that every 830 people covered means one life saved, hence, presto, the GOP plan will mean killing 208,500 people.

The first problem with this analysisapart from its chutzpahis that it assumes that all insurance saves lives, even a substandard plan like Medicaid, which accounts for the vast majority of the people covered by ObamaCare. That is emphatically not the case.

As I have argued before, Medicaid is perhaps the civilized world's worst program. It costs just as much as private plansabout $7,000 per patientbut produces worse outcomes, including higher mortality, than private coverage. So given that one of ObamaCare's dirty little secrets is that many of its Medicaid enrollees are folks kicked off their private plans due to the Medicaid expansion, the law may have actually costrather than savedlives in this cohort.

But what about the uninsured? Extending Medicaid to these people improved their health and diminished mortality, right? Wrong. Plenty of reputable studies suggest that this might not be the case:

The main evidence to support Vox's claim that Medicaid improves mortality rates comes from Massachusetts' experience with universal coverage. Vox claims ObamaCare emulates Massachusetts' system, but as the Manhattan Institute's Oren Cass points out, that comparison doesn't fly: In contrast to ObamaCare, Massachusetts' private plan component accounted for about 80 percent of coverage, while Medicaid comprised 20 percent at most.

And even if Medicaid's mortality outcomes were somewhat better for the uninsured, it would still not necessarily follow that extending the program would save lives on balanceor that eliminating the program would do the reverse. In a world with finite resources, one also has to consider the opportunity costs or other ways of spending that may potentially save more lives.

Indeed, a 2016 study in the journal Health Affairs found that states that spent a smaller portion of their budgets on Medicaid and Medicare than on social programs such as housing, nutrition, and even public transportation, showed "significant" gains on a myriad of health factors, including mortality, over states that did the reverse. It is possible that this is purely coincidental. But it may also be the case that these programs improved general quality of life and lowered stress levels, thus bettering baseline health and preventing people from falling prey to life-sapping illnesses in the first place.

And what holds true for state-level spending might be doubly true for individuals spending out-of-pocket.

The main advantage of health insurance in general and Medicaid in particular is not really to prevent death but to protect against catastrophic illnesses that wipe out patients financiallyin other words, to provide a psychic comfort. But patients are not willing to pay any amount for any insurance product to receive that comfort, presumably because at some point, other uses of the money like a car fitted with state-of-the-art safety features or a more expensive home in a low-crime neighborhoodcan offer an even stronger sense of security. As George Mason University economist Alex Tabarrok recently pointed out, in Massachusetts, buy-in for Medicaid-like programs fell precipitously when patients were asked to bear more of their cost. Medicaid recipients value the program at about one-fifth its actual cost, research shows.

In other words, they'd buy only after an 80 percent discount.

By liberal logic, if they declined to buy in, they'd be courting death. But the calculus of health insurance is much more complicated than their simplistic arithmetic.

This piece originally appeared in The Week

See original here:
Sorry, Liberals: Protecting the Medicaid Status Quo Won't Save ... - Reason (blog)

Thenew Washington Post-ABC News poll is bad for President Trump, but one number is raising some eyebrows when it comes to Democrats.

It asked whether people thought the Democratic Party stands for something or just stands against Trump, and people chose the latter by a 52-to-37 margin. So thatis a majority of registered voters who think the opposition party isn't defined by anything except opposition that the Democratic Party has no real message.

This isn't out of nowhere. Rep. Joseph Crowley (N.Y.), the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House, seemed to confirm the majority's belief in an Associated Press story that just happened to popthe same morning the Post-ABC poll did. That message is being worked on, the congressman said. We're doing everything we can to simplify it, but at the same time provide the meat behind it as well. So that's coming together now.

Thenthere are those special-election losses especially that backbreaker in Georgia, in which there was some Bernie Sanders-related consternation about whether Jon Ossoff was progressive enough.

It's a bit of a mess. And it's a mess that's complicated by the fact that Democrats are really good at being disorganized and also don't really have a leader to speak of at the moment. But here's what else we can say: It probably doesn't matter.

Republicans ran for years on a message of Obama is bad and undo what Obama did and it worked out pretty well for them in the 2010 and 2014 midterms. Charlie Cook had this prescient quote in Rolling Stone in March 2010, when Republicans were actually in a pretty similar spot to where Democrats are right now and people were wonderingwhat the message was:

Does the Republican Party lack a clear leader? Absolutely. Do they lack a positive message? Of course. Do their demographics suck? Yeah, Cook said. But in a midterm election, none of that matters. Because midterm elections are a referendum on the party in power. And to throw one side out, you've got to throw the other side back in.

You could literally write that first part about Democrats word for word.

Republicans would eventually settle upon aContract with America-esque plan, labeled the Pledge to America, in September 2010.It was a minor story at the time, and was quickly forgotten even after Republicans took the House that year.

Fast-forward to the 2014 election cycle, and Democrats had grown fond of labeling the GOP obstructionistsand the Party of No opposing President Barack Obama out of spite, they argued. They seized upon then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) statement that his top political goal was to make Obama a one-term president. And it was a message that seemed to take; a July 2013 CBS News poll asked whether Republicans' opposition to Obama was driven more by policy disagreements or to stop Democrats from gaining a political advantage. People said the GOP was more about stopping Obama than policy by a 64-to-28 margin. For Democrats, it was a pretty even split.

Did the GOP wind up with a hugely novel platform ahead of the 2014 election in which they wiped the floor with the Democrats? Of course not. Did the GOP ever settle on an Obamacare replacement to run on proactively? Nope, and when they finally won control of Congress and the presidency in November 2016, they still didn't have their alternative ironed out. This was the thing they ran on for seven years, and they never had to figure out what they were running on besides repeal.

So why does this keep coming up? Part of the reason is that people within the party truly care about policy and about its direction. And there will always be thosepushing for the party to move more in the direction of Sanders (I-Vt.) or perhaps to moderate on certain things to try to appeal to rural voters.

There are also politicians who see a chance to make a name for themselves this way. It just sounds good to say, Our party needs to stand for something! Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) was big on telling the GOP it couldn't just be the Party of No. Bobby Jindal was going to be the ideas candidate in a party that apparently had none. And then the GOP nominated Donald Trump, the guy who was the most in-your-face, anti-Obama candidate on the debate stage the guy who lacked any real coherent ideology or ideas of his own.

The point is that we've been here before. Do Democrats need to figure out who they are and what they stand for? Many in the party would say yes. And from a good-government standpoint, it's nice to tell people where you stand and what your priorities are. But Democrats probably don't need to be anything more than the anti-Trump party right now not really. The 2018 election will largely be a referendum on Trump, and right now Americans say they prefer a Democratic Congress to a Republican one by between 5 and 10 points.

That's pretty decent shape to be in for a party with no ethos.

See original here:
A majority says the Democratic Party stands for nothing except the only thing that matters in 2018 - Washington Post

Ben Ray Lujn was a relatively new congressman, barely finding his way through the halls of the Capitol, when his mom called with an urgent message from home.

The llamas, she told him, had broken out of their pen again.

From nearly 2,000 miles away, Lujn helped her figure out how to corral the animals, which were supposed to be guarding the familys sheep herd in New Mexico.

Its a skill that could serve him well in his current job, in which he will be expected to play a leading role in guiding Democrats as they try to win the House majority in 2018.

Something that I learned just around here, growing up on this small farm, is that every job mattered, and whatever job you were asked to do or tasked with, you had to do it, and you had to do it right, said Rep. Lujn, 45, sitting beneath a towering cottonwood at his familys generations-old farm.

As chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Lujn has a difficult, often thankless, job at a time when almost every Democrat seems to have an opinion about what the party needs to win in the age of President Trump.

Energetic anti-Trump groups are hammering the campaign committee for not doing enough to recruit and promote fresh candidates, portraying party leaders as tone-deaf to Trumps populist appeal.

At the same time, more moderate forces are pushing Democrats to the center, trying to keep the party from drifting too far left into the Bernie Sanders wing.

It falls largely to Lujn to shepherd the campaign arm of the fracturing party, united mainly by opposition to Trump and by a desire to win back the House majority. Lujn must help recruit dozens of candidates and persuade deep-pocketed donors to shell out more than $200 million for the midterm election.

Lisa Mascaro / Los Angeles Times

As chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Rep. Ben Ray Lujn has a difficult, often thankless, job.

As chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Rep. Ben Ray Lujn has a difficult, often thankless, job. (Lisa Mascaro / Los Angeles Times)

This is a moment of opportunity and a moment of truth for Ben Ray Lujn, said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, an outside group promoting progressive candidates.

Does he fill the map with bold, inspiring economic populists who can win in red and purple districts? Or does he go the traditional route of finding milquetoast candidates or self-funding candidates who lose cycle after cycle? Thats what a lot of people are looking at.

After losses in four special elections this spring, many Democrats blamed party leaders for failing to pick up a single House seat.

But Lujn held firm, rejecting pressure to spend more money in long-shot races. Although the campaign committee poured $6 million into suburban Atlanta, where Democrat Jon Ossoff appeared to have the best chance to pick up a traditionally Republican seat, it declined to go big in deep-red districts in Kansas, Montana or South Carolina. Ossoff still lost, but the campaign committee learned valuable lessons and Lujn saved resources for what he believes are more promising battles to come.

It was an unexpectedly hard-line approach from the typically good-natured Lujn, who is preparing to go on the offense next year in 80 Republican-held battleground districts, particularly those Trump lost to Hillary Clinton or only narrowly won. Colleagues made note of his resolve.

The chairmans responsibility is to look at it in a coldblooded, strategic way to look at what we need for 218 to win the majority, said Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), co-chairman of the House Democrats Policy and Communications Committee. That always creates some disappointment for people.

Laid-back and bluejean casual, Lujn seemed like an odd choice when he was first tapped for the job. He was pulled from relative obscurity as a back-bench, four-term congressman from a small, poor state, hardly seen as a power player in Washington.

But as the first Latino to run the committee and the first Westerner in years Lujn represents an aspirational face of the party, one that is more energetic, youthful and rural.

On his familys 4-acre farm nestled among tribal lands in the Nambe valley the street is named for his grandparents Lujn explains his system for cooking bite-size chicharrones snacks on a New Mexican disco a wok-like pan originally made from a tractor disc on the outdoor grill.

Later he shows off rows of lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers growing in a greenhouse he built on weekend trips home.

His father, the long-serving speaker of the state House, encouraged him to pursue politics, which he did only after a circuitous route through college, finally graduating later in his 20s after working night shifts as a blackjack dealer at a nearby tribal casino.

You learn how to visit with people, carry on a conversation, he said about his time playing cards. My political opponents tried attacking me for having those jobs. This paid the bills. If youre going to attack me doing that, then you clearly dont understand the constituents youre fighting to represent.

His predecessors at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee were usually hard-charging Washingtonians think Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel or former New York Rep. Steve Israel.

But House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi saw in Lujn a well-liked and charismatic newcomer when she asked him to take the job after the 2014 midterm election losses.

Lujn accepted and quickly set out to expand the committees team. He stacked it with lawmakers newer to Congress, naming vice chairpersons from regions across the country. He also worked to improve relations with minority groups in the House, particularly the Congressional Black Caucus, which often feels shortchanged in campaigns.

His first big challenge, the 2016 election, became a brighter spot on a dismal night for Democrats, with six House seats netted. But disappointed Democrats agitated for House leadership changes after Trumps win.

When Lujn sought election as chairman later that year the job would no longer be appointed by Pelosi, as she heeded demands to loosen her grip he fended off a potential challenger and won unopposed.

This year he was hit with an ethics review after a conservative watchdog group filed a complaint over his use of photos from a Democratic sit-in on the House floor for his ownreelection fundraising, a potential violation of House rules.

Observers say Lujn has grown into the job, an assessment he readily admits.

A core debate among House Democrats is whether their focus should be on reaching white, working-class Trump Democrats who have broken away from the party, or on investing more heavily in outreach to the African American, Latino and other electoral groups sometimes taken for granted.

Democrats need 24 seats to pick up the majority, about as many as a party historically wins during midterm elections when it does not control the White House.

The committee is trying new strategies to tap into unprecedented grass-roots enthusiasm, including recruiting more locals for campaign jobs rather than parachuting in experts from Washington, believing the new faces will provide on-the-ground expertise and build a deep bench of new leaders.

It has also moved its entire Western state operation to Southern California to aggressively target Republican-held House seats in Orange County.

We need to do a better job in understanding that were talking about real people, Lujn said. And be able to connect with those people all across the country, like the ones I represent and the family I grew up in.

Lujn makes no secret that the committee is willing to take sides in primary battles, a position that angers many Democrats.

Pelosi, as party leader in the House, still plays a mighty role, particularly as fundraiser in chief, and Lujn must toggle between his allegiance to the San Francisco Democrat and the reality that some in the party would prefer new leadership.

No matter what you do, somebodys going to be upset, especially if you have high expectations and we do have high expectations, said Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus political action committee.

Meeks says he appreciates Lujns more open, bottom-up approach at the campaign committee, as opposed to someone just saying, This is what were doing.

We have honest, open, tough conversations, he said. He can deal with it.

As the hot afternoon sun begins to relent on his farm, Lujn walks across the property to the pen with his last llama, Tony. The sheep have died or been sold off and the other llama sent to a new home, but he has plans to resume the family traditions once he can repair the fences to protect from predators. He calls the farm work therapy.

Lujn recalls once when he couldnt get close enough to collar the llamas after another escape. He simply parked his trailer up the road, filled the bed with feed, unfolded his lawn chair nearby, sat down and waited.

Eventually, the llamas climbed in and he took them home.

Its another lesson from the farm this one in patience that could come in handy for Democrats in 2018.

lisa.mascaro@latimes.com

@LisaMascaro

ALSO

Trump wants a border wall, but few in Congress want to pay for it

Trump's election has mobilized a resistance like no other, but will Democrats' answer to the tea party divide the ranks?

More coverage of Congress

More coverage of politics and the White House

Link:
Is this small-town congressman from New Mexico tough enough to win Democrats the House majority? - Los Angeles Times