Trump’s Incoherent Anti-Terrorism Policy →

As for terrorism, the anti-Muslim nature of this order is likely to increase anti-U.S. terrorism rather than decrease it. The order is music to the ears of ISIS, Al Qaeda, and other violent groups that portray in their propaganda and recruitment pitches a world engulfed in a war between Islam and a Judeo-Christian West that is led by the United States and is out to persecute Muslims. Persuading other governments, especially in the Muslim world, to cooperate with the United States in the name of counterterrorism will be made more difficult. And Americans will be more, not less, likely to fall victim to terrorism perpetrated by Islamist extremists.
The designation of the nationals of seven states (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) for the most sweeping prohibition on entry to the United States (i.e, for all travelers, not just refugees) for at least 90 days reinforces the anti-Islam flavor of the executive order, given that these are all Muslim-majority countries. This grouping of states was first named in legislation that the Republican-controlled Congress passed last year as “countries of concern.” But that legislation had to do with which countries were or were not to be eligible for the visa-waiver program. The new executive order is instead a blanket ban on all travel to the United States, visa or no visa.
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Conceivably this list of seven could dilute the anti-Islam flavor of the order somewhat, given that other Muslim-majority countries are not so listed. But looking closely at who was listed and who wasn’t only underscores how far divorced this matter is from counterterrorism. No one from any of the seven countries on the list has killed anyone in a terrorist attack in the United States. By contrast, the hijackers who perpetrated 9/11 came mostly from Saudi Arabia and the rest from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Lebanon; none of these countries are on the list.
To the extent any distinction is being made between Muslims the administration most wants to keep out and others to whom it will be a little more tolerant, the distinction seems to be made for unrelated reasons that some regimes get favored and others don’t. The reasons not only don’t have to do with terrorism but also don’t relate to democracy or human rights either.
And maybe there’s an additional explanation, very much in the realm of the ignoble. It has not escaped the notice of media that some of the principal countries — including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt — that legitimately could be objects of worry as exporters of terrorists but aren’t on the no-travel list are ones in which Trump in his private capacity has done business or sought to make deals. Thus this matter will be one of the first of what are likely to be many presidential decisions about which, as long as Trump flouts ethical principles and refuses to divest himself of his business interests, understandable questions will be raised about his motives.

The Real Story Of 2016 →

Excellent series of articles on where and how the US presidential election predictions went wrong (and right).

Of note:

Another myth is that Trump’s victory represented some sort of catastrophic failure for the polls. Trump outperformed his national polls by only 1 to 2 percentage points in losing the popular vote to Clinton, making them slightly closer to the mark than they were in 2012. Meanwhile, he beat his polls by only 2 to 3 percentage points in the average swing state.3 Certainly, there were individual pollsters that had some explaining to do, especially in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where Trump beat his polls by a larger amount. But the result was not some sort of massive outlier; on the contrary, the polls were pretty much as accurate as they’d been, on average, since 1968.

Why, then, had so many people who covered the campaign been so confident of Clinton’s chances? This is the question I’ve spent the past two to three months thinking about...

How I turned a traffic ticket into the constitutional trial of the century →

Some towns and cities are using a new combination of legal definitions in a way that makes contesting robo-issued speeding tickets nearly impossible to contend in court, which pretty clearly appears to be un-Constitutional:

Traffic camera laws are popular in part because they appeal to a law-and-order impulse. If we are going to stop those nefarious evildoers who jeopardize the health of the republic by sliding through yellow lights when no one else is around and driving through empty streets at thirty miles per hour in twenty-five zones, then we need a way around such pesky impediments as a lack of eyewitnesses.
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In short, municipal officials and their private contractors have at their disposal the powers of both criminal and civil law and are excused from the due process duties of both criminal and civil law. It’s a neat trick that would have made King George III blush.

Trump’s Team Is Shaping Up to Be Dangerously Incoherent →

Trump is on opposite sides of so many issues, changing his stance and tone with little (usually no) public reason, that his own advisers are regularly contradicting his stances, seemingly with no care for what the president has previously said. This is bad for efficient policymaking domestically, and it is dangerous for foreign policy. Other countries are less able to understand what's going on below the surface in Washington, and more likely to misinterpret the administration's intentions, increasing the chances of war around the world.

Another possibility, especially on the international stage, is that mixed signals could stir confusion and even strife. Trump has taken a belligerent stance with China, calling on it to do more to curb North Korea’s nuclear program, saying that the longstanding One China policy is negotiable, threatening a trade war, and warning about its building islands on the South China Sea—all of which has caused Chinese state media to raise the specter of war. Tillerson has echoed some of Trump’s hawkishness on China, but in modulated ways, and on the issue of North Korea he takes a very different line: that the United States has to be “clear-eyed” in what can realistically be expected from the Chinese government. If relations between China and the U.S. deteriorate, as seems likely, there will be the added problem of who the Chinese government tries to engage with in their negotiations. Will they think the relatively conciliatory Tillerson is setting policy, in which case changing policy on North Korea can be regarded as secondary? Or will they believe Trump is driving policy, in which case they will go into negotiations with greater pessimism about finding common ground?
If the Chinese government listens to Tillerson, it’ll be clear that the word of the American president carries little weight. If they listen to Trump, they’ll conclude that their relationship with the U.S. can’t be fixed. Both outcomes are troubling.
U.S. policy toward Russia has the greatest potential for disaster. Given the growing anti-Russia sentiment on Capitol Hill and the Pentagon, strengthened by reports of Russian interference in the election, Mattis might feel more beholden to hawks in Congress than the president he’ll serve under. In fact, Mattis might feel the need to take a firmer line against Russia to compensate for Trump’s gestures of friendship to Vladimir Putin.
The danger is that Putin will see Trump’s victory as an irresistible window of opportunity to test the fragility of NATO, only to encounter Mattis-led resistance. If so, conflict with Russia becomes more likely, not less.
Back in 1950, the U.S. sent mixed messages about its relationship with South Korea. Formally, the Truman administration was committed to a policy of containment of communism, but in speech that year, Secretary of State Dean Acheson failed to mention the country in describing the U.S.’s “defensive perimeter” in Asia. Dispatches between the U.S. and its embassy in Moscow, which were intercepted by the Soviets, also suggested that South Korea was a low priority. As a result, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin made the made miscalculation that he could greenlight a North Korean invasion of South Korea, with little risk of American resistance. So began the Korean War.

That Vow To Defund Planned Parenthood: Easy To Say, Hard To Do →

According to the organization, about 75 percent of that government support comes from the Medicaid program to pay for direct medical services provided to low-income patients, including contraception, cancer screenings and sexually transmitted disease testing and treatment. The remaining quarter comes from other sources, primarily the Title X federal family planning program. The Congressional Budget Office estimated last year that the group gets approximately $390 million annually from Medicaid and $60 million from Title X.
None of the funds from either program may be used for abortion, under longstanding federal prohibitions. Only half of the Planned Parenthood affiliates even offer abortion services, the group says. But it is still the largest single provider of the procedure in the nation, and that has made it a target for anti-abortion lawmakers since the 1980s.
...taking away Planned Parenthood's access to Medicaid funding would require a change in the federal law that guarantees most Medicaid patients with a choice to use any qualified provider. The Department of Health and Human Services has repeatedly warned states that have tried to evict Planned Parenthood from their Medicaid programs that they cannot legally do that because such a move would violate that law. And federal courts have consistently blocked states that have tried to end Planned Parenthood's Medicaid funding...
 

Donald Trump And His Cabinet Of Criminals →

We must watch Trump's administration like hawks, and take every opportunity to remind them of the law and hold them accountable to it (and we must demand that our press and justice system do their part).

Not surprisingly, the lack of concern for ethics in his own dealings has spilled over into his picks for top administration positions. While his cabinet is filled with the incredibly rich who, thanks to Trump’s proposed tax breaks, will be newly incentivized to steal, there are two individuals who stand out: Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s pick for Treasury Secretary, and Andrew Puzder, Trump’s choice for Labor secretary.
These two nominees sat at the top of major corporations that had large scale violations of the law. They may not have known of the illegalities, but as CEOs, they have the responsibility to ensure that their companies are following the law. Furthermore, if both are approved, they will be in a position where they are responsible for enforcing the laws that their own companies violated.

Letter: This is why Republicans can't find a replacement for Obamacare →

A key reason the Republican Party is having such a hard time with the replacement part of “repeal and replace” is that Obamacare is virtually the same privatized mandate plan it pushed for since President Richard Nixon first proposed the National Health Strategy in 1971 then again in 1974. Then the GOP revived its privatized mandate plan again in 1993 with then-Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole helping to propose the Health Equity and Access Reform Today act or HEART as the alternative to the proposed single-payer plan Health Security Act of 1993 — commonly known as “Hillarycare“ — and then again when then-Gov. Mitt Romney proposed — and succeeded in implementing — the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2006 in Massachusetts.
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As a result, the GOP’s repeal and replace position backs it into a challenging corner. It has no real replacement plan because the ACA is essentially the privatized mandate it has pursued for so many years. The only possible alternative to a 40-year-old GOP plan would be reverting to the old system, leaving millions of people without full coverage or proper health care. Even those with coverage — perhaps through their employers — could then once again have a cap on lifesaving treatments, such as those for cancer, and thereby reinstating the privatized insurance “panels” deciding the profitability of patient treatment versus patient outcomes.
Or, the GOP could go with the Democratic option — a single-payer system — the same plan that virtually every major western democracy has successfully implemented with significantly lower cost and higher life expectancy than America has, according to a recent Commonwealth Fund study, and with much better patient-centric results. (America ranks 37th in the world in patient health outcomes as reported by the World Health Organization.)

Donald Trump and the Future of Intelligence →

The relationship between the Trump administration and the intelligence agencies will be worth keeping an eye on. The loss of trust will lead to otherwise-avoidable intelligence failures.

But while there is a long history of intelligence-policy friction, the hostility between the incoming administration and the intelligence community is unprecedented. This is not just due to Trump’s tweets, though they have certainly played a role. Gen. Flynn’s statements about the CIA must sound ominous to insiders, given his checkered past. As director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, he reportedly alienated subordinates by telling them “that the first thing everyone needed to know was that he was always right. His staff would know they were right, he said, when their views melded to his.” Because the White House is the CIA’s most important consumer, rejection by the president’s national security advisor would be particularly troubling.
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The intelligence community faces two looming dangers in the next four years. The first is neglect. If the president elect means what he says, he is likely to downplay intelligence or ignore it completely. Trump has already announced that he won’t receive the President’s Daily Brief on a daily basis. Instead, he’ll get intelligence briefings three times a week and rely on his advisors to alert him when international events require his attention. The issue of neglect, however, goes beyond the number of formal interactions between the president elect and his intelligence officials. The real question is whether such actions will have any value to the policy process, or whether they will descend into brief pro forma exercises. Policymakers can easily ignore intelligence while going through the motions.
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Whatever the cause, neglect has serious consequences for the conduct of foreign policy. Intelligence agencies have access to unique sources of information, along with personnel who are specially trained to make sense of it. As a result, ignoring intelligence removes a potentially important source of information from policy deliberations. It also removes an important check on policymakers’ assumptions. Like anyone else, leaders are susceptible to cognitive biases that reinforce prior expectations. Healthy intelligence-policy relations are a natural barrier to this kind of tunnel vision. Ignoring intelligence, on the other hand, opens a pathway to policy myopia.  

The second problem is politicization, or the manipulation of intelligence to reflect policy preferences. Politicization comes in many flavors. Direct politicization refers to crude arm-twisting, as leaders try to coerce intelligence officials to deliver politically convenient estimates. Indirect politicization is more subtle: rather than threatening or cajoling intelligence officials, policymakers send repeated tacit signals about what they expect to hear. And like the problem of neglect, intelligence agencies can also be responsible for politicization if they let their own policy preferences affect their estimates.