Fwd: The Washington Post’s Daily 202: What Trump’s reversal on the Special Olympics reveals about his presidency
Greetings,
Government has become the Reality TV Show “Empty Man Scam Artist.” (“The Horror” is what “this” says about his followers - mostly white, absolutist and “Christian.”)
An etymological note...
An etymological note...
The Spanish word “soberbio” fits Trump to a “T.”
Being “soberbio” refers to a complex of personality traits including arrogance, superciliousness and presumptuousness - all three of them pervaded by blasé overbearingness.
Surely, the root of “sober” is the Latin word “super/supra” meaning “above” or “over.”
And although I suspect “soberbio’s” “bio” component does not derive from the Greek “bios” meaning “life,” such “interpretation” is, nevertheless, well-suited.
“Sober” “bio.”
“Above” “life.”
The one and only ruler of all “biota.”
When the mind is blind, the eyes do not see.
When the mind is blind, the eyes cannot see.
PS Even if you’ve read Dr. Seuss’ “Yertle The Turtle,” I encourage you to read it again. “Yertle” is available - with two other fine Seuss stories - in a lovely hardbound edition for under $14. The perfect gift for humane politicization of young people. https://www.amazon.
What Trump’s reversal on the Special Olympics reveals about his presidency
Trump: ‘The Special Olympics will be funded’ THE BIG IDEA: The third time wasn’t the charm. President Trump has asked Congress to cut federal funding for the Special Olympics in all three budgets that he has submitted. But, facing a firestorm, he insisted on Thursday afternoon that he didn’t learn about the controversy until that morning.
BY JAMES HOHMANN WITH JOANIE GREVE AND MARIANA ALFARO
“I have overridden my people,” Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House. “The Special Olympics will be funded. I just told my people: I want to fund the Special Olympics.”
This is a textbook case of an unforced error. Congress was never, ever going to get rid of the money for the Special Olympics, a popular program that enjoys bipartisan support and allows people with intellectual disabilities to compete in athletics.
Trump’s sudden reversal, after Education Secretary Betsy DeVos spent three days publicly defending the cut, highlighted 10 deeper truths about his presidency:
1. The president vs. the presidency: It actually seems plausible that Trump didn’t know he had signed off on a budget request that cut the Special Olympics until he saw cable news coverage yesterday of people criticizing him for doing so. If he was telling the truth on the South Lawn, it reflects the extent to which he has outsourced most policymaking to conservative ideologues like acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.
2. The buck stops with ... who exactly? DeVos released a statement last night insisting that she was against the Special Olympics cuts all along, and her staff blamed the Office of Management and Budget for including the proposal. “This is funding I have fought for behind the scenes over the last several years,” she said. “I am pleased and grateful the president and I see eye to eye on this issue, and that he’s decided to fund our Special Olympics grant.”
Even by Washington standards, this took chutzpah. During testimony earlier in the day before a Senate appropriations panel, DeVos defended the cuts as necessary and argued that private donors like her – she married into the billionaire Amway fortune – would step up to fill the gap. Then she took umbrage at Democratic criticism. “I hope all of this debate encourages lots of private contributions to Special Olympics,” she told Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). “So let’s not use disabled children in a twisted way for your political narrative. That is just disgusting, and it’s shameful.”
Durbin, DeVos clash over proposed Special Olympics cuts
3. Trump is constantly looking to get credit for cleaning up messes of his own making: The president declared that he had decided to save the Special Olympics as he left the White House to fly to Michigan for a rally to support his reelection campaign. Then, in Grand Rapids last night, Trump announced that he’s going to make sure the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative is fully funded. Trump’s budget earlier this month proposed slashing that program, which funds the cleanup of the Great Lakes, by 90 percent – from $300 million to $30 million.
“We have some breaking news! You ready? Can you handle it? I don’t think you can handle it,” he said, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “I support the Great Lakes. Always have! They are beautiful. They are big, very deep, record deepness, right? And I am going to get, in honor of my friends, full funding of $300 million for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which you have been trying to get for over 30 years. So we will get it done.”
During his first year in office, Trump called for eliminating the program entirely. Last year and this year, he asked Congress to cut it by 90 percent. But Republicans and Democrats on the Hill teamed up to fully fund it over White House objections.
This is part of a pattern. Remember when Trump ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and then attacked Democrats for not protecting the “dreamers” from deportations that he put them at risk for?
President Trump speaks to supporters during a rally at the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Mich. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
4. Trump, in reelection mode, makes decisions through a political prism: The president has better raw political instincts than the guys on his staff who wear the green eyeshades. He likely recognized that the Special Olympics cut could be used as fodder in campaign commercials to portray him as callous and heartless. The 2020 Democratic candidates have already been driving this argument.
Likewise, he’s understandably fixated on winning the industrial Midwest. His opposition to the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative threatened to cost him votes in Michigan and Ohio, where the program is overwhelmingly popular across the ideological spectrum.
It’s a fresh reminder of how Trump can turn on a dime. He pivoted effortlessly from portraying Bob Mueller as the leader of a “witch hunt” to describing him as an honorable man, for example. The conventional wisdom that Trump never backs down is also wrong. He often folds when he decides it makes sense politically.
5. Audacity, always audacity: The president has stocked his political team with operatives who share his zeal for counterpunching. It’s this mentality that prompted the Trump reelection campaign’s deputy communications director, Matt Wolking, to accuse Democrats of hypocrisy yesterday for wanting to fund the Special Olympics while simultaneously supporting abortion rights.
“I’m sure Democrats who see abortion as the cure for Down syndrome and other disabilities are sincerely concerned about kids having the chance to be in the Special Olympics,” Wolking tweeted. “The Special Olympics proves people with disabilities can live meaningful, fulfilling lives. It’s a powerful monument to the value of all lives — the same lives Democrats are fine with seeing snuffed out.”
These comments offended many Democrats who identify as pro-choice and who have children or relatives with Down syndrome. Moreover, they came just hours before Trump changed course.
President Trump holds up the Federal Commission on School Safety report while Betsy DeVos listens during a roundtable discussion in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in December. (Al Drago/Bloomberg)
6. No one can really speak for Trump – but Trump: He routinely contradicts or otherwise undercuts his top aides. Trump has often said that his own spokespeople cannot speak for him, which makes it harder for people like Wolking to spin reporters. DeVos is far from the first Cabinet secretary to get thrown under the bus. That makes it hard for presidential emissaries, even Vice President Pence, to negotiate credibly on his behalf when they’re on Capitol Hill or in foreign capitals. When Rex Tillerson was secretary of state, recall how Trump publicly chastised his own diplomat’s efforts to engage with North Korea. He called it a waste of time – a few months before doing so himself.
7. It’s still not clear that Trump understands how the appropriations process works: “I just authorized a funding,” the president told reporters of the Special Olympics. But Trump does not get to appropriate funds. The Constitution makes clear that this is Congress’s most important function. This has come up recently with the president’s declaration of a national emergency to try building a border wall that a majority of the House has explicitly rejected.
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2018/07/st-paul-apostle-comments-on-trumps-greed.html
8. Budget proposals are statements of principles and values. By definition, they’re aspirational. And this was just the tip of the iceberg. The Special Olympics line item is only $17.6 million. The Trump budget released this month asked Congress to cut Education Department spending by more than $8.5 billion from this year, or about 12 percent.
Among the initiatives that Trump said should go on the chopping block: the Student Support and Academic Enrichment Program, which underwrites school safety efforts, including mental-health services. He also wants to take the ax to after-school activities for children who live in impoverished communities, which are designed to keep at-risk teens off the streets and out of trouble. And he wants a $7.5 million cut to the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, a $13 million cut for Gallaudet University in the District and a $5 million cut for the American Printing House for the Blind, a federal program that produces books for blind students.
During a House subcommittee hearing to review the Trump budget on Tuesday, Republican Chairman Tom Cole (Okla.) said that, while some of the proposed reductions make sense, others are “somewhat shortsighted.”
Special Olympics community responds to controversial budget cuts 9.)
. “One of the reasons the special education cuts drew fire this week was because DeVos had found money to support her own pet projects,” Valerie Strauss explains. “She proposed creating a controversial new federal tax-credit program, which, capped at $5 billion, would allow the use of public money for private and religious schooling. She also proposed adding $60 million to the Charter Schools Program, which funds the creation and expansion of charter schools. Some critics said they were angered that DeVos found money to support the expansion of alternatives to traditional public school districts, which enroll most U.S. schoolchildren, while cutting special education.”
10. Outside the Education Department, the Trump budget advocates slashing a host of other programs that benefit the disabled. “The administration wants to zero out funding for Department of Health and Human Services programs relating to autism, including a developmental disabilities surveillance and research program, autism education, early detection and intervention, and the interagency autism coordinating committee,” Jacqueline Alemany reports in her Power Up newsletter, citing figures provided by the Arc, a nonprofit advocacy group. “Trump proposed various cuts to Development Disabilities Act Programs within HHS over the past two budgets. His current budget proposal is seeking a 30 percent cut to the Office of Disability Employment within the Department of Labor and a $10 billion dollar cut to Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program, which provides benefits to disable workers. … The 2020 budget also proposes cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, which provides health care coverage to those with disabilities.”
DeVos grilled over proposed cuts to Special Olympics: 'Why are we cutting all of these programs?'
-- Overshadowed by the Special Olympics donnybrook: During her Senate appearance yesterday, DeVos also acknowledged that she has not begun implementing an Obama-era regulation designed to ensure children of color are not disproportionately punished or sent to special-education classrooms – despite a judge’s rebukeand a court order to do so. “Three weeks ago, a federal court ruled that the Trump administration must implement the rule immediately,” Laura Meckler reports. “DeVos (said) the Education Department was still ‘reviewing the court’s decision and discussing our options.’ Published in the final days of the Obama administration, the rules were supposed to have taken effect in 2018. DeVos moved last summer to delay them for two years. … Under the regulation, states face tighter rules about how they tabulate data about the demographics and treatment of children in special education to ensure there are not racial disparities.”
-- On today’s opinion page, Helaine Olen makes an extended case that DeVos is “the worst member of Trump’s Cabinet.” Not because of the Special Olympics, Olen says, but because of her friendliness toward predatory lenders. The Education Department stalled Obama-era rules intended to make it easier for people who racked up tens of thousands of dollars in student loans attending for-profit colleges that lured them in with phony come-ons and job placement statistics to receive relief, and backed down only when a court stepped in last year, Olen explains: “Now DeVos’s department is moving slower than a tortoise. According to reporting by CNN, the Department of Education did not review any requests for loan dismissal under ‘borrower defense’ provisions between June and September of last year, and is refusing to answer questions about how many it has signed off on since. …
“DeVos is also supporting eliminating the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which permits borrowers who can show they worked for a nonprofit or the government — think teachers and librarians and firemen — for 10 years while making regular and on-time student loan payments to see the remainder of their balance forgiven. … There is something particularly distasteful about DeVos, whose wealth is inherited, essentially kicking sand in the faces of people who are trying to get ahead by doing what society tells them to do — get an education.”
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