“Dreamers” react as they meet with relatives at a new section of the border wall on the U.S.-Mexico border in Sunland Park, N.M., on Dece. 10, 2017. (Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters)
A monstrous move. “The Trump administration said Monday it was ending protections that have allowed more than 260,000 Salvadoran immigrants to live and work in the U.S. since 2001.”
Along with canceling the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, this will go down as one of the administration’s most horrific decisions. “ ‘We will lose practically everything’: Salvadorans devastated by TPS decision.”
In a political environment this awful, the number of retirements will increase. “House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) announced Monday that he will retire at the end of this year. Royce is now the eighth House panel chairman to opt against seeking reelection in 2018.”
This plan was so terrible, even the Trump-appointed commissioners nixed it. “The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Monday killed a key proposal by Energy Secretary Rick Perry to subsidize coal and nuclear power plants. … Perry had argued that FERC should provide market-based incentives to coal and nuclear power plant owners to make the grid more resilient if faced with the threat of major outages from extreme weather or other problems. The idea was widely opposed by the wider energy industry, from oil and natural gas producers to wind and solar. All five FERC commissioners agreed that Perry’s proposal was not justified under the Federal Power Act’s key criteria for assessing whether a policy is just or reasonable.”
It’s hard to think of a more dreadful witness for any lawyer to defend. “The president is personally in jeopardy for possible obstruction of justice. That, in my view, is what Mueller will eventually subpoena Trump to address under penalty of perjury, either in a deposition or before a grand jury, or by means of written interrogatories, or some combination of the three. Why, then, shouldn’t the president take the proactive step of asking to state his side of the story under oath instead of waiting for Mueller to pounce?” Because he would implicate himself or lie, very likely.
Trump’s attempt at prior restraint is another ghastly attack on democratic norms. “The damage to norms may begin with Trump’s personal outbursts and inclinations, but it does not end there. The acquiescence of congressional Republicans in the president’s conduct, which has sometimes risen to active support, elevates the attack on norms beyond an expression of Trump’s eccentricities. Not a single senior Republican member of Congress has raised a question about the president’s use of threats of litigation against political adversary [Stephen K.] Bannon or media critic Michael Wolff.” Read the whole thing.
Democrats will make a horrid mistake if they don’t insist on a DACA fix as part of the budget deal. “A bipartisan pair of House members have reached a compromise on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and border security — a plan the two unlikely allies hope could provide a ‘foundation’ for a deal President Donald Trump could sign into law.”