BY BRIAN BEUTLER, PRIYANKA ARIBINDI

& CROOKED MEDIA

Friday, March 29, 2019

—House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on why Republicans are trying to derail oversight

MOORE MONEY, MOORE PROBLEMS

Senate Republicans are lining up behind Stephen Moore—a fellow of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, whom President Trump nominated to join the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors earlier this month.

This may sound boring, and Stephen Moore may be a name you’ve never heard before. But this is a shocking and dangerous development. Fed board members are among the most powerful people in our economy. And Moore is a notorious, partisan hack who is—even by his own admission—grossly unqualified for the job.

The governors of the Federal Reserve set the country’s monetary policy. And while they may not often drive political news coverage, decisions about interest rates and the supply of money have a huge impact on employment, economic growth, and the level of prosperity or suffering in the country.

What’s wrong with putting Moore on the board of governors? One big problem is that, by his own admission, he doesn’t know what he’s doing. "I’m kind of new to this game, frankly, so I’m going to be on a steep learning curve myself about how the Fed operates, how the Federal Reserve makes its decisions,” Moore was honest enough to say out loud. “It’s hard for me to say even what my role will be there, assuming I get confirmed.”

That should be enough to say, “no thank you.” But don’t worry. It gets worse! Moore’s views on monetary policy are, to use a technical economic term, bonkers.

For instance, Moore once said, "We have got to get rid of the Federal Reserve and move towards a gold standard in this country!" Abolishing the Federal Reserve and adopting a gold standard would devastate the economy, and make it much more susceptible to financial crises.

Why would Republicans want to put someone like this—an admitted amateur who has espoused dangerous views about monetary policy—on the Fed board now, under Republican rule? Because they know he said it in 2015, when the president was a Democrat.

The hallmark of Moore’s economic analysis is that it shifts from positions that would harm the economy (that is, regular people) when Democrats are in power, to positions that would stimulate the economy when Republicans are in power. Yesterday, he supported the gold standard. Today, he wants to follow Trump’s marching orders and keep interest rates low to juice growth. Keeping interest rates low now isn't necessarily bad, but when a Democratic administration comes to power he will reverse course once again. That is why he has no business with a 14 year term on the board, but it's also why Senate Republicans are so likely to decide confirming him is a better bet than bucking Trump for the good of the country, again.

SIDLING UP TO THE BARR

Attorney General William Barr has provided more guidance to Congress about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

• The report “is nearly 400 pages long (exclusive of tables and appendices).”
• He will submit a redacted version of the report to Congress “by mid-April if not sooner.”
• The redactions will cover grand jury materials, classified information, matters that could compromise ongoing investigations, and information that might damage “peripheral third parties.”
• Mueller himself is “assisting” the redaction process.
• Barr won’t submit the report to the White House for executive-privilege review in advance.
• He has offered to testify before both committees, on May 1, and May 2.

This is an improvement, but still completely inadequate. It’s good that Mueller remains involved, and that President Trump will have to publicly own a coverup if he overrules Barr and insists on seeing the report in advance. But Barr has left himself wide latitude to redact a great deal of important information, and even to redact information he believes Trump would want held confidential. And while the report the public sees may need to be redacted for legitimate reasons, there’s no excuse for withholding the redacted material from Congress. Short of a promise to provide Congress access to the full report, Democrats should still subpoena the whole thing, and that’s exactly what House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler has hinted he’ll do.

Reminder: they sold the Starr Report at Barnes & Noble. It was a New York Times bestseller.

Parliament has rejected British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan for a third time, fanning further civil unrest. The U.K. has two weeks to come up with a plan for leaving the E.U. or schedule a new Brexit referendum, or it will be booted without arrangements in place to smooth its exit. WHAT A MESS.

Seema Verma, the Trump administration official in charge of administering Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act, funnelled millions of federal dollars that were supposed to be spent helping minorities and poor people enroll in health insurance into the pockets of anonymous Republican public relations consultants to bolster her image. Disgraceful.

National security adviser (and what would happen if the Lorax loved war not trees) John Bolton has warned Russia it can expect consequences for sending troops to Venezuela to support dictator Nicolas Maduro. The U.S. has supported opposition leader Juan Guiado throughout the country’s power struggle, and has threatened Russia with sanctions if it does not pull out military “specialists” who were deployed to Venezuela last week. Gtfo of this hemisphere, Vlad.

Linda McMahon—the ultrawealthy Republican who gave President Trump’s scam foundation millions of dollars and was rewarded by being named head of the Small Business Administration—has announced her resignation. She will now head the pro-Trump super PAC “America First Action.”

A federal judge appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush has thrown out a Trump administration rule devised to undermine the Affordable Care Act by allowing certain employers to provide skimpy insurance.  

New Mexico has enacted same-day voter registration, joining 17 other states and the District of Columbia in eliminating arbitrary, deadline-based barriers to voting. Unfortunately, earlier this month, Democrats in the state also abandoned legislation to limit felony disenfranchisement earlier this month.

The criminal former sheriff Joe Arpaio wants you to know that he can’t possibly be racist, because he once stripped honorary sheriff’s deputy Shaquille O’Neal of his deputy status because Shaq used the n-word. Take your bullshit pardon and get out of our society, please, Joe.

"I am very afraid for my life, I’m afraid for my life—it’s a big fat con job."

—Donald Trump mocking and smearing asylum seekers, before an audience filled with Qanon cultists.

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