MORNING MESSAGE
Gorsuch’s Approval Would Put Vulnerable Students At Risk
Students
with disabilities already face a difficult path through our nation’s education
system, but President Donald Trump appears determined to add to the
disadvantages these students already face. His nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch
for the Supreme Court is yet another sign his administration is less than eager
to uphold the rights of these students.
Nuke For Gorsuch
Without
60, GOP about to push button. Politico: Neil Gorsuch almost certainly will
end this week confirmed as a Supreme Court justice … Senate Democrats are
quickly closing in on the 41 votes needed to block the nomination … [But] the
Senate is hurtling toward the use later this week of the so-called nuclear
option … 37 Senate Democrats had confirmed they would vote to filibuster Gorsuch
… More announcements from Democrats are expected after the Judiciary Committee
clears Gorsuch’s nomination …”
Final
vote expected Friday. The Hill: “The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected
to clear Gorsuch’s nomination on Monday, with a full Senate vote by Friday … Six
Democratic senators remain undecided … Republican senators appeared uneasy, but
resigned, to changing the Senate’s rules, arguing it was the only way they would
be able to get Republican-appointed Supreme Court nominees confirmed.”
Trump Betrays On Trade?
“Trump
Is Wimping Out on Trade” says NYT’s Paul Krugman: “…the executive orders [on
Friday] were, to use the technical term, nothingburgers. One called for a report
on the causes of the trade deficit; wait, they’re just starting to study the
issue? The other addressed some minor issues of tariff collection, and its
content apparently duplicated an act President Obama already signed last year …
Business seems to have decided that Mr. Trump is a paper tiger on trade: The
flow of corporate relocations to Mexico, which slowed briefly while C.E.O.s
tried to curry favor with the new president, has resumed. Trade policy by tweet,
it appears, has run its course.”
Mexico
flexes muscle ahead of NAFTA negotiations. NYT: “Much of the corn that
Mexico consumes comes from the United States … The Mexican government is
exploring buying its corn elsewhere … The prospect that the United States could
lose its largest foreign market for corn and other key products has shaken
farming communities throughout the American Midwest, where corn production is a
vital part of the economy. The threat is particularly unsettling for many
residents of the Corn Belt because much of the region voted overwhelmingly for
Mr. Trump in the presidential election.”
Anxiety
ahead of China meeting. Time: “Officials in China tell TIME that they are
palpably anxious … The Chinese side reportedly insisted the meeting be somewhere
informal — despite Beijing’s fetish of protocol and hierarchy — to avoid the
possible embarrassment of a White House Rose Garden press conference without a
meaningful joint statement … It’s quite likely, therefore, that Xi will come to
Florida bearing modest, and neatly tweetable, gifts such as manufacturing
investment in the American Rust Belt or an order of shiny Boeing jets.”
Breakfast Sides
Trump
trust even less blind than previously thought. ProPublica: “Trump can draw
money from his more than 400 businesses, at any time, without disclosing it. The
previously unreported changes to a trust document, signed on Feb. 10, stipulates
that it ‘shall distribute net income or principal to Donald J. Trump at his
request’ or whenever his son and longtime attorney ‘deem appropriate.’ That can
include everything from profits to the underlying assets, such as the businesses
themselves.”
WH
tries taxes. Politico: “…on Thursday, President Donald Trump huddled with
[top advisers] to delve into the various policy trade-offs … The White House is
not outsourcing these details to anyone, including the speaker of the House …
One senior administration official said the plan being drafted by Mnuchin is
unlikely to include Ryan’s controversial border adjustment tax. The trouble is
that that proposal generates much of the revenue in Ryan’s plan … Without it,
one Hill staffer in favor of the plan said, ‘the offsets become a lot more
ugly.'”
Heartland
needs clean energy jobs. Mother Jones: “Wind farms—and the new jobs that
come with them—have swept across the Midwest, where coal and traditional
manufacturing gigs have vanished … In his energy plan, Trump speaks of reviving
the country’s ‘hurting’ coal industry and argues that “sound energy policy
begins with the recognition that we have vast untapped domestic energy reserves
right here in America.” We do—and those reserves could lead to hundreds of
thousands of jobs … if Trump weren’t so fixated on the sputtering coal industry,
he might actually see them.”
Case
involving private prison and free immigrant labor advances. Mother Jones:
“The GEO Group, the private prison company … allegedly forced more than 50,000
immigrants … to work without pay or for $1 a day since 2004, according to a
lawsuit that nine detainees brought against the company in 2014. On February 27,
a federal judge ruled that their case could proceed as a class action
…”
Progressive
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