Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 150

Why deporting the “Dreamers” is immoral

(Credit: Getty/Robyn Beck)

On Feb. 26, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review a federal judge’s order that the Trump administration continue the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

It was back in September 2017 that President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the end of the Obama-era program that shields hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. Sessions argued that this program rewarded those who disobeyed the laws of the United States. The United States has an obligation to “end the lawlessness” of DACA, he argued, by winding down the program and, at the same time, making a case for the deportation of the “Dreamers” or those previously protected by DACA.

For now, the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case leaves the program in place.

As a scholar, who has tried to understand how morality should be applied to politics and law, I do not agree with Sessions.

Respect for the law entails respect for moral values. Protecting the Dreamers isn’t about rejecting the rule of law. Rather, it reflects respect for the morality that the law proclaims.

Can children be held morally responsible?

The people covered by DACA came to the United States when they were children. Even if their entry into the United States was unlawful, the violation was committed by a child. The law of the United States affirms the common sense thought that children are unlike adults in the degree to which they morally responsible.

The laws of the United States do not, for example, let children create binding contracts. Children are not allowed to perform many actions open to adults: They cannot smoke tobacco, get tattoos, drink alcohol, drive automobiles, nor vote in federal elections. Nor are they liable to the same sorts of criminal punishments as adults.

Their degree of culpability for criminal acts is generally taken to be lower than that of adults — and some punishments, such as the death penalty, are taken off the table for children entirely.

In the case of DACA, however, deporting the Dreamers would involve subjecting people to a significant punishment. And it would do so in response to an action people took when they were children. This is exactly the sort of action the law itself regards as morally inappropriate.

Punishment and deportation

One response to this argument against deportation might be to say that deportation is not, in fact, a punishment. It is simply refusing to provide a benefit — namely, the right to remain within the United States. The foreign citizen who is refused the right to migrate to the United States is inconvenienced — but that’s hardly the same as being punished. And, indeed, deportation is generally understood in law to be a “civil penalty,” rather than a punishment.

Even a civil penalty, though, is something whose imposition must be justified morally. The justices of the Supreme Court of the United States have sometimes emphasized that being expelled from one’s home involves the destruction of much of what one values. It is the destruction of all that one has built.

This fact was recognized early in the history of the American legal system. Founding father James Madison, in discussing the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, argued strongly against deportation. :

“… if a banishment of this sort, be not a punishment, and among the severest of punishments, it will be difficult to imagine a doom to which the name might be applied.”

The Supreme Court agrees. It recently reaffirmed its commitment to the thought that deportation, even if a mere penalty, is “a uniquely severe” one.

Residency and rights

The DACA opponent might, in reply, argue that the morality of the law applies only to those people who are legitimately subject to the law. The laws of the United States might insist, in other words, that the United States has no particular obligations to those people who have entered into the political community, defined by its jurisdictional limits, without any right.

Here, too, the law of the United States disagrees.

The mere fact of being found within the United States — whether rightfully or not — provides one with significant rights under the Constitution. The law itself gives the undocumented legal rights to bring claims in vindication of their constitutional rights.

Undocumented children, for instance, have a constitutional right to be provided with public schooling. The Supreme Court, in defending this principle, argued that all people within the state’s jurisdiction — “even aliens whose presence in this country is unlawful” — are guaranteed due process under the law.

Morality and migration

Yes, nothing in the law requires the opening of all borders. And it is true that the United States does not have an obligation to provide the right to enter or stay in the country to all who might desire that right.

However, the Dreamers are not like other people. The simple fact of where they are now provides them with constitutional standing denied to outsiders.

And, as emphasized earlier, whatever wrong they might have done in crossing into the United States, they did as children. The revocation of DACA, however, would announce that they are rightly subjected to a significant — indeed, a devastating — punishment, in virtue of an act committed in childhood.

Law is not the same as morality. But morality can sometimes look to law, in determining where its deliberations might begin. If the deportation of the DACA recipients would violate the moral principles that underlie the American legal system, there is at least some reason to think that such deportation is morally wrong.

Contrary to Jeff Sessions, I believe that the United States would not respect the law best by deporting the Dreamers. It would respect it best by living up to the moral ideals that make the law worth following.

Michael Blake, Professor of Philosophy, Public Policy, and Governance, University of Washington

Trump’s perfect score on brain test spawns DIY cognitive exam

(Credit: AP/Evan Vucci)

When Donald Trump aced a cognitive test in January, scores of people tried to take it, too, based mostly on media reports that invited them to match wits with the president.

Casual users puzzled over line drawings of animals, while others wondered what it meant if they were bad at subtracting by sevens.

That was a mistake, according to the scientist who created the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, or MoCA, a popular screening tool designed to spotlight potential problems with thinking and memory. The MoCA was never meant for general use and it requires a health professional to monitor the test and interpret the results.

Media coverage challenged people “to test yourself to see if you fare as well as Mr. Trump, but that wouldn’t give them the accurate response,” said Dr. Ziad Nasreddine, the Lebanese-Canadian neurologist who holds the copyright to the MoCA. “You need a trained person to administer this test.”

But with interest in the test so high, Nasreddine and his colleagues saw an opportunity. Weeks after Trump posted his perfect MoCA score (30/30), the researchers started working on a new tool, dubbed the “mini-MoCA,” an online, self-administered exam for people worried about possible cognitive decline.

“We thought, ‘OK, why shouldn’t we take the lead and develop the test?’” said Nasreddine, who had been pondering such a move for several years. “It’s good timing to offer something for families and concerned individuals that they can self-test themselves.”

Such a test could potentially expand detection of mild cognitive impairment, or MCI, the earliest stage of dementia. Up to 1 in 5 people age 65 and older have MCI, and more than half progress to dementia within five years.

Learning about problems early allows affected people to arrange their finances, seek out clinical trials and otherwise make plans for future care, said Heather Snyder, senior director of medical and scientific operations for the Alzheimer’s Association.

“I’d do big picture and talk about why early detection is so important,” she said.

But several screening tests — more than a dozen — are available. None of them provides a definitive diagnosis and, like them, any new web-based self-assessment, including the mini-MoCA, could have its limitations, experts suggest.

“Is it a good idea? I think there’s some value for people to get some sense of how they’re doing,” said Dr. James Galvin, founding director of the Comprehensive Center for Brain Health at Florida Atlantic University. “But whatever result comes out of a test, they still need to discuss it with a health professional to put it in perspective.”

Much of the mini-MoCA’s success will depend on how the new tool is designed. It must be sensitive enough to highlight potential problems, but not so broad that it generates high numbers of false-positive results, said Dr. Dean Foti, a clinical assistant professor of neurology at the University of British Columbia.

“You have to really consider being overly sensitive and causing unnecessary anxiety in people,” he said.

Nasreddine said his team is working now to validate the mini-MoCA, which will be a scaled-down version of the original tool. The MoCA was developed more than 20 years ago to help detect MCI. It has been translated into several versions and multiple languages and is used in all of the National Institute on Aging’s Alzheimer’s Disease Centers.

The original MoCA is a 10-minute, 30-question exam. Instead, the mini-MoCA will be a five-minute, six-question test, Nasreddine indicated. Like the original test, it will include exercises focused on naming objects and animals, verbal fluency, calculation, clock time, abstraction and memory.

And, like the original, if people score fewer than 26 of 30 possible points, they’d be urged to consult a doctor for further screening.

Nasreddine is testing the first version of the mini-MoCA in 50 patients at the Neuro Rive-Sud memory clinic, comparing their scores on the new test with those from the original exam, long regarded as a valid screening tool for MCI.

If the results are good, he’ll move to a second stage with more patients and stricter criteria.

All told, the process could take up to eight months. Nasreddine is considering charging $1 or $2 per test to fund future research. Many tests that screen for dementia are free.

“We have to make sure that the precision and the purpose of the test are well-explained to the public with the limitations for interpreting the results,” Nasreddine said. “I think it will be a useful tool for the public to help guide and inform them about their cognition.”

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

Normalizing nukes, Pentagon-style

(Credit: AP Photo/Charlie Riedel. File)

If you’re having trouble sleeping thanks to, well, you know who… you’re not alone. But don’t despair. A breakthrough remedy has just gone on the market. It has no chemically induced side effects and, best of all, will cost you nothing, thanks to the Department of Defense.  It’s the new Nuclear Posture Review, or NPR, among the most soporific documents of our era.  Just keeping track of the number of times the phrase “flexible and tailored response” appears in the 75-page document is the equivalent of counting (incinerated) sheep. Be warned, however, that if you really start paying attention to its actual subject matter, rising anxiety will block your journey to the slumber sphere.

Threats Galore

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates that the United States devoted $611 billion to its military machine in 2016. That was more than the defense expenditures of the next nine countries combined, almost three times what runner-up China put out, and 36% of total global military spending. Yet reading the NPR you would think the United States is the most vulnerable country on Earth.  Threats lurk everywhere and, worse yet, they’re multiplying, morphing, becoming ever more ominous.  The more Washington spends on glitzy weaponry, the less secure it turns out to be, which, for any organization other than the Pentagon, would be considered a terrible return on investment.

The Nuclear Posture Review unwittingly paints Russia, which has an annual military budget of $69.2 billion ($10 billion less than what Congress just added to the already staggering 2018 Pentagon budget in a deal to keep the government open), as the epitome of efficient investment, so numerous, varied, and effective are the “capabilities” it has acquired in the 17 years since Vladimir Putin took the helm.  Though similar claims are made about China and North Korea, Putin’s Russia comes across in the NPR as the threat of the century, a country racing ahead of the U.S. in the development of nuclear weaponry.  As the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler has shown, however, that document only gets away with such a claim by making 2010 the baseline year for its conclusions.  That couldn’t be more chronologically convenient because the United States had, by then, completed its latest wave of nuclear modernization.  By contrast, during the decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia’s economy contracted by more than 50%, so it couldn’t afford large investments in much of anything back then.  Only when oil prices began to skyrocket in this century could it begin to modernize its own nuclear forces.

The Nuclear Posture Review also focuses on Russia’s supposed willingness to launch “limited” nuclear strikes to win conventional wars, which, of course, makes the Russians seem particularly insidious.  But consider what the latest (December 2014) iteration of Russia’s military doctrine actually says about when Moscow might contemplate such a step: “The Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies, and also in the case of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy.”

Reduced to its bare bones this means that countries that fire weapons of mass destruction at Russia or its allies or threaten the existence of the Russian state itself in a conventional war could face nuclear retaliation.  Of course, the United States has no reason to fear a massive defeat in a conventional war — and which country would attack the American homeland with nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons and not expect massive nuclear retaliation? 

Naturally, the Nuclear Posture Review also says nothing about the anxieties that the steady eastward advance of NATO — that ultimate symbol of the Cold War — in the post-Soviet years sparked in Russia or how that shaped its military thinking.  That process began in the 1990s, when Russian power was in free fall.  Eventually, the alliance would reach Russia’s border.  The NPR also gives no thought to how Russian nuclear policy might reflect that country’s abiding sense of military inferiority in relation to the United States.  Even to raise such a possibility would, of course, diminish the Russian threat at a time when inflating it has become de rigueur for liberals as well as conservatives and certainly for much of the media.

Strangelove Logic

Russian nuclear weapons are not, however, the Nuclear Posture Review’s main focus.  Instead, it makes an elaborate case for a massive expansion and “modernization” of what’s already the world’s second largest nuclear arsenal (6,800 warheads versus 7,000 for Russia) so that an American commander-in-chief has a “diverse set of nuclear capabilities that provide… flexibility to tailor the approach to deterring one or more potential adversaries in different circumstances.”

The NPR insists that future presidents must have advanced “low-yield” or “useable” nuclear weapons to wield for limited, selective strikes.  The stated goal: to convince adversaries of the foolishness of threatening or, for that matter, launching their own limited strikes against the American nuclear arsenal in hopes of extracting “concessions” from us.  This is where Strangelovian logic and nuclear absurdity take over.  What state in its right mind would launch such an attack, leaving the bulk of the U.S. strategic nuclear force, some 1,550 deployed warheads, intact?  On that, the NPR offers no enlightenment.

You don’t have to be an acolyte of the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz or have heard about his concept of “friction” to know that even the best-laid plans in wartime are regularly shredded.  Concepts like limited nuclear war and nuclear blackmail may be fun to kick around in war-college seminars.  Trying them out in the real world, though, could produce disaster.  This ought to be self-evident, but to the authors of the NPR it’s not.  They portray Russia and China as wild-eyed gamblers with an unbounded affinity for risk-taking.

The document gets even loopier.  It seeks to provide the commander-in-chief with nuclear options for repelling non-nuclear attacks against the United States, or even its allies.  Presidents, insists the document, require “a range of flexible nuclear capabilities,” so that adversaries will never doubt that “we will defeat non-nuclear attacks.”   Here’s the problem, though: were Washington to cross that nuclear Rubicon and launch a “limited” strike during a conventional war, it would enter a true terra incognita.  The United States did, of course, drop two nuclear bombs on Japanese cities in August 1945, but that country lacked the means to respond in kind.

However, Russia and China, the principal adversaries the NPR has in mind (though North Korea gets mentioned as well), do have just those means at hand to strike back.  So when it comes to using nuclear weapons selectively, its authors quickly find themselves splashing about in a sea of bizarre speculation.  They blithely assume that other countries will behave precisely as American military strategists (or an American president) might ideally expect them to and so will interpret the nuclear “message” of a limited strike (and its thousands of casualties) exactly as intended.  Even with the aid of game theory, war games, and scenario building — tools beloved by war planners — there’s no way to know where the road marked “nuclear flexibility” actually leads.  We’ve never been on it before.  There isn’t a map.  All that exists are untested assumptions that already look shaky.

Yet More Nuclear Options

These aren’t the only dangerous ideas that lie beneath the NPR’s flexibility trope.  Presidents must also, it turns out, have the leeway to reach into the nuclear arsenal if terrorists detonate a nuclear device on American soil or if conclusive proof exists that another state provided such weaponry (or materials) to the perpetrator or even “enabled” such a group to “obtain nuclear devices.”  The NPR also envisions the use of selective nuclear strikes to punish massive cyberattacks on the United States or its allies.  To maximize the flexibility needed for initiating selective nuclear salvos in such circumstances, the document recommends that the U.S. “maintain a portion of its nuclear forces alert day-to-day, and retain the option of launching those forces promptly.”  Put all this together and you’re looking at a future in which nuclear weapons could be used in stress-induced haste and based on erroneous intelligence and misperception.

So while the NPR’s prose may be sleep inducing, you’re unlikely to nod off once you realize that the Trump-era Pentagon — no matter the NPR’s protests to the contrary — seeks to lower the nuclear threshold.  “Selective,” “limited,” “low yield”: these phrases may sound reassuring, but no one should be misled by the antiseptic terminology and soothing caveats.  Even “tactical” nuclear weapons are  in any normal sense.  The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki might, in terms of explosive power, qualify as “tactical” by today’s standards, but would be similarly devastating if used in an urban area.  (We cannot know just how horrific the results would be, but the online tool NUKEMAP calculates that if a 20-kiloton nuclear bomb, comparable to Fat Man, the code name for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, were used on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where I live, more than 80,000 people would be killed in short order.)  Not to worry, the NPR’s authors say, their proposals are not meant to encourage “nuclear war fighting” and won’t have that effect.  On the contrary, increasing presidents’ options for using nuclear weapons will only preserve peace.

The Obama-era predecessor to Trump’s Nuclear Posture Review contained an entire section entitled “Reducing the Role of U.S. Nuclear Weapons.” It outlined “a narrow set of contingencies in which such weaponry might still play a role in deterring a conventional or CBW [chemical or biological weapons] attack against the United States or its allies and partners.”  So long to that.

The Shopping List — and the Tab

Behind the new policies to make nuclear weapons more “useable” lurks a familiar urge to spend taxpayer dollars profligately.  The Nuclear Posture Review’s version of a spending spree, meant to cover the next three decades and expected, in the end, to cost close to two trillion dollars, covers the works: the full nuclear “triad” — land-based ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ones, and nuclear-armed strategic bombers.  Also included are the nuclear command, control, and communication network (NC3) and the plutonium, uranium, and tritium production facilities overseen by the National Nuclear Security Administration.

The upgrade will run the gamut.  The 14 Ohio-class nuclear submarines, the sea-based segment of the triad, are to be replaced by a minimum of 12 advanced Columbia-class boats.  The 400 Minuteman III single-warhead, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, will be retired in favor of the “next-generation” Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent, which, its champions insist, will provide improved propulsion and accuracy — and, needless to say, more “flexibility” and “options.”  The current fleet of strategic nuclear bombers, including the workhorse B-52H and the newer B-2A, will be joined and eventually succeeded by the “next-generation” B-21 Raider, a long-range stealth bomber.  The B-52’s air-launched cruise missile will be replaced with a new Long Range Stand-Off version of the same.   A new B61-12 gravity bomb will take the place of current models by 2020.  Nuclear-capable F-35 stealth fighter-bombers will be “forward deployed,” supplanting the F-15E.  Two new “low-yield” nuclear weapons, a submarine-launched ballistic missile, and a sea-launched cruise missile will also be added to the arsenal.

Think of it, in baseball terms, as an attempted grand slam.

The NPR’s case for three decades of such expenditures rests on the claim that the “flexible and tailored” choices it deems non-negotiable don’t presently exist, though the document itself concedes that they do.  I’ll let its authors speak for themselves: “The triad and non-strategic forces, with supporting NC3, provide diversity and flexibility as needed to tailor U.S. strategies for deterrence, assurance, achieving objectives should deterrence fail, and hedging.”  For good measure, the NPR then touts the lethality, range, and invulnerability of the existing stock of missiles and bombers.  Buried in the review, then, appears to be an admission that the colossally expensive nuclear modernization program it deems so urgent isn’t necessary.

The NPR takes great pains to demonstrate that all of the proposed new weaponry, referred to as “the replacement program to rebuild the triad,” will cost relatively little.  Let’s consider this claim in wider perspective.

To obtain Senate ratification of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty he signed with Russia in 2010, the Nobel Prize-winning antinuclear advocate Barack Obama agreed to pour $1 trillion over three decades into the “modernization” of the nuclear triad, and that pledge shaped his 2017 defense budget request.  In other words, President Obama left President Trump a costly nuclear legacy, which the latest Nuclear Posture Review fleshes out and expands.  There’s no indication that the slightest energy went into figuring out ways to economize on it. A November 2017 Congressional Budget Office report projects that President Trump’s nuclear modernization plan will cost $1.2 trillion over three decades, while other estimates put the full price at $1.7 trillion.

As the government’s annual budget deficit increases — most forecasts expect it to top $1 trillion next year, thanks in part to the Trump tax reform bill and Congress’s gift to the Pentagon budget that, over the next two years, is likely to total $1.4 trillion — key domestic programs will take big hits in the name of belt-tightening.  Military spending, of course, will only continue to grow.  If you want to get a sense of where we’re heading, just take a look at Trump’s 2019 budget proposal (which projects a cumulative deficit of $7.1 trillion over the next decade). It urges big cuts in areas ranging from Medicare and Medicaid to the Environmental Protection Agency and Amtrak.  By contrast, it champions a Pentagon budget increase of $80 billion (13.2% over 2017) to $716 billion, with $24 billion allotted to upgrading the nuclear triad.

And keep in mind that military cost estimates are only likely to rise. There is a persistent pattern of massive cost overruns for weapons systems ordered through the government’s Major Defense Acquisition Program (MDAP).  These ballooned from $295 billion in 2008 to $468 billion in 2015.  Consider just two recent examples: the first of the new Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers, delivered last May after long delays, came in at $13 billion, an overrun of $2.3 billion, while the program to produce the F-35 jet, already the most expensive weapons system of all time, could reach $406.5 billion, a seven percent overrun since the last estimate.

Flexibility Follies

If the Pentagon turns its Nuclear Posture Review into reality, the first president who will have some of those more “flexible” nuclear options at his command will be none other than Donald Trump.  We’re talking, of course, about the man who, in his debut speech to the United Nations last September, threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea and later, as the crisis on the Korean peninsula heated up, delighted in boasting on Twitter about the size of his “nuclear button.” He has shown himself to be impulsive, ill informed, impervious to advice, certain about his instincts, and infatuated with demonstrating his toughness, as well as reportedly fascinated by nuclear weapons and keen to see the U.S. build more of them.  Should a leader with such traits be given yet more nuclear “flexibility”? The answer is obvious enough, except evidently to the authors of the NPR, who are determined to provide him with more “options” and “flexibility.”

At least three more years of a Donald Trump presidency are on the horizon. Of this we can be sure: other international crises will erupt, and one of them could pit the United States not just against a nuclear-armed North Korea but also against China or Russia. Making it easier for Trump to use nuclear weapons isn’t, as the Nuclear Posture Review would have you believe, a savvy strategic innovation. It’s insanity.

Why Mike Pence’s remarks on abortion are so disconcerting

Mike Pence speaks at the Susan B. Anthony List & Life Institute Luncheon (Credit: AP/Mark Humphrey)

There are few places where Vice President Mike Pence can speak and receive unreserved support — but an event hosted by the anti-abortion organization, Susan B. Anthony List & Life Institute, is surely one of them. Earlier this week, Pence spoke at their luncheon, during which he made a disturbing claim: “I know in my heart of hearts this will be the generation that restores life in America.”

“I truly do believe, if all of us do all that we can, that we will once again, in our time, restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law. But we have to do the work,” he told the audience.

A religious conservative espousing propaganda that whips up his base is nothing new, but something about Pence’s statement this time around felt different. Pence has unapologetically stated in the past that his goal is to see Roe v. Wade overturned.

“I’m pro-life and I don’t apologize for it,” Pence said while campaigning in 2016. “We’ll see Roe vs. Wade consigned to the ash heap of history where it belongs.”

The Trump administration’s rhetoric surrounding a woman’s right to choose seems to have encouraged pro-lifers to take action to restrict abortion access. According to a Guttmacher Institute report published in January, 19 states embraced 63 new restrictions on abortion rights and access in 2017 — the largest number of restrictions implemented in one year since 2013.  In 2017, lawmakers in 30 states introduced “abortion bans” — with six states imposing new regulations.

Conversely, advocacy groups are putting up a stronger fight. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 21 states have adopted 58 proactive measures to protect access to abortion and access to reproductive health services — nearly double the number of proactive measures enacted in 2016.

Pence of course isn’t alone in his mission. President Donald Trump attended a “March for Life” rally in January, where he spoke to the crowd and also reaffirmed the White House’s commitment to a pro-life agenda.

“Because of you, tens of thousands of Americans have been born and reached their full God-given potential. Because of you,” Trump told the crowd in January. “Americans are more and more pro-life, you see that all the time.”

That may not be true: according to a Gallup poll, historically pro-choice and pro-life supporters have been equally split. As of May 2017, 49 percent of Americans polled said they were pro-choice; 46 percent said they were pro-life. Those polling numbers aren’t significantly different than they were ten years ago.

Pence’s latest remarks incited pro-choice advocacy groups and politicians to speak out against him.

Not on our watch. We will NEVER allow a woman’s constitutional right to abortion to be stripped away. https://t.co/fSWw84bGjM

— NARAL (@NARAL) February 27, 2018

I am sick and tired of Republican politicians playing politics with our health care and going out of their way to target women’s constitutional right to choose. We deserve better. https://t.co/1rBIF3J92l

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) February 28, 2018

As Kamala Harris said, we women do deserve better. If only women’s bodies were guns, Republicans wouldn’t dare to regulate them.

Elizabeth Warren: Equifax might profit off its data breach

(Credit: AP)

Equifax has not told the whole story when it comes to its massive security breach first reported last September, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) says. Over the last five months, her office investigated the breach and presented its findings in a new report, “Bad Credit: Uncovering Equifax’s failure to protect Americans’ personal information.” In summation, Warren told Marketplace Tech’s Molly Wood, “What they did was worse, a whole lot worse, than they originally admitted.”

On Sept. 7. 2017, Equifax, one of the country’s largest credit reporting agencies, revealed an astronomical breach on their part affecting approximately 145 million people — one of the biggest data breaches in history. Personal and sensitive information was exposed because of the data security lapse, including social security numbers, addresses and credit records.

Now, Warren is saying that not only did Equifax downplay the extent of the breach and stumble when it came to informing consumers about the hack, but also, that “Equifax is still making money off their own breach.”

After interrogating Equifax executives during Senate hearings, engaging independent experts and questioning federal regulators and other credit-reporting agencies, Warren, with Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), is introducing legislation that would penalize security breaches at Equifax or other credit-rating agencies. Warren wants to ensure that Equifax, or any credit-reporting agency, makes security a priority, and moreover, that these companies will face consequences for their failures.

Warren said:

Clearly they failed badly here. And the problem is there’s no real penalty for them. You know, it’s not like consumers can say, ‘Well, that’s it. I’m never going to do business with Equifax again.’ That’s not how it works with credit-reporting agencies. In fact, Equifax may actually make money off this breach because it sells all these credit-protection devices, and even consumers who say, ‘Hey, I’m never doing business with Equifax again,’ well, good for you, but you go buy credit protection from someone else, they very well may be using Equifax to do the back office part. So Equifax is still making money off their own breach.

Warren and Warner propose a policy called “strict liability,” which if a data breach took place, companies would be forced to pay $100 for the theft of the first piece of data, and $50 “for the theft of every following piece of data for every consumer whose data is stolen up to potentially half the value of the company,” she told Marketplace Tech.

“All they do is collect data and package that data up and then sell it, and if they won’t take basic care with that data, then they’re making a profit by putting everybody else in America at risk,” Warren added. “And that has to stop.”

The night I chased Miss Universe with Donald Trump

(Credit: AP/Evan Vucci/Salon)

In order for me to tell this story, I’m going to have to introduce you to the Lion’s Head bar in Greenwich Village, and in order to introduce you to the Lion’s Head, I’m going to have to introduce you to Archie Mulligan, one of its legendary bartenders, and in order to introduce you to Archie Mulligan, I’m going to have to tell a fairly long story about one of Archie’stall tales, which makes this a perfect introduction to a story about Donald Trump.

It was the late 60’s, and I discovered the Lion’s Head on Christopher Street because it was next door to the Village Voice, where I was contributing freelance articles. Located a few steps below street level, the Head was narrow and dark and wood-paneled — in short, everything you would imagine a Greenwich Village bar to be. It was known as a writer’s bar, a place where you came if you were a writer with a drinking problem, or a drinker with a writing problem. It was sometimes hard to distinguish between the two, even among the fairly well-known writers who were frequently in residence. There was Pete Hamill, the newspaper columnist; Ted Hoagland, the nature writer; Joel Oppenheimer, the poet; David Markson, a novelist whose manuscript for “Wittgenstein’s Mistress” was rejected by publishers 54 times; Fred Exley, the author “A Fan’s Notes;” Joe Flaherty, the former longshoreman turned Village Voice columnist who managed Norman Mailer’s campaign for mayor of New York City in 1969; Lanford Wilson, the playwright who wrote “Hot l Baltimore;” the literary critic Wilfrid Sheed; and songwriters from Liam Clancy to Jerry Jeff Walker to Dave Van Ronk to Bob Dylan.

Presiding over all of this on the day shift was Archie Mulligan, with his wavy red hair and hawkish nose and impish grin and grandly expansive catalog of tall tales. To hear Archie tell it, he was the brother of jazz saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, who being conveniently located on the West Coast, was unavailable to confirm this assertion of Archie’s. Archie contended that in his day he had dated some of the biggest stars — Kim Novak was one, and, Archie said, Peggy Lee and he had had such a memorable night together, she still always gave him a call when she was in town.

Archie was full of tall tales, but none taller than the tale of his three Purple Papal Papers. Archie insisted that he had died three times, had been administered last rites by priests, and had somehow risen from the dead to live again. I can’t remember the cause of his first two deaths, but the third had happened at O’Henry’s Steakhouse, over on Sixth Avenue. While working there one day, he somehow fell down the basement stairs and struck his head and died. Conveniently enough, there was a Catholic priest on the premises — priests were always nearby when Archie died — and when they couldn’t get a pulse from Archie, he administered last rites. Archie was brought back to life in an ambulance, and later the priest made a report to the Vatican about the miracle of the resurrection of Archie Mulligan. The Vatican, according to Archie, issued his third Purple Papal Paper commemorating the new miracle as they had the other two times he died.

Well, Archie of the Purple Paper Papers was bartending one afternoon around 5 p.m. when a call came in on the house phone for me. “Lucian, are you here?” he called out, covering the receiver and looking down the bar straight at me, checking to see if I was receiving calls that evening. I took the call. It was Mary Nichols, the city editor of the Village Voice. It seemed that one of Mary’s best friends owned a PR firm uptown that had been hired by real estate developer Donald Trump to promote a party he was giving that very evening for the contestants in the Miss Universe Pageant. It was to be a big, New York style shindig, and he wanted the party crowded with New York’s movers and shakers — opinion makers and businessmen and political figures and people from the media. He’d probably told her he wanted “the best people,” because Trump wanted to be surrounded by only “the best people,” as we have come to learn.

No one, not Mary or her friend the PR woman or anyone else for that matter, knew back then that Trump probably already had his eyes on owning the Miss Universe Pageant. Mary’s friend said all he wanted to do was to make a big splash and get some publicity and hang out with the babes. The problem was, she had spent days trying to drum up interest in Trump’s big party, but nobody wanted to come. Now it was only an hour or so before it was supposed to happen, and nobody was there. She called Mary in a panic, asking if she knew anyone who would be interested in attending. Mary called me. I asked if there would be free drinks. She assured me there would be.

I yelled out, “Hey, anybody interested in going to a party for the Miss Universe contestants thrown by Donald Trump uptown? There’s free drinks!” Hands shot up all down the bar. I told Mary I had about 15 to 20 guys I could bring. Mary, who had her friend on the other line, put me on hold for a minute and came back. “She’s thrilled!” Mary said. “Can you get them up there right now?” I told her I could.

So up the stairs and out the door we went. Archie declared his bartending shift over, and led the way, followed by Oppenheimer, in his shoulder length gray hair and Father Time gray beard; Ernie Nukanen, a cameraman on Turn One at Aqueduct who had spent the 50’s as a labor organizer for the Communist Party; John Bergen, who worked at the Rheingold brewery in Bushwick, and had also been a labor organizer for the Party; Stanley Postek, an enormous guy who looked like a tree trunk with hair and owned a macramé shop on Thompson Street, who it was said had been an “enforcer” for the Communist Party in the 50s doing battle with mob strike breakers; Joe Flaherty the former longshoreman on the Brooklyn docks; Dennis Duggan, a columnist for Newsday; a cop whose name I can’t recall who was the lead hostage negotiator for the NYPD and had recently handled the “Dog Day Afternoon” bank heist; and about ten other ill-dressed, ill-groomed nogoodniks in jeans and chinos. And me. I had hair down to my shoulders and was typically attired in rough-out cowboy boots and jeans and a plaid shirt and fringed suede jacket.

At the hotel, we found the Miss Universe party in a ballroom  and immediately descended on the bar. Among the 20 or so of us, only Duggan and the cop were wearing coats and ties and appeared even marginally like the movers and shakers Trump had ordered up for his party. John Bergen, whose artistry at various scams involving getting paid for minimal work was legendary, had somehow commandeered a champagne ice bucket and had it filled with bottles of Heineken and was seated at a table methodically going through the bucket. With the Miss Universe contestants not yet in evidence, we hit the bar again and again, pounding down as many free drinks as we could manage, looking around at the few other guests in their business suits and slicked down hair, figuring at any minute somebody would come along and give our crowd of rowdies the heave-ho.

Then, like magic, a door opened, and Donald Trump led the Miss Universe contestants into the ballroom. There he was in a suit and shiny black shoes, and there they were, in long gowns and big hair and big breasts and sashes announcing the countries they represented, from the Netherlands to Venezuela to Norway to Nigeria to Russia to Italy to Chile. Dozens of them, clack-clacking across the polished floors in impossibly high heels, looking around the ballroom and finding . . . us.

They looked confused, like, what the hell is this supposed to be? Trump, thankfully, was less interested in the guests than he was in the ladies, and was working his way through them, his arm around that one, kissing this one, patting that one on the ass.

I started mixing it up with the Miss Universe ladies, asking if I could get them a drink. The other Lion’s Head guys joined in. The whole thing was immeasurably stiff and awkward, but what the hell? When was the next time we were going to be in the presence of this many gorgeous women? Oppenheimer was chatting up Miss Belgium, and being something of a World War II buff, holding forth about the Battle of Bulge in the Ardennes Forest. Turned out she was from a little village along the Meuse River and had quite a knowledge of the history there. Archie was charming a bewildered Miss Mexico, claiming he’d worked on a farm down there raising stallions for a billionaire rancher and showing his brother Gerry Mulligan around the Yucatan when he passed through on tour.

Then I saw Bergen rise from his bucket and drain his Heineken.  He headed straight through the crowd to Miss Zaire. The next thing I knew, Bergen was waving his arms, bellowing “Lumumba! Lumumba!” claiming the CIA murdered him, asking Miss Zaire where she stood. Did she support that fascist Mobutu? I headed in that direction, hoping to avert some kind of international incident, when I saw Miss Zaire smile at Bergen. They were talking animatedly. Miss Russia appeared from somewhere, and then Miss Hungary, and Bergen, the old Commie, is mesmerizing them with tales about CIA perfidy, as Archie and Miss Mexico joined the crowd.

Trump was nearby, his arm around the waist of Miss Somebody. Then suddenly Bergen broke into The Internationale, the socialist anthem, singing loudly in French . . . and Miss Zaire was joining in! Then Miss Russia! And Miss Hungary! And Miss Belgium. Before I knew it, a whole crowd of them were in a circle with their arms around each other, heads thrown back, singing out, “Debout, les damnés de la terre! Debout, les forçats de la faim!” You know: “Stand up, damned of the earth! Stand up, prisoners of starvation!”

They kept singing, rocking back and forth, Bergen’s Brooklyn honk and Archie’s Irish brogue booming above them: “L’État comprime et la loi triche! L’impôt saigne le malheureux! Nul devoir ne s’impose au riche! Le droit du pauvre est un mot creux!” You know: “The state oppresses, and the law cheats! Tax bleeds the unfortunate! No duty is imposed on the rich! The rights of the poor is an empty phrase!”

The song ended, Bergen led Miss Zaire in the direction of the bar, and I could hear Archie launching into his tale about his first Purple Papal Paper.

I looked over at Trump. He was young, like most of us were, in his 20’s. He looked befuddled. Then the girl he was with started smiling. She led him over to where Miss Mexico stood, and they were listening to Archie tell them about the first time he died and was resurrected from the dead. Suddenly, Trump was smiling. He had no idea in the world what was going on, but he had his arm around a gorgeous Miss Universe contestant, and she was having the time of her life, and this red haired guy was telling some kind of tall tale, and his party was a success. Things were looking good for later. All was right with the world.

Hey, it was the 70’s. Who knew what was to come.

Salon video exclusive: “Corporate” holds up a black mirror to our work life

Matt Ingebretson and Jake Weisman in "Corporate" (Credit: Comedy Central)

If you’re reading this, odds are you are either nearing the end of a long day at the office, are at home recovering from a long day at the office or, increasingly likely, you are still at the office.

And unless you are fortunate enough to work at a company that prioritizes the health and happiness of its employees over everything else — which is increasingly unlikely — a day at the office does not resemble life on “The Office,” or “Parks and Recreation,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “30 Rock,” or “Workaholics.”  The professional environments depicted in “Sports Night” and “Mary Tyler Moore” feel so unrealistically outdated that they might as well be relics.

For many people, today’s world of work looks like the one in Comedy Central’s “Corporate,” currently airing Wednesdays at 10 p.m.  The first episodes of “Corporate” drew comparisons to the 1999 film “Office Space,” “Silicon Valley” creator Mike Judge’s cinematic paean to white collar employees who hate their jobs.  Nowadays, if you happen to work at a job that you can’t stand but feel forced to endure for the medical insurance, “Office Space” looks just shy of a soft-scripted documentary.

The “Corporate” world is a grey-filtered, dingily lit land of soul-numbing personalization. Where technology and monopoly have made it possible for you to do your job anywhere and therefore, you never need to stop working. Where global conglomerates find ways to co-opt civil disobedience and counterculture into fashion, enabling them to profit off of the illusion of rebellion. Where employment at an Everycorp hinges on one’s ability to streamline! Innovate! Do more with less! Make up new senseless workplace terms! Synchrophomorphigize!

Consider this excerpt from its latest installment, “Society Tomorrow,” premiering exclusively on Salon. You may recognize a few disturbingly true-to-life similarities between the lives of the employees at the multi-national corporation Hampton DeVille and your own.

If you’re a febrile participant in whatever binge-watching obsession is driving conversation at the moment (“Black Mirror,” anyone?) or if you reflexively shop at a certain gargantuan “everything store” that also happens to be in the business of making movies and TV shows, this episode could make you take a hard look at how you’re living. Which is precisely what good television should do.

“Corporate” is the creation of Pat Bishop and its stars Matt Ingebretson and Jake Weisman, who play perpetually exhausted Hampton DeVille cubicle drones. Company CEO Christian DeVille (Lance Reddick) and his top managers John and Kate (Adam Lustick and Anne Dudek) regularly inflict apparently pointless tasks and meetings upon the staff, interrupted by the occasional team building exercise such as trust shaves. Nobody at Hampton DeVille cares about anyone else. Even Matt and Jake are sort of a smarter, modern day version of Mutt and Jeff, men whose bond exists out of a symbiotic survival urge as opposed to abiding affection.

The only other Hampton DeVille employee who behaves like an actual person is its human resources director Grace (Aparna Nancherla), who has the best and worst role in the office. She has to listen to everybody’s problems and yet, capturing the essence of what the #MeToo movement has revealed about the general uselessness of HR departments at large companies, she knows that management has no intention to do anything to make anyone’s lives better.

For example, when she presents the results of a study explaining why the lifespan of a Hampton DeVille employee is shorter than the national average, including the data point that its workers pop pills nonstop “to cope with the pain of being alive,” management’s first response is, “First step: Let us never speak of this again.” (There is no second step.)

And unlike those other shows mentioned above, “Corporate” isn’t meant to soothe miserable workers with fuzzy imaginings of work families and interpersonal loyalty. Don’t get me wrong — we need shows like those to help us feel better and keep plugging away at our careers. But we also need series that scream out alarms about, say, at the frightening incursion of corporate will into every part of our lives.

“Society Tomorrow,” the show-within-a-show, makes life look dangerous and sexy by laying a “Big Brother”-style conspiracy over every interaction, lulling viewers like Matt in the comfortable idea that real life could never like that. All the while, every bit of data produced by Matt and people like him — us, that would be us — is being scraped and processed. Maybe that’s funny to you, or it isn’t. But it is true.

Television is littered with the corpses of failed workplace sitcoms, so to say it’s easy to sell one with loveable characters in relatable scenarios unfairly downplays how difficult it is to create a hit and maintain its success. But to lean into what one “Corporate” character describes as “the daily horror humans are dealing with” without remorse takes guts and skill.

“Corporate” does this by brandishing dystopian, surreal humor that sticks its landing, line after line, episodes after episode, on a mat made of the fundamental truth that terrible jobs are a slow poison, and that many of us stay with those jobs because we think it’s better to slog away in the gulag we know.

The good news is that this mortifying hilarious series has been renewed for a second season, although it has yet to attract a very large audience. It still may be little too on-the-nose for anyone powering down at nighttime and dreading what tasks await them on Thursday morning. The same could be said of “Silicon Valley,” by the way — a series that so accurately captures the spirit and dread of tech company culture that at times, it less resembles a comedy so much as a series of cautionary employee resource videos.

But this assessment doesn’t necessarily mean “Corporate” fails at its purpose. On the contrary, with each episode its necessity as an instrument of surgical social satire grows ever more apparent. When we get used to looking at our own drawn faces in a mirror, sometimes the only way to wake up is to see the reality of our lives reflected back at us in an unexpected place.

Dick’s shows gun reform will come from gun lovers

(Credit: AP/Nam Y. Huh)

It’s a shift so many of us have been waiting so long for. Through so many tragedies, so many dead kids. So many empty thoughts and prayers. A move in a saner direction. A move spearheaded this time not by grieving parents or progressive elected officials or traumatized teens. A move from people who love their guns.

On Wednesday, one of the country’s largest sporting goods retailers, Dick’s, announced that effective immediately, it will implement several new policies. “We will no longer sell assault rifles,” the company stated on Twitter and other social media platforms. “We will no longer sell firearms to anyone under 21 years of age. We will no longer sell high capacity magazines.” The company also affirmed that “We never have and never will sell bump stocks that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire more rapidly.” 

Appearing on “Good Morning America,” the company’s Chairman and CEO Edward Stack spoke of the February 14 Parkland mass murder, saying, “We were so disturbed and saddened by what happened, we felt we really needed to do something.” In November, the Parkland suspect purchased a shotgun from a Dick’s in Florida. “It wasn’t the gun nor the type of gun that he used in the shooting,” Stack recalled. “We did everything by the book, and still, he was able to buy a gun…. The systems that are in place, across the board, just aren’t effective enough to keep us from selling someone a gun like that.”

Dick’s has not behaved heroically on this issue in the past. As George Stephanopoulos mentioned during Wednesday’s interview, after Sandy Hook, it implemented a ban on assault weapons in their stores. But in 2013, the company launched a Field & Stream chain and did offer them there. Now, “Based on what’s happened, it moved us all unimaginably,” said Stack. “We said, ‘We need to do something. We’re taking these guns out of our stores permanently.'” He added that he will “never” reverse this decision, and that “If the kids can be brave enough to organize like this, we can be brave enough to take these out of here.” 

What makes this Wednesday decision unique is that it is no way a capitulation of the values that many gun owners share. Dick’s hasn’t gone all snowflake, to use the parlance of trolls. In its statement, the company affirmed that “We support and respect the Second Amendment, and we recognize and appreciate that the vast majority of gun owners in this country are responsible, law-abiding citizens.” It’s simply taking what would to most normal humans appear completely sane and logical safety precautions.

As The New York Times reported Wednesday, AR-15s operate “in much the same way that many American soldiers and Marines would fire their M16 and M4 rifles in combat.” They’ve been the weapons of choice in the deadly attacks in Newton, Las Vegas and San Bernardino, as well as the recent Parkland massacre. Marine Corps veteran Joe Plenzler told the Times, “They are the Formula One cars of guns, designed to kill as many people as quickly and efficiently as possible. We are seeing battlefield-level casualties because we are allowing those weapons on our street.” That’s unconscionable.  

Yet those of us who don’t own guns ourselves have felt the pushback for our calls for reasonable regulation. Debates about limits devolve into fears that we’re coming to take away our neighbors’ freedoms. It’s what repeatedly stalls any forward momentum. Guys like Marco Rubio say, with a straight face, “Banning all semi-auto weapons may have been popular with the audience at #CNNTownHall, but it is a position well outside the mainstream.” Then even incremental changes are rejected, the cycle repeats and more children die at the hands of angry young man with a weapon of warfare. 

There will inevitably be those who see Dick’s as caving to pressure, and others who say it’s too little, too late. But what’s the alternative, for any side? Digging in forever, refusing to grow and change? Earlier this week, an op-ed in The Washington Post called for us to “stop sucking up to ‘gun culture,'” saying, “The gun-owning camp, we regularly hear, is more motivated by the issue.” But not all hunters and handgun owners are extremists. For Dick’s to make abundantly clear it is still a member of the gun owning community doesn’t stigmatize its numerous less radical patrons. And it says that there is room in the conversation for people who love the Second Amendment, but value their children’s lives more. As a successful retailer, Dick’s has a power few of us do, and a conscience that our elected officials in the pockets of the NRA don’t. God willing, its decision today will motivate other businesses to follow suit. And if the company can achieve what a legion of grieving mothers, pleading their representatives for change, could not. I’ll take it. With gratitude.

Hope Hicks to resign as White House communications director

Hope Hicks (Credit: Getty/Chip Somodevilla)

Hope Hicks, Donald Trump’s 29-year-old communications director, whom he has publicly lauded — most recently calling her “fantastic” and stating that he couldn’t ask “for anything more” — is set to resign in the next several weeks, the New York Times reports.

Hicks has reportedly been toying with the idea of leaving for months, White House aides told the New York Times. She reportedly told colleagues that she felt that she had accomplished all that she could during her time working with the Trump administration, and that there would never be a perfect time to leave.

In a statement Hicks gave reported by Washington Post, Hicks said, “There are no words to adequately express my gratitude to President Trump … I wish the President and his administration the very best as he continues to lead our country.”

Hicks’ resignation will likely make her boss “sad!” (as he is fond of saying) — but who could blame her for wanting to move on? The last couple months have been rough for Hicks. News about her resignation comes one day after she spent several hours testifying in front of House Intelligence Committee investigators — where she admitted that she tells Trump white lies — and nearly one month after news broke that her then-boyfriend, Rob Porter, was allegedly a serial abuser. White House aides told the Times that her departure is unrelated to her appearance before the House Intelligence Committee.

Trump released a statement to the New York Times in response to her resignation.

“Hope is outstanding and has done great work for the last three years,” Trump said. “She is as smart and thoughtful as they come, a truly great person. I will miss having her by my side, but when she approached me about pursuing other opportunities, I totally understood. I am sure we will work together again in the future.”

It is unclear when Hicks’ last day will be, but it is likely to be in the coming weeks, the New York Times reports. Her next career move has yet to be revealed. Hicks, who is from Greenwich, Connecticut, did not start her career in politics. Her first job in 2011 was at Hiltzik Strategies, a communications consulting firm that represented Ivanka Trump’s fashion line, which how she got in with the Trump family. Sources tell the Washington Post Hicks hasn’t ruled out working for Trump again in the future, including the 2020 reelection campaign.

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly also released a statement to the New York Times.

“I quickly realized what so many have learned about Hope: She is strategic, poised and wise beyond her years,” Kelly said. “She became a trusted adviser and counselor, and did a tremendous job overseeing the communications for the president’s agenda including the passage of historic tax reform. She has served her country with great distinction. To say that she will be missed is an understatement.”

Hicks has kept a relatively low profile since working for Trump, which may have kept her in Trump’s good graces in an admnistration whose staffing resembles a revolving door. Hicks was notoriously loyal and patient with Trump. In a profile of Hicks in GQ magazine, a source said part of Hicks’ job was to deal with Trump’s “tantrums.”

Tantrums no more. Perhaps there’s hope for Hicks after all.

The NRA’s journey from marksmanship to political brinkmanship

(Credit: AP/Tim Sharp)

The mass shooting on Valentine’s Day in Parkland, Florida, ripped at the hearts of Americans in a way perhaps not seen or felt since the Sandy Hook Elementary School bloodshed in Newtown, Connecticut six years earlier.

The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students who witnessed their classmates’ deaths reacted by becoming outspoken gun control advocates. They are blaming the National Rifle Association for thwarting stronger gun laws that might have prevented this tragedy and many others. Many Americans, especially teens, agree with them.

But so far, the largest and oldest U.S. gun group is doubling down on its sweeping opposition to restrictions on gun ownership.

After spending decades researching and writing about how and why the NRA came to hold such sway over national gun policies, I believe it might not be as invincible at this point in its history as the interest group’s reputation suggests.

The NRA’s nearly 150-year history spans three distinct eras.

At first the group was mainly concerned with marksmanship. It later played a relatively constructive role regarding safety-minded gun ownership restrictions before turning into a rigid politicized force.

The NRA was formed in 1871 by two Civil War veterans from Northern states who had witnessed the typical soldier’s inability to handle guns.

The organization initially leaned on government support, including subsidies for shooting matches and surplus weaponry. These freebies, which lasted until the 1970s, gave gun enthusiasts a powerful incentive to join the NRA.

The NRA played a role in fledgling political efforts to formulate state and national gun policy in the 1920s and 1930s after the Prohibition-era liquor trafficking stoked gang warfare. It backed measures like requiring a permit to carry a gun and even a gun-purchase waiting period.

And the NRA helped shape the National Firearms Act of 1934, with two of its leaders testifying before Congress at length regarding this landmark legislation. They supported its main provisions, such as restricting gangster weapons by creating a national registry for machine guns and sawed-off shotguns and taxing them heavily. But they opposed handgun registration, which didn’t make it into the nation’s first significant national gun law.

The NRA again opposed a national registry provision that would have applied to all firearms, in the legislative battle held in the aftermath of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and amid rising concerns about crime. Congress ultimately stripped one from the Gun Control Act of 1968.

The NRA remained primarily focused throughout this period, however, on marksmanship, hunting and other recreational activities.

A sharp right turn

By the mid-1970s, a dissident group within the NRA believed that the organization was losing the national debate over guns by being too defensive and not political enough. The dispute erupted at the NRA’s 1977 annual convention, where the dissidents deposed the old guard.

From this point forward, the NRA became ever more political and strident in its defense of so-called “gun rights,” which it increasingly defined as nearly absolute under the Second Amendment.

One sign of how much the NRA had changed: The Second Amendment right to bear arms never came up in the 166 pages of congressional testimony regarding the 1934 gun law. Today, the organization treats those words as its mantra, constantly citing them.

And until the mid-1970s, the NRA supported waiting periods for handgun purchases. Since then, however, it has opposed them. It fought vehemently against the ultimately successful enactment of a five-business-day waiting period and background checks for handgun purchases in 1993.

NRA influence hit a zenith during George W. Bush’s gun-friendly presidency, which embraced the group’s positions. Among other things, his administration let the assault-weapon ban expire.

Having a White House ally isn’t everything

Today, the NRA claims 5 million dues-paying members and the Pew Research Center’s findings suggest that about 14 million people identify with the group. By any measure it’s a small minority of the nearly 250 million U.S. voters.

Like Bush, Donald Trump has a cozy relationship with the NRA, which was among his presidential bid’s most enthusiastic backers and contributed $31 million to his presidential campaign.

When Trump directed the Justice Department to draft a rule banning bump stocks, and indicated his belated support for improving background checks for gun purchases after the Parkland shooting, he was sticking with NRA-approved positions. He also supports arming teachers, another NRA proposal.

Only one sliver of light has emerged between the Trump administration and the NRA: his apparent willingness to consider raising the minimum age to buy assault weapons from 18 to 21.

In politics, victory usually belongs to whoever shows up. And by showing up, the NRA has managed to strangle every federal effort to restrict guns since the Newtown shooting.

Nevertheless, the NRA does not always win. At least 25 states had enacted their own new gun regulations within five years of that tragedy.

Led by the Parkland shooting’s survivors, students are now commanding public attention with their call for tougher gun laws. The key question is whether this momentum will continue through the 2018 midterm elections. If it does, the NRA might have to regroup again.

Robert Spitzer, Distinguished Service Professor and Chair of the Political Science Department, State University of New York College at Cortland