President Trump’s now-former Army Secretary-designate believes health care reform keeps people from being saved by Christ, presumably because Christ was daunted by all those blind people, lepers and paralytics in the high-risk pools. HuffPost DC is experiencing a major personnel change, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the Content Turbine was fired for drinking too much at the holiday party. And a State Department Twitter account promoted Ivanka Trump’s book, not unlike that time the Marshall Plan paid for all those West Germans to get a pair of Bess Truman-branded studded jeans. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Friday, May 5th, 2017:
YO, CAPTAIN MY CAPTAIN - HuffPost Editor-in-Chief Lydia Polgreen announced today that longtime D.C. Bureau Chief Ryan Grim is leaving the organization. Ryan is heading to the Intercept where he will run its Washington office. This is a tremendously bittersweet day for all of us here at HuffPost Politics. Not only did Ryan shepherd the bureau through untold numbers of elections, legislative battles and investigative ventures, but he was an unwavering friend and mentor. Truly, it was Ryan Grim who helped dream up HuffPost Hill and gave me my big break in media. Despite my limited experience, Grim recognized in my deep-seated misanthropy and slightly-above-average vocabulary all the makings of a journalist. This was a huge misstep on Ryan’s part, obviously, but otherwise his tenure has been an unwavering success. Ryan has provided a platform and mentorship to dozens of young journalists, fueled HuffPost Politics’ unparalleled growth and oversaw countless editorial victoires, including the bureau’s first Pulitzer Prize and hundreds of hard-won investigations and feature pieces. If there were one true metric of Ryan’s success as a manager, however, it was this: very few people left. Turnover is a fact of life in journalism — and, again, let’s be real here: so, too is abject despair ― and very few people who joined the community that Ryan helped create opted to leave. I’m forever indebted to Ryan for inviting me to join such an editorially vibrant and culturally wonderful place to be. I’m terribly sad to see him go but excited to see all the incredible things he will do at The Intercept. - Eliot
Proud Cornell alumnus Sam Stein will continue to help direct our political coverage as he has for the last few months. This is a welcome development to both us and the entire Cornell community.
TRUMP’S ARMY SECRETARY NOMINEE WITHDRAWS - [terrible “Tactical Retreat” headline here]. Amanda Terkel: “Tennessee state Sen. Mark Green (R) withdrew his name from consideration to become the next Army secretary Friday, making him the second person to back out from the nomination…. Green engendered significant opposition to his nomination after HuffPost first reported on comments he had made about the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community. He recently sponsored legislation that would bar local governments from considering companies’ internal policies (such as whether they discriminate based on gender identity or sexual orientation) when doing business or giving out contracts. He has also said he believes being transgender is a disease and said part of the reason he opposes allowing transgender people to use the restroom corresponding to their gender identity is because he has a mission to ‘crush evil.’” [HuffPost]
And who can forget that Bible passage where Jesus wallet biopsied all those poor people: “President Trump’s now-former pick for Army secretary once said government-assisted healthcare is an ‘injustice’ because it hampers church-affiliated providers from converting people to Christianity…. ‘The person who’s in need…they look to the government for the answer, not God, and I think in that way government has done an injustice that’s even bigger than just the creation of an entitlement welfare state,’ Green said. ‘In this setting, I’ll share the story, I think it interrupts the opportunity for people to come to a saving knowledge of who God is.’” [Washington Examiner’s Travis J. Tritten]
Like HuffPost Hill? Then order Eliot’s book, The Beltway Bible: A Totally Serious A-Z Guide To Our No-Good, Corrupt, Incompetent, Terrible, Depressing, and Sometimes Hilarious Government
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PRESIDENT A SOCIALIST NOW, WE GUESS - Congratulations to the commander-in-chief for putting his body upon the gears of production. Samuel Levine: “Hours after he celebrated a vote in the House of Representatives to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, President Donald Trump praised Australia’s publicly funded, universal health care system…. The irony of the remark seemed lost on Trump, who made the comment during a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in New York City on Thursday night. ‘It’s a very good bill right now. The premiums are going to come down, very substantially. The deductibles are going to come down. It’s going to be fantastic health care. Right now Obamacare is failing. We have a failing health care. I shouldn’t say this to our great gentleman and my friend from Australia, because you have better health care than we do.’” [HuffPost]
SENATOR BRAVELY COMES OUT AGAINST INFANTICIDE - This is going to be a painful few weeks. Jennifer Bendery: “Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said Friday that the Senate’s bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act must meet one crucial standard: the Jimmy Kimmel test. During an interview on ‘CNN Newsroom,’ Cassidy was asked if he could support a bill that lets insurance companies cap their payouts to consumers. ‘As you present that, I ask, “Does it pass the Jimmy Kimmel test?”’ the senator replied. ‘Will the child born with a congenital heart disease be able to get everything she or he would need in that first year of life? I want it to pass the Jimmy Kimmel test.’” [HuffPost]
CONGRATULATIONS TO IVANKA TRUMP ON HER #BRAND - Laura Bassett: “A State Department office retweeted Ivanka Trump’s post promoting her new book on Wednesday, likely violating a federal rule that bars the use of public office for private gain. A federal government employee ‘shall not use his public office for his own private gain, for the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise, or for the private gain of friends, relatives, or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity,’ according to the Code of Federal Regulations (5 CFR 2635.702, to be specific). Trump, who serves as a White House special counselor, had already canceled her book tour last month to avoid breaking the ethics rules around self-promotion.” [HuffPost]
IMMIGRANTS DOING A TERRIBLE JOB STEALING OUR JOBS - Patricia Cohen: “Job growth recovered in April, according to data released on Friday by the Labor Department, providing a reassuring economic snapshot after weak numbers in March. The unemployment rate was 4.4 percent, down from 4.5 percent in March and the lowest rate in more than 10 years…. The broadest measure of unemployment, which includes people who are working part time or have dropped out of the labor market, was down sharply, to 8.6 percent, from 8.9 percent.” [NYT]
SAD! - Mark Glassman and Jeremy Scott Diamond: “Twitter users are showing President Donald Trump less love than they did at the start of his term. The tweets posted by @realDonaldTrump, the account Trump has used personally, are now notching fewer ‘likes’ now than those from January. Sixty-two percent of Trump’s tweets posted in the first 50 days of his term amassed more than 100,000 likes, according to a Bloomberg analysis. Just 10 percent of his tweets over the following 51 days crossed that threshold.” [Bloomberg]
PUBLIC SERVICE JOURNALISM AT ITS FINEST - Remember this the next time you call something fake news, Chris Collins. Alana Horowitz Satlin: “Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) on Thursday told CNN he hadn’t read the American Health Care Act, but that his staff had briefed him on its contents. But pressed later by The Buffalo News, Collins seemed to not be aware of how it actually affects his constituents.’ ‘Explain that to me,’ Collins said after the reporter pointed out that New York stands to lose billions in federal funding for its Essential Plan, an Obamacare provision meant for low-income people who don’t qualify for Medicaid. The plan serves thousands of people in his own district, according to The Buffalo News.He then admitted that he wasn’t aware of the cut in the first place. “ [HuffPost]
GOOD TIMING - Now that the opioid crisis is over, we don’t really need — what’s that? There’s still a terrible opioid crisis? Oh. Dan Diamond: “President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2018 budget would cut about 95 percent of funding for the Office of National Drug Control Policy, effectively ending its mission as the lead agency in charge of combating the opioid crisis and other drug epidemics, according to an internal office email and two sources who spoke with POLITICO. The office, which received $388 million in federal funding in fiscal 2017, would only receive $24 million in fiscal 2018, according to the budget proposal from the White House.” [Politico]
TRUMP KICKS BLACK WOMAN OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE - Ashley Parker and Krissah Thompson: “The White House has fired its chief usher, Angella Reid, the first woman and second African American to hold the position. When the White House residence staff arrived at work Friday morning, they were told that Reid was no longer employed, according to someone with knowledge of the dismissal. A White House official confirmed that Reid is no longer working at the White House. Reached by phone, Reid declined to comment, saying only, ‘I think it’s best if the White House explains.’” [WaPo]
RIP - Ryan J. Reilly: “Edward Crawford ― the man featured clad in the American flag and holding a bag of chips as he hurled a flaming tear gas canister in what became the iconic image of the 2014 unrest in Ferguson, Missouri ― was found dead in St. Louis on Thursday. The medical examiner’s office said Crawford’s death appeared to be a suicide, according to the St. Louis Police Department. Two people told police they had been driving with Crawford late Thursday evening when he started to talk about being ‘distraught over personal matters.’ They then heard him ‘rummaging in the backseat’ and heard a gunshot, then saw he’d ‘sustained a gunshot wound to the head,’ according to the police report. Crawford’s father told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch he did not believe his son took his own life.” [HuffPost]
BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR - Here’s a squirrel trolling a bunch of dogs.
COMFORT FOOD
- Watch a guy in a Pikachu outfit get exfiltrated.
- Adding to Rosa Parks’ already legendary status in history: She made pancakes with peanut butter. A crusader for justice after our own hearts.
- The world’s strangest borders.
TWITTERAMA
@spookperson: the venn diagram of people who think abortion is eugenics and people who voted to let millions with disabilities and illness die is a circle
@kept_simple: sarah huckabee sanders is bernie sanders’ daughter
@MrGeorgeWallace: Shout out to birds, the fish of the sky.
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