Tag: hit&run

Defenders of the Education Department’s Title IX dictates usually insist that the point of the law is to provide female students equal access to education. Because the campus sexual assault epidemic had effectively denied women this opportunity, it was necessary for the federal government to step up Title IX enforcement, activists say.

But now and then, the mask slips.

Consider this interview with Andrew Morse, a director for policy and research at NASPA and consultant on higher education compliance issues. The interview is somewhat aimless, but the underlying point seems to be this: campus sexual assault policies in the states vary wildly, which could become an issue if Betsy DeVos becomes Education Secretary and reins in the Office for Civil Rights, the agency responsible for enforcing Title IX.

To recap, here is the full text of Title IX: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

With that in mind, consider some rather stunning admissions from Morse, an expert on governmental anti-sexual assault policy who is asked here to defend extra-legal, university-based adjudication systems for sexual crimes. I have bolded the most relevant passages:

And so, the aims of the court system are completely different than those of the campus-conduct system. A finding of responsibility on the part of the assailant in a campus-conduct system might mean that they are removed from the campus. It doesn’t mean that they’re going to prison, and it doesn’t also prevent that individual from seeking further study elsewhere after a period of time, perhaps.

But the point about the need for federal law and regulation that is trauma-informed and fair is that it can protect the rights to all parties involved in the adjudication process following a claim. … The lower threshold as articulated in guidance in 2011 by the Office for Civil Rights provides the foundation for a likely outcome of responsibility that will protect survivors of sexual violence while still not prohibiting the individual found responsible for seeking educational opportunities later. The point of campus-adjudication processes is to affirm the rights of individuals to educational opportunities. And the reason we need federal laws and regulations to protect that structure, is that absent federal law and regulation, there isn’t an established process to do that across the states.

The notion that OCR’s current interpretation of Title IX—which requires universities to adjudicate sexual misconduct under a preponderance of the evidence standard—does not significantly harm the accused students’ educational opportunities is ludicrous. A student found responsible for sexual misconduct and expelled from campus may not be headed to jail, but he will face any number of serious social consequences, including significant difficulties in finding a new school that will take him.

Of course, this is an explicit goal of Title IX activists, many of whom favor laws that would require colleges to make a note on an accused student’s transcript that he was involved in a sexual misconduct matter. The idea that accused students shouldn’t be able to simply move on to another school is foundational to the victims’ rights movement.

But Morse’s most telling statement is this: “The lower threshold as articulated in guidance in 2011 by the Office for Civil Rights provides the foundation for a likely outcome of responsibility.” It’s not about finding the truth, or administering justice. The purpose of the guidance is to make it more likely that accused students are found responsible, whether or not they have done anything wrong. OCR has tipped the scales in favor of alleged victims, because the lives of the accused matter less than the lives of the accusers.

How’s that for justice?

It is wrong to pretend that a student found responsible for sexual misconduct isn’t significantly burdened by the outcome. It’s downright malevolent to say that since the burden on the accused is small, biasing the process against him is not merely acceptable, but actually required under federal law.

What a spectacular misinterpretation of a law intended to foster equality between the sexes in education. We can’t be sure that DeVos actually intends to reform OCR, but we should be sure that reform is necessary.

For more Title IX insanity, read this story about a male student expelled from Amherst University—even though he has some evidence his female accuser was the perpetrator.

Freedom House is a think tank devoted to promoting the expansion of freedom and democracy around the world. Every year, the organization releases a report updating how political and civil rights are faring in 195 countries. In its latest report, Freedom in the World 2017, the group finds that freedom has been receding for a decade after it peaked in 2006 when 47 percent of countries were free, 30 percent partly free and 23 percent were not free. The Freedom House analysts are particularly worried about the increase in tribalism, uh, nationalist populism, in Europe and the United States and crack-downs by emboldened autocrats, especially Xi in China and Putin in Russia.

Freedom House measures freedom in each country on a scale of 0 to 100. The countries with the worst aggregate civil and political liberties scores included Syria (-1), Eritrea, Uzbekistan, North Korea (3 each), South Sudan and Turkmenistan (4 each). The countries that received the highest scores are Finland, Norway, Sweden (100 each), Netherlands (99), Australia, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Uruguay (98 each). The United States’ aggregate score was 89 points. In comparison, China and Russia scored 15 and 20 points respectively.

In its 2006 report, Freedom House noted, “On the whole, the state of freedom showed substantial improvement worldwide, with 27 countries and one territory registering gains and only 9 countries showing setbacks. The global picture thus suggests that the past year was one of the most successful for freedom since Freedom House began measuring world freedom in 1972.”

The more somber 2017 report observes, “A total of 67 countries suffered net declines in political rights and civil liberties in 2016, compared with 36 that registered gains. This marked the 11th consecutive year in which declines outnumbered improvements.” Overall, the percent of free countries fell to 45 percent and percent of not free countries rose to 25 percent and partly free countries held steady at 30 percent.

Back in 2011, independent political scientist Jay Ulfelder told my Reason colleague Jesse Walker that after period of making major gains the global trend toward greater freedom had plateaued and experienced some “minor slippage.” Now Ulfelder acknowledges, “It’s now getting to the point that talking about the erosion of freedom around the world is valid.” By rescaling and parsing the Freedom House data on a 10 point population weighted scale Ulfelder aims to quantify how the average individual on earth is faring with respect to civil and political liberties. He calculates that global freedom peaked at 5.321 points in 2005 and has now dropped to 5.098 points; that is about back to where it stood at the turn of the millennium.

In a more hopeful contrast, the latest Economic Freedom of the World report (using 2014 data) from the Fraser Institute found that “the economic freedom rating for advanced countries with ratings since 1985 has increased from 6.9 to 7.7 in 2014. The average chain-linked economic freedom rating for developing countries with ratings since 1985 has increased from 5.0 to 6.7 in 2014.” However, if autocracy and nationalist populism continue to rise, I predict that this trend will be reversed and more people will soon be both poorer and less free.

The nomination of Betsy Devos to head the Department of Education passed the relevant Senate committee on a party line 12-11 vote, after a brief delay when Democrats objected to Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) voting by proxy.

NPR has a piece today explaining “how school choice might work” under DeVos, drawing from a ranking by the school choice advocacy group Americans for Children (AFC) which DeVos chaired. The group ranked Florida’s school choice program number one in the country, although NPR noted the group only ranked states were students were explicitly allowed to choose religious schools. Later, it explains that according to Florida’s school choice scholarship organization, students benefiting from the program are overwhelmingly African-American and Hispanic, and more than 70 percent of scholarship money goes toward religious, predominantly Christian, schools. Denying students such a choice severely limits their opportunities for little discernable reason other than a distaste for religious-run institutions, many of whom serve as important providers in marginalized communities.

Religious schools, Christian and otherwise, have a long history in the United States, including being looked at with suspicion about disloyalty during the xenophobic period surrounding World War I. More importantly, such schools have track-records in the communities that they serve. Comprehensive school choice ought to give parents the opportunity to access a wide array of educational options, including public schools and private schools, magnet schools and charter schools, or even homeschooling.

The competitive pressures all the different educational providers face in an environment of increased choice improves the quality of services and the outcomes across the board. It doesn’t mean charter schools, let alone private schools, religious or otherwise, are against public schools, and, despite posturing by teachers’ unions, the reverse shouldn’t apply either.

Florida’s program was ranked number one, NPR reports, because of its “broad eligibility, reaching families with incomes of up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level; for the generosity of the tax break to donors, a dollar-for-dollar match with a cap that increases automatically each year; and for the large size of scholarships, nearly $6,000.”

The scholarship program is set up as tax credits and matching programs that permits corporations, other organizations, and individuals to choose to fund private scholarships, thus largely bypassing concerns about “public money” going for religious purposes (although the vast majority of so-called “religious schools,” once known as parochial schools, have largely secular curriculums, with components aimed at the religious life of the student that are usually sensitive to children of different faith or even none at all). The objection to religious schools, like the objection to homeschooling, is based on an inaccurate biased belief that these modes of education are somehow inferior or intellectually lacking, as well as an irrational fear of religious organizations and motivations, despite both private schools and homeschooling becoming more popular in large part due to failing local schools.

Opponents of Florida’s school choice program, notably, do not specifically claim that the schools at which students use the state scholarship’s money are somehow subpar. Instead, when the teachers union and other interest groups sued, they argued the state constitution required “uniform education.”

A spokesman for the Florida Education Association (FEA) told NPR that non-public schools Florida students can go to thanks to state scholarship funds “don’t have to follow the state curriculum, don’t have to participate in testing, don’t have to hire certified teachers. They don’t have to follow the same rules.”

In other words, students are not trapped in the cartel run by the teachers unions and its friends. Students in more states should be so lucky, and NPR is certainly right about looking to Florida as a model. As an expert they spoke to noted, there’s little “fungible” money in the federal education budget; Florida’s model offers an opportunity to make funds available for school choice despite that challenge—likely DeVos is considering it, but if not perhaps NPR gave her a good idea!

Ajit Pai, Donald Trump’s pick to head the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), is a critic of the Net Neutrality rules the agency passed two years ago. As an FCC commissioner, Pai voted against the agency’s 2015 open internet order, whose defenders said was necessary “to protect free expression and innovation on the Internet and promote investment in the nation’s broadband networks.” After losing court battles to regulate the Internet directly, then-FCC head Tom Wheeler said the agency had the right to regulate the Internet under Title II rules originally designed to control telecommunications utilities. That the FCC could point to essentially no cases of providers throttling competitors’ data or blocking particular websites didn’t matter much. As long as the possibility existed, say Net Neutrality supporters, the FCC must be empowered to regulate data on the Internet.

Does this mean that, as a Buzzfeed article fret, “The Fate of Net Neutrality Is Still Up in the Air in the Trump-Era FCC”? If you’re concerned about the FCC regulating the Internet using decades-old Title II rules, yes, absolutely. If you’re worried about whether or the Internet will be a place of unparalleled free expression and constant innovation, absolutely not. As Pai says, “I favor a free and open internet and I oppose Title II.” That’s not a contradiction at all.

It’s upbeat phrasing aside, Net Neutrality has never been about increasing freedom of expression online. It actually represents an attempt by the government to regulate various aspects of the online world in the name of saving us from a phantom menace of cable monsters and ISPs who are supposedly blocking or throttling traffic from unwanted competitors. I have no love for cable companies, cell phone providers, or anyone else who gives me access to the ‘net. I also know that products and services continue to get better, faster, and ultimately, cheaper.

Here’s how Clemson University economist Tom Hazlett defined Net Neutrality from a libertarian perspective:

Hazlett, author of The Fallacy of Net Neutrality, argued that net neutrality is best defined as “a set of rules…regulating the business model of your local ISP.” Thinking about it that way clarifies what’s really going on.

By seeking to ban differential pricing and services among different ISPs, net neutrality backers are trying to maintain the status quo that’s worked for them so well (many of the strongest proponents for net neutrality represent bandwidth-hogging companies and services such as Netflix, YouTube, and Skype that ISPs would likely hit up for extra fees).

Of course Netflix, say, doesn’t want to have to pay Comcast or Verizon or whomever for special treatment. But if Netflix is increasing demand for bandwidth and it wants to ensure that its users’ experience is fast, reliable, and glitch-free, why shouldn’t an ISP tap them for extra money to build more capacity or help in managing it? (As a matter of fact, Comcast and Netflix have already done exactly this via an arrangement known as “peering,” that elides most strict concerns about net neutrality.)

As Hazlett argues, “The [FCC] argues that [net neutrality] rules are necessary, as the Internet was designed to bar ‘gatekeepers.’ The view is faulty, both in it engineering claims and its economic conclusions. Networks routinely manage traffic and often bundle content with data transport precisely because such coordination produces superior service. When ‘walled gardens’ emerge, including AOL in 1995, Japan’s DoCoMo iMode in 1999, or Apple’s iPhone in 2007, they often disrupt old business models, thrilling consumers, providing golden opportunities for application developers, advancing Internet growth. In some cases these gardens have dropped their walls; others remain vibrant.”

Hazlett’s insight has proven prescient. Net Neutrality supporters spend a good chunk of their time attacking customer-friendly programs such as T-Mobile’s Binge On, which allows users to stream unlimited amounts of data from certain providers, as dread threats to freedom. To confuse such offerings with censorship is idiotic, especially as other providers such as Sprint are moving toward flat rates for unlimited data packages.

More to the point, Pai told Reason in 2015 that Net Neutrality is “a solution that won’t work to a problem that doesn’t exist”:

reason: So you’re simply saying the Internet is not broken.

Pai: I don’t think it is. I think by and large, people are able to access the lawful content of their choice. While competition isn’t where we want it to be—we can always have more choices, better speeds, lower prices, etc.—nonetheless, if you look at the metrics compared to, say, Europe, which has a utility-style regulatory approach, I think we’re going pretty well.

reason: The FCC recently redefined broadband, but using standards from the last roundup of where we were in terms of the number and variety of Internet connections. One of the things that people say is, “Well, we need to regulate the Internet because local ISPs like Time Warner or Comcast have an effective local monopoly on service.” Is that accurate, and would that be enough of a reason to say, “Hey, we gotta do something”?

Pai: I certainly think there are a lot of markets where consumers want and could use more competition. That’s why since I’ve become the commissioner, I’ve focused on getting rid of some of the regulatory underbrush that stands in the way of some upstart competitors providing that alternative—streamlining local permit rules, getting more wireless infrastructure out there to give a mobile alternative, making sure we have enough spectrum in the commercial marketplace—but these kind of Title II common carrier regulations ironically will be completely counterproductive. It’s going to sweep a lot of these smaller providers away who simply don’t have the ability to comply with all these regulations, and moreover it’s going to deter investment in broadband networks, so ironically enough, this hypothetical problem that people worry about is going to become worse because of the lack of competition.

reason: But you’re also saying it doesn’t exist. So do most people in America have a choice in broadband carriers, and do they have more choice than they did five years ago, and is there reason to believe they’ll have more choice in another five years?

Pai: I think there are hiccups any given consumer might experience in any given market. Nonetheless, if you look on the aggregate, Americans are much better off than they were five years ago, ten years ago. Speeds are increasing; the amount of choice is increasing. Something like 76 percent of Americans have access to three or more facilities-based providers. Over 80 percent of Americans have access to 25 mbps speeds. In terms of the mobile part of equation, there’s no question that America has made tremendous strides. Eighty-six percent of Americans have access to 4G LTE. We have 50 percent of the world’s LTE subscribers and only 4 percent of the population.

Pai’s selection as FCC chair is interesting for any number of reasons. First and foremost, it means that a person who is both dedicated to a truly free, open, and competitive Internet and who understands markets will be running the FCC for a change. Second, it means the Internet is likely to remain a fortress of freedom during a Trump administration that may well attempt to beat down the press both from the bully pulpit and in courts. Recall that during the election season, Trump vowed to “open up” the country’s libel laws to make it easier to sue publications such as The New York Times. He also called out by name Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post (Bezos is also a supporter of Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes this website). That Bezos is reportedly working against Trump’s executive order on immigration and refugees only makes it more likely that the president might actually try to muzzle the press. In December 2015, both Trump and Hillary Clinton in a 24-hour period argued in similar language that parts of the Internet should be shuttered to make it more difficult for jihadists to recruit:

“We’re losing a lot of people because of the internet,” Trump said. “We have to see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what’s happening. We have to talk to them about, maybe in certain areas, closing that internet up in some ways. Somebody will say, ‘Oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.’ These are foolish people.”

In less than two weeks, Trump has shown a willingness to follow through on what he promised on the campaign trail. So he may well try to screw down freedom of the press, and of expression.

That’s disturbing in the extreme and it needs to be beaten back. The good news? Trump’s pick for the FCC is certainly the type of person who will refuse to play along with the president. If he stays true to his word, Ajit Pai will protect the Internet from censorship—by refusing to treat it as a public utility the government has a right to control.

Related: “3 Charts That Show the FCC Is Full of Malarkey on Net Neutrality and Title II“.

Here’s Reason TV’s interview with Pai. Transcript here.

While the populist triumph of President Donald Trump represented the possibility of backsliding on freer immigration and trade policies, look at all this news that makes it abundantly clear that America, at least, won’t be backtracking on gay and transgender acceptance.

To wit:

Federal executive order prohibiting anti-LGBT workplace discrimination remains intact. This morning the White House announced that Trump will be keeping President Barack Obama’s 2014 anti-discrimination order in place. This order prohibited discrimination against gay and transgender employees by federal contractors. The White House put out a brief statement:

President Donald J. Trump is determined to protect the rights of all Americans, including the LGBTQ community. President Trump continues to be respectful and supportive of LGBTQ rights, just as he was throughout the election. The President is proud to have been the first ever GOP nominee to mention the LGBTQ community in his nomination acceptance speech, pledging then to protect the community from violence and oppression. The executive order signed in 2014, which protects employees from anti-LGBTQ workplace discrimination while working for federal contractors, will remain intact at the direction of President Donald J. Trump.

To be clear, the administration here is setting the terms for working with the federal government and not attempting to establish (or advance) a general federal ban on LGBT discrimination by private employers elsewhere. If you want to get government money, you have to follow their rules. The order maintains narrow exemptions for religious organizations who provide federally funded social services.

This decision (and the White House deliberately publicizing it) is an important test of whether Trump as president would be able to maintain his own generally pro-acceptance positions as policy even while bringing in social conservatives to run his administration. Now whether the executive order will actually be enforced is another question (that won’t be answered for some time).

The response by the Human Rights Campaign, the top LGBT activist organization, is very “Yes, but … ,” (via The Hill):

“You can’t claim to be an ally when you send LGBTQ refugees back to countries where their lives are at risk. You can’t claim support and then rip away life-saving services made possible through the Affordable Care Act for transgender people and those living with HIV or AIDS. You can’t be a friend to this community and appoint people to run the government who compare being gay to bestiality,” [Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin] added.

Exit polls showed that even though Trump has been the most vocal supporter of LGBT issues the Republican Party has seen in a presidential candidate, he did terribly with LGBT voters, even worse than previous candidates. But we’ll have to wait to see how actual policies affect LGBT folks moving forward.

Betsy DeVos, friend of the gays? When Trump selected DeVos as his choice to head the Department of Education, supporters of school choice cheered. She’s a massive ally and fighter for the rights of families to control where their children get educated. But many within the LGBT community were not so happy. DeVos’ family has a lengthy history of opposing gay issues; and we’re not just talking about speaking out or voting against gay issues. The DeVos family has helped bankroll ballot initiatives against gay marriage recognition.

But according to a story by The New York Times, DeVos does not share the positions of her elders. She has a history of personal support for gay and transgender accommodation that she doesn’t make a big public deal about:

Ms. DeVos’s personal experience with the debate over gender identity and bathrooms dates back decades. As chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party, she came to the aid of a transgender woman who wanted to use the women’s restroom at a call center, upsetting some of the other women there, according to two associates at the time — Mr. McNeilly, who was the party’s political director, and Eric Doster, the general counsel.

“We made the accommodation, and that was Betsy’s call,” said Mr. Doster, who did not recall the woman’s name but said this happened in an office near the Michigan State University campus in 1997 or 1998. “A lot of the co-workers weren’t happy with it. But that’s who Betsy is.”

But, like other supportive moves she has made over the years, it was done quietly. When Ken Mehlman, a former Republican National Committee chairman, was collecting signatures from Republicans for a 2015 legal brief that argued in favor of a constitutional right for same-sex marriage, he turned to Ms. DeVos for help in recruiting people in Michigan. She agreed, friends said.

What this means now for the battle over whether public schools should be either forced or prohibited from accommodating transgender students’ facility needs is unclear or whether she would leave it to the states. Her responses in her confirmation battle suggest a strong support for leaving control of education policies to the states. Looking at what went down in North Carolina, where the state put a prohibition in place for all public schools, hopefully DeVos’ support for choice would include allowing parents of LGBT kids the option of attending schools that will accommodate them—even if these parents have to get together and make new programs themselves.

The Boy Scouts open up membership to transgender children. The fight to convince the Boy Scouts to allow gay teens to participate only as members took decades. It even went all the way to the Supreme Court (which affirmed the Scouts’ Freedom of Association).

The ban on gay scouts ended in 2013. It took less than four years after that for the ban on transgender scouts to fall. From The Washington Post:

Boy Scouts chief executive Michael Surbaugh said in a video message that the organization will now accept boys based on the gender a parent puts on a child’s scouting application, ending a policy of accepting boys based on the gender listed on a child’s birth certificate.

“We realized that referring to birth certificates as the reference point is no longer sufficient,” Surbaugh said in a video message. “Communities and state laws are now interpreting gender identity differently than society did in the past. And these new laws vary widely from state to state.”

Surbaugh said the new policy goes into effect immediately.

“Our organization’s local councils will help find units that can provide for the best interest of the child,” he said in a written statement.

What has always been wonderful about the transformation of the Boy Scouts is that this slow walk toward acceptance has been a result of cultural influence and pressures and not a government mandate. It’s an important reminder that government authority is not the alpha and omega of making life better for LGBT people and other minorities. It doesn’t always take threats of fines or other forms of official punishment for life to get better for people.

Bonus link! “New DC Comic Reinvents Snagglepuss as ‘Gay Southern Gothic Playwright.'”

Meddling state officials have managed to make the legal pot market in Colorado uncompetitive.

J.D. Tuccille writes:

You have to give it to Colorado. The state’s voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2012, transforming the popular stuff from a prohibited vice to a substance that could be produced, bought and sold without the hassle of hiding dealings from the authorities and the fear of arrest for voluntary transactions. Yet the marijuana black market is still going strong over four years later, with many sellers and customers willing to take a chance on legal consequences rather than make a risk-free deal.

Maintaining a profitable black market for a perfectly legal product is quite an accomplishment. But never fear, Colorado lawmakers have a plan—they’re moving to ban marijuana advertisements by unlicensed vendors. That should learn ’em.

Except… Given the history of illegal dealings that have prospered even in the absence of Craigslist postings, that’s probably not going to do the trick. It doesn’t even begin to address the driving force behind the black market, which is taxes so sky high and regulations so burdensome that they make legal pot uncompetitive.

View this article.

Today at noon ET I am once again guest-hosting The Dean Obeidallah Show on SiriusXM Insight, channel 121. As befits a Muslim-hosted show, we are going to be talking about the executive-order controversy, first with BuzzFeed Mideast correspondent Borzou Daragahi, then with political commentator Pejman Yousefzadeh. Please call the program any time at 1-877-974-7487.

Every year, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) releases a report putting a dollar figure on the amount of improper payments in Medicaid. And every year, it shows that the program, a jointly funded federal-state program for the poor and disabled and one of the nation’s biggest budget items, spends a substantial portion of its annual budget in ways that it shouldn’t: On fraud, on waste, on services not rendered, not medically necessary, or incorrectly billed.

Last year, for example, the GAO found that about 9.8 percent of federal Medicaid expenditures, or about $29 billion, was spent improperly. That was up from the previous year, and the increased error rate was the main driver of an overall increase in improper payments across the federal government.

This year, the total has risen once again. About 10.5 percent, or $36 billion, of federal spending on the program isn’t up to snuff, according to a GAO report released this morning.

The program’s sheer size, along with the variety of types of individual payments it makes, makes it particularly vulnerable to bad spending. And that’s been the case for a long time. The GAO added Medicaid to its list of high-risk programs in 2003, and in the years since, government officials have been slow to implement the watchdog’s list of suggested reforms intended to reduce unnecessary spending. This is an enduring problem for Medicaid, one that neither Republican nor Democratic administrations have figured out how to fix.

Among the problems that GAO highlights: Medicaid officials have not taken sufficient steps to make sure that “only eligible beneficiaries are enrolled in Medicaid.” Basically, there are too many people signing up for coverage who don’t actually qualify for coverage—especially with regard to Obamacare, which dramatically expanded the program in participating states. Today’s report notes the GAO’s own study showing that 9 of 12 fictitious applications were approved for coverage and subsidies under the health law during last year’s special enrollment period. This isn’t strictly limited to Medicaid, but it suggests how weak the controls are on application.

And although the federal government has taken some steps to review eligibility protocols, it has “excluded from review federal Medicaid eligibility determinations in the states that have delegated authority to the federal government to make Medicaid eligibility determinations through the federally facilitated exchange.” In short, it has, rather conveniently, exempted the federally run exchange from the sort of oversight that the GAO says is necessary.

On the flip side, the GAO also warns that health officials aren’t doing enough to make sure that only eligible providers are enrolled in the program. The report notes that “our prior work has identified hundreds of Medicaid providers who were potentially improperly receiving Medicaid payments”—basically, folks who are engaging in fraud, or something fairly close—and says that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) isn’t doing nearly enough to weed out these bad actors.

The report also notes that there are not enough controls in place for Medicaid managed care, in which the program’s services are contracted out to private companies, and that there’s not enough coordination between Medicaid the Obamacare exchanges.

Beyond the bureaucratic details, what this report makes clear, yet again, is that Medicaid is not a particularly well-run program, and that its size, scope, and complex structure make it particularly susceptible to waste and fraud. And in its current state, the program has proven difficult to reform through better oversight and program management. Which means that folks who are looking to fix these problems ought to be thinking bigger, and looking for more substantial structural reforms that don’t effectively have a 10 percent waste level built into the system.

Last week House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) welcomed President Trump’s executive order suspending admission of all refugees for 120 days, blocking Syrian refugees indefinitely, cutting this year’s refugee cap in half, and banning travelers with passports from any of seven Muslim-majority countries for 90 days. “It’s time to reevaluate and strengthen the visa vetting process,” Ryan said on Friday. “President Trump is right to make sure we are doing everything possible to know exactly who is entering our country.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was somewhat less enthusiastic. “I don’t want to criticize them for improving vetting,” McConnell told ABC News on Sunday. “It’s going to be decided in the courts as to whether or not this has gone too far.”

Last night Washington Post reporter Aaron Blake counted 84 Republican members of Congress who have publicly supported Trump’s order, and this statement from Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) makes it 85. Blake lists Rand Paul, the libertarian-leaning Kentucky senator who briefly ran for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination against Trump, as a legislator who has not taken a position on Trump’s order. But judging from comments Paul made in an interview with talk radio host Andrew Wilkow yesterday, he should also be counted as a supporter. “If you want to be an immigrant into our country, the Constitution doesn’t apply to you, and we have every right to make any immigration law we want,” said Paul, who in 2015 sponsored legislation that would have temporarily banned admission of refugees from 34 “high-risk countries,” almost all of them with large Muslim majorities. “Now a lot of us have the sensibility, myself included, that it shouldn’t be based on religion who is admitted to the country.” Trump argues that his order is based on national origin, not religion, which was also how Paul’s bill was framed.

More striking (and more important to the public debate, as Nick Gillespie noted yesterday) is the number of Republican legislators who have criticized Trump’s order: at least 41, by my count, including 14 senators and 27 representatives. The most common themes in the critical comments are that the formulation and implementation of the order were unnecessarily rushed (a point also made by some legislators who otherwise support the order), that the order was vague and should not have been applied to legal permanent residents (a policy that the Trump administration reversed on Sunday), that Trump should revise the vetting process for visitors and refugees in collaboration with Congress, that the order resembles a religious test for immigration, that the order will alienate Muslims around the world, and that Iraqis granted special visas because of the assistance they or their relatives provided to American forces could be forced to stay in a country where their lives are in danger.

Here is what Republican critics of Trump’s order have said, arranged alphabetically by chamber. I have marked the strongest criticism—going beyond complaints about haste, vagueness, and the order’s impact on green-card holders—with asterisks.

SENATORS

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.)

This vetting proposal itself needed more vetting. More scrutiny of those traveling from war-torn countries to the United States is wise. But this broad and confusing order seems to ban legal, permanent residents with “green cards,” and might turn away Iraqis, for example, who were translators and helped save lives of American troops and who could be killed if they stay in Iraq. And while not explicitly a religious test, it comes close to one, which is inconsistent with our American character.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine)

The worldwide refugee ban set forth in the executive order is overly broad, and implementing it will be immediately problematic….It could interfere with the immigration of Iraqis who worked for American forces in Iraq as translators and bodyguards—people who literally saved the lives of our troops and diplomats during the last decade and whose lives are at risk if they remain in Iraq.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.)

We all share a desire to protect the American people, but this executive order has been poorly implemented, especially with respect to green card holders. The administration should immediately make appropriate revisions, and it is my hope that following a thorough review and implementation of security enhancements that many of these programs will be improved and reinstated.

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.)

President Trump and his administration are right to be concerned about national security, but it’s unacceptable when even legal permanent residents are being detained or turned away at airports and ports of entry. Enhancing long term national security requires that we have a clear-eyed view of radical Islamic terrorism without ascribing radical Islamic terrorist views to all Muslims.

*Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.)

While I am supportive of strengthening our screening processes and securing our borders, a blanket travel ban goes too far. I also believe that lawful residents of the United States should be permitted to enter the country. I urge the administration to take the appropriate steps to fix this overly broad executive order.

*Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.)

I agree that better vetting and border protection measures are necessary to our current immigration system. That’s why I support the thorough vetting of individuals entering our country. However, I am deeply troubled ‎by the appearance of a religious ban. ‎The use of an overly broad executive order is not the way to strengthen national security. ‎I encourage the Administration to partner with Congress to find a solution.

Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.)

The mandate over the weekend was not very well vetted and the people designed to carry out the mandate didn’t know what the mandate was, and when asked some of the questions it didn’t sound like the White House knew what it was exactly. They’ve amended it a couple times already. You need to be very careful when you’re issuing executive orders or passing laws that you vet them all the way through the system so you can carry them out once they’re in place.

*Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)

Our government has a responsibility to defend our borders, but we must do so in a way that makes us safer and upholds all that is decent and exceptional about our nation.

It is clear from the confusion at our airports across the nation that President Trump’s executive order was not properly vetted. We are particularly concerned by reports that this order went into effect with little to no consultation with the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security.

Such a hasty process risks harmful results. We should not stop green-card holders from returning to the country they call home. We should not stop those who have served as interpreters for our military and diplomats from seeking refuge in the country they risked their lives to help. And we should not turn our backs on those refugees who have been shown through extensive vetting to pose no demonstrable threat to our nation, and who have suffered unspeakable horrors, most of them women and children.

Ultimately, we fear this executive order will become a self-inflicted wound in the fight against terrorism. At this very moment, American troops are fighting side-by-side with our Iraqi partners to defeat ISIL. But this executive order bans Iraqi pilots from coming to military bases in Arizona to fight our common enemies. Our most important allies in the fight against ISIL are the vast majority of Muslims who reject its apocalyptic ideology of hatred. This executive order sends a signal, intended or not, that America does not want Muslims coming into our country. That is why we fear this executive order may do more to help terrorist recruitment than improve our security.

Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.)

It’s common sense to have appropriate vetting procedures in place for individuals wishing to travel to our country. While I support thorough vetting, I do not support restricting the rights of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. Furthermore, far-reaching national security policy should always be devised in consultation with Congress and relevant government agencies.

*Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio)

I think it was not properly vetted. So, you have an extreme vetting proposal that didn’t get the vetting it should have had. And as a result, in the implementation, we’ve seen some problems.…

I think we should slow down. Let’s make two points. One, our country is not as safe as it should be. I’m on the Homeland Security Committee. We’ve had plenty of testimony in the last couple of years about the fact that there is not adequate screening, particularly on the Visa waiver programs. So I do think we need to tighten things up. And I think there’s general consensus about that. Congress passed legislation to do so at the end of 2015. But second, we have to do it in a way that’s consistent with our values and consistent with our national security. We are this beacon of hope and opportunity for the rest of the world. That’s our self-image and it’s also an important part of our foreign policy. So we have to do it in a way that makes sense. And we have a Cleveland Clinic doctor who, for instance, was turned away last night apparently. That’s not the way to do it.

In my view, we ought to all take a deep breath and come up with something that makes sense for our national security and again for this notion that America has always been a welcoming home for refugees and immigrants. In fact, we are more welcoming than any country in the world and we should continue to be so.

*Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.)

The President is right to focus attention on the obvious fact that borders matter. At the same time, while not technically a Muslim ban, this order is too broad. There are two ways to lose our generational battle against jihadism by losing touch with reality. The first is to keep pretending that jihadi terrorism has no connection to Islam or to certain countries. That’s been a disaster. And here’s the second way to fail: If we send a signal to the Middle East that the U.S. sees all Muslims as jihadis, the terrorist recruiters win by telling kids that America is banning Muslims and that this is America versus one religion. Both approaches are wrong, and both will make us less safe. Our generational fight against jihadism requires wisdom.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.)

While the executive order does take immediate action aimed at tightening the refugee screening process, there is a lot of confusion surrounding the order, particularly given the instances of green card holders inexplicably being denied entry back into the United States. The order should be refined to provide more clarity and mitigate unintended consequences that do not make our country any safer.

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.)

I support the administration’s decision to increase vetting and temporarily suspend the admission of certain individuals from states that sponsor or provide safe havens to terrorists, or are too weak to prosecute terrorists within their borders….Unfortunately, the initial executive order was flawed—it was too broad and poorly explained. This apparently resulted in denied entry into the United States for lawful permanent residents and others who should have been allowed immediate entry. Fortunately, the administration has clarified that this order does not apply to green card holders and that the secretaries of state and homeland security have the ability to grant exceptions which certainly should apply to, among others, foreign nationals who served the U.S. military in various support roles.

I look forward to learning more about how the administration intends to enforce this executive order, to determine whether it indeed strikes the appropriate balance between defending our nation and maintaining our ability to provide a safe haven for persecuted individuals.

REPRESENTATIVES

*Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.)

Like President Obama’s executive actions on immigration, President Trump’s executive order overreaches and undermines our constitutional system. It’s not lawful to ban immigrants on the basis of nationality. If the president wants to change immigration law, he must work with Congress.

The president’s denial of entry to lawful permanent residents of the United States (green card holders) is particularly troubling. Green card holders live in the United States as our neighbors and serve in our Armed Forces. They deserve better.

I agree with the president that we must do much more to properly vet refugees, but a blanket ban represents an extreme approach not consistent with our nation’s values. While the executive order allows the admittance of immigrants, nonimmigrants, and refugees “on a case-by-case basis,” arbitrariness would violate the Rule of Law.

Ultimately, the executive order appears to be more about politics than safety. If the concern is radicalism and terrorism, then what about Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and others?

Finally, we can’t effectively fight homegrown Islamic radicalism by perpetuating the “us vs. them” mindset that terrorists use to recruit. We must ensure that the United States remains dedicated to the Constitution, the Rule of Law, and liberty. It can’t be stated strongly enough that capitalism creates prosperity and improves assimilation into society.

*Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.)

Surely there is a way to enhance the security at our borders without unnecessarily detaining innocent individuals who have followed the rules, stood in line, and pose no threat to our country, and I hope this Administration takes quick action to ensure that we’re focused only on those who pose a threat to our safety.

*Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-Ind.)

The restrictions should not affect U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents. In addition, I believe people with previously approved refugee status applications or visas should be admitted to the U.S.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah)

People that have a green card supposedly already have been vetted, so there needs to be some further clarification.

*Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.)

I think the policy was poorly thought-out and badly executed, and I think it’s just an embarrassment. It seemed that it was more crafted by campaign operatives than national security experts.

Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.)

As I consistently have said, I don’t believe it is constitutional to ban people from our country on the basis of religion. However, I do support – and the House of Representatives has supported on a bipartisan basis – increased vetting based on national security concerns. The President’s Executive Order issued yesterday went beyond the increased vetting actions that Congress has supported on a bipartisan basis and inexplicably applied to green card holders, people who are legally within our country who have followed the rules. Green card holders go through a detailed legal process and are vetted. They are required to register with the selective service – and many serve in the military. They pay taxes. I find it hard to believe that green card holders — legal permanent residents — were intended to be included in this Executive Order. This should be addressed and corrected expeditiously.

*Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.)

This is ridiculous….The order appears to have been rushed through without full consideration. You know, there are many, many nuances of immigration policy that can be life or death for many innocent, vulnerable people around the world.

*Rep. John Faso (R-N.Y.)

After careful review of the recent executive order regarding immigration policy, I believe that the order was neither well drafted nor well implemented. Given recent events both here and abroad, we need to take steps to strengthen our nation’s security; however, this is most effectively pursued through thoughtful and deliberative legislation. While I acknowledge that the president may act in the event of a national security threat or emergency situation, this process was rushed and led to confusion. There is no doubt that we need to thoroughly vet people coming from countries where there are strongholds of ISIS and al-Qaida. At the same time, we have to balance our security with the need to respect the rights of US citizens and people who are subject to valid immigration proceedings, including lawful permanent residents.

*Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.)

The president’s policy entirely misses the mark….We were focused on solutions, not engaging in partisan attacks or declaring a singular fix to a complicated issue….Terrorism inspired by radicalism and hate is global in scope and, as such, requires a comprehensive response, not a purely regional focus. While serious actions are needed to protect our country, these must not be done in a way that singles out any specific nations or ethnicities.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.)

We have always been a country that welcomes immigrants. However, it is also important to remember that national security is the number one job of the federal government. Given shortcomings in the current screening process, I joined a bipartisan House majority in supporting legislation to strengthen the vetting process for individuals seeking entry to the United States through the Visa Waiver Program or as refugees. The Executive Order signed by the president on Friday came with little clarity and caused much uncertainty for foreign travelers. Additional implementing guidance is needed to ensure that the order can be applied in a fair and equitable manner.

Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.)

As part of his strategy to make the safety and security of the American people his top priority, President Trump believes a pause in immigration from unstable regions is warranted. However, this weekend’s confusion is an indication that the details of this executive order were not properly scrutinized. Among others, reconsideration should be given to courageous individuals who served as interpreters for our military and properly vetted refugees.

*Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-Ill.)

Our nation has a strong and principled tradition as a beacon of hope for the vulnerable and oppressed. Given the nature of the threats we face in the 21st century, I believe it is prudent to once again review and strengthen our visa screening processes to ensure those we let into our country have American interests at heart….

I believe that the vetting within the refugee program is already extensive and thorough—it is currently the most difficult and lengthy process to get into the United States, typically taking 18 months or more for a vulnerable family to survive while they wait approval to enter our country. I expect the rigor of the vetting process to be confirmed during the 120-day review of our current visa policies regarding refugees….

Unfortunately, the President’s executive order is overly broad and its interpretation has been inconsistent and confused. This has led to unintended consequences, like the barring of legal permanent residents and the rejection of Syrian Christians at the airport, a religious minority that was supposed to be protected by the executive order.

Keeping America First means keeping our principles first—both compassion and security. To remain the world’s shining city on a hill and beacon of hope to many, we should have our arms open to those who are fleeing oppression and seeking safety, not turning them away at the door.

*Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas)

The Executive Order banning visa adjudication from seven countries does not make us safer; rather it decreases the security of our homeland and endangers the lives of thousands of American men and women in our Military, diplomatic corps and intelligence services. There are almost 10,000 Americans serving in Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. A target has been placed on their backs by increasing tensions in an already volatile region. These men and women are fighting alongside citizens of those countries in order to keep Islamic Extremists on the run and off our shores.

As an undercover CIA officer I spent most of my adult life chasing down terrorists that would do our homeland and U.S. Citizens harm, so I know how important it is to cooperate with foreign allies to get the job done. We cannot fight the scourge of Islamic Extremism alone, and to prevent terrorists from having safe havens from which to plot, plan and train for attacks on the United States, we need to work with all allies around the world. This visa ban is the ultimate display of mistrust and will erode our allies’ willingness to fight with us. The ban also provides terrorists with another tool to gain sympathy and recruit new fighters.

The way to solve this problem is to continue tightening visa loopholes, ensure that the right intelligence is being shared with our allies and amongst U.S. agencies and organizations, and to use a number of tools to keep Americans from falling prey to ISIS propaganda. Several bills passed the House or Senate last Congress to address these issues, but were not signed into law. I will work to re-introduce legislation designed to keep all Americans safe, giving our President the opportunity to sign legislation that will protect our shores from those who seek to do us harm.

Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.)

I have concerns with this executive order, including the fact that it could potentially deny entrance to our country to lawful, permanent residents and dual citizens.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.)

The President’s recent executive order has caused confusion among those asked to enforce it, and recent media reports have muddled facts and fiction. I urge the Administration to clarify the specifics on what should and should not be done to best protect our homeland, our people, and our communities.

I support a comprehensive look at our vetting process, and I believe it’s something every new administration would be expected to do. However, reports of green card holders and those who assisted us in the war on terror being denied or delayed entry is deeply concerning. Such detention is unacceptable and must be remedied immediately.

*Rep. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.)

While I do support increased vetting of individuals applying to travel from countries with extensive terrorist ties or activity, the President’s current travel ban executive order appears rushed and poorly implemented. Reports of green card holders and those who assisted us in the War on Terror being denied or delayed entry into the U.S. is deeply concerning and must be remedied immediately. It is Congress’ role to amend our immigration laws and I strongly urge President Trump to work with legislators to enact a clear, effective and enhanced vetting and monitoring process.

*Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas)

In light of the confusion and uncertainty created in the wake of the President’s Executive Order, it is clear adjustments are needed. We should not simply turn away individuals who already have lawful U.S. visas or green cards—like those who have risked their lives serving alongside our forces overseas or who call America their home. We must be focused instead on putting in place tougher screening measures to weed out terror suspects while facilitating the entry of peaceful, freedom-loving people of all religions who see the United States as a beacon of hope. In the future, such policy changes should be better coordinated with the agencies implementing them and with Congress to ensure we get it right—and don’t undermine our nation’s credibility while trying to restore it.

*Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.)

Some innocent people, including some who have performed brave and valuable service to our anti-terror efforts, are having their lives needlessly disrupted. I encourage the administration to review its order in consultation with its national security team to ensure our enforcement resources are being targeted where they can be most effective and to allow those law-abiding green card holders and visa holders who clearly aren’t a threat to security to return to their jobs and communities here in America.

*Rep. Erik Paulsen (R-Minn.)

I support thorough vetting of those entering our country from countries and regions posing a serious threat to Americans. But this vetting must be applied responsibly and thoughtfully, and appropriately target those who are a national security risk. Unfortunately, the President’s executive order is too broad and has been poorly implemented and conceived. It is clear from the events this weekend that the executive order does not ensure that legal residents, including green card holders, and non-threats, such as those who served alongside the American military in Iraq, are treated fairly and with the dignity they deserve.

Rep. Jim Rennaci (R-Ohio)

I strongly encourage the administration to examine more closely whether it is effectual and necessary to subject green card holders from these nations to this temporary order.

*Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.)

I object to the suspension of visas from the seven named countries and of the US Refugee Admissions Program because we could have accomplished our objective of keeping our homeland safe by immediate implementation of more thorough screening procedures. I do note, however, that at least some individuals will continue to be admitted during this suspension period on a case by case basis and that the suspension period is temporary. In no case should this order be applied to individuals to whom visas have already been issued, are already permanent legal US residents, or have already been granted refugee status.

Both the letter and the spirit of the rule of law, on which our liberties rest, require that we honor legal commitments and procedures established by law, including existing visas and approved refugee status, absent specific articulable reasons for reversing a prior decision. The new Administration needs to pay careful attention to crafting orders that honor existing legal commitments and existing law, in contrast to this broad brush approach which doesn’t focus on the precise problems.

Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.)

I’m hearing a voice of concern [from my constituents] that things are moving from weird to reckless in their view. And that even if you’re going to enact this policy, the way in which it was done just seems bizarre.

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.)

I do not believe it is right to ban green card holders from entering the United States absent evidence of a threat, regardless of where they are from.

*Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.)

I oppose President Trump’s rushed and overly broad Executive Order. On the House Armed Services Committee, I have advocated for Iraqi and Afghans who have served side by side as our allies to be prioritized to access visas. It is Congress’ role to write our immigration laws and I strongly urge the President to work with Congress moving forward as we reform our immigration system to strengthen our homeland security.

*Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio)

While I agree with the President that we must improve our visa vetting process in order to better protect Americans, I believe the executive order risks violating our nation’s values and fails to differentiate mainstream Islamic partners from radical Islamic terrorists—setting back our fight against radical Islam. I urge the Administration to quickly replace this temporary order with permanent improvements in the visa vetting process.

*Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.)

I fully support strengthening our screening processes and securing our borders, but this Executive Order needs to be scaled back. It has created real confusion for travelers and those who enforce the laws. I have heard from a number of local folks with valid concerns for themselves or loved ones as well from global companies that have legitimate worries relating to the international travel of their employees. A wiser course would have been to work with Congress to ensure that all visitors to our nation are properly vetted with appropriate documentation. Moving forward, I will continue to advocate for common-sense, bipartisan policies that protect America but also stay true to our values.

Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.)

The language of the order should not apply to legal permanent residents of the United States, and if it is being enforced in any other way, the administration should step in swiftly to clarify.

If you consume your politics on Twitter, I am confident you have seen over the past five days such sentiments as this:

The foaming attacks on Donald Trump are more ridiculous than anything he has done https://t.co/69bbXbfsVv via @telegraphnews

— Nile Gardiner (@NileGardiner) January 30, 2017

Sure, sure, the most powerful politician in the world may have broken a few eggs here and there, but did you see those rude reviews on Yelp???

National Review, unsurprisingly, has sounded some similar notes since Trump’s executive order on refugees last Friday:

Refugee Madness: Trump Is Wrong, But His Liberal Critics Are Crazy https://t.co/HDfBKp8UwR http://pic.twitter.com/HYDkNV2Q8h

— National Review (@NRO) January 29, 2017

Note the word “but” there instead of “and,” and that the only party drawing the pejorative is the critics, not the administration choosing to gratuitously disrupt the lives of up to a half-million vetted legal permanent U.S. residents (before reversing that part of the poorly drafted order, even while insisting that “all is going well with very few problems“). The subhed of the linked NRO piece, which was written by Dan McLaughlin, is: “The anger at his new policy is seriously misplaced.” The erroneous first sentence within suggests one way of arriving at such a conclusion:

President Trump has ordered a temporary, 120-day halt to admitting refugees from seven countries, all of them war-torn states with majority-Muslim populations: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, and Somalia.

No, the refugee ban is for everyone—Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, atheist, natural disaster victim, genocide target, seven-nation disfavorable, 180+-country undesirable, whatever: Shop’s closed until Memorial Day. And the seven-country ban, which is for 90 days and not 120, includes everybody from those regions (except those with diplomatic passports), not just the subset of refugees. Since many people seem to be making the same mistake, here is the plain language from the order: “The Secretary of State shall suspend the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) for 120 days.” The program that has since 1980 admitted an average of 200+ refugees per day into the United States has been abruptly slammed shut for the next four months, and will be reopened at the discretion of a president who campaigned not only on a “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” but also the deportation of Syrian refugees already living legally in America. You can see why some people might not be inclined to give Trump the benefit of the doubt on this.

Which brings us to the National Review‘s David French, who, in a widely cited piece over the weekend, decided that the mock-worthy hysteria about the executive order came not from a power-wielding president with a long track record of misleading statements and alarmist hyperbole about the existing refugee-screening process, but rather among the people who are standing athwart Trump’s draconian order yelling “stop.” French, you may recall, had been for a few weird moments last spring Bill Kristol’s great #NeverTrump hope, so he is hardly a reflexive supporter of the president. Judging by the intensity of the retweets on this piece, his views reflect a broad swath of modern conservatism.

So: In a piece that advertises itself as “Separating Fact from Hysteria,” French characterizes Trump’s move as “an executive order dominated mainly by moderate refugee restrictions.” Not only does a blanket, never-been-done-before four-month refugee-stoppage—and an equally historic three-month ban of all travel from seven other countries—constitute a “moderate” move by French’s lights, so does Trump’s slashing of the U.S. target for refugee admittance to 50,000 a year, which is less than half of the 110,000 target Barack Obama set for this year, and also well below the 70,000-80,000 goal set every year from 2001-2015.

French has an awfully dissonant way of selling this virtuous moderation. In one breath, he says it’s no big deal because Trump’s target number is similar to the actual levels of refugee admittance under George W. Bush. In the next, he bitterly excoriates Barack Obama for not taking in more Syrian refugees:

The bottom line is that Trump is improving security screening and intends to admit refugees at close to the average rate of the 15 years before Obama’s dramatic expansion in 2016. Obama’s expansion was a departure from recent norms, not Trump’s contraction. […]

To recap: While the Syrian Civil War was raging, ISIS was rising, and refugees were swamping Syria’s neighbors and surging into Europe, the Obama administration let in less than a trickle of refugees. Only in the closing days of his administration did President Obama reverse course — in numbers insufficient to make a dent in the overall crisis, by the way — and now the Democrats have the audacity to tweet out pictures of bleeding Syrian children? […]

There was a genocide on Obama’s watch, and his tiny trickle of Syrian refugees hardly makes up for the grotesque negligence of abandoning Iraq and his years-long mishandling of the emerging Syrian crisis.

I won’t take a back seat in criticizing Obama for accepting more Syrian refugees—indeed, his secretary of state, John Kerry, had the morally obscene gall to bring up the rebuffed 1939 ship MS St. Louis as a reason to bomb Syria in 2013, at a time when the U.S. had taken in fewer than 100 refugees. But it is also true that the vetting period for refugees averages around two years, and the Syrian civil war started in 2011. French is outraged that Obama’s Syrian-refugee count only crossed the four-digit threshold in 2015, as am I, but surely some of that has to do with the slow pace of screening. Unless the Trumpian “extreme vetting” translates to “extremely fast” (which seems less than likely), the new screening strictures will probably take even longer than that.

Yet French absolves Trump for his outright indefinite ban, writing “it is not necessary to bring Syrians to the United States to fulfill our vital moral obligations.” And then when slamming Obama two paragraphs later, he laments, “Sadly, during the Obama administration it seems that Christians and other minorities may well have ended up in the back of the line.” Who knew that having no line at all was better than having one that underrepresents Christians?

French has some to-be-sures in there, about green-card holders and U.S.-friendly interpreters and the like. But he establishes as the baseline for normalcy the 2001-2015 period of George W. Bush and Barack Obama:

Before 2016, when Obama dramatically ramped up refugee admissions, Trump’s 50,000 stands roughly in between a typical year of refugee admissions in George W. Bush’s two terms and a typical year in Obama’s two terms.

This is not strictly accurate—pre-2016 Obama averaged 67,000 refugees a year, while 2001-2008 Bush brought in 48,000. But far more importantly, it leaves off the other presidents in the modern era, who each make Obama look like a piker: 82,000 a year for Ronald Reagan, 89,000 for Bill Clinton, 94,000 for Jimmy Carter, and an average of 119,000 refugees per year under the presidency of George H.W. Bush. French tries to paint 50,000 as some kind of reversion to the mean, but Washington has been that niggardly just four times since the fall of the Shah.

An even more puzzling omission from a piece that attempts to calm the political waters with the soothing coo of statistics is the global refugee context in which these changes are being made. In fact, Trump is ratcheting down admittance numbers precisely at a time when the global population of refugees is spiking like never before. Here’s a piece last June from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees:

Wars and persecution have driven more people from their homes than at any time since UNHCR records began, according to a new report released today by the UN Refugee Agency.

The report, entitled Global Trends, noted that on average 24 people were forced to flee each minute in 2015, four times more than a decade earlier, when six people fled every 60 seconds.

Between 2008-2012, according to the UNHCR, the global population of refugees was stable, at between 10.4 and 10.6 million. But then:

2013: 11.7 million

2014: 14.4 million

2015: 16.1 million

That 2015 figure was the highest since 1993, and the fifth-highest since 1975 (which marks the beginning of the modern era of U.S. refugee policy). The figures for 2016 aren’t in yet, but there’s every reason to believe that the sharp recent increase will continue.

It is against this backdrop that President Trump is blocking all refugees for at least four months, and slashing American targets down to levels rarely seen. When George W. Bush accepted 27,000 and 28,000 refugees in 2002 and 2003, respectively, the worldwide refugee count was 10.6 million and 9.6 million, making the percentage American haul 0.25 percent and 0.29 percent, far and away the lowest annual shares in four decades. If the refugee population this year somehow remains at its 2015 level of 16.1 million—and there’s no reason to think it will be that low—Trump’s 50,000 target would amount to 0.31 percent. It is entirely conceivable that Trump’s presidency will accept refugees at George W. Bush’s historically low raw average, at a time when the worldwide population of refugees is twice as high.

The last time the global refugee policy spiked so sharply in four years was from 1979-1982, when it increased from 6.3 million to 10.3 million. What did the U.S. do then, under presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan?

1979: 111,000 refugees accepted (1.77 percent of the global population)

1980: 207,000 (2.5%)

1981: 159,000 (1.64%)

1982: 98,000 (0.95%)

You can choose to defend the executive order on any number of grounds (most of them contestable, in my view). But calling it “moderate” isn’t a truth-telling act of puncturing lefty/media hyperbole, it’s obfuscatory euphemism to make the medicine go down smoother. This is your long-nurtured restrictionism translated into action, conservatives. Might as well own it.