From President Trump, after blaming the “fake, disgusting news” for lying about his meeting with Queen Elizabeth:

The president then discussed the country’s names, explaining: ‘People call it “Britain”, they call it “Great Britain”. They used to call it “England”, different parts. But the UK — great respect.’

He just can’t get this off his brain. Is it truly possible that still no one has explained this whole England/Britain thing to him? Or have they tried and he just can’t comprehend it?

Go Nakamura via ZUMA

The Wall Street Journal reports that Franklin Haney, a big donor to the Trump campaign, offered Michael Cohen a $10 million contract if he could wangle a huge federal loan for a couple of nuclear power plants Haney was trying to develop:

Under the contract, Mr. Haney agreed to pay Mr. Cohen a monthly retainer in addition to the $10 million success fee if he could help obtain the funding, including approval of the full amount of the project’s application under a U.S. Department of Energy loan program, the people familiar with the deal said….The Wall Street Journal couldn’t determine how much Mr. Haney may have paid Mr. Cohen, if anything, in monthly retainer fees.

….James Thurber, a professor of government at American University, said success fees are “outside the ethical norms” among Washington lobbyists and are frowned upon. Century-old court rulings deemed fees contingent on lobbyists obtaining public funds or killing legislation unenforceable and counter to public policy, saying they encouraged corruption, he said. Several lobbyists contacted by the Journal said $10 million was an unheard-of sum to pay a consultant for government-related work.

Wow. Success fees are “outside the ethical norms” for lobbyists? I didn’t know that anything short of engaging a hit man was outside of ethical norms for lobbyists. But if there’s something that even a lobbyist won’t do, trust a member of Donald Trump’s inner circle to find it.

Needless to say, the interesting part of this story is not the fact that Michael Cohen is sort of corrupt. I’m pretty sure no one is shocked by that news. The interesting question is who leaked this news to the Wall Street Journal? Who else (a) could have known about this and (b) has it in for Cohen? Hmmm.

Here’s a picture of an iceberg rose taken from a different angle and in entirely different light compared to the one from a couple of months ago. It’s also in a later stage of blooming. You’d barely even know they were the same flower, but they are. In fact, it’s the exact same rose hedge about a hundred yards from my house.

Via Vox, here’s a recent speech from SEC commissioner Robert Jackson. Jackson and his team took a look at the behavior of corporate insiders after they had announced a stock buyback:

We dove into the data, studying 385 buybacks over the last fifteen months….First, we found that a buyback announcement leads to a big jump in stock price….That’s unsurprising….What did surprise us, however, was how commonplace it is for executives to use buybacks as a chance to cash out. In half of the buybacks we studied, at least one executive sold shares in the month following the buyback announcement….In the process, executives take a lot of cash off the table. On average, in the days before a buyback announcement, executives trade in relatively small amounts—less than $100,000 worth. But during the eight days following a buyback announcement, executives on average sell more than $500,000 worth of stock each day—a fivefold increase. Thus, executives personally capture the benefit of the short-term stock-price pop created by the buyback announcement.

And here this is in colorful chart form:

This chart shows two months of trading activity: one month before and one month after the stock buyback accouncement. During the single week following the announcement, executives sold $2.4 million in stock. During the entire rest of the two months, they sold … $2.4 million in stock.

Quite aside from the fact that this is obviously a way for insiders to make money, it makes you wonder about the timing of buybacks. Do they really happen when boards and executives think the timing is right and this is the best possible use of corporate cash? Or does it happen when the CEO wants to cash out and is hoping to goose the stock price a bit? Either way, Jackson is right: “Our rules should be updated, at a minimum, to deny the safe harbor to companies that choose to allow executives to cash out during a buyback.”

Alex Edelman/CNP via ZUMA

It was almost a certainty that eventually—which is to say, long after it mattered anymore—Ivanka Trump would treat us to a weepy story about how she tried to get Dad to do the right thing on family separations, but just couldn’t pull it off:

“That was a low point for me as well,” she said Thursday, speaking at an Axios Newsmakers conversation on workforce development at the Newseum. “I felt very strongly about that and I am very vehemently against family separation and the separation of parents and children so I would agree with that sentiment. Immigration is incredibly complex as a topic. Illegal immigration is incredibly complicated.”

….Ivanka Trump remained silent as the images, audio and stories from the border captured the nation’s attention in June, the White House issuing a statement on her behalf. She met with her father to discuss the images of families being separated before he signed his executive order, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley told CNN at the time.
“She offered the President her support and she said she would talk to any member of Congress to help find a legislative solution to the issue,” Gidley said.

Golly. She was so vehemently against family separation that she … remained silent and offered the president her support. Such a brave woman.

Now please excuse me while I go vomit.

Our new EPA director may have his doubts about this, but he’s doing it anyway:

The Trump administration Thursday pushed ahead with plans to unravel the federal government’s most effective action to fight climate change — aggressive fuel economy standards aimed at getting the nation’s cars and trucks to average more than 50 miles per gallon by 2025….The administration’s proposal would freeze miles-per-gallon targets in 2020. It would also move to end California’s current power to set its own, higher standards.

The release of the administration’s proposal was repeatedly delayed in recent weeks as officials debated how aggressively to push. In the end, the White House approved taking a hard line, despite fears of some administration officials that their plan is based on weak evidence that will not hold up under court challenge. The prospect of an extended legal fight has discomfited automakers, who had asked the administration to relax the Obama-era rules but don’t want to see the U.S. market split in two, with different models of cars required in blue and red states.

As I understand it, the “science” behind the Trump proposals has three pillars:

• High-mileage cars are lighter, and therefore kill more people in collisions.
• High-mileage cars cost less to drive, so people drive them more, therefore getting into more accidents.
• High-mileage cars cost more to buy, so people will just stick with their old cars, which are unsafer and will therefore cause more deaths.

This stuff is so ridiculous that I’m surprised the Trumpies aren’t embarrassed to make it public. I think their hope is that it will take a long time to litigate this, and by the time it gets to the Supreme Court conservatives will have had a chance to completely pack the court with shills and hacks who will simply accept any argument that’s tossed their way. Considering that four of them accepted the “broccoli” argument in the Obamacare case and five accepted the “it’s worked so well we don’t need it anymore” argument to gut the Voting Rights Act, I suppose conservatives are justified in taking a shot. Who knows what kind of nonsense the court will accept once they get Brett Kavanaugh confirmed?

From the Wall Street Journal:

After years of big rate increases on Affordable Care Act plans, insurers in many states are seeking smaller hikes and even some reductions, according to new federal data that provide the broadest view so far of next year’s health-law markets. Major insurers in states including Mississippi and Florida are seeking single-digit increases, according to preliminary rate requests published on Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Big marketplace players in states including Texas, Illinois, Arizona and North Carolina have proposed to cut some premiums for 2019.

Despite the best efforts of Republicans, the Obamacare market has finally stabilized. Here are Charles Gaba’s estimates for 2019 rate requests so far:

The average rate request is a hike of only 6.9 percent, which will almost certainly be reduced once all the invidual requests go through the regulatory approval processes in each state. What’s more, using estimates from the states themselves, Gaba figures that the average rate request would be negative if not for Republicans screwing around with the individual mandate and a few other things. It took five years, but insurance companies have finally figured out the characteristics of the Obamacare customer pool and have a pretty good handle on what rates they can charge to be both profitable and competitive.

At this point, all Republicans have to do is stay out of the way and stop screwing things up. It may not be anyone’s ideal, but Obamacare is now functional, efficient, and provides millions of Americans with health coverage at a relatively reasonable price. How many millions? The final CDC report for 2017 was released a few weeks ago, and here’s what it tells us:

That decline represents just shy of 20 million people who now have health coverage who wouldn’t have had it without Obamacare.

This really does seem to be very nearly true:

We are this close to conservatives just outright saying that conspiring with Russia to sway US elections is fine as long as it produces Republicans. I bet the majority already think it; it won’t take long for someone to say it out loud.

— David Roberts (@drvox) August 1, 2018

OK, but here’s the thing. What if we all decided the hell with it, collusion with foreign governments is fine? All’s fair in love and war and all that. I wonder which party would benefit the most?

This is the control tower at John Wayne Airport in Orange County. This picture is a good example of what happens when you have your camera with you at just the right time—and then stop to use it instead of just hustling by because you’re eager to get home.

Ringo Chiu via ZUMA

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The White House, looking to ratchet up trade pressure on China, is expected to announced today that it is more than doubling the size of the proposed tariffs to 25% from 10% on $200 billion of Chinese imports, industry sources said.

Well, let’s see: divide by four, carry the one….that’s a $50 billion tax on Chinese goods—and according to the Journal, this includes consumer goods like furniture, lamps, food and computers. That’s about $500 on every household in America.

This is going great, isn’t it? The rich are getting a $100 billion cut on their capital gains taxes while the working class is getting a $50 billion tax increase on its furniture and computer gadgets. MAGA!