I come here to hunt whales, not my captain's vengeance.

—Moby-Dick, Herman Melville

Come hell, high water, plea bargains, or $15,000 ostrich jackets, this administration*'s desire to wipe out the previous president's accomplishments remains the one undimmed characteristic of this president*'s political agenda. On Thursday, for example, it was time to free our truckers to help the planet burn, with yet another attempt to lift the jackboot of good health off of all of our necks. From The Washington Post:

The Trump administration on Thursday announced plans to freeze fuel-efficiency requirements for the nation’s cars and trucks through 2026 — a massive regulatory rollback likely to spur a legal battle with California and other states, as well as create potential upheaval in the nation’s automotive market. The proposal represents an abrupt reversal of the findings that the government reached under President Barack Obama, when regulators argued that requiring more-fuel-efficient vehicles would improve public health, combat climate change and save consumers money without compromising safety. Trump’s plan also undercuts California’s long-standing ability to set its own tailpipe restrictions, most recently in an effort to curb greenhouse-gas emissions.

The conservative attitude toward how everything is best done by the states continues to be flexible.

Mario Tama Getty Images

The proposal argues that forcing automakers to reach a fleetwide average of 51.4 miles per gallon by 2025, as the Obama administration required, would make vehicles more expensive and encourage people to stick to driving older, less-safe cars and trucks. The administration estimates that halting more-ambitous fuel-efficiency targets would save Americans thousands of dollars on every new vehicle purchased and avoid 1,000 road deaths a year.

The administration* can be presumed here to be lying simply because it happens to be this administration*, but, if truck manufacturers can't find a way to comply in seven years, then either they don't want to, or they shouldn't be manufacturing trucks.

Trump administration officials have fought for weeks behind the scenes over the details of how to relax Obama-era standards. Top officials at the Transportation Department and the Environmental Protection Agency clashed over whether the White House’s justifications for the new policy can stand up to legal scrutiny.

In one recent internal presentation, part of which was obtained by The Washington Post, officials at the EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality warned that the proposal at that point contained “a wide range of errors, use of outdated data, and unsupported assumptions.”

Like I said, the presumption that this administration* is lying remains a safe one.

Win McNamee Getty Images

Meanwhile, the administration*'s ongoing attempt to sabotage the Affordable Care Act has led folks into interesting places. For example, four cities are now suing the president* on the grounds that, in the case of the ACA, the president* is in violation of his oath of office, and of Article II of the Constitution. From NBC News:

Trump has “waged a relentless effort to use executive action alone to undermine and, ultimately, eliminate the law,” the complaint charges, according to a draft obtained by NBC News. The lawsuit is being filed in Maryland federal court by the cities of Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio.

Since Trump's first executive order directing federal agencies to claw back as much of the Affordable Care Act as possible, his directives have increased health coverage costs and depressed enrollment, the complainants say.

The lawsuit got some ammunition on Thursday when the Brookings Institute released a study concluding that insurance premiums would have gone down had the president* and his party simply allowed the law to work. From The Hill:

The analysis from Matt Fiedler at the Brookings Institute found premiums would be 4.3 percent lower in a “stable policy environment" — meaning certain ObamaCare rules like the individual mandate were still in place, and access to short-term plans had not been expanded. Congressional Republicans eliminated the penalty for not having having health insurance as part of the 2018 tax law. And the Trump administration this week finalized rules lifting an Obama-era limitation on “short term” plans that don’t meet ObamaCare’s coverage rules. Both policy changes are generally expected to cause healthier people to leave the individual market, raising premiums for those who stay.

Which, of course, is how all insurance works, but the president* doesn't know anything about anything, so he's resorting to his primal urge to get back at the president who made him look foolish once at a formal dinner.

Win McNamee Getty Images

Not to worry, though, because the president* just made it easier to sell street-surance again. From CNN:

Officials unveiled a final rule that will make it easier to obtain coverage through short-term health insurance plans, which don't have to adhere to the law's consumer protections. The move would reverse an Obama administration decision to limit the duration of short-term plans to no more than 90 days in order to make them less attractive. Insurers will soon be allowed to sell these policies for just under a year. They can be renewed for up to 36 months, though that renewal isn't guaranteed. Administration officials say the short-term plans will provide a cheaper health insurance alternative for those who can't afford to buy coverage on the Obamacare exchanges. "We fully recognize that these products are not necessarily for everyone, but we do think they will provide an affordable option to many, many people who've been priced out of the current market under the Obamacare regulations," said Randy Pate, a deputy administrator at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Yes, for example, these health-insurance policies are not for any poor person who might be in a serious accident or become seriously ill. And all this because the current president* got his fee-fee hurt on TV once. Jesus, I wish we could bring dueling back so we could settle this and get back to a government that makes sense again.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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