One of the iron chains of policy that forever links “Trumpism” to run-of-the-mill post-Reagan Republicanism is the current administration*’s slavish devotion to “deregulation.” So, as we begin another week that surely will not end the way it began, let’s check in on how the administration* is carrying out what has been preferred policy among Republicans since the days when ol’ Jim Watt was running the Interior Department.

First of all, if you happen to be a trans citizen in this country, pretty soon your doctor is going to be able to refuse to set that broken ankle of yours because the doctor finds you double-icky awful, and so does his idea of god. From The New York Times:

The Obama administration said the rule covered “almost all practicing physicians in the United States” because they accept some form of federal remuneration or reimbursement. It applies, for example, to hospitals that accept Medicare and doctors who receive Medicaid payments, as well as to insurers that participate in health insurance marketplaces. Trump administration officials said they believed they had to modify the rule because a federal judge in Texas had found that parts of it were unlawful.

The existing health care rule adopted two years ago says that sex discrimination — clearly forbidden by the Affordable Care Act — includes discrimination based on “gender identity” and “stereotypical notions” about how men or women should present themselves or behave. Under the existing rule, health insurers cannot place arbitrary limits or restrictions on health services that help a person transition from one gender to another. These services may include counseling, psychotherapy, hormone therapy and a variety of surgical treatments. In the past, many insurers, as they denied coverage for such treatments, cited what they called the cosmetic or experimental nature of the procedures. The Obama administration said that view was “outdated and not based on current standards of care.” But eight states, a network of Roman Catholic hospitals and the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, representing 19,000 doctors, challenged the Obama-era rule. A federal district judge in Texas temporarily stopped enforcement of the protections for transgender patients, saying that Congress had outlawed discrimination based on sex — “the biological differences between males and females” — but not transgender status.

(Judge O’Connor, it hardly needs to be said, was appointed by President George W. Bush straight off the Republican staff of the House Judiciary Committee, and he is a bit bughouse on this subject, having also ruled that Title IX regulations do not apply to trans citizens.)

This is nothing but cruelty masquerading as law, and it is nothing that any of the other Republican candidates in 2016 wouldn’t have done. Is it that hard to see a Cruz Administration making this decision? A Rubio administration, although President Rubio likely would have changed his mind about 50 times before giving the go-ahead?

Second, forget about rolling back “Obama-era” regulations, these guys are dead set on rolling back Wilson- era regulations. What the hell, he was a Democrat. From the Washington Post (via the New Orleans Times-Picayune):

In an opinion issued Wednesday to federal wildlife police who enforce the rule, the Interior Department said "the take [killing] of birds resulting from an activity is not prohibited by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act when the underlying purpose of that activity is not to take birds." For example, the guidance said, a person who destroys a structure such as a barn knowing that it is full of baby owls in nests is not liable for killing them. "All that is relevant is that the landowner undertook an action that did not have the killing of barn owls as its purpose," the opinion said.

But this isn’t about barns and baby owls. Say you’re an energy company the name of which rhymes with Fitish Vetroleum and, through neglect and deceit and regulatory paralysis, one of your rigs blows up and breaks the Gulf of Mexico, killing along the way over a million birds. Under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, negotiated by President Woodrow Wilson and King George V of Great Britain at a time when whole species of birds were vanishing so that ladies could have fine plumes on their hats, you would be liable for killing these birds even if you didn’t set out to do so that morning. Not now, though.

The MBTA will no longer apply even after a catastrophic event such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that destroyed or injured up to a million birds. After an oil spill, Interior would pursue penalties under the Natural Resources Damage Assessment program that is not specific to birds. In the past, "the department has pursued MBTA claims against companies responsible for oil spills that incidentally killed or injured migratory birds. That avenue is no longer available."

In 2013, BP's criminal guilty plea resulted in the company paying $4 billion. The plea included a misdemeanor charge of violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, for which it paid at least $15,000 for violating the treaty, but also agreed to serve five years probation for the violation. And it also agreed to pay $100 million to the North American Wetlands Conservation Fund for wetlands restoration and conservation projects in Gulf states designed to benefit migratory bird species and other wildlife and habitat affected by the oil spill.

Is there any Republican of any prominence out there that you cannot see doing exactly this same thing at the behest of the energy companies?

Finally, we come to the fellow chosen to direct a great deal of this regulatory frenzy. The New York Times ran a deep dive into the life and career of Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency and discovered that, not only is Pruitt a finger-puppet for the extraction industries, and not only would he personally bite the head off an endangered animal for ideological purposes, he also has spent most of his public life as one of the great freeloaders in the history of the Republic.

The lobbyist said that after the 2003 gathering, Mr. Pruitt — who had a modest legal practice and a state salary of $38,400 — reached out to her. He wanted to buy her showplace home as a second residence for when he was in the state capital. “For those ego-minded politicians, it would be pretty cool to have this house close to the capitol,” said the lobbyist, Marsha Lindsey. “It was stunning.” Soon Mr. Pruitt was staying there, and so was at least one other lawmaker, according to interviews. Mr. Pruitt even bought Ms. Lindsey’s dining room set, art and antique rugs, she said. A review of real estate and other public records shows that Mr. Pruitt was not the sole owner: The property was held by a shell company registered to a business partner and law school friend, Kenneth Wagner. Mr. Wagner now holds a top political job at the Environmental Protection Agency, where Mr. Pruitt, 49, is the administrator.

Read the whole thing. It’s a burial job although, times and presidents* being what they are, Pruitt seems to be relatively bulletproof. But Scott Pruitt rose through the ranks of the modern Republican party long before he came on the radar down at Camp Runamuck. He was the very model of a modern major conservative. None of the 2016 contenders would have blinked at hiring him, and watching the Senate Republicans baby him through the confirmation process was proof enough of that. Scott Pruitt is James Watt without the tasteless humor, and Republicanism is Trumpism with an inside voice, and has been for a very long time.

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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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