Washington Post

Consumer advocates are urging Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to uphold rules restricting companies from inundating people with cellphone calls to collect money owed to or guaranteed by the government, including federal student loans, mortgages and taxes. Eighteen organizations, led by the National Consumer Law Center, will file a petition with the FCC opposing student loan companies’ request for a revision of rules the agency approved in August.

Those rules tightened a provision that was slipped into a 2015 congressional budget deal, amending a law meant to protect people from being harassed or bombarded with text messages and calls that could run up their cellphone bills. The commission limited the number of calls debt collectors can make to wireless phones to three a month and barred them from contacting a borrower’s family or friends. It also said companies must notify people of their right to request that all calls cease upon request. “It is pretty stressful owing money, and calls from debt collectors nagging you to pay is also very stressful, and when the calls are not just made to you but to your relatives, it’s embarrassing,” said Margot Saunders, an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer fielded a question about the executive order temporarily barring entry into the United States of citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries. “He’s also made clear that it’s not a Muslim ban, it’s not a travel ban. It’s a vetting system to keep America safe,” said Spicer. Following up on Spicer’s protestations about the word “ban,” NBC News White House Correspondent Kristen Welker noted the tweet above: “He says it’s a ban.”

Alluding to the wonderful symbiosis and spirit of cooperation between the White House and its press corps, Spicer responded, “He’s using the words that the media’s using,” said Spicer in a tribute to the overwhelming power of the modern media. “But at the end of the day … it can’t be a ban if you’re letting a million people in.” Welker wasn’t going to accept that tripe. So she pointedly noted that the president had called it a ban. “Is he confused or are you confused?” she asked. “No, I’m not confused. I think that the words being used to describe it are derived from what the media is calling this. He has been very clear, it is ‘extreme vetting.'” Except for that tweet, which has been retweeted nearly 34,000 times and liked nearly 160,000 times. Perhaps Welker’s remarkable moment of accountability journalism can set to rest all that silly talk that the media shouldn’t pay much heed to Trump’s tweets. Or maybe media organizations should check with Spicer & Co. before characterizing Trump administration initiatives to avoid overly influencing the president of the United States. Because we don’t want to mess up their messaging.

President Donald Trump is breaking into prime time to reveal his Supreme Court nominee in the most Trumpian way possible — on live TV, with the biggest audience he can muster. Get ready for Feb 1 tweet about the ratings. NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox all confirmed that they will carry Trump's selection show live, in place of their regularly-scheduled programs. That means bumping "The Middle" on ABC, "New Girl" on Fox and a special about Super Bowl commercials on CBS.

Networks hate presidential prime-time addresses for one, obvious reason: money. The events can cost millions of dollars in lost advertising revenue. With a former reality TV star now in the Oval Office, broadcasters could be forced to choose between taking more losses than they have in the past and rejecting White House requests for air time. Speaking in prime time on just his 12th day in office, President Trump is already ahead of the pace of President Barack Obama, whose own, frequent addresses at the outset of his presidency irked the networks. The frequency with which Trump demands prime-time air — and the way the networks respond — will be worth monitoring.

When you call the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has primary responsibility for any investigations in Congress related to President Donald Trump, you get voicemail. Here’s what it says: “If you would like to provide information or make an inquiry relating to President Donald Trump, please press 1.” If you press 1, this is the message you receive: “Because of high call volume, we are unable to answer your call at this time.” If you leave your name, number and “any information you would like to provide,” the caller is promised their message will be “reviewed as soon as possible.” The caller is also told they can press 2 for “all other matters” or to speak with the staff of Chair Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). So far, Chaffetz’s committee says it is not planning to probe anything related to Trump as part of its oversight mandate, and despite Democratic pressure. But even if they wanted to, staffers could be overwhelmed by the feedback collected on the committee’s voicemail.

President Trump may have used the power of social media to make his way into the White House, but now social media networks are showing that muscle can work for his opposition, too. The real question, however, is whether this burgeoning new movement can avoid the fate of many so others kick-started by the power of social networks — only to find that it's much harder to make political change than to make a popular hashtag.

The very ability for movements to scale quickly is, in part, why they also can fall apart so quickly compared with traditional grass-roots campaigns. That highlights the crucial difference between old social campaigns and new ones. Scale, even in the form of a huge protest, does not equal success.

President Trump signed an order Jan 30 aimed at cutting regulations on businesses, saying that agencies should eliminate two regulations for each new one. The White House later released the text of the order, which added that the cost of any new regulation should be offset by eliminating regulations with the same costs to businesses. It excluded regulations regarding the military.

The impact of the order was difficult to judge based on the president’s remarks. It could be difficult to implement under current law and would concentrate greater power in the Office of Management and Budget, which already reviews federal regulations. And it would add a new time-consuming requirement for any new congressional legislation on topics as varied as banking, health care, environment, labor conditions and more. President Trump said, “If you have a regulation you want, number one we’re not going to approve it because it’s already been approved probably in 17 different forms. But if we do, the only way you have a chance is we have to knock out two regulations for every new regulation. So if there’s a new regulation, they have to knock out two. But it goes way beyond that.” But experts on government policy said Trump’s formulation made little sense. “There’s no logic to this,” William Gale, a tax and fiscal policy expert at the Brookings Institution, said before seeing the executive order. “The number of regulations is not the key. It’s how onerous regulations are. This seems like a totally nonsensical constraint to me.”

Are some news articles like acai berry fat-loss supplement offers? The answer could help determine whether US elections can shed the weight of false information. In an article published by the New Jersey State Bar Association, MSNBC chief legal correspondent Ari Melber argues that the news is as much a product as a diet pill — and that the fake variety could be regulated by the Federal Trade Commission in the same way as phony claims about the belly-blasting power of a certain botanical.

It's a complicated contention. “Absent the existence of libel, Supreme Court precedents suggest that the First Amendment protects a citizen expressing lies or their version of fake news,” conceded Melber, who has a law degree from Cornell. “Political operatives have strong case law to defend deceptive assertions as protected speech, especially if they show that the lies are part of some wider expression, be it political, satirical or artistic.” However, Melber added, “the court has ruled that some commercial speech, like advertising or communication concerned solely with business, gets less First Amendment protection than political speech.” If the FTC and the court system could agree that fake news isn't really a form of political discourse but is, instead, a kind of commercial offering in which “the political misinformation is the product,” then perhaps the nation's consumer-protection agency could stop some of it, he says.

Although the media are an easy target for President Donald Trump and former-House Speaker Gingrich, it is the public that will suffer from a one-sided war with the press. Democracy thrives on information from government, particularly information about government’s foibles and politicians’ wrongdoings.

“In a democracy, journalists are a built-in check against power. Both Trump and Gingrich in their comments are trying to discredit the one check on their power that they cannot control,” said Kelly McBride, vice president of the Poynter Institute, a journalism training center. “It’s scary because it suggests that they don’t believe in the balance of power that is inherent in democracy. Trump is the most powerful man on the planet right now. And he clearly doesn’t welcome or appreciate anyone who might scrutinize him. Gingrich seems to be in lockstep.” This war also targets federal public affairs staffers. Even in good times, they put the best face on bad situations. But career public information officers know they ultimately serve and owe allegiance to the public and not to any politician. “[G]overnment communicators, at all levels of the administration, must be allowed to practice their profession, to serve the public interest by being the timely, credible and trusted source of factual information about government,” said the National Association of Government Communicators. “The new administration needs to understand that good government requires good communication. Good communication is guided by ethics, like not knowingly or intentionally withholding information that is publicly releasable, taking swift and effective action to prevent the public release of false or misleading information, and above all else never lying to the media because in government communication, the truth is sacred.”

Filmmakers often tout the accolades their new movies have received from critics in the media via creatively excerpted blurbs. The new president is doing the same thing.

A page on the White House website, called “Praise for President Trump's Bold Action,” looks a bit like an ad for the latest blockbuster. A four-star review seems to be the only thing missing. Trump's team did, of course, pick the most flattering excerpts from these articles. The Chicago Tribune editorial board applauded the president's early focus on jobs but also wrote that “Trump's prickly temperament — his thin skin, especially — has already been a distraction.” So the “praise” for Trump's first week has come with a lot of qualifiers. But there is a clear strategy here: Trump wants to promote the idea that the negative media is coming around, admitting — perhaps reluctantly — that he is doing a good job.

In a floor speech, House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX), praised the physical and mental powers of President Donald Trump and encouraged people to get “unvarnished” news directly from the president, not from the news media.

“Just think what the media would be saying about President Trump if he were a Democrat,” Rep Smith said during the evening time reserved for one-minute speeches. “He has tremendous energy. He campaigned for 18 months, puts in 15-hour days, and has the stamina of a bull elephant, like Teddy Roosevelt. He is courageous and fearless. Given the amount of hate directed his way, no doubt he constantly receives death threats, but that doesn’t curtail his public appearances or seem to worry him in the least.” “The national liberal media won’t print that, or air it, or post it,” Rep Smith said. “Better to get your news directly from the president. In fact, it might be the only way to get the unvarnished truth.” Rep Smith is also a member of the House Freedom of the Press caucus.