Public Comment Policy Members Of The Public May Speak On Any Items On The Agenda And: Fill & Download for Free

RULES AND REGULATIONS OF IDEAL LOK SABHA The rules of IDEAL Lok Sabha resemble as far as possible the rules and procedures of Lok Sabha. Chapter I 1. SEATING OF THE PARLIAMENTARY MEMBERS The side majority will form the Government. Ruling party will sit on the right side of the chair. Opposition and other alliances are to sit on the left side of the chair. 2. LANGUAGE Both Hindi and English are allowed in Parliament. Chapter II 3. PROCEDURE The procedure of the session of IDEAL Lok Sabha resembles as far as possible the procedure of the House (Lok Sabha). The following procedure shall take place during two day session of Mock Parliament. Note: An informal session or adjournment of maximum 15 minutes can be allotted to the house on the sole discretion of the chair. The chair person can discontinue any motion any time for the benefit of the debate. The chairperson has the authority to put into effect any order or procedure that the chairperson may feel is required for the proper functioning. For the benefit of debate, the chairperson has the right to start the second day directly from any point; however the same shall be informed at the end of day 1. The legislative business will be given preference but in case no bill introduced then the session will return to the discussion hours per the case may be. The chairperson may on the sole discretion amend or form any rule at any time for the benefit of the committee. “Like the practice obtaining in the Lok Sabha, the session of Youth Parliament will start with the arrival of the Speaker which is announced by the Marshal who first comes in the House to ascertain whether there is quorum in the House which should be at least 10 per cent of total membership of the House. As soon as the Speaker arrives in the Chamber, Marshal will announce his arrival with the words “Hon. Members, the Hon. Speaker” Thereafter the entire House stands up. The Speaker before taking his seat first bows to his left, then to his right and then in front of him. The Members from the respective sides also respectfully bow to the chair before taking their seats.” 4. OATH OR AFFIRMATION: The Speaker will take up the procedure of the House in the order in which it is printed in the list of procedure or may take oath collectively. A newly elected member of the House is required to make an Oath or affirmation at the commencement of a sitting of the House. The prescribed form of Oath or affirmation is: "I........., having been elected (or nominated) a member of (Youth Parliament) House of the People do swear in the name of God/solemnly affirm that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law established, that I will uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India and that I will faithfully discharge the duty upon which I am about to enter." 5. STATEMENTS FROM THE HOUSE a. After establishing quorum, the speaker will ask for statements from the members. A total of 8 members (4 each from government and opposition) are given time on the floor to make statements. b. The leader of the house is the default first speaker and the leader of opposition is the default last speaker. However they may pass on their chance to speak to whoever they wish to. c. The other 6 speakers are chosen by the discretion of the chair when the MPs are asked for statements. d. The maximum time allowed to make statements is two minutes. e. Agendas for discussion hour (explained in the next section) are allowed to be sent once first two speakers have given their statements. 6. DISCUSSION HOUR a. A discussion hour is the time allotted (maximum 40 minutes) for the discussion on a sub- agenda which the members feel should be discussed in front of the house. The total time of all the discussion shall be an hour. b. All agendas for discussion hour are supposed to be sent prior the commencement of discussion hour. c. Agendas for discussion hour are allowed to be sent once first two speakers have given their opening statements. d. The process of putting up agendas for a discussion is in writing and follows the given format: Name of the constituency Topic of the discussion Total Duration (not to exceed 40 minutes) Individual Speaker Time (not to exceed 90 seconds) e. The speaker shall keep the agendas in chronological order and first put the agenda to vote which is received first by the board. f. The chairperson may withdraw any agenda he/she feels has no relation to the agenda. However he/she has to notify the particular MP of the same on which the MP is allowed to send a chit explaining why the agenda should not be withdrawn. g. On receiving the agenda, the speaker will ask for seconds and oppositions, if no seconds, the motion fails and in case of seconds but no oppositions the agenda clearly passes. h. On receiving both seconds and oppositions the chairperson will put the agenda to vote and the result is decided by a simple majority of placard vote. i. An extension to a discussion hour may be obtained if the total time does not exceed 40 minutes or otherwise on the discretion of the chair. NOTE: The unstarred questions which are meant to be answered in written form can be asked to each other by members of the parliament during discussion hour. 7. QUESTION HOUR It is the one hour after the discussion hour where the members of the house are free to ask questions to each other on matters pertaining to agenda or on a national emergency provided that such a question is sent in writing to the said member via the speaker and with his due approval before the commencement of question hour. The question has been defined as an instrument by which a member can elicit information on any matter of public importance. Starred Questions: Meant for oral answers. Unstarred Questions: Meant for written answers The sender MP is allowed to ask a supplementary question, with the permission of the Chairperson, after the reply is obtained from the Minister concerned for starred questions. I. The chit on which the question is sent has to be properly marked/written as Starred or Unstarred to be in proper format. a. Any Starred question may be changed to unstarred on the discretion of the chair. The chair shall notify the sender of the same. b. Answers to Unstarred questions are mandatory and have to be sent to the recipient MP via the chairperson before the end of question hour. c. Not more than two starred questions are allowed to be asked to a member. In case a particular MP has already received his quota of two starred questions then the chairperson shall change the further incoming starred questions as unstarred and notify the sender MP of the same. d. Similarly not more than twenty (20) unstarred questions are allowed to be asked to a member. Incase 20 unstarred questions have already been sent to a particular MP the chairperson shall return the question to its sender. e. One can send maximum 2 starred questions. The right to ask a question is governed by the following conditions: a. It shall be clearly and precisely expressed and shall not be too general incapable of any specific answer or in the nature of a leading question b. If it contains a statement, the member shall make himself responsible for the accuracy of the statement c. It shall not contain arguments, inferences, ironical expressions, Imputations, epithets or defamatory statements d. It shall not ask for an expression of opinion or the solution of an abstract legal question or of a hypothetical proposition e. It shall not ask as to the character or conduct of any person except in his official or public capacity f. It shall not ordinarily exceed 150 words g. It shall not relate to a matter which is not primarily the concern of the Government of India. h. It shall not reflect on the character or conduct of any person whose conduct can only be challenged on a substantive motion i. It shall not make or imply a charge of a personal character. j. It shall not raise questions of policy too large to be dealt with within the limits of an answer to a question k. It shall not repeat in substance questions already answered or to which an answer has been refused l. It shall not ask for information on trivial matters m. It shall not ordinarily ask for information on matters of past history n. It shall not raise matters under the control of bodies or persons not primarily responsible to the Government of India. o. It shall not ask or information on matter which is under adjudication by a court of law having jurisdiction in any part of India NOTE: The Speaker shall decide whether a question, or a part thereof, is or is not admissible under these rules and may disallow any question, or a part thereof, when in his opinion it is an abuse of the right of questioning or is calculated to obstruct or prejudicially affect the procedure of the House or is in contravention of these rules. 8. ZERO HOUR a. It starts immediately after the Question Hour. b. During the Zero Hour any question pertaining to agenda or a national emergency can be raised by a member without any prior written request. c. The Zero Hour can extend to any period of time depending upon the Speaker's direction. d. The Government is not obliged to answer any of the questions raised in the Zero Hour. However in the context of the debate it is highly expected from them to answer all the questions. e. The chairperson shall choose the MPs on his discretion. 9. CALLING ATTENTION NOTICE (OPTIONAL) a. The idea of Calling Attention Notice has originated in our country itself a combination of questions for answers with supplementary and brief comments on a matter of urgency and public importance. b. The calling attention notice has to be sent to in written to the chairperson who shall use the time between two procedural hours i.e. that is Discussion Hour and Question Hour or Question Hour & Question Hour and Zero Hour for the same. However the chairperson is allowed to allow calling attention notice at any time if the matter of emergency or has to be resolved urgently. c. The Opposition gets a chance to criticize the Government and its policies. Procedure: The Speaker calls the name of the member (or members) in whose name the item has been mentioned. On being called, the member raises in his/her seat and calls the attention of the Minister concerned and requests him/her to make a statement on the matter. The form, in which the member calls the attention, is as follows: I call the attention of the Minister...............................................to the following matter of public importance and I request that he/she may make a statement there on. d. The Minister then makes a statement of facts. The member or members, in whose name or names the notice has been issued, are permitted to ask questions seeking clarification arising out of the statement made by the Minister. e. The Minister after hearing all the questions raised by the Members will give a consolidated reply thereto and after that there would be no further discussion on the matter. 10. ADJOURNMENT MOTION (OPTIONAL) Any matter which is of urgent importance and which is so grave that it affects their interest and safety of the country can be raised through an adjournment motion. In order that the adjournment motion be admitted it must 1. Be related to a single specific issue, 2. be urgent, and 3. be of public importance. 11. NO-CONFIDENCE MOTION (OPTIONAL) a. There is an express constitutional provision which lays down that the Council of Ministers will be responsible to the Lok Sabha b. In a parliamentary democracy it means that the Ministers hold their offices so long as they enjoy the confidence of the Lok Sabha . The moment the Lok Sabha expresses its no-confidence in the Ministry the Prime Minister and his/her Ministers have to leave. Thus the Prime Minister and his/her Council of Ministers are collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha. c. For the benefit of debate this motion shall not be allowed to be raised before the second day of youth parliament. d. The member who wishes to raise this particular motion shall take proper permission before raising this motion For moving this motion in the House, the member has to give before commencement of the sitting for that day, a written notice of his motion to the Secretary General. If the Speaker is of the opinion that the motion is in order, he calls upon the member to seek leave of the House. The member then moves the following motion”. “I beg for leave of the House to move the No-Confidence Motion”. The speaker reads the motion to the House and requests those members who are in favor of leave being granted to rise in their places and if not less than ten percent of the total membership of the house stands, the leave is granted by the House. However, in case less than 10 percent rise in their place, the leave is not granted by the House and the motion is not taken up for discussion. Where, however, leave has been granted for moving of the no-confidence motion the Speaker will announce the time at which the motion will be taken up for discussion. On the appointed time the Speaker will call the member who will move the motion in the following words: “That this House expresses its want of confidence in the council of Ministers”. After moving the motion, the mover will make a short speech followed by speeches by the other members of the House belonging to opposition as well as ruling parties. Discussion on No-Confidence Motion is not confined to any particular subject. It is open to any member to raise any matter or comment upon any policy and action of the Government during the course of discussion. Members from ruling as well as opposition parties participate in the discussion. After the members have spoken on the motion, the Prime Minister gives a reply to the charges leveled against his Government. Thereafter the mover of the motion is given chance to reply. e. The Speaker then puts the motion before the House and obtains the decision of the House by voice –vote. f. On receiving the agenda, the speaker will ask for support. For this motion to pass it shall require an affirmative vote of 1/6th members g. The Chairperson in this motion shall allow every question necessary to determine the decision of the House on the motion. h. The chairperson will allot specific time period for speeches and will allow as many speakers as possible in this particular motion. i. After the members have spoken on the motion, the Prime Minister gives a reply to the charges labeled against his/her government. The mover of the motion has the right to reply. j. When the chairperson feels there has been sufficient debate on the question he shall put forward the motion to vote. 12. PRIVILEGE MOTION a. It is a motion raised by a Member of Parliament. He charges the Minister with committing a breach of the privilege of the House by withholding or distorting facts. b. The motion can be raised at any time in the parliament c. The Minister is given a chance to reply and the MP who has raised the motion is allowed to ask supplementary questions. 13. ANTI-DEFECTION LAW/ ANTI-DEFECTION MOTION If a member of the parliament votes (or abstains) against the directives issued by his/her party, without the written permission of the said party, the member stands to be disqualified on grounds of defection if such a request is made to the speaker by the leader of the party in the house or in case of the leader standing on defection- any member of the house belonging to that party. In case of single-seat parties, the defection is to be decided at the discretion of the speaker. 14. LEGISLATIVE BUSINESS Law-making is a major function of Parliament and, therefore, in the Youth parliament the legislative business should form an important part. All legislative proposals are brought in the form of Bills before the Parliament. No Bill can become a law unless it has been passed by the parliament and has received assent of the President. The proposal is given the shape of a Bill and introduced in Parliament. Bills are either Government Bills which are sponsored by Ministers, or private members' bills which are sponsored by individual members other than ministers. Each Bill undergoes three Readings First Reading I. The First Reading means a motion for permission to introduce a Bill. ON the adoption of the motion the Bill is introduced. II. We will skip the first reading as it only seeks leave to introduce a bill. The Second Reading There are two stages in the Second Reading of the bill. In the first stage, the motion that the Bill be taken into consideration is adopted. [This is followed by discussion on the principles of the bill.] In the second stage, clause-by-clause consideration of the Bill is taken up. Notices of amendment are given any time after the introduction of a Bill. An amendment is admissible if it is within the scope of the bill. After the introduction of the bill, the minister concerned formally moves that the bill be taken up for consideration. The minister will say; "sir, I beg to move that the bill be taken into consideration." The Minister then makes a brief introductory speech outlining of the importance of the Bill. After this the Speaker formally places the motion before the house with the announcement that "The motion is that the ...... Bill to be taken into consideration." This is followed by a discussion in which the members from either side can take part after giving prior notice of their intention to the secretary-general. It may be noted that the discussion should be held on the general principles and provisions of the Bill. The Speaker asks members from both the Treasury and the Opposition benches to speak on the bill. After the discussion, the Minister concerned makes a closing speech and winds up the discussion. The motion for consideration is then put to the house. After it has been adopted, clause-by-clause discussion of the bill takes place. Amendments, if any, are permitted and voted upon. The Third Reading In the Third Reading the Minster concerned moves that the bill be passed. The Speaker then puts the question before the house in these words: The Question is that the ......Bill, 199... be passed. Those in favor will say "Aye, those against will be 'No.' after taking the voice vote, he/she declares thrice that Ayes (or Noes) have it. He will then say that 'the Bill is passed (not passed)", as the case may be. It may be noted that for passing an ordinary Bill a simple majority is required and for Bills pertaining to Constitutional Amendments two-thirds majority is necessary. 15. PRIVILEGES TO THE MPs These privileges in the form of permission or points are allowed at all times when a speaker is not speaking or immediately after the speaker has finished speaking. Point of Information is not allowed at certain times as mentioned above in relevant sections Permission to rise a motion is only allowed at certain time periods as previously mentioned along with the motions PERMISSION TO RAISE A MOTION: A MP at any time can raise his/her placard and seek permission from the chair to raise a motion. POINT OF INQUIRY: Enquiry about parliamentary procedures and conduct to the chair. POINT OF ORDER: This can be used in case of a factual error. RIGHT TO REPLY: If a particular member present feels that a grave (or false) statement has made by others towards that member, he/she may privilege the right of reply with the permission of the chair. POINT OF PERSONAL PRIVILEDGE: This may be used in order to remove a personal discomfort. POINT OF INFORMATION: This may be used to put up questions on a members’ statement. (Shall be in writing until and unless allowed) 16. CONSIDERATION FOR DRAWING UP THE MERIT LIST Although the executive board shall have its own criteria of deciding they shall keep in view the following points while assessing the performances of speakers: i. Discipline and Decorum. ii. Observance of Parliamentary procedures. iii. Selection of Subjects for Questions, and Supplementaries and Quality of Answers thereto. iv. Selection of Subjects for Debates ; Substantivity ; relevancy and legal basis. v. Delivery or Quality of Speeches delivered, Standard of Debate. vi. General Assessment of the Performance as a whole. Note: All the chits will be marked and will have significant weightage while deciding the final awards. Party Policy & Role Rehearsal will be one of the marking criteria. (The ratio of weightage of chits as to speeches will depend upon the decision of the Speaker depending upon the Size of committee and other factors as per the case may be.) 17. IMPORTANT POINTS TO BE KEPT IN MIND a. Attire Indian/Western formals to be strictly followed. b. Indian Wear is encouraged. c. Laptops, mobile phones, tablets etc. are allowed but parliamentarians are not allowed to assess internet. d. No internet usage allowed inside the house. e. The participants should show utmost respect to the Chair. f. They should abide by the decisions of the Chair and should have faith in his impartiality and judgment. The participants are encouraged to tap desks in agreement. g. One may not argue on points which are nowhere related to the debate, this may fetch you negative marks. h. One may not use any unparliamentarily word while the house is in session. One may have to apologize (in oral or written) for the same or can be suspended from the session as per the case may be depending upon the decision of the chair. DISCLAIMER The Executive Board has tried its level best to draft the rules and regulations for the purpose of parliamentary session in accordance with the guide lines issued by ministry of parliamentary affairs, government of India (1998).The discrepancies between IDEAL Lok Sabha rules and the actual procedures are just to intensify the debate. We apologize in advance for any legal mistake that may have occurred from our side any contradiction to the government rules and regulations if found are unintentional.

I asked this question a few days ago, and I’ll take a shot at answering it. Trump came into office saying he would appoint THE BEST PEOPLE. What we have seen instead is incompetence, turmoil, serial turnovers, numerous corruption scandals and many crucial government positions left unfilled. We have lots of “acting” heads of this or that, but looking at the people who have actually been confirmed is a good way to gauge the depth of the cynicism and the contempt that Trump and Republicans feel for the United States of America.A lot of the inadequate staffing is inevitable. Smart, thoughtful, qualified people tend to believe in the fact-based universe. Donald Trump is a narcissistic sociopath who lies all the time, ignores intelligence and informed opinions, governs via tweets and uses public office to enrich himself — so, quality people in every field are going to think twice about going to work for someone that rude and insulting, that dishonest and that likely to stain and compromise, forever, the reputations of those who serve in his administration.But a lot of the incompetence of the administration is deliberate — intentional. Just as fewer and fewer Republicans believe in American democracy (it’s “mob rule!” they insist), fewer and fewer of them believe in government, in the traditional sense. They prefer the Russian model of oligarchs running a gangster state. They see the entire Federal government as some kind of commie plot. They sneer at public service, and consider people who devote their lives to it, serving both Democratic and Republican administrations in a nonpartisan, dedicated way, to be suspect. They refer to these people who keep government running, and maintain continuity in our agencies over time, as the Deep State. Career civil servants have, indeed, kept things functioning even with Kaos Agent Trump in charge, for over two years … but every month there are fewer of them, as they leave our government in droves, pushed out by this administration. They are replaced by — a vacuum. And that will be a very bad thing if Trump’s threatened trade wars crash the economy, or if his efforts to generate high ratings for himself by threatening wars and then making friendly gestures results in a real war. In a time of national emergency, there may well be no grown-ups left in the room.Besides hating good government in general, Republicans feel special enmity for those who insist science is real. They humiliate and harass top scientists, transferring them around, forbidding people in government to publish real science papers, discouraging them from using terms like “science-based” and “evidence-based,” delaying and burying government reports and research with conclusions that contradict the administration’s lies, and barring people from attending international conferences where established, proven concepts like harmful man-made climate change are discussed.Since this administration’s assault on the reality-based universe is focused on science, it’s no surprise Trump put Scott Pruitt in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt was saturated in fossil fuel money, (he’s a Koch brothers pet), hates the EPA, had sued it fourteen times — so, he was a natural to run it, since Republicans like to have a fox running every government hen house.In a little over a year, there were fourteen investigations by different government agencies into Pruitt’s corrupt/illegal practices. He gave illegal raises to cronies. He had an obsession with secrecy and lack of transparency, liberally spending money on items like his Get Smart-type “cone of silence” booth. He told his security people in cars to use flashing lights and sirens, regularly, to get him through DC traffic to places like his favorite restaurant. He had a mania for hiring extra security people. He had security people pick up his dry cleaning, and go out to look for his special moisturizer. He slavishly worked to empower the industries the EPA keeps tabs on and is supposed to impose fines on, for violations. He fired scientists and replaced them with fossil fuel industry people. He used taxpayer money to fly everywhere first class or business class or on private jets and stay at luxury hotels, costing us hundreds of thousands. He set up a sweetheart rental deal for himself and his daughter in a DC lobbyist’s condo.Pruitt’s level of corruption was breathtaking, even for the Trump administration, and he was pressured to resign in 2018. Now we have former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler continuing Pruitt’s job of running/dismantling the EPA. It probably goes without saying, but Wheeler does not believe science is real, either. A lot of Trump’s people are so incompetent and so focused on self-enrichment, it limits the damage they do, but Wheeler is a busy boy; he is better than Pruitt at changing Obama-era policy and perverting the mission of the EPA, so that not only does more carbon spew into our atmosphere, but also more methane, plus mercury and other things that sicken and kill a lot of Americans. Here are some pieces on him and on what our EPA has been up to:Opinion | This Coal Lobbyist Should Not Run the E.P.A.E.P.A. Rule Change Could Let Dirtiest Coal Plants Keep Running (and Stay Dirty)Trump Administration Wants to Make It Easier to Release Methane Into AirPresident Trump’s Retreat on the Environment Is Affecting Communities Across AmericaTrump Administration Hardens Its Attack on Climate ScienceAnother notable Trump administration Swamp Dweller was Tom Price, whom Trump made our Secretary of Health and Human Services (and of course Republicans in the Senate confirm Trump’s stinking nominees of this kind). He’s a Tea Party guy, so naturally, as a doctor, he worked on a healthcare plan as an alternative to the ACA that would cover far fewer people and give them shoddier coverage. He doesn’t think it’s important that parents vaccinate their children. He not only opposes abortion, he has claimed no woman has ever struggled to pay for basic contraception. He made stock market decisions affected by policy he was involved in. As head of HHS, he fought for repeal of the individual mandate: “repeal” with no “replace,” of course — though Republicans pretended as they took power that they had a health plan of their own.Price pretended getting rid of the individual mandate wouldn’t result in millions of people losing coverage. Like Pruitt, Price had a penchant for private chartered planes, and he also liked to take military flights — to get to cities that are easily accessible from DC by car or train. He cost tax payers one million with this nonsense, and offered to pay back $50,000. Eventually, he had to resign. Now, our HHS Secretary is Alex Azar, a former head of Eli Lilly and a pharmaceutical industry lobbyist. He is, naturally, also focused on repealing the ACA with no “replace.”Betsy DeVos is married to the heir of the incredibly lucrative, Christian Fundamentalist pyramid-scheme company Amway. She has spent years promoting school vouchers and charter schools and undermining the American system of public education. Her efforts have had a dismal effect on the schools of Michigan; the charter school program she championed there is a disaster. So, naturally, she is now our Secretary of Education. She has no degree in the subject. Her Senate confirmation hearings were eye-opening, as she read quotes plagiarized from Obama administration people, expressed bewilderment over some basic rubrics for measuring how students and schools are doing, and said people might need guns in schools to fight off grizzly bears.Even Republican Senators had trouble voting for her, and Mike Pence had to step in and break the tie. DeVos seems to think that historically black colleges are examples of “school choice” — not understanding what caused them to be founded. She has suggested it’s okay for private schools to refuse to accept LGBT kids or black kids — since it’s all about “choice.” She has worked to take away protection for students who take out loans, and standards to protect students from gimmicky for-profit colleges. She appointed a former dean of DeVry to supervise investigations into scam colleges like DeVry. She does her best to cut funding for the Special Olympics and for programs for kids with disabilities — she has sabotaged their rights that were protected under law.Rick Perry was a governor of Texas who wanted to be president. He memorably ran a campaign ad talking about how it was wrong that President Obama was preventing children from celebrating Christmas (?!) and wrong that gays could serve openly in the military, and how Perry wanted to bring America back to Christian values, and end the “war on religion.” Ironically, the background music of this ad ripped off Appalachian Spring, by gay Jewish New York communist atheist composer Aaron Copland, whose parents were immigrants to Brooklyn:Also when he was running for president in 2011/2012, Perry said in a debate that the US should eliminate three government departments. He mentioned the Department of Education, the Department of Commerce, and as for the third one? "I can't. The third one, I can't. Sorry. Oops.” The department he wanted to eliminate but was too dumb to remember the name of later turned out to be the Department of Energy. So, in a nice little joke on America — a way to give the finger to us all — Trump and the Republicans have made Rick Perry our nation’s Secretary of Energy, leading that department! Energy has to do with science, so from the GOP perspective it’s great that Perry is a Fundamentalist who doesn’t think science is real, and would like to see Creationism taught in schools. Perry pooh poohs concerns about climate change. He says “the science is still out” on whether people cause it. He says African countries should use fossil fuels to create better lighting; it would lead to fewer rapes. He goes after the Sierra Club for "exploiting the struggle of those most affected by climate change." He remains on the board of a huge energy company. (Holy conflict of interest, Batman!) He may be leaving soon, to find ways to make more money.Rick Perry Is Done Pretending to Know What the Energy Department DoesWilbur Ross is our Secretary of Commerce. He’s a big believer in Trump’s trade wars; he thinks tariffs on China will modify their behavior, instead of causing them to buy soybeans elsewhere, screwing American farmers. Ross also is a fan of trade wars with Europe. Ross lied to the Department of Ethics, in writing, and said he had divested all of his financial holdings. For most of 2017 he owned stakes in companies that were in China, tied to Putin’s son-in-law and involved in other areas it was now his job to regulate. He has diddled with stocks and engaged in insider trading while in office. He met with Chevron execs to discuss oil and gas in 2018 while his wife owned $250,000 in Chevron stocks. When Trump threw a tantrum and shut down our government over his wall (“I own the shutdown! Except I don’t! Except I do! Except I don’t!”) Ross suggested that Federal workers who were in crisis because they were not receiving paychecks should just go take out loans from the bank, and pay a little interest later. He couldn’t understand why they were going to food banks.Ross and Trump recently had a big defeat; they can’t include a question on the census about citizenship that was designed to intimidate Latino citizens who have loved ones who are undocumented — it was intended to keep those citizens from responding, so the places where they live won’t receive adequate Federal funding, for healthcare and roads and education, in terms of how many people live there. Roberts’ conservative Supreme Court is fine with Republican gerrymandering, which distorts our democracy — but they found Ross’s lying as he made the case about the census so lame and so blatant, they just couldn’t sign off on it.Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen left her job recently. She will not be missed. Her lies for Trump extend way beyond pretending not to know whether Norway is a predominantly white country. (Trump had said in a meeting that we get too many immigrants from sh*thole countries — why can’t we have more from places like Norway?) She pretended not to know, in May of 2018, that the intelligence community had concluded that the Russians interfered in the 2016 elections to help Trump win. (This is our Secretary of Homeland Security talking.) Months later, she said she didn’t think Russia had been trying to help either side — after Putin had said he’d wanted Trump to win. Nielsen was the one who started implementing Trump’s policy of family separation in 2018 — and she lied about it, again and again, sometimes under oath to Congress. She said they had no such policy when they had already separated 2,000 children from their families, and Jeff Sessions and others were bragging about the innovative approach. She said Trump could not sign an executive order ending family separations, then was at the ceremony where he signed the meaningless order he had no intention of respecting. Nielsen expressed to Congress that she did not know how many children and how many people apprehended at the border had died in custody during her tenure.There is now even more incoherence and chaos in the DHS. The current Acting Secretary has appointed Mark Morgan to run Customs and Border Protection. According to the New York Times, Morgan won over Trump on TV in 2017. “In one appearance on Fox News, Mr. Morgan said that when he looked into the eyes of detained migrant children, he saw a ‘soon-to-be MS-13 gang member.’” Now, there’s the guy to turn around the problem of children dying and being traumatized in custody, and our national honor being stained by inhumane abuses!‘A Constant Game of Musical Chairs’ Amid Another Homeland Security Shake-UpIn another Times piece, by Gail Collins in January about this stinking, putrid cabinet, we learn that: “Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, who once advocated an end to birthright citizenship and policies that would require employees to speak English, was picked last month to oversee United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency responsible for legal immigration.”Opinion | Help Pick the Worst of TrumpJeff Sessions was Trump’s Attorney General until the 2018 elections. Sessions is a good-old-boy racist who lost the chance to be a Federal judge in 1986 due to a letter from Coretta Scott King calling him out for his racist behavior as an attorney in Alabama. Senator Elizabeth Warren cited what Ted Kennedy had said about that earlier nomination, and started to read Coretta Scott King’s letter, which had been read into the Congressional record in 1986. Republicans objected, “nevertheless, she persisted,” and McConnell and Republicans shut Warren down — they voted to silence her. Jeff Sessions perjured himself before the Senate during his confirmation hearings, saying he’d never talked to the Russians during the campaign and didn’t know of anyone else in the Trump campaign who had. Once this lie was exposed, he had to come back to the Senate to do some ‘splaining, talking about his honor as a Southern gentleman or some such, and wound up recusing himself from supervising the Mueller Investigation. Trump never forgave him for it, and Trump liked to publicly humiliate him, regularly.Sessions hung on because being AG allowed him to pursue policies dear to his heart — policies otherwise in tune with the Trump administration. He was the one who proudly unveiled the policy of hurting refugee children on purpose, to punish and deter their parents who brought them here, seeking asylum! There was a good deal of bi-partisan consensus that we need criminal justice reform, that people shouldn’t go to jail for decades for marijuana charges when pot is legal in many states, and that people who are addicted need treatment rather than to be treated like criminals. But Sessions did away with all those ideas. He’s against even medical marijuana. He was proud that we’re the most incarcerated country, he was into mandatory sentencing rules and against consent decrees for police departments found to be chronically racist. He was into cops seizing property from people who were suspected but not convicted, and fining the poor to the max. Our Attorney General seemed not to see Hawaii as a real state, saying, of Trump’s proposed racist Muslim Ban, that he was "amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the President of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and Constitutional power," though the Supreme Court, it turned out, had issues with the original version of the Travel Ban also.Trump has said he wants an Attorney General who will be his “Roy Cohn.” Roy Cohn broke the law, talking privately to the judge and getting the death sentence for both Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who died in the electric chair. He was the right-hand man of Senator Joe McCarthy who called everyone who opposed him a communist; though gay himself, Cohn helped enhance the Lavender Scare. Cohn threatened to “wreck the Army” if they didn’t give his friend David Schine cushy treatment once he was drafted, which led to the Army-McCarthy hearings and Joseph Welch standing up to McCarthy: "Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" Later as a lawyer in NYC, Cohn represented Mafiosos like John Gotti, and Donald Trump, and the guys who ran Studio 54, and he and they were part of that Studio 54 partying scene. Cohn represented Trump when the government went after him and his father for their racist rental policies — not showing apartments to black applicants, marking black people’s applications with a “C” for “Colored,” etc. Cohn got Trump off. He introduced Trump to Rupert Murdoch. As Cohn was with the young rat-f*cker and self-described dirty trickster Roger Stone, Roy Cohn was key in teaching Donald Trump to have no morals whatsoever.How Donald Trump and Roy Cohn’s Ruthless Symbiosis Changed AmericaSessions obeyed the laws sometimes, and was capable of feeling shame, and so, even though he advanced the racist agenda of Trump, Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon, Trump became disgusted with him. Trump got rid of Sessions and brought in Scott Whitaker as acting Attorney General — a guy who’d auditioned for the job by writing an op ed piece saying Mueller’s investigation into Trump was going too far, and retweeted a piece calling the investigation a “lynch mob.” Whitaker had run a shady, opaque group that pretended to be non-partisan with the Orwellian acronym name FACT that urged investigations of Hillary Clinton. He’d also been involved with a group supposedly promoting inventions — a group that rivals Trump University and Trump Model Management for the rancidness of its sleazy, dishonest practices. It created a false impression that some inventions it promoted were successful. Whitaker threatened people who were out to expose the company. It sold deep, “masculine toilets” to manly men with penises so long, they’d land in the water in a toilet bowl of the normal height, and it claimed to have Bigfoot’s DNA, or proof that it had been collected.So many people had a problem with the endlessly acting, never confirmed Whitaker, that Trump brought in William Barr to be our AG. And now, at last, the Donald has his Roy Cohn! He has, in Barr, both a Mafia Don’s lawyer and a consigliere to him. Barr is a longtime proponent of mass incarceration, ending parole, new laws to monitor people’s phone records without getting proper vetting of these laws — and he helped orchestrate George Herbert Walker Bush pardoning a bunch of Bush’s Iran/Contra co-conspirators. Like Whitaker, Barr auditioned for the job of AG, letting Trump know he’d get him off in relation to Mueller in 2017 by saying it was fine for Trump to fire Sally Yates, there’s more point to investigating Hillary and Uranium One than there is to investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections, and the Mueller Investigation into obstruction of justice was “asinine”; it was looking like a plot “to overthrow the president.” Barr lied about the contents of the Mueller Report months before releasing it, lied under oath to Congress about whether Mueller had communicated to him what Mueller thought of Barr’s representation of the report … and Barr is fine with using the word “spying” for those in our intelligence community who, after presenting evidence to FISA judges, conducted authorized investigations of what happened between Trump and Russia in 2016. He says the term “spying” isn’t pejorative. Senator Kamala Harris made mincemeat of Barr for his squishy, dishonest testimony in the Senate:After that, Barr blew off a subpoena to testify before the House Oversight Committee, and they held him in Contempt of Congress.It’s not good for the United States to have an Attorney General who is a liar, a perjurer, a man with contempt for firewalls, and contempt for the Separation of Powers and the system of Checks and Balances, and who forgets that he is America’s lawyer, not the president’s. But that’s Bill Barr.Alexander Acosta is our Secretary of Labor. He is in the news right now for the sweetheart deal he gave child predator Jeffrey Epstein back in Florida. The prosecution lawyers met with Epstein’s lawyers in the spirit of good ol’ boy camaraderie, and cut a deal where he only got a slap on the wrist; for thirteen months, Epstein had to sleep in a Federal facility but he could go work in his office six days a week … We’re talking about a man who molested multiple children, and trafficked in children. But then, rich white men in this country are above the law. The deal also protected his co-conspirators, known and unknown from prosecution. Of course, President Trump has been accused of having sex with a little girl at one of Epstein’s parties, (there is a corroborating witness, a woman who said she recruited the child to come to the party and witnessed the rape) and has joked about how Jeff is a great guy, they both like beautiful women, Jeff likes them really young …Alex Acosta saw to it that important information was withheld from the judge in the case — and crucial information was also illegally withheld from the many young women who had been abused as children by Epstein. They did not even know the deal had been cut. They never had a chance to appear at his sentencing hearing and say what they thought of Epstein’s light sentencing for a charge of “prostitution.” At last, Epstein (along with, possibly, his co-conspirators) is being prosecuted properly, by New York and Federal authorities. July 12th Update: Alex Acosta is gone. Yay!Ben Carson is a doctor, a neurosurgeon, a man with some impressive credits and also some very odd comments and actions on his scorecard, a sometime presidential candidate … and he had no experience, over the course of his career, in managing a big agency or dealing directly with policies involving housing and urban development. So, why did Trump choose Carson to run HUD? Was it that our president saw the word “urban” and thought … oh, urban … I better give it to the black guy …? With Donald Trump, who knows? It’s also possible that Trump liked how Carson had opposed HUD’s long-term anti-discrimination policies. Another fox to run another hen house! Carson seemed open, during his confirmation, to steering government money to Trump’s businesses. His son, Ben Carson Jr, has been cashing in on his father’s position. The Trump administration keeps eliminating HUD money that Dr. Carson promises the public will be part of infrastructure spending. In his testimony before Congress over the last few years, Dr. Carson has repeatedly made it evident that he doesn’t understand basic things HUD does. Here he is in 2019:He said after this hearing that Democrats were using “Saul Alinsky” tactics.Carson fired a career HUD official for refusing to spend more than $5,000, the legal limit, on new office furnishings for him. He went on to spend $31,000 of tax-payer dollars on a new dining set. He lied about whether he’d had input in choosing it.The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is the brain child of Elizabeth Warren. It was authorized by Dodd-Frank and it was meant to protect average people against predatory lenders and others who had screwed us and had led to the 2008 crash. Richard Cordray, a Warren ally, ran it well, He appointed a person who should have taken it over when he left — but Trump trashed the protocol and put in Mick Mulvaney to run it. Mulvaney is supposedly fiscally cautious, but running the Office of Management and Budget, he was fine with Trump dramatically swelling the deficit with tax cuts for the rich. Now he says “nobody cares” about the deficit. Mulvaney told Trump to cut Social Security and Medicare. He introduced himself to Gary Cohn saying: “Hi, I’m a right-wing nutjob.” He got confirmed at OMB despite the fact that he failed to pay payroll taxes for years on his kids’ nanny. As a Congressman, Mulvaney attacked the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau non-stop, calling it “sick” and “sad” and “a joke.” He co-sponsored legislation to get rid of it. So, of course, he was the perfect guy to run it for Trump! By 2019 he had undermined its enforcement and regulatory powers. It lets banks and businesses get away with screwing consumers once again, no problem! It has dropped investigations of predatory payday lenders. A leading business group praised Mulvaney for his “passivity.” But he fired all 25 members of the CFPB’s Consumer Advisory Board after eleven of them criticized him — he wasn’t passive about that! Now Mulvaney is Trump’s Chief of Staff.Donald Trump spent the 2016 campaign bellowing about how he was going to “Drain the Swamp!” He cheerfully admitted he’d been handed that slogan, he thought it was stupid and meaningless, but crowds loved it so he kept yelling it. He criticized Hillary Clinton for being too close to Goldman Sachs — and then brought Gary Cohn and Steve Mnuchin into his administration. Let’s talk about Mnuchin. He is our Secretary of the Treasury. He says his number one priority is dismantling parts of Dodd-Frank. When asked about the threat of AI taking jobs away from people, he says oh, don’t worry, that’s 50 or 100 years off. Mnuchin had a “Mnuchin Rule,” saying they wouldn’t give the rich a big tax break. He walked it back. He said Trump’s tax cut for the rich would finance itself. Budget deficits rose 17% by the next year. Mnuchin had not ordered the Treasury to do any analysis of the proposed huge tax cuts and their impact. The Treasury ultimately issued a one-page document acknowledging that the tax cuts would not pay for themselves. Mnuchin has ignored Congress’s subpoena of Trump’s tax records, saying they didn’t want them for legitimate reasons, even though the law clearly states that the Secretary of the Treasury “shall furnish” requested tax records of any individual to Congress. What are laws worth, after all? He can be remarkably rude when talking to Congress, especially when speaking to House Financial Services Chair Maxine Waters.He told parents to take their kids to the Lego Batman Movie he executive produced, right after acknowledging, in the same interview, it was unethical for him to promote things he’s involved in. Mnuchin is another Swamp Dweller who loves him some plane rides: government planes, military planes … he reimbursed us for his wife’s part in one plane jaunt, nearly $600, in a trip that cost tax payers nearly $27,000. He wanted a military jet for their honeymoon, but later said: "I'm very sensitive to the use of government funds. I've never asked the government to pay for my personal travel ... The story was quite misreported.”Eleanor Chao likes to ride some of the same planes as Mnuchin. When she was George H.W. Bush’s Secretary of Labor, she was famous for sticking it to the American workers whose rights she was supposed to uphold, and siding with those who exploit them. She did not defend laws protecting wages and hours and workplace safety. She was fine with people being underpaid, and with mines that ignored safety rules — which led to a number of miners’ deaths. Chao is now our Secretary of Transportation. She labels a lot of her time on the job “private,” avoiding transparency in terms of what she does with it. But she does lots of public interviews, as Secretary of Transportation, with her father, a shipping tycoon with ships that go to China. Her sister now runs the family business. The company gets lots of very unusual deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars in China; Chao is using her position to help her family’s business cash in, as the Trumps do. Chao pledged in 2017 to sell her stock in a road-paving company, but she lied; only when newspapers exposed her lie in 2019 did she sell the stock. Chao is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — the man who delights in undermining our Constitution by not letting President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee get considered by the Senate as the Constitution stipulates, etc. In 2017, Chao had her aide Todd Inman become a special envoy between the Department of Transportation and Kentucky, the state McConnell represents in the Senate. This led to $78 million in sweetheart deal projects for pro-McConnell counties in Kentucky. (No conflict of interest there!) Inman had worked for McConnell’s campaigns in the past. Now he’s Chao’s Chief of Staff. Chao’s father and family have given millions to McConnell and his campaigns.Mike Flynn was President Trump’s National Security Adviser for several weeks when Trump first came into office. Before that, Flynn had an Army career: a Lieutenant General. He led our Defense Intelligence Agency for a while under Obama. He was forced out, perhaps because his close relations with a Russian woman made him seem potentially compromised, or because of his apoplectic views about Muslims, or his nutty management style, abusive treatment of staff, and truth-challenged pronouncements that caused his staff to talk about “Flynn facts.” He retired from the military soon after. He became a consultant, and got $45,000 for a speech at an RT dinner in Russia where he was seated next to Putin. He criticized Erdogan in Turkey during the attempted coup there. But then he went to work for the Turkish government. He wrote an op ed attacking Erdogan’s opponent, Gulen, without disclosing that he worked for a Turkish company. In March 2017 he registered as a foreign agent who had received over $500,000 in lobbying money. But that was after the election — and after he had left the Trump White House.During the 2016 campaign Flynn was an adviser to Trump. He gave a keynote speech at the Republican National Convention, attacking Hillary Clinton and leading/encouraging the chants of “Lock her up!” He said if he’d done a tenth of what she’d done, he’d be in jail. He re-tweeted Pizza-gate garbage. President Obama when he met Trump after the election warned him not to hire Flynn to hear sensitive national security information. Trump ignored it. Chris Christie also warned Trump not to hire Flynn. Flynn himself told people he was under investigation. Before Jeff Sessions was confirmed, Sally Yates was Acting Attorney General. She warned Trump that Flynn should not be his National Security Adviser anymore because there was proof Flynn had lied to Pence and others when he said his phone call to Sergei Kislyak before Trump took office was just to wish Kislyak Merry Christmas. In fact, Flynn told Kislyak that Russia should ignore the sanctions imposed on Russia by Obama, who was still president, because Trump would come in and repeal them — did this in violation of the Logan Act, which says a private citizen should not negotiate with foreign powers in US government disputes. Because Flynn had lied about the call, he was compromised — the Russians could blackmail him. Trump ignored Yates’ warning and kept Flynn around hearing highly classified intelligence for two more weeks. Trump fired Yates. Flynn had to resign when his lie became publicly known. Trump leaned on FBI Director James Comey to “let Flynn go,” and when Comey would not pledge that the FBI would not investigate Flynn and Trump, Trump fired Comey over “the Russia thing,” as he told Lester Holt in an interview on national television and told the Russians in the Oval Office the next day. This led to the Mueller Investigation.Mueller went after Flynn (and his son) for, among other things, plotting to kidnap Gulen, the enemy of Erdogan in Turkey; Gulen lives here. Flynn pled guilty to lying to the FBI, but got into trouble because he kept on lying when he said he was cooperating. The Trump administration improperly contacted him to try to learn what he was saying, and dangled indirect offers of a pardon. Michael Flynn was one of 34 people indicted in the course of the Mueller Investigation, which according to Republicans has uncovered nothing.Mueller's investigation is done. Here are the 34 people he indicted along the wayOther criminal people from the Trump campaign and administration exposed by the investigation include Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen who illegally paid off women Trump slept with during the campaign and is now in jail (court papers call Trump aka “Individual One” Cohen’s un-indicted co-conspirator) and fellow Roy Cohn protege and campaign adviser Roger Stone who is also in jail, for lying to Congress and witness tampering. Former Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort took the Trump Tower meeting with Jared and Don Jr to get dirt from the Russians on Hillary Clinton. (An invitation to collude with the Russians? “I love it!”) Manafort had groomed Russia’s stooge leader in Ukraine before grooming one here, and gave the Russians the Trump campaign’s internal polling data. (No, collusion, though, right?) Manafort had a plea deal he violated, continuing to lie to investigators and to coordinate with the Trump team. Now he’s in jail, for tax fraud and bank fraud. He’s another foreign lobbyist who registered as one a little “late.”George Papadopoulos was a Trump campaign aide who only served fourteen days in prison for lying to the FBI. He bragged to an Australian diplomat in 2016 about how the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians, which helped lead to the FBI investigation into the matter. He also offered more substantiation that Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ lied to Congress. Attorney Alex Van Der Swann only served thirty days in jail for lying. Rick Gates, like Michael Flynn, has had his sentencing delayed, as he continues to cooperate and provide more dirt. Richard Pinedo served six months for identity fraud. He helped the Russian cyber trolls get onto Facebook and influence the election. The other people indicted are Konstantin Kilimnik, whom Manafort gave the polling data to, and a bunch of other Russians.Compare that nest of crooks to Bill Clinton’s campaigns and administration. Compare it to the Obama campaigns and administration.Here’s one more Trump Swamp creature, one very close to the Swamp Lord — Jared Kushner! His father is a sleazy real estate developer. Because his father’s brother-in-law was cooperating with Feds against him, Jared’s dad hired a prostitute, had her go sleep with his brother-in-law and taped the encounter to send to his sister. He went to jail for that witness tampering, plus illegal campaign contributions, plus tax evasion. Jared came away from the experience furious on his father’s behalf — and made sure Chris Christie, who negotiated his father’s plea agreement, did not serve in Trump’s administration. He was indignant that his father didn’t get out of prison early, and he has no sense that what his father did was wrong. In other words, Jared Kushner, like his father-in-law Donald Trump, is a princeling con man raised to break the law without batting an eye. Jared’s father’s donations to Harvard may have helped Jared get in. The two of them made the disastrous $1.8 billion purchase of 666 Fifth Avenue just before the 2008 crash. Jared worked closely with Manafort during Trump’s campaign on media strategy, and together they hired Steve Bannon’s Cambridge Analytica. Once Trump was elected, Jared lied multiple times on his security clearance forms, omitting hundreds of meetings with foreign nationals. He’d re-submit them and lie again. (To lie intentionally even once on those forms is a felony that can lead to jail time.) A person as compromised as Jared would never be granted clearance to hear sensitive intelligence — except Trump over-rode all the professionals and got him clearance anyhow. Trump said he had no role in getting Jared clearance, but then, Trump lies all the time.So, what is Jared Kushner in charge of ? What isn’t he in charge of! He’s been in charge of peace between Palestine and Israel; apparently his plan is stuff seen many times before, and a non-starter. He’s in charge of solving the opioid crisis (how’s that going?) and information-technology contracting. He was heavily involved in us selling weapons to Saudi Arabia for $100 billion. All government correspondence is supposed to be over official systems (do you remember Hillary getting criticized for using private email for government work? Guess what Jared has used?) and there is supposed to be a record kept of it, for history. (Again, do you remember Hillary getting in trouble because people thought some of her official emails might not have been saved? It was for the historical record.) Jared communicates with MBS of Saudi Arabia via encrypted apps with no record. He tipped off MBS about guys in Saudi Arabia who might be a threat to MBS, and they were rounded up and taken to a hotel. They’re not a threat to Adnan Khashoggi’s murderer anymore. Jared owes a billion dollars in debt. Our nation’s foreign policy of punishing our ally Qatar, and our policy toward Saudi Arabia, seem at least partially to have been geared over the last two years toward finally getting someone to pay for the 666 Fifth Avenue boondoggle that Jared is still saddled with.During the campaign, Jared also had calls with Kislyak, and of course went to the Trump Tower meeting, and may have leaned on Flynn to talk to people in the Middle East to undermine Obama’s policies after Trump was elected but Obama was still in office. He may have told Flynn to talk to Kislyak. Jared was very keen on getting Comey fired — he figured Democrats would be great with it because Comey had violated the Hatch Act several times to make Hillary look bad. But, it turned out Democrats had a problem with Trump firing him for the reasons he did. Jared and Ivanka cash in on their position in various obvious and offensive ways, and their conflicts of interest are pretty straightforward.That’s not the whole Rogues’ Gallery, but it’s an intro to a lot of the key ones. I feel like we should be aware of them. Their faces should haunt our nightmares. I’m sorry it took so long — sorry there was so much to write about. But no, none of those Trump appointees is focused on making the agencies and departments they run, and the US government overall, succeed. These are not THE BEST PEOPLE. These are THE WORST PEOPLE. Either they actively seek to destroy the organizations they head, or they are primarily focused on making a buck. Yes, that’s often true when Republicans are in office. But Trump likes to talk about how the things he does are unbelievable, amazing, nobody’s ever seen anything like it before — and in this case, the hyperbole is justified. The graft of these grifters, the idiocy of some of the drivel that comes out of their mouths, the slimy, wormy filth that they have reduced our government to … is simply unprecedented. Trump has not drained The Swamp. Trump is The Swamp Lord. Trump has widened and deepened The Swamp, and added extra scum. Again, we’ve been relatively lucky so far, as we were during the first eight months under W. But luck can run out, and things can go seriously wrong. We could get in a situation where we need statesmen, not con men, and wisdom, not smug, self-satisfied ignorance. And even if no seismic national emergency arises, the policies that do not seem to have done too much damage yet will continue to hurt us (and the whole planet) for a long, long time to come.

Before I put forward my personal views, I quote from a couple of articles to put Obama's visit in perspective:US industrial interests took centre-stage at the start of Barack Obama’s visit to India as he and the prime minister, Narendra Modi, outlined a deal to limit the legal liability of US suppliers in the event of a nuclear power plant catastrophe.Thirty years after an infamous chemical leak killed thousands at Union Carbide’s factory in Bhopal, the threat of tough Indian compensation laws has frustrated US hopes of an export boom in the energy sector – despite an agreement by former US president George W Bush to share civil nuclear technology in 2005.After pressure from US diplomats, the Indian government was thought to have agreed a state-backed insurance scheme that would cap the exposure of nuclear suppliers and open the door to billions of dollars of new contracts. India will also allow closer tracking of spent fuel to limit the risk of it falling into terrorist hands.“Today we achieved a breakthrough understanding on two issues that were holding up our civil nuclear cooperation,” Obama said on Sunday.“The [2005] civil nuclear agreement was the centrepiece of our transformed relationship, which demonstrated new trust and economic opportunities and expanded our option for clean energy,” added Modi.“In the course of the past four months we have worked with a sense of common purpose to move it forward … I am pleased we have agreed the next stage, consistent with our law and technical and commercial viability.”Details of the deal remain vague, however, and officials stressed they were still working out the finer arrangements of the scheme, which is designed to avoid the need to change Indian law.“We think we came to an understanding of the liability” issue, said the US ambassador to Delhi, Richard Verma, which will operate “through a memorandum of law within the Indian system”To fuel its rapidly industrialising economy, India hopes to increase the share of electricity generated from nuclear sources from 4% to 25% by 2050, and the issue has taken on added significance after separate environmental talks failed to agree carbon reduction targets of the sort the US reached with ChinaSourced from: Obama and Modi agree to limit US liability in case of nuclear disasterSo after 1984 when we had Warren Buffet given an easy way out of India, owing to him belonging to the protector of freedom, democracy, livelihoods and lives of billions of people round the world (like in Indonesia, Chile, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine etc) that is the United States.So do not expect the Americans to share any blame for a nuclear disaster that comes calling.I'll quote another one:In the closing days of 2014, the Modi government rushed in several crucial policy changes through the ordinance route. But one policy document was left open for public comment. Called the draft National Intellectual Property Rights policy, this document is likely to interest President Barack Obama greatly since it could determine the size of profits that American pharmaceutical companies can make by selling medicines to Indians. Conversely, it could affect the healthcare costs of millions of Indians.At the heart of the debate is the issue of how drugs are patented.“India has a strong patent criteria,” said Gopakumar Nair, patent attorney and past president of the Indian Drug Manufacturers' Association, “while the US has a liberal one.”A liberal patent criteria means even a minor change to the drug’s composition could allow a company to get a new patent, which in turn would ensure that for 20 years no other company can manufacture the same drug. Health activists have documented how this has enabled American pharma companies to create monopolies that have pushed up the prices of lifesaving drugs and put them out of the reach of millions of people, particularly in Asia and Africa.India has come to occupy a central place in the debate because of the ability of its pharma companies to produce cheaper versions of the same drugs. They can do so only because the Indian has a stronger patentability criteria. Section 3D of India’s patent law requires a drug to have sufficient improvement over an existing substance in order to get the patent.In the summer of 2013, the Supreme Court of India dismissed a plea by Swiss company Novartis to patent its cancer drug Glivec. The court observed that Novartis’ product did not have such sufficient improvements. The verdict allowed for the continued supply of the cancer drug at cheaper prices. It was a big victory for public health in India but a major setback to pharma companies in Europe and the United States.Ever since the Novartis case, the United States has made a concerted attempt to pressure India into changing its intellectual property policies to protect the business interests of the American pharma industry.In April 2014, the United States Trade Representative put India on a “priority watch list” of countries that violated patent. In response, the Indian government lashed out at the USTR, calling its observations unilateral and invalid. International health organisation Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, also criticised the USTR, saying that India’s intellectual property regime is legal and that it had a crucial role in providing global access to medicines.In late December, the US International Trade Commission, an agency that conducts investigations into issues of bilateral trade, released a report in which it complained that India’s regulatory environment in general and IP policy in particular had stymied US exports in sectors like pharmaceuticals. It was the second such report to be released by the commission. The report was welcomed by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industry body representing US drug companies.In the past, criticism from the United States had stymied the possibility of India issuing compulsory licences for crucial drugs. In 2012, India’s patent controller observed that German company Bayer’s drug Nexavar for kidney and liver cancer was unaffordable and allowed the company Natco to manufacture a generic version. Although the US has taken the stand that a compulsory licence must be issued only if there is a national health emergency, the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement, or TRIPs agreement, allows for a compulsory licence to be issued if the patent holder’s drug is found to be inaccessible. An expert panel of India's health ministry has since recommended that a compulsory licence be issued for Bristol-Myer Squibb's anti-cancer drug Dasatinib but the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion has been dragging its feet over its decision to award the licence.“Thailand has used compulsory licences 8 times, not only for emergencies but for cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and HIV/AIDS. Canada and US have also used this provision several times,” said a senior health economist with the Public Health Foundation of India. “We were never allowed to exercise our right to issue a compulsory licence again due to pressure from US and European pharma companies.”Against this backdrop, the forthcoming visit of President Barack Obama is likely to see more American lobbying on the issue of India’s patent regime. What might help the American cause is that a new IPR policy is being drafted. In October, the Modi government constituted a six-member think tank to draft the national IPR policy. By December, the first draft was placed in the public domain for comment.In its present form, the draft policy does not say much besides making a case for "more innovation". It says the government will “review and update IP laws, where necessary, and remove anomalies and inconsistencies, if any.”Patent laws affect much more than just drug manufacturing and pricing, and some analysts believe that India needs better intellectual property protection for advancing technology and agriculture and to help micro, small and medium enterprise grow. Others say the generalities in the IPR draft policy do not reveal where India’s patent regime is headed – and this could be worrying."The draft policy states that review of IP law would be carried out, though it does not state any reason for the proposed review, ” said KM Gopakumar, health activist with the Third World Network. “The language is neutral but the law can be amended to satisfy the US also.”IP-driven innovation models have failed to alleviate health crises in developing countries, like antibiotic resistance and the shortage of tuberculosis medicines, says Leena Menghaney, South Asia head of MSF Access. Research in new drugs has stalled because companies don't want to invest in creating drugs they will have to sell cheap."Countries like India are in urgent need of innovation models that do not depend on IP," said Menghaney. "The IP-driven innovation model is not one that India has endorsed in international fora till now. The IPR think tank has reversed this most important policy stance."During Prime Minister Modi’s visit to the US last September, the two countries had formed a high-level working joint group on intellectual property. The bilateral forum allowed the United States to place its demands on the table. Obama is likely to push them further when he meets Modi in New Delhi. But for once, it might make sense for India not to play the good host. At stake is not only the cost of healthcare for Indians but also the competitiveness of the Indian pharma industry. “India has its own economic compulsions,” Gopakumar said. “We are trying to revive industry and manufacturing, and pharma brings about $8-9 billion into this country. So you cannot just give it up.”Sourced from: The one possible item on Obama's India agenda that we should worry aboutSo here we have again, the protector of free markets and people'srights- the US corporate companies dictating how Indian healthcare should operate. They should operate for the 'greater good' (The American corporates) rather than the 'non merit goods' (the lives of the people who cannot afford expensive health care)So Obama's visit means a another chance to boast for the affluent English speaking upper-middle class of Indians who have been the main beneficiaries of Indo-US ties. It only means traffic jams, trouble and long term misery to the majority of our countrymen. Obama's visit has been preceded with ordinances snatching away the rights of the tribals and farmers over their own land, is being crowned and celebrated with deals that absolutely removes any responsibility from the US in case of a Nuclear Disaster and may well be succeeded with healthcare getting out of reach for a majority of the population that dearly needs it.So ladies and gentlemen, my response to the visit of President Obama to India is this:Happy Republic Day.