United States Congress of Fail (Part 2)

[GreyhoundFan]

"Senate GOP aims for June vote on Obamacare repeal"

Spoiler

Senate Republicans’ uncertain efforts to repeal Obamacare are at a crossroads, with GOP leaders pressing members to make decisions on moving forward and pushing for a vote by the end of June, according to senators and aides.

After spending a month deliberating over a response to the House’s passage of a bill to repeal the law, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is accelerating the party’s stagnant work as a jam-packed fall agenda confronts congressional leaders and President Donald Trump. Republican leaders want resolution to the tumultuous Obamacare repeal debate by the Fourth of July recess, Republican sources said, to ensure that the whole year isn’t consumed by health care and that the GOP leaves room to consider tax reform.

It’s a gut-check situation for Republicans, who are about to be confronted with tough choices that may result in millions fewer people with insurance coverage as a condition for cutting taxes and lowering some people’s premiums.

“I don’t think this gets better over time,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a member of leadership. “So my personal view is we’ve got until now and the Fourth of July to decide if the votes are there or not. And I hope they are.”

Senate staff spent last week and the weekend writing the bill but left some key decisions blank. At a party lunch on Tuesday, McConnell and his deputies will present an early blueprint of the party’s health care overhaul efforts as well as several potential solutions for moving forward on internal divisions.

The GOP is getting close to a framework on how to reduce premiums, and there is general agreement on more generous tax subsidies than those the House passed, with the Congressional Budget Office assessing those proposals’ budgetary impact. Some of the thorniest policy decisions remaining include when to roll back Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion and how much to cut Medicaid overall: Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said on Monday she isn’t yet committing to a bill that phases out the expansion.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said: “Just listening to the debate over the past few weeks, I think cobbling together a bill that could get 50 votes is going to be a challenge, but you never know.”

Those divisions are not being soothed by the party’s thrice-weekly health care lunches and twice-weekly working group meetings. Now GOP leaders are confronting a painful choice: craft a bill that can get 50 of the party’s 52 votes or demonstrate that Republicans are simply too divided for success despite their years-long crusade against the law.

“There’s a huge reason we have to get 50 on this,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 Senate Republican. “We’re going to have a vote one way or the other. But if we don’t pass something, and we go into ’18? It’s on us to try and get this fixed.”

Early drafts of legislation could be released by the end of this week, according to GOP sources. Republicans are “thinking we’ll be able to make progress on drafting the legislation” once senators make additional decisions, a Senate source said. People working on the legislation said they hope those decisions occur on Tuesday.

But with so much at stake and several senators offering gloomy forecasts of the party’s work in recent days, Senate Republican leaders have been leery of committing to a definite timeline, given that it could take weeks for the CBO to vet their legislation.

“We have to do it before we get out of here in August,” said Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas. “We pretty much know what we have to do. We’ve talked about it for seven years. I wouldn’t want to necessarily rush it, but it’s hard to think it’s necessarily going to go beyond July.”

McConnell has made it increasingly clear to his members that his preference is to deal with the issue before July to avoid weighing down the rest of Republicans’ agenda. In addition to working on tax reform, Republicans need to begin planning to avoid default and a government shutdown in the fall.

“He wants to be done with this one way or the other,” said one person familiar with the negotiations.

To vote by June 30, Republicans would have to have their bill to the CBO about two weeks prior. Unlike the House, the Senate needs to have the score before its members vote on the bill because they are required to come up with $133 billion in savings. Staff has already started early discussions with CBO on pieces of what could be in the bill. That gives the Senate only about 10 more calendar days to finalize its legislation.

If a repeal bill is approved by the Senate by June 30, Republicans would still have one month before the August recess to merge the House and Senate bills, which are expected to have major differences.

If the Senate vote fails, Republican leaders want to have a decisive end to the Obamacare repeal debate and move on to tax reform while potentially making more piecemeal changes to the health care law to combat spiking premiums and unstable insurance markets.

Republicans are also hoping that the House-passed bill will soon officially move to the Senate, something that won’t happen until the GOP is confident that it cleared all the procedural requirements to keep the repeal process moving. While the Senate will write its own bill, the House bill cannot violate Senate rules or the measure would have to go through the House again. The parliamentarian is expected to make a ruling this week, according to a person briefed on the matter.

Sigh, just sigh.

[sawasdee]

@GreyhoundFanAnother take.

Spoiler

Quote

Senate Republicans are moving into high gear on their effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, making it likely that within the next few weeks they’ll either pass something and keep the process hurtling forward, or abandon it altogether.

Judging from what they’re saying, it looks like the latter is the most likely scenario: They fail to pass their version of repeal, then say, “Well, we tried,” shake that albatross off their shoulders, and move on to the rest of their agenda. It would leave many in the party infuriated, but it might be the best of the bad options available to them.

The latest developments suggest Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) may be hoping to rip the Band-Aid off as quickly as possible and get this whole thing behind them. Here’s a report from Politico

After spending a month deliberating over a response to the House’s passage of a bill to repeal the law, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is accelerating the party’s stagnant work as a jam-packed fall agenda confronts congressional leaders and President Donald Trump. Republican leaders want resolution to the tumultuous Obamacare repeal debate by the Fourth of July recess, Republican sources said, to ensure that the whole year isn’t consumed by health care and that the GOP leaves room to consider tax reform.

It’s a gut-check situation for Republicans, who are about to be confronted with tough choices that may result in millions fewer people with insurance coverage as a condition for cutting taxes and lowering some people’s premiums.

While it’s possible that McConnell is pushing this accelerated schedule because he thinks it’ll produce a bill that passes before anyone has a chance to realize what’s happening, that seems like a long shot, particularly given how many Republicans are expressing doubts about whether they can get the 50 votes they need to pass it (the current GOP margin in the Senate is 52 to 48):

McConnell himself said “I don’t know how we get to 50 at the moment” in an interview two weeks ago.

“I don’t think there will be” a successful vote this year, said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.). “I just don’t think we can put it together among ourselves.”

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said the same thing last week: “I don’t see a comprehensive health-care plan this year.”

And Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said: “There are some still saying that we’ll vote before the August break. I have a hard time believing that.”

That’s a whole lot of skepticism. One big problem they’re facing is that there are multiple factions and working groups among Senate Republicans, all potentially coming up with their own very different versions of the bill. That’s a result of McConnell’s decision not to run the bill through the ordinary committee process, since he didn’t want there to be public hearings at which Democrats would have a chance to speak and question witnesses. In that vacuum, everyone wants to exercise their own influence. So apart from the 13-member group that McConnell appointed, there’s also a group led by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), and a group led by Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio).

But the intractable problems are likely to be substantive. Can senators from states that have benefited hugely from the ACA’s Medicaid expansion — such as West Virginia, where 28 percent of the state population is now enrolled in Medicaid, including 170,000 citizens who got it because of the expansion — come to an agreement with senators such as Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Mike Lee (Utah) who would like to see Medicaid undermined if not utterly destroyed? And can they all agree on something that can also get a majority in the House, where ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus members wield so much power?

So here are the potential outcomes:

The senators can’t resolve their differences, and McConnell pulls the plug without a vote being taken. Repeal is dead.

The main working group comes up with a bill, they put it up for a vote, and it can’t get 50 votes. Repeal is dead.

They manage to get 50 votes for something, which then goes to a conference committee that tries to work out the differences between the versions the House and Senate passed. The combined version alienates too many people, and doesn’t manage to pass both houses. Repeal is dead.

The conference committee writes a compromise bill, and it somehow passes both houses and is signed by President Trump. Repeal succeeds!

The hurdles in front of that last outcome seem insurmountable, but anything is possible. But if it doesn’t happen, that sets up still another possibility: Once the repeal effort is behind us, we might actually take some steps to improve the health-care system.

In this scenario, Republicans would no longer be able to dismiss any reform idea with, “We can’t think about that, because we have to repeal Obamacare.” You might even get some innovative thinking.

For instance, the Nevada legislature passed a bill allowing anyone to buy in to Medicaid. If you can’t get other insurance or you don’t like what’s available on the exchanges, you could just pay premiums and join the government program. Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) hasn’t said whether he’ll sign the bill and there are details to be worked out, but once ACA repeal is off the table, you could see other states deciding that now they have to try some new things. States that have seen private insurers depart the individual market could turn to the same solution. Some Republican states might even accept the ACA’s Medicaid expansion (perhaps with some tweaks so they can say they’re being tougher on the shiftless poor), because all that federal money is just waiting to pour into their states and insure their citizens.

I’m not saying I’d trust Republicans anywhere to do the right thing when it comes to health care. But maybe this experience has taught them that they’d better come up with some solutions that actually help people. Anything’s possible.

 

Please god it's only a 1 in 4 chance.

[GreyhoundFan]

9 minutes ago, sawasdee said:

@GreyhoundFanAnother take.

  Hide contents

 

Please god it's only a 1 in 4 chance.

I know, but my concern is, they will abandon it and the TT will keep playing games with the existing system, causing insurers to drop out, premiums to rise, and everything to collapse. Congress doesn't care, they'll still have their insurance, but it will hurt the general public.

[sawasdee]

@GreyhoundFan I'm reading that the support for single payer is rising?  is that true?

Because that's the best of all things in the best possible world.....

[GreyhoundFan]

1 minute ago, sawasdee said:

@GreyhoundFan I'm reading that the support for single payer is rising?  is that true?

Because that's the best of all things in the best possible world.....

I've been reading that too. If we could get a couple of influential Repubs to endorse it, I would think it might happen. Unfortunately, I think you can't get the "magic R" after your name if you advocate what they call "socialized medicine" in the most derisive tone possible. It seems that most Dems are for it, but they need to be more vocal -- Medicare or Medicaid for all.

[sawasdee]

I truly don't understand the US hatred of 'socialised medicine'. It works! It works in every western country but the US.....and costs less of the GNP, and costs each individual less.

But I suppose if you are a legislator in the pocket of insurance company lobbyists it looks like the end times, and so you have to demonise it.

[GreyhoundFan]

16 minutes ago, sawasdee said:

I truly don't understand the US hatred of 'socialised medicine'. It works! It works in every western country but the US.....and costs less of the GNP, and costs each individual less.

But I suppose if you are a legislator in the pocket of insurance company lobbyists it looks like the end times, and so you have to demonise it.

It goes back to the whole Repug believe that "I made my money, I shouldn't have to pay for you." Despite many being bible-beaters, they don't actually care for their fellow man (or woman). Michael Moore's documentary, "Where to Invade Next", featured several different countries. The final place he went was Iceland, where he spoke with several high-powered women. One of them was very blunt. She said that she would never want to live in the US, because it seemed the prevalent feeling was "me", not "we". She said that Americans don't seem to care for our neighbors. Sadly, in some cases, that is true. That is the core of the Republican belief system -- "I worry about me and my family, I don't worry about yours." Of course, many of us aren't that way, but the Repugs who manage to get elected seem to operate under that system. I love the US, but I seriously examined the feasibility of moving to Iceland last year -- the weather is more to my liking and it is a good place to be a woman. Unfortunately, it isn't feasible, so I have to stay and try to improve things here.

Edited to add: Also, many Repugs are in the pockets of big business, so they want the insurance company CEOs and boards to make record profits on the backs of average Americans.

[nvmbr02]

I've read the support for a single payer system is rising, but the elected congress is still refusing to view it as a viable option.  Unfortunately I think we will have to suffer through whatever shamble of a plan the GOP comes up with unless there is a miracle at this point. Hopefully there is enough pressure put on the Senate that they change the current bill and the House has to have a revote. It wont stop it from happening but slow it down. 

I did see that Nevada was going to put Medicaid on the exchanges, I need to find a better article and read the particulars but hopefully at least some states will do something similar. 

And because I think the picture is hilarious. 

 

[47of74]

Former Senator Diaper Vitter has joined a New Orleans law firm;

chron.com/news/us/article/Former-Sen-David-Vitter-joins-law-firm-s-New-11198322.php

Quote

Former U.S. Sen. David Vitter has returned to practicing law, joining the New Orleans office of a firm with a focus on energy issues.

Butler Snow announced Tuesday the Republican former senator has joined its team of lawyers. Donald Clark Jr., firm chairman, touted Vitter's background in politics and policy work as valuable to the company.

Vitter also will keep his lobbying job with Mercury LLC, working both in Washington and Louisiana.

Get them Huggies/Depends/etc jokes a ready folks!

[GreyhoundFan]

"Republicans’ emerging Trump defense: A naif in the Oval Office"

Spoiler

As former FBI director James B. Comey held the political world in thrall Thursday from inside a packed Senate hearing room, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan walked into an unusually empty press briefing across the Capitol.

Before Comey’s testimony about his private interactions with President Trump had even concluded, Ryan joined an effort already underway among GOP lawmakers to place it in the best possible light for Trump.

“Of course there needs to be a degree of independence” between federal law enforcement and the White House, Ryan said. But he added, “The president’s new at this. He’s new to government, and so he probably wasn’t steeped in the long-running protocols that establish the relationships between [the Justice Department], FBI and White House. He’s just new to this.”

Ryan later made clear that he was “not saying it’s an acceptable excuse” and that his remark was “just my observation.” But he was one of many GOP lawmakers willing to minimize Trump’s alleged meddling and demands for loyalty as the fumblings of a political tyro — or the behavior of a real estate mogul accustomed to having his orders followed.

“It has to still be legal and right and all that, but I think a lot of it is — he’s used to being the CEO,” Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), an early Trump endorser, said Wednesday after Comey’s preliminary statement was published.

While playing up Trump’s ­naivete is currently one strain of his political defense, legal analysts said it could also be a kernel of a criminal defense. It could be at least a somewhat viable defense to suggest that Trump, who has no direct experience in government or law enforcement, merely didn’t know any better when he was interacting with Comey.

To substantiate an obstruction of justice case under criminal law, a prosecutor has to prove a person acted corruptly. If Trump was merely acting foolishly, he would be legally okay.

“It’s just another way of saying that maybe he had innocent intent, just didn’t appreciate how inappropriate or wrongful it would appear to people who have been around law enforcement,” said Kelly Kramer, a white-collar criminal defense attorney at the Mayer Brown law firm.

Some analysts said the defense could ring hollow — particularly given that, according to Comey, Trump isolated him, ordering every­one else out of the Oval Office before making the request about dropping the Michael Flynn investigation. Trump’s own lawyer, meanwhile, outright disputed Comey’s version of the facts, rather than suggesting that the president was merely naive to the ways of government and investigations. For his part, Comey testified, “I hope there’s tapes” to corroborate his version of events.

On Capitol Hill, at least one lawmaker said ignorance of the law and Washington norms are not excuses.

“That’s why you have a chief of staff. That’s why you have legal counsel,” said Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), who endured a scandal over an extramarital affair when he was governor of his state in 2009. “The idea of ‘I’m new’ probably doesn’t pass muster in the corporate world, the nonprofit world, much less the body politic.”

Most Capitol Hill Republicans have tended to view Trump fundamentally as a businessman, a man preoccupied with forging deals using all of the tools he developed in his business career — charm, showmanship, coercion, threats.

Those traits have marked Trump’s relations with lawmakers — particularly as he embarked on his first congressional sales job: persuading House Republicans to pass a hugely controversial health-care bill.

In one episode, he confronted the leader of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus inside a private meeting of Republicans. If the bloc didn’t back the health-care bill, “I’m gonna come after you,” Trump said to Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), adding: “But I know I won’t have to, because I know you’ll vote ‘yes.’ ”

Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.), a Freedom Caucus member, recalled being lobbied personally by Trump on the bill and suggested a line could be drawn from that experience to Trump’s entreaties to Comey.

“It’s like a real estate deal closing — just a transaction: ‘Let’s get this thing done. Let’s win on it,’ ” Brat recalled. “In the new role, he’s got everyone jumping on every sentence he says, so that’s the tricky part. . . . He’s a business guy. He just wants results.”

Comey’s statement and Thursday’s testimony paint a more damning picture — including a dramatic Feb. 14 meeting in the Oval Office where Comey said Trump asked him to stay behind after a meeting with other officials. Then, he said, Trump raised the subject of the criminal investigation into Flynn, his former national security adviser, and whether Comey could “let this go.”

Comey testified Thursday that he interpreted that remark as a direction to end the probe into Flynn.

While the Republican National Committee blasted out attacks on Comey’s credibility this week, Trump’s Republican defenders on Capitol Hill have largely stayed away from trying to attack the former FBI director’s veracity, instead trying to reframe what he said. That has served to reinforce an emerging GOP view that Trump’s behavior was ham-handed and inappropriate, but not illegal or impeachable.

Ryan said in an MSNBC interview Wednesday that it was “obviously” not appropriate for Trump to ask Comey for a personal pledge of loyalty.

At the hearing, Sen. James E. Risch (R-Idaho) sought to challenge Comey’s interpretations of Trump’s remarks, questioning Comey about whether Trump’s exact words as he reported — “I hope you can let this go” — would support the inference.

“You don’t know of anyone that’s ever been charged for hoping something. Is that a fair statement?” Risch asked.

“I don’t, as I sit here,” Comey replied, prompting Risch to yield his questioning.

Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), an early and fervent Trump backer, called the president’s intervention on Flynn’s behalf — a day after his firing — “a normal human reaction.”

“I think he’s a human being first,” he said. “I have absolutely no problem with what the president of the United States said. It is clearly not anywhere close to touching something called obstruction of justice, and I’m frankly proud of him for standing for someone who was as loyal as Mike Flynn was throughout the campaign.”

Collins said “of course” Trump ought to be given deference because of his inexperience in political office. “But the press isn’t going to give him any slack,” he said. “It isn’t going to happen.”

Ryan also took a sympathetic tack, pointing to Comey’s statement that he had told Trump he was not personally subject to a criminal probe — backing up an assertion in Trump’s letter firing Comey that had been widely questioned.

“People now realize why the president is so frustrated when the FBI director tells him on three different occasions he is not under investigation, yet the speculation swirls around the political system that he is,” Ryan said.

Brat echoed several of his colleagues in arguing that the ­essence of Trump’s appeal to voters was his bull-in-a-china-shop sensibility and that it would be silly to expect anything else.

“This city’s just full of carefully crafted nonsense,” he said. “The whole nation’s crashing. They hired a businessman — give him a chance.”

I can't believe Sanford was one of the few who didn't try to excuse Agent Orange. Ryan, Brat, Collins, and the rest are ridiculous.

[fraurosena]

I cannot fathom what it must be like to have such appalling healthcare. 

The video is only 30 seconds long, but damn, it hits hard. Excuse me while I make a cup of tea. Maybe it will help get rid of a lump that has suddenly manifested in my throat.

[candygirl200413]

@GreyhoundFan I was thinking about that Ryan clip during my run this morning. Like when you put something together that you've never done before, you read the instructions, and if needed you look up additional help you might need or ask people who might have done it before. Orange fuckface literally threw the instruction manual in the trash and instead of asking those who knew what they were doing, he got those who know nothing either. It's so disgusting that these people literally only care about that R next to someone name and literally won't care about this country going to shit. It was a good run today cause I finished out of breath cause the more I thought about it, the more it made me angry and I ran harder.

[hoipolloi]

On 6/6/2017 at 10:08 AM, GreyhoundFan said:

I know, but my concern is, they will abandon it and the TT will keep playing games with the existing system, causing insurers to drop out, premiums to rise, and everything to collapse. Congress doesn't care, they'll still have their insurance, but it will hurt the general public.

McConnell that fucker is really yanking chains & calling in chips to push through a bill that's about as bad as the House version. Don't be fooled by the "delays" in cuts. They're gutting Obamacare.

Here is a list of Senate staffers' names and their phone numbers & email contacts. These people are all the healthcare staffers for Republican Senators. 

Will post this under resources as well. NOW is the time to contact these people if you're a constituent.

[GreyhoundFan]

From the NYT: "Republicans’ Secretive Plan for Health Care"

Spoiler

While many Americans make sense of James Comey’s testimony on his meetings with President Trump, Republican senators are quietly moving toward something that has been their party’s goal for nearly eight years: dismantling the Affordable Care Act. The question, of course, is how they plan to replace it.

Republicans in the Senate will need 50 votes to pass their version of the American Health Care Act. Several senators have expressed reservations about the House version of the bill, which withdraws federal support for Planned Parenthood and rolls back the Medicaid expansion accomplished by the A.C.A.. Despite the lack of consensus within the party, Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, on Wednesday began the process of fast-tracking the bill under Rule 14, which enables the Senate to bypass the committee process and instead move the bill on to the Senate calendar for a vote as soon as it is ready.

This will allow the legislation to move much as it did in the House – swiftly and secretively. The Senate aims to vote by the end of the month, and will probably do so with no hearings. This stands in stark contrast to the process leading up to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, which included over 100 congressional hearings..

The A.H.C.A.’s fast-tracking is not driven by necessity, but rather by the concern that a more transparent legislative process would lay bare the reality that the bill, if passed, would cause millions of Americans to lose their health insurance and drive up costs for millions of others.

With only 20 percent of Americans supporting the A.H.C.A. (and only 8 percent believing the Senate should pass the House version of the bill), and support for Obamacare at an all-time high, Senate Republicans are in a bind. While abandoning the A.H.C.A. in favor of fixing Obamacare would reflect the will of the majority of the American people, it would require abandoning a central campaign pledge to the Republican base and result in an untenable reconciliation process with the more conservative House. But pursuit of a deeply unpopular policy that is likely to have disastrous health and economic consequences for millions could be far costlier as the Republicans face the possibility of a stinging defeat in 2018.

With much public attention currently diverted to the investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, Republicans may feel that now is the right time to move on health care. But just as town halls and phone calls conveyed to many House members deep concerns about the A.H.C.A., ordinary Americans can now demand to see the text of the legislation and tell their senators how a loss of insurance coverage would affect them. Though some relatively centrist senators including Dean Heller of Nevada recently warmed to the phase-out of Medicaid expansion over the next seven years, others like Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana may be receptive to concerns about the future of Medicaid and protections for those with preexisting conditions.

It would be myopic and reckless for Republicans to advance legislation that harms millions for the short-term gain of a legislative victory.

After all, voters may not properly attribute policy gains like the Medicaid expansion to the legislation that President Obama championed, but they will remember who took their health care away.

It's too bad that senators will only pay attention to calls from people in their states. I'd be calling McTurtle's office daily. I'd also be calling Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. 

[candygirl200413]

I called my democrat senator to tell him thank you for supporting your constituents. It's a lost cause with my spineless republican one. To think he used to be referred to as a moderate.

[GreyhoundFan]

Okay, I love when anyone makes Ted Cruz look foolish. The video in the article is funny.

[sawasdee]

@GreyhoundFan Joyous! I wish all his speeches were - curtailed - like that! And TT's. And Ryan's. And McConnell's. And..........

[fraurosena]

Senator McCaskill is awsome in this video.

 

Oh, and did I mention she was awsome?

[GreyhoundFan]

"Chris Collins Is A Good Example Of Why Americans Think Congress Is Corrupt"

Spoiler

Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) has an extremely exciting opportunity for you.

Collins is the largest shareholder in Innate Immunotherapeutics, a small Australian biotech company, and a member of the company’s board. And he’s been happily talking up the stock to his congressional colleagues, The Hill reported Thursday.  

The old image of congressional corruption was a machine politician who funneled government spending to his allies back home. But Congress doesn’t really do earmarks anymore, thanks to a 2010 reform.

Collins, an early and vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, represents the new face of lawmaker self-dealing: a rich man using the stature of his office to become richer, and telling colleagues to come along for the ride. “If you get in early, you’ll make a big profit,” he told colleagues, according to other six Republican members.

Collins told The Hill he never discussed Innate Immunotherapeutics with his colleagues. He did, however, admit to telling some constituents about the stock. “I’ve presented opportunities in Buffalo,” he told the paper. “I’ve said, ‘Here’s an opportunity. Listen. Read. Study. Make a decision.’ That’s the only thing I ever did, and that was in Buffalo.”

Collins’ office denies any wrongdoing. “Congressman Collins has followed all ethics rules and laws when it comes to his investments,” spokeswoman Sarah Minkel told HuffPost in a statement.

“As he would about the success of his children, he has never been shy about talking about the work of Innate Immunotherapeutics,” Minkel said. The statement went on to promote the potential of the company’s drug treating multiple sclerosis, and to point out that without congressional funding, it might never have been developed.

Among those who heeded Collins’ tips about Innate Immunotherapeutics is Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, a former GOP congressman from Georgia whose purchase of shares at a discounted price not available to the public became a controversy in his Senate confirmation hearing.

Democrats have filed complaints against Collins and Price with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), who sponsored the law against members of Congress insider stock trading, was among four people who filed complaints against Collins with the Office of Congressional Ethics, The Buffalo News reported last month. A spokeswoman for the ethics office wouldn’t confirm the existence of an investigation.

Collins sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s health subcommittee (a detail helpfully included in his bio on Innate Immunotherapeutic’s website). Until 2012, there was no law against members of Congress trading on inside information they learned as a result of their legislative work. For the last five years, however, the law sponsored by Slaughter, called the STOCK Act, has prohibited such trades.

It’s unclear whether Collins did anything that qualifies as insider trading, bad as it may look. Strictly speaking, insider trading only applies to trading securities like stocks using material, non-public information. In this case, Collins has a duty to Innate Immunotheapeutics shareholders not to divulge non-public, material information about the company. But he’s not necessarily restricted from promoting the company with public information that’s true. 

Collins’ spokeswoman would not answer HuffPost’s questions about whether the congressman had confidential information about Innate Immunotherapeutics. But the job of a board member is to oversee the financial health and strategic direction of the company. Board members routinely have access to inside information to do their jobs.

“It just reeks of insider trading,” Craig Holman, of the watchdog group Public Citizen, told HuffPost of Collins’ promotion of the stock. Holman said he is among those who have filed complaints against Collins with the SEC and the Office of Congressional Ethics.

Collins takes no salary as a member of the Innate Immunotherapeutics board. He owns 4 million shares, according to congressional financial disclosure forms, now worth a little over $2 million.

For Collins personally, the best outcome would clearly be that he is cleared of any wrongdoing.

For the reputation of Congress, that would be the worst-case scenario ― a judgement that there’s nothing wrong with the director of a public company moonlighting as a congressman and using his perch to sell stock to his colleagues and constituents.

 

[Cartmann99]

8 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Collins, an early and vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, represents the new face of lawmaker self-dealing: a rich man using the stature of his office to become richer, and telling colleagues to come along for the ride. “If you get in early, you’ll make a big profit,” he told colleagues, according to other six Republican members. 

He sounds like a MLM salesperson. 

 

[47of74]

Today in bathroom stall history....

http://thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/larry-craig-arrest-anniversary-109724

Quote

JUNE 11--Today is the 10th anniversary of former Senator Larry Craig’s arrest for seeking some male companionship inside a bathroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

The Idaho Republican was collared by an plainclothes cop who alleged that the married pol--who was in an adjoining stall--used under-the-divider hand motions and played footsie in an attempt to arrange a sexual encounter.

As he claimed upon his arrest, Craig declared that he adopted “a wide stance when going to the bathroom,” adding that he may have inadvertently touched the foot of the arresting officer, Sergeant Dave Karsnia.

“I overreacted and made a poor decision,” Craig said of his guilty plea. “Let me be clear: I am not gay, I never have been gay.”

 

[formergothardite]

I'm going to post this video here. Natalie has been very active in fighting for medically fragile children who will be hurt if the GOP gets their way. I know she has been able to talk to Senator Tillis, but from what I can tell he didn't seem to care too much. If hearing first hand how Trumpcare will hurt some of the most vulnerable people in society doesn't cause the Senate to put a stop to this, then nothing will. Those who vote for Trumpcare will show that they don't have a soul. 

 

 

[candygirl200413]

again the lack of hearts these republican congresspeople have will forever shock me. Especially with those that label themselves as Christians cause no true Christian would cause pain to so many people, especially the highly vulnerable.

[GreyhoundFan]

Yeah, not going to happen: "Senator says Trump should turn over Comey tapes"

Spoiler

On Sunday, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said President Trump should turn over tapes of conversations he had with former FBI director James B. Comey — if they exist.

“He should voluntarily turn them over not only to the Senate Intelligence Committee, but to the special counsel,” Collins told Brianna Keilar on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“I don’t understand why the president just doesn’t clear this matter up once and for all,” she added.

Almost a month after suggesting that he recorded conversations with Comey in the White House, writing in an early-morning Twitter message that “Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations,” the president has yet to definitely answer the question of whether any such tapes even exist.

“I’ll tell you about that maybe sometime in the very near future,” Trump told reporters Friday when asked about the existence of any tapes.

Collins, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, joins Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee who, with their Democratic colleagues, sent a letter to the White House on Friday demanding the president turn over any recordings with Comey within two weeks.

In her interview Sunday, Collins added that she would support a subpoena being issued if the White House stonewalls, though she said such an order would probably come from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and not from the Senate committee.

“I would be fine with issuing a subpoena,” Collins said.

On Thursday, Comey testified to the Senate that, in a Feb. 14 conversation in the Oval Office, Trump asked Comey to “see your way clear to letting” go of the FBI investigation into Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

Collins said such a conversation was “clearly wrong on the president’s part,” stopping short of calling it obstruction of justice, a step few Republicans or Democrats in Congress were willing to make on the Sunday-morning political shows following Comey’s testimony.

“Look, when it comes to something like obstruction, there’s a serious legal standard,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” when asked if Comey made a case for obstruction of justice. “A good prosecutor looks at the facts and sees if it meets that standard. I’m not going to speculate about that. That’s in prosecutor Mueller’s hands.”

After calling Trump’s conversations with Comey before firing him “very inappropriate,” Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) argued that the president’s actions did not rise to the level of obstruction.

“The way that it was handled, with no follow-up, with no other press, with no other return to that topic, It looks like what I called a pretty light touch,” Lankford also said on “Face the Nation” in reference to the Feb. 14 conversation. “If this is trying to interfere in a process of any investigation, it doesn’t seem like it was, one, very effective and, two, it came up more than once in a conversation.”

Of course, Lankford had to be an Agent Orange apologist.

[GreyhoundFan]

This is a good op-ed: "Weak Trump, Strong Paul Ryan'

Spoiler

The biggest priority for today’s Congressional Republicans is shrinking the size of government so they can cut taxes for the wealthy.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, managed to win the presidency on an agenda that promised robust government programs in health care, retirement and other areas.

Something was going to have to give, and it’s long been clear that the something would be Trump’s campaign promises. Trump doesn’t actually care much about the working class and has quickly abandoned his earlier commitments.

But he remains less ideological than Congressional Republicans like Paul Ryan — Trump cares more about “winning” than any coherent philosophy — and so there has still been uncertainty about how ideologically far Congress would be able to lead Trump.

The Russia scandal suggests that the answer may be: Very far indeed.

Paul Starr, the sociologist who wrote a Pulitzer-winning history of health care, has written a piece in The American Prospect making this point. “Former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony may have seemed like a boon to Democrats, but it has another effect that has been little commented on,” Starr writes. “Donald Trump is now totally dependent on congressional Republicans to avoid impeachment and therefore has no choice but to be a cheerleader for their policies and to sign whatever legislation they send him.”

Starr continues:

“This is exactly why at the Senate hearing where Comey made his devastating charges, Republicans pretended not to see the evidence of obstruction of justice. For the time being, they have no interest whatsoever in initiating proceedings against the president that would consume their agenda. They know they have Trump in a position where he has no real choice except to do what they want.”

Currently, Congressional Republicans’ biggest wish is a reduction in health benefits for the middle class, poor, sick and elderly in order to finance tax cuts for the wealthy.

The House has already passed a bill. The Senate is trying to make progress this week — behind closed doors, without any of the public hearings that typically accompany major legislation. Republican leaders hope to rush a vote before the July 4 recess.

Don’t lose sight of this story.

On a related subject, Jonathan Chait writes in New York magazine about why Republicans won’t impeach Trump. And Michael Tomasky writes on today’s op-ed page about the backlash in Kansas against the same philosophy guiding Congressional leaders.

This is so very true.