United States Congress of Fail (Part 2)

[candygirl200413]

So for those with a Republican senator for example, do you still try to contact them? My senator (Toomey) who has been the absolute worst is on this committee for the ACHA and I'm like do I even bother since he doesn't listen to his constituents but I also want to vocalize my feelings.

[Destiny]

So for those with a Republican senator for example, do you still try to contact them? My senator (Toomey) who has been the absolute worst is on this committee for the ACHA and I'm like do I even bother since he doesn't listen to his constituents but I also want to vocalize my feelings.

I did. I sent a message to my congressman telling him that I had voted for him (not in the strictest sense true, but I digress), but due to his vote on the repeal, not only would I not vote for him again, but I was gonna do everything I could to help get whoever runs against him elected.

My senators are democrats and would vote for this clusterfuck the fifth of Never.

[bashfulpixie]

One of my Senators is a Dem who would never vote for this garbage. The other is the tool bag in human form Rubio. I still contact, not that it does a lick of good

[formergothardite]

Both of my Senators are corrupt to the core, but I send them letters and call anyway. It does no good, but it does make me feel like I am doing something. Burr seems to be trying his best to stop the Russia investigation, so I suspect he has ties to Russia too. 

[47of74]

8 hours ago, candygirl200413 said:

So for those with a Republican senator for example, do you still try to contact them? My senator (Toomey) who has been the absolute worst is on this committee for the ACHA and I'm like do I even bother since he doesn't listen to his constituents but I also want to vocalize my feelings.

Here in Iowa we have Ernst and Grassley in the Senate.   These two never listen to anyone, so I don't often contact either one of them.   Same goes for my Representative in Congress, Blum.  He's one of those "Freedom" caucus members who thought the first bill wasn't cruel enough.  

That's why I want Abby Finkenauer, or any other good Democrat, to take Bum's seat next year so we finally have some representation in Congress.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Teabagger Dave Brat (he of the perfect name), whined earlier this year that women in his district were "up in (his) grill" because he wouldn't hold a town hall about healthcare. Well, he finally held a town hall: "At raucous town hall, Rep. Dave Brat struggles to speak above the jeers"

Quote

MIDLOTHIAN, Va. — Hundreds of people booed, shouted and laughed derisively at Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) Tuesday at his first town hall meeting since he voted with other House Republicans to dismantle parts of the Affordable Care Act.

“Everybody asks for town halls so we can have civil discourse,” a frustrated Brat told more than 700 people at a suburban Richmond church. “That’s what I’m trying to do. If we go this route, it’s going to be very hard to have rational civil discourse. I’m trying.”

Trouble began even before Pastor Stan Grant of Clover Hill Assembly of God finished his invocation. As he prayed to God that the discussion would go forth “in a way that will honor you,” a handful of Brat’s critics stood holding small signs aloft.

“Nope,” “Shame” and “Stop using the Bible as a weapon,” they read.

State Sen. Amanda Chase (R-Chesterfied), who attends the church and helped organize the meeting, was heckled as she tried to introduce Brat.

“Let me tell you a little bit about how I met Congressman Brat,” she began, seated on a stage with Brat at her side.

“Ugh!” someone yelled.

“You guys are a tough crowd,”’ she said, before turning to Brat and pressing on. “I’ve known you for about 10 years.” Then more heckling, and she gave up. “Dave,” she said, “they want to hear from you.”

Brat, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, had come to share what he billed as the good news of the health-care bill, which is now before the Senate. Republican lawmakers across the country have faced angry constituents at town halls since President Trump’s election, and the handful of legislators holding public meetings this week are meeting newly enraged crowds upset about the May 4 passage of the health-care bill.

Brat’s colleague, Rep. Thomas Garrett (R-Va.), faced a testy crowd of his own on Tuesday night about 130 miles away in Moneta.

...

Brat told the crowd there had been “some massive misinformation on this point,” he said. He said the bill leaves those protections in place — unless a state chooses to remove them.

“I’m going to go through it very slooowly,” he said, drawing the word out. “Preexisting conditions — the states will choose whether they want to opt out. That has to go through the delegates, the senators, the governor of any state.”

The House bill would end the ACA’s subsidies for eligible people who buy health plans through marketplaces created under the law, creating and substituting new tax credits. The measure also would rescind several taxes that have helped pay for the law, including those imposed on Americans with high incomes.

The audience was overwhelmingly against Brat, but he had some supporters in the crowd. The two camps turned on each other at times. Brat was asked how he could justify Medicaid cuts to special-needs children in school. His reply was that Medicaid spending would go up with the rate of inflation, but the money be given to the states in the form of a block grant. A woman unsatisfied with that answer took to her feet.

“Children in school! Answer the question,” she yelled.

“Sit down! Sit down!” a man hollered.

“I’ll sit when he answers the question,” she shot back.

Chase scolded the crowd at times and threatened to have disruptive audience members “politely escorted out.”

“You may do this at other people’s town halls, but you’re not doing it at mine,” she said at one point. “This is my town hall now.”

The audience never behaved, but no one appeared to have been ejected.

Brat faced a similarly tough crowd in February at a town hall he held after complaining that “the women were in my grill,” demanding that he meet with the public. On Tuesday, he never quit trying to win the audience over.

A former professor who defeated then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a historic 2014 upset, Brat made a playful reference to “Brat Bingo,” a game that incorporates many of his buzzwords (“ka-boom”) and well-worn talking points (such as the fact that he is an economist).

“All right,” he said. “I’m going to give you Bingo: Being an economist — I do like the fun. I wish this could just be fun.”

Nicole Subryan, a 44-year-old nurse from Powhatan, wore a name tag that read: “Hello, My Name is Down Syndrome and Autism.” She said it was a reference to a “very special patient of mine,” who she feared would lose Medicaid funding.

“I’m 55, self-employed and I have diabetes,” said Shelby Kinnaird, 55, of Chesterfield, who pays less than $200 a month for insurance purchased through the ACA exchange. “I’m just concerned about health care because it was miserable before the ACA.”

Sitting right behind her was Terri Kerby, 65, a retired federal employee who thinks Obamacare is “way too expensive.”

“I want to see it repealed,” she said. “We’re a long ways off from that, but they’re chipping away at it.”

As the 90-minute meeting concluded, Brat’s critics sang tauntingly at him, “Hey, hey, hey, goodbye.”

“Such children, such children,” muttered Herb Teachey, 69, who is retired from a career in the biomedical industry. “We had a few very loud citizens who denied input from the rest of the group.”

But Rebekah Kusterbeck, a 41-year-old florist who wants the ACA to stay intact, summed up the meeting as “mission accomplished.”

“We were here to ruffle feathers and we did it,” she said. “And I think we got our point across.”

At the same time, she gave Brat credit for showing up.

“It’s not easy when the bulk of the room is not your party,” she said. “He knew he was going to catch heat.”

 

I would have wanted to pummel his smug ass. I'm glad I wasn't there (not my district).

[GreyhoundFan]

This is a surprise: "Senate unexpectedly rejects bid to repeal a key Obama-era environmental regulation"

Quote

The Senate on Wednesday narrowly blocked a resolution to repeal an Obama-era rule restricting methane emissions from drilling operations on public lands — with three Republicans joining every Democrat to preserve the rule.

The 51-to-49 vote on a procedural motion marked the first time since Trump’s election that Republicans have failed in their attempt to use the Congressional Review Act to overturn Obama-era rules. Thirteen other resolutions, based on the 1996 law that allows Congress to overturn rules within 60 legislative workdays of their adoption, have succeeded.

Thursday is the deadline for using the Congressional Review Act this way.

The methane emissions rule, issued by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management in November, addresses a potent greenhouse gas that is accelerating climate change.

The rule would force oil and gas companies to capture methane that had been previously burned off or “flared” at drilling sites. According to federal estimates, the rule would prevent roughly 180,000 tons a year of methane from escaping into the atmosphere and would boost federal revenue between $3 million and $13 million a year because firms only pay royalties on the oil and gas they capture and contain.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) unexpectedly voted no against a motion to proceed with consideration of the resolution, along with GOP Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.). Two Democrats who had considered backing the rule’s elimination — Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia — voted against the motion, and sent a letter asking Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to make it less burdensome.

In a floor speech after the vote, Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), said “the very first victory” lawmakers have had in beating back a Congressional Review Act bill this year came from a combination of Democratic unity and a few Republicans’ willingness to buck their leadership. “Thank you so much for coming forward and seeing the common-sense nature of this issue,” Udall said, referring to Collins, Graham and McCain.

Jamie Williams, president of the Wilderness Society, hailed the vote as an example of how grass-roots organizing can work. “In recent months, thousands of Americans asked the Senate to stand up for clean air and against the oil lobby, and their efforts were successful today,” he said.

Republicans and industry officials said they would now switch their focus to getting the Interior Department to rewrite the rule, and Trump officials confirmed Thursday they would seek to either change or pull it back altogether.

Barry Russell, president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, said his group “looks forward to working with the Interior Department on a targeted, meaningful solution that will achieve the common goal of ensuring the American taxpayers receive a fair and equitable return in the form of royalties while developing a workable regulation, instead of this one-size-fits-all approach.”

And Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said in a statement that Interior should withdraw the regulation outright. “If left in place, this regulation will only discourage energy production, job creation, and economic opportunity across the West.”

Kate MacGregor, Interior’s acting assistant secretary for land and minerals, said in a statement that as part of President Trump’s energy plan and related executive order, Interior “has reviewed and flagged the Waste Prevention rule as one we will suspend, revise or rescind given its significant regulatory burden that encumbers American energy production, economic growth and job creation.”

“The vote today in the Senate doesn’t impact the administration’s commitment to spurring investment in responsible energy development and ensuring smart regulatory protections,” she added.

Before this year, Congress had only nullified one rule, a regulation on ergonomics former president Bill Clinton enacted during his final year in office. In less than four months, Republicans have wiped away rules covering everything from limits on the dumping of waste from surface-mining operations to enlarging states’ power to offer retirement accounts to private-sector workers.

But the move to strike a rule requiring companies to limit the practice of flaring, or leaking, methane from oil and gas operations on federal and tribal land had given some Republicans — who control 52 seats in the Senate — pause.

...

Many Republicans and fossil-fuel producers criticized the regulation after it was finalized last year, and a resolution to repeal it passed quickly in the House of Representatives at the end of January. But despite Trump’s support, the repeal measure had been sitting in the Senate for months. It had to pass by Thursday to be eligible to be signed into law.

Democrats, as well as environmental and public-health groups, ran a months-long campaign to persuade Heitkamp and Manchin not to disclose their position publicly while arguing to centrist Republicans that abolishing the rule would cost taxpayers money as well as harm the environment.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) also remained on the fence until Monday, when he announced in a statement that he would vote to overturn the BLM regulation. Two other wavering Republicans, Cory Gardner (Colo.) and Dean Heller (Nev.), ultimately joined Portman in voting to proceed with the bill’s consideration.

“Unfortunately, the previous administration’s methane rule was not a balanced approach,” Portman said. “As written, it would have hurt our economy and cost jobs in Ohio by forcing small independent operators to close existing wells and slowing responsible energy production on federal lands.  There’s a better way.”

He added that he believes the Interior Department should still work to reduce venting and flaring on public lands. Last week, Portman wrote to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, calling for a commitment that the department would continue to work to reduce methane waste if the Obama rule were reversed. On May 4, Zinke responded, affirming that “the Department is committed to reducing methane waste, and under my leadership, we will take important steps to accomplish this goal.”

Environmentalists urged Portman to reconsider. In a statement on Tuesday, Environmental Defense Action Fund Executive Director Fred Krupp said Zinke’s assurances were “unfounded” and argued that the strategies for reducing methane waste outlined in his letter would have little impact.

A coalition of industry groups have argued that they are taking steps to reduce fugitive methane emissions because they recognize capturing them can yield additional profits. The American Petroleum Institute noted that the Environmental Protection Agency data, released in March, shows about an 8 percent drop in methane emissions from petroleum production since 2014, largely because of improved gas venting and flaring techniques.

The legislative window for Congressional Review Act resolutions to be considered ends Thursday, though a handful of conservative analysts believe that agencies’ failure to submit a two-page report on previous rules to Congress could open the door to reconsideration of dozens of much older rules.

Curtis W. Copeland, a regulatory expert who specialized in American government at the Congressional Research Service, said in an email that regardless of how many rules this Congress ultimately overturns, “The CRA can no longer be described as ‘obscure’ or ‘little known.’ It now has to be viewed as a substantive tool of congressional oversight regarding an outgoing President’s rules, and it is likely be used again in the future.”

 

 

[47of74]

I see VP is going to attend Iowa Senator Breadbags McCutyernutzoff's Roast and Ride and Bund Meeting this summer.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2017/05/11/vp-mike-pence-headline-ernsts-roast-and-ride/317487001/

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"‘I didn’t come here to defend the president tonight.’ Republican who rescued health-care bill faces voters."

Quote

WILLINGBORO, N.J. — Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.), the co-author of an amendment that rescued the House Republicans’ health-care bill from the doldrums, told his audience that he’d come to Willingboro — a majority African-American town between Philadelphia and Trenton — for a reason.

He didn’t have a lot of fans.

“The president got 9 percent of the vote here,” said MacArthur, at the start of a Wednesday night town hall meeting. “I got a whopping 12 percent.”

But despite his attempts at jollity, and some repeated appeals to the audience of 200-odd constituents not to talk over each other, MacArthur slugged through five hours of hostile questions on everything from the firing of FBI Director James B. Comey to whether the remodeled American Health Care Act would punish women who had been the victims of rape.

The mood was toxic from the start. Protesters lined up outside the town’s Kennedy Center event hall for hours before the 6:30 p.m. start time: an assemblage of local activist groups, including chapters of Indivisible, New Jersey Citizen Action and Our Revolution. Tax March, a group that grew out of protests demanding the president’s tax returns, inflated a balloon that approximated a chicken with golden, Trump-like hair; nearby, dozens of protesters lied down in a “die-in,” as a man wearing a Trump puppet head pretended to tee off on them. In the sky, a plane flew by, trailing letters that spelled out “MacArthur Tax Cut for 1% No Care.”

MacArthur’s town hall was designed to weed out interlopers. District residents stood in line — at start time, it stretched as long as a football field — for one of the scarce seats inside. MacArthur entered the room through a curtain, with a sound system playing Coldplay’s anthem “A Sky Full of Stars.” Despite some of the trappings of a rally, there was little applause.

For more than five hours, MacArthur presented himself as an empathetic, pragmatic legislator who had to represent “one of the few real swing seats.” But he rarely got a break. He opened with a story that, in other settings, would have been a gut punch — the decision to raise a daughter with special needs and to take her off life support when, at 11 years old, she passed away.

He could hardly get the story out, as angry constituents accused him of diverting the discussion from his health-care bill.

“We know about your daughter,” yelled one constituent. (On MacArthur’s campaign website, he tells the story to burnish his pro-life credentials.)

From that point, MacArthur was on defense, assuring constituents that he was saving the health-care system from itself and challenging the hecklers who questioned his motives.

“I like that when President Obama tackled this issue, he covered millions more people,” MacArthur said at one point — one of many recent examples of Republicans framing their bill not as a “repeal” but as a rescue plan for people stranded by the private markets created by the Affordable Care Act. Congress had to act, he said, to staunch the flow of insurers from the exchanges in certain states.

“I’m looking at an insurance market that is collapsing,” MacArthur said.

“That’s because you drilled holes in it!” shouted a constituent — whose shout kicked off a chant of “single payer, single payer!”

There were so many cries for single-payer health care — essentially, Medicare that would be open to everyone and not restricted by age — that MacArthur spent an unusual amount of time arguing its merits. “It works in some small counties,” he conceded, before arguing that America’s complexity and size would prevent a similar system from paying off.

For much of the night, MacArthur was ping-ponged between constituents furious about the AHCA and about the firing of Comey. He was blown back by a lengthy rant about each — first, when Paul Ziegler, 53, got up to deliver a monologue about his “concerns” with Trump and his worry that MacArthur did not share them.

“I’m concerned that I have a president who praises Vladimir Putin and other dictators,” said Ziegler. “I’m concerned that he doesn’t read history. Quite frankly, if he did, he wouldn’t have fired the man investigating him.”

After that, and for the rest of the night, MacArthur said that questions about whether Russian hackers interfered to help Trump’s campaign — and whether Trump’s campaign knew about it — were best handled by Congress. The current investigations could finish their work more quickly than people thought.

“That investigation is now continuing in a bipartisan matter,” said MacArthur.

“Come on, are you serious?” yelled one constituent.

“The Senate chair and the ranking member have both declared that they’re working together,” said MacArthur.

“Politicians!” yelled the constituent.

“How’s it ever going to get finished if you keep firing the people who are investigating it?” asked another constituent.

“You asked, and I answered,” summed up MacArthur. “Folks, I didn’t come here to defend the president tonight.”

But constituents kept coming back to the Russia question, testing whether a congressman who touted his independence — “Go look at [GovTrack.us], look at the chart” — would ever hold Trump accountable. “When I see something that’s a violation,” MacArthur said, he’d entertain a further investigation. That wasn’t enough.

“Imagine if we had a different president, a woman with a D after her name, who did this to Comey,” said one constituent. “Somehow I think you’d be of a different opinion of whether a special prosecutor would need to be convened.”

“Actually, I wouldn’t,” said MacArthur. “My opinion is the same as it’s been.”

He delivered the end of that answer over a rumble of laughter, a challenge he faced again when asked why he’d voted to kill a Democratic bill that would have compelled Trump to release his tax returns.

“I do think he should release his tax returns,” said MacArthur. “I don’t think it’s Congress’s role to force that.”

Still, most of the tough questions focused on the amendment that, as one constituent put it, “brought that bill back from the dead.” Round after round, MacArthur tried to talk through the mechanics of the bill. Over shouts of “single payer,” he attempted to explain that the bill’s combination of risk pools and Medicaid caps would, in the end, protect the health insurance system that the ACA had put at risk.

“Members of Congress don’t vote on the bill they wish was in front of them,” he said, describing his own legislation. “They vote on the bill that is in front of them.”

There were moments of nervous tension, as some constituents used their question time to grind MacArthur down on details they’d read about. After one asked whether he’d read the bill, MacArthur shot back, asking if the questioner had read it or just some hit piece online.

“I am trying to save a system so it continues to help you,” he said. “I am trying to make sure Medicaid is strong enough to continue.”

Two teenagers, who assured MacArthur that they would be voting in 2018, held their microphones closely as they repeatedly asked the congressman if he could promise them that rape was “not a preexisting condition” as written in the AHCA.

“How did it pass your conscience to allow rape to be considered a preexisting condition?” asked one of the teenagers.

“This is the sort of hysteria that makes people not listen,” said MacArthur.

But there was no part of the AHCA that MacArthur’s audience couldn’t challenge. After one constituent said the bill would gut Medicare to dole out tax cuts, the congressman highlighted the bill’s elimination of taxes on income and on profits from stock investments.

“This isn’t tax cuts for the rich — this is tax cuts for everybody!” he said.

...

The audience never went along with the sales pitch. With the choice of venue — with the choice to hold a town hall meeting in the first place — MacArthur had courted that reaction. But when the heckles grew particularly loud, the congressman asked the crowd to consider what it was part of. He was spending most of an evening on their questions; his reward, at times, was being called an idiot.

“I understand there are different views, but I hear people calling me an idiot. I hear people shouting curse words,” said MacArthur. “I wonder, I really wonder how any of you would perform in Congress with that attitude.”

 

Well, maybe if you didn't act like an idiot, people wouldn't call you an idiot...

[Flossie]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

“I understand there are different views, but I hear people calling me an idiot. I hear people shouting curse words,” said MacArthur. “I wonder, I really wonder how any of you would perform in Congress with that attitude.”

I understand what he was saying, but this is what happens when someone tries to defend the indefensible.

[47of74]

Just saw this

kwwl.com/story/35406028/apnewsbreak-city-pays-indiana-congressmans-wife-20kmonth

Quote

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - A burgeoning Indianapolis suburb has paid the wife of an influential congressman $580,000 since 2015 for legal consulting she largely does from the Washington area, an unusually large sum even in a state rife with highly paid government contractors, according to a review by The Associated Press.

Jennifer Messer, the wife of Republican Rep. Luke Messer, makes $20,000 a month working as a contract attorney for Fishers, according to the AP's review of public documents. That's drastically more than either of the city's two staff attorneys are paid - or many other government lawyers in Indiana.

Legal experts say the agreement, which pays about $240,000 a year, doesn't appear to break any rules because state law allows considerable leeway for governments to enter into professional service contracts. But it could create an awkward situation for her husband, who was elected to Congress in 2012 on a pledge to "stop the reckless spending" and has plans to challenge Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly next year.

Meanwhile, many of Fishers' daily legal needs are handled by salaried lawyers, or other local law firms. That leaves a limited work portfolio for Messer, a 2001 graduate of the University of Tennessee College of Law, who is free to take on additional clients and whose contractual duties to the city include "providing legal advice and services" with an emphasis on economic development.

Yeah, do as I say, not as I do strikes again.

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"‘I didn’t come here to defend the president tonight.’ Republican who rescued health-care bill faces voters."

Well, maybe if you didn't act like an idiot, people wouldn't call you an idiot...

Yeah that's one thing that Republicans generally have a hard time understanding.  If you act like a fornicate head don't whine when people treat you like a fornicate head.   We have our share of local idiots here that get stupid in the comments section of the local paper and in letters to the editor but the moment you even think of standing up to  them they're the first ones to whine about how mean you're being to them.  But then I say fornicate them.  Along with kitchen and heat.

[GreyhoundFan]

Interesting opinion piece: "Republicans Don’t Feel Your Pain". It's a lengthy article, but a good read, with many interesting sources and information. The article begins:

Quote

Well before the House voted last week to replace Obamacare with President Trump’s American Health Care Act, Senator Joe Manchin, a centrist Democrat from West Virginia who is up for re-election in 2018, met with the president. By his own account, Manchin told Trump:

Mr. President, 172,000 West Virginians got insurance for the first time. These are working people, but they’ve got something they never had before. They don’t know how they got it, they don’t know who gave it to them, they don’t know the Democrats, nothing about, “It’s Obamacare." They don’t know any of that. All they know is they’ve got it. And you know what? They voted for you, Mr. President. The Democrats gave it to them but they voted for you. They’re going to know who took it away from them.

During the campaign, Trump appeared to fully grasp Manchin’s point.

Trump declared that “there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid” and added that “the middle class has to be protected.”

Safety net commitments were crucial to Trump’s appeal to white working-class voters, the constituency that put him over the top in the key states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. In Manchin’s West Virginia, Trump swept every county, carrying the state with 67.9 percent of the vote compared with Hillary Clinton’s 26.2.

...

 

[Audrey2]

Poor widdle Donny Jr. Those mean, nasty Republicans in Congress aren't being nice to his Daddy, so we need to send more Republicans, so they can be nicer.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-jr-urges-support-greg-gianforte-us-house-194728916--election.html

 

Quote

EAST HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Donald Trump Jr., the president's son, said political forces — even within the GOP — were working to undermine his father's administration, and he urged voters in Montana to send more Republicans to Washington who can help advance the Trump White House's agenda.

"We need more people in D.C. to help my father," he said during a rally in East Helena, Montana, to stump for a wealthy Republican vying in a May 25 special election to become the state's only representative in the U.S. House. The post became vacant when Ryan Zinke joined President Donald Trump's administration as Interior secretary.

"The deck is really stacked. It's stacked against us — by the way, even from people in our own party — we've all seen that," Trump Jr. said in a red barn converted into an events center.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Republicans misstate, again and again on TV and at town halls, what’s in their health-care bill"

Quote

The American Health Care Act that narrowly passed out of the House earlier this month cuts $880 billion from Medicaid — but that won’t affect anyone’s coverage.

It keeps the GOP’s promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act — but doesn’t really repeal the Affordable Care Act.

It passed after conservatives demanded that it allow states to nix some mandated benefits — but states aren’t actually going to do that.

Such pronouncements from Republicans in the days since they passed the AHCA and celebrated in the Rose Garden reflect a deep struggle to sell the bill at home. The bill falls short of the GOP’s long-standing promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. But most Americans now oppose the “full” repeal that so many Republicans have pledged to make happen year after year.

That means these lawmakers face two potential backlashes: one if opponents of Obamacare perceive the bill does not go far enough, and another from Americans worried that the bill would eliminate their coverage.

The result has been a confused sales effort — and a series of flat misstatements and contradictions about what’s actually in the bill. 

It’s a risky strategy — especially in front of the skeptical crowds and interviewers Republicans have been speaking to in recent days. On Wednesday, Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.) spent nearly five hours answering questions from a disgruntled audience of constituents, some of whom spoke at length about what Medicaid meant in their communities. MacArthur was blown back by laughter when he argued, as House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) has, that caps on per capita Medicaid funding would leave the system stronger.

“I am trying to save a system so it continues to help you,” he said. “I am trying to make sure Medicaid is strong enough to continue.”

Later, MacArthur argued that the tax cuts in the bill were “for everybody” — but when a constituent calculated that MacArthur’s own savings would amount to $37,000 if the bill was passed, the congressman agreed that the bill’s large investment tax cut was not going to benefit everyone equally.

Many lawmakers have admitted that they didn’t read the whole document before voting on it last Friday. Some concede that the bill is flawed. Some have assured voters that the Senate will fix it now that the upper chamber’s turn has come to grapple with what increasingly looks like the impossible promise they began making to voters soon after Obamacare passed in 2010.

The optimistic spin, shaped by polling but often concocted on the spot, reveals how a process that President Trump once pledged to get done “very quickly” has become a roiling political problem. Republicans are being advised to lead with attacks on Obamacare’s implementation, then pledge that the final passage of their bill will alleviate those problems by November 2018.

In a memo circulated this week by the conservative firm WPA Intelligence, Republicans were advised that “full repeal,” the campaign promise since 2010, is neither popular nor possible. In Georgia’s solidly Republican 6th District, where Democrat Jon Ossoff is trying to win Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price’s former congressional seat, supporters of keeping the ACA outnumbered opponents by a 10-9 margin. 

...

In framing the bill, many Republicans are following the cheerleader-in-chief, a former supporter of single-payer health care who continues to talk as if the AHCA provides universal coverage. “You’re going to have absolute guaranteed coverage,” Trump told the Economist in an interview published this week.

Democrats — with many memories of being hammered over the ACA and blamed for every lost or altered private insurance plan — don’t think Republicans can pull it off. Two hundred and seventeen House Republicans voted for the bill, but less than 20 are using the week-long recess to hold town hall meetings. 

“The president has amazing reality-bending powers for the 30-something percent of people who support him,” said Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Ca.), who’s helping the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recruit challengers to the seven pro-AHCA California Republicans who represent districts that rejected Trump. “He doesn’t bend reality for the majority of Americans. In a year from now, people will know if they have health coverage. It doesn’t matter what any of us say.”

What many Republicans say is sometimes hard to square with the facts. The Congressional Budget Office will not produce a cost estimate for the AHCA until May 22, but over the weekend, Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong argued on Twitter that the bill had been “scored twice” — referring to analyses of the bill before amendments. 

At some town halls, Republicans have awkwardly argued that even the process of passing the bill was more transparent than voters had thought. During a Tuesday event in Riverbank, a small town in his central California district, Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) assured constituents that he knew what was in the legislation.

“I don’t commit to things unless I read the final version of the bill and what the amendments are,” said Denham.

“You read the entire bill?” asked one constituent, referring to the American Health Care Act.

“It was read in committee; it was read a couple of times,” said Denham. “Bipartisan. Both parties. Working together.”

A cameraman from the Modesto Bee captured the exchange, and the groans, which quickly went viral. No Democrat had voted for the legislation. Senate Republicans, who are working on their own bill on a separate timeline, have occasionally been confused by the Houses’s spin attempts.

...

Ever since the first score, which foresaw 24 million people losing their current coverage if the AHCA was implemented, the bill has been a tough sell of New Coke proportions. In polls taken since the House moved the bill, voters with a strong negative opinion have vastly outnumbered voters with a positive opinion. A study released Wednesday by YouGov found 50 percent of voters opposed to the bill, and 33 percent in favor. Just 11 percent of voters had a “strong” positive opinion — 34 percent stood on the other side.

“This is truly an unforced error of the first order, politically and economically,” tax-cut advocate and frequent Republican candidate Steve Forbes wrote in his family’s namesake magazine this week. “If the Republican Senate doesn’t fix the RyanCare error. . .Nancy Pelosi will be Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2019.”

In interviews with conservatives, Ryan has described the bill’s biggest win as the block granting and cutting of Medicaid. But Republicans have frequently downplayed its importance.

“We believe the Medicaid population will be cared for in a better way under our program because it will be more responsive to them,” Price said on CNN last weekend.

“If you’re currently getting your health insurance through Medicaid, nothing’s going to change,” said Rep. Rod Blum (R-Iowa) at a town hall meeting on Monday.

The bill would substantially alter care for millions of people on Medicaid, both by ending the expansion of the program to people slightly over the poverty line, and by tying federal Medicaid spending to the consumer price index. 

Some messaging may assume that voters are less concerned with Medicaid spending, and overall coverage numbers, than Democrats are. In the WPA Intelligence study, Republicans in tough races were advised to frame the election as a choice between “Obamacare” and something that would keep the parts of the ACA that they liked while making coverage cheaper.

“While the typical sources focus on coverage, voters care a lot more about their health insurance costs than they do about the total number of people covered by health insurance,” the firm advised. “If Republicans succeed in lowering health insurance costs by reducing regulations, increasing competition, and giving Americans more choices, then they are more likely to benefit than to suffer from an Obamacare repeal.”

While headlines back home said that the House had “repealed” the ACA, Republicans have admitted that the AHCA would not pull that off.

“It’s important that we’re clear with them, that it’s not a full repeal,” said Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) in a roundtable with reporters before the vote. “I think they’ll give us a bit of latitude, working under the rules of reconciliation. When they see their premiums go down, I hope they’ll give us the time to finish this and actually repeal the bill.”

As usual, Ted Lieu is correct.

[CTRLZero]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

“He doesn’t bend reality for the majority of Americans. In a year from now, people will know if they have health coverage. It doesn’t matter what any of us say.”

 

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

As usual, Ted Lieu is correct.

 

16 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Mr. President, 172,000 West Virginians got insurance for the first time. These are working people, but they’ve got something they never had before. They don’t know how they got it, they don’t know who gave it to them, they don’t know the Democrats, nothing about, “It’s Obamacare." They don’t know any of that. All they know is they’ve got it. And you know what? They voted for you, Mr. President. The Democrats gave it to them but they voted for you. They’re going to know who took it away from them.

And Senator Joe Manchin is correct.

I was reading with all the delays and confusion surrounding the AHCA, some insurance companies are dropping out of the various exchanges, so people are already scrambling to replace their health insurance.  This de facto "repeal and replace" is happening right now.   The ACA was imperfect, but it could have evolved into something better.  Trumpcare is such a mess. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

5 minutes ago, CTRLZero said:

 

 

And Senator Joe Manchin is correct.

I was reading with all the delays and confusion surrounding the AHCA, some insurance companies are dropping out of the various exchanges, so people are already scrambling to replace their health insurance.  This de facto "repeal and replace" is happening right now.   The ACA was imperfect, but it could have evolved into something better.  Trumpcare is such a mess. 

 

Yes, Aetna has completely dropped out of all exchanges for 2018

Agent Orange and the DOHers have done everything they can to screw over American healthcare.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Senate Democrats can stop Trump’s Russia scandal from becoming the new normal"

Quote

On the floor of the Senate on Wednesday morning, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) set his legendarily methodical mind to work on a new challenge: making Trump’s extraordinary firing of James B. Comey seem normal. Standing behind his mahogany desk, the man who reportedly sought to undermine the intelligence community’s case against Russia as early as last summer kept a straight face as he protested that his true aim now was to prevent something that would “only serve to impede the current work being done” to investigate Trump’s ties to Russia. McConnell went on to argue that senators should accept Comey’s firing, trust the investigation being led by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) — a close McConnell ally — and stop being so dramatic.

The speech garnered few headlines, and as the sonic boom of the Comey firing continues to resonate, it’s easy to dismiss McConnell’s mission of normalizing it as an impossible task. That’s wishful thinking. It will take a long time and a lot of endurance, but through a steady slog of unrelenting business as usual, McConnell and his army of obedient congressional Republicans will turn Trump’s lurch toward authoritarianism into the new normal — unless Democrats stop them.

Senate Democrats have been strong in decrying the Comey firing. Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) delivered a powerful rebuttal to McConnell’s speech on the floor Wednesday. But as they move forward, Democrats should consider crafting a long-term strategy that denies McConnell the ability to slowly but steadily apply the cooling balm of normalcy. In short, Democrats’ strategy should recognize that in the wake of the Comey firing, conducting business as usual is no longer a neutral act — it is an act of normalizing Trump’s assault on our democracy.

One of the lessons of McConnell’s career is that if you stake out your position — no matter how extreme — and stick to it, you can eventually force it to be accepted into the natural order of things. Under President Barack Obama, McConnell abused the filibuster to a degree never before seen and led Republicans in making the unprecedented declaration that they would not consider any Supreme Court nominee put forward by Obama on the flimsy, manufactured premise that it was an election year. Waves of criticism followed, but McConnell held firm and kept nervous Senate Republicans in line. Now Justice Neil M. Gorsuch sits in the seat that rightfully belonged to Merrick Garland.

McConnell’s key insight is that the simple passage of time and the conduct of business as usual combine to stretch a cloak of normalcy over even the most extreme event. It’s a smart strategy that plays to the natural human desire to seek normalcy in the face of uncertainty, an impulse the psychologist Arie Kruglanski described as seeking “cognitive closure.”

Democrats need to resist that impulse. The first thing they should do is refuse to conduct business as usual in the Senate. Senate rules make it easy for individual senators to slow things down, and Democrats have already begun to use them. On Wednesday, Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) withheld consent from a motion to set up committee hearings, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) forced a delay in a committee hearing. Even in the minority, Democrats are able to do this because everything the Senate does happens by unanimous consent. By withholding consent, any individual senator can force the Senate to grind its gears running through time-consuming procedural hurdles. The challenge will be to repeat these acts again and again over a sustained period of time, because repeated enough, the act of withholding consent can make even the Senate far more unmanageable than it already is.

Democrats should also use the Senate’s rules encouraging free and open debate to take advantage of every opportunity to press Republicans directly and publicly on why they continue to cover for President Trump instead of holding him accountable. Senators can and should flood the floor with speeches and hold frequent news conferences on Trump’s ties to Russia. But they can also engage Republicans directly on the Senate floor and force them to publicly defend their blind obedience to the most conflicted and compromised president in recent history.

For instance, McConnell delivers opening remarks every day during “leader time,” when the Senate convenes every morning. The rules allow one senator to ask any other senator who is speaking on the floor to “yield for a question.” Democrats can make a point of asking McConnell to yield for a question about why, for instance, he is still trying to cast doubt on the intelligence community by stating that Russia “may have” hacked our election in his speech Wednesday — when the entire U.S. intelligence community concluded in January that Russia was the perpetrator.

Democrats can repeat this tactic every time a Republican senator is speaking on the floor. Engaging fellow senators in debate and asking them to defend their positions in public would also revive the Senate’s tradition of being free, open and extemporaneous debate, instead of the place it has devolved into in recent decades where senators mindlessly read speeches written by their staff to an empty chamber. Republicans can dodge reporters in the halls of the Capitol or refuse to hold town halls back home, but it is far more difficult for them to dodge their fellow senators on the floor. And if they refuse to yield for questions, they will demonstrate that they are unable to publicly defend their position. In an environment where polls show the public yearning for Congress to act as a check on Trump, the American people will get to judge whether Republicans are fulfilling that role for themselves, with the unblinking eye of C-SPAN recording it all in real time.

...

But Democrats have to take that news and weaponize it to hold Republicans accountable. They have to be active every day — or else McConnell’s steady march of business as usual will wash over even something as extraordinary as the Comey firing like several tons of liquid asphalt.

In the week after the election, Reid was deeply disturbed by the wave of hate crimes being committed in Trump’s name. He decided to give a speech on the floor decrying those crimes and calling on Trump to take action to stop them. In that speech, he said, “If we fail to hold Trump accountable, we all bear a measure of responsibility for normalizing his behavior.”

Those words hold true today. Holding Trump accountable now requires a thousand small acts of refusing to conduct business as usual and holding those covering for Trump accountable. It requires a daily grind of resisting the steady march of normalization.

But the American people are counting on their leaders to do exactly that: resist.

...off to call my senators' offices.

[fraurosena]

Here's a particulary scathing article from the WaPo:

Pro-Trump Republicans will get nothing, not even retention of a House majority

Quote

Republican members of Congress deluded themselves that President Trump’s narcissistic personality, dishonesty and abject ignorance didn’t matter. Turns out, he’s so clueless that he essentially confessed to obstruction of justice in firing FBI Director James B. Comey, who was intensifying the Russia investigation. (In his interview with Lester Holt, Trump detailed multiple conversations with Comey, one in a dinner interview setting, asking whether he was being investigated. He further conceded that the cover story for Comey’s firing was false.) They’ve put their faith in a president who doesn’t understand that he seems to have confessed to his own mendacity. (“In fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.’ ”)

Trump’s acting press secretary is so inept as to declare, “We want this to come to its conclusion, we want it to come to its conclusion with integrity. And we think that we’ve actually, by removing Director Comey, taken steps to make that happen.” Uh-huh. This is the White House that the House and most Senate Republicans have staked their political futures on.

In fewer than five months, Trump has gotten rid of his FBI director, national security adviser, acting attorney general and initial nominees for Navy and Army secretaries (two of them!), labor secretary and deputy treasury secretary. His White House is staffed by generals, relatives and people who have never served in government. The staff’s feuds wind up reported on the front pages. This is the White House that Republicans reflexively shield from criticism.

Trump’s travel ban failed multiple times. His tax “plan” has been panned as grossly irresponsible and a gift to the rich. He could barely get a health-care bill through the House — a bill that bears little resemblance to his campaign promises and has the support of a meager 21 percent of voters, with 56 percent disapproving, according to the latest Quinnipiac poll. Trump’s favorability is down to 36 percent.

On health care, Republicans are getting hammered at town hall meetings, but they have done a bang-up job making the Affordable Care Act more popular:

• American voters approve 64 – 32 percent of the current law which prevents health insurance companies from raising premiums on people with pre-existing conditions.
• Voters say 75 – 21 percent, including 59 – 34 percent among Republicans, that it’s a “bad idea” to give states the ability to allow health insurance companies to raise rates on people with pre-existing conditions.
• A total of 96 percent of voters say it’s “very important” or “somewhat important” that health insurance be affordable for all Americans.

As for GOP lawmakers, Quinnipiac finds: “By a 54 – 38 percent margin, American voters want the Democratic Party to win control of the U.S. House of Representatives. This is the widest margin ever measured for this question in a Quinnipiac University poll, exceeding a 5 percentage point margin for Republicans in 2013.” You wonder whether that number has to hit 20 percent before Republicans stop circling the wagon around an incompetent, scandal-plagued and uniquely dishonest administration. (At least Richard Nixon’s White House could keep its story straight.)

And yet Republicans (in Congress and in right-leaning media) by and large embarrass themselves by defending the president, eschewing calls for a special counsel, remaining unconcerned with the precedent of firing an FBI director investigating the White House and confirming some of the worst nominees in history, including an attorney general who appears to have reneged on his promise to recuse himself and raised questions about his participation in a scheme to fire Comey under false pretexts.

You do wonder when a political survival instinct will kick in. Perhaps the tribal instinct and abject fear of Trump’s wrath will keep elected Republicans tethered to the failing president through next year. At that point, the potential for a wave election for Democrats looms large. If Trump is still around by November 2018, a thrashing at the polls may be the only thing to persuade Republicans to walk away from Trump. The irony is that by pushing furiously now for an independent investigation, they might actually chase Trump and his clown show from office, get a President Pence, pass some of their agenda and save their skins. Are they smart enough to figure that out? Stay tuned.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Senate GOP’s agenda is at a moment of reckoning with unpredictable Trump"

Quote

Senate Republicans are suddenly grappling with a demanding agenda riddled with political peril, as they prepare to try to confirm a new FBI director and reshape the nation’s health-care system — two challenges that have landed before them in rapid succession.

President Trump’s abrupt firing of James B. Comey has raised concerns in both parties that threaten to linger in the effort to replace him. The president’s controversial decision could also take a toll on the pace of the health-care talks, which were already off to a rocky start this week.

“It’s another little speed bump in the road, I guess you could say. You just kind of have to play the hand you’re dealt,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference.

For Republican senators, it is a moment of reckoning with an unpredictable president, whom most supported in the election and have championed in office. Many said the Comey firing caught them by surprise. And while it looked for months as though the health-care push might fizzle in the House, Trump and others revived it, leaving the Senate to pick up the baton in a contentious effort to undo key parts of the law known as Obamacare.

Either task on its own would be challenging. Trying to do both has left some Republicans speechless.

...

Trump’s dismissal of Comey has continued to seize the attention of senators in both parties since he was ousted this week. It is expected to draw more attention next week: The Senate Intelligence Committee has invited Comey to testify on Tuesday. Senate leaders have also invited Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein to brief all senators.

At some point, Trump will nominate a new FBI director. The nominee will have to endure a grilling in the Senate Judiciary Committee and is expected to encounter heavy skepticism from Democrats.

Senate Republicans hold a 52-to-48 advantage over Democrats and can ultimately confirm an FBI director with a simple majority under the Senate’s rules. But concerns that some GOP senators have raised about the timing of Comey’s dismissal and uncertainty about whom Trump will tap to replace him could lead to a dicey confirmation process.

...

Democrats have accused Trump of engaging in Nixonian tactics in his dismissal of Comey and suggested that the former director may have been fired over his investigation into whether Trump associates coordinated with Russia to interfere in the campaign. They have used Comey’s ouster to amplify their calls for a special prosecutor and an independent investigation of Russian meddling.

To apply further pressure, Democrats used procedural tactics to delay at least one committee hearing this week before they abandoned their blockade to allow an Intelligence Committee hearing to go forward.

From a procedural standpoint, Democrats can slow, but not stop, Republicans on executive branch confirmations — so long as they hold together. While that has been less of a problem in the Senate than in the House, some Democrats now say they believe the circumstances of the Comey firing could put some cracks in the Republican coalition.

“I’m finding more of the Republicans who are saying privately and quietly that this is worth looking into,” said Senate Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.). “It is worth investigating.”

Even if Republicans stick together to confirm a new FBI director, time spent on that is time not spent on health care. Senate Republicans are trying to write their own health-care bill after the House narrowly passed its own version last week, an ambitious and complicated endeavor.

“It is going to be difficult at best. Anything like that adds to it,” said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), speaking of the Comey firing’s impact on health-care and tax reform, another major GOP goal.

Hatch is one of 13 members of an all-Republican group of senators that is meeting twice a week to talk about health care. The group has come under criticism for not including any women. And deep differences exist among the members of the group, as well as the broader Senate GOP Conference, about how to approach Medicaid, health-care tax credits and preexisting medical conditions.

Health-care talks in the Senate could drag on for months. GOP leaders have been reluctant to put a timetable on their efforts. But already, the House GOP leadership is applying pressure on them to plow ahead swiftly.

“I really do believe we can get this by the end of the summer. I hope the Senate can move this bill fairly quickly — hopefully in a month or two,” House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said in an interview with Fox News this week.

Senate Democrats, meanwhile, are keeping tabs on public opinion to determine how far they can go in obstructing Trump’s legislative agenda without angering voters who already view Congress as hopelessly gridlocked, according to Democratic aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak about strategy. As Trump’s favorability falls, Democrats grow more hopeful that Republicans will abandon efforts to protect him, the aides said.

For much of the year, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has focused on more routine business, like vetting and approving Trump administration nominees and rolling back federal regulations. He also helped shepherd Neil M. Gorsuch’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, notching a big early win for the new Republican-controlled government.

Under current law, the legislative window for voting on regulations closed this week — just as Senate Republicans started sizing up their more challenging tasks ahead. Some are trying to take it in stride.

“We should be able to walk, chew gum and confirm an FBI director at the same time,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said.

Yeah Marco, that's priceless. You had one of the worst absentee records in the last senate session, but you think you can multitask.

[onekidanddone]

Go Jamie.  Not a snowball's chance right now, but still.

Is Trump unfit to serve? This congressman has a bill for that.

Quote

In the nearly four months since Donald Trump took office, many Democrats have questioned his ability to run the country. But only Rep. Jamie B. Raskin has authored legislation to address those concerns.

The Maryland Democrat’s bill, called the “Oversight Commission on Presidential Capacity Act,” would invoke a never-before-used part of the 25th Amendment to determine whether the president is capable of doing his job.

Raskin, a constitutional-law professor, said he started thinking about the bill as soon as he was elected to his first term in November. He said the issue has become increasingly relevant as constituents in his liberal Montgomery County district clamor for action in the Trump administration’s bumpy first months.

“This is a president who has insisted that Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and that Barack Obama was born in Indonesia, and he has uttered blatant lies and never retracted them,” Raskin said in an interview Friday. “And that is a sign of a serious mental disturbance.”

White House spokesman Michael Short declined to comment on Raskin’s bill, saying in an email that he was “not going to dignify this with an official response.”

Raskin filed the bill in early April but alerted reporters to it Friday, hours after President Trump, in a tweet, implied to fired former FBI director James B. Comey that he had “tapes” of their private conversations.

“This is a president who seems increasingly at odds with everyone and everything around him,” said Raskin, who skipped Trump’s inauguration.

In the GOP-controlled House and Senate, the bill has little chance of passing or getting a hearing, but Raskin said he filed the bill to put a framework in place in case Trump’s party turns on him.

The bill has 20 Democratic co-sponsors, including Rep. Anthony G. Brown (Md.) and the District’s nonvoting delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton.

Rep. Andy Harris, the only Republican representing Maryland in Congress, called the bill a cheap shot at Trump.

“To properly evaluate someone’s mental and physical health requires years of schooling, and it is an insult to the entire medical profession to assume that unqualified, agenda-pushing, partisan politicians would be able to make such a critical professional judgment,” said Harris, an anesthesiologist who specializes in obstetrics. “This legislation is a thinly veiled attempt by Democrats to undermine a legislative agenda they disagree with.”

Parts of the 25th Amendment that provide for temporary transfer of power from the president to the vice president have been invoked when Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush underwent surgeries.

But Raskin’s bill would activate Section 4 of the 25th Amendment to create an independent, nonpartisan commission to determine whether the president is physically or psychologically unfit for office.

Once created, the 11-member commission would be permanent. But it would not have roving power to diagnose the president. Congress would have to pass a resolution empowering the commission to examine the president and his conduct and report its findings. If the president were found to be incapacitated, the vice president would immediately become acting president.

Under Raskin’s bill, the speaker of the House, House minority leader, Senate majority leader and Senate minority leader would each select one physician and one psychiatrist to serve on the commission. The Republican and Democratic parties would each select a retired statesperson. And those 10 appointees would choose an 11th member to lead the commission.

“It certainly doesn’t feel like the ship is on an even course right now,” Raskin said. “We are careening all over the place.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

It's amazing this isn't happening more often: "‘I was out of my mind with anger,’ man says after berating congressman at raucous town hall"

Quote

For the record, Mike Quinn would like to apologize for “putting hands” on a U.S. congressman.

“I was out of my mind with anger for a few moments there,” the retired 68-year-old from Hazen, N.D.., told The Washington Post.

Quinn tried to stuff a wad of cash into the blue blazer of Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) on Thursday afternoon in what quickly became the most climactic moment of a fiery town hall meeting at the Mandan Eagles Club in Mandan, N.D.

The genesis of the cash-stuffing — as well as the mind-altering anger — was an ongoing debate over the Affordable Care Act, a dispute that continues to turn formerly boring town halls into raucous clashes between power brokers and ordinary people terrified of losing their health care.

Quinn — a former safety director of a coal mine who voted for Hillary Clinton — said Thursday’s town hall of about 80 people was no different as attendees questioned Cramer about his vote to repeal the ACA, which passed the House 217 to 213 last week.

He said he never intended to get physical with his elected representative, but he lost his composure after a young mother in tears pleaded with the congressman to leave the ACA in place so that her baby with birth defects could survive without her family facing bankruptcy.

“She was crying so badly that she could barely talk,” Quinn said. “Cramer gave her some kind of wishy-washy answer.”

As the tension in the room heated up, Quinn decided he’d had enough and began to address the congressman as cameras rolled.

“I said, ‘You’re going to give 800 million in tax breaks to the rich and destroy Obamacare and this poor woman is going to do without,’ ” he said. “As the conversation evolved, somebody yelled, ‘I’ll pay higher taxes to help this woman!’ And I said I would, too.”

“I took all my money out and handed it to him and said, ‘Here — I’ll be taxed for health care!’ ” Quinn said.

At some point, in the swirl of angry exchanges between constituent and representative, Quinn approached Cramer and attempted to aggressively shove money into his jacket before turning and walking away. It was theatrical and mildly frightening, but Cramer maintained his composure throughout.

“Okay, buddy, that’s too far,” Cramer told Quinn.

Nobody, including a man who grabbed Quinn by the throat as he approached the congressman, was arrested.

Quinn was escorted outside by police, whom he described as gentlemen and thanked for their patience.

Cramer released a statement thanking his constituents for their attendance and acknowledging, in a decidedly underwhelming Midwestern way, that it was “a lively day” — “no question about it.”

...

“I don’t mind confrontation,” Cramer told reporters, according to the Bismarck Tribune. “My concern was he was dominating, and no one else could participate.”

Both men could’ve gone their separate ways as video of their last exchange spread over social media.

But on Friday afternoon, they agreed to appear on a popular conservative AM radio program in Fargo, N.D., on ABC affiliate WDAY, hosted by Rob Port.

After introductions, Quinn praised Cramer for being “courageous” and “open” enough to be accessible to his constituents and remaining cordial during heated disagreements.

“If only Cramer was a Democrat,” Quinn joked. “I would like to apologize to him when I tried to put money in his pocket, it was inappropriate and I shouldn’t have done it.”

“I hope he realizes North Dakotans are harmless and he’ll continue to hold his meetings the way he does,” he added.

Cramer told Quinn that he appreciated his apology and he accepted it.

“I don’t offend easily,” the congressman said. “There’s nothing wrong with passion. If you don’t have it, you probably ought to get a check-up because a lot of this stuff matters.”

“I never felt threatened by Mike,” he added. “I just know him as a North Dakotan with a lot of passion and once in a while that passion gets the best of us and I’ve been guilty of that myself.”

With the apology out of the way, the passion emerged once more and the two men spent the next 10 minutes strongly disagreeing over health-care policy — this time at a slightly lower decibel.

Can you imagine if the same thing happened to Chappass, Lyan, or one of the other DOHers? Quinn would have been thrown in jail and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I'm not familiar with Cramer, but at least he is willing to speak to constituents.

[GreyhoundFan]

I hope, I hope, I hope... "Pro-Trump Republicans will get nothing, not even retention of a House majority"

Quote

Republican members of Congress deluded themselves that President Trump’s narcissistic personality, dishonesty and abject ignorance didn’t matter. Turns out, he’s so clueless that he essentially confessed to obstruction of justice in firing FBI Director James B. Comey, who was intensifying the Russia investigation. (In his interview with Lester Holt, Trump detailed multiple conversations with Comey, one in a dinner interview setting, asking whether he was being investigated. He further conceded that the cover story for Comey’s firing was false.) They’ve put their faith in a president who doesn’t understand that he seems to have confessed to his own mendacity. (“In fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.’ ”)

Trump’s acting press secretary is so inept as to declare, “We want this to come to its conclusion, we want it to come to its conclusion with integrity. And we think that we’ve actually, by removing Director Comey, taken steps to make that happen.” Uh-huh. This is the White House that the House and most Senate Republicans have staked their political futures on.

In fewer than five months, Trump has gotten rid of his FBI director, national security adviser, acting attorney general and initial nominees for Navy and Army secretaries (two of them!), labor secretary and deputy treasury secretary. His White House is staffed by generals, relatives and people who have never served in government. The staff’s feuds wind up reported on the front pages. This is the White House that Republicans reflexively shield from criticism.

...

On health care, Republicans are getting hammered at town hall meetings, but they have done a bang-up job making the Affordable Care Act more popular:

American voters approve 64 – 32 percent of the current law which prevents health insurance companies from raising premiums on people with pre-existing conditions.

Voters say 75 – 21 percent, including 59 – 34 percent among Republicans, that it’s a “bad idea” to give states the ability to allow health insurance companies to raise rates on people with pre-existing conditions.

A total of 96 percent of voters say it’s “very important” or “somewhat important” that health insurance be affordable for all Americans.

As for GOP lawmakers, Quinnipiac finds: “By a 54 – 38 percent margin, American voters want the Democratic Party to win control of the U.S. House of Representatives. This is the widest margin ever measured for this question in a Quinnipiac University poll, exceeding a 5 percentage point margin for Republicans in 2013.” You wonder whether that number has to hit 20 percent before Republicans stop circling the wagon around an incompetent, scandal-plagued and uniquely dishonest administration. (At least Richard Nixon’s White House could keep its story straight.)

And yet Republicans (in Congress and in right-leaning media) by and large embarrass themselves by defending the president, eschewing calls for a special counsel, remaining unconcerned with the precedent of firing an FBI director investigating the White House and confirming some of the worst nominees in history, including an attorney general who appears to have reneged on his promise to recuse himself and raised questions about his participation in a scheme to fire Comey under false pretexts.

You do wonder when a political survival instinct will kick in. Perhaps the tribal instinct and abject fear of Trump’s wrath will keep elected Republicans tethered to the failing president through next year. At that point, the potential for a wave election for Democrats looms large. If Trump is still around by November 2018, a thrashing at the polls may be the only thing to persuade Republicans to walk away from Trump. The irony is that by pushing furiously now for an independent investigation, they might actually chase Trump and his clown show from office, get a President Pence, pass some of their agenda and save their skins. Are they smart enough to figure that out? Stay tuned.

 

[Dark Matters]

A rep gets burned in a town hall.

 

[Howl]

Not an admin, just a regular poster, with a request to everyone to please "hide" large blocks of text, or, alternately, post your link with a concise summary of the article with a small block of quoted text.  

To hide blocks of text, cut and past your text into the post.  Then highlight it and instead of clicking on the Quote symbol,  click on the adjacent Eye icon (sometimes called the spoiler alert)  in the text action bar.   

Lots of compelling information coming our way at a very fast rate these days, and it helps to have large text blocks hidden when scrolling through a page.  
 

[GreyhoundFan]

An excellent analysis: "To hold a town hall or not? It’s a lose-lose situation for many Republicans right now."

Quote

Proof of residency. Photo ID. Preregister.

For some members of Congress, the unusually strict requirements they've put in place for who can attend their town halls sound more like a trip to the DMV than an invitation to practice democracy. And those are the few lawmakers who have agreed to hold town halls at all while on break from Congress this past week.

The seem to be a direct response to the intense activism springing up across the nation right now, driven mostly — but not completely — by the left of the political spectrum. It's creating some tense moments for Republicans who decide to hold town halls and no-win situations for Republicans who don't.

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Here's a sampling of the rules town hall attendees are being asked to follow:

Rep. Rod Blum (R-Iowa): “Please note that entry will be reserved to constituents of Iowa's 1st District. To verify residency, please RSVP here and bring a photo ID to the town hall. RSVP and photo ID will be required for entry. Information provided during registration must match address on photo ID. … No backpacks, signs, banners, or artificial noisemakers will be allowed into the event.”

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Rep. Thomas Garrett (R-Va.): “You must present a valid state issued I.D. that matches your registration information in order to gain entry to the event. No cheering, clapping, jeering, or signs are allowed at the event. Civil dialogue only, please.”

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.): She held a town hall in February that was only open to prescreened residents of the town she was in, Fairview, who had reserved seats in advance. At one point, the town's mayor took the event off the city's website because, the mayor told CNN, officials wanted it to be a “low key” “community meeting.”

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The lawmakers' rationale behind all the new rules: Town halls are being exploited by liberal advocacy groups with national motives. So, it makes sense to close them down to people who actually belong to the district.

Garrett's 200-ish-person town hall at a church outside Roanoke the other night, for example, was lined with police officers who are investigating “credible” threats to his family.

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There's no rule that lawmakers have to hold town halls when they're back in their districts. But for those who do, putting limits on who can attend kind of flies in the face of having one in the first place, said Norm Ornstein, a congressional ethics expert: “Even when you had the conservative outrage over Obamacare, I don't recall anyone trying to preselect attendance. The unwillingness to take criticism or any heat from a legislative decision is really unusual.”

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And Blackburn's “low key" community meeting in a Tennessee town of 8,000 was filled with 130 attendees, with more protesters outside. Blackburn later claimed just one-third of the attendees were from her district but she could provide no evidence, leading city officials to publicly contradict her in local media.

Those are the stories of lawmakers who hold town halls at all. Left-leaning Town Hall Project has been tracking how many of the 217 House Republicans who voted for the House health-care bill held a town hall this week during a break in Congress. Their count: 16.

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It's somewhat paradoxical, said Padilla of Indivisible, but he thinks lawmakers are closing off town halls precisely because they are hearing from their constituents.

“We really think that's proof that their advocacy is working and that it's changing behavior,” Padilla said. “At the end of the day, it's going to change the way they vote in Congress.”

It's pitiful that they are closing off town halls because they are hearing from constituents. As was pointed out, when the tea baggers started up, Dems didn't close their town halls or put stupid restrictions on them.