United States Congress of Fail (Part 2)

[Cartmann99]

5 hours ago, nvmbr02 said:

I found it amusing that Sandra Lee has a mess she can't tolerate/stomach. 

When the woman who is known for creating one of the most disgusting desserts in the world, finds you too nauseating to be near, that's a burn. 

Spoiler

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Republicans’ nightmare is starting to come true"

Spoiler

Back in December 2015, the U.S. presidential election was just heating up and a bearded Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) was laying out his vision as the new speaker of the House. There were a lot of things on Ryan's wish list, but by far the thing he wanted most was a Republican president.

“We are not going to solve all the country’s problems next year,” Ryan said. “We need a new president. It’s just that simple.”

It's since proved to be anything but simple.

The Washington Post reported Friday that the FBI's investigation into possible coordination between Trump and Russia has found its way into the White House. A senior White House adviser close to the president is under scrutiny by the FBI.

Oh, the irony for Ryan.

After a whole lot of heartache that was the 2016 campaign, Ryan got his wish: The electoral college handed a win to a Republican president who was behind in the polls, and voters let Republicans keep their majorities in Congress.

Trump maybe wasn't Ryan's dream partner, but at least he checked two of Ryan's most important boxes: He was president, and he was a Republican.

Since then, things haven't been smooth. “Well, yeah, it's always nice to have less drama,” Ryan told reporters Thursday. But the benefits of having a Republican who will sign into law a rollback of Obamacare and tax reform legislation Ryan's been dreaming of since he was in college far outweighs the headaches of a president stumbling and tweeting into near-daily controversies.

Now, the situation has drastically changed. And so could Ryan and every other Republican's calculations about whether standing by the Republican president they so badly wanted is worth it.

After a week of stunning news about Trump's behavior with Russian diplomats and his own FBI director, this is perhaps the most stunning.

The Post's Devlin Barrett and Matt Zapotosky report the FBI's focus on a senior Trump adviser is the result of months of secret investigations that will soon become more public, with a grand jury and subpoenas. The FBI is investigating whether and to what extent Trump associates worked with Russia to hack into Democrats' emails during the election. And investigators clearly feel they have a strong enough case to devote some of their resources to looking into the highest ranks of the White House. That's a big deal.

And it means for the second day this week, the Trump administration has completely undermined everything Republicans have been saying to date about this Russia investigation.

Yes, both Congress and the FBI are looking into whether Trump associates helped Russia help Trump win the election. Yes, it was always a possibility this could go to the top. “I think Putin pays...Trump," House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said to Ryan and other GOP colleagues last year, a month before Republicans officially nominated Trump. (McCarthy says that was a joke, and no investigation has concluded whether or if Trump's campaign worked with Russia.)

But throughout this whole ordeal, Republican leaders in Congress have brushed aside calls for a more independent investigation. Implicit in their messaging: It's not that serious.

Now, things are looking serious. We have a special counsel with wide latitude to investigate whatever he wants under the umbrella of Trump associates and Russia. Former FBI director Robert S. Mueller III will lead the FBI's investigation, which is climbing higher and higher in the Trump administration. Soon, the investigation could break out in the open.

For Republicans in Congress, this is all terrible news. Every escalation into Trump-Russia investigations makes it that much more difficult for them to a) keep their credibility intact for insisting none of this was necessary and stand by the president they so badly wanted.

When Republicans' new House speaker wished on that December day for a Republican president, it's fair to say this is not what he was wishing for.

Maybe I'd feel bad if he had wished for things to improve the lives of the bulk of Americans, not just the ultra-wealthy. Nah, I don't think I'd feel bad for Lyan if he was paraded up and down Pennsylvania Avenue in tighty-whities after being dipped in orange paint and holding a sign proclaiming "I'm an idiot".

[GreyhoundFan]

Oh, for pity sake. Politico has posted that Trey Gowdy is expected to take Chappass' place: "Republicans shove Chaffetz on his way out"

Spoiler

A handful of top Republicans have a message for outgoing Rep. Jason Chaffetz: It's time to relinquish the House Oversight Committee gavel.

Several senior GOP lawmakers are quietly encouraging Chaffetz to step down from his chairmanship soon, even though the Utah Republican doesn’t plan to resign from Congress until June 30. While his retirement announcement Thursday said nothing about his future work, Chaffetz has told lawmakers he’ll be heading to Fox News.

But GOP insiders say Chaffetz has been reluctant to let go of his panel’s leadership before he leaves Congress — and now he’s thrown himself into the thick of the Russia scandal that’s consuming Washington. It’s made for an uncertain transition at the committee and a sore subject for House Republicans.

"If the chairman is on his way out ... he should step down and allow the Steering Committee to move immediately to appoint a new chairman," said Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), who sits on the Steering panel, which selects committee chairmen. "Sooner, not later."

Critics are grumbling that even as Chaffetz was planning his retirement, he summoned newly fired FBI Director James Comey to testify before his panel next week. Chaffetz said he wants to question Comey about allegations that President Donald Trump tried to pressure him to drop an investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

The explosive hearing announcement — and Chaffetz’s threat to subpoena related FBI documents should they refuse to hand them over — has annoyed a number of GOP lawmakers. They worry that a major chairmanship transition in the middle of a high-profile probe of the president’s actions could create confusion at the committee.

These sources believe it would make more sense if a new chairman took the lead before the committee's Comey probe takes off.

"Chaffetz is job-hunting when he should be doing the people's business," said one Republican who asked not to be named.

Chaffetz, reached by phone Thursday night, said he was "trying to do the right thing" by notifying colleagues of his departure weeks before he steps down. He said he still has a number of ongoing investigations and doesn't plan to drop them just yet.

The transition to a new chairman, Chaffetz continued, "doesn't have to be immediate but also doesn't have to be on my last day either." He said he wants to work with leaders and committee members to ensure a smooth hand-off.

The House Steering Committee announced Thursday that it will meet the week of June 5 to consider his replacement.

Rep. Trey Gowdy, who previously ran the House Select Committee on Benghazi, is expected to take the reins of the Oversight Committee and is already making his case to Steering panel members. GOP insiders say the South Carolina Republican has the position locked up.

Behind the scenes, there is some concern that Chaffetz is hanging on to Oversight for the wrong reasons. The telegenic 50-year-old would garner major publicity for chairing a high-profile interrogation of Comey, whose story is one of the most sought after inside the Beltway.

At least one Republican mused to POLITICO that Chaffetz’s continued chairmanship could create a conflict given his possible future endeavors in television. Asked about a potential conflict with Chaffetz during a press conference Thursday, Speaker Paul Ryan demurred, saying he had not yet heard the news that Chaffetz planned to leave June 30 for Fox.

Most Republicans, however, are just concerned about the transition.

“If he’s a lame duck for another five weeks … why would you start such a big event, with the Comey hearing, and then switch horses in the middle of the stream?” asked one senior House Republican aide.

Chaffetz said he's still unsure whether Comey will testify next week. He has yet to hear back from the former FBI director.

Not everyone is anxious about the looming transition. Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) doesn't believe there is any rush to move Chaffetz out of the post. Republican Study Committee Chairman Mark Walker (R-N.C.) also said that while “normally I would be” worried about a transition in the middle of such an investigation, “there’s one reason I’m not.

“That is because that transition would probably go to Trey Gowdy,” he said, before praising the former federal prosecutor at length.

A fifth-term lawmaker, Chaffetz is no stranger to high-profile interrogations. He was one of the all-star questioners of former IRS chief Lois Lerner, whom Republicans blamed for the agency mistreating conservatives groups. Chaffetz was also a key investigator on the Benghazi probe and during the “Fast and Furious” gun-walking investigation.

On Capitol Hill, he’s known for his ambition to climb the ranks. After Speaker John Boehner resigned, he challenged Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for the top job, before Ryan was ultimately drafted.

Many believed Chaffetz would run for leadership again someday. That’s why his retirement caught much of Washington off guard. Insiders, however, believe he could run for Utah governor in the future. And should that be his ultimate goal, his position as Oversight chairman is not necessarily conducive to helping him attain it.

While it’s easier to grill an administration run by the opposite party, Chaffetz in recent months has had to become Trump’s watchdog in Congress. That means he has found himself in the middle of Democratic calls to investigate Trump’s finances and ties to Moscow.

And back home, Chaffetz has been slammed by left-leaning constituents who want him to do more to uncover Trump’s tax returns. Should he act on that, Chaffetz risks alienating the GOP base. If he doesn't act forcefully, however, he could be accused of giving the president a pass.

Okay, I have lots of words to describe Chappass, "telegenic" is not one of them. It's pitiful and appalling that there is nobody more reasonable than Trey "But Benghazi" Gowdy up for the position.

[nvmbr02]

20 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Oh, for pity sake. Politico has posted that Trey Gowdy is expected to take Chappass' place: "Republicans shove Chaffetz on his way out"

  Hide contents

A handful of top Republicans have a message for outgoing Rep. Jason Chaffetz: It's time to relinquish the House Oversight Committee gavel.

Several senior GOP lawmakers are quietly encouraging Chaffetz to step down from his chairmanship soon, even though the Utah Republican doesn’t plan to resign from Congress until June 30. While his retirement announcement Thursday said nothing about his future work, Chaffetz has told lawmakers he’ll be heading to Fox News.

But GOP insiders say Chaffetz has been reluctant to let go of his panel’s leadership before he leaves Congress — and now he’s thrown himself into the thick of the Russia scandal that’s consuming Washington. It’s made for an uncertain transition at the committee and a sore subject for House Republicans.

"If the chairman is on his way out ... he should step down and allow the Steering Committee to move immediately to appoint a new chairman," said Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), who sits on the Steering panel, which selects committee chairmen. "Sooner, not later."

Critics are grumbling that even as Chaffetz was planning his retirement, he summoned newly fired FBI Director James Comey to testify before his panel next week. Chaffetz said he wants to question Comey about allegations that President Donald Trump tried to pressure him to drop an investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

The explosive hearing announcement — and Chaffetz’s threat to subpoena related FBI documents should they refuse to hand them over — has annoyed a number of GOP lawmakers. They worry that a major chairmanship transition in the middle of a high-profile probe of the president’s actions could create confusion at the committee.

These sources believe it would make more sense if a new chairman took the lead before the committee's Comey probe takes off.

"Chaffetz is job-hunting when he should be doing the people's business," said one Republican who asked not to be named.

Chaffetz, reached by phone Thursday night, said he was "trying to do the right thing" by notifying colleagues of his departure weeks before he steps down. He said he still has a number of ongoing investigations and doesn't plan to drop them just yet.

The transition to a new chairman, Chaffetz continued, "doesn't have to be immediate but also doesn't have to be on my last day either." He said he wants to work with leaders and committee members to ensure a smooth hand-off.

The House Steering Committee announced Thursday that it will meet the week of June 5 to consider his replacement.

Rep. Trey Gowdy, who previously ran the House Select Committee on Benghazi, is expected to take the reins of the Oversight Committee and is already making his case to Steering panel members. GOP insiders say the South Carolina Republican has the position locked up.

Behind the scenes, there is some concern that Chaffetz is hanging on to Oversight for the wrong reasons. The telegenic 50-year-old would garner major publicity for chairing a high-profile interrogation of Comey, whose story is one of the most sought after inside the Beltway.

At least one Republican mused to POLITICO that Chaffetz’s continued chairmanship could create a conflict given his possible future endeavors in television. Asked about a potential conflict with Chaffetz during a press conference Thursday, Speaker Paul Ryan demurred, saying he had not yet heard the news that Chaffetz planned to leave June 30 for Fox.

Most Republicans, however, are just concerned about the transition.

“If he’s a lame duck for another five weeks … why would you start such a big event, with the Comey hearing, and then switch horses in the middle of the stream?” asked one senior House Republican aide.

Chaffetz said he's still unsure whether Comey will testify next week. He has yet to hear back from the former FBI director.

Not everyone is anxious about the looming transition. Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) doesn't believe there is any rush to move Chaffetz out of the post. Republican Study Committee Chairman Mark Walker (R-N.C.) also said that while “normally I would be” worried about a transition in the middle of such an investigation, “there’s one reason I’m not.

“That is because that transition would probably go to Trey Gowdy,” he said, before praising the former federal prosecutor at length.

A fifth-term lawmaker, Chaffetz is no stranger to high-profile interrogations. He was one of the all-star questioners of former IRS chief Lois Lerner, whom Republicans blamed for the agency mistreating conservatives groups. Chaffetz was also a key investigator on the Benghazi probe and during the “Fast and Furious” gun-walking investigation.

On Capitol Hill, he’s known for his ambition to climb the ranks. After Speaker John Boehner resigned, he challenged Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for the top job, before Ryan was ultimately drafted.

Many believed Chaffetz would run for leadership again someday. That’s why his retirement caught much of Washington off guard. Insiders, however, believe he could run for Utah governor in the future. And should that be his ultimate goal, his position as Oversight chairman is not necessarily conducive to helping him attain it.

While it’s easier to grill an administration run by the opposite party, Chaffetz in recent months has had to become Trump’s watchdog in Congress. That means he has found himself in the middle of Democratic calls to investigate Trump’s finances and ties to Moscow.

And back home, Chaffetz has been slammed by left-leaning constituents who want him to do more to uncover Trump’s tax returns. Should he act on that, Chaffetz risks alienating the GOP base. If he doesn't act forcefully, however, he could be accused of giving the president a pass.

Okay, I have lots of words to describe Chappass, "telegenic" is not one of them. It's pitiful and appalling that there is nobody more reasonable than Trey "But Benghazi" Gowdy up for the position.

That is really disappointing. I thought I read that Utah's governor was holding a special election and expected the seat to be filled 2-4 months after Chaffetz resigned. I was hoping that they would elect someone with some sense, but I am unfamiliar with his district so perhaps Gowdy is a slam dunk in that area. 

[GreyhoundFan]

14 minutes ago, nvmbr02 said:

That is really disappointing. I thought I read that Utah's governor was holding a special election and expected the seat to be filled 2-4 months after Chaffetz resigned. I was hoping that they would elect someone with some sense, but I am unfamiliar with his district so perhaps Gowdy is a slam dunk in that area. 

Oh, there probably is a special election in Utah for Chappass' seat. Gowdy is aiming to take over as chair of the House Oversight Committee. Gowdy was foisted on us elected by the  people of South Carolina.

[nvmbr02]

4 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Oh, there probably is a special election in Utah for Chappass' seat. Gowdy is aiming to take over as chair of the House Oversight Committee. Gowdy was foisted on us elected by the  people of South Carolina.

Ohh! That makes more sense. Sorry, i just woke up about an hour ago and clearly haven't had enough coffee yet.

[GreyhoundFan]

8 minutes ago, nvmbr02 said:

Ohh! That makes more sense. Sorry, i just woke up about an hour ago and clearly haven't had enough coffee yet.

No worries, I've been working ridiculous hours this week and with all the crap coming from Pennsylvania Avenue, my head is spinning. The Governor of Utah could just appoint someone to fill the congressional seat, but I read somewhere, sorry not sure where, that there would be a special election.

 

"Ryan: House do-over on Obamacare repeal unlikely"

Spoiler

Speaker Paul Ryan said Friday he didn't think the House would have to revote on its high-stakes Obamacare repeal legislation, despite a technical snag that raised the prospect of a do-over.

"We're moving [the bill] over to the Senate probably in a couple weeks," Ryan told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.

Ryan said he was confident that the prospect of having to revisit the legislation, known as the American Health Care Act, was a "technical nonissue" that likely would be cleared up when the Congressional Budget Office releases its analysis of the bill, expected next week.

At issue is an effort by Republicans to push the bill through Congress without having to rely on Democratic votes. To do so, they're relying on arcane Senate budget rules that will allow the bill to pass the upper chamber with 51 votes, rather than the typical 60-vote threshold required to move legislation.

But under those "reconciliation" rules, bills must produce budget savings of at least $2 billion. But the House passed its health care bill without waiting for an official analysis from the CBO, despite a last-minute flurry of changes that could affect the bottom line.

Ryan said the House is holding onto the health care bill until it receives the CBO score "out of an abundance of caution."

Ryan described a "sense of urgency" to replace Obamacare, pointing to a series of decisions by health insurers to pull out of Obamacare individual market exchanges.

"We just saw Aetna pull out nationwide. We saw United pull out nationwide," he said. "We see another round of premium increases being announced. People will get hurt and harmed if we don't replace it."

Asked whether Ryan agreed with predictions that Democrats were poised to sweep Republicans out of power in 2018 he dismissed the notion as "white noise."

"Blah blah blah blah blah, is what I say about that stuff," he said.

Oh, I so hope the Dems can pull it off in 2018 and I would laugh in Lyan's smug-ass face for his "blah blah blah..." as he is ordered to vacate the speaker's office.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Here comes the GOP bloodbath"

Spoiler

Republicans like to point out how disastrous President Barack Obama’s tenure was for the Democratic Party. During his presidency, Democrats reached new lows in state legislative, gubernatorial and congressional seats. More than 1,000 state and federal seats moved to the GOP. And though many prefer to blame James B. Comey or Russia, there can be no question that Democratic losses in 2016 were compounded by an inept Clinton campaign team that ignored the plight of working-class Americans in the Rust Belt, focusing instead on people who looked and thought just like they did.

Donald Trump was able to connect with voters with whom he had nothing in common largely because the Clinton campaign left a vacuum on the other side of the aisle, which Trump gladly filled. Nonetheless, throughout 2016 I maintained my opposition to Trump for three reasons, two of which are increasingly, worryingly relevant.

First, I did not think Trump could beat Hillary Clinton. When it came to the popular vote, of course, he did not, but thanks to roughly 70,000 people in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, he won the presidency.

Second, I thought that Trump, even if he won, would be deeply destructive to the national fabric and to the conservative ideas I support.

Third, I strongly believed that Trump lacks moral character and that he sets a bad example both for my children and for people of faith. I repeatedly said throughout the campaign that if God wanted Trump in the White House, he would not need Christians to dirty themselves to make it happen.

Unfortunately, while I was wrong about my first concern, I am increasingly worried about the latter two. Trump’s evangelical Christian supporters often told me that whether we liked Trump or not, we needed him to save the Supreme Court. My response remains that four years of Clinton appointing judges, while awful, would be nothing compared with a generational wipeout of the GOP. Watergate may have turned Charles Colson from hatchet man to pastor, but the defense of President Trump is turning a lot of pastors into hatchet men. Few people come away from Trump’s orbit without compromising their characters.

A Republican reckoning is on the horizon. Voters are increasingly dissatisfied with a Republican Party unable to govern. And congressional Republicans increasingly find themselves in an impossible position: If they support the president, many Americans will believe they are neglecting their duty to hold him accountable. But if they do their duty, Trump’s core supporters will attack them as betrayers — and then run primary candidates against them.

Through it all, voter dissatisfaction has been growing. Trump’s core might stand with him, as he claimed, even if he killed someone in the middle of the street. But would those 70,000 voters who put him in the White House? As the president acts more irrationally and his Twitter rantings become more unhinged, will he draw more people to himself and his party than he will repel? I suspect not.

The president exudes incompetence and instability. Divulging classified information to the Russians through bragging; undermining his staff’s defense of his conduct through inane tweets; even reportedly asking the FBI director to suspend an investigation of a former adviser — all these strike me not so much as malicious but as the ignorant actions of an overwhelmed man. Republicans excuse this behavior as Trump being Trump, but that will only embolden voters who seek greater accountability to choose further change over stability. The sad reality is that the greatest defense of the president available at this point is one his team could never give on the record: He is an idiot who does not know any better.

It is becoming ever clearer that Trump has the potential to cause more damage to the Republican Party than Obama did the Democrats. While there is no doubt the Democrats saw serious electoral setbacks under Obama, there remains a key difference here: Obama is deeply respected and liked by a majority of voters. Trump is increasingly disliked, and the Republicans who enable him are increasingly distrusted.

With a horde of vocal Trump supporters cheering on every inane statement, delusion, lie and bad act, the majority of the American people can be forgiven for thinking the GOP as a whole has lost its mind. The Republicans may soon lose a generation of voters through a combination of the sheer incompetence of Trump and a party rank and file with no ability to control its leader.

Trump still thinks he stands in contrast to Clinton, when in reality, for voters watching the chaos unfold, he stands in contrast both to a more level-headed Vice President Pence and an unknown generic Democrat — neither of whom constantly reminds people of their incompetence. Unless Republican leaders stage an intervention, I expect them to experience a deserved electoral blood bath in November 2018.

Pretty please, with sugar on top...

[GreyhoundFan]

"A GOP congressman from Kentucky wonders: Is ‘this Trump thing’ sustainable?"

Spoiler

BENTON, Ky. — The congressman was home in Kentucky now, traveling through his district for the first time in a month and worried that, for Republicans, the “wheels were falling off.” Washington had been feeling like a city on fire. Every day brought a new crisis. Russia. The FBI. The vote to replace the Affordable Care Act, which he had cast just before leaving. “So much doom and gloom,” Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) said. “It can play games with your mind.”

Like others in Congress, Comer would have a week at home on recess to reconnect with his voters. Typically, a recess is a time for town halls. But this time, most members were not holding any. Comer’s plan was different — to hold four over the next three days.

“The perfect storm,” one aide told him, even as Comer’s Twitter feed showed video clips of a few other members facing angry crowds and stumbling to explain themselves.

“Everybody is ducking for cover right now,” he told her. “Everybody’s had the same advice for me — cancel them.”

But he wasn’t going to. Comer was a freshman lawmaker who had been sent to Washington with 73 percent of the vote, figuring he knew absolutely what people wanted from him. Over the past few weeks, though, it was becoming harder to tell. On social media after the health-care vote, people warned him his career was “going up in flames.” By the time he left Washington, where he slept on a mattress in his office and watched CNN every night, he was starting to think, “This Trump thing may not be sustainable.”

That’s what he wanted to find out on this trip home: Was this Trump thing sustainable or not? Was Trump still popular here? Had he lost this part of Kentucky?

Comer’s congressional district is a horseshoe across the southern part of the state, 6 ½ hours by car end-to-end, that is 90 percent white and where nearly 1 in 5 people live in poverty, more than 1 in 6 are disabled, and 72 percent voted for Trump. Maybe it was a rookie mistake, but Comer had pledged after the election to hold a town hall in every one of his 35 counties; to keep his word, he packed every recess with events — including the one he was driving to now, in Benton, Ky., when his cellphone buzzed.

His district director, who was already at the courthouse, was on the line.

“How bad is it?” Comer asked.

He listened for a moment

“Like 100?” he said.

Another pause.

“Oh my God,” he said. “Is the sheriff’s office there?”

Ten minutes later, he arrived at the town square. Protesters were out front with mock tombstones. One woman was prone on the grass, fake blood across her body.

Time for the first town hall. Comer sneaked in through a back door and headed up the stairs.

***

Inside, 120 people sat shoulder to shoulder, and 30 more leaned against the walls. Comer walked up to the lectern and thanked so many for being engaged — one of the good things, he said, “about the environment we’re in now.”

He looked out at the crowd — people in T-shirts, camouflage and khakis, old county officials, a few familiar faces. He saw somebody holding a notebook and furrowing her brow. He saw two or three people training their cellphone cameras on him and wondered whether something was about to happen that would end up on YouTube. A woman in the front row had a “Disagree” sign in her lap. She wasn’t holding it up yet.

He cleared his throat and then started talking about the most controversial thing he had been involved with so far, his vote to repeal the ACA. He said the ACA had deepened the problems in Kentucky by opening up such wide access to Medicaid, the health-care program for low-income Americans. He said so many had signed up across the state that nearly 1 in 3 were now covered under that program — and receiving free coverage. Some of those people, he said, desperately needed that help. But many were feeding off the system.

“If you live here, you know somebody who looks like me, is on Medicaid, and is just not working,” he said.

Some nodded. Others groaned, and Comer sensed an edge in the room. He asked for questions.

A hand shot up. A question about Trump’s tax returns. What was Comer doing to pressure the president?

This one he’d answered before. Trump wasn’t obliged to release anything, Comer said, though it would be nice if he did.

Another hand. “What about people between 60 and 65?” a woman said, her tone sharp. “I’m hearing we’re going to get slammed” by higher health-care costs.

Comer started off by saying costs would not rise but then backed off. “I don’t know the answer,” he said, “but I’m going to try to find that out.”

Another hand. A man named Randy Gray.

“I’d like to come up there,” he said.

“Yes sir, yes sir,” Comer said, a little uncertainly.

Gray grabbed a canvas bag from under his seat and put it on a table next to Comer.

“I just want to use this as a demonstration,” he said.

As Comer watched, he reached into the back, pulled out two vials, and placed them on the table. He said he had an immune disease. He was “not quite the boy in the plastic bubble, but close.” Then he lifted his shirt to show Comer four needles in his stomach.

Comer leaned in to take a closer look.

“Now these two bottles right here represent $13,000 a week worth of my medicine,” Gray said.

Some people in the room began whispering — “$13,000?” — as Gray kept talking. “This is really an emotional issue for me,” he said. He said he was terrified because Obamacare had removed caps on lifetime spending limits for health care, and now Donald Trump’s health-care bill was threatening to bring those limits back. “I feel like I can’t sleep at night,” he said, because those vials were the one thing that kept him alive, and everything he was reading about the bill only mentioned “tax breaks for the rich.”

People clapped.

Gray showed Comer the medical pump he used for injections. “I know four people in western Kentucky that have to use this pump,” he said. “And it’s a struggle.”

“I can imagine,” Comer said, before correcting himself. “I can’t imagine.”

Gray took a half step toward Comer, squaring him up, and leaned in until they were almost face-to-face.

“I want you to think about people like me,” Gray said. He jabbed his pump at Comer. “I didn’t ask for this. Believe you me, I’d rather be like you and be perfectly healthy.”

“Thank you,” Comer said softly as Gray sat back down, and 45 minutes later, after more angry questions, after seeing the “Disagree” sign raised again and again, after hearing from a woman who said the new health-care bill “will probably be the death of me,” Comer was down in the lobby of the courthouse as the building emptied out. A few friends, who had watched on a live feed, texted him to say he had done a good job. An aide said the crowd had been stacked with Democrats trying to mobilize.

“Do you feel okay about it?” one aide asked him.

“I do,” Comer said.

But two hours later, on a near-empty highway just before midnight, Comer couldn’t get out of his head the terrified man with the vials.

“When that guy lifted up his shirt,” Comer said, “the first thing I thought of is how lucky I am that my kids were born healthy.”

One town hall down, three to go.

***

Next day, back on the road, Comer was looking out the car window at factories and chicken farms in a region that had given him its overwhelming support. His election had been an unlikely thing. He was a farmer from a Republican family who made it to the state legislature by age 28. He was the director of a community bank. He briefly owned a few Quiznos restaurant franchises. He became Kentucky’s agriculture commissioner at 39. At 42, he lost a narrow and nasty 2015 primary race for governor, after which he figured he’d go back to the family plot and “dig ditches for a while.” But then an 11-term congressman from Kentucky’s 1st District said he was retiring, and Comer decided he was ready for one more race, and back he went along the same roads, visiting ham festivals and gun shops, his campaign ads saying he would “teach Washington insiders a thing or two about our Kentucky values.”

“Look at that,” Comer said now. Two yard signs stuck together, left over from the campaign. “Trump’s is right on top of mine.”

The second town hall was in a county where Trump had won 85 percent of the vote. This time, there were no protesters, and Comer went in through the front door of the courthouse. He was cheered when he walked up to the lectern, and when he said, like Trump, that he wanted to make America great again, he saw 75 people leaning in, listening, not ready to pounce.

So he told his favorite Trump story. Two months earlier, he had flown on Air Force One with the president on the way to a rally in Louisville, and hours later he was returning to Washington in the same plane — only this time, with an invitation to join Trump in his private office. “Yes sir,” Comer said he told the president, and there he sat for 1 ½ hours, across from Trump and right next to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), as Trump talked about his plane and his election victory and his health-care plans. The plane landed at Joint Base Andrews, and Trump had another invitation for Comer: Did he want to take the Marine One helicopter back to the White House? Did he want to see the Oval Office?

“Yes sir,” Comer said again, recreating his wide-eyed look for the crowd, and nearly everybody laughed.

This time, the questions were different. A few people mentioned problems with high insurance premiums and asked him to help. Nobody brought up the Trump’s tax returns, nobody talked about Trump’s firing of the FBI director, nobody talked about Trump’s relationship with Russia, and in the hour-long town hall, only three or four people seemed upset. One of those people, in the second row, raised her hand.

She said Trump’s behavior was “treasonous,” adding, “I personally don’t have much confidence in somebody that spent two hours with Trump and was all googly-eyed.”

“Well, he won this district by 55 points,” Comer said to her, and a lot of people in the room clapped, and some people cheered, and afterward, as the room emptied, two people walked up and handed him chocolate and butterscotch pies.

***

On the third day, the first of the two town halls was a morning event, just 30 in the crowd, and the questions couldn’t have been gentler. One of the people who stood up talked about Kentucky the same way Comer often did, calling the place where he lived a “check county,” meaning that too many people were dependent on government handouts. Another person asked Comer about what Washington was really like, and Comer answered by saying it was a place filled with “competitors” and “egos.” There was barely a mention of Trump.

“That was the friendliest town hall in the world,” Comer said as he walked out, and now he was in the car with his district director, saying of Trump, “He’s still so popular.”

It was raining, and he was heading west through some of the most rural parts of his district.

“I saw some poll, nine out of 10 people who voted for Trump still would,” he said. “I think that’s true here. That’s my assessment of the attitudes.”

He looked out the window and started talking about the differences between being a politician in Kentucky and in Washington, of civilities and incivilities. “We used to ride together, go to O’Charley’s, go to LongHorn,” he said of the Democrats with whom he served in Frankfort, the state capital. “That never happens in D.C.”

He rolled up to the last town hall, in Calhoun, population 763. He shook hands with some police officers and the county executive, and soon was standing in front of 75 people. “Trump won this district by 55 points,” he was saying, when a woman interrupted to say, “That’s very sad.”

“Fifty-five points,” he said again, turning to a part of the room where a few people were sitting with hand-lettered signs.

“One-and-done,” one of them said.

“There are 435 congressional districts in America,” Comer said. “This was his fourth-best.”

“Insane.”

“And one reason people support the president, in my opinion — ”

“Fear.”

“No, it’s that he’s not a politician,” Comer said. “He’s not politically correct. He doesn’t speak in sound bites. And that’s what the American people want. I think we need to give him a chance. It’s been 110 days.”

There was some shouting. A baby started crying. More cross-talk. Comer couldn’t get a word in. One man interrupted and said Trump’s policies, such as deregulation, were saving the country. Another said Obamacare had been a disaster.

“I’m gonna take two more” questions, Comer finally said, still competing with some yelling, and one man in the rear of the room stood up.

“I’d like for y’all to keep up the good work,” he began. “I don’t think anybody would expect you to turn it all around in five months — or the president in 100 days. Especially when it’s been going downhill for eight years.”

“Amen,” one person said.

“That’s right,” said another.

The room broke into applause.

And Comer had his answer: Four town halls. A few angry people. Two pies. A lot of applause. Was the Trump thing sustainable? Here, it was.

“Thank you,” he said as the last of the town halls concluded, and then it was back to Washington, back to the mattress on the floor, back to the doom and gloom and whatever would come next. And as soon as he could, back home to Kentucky again.

 

This article really illustrates how so many people who voted for the orange menace seem to support him blindly.

[onekidanddone]

I know how my Senators and my Congressman will vote, but I still call and write. It is tricky because I can't do it using work equipment or work hours and I'm teleworking full time now, so my bedroom is my office. I write most of my emails after dinner (just sent one now to each Senator).

[GreyhoundFan]

Sigh: "Frustrated Republicans try to rewrite Congress’ rules"

Spoiler

Republicans are increasingly eager to rewrite the rules of Congress to push through their agenda — never mind any potential long-term damage to the institution.

Senate Republicans nuked the filibuster on Supreme Court nominees to install Neil Gorsuch, and House Republicans blew past the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office in their rush to repeal Obamacare. Now rank-and-file GOP senators are pushing to further erode congressional norms as they take up their own health care plan, eye massive tax cuts and confirm a new slate of lifetime appointees to the federal courts.

“It is a growing sense among Republican senators, and I’m one of them, that we’ve got to make the Senate functional again,” said Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.), who said Democratic rule “blocked the functioning, legislative branch of our government.”

The agitation to test tradition isn’t new. But it reflects Republicans’ frustration with the lack of progress in their first year with complete control of Washington in more than a decade. That’s particularly true for an ambitious and sometimes impatient newer generation of lawmakers on Capitol Hill, who are eager to notch legislative wins.

And it’s not just lawmakers. The other end of Pennsylvania Avenue is egging on Congress for even more changes. President Donald Trump pushed the Senate earlier this year to invoke the so-called nuclear option to ease Gorsuch’s confirmation, and has urged senators to dump the legislative filibuster so bills can pass with a simple majority.

Senators — from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on down — have rejected Trump’s call to permanently end the 60-vote threshold on legislation. But they acknowledge the changing atmosphere under Republican control.

“I don’t know if there’s any takeaway other than that I think people have become way more demanding and they want to have a sense of closure on some of these issues more quickly,” said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the third-ranking member of Republican leadership.

Thune added that there’s “so much pressure with the constant barrage that I think people feel out there in the 24-7 news cycle we live in, that if you say… we’re going to follow normal procedure and we won’t be finished with this until the fall, some people don’t have patience for it anymore.”

Democrats see it differently.

“The only time that they win is when they defy the rules,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii).

Though the GOP has long accused Democrats of ramming through the Affordable Care Act, House Republicans passed legislation to repeal it without waiting for a final CBO report on the bill’s consequences, a highly atypical decision. Republicans defended the move by saying previous versions of the bill had already been scored and the final draft differed little. The CBO is expected to release its score of the final House-passed measure on Wednesday.

Now as GOP senators look to gut Obamacare, three conservatives are trying to drum up support to overturn long-standing precedent to dismantle more of the health law.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Utah Sen. Mike Lee are arguing the Senate parliamentarian — the nonpartisan referee who will decide how much of Obamacare can be repealed under budget reconciliation procedures — could be overruled by Vice President Mike Pence in his role as president of the Senate.

The trio has so far had little luck getting other Republicans on board, who fear that trumping parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough is a slippery slope to doing away with the legislative filibuster.

But the conservatives are still working to make their case.

“It’s plain on the text of the statute that it is the vice president who has the authority to make the decision,” Cruz said. “As former parliamentarian Robert Dove said on national television in 2010 concerning the Obamacare debates, the parliamentarian merely advises, the vice president decides.”

Sen. Pat Toomey is also proposing an aggressive use of reconciliation — not for health care, but for the GOP’s bid to rewrite the tax code.

The Pennsylvania Republican is encouraging his colleagues to draft plans that call for a 20- or even 30-year procedural time frame, rather than the customary 10-year budget window. Such a gambit would make it much easier for Republicans to slash corporate tax rates while evading restrictions against ballooning the deficit.

“Congress must seize this rare opportunity,” Toomey wrote in a recent op-ed. “We can’t let a fixation on deficit predictions or arcane budget rules get in the way.”

When it comes to judicial nominations, the Republicans’ April vote to invoke the “nuclear option” and eliminate the 60-vote filibuster threshold for Supreme Court confirmations may not be the only changes coming.

Trump is looking to fill an unusually high number of vacancies in the federal judiciary, and key GOP senators are considering getting around a decades-old tradition if Democrats block nominees.

Under the so-called blue-slip rule, any senator can halt proceedings for a judicial candidate from his or her home state simply by not returning a blue slip to the Senate Judiciary Committee. But the panel’s chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), hinted in a recent C-SPAN interview that he was more likely to abide by the rule on district court nominees than the more powerful circuit court nominees.

“It’s much more a White House decision on circuit judges than the district court judges,” Grassley said. “I mean this is going to be an individual case-by-case decision, but it leads me to say that there’s going to have to be a less strict use or obligation to the blue slip policy for circuit, because that’s the way it’s been.”

Sen. Tom Cotton also says Republicans should be prepared to ditch the custom — which has sometimes been ignored for circuit court candidates in the past. “We can’t allow Democratic senators to continue to obstruct this president’s agenda,” the Arkansas Republican told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt earlier this month.

The issue could soon come to a head. Two of the 10 judicial nominees unveiled by the White House earlier this month who will likely draw the most controversy are circuit court nominees from states represented by Democratic senators, which would give them unilateral powers to halt those candidates under the blue-slip rule.

At least on the courts, Republicans say they’re justified in challenging political norms, because Democrats did it too, four years ago, with their own nuclear option for all nominations except to the Supreme Court.

“I think they’re taking the lessons from the Democrats,” Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) said. “On the courts, of course, that was Harry Reid that did that and that opened the door. I don’t see that this is an overall changing or reversing or trading of fundamentals.”

Other possible changes being mulled are more tinkering-around-the-edges tweaks aimed at speeding up the slow-moving Senate.

For instance, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) floated an idea earlier this year to chop down the number of hours that senators could debate a nominee before a confirmation vote — a revival of a 113th Congress rule.

And a cluster of first-term Senate Republicans have been eager to get rid of a procedural vote to begin floor debate on government funding bills. A unified Democratic caucus has frequently blocked appropriations bills over disputes on spending levels.

“You could still have cloture on the passage on the back end,” Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) said of a vote to end a filibuster. “But on the front end, I think the American people deserve the Senate, which is called the greatest deliberative body in the world, to be deliberating more.”

 

[sawasdee]

This is seriously scary.They are trying to dismantle any rule that requires a level of bipartisan support. This opens the door to Government by fiat by the ruling party - and closes it on any compromise to find something acceptable to both parties.

If they manage to do this, then the next Democratic Senate will spend its first several months undoing their legislation - but won't change the rules back. Why should they? The Repugs will have given them all the power to do as they wish. 

So the cycle will go on and on, and compromise - for the good of the nation - will have been removed from US politics. And in any administration, half the electorate will have been disenfranchised.

The level of self interest is through the roof, and the respect for Government 'of the people, for the people, by the people' is through the floor.

You truly do have a constitutional crisis  - and it isn't all tRump.

[sawasdee]

The Senate fascinates me as an aberration in democracy. So California, with a population of over 39 million, has the same say as Montana, with a population of just over a million? Both have two senators? Something wrong, here, surely!

I can almost guarantee that an equitably distributed Senate , representing the actual numbers of the electorate represented, would, at present , be Democrat.

Sorry, US, but at the moment, with the power that the Senate holds (including on the matter of impeachment) you aren't a representative democracy - or even a democratic republic.

I don't know how to solve this. By my understanding, it would require a Constitutional amendment to change - and as all states have the same voting power with regard to such - well, Montana ain't going to vote for it!

[nvmbr02]

11 minutes ago, sawasdee said:

The Senate fascinates me as an aberration in democracy. So California, with a population of over 39 million, has the same say as Montana, with a population of just over a million? Both have two senators? Something wrong, here, surely!

I can almost guarantee that an equitably distributed Senate , representing the actual numbers of the electorate represented, would, at present , be Democrat.

Sorry, US, but at the moment, with the power that the Senate holds (including on the matter of impeachment) you aren't a representative democracy - or even a democratic republic.

I don't know how to solve this. By my understanding, it would require a Constitutional amendment to change - and as all states have the same voting power with regard to such - well, Montana ain't going to vote for it!

I actually don't have an issue with the numbers in the Senate. I do think it is important to give less populated states a chance to have a stake in the outcome for decisions that are made. I grew up in California, have lived in New Mexico and Minnesota as an adult and currently live in a US Territory that has basically no vote in national decisions. Montana only has one Representative in the House so they really don't have much pull there. They do need to have the bigger voice in the Senate to have their interests protected. 

[GreyhoundFan]

12 minutes ago, sawasdee said:

The Senate fascinates me as an aberration in democracy. So California, with a population of over 39 million, has the same say as Montana, with a population of just over a million? Both have two senators? Something wrong, here, surely!

I can almost guarantee that an equitably distributed Senate , representing the actual numbers of the electorate represented, would, at present , be Democrat.

Sorry, US, but at the moment, with the power that the Senate holds (including on the matter of impeachment) you aren't a representative democracy - or even a democratic republic.

I don't know how to solve this. By my understanding, it would require a Constitutional amendment to change - and as all states have the same voting power with regard to such - well, Montana ain't going to vote for it!

The Connecticut Compromise in 1787

established that there would be two houses of Congress. One would have equal representation for each state, no matter the size or population. The other would be proportional to the population of each state.  Most legislation starts in the house, which has proportional representation, but the senate has always held outsized power. It wasn't such a problem when there was a bipartisan drive to do right by the American people, but now has devolved into a partisan wasteland where little gets done because the minority party doesn't want to agree to anything and the majority party is focused on ramming through their agenda, consequences be damned.

As bad as the congressional situation is, it's the electoral college that is the most unfair. California and Texas have approximately 700,000 people per electoral vote and Wyoming and Vermont have less than 200,000 per electoral vote. Also, most states (Nebraska and New Hampshire are the exceptions) are "winner take all" states, so the candidate with 51% of the popular vote gets 100% of the electoral college vote in those states. Unfortunately, to change it would require a constitutional amendment. That would require the agreement of 66% of states, and none of the lower population states, which are frequently Repug strogholds, will voluntarily give up their power.

[nvmbr02]

6 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

The Connecticut Compromise in 1787

As bad as the congressional situation is, it's the electoral college that is the most unfair. California and Texas have approximately 700,000 people per electoral vote and Wyoming and Vermont have less than 200,000 per electoral vote. Also, most states (Nebraska and New Hampshire are the exceptions) are "winner take all" states, so the candidate with 51% of the popular vote gets 100% of the electoral college vote in those states. Unfortunately, to change it would require a constitutional amendment. That would require the agreement of 66% of states, and none of the lower population states, which are frequently Repug strogholds, will voluntarily give up their power.

Yes! I do think the electoral college needs be be changed. I don't see it happening yet, but I hope it will eventually change. I also would like to see more done to protect the US Territories. They are citizens with pretty much no say in what happens. This was the first election we were residents of a territory, as because of that we could not vote. We did participate in the straw pool, but that doesn't count for anything. It just really sucks. My husband and I are both military veterans, he works full time for the federal government (and I have a small part time but federal job) and we could not vote for president. John Oliver did a segment on that couple of years back. It is humorous of course, but very informative. 

 

[nvmbr02]

So it looks like our friend Jason Chaffetz has set up his own company...named Strawberry C. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

@nvmbr02 -- even worse, according to this article, he may be joining Faux News. Yeah, just who is needed on Faux, one more self-important blowhard.

 

Quote

...

He declined to address rumors that he was joining the Fox News Channel after acknowledging last week that he has “started the process to talk to certain organizations.”

“There’s lots of rumors, but I don’t feel a compulsion to have to talk about what I’m going to do after I leave Congress. Not yet at least,” Chaffetz said Tuesday.

...

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"C.B.O. Projects Dismantling Obamacare Increases Uninsured by 23 Million in a Decade"

Spoiler

WASHINGTON — A bill to dismantle the Affordable Care Act that narrowly passed the House this month would increase the projected number of people without health insurance by 14 million next year and by 23 million in 2026, the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday. That 10-year figure is slightly less than originally estimated.

It would reduce the federal deficit by $119 billion over a decade, less than the $150 billion in savings projected in late March for an earlier version of the bill.

The new forecast of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Capitol Hill’s official scorekeeper, is another blow to Republican efforts to undo President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement. The Senate has already said it will make substantial changes to the measure passed by the House, but even Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, is sounding uncertain about his chances of finding a majority to repeal and replace the health law.

“I don’t know how we get to 50 at the moment,” Mr. McConnell told Reuters on Wednesday. “But that’s the goal.”

The new report from the budget office is sure to influence Republican senators, who are writing their own version of the legislation behind closed doors. The report provided fresh ammunition for Democrats trying to kill the repeal bill, which they have derided as “Trumpcare.”

Republicans in Congress generally focus more on reducing health costs than on expanding coverage. Their proposals will inevitably cover fewer people than the Affordable Care Act, they say, because they will not compel people to buy insurance.

Republicans have been trying to repeal Mr. Obama’s health law since the day he signed it in March 2010. But the task is proving more difficult than they expected. Many parts of the law have become embedded in the nation’s health care system, and consumers have risen up to defend it, now that they fear losing its protection. At the same time, other consumers, upset about the mandate to buy insurance they can barely afford, are demanding changes in the law.

The budget office issued two reports on earlier versions of the House bill in March. Both said that the legislation would increase the number of uninsured by 14 million next year and by 24 million within a decade, compared with the current law.

Republican senators appear as determined as ever to replace the health law.

“The status quo under Obamacare is completely unacceptable and totally unsustainable,” Mr. McConnell said Wednesday, a few hours before the budget office issued its report. “Prices are skyrocketing, choice is plummeting, the marketplace is collapsing and countless more Americans will get hurt if we don’t act.”

“Beyond likely reiterating things we already know — like that fewer people will buy a product they don’t want when the government stops forcing them to — the updated report will allow the Senate procedurally to move forward in working to draft its own health care legislation,” he added.

The instability of the health law’s insurance marketplaces was underscored again on Wednesday when Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City, a nonprofit insurer, announced that it would not offer coverage under the law for 2018. The insurer lost more than $100 million in 2016 selling individual policies under the law, said Danette Wilson, the company’s chief executive.

“This is unsustainable,” she said in a statement. “We have a responsibility to our members and the greater community to remain stable and secure, and the uncertain direction of the market is a barrier to our continued participation.”

While the vast majority of people the company covers get insurance through an employer or a private Medicare plan, Blue Cross of Kansas City covers about 67,000 people in Kansas City and western Missouri under the federal health care law. The company’s departure could leave 25 counties in western Missouri without an insurer, said Cynthia Cox, a researcher at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Democrats say much of that instability stems from Republican efforts to repeal and undermine the Affordable Care Act. The Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, harshly criticized House Republicans for voting on their revised repeal measure without an updated analysis from the budget office.

“Republicans were haunted by the ghost of C.B.O. scores past, so they went ahead without one,” Mr. Schumer said. That action, he said, was reckless — “like test-driving a brand-new car three weeks after you’ve already signed on the dotted line and paid the dealer in full.”

The House repeal bill was approved on May 4 by a vote of 217 to 213, without support from any Democrats. It would eliminate tax penalties for people who go without health insurance and would roll back state-by-state expansions of Medicaid, which have provided coverage to millions of low-income people. And in place of government-subsidized insurance policies offered exclusively on the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces, the bill would offer tax credits of $2,000 to $4,000 a year, depending on age.

A family could receive up to $14,000 a year in credits. The credits would be reduced for individuals making more than $75,000 a year and families making more than $150,000.

Senior Republican senators say they want to reconfigure the tax credits to provide more financial assistance to lower-income people and to older Americans, who could face much higher premiums under the House bill.

The House bill would roll back a number of insurance requirements in the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans say have driven up the cost of coverage.

In the weeks leading up to passage of the House bill, Republican leaders revised it to win support from some of the most conservative members of their party.

Under the House bill, states could opt out of certain provisions of the health care law, including one that requires insurers to provide a minimum set of health benefits and another that prohibits them from charging higher premiums based on a person’s health status.

Insurers would not be allowed to charge higher premiums to sick people unless a state had an alternative mechanism, like a high-risk pool or a reinsurance program, to help provide coverage for people with serious illnesses.

Senate Republican have been meeting several days a week, trying to thrash out their differences on complex questions of health policy and politics, like the future of Medicaid.

Asked why Democrats had been excluded, Mr. McConnell said, “We’re not going to waste our time talking to people that have no interest in fixing the problem.”

Democrats have said they would gladly work with Republicans if the Republicans would renounce their goal of repealing Mr. Obama’s health care law.

Off to call my reps.

[nvmbr02]

The ACHA may cause some elderly to have to pay more than 800% increase in premiums. It is like they took all the problems the ACA has and multiplied and threw out this healthcare plan. Gross.

 

 

[nvmbr02]

I am not sure who all is paying attention to the MT special election but the Republican running, Greg Gianforte just body slammed a reporter for the Guardian, Ben Jacobs, and broke his glasses in front of numerous reporter before a campaign event. 

The Guardian has posted the audio, in is in the article.  Republican candidate 'body-slams' Guardian reporter in Montana

 

Chris Hayes has Jacobs on his show now, but I am unable to watch. It is my husband's birthday and he is watching baseball.  I'm watching the updates via twitter and hope catch a recap or re airing later. My FIL is big into MT politics so I try to keep up so that we can argue at family gatherings.  

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Senate Republicans have all the evidence they need to reject the House-passed health-care overhaul"

Spoiler

The Republican bid to overhaul the health-care industry took one small step forward Wednesday and then essentially went two steps backward.

For a week now, some congressional insiders had been whispering that the critical “score” from the Congressional Budget Office, on the legislation that narrowly passed the House earlier this month, might not provide any real deficit savings. Such a finding would have violated the Senate’s more arcane rules for considering budgetary items under fast-track rules — and it might have forced House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) to redraw the legislation and hold another vote.

So there were a few sighs of relief late Wednesday afternoon when the CBO declared the legislation would find $119 billion in savings over 10 years, more than enough to allow it to pass muster under the Senate’s so-called reconciliation rules, which allow a simple majority for passage rather than the usual 60-vote majority. That’s an important feat for Senate Republicans, who control just 52 seats.

But that’s also where the good news ended and reality set in about the rest of the legislation. The congressional analysts — led by a Republican handpicked by Ryan —found that 23 million more people would be left uninsured than under current law, the Affordable Care Act.

The $119 billion in savings would result mostly because fewer people would be covered under the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid — and because the new legislation would loosen requirements on the quality of coverage that insurers would have to provide.

For a core group of Senate Republicans, those facts may be all they need to bury the House version of a health-care overhaul once and for all. They also highlight just how high the hurdle is to get a health-care bill to President Trump’s desk.

These senators already had built up staunch opposition to Ryan’s House-passed bill, when CBO estimates back in March suggested that the initial draft would leave 24 million more uninsured than under the ACA. After Wednesday’s updated estimates, those Senate Republicans, predominantly from states with large populations of people who benefited from Medicaid expansion, dug in even further against the House bill because millions of their constituents would be left in the lurch by the GOP proposal.

“That’s tough to swallow,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who has 180,000 constituents relying on the Medicaid expansion for insurance coverage.

Capito, part of a bloc of 20 Republicans from Medicaid-expansion states, has been a vocal opponent of the House bill for too quickly transitioning away from that ACA benefit. She says this updated estimate puts steel in the spines of those Republicans, including Sens. Rob Portman (Ohio), John McCain (Ariz.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska).

“It strengthens my resolve,” Capito said. “To say, what are we doing to people here, particularly to our most vulnerable or those that don’t have the wherewithal?”

“Yeah, I think it helps. I think it helps the Medicaid states,” McCain said.

With every Democrat opposed to his effort and just 52 Republicans, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) knows that the Capito-McCain wing is the most critical to getting close to the 50 votes he needs from his side of the aisle — which would allow Vice President Pence to cast the tie-breaking vote.

But each move to appease these Republicans risks losing a few more votes on the conservative end of McConnell's caucus, including his home-state colleague, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who seems dead set against supporting anything that is not seen as a complete gutting of the bill Republicans derisively call Obamacare.

Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) have been more aligned with the House Freedom Caucus, which negotiated key portions of the legislation.

The jigsaw puzzle has left McConnell expressing rare bouts of public pessimism about such a big piece of legislation, something he campaigned on himself in his 2014 reelection — repealing and replacing Obamacare.

In a Wednesday interview with Reuters, the Republican leader began by telling his interviewers not to bother with questions about the ongoing health-care negotiations. “There’s not a whole lot of news to be made on health care,” McConnell said, adding later that he was struggling to find a path to getting those 50 votes. “I don’t know how we get to 50 at the moment. But that’s the goal.”

Even if he can finesse the divide between his rock-ribbed conservatives and his Republicans from Medicaid-expansion states, McConnell risks blowing up what had been a meticulously crafted coalition in the House, where Ryan won, after weeks of fits and starts, by a two-vote margin.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician who has been trying to find common ground, said that the CBO report would probably provide some good news that Senate negotiators could seize on. “Those conservative families that voted for Trump need relief from $20,000-a-year premiums,” Cassidy said, giving Senate negotiators the chance to exhume parts of the mostly dead-on-arrival bill from the House.

“You want to look at different components of it, it may be that some of it you keep and some of it you discard,” Cassidy said.

However, the CBO was clinical in its explanation for the lower premiums: “because the insurance, on average, would pay for a smaller proportion of health care costs.”

That means worse coverage, and many Senate Republicans are wary of passing a law that will stick their working-class voters — many of whom come from regions that voted overwhelmingly for Trump — with deteriorated coverage.

Now Republicans are left to their working groups in the Senate, trying to find the right mix. Veteran Republicans including McCain know that what they need to do is put together a draft piece of legislation where almost all of it is agreed upon, then start getting into the final wheeling and dealing on the last critical details.

“Right now there’s a lack of cohesion. Now, once they get a base bill, then I think you’re going to see a lot of back and forth,” McCain said. “But so far they haven’t come up with a piece of legislation to work with.”

I hope that mucking with the health of millions bites the Repugs hard in the next election.

[candygirl200413]

You know what kills me?! how so many GOP reps/senators were like "have little information so I can't make an opinion but the reporter shouldn't have egged it on.

[GreyhoundFan]

Wow, I'm surprised at Sanford: "A Freedom Caucus Republican says the foundation of the Trump budget is ‘a lie’"

Spoiler

President Trump’s 2018 spending plan landed in front of the House Budget Committee on Wednesday, where Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney heard plenty of criticism of the blueprint — mainly from Democrats, with one outspoken exception.

Republican Mark Sanford — a fellow South Carolinian who belongs to the House Freedom Caucus, the hard-right group Mulvaney helped found — used his five minutes of questioning at the hearing to sharply challenge the bedrock of the Trump budget: an economic growth assumption of 3 percent, one that is sharply more optimistic than those projected in recent Obama administration budgets and by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The difference between the 1.9 percent growth contemplated by those sources and the 3 percent growth contemplated by Trump and Mulvaney generates enough new revenue to allow the new presidential budget to balance within 10 years. But Sanford called it “a lie.”

“I have looked every which way at how you might get there, and you can’t get there,” Sanford said after a short preamble in which he praised the administration for seeking to balance the budget and slash taxes and spending. “I think it is just disastrously consequential to build a budget on 3 percent growth. The Bible says you can’t build a house on a sandy foundation. What it does is it perpetuates a myth that we can go out there and balance a budget without touching entitlements. It’s not only a myth, it’s frankly a lie, and if it gets started at the executive branch level it moves from there.”

“What this does is it [prevents] real debates from happening,” Sanford continued. “Legitimately, myself and Democratic colleagues can see things quite differently, but for us to have a real debate, we have to base it on real numbers. I would also say it’s important because I’m a deficit hawk, as you well know, and if you’re wrong on these numbers, it means all of a sudden we’ve created a $2-plus-trillion hole for our kids and grandkids here going forward.”

From there, Sanford trotted out various data points to support his claim. He called the assumption at odds with the historical record — pointing out that the current economic expansion of 94 months has already long outstripped the average American economic expansion: “But what you presume in this budget is not only will we not have a recession — though we’re in the third-longest economic expansion in history — but it’s going to keep going for another 214 months. It’s not only unprecedented; I would think that to be unreasonable. It assumes that the stars perfectly align with regard to economic drivers.”

He moved on to the underlying fundamentals of economic growth: workforce, investment and productivity. To drive 3 percent growth, Sanford said, capital formation would have to rise to levels not seen in the United States since the mid-1970s, while baby-boomer retirements stand to exert a huge drag on savings. He said that labor participation growth would have to go to 1980s levels — a time when many women were going to work for the first time — and that even returning to a ’90s level of labor participation would only nudge the overall economic growth needle.

“It would require either radically opening immigration or a radical change to demographics as we are having 10,000 baby boomers retiring each day,” Sanford said. “If you look at productivity growth, it would require numbers, again, that we haven’t seen since the golden days of 1958 to 1967 — in the final wave of electrification, consumer appliances and the completion of the highway system — to achieve what we’re seeing. Even if we went to 1990 numbers, we would only see one-quarter of what is necessary to achieve 3 percent growth.”

Mulvaney got barely a handful of words out in response before questioning moved on, but he defended the budget’s growth assumptions in remarks to reporters Tuesday at the White House — in a sort of prebuttal to Sanford.

“We have been attacked, stunningly, by some folks on the left and even in the mainstream who say that that’s an unreasonable assumption,” Mulvaney said. “We should stop and think how absurd that is to think that 3 percent growth in an American economy is to some people an absurd assumption. It used to be normal. Ten years ago it was normal. In fact, it’s been normal for the history of the country.”

The 1.9 percent growth assumptions of the CBO and the Obama administration, he added, “are something we simply reject.”

“That is a pessimistic look at what the potential for this country and for what this country’s people is,” he continued. “We reject that pessimism.”

Mulvaney added: “By the way, if you don’t, the budget will never balance. If you assume 1.9 percent growth, my guess is you’ll never see a balanced budget again. So we refuse to accept that that’s the new normal in this country. Three percent is the old normal. Three percent will be the new normal again under the Trump administration.”

In an interview after Wednesday’s hearing, Sanford said that he simply could not accept blind faith as a basis for the federal budget and suggested that he would not be inclined to support any budget that adopts a similarly rosy view of the United States’ economic future given its aging and slow-growing workforce and stagnant productivity gains.

“Whatever your budget is, just base it on real numbers and then let’s have a food fight,” he said. “But let’s not base it on fooling the American public into believing that you can do all this because we’re going to have a Goldilocks economy that we’ve never seen before.”

I normally disagree with pretty much every word that comes out of any teabagger's mouth, but I'm glad he spoke out forcefully. Now, the real test will be to see if he just goes along and votes for Agent Orange's proposed budget, or if he speaks up when it counts -- at vote time.

[GreyhoundFan]

"The OMG moment at a congressional budget hearing you should care about but don’t — yet"

Spoiler

Mick Mulvaney, director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, said out loud on Wednesday what I suspected (okay, feared) back in March someone from the Trump administration would say. America is running headlong toward default.

This all went down at a House Budget Committee hearing. Surely an otherwise humdrum affair as dry as the towel section at Macy’s. But a question from Todd Rokita (R-Ind.), vice chairman of the Budget Committee, gave Mulvaney the opportunity to provide that much-needed element of OMG.

Rokita: Does the administration have a preferred legislative approach to the debt-limit issue? For example, a specific amount or a specific time period? Secondly, how soon do you think you need to act?

Mulvaney: Very briefly, the answer to your first question is no, we do not have a final stated policy yet. I can tell you that I met about an hour yesterday with [Treasury] Secretary [Steven] Mnuchin to discuss this exact topic. … Secondly, regarding the timing, my understanding is that the receipts, currently, are coming in a little bit slower than expected and you may soon hear from Mr. Mnuchin regarding a change in the date.

There’s so much in Mulvaney’s answer that I must walk you through line by line.

“The answer to your first question is no, we do not have a final stated policy yet.” The only responsible answer to this question would point out that the legal limit on federal borrowing absolutely must be raised. That doing so does not add to current spending but pays for what the government has already bought. And that not doing so would destroy the full faith and credit of the United States and the dollar’s standing as the reserve currency of the world.

We shouldn’t be surprised by Mulvaney’s inability to let those words flow from his lips. In announcing his opposition to Mulvaney’s appointment, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) expressed alarm that instead of reassuring him that he took the prospect of default seriously, “[Mulvaney] again stated that he did not believe that ‘breaching the debt ceiling will automatically or inevitably’ lead to ‘grave worldwide economic consequences.’ ”

“Perhaps his views will suddenly change when he transitions from Congress to the Executive branch,” Leahy remarked in his no-vote on Mulvaney. Yeah, not so much.

“I can tell you that I met about an hour yesterday with [Treasury] Secretary [Steven] Mnuchin to discuss this exact topic.” I don’t know what they discussed in that sit-down, but Mnuchin could not have been more direct in his testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday. “I urge you raise the debt limit before you leave for the summer,” he said. “It is absolutely critical that where we’ve spent money, that we keep the credit of the United States as the most critical issue.” Mnuchin has been consistent and clear on this point since his confirmation hearings in January.

“My understanding is that the receipts, currently, are coming in a little bit slower than expected and you may soon hear from Mr. Mnuchin regarding a change in the date.” So, remember back in March, after Mulvaney released that awful “skinny budget,” when I warned that Tax Day was the most important date on the fiscal calendar? That was because less money coming in from tax collections on April 18 would move up the dreaded date for when the government would not have enough cash on hand to meet all of its financial obligations.

...

The Bipartisan Policy Center estimated then that that “X date” could fall between October and November. Oct. 2 is especially critical because a big retirement payment is due on that date. That drop-dead date could move up if tax receipts remain anemic. That means Congress better move sooner rather than later to raise the debt ceiling and forestall a global financial disaster. If reaction to Trump’s “dead before arrival” budget proposal is any indicator, my money’s on later. Money that I should probably put under the mattress at the rate things are going.

You couldn't make this shit up.