Tag: Republicans

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GOP Sen. Jeff Flake: “My Party Is In Denial About Donald Trump”

Excerpted from his new book, Conscience of a Conservative, Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona goes all in deconstructing and taking responsibility for the process that gave rise to a President Trump.

Via Politico:

I will let the liberals answer for their own sins in this regard. (There are many.) But we conservatives mocked Barack Obama’s failure to deliver on his pledge to change the tone in Washington even as we worked to assist with that failure.

It was we conservatives who, upon Obama’s election, stated that our No. 1 priority was not advancing a conservative policy agenda but making Obama a one-term president—the corollary to this binary thinking being that his failure would be our success and the fortunes of the citizenry would presumably be sorted out in the meantime.

It was we conservatives who were largely silent when the most egregious and sustained attacks on Obama’s legitimacy were leveled by marginal figures who would later be embraced and legitimized by far too many of us.

It was we conservatives who rightly and robustly asserted our constitutional prerogatives as a co-equal branch of government when a Democrat was in the White House but who, despite solemn vows to do the same in the event of a Trump presidency, have maintained an unnerving silence as instability has ensued. To carry on in the spring of 2017 as if what was happening was anything approaching normalcy required a determined suspension of critical faculties. And tremendous powers of denial.

[snip]

For a conservative, that’s an awfully bitter pill to swallow. So as I layered in my defense mechanisms, I even found myself saying things like, “If I took the time to respond to every presiden­tial tweet, there would be little time for anything else.” Given the volume and velocity of tweets from both the Trump campaign and then the White House, this was certainly true.

But it was also a monumental dodge. It would be like Noah saying, “If I spent all my time obsessing about the coming flood, there would be little time for anything else.” At a certain point, if one is being honest, the flood becomes the thing that is most worthy of attention.

At a certain point, it might be time to build an ark.

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Senate GOP Health Care Bill Crashes As More Republicans Announce “No” Votes

The Senate Republican health care bill came to a crashing halt last night as two more senators announced they would not be supporting the legislation.

Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Jerry Moran of Kansas joined Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Maine Sen. Susan Collins in opposition to the bill. With a bare two vote margin in the Senate, those defections were enough to kill the legislation.

House and Senate Republicans have railed against the Affordable Healthcare Act for years promising to repeal and replace if they had the chance. However, seven months of control of the White House, Senate and House of Representatives has yielded nothing.

The news was apparently a surprise to the Trump White House who, hours before the news broke, held a dinner with Republican Senators.

Via Politico:

At a dinner with GOP senators on Monday evening, Trump said the party would look like “dopes” if they couldn’t pass the bill after passing a repeal bill in 2015.

“If the Republicans have the House, Senate and the presidency and they can’t pass this health care bill, they are going to look weak,” Trump said, according to a source familiar with the meeting. “How can we not do this after promising it for years?”

Trump had no idea defections were coming Monday night, according to another White House official with knowledge of the meeting. “Why would we have a dinner like that if we knew people were going to drop out?” the official said.

As Sens. Lee and Moran were preparing their announcement, President Trump said publicly, “We’re going to get that done, and I think we’re going to surprise a lot of people.”

During the presidential campaign, Trump said over and over again how he and the GOP would definitely repeal and replace Obamacare, and they would do it “very, very quickly.”

Let’s take a trip in the way-back machine:

Remember back in October of 2016 where Donald Trump told his followers, “You’re gonna have such great health care at a tiny fraction of the cost, and it’s going to be so easy.”

Just four months later, this was President Trump’s new epiphany:

Trump now says Congress should just repeal and worry about new health care legislation later.

That doesn’t look to be a winning strategy either as Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia have all said publicly they would oppose a vote to repeal Obamacare without a replacement. So, that plan is dead on arrival.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has already scored a repeal-only option and the results are catastrophic. The CBO’s analysis shows 32 million more Americans would be uninsured by 2026 and individual premiums would double.

So. Much. Winning.

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House Republicans Protect Themselves From Health Care Repeal On Preexisting Conditions

It’s always nice when our elected representatives in Congress show us that they understand us, because their lives are just like ours.

Well, kinda.

As House Republicans prepare to, yet again, “repeal and replace” Obamacare, they’ve included a clause that would allow states to waive out of the Affordable Care Act’s ban on preexisting conditions.

In other words, insurance companies could be able to charge folks who’ve had cancer (or acne) higher premiums than otherwise healthy people.

Republican lawmakers like this policy a lot.

Well, ok, not “crazy like it a lot.”

Like, not enough to have it apply to themselves.

The guy who wrote the amendment, Republican (natch!) Rep. Tom MacArthur of New Jersey, has confirmed that he and his Congressional cohorts would still be guaranteed the Obamacare protections against higher rates for preexisting conditions.

See? Just like us!

(source)

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Trump Continues Attacks On House Freedom Caucus

President Trump continued attacking the conservative House Freedom Caucus members today on Twitter, writing, “The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don’t get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!”

The fact of the matter is if Trump alienates both the Dems and the Freedom Caucus, he winds up with a minority in the House:

237 House Republicans minus 30-35 Freedom Caucus members minus all Democrats leaves Trump roughly 200 Republicans to work with, which isn’t enough to get anything done.

It would seem to me that if Trump really wanted some kind of leverage over the Freedom Caucus, he would begin negotiating with, and offering real compromises to, Democrats.

Freedom Caucus members respond:

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Republicans Are Ramming TrumpCare Through U.S. House

When the Affordable Care Act was introduced years ago, it took months of hearings and committee meetinsg to advanced the vast legislation.

Republicans, at the time, decried the “haste” with which the process seemed to be moving.

Fast forward to 2017.

Now it’s the Republicans in the driver’s seat, and this car is moving away from Obamacare as quickly as the Repubs can go.

On Monday, House Republicans introduced their “repeal and replace” plan – the American Health Care Act.

Late into Wednesday night, just two days later, the critical House Ways and Means Committee slogged through 18 hours to approve the legislation on to a full vote on the floor of the House.

There has been no scoring by the CBO on the bill. No one knows how this new approach will affect the economy of the U.S.

But the GOP led House is roaring away with their bill.

Already, the legislation has it’s detractors. And many are conservatives, including Senators Rand Paul and Tom Cotton.

In a private meeting with conservative groups, President Trump shared his plans in the event the new legislation not work out: Step aside, watch the ACA fall apart, and let Democrats take the blame.

But there’s more! Trump also unveiled his strategy to shame elected officials into voting for the new healthcare plan.

From CNN:

Confident that the health care plan will pass the House, Trump laid out his strategy for winning passage in the Senate, telling the meeting he will campaign heavily in red states featuring vulnerable Democrats up for re-election. Trump said he will have football stadium events in states where he won by 10-12 points and he is going to dare people to vote against him,” a source at the meeting said.

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Here’s The Bullet Points On The New Republican Healthcare Plan

(Photo: Gage Skidmore)

Everyone is talking about the newly released Republican plan to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act.

Here’s the bullet points you should know about how this will change healthcare legislation:

• The Individual Mandate would be gone, as would the Employer Mandate. No more penalty paid for not having healthcare. No requirement of large businesses to provide health insurance for employees.

However, while there would be no individual penalty for not having healthcare (which would have gone to fund public hospitals, etc…), insurance companies will be allowed to tack on a 30% surcharge to restart your insurance should you let it lapse.

Instead of paying a penalty into a system that would fund public health services, you would pay a fine to a private company. Sound better to you?

• The A.C.A. premium subsidies would be replaced by tax credits for individuals making $75K or less ($150K for households). Folks under 30 would get tax credits of $2,000, with the amount going up to $4,000 for those over 60.

But, these are tax credits, so you have to pay for your insurance out of pocket first, then utilize the credits later when you pay taxes. If you are lower income wage earner, you may not make enough money to pay for health insurance out of pocket on a monthly basis.

• The plan would lift the limits for tax-free Health Savings Accounts. However, if you are lower-income earner, you may not have any money after your monthly bills to put into an HSA. This may be something that could help wealthier Americans, but those on a tight budget would probably not see much benefit here.

• The proposed plan would defund Planned Parenthood, removing a vital source of healthcare for millions of Americans.

• The proposed plan would prevent Americans from using their tax credits to pay for any health insurance plan that includes abortion. So, if you take the tax credits, any abortion procedures would have to be paid out of pocket, not by your health insurance.

• The proposed plan would allow insurance companies to charge older Americans up to 5 times as much as younger. Currently, Obamacare limits the difference to only 3 times the cost of younger Americans.

Three popular components of Obamacare will remain:

• No denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions

• No lifetime coverage caps

• Young people will be able to remain on their parents’ health plans until age 26

Thoughts? Leave your comments below.

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Breaking: House Republicans Reverse On Gutting Ethics Rules Change

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan

House Republicans have now u-turned on their plan to gut the Congressional independent ethics panel.

From CNN:

House Republican leaders have pulled a proposal that would gut its independent ethics panel, amid widespread criticism of the plan, multiple lawmakers tell CNN.

The decision comes less than two hours after President-elect Donald Trump criticized the timing of the vote, which was scheduled for the first day of the new congressional session.

Trump called out his fellow Republicans Tuesday for proposing to curb the powers of the independent ethics panel as their first move of the year, although the President-elect suggested the ethics panel was “unfair.”

“With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it … may be, their number one act and priority. Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance! #DTS,” Trump said over two consecutive tweets.

The decision came after House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters the vote was moving forward. He admitted he opposed the change and said he believed it should be done in a “bipartisan fashion” but said House Speaker Paul Ryan created an open process and “sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.”

House Republicans voted 119-74 during a closed-door meeting in favor of Virginia Rep. Bob Goodlatte’s proposal, which would place the independent Office of Congressional Ethics under the control of those very lawmakers, a move that outraged Democrats and outside ethics organizations. The full House of Representatives is expected to vote on it as part of a larger rules package up for consideration Tuesday.

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Donald Trump Goes Full Twitter Rant On His Own Party

Donald Trump unleashed a torrent of Twitter attacks on his own party today, specifically House Speaker Paul Ryan for effectively cutting him loose and accusing party leaders of trying to sabotage his campaign.

The attack virtually splinters his party and followers as he heads into the last few weeks of the race for the White House.

From Business Insider:

“Donald Trump is like a wounded animal in the forest just thrashing out at anything in his field of vision. He’s unhinged,” said Ryan Williams, a former spokesman for 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

He added: “Any loyalty to the party he may have had is gone. He’s never really been a team player. It’s clear he does not care about the Republican party or anyone else who is running on the ballot this year. This is all about Donald Trump.”

Most recent national polls show Trump’s standing heading south, and his path to 270 electoral votes getting more and more narrow.

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Clinton Campaign Recreates 1964 “Confessions Of A Republican”

Hillary’s latest campaign ad revives one of the most famous political ads in history, “Confessions of a Republican,” from the 1964 presidential election.

Adding authenticity to the remake, the spot utilizes veteran actor Bill Bogert, the very same guy from the original, along with text which echoes the 1964 concerns.

“I was a Republican who voted for Eisenhower and Nixon, my father was a Republican, his father was, the whole family was. But Donald Trump he’s a different kind of man. This man scares me.

“Trump says we need unpredictability when it comes to using nuclear weapons, what is that supposed to mean? When a man says that he sounds a lot like a threat to humanity.”

“I’ve thought about not voting. But you can’t do that. That’s saying you don’t care who wins and I do care.

“I think the party is about to make a terrible mistake in Cleveland and I have to vote against that mistake on the 8th of November.”

The original:

2016 Version: