Tag: GOP

Trump Asked for Veto Power Over Sally Yates’s Testimony at Russia Hearing

wilwheaton:

This administration is the most corrupt in my lifetime, and the Congress is failing to due its constitutional duty to defend the country from enemies foreign and domestic.

Congressional Republicans are a disgrace, and for a group of people who use patriotism as a cudgel to silence dissent, their hypocrisy is unequaled. 

March 28, 2017 1:09 p.m.

In sum

  • While briefly acting as an interim US attorney general, Sally Yates warned WH counsel that Michael Flynn “had misled his superiors about his preelection conversation with the Russian ambassador to the United States.”  It wasn’t until weeks later that that info was leaked and Flynn resigned.
  • Yates was recently invited to testify to these events in front of the House Intelligence Committee, related to their investigation on “Putin government’s alleged interference in the 2016 election”
  • She accepted and then got hit with a warning from the White House/DOJ that basically the events she was being asked to testify to were “client confidences” or subject to “presidential communications privilege,” and so anything in her testimony would have to be cleared by the White House.  
  • Last Friday, Yates’ lawyer basically replied, “ha! yeaaaah, right.” Yates still intends to testify.
  • A national security blogger Marcy Wheeler agues that the only way that Yates testimony would be covered under presidential communications privilege is if “Trump is claiming that he was involved in hiding this information from Mike Pence.”  From what I gather, since Yates can only testify to events involving WH staff who were party to Flynn’s act of lying, unless Trump was somehow an actor involved in Flynn’s lies, he has no case to claim that Yates can’t testify without his consent.
  • Also on Friday, Yates “informed government officials that her testimony would probably contradict some statements made by the Trump administration.” 
  • House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes canceled Yates’ hearing that very same day.
  • On Tuesday, the White house issued a statement that the report of the above “is entirely false.”  “The White House has taken no action to prevent Sally Yates from testifying and the Department of Justice specifically told her that it would not stop her and to suggest otherwise is completely irresponsible.”
  • To which the Washington Post replies, “Ostensibly, the White House does not consider warning Yates that her testimony would be illegal — absent the president’s consent — as such an action.”

“The fact that Nunes appears [emphasis theirs] to have canceled a hearing — that the White House wished to prevent — has further undermined the GOP lawmaker’s standing with Democratic committee members.”

Trump Asked for Veto Power Over Sally Yates’s Testimony at Russia Hearing

How Republicans quietly sabotaged Obamacare long before Trump came into office

3/22/17

Risk corridors = the first ten years after ACA was implemented, insurance companies were expected to lose money because of the influx of sick people who had not had insurance previously.

The ACA promised to reimburse those loses for the first 10 years in order to get insurance companies on board.

Rubio and other Republicans refused to fully fund risk corridor reimbursement in 2015, so by 2016:

So the insurance companies did the only things they could.  In (mostly red) states with low incomes and thus poorer health, they simply pulled out of the marketplace altogether.  This has left some states with only one single insurer left.  In others, they jacked up their prices to make up their losses.

It all hit the fan in the fall of 2016, right before the election.

Rubio’s October Surprise was extraordinarily effective.  October 2016 saw an explosion of stories in the news about how health insurance companies were either pulling out of ACA exchanges, or jacking their prices up wildly.

It’s still in litigation now, but some of the effects can’t be mitigated.

Meanwhile, federal judge Thomas Wheeler of the US Court of Federal Claims, ruled recently (as reported last month by Forbes) that the feds actually have to pay back – to the tune of about $8 billion – the moneys lost by health insurance companies operationg in good faith.

But it’s way too late; dozens of nonprofits started to provide health insurance through the exchanges have already gone bankrupt, and the health insurance giants are both subsuming their smaller competitors and merging like there’s no tomorrow. Additionally, Wheeler’s ruling is certain to be appealed – meaning it’s in limbo for the moment.

Consolidation among health insurance giants means that there is little to no competition – regardless of whether or not you introduce competition across state lines.  Which sets the stage for the giants increasing premiums.

So, yet again, the GOP is quite happy to throw their constituency under the bus in order to achieve their aims.

How Republicans quietly sabotaged Obamacare long before Trump came into office

Tax Plan Sows Confusion as Tensions With Mexico Soar

1/27/17, NY Times:

Mr. Trump appeared to embrace a proposal by House Republicans that would impose a 20 percent tax on all imported goods. The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, told reporters that the proceeds would be used to pay for the border wall…

…

But the House plan would offset that revenue by reducing the 35 percent corporate income tax rate, and would thus generate no new federal revenue over all. It was unclear how that fit with Mr. Spicer’s repeated contention Thursday afternoon that revenue from the tax adjustment would help finance construction of the border wall.

…

Moreover, the tax would not be paid by Mexico. It would be paid by companies selling Mexican goods in the United States. Some might raise prices, imposing the cost on consumers, while others might be forced by competitive pressures to absorb the tax, reducing their profits. Many economists also doubt that the change would end up penalizing imports or encouraging exports. They predict that the value of the dollar would rise, offsetting those effects.

All a recipe for inflation.

The Federal Reserve will then likely raise interest rates in attempt to keep inflation from getting out of control (which they have expressed the intent to do already).  Raising interest rates reduces economic growth rates (which have already taken a small dip), and as a result unemployment rates climb.  

Ah, the days of stagflation.  I remember you well.     

A key difference between The Great Inflation of the 1970s and now, however, is that wage growth is much lower than it was.  And with the current political climate around the minimum wage, it’s not likely to get any better.

Stagnating wages + increasing unemployment + inflated prices = bad news

image

Tax Plan Sows Confusion as Tensions With Mexico Soar

Rep Tom Price – plans for medicaid as nominee for secretary of DHHS

What many people don’t yet know is that Price, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and Trump have proposed making significant changes to Medicaid, the health insurance program that covers low-income people, including those with disabilities. These changes are not to make the program more efficient. Medicaid is significantly more efficient than private insurance; these changes are to finance tax cuts. The plan is to slowly reduce the dollars available, so that at the end of ten years, $1 trillion will have been cut from healthcare for poor people and people with disabilities.

Not surprisingly,  these cuts would be devastating.  What is more, the changes in how the system is run would  risk the fundamental right to freedom for people with significant disabilities.

…

But Price and many other members of Congress want to turn back the clock and undo all of our hard-fought gains. They seek a radical restructuring of Medicaid that will allow them to significantly cut funding to the program. They propose turning the program into a “block grant” or by instituting a “per capita cap,” meaning that states would receive a fixed amount of dollars, and the federal government would no longer provide oversight or incentives. The federal oversight and incentive programs are what have reformed state systems to move from institutional care to community-based services. The result would be dangerously reduced benefits that support the autonomy of people with disabilities.  

Here’s my two cents from working in health care:

This comes at the same time as repealing but not replacing the ACA.  The ACA has provisions to help fund rural and underserved area hospitals. The ACA expands the number of hospitals that qualify for Medicare Dependent Hospital (MDH) support – read rural poor hospitals here.  (The ACA mandate to expand Medicaid coverage in every state was supposed to help them out even further – but the Supreme Court blocked the mandate and the states got to choose.)  

Together cuts to Medicaid and repeal of the ACA leave people with disabling conditions even more underserved and at risk.  With these deep cuts, people will no longer be able to pay for care and care that is local to them is either likely to disappear or, if it’s still there, will be even less able to absorb the cost involved in providing services to people who can’t pay.    

And don’t forget, an average of half of enrollees in Medicaid are children.  Medicaid (along with CHIP and TEFRA) allows children with disabilities and chronic medical conditions to receive medical and therapeutic care that makes a huge difference in their lives.  It’s the great societal leveler that allows families who couldn’t afford it otherwise to access the kind of care that can make a huge difference in the child and family’s health and autonomy. Or just… continuance of life, to be honest.  If you want to know what the states are inclined to do with block grants without federal oversight, you have to look no further than Texas, that made $350 million in cuts in reimbursement to early childhood therapists just this December. 

Without decently funded Medicaid, it creates greater dependence on the school system to provide therapies – whose mandate is to only address those things that help the child benefit from instruction.  This comes at the same time as Betsy DeVos and her platform of vouchers and charter school, freeing up public funds for private schools.  Don’t forget, private schools are not mandated to serve children with disabilities.  The IDEA doesn’t cover private institutions.  Private schools can reject whatever student they want to.  Even public charter schools tend to discriminate against children with special education needs.  

And it’s all going to hit the rural poor first. 

Republicans propose bill making it legal for police to kill protesters

hiccup-queen:

gretzkybaby:

qlazzarusgooodbyehorses:

onlinedilf:

What happened to that freedom of speech they speak so proudly of

“Block Traffic and You Die bill” wow

Freedom of speech is reserved only for white people who want to say slurs now, friends.

Freedom of peaceful assembly is at least as topical.

Screenshots of Indiana bill #285

Republicans propose bill making it legal for police to kill protesters

THE NIGHTMARE CONTINUES (WITH NO END IN SIGHT): The GOP’s Anti-LGBT, Anti-Women ‘Religious Freedom’ Law on Steroids

mortalityplays:

tpfnews:

The First Amendment Defense Act is the nuclear version of the so-called “religious freedom” laws that have appeared across the country, most infamously in Mike Pence’s Indiana.  The Republican House will surely pass it, the Senate will pass it unless it’s filibustered by Democrats, and President-elect Trump has promised to sign it.

If it becomes law, FADA will be the worst thing to happen to women and LGBT people in a generation.

Like state “religious freedom restoration acts,” FADA’s basic principle is that it’s not discrimination when businesses discriminate against LGBT people if they have a religious reason for doing so.  The most famous situations have to do with marriage: wedding cake bakers who say that if they bake a cake, they’re violating their religion; Kim Davis, the government clerk who said that signing a secular marriage certificate was a religious act that she could not perform.

But those stories are a red herring.  The more important cases are ones like hospitals refusing to treat LGBT people (or their children), pharmacies refusing to fill birth control prescriptions, businesses refusing to offer health benefits to a same-sex partner, and state-funded adoption agencies refusing to place kids with gay families.  Underneath the rhetorical BS, that’s what FADA is all about.

First, the bill applies to any corporation, organization, or person who “believes or acts in accordance with a religious belief or moral conviction that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, or that sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage.”

Notice how broad that is: any business, agency, or individual, including government employees, hospitals, or huge businesses like Hobby Lobby or Chick-Fil-A. Old-age homes and hospices that turn away gay people – yes, this has actually happened – are covered. Hospitals that refuse a same-sex partner visitation rights – covered. National hotel chains that refuse to rent rooms to gay couples (or unmarried straight ones) – covered.  

And notice that it applies not just to religious beliefs about same-sex marriage, but also to sexual conduct in general. Translation: contraception, sex education, treatment of STDs – all of these are part of the bill.  If a national pharmacy chain wants to refuse to fill prescriptions for the “morning after pill,” if a company wants to fire someone for being pregnant out of wedlock or becoming HIV positive, if a public school wants to stop teaching sex ed – all covered.  

And finally, since “moral conviction” is added in there, it doesn’t matter that Jesus never mentioned health insurance coverage. No actual religious grounds are necessary; just some moral conviction that the only allowable sex is sex within a heterosexual marriage.

What does “covered” mean? Essentially, FADA prohibits the federal government from doing anything about any of these acts. Specifically, it lists revoking tax exempt status (as it did for Bob Jones University because of its racist policies, in the case that started the whole “religious freedom” movement) and refusing any federal grant, contract, or certification.

But then the bill adds “otherwise discriminate against such person,” which actually means anything at all, so long as the government is taking some adverse action. (“Person” includes companies and organizations, remember.) For example:

– The current government policy requiring federal contractors – 20% of the entire U.S. workforce – not to discriminate against LGBT people will be immediately revoked. Contractors can legally fire people for being gay (or transgender).

– A governor can order that, in his state, no clerk anywhere may certify a same-sex marriage, and the federal government could do nothing about it.

– If a restaurant or hotel posts a sign saying “NO FAGGOTS ALLOWED,” FADA prohibits the government from “discriminating” against it by initiating an enforcement action under public accommodations laws. Gay couples may be refused hotel rooms anywhere in the country.

– If a company refuses to let a person take time off to take care of her same-sex partner in the hospital, the government cannot pursue any action under relevant employment laws.

– If a state-funded adoption agency refuses to place children with legally married same-sex couples, the government cannot withdraw its contracts with that agency. (This was a key request by Catholic adoption agencies, which receive the bulk of their funding from the government.)

– An employee at the Department of Veterans Affairs could refuse to process a claim for survivor benefits for the same-sex spouse of a servicemember.

– All schools and universities can discriminate against LGBT people, regardless of Title IX (as long as they link that discrimination to a view about marriage, which is quite easy to do). Universities may turn away gay applicants, deny LGBT clubs, and fire all gay faculty and staff members, with no penalties from the federal government.

– Any hospital may refuse to provide contraception, reproductive health care (including consultations of any kind), or health care of any kind to unmarried people or gay people, and not lose accreditation.

– And yes, however unlikely, your boss could fire you for having (straight) premarital sex, and no federal agency could come after you.

Oh, and then there’s that third point to consider. FADA has one of the strangest “pre-emption” clauses of any bill I’ve ever seen. Normally, federal bills either pre-empt state ones, or have a “no pre-emption” clause, saying that state laws take precedence. FADA has some of each, stating that “Nothing in this Act shall be construed to preempt State law, or repeal Federal law, that is equally or more protective of free exercise of religious beliefs and moral convictions.”

In other words, if a state has a non-discrimination law against gay people, FADA supercedes it, prohibiting any federal action based on that law. But if a state has a law that protects the religious party more, FADA doesn’t supercede it.

Under that language, state level actions against anti-gay corporations, organizations, and individuals would not be prohibited – but the federal government could offer no assistance, and indeed could not do anything at all, even if the anti-gay party is in clear violation of state law. In other words, states with more protections for women or LGBT people – you’re on your own out there.

Overall, FADA makes LGBTs officially second-class citizens of the United States – more like those in anti-gay countries like Putin’s Russia. We may be fired, barred from entry, denied services, denied health care, denied education, and denied legitimacy in ways that straight married people (and probably most straight unmarried people) do not. My fully legal marriage isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on, because no one anywhere has to respect it, not even a government employee.

As you can see, FADA effectively overturns Obergefell without anyone having to file a lawsuit, because it creates a loophole as large as the right to marry itself. Any governor, mayor, or clerk could proffer a “moral objection” to same-sex marriage, and stop all employees under his or her authority from registering gay couples or certifying gay weddings. And even absent such action, any employer or business can act as though the marriage simply does not exist.

But FADA goes much further than marriage. It attacks unmarried women, who may be denied health care by state hospitals, employers, and insurance companies. It makes it impossible for the federal government to do anything in a host of discriminatory situations. It turns back the clock not just two years, to before Obergefell, but twenty years, to a time when simply being gay was criminal.

And it has the support of the House, the Senate, and the President-Elect.

everyone who posted/tweeted ‘we survived reagan’ can go fuck themselves

THE NIGHTMARE CONTINUES (WITH NO END IN SIGHT): The GOP’s Anti-LGBT, Anti-Women ‘Religious Freedom’ Law on Steroids