June 28, 2017

Just 12% Support GOP Health Plan

June 28, 2017 at 11:40 am EDT By Taegan Goddard

A new USA Today/Suffolk poll finds just 12% of of Americans approve of the Senate Republican health care plan.

Meanwhile, a 53% majority say Congress should either leave Obamacare alone or work to fix its problems while keeping its framework intact.

“But the dilemma for the GOP is this: Eight in 10 Republicans support repeal, and close to a third say the law should be repealed even if a replacement health care plan isn’t ready yet.”

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https://politicalwire.com/2017/06/28/just-12-support-gop-health-plan/

June 28, 2017

McConnell is trying to revise the Senate health-care bill by Friday

Source: The Washington Post



By Paige Winfield Cunningham and Sean Sullivan June 28 at 12:33 PM

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is aiming to send a revised version of his health-care bill to the Congressional Budget Office by as soon as Friday, according to Capitol Hill aides and lobbyists.

The effort reflects the tight timeline McConnell faces in his attempt to hold a vote before the August recess — and the pressure he is under to make changes that improve the CBO’s measure of the bill’s impact on coverage levels and federal spending.

McConnell is trying to move quickly to produce a new CBO score by the time lawmakers return to Washington in mid-July, giving the Senate about two weeks to fulfill the majority leader’s goal of voting before the August recess.

McConnell and his aides plan continue negotiations through the end of the week and will be in frequent communication with the CBO, according to McConnell spokesman David Popp.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/mcconnell-is-trying-to-revise-the-senate-health-care-bill-by-friday/2017/06/28/63550800-5c18-11e7-9fc6-c7ef4bc58d13_story.html

June 28, 2017

Roger Stone Set To Testify In Closed Hearing With House Intel Committee

Source: Talking Points Memo




By CAITLIN MACNEAL Published JUNE 28, 2017 6:59 AM

Roger Stone, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, will testify on July 24 in a closed hearing with the House Intelligence Committee as part of the panel’s Russia investigation, Politico and CNN reported Tuesday night.

Stone’s testimony will follow a closed session the House Intelligence Committee had with Hillary Clinton adviser John Podesta on Tuesday.

“I am confident that Podesta most likely repeated his lie that I knew in advance about the hacking of his email, and am anxious to rebut this falsehood,” Stone said in a statement to CNN. “I am still unhappy that my testimony will not be in public, but believe it is more important to resolve the question of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign — which I believe was nonexistent.”

Robert Buschel, Stone’s attorney, told Politico that Stone asked for a public hearing but that the committee said they are “done with public” hearings.

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/roger-stone-testify-house-intelligence-committee

June 28, 2017

Republicans kill their own health care bill: It's bizarro-world, but a real win for the resistance

WEDNESDAY, JUN 28, 2017 04:59 AM EDT

Republicans kill their own health care bill: It’s bizarro-world, but a real win for the resistance

Mitch McConnell is humiliated as Senate health care bill collapses — but Democrats have tough choices ahead

SOPHIA TESFAYE

Republicans’ efforts to repeal Obamacare are dead, at least for now. While that is certainly cause for celebration, Democrats are now faced with a new dilemma: Should they rejoice and retrench in resistance, or reorient towards compromise and cooperation?

Mitch McConnell, the GOP Senate majority leader, made the somewhat surprising announcement on Tuesday that his body would not vote on the Republican health care bill — or at least not until after the Fourth of July recess.

When their votes didn’t matter under President Barack Obama, Republicans in Congress voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, his signature accomplishment, more than 30 times. Now an odd combination of moderate and right-wing Republicans in the upper chamber has come together to quash the Senate’s version of a repeal bill, leaving McConnell and Majority Whip John Cornyn unable to make their self-imposed deadline.

Democrats were certainly the ones celebrating on Capitol Hill late on Tuesday. “There will be single-payer [health care] in my lifetime,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., predicted to booming applause from dozens of activists gathered in front of the Capitol. Originally organized for days of resistance and protest in Washington, activists from several states and progressive organizations were suddenly jubilant after McConnell admitted that he lacked the votes within his own caucus to pass the bill this week as planned.

The number that broke the bill’s back: 22 million

more
http://www.salon.com/2017/06/28/republicans-kill-their-own-health-care-bill-its-bizarro-world-but-a-real-win-for-the-resistance/

June 28, 2017

Student Gets Prison Term for Registering Dead People as Democratic Voters

by Ronn Blitzer | 3:12 pm, June 27th, 2017

A student at James Madison University who was working for a political organization affiliated with the Democratic party was sentenced to go to prison for at least 100 days after he pleaded guilty to registering dead people to vote.

Andrew J. Spieles of Harrisonburg, Virginia entered his plea on Monday in federal court. He had been working for the group Harrisonburg Votes last summer. A U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesperson said, “In July 2016 Spieles’ job was to register as many voters as possible and reported to Democratic Campaign headquarters in Harrisonburg.”

In August, someone in the Registrar’s Office recognized the name on one of the voter registration forms as the late father of a county judge. That person called the police, leading to an investigation by local law enforcement and the FBI.

“The Registrar’s Office discovered multiple instances of similarly falsified forms when it reviewed additional registrations,” The U.S. Attorney’s spokesperson said. “Some were in the names of deceased individuals while others bore incorrect middle names, birth dates, and social security numbers.” According to the spokesperson, Spieles said that he got names, ages, and addresses of people from “walk sheets” given to him by the Virginia Democratic Party, and then he made up birth dates and social security numbers to go with them.

When asked about these walk sheets, a representative from the Virginia Democratic Party declined to discuss the matter with LawNewz.com.

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http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/student-gets-prison-term-for-registering-dead-people-as-democratic-voters/

June 28, 2017

Trump's Abstinence Queen Has a Tarnished Record

Valerie Huber has a long history of fighting sex ed in Ohio’s schools—but her tenure as an abstinence coordinator was marred by internal scandal.

Brandy Zadrozny
BRANDY ZADROZNY
06.28.17 1:00 AM ET

Early this month, the Trump administration appointed Valerie Huber, a well-known advocate for abstinence-only sex education, to serve as chief of staff at the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health at the Department of Health and Human Services. With Huber’s pick, and a proposed 2018 budget committing $277 million to abstinence-only education, the White House seemed to signal to its conservative base the scientifically dubious “Just Say No” brand of sex education was back, and now one of its staunchest believers would be helping to man the helm.

Huber’s boss hasn’t been appointed yet, but HHS’ acting assistant secretary for health, Don Wright, announced Huber’s hiring in an internal memo published by The Hill. In the email, Wright wrote that Huber’s “wealth of professional experience in the field of public policy will serve her well in this position.”

That experience is both limited, and includes internal scandal, The Daily Beast has learned. Huber came to Washington by way of Ohio, having served as the abstinence education coordinator for her home state’s Department of Health from 2004 to 2007, before forming Ascend, an organization dedicated to abstinence education on a national level.

Huber became interested in public policy by way of being a mom, after her son came home reporting what he had learned in health class: Don’t have sex, but if you do, use a condom. To combat this shocking message, Huber founded a nonprofit organization, called REACH. “My vision was to make a difference in the life of one child—my son—but God had a much bigger vision,” she told an interviewer at CE National, an organization that describes their mission as helping churches be more effective on a national level.

In 2004, she left REACH to become the state abstinence coordinator at Ohio’s Department of Health where she oversaw the abstinence-only sex education programs for some 144,000 students.

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-abstinence-queen-has-a-tarnished-record

June 28, 2017

ZZZZ. White House Threatened Syria While Trump Yawned, Insiders Say

ZZZZ
White House Threatened Syria While Trump Yawned, Insiders Say

Tillerson secretly warned the Russians, and Kushner and Bannon were consulted before the White House rattled its saber. But the commander in chief was consumed with ‘fake news.’

ASAWIN SUEBSAENG
SPENCER ACKERMAN
06.27.17 12:26 PM ET

Hours before the White House issued an ominous warning to Syria’s dictator against launching another chemical assault, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson gave the same message to Bashar Assad’s patron in Moscow, The Daily Beast has learned.

According to a knowledgeable senior administration official, Tillerson warned his counterpart, Sergei Lavrov: the U.S. sees that Russia and Syria may be prepping for another chemical weapons attack; and that there will be consequences if Assad follows through with it.

All this occurred this week as President Donald Trump displayed what two White House officials characterized as relative indifference and passivity towards the subject, instead opting to focus his public and private energies towards fuming at his domestic enemies in the Democratic Party and the “fake news.”

“The president cares more about CNN and the Russia story than [Syria] at the moment,” one official observed.

The first senior administration official would not discuss the underlying intelligence behind the White House’s warning, but said it matched the sort of indications the U.S. had previously observed ahead of Assad’s “prior CW [chemical weapons] attacks,” and the Trump administration opted to deliver a warning through public and private channels.

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/white-house-threatened-syria-while-trump-yawned-insiders-say

June 28, 2017

Trump attacks Washington Post as 'guardian' of Amazon's tax practices

Source: Politico




By LOUIS NELSON 06/28/2017 09:45 AM EDT

President Donald Trump wrapped up an attack on a favorite media target, The Washington Post, and the tax practices of Amazon into one online post Wednesday, complaining that the “fake news” newspaper was protecting the online retailer from tax liabilities with its coverage.

“The #AmazonWashingtonPost, sometimes referred to as the guardian of Amazon not paying internet taxes (which they should) is FAKE NEWS!” Trump wrote online Wednesday.

It is not the first time that Trump has suggested that Amazon should be paying more than it currently does in taxes. In a speech outlining his 100-day action plan last October in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Trump remarked that “Amazon, which through its ownership controls the Washington Post, should be paying massive taxes but it’s not paying. It’s a very unfair playing field and you see what that’s doing to department stores all over the country.”

Trump’s criticism of the Post comes amid a multi-day tirade against what he believes to be unfair media coverage of his administration, spurred by a since-retracted CNN report that congressional investigators were looking into a meeting between Trump transition team member Anthony Scaramucci and the head of a Russian investment fund. Three CNN journalists involved in the story’s publication, including a Pulitzer Prize-winner, resigned in the wake of the retraction.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/28/donald-trump-amazon-washington-post-taxes-240039

June 28, 2017

Irish Reporter Calls Out Donald Trump for Calling Her 'Beautiful'

The president is criticized after singling out a female Irish reporter while on an Oval Office diplomatic phone call, commenting on her 'nice smile.'

TOM SYKES
06.28.17 6:46 AM ET

President Donald Trump has previously enjoyed perhaps more support—or at least forbearance—in Ireland than in some other countries around the world, thanks in no small part to his significant investments in the cash-strapped country. However his astonishing objectification of a female news reporter employed by Ireland’s state public-service broadcaster has dismayed observers across the board in the Republic.

Trump was making a congratulatory phone call to Ireland’s new Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, on Tuesday, when he beckoned to RTÉ’s Washington correspondent, Caitriona Perry, telling her to “come here” during the call.

Trump was heard saying, “Hello how are you?... Congratulations on your great victory. We have so many people from Ireland in this country. I know so many of them, too. I feel I know all of them. But I just want to congratulate you. That was a great victory that you had.” Trump continued: “We have a lot of your Irish press watching us... they are just now leaving the room."
Trump then singled out Perry, saying, “Where are you from, come here, come here, where are you from?”

-snip-

https://twitter.com/CaitrionaPerry/status/879804904696496128

Other commentators were less generous.

https://twitter.com/FrankUnderwocd/status/879948160034107392

http://www.thedailybeast.com/objectified-irish-reporter-calls-out-donald-trumps-bizarre-move

June 28, 2017

Poll: Dems not ready to dump Pelosi

Source: Politico




By STEVEN SHEPARD 06/28/2017 06:19 AM EDT

Washington Democrats are pointing fingers after last week’s special election defeat in Georgia, but the party’s voters aren’t ready to jettison House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll.

While Pelosi (D-Calif.) remains among the most unpopular figures in American politics, few Democratic voters in the survey blame her for Democrat Jon Ossoff’s defeat last week or for Democratic losses in 2010, 2014 and 2016.

Overall, 43 percent of voters think Pelosi should be replaced as Democratic leader, compared with only 26 percent who think she should remain in the post. Three in 10 voters say they don’t know or don’t have an opinion. But among Democratic voters, just over a quarter, 27 percent, want Pelosi booted as the party’s leader in the chamber. That’s fewer than the 41 percent who want Pelosi to stay, and the 31 percent who don’t have an opinion.

The same split is evident in Pelosi's favorability ratings. Overall, 31 percent of voters view Pelosi favorably, compared with 46 percent who view her unfavorably. Her unfavorable rating is second-worst among political leaders tested in the poll; 48 percent of voters view President Donald Trump unfavorably.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/28/democrats-pelosi-house-poll-240011