January 13, 2017

Republicans Threaten Government Ethics Official Who Criticized Trump

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President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to address potential conflicts is “meaningless,” the head of the Office of Government Ethics said Wednesday. But instead of asking the ethics chief how to fix Trump’s plan, House Republicans have their own idea: Threaten the ethics official.

Walter Shaub, the head of the OGE, is “blurring the line between public relations and official ethics guidance,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee, wrote in a sternly worded letter to Shaub Thursday. Chaffetz, the Republican who announced last year that he wouldn’t be able to look his daughter in the eye if he endorsed Trump and then went on to vote for Trump, demanded that Shaub show up for a private interview on Capitol Hill as soon as possible — or face a subpoena forcing him to do so.

“He’s coming in,” Chaffetz told Politico. “This is not going to be an optional exercise.”

Chaffetz noted in the letter that his committee has the power to reauthorize the ethics office. What Chaffetz didn’t have to say is that his committee could also push to shutter the office entirely. Earlier this month, House Republicans tried to gut another ethics watchdog, the Office of Congressional Ethics, before backing down.

Chaffetz is trying to punish Shaub for criticizing Trump, Richard Painter, former President George W. Bush’s ethics lawyer, told The New York Times Thursday.

“They are strong-arming them,” Painter said. “They are obviously very upset the Office of Government Ethics is leaning on Trump and not willing to jam through his nominees. It is political retaliation.”

Democrats, who have been pushing the Republican-run Congress to investigate Trump’s conflicts, are livid.

“The Oversight Committee is supposed to protect whistleblowers and independent government watchdogs like the Office of Government Ethics instead of retaliating against them for political reasons,” Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said in a statement Friday morning.

Cummings noted that he sent a letter to Chaffetz on Thursday calling for a public hearing with Shaub as the main witness, prior to Chaffetz threatening to summon Shaub for a closed-door meeting.

“The Oversight Committee has not held one hearing, conducted one interview, or obtained one document about President-Elect Donald Trump’s massive global entanglements,” Cummings said, “yet it is now apparently rushing to launch an investigation of the key government official for warning against the risks caused by President-Elect Donald Trump’s current plans.”


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jason-chaffetz-oge-shaub-subpoena_us_5878eb81e4b09281d0ea6c05

January 13, 2017

Good ? asked on CBS This Morning: If Comey felt necessary to make public announcement about

investigating Clinton emails; why did he not feel it necessary tomake a public announcement about investigating Trump's situation & connection with Putin & Russia & his possible compromised situation.

January 13, 2017

Replacing Obamacare: Two elephants in the room

Pretty good stark analysis of the problem:

As the Republicans scramble to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA), they’re bumping into two unavoidable elephants in the room: basic actuarial and underwriting principles, and the high cost of medical care. Simply repealing Obamacare is relatively easy, but replacing it will be much more difficult because any new solution will need to grapple with these elephants head-on.

Basic actuarial and underwriting principles

With any type of insurance, you have to buy it before you need to make a claim. Any insured population faces the risk that sometime in the future, they may incur an event that would cause them significant financial stress, but they don’t know when that event may occur. So they buy insurance to protect themselves and their family.

When they incur a claim, it’s funded by the premiums of the other insured people who aren’t making a claim. It’s called insurance risk-sharing.

Think about it: You can’t buy life insurance if you wait until you get a diagnosis of a terminal illness. You can’t buy flood insurance when the forecast calls for a hurricane. And you can’t buy health insurance only when you get sick or suffer an accident and think you’ll need to make a claim.

If an insurer allows people to wait until just before they think they need the insurance to start paying premiums, it will go broke because it likely hasn’t collected enough money in premiums to cover the claim payments. That’s why before the ACA became effective, insurance companies were allowed to deny coverage to new applicants if they had preexisting medical conditions, or they were allowed to charge higher premiums for people who had such conditions.

Exclusions due to preexisting conditions were very unpopular before Obamacare, and eliminating them was one of its goals.

If an insurer incurs claims in excess of the aggregate premium payments, it needs to raise premiums for the current insured population. This could cause some people to drop coverage, which in turn might cause yet another premium increase as healthy people drop out of the insured pool. In the insurance business, this is called a “death spiral.”

There are two realistic ways to broadly cover people who aren’t otherwise eligible for group health insurance through an employer:

Rest of the Article @ Link: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/repealing-obamacare-two-elephants-in-the-room/

January 13, 2017

Trump's inauguration to shatter Washington norms ---This is beautiful

The city's hotels, restaurants and event spaces will be packed with a potent mix of Trump’s supporters and protesters.

Donald Trump’s inauguration is shaping up to be booming business for Washington. It’s just not the type of business the president-elect may want.

Protesters distraught over Trump’s victory will be flooding into Washington next weekend, creating a potent – and potentially tense – mix as they collide with the billionaire’s die-hard supporters at hotels, restaurants, and on the National Mall. Like much of Trump's campaign, the festivities and crowd descending on Washington for the inauguration will not neatly fit into Washington's norms.

"These are unprecedented numbers," said Mike Litterst, a spokesman for the National Park Service, said about the protests. "We're trying to help the groups find suitable alternate locations."

The park service has credentialed at least 28 groups on the national mall and is expecting more than 350,000, according to an internal agency spreadsheet. That’s compared to the five or six requests from groups that they usually receive for inaugurations. The service has struggled to accommodate all of the protesters, which includes a large demonstration of about 200,000 women protesting Trump and others who will sing and fast, for next weekend, Litterst said.

Initially, it looked like Trump’s inauguration could be a relatively low-key affair. After Trump won, a number of hotels, restaurants and party planners had a rash of cancellations, according to interviews with more than a dozen businesses.


Republicans in particular struggled to fill blocks of rooms at hotels, with an email last week going to Republican National committee members encouraging them to pass it along to anyone who still needed lodging. "At this time, we are pleased to extend the room block to guests and affiliates of RNC Members and state parties. Rooms will be available on a first come, first serve basis," the email obtained by POLITICO says.

Also, the inauguration committee is only hosting three balls, a departure from the usual eight or 10, with a president who doesn't necessarily enjoy schmoozing and small-talk.

Yet many hotels and businesses say they are doing just fine — just with a different crowd.

The Embassy Row Hotel's main event next weekend is an all-women's disco, catering to the Women’s March on Washington planned for next Saturday. The invitation to "dance, dance, dance" at the Dupont Circle luxury venue bills three women DJs and colored wireless headphones but has no mention of the president. The hotel is sold out.


http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/trump-inauguration-dc-bookings-233564

January 13, 2017

Cory Booker Joins Senate Republicans to Kill Measure to Import Cheaper Medicine From Canada

David Dayen
January 12 2017, 4:15 p.m.
BERNIE SANDERS INTRODUCED a very simple symbolic amendment Wednesday night, urging the federal government to allow Americans to purchase pharmaceutical drugs from Canada, where they are considerably cheaper. Such unrestricted drug importation is currently prohibited by law.

The policy has widespread support among Americans: one Kaiser poll taken in 2015 found that 72 percent of Americans are in favor of allowing for importation. President-elect Donald Trump also campaigned on a promise to allow for importation.

The Senate voted down the amendment 52-46, with two senators not voting. Unusually, the vote was not purely along party lines: 13 Republicans joined Sanders and a majority of Democrats in supporting the amendment, while 13 Democrats and a majority of Republicans opposed it.

One of those Democrats was New Jersey’s Cory Booker, who is considered a rising star in the party and a possible 2020 presidential contender.

In a statement to the media after the vote, Booker’s office said he supports the importation of prescription drugs but that “any plan to allow the importation of prescription medications should also include consumer protections that ensure foreign drugs meet American safety standards. I opposed an amendment put forward last night that didn’t meet this test.”

This argument is the same one offered by the pharmaceutical industry. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), which lobbies against importation, maintains that it opposes importation because “foreign governments will not ensure that prescription drugs entering the U.S. from abroad are safe and effective.”

The safety excuse has long been a refuge for policymakers who don’t want to assist Americans struggling with prescription drug costs. Bills to legalize importation passed in 2000 and 2007, but expired after the Clinton and Bush administrations refused to certify that it would be safe. The Obama administration also cited safety concerns when opposing an importation measure in the Affordable Care Act.

A second amendment Wednesday, authored by Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, would have allowed importation pending a safety certification, just like the previous laws passed on the subject. It also failed. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., used that amendment to claim on Twitter that he voted “to lower drug prices through importation from Canada,” and Booker referred to the Wyden amendment in his statement as well. This is a well-worn tactic from opponents of importation to mislead their constituents, as they know such certification will never occur.

The safety excuse is mostly a chimera, as most of the drugs that would be imported from Canada were originally manufactured in the United States; they’re just cheaper there, because the Canadian government uses a review board and price negotiation to make drugs more affordable.

“My first response to that is show me the dead Canadians. Where are the dead Canadians?” former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, once asked during his own push to allow for importation.

Democrats blocked importation from becoming part of the Affordable Care Act in 2009, with over 30 votes in opposition, because they feared it would have pushed the pharmaceutical industry to oppose the underlying legislation. They also voted in large numbers to oppose importation as part of an FDA bill in 2012.

*****Booker and some of his Democratic colleagues who opposed the Sanders amendment are longtime friends of the drug industry.

*****As MapLight data shows, Booker has received more pharmaceutical manufacturing cash over the past six years than any other Democratic senator: $267,338. In addition, significant numbers of pharmaceutical and biotech firms reside in Booker’s home state of New Jersey. Other Democrats receiving six-figure donations from the industry, like Casey, Patty Murray, and Michael Bennet, opposed the amendment.


The Intercept: https://theintercept.com/2017/01/12/cory-booker-joins-senate-republicans-to-kill-measure-to-import-cheaper-medicine-from-canada/

January 12, 2017

Like the names popping up around the msgs boards. Fav is "Make America Golden Again". eom.

January 12, 2017

Democrats Play Nice And Normal With Trump In Nominee Hearings

This is nothing surprising, going exactly as figured.




Two days of confirmation sessions show a party trying to prove “we’re still the sane folks” compared with the president-elect. And that may never work.


WASHINGTON — Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson answered Democratic Sen. Tom Udall’s questions on climate change Wednesday, but he left a fair amount of wiggle room.

Democrats regard the topic as a vital issue, one that they’ve signaled will be a key focus in expected battles with President-elect Donald Trump’s administration.

But Udall, of New Mexico, was impeccably polite to the former Exxon Mobil CEO, even after Tillerson declined to give a simple yes or no answer to whether he agreed with the energy company’s position that climate change is caused by human activity and that it poses a real risk.

Udall moved on, and thanked the oil man very much.


Huffington Post Link To Article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/democrats-trump-strategy-starts-with-playing-nice_us_5876ea3ce4b092a6cae54c22

January 12, 2017

Tillerson Disagrees With Trump on Nearly Everything

"These suggest some tensions with the president-elect."


By the time the first day of hearings for Donald Trump's secretary of state pick concluded, Rex Tillerson had expressed a range of opinions at odds with those of his future boss. As Sen. Christopher Coons (D-Del.) noted, Tillerson's views on Muslims, Russian aggression, Saudi Arabia, NATO, the Paris climate agreement, the Iran nuclear deal, nuclear arms, and more were notably different from Trump's campaign statements.

"All of these to me are quite encouraging," Coons said. "But these suggest some tensions with the president-elect."

Asked about how he'd resolve these differences with Trump's stated views, Tillerson said:

"One of the reasons I came to the conclusion...to say yes to President-elect Trump when he asked me to do this, is that [in] my conversations with him on the subjects we have discussed...he’s been very open and inviting of hearing my views and respectful of those views. In terms of my categorizing it as my pushing back on him, my sense is we're going to have all the views presented [at the] table and everyone will have an opportunity to express those and make the case. And the president decides."

Throughout the hearing, the former ExxonMobil CEO said he had not been briefed, examined the evidence, or received proper security clearances in order to answer questions on a range of international policy issues.


Entire Mother Jones Article: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/what-rex-tillerson-said-about-conflicting-opinions-trump-administration

January 12, 2017

Congressman demands reporter be fired for being disrespectful to Trump

I give up. I think this really shows the mindset of these despicable, deplorable people. They are so demented they either do not care, are full of so much hate & racism or ideology that there is no way one can try to show them where they are so wrong or try to change them. I think trying to work with them is a total waste of time. That is the one thing I disagreed with Obama on where he seemed to always feel there was a way to reach them.



The same Texas Republican compared Barack Obama to ‘Adolph Hitler’ on this day in 2015.

A day after Donald Trump shouted down CNN reporter Jim Acosta at his first “press conference” since July and accused his network of providing “fake news,” a Republican Congressman is demanding that Acosta be fired.
Two years ago to the day, Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX) made national news for a tweet comparing the president of the United States — unfavorably — to Hitler. He later apologized for his observation that “Even Adolph [sic] Hitler thought it more important than Obama to get to Paris. (For all the wrong reasons.) Obama couldn’t do it for right reasons,” and deleted the tweet.
He never removed a January 2014 tweet in which he called Obama “Kommandant-In-Chef”… the Socialistic dictator,” nor others suggesting POTUS stood for “Poor Obama Trashed U.S.”
But now, apparently, Weber has decided that being rude to the president is an offense worthy of firing.
On Thursday morning, he tweeted:

Link to Article: https://thinkprogress.org/congressman-demands-reporter-be-fired-for-being-disrespectful-to-trump-b85461cfb716#.vjyvjs4ur

January 12, 2017

Scarborough Calls Out Cory Booker For Obviously Calculated Effort Ahead of 2020 Launch

Scarborough & Mika who is even worst are just one of the reasons don't watch MSNBC anymore. Hardly any shows worth watching on it. Scarborough isn't intelligent enough to get into Booker's head & so what if he plans on running in 2020, maybe, maybe not but he had stronger reasons for doing what he did with the Jeff Sessions & what he represents. Barnicle?

The worst kept secret right about now in Washington is that Democratic Senator from New Jersey Cory Booker is already beginning his 2020 campaign — or so many allege — by targeting the confirmation hearings of the incoming Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Booker, who just so happened to find himself in New Hampshire recently, openly challenged Sessions Wednesday in a splashy display, asserting, “In a choice between standing with Senate norms and standing up for what my conscience tells me is best for our country, I will always choose conscience and country.” It marks the first time in history that a sitting Senator is openly testifying against one of his Senate colleagues; flanked by the Congressional Black Caucus, Booker called out Sessions’ record on social inequality and voting rights. He continued at one point by uttering a line that should be said at all confirmation hearings in my opinion: “The arc of the moral universe does not just naturally curve towards justice. We must bend it.”

But despite the flowery poetry, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough called it for what it is Thursday: “Calculating.”

“Has anybody seen anything as calculated, as obviously calculated as this?” he asked his morning panel, expressing disbelief that the Garden State pol would angle in such a way.

Mike Barnicle quipped, “Wrong venue, wrong time.”

Scarborough alleged that the feeling of Booker being opportunistic was shared by many over in the Beltway on Wednesday who watched the 47-year-old former Newark mayor attacks Sessions’ record. “There was a collective groan that went up during that. Very calculated and a lot of senators irked, especially on the Democratic side.”

Watch above via MSNBC.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/scarborough-calls-out-cory-booker-for-obviously-calculated-effort-ahead-of-2020-launch/