Again- the federal government is ignoring their agreements with the sovereign tribes. What is more frustrating is that Zinke, who was the representative for Montana before getting his post with the dept. of interiors, didn’t even respond to Tribal requests. I understand that coal helps some, but like all other issues, it’s important for our leader to look at all sides before they make decisions and it appears that Zinke is beholden to his EPA-hating GOP partners and it makes me fearful for what he will do to our federal lands and national parks while in charge.
A Native American tribe in Montana filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Wednesday, challenging its decision to lift a moratorium on coal leases on public land without first consulting with tribal leaders.
The Northern Cheyenne Tribe, located in southern Montana, said the administration lifted the moratorium without hearing the tribe’s concerns about the impact the coal-leasing program has on the tribe, its members and lands.
Earlier this month, the tribe sent a letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who signed the order lifting the moratorium on Tuesday, asking to meet with him to discuss the issue. Zinke did not respond to the letter.
“It is alarming and unacceptable for the United States, which has a solemn obligation as the Northern Cheyenne’s trustee, to sign up for many decades of harmful coal mining near and around our homeland without first consulting with our Nation,” Tribal Chairman Jace Killsback said.
Although coal leasing can resume on federal lands, Killsback said the tribe, which filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Great Falls, Montana, will bear the brunt of the impact.
“The Northern Cheyenne rarely shares in the economic benefits to the region generated by coal industry and other energy development projects,” he said.
Approximately 426 million tons of federal coal are located near the Northern Cheyenne Reservation at the Decker and Spring Creek mines in Montana, the tribe said.
Neighboring tribe, the Crow, rely on coal production to support their local economy and have called for the relaxation of coal regulations for years.
In a press call on Wednesday, Zinke said the new executive orders are a boon for the Crow people, who rely on coal as their predominant industry.
“A war on coal is a war on the Crow people,” he said. He did not respond to a query about the Northern Cheyenne lawsuit.
In a separate lawsuit filed on Wednesday by environmental group Earthjustice, a coalition of conservation groups challenged the administration’s moratorium decision, arguing that it imperils public health for the benefit of coal companies.
“No one voted to pollute our public lands, air or drinking water in the last election, yet the Trump administration is doing the bidding of powerful polluters as nearly its first order of business,” Earthjustice attorney Jenny Harbine said in a statement
I really appreciate John Green and his vlog. Today he went in depth about the problems facing health care in this country and how we need to have an honest conversation about the pros and cons of every solution. He also speaks to how we pay one of the most of one of the least and how no matter what path we go down there will be major growing pains that will effect vast swaths of America.
I have long thought about Trumps claims during the campaign trail where he said he was going to “Drain the Swamp” in Washington. I believe this ideology is why he got elected despite all his potential conflicts of interest. People saw Hillary as just another corrupt politician and hoped that Trump’s outsider status would benefit them.
From the outside, it has really looked like he has reneged on his word and filled his cabinet with Goldman Sac’s executives, corrupt politicians, and people whose sole mission in life is to take down the very thing he has put him in charge of.
But maybe it isn’t that he is a pathological liar who will say anything to get applause, maybe he isn’t as corrupt, soulless, and treacherous as he seems? Maybe he is, in fact, a plant to see how many corrupt people will show themselves.
So far he has exposed…
Mike Flynn
Paul Manafort
Carter Page
Jeff Sessions
Roger Stone
Jared Kushner
Devin Nunes
Here’s hoping he brings down more as this all gets figured out, including Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, and Paul Ryan.
Ok, so probably not, he is probably doing everything they are saying he is. If you want up to date information on the investigation, follow @SethAbramson on Twitter
Last week, on a party-line vote, the Senate voted to repeal the Federal Communications Commission’s 2016 broadband privacy rules giving consumers the power to choose how their ISPs use and share their personal data. Tomorrow, the House of Representatives will vote, and if the House also votes to repeal the rules, the bill will go to President Trump, who is expected to sign it.
The consequences of repeal are simple: ISPs like Comcast, AT&T, and Charter will be free to sell your personal information to the highest bidder without your permission — and no one will be able to protect you. The Federal Trade Commission has no legal authority to oversee ISP practices, and the bill under consideration ensures that the FCC cannot adopt “substantially similar” rules. So unless the bill fails in the House, the nation’s strongest privacy protections will not only be eliminated, they cannot be revived by the FCC.
WHAT THE RULES DO
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires a “telecommunications carrier” to protect the privacy of their customers’ personal information. Customers of the telephone network have long had their personal information protected under strong FCC rules. When the FCC classified broadband internet access service as a telecommunications service as part of its 2015 net neutrality decision, it applied these privacy protections to ISPs as well.
Among other things, the FCC’s broadband privacy rules protect your personal information in four critical ways. ISPs are required to:
Tell customers about what types of information they collect, how they use that information, and with whom they share that information
Obtain affirmative permission (opt in) from customers to use and share sensitive information like financial and health information, Social Security numbers, web browsing, and application usage history. For non-sensitive information, customers must be allowed to opt out of use and sharing of that information at any time and with minimum effort
Take reasonable measures to keep customers’ data secure
Give customers timely notice of data breaches, and in the event of a larger breach, give notice to law enforcement officials.
In crafting these rules, the FCC borrowed generously from the privacy and data security enforcement standards of the FTC. But there’s a very important difference between the FTC’s enforcement powers and preventative FCC rules: the FCC’s rules have the power to protect consumers before they are harmed, while the FTC’s rules moderate industry behavior and give consumers the ability to enforce their rights after harm occurs. Harms from unauthorized and illegal use of personal information can be economic, social, and sometimes even physical.
THE RULES SERVE AS A BASELINE FOR THE ENTIRE INTERNET ECOSYSTEM
Broadband ISPs and their friends in Congress say that the FCC’s rules must fall because it is somehow unfair to subject ISPs to different privacy rules than so-called “edge” companies like Google and Facebook. But ISPs hold a unique position in the internet ecosystem: they have access to everything you do online. They know every website you visit, how long and during what hours of the day you visit websites, your location, and what device you are using. Edge companies, on the other hand, only see a small portion of any given consumer’s internet traffic.
There are other important differences between ISPs and edge companies. ISPs charge handsomely for their services, while most edge companies’ services are free, creating very different consumer expectations with regard to collection and use of data. Moreover, consumers can easily choose whether or not to use a particular edge provider and thus reveal information. By contrast, even in the instances where a consumer has a choice of broadband providers (and Americans in 78 percent of census blocks do not, according to a recent FCC report), high switching costs make changing providers a very unattractive option. You can decide you’re fed up with Google’s data policies and use another search engine easily; it’s much harder to do that with your ISP.
Despite these differences, I agree that one set of privacy rules for the internet ecosystem might be desirable. But why is Congress’ response to this alleged unlevel playing field removing the strongest privacy rules protecting consumers today?
As then-FCC chairman Tom Wheeler recognized when the privacy rules were adopted, the FCC does not have the legal power to regulate edge companies. But Congress has that power. Instead of repealing the only broadband privacy protections consumers currently have, Congress should instead pass a law requiring edge providers to meet the higher FCC standard that affords consumers more protection.
As CBS reports, Koppel charged the Fox News host with nurturing America’s intolerant political climate where, increasingly, varying perspectives are met with antipathy. Hannity did not deny that he uses his platform to promote a right-wing agenda. However, he argued that his viewers can parse editorial from fact.
“We have to give some credit to the American people that they’re somewhat intelligent and that they know the difference between an opinion show and a news show,” Hannity opined. He then accused Koppel of cynicism.
“I am cynical,” returned Koppel.
“Do you think we’re bad for America? You think I’m bad for America?”
But Koppel was undeterred by Hannity’s veneer of innocence and instead emphasized his ability to manipulate the emotions of his viewers.
“No, you know why [you’re bad for America?]? Because you’re very good at what you do, and because you have attracted a significantly more influential—”
“You’re selling the American people short,” Hannity interrupted.
After a brief back-and-forth on basic etiquette, Koppel continued.
“You have attracted people who are determined that ideology is more important than facts.”
During the interview, Hannity also stated that “liberalism must be defeated. Socialism must be defeated in a political sense. We don’t want a revolution in this country.” He also added how “the press in this country is out to destroy the president.”
So here is a man who admits that his “news” is just opinion and that the American people know the difference, and then pushes the Trump “fake news” agenda for any opinion that doesn’t match up with his beliefs
this is not the 1st time Koppel has attacked Fox News for being a nonsubjective journalist
Here’s a complete transcript of Senator Jeff Merkley’s barn-burning speech from the Senate floor earlier today (Copied Directly from this web page) This speech mirrors my thoughts and concerns regarding the Trump administration and the vision for the democracy in America.
The most important three words in our constitution are the first three words: “We The People”. With those words, our founding fathers laid out the vision, the principle, the foundation for our new nation’s government. It would be, as President Lincoln so eloquently described, a government of the people, by the people and for the people. It would not be a government by and for the privileged. It would not be a government by and for the powerful. It would not be a government by and for the elite. And it certainly would not be an authoritarian government.
I believe it is more important than ever for us to recommit ourselves to that vision, a vision of a nation that measures its successes, not at the board room table but at the kitchen tables of hardworking Americans across this land. The vision of a nation that derives its power and authority from the people. In order to do that, Mr. President, we must resist President Trump’s dangerous tilt towards authoritarianism.
Throughout his candidacy, and now within the walls of the White House, President Trump has viciously, repeatedly attacked the media. He has inflamed people’s anger towards immigrants, towards religious minorities, toward refugees, and he has undermined or attacked individuals who publicly stand up to him and the shortcomings of his policies. These are core strategies used by authoritarian leaders from time immemorial to consolidate power. These are strategies that are incompatible with our constitutional “We The People” construction of government. And we must call out these strategies, and we must resist these strategies.
President Trump’s authoritarian leanings were there from the beginning. Like many figures throughout history, he rode into office based as much on a cult personality as on the merits of his policies. It started with the nicknames and the unrestrained insults, calling opponents crooked and lying and phony, calling critics dumb as a rock, incompetent, crazy or dishonest. He escalated the calls to toss out or hurt protesters at his rallies. At one point, he even promised to pay the legal bills of a man arrested for punching a protester at a rally in North Carolina. And then there were the “lock her up” chants, calling for imprisoning a political opponent that he repeated himself. Threatening to throw your opponent in jail if you win is a strategy usually seen only with dictators. Mr. Trump himself best summed up his populist cult of personality when he said at one campaign event, and I quote, “I could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and shoot somebody, okay?, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay?”, end of quote. The scary thought is that he was probably not so far off the mark. And this aggressive and unswerving loyalty is a challenge to our “We The People” democracy.
Let’s take a look at Senior White House Policy Advisor Steven Miller’s declaration on “Face The Nation” last month. He said, quote, “Our opponents, the media and the whole world will soon see, as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned”. Interesting statement to make. The president’s powers will not be questioned. What a bold, un-American, authoritarian statement to make, because here in America, our nation, our national government is premised on the concept that we can challenge our leaders. It is not only a privilege, it is a responsibility. Yet Mr. Trump has repeatedly attacked this fundamental American principle and those who exercise it.
Take, for instance, his attack on freedom of the press. As Demosthenes , an ancient Greek statesman, legal scholar of the third century B.C. once said, quote, “There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots: suspicion”, end of quote. What Demosthenes was saying was that in a democracy, we don’t take the statements of our political leaders simply at face value. We test those statements against the facts to find our way to the truth. In the United States, a free and open press is how we exercise that suspicion and find our way to the truth. Thomas Jefferson believed that. He said “our liberty depends on the freedom of the press”. Our liberty depends upon the freedom of the press. Benjamin Franklin echoed that belief when he said “freedom of speech is ever the symptom as well as the effect of good government”. John Adams wrote “the liberty of the press is essential to the security of the state”. So essential, in fact, that the founding fathers enshrined our commitment to a free and open press in the very first amendment to the constitution, that congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.
Yet what we have seen time and time again from President Trump is an endless attack against the fourth estate, against the press. He said the media is “very unfair, they’re very biased”, he complained on Fox News last August. He attacked The New York Times in that same interview, not for the first or last time, saying “you look at the New York Times, I mean the fail — I call it the failing New York Times.” And apparently, any news story critical of the president is now “fake news”. He tweeted in February that, quote, “any negative polls are fake news”. And when asked about leaks from the intelligence community during the last month’s press conference in the East Room, he said “The leaks are absolutely real. The news is fake, because so much of the news is fake”. His staff has gone into action, too, pushing at one point the Orwellian term “alternative facts”. During an interview on NBC’s “meet the press,” Kellyanne Conway said “Our press secretary, Sean Spicer, gave alternative facts and we in the administration feel compelled to go out and clear the air and put alternative facts out there”. The White House has taken their fight with the media so far as to block access to outlets that they disagree with, banning outlets like CNN, Politico, the BBC, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times to an off-camera press briefing last month
But of all of President Trump’s relentless attacks against the media, the most disturbing to me was when he tweeted in February that, and I quote, “The fake news media, the failing New York Times, NBC News, ABC, CBS, CNN is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American people”.
President Trump, I have a message for you. A free and open press is not the enemy of the American people. A free and open press is the salvation of our democratic republic. It is the essential warrior in our republic against fake news, against charlatans and against those who would use fake news and attacks on the press to advance authoritarian government.
I thought my colleague from Arizona, Senator McCain, made a very apt analysis when he said that suppressing free speech is, quote, “how dictators get started”. When you look at history, the first thing dictators do is shut down the press. Senator McCain went on to say that if you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times an adversarial press.
So this is a major concern, this attack on the media, and particularly attack on news organizations that work to vet their reporting before they share it with the American people. In other words, we’re in the ironic situation that the very groups under attack by President Trump are the groups that work hardest to get true facts, actual facts, vetted facts, carefully fact-checked information to the American people. And that’s the foundation for a national dialogue, carefully vetted information so that we know when we read it it’s reliable. That’s the type of news we need more of in this nation.
But Mr. Trump’s authoritarian tactics aren’t just limited to his war on the media. His second approach is to attack and scapegoat immigrants and really just minorities, and refugees.
Ever since he stood in the lobby of Trump tower and said, quote, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists”. Since then, President Trump has made it his mission to turn the American people against Mexican immigrants. To make them the enemy. He has talked about the bad hombre’s flooding across our southern border, stealing our jobs, committing crimes, and murdering American citizens. In his mind, the people coming from Mexico are dangerous, violent cartel members, transporting an endless supply of drugs into our country in order to ruin America. But this story line is completely at odds with the facts. First, drug cartels do not ship their products into our country through the backpacks of immigrants. Recently, I traveled with a congressional delegation to the U.S.-Mexico border to examine this issue. The experts on the border told our delegation that drugs come into the United States through freight in trucks and through tunnels, not through backpacks. What this means is that a proposal to build a wall, whether it’s 20 feet high or 30 feet high will be absolutely useless in diminishing the flow of drugs into our country.
I’ll tell you what else they told us. They said an end zone defense doesn’t work against drugs. If you want to stop the flow of drugs, you have to work carefully with everything from the moment they’re being manufactured or shipped into Mexico until they migrate north. And that means you have to work in close cooperation with the security agencies of Mexico, with the police, with the intelligence agencies in Mexico, and that that cooperation requires a very close coordination between respected partners, and disrespecting the partners in Mexico is the best way to damage the ability to intercept drugs coming into the United States.
We also know that the underlying premise that there is a flood of Mexican immigrants coming into our country is false. A 2015 study from the Pew Research Center found that between 2009 and 2014, there was a net outflow of 140,000 immigrants from Mexico to the United States. So they were migrating from the United States to Mexico. And that outflow — A more recent Pew study determined that the number of undocumented Mexican immigrants in America has declined by more than one million since 2007. So if you take the span of the Obama administration, there’s been an outflow, not an inflow. The exact opposite of the story line that the president is presenting.
And what about those violent crimes being committed by undocumented criminals? The data doesn’t support the president. In fact, the New York Times reported that, and I quote, “several studies over many years have concluded that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the United States”. Between 1980 and 2010 among men ages 18 to 49, immigrants were one-half to one-fifth as likely to be incarcerated as those born in the United States.
When you look closer, the attacks on immigrants fall apart as I’ve pointed out, but that is what authoritarian leaders do. They create a false enemy. And they use the perception of that enemy to generate hate and fear. And they use that hate and fear to consolidate power. It is our responsibility as citizens, as the press of the United States, as legislators to resist this authoritarian strategy of President Trump.
Another of his strategies is to attack religious minorities in our country and abroad. Take, for instance, his pledge on the campaign trail for a, quote, “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”. As we know, Mr. Trump followed up on this approach after the election by asking Rudy Giuliani to help fashion a legal Muslim ban. During a Fox News interview, Mr. Giuliani said that Trump, quote, “called me up. He said, put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally to attempt to meet constitutional muster”. Trump aimed his ban at immigrants from seven Muslim-majority nations. As Rudy Giuliani went on to say, “what we did was we focused on instead of religion, danger. The areas of the world that create danger for us, which is a factual basis, not a religious basis, perfectly legal, perfectly sensible. That’s what the ban is based on”.
But as William Banks, the Director of the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism at Syracuse University has observed, since 9/11, no one has been killed in this country in a terrorist attack by anyone who immigrated from any of the seven countries. The president’s own Department of Homeland Security recently reported that citizens from the countries listed in the Muslim ban are rarely implicated in U.S.-based terrorism. In fact, the report concluded that individuals who died in the pursuit of or were convicted of terrorism were far more likely to be U.S. born than to be immigrants.
Well, here is a great irony, and the tragedy, of President Trump’s effort to demonize Muslims. Instead of protecting the United States, he is damaging the security of the United States. His attack feeds perfectly into and therefore strengthens ISIS’s recruiting strategy of claiming that the U.S. is at war with Islam. Video of his speeches and public statements, especially Trump’s call for a Muslim ban have already been featured in ISIS’s recruiting tools. In addition, it weakens the Muslim leaders that we are seeking to partner with in taking on ISIS. It undermines those leaders’ support from their own countries for cooperating with the United States. So Trump’s strategy does double damage to American security.
And I wish his impact against religious minorities stopped there. I wish they stopped long before there. Because incompatible with the fundamental premise and fundamental values of the United States of America of religious freedom, but throughout the course of his campaign he gave voice time and again to the views and opinions of white nationalists and anti-Semites. Now he didn’t directly attack the Jewish community, but his white nationalist rhetoric and actions have an effect of doing it indirectly. When the news or information, he turns to the white nationalist Breitbart news, a fake news source which has infamously attacked American Jews with stories like “Bill Crystal, republican spoiler, renegade Jew”. Another one attacking Ann Applebaum of the Washington Post says, “hell have no fury like a Polish Jewish American elitist scorned”. But President Trump doesn’t just tap into the Breitbart white nationalist themes. He brought the former executive chair of Breitbart, Steve Bannon, into the White House as his chief strategist, and then appointed him to the Principles Committee of the National Security Council. This individual has no business being anywhere near the capital of the United States and certainly not on the Principles Committee of the National Security Council. Bannon is a man who not only has been embraced by white supremacists for his views but according to testimony from his ex-wife has said he doesn’t want his children going to school with Jewish kids and once asked the school administrator why there were so many Hanukkah books in the library.
If you think this theme hasn’t had a real effect on our country, you’re wrong. When Donald Trump was elected, the KKK and other white national groups celebrated. They felt free to come out of the shadows. They felt bold enough to hold an annual white nationalist conference right here in Washington, D.C. at the Ronald Reagan Building, steps from the White House. Because they finally felt like they had one of their own in the oval office. These nationalist groups are so emboldened that we have seen more than 100 bomb threats called into Jewish community centers around the country since January. We’ve witnessed the desecration of Jewish headstones in cemeteries in St. Louis and in Philadelphia.
The president, speaking to a room full of state attorneys general last month, said that he condemned these threats, and I applaud him for condemning them. And then he turned around to say you have to be careful because the reverse could be true. What does he mean by that? Commentators have suggested the president meant by the reverse could be true that the bomb threats, the swastika graffiti, the desecration of Jewish burial sites might actually be the work of Jewish Americans. To generate criticism of President Trump. There is no evidence of this. And I certainly don’t believe it to be true, but what I do believe is that a blame the victim tactic is reprehensible and in itself an anti-Semitic strategy.
The president has also dedicated a significant amount of time to trying to make the country fear refugees, to demonize refugees. Many of us grew up in a world where Lady Liberty’s words “give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” stirred our heart because unless you are a hundred percent native American, you are tied if, through your parents, your grandparents, your great-grandparents, your ancestors, you are tied into those who immigrated to the United States, who came here often fleeing persecution, often fleeing famine, and this nation gave them a place to stand and build a new life and thrive and hand down a better, stronger nation to their children. That’s the property of our history, that is a value deeply rooted in our hearts.
But the president instead has dedicated his energy to attacking refugees, those like our ancestors who came here fleeing persecution and fleeing famine, especially Syrian refugees fleeing for their lives in search for a safe haven. He has falsely claimed that they represent, quote, “a great Trojan Horse”, end of quote, that threatens the safety of Americans. Mr. Trump says these victims of war have to be subjected to extreme vetting because we have no idea who these people are or where they come from.
The fact is we do know who they are. We know exactly where they come from because before they can come here as refugees, they already go through extreme vetting. It takes 18 months to two years of vetting on average before a refugee is given a ticket to come to the United States of America. And if at any point during that 18 to 24 months something doesn’t add up, they don’t get the ticket. Now, if ISIS or another terrorist organization wants to get someone dangerous into our country, they don’t come through an 18 or 24-month vetting process. No. They’d come on a tourist visa or a student visa or a business visa. Going through the refugee process would be the worst possible way to do it. As an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute reminded us in October 2015, of the 784,000 refugees that have been resettled in our country between September 11, 2001, three have been arrested for planning terrorist activities and none of those got past the planning phase. And only one of those three was talking about potential attacks here in the United States. The others were talking about sending money and weapons To Al Qaeda.
So in other words, no one has been injured by those 784,000 refugees. These are just some of the pieces of the president’s authoritarian strategy to demonize groups, to create hate, to create fear and try to consolidate power. And we’ve seen as a result of his activities ways of hate — waves of hate crimes and violence and bigotries sweep across our nation. Latinos in our schools and classrooms have been forced to confront classmates’ bullying and taunts, chants of build the wall, go back to your country. Graffiti sprayed on walls to build the wall higher. We heard reports of verbal and physical attacks against people of the Muslim faith like the woman at San Jose University who lost her balance and choked when a man attempted to rip off her head scarf off. Or a Muslim student at the University of Illinois-Champagne who reported having a knife pulled on her. Or the Muslim teacher in Georgia who found a note left on her desk that said head scarf not allowed and that she should hang herself with it.
Within the last eight weeks, four mosques around the country have been burned to the ground. And just recently a man in Kansas went into a bar, hurled ethnic slurs at two Indian engineers, shot them, killing one, seriously injuring the other. And as I mentioned earlier, since January there’s been more than a hundred bomb threats against Jewish community centers.
Throughout history, we’ve seen this tactic used by an executive here, an executive there, by a dictator here, a dictator there, in country after country: to characterize minority communities as a threat to be feared, in order to make the body politic afraid, to make them angry, and to make them willing to support authoritarian exercise of power. What is our job? To expose this strategy. To call attention to this strategy. To address the myths that are used to instill fear and the falsehoods that are used to instill hatred. It is our job to oppose this authoritarian game plan in every way possible.
The third leg of President Trump’s authoritarian attacks are ones that come against public opposition to him, and to attack the protests of the people of the United States.
What was the president’s response after millions of people in cities all around the country, and all around the world, for that matter, joined the Women’s March to stand up for the fundamental values of peace, tolerance, and equality? His response was a rebuke and a dismissal. He tweeted, “Watched the protests yesterday but was under the impression that we just had an election! Why didn’t these people vote?” Well, President Trump, they did vote. And they all voted overwhelmingly for your opponent by a three-million-vote margin. And we saw similarly disparaging responses from Republican lawmakers, like the Facebook post from a state senator in Mississippi, “so a group of unhappy liberal women voted in Washington, D.C. we shouldn’t be surprised. Liberal women are all unhappy”. And after countless citizens began showing up at town hall meetings to make their voices heard, what was his response? He dismissed these engaged citizens as so-called angry crowds. And then he tweeted, “professional anarchists, thugs, and paid protesters are proving the point of the millions of people who voted to make America great again!”
Now, I’ve held a lot of town halls since January, and many of them filled beyond capacity with regular citizens who are deeply distressed by what they are seeing in our country. At one town hall in … county, 3500 people showed up — or, more than 3,500 people. We had so many people that the hundreds of folks who couldn’t get in had to stand outside the building in the cold listening — we took a speaker and put it in the window so that outside could hear and they watched through the windows. This is We The People government. This is American citizens saying, your strategy, President Trump, is not okay. Your strategy to divide us into factions in America and pitch one faction against another, to demonize groups, to incite hate is just wrong.
But I find it truly disheartening to see the president attacking citizens exercising their voice, which is often the most basic civic duty. President Jefferson said that there is a mother principle for our government, and the mother principle is that the actions of the government will only reflect the will of the people if each and every citizen has an equal voice. Well, now we know in the modern day of campaign financing that some citizens — and indeed often some noncitizens; that is, massive, rich corporations — have a very loud voice compared to the average citizen. So citizens, to compensate, are saying we are going to show up. We’re going to take our time and our energy and we’re going to join together and we’re going to send a lot of emails to Capitol Hill, a lot of letters to Capitol Hill. But we’re also going to show up in the parks and the streets to march in order to say that this strategy, this authoritarian strategy, or this strategy to take away health care from millions of Americans, is absolutely unacceptable.
And the president somehow is living in a fantasy world where he thinks they’re paid. I don’t think so. I don’t think this last weekend when 800 people showed up to Redmond, Oregon, to my town hall, that a single one of them was paid — not a single one. Or we look across the country and we see the 7-year-old who wanted to be in a town hall because he doesn’t want us to cut funding for PBS to build a wall – he wasn’t paid. Or the Muslim immigrant who risked his life as a military reporter in Afghanistan and now wants to know who’s going to save me here? He wasn’t paid. American citizens are using their voice — as designed, in our We The People constitution.
But in the mind of our president and the words of his advisor Steven Miller, his powers are, quote, “very substantial and will not be questioned”. Not even by the citizens and voters of this great nation. Well, they are being questioned — massively — by citizens raising their voice in every possible way. Mr. President, American citizens everywhere are deeply disturbed by what they’re seeing unfold in our nation. They fear that we are headed down a dark and dangerous path that will betray the founding principles of our We The People government.
And they have every right to be anxious and concerned. There have been allusions made by a number of experts about Mr. Trump’s actions and especially in the early days of Putin’s regime and especially his relentless war against the media. All of these are reasons that citizens are fired up, raising their voices to oppose the authoritarian tactics of this administration. And when the president seeks to dismiss the legitimacy of these voices, I stand here today to praise those Americans for standing up, for taking on their responsibility as citizens, to create a powerful, courageous chorus, a public stand against the authoritarian strategy of President Trump. His strategy of attacking the media, his strategy of attacking immigrants, his strategy of attacking refugees, his strategy of attacking religious minorities. A friend sent me a message the other day saying, quote, “I’m more devastated daily. I can’t believe the republicans are not stopping this, saying something. How can this be happening? Don’t they see what’s happening? I weep for my kids.”
Millions of Americans across the country are feeling those same fears, and it’s up to all of us here, imbued with the awesome responsibility to speak for, represent the people of this nation, to stand up against advancing authoritarianism. It is right for us to fight for a free, open democratic republic with a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
In an attempt to make the insurance marketplace fairer and more viable, the law required insurance plans sold in the individual market, the fully insured small-group market, and through Medicaid expansion to cover a list of 10 “essential health benefits.” The list included some pretty basic medical care — like pregnancy and maternity care, mental health and addiction treatment, and lab tests.
Republican Congress members have been consistent about their desire to get rid of this part of the law. It has driven the cost of premiums up, and, they argue, limited Americans’ freedom of choice.
But you probably haven’t heard much about the “EHBs,” as they’re called among health wonks. That’s because the assumption has been that killing the provision wouldn’t be possible under the budget reconciliation procedure the GOP is using to attempt to rush their unpopular American Health Care Act through Congress.
Now, it seems, that might be wrong. In a push to win more support from the party, the latest GOP plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act would get rid of the law’s EHB requirement for the individual and small-group markets. (The previous draft of the American Health Care Act already did away with the EHB requirement for Medicaid expansion enrollees.)
Instead, as Nicholas Bagley explains over at the Incidental Economist, they’ve tacked on an amendment that tells each state to define what they believe counts as an essential benefit within the state. “If a state hasn’t defined the essential health benefits, it seems that no one in the state is eligible for tax credits,” he added.
The essential health benefits cover some pretty basic health care
Before we get into the politics and public health impact of the provision, let’s understand what the EHBs cover. They are about as basic as they sound. Here’s the full list, from Healthcare.gov:
Things like dental and vision care for adults aren’t on here, and the law only requires plans to cover one drug in a therapeutic class. But the list is pretty comprehensive when you think about what people get on large-groupemployer-sponsored insurance.
Politically, this Obamacare provision has been pretty unpalatable to those on the right. Because insurers were guaranteeing coverage for more services, the essential health benefits drove the average cost of premiums up.
They also created a sense of solidarity — that everyone should share in the cost of health care. But Republicans have opposed the idea that the government should dictate that people buy coverage they don’t want and may not need. (Remember that old question about why men should have to pay for maternity care.) They’ve advocated that everybody should be able to choose “the plan that’s right for them.” And from this view, the essential health benefits seem like an assault on that freedom of choice.
The Rub is
“Without these requirements, you are looking at an individual market where the only policies available are extremely skimpy or expensive,” said Matthew Fiedler, a fellow at Brookings who served as chief economist of the Council of Economic Advisers, where he oversaw work on the Affordable Care Act. In the past, insurers had strong incentives to design plans in ways that were unattractive to people with predictable health needs or sick people. And getting rid of the essential health benefits, Fiedler said, “would give them a powerful tool to avoid people that expect to need care.”
Within two or three years, Blumberg expects more comprehensive coverage plans to dry up. Since insurers can’t deny coverage outright, and many will be tempted to go down to more limited policies that attract healthy people, insurers offering comprehensive policies would likely attract more sick expensive patients, which would create a selection problem and make the plans unsustainable.
Getting rid of EHBs would also make the promise of covering people with preexisting conditions meaningless. If a cancer patient or person with diabetes can get coverage but the cost of their chemotherapy or insulin isn’t covered, that coverage isn’t meaningful anymore, Blumberg said.
Getting rid of coverage would mean these health services are out of reach for many people again. This would happen at a time when we are seeing the death rate edge up for large swaths of the American population.
“drive costs for people who need those services sky-high and transfer much of the cost to other public programs. The net gain for society is almost invisible.”
Republicans want Americans to choose “the plan that’s right for them.” What they are proposing, though, doesn’t sound like freedom. It sounds more like a lot of people will lose their coverage or have more limited health care options in front of them. But maybe that’s the point.
From a public health perspective, the prospect of thinning out EHBs is frightening. For example, the US already has some of the worst maternal health outcomes of all the countries in the developed world. We are also facing an opioid crisis, and suicide rates have been rising along with drug prices.
I asked Sen. Roberts if he supports scrapping Essential Health Benefits. “I wouldn’t want to lose my mammograms,” he snarked. @AliceOllstein
This is outrageous: Not a single woman or minority in the room as @Mike_Pence and @HouseGOP “freedom caucus” propose removing maternity coverage in #Trumpcare.
So to recap- in the name of more “choice” the GOP will make it so insurance no longer has to cover- Outpatient care, emergency care, hospitalization, pregnancy, maternity, and newborn care, mental health and addiction services, prescription drugs, rehab, lab services, preventative care, chronic disease management, and pediatric services.
So what kind of insurance is this? oh but you can bet it will still cover Viagra for these old white pricks!
But forget things like Mental Health help
Insurers could sell a wide variety of policies covering only certain benefits – the policies with fewer benefits would be cheaper. This sounds good in theory, but has a number of problems. Here are just a few.
You may buy coverage with a $500,000 lifetime cap, but then get a disease where you need $1 million worth of care.
By stripping out pregnancy coverage, it will be difficult to get policies that cover pregnancy at affordable prices.
The opioid epidemic is overwhelming and treatment can be expensive. Policies to cover this problem will be tough to find.
You may miss policy details that items such as ambulance service are not covered. If you have an emergency, you’ll receive many bills not covered by your insurance.
2. The Second Problem with the revision- It will cost more and give us less.
Recent revisions to the Republican health care bill means it would cost more, and still leave 24 million fewer people insured by 2026, new estimates from the Congressional Budget Office show.
The legislation to repeal major portions of Obamacare would reduce federal deficits by $150 billion over 10 years, according to the revised estimates. The original bill would have lowered the deficits by $337 billion. Much of the added costs stem from letting taxpayers deduct more of their medical expenses and repealing a slew of Obamacare taxes — include two levied on higher-income Americans — a year earlier. Funding for the additional tax credits — which will be crafted by the Senate — would come by allowing taxpayers to deduct medical expenses that exceed 5.8% of their income, according to a House staffer. The change would give the Senate $90 billion over 10 years to work with, the CBO found.The original GOP bill set that threshold at 7.5%. Under Obamacare, taxpayers could only deduct medical costs greater than 10% of their income. (link)
An average family making more than $200,000 a year would gain $5,640 while a family making less than $10,000 a year would lose $1,420 if Congress passes the health care plan proposed by House Republicans, according to a new analysis.
More than 70 percent of the tax cuts, however, would go to families with incomes above $200,000 a year, and more than 46 percent would go to those making more than $1 million a year.
The Republican plan eliminates taxes Obamacare imposed mostly on the rich, including taxes on investment income and wages above $200,000. (Cuts to other Obamacare taxes, including ones on medical devices, prescription drugs, and indoor tanning, benefit the population more broadly.)
3. This will actually hurt small businesses and individuals and just benefit corporations and the rich (against what the GOP has been saying which is the ACA hurts small business)
One positive of the Affordable Care Act is that all policies are congruent in their essential benefits. When the law passed, clients in my financial planning firm who were tied to jobs they hated because of health insurance were finally able to quit that miserable part of their life. They began independent consulting jobs, started small companies, or worked part time for kinder employers without the need for employer-based coverage. This is freedom!
Small business is the backbone of America. Providing better health insurance opportunities only through large employers will significantly hamper small business development and growth. This is counter to what the Freedom Caucus desires for our country. I understand their desire to cut the costs of policies and I hope they understand this unintended consequence of removing congruent essential benefits.
There are other ways to provide essential benefits. People forget that primary care is not insurable – everyone needs it and insurance can be cost effective only if it covers high dollar care or rare disease. Pregnancy, mental health issues, common chronic diseases and preventive care affect all of us in some form or fashion. The most cost effective way to pay for this is to provide it directly. We can do this at a fraction of the cost taxpayers pay today through expanding well-funded community health centers and using direct primary care.
4. This will also Hurt Rural America the most- the very same people who voted for the GOP and Trump because the believed “Obamacare” was hurting them.
By no longer adjusting premium tax credits based on the local price of health insurance, the AHCA would dramatically decrease the premium tax credits in rural (and other) states with high health care costs.
First off, just follow his twitter feed @realDonaldTrump (which he still uses daily instead of the official President one) Does that sound like the ramblings of the leader of the free world?
But the real reason I am writing this post today is based on the Time Article that just came out
Here are some of my favorite excerpts from the article
His answer about the topic of the article- which is about Truth and Falsehoods. If can follow this 1st answer I will give you a prize
Do you want me to give you a quick overview [of the story]?
Yeah, it’s a cool story. I mean it’s, the concept is right. I predicted a lot of things, Michael. Some things that came to you a little bit later. But, you know, we just rolled out a list. Sweden. I make the statement, everyone goes crazy. The next day they have a massive riot, and death, and problems. Huma [Abedin] and Anthony [Weiner], you know, what I tweeted about that whole deal, and then it turned out he had it, all of Hillary’s email on his thing. NATO, obsolete, because it doesn’t cover terrorism. They fixed that, and I said that the allies must pay. Nobody knew that they weren’t paying. I did. I figured it. Brexit, I was totally right about that. You were over there I think, when I predicted that, right, the day before. Brussels, I said, Brussels is not Brussels. I mean many other things, the election’s rigged against Bernie Sanders. We have a lot of things.
2. Talking about his claims regarding Ted Cruz on the campaign trail
Well that was in a newspaper. No, no, I like Ted Cruz, he’s a friend of mine. But that was in the newspaper. I wasn’t, I didn’t say that. I was referring to a newspaper. A Ted Cruz article referred to a newspaper story with, had a picture of Ted Cruz, his father, and Lee Harvey Oswald, having breakfast.
That gets close to the heart…
Why do you say that I have to apologize? I’m just quoting the newspaper, just like I quoted the judge the other day, Judge Napolitano, I quoted Judge Napolitano, just like I quoted Bret Baier, I mean Bret Baier mentioned the word wiretap. Now he can now deny it, or whatever he is doing, you know. But I watched Bret Baier, and he used that term. I have a lot of respect for Judge Napolitano, and he said that three sources have told him things that would make me right. I don’t know where he has gone with it since then. But I’m quoting highly respected people from highly respected television networks.
But traditionally people in your position in the Oval Office have not said things unless they can verify they are true.
Well, I’m not, well, I think, I’m not saying, I’m quoting, Michael, I’m quoting highly respected people and sources from major television networks.
3. When he was being asked about Sweeden he cut off the question and talked about his cover appearances.
So when you…
And then TIME magazine, which treats me horribly, but obviously I sell, I assume this is going to be a cover too, have I set the record? I guess, right? Covers, nobody’s had more covers.
4.When he was asked about credibility of the intelligence agency
But isn’t there, it strikes me there is still an issue of credibility. If the intelligence community came out and said, we have determined that so and so is the leaker here, but you are saying to me now, that you don’t believe the intelligence community when they say your tweet was wrong.
I’m not saying—no, I’m not blaming. First of all, I put Mike Pompeo in. I put Senator Dan Coats in. These are great people. I think they are great people and they are going to, I have a lot of confidence in them. So hopefully things will straighten out. But I inherited a mess, I inherited a mess in so many ways. I inherited a mess in the Middle East, and a mess with North Korea, I inherited a mess with jobs, despite the statistics, you know, my statistics are even better, but they are not the real statistics because you have millions of people that can’t get a job, ok. And I inherited a mess on trade. I mean we have many, you can go up and down the ladder.
But that’s the story. Hey look, in the mean time, I guess, I can’t be doing so badly, because I’m president, and you’re not. You know. Say hello to everybody OK?
So here is my take away. This man is a narcissist who thinks that now he is the President whatever he says or thinks is truth. I can’t decide if its because he is mentally ill or a pathological liar, but he is not ok. He will damage our relationships with our closest allies, he will damage our place in the world, and he will damage this country if is allowed to remain as our president.
BONUS-
additionally- during the Time interview, Trump spoke a lot about the Devin Nunes press conference. Here is the problem with that press conference. Devin Nunes is the head of the House Intelligence Committee and he went to Trump and the press before working with his colleagues.
Here is the biggest problem
Nunes, a member of the Trump’s transition team executive committee, set off a stunning new political controversy Wednesday when he headed to the White House to personally brief President Donald Trump on the revelations. Despite being advised against doing so, sources said Nunes met with Republican members of the Intelligence Committee before his news conference, but did not share information with the Democrats on the committee.
So now how will we get a true independent investigation? (Article)
Manafort was Trump’s former Campaign Chairman, who eventually stepped down after 5 months as this past was starting to become a distraction. There are several reports that while he stepped down publically, behind the scenes he was still very much in Trump’s ear.
President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, secretly worked for a Russian billionaire to advance the interests of Russian President Vladimir Putin a decade ago and proposed an ambitious political strategy to undermine anti-Russian opposition across former Soviet republics, The Associated Press has learned. The work appears to contradict assertions by the Trump administration and Manafort himself that he never worked for Russian interests.
Manafort proposed in a confidential strategy plan as early as June 2005 that he would influence politics, business dealings and news coverage inside the United States, Europe and the former Soviet republics to benefit the Putin government, even as U.S.-Russia relations under Republican President George W. Bush grew worse.
Manafort pitched the plans to Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, a close Putin ally with whom Manafort eventually signed a $10 million annual contract beginning in 2006, according to interviews with several people familiar with payments to Manafort and business records obtained by the AP. Manafort and Deripaska maintained a business relationship until at least 2009, according to one person familiar with the work.
“We are now of the belief that this model can greatly benefit the Putin Government if employed at the correct levels with the appropriate commitment to success,” Manafort wrote in the 2005 memo to Deripaska. The effort, Manafort wrote, “will be offering a great service that can re-focus, both internally and externally, the policies of the Putin government.”
Manafort’s plans were laid out in documents obtained by the AP that included strategy memoranda and records showing international wire transfers for millions of dollars. How much work Manafort performed under the contract was unclear.
member of the intelligence committee, Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., said the disclosure “undermines the groundless assertions that the administration has been making that there are no ties between President Trump and Russia. This is not a drip, drip, drip” situation, she said. “This is now dam-breaking with water flushing out with all kinds of entanglements.”
Manafort’s work with Deripaska continued for years, though they had a falling out laid bare in 2014 in a Cayman Islands bankruptcy court. The billionaire gave Manafort nearly $19 million to invest in a Ukrainian TV company called Black Sea Cable, according to legal filings by Deripaska’s representatives. It said that after taking the money, Manafort and his associates stopped responding to Deripaska’s queries about how the funds had been used.
Here is Manafort in his own words trying to deny any Trump ties to Russia- are you convinced?
The Trump White House attempted to separate themselves from Manafort, as well Flynn
Manafort “played a limited role for a limited amount of time”
Limited Role? Chairman of the Campaign is a limited role? He was the head of the campaign for 5 months, and there are new reports that even after the resignation, he continued to play a role behind the scenes. Physically, Manafort never really went anywhere: He owns an apartment in Trump Tower. This report also suggests that he was a major factor behind his cabinet picks as well.
In addition to his connections to Russia, there are also his links to former pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Ukrainian lawmaker Sergii Leshchenko claims a document found in a safe in Kiev may be evidence that Manafort tried to mask payments to him from Yanukovych’s party.He also worked on a campaign in the Ukraine that helped a pro-Russia candidate that had similar techniques to the Trump election. For more on Ukraine and Manafort
“Manafort’s consulting work in Ukraine was already under a microscope, given Trump’s favorable comments about Russian President Vladimir Putin, an ally of Yanukovych. Trump raised eyebrows last month when he said he would consider recognizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Russia invaded the Ukrainian territory in 2014 after Yanukovych was ousted in a pro-Western revolt.
“The Trump campaign also worked to weaken language in the GOP platform on aid to Ukraine’s post-Yanukovych government. At the campaign’s urging, platform language calling for the U.S. to provide ‘lethal defensive weapons’ to Ukraine was watered down to ‘appropriate assistance.’ “
I say where there is smoke there is fire, and this is turning out to be a ginormous dumpster fire that is threatening to take down the entire democracy of the United States
Let me start off with this ad (and others like it)
March 16 marked the one-year anniversary of Garland’s nomination. Republicans argued that with 11 months left on his second term, Obama was too close to the end of his tenure to be nominating judges. The GOP slow-walked the process into 2017, vowing in last year’s elections to take up the matter with a new president, regardless of who won.
“The American people have already begun voting on who the next president will be, and their voice should continue to be reflected in a process that will have lasting implications on our nation,” Montana’s Republican Sen. Steve Daines, said last spring.
In the process, Senate Republicans created a presidential campaign issue, upon which Trump vowed to appoint a justice who let the legality of abortion be decided on a state by state level. For 44 years, abortion has been recognized as a Constitutional right under the 14th Amendment, a right that states couldn’t deny.
A Billings Gazette article states that over $900,000 dollars have been spent on ads urging Montanans to call Tester and tell him to vote for Gorsuch. They are painting it as obstruction and that the Democrats are blocking his nomination. It’s literally been 3 weeks since the nomination and they are freaking out about it, yet the Republicans blocked anything related to the Merrick Garland nomination for over a year!
So to start off, whether I like Gorsuch or not, this partisan game was bad for our democracy. Even more, the dark money that is allowed to pour into the country through the Citizens United ruling, has allowed people with a lot to gain to run ads for whatever they want under the guise of free speech.
Tester said Montanans should know who is paying for the ads attacking him. He’s introduced legislation that would require social welfare groups to reveal the people funding their organizations. The bill, titled the “Sunlight for Unaccountable Non-profits Act,” was introduced before JCN ads attacking Tester began appearing in Montana.
Tester said he doesn’t think advertising will persuade Montanans to support Gorsuch. They’ll find their own reasons to support or oppose the nomination.
“Montanans are independent people, we wouldn’t buy a pickup because the commercial’s got a catchy jingle, we buy one when we know it can get the job done,” Tester said. “Montanans expect the same thing from their senators. That’s why I am kicking the tires on Judge Gorsuch and waiting for his public hearing. I have to see if he’s up to the task.”
So where is this money really coming from?
To fill its own coffers, JCN has increasingly relied on funding—to the tune of nearly $4 million, according to IRS documents—from another non-disclosing group, the Wellspring Committee, that’s run by Corkery and was founded seven years ago with the help of conservative donors in the network led by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch (According to this article, which has more info)
So there you have it, the Koch Brothers are behind this, as with most conservative causes. They are pushing an agenda that includes tax cuts for the wealthy and big oil, eliminating the minimum wage, slashing Medicare and dismantling Social Security. You know, the usual agenda of the extreme, tea party (Koch Brothers Agenda)
Why are they pushing Tester?
Getting a U.S. Supreme Court justice seated takes 60 Senate votes. And with only 52 Republicans in the Senate, pro-Gorsuch groups have been throwing everything at Democrats like Tester in states President Trump won.
Montana voted strongly enough for Trump that statistician Nate Silver, of the FiveThirtyEight blog, predicts that Tester should be voting with Trump about 92 percent of the time. The senator’s votes are in line with the president 44.8 percent of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight
Pro: He’s a true Westerner, born and raised in Denver, an avid skier who used to go fishing with Scalia. For a court dominated by New Yorkers and with only one Californian, he brings geographical diversity.
Pro: He’s Scalia Light. A firm adherent of the late justice’s belief that the Constitution and laws should be followed rather than liberally interpreted, Gorsuch seems like a deserving recipient of Scalia’s seat.
Pro: He’s a gifted writer who goes out of his way to make his opinions accessible to average readers, in the tradition of Scalia and the most recent Supreme Court nominee, Justice Elena Kagan.
Pro: He’s been around the block. Even at 49, Gorsuch boasts considerable experience in Washington, D.C., where he worked in private practice and at the Justice Department.
Pro: He appears to be well qualified and well liked amongst his peers
Con: He isn’t Merrick Garland. Most Senate Democrats likely will argue that no Trump nominee deserves their support after Republicans refused to grant a hearing or a vote to Garland, President Obama’s compromise choice last March to replace Scalia.
Con: His connection to GOP Billionaires (Concerns regarding Judge Gorsuch’s independence also have been magnified by the recent New York Times discovery that conservative billionaire Philip Anschutz “successfully lobbied Colorado’s lone Republican senator and the Bush administration to nominate Judge Gorsuch to the federal appeals court) Article
Con: His comments about Maternity Leave- the judge told his class that employers, specifically law firms, should ask women seeking jobs about their plans for having children and implied that women manipulate companies starting in the interview stage to extract maternity benefits. (article)
This case shows, liberals say, that Gorsuch rules for employers at the expense of workers. In it, he dissented from a three-judge panel that ruled in favor of truck driver Alphonse Maddin. He was fired after he disobeyed a supervisor and abandoned his trailer at roadside after its brakes froze. The panel ruled he was wrongly terminated. Gorsuch disagreed.
In an immigration case, Gorsuch criticized the “Chevron deference” legal doctrine that says courts should defer to federal agencies on interpreting the law. Gorsuch said it concentrates federal power “in a way that seems more than a little difficult to square with the Constitution.” If the court were to roll back the doctrine, presidents would have less leeway to interpret the law when issuing regulations through agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency.
In a ruling highlighted by liberal activists as a sign he may be hostile to gay and transgender rights, Gorsuch joined a ruling against a transgender Oklahoma state prisoner who claimed prison officials violated her rights by denying her adequate hormone therapy and housing her with men. The court rejected her claims, saying she had not proved she would be “irreparably harmed without her requested hormone treatment.”
In a case criticized by liberals, Gorsuch wrote the opinion when a three-judge panel ruled against Kansas State University professor Grace Hwang. She got six months of sick leave from the school when she was diagnosed with cancer. When she asked for more time, Kansas State refused. Hwang alleged illegal disability discrimination. Gorsuch said Hwang was a capable teacher and was legally disabled. But he wrote: “There’s also no question she wasn’t able to perform the essential functions of her job even with a reasonable accommodation.” He said the law was not intended to “turn employers into safety net providers for those who cannot work.” Hwang has since died.
Liberals say this case shows Gorsuch sides with corporations over people and favors religious liberty over other interests, including womens’ contraceptive rights. Retailer Hobby Lobby argued it should not have to provide insurance coverage for female employees’ birth control, defying a rule by the administration of former President Barack Obama. Gorsuch concurred in an opinion favoring the company and expressed sympathy for evangelical Christian business owners. The Supreme Court later upheld the decision for the company.
I have not made a formal opinion on Gorsuch, but I do have cause to worry. I worry he would side on things like Citizens United which gives corporations the same rights as individuals and has really opened up corruption and dark money in politics. I also worry about his propensity to use his religious lens to form his opinions. While I share his religious beliefs, our country is not founded or governed by a particular religious ideology and should not be judged that way. When I look at the Hobby Lobby case in particular, he sided with corporate interests in the name of religious freedom over the rights of the individuals who work there, even when it was something that was covered for their employees for years, but was pushed in our current political climate due to corporations not liking the Affordable care act’s mandates.
Jeramie's Blog 