The GOP’s reluctance to challenge rising prescription drug costs could be a political liability for the party in 2020.
Outrage over increasing prices has propelled the issue to the top of voters’ minds heading into the November elections, when Republicans hope to keep control of the Senate and retake the House.
But proposals that would limit what drug companies can charge for their products face opposition from Republicans, presenting an obstacle to congressional passage. Continue reading.
Set aside the would-be political boomerang effects of impeachment or even of having a presidential reelection candidate who seems to draw sustenance from public insults and personal boasts.
If you’re the Republican Party, apparently it is not enough to use the power of incumbency for reelection, or the argument that you cut taxes or that Donald Trump has been “keeping promises”—at least in a sort-of manner.
Republicans have tagged a coordinated attack on the voter rolls to try to assure electoral victory. Rather than celebrate the fact that more voters may want to join the 40% of us who troop loyally to the polls on all sides, Republicans repeatedly seems to be targeting those who might vote against them. Continue reading
One of the ways that Republicans demonstrate that they are the “post-truth” party is that, when Democrats are in office, they prioritize federal deficit reduction, but when they’re in charge, the deficit soars. Right on cue, the Wall Street Journal reported back in October that the federal deficit was about to reach $1 trillion.
A strong economy typically leads to narrower deficits, as rising household income and corporate profits help boost tax collections, while spending on safety-net programs such as unemployment insurance tends to decline.
The U.S. economy has been growing for 10 years as of July, the longest economic expansion on record. Yet annual U.S. deficits are on track to exceed $1 trillion starting this year, due in part to the 2017 tax law, which constrained federal revenue collection last year, and a 2018 budget deal that busted spending caps enacted in 2011.
When even Rupert Murdoch’s paper credits the Republican tax cuts as a contributor, you can take that one to the bank. Steve Benen put together a helpful chart to demonstrate what has happened to the deficit over time. Continue reading
As the Senate attempts to set rules for President Trump’s impeachment trial, at least one Republican is expressing concern about the proceedings. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said in an interview Tuesday that she was disturbed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s promise of “total coordination” with the White House. Murkowski’s comments mark a rare instance of dissent for the Republican Party, which has been unified behind President Trump until now. McConnell needs 51 votes to set the rules for the hearing. Republicans have a thin majority of 53 seats in the Senate. Last week, Oscar-winning filmmaker Michael Moore witnessed the historic vote to impeach the president from the front row of the House gallery. He joins us for the hour to discuss the impeachment process, the 2020 election and why he thinks Trump would win re-election today.
AMY GOODMAN: Republicans and Democrats are continuing to battle over the terms of President Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate. The House has impeached Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has withheld sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate over concerns of an unfair trial. Democrats are demanding the Senate hear witnesses in the trial, which centers on how President Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine to pressure the Ukrainian president to investigate Trump’s political rival Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential election. On Tuesday, Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski said, in an interview in Alaska station KTUU in Anchorage, that she was “disturbed” by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s promise of “total coordination” with the White House. Continue reading
During the Christmas season, one often finds liberals and progressives equating Republican economic policies with Charles Dickens’ fictional 19th Century character Ebenezer Scrooge. But economist Paul Krugman, in a New York Times column published two days before Christmas, explains why he now finds Republican/Scrooge comparisons problematic.
“It’s common, especially around this time of year, to describe conservative politicians who cut off aid to the poor as Scrooges; I’ve done it myself,” Krugman explains. “But if you think about it, this is deeply unfair to Scrooge.”
Modern-day Republicans, Krugman observes, are overtly cruel to the poor in ways that never occurred to Scrooge. Continue reading
The conservative movement in the United States used to pride itself on having intellectuals like George Will and the late National Review founder William F. Buckley, who spoke with a posh Mid-Atlantic accent that sounded quasi-British. But these days, many right-wing politicians and media figures champion a certain anti-intellectualism —and journalist Christian Schneider, in an article for the conservative website The Bulwark, notes that some Republicans go out of their way to butcher the English language even if they have Ivy League educations.
One example, Schneider notes, is referring to the Democratic Party as “the Democrat Party.” And Republican Sen. Josh Hawley is among the offenders: the Missouri senator, Schneider writes, “fancies himself a salt-of-the-earth Midwesterner who doesn’t truck with fancy elites” — even though he attended Yale Law School.
“Saying ‘Democrat’ instead of ‘Democratic’ has become a shibboleth — a verbal handshake to signal that you’re on Team Red Hat,” Schneider explains. “It’s about as annoying as people rolling their r’s when ordering a burrito to prove they once vacationed in Cozumel. But whatever. Triggering Democrats has become so important to Republicans that they’re willing to assault the English language if the people who like good grammar are the bad guys.” Continue reading
The decision by Christianity Today to publish an editorial describing President Trump as “immoral” and calling for his removal drew immediate rebuke from the president himself, who called the outlet “a far left magazine.” The piece drew nearly 3 million unique visitors to the magazine’s website and became the talk of TV news shows over the weekend.
At the same time, the longtime centrist-right evangelical magazine saw a rush of canceled subscriptions — and an even greater wave of new subscribers, magazine President Timothy Dalrymple said. Both he and the author of the editorial, retiring editor in chief Mark Galli, could also face personal and professional consequences, according to interviews with several other conservative Christian leaders and writers who in the past have spoken out critically about Trump.
They described losing book sales, conference attendees, donors, church members and relationships. Continue reading
The Russians wasted decades infiltrating the left attempting to gain purchase in American political life. There was the Communist Party USA, of course. Established in 1919, the CPUSA grew through the 1930s and boasted a membership of about 100,000 at the beginning of World War II. A hundred thousand! Whoop-de-doo!
Then there were the spinoff lefty parties like the Socialist Workers Party, the Progressive Labor Party, the Workers World Party, the Socialist Labor Party, the Progressive Labor Party — we could go on listing one splinter group after another with “socialist” or “labor” or “workers” in its title. They were tiny groups with memberships that were sometimes less than 100, and they would all deny being infiltrated by the Russkies, naturally. So would the “New Left” groups that came later, like SDS and The Weathermen. Nobody wanted to admit they were under Russian influence. Everything they were doing, from opposing the war in Vietnam to civil rights to fighting for free speech, was being done for completely pure reasons. Continue reading “Russia and the Republicans: Vladimir Putin’s American subsidiary”
The president had pardoned Army First Lt. Clint Lorance and Maj. Mathew Golsteyn last month, in a move that strained his relationship with Pentagon leaders.President Trump brought two soldiers he had pardoned in cases involving war crimes onstage at a fund-raiser this weekend in Florida, tightening his embrace of an episode that roiled his relationship with military leaders and prompted a public outcry.
Mr. Trump, as the featured speaker, invited up Army First Lt. Clint Lorance and Maj. Mathew L. Golsteyn, according to a report in The Miami Herald that was confirmed by a person with knowledge of the event.
The fund-raiser, which was held Saturday at the J.W. Marriott Turnberry Resort and Spa in Aventura and benefited the Republican Party of Florida, was closed to reporters. A Republican official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the event, said that the officers were guests of an attendee and that they had not been part of the program. Mr. Trump appears to have called them up upon learning they were there.
If there were a global competition for insincerity, President Trump would have won the equivalent of an Oscar, a gold medal, a Ballon d’Or and a Vince Lombardi Trophy combined. You simply could not be more two-faced; it is not humanly possible. His picture belongs in the dictionary under the very word “hypocrisy.”
Trump, recall, spent much of 2016 leading chants of “Lock her up!” because Hillary Clinton made the mistake of employing a private server for some of her official emails as secretary of state. Trump still routinely refers to the former first lady and secretary of state as “Crooked Hillary” as if she had actually committed a crime. Never mind that the Justice Department decided not to prosecute and that a lengthy State Department investigation, completed during the Trump administration, found “no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information.”
And yet, while castigating Clinton for supposedly mishandling classified information, Trump has been engaging in far more egregious examples of the very same sin.
