Tag: Republicans

Health Care Top Issue & Those Voters Trust Democrats Over Republicans By 24 Points

There are 19 days until the midterm elections, and according to a new poll, voters trust Democrats more than Republicans on health care by a 24-point margin. It’s clear why: Republicans are trying to take away protections for people with pre-existing conditions and want to try to repeal the Affordable Care Act again.

Health care is the top issue, and voters prefer Democrats to handle it.

  • 58 percent of voters say health care is their top voting issue, and those voters prefer the Democratic candidate by a 24-point margin.

  • A majority of voters disapprove of how Trump is handling health care.

Continue reading “Health Care Top Issue & Those Voters Trust Democrats Over Republicans By 24 Points”

What Republican Whiners Dread Is Democracy – Not ‘Mob Rule’

Donald Trump flanked by Mike Pence and John Kelly

To hear some people tell it, America stands at the edge of a dangerous precipice. No less an authority than Donald J. Trump, the nation’s leading exponent of racial grievance theory, fears for the safety of the republic.

Marauding bands of women in silly pink hats have the commander-in-chief spooked. “You don’t hand matches to an arsonist,” he told a Kansas rally the other day “and you don’t give power to an angry left-wing mob—and that’s what they’ve become.”

Democrats, he means.

View the complete October 18 article by Gene Lyons on the National Memo website here.

Study finds no link between transgender rights law and bathroom crimes

Credit: John Tlumacki, Globe Staff, file

A first-of-its-kind study being released Wednesday refutes the premise that the state’s transgender antidiscrimination law threatens public safety, finding no relation between public transgender bathroom access and crimes that occur in bathrooms.

Researchers at the Williams Institute, a think tank focused on gender identity at the UCLA School of Law, examined restroom crime reports in Massachusetts cities of similar size and comparable demographics and found no increase in crime and no difference between cities that had adopted transgender policies and those that had not. The data were collected for a minimum of two years before a statewide antidiscrimination law took effect in 2016.

Activists who want to undo that state law through a ballot question in the Nov. 6 election have focused their campaign message on bathroom safety concerns. They suggest that a new right for transgender people infringes on everyone else’s privacy rights, and could be abused by men who want to prey upon women and children in ladies’ rooms. The vote is being closely watched nationwide because it offers the nation’s first public referendum on transgender rights in the state that first introduced gay marriage.

More on the Boston Globe website here.

How the tea party paved the way for Donald Trump

The following article by Bryan T. Gervais and Irwin L. Morris was posted on the Washington Post website September 7, 2018:

President Trump greets the crowd at a rally in Billings, Mont., on Thursday. Credit: Kevin Lamarque, Reuters

In August, after former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlentylost his state’s Republican primary for governor, he wistfully concluded, “The Republican Party has shifted. It is the era of Trump, and I’m just not a Trump-like politician.” Indeed, despite the protests of “Never Trump” Republicans over the last three years, President Trump is clearly at the center of the party and no longer an “outsider” or interloper.

But Trump did not make this happen singlehandedly. In our new book “Reactionary Republicanism: How the Tea Party in the House Paved the Way for Trump’s Victory,” we argue that one important group blazed the path Trump followed: the tea party movement. In substance and style, Trump has realized the agenda that tea party Republicans forged in the Obama years.

Our research focuses on tea party Republicans in the House — where the tea party’s congressional base was most powerful. We assessed each House member’s association with the tea party based on support from tea party activists and groups and whether the member explicitly identified with the tea party movement.

View the complete article here.

Five biggest surprises in midterm fight

The following article by Lisa Hagen, Max Greenwood and Reid Wilson was posted on the Hill website September 7, 2018:

Two months before voters head to the polls in a midterm election increasingly shaped by President Trump, the political landscape is far different than it was when he took office.

Democrats are showing up to vote in record numbers, but so are Republicans. Trump’s approval rating has remained dismal, but consistent. And the states and districts in which the two parties are fighting for control of Congress are markedly different than what strategists on both sides expected.

Here are the five biggest surprises defining the 2018 midterm elections:

View the complete article here.

Legal Case to Smash Obamacare Hands the Democrats a Hammer

The following article by Abby Goodnough was posted on the New York Times website September 5, 2018:

Supporters of the Affordable Care Act rally at Burnett Park in Fort Worth, where a federal judge heard arguments on the constitutionality of the law.CreditCreditMax Faulkner/Star-Telegram, AP

FORT WORTH — More than 1,000 miles from the caustic Supreme Court confirmation hearing of Brett M. Kavanaugh, a federal judge in Texas on Wednesday listened to arguments about whether to find part or all of the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, in a case that may end up before a newly right-leaning set of justices.

The case has become not simply a threat to the landmark legislation. Democrats have sought to make it both a flash point in the battle over whether to confirm Judge Kavanaugh and a crucial prong in their strategy to retake control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections.

It has already made some Republicans jumpy, especially those in tight re-election contests, because the Trump administration explicitly said in a legal filing in June that it agreed with the argument of Texas and 19 other Republican-controlled states that the law’s protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions are not constitutional. The administration is refusing to defend those guarantees. In that sense, although the case threatens one of the Democrats’ proudest achievements, it is also proving to be something of an election-year gift to their party.

View the complete article here.

No self-respecting member of Congress should fear Democrats’ investigative requests

The following commentary by the Washington Post Editorial Board was posted on their website September 1, 2018:

President Trump meets with members of Congress and administration officials at the White House on Aug. 23. Credit: Win McNamee, Getty Images)

NEWS WEBSITE Axios reported Aug. 26 that Republicans are “getting ready for hell” in the form of wide-ranging congressional investigations of President Trump should the Democrats take the House in November. That is one way to describe the legislative branch finally taking its oversight responsibilities seriously.

According to the article, a senior House Republican’s office compiled a spreadsheet of more than 100 investigative requests Democrats have made, a document that has circulated on Capitol Hill and “churned Republican stomachs.” Highlights include Mr. Trump’s tax returns; his family’s businesses and whether foreign governments are doing them untoward favors; the president’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin; likely illegal hush money paid to an adult-film star and Playboy model alleging affairs with Mr. Trump; the sudden firing of then-FBI Director James B. Comey; the president’s transgender military ban; the purging of scientists from the Environmental Protection Agency; Cabinet secretary abuse of government perks; the lackadaisical (and deadly) response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico; Mr. Trump’s travel ban; election security; and the administration’s policy of ripping migrant children from their parents. The litany goes on. Continue reading “No self-respecting member of Congress should fear Democrats’ investigative requests”

The writer with ties to white nationalists who resigned from DHS donated to the RNC, Donald Trump, Kris Kobach, and Dave Brat

The following article by Eric Hananoki was posted on the Media Matters website August 31, 2018:

Update: Ian Smith also donated to Corey Stewart’s 2017 gubernatorial campaign

Ian Smith, a writer who recently resigned from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) over his ties to white nationalists, donated thousands of dollars combined to the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Republican campaigns of President Donald Trump, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, and Rep. Dave Brat from Virginia..

The Atlantic’s Rosie Gray reported on August 28 that Smith, who had recently worked at DHS as a policy analyst on immigration issues, “had in the past been in contact with a group that included known white nationalists as they planned various events.” She added that the messages “provide a glimpse into how a group that included hard-core white nationalists was able to operate relatively incognito in the wider world, particularly in conservative circles.”

The Washington Post’s Nick Miroff reported on August 30 that “Smith, a Department of Homeland Security analyst who resigned this week after he was confronted about his ties to white nationalist groups, attended multiple immigration policy meetings at the White House, according to government officials familiar with his work.”

View the complete article here.

The Memo: Trump’s future hinges on midterms

The following article by Niall Stanage was posted on the Hill website August 31, 2018:

President Trump’s first major electoral test since his 2016 presidential victory is looming — even though he isn’t on the ballot.

Labor Day marks the start of the final sprint to the midterm elections, set for Nov. 6.

If Democrats seize a majority in the House of Representatives, they could hamstring Trump’s agenda — and potentially start impeachment proceedings against him.

Brutal summer for Republicans

The following article by Scott Wong and Alexander Bolton was posted on the Hill website August 31, 2018:

t’s been a brutal summer for the GOP.

President Trump’s secret meeting, and stunning press conference, with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Felony convictions for Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and a guilty plea from his longtime personal fixer, Michael Cohen. Returning flags atop the White House to full-staff less than 48 hours after Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) death.

Some Republicans say the president’s actions these past few months amount to a series of costly errors that distract from the party’s strong economic message and raise more doubts about whether the GOP can keep control of the House — or even the Senate — in the upcoming midterm elections.

View the complete article here.