Category Archives: Republican

Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform committee aredemandinganswers about the World Health Organizations (WHO) relationship with China amid mounting congressional criticism of its response to the coronavirusoutbreak.

In a letter to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the GOP lawmakers raised concerns thatthe United Nations body failed to prevent China from spreading misinformation that could have helped contain the deadly virus.

Despite the WHOs purported mission to operate as an apolitical international institution within the United Nations, recent media reports suggest that the WHO helped Beijing disseminate propaganda, downplayed the extent of the disease, and possibly delayed ordering a public health emergency, thelawmakers wrote.

The members questioned whether WHO officials were acting in the best interest of countries around the world, accusing the organization of failing to hold China accountable andslamming it for relying on false information from the Chinese government.

Given the actions and statements of WHO officials during the past few months, we are concerned that the WHO is no longer serving the needs of the world and is instead taking its cues from China. Throughout the crisis, the WHO has shied away from placing any blame on the Chinese government, which is, in essence, the Communist Party of China, they continued.

You, as leader of the WHO, even went so far as to praise the Chinese governments transparency during the crisis, when, in fact, the regime has consistently lied to the world by underreporting their actual infection and death statistics.

Members of the Trump administration have accused China of covering upits response to the spreading virus, though the president himself in recent days has touted his relationship with his Chinese counterpart anda recently agreed to trade deal between Washington and Beijing.

Trump has floated cutting off funding for the WHO the U.S. is the organization's largest contributor but the WHO has pushed back, withTedros warning in responsethis week: "If you dont want many more body bags, then you refrain from politicizing it."

In their letter Friday, the Republicans pointed to several examples where they said theWHO posted what turned out to be inaccurate information from the Chinese government, including a tweet stating [p]reliminary investigations conducted by Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus."

They also pointed to reports that the WHO delayed declaring the virus a global health emergency amid pressure from China and condemned theorganization for not moving sooner on calling for actions like travel restrictions.

On January 31, 2020, President TrumpDonald John TrumpCalifornia governor praises Trump's efforts to help state amid coronavirus crisis Trump threatens to withhold visas for countries that don't quickly repatriate citizens Trump admin looks to cut farmworker pay to help industry during pandemic: report MORE came under intense criticism when he barred travel from China. A certain politician called the order xenophobi[c]. In comparison to the WHOs inaction, the Presidents actions saved lives, they wrote.

They said they feel its critical that American taxpayers money is allocated to organizations that uniformly serve the interests of nations across the globe and not a communist regime.

The lawmakers called for the WHO to provide documents and information on all of its communications with the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government regarding public health from between August 2019 to now; all documentation and communications on the total number of infections and fatalities caused by COVID-19 in China; and all documentation and communications it had with Taiwan between August to the present time.

The Republicans requested the information by April 16.

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House Republicans call on WHO to explain relationship with China | TheHill - The Hill

As coronavirus continued to spread in America, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published a bombshell expose titled, EXCLUSIVE: Public given sparse details on deadly outbreak.

Giant healthcare systems based in Atlanta refuse to say how many coronavirus patients theyre treating at their dozens of Georgia hospitals. They wont reveal how many of their front-line workers have gotten sick or even died from the virus, the newspaper noted. Nursing homes and assisted living facilities arent required to post information about outbreaks, and until Friday the state had not been revealing which homes have the most cases, leaving families and advocates in the dark about the conditions inside homes theyre now barred from visiting.

While the governors of New York and Ohio are giving detailed, daily briefings broadcast live, Georgias governor has only given periodic updates to the public. And while Louisiana details the race and underlying health conditions of victims, Georgia is in the dark about the extent of the coronavirus and who may be most affected, given a massive shortage of tests and limited information it receives on victims, the newspaper noted.

The papers reported that the office of Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) has sometimes provided conflicting messages and his briefings have been less frequent than some other governors.

The paper interviewed Dr. Harry J. Heiman, a clinical associate professor at the Georgia State University School of Public Health.

There seems to be a black box and a lack of transparency about whats going on, Dr. Heiman said.

Melanie McNeil, the states long-term care ombudsman, also offered a sad prognosis.

We absolutely are in the dark, she said.

Read the full report.

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Heres how Georgias Republican governor is keeping the state in the dark about the coronavirus crisis - Raw Story

Republicans in America trust President Donald Trump more than the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for medical information pertaining to the coronavirus, according to a new poll.

The poll, which was conducted by CBS News, asked 2,025 U.S. residents whom they trusted for specific medical information about the outbreak. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.

According to the survey, 80 percent of Republicans trust Trump for coronavirus information, compared with 74 percent naming the CDC as their trusted source. Among Republicans, "medical professionals" scored the highest percentage of trust, at 85 percent.

Of the remaining Republicans, 20 percent said they don't trust Trump, 26 percent said they don't trust the CDC, and 15 percent said they don't trust medical professionals.

These percentages change drastically for Democrats. According to the poll, only 9 percent of Democrats trust Trump for coronavirus information, while 86 percent named the CDC as their trusted source. As with the Republicans, medical professionals scored highest, with 92 percent of Democrats choosing them as their trusted source for coronavirus information.

Of the remaining Democrats, 91 percent said they do not trust Trump for coronavirus information, 14 percent don't trust the CDC, and only 8 percent don't trust medical professionals.

Among Americans overall, regardless of political party affiliation, 86 percent trust medical professionals, 78 percent trust the CDC, and 37 percent trust Trump. On the other hand, the poll also shows that, among Americans overall, 63 percent don't trust Trump for medical information, 22 percent don't trust the CDC, and 14 percent do not trust medical professionals.

The poll also asked American citizens if they felt that Trump was doing a good or bad job in handling the coronavirus outbreak, while showing how these percentages have changed over the past week.

According to the poll, 47 percent of citizens believe Trump is doing a good job handling the outbreak, a 4 point decrease from 51 percent the previous week.

The poll showed a 3-point increase in those saying that Trump was doing a bad job handling the outbreak, from 49 percent the previous week to 52 percent.

These percentages changed drastically when considering political party affiliation. The poll showed that 15 percent of Democrats believe Trump is doing a good job with the pandemic, while 85 percent said he is doing badly.

By comparison, 87 percent of Republicans believe the president is doing a good job handling the outbreak, while 12 percent answered the opposite. The remaining 1 percent was not reported in the poll.

The novel coronavirus, which causes the respiratory disease COVID-19, continues to spread throughout the U.S., which has become the pandemic's epicenter. According to a Johns Hopkins University tracker, the nation has over 486,900 confirmed cases and at least 18,022 deaths.

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Republicans Trust Donald Trump More Than The CDC for Medical Information, Poll Shows - Newsweek

Thinking back to the beginning of the year, the conventional wisdom was that if President Trump survived impeachment, the GOP would probably be able to ride a good economy through the summer and be competitive in the November elections. That was the old world, pre-pandemic.

In the span of a few weeks, more than 13,000 Americans have died from the novel coronavirus and 10 million jobs disappeared. Over the last 12 weeks, what President Trump says and does can no longer be brushed off as Trump being Trump. His reluctance to listen to experts, to honestly relay data, and to attack those who question his wild assertions isnt opera buffa anymore. Its tragedy. People have died because of it. Lives have been ruined.

Yet many incumbent Republicans, seeking to don the political version of PPE, are trying to avoid taking any stances that counter whatever Trump is saying in the momentlet alone criticize him. Instead, they claim that this isnt a time for politics.

If only that was true.

Politicians are managing this crisis, which means that the politics matter now, more than ever. And decrying the existence of politics is, itself, a political gambit. Republicans ought to know this, because the strategy was honed by Senate Majority Leader McConnell.

Podcast April 10 2020

On today's Bulwark Podcast, Windsor Mann joins host Charlie Sykes to discuss the President's response to COVID-19, hypoc...

McConnell, who is up for reelection this year, led the effort when he called on his Democratic opponent, Amy McGrath, to stop running political ads because of the coronavirus. In mid-March McConnells campaign manager said, As Kentuckians adjust their daily lives and schedules to help stem the outbreak, the last thing they need to see on TV is negative political advertising. The McGrath campaign must stop airing all of their advertisements.

McGrath refused, which was sensible, since McConnell has been a silent accomplice in Donald Trumps failure to prepare America for the outbreak. It was also sensible because there was no chance that McConnell wouldnt try to twist the crisis to his own benefit. Which is exactly what he did when he went up with ads depicting himself as being at the center of the battle to rush aid to Americans. The homepage of his campaign website currently features a photo of the senator with the caption Mitch McConnell led the passage of the biggest economic rescue in history.

Is a politician styling himself as the hero of the story and bragging about sending billions of dollars to constituents in an election year every bit as political as another politician criticizing the first guy for standing by while his president created the crisis in the first place?

Lets be on the safe side and say, abso-freaking-lutely. But, maybe now is not the time.

And because McConnell is so relentlessly politicaland dishonest, even by senatorial standardshe blames . . . the Democrats for the pandemic in America. How? Because they distracted him, and the president, with impeachment: He said that concerns about the coronavirus initially came up while we were tied down in the impeachment trial. And I think it diverted the attention of the government, because everything, every day, was all about impeachment.

Because no one could ever expect the highest levels of American government to walk and chew gum at the same time.

With that, a loose model for navigating the politics of the pandemic was established. And so a trio of the chambers most vulnerable incumbent Republican senatorsMartha McSally, Cory Gardner, and Susan Collinshave followed McConnells strategy. The playbook is simple: (1) Try to shush critics in the name of keeping politics out of this while also (2) Keeping your name in the press with the goodies youre handing out and (3) Blame anybody but Donald Trump for the predicament the country is in.

McSally, who is down in the polls against Democrat Mark Kelly, is following the playbook perfectly. She literally said in a March 20 statement that this is not the time for politics and has said she would stop all political ads and door-to-door campaigning for 30 days. After the $2 trillion stimulus bill passed the Senate, she bragged about pumping billions into the economy and cheered relief is finally on the way!

Which is, of course, totes non-political. Shes just voting to send government money to the citizens of Arizona in an election year.

But when it comes to the question of how America got into this mess? Dont bother asking her about Trump, whom she believes has taken the right steps to protect Americans from the coronavirus.

Also dont ask her about what she said on March 6 about how the coronavirus doesnt mean that everybody needs to stay home, not go to work, not go on spring break, not live their lives. That definitely is too much of a panic reaction that could have negative implications.

Instead, McSally has her sights on China.

She accuses China of a cover-up and blasts the media for parroting Chinese propaganda. Shes even demanded that China pay the United States damages for criminal conduct. Last week she called for the World Health Organization director-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to resign because he was too trusting of the figures being reported from China. Ive never trusted a communist, McSally said. And their cover-up of this virus that originated with them has caused unnecessary deaths around America and around the world.

On just about every count, shes right!

The Chinese did cover up the emergence of the coronavirus and their authoritarian duplicity almost certainly did cause the spread to turn into a global pandemic. And the Chinese absolutely should be held to account for their role in this disaster!

But it is a little strange for McSally not to have anything to say about how Donald Trump has trusted and praised the Chinese government from the start and been the most high-profile regurgitator of their propaganda.

If China really is the problem, then doesnt that bother her? Even a little bit?

And then theres the practical side of things: However much China is to blame, its not President Xi whos up for reelection in November. In seven months Americans will have the chance to decide whether or not they believe that our own leadership bears any responsibility for COVID-19.

Given Trumps serial lies and disproven predictionsnot to mention his boosterism of Chinese communists!why does she still trust Trump?

Well never know.

In Maine, Susan Collins is running a more sophisticated variation of the McConnell gambit. She has told the Bangor Daily News that she is not running traditional campaign ads and has replaced them with spots providing constituents with resources for obtaining aid and health care information. Im just not going to engage in political discussions at this point. I dont mean to be difficult, I just dont think its appropriate at a time when we are facing the most serious health crisis since the 1918 Spanish flu. She recently went up with a Thank You ad, in which she expresses her gratitude to healthcare workers, first responders, law-enforcement officials, truck drivers, grocery clerks, and restaurant workers.

Yet when Collins was asked if President Trump bears any responsibility for spreading misinformation, she took credit for advising him to listen to medical experts. This came after cautiously offering that it might be better if Trump would step back and let people such as Dr. Anthony Fauci do the talking at briefings. She said the federal message was inconsistent and I am not satisfied.

And now, she says its all better. On April 2 she said, I think in the beginning, there were times when he was speaking about what he hoped would happen rather than relying on the data and information of his experts. That has changed, and Im glad that it has.

Of course, Trump has not changed.

Since Collinss victory lap, the president advised people to take an untested course of powerful medication in order to treat COVID-19, saying, What do you have to lose?

Also, Trump turned over a large portion of the coronavirus task force to . . . Jared Kushner. One of Kushners first public acts was to declare that the Strategic National Stockpile was the property of the federal government and not intended to be used by states. This was directly at odds with the actual intended use of the Strategic National Stockpile. But Kushner is part of The Family, so the next day the White House had the language describing the purpose of the Strategic National Stockpile on the Department of Health and Human Services website changed to conform to Kushners off-the-cuff mistake.

So maybe Collins is not glad anymore? Tut-tut.

If this whole embarrassing minuet looks familiar, its because back in February Collins claimed that impeachment had taught Trump a pretty big lesson and that because of it he would no longer abuse the Constitution. (Excuse me a moment while I scream into the void.) A few days after voting to acquit Trump, Collins was forced to concede that this belief had been more aspirational than factual.

Perhaps shell make a similar concession should she be defeated in November.

Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner actually deserves some praise for how hes handled the situation.

Because unlike McSally, who was downplaying the outbreak in early March, Gardner tried to sound the alarm on COVID-19 early. On January 23you know, back when Mitch McConnell claims that no one could possibly have been expected to pay attention to both impeachment and a potential global pandemicGardner wrote letters to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Robert Redfield inquiring about what efforts were being undertaken to contain the novel coronavirus in China.

He was quiet through the second half of March, but it was for a good reason: He decided to self-quarantine after he met with a constituent who tested positive for COVID-19.

Once he got out, he published an op-ed for Fox News that said, The more we learn about COVID-19 and its origins, the clearer it becomes that much of the death and suffering could have been avoided had the Chinese Communist Party taken this threat more seriously.

But as for those letters he wrote to Pompeo and Dr. Redfield? The Colorado Springs Gazette reportedin a piece that praised Gardner for his foresight on the issuethat he never got a response from the executive branch.

One has to wonder how much death and suffering could have been avoided if the executive branch had taken Gardners warnings more seriously. But one of the strange things about our political moment is that even a guy like Gardner who had his eye on the ball early feels like he cant talk about his foresight, because it might offend Trump.

Thats one of the larger corruptions of Trumpism: Even the people who were right have to pretend not to have been, when Trump is wrong.

There is more than enough blame to go around for this disaster. The Chinese government failed to contain the outbreak. But our officials had the opportunity to protect our citizens. You can blame both the Chinese government and Americas executive branch. Including our president.

The guy came to power promising to build walls, deport millions, and travel ban his way into putting America First. Instead, the worst outbreak in a century happened on his watch, with thousands dead, millions unemployed, and every single one of our lives disrupted in unprecedented ways.

No one needs a playbook to figure out the politics of that argument. The truth is really darn easy for people to figure out.

The rest is here:

The Republican Pandemic Playbook - The Bulwark

In the federal system, which holds roughly 174,000 people across the country, at least 481 inmates and prison workers have tested positive for the virus, according to New York Times tracking data, and at least nine federal inmates have died, mainly in Louisiana. The Times has spoken with dozens of workers and inmates who say the federal Bureau of Prisons was ill-prepared for the outbreak.

On Friday, the director of the federal prison system defended his agencys response in an interview on CNN, saying the pandemic was an overwhelming challenge that no one expected. I dont think anybody was ready for this Covid, so were dealing with it just as well as anybody else, and Id be proud to say were doing pretty good, said Michael Carvajal, who took over as the head of the Bureau of Prisons less than two months ago.

Six of the federal prisoners who died were being held in Oakdale, La., where nearly 1,000 people are incarcerated, and where there have been reports of a revolt among inmates.

Attorney General William P. Barr last week ordered the Bureau of Prisons to release more people from federal custody and to focus on three prisons that have been hardest hit by the coronavirus, including the Federal Correctional Institution Oakdale.

State prisons and jails, which hold the vast majority of the people incarcerated in America, have also faced unrest in recent days. More than 100 men at a Washington State prison demonstrated in response to positive tests at the facility. Police officers fired pepper spray and sting balls, which eject rubber pellets, to quell the demonstration. In Kansas, inmates at the Lansing Correctional Facility, where at least 28 people have tested positive, set small fires and broke windows in a demonstration that lasted for nearly 12 hours. Two inmates suffered injuries.

And in Pennsylvania, families of inmates at the Franklin County jail told The PA Post, a local news website, that the inmates were staging a hunger strike.

Immigrants held at the Otay Mesa detention center in San Diego, Calif., said in phone calls recorded by their lawyers that guards had pepper-sprayed them on Friday after they demanded masks and began to make their own out of clothing and plastic bags. They also said they were asked to sign liability waivers absolving CoreCivic, the private prison company that operates the facility, from responsibility for any coronavirus-related illnesses.

Excerpt from:

Coronavirus Live Updates: U.S. Surpasses Italy in Total Number of Confirmed Deaths - The New York Times

Gearing up for this falls elections, the Republican Party of Florida raised $2.467 million in cash during the first three months of the year, according to a newly filed finance report.

Fundraising appeared to slow in March as the novel coronavirus hammered the state, with the party pulling in about $364,000 during the month.

Large contributions during the quarter included $175,000 from Duke Energy; $100,000 from Leon Medical Centers in Miami-Dade County; $100,000 from the road-building firm Anderson Columbia Co., Inc.; $50,000 from the tobacco company RAI Services Co.; and $50,000 from the Anheuser-Busch beer company.

In addition to the cash contributions, the party also received a $122,000 in-kind contribution of lodging, food and beverages from Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, the filing shows. All state political candidates, committees and parties face a Friday night deadline for filing reports showing finance activity through March 31.

The Florida Democratic Partys report had not been posted to the state Division of Elections website as of Friday morning.

_Please follow CDC guidelines and Orange County advisories to stay safe, and please support this free publication. Our small but mighty team is working tirelessly to bring you news on how coronavirus is affecting Central Florida. Please consider making a one-time or monthly donation. Every little bit helps.

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Florida Republicans raised nearly $2.5 million so far this year, thanks to Duke Energy, Anheuser-Busch and Disney - Orlando Weekly

Our primary runoffs have been postponed until July 14. It was a wise and prudent decision by Secretary of State John Merrill and Gov. Kay Ivey. Most voters are older and you are asking them to come out and vote and, at the same time, to stay home.

The main event will be the GOP runoff for the U.S. Senate. The two combatants, Jeff Sessions and Tommy Tuberville, will now square off in the middle of a hot Alabama summer. The winner will be heavily favored to go to Washington. We are a very reliably Republican state, especially in a presidential election year.

Many of you have asked, When did Alabama become a dominant one-party Republican state? Well, it all began in the presidential year of 1964. The 1964 election was the turning point when the Deep South states of Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina voted for Barry Goldwater and never looked back. It was the race issue that won Southerners over for Goldwater. The Republican Party captured the race issue that year and never let go of it.

The South, which was known as the Solid South for more than six decades because we were solidly Democratic, are today known as the Solid South because we are solidly Republican. Presidential candidates ignore us during the campaign because it is a foregone conclusion that we will vote Republican, just as presidential candidates ignored us for the first 60 years of the 20th century because it was a foregone conclusion that we were going to vote Democratic.

George Wallace had ridden the race issue into the governors office in 1962. It had reached a fever pitch in 1964. Democratic President Lyndon Johnson had passed sweeping Civil Rights legislation, which white Southerners detested.

The only non-Southern senator to oppose the Civil Rights legislation was Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona. When the Republican Party met at the old Cow Palace in San Francisco, they nominated Goldwater as their 1964 presidential candidate. Johnson annihilated him nationwide, but Goldwater won the South in a landslide.

Before that fall day in November of 1964, there was no Republican Party in Alabama. There were no Republican officeholders. There was no Republican primary. Republicans chose their candidates in backroom conventions. Except for a few Lincoln Republicans in the hill counties, it was hard getting a white Alabamian even to admit he was Republican.

That all changed in 1964. Goldwater and the Republicans became identified with segregation and the white Southern voter fled the Democratic Party en masse. As the fall election of 1964 approached, the talk in the country stores around Alabama was that a good many good ol boys were going to vote straight Republican even if their daddies did turn over in their graves. Enterprising local bottling companies got into the debate and filled up drink boxes in the country stores labeled Johnson Juice and Gold Water. The Gold Water was outselling the Johnson Juice 3-to-1.

Alabamians not only voted for Barry Goldwater but also pulled the straight Republican lever out of anger toward Lyndon B. Johnsons Civil Rights agenda. Most of Alabamas eight-member Congressional delegation, with more than 100 years of seniority, was wiped out by straight-ticket Republican voting on that November day.

Earlier that year, Johnson, the toughest, crudest, most corrupt and, yes, most effective man to ever serve in the White House, made a profound statement. As he signed the Civil Rights Bill he had pushed through Congress, he looked over at the great Southern lion, Richard Russell of Georgia, and as Russell glared at Johnson with his steely stare, Johnson said, I just signed the South over to the Republican Party for the next 60 years. Johnsons words were prophetic.

Folks, beginning with the 1964 election, there have been 17 presidential elections counting this year. If you assume that Donald Trump carries our state in November, and that is a safe assumption, Alabama has voted for the Republican nominee 16 out of 17 elections over the past 56 years. Georgia peanut farmer Jimmy Carter is the only interloper for the Democrats in 1976.

The U.S. Senate seat up this year was first won by a Republican in 1996. That Republican was Jeff Sessions.

So folks, in 1964, Alabama became a Republican state and it happened in what was called the Southern Republican Goldwater Landslide.

Steve Flowers served 16 years in the state legislature.

He can be reached at http://www.steveflowers.us.

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The 1964 Goldwater landslide was the beginning of Republican dominance of the South - Dothan Eagle

Back in 2008, the U.S. economy was crumbling due to many homeowners not paying their mortgages on their homes, as well as that vast number of Americans filing for bankruptcy. Historians and economists call this the Great Recession, which was the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Many Republicans opposed a fiscal stimulus. The most common reason was that it would grow an already large budget deficit, which would lay the foundation for the next recession. They argued the best stimulus would be to do nothing for the economy, and therefore, favored slashing government spending to reduce the impact on the budget. This same approach is exactly what FDR did in 1937, which led the recession of 1937-1938.

In 2008, Republicans denounced bailouts for private businesses that were done through TARP Troubled Asset Relief Program, which was the bailout that was designed to save the economy from the crisis that nearly brought on a second Great Depression. Although this was constructed and signed into law by President George W. Bush, Republicans blamed President Obama for any problem with this program.

Conservative economist Milton Friedman suggested that the Great Depression was the cause of the Federal Reserves mistake of allowing the money supply to drastically shrink, which created severe deflation in our economy. As a result, banks collapsed and those with deposits would lose everything in their accounts.

Friedman suggested that the Federal Reserve could have prevented this by buying up massive amounts of government bonds, which would pump cash into a deflated economy by increasing the money supply.

In 2008, Republican economist and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke enacted the policies Friedman suggested. As a result, it was successful at preventing the banking system from collapsing, infused cash into a deflated economy, and prevented a second Great Depression.

Today, Republicans are pushing the massive $2 triilion stimulus to address the fallout from the coronavirus on the economy. A large portion of this stimulus is in the form of bailouts for large businesses and corporations, with very little, comparatively, going to the average working class American. However, Republicans said in 2008 that the TARP bailout of $700 billion was too expensive. Back in 2009, the Tea Party formed by Republicans in opposition to such bailouts, but are silent today.

Republicans have proven to be hypocrites about bailouts. You can even make the case that they have lied and changed their position when it suits them. For example, they are opposed to anything that grows the budget deficit when a Democrat is president, but largely grow the deficit when a Republican is president.

When Obama was in office, they opposed anything he did that wouldve grown the deficit, such as his $800 billion infrastructure stimulus, but favored Trumps $2 trillion tax cut and massive spending programs that are increasing the budget deficit by $1 trillion every year as far out as 2030.

(Dr. Joseph Frusci is a New Springville resident.)

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Republicans are bailout hypocrites (letter to the editor) - SILive.com

Americas public health system, already stretched thin by the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, could look even shakier come spring 2021. According to the Daily Beast, 18 Republican attorneys general still plan to participate in a lawsuit that could repeal the Affordable Care Act within a year. Representatives for five of these attorneys general confirmed to the outlet that they remain committed to overturning Obamacare regardless of the pandemic, which continues to spread in the very states they preside over. Its always been a question of legality, not health care policy, a spokesperson for the Tennessee Attorney General argued.

This is not the first GOP attempt to weaken the law, and repealing Obamacare would have an enormous impact on the countrys public health system, pandemic or not. But, as the Daily Beast notes, the timing of the decisionpotentially during the recovery stagegives it a seismic significance. At least 20 million Americans covered by Obamacare will lose their coverage if the law is repealed. The only thing worse than a public health pandemic is a public health pandemic without health care, Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson said. Two coronavirus cases mentioned in the articleone of a teenage boy who died after being turned away from a hospital because he didnt have insurance, another of an uninsured woman who, after going to the hospital for treatment, was billed $35,000give an early preview to what could become the new normal, depending on which way the Supreme Court rules.

At a Fox News Town Hall earlier this month, Donald Trump explained his administrations reasoning for following through with the case. We want to terminate Obamacare because its bad, he said, calling the law very defective. When asked by an audience member about the GOPs failure to come up with an alternativeNBC notes that Trump has not backed a specific plan since he failed to replace the act in 2017he first praised himself for [getting] rid of the individual mandate, which was the worst part of Obamacare and then claimed that we have many healthcare plans now where its 60 percent, even 65 percent less expensive than Obamacare. While Trump added that what wed like to do is totally kill it, he praised his administration for managing [the remaining portion] fantastically. The way to get you really fantastic healthcare, he told the audience member, is to win back the house, keep the Senate, keep the White House.

To no surprise, the former vice president continues to deride Trumps pursuit of the case. Yesterday, Joe Biden called the GOPs continued push unconscionable given that Americans are already afraid of the impact the deadly COVID-19 pandemic is having on their livesthey don't need the added stress of losing their health insurance. He again urged to drop the lawsuit, something he advocated for last week in a letter to Trump and other conservatives. NBC called Bidens health care plan Obamacare-plus, preserving the status quo while helping uninsured people buy coverage by boosting subsidies, and competing with private insurers with an additional public option.

Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, wants Medicare for All, which would upend the current system and provide the same plan to everyone regardless of their employment status. It is nearly impossible to believe that anyone can still think its acceptable to continue with a health care system that leaves tens of millions of people uninsured, Sanders said earlier this month while addressing the coronavirus outbreak. The cruelty and absurdity of that view is more obvious in the midst of this crisis than it has ever been.

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Republicans Could Kill Obamacare In the Middle of Coronavirus Recovery - Vanity Fair

Prominent Republicans eyeing a 2024 White House bid have placed themselves at the epicenter of efforts to blunt the coronavirus pandemic, with some departing from President Trump by proposing an extended and more aggressive economic shutdown.

As Trump floats reopening a quarantined national economy by Easter, two Republican senators with presidential aspirations, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Rick Scott of Florida, support tightening current restrictions and maintaining them for at least 30 days. Scotts eight-point plan would suspend domestic airline travel and place a moratorium on peoples monthly financial obligations. Cotton advocates nationwide shelter-in-place rules and is urging the administration to heed the recommendations of Anthony Fauci and other experts.

This is the stark truth: we have to arrest the spread of the China virus to get the economy back on its feet & get life back to something like normal, Cotton tweeted Tuesday. The same day, Trump began discussing the need to balance public health concerns properly with the damage to a stunted economy could have on the public's psyche.

Cotton and Scott are among a handful of potential 2024 presidential candidates who have sought to influence the federal governments response to the coronavirus. Others have been drafted, willingly or not, by virtue of their position in the Trump administration. Vice President Mike Pence was tapped to lead the White House pandemic task force; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is running point as it relates to coordination and interaction abroad.

Marco Rubio of Florida, chairman of the Senate Small Business Committee and a potential 2024 contender, was the lead Republican negotiator of a bipartisan blueprint to rescue small businesses teetering on insolvency because of the pandemic. The measure was a critical component of the $2 trillion coronavirus relief package poised to clear Congress this week.

With thousands of businesses endangered and millions poised to lose their jobs, some Republican strategists believe GOP primary voters will reward, or punish, 2024 contenders based on how they responded to the economic fallout.

At the very least, some political professionals expect the coronavirus pandemic to affect how Republicans campaign, even if it does not substantially alter what primary voters are looking for in a successor to Trump.

As candidates fine-tune their resumes for 2024, expect them to find ways to prove they can be trusted to lead in times of turmoil, said Bruce Haynes, a former Republican campaign consultant who is now vice chairman of public affairs for the Washington firm Sard Verbinnen & Co., adding that it was possible voters might end up caring less about ideology and more about questions such as, Can they lead?

Nikki Haley immediately resigned from her position on the board of directors of Boeing in a protest over the airplane manufacturers request for federal assistance to help mitigate financial challenges caused by the onset of the coronavirus. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and Trumps first ambassador to the United Nations, has used Twitter and her political nonprofit organization as platforms to push preferred policies for addressing the pandemic.

DONT bail out individual industries, pick winners and losers, or pass a bloated stimulus package, Haley tweeted.

A veteran Republican operative advising GOP congressional candidates on the 2020 ballot expressed surprise that more potential 2024 hopefuls have not joined Haley in opposing the corporate rescue package included in the coronavirus relief bill.

Most of the 2024 Republicans seem to have the herd mentality on the relief bills, the GOP operative said. I thought one or two might vote against the legislation and use that as a wedge in the future You supported bailing out corporations, and I did not. But no one has caved on that yet.

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Republicans targeting 2024 White House bid diverge from Trump on coronavirus - Washington Examiner