[AMV] Amerikaanse politiek #296 Shutdown or showdown

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Op dinsdag 2 mei 2017 19:19 schreef Montov het volgende:

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Je had het 3,5 jaar geleden kunnen zien aankomen:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 22-11-2013 om 19:56:07 Thomas Jefferson wrote the Senate filibuster rule. Harry Reid & Obama killed it yesterday. Rule was in effect for over 200 years. reageer retweet

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De 4d schaakmeester is op meesterlijke wijze de zwarte piet naar zichzelf toe te schuiven, een paar dagen nadat hij tevergeefs geprobeerd heeft om de schuld van een shutdown op Democraten te pinnen.

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op donderdag 27-04-2017 om 16:39:25 As families prepare for summer vacations in our National Parks - Democrats threaten to close them and shut down the government. Terrible! reageer retweet

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Op dinsdag 2 mei 2017 21:12 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:
Echt een tweet voor elke gelegenheid ook he?
https://mobile.twitter.co(...)s/387322936350105600

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Op dinsdag 2 mei 2017 21:25 schreef Montov het volgende:

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Oops. Gelukkig is er geen enkele consequentie voor het gebrek aan transparantie.

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Op woensdag 3 mei 2017 02:48 schreef vigen98 het volgende:
Net wat ik al dacht

https://www.cbp.gov/newsr(...)struction-progress-5

September 2016 Die Spicer liegt weer eens

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Op woensdag 3 mei 2017 02:48 schreef vigen98 het volgende:
Net wat ik al dacht

https://www.cbp.gov/newsr(...)struction-progress-5

September 2016 Die Spicer liegt weer eens

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Op woensdag 3 mei 2017 03:55 schreef crystal_meth het volgende:

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Hoezo? Hij schreef "where we can build", niet "where we (have) built".

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Op woensdag 3 mei 2017 05:51 schreef Elzies het volgende:

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Ik kan nergens een leugen ontvouwen.

Het bouwen én perfectioneren van deze Muur is immers bekend.

Maar door al het fakenews weten onze anti-Tumpies zelf niet meer wat ze nu wel of niet eerder gefaked hebben.

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[...]

Technically, Spicer’s Tweet is accurate. The spending bill, which funds the government until the end of the fiscal year, does account for the construction of levee walls and extra steel fencing, but that is far short of the president’s campaign promise of an actual border wall.

But what Spicer did next was highly problematic and potentially hurts President Trump’s efforts to succeed later in the year in delivering an actual border wall when the next spending bill comes up in September. Spicer directed one of his deputies, Lindsay Walters, to call Breitbart News and pitch the photos in Spicer’s Tweet as a “border wall.”

Noting that Spicer directed her to call Breitbart News and argue that the photos represent a “border wall,” Walters pushed back when Breitbart News argued that a see-through fence and a levee wall do not constitute a “border wall” that fulfills President Trump’s campaign promise.

“There are two types of walls, a levee wall and a bollard wall,” Walters said in a follow-up email. “Both of which will help secure our borders.”

Technically, levee walls—or flood walls—are common parts of levees designed to deal with flooding. The Rio Grande river constitutes much of the U.S.-Mexico border, so levees—and “levee walls” as Walters argued—are a part of that. They are not meant for border security, but rather for flood management.

[...]

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Op woensdag 3 mei 2017 05:51 schreef Elzies het volgende:

[..]

Ik kan nergens een leugen ontvouwen.

Het bouwen én perfectioneren van deze Muur is immers bekend.

Maar door al het fakenews weten onze anti-Tumpies zelf niet meer wat ze nu wel of niet eerder gefaked hebben.

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Op woensdag 3 mei 2017 09:01 schreef xpompompomx het volgende:

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Hoeveel geld heeft Mexico eigenlijk al overgemaakt voor die muur???

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Op woensdag 3 mei 2017 09:05 schreef Verfassungsschutz het volgende:

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Work in progress. Mexico zal betalen middels minder handel. Dat Amerika hiervoor ook (dubbel) betaalt is een kanttekening.

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Outlook for Obamacare repeal turns bleak
But House Republicans and the White House stepped up their efforts to win passage.

A sense of gloom settled over House Republicans on Tuesday as support for their Obamacare repeal plan seemed to erode even further and members began reckoning with the unthinkable: They may never be able to repeal Obamacare.

But House GOP leaders and the White House kicked into high gear Tuesday night in a last-ditch effort to save the bill.

Speaker Paul Ryan and his team began crafting an amendment aimed at assuaging moderates' concerns about how the bill treats people with pre-existing conditions. The language, multiple sources say, is expected to be released Wednesday.

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, is personally wading in to save the bill, calling members who oppose the legislation to help whip support, two sources told POLITICO. Trump will also huddle with opponents of the bill at the White House Wednesday, the sources said. And insiders are crossing their fingers that he can flip enough to "yes" to push the bill over the finish line.

Discussions of a new amendment followed a disheartening day for House Republicans. Rank-and-file members increasingly acknowledged the difficult path to passage for their long-stalled bill, the American Health Care Act.

Their pessimism stemmed from the defection of a key leadership ally, Rep. Fred Upton. The Michigan Republican, who once authored a slew of Obamacare repeal measures, said the latest GOP proposal failed to protect people with preexisting conditions.

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), who helped broker the latest version of the AHCA, said Upton’s departure could be a significant blow to the cause.

“Obviously that’s not a move in the right direction,” Meadows said.

Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) described the recent loss of support as “disappointing” and said he’s worried about the House Republican health care effort. Collins even suggested scrapping the latest version of the plan — the result of painstaking negotiations between House conservatives and a top moderate — and reverting to an earlier iteration of the bill that had more support from centrists.

"Then leadership can go work on getting the votes,” Collins said.

Yet that move would certainly lose conservative votes, and put Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and President Donald Trump even further away from their goal. Neither man can afford a loss right now, especially Ryan, who is already under pressure from hardline conservative media outlets over his stewardship of the House.

White House officials and GOP leaders on Tuesday night seemed hopeful that additional "tweaks" to the bill could win new supporters. Trump officials are pushing for a vote on the health care bill before House Republicans break for a one-week recess Thursday.

All day, House leaders struggled to shake the hardening narrative that sicker Americans would suffer under their plan. Ryan argued to lawmakers in a closed-door GOP conference meeting that people with pre-existing conditions would not be harmed by the latest draft. Vice President Mike Pence and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price spent the afternoon huddling with lawmakers attempting to tamp down their concerns.

House leaders even began floating the notion of piling billions of additional dollars into a fund meant to cover costs for people with preexisting conditions in an attempt to woo back reluctant moderate Republicans. It is unclear if the changes might win over skeptics like Upton and Long. It's also unclear whether the Freedom Caucus, which currently backs the bill, would approve.

Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.), a member of the whip team, is optimistic the remaining undecideds and some opponents can be brought on board. But he admits the bill might have to be changed.

“It’s about seeing… what they can get comfortable with on preexisting conditions,” Roe said. “I’ve got one more idea I’m going to shop with them today,” he said, but refused to share details.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said leaders would likely “throw every sink in every kitchen they can find” to win last-minute support for the bill. But Cole said the most persuasive argument may be the most basic.

“If you kill it in the cradle, you’re basically ratifying Obamacare,” he said.

About 20 GOP lawmakers — mostly moderate or centrist Republicans worried about sicker Americans paying more for premiums – have now added their names to the “no” column. At the same time, the list of Republicans who say they’re “undecided” has grown to at least two-dozen. Even several GOP whips tasked with drumming up support for the bill said Monday night they have not yet made up their minds on whether to support the revised American Health Care Act.

Without any Democratic support, House leaders can only lose 22 votes in their 238-member caucus to pass the bill.

Republicans are planning a Thursday members-only meeting to discuss the repeal effort. While top Republicans insist Ryan's leadership team is close to reaching the 216-vote threshold needed for passage, their job is becoming tougher by the day, as more lawmakers publicize their opposition to the latest version of the bill.

Privately, GOP leaders and the White House appear to have had some individual successes convincing opponents of the measure to come back into the fold. Rep. Paul Gosar said he recently became a supporter after Trump and Pence promised the Senate would vote on an anti-trust bill he authored for the insurance industry.

"I got assurance that my Competitive Health Insurance bill that passed the House 416 to 7 will get a vote on the Senate floor," Gosar said. "It was one of my assurances working with the vice president and the president, the majority leader... Ryan is on board as well."

Publicly, GOP leaders are projecting an upbeat message. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Monday night that “I actually feel we’re in a very good place.” Chief Deputy Whip Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) said “I think we’ll pass the bill” as he walked into the GOP conference meeting on Tuesday morning.

Leaders are also reminding members that, under the bill, insurance companies could only charge people with pre-existing conditions more if they have a gap in coverage. If they remain on insurance, they cannot be charged more than a healthy person.

"Our bill protects people with pre-existing conditions, and actually provides multiple layers of protections for people with pre-existing conditions in ways that Obamacare doesn't do," argued Majority Whip Steve Scalise in a press conference Tuesday morning.

On Tuesday, Trump, addressing members of the U.S. Air Force Academy at the White House, greeted several lawmakers in the crowd before prodding them to get health care legislation done.

“How’s health care coming folks?” he said to an audience that included Reps. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), Doug Collins (R-Ga.), Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) and Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.). “How are we doing? We moving along? I think it’s time now.”

Leadership is operating under a severe time crunch. The House is scheduled to break for a one-week recess starting Thursday, and Republicans fret that they could lose even more momentum during the break. Some are talking about canceling the recess, though GOP leaders have not yet decided how to proceed.

“If we don’t get a ‘yes’ vote this week, then what happens realistically? We’re taking flack back in the districts for not voting for a repeal,” said Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.). “What is the response? The response is: 'Well, if we block this again, then you’ll get a scenario like the budget vote, where we go out and get Democratic votes to pass the health care bill, and that is a worse outcome!'... If you don’t get this policy passed, you end up with a Democratic bill.”

Meadows, too, said getting the AHCA done this week would be crucial.

“There comes a point in time where you say, either we continue to move forward with this foundational piece of legislation or you come back and regroup and find another piece of legislation that potentially could bring more people together.”

The White House, too, senses trouble for their health care push.

One senior White House official said "it's probably a toss-up right now" as to whether the plan passes the House this week, although other administration officials thought they had picked up some votes.

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Democrat gets head start in deep-red special election to replace Mulvaney

The Republican primary for Mick Mulvaney’s old House seat will go another two weeks after the candidates forced a special-election runoff Tuesday night, giving Democrat Archie Parnell a head start in his long-shot bid to make a conservative stretch of South Carolina competitive.

Parnell, a former Goldman Sachs tax expert, cruised through the Democratic primary with about three-quarters of the vote while state Rep. Tommy Pope and former state legislator Ralph Norman advanced to a runoff on the GOP side, since no one got a majority of the vote. Pope had 31 percent and Norman 30 percent in the crowded field when the Associated Press called the runoff Tuesday night.

Pope and Norman’s runoff will be in two weeks, on May 16. The general election is June 20, the same day as a closely-watched special election to replace Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price in his old Georgia district.

Mulvaney’s old 5th District, which takes in populous suburbs of Charlotte and stretches south through rural areas to the outskirts of Columbia, is not prime territory for Democrats: President Donald Trump carried it with 57 percent of the vote in 2016 as Mulvaney, now the director of the Office of Management and Budget, also won easily. The district does not have a big urban center or recent history of supporting Democrats down-ballot since Mulvaney knocked longtime Democratic Rep. John Spratt out of Congress in 2010.

But Democrats note that any gap in voter enthusiasm could impact a deep-red district — as it did in Kansas in April, where a sleepy special election briefly troubled Republicans who worried their voters were not engaged. “The swing that happened in Kansas, if that happens here, we win,” Parnell said.

Parnell has a net worth in the millions, which he could use to pay for TV advertising in the special general election. In an interview before the election, Parnell didn’t deny he could put more of his own money into the contest.

Yet outgoing South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Matt Moore said that the party primary should engage Republicans in the district in a way they weren’t engaged in Kansas or Montana’s upcoming special election, where party leaders picked the candidates. “I will eat my shoes if a Democrat wins South Carolina’s 5th District,” Moore said.

Before someone can take on Parnell one-on-one, it’s possible that national Republican groups will turn their attention to the runoff between Pope — a former prosecutor-turned-state legislative leader who earned national press attention for prosecuting a woman for drowning her two children — and Norman, a real estate developer and legislative hardliner who became famous for being on the wrong side of 124-1 votes in the state House.

Norman has said he would gladly join the House Freedom Caucus, and could receive the backing of the conservative Club for Growth. Business-oriented groups are more likely to back Pope, who has already received a donation from the corporate PAC of Boeing, a major employer in South Carolina.