Republicans deliver on 'Day One' promise, begin ObamaCare repeal on Hill

Republicans delivered Tuesday on their “Day One” promise to start repealing ObamaCare at the start of the 115th Congress, introducing a resolution to dismantle the 2010 health care law.
“Today, we take the first steps to repair the nation’s broken health care system, removing Washington from the equation and putting control back where it belongs: with patients, their families and their doctors,” said Wyoming GOP Sen. Mike Enzi, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.
Enzi and other leaders of the Republican-controlled Congress are relying on a parliamentary maneuver known as “budget reconciliation” to dismantle the law because it avoids a Senate Democrat filibuster and requires only a 51-vote majority for passage in the chamber, not the 60-vote majority.
Republicans have a 52-to-48 member majority in the Senate and a 241-to-194 majority in the House, which requires only a simple majority for passage.
The GOP can use the reconciliation tactic because federally-subsidized ObamaCare directly impacts the federal budget. (And congressional Democrats used the same tactic in 2009 to complete passage of the law, officially known as the Affordable Care Act.)
Incoming GOP President Donald Trump won the 2016 White House race in part on a vow to repeal ObamaCare on “day one” of his administration and to replace it with “something terrific.” But the dismantling process will be decidedly longer and more complicated.
Top congressional Republicans in the weeks after Trump’s Nov. 8 win started saying that replacing ObamaCare could take two to four years.
A top Senate aide declined Tuesday to give a timeline on when the resolution -- which must pass in three House and four Senate committees -- will be passed and ObamaCare will officially be repealed.
The aide said the focus is on getting through the process “as quickly as possible.”
However, Enzi’s office said that Senate debate on the issue will begin next week and that the seven committees should hold preliminary “repeal legislation” votes by Jan. 27.
The House is expected to begin debate on the issue next week.
To be sure, Republicans are now the party under pressure with ObamaCare -- after years of crticizing the law and now that they finally have a president who will sign repeal-and-replace legislation.
In addition, some of the most conservative House Republicans are already raising concerns about their leaders wanting multiple years to implement a replacement plan, fearing backlash from voters at home.
And Trump’s victory over Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has spotlighted her party’s argument that Republicans have no viable ObamaCare replacement, despite years of criticism and promises.
Meanwhile, President Obama will be on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to talk with fellow Democrats about how to save his signature health care law.
And Democratic congressional leaders are urging rank-and-file members to hold rallies to tell voters about the importance of preserving ObamaCare. They have planned a national “Day of Action” on the matter for January 15.
Dismantling the government-mandated insurance without an alternative for the roughly 20 million Americans now enrolled could indeed be a political disaster, particularly before the 2018 midterms.
ObamaCare was created to drive down overall insurance costs by reducing emergency-care visits and other uninsured medical expenses.
However, lower-than-projected enrollment among younger, healthy Americans and insurance companies dropping out of the program have contributed to significantly increasing premium costs.
And while 2016 voters disaffected with big government will likely want Trump to fulfill his repeal-replace promise, the president-elect and others have hinted at keeping some parts of ObamaCare, including young adults being allowed to stay on their parents’ plan.
Late Tuesday, the House passed the set of rules that will govern the body through the 115th Congress -- minus a controversial provision quietly inserted late Monday by Republican members to gut the independent Office of Congressional Ethics and put it under lawmakers' control.
The provision was removed under pressure from Trump, as well as furious Democrats.
The approved rules package, however, now includes provisions that allow Republican leaders to fine members who use electronic devices to take pictures or video from the House floor.
The change comes six months after Democrats live-streamed a sit-in on the House floor for 26 hours to call attention to their demand for votes on gun control.
Under the new rules, first-offenders get a warning. The next offense comes with a $500 fine, and ensuing ones could cost members $2,500 apiece.

Trump sets long-awaited news conference for January 11

President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he would hold a "general news conference" on Jan. 11, his first formal press conference since his November election victory.
Trump had been scheduled to hold a press conference on Dec. 15 to discuss his plan to leave his sprawling business empire as he takes office Jan. 20, but that event was postponed.
Since taking office, Trump has sat for a few television interviews and has taken a handful of shouted questions from the press pool — a small group of reporters who follow the president — both at Trump Tower in New York and outside his coastal Florida estate.
Trump's last full-fledged news conference was July 27, which he held at his Miami-area golf course as counterprogramming to the ongoing Democratic National Convention. It was there that Trump called upon Russia to hack his opponent Hillary Clinton's emails saying, "I will tell you this, Russia: If you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing."
His staff later insisted that Trump was joking.
In lieu of press conferences, the president-elect has communicated to the American public through tweets, as well as a series of December "Thank You" rallies in states that helped provide his winning margin in the Electoral College.
Trump's team has downplayed the need for news conferences. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, said last month that the press would have access to the president.
"This will be a traditional White House in the sense that you will have a great deal of press availability on a daily basis and you'll have a president who continues to be engaged with the press," she said in an interview with ABC.
While Trump's lack of press interaction is a worry to some, many of his supporters cheered the celebrity businessman's battles with what they felt were biased reporters. Trump made his antagonistic relationship with the media a centerpiece of his campaign, inciting his rally crowds to boo the press, singling out individual reporters with derogatory names like "sleazebag" and using Twitter to attack coverage he didn't like.
His predecessors took a different approach.
Two days after the Supreme Court decision gave him the 2000 election, George W. Bush held a press conference where reporters asked him about his Cabinet picks and tax plans. He proceeded to field more questions each of the next two days. Barack Obama, also regularly held news conferences after winning, taking questions from the White House press corps 18 different times as president-elect. Bush, who had a shorter transition due to the extended Florida recount, did so 11 times.

Wikileaks' Assange: 'A 14-year-old kid could have hacked Podesta' emails

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange told Fox News' Sean Hannity in an exclusive interview that a teenager could have hacked into Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's computer and retrieved damaging email messages that the website published during last year's election campaign.
"We published several ... emails which show Podesta responding to a phishing email," Assange said during Part I of the interview, which aired on "Hannity" Tuesay night. "Podesta gave out that his password was the word ‘password’. His own staff said this email that you’ve received, this is totally legitimate. So, this is something ... a 14-year-old kid could have hacked Podesta that way."
Assange also claimed that Clinton herself made "almost no attempt" to keep her private emails safe from potentially hostile states during her tenure as secretary of state.

"Now, was she trying to keep them secure from Republicans? Probably," Assange said. "But in terms of [nation-] states, almost no attempt."
Hannity interviewed Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. The Australia native has been holed up there for five years battling extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges, which Assange denies.
Wikileaks published more than 50,000 emails detailing dubious practices at the Clinton Foundation, top journalists working closely with the Clinton campaign, key Clinton aides speaking derisively of Catholics and a top Democratic National Committee (DNC) official providing debate questions to Clinton in advance.

Assange has repeatedly denied claims by the Obama administration that Russia was behind the cyberattacks that exposed the DNC and Podesta emails. Assange has repeatedly insisted that Wikileaks' source for the emails was not the Russian government or any "state party," and said the outgoing administration was attempting to "delegitimize" President-Elect Donald Trump by making those claims.

In Part I of the interview, Assange criticized a Dec. 29 joint analysis of the cyberattacks by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. After the report was released, President Barack Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats and closed two Russian compounds.
"On the top [of the report], there is a disclaimer, saying … there is no guarantee that any of this information is accurate," Assange told Hannity. "There’s nothing in that report that says that any information was given to us. Nothing."
Assange also criticized the mainstream media for what he called the "ethical corruption" displayed in the Podesta emails.

"The editor of the New York Times ... has come out and said that he would do the same thing as Wikileaks, [that] if they had obtained that information, they would have published it," Assange said. "Now, unfortunately, I don’t believe that is true."

Assange added that he doubted that partisan sympathy explained the cozy relationship between Podesta and reporters covering the Clinton campaign.
"It’s more like, ‘You rub my back, I’ll rub yours. I’ll give you information, you’ll come to my – I’ll invite you to my child’s christening or my next big party.’"
Assange said that the website would not have hesitated to publish embarrassing information about Trump if they had received it.
"There’s no sources coming out through other journalists … and saying, 'We gave Wikileaks all this information about Donald Trump or … Vladimir Putin and you know what? They didn’t publish it.' No one has come out and said that," Assange said. "If they did, that would hurt our reputation for trust for our sources."
The Wikileaks founder also warned Democrats that criticizing the website for publishing the emails was a "stupid maneuver."
"It’s the same reason why they lost the election, which is instead of focusing on substance, they focused on other things [like] this attempt to say how outrageous it is that the American public received true information before an election," Assange said. "The public doesn’t buy that. They want as much true information as possible."

Nancy Pelosi Cartoons

Report: Dems target eight Trump nominees in bid to delay process, get picks to disclose more info

Senate Democrats reportedly plan to attack eight of Republican President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks and stretch their confirmation process from days to perhaps months, despite having essentially no chance of blocking their nominations.
The Democratic senators are vowing to make good on their vow unless the nominees start disclosing personal financial information, according to The Washington Post.
Trump has made eight of 17 Cabinet picks, with four remaining.
The primary targets include Rex Tillerson for secretary of state; Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions for attorney general; South Carolina Rep. Mick Mulvaney for the Office of Management and Budget; Betsy DeVos as the new education secretary and Steve Mnuchin, the former Goldman Sachs executive nominated to be treasury secretary.
“President-elect Trump is attempting to fill his rigged Cabinet with nominees that … have made billions off the industries they’d been tasked with regulating,” incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday. “If Republicans think they can quickly jam through a whole slate of nominees without a fair hearing process, they’re sorely mistaken.”
Republicans who control the Senate and House plan to begin the confirmation hearings on Trump’s Jan. 20 Inauguration Day.
Republicans have a 52-to-48 majority over Democrats in the Senate.
The nominees will get enough votes in the GOP-run Senate committees but would run into delays when both parties cast final votes on the chamber floor, despite needing only 51 “yeahs.”
Democrats could use procedural moves to extend the debate on each of the nominees. But they don’t have the power to use the filibuster to block the nominations, because in the last Congress they changed the threshold on such filibusters from 60 to 51 votes.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and fellow Republicans don’t like the Democrats’ plan and argue they didn’t oppose outgoing Democratic President Obama’s nominations when he took office in 2008.
“Republicans and Democrats worked together and expeditiously to carefully consider his nominees,” McConnell spokesman David Popp told Fox News on Monday.
Popp points out that the Senate held hearings on multiple nominees before Obama was even sworn in, confirmed seven of them on Day One and that nearly all of them were confirmed within two weeks.
“Sen. Schumer and others approved wholeheartedly of this approach at the time,” Popp continued. “So surely they won’t object to treating the incoming president’s nominees with the same courtesy and seriousness.”
The others on the purported list of eight are Georgia GOP Rep. Tom Price, Trump’s nominee to run the Department of Health and Human Services; Andrew Puzder for labor secretary; and Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to run the EPA.
Those not on the purported list are Marine Gen. James N. Mattis for defense secretary; South Carolina GOP Gov. Nikki Haley as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; and former Marine Gen. John Kelly run the Department of Homeland Security.

Hill Democrats outline counterattack for ObamaCare repeal, prep for president's visit

Pelosi in denial? Leader says Dems don't need new direction

Top House Democrats gave more clues Monday about how they’ll fight GOP efforts to repeal ObamaCare, sharing enrollment figures and stories about Americans saved by the health care law, ahead of President Obama’s visit Wednesday.
Obama makes the trip to Capitol Hill in his final weeks of office and as the Republican-controlled Congress plans to start repealing ObamaCare the day GOP President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
“Whatever the circumstance, health wise you are financially better off” with ObamaCare, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Monday on a conference call with reporters.
She was joined on the call by House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer and other top Democrats on key committees to tout ObamaCare’s successes in reducing Americans’ health costs and increasing their access to better care -- while sending warning shots about the perils of dismantling the 2010 law.
Pelosi and Hoyer argued that at least 20 million Americans would lose their health insurance, in part subsidized by the federal government, and chided Republicans for having no immediate plan to replace the law, more formally known as the Affordable Care Act.  
“Understand, repeal and delay is an act of cowardice,” said Pelosi, D-Calif.
Said Hoyer: “Republicans’ repeal and delay plan is code for repeal without an alternative. … The truth is they have no alternative to replace it. … Their plan is to turn back the clock, make Americans unhealthy again, perhaps.”
In a sign of things to come, the lawmakers talked about Americans who were financially saved by ObamaCare, include a man who developed heart problems upon starting his own business and a woman who needed the insurance while helping put her husband through college.
Obama will hold a closed-door meeting with congressional Democrats about his signature plan, created to lower health care costs for all Americans by trying to cut down on emergency care and other uninsured medical expenses.
However, insurance premiums continue to increase for many on ObamaCare, in large part the result of fewer-than-expected healthy people enrolling and insurance companies dropping out.
Pelosi spoke by phone last week with fellow House Democrats about plans to defend ObamaCare and raised concerns about Republicans’ plans to change entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
She encouraged members to hold events to talk with voters about the kind of statistics and anecdotes discussed Monday.
Also on Wednesday, Vice President-elect Mike Pence will rally with House Republicans about their plans to dismantle ObamaCare, a GOP leadership aide told Fox News on Monday.
With Trump coming in as president, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell plans to begin the repeal effort this week through a process known as budget reconciliation.
Democrats now have little chance of stopping the process with Obama heading out of office. But Republicans, after years of putting repeal legislation on Obama’s desk, must now come up with a better, substitute plan.
They acknowledge needing two to perhaps four years to complete the process.
Trump and fellow Republicans say they want to keep the good parts of ObamaCare, like allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ plan.
But Democrats are already warning about potential chaos in the health care system if the law is repealed and not immediately replaced.

House GOP votes to gut independent ethics office

WASHINGTON –  House Republicans on Monday voted to eviscerate the Office of Congressional Ethics, the independent body created in 2008 to investigate allegations of misconduct by lawmakers after several bribery and corruption scandals sent members to prison.
The ethics change, which prompted an outcry from Democrats and government watchdog groups, is part of a rules package that the full House will vote on Tuesday. The package also includes a means for Republican leaders to punish lawmakers if there is a repeat of the Democratic sit-in last summer over gun control.
Under the ethics change pushed by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., the non-partisan Office of Congressional Ethics would fall under the control of the House Ethics Committee, which is run by lawmakers. It would be known as the Office of Congressional Complaint Review, and the rule change would require that "any matter that may involve a violation of criminal law must be referred to the Committee on Ethics for potential referral to law enforcement agencies after an affirmative vote by the members," according to Goodlatte's office.
Lawmakers would have the final say under the change. House Republicans voted 119-74 for the Goodlatte measure despite arguments from Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., against the change. They failed to sway rank-and-file Republicans, some of whom have felt unfairly targeted by the OCE.
"The amendment builds upon and strengthens the existing Office of Congressional Ethics by maintaining its primary area of focus of accepting and reviewing complaints from the public and referring them, if appropriate, to the Committee on Ethics," Goodlatte said in a statement.
Democrats, led by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, reacted angrily.
"Republicans claim they want to 'drain the swamp,' but the night before the new Congress gets sworn in, the House GOP has eliminated the only independent ethics oversight of their actions," the California lawmaker said in a statement. "Evidently, ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress."
Chris Carson, president of the League of Women Voters, said Ryan should be ashamed of himself and his leadership team.
"We all know the so-called House Ethics Committee is worthless for anything other than a whitewash — sweeping corruption under the rug. That's why the independent Office of Congressional Ethics has been so important. The OCE works to stop corruption and that's why Speaker Ryan is cutting its authority. Speaker Ryan is giving a green light to congressional corruption."
The OCE was created in March 2008 after the cases of former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., who served more than seven years in prison on bribery and other charges; as well as cases of former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, who was charged in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and pleaded guilty to corruption charges and former Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., convicted on corruption in a separate case.

Republican Congress promises to move quickly toward goals

The nation’s new, all-Republican leadership begins to take power Tuesday with an ambitious agenda of tax cuts, regulation rollbacks and repeal of President Barack Obama’s health law, but they face a complicated legislative path pocked with unresolved policy details.
After new senators are sworn in Tuesday by Vice President Joe Biden, a symbol of the departing Democratic administration, and House members by GOP Speaker Paul Ryan, the Republicans among them plan to move quickly to turn back an era defined by Mr. Obama’s ambitions to make the government a more powerful force in the economy.
Republicans will hold the White House and both chambers of Congress for the first time since early 2007 once President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in Jan. 20, creating high expectations within the party that it can enact long-held policy goals. When Mr. Trump met recently with Sen. David Perdue (R., Ga.), “all we talked about for the better part of an hour was how to get results in the first part of the year,” Mr. Perdue recalled.
One of the first goals for Republican leaders is to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. The Senate’s opening move, coming as soon as Tuesday, will be to initiate a controversial process to repeal parts of the law, which has brought health insurance to more than 19 million people but has taken a hit as the number of insurers offering coverage on the ACA’s exchanges has shrunk and premiums have jumped.
As with many of the Republican goals, the effort is creating a maze of challenges. The most pressing is how to develop a replacement for the 2010 health law without triggering the sort of disruptions that accompanied the law’s rollout, which in turn contributed to the Democrats’ loss of their Senate majority in 2014.
Many health insurers have stopped writing policies on the exchanges, leaving individual insurance markets struggling in some states, including GOP-leaning Arizona, Alaska and Tennessee. Some Republican lawmakers, whose votes will be crucial to any repeal plan, are worried a repeal would yank the rug out from under people’s coverage before a replacement is in effect.
Republicans also know that a confirmation hearing for Rep. Tom Price (R., Ga.), nominated to serve as Health and Human Services secretary, will become an early focal point for debate over any repeal plan, given the congressman’s years of working to replace the health law’s mandates with tax credits for the purchase of insurance.