Friday, March 24, 2017

Bad ObamaCare Cartoons





Senate leader demands to know why accused rapist was allowed to enter US illegally


A leading U.S. senator is demanding to know why a teenager from Central America accused of raping and sodomizing a 14-year-old girl in a Maryland high school was allowed to enter and remain in the U.S. since crossing the border illegally months ago.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, said Henry E. Sanchez-Milian, 18, of Guatemala, was detained by Border Patrol in Rio Grande Valley, Texas, last August after entering the U.S. illegally. The immigration status of another suspect in the rape, Jose O. Montano, 17, from El Salvador, was unclear. ICE reported Sanchez was ordered to appear before an immigration judge, but the hearing had not been scheduled. The agency would not release any information about Montano, citing his age.
“On March 16, 2017, a tragic event occurred in Montgomery County, Maryland. According to news reports, a 14-year old student was dragged into a high school restroom and raped by two teenage boys,” Johnson wrote in a March 22 letter to Thomas Homan, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). “At a hearing March 22, Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, testified if Border Patrol had properly done its job, neither Sanchez-Milian or Montano would have been present in this country to commit this heinous act.”
Johnson wants to know if the teens arrived in the U.S. under the President Obama’s Unaccompanied Minor Program, which allowed thousands of unaccompanied children fleeing violence in their country to cross the border illegally from Central America and remain in the United States. He also wanted to know more about Montano, and whether he also was picked up by Border Patrol.
Johnson’s inquiry followed testimony from Judd, who said: “Had we done our job, that 14-year-old girl would have never been raped. Period. Had we held those individuals in custody, or that one individual in custody pending a determination that this person should be allowed to remain in this country, that rape would not have happened. We failed the citizens of this great nation by not securing the border.”
County charging documents allege that Montano and Sanchez-Milian forced their female classmate into a boy’s bathroom near the school gym last Thursday at 9 a.m., where they allegedly raped and sodomized her and forced her to perform oral sex.
After school officials reported the incident, detectives from the Montgomery County Police Department Special Victims Investigations Division arrested Montano and Sanchez-Milian. A forensic team recovered blood and male fluids from the bathroom, court records show.
Both boys, who are enrolled as freshman because of their weak English language skills, were charged with first-degree rape and two counts of first-degree sexual offense and will be tried as adults.
The judge who oversaw their bond hearing refused to release them on bail, because the students are “dangerous and flight risks.”
The case has sent shockwaves through the state, to Congress and to the White House.
"We failed the citizens of this great nation by not securing the border.”
- Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.)
White House spokesman Sean Spicer commented on the case Tuesday in a press briefing: "The reason the president has made it such a priority to crack down on illegal immigration is because of cases like this."
ICE has since lodged an immigration detainer against Sanchez-Milian, so ICE can take custody of him when he is released, but it is unclear whether local law enforcement will comply.
Officials in Montgomery County have been pushing to make the area a sanctuary for illegal immigrants, and four days after the girl’s rape the House passed a measure that would essentially make the entire state a safe haven for illegal aliens, criminal or otherwise.
“It is longstanding county policy that county police do not enforce federal immigration law. Neither will they inquire about immigration status when individuals are stopped nor target individuals based on their ethnicity, race or religious beliefs,” said the Charles Immigrant Resource Center in a guide for immigrants who recently moved to Montgomery. “The county’s law enforcement leaders are also committed to our values, and they will continue working to build trust in our community.”
Montgomery County, where the alleged rape took place, is on a list released this week by ICE of “jurisdictions that have enacted policies which limit cooperation with ICE.”
Acting ICE Director Thomas Homan noted in a statement to the media this week about the case: “When law enforcement agencies fail to honor immigration detainers and release serious criminal offenders, it undermines ICE’s ability to protect the public safety and carry out its mission.”
Montgomery County is not the worst, “but it’s pretty bad,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies.
“When Northern Virginia cracked down around 2005 from 2011, many illegals moved to Montgomery County, where they knew they would be treated more leniently,” Vaughan said.
Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, who opposes the sanctuary legislation, said he is “outraged by the brutal and violent rape of a 14-year-old girl in a Rockville public school” and called on Montgomery County “to immediately and fully cooperate with all federal authorities during the investigation.”
“The public has a right to know how something this tragic and unacceptable was allowed to transpire in a public school,” Hogan said.

Rep. Nunes: 'I had a duty and obligation' to tell Trump of surveillance int


The chairman of the House intelligence committee told Fox News' "Hannity" Thursday night that "I felt like I had a duty and obligation to tell" President Trump that members of the intelligence community "incidentally collected" communications from Trump's transition team.
POTENTIAL 'SMOKING GUN' SHOWING OBAMA ADMINISTRATION MAY HAVE SPIED ON TRUMP TEAM, SOURCE SAYS
"As you know [Trump]’s been taking a lot of heat in the news media," Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., told host Sean Hannity, "and I think to some degree there are some things that he should look at to see whether in fact he thinks the collection was proper or not."
Nunes was criticized by the committee's ranking member, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., for making the information public without first telling them. Another of the committee's Democrats, Jackie Speier of California, told reporters Nunes had apologized to them earlier Thursday.
TRUMP TEAM COMMUNICATIONS CAPTURED BY INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY SURVEILLANCE, NUNES SAYS
Nunes told Hannity that the committee expected to get further information about the intercepted messages Friday. He reiterated that the reports he saw "had nothing to do with Russia ... but it was important enough that I thought the president of the United States should know what is being said about him and his transition team."
The chairman also said the lack of an FBI investigation into who leaked details of phone calls between then-national security adviser Michael Flynn and the Russian ambassador to Washington was "quite concerning."
"We need to make sure that these leaks are being tracked down," Nunes said, "and it’s part of our investigation ... to make sure that we do try to find who was at least knowledgeable of the information that eventually got leaked."

What you need to know before the House votes on GOP bill to replace ObamaCare


What you need to know before the House votes on GOP plan to replace ObamaCare
The White House and Republican Leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives announced they will not hold the vote on the American Health Care Act on Thursday night as planned, after they struggled to muster the necessary support.
Here’s what you need to know:
What House Republicans Need
  • The party breakdown in the House is 237 Republicans to 193 Democrats, meaning Republicans need 216 votes
  • Only 21 Republicans can vote ‘no’ for the bill to pass with no Democratic support
  • House Speaker Paul Ryan told Fox News Wednesday that Democrats opposed almost every piece of the bill, and said “I don’t think the people who created ObamaCare are going to be working with us to get rid of Obamacare.”
  • House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called the bill a "moral monstrosity"
White House
  • President Trump welcomed members of the House Freedom Caucus, the conservative bloc of House Republicans, to the White House on Thursday in an effort to sway members
  • Yesterday, more than 25 House Freedom Caucus members were leaning toward voting against the bill
  • Ryan called the president a “fantastic closer” who had whipped 10 member votes in favor of the legislation
  • But after the meeting, House Freedom Caucus members said they had not yet struck a deal
  • In the daily White House press briefing, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said that President Trump and members of the House Freedom Caucus have agreed that healthcare costs need to be lower
  • White House said they continue to see the number of healthcare bill supports rise and “that’s a very positive sign”

House set to vote on ObamaCare replacement bill after Trump ultimatum


White House officials said late Thursday President Trump wants the House to vote Friday on the legislation to begin dismantling ObamaCare, and if it fails, he is “done with health care,” and ready to move on to tax reform, a source told Fox News.
"My understanding is he’s going to get it," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said on "The O'Reilly Factor."
"We’re hoping to make this the last anniversary that any American has to suffer under ObamaCare by instilling a patient-centric health care system in place, and the president has made that case to members throughout the spectrum of the Republican conference, and tomorrow, it’s time to vote," he added.
After a few procedural moves, the House will likely vote on the bill sometime in the mid-to-late afternoon. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., thinks it will wrap up by 4:30 or 5 p.m. ET (WATCH FOX NEWS CHANNEL FOR COMPLETE COVERAGE). If the bill passes, it will be a monumental achievement for Speaker Ryan and Trump. But if the bill stumbles, recriminations will abound.
Republican leaders Thursday canceled a vote after leadership's attempts to lobby enough votes apparently failed -- a major setback for Ryan and Trump.
"For seven and a half years we've been promising the American people that we will repeal and replace this broken law because it's collapsing and failing families," House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters after meeting with Republican leaders. "Tomorrow we're proceeding."
Trump and Republican leaders had spent much of the day scrambling to get both moderates and conservatives on board with the increasingly unpopular legislation.
"We have not gotten enough of our members to get to yes at this point under what we have now," House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, R-N.C., told reporters.
Ryan postponed his press conference twice as he worked with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy R-Calif., Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and Chief Deputy Whip Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., to get enough votes to get the American Healthcare Act through the House on the seventh anniversary of ObamaCare's passage.
The House Rules Committee is expected to prep the health care bill starting at 7am ET Friday.
When asked about the timing of the vote McCarthy told Fox News the House should be "done in the afternoon" but said Democrats could delay things.
Meanwhile, Trump met inside the Cabinet room with the Freedom caucus to try and rally conservatives to the cause. He also tweeted, urging supporters to call their representatives to back the bill.
A senior administration official told Fox News after the meeting with Trump and the conservative group that there was a deal in the works, but that it was not yet finalized. A source from the Freedom Caucus later said there wasn't yet a deal.
"I would say progress is being made, and that progress should be applauded with the efforts by the White House to deliver on a campaign promise, and to lower premiums for every American from coast to coast and in between," Meadows said. He also called Trump's involvement "unparalleled in the history of our country."
When asked if this was a loss for the president, Meadows said: "Absolutely not."
Earlier in the day, Spicer had expressed confidence that the White House was would be voted on and would pass.
"It’s going to pass. That’s it," he said at his daily press briefing.
Spicer also noted that Trump had been making calls past 11 p.m. Wednesday night to try and bring members on board.
Sources later told Fox News that the White House was anticipating a vote after midnight, but that was before the vote was canceled.
House Republicans were due to meet about the around 7 p.m. ET, but there appeared no clear path to pass the bill.
In appealing to conservatives with concessions that include limiting requirements that plans offer benefits including maternity and substance abuse care, Republican leaders risk scaring off moderates. A plan to cut funding to Planned Parenthood also risked spooking centrist Republicans.
Meanwhile, Democrats blasted what they saw as Republicans’ amateurish maneuvering. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said it was a "rookie's error" to bring the legislation to a vote so early, and urged fellow Democrats to oppose the legislation.
“While Republicans scramble to make TrumpCare even more destructive, our Caucus must continue to be fully engaged today in exposing its disastrous consequences for the American people,” she told colleagues in a letter Thursday.
The AHCA would stop ObamaCare’s tax penalties against Americans who choose not to buy coverage, as well as cutting the federal-state Medicaid program for low earners. It would also give tax credits to help people pay medical bills, while allowing insurers to charge older Americans more. It would also repeal tax increases on high-earners and health companies.

Thursday, March 23, 2017

Obamacare Cartoons





Smugness watch: Some liberals say it's okay to hate Trump voters


There is, in some precincts on the left, an earnest attempt to understand Trump voters, those strange creatures that are standing by their man, and figure out how the Democrats might win them back.
During the campaign I talked about Donald Democrats and how the billionaire’s appeal to working-class folks might help him win the election, as he did in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. The Dems used to be the party of the working class, but Trump made a connection that the party of global trade deals and climate change failed to forge.
“Democrats often sound patronizing when speaking of Trump voters…It’s hard to win over voters whom you’re insulting,” New York Times columnist Nick Kristof wrote last month.
But now there’s a counterargument emerging about Trump voters, which can be summarized thusly: Screw ’em.
This mad-as-hell view has been galvanized by reports that many Trump voters may lose their health insurance if the House version of ObamaCare repeal passes. The liberal gloaters say it serves them right.
From this perspective, those voters are too dumb to vote in their own economic self-interest and they’re probably gone for good. So it’s better to energize the Bernie Sanders base than to struggle to understand why many blue-collar Americans feel alienated from the Obama/Clinton party.
Frank Rich, the former Times columnist now with New York magazine, makes this argument in ridiculing what he calls Hillbilly Chic.
He questions whether “pandering” to Trump voters is “another counterproductive detour into liberal guilt, self-flagellation, and political correctness.” Rather than feeling everyone’s pain, “might the time have at last come for Democrats to weaponize their anger instead of swallowing it?”
Rich admits that “the party is a wreck,” with no power and most of its leaders “of Social Security age.” But he sees Trump voters as basically synonymous with the GOP:
“That makes it all the more a fool’s errand for Democrats to fudge or abandon their own values to cater to the white-identity politics of the hard-core, often self-sabotaging Trump voters who helped drive the country into a ditch on Election Day. If we are free to loathe Trump, we are free to loathe his most loyal voters, who have put the rest of us at risk.”
Sounds like Frank is weaponizing his own anger.
I just don’t get the loathing, unless you subscribe to the view that anyone who supports Trump is by definition odious. If the Democrats write off everyone who backed Trump, even if it was because they didn’t trust Hillary, aren’t they making it harder to put together an electoral majority of liberals and minorities?
Salon takes a different tack with a critical piece titled “The Smug Style in American Politics.” (There are photos of Rachel Maddow, Bill Maher and Keith Olbermann, though they have nothing to do with the article.)
The story by Conor Lynch says the Democratic view is of “large numbers of American people voting against their apparent interests because of their ignorance and cultural backwardness.
“After decades of watching millions of Americans vote for right-wing charlatans who advocated economic policies that serve the wealthy and screw everyone else, some liberals have basically given up on appealing to these perceived yokels, who seem to care more about criminalizing abortion and hoarding guns than obtaining health are and decent wages. They are dumb, credulous and often intolerant; so why should we — progressive, rational, forward-thinking liberals — sympathize or try to reason with them? Let them lose their health care; maybe they’ll learn something this time around (though we all know they won’t).”
Lynch concludes that both parties have failed these voters and that “cheering as people lose their health insurance may not be the best way to go about this.”
Ya think?
We live in a divided country. And when Barack Obama won in 2008, some of those who opposed him tried to marginalize him and vowed to “take our country back.”
Do some in Obama’s party want to do the same thing now? Blame not just the Republican president but the 60 million people who put him in the White House? Isn’t that a big, well, smug?
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz. 

Immigration: As LA rebuffs Trump's order, others embrace it

Los Angeles mayor expands protection for immigrants
Los Angeles went a step further than the rest of the country Tuesday in shielding illegal immigrants from immigration officials: It passed a directive forbidding firefighters and airport police from cooperating with federal immigration agents.
The directive was yet another attempt by the city to rebuff the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. The Los Angeles Police Department already prohibits police from even asking a suspect’s legal status – even with probable cause.
It follows a wave of similar measures across the country by cities and states that are vowing to not only resist the president’s tough immigration measures – but outright defy it.
DHS NAMES LOCAL JAILS THAT WON'T HOLD ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
“In Los Angeles, we don't separate people from their families because it's inhumane,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Tuesday. “In Los Angeles, we don't demonize our hardworking neighbors just because they speak another language or come from another country. That's un-American.”
There are about 300 jurisdictions that don't cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to turn over illegal immigrants.
President Trump has threatened to withhold federal funds from these so-called sanctuary cities. The administration has refused to tell Fox News if, when or how they plan to do so.
But while states like New York and California are pushing to defy the president’s immigration policies, others are embracing them.
WHITE HOUSE BLAMES MD. SCHOOL RAPE ON LAX BORDER, SANCTUARY POLICIES
Several states are attempting to leverage the power of the purse to force more liberal cities to cooperate with ICE. Lawmakers in Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin and Texas introduced bills to penalize sanctuary cities. On Tuesday, Mississippi became the first state to approve such a bill. The governor has vowed to sign it.
By contrast, lawmakers in California are close to passing legislation that would prohibit police or jails from even talking to ICE, a move critics say is a clear violation of federal law.
That proposal is opposed by several sheriffs who oversee jails, including LA Sheriff Jim McDonnell.
"We look to be able to strike that balance between public safety and trust," said McDonnell, who oversees the nation's largest jail.
"We do a better job because we work together than we otherwise would; counter-terrorism is a great example."
McDonnell is one of the few politicians opposing the bill because it would prohibit jail officials from even identifying violent criminal aliens for deportation.
"We can allow ICE access to those individuals. That's a system that by and large works very well for us at this point and one of the main reasons I look at Senate Bill 54 as something that is unnecessary."
McDonnell also told the Los Angeles Times that the proposal before state lawmakers would hurt immigrants – not help them. He told the Times that if immigration officials cannot go to the jails to pick up illegal immigrants then they will fan out through the streets to find them.
“They are going to have no choice but to go into the communities and arrest not only the individual they are seeking but also people who are with that person, or other people in the area who are undocumented,” McDonnell told the Times. “That is something none of us want.”

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