Republicans float new ObamaCare replacement plan

House Republicans are shopping around a new ObamaCare replacement plan, amid pressure to deliver a legislative win as President Trump nears the end of his first 100 days.
“We have a good chance of getting it soon. I’d like to say next week, but I believe we will get it” eventually, Trump said Thursday at a White House press conference.
“We’re very close,” House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said a day earlier at an event in London.
Fox News is told they hope to have revised legislative text in the coming days, and lawmakers are set to discuss the proposal on a conference call this weekend. But it’s unclear when such a plan could hit the House floor or what level of support it might have – Congress is currently on recess, and lawmakers won’t return until next week.
Fox News is told that leaders have not yet tried tallying support for the document on Capitol Hill.
"The question is whether it can get 216 votes in the House and the answer isn't clear at this time,” a senior GOP aide said. “There is no legislative text and therefore no agreement to do a whip count on."
A White House source said they could potentially have a vote by the end of next week, though they put the chances at 50-50.
The failure in March to pass an earlier replacement bill for the Affordable Care Act, amid widespread criticism of the plan, marked a major setback for Trump’s early presidency. He has since turned his attention to foreign affairs – especially the Syrian crisis – but continues to press for a new health care plan, blaming a bloc of House conservatives for the March meltdown.
Complicating any renewed efforts, however, is next Friday’s deadline for Congress to pass a new budget measure. Congressional Republicans and the Trump administration likely will have to court Democrats to avoid this scenario. Further, the timetable is tight, with the House not set to return until Tuesday night.
Interestingly, the government shutdown drama and health care could be directly linked.
Just days ago, Trump declared he would yank subsidies known as “cost-sharing reductions” from ObamaCare programs. The government directs the CSR payments to insurers who grant coverage to low-income people. A dried-up subsidy could force insurers to drop ObamaCare and spike premiums for the poor.
Trump views the ObamaCare subsidies as leverage to force Democrats to the table on health care. Democrats contend the president is holding the health care assistance “hostage” and imperiling those who aren’t well off.
Trump said Thursday he wants to pass both a health care package and budget bill.
“The spending bill cannot be done by one party alone,” opined Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., before the recess. “These bills can’t pass without a reasonable number of Democratic supporters in the Senate.”

Iran Nuclear Deal Cartoons

Tillerson slams Iran nuclear deal as 'failed approach,' vows 'comprehensive review'

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson ratcheted up criticism Wednesday of the Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran, publicly confirming the Trump administration is conducting a “comprehensive review” and declaring they have “no intention of passing the buck.”
In some of his toughest language yet, Tillerson said at a brief press conference that the Iran deal “fails to achieve the objective of a non-nuclear Iran,” and only delays it becoming a nuclear state.
He faulted the agreement for “buying off” a foreign power with nuclear ambitions, saying: “We just don’t see that that’s a prudent way to be dealing with Iran.”
The statement comes after he said in a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis, that the administration has undertaken a full review of the agreement to evaluate whether continued sanctions relief is in the best interest of the U.S.
In the same notification, the administration said Iran is complying with the landmark nuclear deal negotiated by former President Obama, and the U.S. has extended sanctions relief to Tehran in exchange for curbs on its atomic program.
But Tillerson noted in his letter, and repeated during his appearance Wednesday, that Iran continues to foment violence around the world.
“Iran spends its treasure and time disrupting peace,” he said Wednesday. “Iran’s nuclear ambitions are a grave risk to international peace and security.”
While not saying definitively whether the administration is inclined to uphold or scrap the deal, Tillerson said they will meet the challenge of Iran with “clarity and conviction” once the review is done.
“The Trump administration has no intention of passing the buck to a future administration on Iran,” he said, claiming the deal represents the “failed approach” of the past.
Tillerson also likened Iran's behavior to that of North Korea. He said an unchecked Iran could pursue the same path as Pyongyang "and take the world along with it."
As a candidate in the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump was an outspoken critic of the deal but had offered conflicting opinions on whether he would try to scrap it, modify it or keep it in place with more strenuous enforcement. Tuesday's determination suggested that while Trump agreed with findings by the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, that Iran is keeping to its end of the bargain, he is looking for another way to ratchet up pressure on Tehran.
The nuclear deal was sealed in Vienna in July 2015 after 18 months of negotiations led by former Secretary of State John Kerry and diplomats from the other four permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — Britain, China, France and Russia — and Germany. Under its terms, Iran agreed to curb its nuclear program, long suspected of being aimed at developing atomic weapons, in return for billions of dollars in sanctions relief.

Supreme Court justices show support for church, in Gorsuch's 1st high-profile case

A majority on the Supreme Court appeared to offer support Wednesday for a church excluded from a publicly funded aid program, during the hearing for what was considered Justice Neil Gorsuch’s first high-profile case.
At issue is a double dose of contentious issues: religious freedom and taxpayer funding. It is one of the most closely watched cases of the term, and could portend a series of upcoming church-state disputes facing the justices.
The justices are considering whether Trinity Lutheran Church in Columbia, Mo., should be eligible for state funds. The church sued after being denied funding to improve the surface of a playground used by its preschool, by replacing gravel with softer, recycled synthetic rubber.
The state program gives grants to nonprofits seeking a safer recreational environment for children. But Missouri's law -- similar to those in roughly three-dozen other states – prohibits direct government aid to educational institutions that have a religious affiliation.
Republican Gov. Eric Greitens’s unexpected decision last week to change the policy and allow religious institutions to participate in the program raised questions about whether the constitutional fight is now moot -- but no one on the nine-member bench appeared ready to punt the case away.
Instead, an intense hour of oral arguments focused on the merits.
"I'm not sure it's a 'free exercise' [of religion] question," said Justice Sonia Sotomayor. "No one is asking the church to change its beliefs. The state is just saying it doesn't want to be involved in giving [public] money to the church."
But other members of the court questioned the church's exclusion.
"You're denying one set of actors from competing [for the grant money] because of religion," Justice Elena Kagan said. She called it a "clear burden on a constitutional right."
The Constitution's First Amendment speaks on religion in the public sphere with two important provisions. The Establishment Clause prohibits the government from unduly preferring or promoting religion over non-religion, and vice versa. And the Free Exercise Clause protects Americans' rights to practice their faith, absent a "compelling" government interest.
Gorsuch, the court’s newest member, was subdued by comparison to his active involvement during his first two days of arguments. He only asked a couple brief questions of the state's lawyer near the end of arguments.
The Supreme Court accepted the church's petition for review back in January 2016, when Justice Antonin Scalia was still the senior conservative. His death a month later kept the case on hold, possibly because the eight justices believed they would ultimately tie. Such splits mean no nationwide precedent is set.
Trinity Lutheran's high-profile case was finally put on the argument schedule for April, just in time for Gorsuch to perhaps cast the deciding vote.
The Christian church operates its Child Learning Center to serve families, incorporating "daily religion and developmentally appropriate activities in a preschool program."
To minimize injuries on its playground, the church applied to the state's "Scrap Tire Surface Material Grant" program, funded by a 50-cent tax on the purchase of new tires. The church says its application ranked fifth out of 44 other nonprofits, but was ultimately denied.
Missouri's constitution says "no money shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, section or denomination of religion."
The high court has never fully answered whether "free exercise of religion" compels states to provide taxpayer funds to religious institutions, through neutral means that do not promote faith-based beliefs or practices.
Teachers unions, meanwhile, worry a ruling favoring Trinity Lutheran would add nationwide momentum for private school voucher programs, part of the school-choice movement which the Trump administration has promoted. And some organizations fear a sweeping conservative-majority court opinion would lead to discrimination with the backing of government money.
Into the debate jumped Gorsuch, who took heat from Senate Democrats during his confirmation over past cases dealing with religion, while serving as a federal appeals court judge in Denver for over a decade.
Perhaps the 49-year-old justice's highest-profile case was the 2013 concurrence supporting the right of for-profit, secular institutions (and individuals too, he argued) to oppose the Obama's administration mandate to provide contraceptives to their workers. Gorsuch affirmed his past ardent commitment to religious freedom against claims of government "intrusion."
Besides the Trinity case at hand, the Supreme Court in coming days could accept two other religious liberty disputes for future review: Whether a Colorado baker and a Washington state florist can be compelled to do business with same-sex couples, which they say would violate their "sincerely held" religious beliefs.
The current case is Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer (15-577). A ruling is expected in late June.

How North Korea gets its money

North Korea is a conundrum: seemingly barren and with Third World living conditions, yet it just held a grandiose military parade reminding the world that the country is locked and loaded.
As detached as North Korea appears to be from the rest of the globe, the country is maintaining a stream of revenue from somewhere to finance its impressive slew of intercontinental ballistic missiles. Where does that money come from? A myriad of places.
“North Korea has both an overt and covert economy through which it gains money,” said Bruce Klingner, a Heritage Foundation senior fellow who suggests North Korea’s money flow is very diverse.
“The overt economy is predominantly sales of natural resources,” he said. “The covert economy is harder to estimate, but consists of weapons sales, the counterfeiting of U.S. $100 bills . . . production and distribution of illegal narcotics, cigarettes and pharmaceuticals, including Viagra, insurance scams, money laundering, and cybercrime.”
According to Klingner, that laundry list of dubious activities extends to “skimming the wages of North Korean workers overseas” and North Korean diplomats “involved in illegal sales of wildlife, rhino horn and ivory.”

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It is nearly impossible to have a dialogue about North Korea’s finances without mentioning China.
“Without China, North Korea would be in a state of collapse,” explained Nicholas Eberstadt, an American Enterprise Institute scholar and North Korea expert.
“China is the huge and dominant actor in exports and imports for North Korea. North Korea’s main activities include developing weapons of mass destruction so China supports that, of course.”
Along with illicit activities such as counterfeiting and drug sales, Eberstadt suggested another possible point of supply.
“Other things we don’t follow terribly well are overseas sources of wealth that belong to the Kim family stashed in Macau and other places,” he said.

South Korean presidential candidate concerned about Trump's aircraft carrier story

A presidential candidate from South Korea’s former ruling party said Wednesday that if what President Trump said about the mission of the U.S. aircraft carrier was a lie “South Korea will not trust whatever Trump says” the remainder of his term.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Hong Joon-pyo, the candidate from Park Geun-hye’s party, said in an interview that Trump’s earlier comments about moving the USS Carl Vinson toward North Korea in a show of force was important to South Korea’s security.
The U.S. Navy said on Tuesday that it did not move the USS Carl Vinson toward North Korea despite President Trump’s earlier comments he made on Fox Business that he was sending an “armada” to deter Pyongyang.
"We are sending an armada, very powerful. We have submarines, very powerful, far more powerful than the aircraft carrier,” Trump told the Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo last week. “We have the best military people on Earth.  And I will say this: he (Kim Jong Un) is doing the wrong thing.”
Military officials said at the time that the Vinson was canceling a previous itinerary and instead was going to head toward the Korean Peninsula. The ship, instead, ended up heading to Australia, the Journal reported. It is expected to reach the peninsula next week.
The White House said it did not mislead allies about the ship’s movements.
“The president said we have an armada going toward the peninsula,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said. “That’s a fact. It happened. It is happening, rather.”
Narushige Michishita, a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, told the Journal that regardless of whether the U.S. intended to deceive or the narrative was a miscommunication, it looked bad for the White House.
“At a time of emergency, disinformation could be used as a tactic, but if the U.S. president spreads disinformation in peacetime like now, it would hurt the credibility of the U.S.,” he said.

Young and Dumb Democrat Cartoons

Trump to order increased scrutiny of H-1B visa program

President Trump will travel to Wisconsin Tuesday, where he will sign an order aimed at changing a visa program that brings in highly skilled workers from overseas.
The order, dubbed "Buy American, Hire American," would direct the departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Labor and State to propose new rules to prevent immigration fraud and abuse. Those departments would also be asked to offer changes so that H-1B visas are awarded to the "most-skilled or highest-paid applicants."
The White House said the H-1B program is currently undercutting American workers by bringing in cheaper labor and said some tech companies are using it to hire large numbers of workers and drive down wages.

Administration officials said the order also seeks to strengthen requirements that American-made products be used in certain federal construction projects, as well as in various federal transportation grant-funded projects. The officials said the commerce secretary will review how to close loopholes in enforcing the existing rules and provide recommendations to the president.

The order specifically asks the secretary to review waivers of these rules that exist in free-trade agreements. The administration said that if the waivers are not benefiting the United States they will be "renegotiated or revoked."

During his campaign, Trump said at some points he supported high-skilled visas, then came out against them. At one debate, he called for fully ending the program, saying: "It's very bad for our workers and it's unfair for our workers. And we should end it."

The officials said the changes could be administrative or legislative and could include higher fees for the visas, changing the wage scale for the program or other initiatives.

About 85,000 H-1B visas are distributed annually by lottery. Many go to technology companies, which argue that the United States has a shortage of skilled technology workers.

But critics say the program has been hijacked by staffing companies that use the visas to import foreigners -- often from India -- who will work for less than Americans. The staffing companies then sell their services to corporate clients who use them to outsource tech work.

Employers from Walt Disney World to the University of California in San Francisco have laid off their tech employees and replaced them with H-1B visa holders. Adding to the indignity: The U.S. workers are sometimes asked to train their replacements to qualify for severance packages.

On the planned order by Trump, Ronil Hira, a professor in public policy at Howard University and a critic of the H-1B program, told the Associated Press, "It's better than nothing." But he added, "It's not as aggressive as it needs to be."

The tech industry has argued that the H-1B program is needed because it encourages students to stay in the U.S. after getting degrees in high-tech specialties -- and they can't always find enough American workers with the skills they need.

Congress is considering several bills to overhaul the visa program. One, introduced by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, would require companies seeking H-1B visas to first make a good-faith effort to hire Americans, a requirement many companies can dodge under the current system; give the Labor Department more power to investigate and sanction H-1B abuses; and give "the best and brightest" foreign students studying in the U.S. priority in getting H-1B visas.

Trump will sign the order at the Kenosha headquarters of tool manufacturer Snap-on Inc. His visit comes as the president faces an approval rating of just 41 percent in Wisconsin, a state he barely won in November. The visit also would take him to the congressional district of House Speaker Paul Ryan, who won't be joining the president because he's on a bipartisan congressional trip visiting NATO countries.

Trump has traveled to promote his agenda less than his recent predecessors. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump wanted to visit "a company that builds American-made tools with American workers."

Trump carried Wisconsin in November by nearly 23,000 votes -- less than 1 percentage point -- making him the first Republican to win the state since 1984. He campaigned on the promise of returning manufacturing jobs that have been lost in Upper Midwest states.

Founded in Wisconsin in 1920, Snap-on makes hand and power tools, diagnostics software, information and management systems, and shop equipment for use in a variety of industries, including agriculture, the military and aviation. It has eight manufacturing sites in North America, including one in Milwaukee. The company employs about 11,000 people worldwide.