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Message to President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans: Stop trying to scuttle the Obama health care law, and start trying to make it more effective.

That's the resounding word from a national poll released Friday by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. The survey was taken following last month's Senate derailment of the GOP drive to supplant much of President Barack Obama's statute with a diminished federal role in health care.

Around 4 in 5 want the Trump administration to take actions that help Obama's law function properly, rather than trying to undermine it. Trump has suggested steps like halting subsidies to insurers who reduce out-of-pockets health costs for millions of consumers. His administration has discussed other moves like curbing outreach programs that persuade people to buy coverage and not enforcing the tax penalty the statute imposes on those who remain uninsured.

Just 3 in 10 want Trump and Republicans to continue their drive to repeal and replace the statute. Most prefer that they instead move to shore up the law's marketplaces, which are seeing rising premiums and in some areas few insurers willing to sell policies.

Flying in the face of that, hard-line conservatives launched an uphill bid Friday to force a fresh House vote to revoke Obama's law without an immediate replacement. The House Freedom Caucus filed a petition to force a vote if it is signed by 218 lawmakers, which seems unlikely because of GOP divisions and Democratic opposition.

Ominously for the GOP, 6 in 10 say Trump and congressional Republicans are responsible for any upcoming health care problems since they control government. That could be a bad sign for Republicans as they prepare to defend their House and Senate majorities in the 2018 elections.

And by nearly 2-to-1, most say it's good that the Senate rejected the GOP repeal-and-replace bill last month.

Trump has been publicly browbeating Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to continue trying to pass legislation tearing down Obama's 2010 overhaul. After using Twitter to blame McConnell for last month's Senate failure despite years of GOP vows to repeal it, Trump suggested Thursday that McConnell should perhaps step aside if he can't push that and other legislation through his chamber.

On three separate attempts in late July, McConnell fell short of the 50 GOP votes he needed to pass legislation scrapping Obama's law. With a 52-48 GOP majority and Vice President Mike Pence available to cast a tie-breaking vote, McConnell has said he's moving onto other matters unless "people can show me 50 votes for anything that would make progress."

With the Kaiser survey consistently showing clear overall public support for retaining Obama's law, the numbers help explain why some centrist Republicans who rely on moderate voters' support opposed repeal or backed it only after winning some concessions.

Strikingly, while large majorities of Democrats and independents back efforts to sustain the statute, even Republicans and Trump supporters lean toward saying the administration should try making the law work, not take steps to hinder it.

But in other instances, Republicans and Trump supporters part company with Democrats and independents and strongly back the president's views. For a White House that often seems more concerned with cementing support from Trump's loyalists than embracing the political center, that might help explain the president's persistence on the issue.

For example, 6 in 10 Republicans and Trump backers want the GOP to continue its repeal and replace drive in Congress.

And around two-thirds from those groups want Trump to stop enforcing the tax penalty Obama's law levies on people who don't buy coverage. Analysts say that would roil insurance markets because fewer healthy people would buy policies, leaving them with greater proportions of expensive, seriously ill customers.

Trump has frequently tried pressuring Democrats to negotiate on health care by threatening to halt federal subsidies to insurers. While around 6 in 10 overall say Trump should not use such disruptive tactics, a majority of Republicans back that approach.

The companies use the money to trim out-of-pocket costs for deductibles and copayments for around 7 million low- and middle-income people. Since insurers are legally required to reduce those costs, they say blocking the subsidies would force them to increase premiums for millions who buy private insurance, including those whose expenses aren't being reduced.

The poll found that 52 percent have a positive view of Obama's law, a 9 percentage point increase since Trump was elected last November.

The Kaiser Health Tracking Poll was conducted Aug. 1-6 and involved random calls to the cellphones and landlines of 1,211 adults. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

See the article here:
Poll: Most say time to end effort to repeal Obama health law - ABC News

As a group of shareholders of Uber Technologies, Inc. (the "Company") we were surprised and distressed to learn through the media of the lawsuit brought by your firm against the Company, and its founder and former Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick.

Naturally, we share your concerns about the problems that the Company has

confronted in recent months, but we are greatly concerned about the tactics employed by

Benchmark to address them, which strike us as ethically dubious and, critically, value-destructive

rather than value enhancing.

Specifically, we do not feel it was either prudent or necessary from the standpoint

of shareholder value, to hold the company hostage to a public relations disaster by demanding

weeks of a personal tragedy, under threat of public scandal. Even less so your escalation of this

fratricidal course notwithstanding Mr. Kalanick's resignation through your recent lawsuit,

which we fear will cost the company public goodwill, interfere with fundraising and impede the

critical search for a new, world-class Chief Executive Officer. Benchmark has used false

allegations from lawsuits like Waymo as a matter of fact and this and many actions has crossed

the fiduciary line.

the founder, the company and the employees who worked so hard to create such unprecedented

value. We ask you to please consider the lives of these employees and allow them to continue to

grow this company in peace and make it thrive. These actions do the opposite.

full potential by allowing the necessary work to be done in the Board Room rather than the

Courtroom. To this end, at this point, in light of your suit against the Company, we believe it

would be best, and hereby request, that Benchmark remove its representative from the

Company's Board and move promptly to divest itself of enough shares in the Company so as to

cease to have Board appointment rights. We have investors ready to acquire these shares as soon

as we receive communication from Benchmark that they are willing to withdraw their lawsuit

and sell a minimum of 75% of their holdings.

today's Board meeting to show how the Board of Directors stands on this lawsuit brought against

the company, its founder and the 15,000 employees of Uber who have all worked so hard in

concert to create the fastest growing company in history.

Shervin Pishevar Personal Investor, Advisor and Former Uber Board Observer (2011-2015) Coordinator, Uber Shareholder Alliance

Ron Burkle Chairman Yucaipa Companies

Adam LeberPartner, Maverick

The rest is here:
Obama begins to plot his political comeback - Axios

Former President Barack Obama is expected to "re-emerge" into the national political scene later this fall in order to help Democrats rebuild their party after losing the White House last year.

In the next few weeks, aides close to the former president will begin mapping out a strategy for him to begin taking a more active role in Democratic party politics, especially fundraising.

The strategy comes with some political risk, however. If the former president engages too heavily in current political matters and gains some of the spotlight, it could allow President Trump to build energy and momentum with his base by turning his attacks on Obama.

"He'll tread lightly because [Obama] is not going to be the face of the party when it actually counts in 2020 and 2024," Cal Jillson, a professor of political science at Southern Methodist University, told The Hill.

"So the extent to which he would emerge and speak to a wide range of issues would preclude the emergence of someone else," Jillson added. "They must find a standard-bearer for future elections, and I think he can at least in the short term suck up all the available oxygen."

Obama has reportedly been holding one-on-one meetings with top Democratic elected officials, and numerous phone calls with Democratic Party Chairman Tom Perez.

Obama's clout and expertise might be most welcome in fundraising where recently the GOP has been handily beating Democrats when comparing the national committees. In June, the GOP national committee hauled in $13.5 million compared to the Democrats' $5.5 million.

As the Washington Examiner's Byron York wrote:

A look inside the numbers is even worse for the DNC. Looking at collections from small donors that is, those who contributed less than $200 the RNC raised $10.5 million in the months of May and June. The DNC raised $5.3 million from small donors in the same time period. The RNC's money total is a record more than was raised in any previous non-presidential election year. That is true for June, and for all of 2017 as well. The $75.4 million raised this year compares to $55.4 million for the same period in 2015; to $51.2 for the same period in 2014; to $41.1 million for the same period in 2013, and so on going back. "It's definitely a reflection of support for President Trump," said RNC spokesman Ryan Mahoney. "Our small-dollar donors are giving at a record pace because they believe the RNC is supporting President Trump, and they like that."

Other parts of the Democrats' strategy include using the former president's popularity to drive out attendance at rallies for local Democrat candidates. For example, Obama is already known to have committed to helping Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ralph Northam.

See more here:
Obama returns to help Democrats starting in the fall - Washington Examiner

The president claimed federal drug prosecutions are down. That's true, but he left out key context. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)

Federal drug prosecutions have gone down in recent years. Were going to be bringing them up and bringing them up rapidly. At the end of 2016, there were 23 percent fewer than in 2011. So they looked at this scourge and they let it go by, and were not letting it go by. President Trump, remarks before a briefing on the opioid epidemic, Aug. 8, 2017

President Trump who two days after this briefing said he would declare the opioid epidemic to be a national emergency not so subtly tried to pin the blame on the Obama administration. They looked at this scourge and they let it go by, the president said, citing statistics that federal drug prosecutions have declined 23 percent since 2011.

But theres a problem: These stats dont tell you much about opioids.

The White House did not respond to a query, but the president appears to be referring to a March report by the Pew Research Center. That study showed that federal criminal prosecutions of all types reached a peak in 2011 and had fallen to the lowest level in two decades. As the president said, drug charges fell by 23 percent, with 24,638 defendants in fiscal 2016, compared with32,062 in fiscal year 2011.

To fairly compare what happened under the Obama administration, wed have to go back to 2008, President George W. Bushs last year. From fiscal 2008 to 2016, drug prosecutions dropped 15 percent.

But these numbers are for all drug prosecutions and the data does not break out opioid-related prosecutions. Instead, the data shows only two categories: marijuana and then all other drugs. Because marijuana was legalized in some states during President Barack Obamas term, marijuana prosecutions fell 39 percent from 2011 to 2016. Without marijuana in the totals, the decline for drug prosecutions between 2011 and 2016 is 18 percent.

In 2013, for example, after two states legalized the recreational use of marijuana, the department announced new charging priorities for offenses involving the drug, which remains illegal under federal law, the Pew report noted. That same year, Pew noted, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced a policy change that prosecutors make sure each case serves a substantial federal interest, a reason overall federal prosecutions may have fallen. Under the Smart on Crime Initiative, prosecutors were told to focus finite resources on more serious drug cases and leave low-level offenders to state prosecutors. (Many drug cases are handled in state courts, and there is even less data on that.)

The data dont specifically break out opioid prosecutions, so theres no way to know what happened on that front, said John Gramlich, who wrote the Pew report.

Trumps statistic thus does not really tell you much about Obamas handling of opioids. Our colleagues at FactCheck.org cited data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission which shows how many people were actually sentenced for drug crimes that indicates Trump is falsely attacking the former president.

Again, there are not good breakdowns for opioids. But there is data for heroin, which shows the number of people who were sentenced for federal heroin offenses rose by 56 percent from fiscal 2011 to 2016. Separately, the number of people convicted of trafficking in oxycodone rose sharply from 2008 to 2014, before falling in 2015 and 2016. But there isnt data on other crimes involving oxycodone, hydrocodone or fentanyl.

Obamas handling of the crisis is certainly open to criticism. If Trump wanted to be specific, he could have cited a Washington Post investigationthat showed the Drug Enforcement Administration, under pressure from drug companies, softened enforcement of wholesale companies that distributed pills to the corrupt pharmacies that illegally sold the drugs for street use.

The jury is still out on whether Trump can improve on Obamas numbers. In a report released July 27,the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University said that drug prosecutions have continued to decline during the first five months of the Trump administration, so that fewer drug offenders were federally prosecuted over the past 12 months than at any time during the last quarter century.

This is a good example of data being used incorrectly. Federal prosecutions have gone down since 2011, but that does not indicate that the Obama administration ignored the opioid epidemic. The number cited by Trump was the result of a decline in marijuana prosecutions and a change in policy to focus on bigger, more important cases. Moreover, there is notenough detailin the data to show whether opioid prosecutions declined, as Trump suggested.

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"At the end of 2016, there were 23 percent fewer [federal prosecutions] than in 2011. So they looked at this scourge and they let it go by."

before a briefing on the opioid epidemic

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

2017-08-08

Read the original post:
Trump's effort to blame Obama for the opioid epidemic - Washington Post

Anthony Anderson says a trash-talking former President Obama raked it in recently after winning a golf bet against him, Chris Paul and Michael Phelps.

"President Obama talked trash all day. Five and a half hours, nothing but trash talk," Anderson told Jimmy Fallon during a Thursday appearance on NBC's "The Tonight Show."

The "Black-ish" star revealed he recently hit the links with Obama, Houston Rockets player Paul and Olympian Phelps.

"He won," Anderson, 46, said of the ex-commander in chief. Praising Obama's golf game, the actor said: "He's a great golfer. Doesn't hit the ball long off the tee, but he's straight as an arrow."

Former first lady Michelle ObamaMichelle ObamaFormer Michelle Obama aide enters Maryland governor's race Will Smith: Obama said I 'have the ears' to play him in a movie Knicks hire Michelle Obamas brother: report MORE has previously spoken of her husband's penchant for some putting-time trash talk. During an appearance on "Ellen" last year, sheadvised NBA star Stephen Curry that he shouldn't stay silent on the golf course with her spouse.

"You should trash talk back, Steph," shesaid. "Talk about his ears. If you're putting, you wanna say, 'The shadow from your ears is really messing up my putt.' Try that one."

Anderson claimed that after winning the game, Obama, 56, made sure his golf buddies coughed up some cold, hard cash.

"He took $700 from Phelps, he took $600 from Chris Paul, he took $300 from me," Anderson said to laughs. "I was like, man, is this even right? I was like, you're the president, here. Can you take money from civilians?"

Anderson said Obama replied: "Anthony, I'm a civilian now. So yes, I can take it."

"He talked trash all day," said Anderson. "And took all of our money."

See more here:
Obama talked trash, won money from 3 celebs over golf game - The Hill (blog)