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A Georgia special congressional election on Tuesday is being treated as a bellwether of voter sentiment following the chaotic opening act of Donald Trumps presidency, so it is not much of a surprise that it has drawn a significant degree of Hollywood interest.

Rosie ODonnell, Jane Fonda, Jessica Lange, Sean Daniel, Connie Britton, Sam Waterston and Kyra Sedgwick are among those who have donated to Democrat Jon Ossoffs campaign, while others have been participating in phone banks to get out the vote and a few, like actress Alyssa Milano, have volunteered to go door to door in the suburban Atlanta district.

What they have not been doing is flooding the district for star-filled rallies or specially produced videos, as the GOP has tried to characterize Ossoff, a documentary filmmaker, as a creature of the liberal elite.

Ossoffs opponent, Karen Handel, and a slew of other Republican groups have tried to make an issue out of Ossoffs support outside the district, even though she, too, has drawn outside backing.

Several weeks ago, the Congressional Leadership Fund, a GOP Super PAC, produced an ad that tried to link Ossoff to Kathy Griffin, in the midst of a backlash over Griffins use of a bloody Trump head effigy in a photo shoot. Ossoffs campaign objected to the spot, and the only connection that Griffin had to his campaign was that she retweeted a supportive statement about his candidacy.

Griffins image again was used in a more recent spot from another group, Principled PAC, warning that Ossoff must be stopped because of the unhinged left. With last weeks shooting at a Republican congressional baseball practice, the ad goes so far as to claim that the unhinged left is endorsing and applauding shooting Republicans.

Another spot, called Hollywood Versus Georgia, hammers Ossoff for outside campaign contributions. The ad also is from the Congressional Leadership Fund, which is based not in Georgia but in Washington, and has spent $7 million so far to defeat Ossoff.

This seems to be a tactic of the GOP, Milano said via e-mail. Their offense is to make voters feel like outsiders are coming in for our own special interests which dont align with the community. Its been a successful game plan thus far so I get it.

She added,When I get involved in any race (like I did for Rob Quist as well), I show up. Boots on the ground. I go door to door. I make phone calls, I try to educate and empower to hopefully inspire people to want make a difference and exercise their right to vote.

Quist fell short in his bid to win a Montana congressional seat earlier this month, defeated by Greg Gianforte.

The Ossoff race has gotten even more attention, as a kind of proving ground that Democratic activism and energy following Trumps inauguration can translate into an electoral win. The Georgia seat, vacated by Tom Price after he became Secretary of Health and Human Services, leans Republican. Price won reelection by 23 percentage points last year, but Trump just barely won the district over Hillary Clinton.

That has helped make it a prime opportunity for Democratic activists to score an upset. Daily Kos, the liberal website, helped lead efforts to stir up online contributions and volunteering for Ossoff. He fell just short of winning an outright majority in an April election, which would have avoided Tuesdays runoff.

Since then, Republicans and Democrats have poured money into the race, with total spending expected to surpass $50 million, the most expensive congressional race in history.

Democrats will be looking to the race for cues in how to approach the 2018 midterms.

I think the general consensus if he wins this race, there could be 50 House seats available to us in the 2018 midterms, said Lara Bergthold, a strategist at Los Angeles communications firm RALLY, who is among those who has been volunteering for Ossoff making phone calls.

She said that Ossoffs campaign has been more interested in getting outside supporters engaged in making phone calls, while he has concentrated on fundraising within the district.

Bergthold said that a victory would give Democrats a sense of whether a strategy of grassroots interaction works. If he loses, it is going to give us enough time before 2018 to study what is not working.

It will cause great reflection if he loses, Bergthold said. She still thinks that the fact that Ossoff has been able to make a competitive run in the runoff in a Republican district is a good sign for Democrats.

Milano was shooting a pilot, Insatiable, in Georgia, and quickly realized that if the show got picked up the 6th district might be where Id live. She drove early voters to the polls, walked door to door and worked the phone banks.

After Trump was elected, I decided to dedicate my time and passion to trying to flip seats, she said.

Even as Republicans attack Ossoff for his showbiz support, Milano said that donations make these campaigns happen.

And honestly, these campaigns should be driven by the community, not the entertainment industry, she said. The entertainment industry should donate money to these campaigns so the community can be successful in wanting to participate in the political process. Also, getting out the vote. Low voter turnout is a big issue. If the entertainment industry can use their platforms to help get out the vote, thats important.

She and others have been using Twitter to speak out on the race. House of Cards creator Beau Willimon tied Republican efforts to pass Obamacare repeal-and-replace legislation to Handels fortunes. He also weighed in on Trumps attacks on Ossoff for living outside the district.

Willimon also called for an upset in another special election on Tuesday in a South Carolina congressional district, where Democrat Archie Parnell is facing Republican Ralph Norman for a seat that was held by Mick Mulvaney. Mulvaney resigned his seat to become director of the Office of Management and Budget.

So far, the biggest beneficiaries of the Georgia spending bonanza are the broadcast stations, which are seeing an unexpected windfall in TV ads. One station, WXIA-TV, reportedly added a newscast on its sister station to give more airtime to the onslaught of political ads.

Evan Tracey, a media and public affairs executive and specialist in political ad spending, said that advertising will probably make up about $40 million of total spending.

This is kind of the world we are living in. This is kind of the strength test for Trump going into 2018, he said. The candidates raising a ton of money, the parties putting every available resource into this and you have the Super PACs on top of that. This is what you get.

He said that it is not just TV stations that are benefiting but local cable and radio. If you have some way to reach voters in that district, someone is buying you now, he said.

The 2018 elections will be different because spending will be diffused across many different competitive seats. Until then, there will be other special elections that also could see an influx of spending.

This will be the biggest race until then, Tracey said. We are kind of in that place right now.

See the article here:
Hollywood Helps Jon Ossoff in Georgia Special Election, and Republicans Pounce - Variety

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The Republican effort to repeal and replace ObamaCare is plagiarism.

Remember those kids in high school who would always ask to copy your homework? I was not exactly a distinguished student before I dropped out, but I did get As in all the classes I wasn't failing. My response to these requests was invariably the same: "Sure, but just be sure to change a few things so that Mr. Young doesn't notice." That's what the GOP effort to repeal and replace ObamaCare has become. At some unspoken level, Republicans realize that the Affordable Care Act is an A paper. Now they just have to find some wrong answers to add.

I like to think of our esteemed bicameral legislature as a typical American high school. It has its nerds (Paul Ryan), its jocks (surely you can imagine Chuck Schumer snapping somebody's waistband), its insufferably earnest class presidents (Ben Sasse), its shorts-wearing stoner bros (Rand "Aqua Buddha" Paul), its class clowns (does anyone doubt that Louis Gohmert is an expert in fart noises?), that weird girl who wears wolf sweaters and has horses and always kills it doing Shania Twain karaoke at the annual talent show (Claire McCaskill).

A lot of worksheet copying takes place in Washington. Republicans want to find a more or less workable middle ground between single-payer health care and the absolute free market for medical services that we are never going back to even Ted Cruz only wants to raise funds off the insinuation that we could eliminate the welfare state altogether. Unfortunately, the Affordable Care Act did exactly that, which is why after seven years Republicans have been unable to come up with anything substantially different. Paul Krugman is right when he says that the GOP's response when asked what they want to accomplish with the American Health Care Act have basically amounted to "Er. Ah. Um.'" But that's not because their last-minute secret revisions to their replacement package represent some sinister plot. They are clumsy, random, and painfully desperate.

The Republicans are stupid, not deliberately cruel. Embracing single payer, the obvious and straightforward solution that long ago presented itself to our hockey-loving, beer-chugging, hunting and fishing neighbors to the north, is unacceptable to their fire-breathing geriatric constituents, who simultaneously loathe government and don't want to see anything happen to Medicare. In front of them is a plan devised by the Heritage Foundation in the '90s that is messy but not ipso facto unacceptable. The only problem is that it was passed by a guy with a D behind his name.

Time to get out the eraser. Going line by line through what we know of the AHCA reminds me of the occasional glances I would get at what became of my impeccably phrased responses to such questions as "What was the significance of the Montgomery Bus Boycott?" and requests to "Name five policies associated with post-bellum Radical Republicans."

"Should we have an individual mandate enforced by a tax penalty in order to prevent free-riders and maintain the size and scope of risk pools?" Yes err, no, we should let insurers charge a fee when people let coverage lapse.

"Should the federal government give the states money to fund the expansion of Medicaid, which has done far more to ensure that people don't fall through the cracks than the messy system of exchanges ever will?" Well, hmm, yes, but, well, no what's a phrase we've heard before? "Block grants." Yes, those.

"What about a tax credit based on income?" Ugh, let's scrap it and replace it with one based on what's a thing? Age? Yeah, age. That'll look like we're trying.

"Is the so-called Cadillac tax on actually good employer-provided insurance bad?" Yes, at least it is through 2025: We just won't collect the revenues. Oh, and let's be sure to get a few things deliberately wrong: health savings accounts, so far from being useless for poor people, are, uhhh, good and useful. Okay, time to hand in the paper.

The AHCA is not an actual health-care plan. It is a lazy student's cop-out, a truth so blinkeringly obvious that no amount of sloppy pencil work will conceal it. It certainly would not have fooled Mr. Young, a very indulgent and obliging man. This is not true of the party's libertarian right wing, which loathes the new bill as much as the rest of us do.

ObamaCare will never be truly replaced because it is already the replacement Republicans want they just can't admit it without getting an F.

Read more:
The Republican health-care plan is just bad plagiarism - The Week Magazine

ACBS News poll out Tuesday shows President Trump with his lowest approval rating since taking office, mostly because of a drop in Republican support.

The poll shows Mr. Trump with a 36 percent approval rating overall, with an 11-point drop among Republicans since April. At the 100-day mark, 83 percent of Republicans approved of Mr. Trumps job in office, compared with 72 percent in the latest poll.

Less than half of Americans, however, believe that the Russians interfered to help get Mr. Trump elected. Only 44 percent of Americans believe the Russians interfered to help Mr. Trump, while 31 percent do not believe Russia interfered in the election at all.

Half of Americans say criticism of Mr. Trump doesnt change their opinion of him at all, but 71 percent say Mr. Trump has received more criticism than past presidents.

A random sample of 1,117 adults were interviewed by telephone June 15-18 on behalf of CBS News by SSRS of Media, the network said.

See the original post here:
Steep drop among Republican support for Trump, poll shows - Washington Times

Republicans on the House Budget Committee are talking about increasing defense spending beyond President Trumps proposed $54 billion boost, which has led to an impasse between defense hawks and deficit hawks.

The fight has forced the committee to postpone the rollout of its 2018 budget resolution, a key element in moving Trumps legislative agenda forward.

The House GOP may have the opportunity to settle on a strategy when it meets for its weekly policy discussion this Wednesday, a meeting that will focus on budget and appropriations.

In his budget proposal, Trump cut $54 billion from from nondefense discretionary spending to pay for the new defense spending.

Defense hawks such as Sen. John McCainJohn McCainOvernight Cybersecurity: Armed Services panel looks to tighten cyber oversight | Election hack hearing Wednesday | Dem wants answers on contractor security McCain: No American has seen healthcare bill, but I'm sure Russia has McCain threatens to block Trump's deputy Defense nominee MORE (R-Ariz.) and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) want to go further. They have called for $640 billion in defense spending.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a House Budget Committee member close to GOP leadership, thinks theres a good chance the number will be bigger than Trump's request.

I think the defense number could easily be more, because we have a lot of folks that think we could go further, he said.

Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, however, bristle at the idea of spending an additional $37 billion on defense and potential increases to non-defense spending without finding additional cuts elsewhere.

Conservatives are willing to entertain the idea of voting for higher spending levels on discretionary spending if we can get the right kind of reconciliation instructions, said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a Freedom Caucus member.

The reconciliation instructions in question would mandate that congressional committees achieve certain spending cuts, a vehicle to push for deeper reforms.

Those reforms, Jordan said, would be enough of an achievementto persuade Freedom Caucus members to swallow increases on both defense and nondefense discretionary spending, even if they increase the deficit in the short run.

"Either that, or leadership can do what theyve done the last six years, which is wait until Sept. 30 at 11:59 p.m. and negotiate a bad deal, he said.

During his campaign, Trump promised not to allow cuts to Medicare or Social Security, entitlement programs that congressional Republicans see as major sources of potential savings.Tax hikes would violate a pledge signed by almost every House Republican not to create new taxes.

The remaining sources of spending, welfare programs such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, were already slashed in Trumps proposal, making more savings painful and difficult to find.

The Budget Committee had set its sights on unveiling the resolution this week, but may now delay it until next week or even after the Fourth of July recess, which could gum up the tight legislative agenda.

Without a budget resolution in place, appropriators cannot go about the business of doling out spending authority to the government. Congress must pass its spending bills by the end of September if they want to avoid a government shutdown.

Alternatively, Congress could pass a continuing resolution to keep the government funded at 2017 levels, but that would preclude any defense increases, as well as spending authority for Trumps other priorities, such as building a border wall.

On top of all that, without a budget resolution conferenced between the House and Senate, Republicans will not be able to put in place a special procedure that circumvents the Senate filibuster, which they will need in order to pass tax reform.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) slammed her Republicans colleagues for failing to produce a budget resolution

Almost five months into the Trump administration, House Republicans still havent met their most basic responsibility to pass a budget, Pelosi said.

The House GOP is now months behind the statutory budget deadline, deeply divided but unwilling to abandon their budget giveaways to the richest few."

Updated at 7:32 p.m.

Read more from the original source:
GOP defense spending battle delays Republican budget - The Hill

Some senators, John McCain most prominently, have been traveling around the world to try to undo some of the damage from President Trumps undiplomatic statements and to reassure allies from Australia to Germany that the U.S. still stands with them. Senators have just voted unanimously to affirm Americas commitment to NATOs Article 5 mutual defense provisionsomething that Trump has been reluctant to enunciate. And by a vote of 97-2, the Senate voted last week to ratchet up sanctions on Russia.

The Russia bill is particularly significant. Not only does it increase sanctions on Russias energy sector and imposes sanctions on any entity or individual doing business with Russias intelligence or defense agencies, it also prevents the president from using his executive authority to lift existing sanctions on Russia. Congress would have to approve any move to relax pressure on Moscow.

This is a very unusual rebuke for a president. Congress normally designs sanctions legislation with lots of wiggle room for the executive. Little wonder that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signaled that the administration does not support the bill as written; he is pressing the House to water down the measure to restore more of the presidents discretion. It will be interesting to see how Speaker Paul Ryan and the House leadership react to these entreaties; senators of both parties were unswayed.

And little wonder, given that Trump has shown no interest in punishing the Russians for their election-interference. Indeed, he has shown no interest in even uncovering their machinations. With the passage of the Russia sanctions bill, the Senate has delivered a resounding and bipartisan vote of no confidence in the presidents Russia policy, such as it is.

The question is how much further the assertion of Congressional authority might go. There is a precedent here, namely the 1970s and early 1980s, when Congress reacted to the perceived abuses of the imperial presidency under Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon by passing, as a 1987 Commentary article noted, the War Powers Resolution (1973), the Hughes-Ryan Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act (1974), the Clark Amendment to the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act (1976), the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (1978), and, of course, the five Boland Amendments to a variety of Defense Appropriation and Intelligence Authorization Acts (1982-5). All of this legislation was designed to circumscribe the presidents discretion in foreign affairsto make impossible another Vietnam War or another Watergate.

An early test case of whether there is a new attempt underway to limit the presidencys powers will come when Congress must reauthorize Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. Section 702 grants the National Security Agency expansive authority for warrantless surveillance of foreign communications which pass through U.S.-based data networks.

Civil liberties advocates, who already curtailed the Patriot Act in 2015, are pushing to limit the NSAs ability to gather without a warrant information on Americans who are in contact with foreign targets. The nations law enforcement and intelligence agencies oppose any change; they believe the authorities are needed to keep track of terrorist plots. But the privacy advocates may have gotten an unlikely assist from President Trump, who has leveled unfounded charges that the Obama administration illegally wiretapped him. There is, in fact, zero evidence that the Obama administration politicized surveillance, but the mere accusation, repeated often enough, may lead Trump and libertarian Republicans to join with liberal Democrats to curtail NSA surveillance authorities anyway.

Of course, there are sharp limits on how far this trend to rein in the chief executive is likely to go. The president still retains vast inherent power as commander-in-chief to use military force without a declaration of war. And on some of the issues where Trump is likely to do the most damagefor example, by killing free-trade agreements and imposing trade barriersall too many members of Congress share his protectionist instincts. So dont expect Congress to resurrect the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Trump exited in January.

But its still quite possible that Trumps presidency will lead, inadvertently, to lasting limitations on the presidencys powers. Whether you think this is good or bad depends on how important you believe expansive executive authority to be. Normally, both Republicans and Democrats dislike executive authority only when wielded by a president of the other party. Hence Republicans, who only recently were decrying Obamas executive orders as a blow to liberty, are now applauding Trumps executive orders as a bulwark of liberty. But if, like Alexander Hamilton, you believe that Energy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government, then you have cause to be concerned about the long-term impact of Trumps presidency.

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The Republican Breaking Point - Commentary Magazine