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Vice President Mike Pence says Republicans are united in keeping their promise to repeal ObamaCare. House Speaker Paul Ryan says the same.

But some House Republicans are openly saying theyll break that promise, conceding they played their constituents for suckers and undermining leaders they claim to respect, such as Pence and Ryan. Not long ago Pence was one of their House colleagues, serving honorably alongside them.

The group of House Republican moderates known as the Tuesday Group is comprised of men and women who, like all Republicans over the past several years, repeatedly championed the repeal and replacement of ObamaCare as part of numerous successful political campaigns that grew and secured Republican majorities in both the House and Senate. But now, when the time has arrived to actually vote for a bill that would repeal and replace ObamaCare, they suddenly have a newfound affinity for this disastrous policy which has thrown a monstrous monkey wrench into one-fifth of the U.S. economy.

Over in the U.S. Senate the GOP moderate Senators, whove been in Washington for decades, have just cast a far tougher vote: theyve done away with the filibuster for Supreme Court judges which for them is something they never saw themselves doing.

I am not eager to see the rules changed so I hope that Democrats do not launch a filibuster against an eminently well-qualified nominee, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), one of the Senate GOP moderates, told reporters recently. Im hoping were not going to get to that point.

Their reticence to cast such a tough vote is understandable, yet they have done what they know is best for the country; theyve refused to let partisan battles inside the chamber deprive the country of an exceptionally well qualified Supreme Court justice.

If Senate GOP moderates can invoke the nuclear option with regard to Supreme Court confirmations, a vote they visibly, vocally and repeatedly wished theyd never have to cast, then House GOP moderates can cast a much easier vote: a vote they literally promised their constituents theyd be proud to cast.

Conservative House Republican members, and many of the conservative organizations supporting them, wrongly bore the initial blame for the failure of the American Health Care Act to even get to the House floor for a vote. Conservatives made it clear that first bill was unacceptable on principled grounds: it left the architecture of ObamaCare in place and it would ultimately exacerbate the problems millions of Americans currently experience.

When buzz began circulating in Washington that the bill wasnt dead, it was because these conservatives were intent on finding a way forward because they believed the GOP owed it to the voters who put them in power to fulfill the promises made to those voters. Vice President Pence, representing the White House, was exceedingly helpful in trying navigate a course in the parlance of Congress to get to yes.

Conservative organizations were cautiously optimistic the new proposal, which would allow governors to undo the costly and destructive ObamaCare regulations, would receive support from all House Republicans. This is a quite sensible solution, as it moves power out of Washington and closer to the people.

Thats a principle Republicans usually embrace, but listening to some House GOP moderates one now has to suspend disbelief.

Suddenly, several House Members with an R after their name are now doing their best impressions of House Democratic Leader Nance Pelosi perhaps the most liberal leader in Washington.

They dont talk about repealing ObamaCare anymore, they now say it can be fixed. They want to keep the structure of ObamaCare in place, suddenly oblivious to the evidence from all over the country that its failing now and will only get worse.

Meanwhile, countless constituents whove voted time and again to send these House Republicans back to Congress on the hope theyd one day have the opportunity to repeal this disaster now stand there stunned as their hometown Republican wraps his arms around ObamaCare as if hes loved it all along.

Its time for House Republican moderates to follow the lead of their Senate GOP moderate counterparts. They just cast a truly tough vote.

Keeping a promise repeatedly made to voters and constituents should be an easy vote.

David McIntosh is a leader for the principles of limited constitutional government and individual freedom and is president of the Club for Growth.

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GOP moderates in the Senate used the nuclear option, now House Republican moderates must repeal ObamaCare - Fox News

This orderly swath of Atlanta suburbs was never supposed to worry Republicans. Theyve had a lock on the congressional seat since 1979, with a string of rock-ribbed conservatives such as Newt Gingrich and Tom Price.

Then Donald Trump happened.

Now the GOP is in an unexpected scramble to prevent a politically inexperienced millennial Democrat unknown months ago from turning their longtime stronghold blue.

Party officials are filled with angst ahead of the April 18 special election in Georgias 6th Congressional District to replace Price, who vacated the seat to become Trumps Health and Human Services secretary.

After a scare for Republicans in Kansas on Tuesday, when a congressional race got uncomfortably close in a district Trump had dominated in the presidential election, the Georgia fight teeters on becoming a full-blown crisis for a party that should be relishing its recent success and consolidating power. A Democratic win here, unthinkable only weeks ago, is now a very real possibility. It would be yet another indication that Democrats are not the only party hobbled by a national identity crisis in the age of Trump.

Nothing like this has ever happened before in Georgia, Charles S. Bullock III, a University of Georgia political science professor, said of the exorbitantly expensive free-for-all the race has become.

With Democratic donors nationwide rallying around 30-year-old Jon Ossoff, the surprise front-runner has raised a staggering $8.3 million, dwarfing contributions to all 11 of his Republican rivals combined.

For Democrats, the allure of the Sunbelt district stems from voter uneasiness about Trump, who barely won here in November. By contrast, Mitt Romney, the last GOP nominee, crushed Barack Obama by double digits.

Ossoff is polling at around 43%, far beyond any of his contenders in the open primary. Thats largely because the GOP candidates are splitting the vote.

But Ossoff is now within striking distance of winning the majority required to avoid a runoff in June, which may be his best hope, since many believe a two-candidate runoff would favor the Republican.

Two or three months ago, nobody had a clue who this guy was, Bullock said.

As they lined up at polls this week for early voting, several residents made clear they were viewing the race as a referendum on the president.

The Trump administration is scary, said Jeffrey Chou, a 25-year-old graduate student voting for the first time who came to support Ossoff. I dont like what they are doing. I felt it was important to come out and send a message that we dont support it.

He was joined in line by a 60-year-old nurse who voted for Price in the past, but said all the insanity at the White House has driven her to vote Democrat this time. Arriving soon after was a 38-year-old patent agent trainee who hadnt volunteered for a political campaign since college, but said Trumps behavior drove her to canvass for Ossoff. A physician in his 60s who said he had worked with Price professionally and voted for him declared he would cast a ballot for Ossoff to stick it in the eyes of Trump.

You are seeing the liberals demonstrating their total disgust for Donald Trump, said Max Wagerman, 52, a GOP loyalist who boasted of living in the same subdivision as Gingrich. Theyve got all the juice now. They have the organization. Republicans here are just too lazy and the liberals are going to get this one.

With momentum on his side, Ossoff is now everywhere: omnipresent in television ads, his face plastered on lawn signs and car bumper stickers, talked up by the thousands of volunteers many from out of state incessantly knocking on doors and dialing up voters.

Desire by Democrats to land an electoral blow against Trump is so intense that the party is showing uncharacteristic discipline in a messy race with 18 candidates. It quickly rallied behind Ossoff, with liberal bloggers setting in motion a Bernie Sanders-style fundraising operation that has resulted in a frenzy of small-dollar donations, the largest amount of which are coming not from Georgia, but California.

Ossoff is no Bernie Sanders. He is a cautious, scripted moderate who spends much less time on the campaign trail whipping up rage against Trump than carefully calculating remarks that avoid offending the areas upscale suburban electorate.

Folks here are excited now for fresh leadership presenting a substantive message about local economic development and talking about core values, he said at his Marrieta campaign office, just before a crowded candidate forum where Ossoff was the only one who ended some of his answers without even using the full minute allotted. They are tired of partisan politics.

But partisan politics is what they are getting. First, there is his deluge of outside cash. Republican groups have countered by pouring millions of dollars into ads attacking Ossoff as a political neophyte aligned with rioting protesters. One even made ominous insinuations about Ossoffs past work as a filmmaker for cable channel Al Jazeera.

As election day looms, Republicans are focusing their attacks on each other. They are slugging it out for what they hope will be a spot on the runoff ballot against Ossoff. The intensity of their attacks lay bare how much Trump has complicated Republican politics in districts such as this one.

Establishment favorite Karen Handel, the former Georgia secretary of State, has watched her strong lead steadily diminish amid an assault from the conservative, anti-tax group Club for Growth and others who question her ideological purity. One ad depicts her as a stumbling elephant in pearls; others accuse the fiscal conservative of recklessly spending tax dollars. Handel does not relish talking about Trump, and her husband abruptly ends an interview after it turns to questions about how the tumult in the White House is affecting the race.

All you need to know about this district is Mitt Romney won it by 22 points and Trump won it by one and a half points, said GOP pollster Whit Ayres, who is working as a consultant for Handel. This defines the kind of upscale suburban district where Trump struggled. Karen is the type of person this district has tended to support.

One Trump loyalist who threatens to overtake her on Tuesday is Bob Gray, a telecom executive backed by the Club for Growth. He dismissed as hype all the chatter that the local electorate is so uneasy with Trump that it could go blue. I dont think its in the cards, Gray said. This is a conservative seat. Lets be real: Newt Gingrich, Tom Price. The district hasnt changed that much.

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Georgia voters in this reliably Republican district may be preparing to 'stick it' to Trump - Los Angeles Times

HOOD RIVER, Ore. Rep. Greg Walden is one of the Republican House leaders who crafted the measure to overhaul the health-care system that dramatically imploded before lawmakers went home for a two-week recess.

But when faced with a large crowd of angry constituents in his district this week, the Oregon Republican seemed reluctant to claim the legislation as his own. Instead, Walden stressed the parts of President Obamas Affordable Care Act that he wants to keep.

That did not stop about 1,500 of his constituents who packed this liberal area at two town halls on Wednesday from slamming the congressman for wanting to overhaul Obamacare in a state that heavily relies on it.

Why dont you go back to Washington, [and] in the spirit of bipartisanship, grow a pair, sit down with [House Democratic leader] Nancy Pelosi and say, Lets fix Obamacare, said one middle-aged man at Columbia Gorge Community College, where about 500 people gathered.

A few in the rowdy crowd at the next town hall seemed to know that Walden, as the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, played a pivotal role in crafting the GOPs American Health Care Act, which would have rolled back Obamacares system of subsidies and phased out that laws Medicaid expansion.

It was an embarrassment and a disaster, said one attendee at Hood River Middle School, where 1,000 people showed up, prompting applause across the auditorium. You dont make the plan better by taking away insurance for 24million people across the nation.

Like many House Republicans, Walden has spent the past seven years attacking Obamacare and promising to repeal and replace it if the GOP secured one-party rule in Washington. But now that Walden has his wish, eliminating Obamacare is proving extremely difficult and politically dangerous.

That was certainly the case at home this week in his sprawling eastern Oregon 2nd District, which he won with a comfortable 72percent of the vote in November. Walden held events in Hood River and Wasco counties, the least conservative areas that he represents winning in Hood by just five votes in the last election. When he asked participants at the community college whether they voted for Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders in the presidential election, the vast majority raised their hands.

But President Trump won Waldens district by nearly 20 points a fact Walden pointed out at one particularly heated point on Wednesday.

Yet not even Trumps role in pushing the GOP health-care plan prompted Walden an ally of House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) to embrace it. He responded to most health-care questions by touting the popular portions of Obamacare the GOP plan would retain, including preventing insurers from denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions and allowing young people to stay on their parents plans.

Walden insisted that Republicans will work with Democrats on future health-care issues, although their presence has so far been conspicuously absent in negotiations around the GOP plan.

There is a lot of reform with health care that is being done on a bipartisan basis and will be done on a bipartisan basis, was all Walden told one attendee at the community college, before moving on to another question.

The only GOP lawmaker from Oregon, Walden finds himself in the same tricky position as several other House Republicans who have pledged to get rid of Obamacare but whose constituents heavily rely on it. Oregon expanded Medicaid as part of the law, and it now covers about one-fourth of all residents. It has also sought to innovate when it comes to that program.

Experts said that the GOP health plan would stem federal funding to states such as Oregon. It would replace Obamacares income-based subsidies with age-based ones and phase out the Medicaid expansion, as well as limit the amount the federal government pays states for the program for low-income Americans. The GOP plan would largely scrap the laws taxes and requirements to buy insurance.

[Affordable Care Act revision would reduce insured numbers by 24 million, CBO projects]

The proposed changes to Medicaid would be pronounced in states such as Oregon, which is already struggling to fund its program after greatly expanding eligibility. The state has tried to lower overall Medicaid costs by employing a dozen or so Cooperative Care Organizations, which contract with the state to insure enrollees. These groups are tasked with improving patients overall health.

But those efforts have not been enough, and the state in January announced a $882million shortfall in its Medicaid program.

Oregon would have been clobbered by repeal and replace in the AHCA, said Jeff Goldsmith, a Portland native and health-policy expert who writes for the nonpartisan journal Health Affairs. Many billions lost, and for a relatively poor state with limited fiscal capacity.

Walden was most deeply involved in drafting the Medicaid portion of the GOP plan, but he was quick to explain at the town halls how he would have done things differently. The measure should have allowed states to continue expanding their Medicaid programs through 2020 instead of cutting off that opportunity right away, he said.

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The issue is becoming increasingly toxic for lawmakers such as Walden, as liberal groups run ads against him and other Republicans supporting the effort. Walden did not refer to the AHCA by name during either of his town halls, nor did he lay out a timeline for when it might eventually get passed.

Theres no value in me coming to a bad plan that hurts people, he said, prompting cries of But you did! from members of the audience.

Attendees came armed with bright green, orange and yellow signs that read Agree, Disagree and Answer the Question. But they also expressed their feelings out loud throughout both meetings, which erupted frequently with boos and shouts, particularly when Walden appeared to support something Trump has said or done.

He won applause only a few times, chiefly when several constituents thanked him for supporting the military. Many heatedly asked Walden to respond to Trumps calls for building a wall along the Mexico border, his push for reducing science funding, his moves to ban refugees from majority-Muslim countries and his skepticism of climate change.

We dont like climate-change deniers. We need your word you will not desert us on this, said a woman named Connie.

Walden noted several areas where hes bucked Trump including opposing the refugee ban and some elements of Trumps proposed budget but he was careful not to directly criticize the presidents style or approach. When he seemed to give Trump a pass on refusing to release his tax returns, people booed loudly.

It seems to me [that] candidates are better-served when they do make their returns public, but thats all protected by privacy laws, Walden said.

The restive crowds did not seem to ruffle Walden, who extended each session to two hours instead of the single hour they were originally scheduled to run.

Come on, lets do this the Oregon way lets be respectful of each other, Walden said when interrupted by attendees.

At another point, Walden even succeeded in making the crowd laugh, after a woman with several children asked why he did not criticize Trump more publicly for making derogatory statements about women.

I dont speak out every time he says stuff because I dont have time for that, frankly, Walden responded.

Read more at PowerPost

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Republican House leader avoids selling GOP health-care plan at home - Washington Post

Conservative commentator Glenn Beck on Thursday ripped President Trumps recent policy reversals, saying Trump "looks like another Republican who said stuff and didn't mean it."

The president this week flipped to new positions on four different policy issues, backing off of campaign promises on the usefulness of NATO, whether to label China a currency manipulator, Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen and the Export-Import Bank.

Tonight, at least, it looks like the president is on the verge of beginning to look like another Republican who said stuff, didnt mean it and turned into Reince Priebus or Paul RyanPaul RyanGlenn Beck: Trump another Republican who said stuff and didn't mean it White House explores new direction on tax reform GOP centrists push back on ObamaCare repeal MORE, and thats not good, Beck told CNNs Anderson Cooper, referring to the White House chief of staff and Speaker of the House, respectively.

In October, Beck told Time magazine that backing Trump would not be moral.

"The Donald TrumpDonald TrumpTrump visits Mar-a-Lago resort for 23rd day as president Russia: Syrian chemical weapons attack could be 'staged' Glenn Beck: Trump another Republican who said stuff and didn't mean it MORE mentality, which is the alt-right, this vicious, angry, make-them-pay, fall-in-line-or-youll-pay-for-it, that mentality is not going away, Beck said at the time. He will play to a very small crowd of rabid fans.

But Beck seemed pleasantly surprised with Trump's new direction in his Thursday interview.

"My worst nightmare was that the president would ... go down this populist 'burn it to the ground' ideology," said Beck.

"The good news is he's not going that way."

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, after months of scathing criticism of the president, similarly said Thursday that Trump "is finally doing what we've been hoping" in terms of the policy and posture changes.

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Glenn Beck: Trump 'another Republican who said stuff and didn't mean it' - The Hill

Protesters rally in favor of net neutrality at the FCC in 2015. Getty.

New FCC chair Ajit Pai has been clear that he intends to take a weed whacker to net neutrality regulations, but hes been very reluctant to open up about how exactly hes going to go about slicing them to bits. Last week, several outlets reported that Pai is finally gearing up for the fight, but no matter how badly Mr. Weed Whacker wants to dismantle net neutrality, hes got quite a battle ahead of him.

Net neutrality is the principle that internet service providers should provide equal access to all lawful content on the internet, meaning no blocking sites and no speeding up or slowing down traffic to certain sites depending on whether theyre a competitor or not, for example. That isnt just an abstract threat: Comcast really did slow down traffic to Netflix a few years ago until Netflix paid the company to restore full speeds. Unsurprisingly, rules protecting net neutrality have been opposed by internet service providers (ISPs) and their trade groups, and supported by websites like Netflix and Google and their trade groups. Generally, ISPs have argued net neutrality rules stifle innovation and force them to increase costs. Net neutralitys supporters, meanwhile, argue that net neutrality is necessary to preserve the open and democratic character of the internet, and warn that without strong net neutrality rules, ISPs can prevent users from visiting some websites, or even redirect users from one website to a competing website.

The basic principles of net neutrality were enshrined in law by Obamas FCC in 2015 when it issued the Open Internet Order. There are two basic bits to this. First, the order reclassified broadband providers as common carriers under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, which took them out of Federal Trade Commission (FTC) jurisdiction and put them under the FCCs purview. Common carriers are services that carry traffic without discrimination or interference, like telephone service. (This is why you often hear that the order classified ISPs as utilities. That description isnt quite accurate, but it is basically right.) Second, the order established bright line rules about things internet providers couldnt do, such as paid prioritization or blocking for certain websites.

According to Reuters, Pais plan would involve overturning the classification of broadband providers as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act, which would return regulatory oversight of ISPs to the FTC.Pai also hopes to get ISPs to sign a voluntary agreement not to abuse their their control over your internet in the absence of net neutrality regulations.

Unfortunately, Pai hasnt deigned to tell the ol regular public, or really anyone who isnt a lobbyist, many details about the plan yet. It was reportedly outlined in a meeting with telecom trade groups last week, but none of those groups have filed anything with the FCC about what was discussed. From whats been reported, it seems the strategy resembles one outlined by broadband industry-and-Koch-brothers-funded think tank TechFreedom in November, when its president told PC World that the industry would likely promote a voluntary agreement plan promising no blocking of traffic, with FTC, not FCC, enforcement. Uncanny!

Even if ISPs signed onto a voluntary agreement, putting ISPs under FTC jurisdiction would essentially mean that nothing could be done to stop abuses until theyve already happened. The FTC enforces rules through court cases against violators, while the FCC seeks to stop abuses through preventative rules. And any enforcement would probably happen years after abuses come to lightthe FTCs case against Vizio for spying on customers viewing habits in 2014, for example, was settled in February of this year. The Democratic commissioner on the FTC, Terrell McSweeny, told Ars Technica this week that the FTC would struggle to enforce net neutrality principles because its not a very big agency, and cant act on every single complaint.

And a voluntary agreement with ISPs, as you might imagine, would lack teeth. Josh Stager, Policy Counsel at the Open Technology Institute, told Gizmodo the idea of such a voluntary agreement was a joke and a bait-and-switch. If ISPs violated their voluntary promises, customers would lack real recoursenot just because so few Americans have a choice of broadband provider, but because most broadband contracts include a mandatory arbitration clause, which makes it virtually impossible to participate in class action lawsuits against ISPs. Kate Forcsey, Government Affairs Associate Counsel at Public Knowledge, told Gizmodo that this kind of agreement is tantamount to parents telling children there will be a bedtime, but you get to choose when that bedtime is and were not going to check if you actually go to bed when you say you will.

Despite having a solid 2-1 majority on the FCC in his favor and the backing of the immensely powerful ISP lobby, Pai will still have a tough time getting this done. Rolling back the Title II classification would likely require a rulemaking proceeding, which involves enduring lengthy comment periodwhen the Open Internet Order was under consideration in 2015, the agency was flooded with a record 3.7 million comments, the overwhelming majority of which supported net neutrality regulations. If that happens again, Pai could legally ignore all those comments, but it would make it politically harder for him and for net neutralitys opponents to steam ahead. Gigi Sohn, a former counsel to ex-FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, told Gizmodo that all hell is going to break loose if Pai does open up the rollback to a full proceeding of the commission, comments and all. As she told the Wall Street Journal last week, protests over rolling back net neutrality could be even bigger than the fight over SOPA-PIPA, a widely-hated anti-piracy bill that died due to public outcry in 2012.

Another hurdle for Pai is Chevron vs. NRDC, a relatively obscure court case, which established a principle known as Chevron deference. That means courts will generally defer to an agencys interpretation of a vague statutein this case, the FCCs interpretation of the Telecommunications Act, when it reclassified internet providers as common carriers.

That means for Pai to overturn net neutrality through FCC rulemaking, and for that rule to stand up in court after an inevitable challenge by proponents, hell need a good argument for why the FCC was wrong in 2015 to reclassify broadband, or to show that market conditions have changed enough to warrant reclassification. Open Technologys Stager said thatll be a tough argument to make, because realistically, nothing about the nature of broadband service has changed in the past two years. Practically speaking, the only change is that we have a new administration. Having a new president isnt enough to make that argument. Sohn told Gizmodo that she thinks a Title II reversal only has about a 25 percent chance of success if it comes to a court case.

Not exactly. After all, why would Pai go with such a risky strategy? Why waste time and political capital on an unpopular rule thats likely to be overturned? Pai is a smart man; surely he knows this? Thats why someincluding Stager, former FCC counselor Sohn, and telecom sources who spoke to Bloomberg in Februarysuggest that Pais plan might actually be a ploy to pressure Democrats into compromising on net neutrality legislation in Congress.

Theres been chatter for a whileparticularly from Commerce Committee chair and Republican senator John Thuneabout passing a bill through Congress to codify net neutrality principles with new legislation. In January, Thune hinted at pressuring Democrats, saying, the threat of a new Republican-led FCC nullifying the rules could help bring Democrats to the negotiating table. At least one Senate Democrat, Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, has already said he supports a bipartisan legislative fix.

Its a smart play for opponents of net neutrality. Having a Republican majority in both houses means its very likely that any law would be much more favorable to ISPs than the 2015 FCC order was. Most people who advocate for new legislation about net neutrality legislation are opponents, like TechFreedom, which once said net neutrality regulation was probably illegal. That should tell you a lot about whether legislation is likely to favor ISPs or consumers.

But theres hope for net neutrality advocates. For a start, its clear Pai knows that net neutrality is a politically touchy issue, and that supporters are well-organized and very, very loud. Thats why he has always said he supports net neutrality, just not Title II, which, coincidentally, is the exact position of the main ISP lobby group: Back in 2015, when the rules were passed, the Internet and Television Association (NCTA) said its decision to appeal the rules actually had nothing to do with net neutrality. Pai was on the FCC when those 3.7 million comments poured in; he knows that itll be a hard sell. Pai may even have ambitions to run for political office, according to Stager, and he knows that being the face of Comcast and AT&T isnt the best way to start down that road.

Youd be forgiven for being terrified about whats going to happen to net neutrality after the the bill overturning ISP privacy rules passed so quickly; most Americans had no idea it was even being debated until it was already too late. Those rules were overturned using the Congressional Review Act, meaning the bill didnt have to be debated in committee and only had to get 50 votes to pass. But a net neutrality bill cant be done through this fast-tracked method, because the CRA only applies to rules enacted in the last six months of an administration; they cant just take it out and shoot it in the yard at 4am. The longer its debated, the more time there is for advocacy groups to rally public opinion and action against the bill. If were lucky, Democrats might just figure that out.

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The Republican Plan to Kill the Open Internet - Gizmodo