Mediaboss Marketing

PHILADELPHIAThere were few things that infuriated congressional Republicans more during Barack Obamas eight years in the White House than the words a pen and a phone. They were shorthand for the presidents aggressive use of executive authority to go around a recalcitrant Congress and achieve his priorities unilaterally, whether on immigration, climate change, or how his administration implemented the Affordable Care Act.

Republican leaders denounced Obama as lawless. They tried to stop him legislatively, and when that didnt work, they sued him.

Now President Trump is pursuing a version of the same strategy. Unwilling to wait for the GOP-led Congress to send him bills to sign, Trump has signed a blizzard of directives during his first week in office to unwind the health insurance law, restrict immigration, construct a Southern border wall, and more.

So is Trump engaging in the same kind of pen and phone overreach as Obama did?

Quite the opposite, argued House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday as he briefed reporters at the GOPs policy retreat in Philadelphia. Trump, he said, was merely reversing orders that stretched the presidents power in the first place.

Everything that President Obama did by executive order, this new president can undo, Ryan said. Hes restoring the proper balance, and in our opinion, he is undoing a lot of damage that was done by the last president, who exceeded his power. Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy took the same position earlier Thursday in an appearance on Fox and Friends. Its not hypocritical at all, McCarthy said. Pretty much what President Trump is doing is undoing President Obamas executive orders and taking us back to the Constitution.

The GOP's 200-Day Plan

Yet that is not exactly what Trump is doing. If it was, his executive orders would simply rescind or reverse specific actions or directives of the Obama administration. But the Trump orders are far broader than that. His directive on the Affordable Care Act, for example, gives Cabinet secretaries and agency heads wide latitude to roll back enforcement of the law. And his order on immigration threatens to withhold funds from so-called sanctuary cities that refuse to cooperate with the federal government on immigration enforcement.

Thats not to say that Trump is exceeding his presidential power any more than Obama was. The executive branch generally has significant flexibility in how it chooses to implement and enforce laws passed by Congress, and the orders Trump signed all cite authority granted by specific statutes, just as the Obama administration did. And like the earlier actions, Trumps orders could be subject to court challenges accusing the president of going too far. Presidents of both parties have asserted broad executive powers in recent decades, and Democratic leaders similarly howled much louder when George W. Bush acted unilaterally than when Obama did.

Republican leaders will face a bigger test if Trump signs an executive order seeking to revive the use of torture on suspected terrorists, which legal experts believe would require an act of Congress. In comments over the last two days, several GOP leaders have said they consider the ban a matter of settled law, given that lawmakers overwhelmingly approved language banning torture by limiting interrogation techniques to those allowed by the Army Field Manual. Torture is not legal, and we agree with it not being legal, Ryan said.

Its hard to see Republicans in Congress taking Trump to court as they did Obama. Yet Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell signaled that lawmakers would not simply relinquish their concerns about the separation of powers just because they have a GOP president in officeespecially when it comes to spending money. Most members dont like being completely irrelevant, he warned on Thursday. And just as Republicans didnt want to give the Obama administration a blank check, McConnell said, we dont want to give this one a blank check either.

The money fight will come later. On executive authority, however, Republicans are giving the new president an early pass.

Read the original post:
Congressional Republicans Suddenly Lose Interest in Executive Overreach - The Atlantic

Marty Stout announced his intention Thursday to seek the Howard County Republican Party chair, which will be vacated in March by the party's current chairman, Craig Dunn.

With Craigs decision not to run, I thought it was an excellent time to build on the success of the Republican Party in Howard County and ensure that success for the future," he said in a press release.

"Howard County formed me when I was young in many ways, most especially in the dignity of the person, the dignity work and the dignity of service, and I view Craigs decision as an invitation to contribute what I can to continue the effort to make Howard County a great place to live, pray and play."

Stout is a 1984 graduate of Kokomo High School and a 1988 graduate of Saint Meinrad College, where earned his BA degree in philosophy, according to the release.

In 2001, he earned his MBA at Indiana Technical Institute in Fort Wayne. Currently he is the business manager for Stout Funeral Homes and Crematory and works part-time as the operations manager for Saint Patrick Catholic Church.

Stout and his wife, Beverly, have been married for 24 years, and they have two daughters, Katelyn, who attends Marian University in Indianapolis, and Reagan, who attends Holy Cross College in South Bend.

With that said, the Republican Party must not rest on the recent past local, state and national election successes. The party must continue to enhance its efforts, most especially in recruitment, fundraising and communication," he added in the release.

"I believe I can make significant contributions in these areas by helping the party build a framework and organizing talent in a manner that will maximize our results."

On March 4, a caucus attended by precinct and vice-precinct committeemen at the Howard County Republican Party headquarters will determine the next chairman, explained Dunn.

Any potential candidates have to submit a letter of indication to the state and local Republican parties at least 72 hours in advance of the caucus, he noted.

Dunns departure after three terms one two-year term and two four-year terms will inevitably lead to a major adjustment for the Party, which Dunn believes has grown into a major Statehouse player during his time at the reins, and experienced a sweep of local elections last November.

Despite recent successes, Dunn, noting that his mind was made up before Election Day, said the time has come for new Party leadership to take a stab at organizing local Republicans.

I just think its real important for a political organization to bring in new blood and new ideas periodically, so, to me, thats an important thing, he said, noting that he will stay very active within the Republican Party, either as a mentor or advisor of sorts.

Ive preached it over the years that [change] is important to do, and for that reason, I thought my time was the right time to go.

Efforts to reach Stout have not been successful.

Excerpt from:
Marty Stout to seek Republican Party chair - Kokomo Tribune

Take progressive thought out of it, for the moment. Just try to think like a conservative person who isnt otherwise blinded by an irrational dislike of foreigners. The fight over so-called sanctuary cities is a fight over whether the federal government can commandeer state resources to carry out federal directives without paying for them. Its not about immigration, its not about border security, its about the central government trampling over states rights.

Its ironic, isnt it? Trump and the Bannonites want local cops to enforce federal immigration laws, instead of putting federal forces (and dollars) on the ground to do the work. Nobody is stopping the FBI from combing the streets of New York trying to check up on my immigration status, if thats what the Trumpkins think is a good use of the FBIs time. The issue is that the NYPD also has better things to do than rounding up brown people to make Republicans in Washington, D.C. happy. Its a pretty basic use of local control. It would be almost impossible to explain why the GOP, who has built its house around the concept of states rights, would be so eager to trample them on this issue, without noticing the race of the people being targeted.

If Trumps position here wasnt so covered in racism, itd be funny. Instead, to find the real comedy, you have to look at what an attack on sanctuary cities would do to policing. Then you see that the law and order president is giving snitches more reasons to keep their mouths shut than any number of stitches could accomplish.

See, you have to ask yourself how weve gotten to a point where police forces in most urban centers look the other way about an individuals immigration status. Newsflash: its not because cops are nice or have compassion for the travails of the illegal resident. Cops would use status as a way to coerce people into giving up information, if it worked.

But it doesnt work. In fact, the opposite happens. When local cops become the deportation force, NOBODY talks to local cops. Nobody trusts them. Nobody works with them. Good cops and investigators need to live off the land in a sense. They need to be able to rely on concerned citizens giving them tips and information about what is going on in the streets. If people think the cops will use that information to deport people, or deport the tipsters, well, then that information runs dry. Cops are on an island, and they cant do their jobs effectively.

Sanctuary cities exist because local law enforcement officials are trying to do their jobs, not because those people are shirking their responsibilities. Sanctuary cities exist to HELP law enforcement, in those cities. If Trump or his supporters could get over their xenophobia, theyd see that, plain as day.

Instead of promoting policies that keep us safe, we have an executive order titled (wait for it) Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States. See? See what I mean? THATS FUNNY CAUSE IT DOES THE OPPOSITE.

The order requires law enforcement to share information on the status of individuals they pick up, and hold people here illegally until ICE can get to them. It relies on 8 U.S.C. 1373, which says that local officials cannot stop federal immigration agents from doing their thing. This is a major sticking point. It would mean that people here illegally who are stopped for, say, a traffic violation, would have to be incarcerated, for who knows how long, until federal officials were able to deport them. Its a community destroyer. But it mostly affects brown communities, so you can see why Trump would be eager to get on with that.

But the order would also require Homeland Security to publish a list of crimes committed by illegal residents in sanctuary cities. Can we just stop for a second and think about how STUPID AND RACIST that is? Homeland Security is in charge of preventing the building Im writing in from crumbling under an ocean of jet fuel. Youre telling me theyre supposed to take time out of their (hopefully busy) day to publish a list of bad acts by brown people? For what purpose? Just to keep the white people who DONT live anywhere near illegal residents terrified enough to keep voting Trump into office? HOW DOES THAT KEEP ME SAFE WHEN I GET ON THE SUBWAY?

The much-discussed stick to all of this is Trumps threat to pull federal funding from sanctuary cities. What constitutes a sanctuary city for the purposes of losing their funding? Only Trump knows. Im not being flip. Theres no legal definition of what constitutes a sanctuary city, so it can be pretty much whoever is pissing Trump off at that moment. New York and San Francisco, sure, we already know were in the opening week of a four-year war of orange aggression. But freaking Topeka could be on this list if they dont cheer loud enough when Trump is in need of adulation.

But its precisely because Trump would be able to use this action to coerce cities that it is unlikely to be upheld by the courts. Again, normal Republicans can see that. Heres Ilya Somin:

There are two serious constitutional problems with conditioning federal grants to sanctuary cities on compliance with Section 1373. First, longstanding Supreme Court precedent mandates that the federal government may not impose conditions on grants to states and localities unless the conditions are unambiguously stated in the text of the law so that the States can knowingly decide whether or not to accept those funds. Few if any federal grants to sanctuary cities are explicitly conditioned on compliance with Section 1373. Any such condition must be passed by Congress, and may only apply to new grants, not ones that have already been appropriated. The executive cannot simply make up new conditions on its own and impose them on state and local governments. Doing so undermines both separation of powers and federalism.

Even aside from Trumps dubious effort to tie it to federal grants, Section 1373 is itself unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the federal government may not commandeer state and local officials by compelling them to enforce federal law. Such policies violate the Tenth Amendment.

The Tenth Amendment is to Republicans what the Fourteenth Amendment is to liberals: its the thing that justifies everything else. Trumps executive action against sanctuary cities is unconstitutional based on entirely conservative and Republican legal theory.

And we havent even talked about how liberals who actually run these cities might object.

Why Trumps executive order on sanctuary cities is unconstitutional [Washington Post]

Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

More here:
Trump's 'Sanctuary Cities' Order Violates The Republican Parts Of The Constitution Too - Above the Law

By Robin Respaut and Hilary Russ | SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK President Donald Trump's push to fulfill a campaign promise to replace Obamacare, his predecessor's signature healthcare plan, with the help of a Republican-controlled Congress, could add to U.S. states' financial strain.

That is because a key component of the 2010 law allowed states to expand Medicaid, the government health insurance program for low-income Americans, and collect extra dollars that came with expansion.

Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia chose to expand Medicaid enrollment through Obamacare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act.

(Graphic - here)

While Republicans have not agreed to specific plans, one idea gaining traction has been to convert the current system, in which states share the cost of Medicaid enrollees with the federal government, into fixed payments, or block grants, sent to the states.

Trump's nominee to run the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Representative Tom Price, has long advocated such a plan.

The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates a repeal of Obamacare and a cap on federal Medicaid spending, such as through a block grant or a per capita cap, could cut Medicaid funding by 41 percent over the next decade. That would likely handicap states' ability to respond to larger enrollments during recessions.

"It will have clear implications for state budgets," said Robin Rudowitz, the Washington-based associate director at Kaiser's Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured. "States could raise revenue and spend less in other areas, but these are not easy choices to make."

The foundation is a nonprofit focused on health issues.

Faced with inflexible federal funding, states might also decide to limit Medicaid eligibility or freeze new enrollment, reducing the number of people covered.

In a letter to congressional leaders on Tuesday, the National Governors Association pleaded with lawmakers not to "shift costs to states."

New Jersey, one of many states struggling with ballooning public pension costs and modest revenue growth, expanded Medicaid under Republican Governor Chris Christie.

That state could lose up to $3 billion in federal aid if the Affordable Care Act is repealed and have to spend $1 billion more from its budget, Democratic state lawmakers there said this week.

MONEY FLOWS FROM THE HEART

Medicaid sits at the heart of the federal-state fiscal relationship. Over $330 billion in federal Medicaid dollars flowed to states in fiscal year 2016, accounting for more than half of all federal grants sent to state and local governments and the largest individual program, according to Standard & Poor's.

In 2015, the federal government paid about 60 percent of total Medicaid costs while states paid 40 percent.

Medicaid enrollment also tends to spike during an economic downturn, just as state revenues are most strained, spurring the federal government to send more money to states.

Despite calls from Trump to Republican lawmakers on Thursday for swift action on replacing Obamacare and on other priorities, changes will likely still take time to work out.

House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said the agenda would take more than 100 days and said the goal "is to get these laws done in 2017," without guaranteeing an Obamacare replacement would be enacted by the end of December.

With so many details still up in the air, public officials are hard-pressed to craft budgets that directly respond to their concerns.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday said his next budget would hold a record amount of money in reserve and seek at least $1 billion of savings citywide to compensate for "a huge amount of uncertainty" emanating from Washington.

In California, Medicaid enrollment jumped from nearly 8 million in 2012 to more than 14 million today, thanks in part to federal healthcare reforms.

In a letter earlier this month to U.S. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Democratic California Governor Jerry Brown pleaded that Congress consider reforms that do not burden state budgets.

"That would be a very cynical way to prop up the federal budget - and devastating to millions of Americans," Brown wrote to the Republican congressman from California.

However, Brown's proposed budget this month did not include a contingency for a potential repeal of Obamacare or the threat of changes to the federal tax code.

"Until there is a change in policy at the federal level, we will continue to budget under the current rules of the road," said California Finance Department spokesman H.D. Palmer.

(Reporting by Robin Respaut in San Francisco and Hilary Russ in New York; editing by Daniel Bases and Jonathan Oatis)

WASHINGTON The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has temporarily halted trips by staff to interview refugees abroad as it prepares for a likely shakeup of refugee policy by President Donald Trump, two sources with knowledge of the decision said on Thursday.

President Donald Trump's executive order directing federal agencies to take away funding from self-proclaimed sanctuary cities had one big exemption for one of his favorite constituencies: the police, who would be protected from cuts.

WASHINGTON Defense Secretary James Mattis stressed the United States' commitment to NATO in a telephone call with Germany's defense minister on Thursday, the Pentagon said.

Read the original here:
Republican ideas for healthcare reforms could spell trouble for US states - Reuters

Nashville Mayor Megan Barry, a Democrat, donated $500 to the campaign fund of Nashville Republican and Tennessee House Speaker Beth Harwell.(Photo: File / The Tennessean)Buy Photo

In something of a surprise move, the campaign committee for Democrat and Nashville Mayor Megan Barry donated $500 to the campaign committee for Republican and Tennessee House Speaker Beth Harwell.

While the amount of money is relatively small, the fact one of the most prominent Democrats in Tennessee would donate to someone expected to seek the GOP nomination for governor in 2018 raised eyebrows among Nashville politicos.

"Friends of Megan Barry" donated $500 to Harwell's account on Jan. 9, the last day state lawmakers could accept donations before the start of the legislative session. Barry spokesman Sean Braisted said the mayor contributed to every state lawmaker in the Nashville delegation, comprised of 10 Democrats and two Republicans.

With Gov. Bill Haslam set to depart, the 2018 race is expected to attractan untold number of Republican candidates.

Former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, Barry's predecessor,is among Democrats weighing a bid. He hasn't filed any paperwork to indicate a formal run, but he's expected to announce his decision in the first part of this year. Nashville businessman Bill Freeman, who ran unsuccessfully for Nashville mayor in 2015, and state House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh of Ripley are also considering gubernatorial runs.

Harwell, R-Nashville, reported receiving $50,000 in the first nine days of January, which she can eventually combinewith the more than $1 million she has stored away in other campaign accounts. While Harwell hasn't officially announced that she will run for governor, the fact she filed this specific campaign finance report this week is an indicator ofher interest. The Nashville Post first reported Harwell's filing.

Barry's contribution to Harwell comes as the mayor is in need of the state legislature's help to pass legislation that would allow Nashville and other local municipalities to holdpublic referendums to use sales tax revenue to fund public transit projects.

Barry is hoping to find ways to begin paying for a $6 billion regional transit system that the Regional Transit Authority adopted last year.Harwell has expressed support fora local funding option for transit as long as it is contingent on a referendum.

A spokeswoman for Harwell did not immediately respond to a requestfor comment.

Other gubernatorial candidates have also filed similar campaign finance documents, including state Sen. Mark Green. The Clarksville Republican received $5,000 from the political action committee of recently retired Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, helping him reach a donation total of nearly $193,000 during the first few days of January. A spokesman for Green said the senator has nearly $650,000 cash on hand for his gubernatorial bid.

Reached by phone, Ramsey said he made the contribution because he typically contributes to every one of his senate colleagues before an election. However, he said Green had already reached a political action committee contribution limit at that point, so Ramsey pledged to donate after the election.

"Im not endorsing Mark. Hes a friend of mine, but so is Mark Norris and Beth Harwell and Diane Black," Ramsey said, noting other Republicans expected to run for governor.

Ramsey said he didn't plan to endorse any GOP candidate, but said he's helping them all to ensure a Republican becomes the next governor.

Staff writer Joey Garrison contributed to this report.

Reach Dave Boucher at dboucher@tennessean.com or 615-259-8892 and on Twitter @Dave_Boucher1.

Read or Share this story: http://tnne.ws/2k8hpJ2

Read the original:
Democrat Mayor Megan Barry donates to Republican Beth Harwell's campaign - The Tennessean