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UPDATED: Sat., June 17, 2017, 8:29 p.m.

Republican Karen Handel campaigns at a restaurant in Johns Creek, Ga., Friday, June 16, 2017, ahead of a runoff election to replace former Rep. Tom Price. Democrat Jon Ossoff is trying for an upset over Handel in the GOP-leaning 6th Congressional District that stretches across greater Atlantas northern suburbs. (Alex Sanz / Associated Press)

CHAMBLEE, Ga. Trying to stave off a major upset ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, two of President Donald Trumps Cabinet officers returned to Atlantas traditionally conservative suburbs and urged Republican voters to maintain the GOPs monopoly control in Washington.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, a former two-term Georgia governor, took sharp aim at Republican Karen Handels opponent in Tuesdays runoff election, 30-year-old Democrat Jon Ossoff, who has raised more than $23 million from people around the country hoping for a victory that could turn the tide on Trump.

This is a race for the heart and soul for America, Perdue told Handel supporters, casting Ossoff as a puppet of national Democrats and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California.

The leftists have gone and typecast and theyve picked this young man charismatic, articulate and theyve taught him a few Republican buzzwords, Perdue said. They think he can fool you. Its not gonna happen.

But it very well may, with polls showing a tossup in Georgias 6th Congressional District, where Republicans usually coast.

Ossoff, a documentary filmmaker and former congressional aide, has aimed at the center, usually avoiding even mentioning Trumps name. But he was campaigning Saturday with civil rights icon John Lewis, the Atlanta congressman from the neighboring 5th District whose criticism of Trump recently drew a slew of presidential tweets.

The candidates choices on the final weekend of campaigning reflect their expectations of a razor-thin margin that will turn as much on core partisans as on persuading moderates and independents.

The results will be seen as a measure of how voters feel about Republican leadership months into the Trump presidency. Trump barely won this well-educated, affluent district in November, despite previous Republican nominees here eclipsing 60 percent.

Perdue defended Trump as a true populist, but acknowledged that even some Republicans are turned off by him.

Health Secretary Tom Price, whose resignation to join Trumps Cabinet prompted this special election, urged voters to have a crazy turnout on Handels behalf. He reminded his former constituents of the districts GOP pedigree, electing eventual Speaker Newt Gingrich and future U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson before sending Price to Washington for 12 years.

Handel made a similar appeal to honor the districts legacy. She said voters know me from stints as secretary of state and commission chairman of Georgias most populous county.

Ossoff and Handel insist their matchup recognized as the most expensive House race in U.S. history because of money from outside the district is not about the dynamics on Capitol Hill. But Perdue flatly disputed them, calling the election a harbinger of national politics as Handel looked on.

Democrats and liberal activists nationally hope to show they can flip the 24 GOP-held seats they would need to reclaim a House majority next November. They argue Ossoffs near-win in the first round already bodes well for Democrats running in other suburban districts where Republicans dont start with such a fundamental advantage.

There are 23 GOP-held House districts around the country where Trump actually lost to Hillary Clinton.

Handel raised slightly more than $5 million, less than a quarter of Ossoffs total, but national political action and campaign committees aligned with both parties have spent big as well: $7 million from a PAC backed by House Speaker Paul Ryan; about $4.5 million from Republicans House campaign arm, and another $6 million from the Democrats House campaign committee.

Ossoffs television ads target swing voters and disaffected Republicans, promising an independent voice and lambasting wasteful spending by both parties in Washington. But his day-to-day campaign operation has focused more on the Democrats main coalition: young voters, nonwhites and women.

Ossoff also has sought to make health care a defining issue, even before Prices return to the district.

Ossoff says the House Republican health care bill punishes working-class households that gained coverage under the Affordable Care Act, and would gut consumer protections for individuals with previous maladies in their medical history.

Handel says the Senate can make improvements, but shed have voted for the House-passed version. She rejects the Congressional Budget Office estimate that 23 million Americans could lose coverage under Republicans plan, and she insists the bill protects those with pre-existing conditions.

The bill declares that insurers cannot deny coverage based on patient history a point central to Handels claims. But the proposal also would allow states to obtain waivers that would jettison existing prohibitions on charging more for patients based on their individual history and risk.

Ossoff says removing that cost protection makes any coverage guarantee useless, because policies would become unaffordable, particularly given the Republicans proposal to roll back premium subsidies that are a primary feature of the 2010 law.

Handel has reacted angrily to Ossoffs assertions, emotionally telling the story of her sister, whom she describes as being born with a severe birth defect requiring costly care. I would never do anything that would hurt my sister, she says.

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Trump Cabinet officers urge on Republicans in Georgia race - The Spokesman-Review

President Donald Trump is not a target of the ongoing investigation into Russian tampering in the U.S. election, Trumps lawyer said Sunday after the president tweeted he was under investigation two days earlier.

I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt, Trump tweeted on June 16.

But thats not exactly the truth, Trumps personal lawyer Jay Sekulow, said during an appearance on CNNs Face the Nation Sunday. The fact of the matter is the president has not been and is not under investigation, Sekulow said.

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There has been no notification from the special counsel's office that the president is under investigation, he said.

Republican allies defended the presidents pugnacious attitude in wanting to hit back against allegations that he obstructed justice, while other GOP senators suggested that the president should allow the Russia investigation to proceed without interruption.

Last week the The Post reported that the president is being investigated by Robert Mueller, the Russia investigations special counsel, for obstruction of justice. The investigation concerns the circumstances around the May 9 firing of FBI Director James Comey. Trump previously said that he fired Comey because of the investigation into alleged Russian tampering in the election, which the president dismissed as a hoax.

Donald Trump at a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, on June 12, 2017. NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty

Americas intelligence agencies concluded in a January report that Russia took action to influence the election in favor of Trump. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, and Secretary of Defense James Mattis all concurred with the reports findings.

Read more: Pence will soon be president if Trump fires Mueller, says Bush lawyer

During testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8, Comey testified that he felt pressured by Trump to drop an investigation into the presidents top national security adviser Michael Flynns links with Russia.

Comey testified in Congress in March that the FBI was looking at whether Trumps election campaign colluded with Russian agents. Comey testified in early June that he is sure investigators are looking at whether Trump obstructed justice.

"Trump has a compulsion to counter attack, said Trump strategist and former Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich on ABC News This Week Sunday. I don't think it serves him well. I don't think that tweet helped him. But it's who he's been his whole life.

Republican Marco Rubio, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee which is carrying out one of two core congressional investigations into Russias alleged election interference said that the president would be wise to let the investigation to proceed unhindered.

"It is in the best interest of the president and the country to have a full investigation, Rubio said, adding that it was not a witch hunt as Trump suggested in several tweets.

"If I were the president I would be welcoming this investigation. I would ask that it be thorough and completed expeditiously and be very cooperative with it," Rubio said. I think that it's in the best interest of our country that we have a full scale investigation that looks at everything.

Read the rest here:
Republicans Divided Over Trump's Tweet That he Is Under Investigation - Newsweek

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders address Brooklyn Colleges graduates during their commencement ceremony on May 30, 2017, in New York. Sanders urged graduates to stand together and not let demagogues divide the country. CREDIT: AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Sunday blasted his Republican colleagues for secretly negotiating their Obamacare replacement bill behind closed doors and without public scrutiny, calling on Democrats to take a stand against the legislation.

This is completely unacceptable, Sanders told CBS Face the Nation host John Dickerson. Nobody can defend a process, which will impact tens of millions of Americans, and nobody even knows whats in the [legislation]...The reason they dont want to bring it public is because its a disastrous bill, I suspect similar to what passed in the House.

The outcome of the secret negotiations would impact about one sixth of the American economy, pointed out Sanders, who similarly slammed the House bill, which passed in May.

It was the worst piece of legislation, frankly, against working class people that I can remember in my political life in the Congress. Throwing 23 million people off of health insurance is beyond belief, said Sanders.

As ThinkProgress reporter Amanda Michelle Gomez reported earlier this month, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is rushing to bring the Republican health care bill before the Senate for a vote by July 4, before Congress leaves for August recess.

To that end, McConnell fast-tracked the health bill by implementing Senate Rule 14, which allows the Senate to bypass the committee processand thus a full committee debateby placing it on the senate calendar for a vote.

Even many Republicans are being kept in the dark said Sanders, noting that this tactic underscores issues with the bill that Republicans would have difficulty defending, such as cutting Medicaid in favor of giving tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans.

So they want to keep it secret, they dont want the media involved, they dont want members of Congress involved, Sanders told Dickerson. And at the last minute they present it, they push it through and that is one sixth of the American economy and millions of people thrown off of health insurance. That is unacceptable.

The closed-door process has Republicans concerned as well.

Ive said from Day 1, and Ill say it again, Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, told the New York Times. The process is better if you do it in public, and that people get buy-in along the way and understand whats going on. Obviously, thats not the route that is being taken.

McConnell defended his approach, telling the New York Times there have been gazillions of hearings on this subject over the years.

For Sanders, the only solution is full transparency, and on Sunday he called on Democrats to do everything they can to oppose the Senate bill.

Read this article:
Bernie Sanders calls out Senate Republicans for secrecy surrounding health care negotiations - ThinkProgress

Sometimes the irony is so thick, you cant cut it with a laser.

House Republicans had long planned to hold a hearing on June 14 on a National Rifle Association bill that would make it far easier for gun owners to buy silencers. The so-called Hearing Protection Act (I kid you not) was all set for subcommittee scrutiny until news broke about the Field of Screams.

Having tallied the wounded this was the 195th mass shooting of the year Republicans speedily canceled the gun silencer hearing, deeming it inappropriate. Given the circumstances, and all that.

But then it occurred to me: If our latest angry white guy, newly dead James Hodginkson, had been free to fit a silencer on his easily obtained killing machine, wouldnt that have slowed the reaction time of the Republican ballplayers and the cops whod accompanied them? If hed sprayed his bullets with a silencer attached, wouldnt there have been an enhanced risk of far more casualties?

And if the next angry white guy, and the ones after that, are free to do the same, wont that ratchet up the death toll?

Its futile to even ask such questions, of course, because America is terminally locked and loaded.

Rest assured that after Republicans dry their tears about House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and the other wounded souls, theyll get back to the NRAs business. The gun silencer hearing will be held.

Another NRA bill, which would allow people who live in states with lax gun laws to pack their concealed-carry heat in states with strict gun laws, is waiting in the wings.

And Republicans, with President Donald Trumps help, have already made it easier for some fugitives and mentally impaired people to buy guns.

Republicans did indeed shed tears Wednesday understandably so for their wounded allies and colleagues.

But in their grief, perhaps it would also have been appropriate to ask themselves: How come a guy with a history of violence had a gun license and an assault weapon?

Hodgkinson, by all accounts, was an unhinged lefty extremist who hated Republicans just a variation of the unhinged right-wing extremists who hate lefties and Democrats. What all these people have in common is a profound sense of alienation and a propensity for violence.

Their anger not ideology is their prime motivator. Hodginkson fit the profile perfectly.

In Hodgkinsons home state of Illinois (prior to his recent move to Alexandria, Va., where he spent weeks stalking the ballfield), he racked up a string of offenses damaging a motor vehicle, resisting police, criminally damaging property, driving under the influence, discharging a firearm (he was shooting at trees across a neighbors property while the neighbor was outside with his grandchildren), assaulting a neighboring girl (punching her with a closed fist), threatening a neighbor with a shotgun, and assaulting his foster daughter (which led to his arrest on a domestic violence charge).

In court, he screamed at the judge. But the judge dismissed the case after a witness mixed up the court date and failed to appear.

In virtually any other Western nation, Hodgkinson, with all his red flags, wouldve been denied a gun permit. But in America, he was good for it.

He also obtained an automatic weapon, the kind that civilians typically cant get in most western nations. But in America, he was good for it.

Because its considered important to protect the gun rights of people like him.

In America, the marketing of mass-destruction weaponry is simply good business.

Hodgkinsons weapon of choice was reportedly an M4, or similar to it. The manufacturers selling spiel for the M4 goes like this: The M4 can be comfortably carried, yet be instantly available to provide ... firepower, dependability and accuracy. Proven in military combat operations all over the world, it is in a class by itself as a first-rate combat weapon system.

But theres no way Republicans will connect these dots. Roughly 30 Americans die each day in gun homicides, but thats deemed acceptable collateral damage.

Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., one of the congressmen who escaped the ballfield assault without injury, conceded that the Second Amendment has some adverse aspects, but said that gun rights are fundamental to our being the greatest nation in world history.

And as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., declared in a tweet last year, Why do we have a Second Amendment? Its not to shoot deer. Its to shoot at the government when it becomes tyrannical!

Well, thats precisely what Hodgkinson thought he was doing. Its just a shame that NRA politicians make it so easy for people like him.

And when Scalise recovers from his wounds, rest assured that hell continue to toe the line. After all, his NRA rating is A-Plus.

Dick Polman is the national political columnist at NewsWorks/WHYY in Philadelphia, a Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania and is syndicated by Cagle Cartoons. Email him at [emailprotected] and follow him on Twitter: @DickPolman1. Click here for previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.

Excerpt from:
Dick Polman: Are Republicans Brave Enough to Play Ball on Gun Control? - Noozhawk

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at an interview in Washington on May 24.

Joshua Roberts/Reuters

If Senate Republicans want to meet their goal of passing a health care bill by the Fourth of July recess, they have exactly two weeks to do it. Congress is scheduled to recess at the end of business on June 30, which means Republicans have to move at breakneck pace while keeping debate to a minimum. Whats the rush? For any Americans who are aware that the Senate is racing to pass a tightly guarded health care billand if the GOP strategy works, there wont be many of them!Republicans are hoping their outrage dissipates over the holiday weekend. And the world goes on.

Jim Newell is a Slate staff writer.

Passing this secretly developed, still-unfinished bill within two weeks would be a world historic achievement in underhanded policymaking. Put another way: This is the moment Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was born for. This, reader, is his jam.

Ask a different member of the Senate Republican leadership whether they are sticking to the June 30 deadline, and youll get a different answer. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican, has always been more of an end of July guy. South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 3 Republican, treats it as more of a hope or an aspiration, a way of focusing the mind.

McConnell and his team, though, have not been deterred from the goal of a floor vote before the July4 recess, the Washington Post reports. [A]s McConnells team sees it, the options have all been vetted. Now, the difficult decisions about what to put in and leave out of the final bill are all that remain.

Much of the media has been operating under the assumption that the Congressional Budget Office would need two weeks to score the Senates legislation. Thats why senators were hoping to finalize the language by Monday night. Its now Friday, and the language still isnt finalized. But the CBO and Senate Republicans have been interfacing on legislative options for a while now, and leaders hope that the score could come quicker since CBO wouldnt be building an analysis from scratch. As Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso told Talking Points Memo, the issues theyre dealing with are dial-able so you can say, If you set this number, it does this and if you set that number, it does that. In other words, the CBO is just waiting for decisions on certain inputsgrowth rates for Medicaid spending, the length of the Medicaid expansion phase-out, expiration dates for certain taxes, lists of regulatory waivers that will be available to states, and so forth. Perhaps CBO could get a score done in, say, one week.

This is the moment Mitch McConnell was born for. This, reader, is his jam.

So whos going to make those tough decisions about which inputs to include? Its definitely not going to be all the Republican senators, and theres definitely not going to be anything like consensus reached. Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey and Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, for example, are never going to agree about the proper growth rate for Medicaid. It will be up to McConnell and Cornyn to choose the proper balance that gets their conference closest to the 50 votes they need to pass the bill. Thats the phase they appear to be in right now. On the Hill Thursday afternoon, individual senators like Portman, Toomey, and Maine Sen. Susan Collins were ducking into McConnells office. The brainstorming sessions are finished, and now its about determining what each senator can live with.

Now, what about the Democrats? Lets be generous and say McConnell settles on a recipe by over the weekend, and the CBO begins scoring early next week. The score comes back early the following week, and McConnell posts the bill. Is there much Democrats can do to stop it?

One theory among progressive activists is that Democrats could leverage the vote-o-rama process. Under reconciliation rules, senators can offer an unlimited number of amendments during the 20-hour debate period; after the debate, each filed amendment would be considered with an up-or-down vote. That rapid-fire voting session is referred to as a vote-o-rama.

Ezra Levin, an executive director with Indivisible, suggested on Twitter this week that Democrats should extend the vote-o-rama well past a long nights work. He urged Democrats to threaten to filibuster by amendment, by filing tens of thousands of amendments to clog up chamber through the 2018 midterms.

But McConnell would have recourse. Though McConnell could let Democrats have their fun for a little whileat least to give off the veneer of a transparent, open processhe can eventually motion that the amendment process had become dilatory, the chair would rule in his favor, andbarring some appeals and other motions to draw the process outthe vote-o-rama would be finished. It might still be worthDemocrats while to push ahead this way,though,to see how long they candraw out the processbefore McConnell breaks, and to please their base.

Top Comment

No man, when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel, or puttethitunder a bed; but settethiton a candlestick, that they which enter in may see the light. More...

It comes down to this: If McConnell and a majority of senators want to rush this secret bill to a vote before the Fourth of July recess, then they can. McConnell needs 50 votes for the bill, and he needs 50 votes to bust through whatever procedural roadblocks Democrats lay before him.

Some Republican senators have begun to speak out against the secrecy of the project, noting that it makes them uncomfortable. That discomfort, however, has not been palpable enough for them to exert real leverage over the way McConnell has conducted the process so far. Any three Republican senators could have told the majority leader in early May that they wouldnt vote for the bill unless it went through the normal open committee process. Maybe they didnt think it would get this bad. Or maybe they agree with him: Speed and secrecy is the only way to do this.

Read more here:
Can Republicans Actually Pass the AHCA in Two Weeks? - Slate Magazine