How Long Before The Missouri GOP Cult Passes A Law Forbidding Women To Drive? Or Wear Shoes?

Last May, when Missouri's unelected governor, Mike Parson, signed a law banning abortion after the eighth week of pregnancy with no exceptions for cases of rape and incest-- just one of a whole slew of anti-Choice laws passed by state's with GOP governors and Republican-controled legislatures that passed since Trump appointed two anti-Choice Supreme Court judges. The states are competing to see which case overturns Roe v. Wade. In Missouri's case, though, a federal judge blocked Parson from enforcing the obviously unconstitutional law 2 months ago. The Republicans struck back by refusing to renew the license for Missouri’s last remaining abortion clinic, which could make Missouri the first state to win the "we have no abortion providers" sweepstakes. Earlier this week, Robert Langellier, reporting for Reuters, noted that the state of that clinic is in the hands of an arbiter. The hearing began Monday and are expected to continue for a few more days.

Missouri health officials earlier this year declined to renew the clinic’s license on the grounds that it failed to meet their standards, which included mandatory interviews with several physicians involved in what the health department said were multiple life-threatening abortions at the clinic.

Planned Parenthood officials have said they do not directly employ all the clinic’s staff and cannot force them to give interviews. The organization has said the state’s effort to close the clinic is politically motivated, which the state denies.

Abortion is one of the most divisive issues in the United States, with opponents citing religious beliefs to declare it immoral, while abortion-rights activists say the procedure is legally protected and that bans rob women of control over their bodies and futures.

Missouri is one of 12 states to pass laws restricting abortion access this year, some aimed at provoking a U.S. Supreme Court review of the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized a woman’s constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy.

Last week, Planned Parenthood opened an abortion clinic just 13 miles (21 km) from the St. Louis clinic in Fairview Heights, Illinois, capable of treating up to 11,000 patients per year.

“While we continue the fight to maintain access in Missouri, we are excited to expand our abortion services in Illinois,” Colleen McNicholas, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood’s southwest regional chapter, said in a statement.

Blue America has just one candidate so far this cycle, Kathy Ellis and we asked her for a perspective from her rural southeast district which is already very far from the state's one clinic-- and very red. Below is her guest post. If you'd like to help her campaign, please consider contributing by clicking on the 2020 congressional thermometer on the right.

Missouri is a crumbling state. From the Republican supermajority state legislature’s refusal to expand Medicaid to the constant attacks on working people at the local, state, and federal levels, the only hope for our state is new leadership.

Recently, one area of our state that has garnered national attention is its treatment of those seeking abortions. Let’s lay the groundwork: there is currently only one facility providing abortions in Missouri, and it’s in St. Louis. The state is constantly trying to close it by implementing absurd regulations and laws, such as hallway width laws and a requirement that providers have admitting privileges to local hospitals, most of which are religiously-run. Its most recent attack is even more sinister: earlier this year, the Missouri Department of Health claimed they found “deficient practices” at the only abortion clinic in the state, Reproductive Health Services of Missouri which is in a Planned Parenthood affiliate. These claims were never backed up with evidence, but as a result, the clinic is currently-- as we speak-- involved in a hearing that will determine the fate of the clinic’s license. As a part of this hearing, it came to light that the Director of the Health Department [Randall Williams] has been using a spreadsheet to track patients’ menstrual cycles. It’s all very disturbing, to say the least.





But let’s expand this conversation. As mentioned, there is one clinic who provides abortions in the entire state, and it’s located in St. Louis. I am running for Missouri’s 8th Congressional District, a 30-county district south of St. Louis. The District is massive. It takes 4.5 hours to get across it, and 3 hours to get to its southernmost point. While Missouri has an abortion clinic, it is almost completely inaccessible to the people in the 8th District. With the strict restrictions at the state level, including a 72-hour waiting period, in-person, medically inaccurate abortion “counseling,” and a same provider consent rule, it’s almost impossible for a person in the 8th District to receive an abortion in this state. Not to mention-- the 8th has one of the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the country, and rural hospitals are rapidly closing. Not only is there not abortion access in the 8th, there is also not basic healthcare access.

The only hope for the 8th, and for our state, is new leadership at every level. We must expand Medicaid at the state level. We must repeal the Hyde Amendment at the federal level. When elected, I’ll do everything to protect Roe v. Wade and a person’s right to choose. I’m a proud, pro-choice candidate, and I’ve never shied away from that, despite the red, rural District that I’m running in. It’s time to change the narrative: everyone, regardless of zip code, gender, age, or income should have access to the healthcare they need, when they need it. This includes abortion access.

And, yes, this is very much related; just think about it for a minute:

If Evangelicals Are Supporting Trump Because They Can't Cope With Women's Bodies, Maybe They Should Skip The Election This Year And See A Psycho-Therapist Instead

Trump's support among white evangelicals hasn't sunk much despite the discomfort some of them feel about a few of his noticeably anti-Jesus policies and about the way he comports himself. 80% of white evangelicals voted for him in 2016 and, if the election were held today, 77% of them say they would do the same now. Writing for the Washington Post, Andrea Lucado cited a Maris poll for NPR and PBS from last month, in her piece that ran yesterday, How the female body became the scapegoat for white evangelicals. She pointed to the fact that 70% of white evangelicals reported hating Hillary Clinton, overwhelmingly because of her stand on women's Choice. "As a white, evangelical-raised Christian," wrote Lucado, "I am frustrated, angry and confused by the continued support of Trump even when his first term is coming to an end, but I can’t claim to be surprised." Not only do 65% of evangelicals oppose abortion-- a relatively new phenomenon; American evangelicals used to back Choice and deride Catholics for opposing it-- but "Americans who oppose the legality of abortion (27%) are significantly more likely than those who support the legality of abortion (18%) to say they will only vote for a candidate who shares their views on the issue."

I have grown suspicious of the way some evangelicals identify with their pro-life status so deeply that it affects every political decision they make.

French literary critic and philosopher René Girard studied how ancient civilizations relied on the tradition of the scapegoat. Girard claimed that scapegoating was necessary due to what he called “mimetic desire,” which, put simply, is the fact that we want what others have. This coveting ultimately leads to conflict only resolved through an act of violence, usually cast upon one victim chosen by the tribe: the scapegoat.





Girard found that this method of scapegoating changed when Jesus arrived in ancient Palestine. Jesus himself was described as a scapegoat, a “lamb led to slaughter” (Acts 8:32). But Girard argued that the circumstances around Christ’s crucifixion symbolized the end of the need of scapegoating. As he explained in his book “I See Satan Fall Like Lightening,” “Jesus is innocent, and those who crucify him are guilty.”





Girard theorized that because Jesus’ innocence was known by those in attendance at his crucifixion (See the accounts of Pontius Pilate in Matthew 27:23-24 and of the centurion in Matthew 27:54), the curtain was pulled back on the scapegoat method. It was finally clear that the truly guilty are those who scapegoat, not the scapegoat. The crucifixion symbolized the final sacrifice and negated the usefulness of the scapegoat tradition.

Even though Christianity was founded upon this very sacrifice, some have not gotten the message that scapegoating has ended.

Although the pro-life movement has made steps toward helping women through pregnancy, many of its tactics to prevent abortion are sometimes driven by shame. Each movie that portrays the horrors of the procedure, each image of a fetus, each hand-scribbled sign bobbing up and down outside a Planned Parenthood seems to be pointing a finger and asking, How could you? And the finger is always pointed at the woman. Her decision, her body, her fault.

What I have seen in the pro-life movement and elsewhere in evangelical culture is this ancient reliance upon the scapegoat mechanism, and the scapegoat is always the same-- the female body.

Purity culture-- an evangelical movement that reached its height in the late 1990s and early 2000s-- promoted a core message of abstinence before and outside of marriage. The way this sexual ethic was taught to me and many others badly warped my view of sex, the body and gender. Only in recent years have I been able to clumsily untangle the message from my faith, namely the weight, guilt and responsibility the movement put on females.

When learning about sex and purity, I was taught my virginity was my greatest commodity, therefore, I must protect it at all costs until I was married. Marriage and childbearing would be the pinnacle of my existence-- a belief many evangelicals still hold today. Just this week, Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, suggested being a parent is what makes one human.

According to purity culture, the protection of my virginity was up to me. I remember many lectures about the importance of girls’ dressing modestly so as not to let our brothers stumble into the sin of lust. I once heard a youth leader say that a mere glimpse of a bra strap would cause a boy to have impure thoughts.

I was warned about how often boys thought about sex and the warning’s undertone was a warning for me: Don’t lead him into temptation. It was up to me to keep myself pure and to keep my brothers in Christ pure, as well. If I had sex before marriage, I would not only taint myself, but I would also own the guilt of causing the male I had sex with to have sex with me.

It made for a world nearly impossible for a girl to do right and for a boy to do wrong.

The shame and guilt that drove purity culture is the same shame I see driving the pro-life movement today. And like purity culture, the woman is the scapegoat. She is the one making the decision. She, and she alone, is at fault.

The fact that white evangelicals still as a whole support Trump for a 2020 reelection with abortion as the flag over their crusade points to an important truth: Evangelicals are still obsessed with female bodies, controlling them and blaming them.

Recalling Girard’s theory of mimetic desire, this leads me to wonder, what is the desire behind the scapegoat of the woman’s body? What do evangelicals want that others have? Is it power? Is it fame? Is it women themselves?

Or, do they fear what an end to their scapegoat mechanism would do? When the woman, or scapegoat, speaks, it causes unrest. It causes a dismantling. Look what it did to former Southern Baptist seminary president Paige Patterson, one of the most prominent religious leaders of the late 20th century. Is the pro-life movement just a convenient, moral excuse to keep the woman as scapegoat, and, therefore, maintain order?

Whatever it is, the pull to isolate a presidential vote to one issue is strong enough to blind many evangelicals to what Jesus would care about today: the poor (He was.), the immigrant (He was one.), the marginalized (He was.), the person of color (He was one.). It seems the primary rock some evangelicals are standing on is one in which the woman’s body is scapegoat, in which she is sacrificed.

President of the Evangelical States of America, Pig Man

And this isn't just about people in some backward part of Alabama or Oklahoma. How about Long Island? Nancy Goroff is running for a Suffolk County congressional seat held by anti-Choice fanatic Lee Zeldin. Yesterday, Goroff told her supporters that "Trump has instituted a 'gag rule' that prevents doctors from giving full medical advice to their patients. It has forced Planned Parenthood out of Title X, putting at risk wellness exams, STD and HIV screenings, birth control, and contraceptive education that millions of people count on. As a scientist, I believe medical decisions need to be made with the best information possible, and I don’t believe the government should stand between a patient and their doctor. Anti-choice politicians, like my opponent Lee Zeldin, are part of the problem and need to be replaced. Zeldin has voted to defund Planned Parenthood, to allow for 'personhood' legislation and to repeal the Affordable Care Act-- stripping health insurance from tens of millions of Americans. Overall, he’s voted against Planned Parenthood 30 times THIS YEAR-- and not once in favor of the women who need their help. When it comes to women's healthcare, Zeldin chooses policies that ignore the facts and data. As a scientist and a mom... I will work to debunk the lies about Planned Parenthood and fight to restore critical funding for it."

Collins And Murkowsky Must Say No To Trump On The Mad Dash To Confirm Kavanaugh

Brett Kavanaugh-- Partisan Supreme Court Nominee by Nancy Ohanian

With all the problems America is facing today, somehow McConnell thought sneaking a ban on funding Planned Parenthood into the must-pass Department of Defense Appropriations Act would be a smart way for the Senate to spend its time. Thursday afternoon a vote was called while three major Planned Parenthood supporters, Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Patty Murray (D-WA) were out of town. With all Democrats sticking together ro beat back the effort being joined by Republicans Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowsky (R-AK), the amendment was defeated 48-45.

And the Senate Republicans are now on the verge of rushing through a Trump Supreme Court nomination, Brett Kavanaugh, picked by a clearly self-serving (to put it mildly) and obviously illegitimate "president" who was chose strictly because He doesn't believe a sitting president can be indicted or even questioned. Yesterday at NBC's First Read, Chuck Todd pointed out that Trump "praises and pardons friends/allies who have committed crimes (Manafort, Joe Arpaio, Dinesh D’Souza), but calls for the prosecution of enemies who haven’t been charged at all (Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Peter Strzok, Christopher Steele)... continues to use mob-boss language: Manafort "refused to break" … White House counsel Don McGahn must be a John Dean type 'RAT' ... 'Flipping' ought to be outlawed. This is the president of the United States of America. This is also the guy demanding Kavanaugh be confirmed immediately.

People for the American Way is one of the public advocacy organization working to communicate inside and outside the Beltway the dangers inherent in Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court justice. Yesterday, the organization sent members and supporters a reminder that "Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort being found guilty of eight counts of bank and tax fraud amazingly was just the tip of the iceberg in yesterday’s news about the rampant corruption and criminality overflowing from Trump World. Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter of California was also indicted on unrelated charges, meaning that along with Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY), the first two members of Congress to endorse Trump in 2016 are now both under federal indictment! And, most importantly, Trump’s former personal attorney and fixer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to eight charges, including two for engineering or making illegal “hush money” payments to women who alleged affairs with then candidate Donald Trump-- and Cohen said he made those payments at the Trump’s behest." OK, but what does this have to do with Kavanaugh? Glad you asked.

Trump is now directly implicated in a conspiracy to violate anti-corruption laws at the very same time that Senate Republicans are trying to steamroll the confirmation of his hand-picked Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh-- a nominee who has argued that the president should be above the law-- and burying Kavanaugh’s record with an unprecedented cover up to keep important insights into his work and legal thinking from ever seeing the light of day.

It’s now crystal clear that for the Senate to confirm Brett Kavanaugh would be a brazen assault on our democracy, checks and balances, and the rule of law itself. Talk about enabling corruption and obstructing accountability-- any senator who now supports Brett Kavanaugh will be complicit in helping the president essentially choose the judge who will decide his own legal fate (perhaps on matters far exceeding the charges in which he was implicated by Michael Cohen).

Trump the other day asserted that he has total authority over the Mueller investigation, saying, “I could run it if I want.” We know from Brett Kavanaugh’s writings and statements that Trump’s Supreme Court nominee agrees, which is radical and, frankly, should scare the hell out of all of us.

We cannot let the Senate confirm this lawless, corrupt president’s hand-picked rubber stamp to the Supreme Court.

Our path to victory is getting every Democratic senator to oppose this nominee and at least ONE Republican senator to break from their president and put their country and what’s right above party.

The fact that Collins and Murkowsky voted on Thursday against all the other Republicans seeking to screw with Planned Parenthood-- and in effect-- a woman's right to choose, gives some hope that these two will oppose an extremist SCOTUS nominee who will move quickly to overturn Roe v Wade... as well as an extremist nominee who will do all he can to prevent the legal process from moving forward regarding the serial criminal behavior of an illegitimate "president." Don't forget, Brett Kavanaugh is now the most unpopular SCOTUS nominee in contemporary history. Yesterday, one of their Senate colleagues, Elizabeth Warren, wrote that "The Trump Administration is the most corrupt in modern history. That’s not an exaggeration. Corruption oozes out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue-- the name 'Trump' is basically synonymous with the concept itself. It’s in your face, everywhere-- like the big gold letters on his flashy hotels." Should this man and his enablers in Congress get to rush through the confirmation of another rubber stamp, this one a life-time appointee to the Supreme Court?

Union-Busting by Planned Parenthood in Colorado

A shadow from a chain link fence falls across the Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains (source)

by Gaius Publius

Planned Parenthood, via its Action Fund (PAC), is one of the cornerstones of the Democratic coalition, both in standing up for the Democratic Party and being stood up for by the Democratic Party.

The national Action Fund has come under fire in intra-Party disputes. It endorsed Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders while admitting that "both [are] good on reproductive health." That's certainly a choice they get to make.

In addition, they made sure Sanders came under their fire when he called Planned Parenthood (meaning the Action Fund, not the health care organization) "part of the establishment":

Planned Parenthood and other progressive groups are calling out Bernie Sanders for referring to them as "part of the establishment," saying the Vermont senator needs to show a more explicit commitment to women's reproductive health.

"It's a little ridiculous to call an organization Congress and Republican presidential candidates have spent six months attacking ‘establishment’ — especially when Planned Parenthood health centers are out there every day ensuring millions of often marginalized Americans have access to basic reproductive health care,” Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund told POLITICO in an email.

Notice the switch in terms: The Action Fund, which was criticized for its political leanings in an intra-Party dispute, claimed Sanders didn't show enough of support for the non-political health care part of the organization — all while the Action Fund, in its Clinton endorsement, was praising Sanders as just as good on reproductive health issues as Clinton. (The deciding factor for them was that Clinton "pushes harder." Again, that's their choice to make.)

Sanders, of course, had to say, unnecessarily, that he would defend Planned Parenthood (the non-political health care arm) against attack, a statement that was widely taken as walking back his criticism.

If you're a Sanders supporter, you likely noted in all of this the good part of PP (the clinics) and the "less good" part (the political arm). The health care part of the organization emerged from this dispute still known-good, while the the highly political Action Fund remained part of the problem, at least from a Sanders supporter's perspective. The political arm, which controls political spending, is indeed part of the well funded Democratic Establishment — Sanders was right in that assessment — and acts to protect the Establishment against the real progressive insurgency that the Sanders 2016 campaign represented.

Planned Parenthood Fights Unions in Colorado

Now come two illustrations, however, about the health care part of the organization that threaten to tar its own reputation as "known good." They are presented briefly below. Both involved Planned Parenthood in Colorado, and both involved an attempt at unionization within Planned Parenthood clinics.

For background on the Planned Parenthood union-busting story, read this good report at The Intercept. For now, this is all you need to know:

Colorado Planned Parenthood executives, with help from President Donald Trump’s labor board appointees, are fighting their health center workers’ unionization efforts in a case that could set a precedent for workers’ rights nationwide.

Ugly stuff — shades of Walmart and Amazon, in fact.

• First consider this plea from Mimi Yedinak, a Planned Parenthood clinic worker, writing on Facebook. (The following was printed as a single Facebook paragraph. I've taken the liberty of adding paragraph breaks where appropriate since many infrequent Facebook users have trouble creating paragraphs for themselves.)

Mimi Yedinak
June 14 at 2:17pp

Friends- today is my last day working for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains.

Many people are not aware that this past year PPRM’s clinic workers voted to create a union in order to improve issues like working conditions, wages and hours. Since we made this vote, PPRM’s management have only pushed back in order to keep us from accessing our basic employee rights.

Last night they sank to an incredible low. Some of my coworkers showed up to a PPRM fundraising event wanting to educate major donors about where their money is going and to encourage donors to specify that their money goes towards patient care and NOT towards anti-union activity (the agency has hired an anti-union lawyer whose hourly rate costs roughly the same price as an out-of-pocket medication abortion).

Instead of giving my colleagues an opportunity to inform donors, PPRM called the police on its own employees and threatened to have them arrested, including a loyal abortion provider who has been involved with this cause for over 30 years.

If you truly want to stand with Planned Parenthood then stand with its clinic workers and PLEASE get the word out to anyone you can (other donors, media, etc.) about how PPRM is treating its employees. Contact PPRM directly to let them know you support us and share this info with anyone who gives money to PPRM.

I’ve given the last two years of my life to this cause that I love so much and to see my colleagues bullied like this by the agency they have worked so hard for breaks my fucking heart. Stand up for the employees on the ground-floor like me, rather than those at the top who are fine with kicking us out of fundraisers and threatening us with unnecessary police force. Don’t let PPRM silence its employees.

#prochoice #propatient #prounion #standwithpp #droptheappeal

"Stand up for the employees on the ground-floor like me, rather than those at the top who are fine with kicking us out of fundraisers and threatening us with unnecessary police force." Sounds like every bad-actor organization you know.

• Next, note that the unionization issue seems to have escalated into the political sphere, with the local Action Fund getting involved. David Sirota's wife Emily is running for the state legislature in Colorado. He recently tweeted this:

My wife @EmilyForCO demanded Planned Parenthood execs stop working with the Trump admin to bust PP workers' union. PP execs then immediately decided to spend $50,000 to try to punish her & defeat her. Please donate here to help her fight back: https://t.co/KVYGwi2A4t

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) June 16, 2018

Seems she criticized the anti-union actions of local Planned Parenthood clinic executives, and the PP RR's Action Fund started spending money, apparently $50,000 to date, to try to defeat her. Keep in mind that Emily Sirota is a strong pro-choice advocate, and this is a Democratic primary.

You'd think they'd have better ways to spend $50,000, given to them in good faith to carry on the real fight, not the fight to keep clinic workers' wages low.

Ryan Grim tweeted his support for Emily Sirota in this dispute:

Planned Parenthood is spending $50k to beat a pro-choice woman after she supported Planned Parenthood workers trying to unionize. For a state legislative seat. https://t.co/mHEbUgIv7L

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) June 17, 2018

To which David Sirota replied:

Planned Parenthood execs claim they don't have money to raise Planned Parenthood workers' wages, and are now busting their workers' union. Yet, those same execs somehow have $50,000 to spend against a pro-choice woman who is speaking up for their workers. https://t.co/0XbFqnshKR

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) June 17, 2018

This shows to too many what the "Democratic Establishment" is made of. Note again that this isn't just the local Action Fund acting. The local PAC is defending vigorous Walmart-like anti-union behavior by the clinic.

How Will the Democratic Establishment Respond? How Will Voters Respond?

The 2018 elections are fast approaching and Democratic leaders are betting the farm that they can run and win as "not Trump." Of course, that's their choice to make. But will it work if stories like these keep popping up? Two key questions emerge as this unfolds.

How will Democratic leaders respond to this story, if they respond at all? And how will voters respond to stories like these — for examples, stories about widespread Democratic Party support for the comically corrupt Joe Crowley in his primary race against an actual and viable progressive challenger, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?

It's possible to brand yourself by your advertising, and many have made money selling that service. It's also possible to brand yourself by your deeds — for that, no outside help needed.

If the Democratic Party continues to brand itself as what caused many voters to rise up against it, what will its future be?

GP
 

Don't Buy Into The Idea That Trumpcare Is Too Horrible To Pass-- That's Not Criteria Republicans Use

George Stephanopoulos had two very different Senate Republican opponents of TrumpCare on his show Sunday, Susan Collins (R-ME), who finds the bill cruel and even draconian, and Rand Paul (R-KY), who doesn’t find it nearly draconian or cruel enough. He started with Rand Paul, pointing out to him that his position is at odds even with Señor Trumpanzee, who said the bill that bears his name should “have more heart.” Paul scoffed and ran off in directions unrelated to the debate outside of the one in his own head.

Well, you know, the fundamental flaw of Obamacare was that it added regulations to insurance, mandates, which made insurance more expensive, but then it also told individuals, you know what, if you don't want to buy now, you can wait and buy it after you're sick. That still remains, 10 of 12 regulations that add cost to insurance remain under the Republican bill. And we still say you can still by insurance after you're sick.

If you add those two together, you still get the death spiral. The Republican plan acknowledges that we're going to still have this death spiral, which is sicker and sicker people in the individual market and the healthy people don't buy insurance, they acknowledge this by putting over $100 billion of insurance bailout money to try to say, oh we're going to tamp down prices. We're going to fix the problem, we're going to acknowledge the will continue forever and we're just going to pile taxpayer money into it. That is just not a conservative notion to add a new federal program to bailout insurance programs… I'm not voting for something that looks just like Obamacare and still doesn't fix the fundamental flaw of Obamacare.

It was a weird discussion. Stephanopoulos kept babbling about the politics on the bill-- how many no votes are there? What will it take for McConnell to get your vote? That kind of stuff-- while Paul just wanted to make a tired libertarian case about abolishing all regulations. So George said au revoir and moved on to Susan Collins. He started by asking her if there is “any way this week for Senator McConnell and President Trump to come up with a bill that both you and Senator Paul can support?”

Collins: It's certainly going to be very difficult. For my part, I'm very concerned about the cost of insurance for older people with serious chronic illnesses, and the impact of the Medicaid cuts on our state governments, the most vulnerable people in our society, and health care providers such as our rural hospitals and nursing homes, most of whom are very dependent on the Medicaid program.

So threading that needle is going to be extremely difficult.

Stephanopoulos: You just heard Kellyanne Conway say though that those are not Medicaid cuts. What is your response to that?

Collins: Well, I respectfully disagree with her analysis. But this is why we need the Congressional Budget Office assessment of the impact of the Senate bill on costs and coverage, including its analysis of Medicaid. And that will be coming out tomorrow.

But based on what I've seen, given the inflation rate that would be applied in the outer years to the Medicaid program, the Senate bill is going to have more impact on the Medicaid program than even the House bill.

Stephanopoulos: So that means-- if that's true, and if that is confirmed by the Congressional Budget Office, you're a no?

Collins: I want to wait to see the CBO analysis. But I have very serious concerns about the bill.

Stephanopoulos: You also have concerns about Planned Parenthood. This bill would deny funding of Planned Parenthood for a year. I know you're planning on introducing an amendment with Senator Murkowski that would restore the funding for Planned Parenthood.

If that amendment fails, will you oppose final passage?

Collins: Well, first, let me say that it makes absolutely no sense to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood. There already are longstanding restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortion. So that's not what this debate is about. And Planned Parenthood is an important provider of health care services, including family planning and cancer screenings for millions of Americans, particularly women.

And they should be allowed to choose the health provider that they want. That's one of the issues that I care deeply about. But there are many others as well.

Stephanopoulos: Even though you think you'll prevail on the amendment, but if you don't, I understand that you have other concerns with the bill as well. Is Planned Parenthood funding a bottom line for you? If this bill denies funding to Planned Parenthood, are you against it?

Collins: It is one of many factors and a very important one that I will consider in casting my vote. But I'm also very concerned about the Medicaid cuts, what it means to our most vulnerable citizens. And I'm very concerned about the cost of insurance premiums and deductibles, particularly for that very vulnerable group between the age of 50 and 64.

They are particularly at risk, based on my initial analysis. So I'm going to look at the whole bill before making a decision.

Stephanopoulos: Are there a critical mass? We know that Senator Paul and three other conservatives want more repeal from their perspective. How many more senators do you believe share your views on Medicaid?

Collins: Well, there are several of us who have been meeting under the leadership of Senator Rob Portman to look at the Medicaid provisions. And there are about seven to eight people in that group. I can't speak for them. But suffice it to say that they are certainly concerned. And that is why the CBO analysis quantifying the cuts and the impact is going to be so important.

You can't take over $800 billion out of the Medicaid program and not expect that it's going to have an impact on a rural nursing home that relies on Medicaid for 70 percent of the costs of its patients. So this is an access issue as well as one having to do with cost.

Stephanopoulos: Does the bill pass this week?

Collins: It's hard for me to see the bill passing this week. But that's up to the majority leader. We could well be in all night a couple of nights working through what will be an open amendment process. And I think that-- that at least is good. The process could have been a lot better. I would've liked to have seen the Democrats step up to the table and negotiate with us now, not wait till the bill is passed or defeated.

So now the CBO score she was waiting for is out-- higher premiums for less insurance-- not to mention 22 million kicked off healthcare-- include 15nnext year. How's that, Senator Collins? Ultimately, I don’t see any Republican tanking the bill. Cruz, for example, already said that if he’s the deciding vote, he’ll hold his nose and vote YES, as always, a real man of principle. I think McConnell will give Dean Heller (R-NV) a pass if his NO vote doesn’t kill the bill, because of the local politics. But I can’t see Rob Portman, Collins or the 2 Alaskans finding the courage to actually vote NO, no matter how much worse they make the bill to please the far right fringe. Odd that none of them fear their constituents enough-- other than Heller-- to back away from a bill that only about 20% of the country supports. Maybe they have some surprises during the long break that starts next week. And while her staff is going over the CBO analysis, she might want to look at this analysis too, since it pertains to her own constituents in rural northern Maine.

...And The UPDATE:

Even Lindsey Graham is predicting that the CBO score will make it much harder for McConnell to get to 50 votes. And just a few hours ago, Susan Collins said that not only is she a NO, she'll vote against even allowing the vote to take place! She tweeted that the Republicans should work with the Democrats to improve Obamacare instead-- the first Republican senator to come to that very logical conclusion. Meanwhile House Freedom Caucus sociopath is railing that the Senate bill will be blocked by the Freedom Caucus because it isn't conservative enough. This guy is insane! (Help repeal him and replace him with Matt Coffay, the very vocal Medicare-For-All supporter running in western North Carolina for the seat Meadows holds.)

Planned Parenthood Support Much Bigger Than Trump Support In Key GOP-Held Districts

Polling for the runoff in the GA-06 race to replace Tom Price is very tight-- incredible for such a red district-- and Jon Ossoff is slightly ahead of radical right Republican Karen Handel-- 48-47%. Republican outside groups-- primarily the NRCC, the Chamber of Commerce and Ryan's shady, corporately-financed SuperPAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund have already spent over $7 million tearing Ossoff down and trying to bolster Handel. Friday Trump was in Atlanta raising $750,000 for Handel's campaign.

I don't think the new PPP surveys have been made public, but they conducted polls in 13 Republican-held districts for Planned Parenthood, all districts where Trump did poorly, 12 of which he lost to Clinton (all but NY-19, where he won narrowly):

• AZ-02 (McSally) 44.7%
• CA-21 (Valadao) 39.7%
• CA-49 (Issa) 43.2%
• CO-06 (Coffman) 41.3%
• FL-26 (Curbelo) 40.6%
• FL-27 (Ros-Lehtinen) 38.9%
• IL-06 (Roskam) 43.2%
• KS-03 (Yoder) 46.0%
• MN-03 (Paulsen) 41.4%
• NJ-07 (Lance) 47.5%
• NY-19 (Faso) 50.8%
• PA-07 (Meehan) 47.0%
• VA-10 (Comstock) 42.2%

Taken as a whole, the voters in the 13 districts-- remember all represented by Republicans-- oppose defunding Planned Parenthood-- 59% to 35%. The poll also shows that the majority of voters in those districts support ObamaCare, 53% to 36%. TrumpCare includes a provision to defund Planned Parenthood. PPP's director, Tom Jensen: "These results make it clear that targeting Planned Parenthood-- or trying to replace the Affordable Care Act with the American Health Care Act more generally-- is politically perilous for these swing district Republican members of Congress. Voters in these districts like Planned Parenthood, they like the Affordable Care Act, and efforts to hurt those things will imperil the Republicans in these districts as they look toward reelection next year."



Furthermore 54% of respondents said that they're less likely to vote for their Republican congressman if they vote to defund Planned Parenthood, compared to 30% who said they would be more likely to support them. Planned Parenthood plans to target Curbelo, Meehan, McSally, Issa, Coffman and Roskam with a TV ad campaign.

Mary Ellen Balchunis is the progressive Democrat who ran against Pat Meehan in 2016. The DCCC didn’t just not support her (in a district Hillary won); they actually sabotaged her campaign after she beat their preferred Wall Street-friendly candidate in a primary— a primary she won with 74% of the vote, despite the DCCC spending $200,000 to bolster her opponent. With Steve Israel finally gone, perhaps the DCCC won’t try screwing her over again in 2018, when she is once again likely to run against Meehan. We checked in with her today about his TrumpCare shenanigans. “In the first vote in committee, Congressman Meehan voted with Trump to defund Planned Parenthood, push what amounted to an Elderly Tax, and drop protections for patients with pre-existing conditions. I helped Planned Parenthood organize a ‘Pop-up Rally’ outside his district office before the vote was pulled. Meehan refused to say how he would vote. It wasn't until AFTER it was pulled that he said he wouldn't have voted for it. He is a Master Politician! He was campaign manager to Sen. Arlen Specter and Sen. Rick Santorum; and, of course, he was the master-mind in the drawing of PA-07 congressional district, considered the ‘poster child for gerrymandering.’ America Votes has said it is the ‘worst’ gerrymandered district in the nation. It is not surprising that Meehan is now saying that he will not vote to defund Planned Parenthood, now that the polls are showing that there is not support to defund. He is not a friend of Planned Parenthood or the many low income women who use the services. I don't trust him; Meehan, or as I say MEANhan, has been voting with Trump 92.2% of the time.”

And today's last minute development: another House Republican leadership scam. Greg Sargent hit the nail on the head:

With multiple media reports suggesting that the drive to repeal Obamacare may be on life-support, House Republicans are rolling out a last-ditch effort to salvage their repeal-and-replace bill before support for it collapses once again. They plan to introduce a new amendment that is designed to give moderates a way to pretend that the GOP bill won’t harm people with preexisting conditions-- and thus, a way to support the bill in the numbers needed to pass it.

In reality, the new amendment is unlikely to insulate moderate and vulnerable Republicans from potent political attacks if they do support the bill, since it will be pretty much just as cruel in human terms-- on multiple levels-- as the current one is. Unfortunately, with moderates under all kinds of other pressures to support the bill, the possibility of this working with just enough of them can’t be ruled out.

The new amendment, which is being championed by Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.)-- who made a huge splash by opposing the bill yesterday-- would essentially add $8 billion of funding in addition to the so-called high-risk pools, which are supposed to function as a safety net for people with preexisting conditions who lose coverage as a result of the GOP bill. The Republican plan would gut protections for people with preexisting ailments, because it would allow states to waive the prohibition on insurers from jacking up premiums for them-- a prohibition that’s called “community rating”-- which could lead to soaring costs and many of them getting priced out of the market entirely.

This is a major reason that so many moderates oppose the GOP bill. Even though the bill also requires states that waive those protections to set up some sort of mechanism for people with preexisting conditions-- such as high-risk pools-- history has shown that they are traditionally underfunded, hit sick people with massive premiums (since only sick people are in the risk pools), and, as a result, leave many uncovered.

Thus the new $8 billion amendment. The Associated Press reports that this $8 billion would be allotted to helping some of those people cover some of those costs so that fewer go without coverage. But as the AP notes, the sum is a paltry addition relative to what is currently in the bill, and that sum is already being derided as woefully inadequate-- so it’s hard to see how this $8 billion changes much.

...And let’s not forget the crucial larger context here. Though the discussion is heavily focused on preexisting conditions, the GOP bill would also cut $800 billion in spending on Medicaid, which could leave 14 million fewer people covered by that program, even as it delivers an enormous tax cut to the rich. So, even with this amendment-- which itself would probably do little to mitigate the harm to people with preexisting conditions-- the bill is still a massively regressive rollback of the ACA’s historic expansion of coverage. Many GOP moderates who opposed the first and most recent version of the bill cited this, too, as a crucial reason for opposing it. So it’s hard to see why this amendment should make a difference, in moral and substantive terms.

Of course, many of these moderates are probably looking for some way to get to Yes, and some may grab on to any kind of “change” to pretend that the bill’s cruel and regressive dimensions have somehow been mitigated. But if so, this could still constitute an enormous political risk. According to the New York Times’ whip count, a large number of House Republicans who currently oppose the GOP bill or are undecided are either moderates, or come from districts won by Hillary Clinton, or both. It’s very hard to see how this $8 billion addition will somehow insulate them from attacks, since the bill still guts protections for people with preexisting conditions and rolls back health coverage for millions and millions of poor people.

Key to understanding the politics here: Meadows and his vehemently anti-healthcare Freedom Caucus refused to vote for the bill unless it allowed insurance companies to charge whatever they like to cover people with pre-existing conditions. By agreeing to Upton's amendment, the Freedom Caucus has signaled that Upton isn't doing anything substantive to interfere with their jihad against healthcare for poor people. Even with Upton's amendment TrumpCare would still gut protections for people with pre-existing conditions and  end coverage for millions of poor people with the express purpose of giving a huge tax cut to multimillionaires and billionaires. And that is always something Fred Upton, hereditary scion of Whirlpool, has been in favor of. It steals $880 billion from Medicaid to further enrich the political donor class. And, according to the CBO, premiums rise by 20%. This is what "mainstream" Republicans are willing to vote for?

Another Reason Why Texas Women-- And Texas Men Who Like Women-- Should Support Beto O'Rourke

Beto is 44 and Ted Cruz is 46-- but look what God did to Cruz

This is a pretty easy one. Republican crackpot and extremist Diane Black (R-TN) introduced a bill to overturn a rule that prohibited states defunding Planned Parenthood. Back on February 16 it passed the House, 230-188, two Republicans voting with the Democrats and two dirty Blue Dogs-- Dan Lipinski (IL) and Collin Peterson (MN)-- voting with the Republicans, as they usually do. Beto O'Rourke, the congressman from El Paso, Texas, was one of 186 Democrats to oppose the rule.

Fast forward to last Thursday, March 30. Up pops Black's Joint Resolution. The vote gets called and all the Democrats vote NO-- including even the worst conservaDems like Manchin, Donnelly and Heitkamp (the 3 planning to help the Republicans confirm Gorsuch to the Supreme Court). Then two Republican women, Maine's Susan Collins and Alaska's Lisa Mirkowski, crossed the aisle and voted with the Democrats. You know what that means? 50/50 split.

McConnell called Pence and he scurried down to the Senate to break the tie and pass the toxic measure. There are three Republicans in jeopardy in 2018, jeopardy that could cause the Senate to shift hands from Republican to Democrat. If and it is a BIG "if," the Democrats manage to hold onto all the red state senators up for reelection and knock off Dean Heller (NV), Jeff Flake (AZ) and Ted Cruz (TX), game over for the Trump agenda... on the spot. Boom! Finito!

Heller, Flake and Cruz all voted to allow women who depend on one of the 650 clinic operated by Planned Parenthood for healthcare to suffer without it. They see around 2,500,000 million women annually. In Texas there are just 14 clinics left-- in Addison, Arlington, Austin, Bedford, Cedar Hill, Dallas, Denton, Fort Worth, Lewisville, Mesquite, Paris, Plano, Tyler and Waco. Cruz-- who now admits he would vote for a bill to repeal Obamacare even without replacing it-- wants all these clinics shut down. Beto wants women to have access to whichever healthcare they choose.

When Maine Republican Susan Collins said that "Family planning funds are the best way to reduce the number of abortions," Cruz sneered. “You already can’t use federal funds for abortion," she reminded Senate Republicans, so "we shouldn’t be restricting these family planning funds." Cruz is now trying to disqualify Planned Parenthood from being reimbursed by Medicaid to treat low-income women, which Collins called "so unfair because that’s treating them differently from every other Medicaid provider... That’s saying that women, in particular, cannot choose their own health-care provider and it’s very Republican to say that you ought to be able to make your own choice of provider." Cruz has long been a leading advocate in the Republican War against women. If women fight back, he'll be out of a job in 2019 and Beto O'Rourke will replace him in the Senate. If you'd like to help make that a reality, please tap on the Senate thermometer on the right and give what you can.

How Badly Has Paul Ryan Screwed Up The GOP's Chance To Repeal Obamacare?

The other day, Alex Samuels reported in the Texas Tribune that Barbara Bush, the daughter of George W. Bush, was the keynote speaker at a Planned Parenthood fundraiser in Ft. Worth on Wednesday, where she insisted that the work the organization is doing is especially important after the ascension of the Trump Regime. She told the thousand guests at the Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas' annual luncheon that "In October when I was asked to speak, I said yes and I was thrilled, but I was under the assumption that history was going to go differently. That was not meant to be a political statement; I just thought the cards were going to fall in a different way. I’m so happy I said yes because this work could not matter more... Our belief that health is a human right is not reflected in today’s reality. Millions of people's potentials and futures are undermined simply because they do not have access to the health care that they deserve. We have these incredible tools to solve problems, yet health systems are weak, and we need new leaders to fix them... To me, Planned Parenthood is a one-stop-shop for everything that has to do with women’s health and all social problems that don’t have to do with women’s health. I hope you all realize the incredible investment that you’re making for both women and also their kids, their kids' education and their income level. And that is unique and incredible. It’s a silver bullet, if you ask me."

And Barbara Bush isn't the only Republican uncomfortable with their party's bizarre jihad against Planned Parenthood. The idea of tying it to repealing Obamacare looks, in fact, like a poison pill of some kind. I doubt it will matter that much among House Republicans-- from where the idea comes-- but it could kill the package in the Senate. In 2015 Susan Collins (R-ME) voted against repealing the Affordable Care Act precisely because defunding Planned Parenthood was in the bill. There's no reason to think she's changed her mind and recently she was quoted saying that she doesn't think it makes sense to link the two issues. "If the House Republicans want to bring it up, it should be in a separate bill. I would oppose that bill, but it further complicates the negotiations to have it included in this bill."

And it's not just Collins. Ever since the national GOP stabbed Lisa Murkowsky (R-AK) in the back in 2010-- supporting Tea Party sociopath Joe Miller instead of her-- she's felt pretty independent for a Republican. Miller has the official Republican Party ballot designation, but she beat him-- and a weak Democrat-- as a write-in candidate (with 39.5% of the vote). Ever since, she's been one of the half dozen Republicans most willing to cross the aisle-- thumbing her nose at Miss McConnell on the way-- and vote with the Democrats. A couple of weeks ago, she addressed the state legislature and told them she's likely to vote against repealing Obamacare for two reasons-- the rollback of Medicaid expansion that the legislature had approved and which is extremely popular in Alaska, and the defunding of Planned Parenthood.

"As long as Alaska wants to keep the expansion it should have the option," Murkowski said. "I will not vote to repeal it."

Other parts worth preserving, Murkowski said, are provisions that prohibit insurers from discriminating against pre-existing conditions, aim to ensure mental health parity and allow young people to remain on their parents’ health insurance up to the age of 26.

Murkowski also stood in support of Planned Parenthood, which she said has no place in the ACA debate.

"Taxpayer dollars should never be used to pay for abortions, but I will not vote to deny Alaskans access to the health services that Planned Parenthood provides," said Murkowski.

Planned Parenthood provides health care for 7,700 Alaskans annually. Yesterday Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) told Chris Cuomo and CNN viewers yesterday that she had been "very forceful in repeatedly saying that the expansion of Medicaid is tremendously important to 184,000 West Virginians. That is something-- every time we talk about how has it moved to change-- I am constantly talking about." When Cuomo pressed her about whether or not Medicaid expansion is preserved in Ryan's secret bill, she said "it better be." That, of course, is at odds with GOP extremist who would just as soon abolish Medicaid altogether. One more Senate Republican bails-- for whatever reason-- and Obamacare repeal goes back to the drawing board... if it even gets off the drawing board. No one knows at this point because Ryan has "the plan" under lock and key. He wouldn't even allow Senator Rand Paul-- who says he's inclined to "leave it," not take it-- to look at it Thursday.



Kansas' gigantic, empty 1st congressional district takes up most of the state-- 61 full counties and part of two others. There are no actual cities although in includes Dodge City (pop- 27,340), Salina (pop- 47,707), Manhattan (pop- 52,281), Emporia (pop- 24,916), Liberal (pop- 20,525), Hutchinson (pop- 42,080) and gets into the western suburbs of Topeka. With a PVI of R+23, it's one of the most reliably Republican congressional districts in the country. Romney beat Obama there 70-28% and last November Trump beat Hillary by an even great margin-- 69.3% to 24.3%. And at the same time they elected a new congressman, replacing radical right lunatic Tim Huelskamp with... radical right lunatic Roger Marshall. With the surreptitious help of Paul Ryan, Marshall beat Huelskamp in the primary 58,808 (56.5%) to 45,315 (43.5%).

It isn't likely you've heard of Marshall, a natural born back-bencher destined to have no impact on anything ever, unless you live in one of the farms or towns that make up KS-01. He seems right out of the 1950s, a small town obstetrician delivering babies in a 79% white district, harboring frightening and antiquated ideas about healthcare. In an interview in Stat Friday, that ugly, mind-numbing, narrow-minded ignorance was on full display.

The law’s Medicaid expansion, which Kansas has not adopted despite support from many hospitals, including some of Marshall’s former colleagues, is one of the big sticking points for Republicans. Many GOP-led states adopted it and want to see it preserved in some form.

Marshall doesn’t believe it has helped, an outlook that sheds light on how this new player in Washington understands health policy.

“Just like Jesus said, ‘The poor will always be with us,’” he said. “There is a group of people that just don’t want health care and aren’t going to take care of themselves.”

Pressed on that point, Marshall shrugged.

“Just, like, homeless people… I think just morally, spiritually, socially, [some people] just don’t want health care,” he said. “The Medicaid population, which is [on] a free credit card, as a group, do probably the least preventive medicine and taking care of themselves and eating healthy and exercising. And I’m not judging, I’m just saying socially that’s where they are. So there’s a group of people that even with unlimited access to health care are only going to use the emergency room when their arm is chopped off or when their pneumonia is so bad they get brought [into] the ER.”

...“Our vision was that we would look more like a hotel with customer service that delivered five-star health care,” he said. “So our cafeteria looks more like a coffee shop than it does a sterile hospital dining room. We have bright windows everywhere, and outside of every window there’s a garden. Thinking that healing is more than just a knife and a needle.”

Planned Parenthood And Equality California Both Ignore "Identity Politics"-- Each Endorses Jimmy Gomez Based On His Record Of Achievement

Debra Spector presents Jimmy Gomez with Planned Parenthood's Champion of Choice award

Planned Parenthood was never an unhinged group of self-serving profiteers the way EMILY's List is, but many women candidates expect to be endorsed by an organization with Planned Parenthood's stated objectives, which are, after all, focused primarily towards making the lives of women better. And Planned Parenthood does endorse women candidates-- lots and lots of them. Why do they endorse women candidates? Easy: because the women candidates they endorse are better than their opponents. How revolutionary is that? Yesterday Planned Parenthood announced their endorsement of Jimmy Gomez for the open Los Angeles congressional seat that Xavier Becerra resigned from when he was appointed Attorney General. There isn't really anything remarkable about this endorsement, except for the fact that among the two dozen candidates in the race, several are pro-Choice women.

Jimmy's not a woman but in 2015 he was named Planned Parenthood’s "Champion of Choice" and last year he wrote and passed AB-1671, a law that protects Planned Parenthood clinics from illegal recordings by the right-wing extremists and the terrorists who consistently harass them, threatening their staff and patients. One of the women candidates running for the seat, Wendy Carillo, a journalist and former Bernie volunteer, is also a decent candidate and if I had to bet, I'd bet that given the chance she'll be good on Planned Parenthood's issues too? With Gomez, though, there's no guess work.

Celinda Vasquez, Vice President of Public Affairs for Planned Parenthood Advocacy Project Los Angeles explained why her organization gave their nod to Gomez. "Jimmy Gomez is a true champion for Planned Parenthood health centers and the women they serve. For three consecutive years we have turned to Jimmy Gomez to author and pass legislation to protect the safety of Planned Parenthood patients and staff, and to advance access to critical services like birth control and cancer screenings. We are confident that Jimmy will continue to advocate for women and families in Congress, and be a strong ally in the fight for access to Planned Parenthood health centers across the Country. Planned Parenthood Action Fund proudly endorses Jimmy’s campaign for Congress."

The best potential candidate for president in my opinion, Elizabeth Warren, happens to be a woman. I'm glad she is and I'll be glad to see a woman president. But if I thought Joe Biden or Cory Booker or that O'Malley character was a better candidate, I'd be rooting for one of them. I just looked at the Blue America list of the fiercest and most awesome congressional voices of the Resistance. The list includes Pramila Jayapal and, obviously Elizabeth Warren. They're not on the list because they're women; they're on the list because they are the best of the best, the cream of the crop; the smartest, the most effective, the most powerful.

I don't know the folks at Planned Parenthood but from watching them over the years, I've come to trust their instincts on candidates more than most DC-centric organizations. They gravitate towards candidates who are the best fighters for their cause-- man or a woman. Unlike the other candidates in the CA-34 race, Gomez has an incredibly strong record of accomplishment and leadership on their specific issues and on other issues important to progressives. Gender doesn't come into it. Nor should it. No one thinks we need more Betsy DeVoses, Marsha Blackburns, Joni Ernsts and Kyrsten Sinemas in government, right?

Same goes for the gay community. Two of the absolute worst Democrats in Congress both happen to be gay-- Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY) and Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ). ProgressivPunch rates their lifetime vote scores, very low "F." Sinema is probably worse but just marginally and both are corrupt on a Republican-level of corruption. They don't deserve support from the LGBT community.

This week Equality California, the biggest LGBT organization in the state, joined Planned Parenthood in urging voters to back Gomez. Among the two dozen candidates running, several are gay-- but Gomez isn't. So why did they endorse him? Do you really have to ask? Once again,it's all about the record of accomplishment, not the fine-sounding words. The Assemblyman who represents Silverlake, he worked with LGBT organizations to get his bill, AB 663 exactly right for the community. And then he got it passed. The bill integrates LGBT-specific cultural competency into training for administrators at long term care facilities, helping to ensure that LGBT seniors are treated with dignity and respect. In 2014, he authored AB 1951, which established the right of same-sex parents to be reflected on their children’s birth certificates. Equality California rates every member of the California state legislature. Gomez's rating: 100%.

Rick Zbur is the executive director of Equality California and he was very clear about why his organziation is working to elect Gomez. "As the climate in Washington grows colder and more hostile to LGBT people, immigrants and many others, who we send to Congress matters more than ever. Assemblymen Gomez stood out from a large field of LGBT allies because of his solid record of accomplishment on behalf of LGBT people. Time and again, he has proven himself one of our community’s most committed and dedicated allies in the state legislature, authoring and carrying priority bills for Equality California and helping to secure passage of others that address the needs of LGBT people. We are confident that he will head to Capitol Hill ready to fight for LGBT people, our state and the values important to all of us as Californians."

Paul Ryan Embraces Republican Overreach, Jeopardizing GOP House Majority

Whether Putin placed him in the White House or not, Trump— or Pence— is the president. And Schumer’s brilliant strategy of nominating unelectable corporate shills backed by Wall Street to ride into Senate seats on Hillary’s coattails in Pennsylvania, Iowa, Florida and Ohio means the GOP will control the Senate for at the very least 4 more years. That leaves one task to put the breaks on Trump— the 2018 House elections. Blue America is busy finding good candidates but reality of winning back the House is at least partially dependent on two other factors: Trump failing as miserably in governing as he has in the transition and in Cabinet-building and the Republican-backed Congress overreaching enough to infuriate the American public. I’m not a betting man, but I would bet on that whole mess happening— in spades.

This week, for example, CNN reported that Ryan is so cocksure of his ability to take healthcare away from 20 million Americans that he decided to gratuitously toss defunding Planned Parenthood into the mix. This is a big mistake, one that puts his whole project in danger. “A push by Republican congressional leaders,” explained the CNN report, “to defund Planned Parenthood could threaten passage of their top-priority legislation to repeal Obamacare because of opposition to the anti-abortion provision by two key GOP senators.” Since then at least two more Republicans are indicated discomfort with the repeal without replacing + Planned Parenthood defunding strategy.

House Speaker Paul Ryan announced Thursday that Republicans will move to strip all federal funding for Planned Parenthood as part of the process they are using early this year to dismantle Obamacare.

Congressional Republicans have tried for years to zero out all federal funding for Planned Parenthood because the group provides abortion services. The fight over Obamacare helped trigger a 16-day government shutdown in 2013, and Democrats and President Barack Obama insisted any Planned Parenthood provision targeting the group be removed from a bill to fund federal agencies.

The decision to add the controversial Planned Parenthood language, which is opposed by most Democrats, could have a major impact on getting the Affordable Care Act repeal legislation through the Senate because supporters need the backing of at least 50 of their 52 members and two pro-choice senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, won't commit to approving the bill with the Planned Parenthood provision in it.

Further complicating matters for Senate GOP leaders is Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, who announced this week he plans to vote against the Obamacare repeal legislation because the underlying budget measure it is attached to doesn't balance and adds to the deficit. If Murkowski, Collins and Paul all voted against the budget bill, it would be enough to torpedo the Obamacare repeal legislation.

"I'm going to wait and see what happens," Collins told reporters, indicating she thinks it's too early to decide how she will vote on the bill. "Obviously, I'm not happy to hear the speaker wants to include defunding of Planned Parenthood, an extremely controversial issue in the package."

Murkowski's told reporters Tuesday she was still weighing the issue. In 2015, she joined Collins in voting for an amendment to strip Planned Parenthood funding out of a budget bill that would have also repealed much of Obamacare. But Murkowski ultimately backed the repeal measure even though it had the anti-Planned Parenthood provision, which Obama ultimately vetoed.

"At this point and time, I have not been involved in a sit down with colleagues about specifics of reconciliation. So it's tough for me to speculate or engage in any conjecture," Murkowski said earlier this week. "We're going to be having a lot of discussions about that probably as soon as this week."

When asked her position Thursday, Murkowski's spokeswoman Karina Petersen said, the senator "is concerned about defunding Planned Parenthood as she is a longtime support of Planned Parenthood and has opposed broadly defunding the organization."

Republicans could drop the Planned Parenthood measure, but doing so could spark anger from the right-flank of their party and potentially make it harder to defund the organization at a later date.

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in his chamber, said "that's certainly where I am" when asked if he wanted to include defunding of the organization into the repeal measure. But he noted "that's place we start" and that nothing has "finally been decided yet."

"While we would like to have all 52 senators, if we have a vice president in the chair, that gives us a little bit of flexibility on reconciliation," Cornyn said Thursday, referencing the ability of the vice president to break Senate ties.

The vast majority of federal money that Planned Parenthood does receive funds preventive health care, birth control, pregnancy tests, and other women's health care services. Democrats also point out that much of the money the group received is through the Medicaid program, which reimburses health care clinics that provide care to those covered by the federal program.

Under the long-standing "Hyde amendment" that is attached to annual funding bills, no federal money is allowed to go to programs that include abortion services, unless they are needed to preserve the life of the mother or are caused by rape.

Democrats immediately denounced the news that Republicans again were working to bar future federal funds for Planned Parenthood.

"This is a priority for the Republicans," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi Thursday afternoon. "So I just would like to speak individually to women across America: this is about respect for you, for your judgment about your personal decisions in terms of your reproductive needs, the size and timing of your family or the rest, not to be determined by the insurance company or by the Republican ideological right-wing caucus in the House of Representatives. So this is a very important occasion where we're pointing out very specifically what repeal of the (Affordable Care Act) will mean to woman."

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, told CNN's Erin Burnett on OutFront Thursday that "concerned" women have lobbied against the move throughout the day.

Yesterday other Republican senators seemed shaky on repeal, including far right tea bagger Tom Cotton (R-AR). And Bob Corker (R-TN) said he’s not sold on the Republican plan to repeal Obamacare without a replacement.

Repeal and delay is the party leadership's attempt to deal with several competing political realities. The first is that they've promised up and down that at the first possible chance they'd repeal the law. ("I'm sorry, I know that much of the repeal piece is about making a political point, much of the repeal piece is about drawing a line in the sand," Corker admitted.) The second is that you can't just strip 20 million some-odd people of health insurance coverage and call it a day – you need to come up with your own "terrific" alternative, to borrow Donald Trump's phrasing, that won't reverse the enormous gains in covering the uninsured that have been made under Obamacare. But the third hard reality is that seven years and countless our plan is just weeks away promises later, the GOP still hasn't produced an actual alternative. Mostly because they can’t.

Hence repeal and delay – get points for repealing but punt the actual implementation three or more years down the road to give the party more time to, really, seriously, come up with a plan. In the meantime, Corker said, "it's become standard Republican orthodoxy" that low-income Americans will continue to receive some sort of help buying health insurance while we transition from the awful Obamacare system to the glorious GOP replacement where just as many people are insured but at less cost thanks to unicorn magic.

But repealing now without an actual replacement plan in place brings with it a host of problems, including the possibility of chaos in the insurance industry and, as a political matter, Republicans suddenly owning whatever goes wrong in health care. That's why Corker's not alone in his skepticism – GOP senators like Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky have also questioned the wisdom of the plan.

Corker pointed out another hard reality, this one budgetary. The repeal currently being pushed involves budget reconciliation, which cannot be filibustered. But that means that it's not a full repeal – they can repeal the tax side of the law but not the regulatory side. And if helping low-income Americans buy health insurance is now a given for the GOP, well that costs money. "Right now on the track we're on, the repeal process is going to repeal all revenues but keep in place the subsidies for three years," he noted. "What you're doing [then is] you're taking $116 billion by our calculations and just throwing it into a mud puddle by continuing subsidies without revenues."

Oh yeah, that's right, repealing Obamacare would balloon the budget deficit.

Corker, for one, thinks that ballooning deficits are a bad thing. Most of his colleagues at least theoretically agree, though as Robert's 10th rule of politics states, a party's dedication to fiscal responsibility is inversely proportional to its political power. One party in charge at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue tend not to care so much about deficits.

…[I]f repeal and replace has become repeal and delay, which could become repeal in name only, what's to become of Obamacare? Corker held out the prospect of basically making it a repeal in name only (RINO!) not through punting but tweaking. He said that if only Democrats would be willing to come to the table maybe a compromise could be hammered out in three areas: getting rid of the individual and corporate mandates, adjusting the list of essential benefits and giving governors more flexibility with Medicaid. "If you looked at those three things, that would be monumental as it relates to causing what has occurred to work," he said.

His bemoaning Democrats' refusing to compromise about Obamacare is rich. Corker's party has been the one holding a hard line where any solution short of full-stop-repeal has been denounced as caving in to tyranny. Democrats, starting with President Barack Obama, have repeatedly said that the law has problems which can be fixed only to have the GOP reply in near-unison that the only acceptable fix is repeal. I can't say whether it's even possible for a compromise to be reached on those three areas, but pointing to specific problems is a distinct step away from dismissing the entire law as an unfixable mess is an evolution.

Maybe the realities of governing will lead more GOPers to start making that distinction. Maybe – though it's probably not likely in today's Washington – "repeal" will end up being reform instead.

What do most Americans want? Medicare for all, of course, as a Gallup poll found in May.

Well over half of Americans want to replace Obamacare with a single-payer system. That figure, amazingly, includes 41 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents — even though the wording of the question specifies that the program would be "federally funded." (Mind you, more than half of Republicans oppose the idea.)… Fifty-nine percent of Democrats support the idea of both keeping the ACA and replacing it with a single-payer program. Asked to pick between the two, though, that group favors single-payer by a 2-to-1 margin.

And, by the way, Roy Cooper, less than a week since becoming governor of North Carolina, announced that he’s putting through Medicaid expansion that will grant as many as 650,000 poor North Carolinians health insurance under Obamacare. It will pump around $3 or $4 billion in federal money into the state and will immensely improve North Carolinian’s healthcare, especially in rural areas. The radical right Republican-controlled legislature is already talking about impeaching him for it.

And now Trump has undercut Ryan, McConnell and Pence to say he doesn't back a repeal without a replacement