#Rep. Rob Portman
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years ago
Text
Here are just two of the corporate giveaways hidden in the rushed, must-pass, end-of-year budget bill
Tumblr media
Yesterday, Congress finally voted through the must-pass, end-of-year budget bill. As has become routine, this bill was stalled right until the final moment, so that Congressjerks could cram the 4,000-page, $1.7 trillion package with special favors for their donors, at the expense of the rest of the country.
This year’s budget package included a couple of especially egregious doozies, which were reported out for The American Prospect by Lee Harris (who covered a grotesque retirement giveaway for the ultra-rich) and Doraj Facundo (who covered a safety giveaway to Boeing and its lethal fleet of 737 Max airplanes).
Let’s start with the retirement scam. The budget bill includes Rep Richie Neal’s [DINO-MA] SECURE Act 2.0, which gives savers with retirement funds until age 75 to cash out their retirement savings — netting an extra three years of tax-free growth for the lucky, tiny minority with substantial retirement savings. This follows on Neal’s SECURE Act 1.0 of 2019, when the age was raised from 70.5 to 72.
The tax-exempt retirement savings account is a Carter-era bargain that replaced real pensions — ones that guaranteed that you wouldn’t starve or freeze to death when you retired — with accounts that let people gamble on the stock market, to be the suckers at Wall Street’s poker table:
https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/25/derechos-humanos/#are-there-no-poorhouses
The market-based gambler’s pension is a catastrophic failure. Half of Americans have no retirement savings. Of the half that have any savings, the vast majority have almost nothing saved:
https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scf/dataviz/scf/chart/#series:Retirement_Accounts;demographic:all;population:all;units:have
All in all, America has a $7 trillion retirement savings shortfall:
https://crr.bc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IB_19-16.pdf
But for a tiny minority of the ultra-rich, tax-free savings accounts like ROTH IRAs are a means of avoiding even the paltry capital gains tax that you have to pay if you own things for a living, rather than doing things for a living. Propublica’s IRS Files revealed how ghouls like Peter Thiel avoided tax on billions in “passive income” by abusing tax-free savings accounts that were supposed to benefit the “middle class”:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/26/wax-rothful/#thiels-gambit
Meanwhile, Social Security is crumbling, thanks to a sustained attack on it by the business lobby and its friends in both parties. Progressive Dems had sought to amend SECURE Act 2.0 by inserting some clauses to shore up Social Security, and none of these were included in the final bill.
One of the fixes that died was the Savings Penalty Elimination Act, introduced by Senators Sherrod Brown [D-OH] and Rob Portman [R-OH]. This act would have tweaked the means-testing for Supplemental Security Income, which supports 8m low-income disabled adults and kids. Right now, you can’t collect SSI if you have $2k in the bank, a limit that hasn’t been adjusted for inflation since the 1980s (adjusted for inflation, $2k in 1980 is $7226.00 in 2022).
The $2k savings cap means that you have to be substantially below the poverty level to receive $585/month in SSI assistance — this being the only source of income for the majority of SSI recipients. Means-testing is a self-immolating fetish for corporate Dems and in retrospect, this betrayal seems inevitable:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/03/utopia-of-rules/#in-triplicate
(Notice how no one proposes means-testing billionaires when they get PPP loans or hundreds of millions in IRS “refunds” — like Trump, who paid substantially less tax than you did:)
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/21/trump-income-tax-returns-detailed-in-new-report-.html
And it was a betrayal: progressive Dems bargained with Neal and co not to publicly condemn SECURE Act 2.0 if they could get some concessions for the 8 million poorest disabled people in America. In the end, Neal rug-pulled them. Of course he did! This is Richie Fucking Neal, the best friend the Trump tax giveaway ever had:
https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/13/youre-still-the-product/#richie-neal
As with everything Neal touches, this screws poor people in multiple ways. First, it leaves the SSI cap intact. But it also creates a giant unfunded liability in the federal budget. Technically, there’s no reason this should lead to cuts. The US Treasury can’t run out of dollars, and giveaways to the rich are only mildly inflationary, since rich people put their money in the bank and mostly spend it on buying politicians, not goods.
But because of the delusion that currency producers like the US Treasury have the same constraints as currency users like you and me, Congress will need to come up with “Pay Fors” in future budgets to “make up for” the money they’re giving to rich people with SECURE Act 2.0. Dollars to toenail clippings, they’ll do that by hacking away at the tattered remains of the US social safety net.
Fear not, you don’t need to be a desperately poor disabled person or child to get fucked over by late additions to a 4,000 page must-pass bill! If you can afford to get on an airplane, Congress has something for you, too!
Remember when Boeing (the monopoly US airplane manufacturer that squandered $43b on stock buybacks and had to borrow $14b from the US public to survive the pandemic) told the FAA that it could self-certify its 737 Max airplanes, and then killed hundreds and hundreds of people with its defective planes?
https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/12/boeing-crashes/#boeing
The 737 Max was unsafe for many reasons, but one glaring factor was the fact that Boeing sold some of its core safety as “extras” — like they were downloadable content for your Fortnite character — leading to multiple crashes in which all lives were lost:
https://apnews.com/article/ethiopia-indonesia-accidents-ap-top-news-international-news-140576a8e9d4449eae646c8c479fdc3a
Boeing was forced to take the 737 Max out of service, but it eventually brought the plane back, “fixing” the problems by renaming the “737 Max” to the “737 8”:
https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/20/dubious-quantitative-residue/#737-8
Supposedly, Boeing has been diligently working on fixing the problems with its defective jets that can’t be addressed by a rebranding campaign. This wasn’t voluntary: the 2020 Aircraft Certification, Safety, and Accountability Act required Boeing — and every other manufacturer whose aircraft were certified by the FAA — to meet new minimum safety standards by December 27, 2022.
Every manufacturer met that deadline, except Boeing, and someone amended the budget bill to give the company three more years to meet these security standards. Critically, the new security measures, when they come, will be certified by an FAA that Republicans will control, thanks to the House changing hands.
https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/government-spending-bill-waives-aircraft-safety-deadline/
Boeing is slated to ship 1,000 new 737 Maxes, which will fetch $50b for the company. Many of these planes will fly directly over my house, which is on the approach path for Burbank airport. Southwest Air flies dozens of 737 Maxes right over my roof every single day.
As Facundo points out, the FAA can ill afford any more hits to its credibility. It was once the case that if the FAA certified an aircraft, every other country in the world would waive any further certification, so trusting were they of the FAA’s judgment. That is no longer the case: today, the European Aviation Safety Agency does its own aircraft testing, holding jets that enter EU airspace to a higher standard than the FAA does for US planes.
It’s just another reminder that the US doesn’t have “corporate criminals” because the US doesn’t have any meaningful enforcement for corporate crimes. In America, we love our companies like we love our billionaires: too big to fail and too big to jail:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/12/no-criminals-no-crimes/#get-out-of-jail-free-card
Image: Ryan Lee (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/190784293@N05/50862532686
CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
Henry Wadey (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flames_%2858765896%29.jpeg
CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
[Image ID: A living room scene, featuring a sofa in the background and a sofa in the foreground. A man's hand reaches into the frame to lift up the corner of the sofa. A broom enters the frame to sweep a pile of dirt under the rug. Mixed in with the dirt are a crashed WWI biplane with Southwest Airlines livery, and an old lady in a rocking chair.]
84 notes · View notes
cogitoergofun · 3 years ago
Text
A Republican lawmaker attended his gay son’s wedding just three days after joining the majority of his GOP colleagues in voting against a House bill that would codify federal protections for same-sex marriage.
The gay son of Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., confirmed to NBC News on Monday that he “married the love of [his] life” on Friday and that his “father was there.” NBC News is not publishing the names of the grooms, neither of whom is a public figure. 
Thompson’s press secretary, Maddison Stone, also confirmed the congressman was in attendance. 
“Congressman and Mrs. Thompson were thrilled to attend and celebrate their son’s marriage on Friday night as he began this new chapter in his life,” Stone said in an email, adding that the Thompsons are “very happy” to welcome their new son-in-law “into their family.”
[...]
Thompson, who represents the state’s 15th congressional district, was one of 157 House Republicans who voted against the bill on Tuesday. However, 47 of his GOP colleagues joined Democrats to pass the bipartisan measure following fears that existing same-sex marriage protections could be in the crosshairs of the conservative-leaning Supreme Court. 
The Respect for Marriage Act is now being considered by the Senate, where 10 GOP lawmakers must join all 50 Democrats to send the legislation to the desk of President Joe Biden. One of five Republican senators who has already confirmed a yes vote on the bill is Rob Portman of Ohio, who declared his support for same-sex marriage in 2013 after his son came out as gay. 
The bill comes at a time when 71% of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, supports same-sex marriage, according to a Gallup poll last month.
While support for same-sex marriage has grown among Republican voters and some Republican lawmakers, the most recent Republican National Committee platform — enacted in 2016 and renewed in 2020 — includes at least five references to marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman.
6 notes · View notes
beardedmrbean · 3 years ago
Text
A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers flew to Taiwan for an official visit Thursday, defying threats from the Chinese government.
Lawmakers from both the House and Senate landed in the country Wednesday morning to a warm welcome from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. The Chinese government soon released a statement condemning the visit.
The lawmakers visiting were Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Richard Burr of North Carolina, and Rob Portman of Ohio, Republican Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson, and Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez.
The lawmakers are among the most high-level U.S. officials to visit Taiwan, a territory of China. Mainland China argues Taiwan is a rogue region of China and not an independent country. 
The U.S. has tenuously respected that designation for decades, even while sending military aid and occasional visits from U.S. officials to support Taiwan.
CHINA ACCUSES US, TAIWAN OFFICIALS OF ‘PLAYING WITH FIRE’ WITH  UKRAINE COMPARISONS
"China firmly opposes any form of official interaction between the U.S. and China’s Taiwan region," the spokesperson for the Chinese government tweeted Thursday.
Fears that China may move to invade Taiwan have risen in recent years, thanks to China's increasing aggression in the region, including frequent air force flights near Taiwan's airspace.
The issue has also been highlighted thanks to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Observers say Russia's invasion may embolden China to take action on its own.
The U.S. delegation in Taiwan will meet with President Tsai and is scheduled to depart Friday.
15 notes · View notes
Text
The SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act: An Update!
The US Senate bill that would let disabled & elderly people save more money while still keeping their Social Security benefits (and which is pegged to inflation so we don’t need to keep passing increases over and over!) aka baby’s personal favorite legislation of the 117th Congress, has a little update!
On 06/06/2022, the bill’s original sponsors, senators Sherrod Brown (OH Dem) and Rob Portman (OH Rep), were joined by two new sponsors, Senator Ron Wyden (OH Dem) and Senator Bill Cassidy (LA Rep). (Source: official congressional website for the SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act, also known as S.4102) The more bipartisan support, the better a chance it has of actually passing, so I’m excited!
Right now, it’s still in the Senate Committee on Finance. Keep in mind that Sherrod Brown actually introduced this legislation (or something very similar) in a previous year and it didn’t go through, but now he has Portman on board and Portman is going to get replaced in 2022, probably by a far worse Republican (fucking JD Vance, a massive capitalist who thinks welfare is Bad), so the time to get this passed is now! We don’t know what the 2022 midterms will bring.
Here’s all the current Senate Committee on Finance members, with links to their Wikipedia page. If one of these belongs to you, now would be a great time to call or send a letter! If you enter in your state on the official Senate site it will tell you their official Senate contact info. If you'd like to read the full text of the bill, I recommend it, it's very short, probably shorter than this post! I don't have a head count of who supports it at this point, but it wouldn’t hurt to let them know that they should! (I mean, I’m guessing Elizabeth Warren’s on board, lmao, but.)
DEMOCRATS on the Senate Committee on Finance
Ron Wyden, Oregon, Chairman - new co-sponsor
Debbie Stabenow, Michigan
Maria Cantwell, Washington
Bob Menendez, New Jersey
Tom Carper, Delaware
Ben Cardin, Maryland
Sherrod Brown, Ohio - original co-sponsor
Michael Bennet, Colorado
Bob Casey, Pennsylvania
Mark Warner, Virginia
Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island
Maggie Hassan, New Hampshire
Catherine Cortez Masto, Nevada
Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts
REPUBLICANS on the Senate Committee on Finance
Mike Crapo, Idaho, Ranking Member
Chuck Grassley, Iowa
John Cornyn, Texas
John Thune, South Dakota
Richard Burr, North Carolina
Pat Toomey, Pennsylvania
Tim Scott, South Carolina
Bill Cassidy, Louisiana- new co-sponsor
James Lankford, Oklahoma
Steve Daines, Montana
Rob Portman, Ohio - original co-sponsor
Todd Young, Indiana
Ben Sasse, Nebraska
John Barrasso, Wyoming
11 notes · View notes
theyoungturks · 3 years ago
Video
youtube
At a recent U.S. Senate debate, Tim Ryan called out J.D. Vance for doing nothing but kissing Donald Trump's ass. Ana Kasparian discusses on The Young Turks. Watch LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. http://youtube.com/theyoungturks/live Read more HERE: https://www.mediaite.com/politics/trump-took-j-d-vances-dignity-from-him-on-the-stage-tim-ryan-brutally-mocks-republican-opponent-during-senate-debate/ "Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) went on the offensive during Monday’s U.S. Senate debate, casting opponent J.D. Vance (R) as a lackey for former President Donald Trump, who told rally-goers last month in Youngstown, Ohio that the Republican hopeful “is kissing my ass.” Vance, the author of the best-selling Hillbilly Elegy, formerly opposed Trump, but ultimately supported him and was rewarded with the former president’s endorsement during the Republican primary. Ryan is trying to win the seat occupied by retiring Sen. Rob Portman (R) in a state Trump won twice. The congressman has tried to portray himself as a maverick and has distanced himself from Democratic Party leaders who are unpopular in the Buckeye State." *** The largest online progressive news show in the world. Hosted by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian. LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. Help support our mission and get perks. Membership protects TYT's independence from corporate ownership and allows us to provide free live shows that speak truth to power for people around the world. See Perks: ▶ https://www.youtube.com/TheYoungTurks/join SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ http://www.facebook.com/TheYoungTurks TWITTER: ☞ http://www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM: ☞ http://www.instagram.com/TheYoungTurks TWITCH: ☞ http://www.twitch.com/tyt 👕 Merch: http://shoptyt.com ❀ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com đŸ“±App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA #TYT #TheYoungTurks #BreakingNews 221011__TA01TimRyan by The Young Turks
1 note · View note
dhaaruni · 4 years ago
Note
Hope you're feeling better!! Dont feel obligated to answer this but im just straight up exhausted from washington journalists - why do you think even credible beltway reporters cant seem to help themselves from doing horserace pieces or any type of serious reframing? Like I see these journo guys on twitter reblogging all these like pledges about how to cover politics where the context is the GOP is openly running against democracy but then going ahead and interviewing these folks w ZERO pushback??? Do you think there is any possibility of industry overhaul?
I am feeling a bit better, taking it day-by-day, thank you for your kind words.
I think the issue boils down to even reporters at reputable news sources like CNN or WaPo hailed from places like Politico or in Kaitlan Collins’ case, The Daily Caller. I don’t even think Politico is all terrible since there are some pieces that are worthwhile in it, but their feature writers and opinion writers opt for sensationalism over accuracy because that’s what brings about more clicks.
Like, Donald Trump was good for the Beltway press’ business model, and they’re trying to recreate it with Republicans. Reporters could write a puff piece on his late night Twitter rant and be done with work by 10am and then fuck around Twitter for the rest of the day! Now, they have to *shudder* do their jobs and report on the actual happenings in the White House and Congress and on legislation. Like, the Republicans being batshit insane and hurling masks at staffers and claiming the insurrection is a tourist adventure gets way more traffic than like, Mark Warner and Bernie Sanders bickering for 10 minutes about how they want to distribute the infrastructure budget and then agreeing that childcare is essential to include in it.
It’s just really mercenary, like reporters really don’t need to chase Republicans around to get comments day in and day out when there are dozens of House and Senate Democrats standing right there. Like, go ask *spins wheel* Sherrod Brown or Catherine Cortez-Masto what they think of the infrastructure negotiations! Brown reps Ohio, which Trump won twice, and CCM reps Nevada, which Biden won less than 3%, and she’s up for re-election in 2022! But no, they’d much rather treat Republicans like Rob Portman, who didn’t acknowledge Biden won the election for over a month, like good faith actors.
It’s like this: Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, who impeached Trump in 2021 but acquitted him in 2020, will always get better press than Dems like Conor Lamb and Lauren Underwood, who flipped districts, and Sherrod Brown and Jon Tester in the Senate, whose states Trump won twice, who all quietly voted with their party to convict Trump twice. I’m not going to give a few Republicans for doing the right thing once when the majority of Democrats in the House and Senate vote party-line every single time! Even Joe Manchin never votes against Democrats when he’s the deciding vote like him being a Democrat is why Chuck Schumer is Senate majority leader, so I’m not going to spend my time complaining he doesn’t vote like Elizabeth Warren (whose anti-Betsy DeVos rally Manchin attended for the record). 
To be fair though, even voters hold Democrats to different standards than Republicans, which is why Abigail Spanberger has to be a moderate while Republicans in swing districts can vote to overturn the election and will still sail to reelection in 2022. That’s also why the press sucks, but so do American voters, which has to be understood as we try to build a more perfect union.
8 notes · View notes
democracyunderground · 4 years ago
Link
"The #House, and especially the #Senate, are full of Portman types: long-serving, mainstream #Republicans who pride themselves on being practical problem-solvers - but who did not lift a finger to stop the takeover of their party by the lunatic fringe."
"After Trump won, however, #Portman caved just as the rest of the #GOP did. In Portman's case, he supported Trump on 88.3 percent of the legislation, higher than Sen. #RandPaul (R-KY) or Sen. #LindseyGraham (R-SC)."
3 notes · View notes
socialistexan · 5 years ago
Text
With Romanoff's loss in Colorado, we likely aren't getting an actual progressive into the Senate this year (Dems really went balls out of Milquetoast corporatists this year), so our next best shot is 2022, where there's some real possibilities, either through retirements, primaries, or weak Republican incumbents in purple/lean blue states.
Retirements
We have no word on any retirements yet, but I'm sure there will be a small handful between now and 2022. California could open up if Biden does the obvious and picks Kamala Harris and they somehow pull out the win, besides that, not many open seats as of now.
Primaries
New York
This one should be front and center for Dems in 2022. Schumer has been a total failure as Senate Leader, allowing through a record number of federal judges for Trump, rolling over to McConnell and monied interests at every possible turn, total failure to wield any power. Not only that, but he's hippie punched every chance he got and threw tens of millions of dollars against progressives in open primaries. In an increasingly left-leaning state like NY, there should not be a Dem like Schumer representing them. He'll have Wall Street and Washington in his corner, but that about it. Large Progressive bench with a strong slate of progressive orgs and a built in progressive star in AOC. Schumer needs to watch his back.
Potential progressive challengers: AOC, Jamaal Bowman, Julia Salazar, Cynthia Nixon, Richie Torres, Zephyr Teachout, Jabari Brisport
Connecticut
Richard Blumenthal is a strong Biden ally, so that's a potential boost for him there, but he's also tough on crime (73% from the NAPO), anti-Palestine, pro-War and pro-corporate and that's hard to stomach in the Democratic party of 2022. Connecticut also doesn't exactly have a large bench with its size, it'll have to come from a state rep/sen, mayor, or city Councilor.
Potential progressive challengers: Travis Simms, Saud Anwar, Mike D'Agostino
Colorado
Michael Bennet, anothe hippie punching corporatist. It's hard to take him down, but Colorado isn't just trending Blue, but to the actual left (unlike say Virginia), so when Biden, should he win, totally fails to bring any victories for the Left, I think it puts a huge target on the Clinton-world favorite Bennet. It's hard to see a Pay-Go, pro tax cut, pro-cop, anti health care Dem being all that popular in Colorado. He kept his profile pretty low and let himself be "generic Democrat" for a while, but his Presidential run exposed him. Who his challenger is, well that's the tough part.
Potential progressive challengers: Andrew Romanoff, Julie Gonzales, Emily Sirota
Maryland
Chris Van Hollen, similar to the above, but fewer potential challengers
Potential progressive challengers: Ben Jealous, Brandon Scott
Republican seats
North Carolina
Richard Burr in a state that is increasingly swingy. Biden might just pick this one up win or lose overall. Very Virginia-esque Dem party, so a progressive breaking through will be tough. One or the most likely flips in 2022 so I it needs to be a priority.
Potential progressive challengers: Erica Smith??? I don't know many else, nor can I find many. Someone in NC give me a hand here, this is an important seat.
Wisconsin
Ron Johnson feels like an incredibly weak incumbent. He was saved by Trump in 2016, but he won't have that benefit in a midterm regardless of who wins in 2020. Even if Biden wins and there's a first midterm backlash (there always is), Wisconsin feels very gettable. What you need is a labor focused candidate that will excite young people and PoC in places like Milwaukee. Problem is, who steps up?
Potential progressive challengers: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and that's a problem. Wisconsin used to be a labor dominated state, Milwaukee had socialists mayors for g-dssake. Idk, followers in Wisconsin, educate me, please.
Kentucky
Rand Paul is just a weird guy. He's unpopular in Kentucky, but his, uh, "independent" streak gives him a leg to stand on that isn't tied directly to any national level Republican so he could be tough no matter who wins in 2020. I can see the Primary being a repeat of the 2020 Primary after McGrath gets demolished by McConnell, but with Booker getting two years to really boost himself instead of getting a last second rush at the end.
Potential progressive challengers: Charles Booker
Ohio
Ohio is tough. A former bellwether state, it's now solidly red. Rob Portman is a bit of a jam. He might have a primary from the right, so who knows how that'll affect him, either pushing him to the right in a red state or framing him as the "reasonable" conservative in a former Purple state. I can see the primary coming down to Tim Ryan and Nina Turner if she chooses to run.
Potential progressive challengers: Nina Turner, Morgan Harper
Also I think it's unlikely, buy I'd love to see Pramila Jayapal primary Patty Murray.
12 notes · View notes
rapeculturerealities · 6 years ago
Text
Most of Ohio’s Republican Congressional delegation has signed a letter urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider, and possibly overturn, the landmark abortion decision "Roe v. Wade."
The amicus brief was filed Thursday by 207 members of Congress in "June Medical Services v. Gee," a Supreme Court case considering a Louisiana abortion law that requires doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.
Sen. Rob Portman joined the brief, along with Reps. Steve Chabot, Warren Davidson, Anthony Gonzalez, Bill Johnson, Jim Jordan, Bob Gibbs, Bob Latta, Troy Balderson, Mike Turner and Brad Wenstrup – all Republicans.
46 notes · View notes
phroyd · 5 years ago
Link
President Trump’s inaccurate assertion that he has “total” authority to reopen a nation shuttered by the coronavirus is igniting a fresh challenge from governors scrambling to manage their states and highlighting a Republican Party reluctant to defy a president who has relished pushing the boundaries of executive power.
The president’s claim, first conveyed in a tweet Monday morning and underscored at a White House news conference and subsequent social media posts, caught his aides off guard and prompted them to study whether Trump would have such authority in a time of emergency like the ongoing pandemic.
Republicans were largely tepid in their criticism of Trump’s expansive views on his power, which he has wielded throughout his presidency as he circumvented the legislative branch on matters of spending and subpoenas, while enjoying decisions in which he maintained universal authority such as issuing pardons. Trump has also issued a multitude of executive orders while relying heavily on myriad acting administration officials rather than subjecting them to the Senate confirmation process.
At a White House briefing late Tuesday, Trump offered conflicting statements about which entity had the authority to reopen, seeming to backtrack from his claim Monday but at the same time insisting the federal government would have the final say.
“The governors are responsible. They have to take charge,” said Trump, who added that some states want to reopen now and probably can before May 1, while others aren’t there yet. He said that if a state with many cases tries to reopen early, the federal government might step in.
“If we disagree with it, we’re not going to let it open,” he said, before adding, “We’re there to help. But we’re also there to be critics.”
Earlier in the day, Trump’s comments on reopening the nation were challenged by his presumptive Democratic rival this fall, former vice president Joe Biden, and also by prominent governors overseeing the public health crisis in their states such as New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who in his daily news conference Tuesday skewered at length Trump’s position as wildly off-base from the Constitution.
Cuomo said the president’s claim of total authority is “not an accurate statement,” because the basic principle of federalism is enshrined in the Constitution, in which powers not given to the federal government remain with the states.
“The statement that he has total authority over the states and the nation cannot go uncorrected,” Cuomo said. “There are many things that you can debate in the Constitution because they’re ambiguous. This is not ambiguous.”
Later Tuesday in his own remarks, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) was less pointed toward Trump but nonetheless unequivocal, tweeting: “When it comes to reopening, SCIENCE — not politics — must be California’s guide.” Newsom outlined six factors he will consider in doing so, including protecting communities from the spread of the virus and ensuring that hospitals could handle any surge in cases.
The fresh power struggle between the federal government and state officials came as the toll of the pandemic continued to grow, with more than 25,000 people dead from the virus in the United States and more than 600,000 confirmed to be infected.
The International Monetary Fund said Tuesday that the pandemic is causing the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It is also inflicting acute pain in the medical sector, which continues to struggle with supplies and personnel becoming sick, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention saying Tuesday that 9,000 health care workers have tested positive.
In another assertion of authority, Trump said he would halt funding to World Health Organization while a review was conducted. He has criticized the organization for its slow response in the early days of the outbreak, but by Jan. 30, the organization declared a global health emergency, after which the president continued to play down the outbreak and compared it with seasonal flu.
Governors also began outlining their strategy for reopening their states in the coming weeks and months, while a consortium of seven East Coast states continued a plan to explore how and when to lift restrictions in their geographically aligned states.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) was among the state leaders who made clear Tuesday that the facts on the ground must dictate when the current restrictions can begin to ease.
“This monster is still going to be with us at least until we get a vaccine,” DeWine, who has said his state has had a good working relationship with federal officials so far, said at a Tuesday news conference. “It’s not going away, and that’s the sad news. . . . We are 12-18 months away from this going away. We’re going to have to live with it..”
Two White House officials said there was no broader planning for Trump’s comments that he had “total” authority and that they were both surprised by his tweets to that effect Monday. There was no legal underpinning for the remarks in advance, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk frankly, and “it is widely viewed with skepticism in the building that we should be doing this.
The White House Counsel’s Office is studying what authority the president actually does have during a national emergency, according to the officials. But the operating plan in the White House is not to try to force any state to reopen, although one senior White House official said they had been in contact with some states — such as Texas, Mississippi and Tennessee — about reopening sooner rather than later.
“I am almost positive James Madison fell off a cloud somewhere today when Trump said that,” said Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor. “The founders of the republic stitched together a complicated game of chess to ensure our president was a very weak king who could be simultaneously slowed down by the legislature, judiciary and federalism. His authority is far from total.”
Another prominent GOP donor, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations, said there was an effort “to talk him into a better place.”
One official said Trump is frustrated that the governors are getting so much credit and no blame while he gets all the blame and none of the credit. He particularly complains about Cuomo, this official said.
“Cuomo’s been calling daily, even hourly, begging for everything, most of which should have been the state’s responsibility, such as new hospitals, beds, ventilators, etc.,” Trump tweeted earlier Tuesday. “I got it all done for him, and everyone else, and now he seems to want Independence! That won’t happen!”
Trump has said repeatedly that the federal government is merely a backup to the states and that the onus is on the governors to deal with the pandemic.
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said in a recent interview that “at the end of the day, it will be the governors that make these decisions.”
Combative in public, Trump administration and congressional leaders negotiate behind the scenes on coronavirus relief
One Republican ally close to the president said Trump did not initially want to be associated with decisions to close down the government because “closing is bad news, and opening is good news.” And he spoke with governors such as Florida’s Ron DeSantis (R) who were skeptical, said this person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
Trump was happy to accept the argument from some advisers that he should invoke federalism, and the president repeatedly emphasized states’ rights when questioned by reporters in recent weeks why he was not instituting a national stay-at-home order. But he sees a political triumph in reopening the economy and wants credit for it, this person said.
In a tweet Monday, Biden said that he is “not running for office to be King of America.”
“I respect the Constitution,” Biden said. “I’ve read the Constitution. I’ve sworn an oath to it many times. I respect the great job so many of this country’s governors — Democratic and Republican — are doing under these horrific circumstances.”
Within the GOP, Trump’s biggest challenge to his exertion of executive power came last year, when a dozen GOP senators voted to reject an emergency declaration the president issued to take taxpayer dollars from the military and other accounts for a border wall that Congress had denied.
Of that dozen, two — Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) — issued comments Tuesday, both stressing that states should retain the power to regulate their own activities. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said in a statement: “I respect the authorities of the office of the presidency. I also recognize that it will take all of us — elected leaders and citizens — to effectively stop the spread of this virus.”
A spokeswoman for Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) pointed to his remarks from a Fox Business interview earlier Tuesday in which he said the matter was not just up to elected officials “deciding when it’s time and coming up with some arbitrary deadline,” but the science and whether people feel safe leaving their homes.
Aides to two others — Utah Sens. Mitt Romney and Mike Lee — said the senators would have no response. None of the other six responded to requests for comment. They were Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Roy Blunt (Mo.), Susan Collins (Maine), Jerry Moran (Kan.), Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.) and Roger Wicker (Miss.).
At least two other prominent elected GOP lawmakers, past and present — Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the third-ranking leader among House Republicans, and Republican-turned independent Rep. Justin Amash (Mich.) — challenged Trump’s notion.
Cheney, whose father, Richard B. Cheney, had pushed for broad executive authority as vice president in George W. Bush’s administration, cited the text of the 10th Amendment in a tweet: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
But other GOP lawmakers questioned about Trump’s bold claim, an assertion refuted by constitutional experts, were reluctant to challenge the president.
Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the No. 2 House Republican, argued in a Fox News interview Tuesday that states had largely taken their cue from Trump and the federal government over the past two months, particularly when it comes to social distancing guidelines.
“When the president said that, you saw almost every governor in the country take that cue and say, ‘Okay, we’re going to institute a new set of policies,’ ” Scalise said. “And so, while the president hasn’t said every state has to do this, he’s been setting the guidance using the experts from CDC and other agencies, and then you see states following suit.”
A spokesman for Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) on Tuesday declined to comment beyond the governor’s remarks to CNN on Monday in which he said governors were best positioned to make the ultimate decision on when their states can safely resume everyday activities.
“It’s not my understanding of the Constitution,” Hogan said in the CNN interview of Trump’s interpretation of his own powers.
Devlin Barrett, Ovetta Wiggins, Felicia Sonmez, Mike DeBonis, Samantha Pell and Brittany Shammas contributed to this report.
Phroyd
4 notes · View notes
claritalunaluna76 · 6 years ago
Photo
Tumblr media
MBW’s World’s Greatest Managers series profiles the best artist managers in the global business. This time, we speak to Mark Gillespie, founder of Three Six Zero and manager to huge artists like Calvin Harris. The World’s Greatest Managers is supported by Centtrip Music, a specialist in intelligent treasury, payments and foreign exchange – created with the music industry and its needs in mind.
Mark Gillespie grew up in Redditch, just south of Birmingham, England – where, as a teenager in the mid-’90s, he developed his passion for electronic music as a record collector and amateur DJ.
From there, he met local promoter Eddie Boulton, who gave him a job handing out flyers for Birmingham’s soon-to-launch legendary superclub Godskitchen.
Within a couple of years, Gillespie – deemed something of an internet-age whizkid within Godskitchen – was becoming an increasingly influential figure within the club, helping pick out emerging DJ talent, while also building websites, launching digital marketing campaigns and acting as a talent liaison.
This was a heady lifestyle for an 18-year-old dance music fanatic, which, by Gillespie’s own admission, invited “all kinds of crazy shit” into his life. Including the fact that local gangs – particularly the notoriously violent Birmingham Zulus – liked to frequent the club.
“For quite a while, I wore a bulletproof vest to work,” says Gillespie, matter-of-factly. “That was just being sensible; there’d always be standoffs between various gangs over who was and wasn’t allowed in the club. And then one night, this guy pulled a gun out and waved it right in my face.”
Funny thing is, Gillespie (pictured) doesn’t actually count this incident as his worst ever day at work. That came a couple of years before, when he considered turning his back on the music game for a ‘proper job’, by starting an engineering apprenticeship (similar to an internship) at UK car maker Rover.
“They were good people, but I hated it,” he says. “One day, I just stood up and walked out; I realized I had to make my music stuff work, otherwise I’d be at Rover for the rest of my days.”
Getting a gun thrust in his mush for Gillespie was, relatively speaking, still living the dream.
By 2003, Gillespie had progressed to booking the DJ’s at Godskitchen and its related festivals, as well as processing payments for talent and managing project budgets.
If anyone ever tells you that learning on the job is somehow bested by an academic education, let’s just run through the skills that Gillespie acquired within a few years of joining a nightclub as the flyer kid, aged 16: promotion, artist liaison, accounting, digital marketing, coding, talent booking, self-preservation – not to mention one of the best contacts books in the world of electronic music.
The next step was inevitable, wasn’t it? Godskitchen began releasing compilation albums through Sony Music, giving Gillespie a taste of how the wider record business worked.
Inspired by the likes of UK indie labels Defected, FFRR, and Toolroom, he hatched a plan to launch his own part-time record company – while still working at Godskitchen – and began scanning MySpace “for hours and hours most days, just trying to find new music played by interesting people”.
Eventually, Gillespie landed on the MySpace page of Scottish producer/DJ, Calvin Harris, and hotfooted it up to Glasgow to meet him. Leaving the city deeply impressed, Gillespie made a life-changing decision. “I pivoted,” he says. “I decided I didn’t want to be Calvin’s label – I wanted to be his manager.”
This was the beginning of what would become globe-straddling artist management powerhouse, Three Six Zero. Via his role at Godskitchen, Gillespie had become friendly with influential UK DJ and broadcaster Pete Tong and, in mid-2006, Gillespie passed Tong a CD with a bunch of Harris’s music on it. Tong played his track, The Girls, on his Friday night show on BBC Radio 1, and Gillespie’s cell phone began lighting up.
“I made the decision, right then, to quit my job and become a manager full time,” says Gillespie. “Calvin said to me, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ Looking back now, leaving [Godskitchen] probably was a real leap of faith, but it didn’t feel like it at that moment.”
Before we come on to the status of Three Six Zero in 2019, it’s worth reiterating the enormity of Calvin Harris’s worldwide success. He has sold 12 million records globally to date, including 44 million singles, and has had 14 UK No.1s. He has also amassed over 16 billion audio and video streams.
Originally signed by Mike Pickering at Columbia in the UK, Harris is one of Sony’s bestselling, and perennially prioritized, global artists. He’s worked with everyone from Rihanna to Dua Lipa, Florence + The Machine, Sam Smith, Khalid, Pharrell Williams, Ariana Grande and Migos.
In tandem with Harris’s rise, Gillespie, alongside his former business partner Dean Wilson, has built Three Six Zero into a truly blockbuster player in the global music industry. Based in Los Angeles, TSZ has one of the strongest rosters in dance music globally – with Harris, TiĂ«sto and Disciples on its books, amongst others. It also reps leading lights in other genres like Louis Tomlinson, Kacy Hill and Grammy Award-winning producer Noah Goldstein.
Gillespie has an excellent story about his first foray into the United States with Three Six Zero: A major record label was interested in hiring the British exec to run a dance music-focused subsidiary. He took the meetings, and the paid flights to New York, gladly – but while in town, he was also meeting with Roc Nation’s Jay Brown, with whom Gillespie and Three Six Zero ended up going into business with for almost a decade.
Today, after a transformational year, Three Six Zero is fully independent, and fully-owned by Gillespie. TSZ recently launched a new office in London, headed up by long-term friend of the company, Phil Sales.
Gillespie, a major movie buff, has also quietly made a name for Three Six Zero in the film world, managing the likes of feature-maker Brady Corbet, Shameik Moore – the lead actor in Academy Award-winning animated movie, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse – and bestselling author/ scriptwriter Bret Easton Ellis.
Three Six Zero’s ambitions in Hollywood moved up a couple of leagues earlier this year, when Music Business Worldwide broke the news that the firm had acquired Westbrook Entertainment. That firm’s on-screen talent – including Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, Jaden Smith, Willow Smith, Kenna and Crespo – are all now integrated into the TSZ family.
What’s more, Three Six Zero launched its own first feature film – the acclaimed Vox Lux, starring Natalie Portman and Jude Law – at the end of last year. The soundtrack to the movie was released on Three Six Zero’s in-house record label, headed up by Pete Tong, which Gillespie runs as a JV with Sony Music Entertainment.
MBW recently sat down with Gillespie over dinner in Los Angeles to map out Three Six Zero’s history, and to learn what the British entrepreneur has up his sleeve for the future

YOU’RE NOW FLYING SOLO AS THE HEAD OF AN INDEPENDENT THREE SIX ZERO – HAVING ALWAYS HAD BUSINESS PARTNERS SINCE YOU LAUNCHED THE COMPANY IN 2007. WHAT’S THAT LIKE?
The idea of running this company solo used to terrify me. But now it’s different: I like the autonomy, and I like that you can craft decisions that are entirely yours.
There isn’t any interruption in what you’re doing. In some ways, it’s more difficult, but in other ways it’s more enjoyable.
WHAT ARE THE BEST THINGS ABOUT THE MUSIC BUSINESS IN THE US?
I love the professionalism; people really take pride in what they do and that resonates with me. The level of execution that you see in the US business is very impressive – some of the festivals and the live touring setups in particular. You regularly come across people that are prepared to push the envelope [in order] to be able to ensure that really great and interesting things happen.
The potential scale in America is fascinating – the business here really thinks about things on a global basis. I’m really proud of the fact that we’ve managed to handle our business over here, and I’m really grateful that we’ve been enabled to do that.
We all know that some people [from international territories] come to the US with an attitude that they’re going to tell people what to do – to me, that suggests those people believe it’s somehow easy to conduct business over here, and it’s really not.
The flow of business and the way that things are done is totally different to the UK but I love it, and I’m hugely passionate about it.
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE TRANSITION FROM CALVIN HARRIS THE FRONTMAN TO CALVIN HARRIS THE SUPERSTAR DJ? SOME PEOPLE IN THE STATES MIGHT NOT KNOW THAT HE STARTED OUT AS A SINGER, VERY MUCH IN FRONT OF THE DECKS – BEFORE EMBRACING HIS KINGMAKING ROLE AS THE ARCHITECT BEHIND THE SCENES
.
It’s one of the smartest decisions that he made in his career – and it was all him. He used the live touring circuit in the early stages of his career to help establish his business and hone his identity.
At that moment in time [indie/dance crossover acts with ‘frontmen’] was what was happening in the UK, but he saw what was coming and very intelligently saw that the world was turning in a slightly different direction. He also happened to write some of the greatest records ever released at the right time. That always helps.
HOW GOOD IS CALVIN?
His successes broadly speak for themselves. I may seem biased but I think he’s the best writer/producer of his generation.
I love him as an artist and a person. He’s ridiculously hard working, always has been, and he’s a huge a supporter of mine. His drive has definitely helped pushed me along over the years.
OTHER THAN JAY BROWN AND ROC NATION, WHO ELSE HAS BEEN MENTOR FIGURES IN THE US FOR YOU?
Rob Stringer. He’s really perceptive, and gave me some of the soundest advice in the early stages of my career. He’s also helped guide me, on more than one occasion, through what can sometimes be quite a complicated and political business.
Then there’s Michael Rapino – one of the smartest guys in the industry. He has a very direct, knowledge-based approach, which I respect him for. [That approach] is why, above anything else, I think he’s so tremendously successful.
On the subject of mentors, no-one comes close to my mum. She was an entrepreneur and raised three kids on her own. We didn’t have a lot, but she managed to get us into a place where we all had enough.
Redditch is a very ‘normal’ place; part of it’s really nice, part of it’s shitty, and the town center is ‘burger, fries and two black eyes’. It’s not South Central, but it’s not Kensington either. She’s been an incredibly good example to me that if you work really hard, you can achieve important things.
WHY HAVE YOU GOT SUCH A HUNGER TO MAKE MOTION PICTURES OR AUDIO/VISUAL CONTENT?
Partly because I think that the world that we live in now requires the ability to work across multiple disciplines. And partly because I love film, and always have.
Film, TV, short-form digital content, music and socials all used to be very separate, different disciplines. But over the past few years, with the massive growth in streaming, they’ve all moved closer together – and I think they’ll continue to move closer together.
A lot of people ask me whether I’m moving more towards film [at the expense of music] and I’m not. I work pretty much every moment that my eyes are open, and the film thing began as a hobby. I decided to do a few things that made us a bit more of a [Hollywood] entity, and which showed that we have reasonably good taste.
We’ve had a few successes now, and I think that all of the practical lessons that we learn from the [film] business will be hugely beneficial to the music side of our business. But, by no means, am I getting out of the music business. If anything, I’m more focused on music than I ever have been for my entire career; I think this is the most exciting time that the music business has ever seen.
WHY?
There are fewer barriers. There is opportunity for all different types of music to be able to break through.
Also, streaming is working, so there’s the revenue there, if distributed correctly, for the industry to develop and build big artists.
Interesting things are happening in the music business on a daily basis. Since the start of my career, I’ve been hugely into technology, and hugely into music, and I feel like at this moment in time, I get to do a bit of both every single day.
WHY DID YOU START A LABEL WITH SONY?
Three Six Zero has always run labels since the beginning of our business. [The company previously released albums from the likes of The Prodigy in the US via a JV deal with Warner Music Group and label-managed Mau5trap, Rising and Fly Eye Records.]
Running a label helps define your level of taste as a company. It also means you can have different levels of involvement in the careers of talent. The most enjoyable part of that is the ability to work with other managers, actually.
As for why Sony, part of it is because [via Calvin] I’ve spent eleven years getting to know everyone in that system; if I need to ask a question of somebody in Mexico, I know who to pick the phone up to. I know all the label heads in all the major markets, and there’s some really great people there.
Sony’s a really good company at the moment with a great perspective.
YOU’VE HAD SOME BIG CHARACTERS AS CLIENTS DOWN THE YEARS, INCLUDING TRAVIS SCOTT, MORRISSEY AND FRANK OCEAN. ONE OF THE MOST NOTORIOUS MOMENTS INVOLVED FRANK AND THE RELEASE OF BLONDE, WHERE HE COMPLETED HIS ALBUM DEAL WITH UNIVERSAL WITH A VIDEO-LP, ENDLESS, THEN INDEPENDENTLY RELEASED WHAT APPEARED TO BE HIS ‘REAL’ ALBUM WITHIN DAYS. HOW DID THAT SITUATION COME ABOUT?
Frank is a private guy, and that’s part of what makes him so great. So if that story is ever to be told, he should be the one telling it.
WHAT DO YOU THINK IS GOING TO BE THE NEXT MAJOR TECHNOLOGICAL SEA CHANGE IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY?
The business needs to find a new format, in order to protect itself.
The biggest threat to the music business right now is decentralized networks. Thanks to Daniel [Ek] and Spotify, a new economy has been created in the business from streaming, but decentralization is a potential threat to that. Decentralization [i.e. blockchain technology] is something that was super buzzy for a year or two, and has gone away a bit, but I think it will swing back around at great pace in the next five years, and could be potentially devastating for the entire entertainment content business.
What happens after streaming is something that we need to focus on. The good news is that there are people within the major record companies and major publishers that are a hell of a lot more technologically savvy than they were when Napster hit.
One other thing is that I think other streaming platforms, from outside music, will want to get into music. That’s going to make things interesting but it’s potentially a threat as well – making sure that music is valued at the correct amount when that happens.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR THREE SIX ZERO?
We’re in a place where we can largely do what we want, which is interesting. Over the last eighteen months, I’ve spent a lot of time reconnecting with my British roots, and I’ve come to the conclusion that, if everything came to an end tomorrow, I’d like to be seen as the guy who took some good British stuff to America and made it successful.
I hope for us to do more of that, which means spending a bit more time back in London, re-establishing the business there. I love seeing some of the new, young managers from the UK having a go at moving out [to L.A] and getting stuck in.
And obviously I’m really excited to see what we can achieve with Will [Smith], Miguel [Melendez] and the Westbrook guys. I’ve known them for seven or eight years, we all share a similar philosophy, and they’re very smart and innovative people. There is a real opportunity to work with them to grow our intellectual property [portfolio] while expanding our entertainment management business.
WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH THREE SIX ZERO UK? LAST WE HEARD IT WAS BEING CLOSED BUT NOW IT’S BACK.
It would be impossible for us to be champions of British talent and not have an office in London. Phil [Sales] is our head in London; we’re partners in the UK business and we’re building it around him.
He’s very direct, he’s honest, he truly loves music, and he’s incredibly passionate about what he does. I’m seeing lots of great things happening in the UK, musically.
The British business seemed to get very locked off [outside the US] for about a year and a half, but that seems to be changing now.
WHAT SIZE DO YOU WANT THREE SIX ZERO TO BECOME AS AN INDEPENDENT COMPANY?
I’m definitely not looking for mass scale – I’m not trying to be the biggest anything ever again. That’s one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my career so far; being the biggest is not necessarily being the best.
Continually re-assessing what success means to you – especially after you have prolonged success – is the most difficult bit of running a business, but it’s essential.
A specialist in intelligent treasury, payments and foreign exchange, Centtrip Music works with over 450 global artists helping them and their crew maximise their income and reduce touring costs with its award-winning multi-currency card and live foreign exchange rates. Centtrip Music also offers record labels, promoters, collection societies and publishers a more cost-effective way to send payments across the globe.
Music Business Worldwide - July 10, 2019
89 notes · View notes
quakerjoe · 6 years ago
Text
Why Rep. Mike Turner (R) is a total cock-thistle... by “All Your Base”
Dayton’s former mayor and current member of the House of Representatives recently flipped from an ‘A’ rating from the NRA to supporting restrictions on what kind of guns can be sold to civilians along with magazine limits and is now in favor of red flag laws. Why? Because his daughter and a family friend were across the street when the Dayton mass shooting went down and 9 people died in 30 seconds because yet another fucking yahoo decided to go full metal stupid. Reminds me of the way Ohio US Senator Rob Portman was staunchly opposed to gay marriage until his son came out to him and his family. Because that’s when Republicans care: When it touches on them personally. The really scary part as far as I’m concerned is that this kind of thing could happen to every Republican in the House and Senate and some of them would STILL fluff the NRA. Looking at you Congressman Steve Scalise. Text: This should read, "Today, I announced my support for restricting military style weapon sales, magazine limits, and red flag legislation because someone I care for, my daughter, was across the street when a mass shooting took place." Because, let's face it, you've been boffing the NRA’s barrel your entire life. You've been in congress since 2003 and you didn't announce support for restricting military style weapon sales, magazine limits, and red flag legislation until NOW when a mass shooting personally touched on your life. You’re only interested in gun control NOW because this time your daughter was across the street when yet another mass shooter with yet another semi-automatic weapon and yet another fuck ton of .223 ammo cut down 9 people and injured 27 others in half a minute. “This tragedy must become a catalyst for a broader national conversation about what we can do to stop these mass shootings.” You’ve been a member of the House of Representatives since 2003 dude. “’The carnage these military-style weapons are able to produce when available to the wrong people is intolerable,’ Turner said.” It’s intolerable now but it was tolerable earlier this year when you voted against the two background check bills passed by the House earlier this year just like it was tolerable when 20 first graders and 6 educators where cut down in Sandy Hook, Connecticut in December 2014. How it wasn’t intolerable when those sons and daughters were literally cut to pieces but it’s intolerable now that your kid was across the fucking street makes you a reprehensible scumbag You should have had this epiphany in 2007 when 32 people were killed and another 17 were injured at Virginia Tech in April 2007. Or when your fellow sitting member of the House of Representatives, Gabby Giffords, was gunned down in the fucking street during a mass shooting as she was doing her work as a US Representative in January, 2011. Or when 12 were killed and 58 were wounded in the Aurora, Colorado mass shooting in July 2012. Or when 14 people were killed in San Bernardino, California in December of 2015. Or when 58 people were killed and 527 were injured at that music festival in Las Vegas on October 2, 2017. Or when 17 people were killed in Parkland, Florida in February 2018. Or when 12 people were killed and several others wounded in Thousand Oaks, California in November of 2018. I’ll give you this: You’re smarter that Steve Scalise but not by a whole hell of a lot. At the end of the day it’s better that you’re on board now than it would be if you were still swallowing Wayne LaPierre’s gift but, like all Republicans (except for idiots like Scalise) it only matters when it touches on you and those you love. No cookie for you.
Tumblr media
15 notes · View notes
tabloidtoc · 6 years ago
Text
Hollywood Reporter, October 30
Cover: Fighting for the Future of Film 
Tumblr media
Page 2: Contents 
Tumblr media
Page 4: Contents 
Tumblr media
Page 11: The Report -- AT&T’s shadow war resets as activist investors claim wins 
Page 12: Why Wall Street doesn’t mind cable’s “Dark” pay TV future 
Page 14: When movies shift over to streaming: Bonuses just go out the window, When will Netflix finally end its content cash burn? 
Page 16: $0 is magic number for new streamers: It’s About Scale, Wanna Boost Box Office -- host a Q&A 
Page 18: Box Office, Broadcast TV, Cable TV, Billboard Hot 100, Billboard 200 
Page 20: Tribute to Robert Evans -- William Friedkin 
Page 21: Rose McGowan, Joe Eszterhas, Phillip Noyce, Christine Peters 
Page 22: Feinberg Forecast -- Nominations, Britannias and Oscar Prom in October -- Best Picture -- The Irishman, 1917, Actor -- Matt Damon, Actress -- Scarlett Johansson, Director -- Greta Gerwig, Original Screenplay -- Us 
Page 24: 7 Days of Deals -- How Endemol turns Banijay into a truly global TV powerhouse, It’s a Bird It’s a Plane It’s a lot more spinoffs, Rights Available -- Thumbs by Sean Lewis, Tiny Imperfections by Alli Frank and Asha Youmans, Film -- Rachel Weisz, Bill Condon, Craig Mazin and Ted Elliot to develop a Pirates of the Caribbean reboot, Shia LaBeouf and Vanessa Kirby, Kelly Marie Tran 
Page 25: Justin Bieber, Television -- Dwyane Wade, Amy Poehler, Johnny Galecki and Anthony Del Broccolo, Alia Shawkat and Jeff Bridges, Digital -- Jared Harris and Lee Pace to star in Apple+ space drama Foundation, Beau Willimon, Freddie Prinze Jr., Joseph Mawle will play the main villain on Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series, Rep Sheet -- Gwyneth Paltrow, Ozuna, Ross Mathews, Chris Diamantopoulos, Ayesha Curry, Next Big Thing -- Ana de la Reguera 
Page 27: Why Hollywood still doesn’t have a consensus presidential candidate 
Page 28: Long before #MeToo a showbiz secretary skewered Selznick 
Page 29: The unconventional path of Prince’s memoir -- Esther Newberg, Ian Schrager returns to the Sunset Strip 
Page 30: About Town -- Governors Awards -- Laura Dern and Isabella Rossellini and Kyle MacLachlan, Jennifer Lopez, Jon Hamm and Olivia Wilde, David Lynch, Tom Hanks, Leonardo DiCaprio and Quentin Tarantino, Lina Wertmuller, Charlize Theron and John Lithgow and Regina King and Damon Lindelof, Wes Studi and Christian Bale, Geena Davis and Jim Gianopulos, Mark Twain Prize -- Elaine and Dave Chappelle, Tiffany Haddish, Morgan Freeman and Chris Tucker, Nancy Pelosi, Common and daughter Omoye Assata Lynn 
Page 31: Britannia Awards -- Donald Glover and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Kerry Washington and Lupita Nyong’o, John C. Reilly, Taron Egerton and Dexter Fletcher, Norman Lear, Jordan Peele and wife Chelsea Peretti, Michael Howells and wife Courtney Howells and Matthew Wiseman and wife Lisa, Jackie Chan and Vin Diesel, Steve Coogan and Chantal Rickards and Hilary Roberts, Lorne Michaels, Bradley Cooper with daughter Lea De Seine Shayk Cooper, Michael Che and Colin Jost 
Page 32: Yes I Did Say That! Rachel Maddow, Bob Iger, Ted Mundorff, Tyler Perry, Kelly Bachman, Martha Stewart on Felicity Huffman, Amanda Knox on Lady Gaga, Kurt Sutter, Flashback -- Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2015 
Page 34: Rambling Reporter -- Josh Brolin avenges Santa Monica crime fighters, Strauss Zelnick goes topless in youth pill ad, how Koch went from Howard to Hawk, the day Taika Waititi made little Archie Yates cry 
Page 35: Hitched, Hatched, Hired, Power Dining -- Lenny Kravitz, Haim Saban, Maria Shriver and son Patrick Schwarzenegger, Lindsey Vonn, Bob Simonds, Jake Gyllenhaal, Andrew Garfield, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Joel Silver, Gary Gilbert, Natalie Portman and Ellen Pompeo double date, Jason Momoa, Lea Michele, Harrison Ford 
Page 36: The Business -- Mimi Leder 
Page 38: Who broke NDAs for Bombshell
Page 42: Who Wants to Take on Fox News? 
Page 44: My plea for a best blockbuster Oscar 
Page 45: Behind the Screen -- The sound of a de-aged De Niro 
Page 48: Style -- Ralph Lauren shares insights about his life and work on the eve of the HBO documentary Very Ralph 
Page 50: The “Shape Shifter” costumes of Harriet 
Page 52: Dan Aykroyd’s haunted hotspots 
Page 54: Cover Story -- The Executive Roundtable 
Page 62: Welcome to the Flim Flam Film Fest 
Page 66: Awards Season -- 42 movies in on Oscar 
Page 70: Making of Marriage Story 
Page 74: Reviews -- The Morning Show 
Page 75: Social Climbers -- Actors -- Zac Efron, Kristen Bell, Scripted TV -- Rick and Morty, TV Personalities -- Trevor Noah 
Page 77: Backlot -- Rob Riggle’s plans to play nice as awards show host 
Page 78: Dr. Mehmet Oz on his show’s health, past mistakes and his future 
Page 80: 90 Years of THR -- In 1984 Terminator arrived and (kept coming back) 
2 notes · View notes
ask-gpt · 6 years ago
Note
The sad truth of the matter is that
The sad truth of the matter is that we don't have enough guns to fight the epidemic of guns and they get out like wild rascals. We need more power. They have their own problem."One of the other leaders of the campaign to expand background checks on gun purchases is Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa)."We need to start a lot of action that says, 'No more Americans should just walk into the country on guns. You're going to see more people shot because of your policies," King said. "Some folks have said, 'I think I'm going kill myself, I'm going to take the guns out of my hands.'"King was not the only member of the committee to endorse the bill.In the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Rob Portman Joe (Rob) Jones PortmanOvernight Health Care: GOP plays defense over pre-existing conditions | Groups furious over new Trump immigration proposal | Public health advocates decry funding transfer over migrant children Overnight Health Care: Senators target surprise medical bills | Group looks to allow Medicaid funds for substance abuse programs | FDA launches anti-vaping campaign for teens A state agency tasked with enforcing the nation's most risqué food stamp rules says federal government funding cannot be cut MORE (R-Ohio)."Our leadership in the Senate is more focused on fighting background checks and not on stopping guns from going into the hands of illegal buyers," Portman said in a statement. "The NRA has always wanted to stop the epidemic of gun violence, including overreach by the Obama Administration and Congress and with the support of many of the NRA's top leaders. I urge all Senate members to vote on SB 1660."
9 notes · View notes
gov-info · 6 years ago
Photo
Tumblr media
Roundup! Who’s Who at the State of the Union, 9p.m. ET (watch/listen/read: whitehouse.gov or c-span.org)
Speakers
President Donald Trump
Democratic Response (English): Stacey Abrams
Democratic Response (Spanish): Xavier Becerra
Attendees
Officials: Members of the House and Senate, the President’s Cabinet (with the exception of one planned absentee Cabinet member), Vice President, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, former Members of Congress, and members of the diplomatic corps.
Invited Guests (as of 2 p.m. ET)
President Trump/First Lady Melania Trump
Congress (via @RollCall) click below for list (as of 2p.m. ET):
            Senate
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee: A.B. Culvahouse, Jr., Ambassador of the United States of America to the Commonwealth of Australia and a Tennessean.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin: Diane Whitcraft, a constituent with multiple sclerosis who stopped taking a drug after 23 years because she could not afford it.
Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey: Edward Douglas, who faced a lifetime sentence in 2003 for selling crack cocaine, but was released in January thanks to a criminal justice reform bill called the First Step Act passed by Congress in December.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois: Toby Hauck, an Aurora, Illinois, air traffic controller and Air Force veteran and one of the more than 8,000 Illinois federal employees impacted by the partial government shutdown.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York:Navy Lt. Cmdr. Blake Dremann, a transgender service member and the president of SPART*A, an LGBT military advocacy organization focused on transgender military advocacy.
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California: Trisha Pesiri-Dybvik, an air traffic controller and a mother of three who lost her home in the Travis wildfire, and soon after went without a paycheck during the 35-day shutdown.
Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-New Mexico: Former Pueblo of Acoma Governor Kurt Riley will attend to bring attention to how the shutdown adversely affected public safety, child welfare, and health care programs at Indian Health Service and Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Sen. John Hoeven, R-North Dakota: Bethlehem Gronneberg, founder and CEO of uCodeGirl.
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine: Margo Walsh, the owner and founder of MaineWorks, a Portland employment agency, and co-founder of Maine Recovery Fund, which provides services for people in recovery for substance abuse.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota: Nicole Smith-Holt, a constituent whose son died because the family was unable to afford his insulin.
Sen. Edward Markey, D-Massachusetts: Varshini Prakash, executive director and co-founder of Sunrise, a movement of young people working to stop climate change.
Sen. Martha McSally, R-Arizona: Isaiah Acosta, a 19-year-old rapper born without a jaw, who is an advocate for Phoenix Children’s Hospital and Children’s Miracle Networks Hospitals.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nevada: Dr. Michael Moradshahi, a second-generation American and licensed psychologist. Moradshahi served in the Department of Veteran Affairs and currently works in the Indian Health System (IHS) in Reno. He worked without pay during the partial government shutdown.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon: Albertina Contreras, a mother detained in solitary confinement and separated from her 11-year-old daughter Yakelin when she sought asylum from domestic violence in Guatemala.
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio: Jamael Tito Brown, mayor of Youngstown, the beneficiary of a recent U.S. Department of Transportation BUILD grant.
Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nevada: Tanya Flanagan, a constituent and county employee who has survived breast cancer three times, who would be at risk of losing health care coverage without the Affordable Care Act’s protections for patients with preexisting conditions.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland: Lila Johnson, a grandmother and primary breadwinner, who has worked as a general cleaning services contractor at the U.S. Department of Agriculture for more than two decades. As it stands, Johnson will not receive compensation for the 35 days the government was partially shuttered.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Arizona: Maj. Bryan Bouchard, a retired Bronze Star recipient.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina: Pastor Andrew Brunson, a North Carolina native who was imprisoned in Turkey, and his wife Norine Brunson. Brunson was arrested during a crackdown after a failed military coup attempt against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He was released last year.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts: Sajid Shahriar, an employee of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development furloughed during the government shutdown. Executive vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3258, Shahriar organized rallies in Boston to urge an end to the shutdown.
                 House of Representatives
Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Arizona: Border Patrol Agent Art Del Cueto.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Oregon: Blumenauer will not attend the State of the Union address, but has asked Nate Mook, executive director of the World Central Kitchen, to take his place. Word Central Kitchen, founded by celebrity chef José Andrés, provides food to people in need, and distributed meals to federal employees during the shutdown.
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Oregon: Alexandria Goddard, who helped organize Portland’s March for Our Lives while a student at Sunset High School. Goddard is currently a freshman at Portland State University.
Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Illinois:Tom Mueller, a soybean farmer whose income has taken a hit from trade policy under the Trump administration.
Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-California: Foodbank of Santa Barbara County CEO Erik Talkin, who distributed food to furloughed workers during the 35-day partial government shutdown.
Rep John Carter, R-Texas: Robert Chody, the Williamson County sheriff. Carter said in a statement that Chody was a U.S. Army veteran and served in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice before taking the helm in Williamson County.
Rep. Judy Chu, D-California: Ryan Hampton, an advocate who was able to receive treatment for opioid addiction only to see his friend die in a sober-living facility due to lack of training and resources. Hampton will argue Trump is ignoring the opioid crisis by obsessing over a non-solution.
Rep. David Cicilline, D-Rhode Island: Jamie Green, an air traffic controller at T.F. Green International Airport.
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-New Jersey: Victorina Morales, an undocumented immigrant who worked as a housekeeper at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, D-Virginia: Amer Al-Mudallal, a chemist and 22-year veteran of the chemical safety division of the Environmental Protection Agency. Both Amer and his wife, another EPA employee, were furloughed and missed their paychecks during the partial government shutdown.
Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minnesota: Katie Brenny, who Craig describes as a cattle farmer, businesswoman, and community advocate.
Rep. Charlie Crist, D-Florida: “Coast Guard family” Petty Officer Chris Gutierrez and Chelsey Gutierrez. Gutierrez is stationed at Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater.
Rep. Joe Cunningham, D-South Carolina: Folly Beach Mayor Tim Goodwin, a Republican, who endorsed Cunningham over his GOP opponent Katie Arrington last year.
Rep. Sharice Davids, D-Kansas: Laura Robeson, a mother and health care advocate from Prairie Village, whose 7-year-old son Danny was born prematurely and has cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and cortical vision impairment.
Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Illinois: Taylorville Fire Chief Mike Crews, who was instrumental in the emergency notification and disaster recovery efforts when a tornado struck the congressman’s hometown on Dec. 1, 2018.
Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pennsylvania: Jami Amo, a survivor of the 1999 Columbine school shooting. Amo became a gun safety activist after the tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last year.
Rep. Antonio Delgado, D-New York: Michael Hickey, who exposed elevated levels of toxic PFOA chemicals in Hoosick Falls and Petersburgh after his father died of cancer.
Rep. Val Demings, D-Florida: Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings and Ralph Velez, a federal employee at Orlando International Airport who worked without a paycheck during the partial government shutdown.
Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Florida: Manny Oliver, who started the organization Change the Ref after losing his son Joaquin in the tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Rep. Nanette Diaz BarragĂĄn, D-California: Charlene Downey, a retired U.S. Coast Guard Captain.
Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas: Senaida Navar, a DACA recipient and an adjunct instructor at the University of Texas at El Paso.
Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-New York: Yeni Gonzalez Garcia, a Guatemalan mother separated from her three children at the Arizona border last year.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pennsylvania: Justin Cangro, 16, whose 20-year-old brother Jared died of an overdose in July 2016.
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tennessee: Gov. Bill Lee will join Fleischmann as his guest and meet with the entire Tennessee delegation.
Rep. Bill Foster, D-Illinois: Marilyn Weisner, executive director of the Aurora Area Interfaith Food Pantry.
Rep. Lois Frankel, D-Florida: Kim Churches, CEO of the American Association of University Women, an organization that promotes education for women and girls.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Florida: Carlos Trujillo, U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States. Gaetz tweeted Trujillo has been a “key advisor” to the Trump administration on Venezuela policy.
Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Arizona: Beth Lewis, chair of Save Our Schools Arizona, an organization that advocates for strong public schools.
Rep. Sylvia R. Garcia, D-Texas: Devani Gonzalez, a DACA recipient who aspires to be in law enforcement but is hindered due to her immigration status.
Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine: Cynthia Phinney, president of the Maine AFL-CIO.
Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-California: Sandra Diaz, another former housekeeper who worked at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, as an undocumented immigrant. Diaz endured coercion, physical and verbal abuse, and threats of deportation from her supervisors there, Gomez said in a statement.Diaz, who emigrated from Costa Rica, is now a legal resident and does not have to worry her attendance will tip off U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-New Jersey: Annette Leo, the mother of two who have been diagnosed with Ataxia Telangiectasia, a rare, progressive neurological disorder.
Rep. Deb Haaland, D-New Mexico: Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality.
Rep. Josh Harder, D-California: John Casazza, a Central Valley walnut farmer from Hughson and lifelong Republican. Recent Chinese tariffs are “significantly hurting his business due to the lowered demand,” according to a statement.
Rep. Jim Himes, D-Connecticut: Lane Murdock, a junior at Ridgefield High School student and co-founder of National School Walkout, which organized a massive student protest in the wake of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-District of Columbia: Faye Smith, a member of 32BJ SEIU, a contracted Smithsonian security officer who was facing eviction because of the shutdown.
Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, D-Maryland: Jacqueline Beale, Maryland state lead ambassador for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Washington: Lisa J. Graumlich, climate scientist and Dean of the College of the Environment at the University of Washington.
Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio: Chris Green, a police officer who nearly overdosed after being exposed to fentanyl during an arrest.
Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Michigan: Cathy Wusterbarth, of Oscoda, who has advocated for all levels of government to more urgently address toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination that has been found in drinking water in her community.
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa: Far-right Fox News personalities “Diamond and Silk.”
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Illinois: Dixon High School Resource Officer Mark Dallas, who intervened when a former student started firing in the school auditorium last year.
Rep. Conor Lamb, D-Pennsylvania: Darrin Kelly, a veteran of the U.S. Navy, firefighter and president of the Allegheny/Fayette Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO.
Rep. Jim Langevin, D-Rhode Island: Stephen Cardi, the chief operating officer of the Cardi Corporation and president of Construction Industries of Rhode Island.
Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nevada: Sergeant Isaac Saldivar, who served in the U.S. Marines in Afghanistan and Iraq. Saldivar lost two years of G.I. Bill benefits when the for-profit college he was enrolled in closed.
Rep. Mike Levin, D-California: Lucero Sanchez, a DACA recipient, student in environmental science at UC San Diego, and former intern on Levin’s campaign.
Rep. Daniel Lipinski, D-Illinois: Chicago police officer Gino Garcia and advocate for the organization WINGS, which provides shelter and job training for victims of domestic violence.
Rep. Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa: Jeff Chapman, battalion chief of the Clinton Fire Department, who has served with the department since 1995.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-California: Shaima Swileh, a Yemeni national, and Ali Hassan, a U.S. citizen, to spotlight the impact of the Trump administration’s Muslim travel ban. Though their 2-year-old son is receiving treatment for a terminal genetic brain condition in the U.S., the couple struggled to obtain a visa for Swileh, his mother. After a public outcry, Swileh was able to visit the U.S. weeks before her son died. Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Calif., will also host the couple.
Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-New Jersey: Hing Foo Lee, brother of the late patient advocate John Lee, who was profiled in the Washington Post for his determination to vote in NJ-07 while dealing with stage IV cancer.
Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, D-New York: Sydney B. Ireland, a high school student who successfully lobbied to join the Boy Scout Troops and is now fighting to be officially recognized as a member with a rank of Eagle Scout.
Rep. Ben McAdams, D-Utah: McAdams will bring his brother-in-law Sam, who voted for Trump in 2016.
Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-California: Shaima Swileh, a Yemeni national, and Ali Hassan, a U.S. citizen, to spotlight the impact of the Trump administration’s Muslim travel ban. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., will also host the couple.
Rep. Grace Meng, D-New York: Jin Park of Flushing, Queens, the first Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipient to be awarded the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. Park is to study at the University of Oxford in England in the fall but fears he will not be permitted to re-enter the country.
Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Florida: A 15-year-old student, Uma Menon of Winter Park, the winner of the congresswoman’s State of the Union essay contest.
Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colorado: Elias, a DACA recipient and student in chemical and biological engineering, as well as biomedical engineering at Colorado State University. Elias emigrated from Mexico at a young age.
Rep. Donald Norcross, D-New Jersey: Robert Martinez Jr., who is the International President of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and is a veteran of the U.S. Navy. Norcross has introduced a bill to grant federal contractors back pay for income lost during the shutdown.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York: Ana Maria Archila, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy. Archila made national headlines last year when she confronted then-Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, in a Capitol elevator and challenged him to vote against Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
Rep. Tom O’Halleran, D-Arizona: Navajo Nation Vice President Myron Lizer.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minnesota: Linda Clark, who fled Liberia and found refuge in the U.S. two decades ago under Deferred Enforced Departure, but who faces deportation as soon as March because the Trump administration has shuttered the program.
Rep. Chris Pappas, D-New Hampshire: Pappas invited transgender veteran Tavion Dignard in order to call attention to the transgender military service ban.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-California: The House Speaker’s guest list includes active duty transgender members of the military, Chef JosĂ© AndrĂ©s, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and DNC Chair Tom Perez. The Leader’s other State of the Union guests are President Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO, President Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers, former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe and Mrs. Dorothy McAuliffe.
Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine: Joel Clement, a former Department of the Interior policy expert and whistleblower, who alleged the Trump administration retaliated against him for speaking out about the threat climate change poses to Native communities in Alaska after department higher-ups moved the biologist into the accounting department.
Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wisconsin: Aissa Olivarez, staff attorney for the Community Immigration Law Center in Madison, a nonprofit resource center which helps low-income immigrants with legal services.
Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-California: Kenia Yaritza Arredondo Ramos, a mother, DACA recipient and nursing student at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College.
Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio: Dave Green, president of United Auto Workers Local 1112, which represents General Motors workers at the Lordstown plant, one of five North American plants GM is closing.
Rep. Kim Schrier, D-Washington: Issaquah resident Jenell Payne Tamaela. Jenell was diagnosed with stage 3c colon cancer in Summer, 2016. She has since become an advocate for better access to health care for people with pre-existing conditions, and lower costs of prescription drugs and health care coverage. Jenell and Rep. Schrier are two of an estimated 300,000 people with pre-existing conditions in the 8th District.
Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Alabama: Tiphanie Carter, wife of Birmingham Police Sergeant Wytasha Carter, who was killed on duty last month.
Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Michigan: Amanda Thomashow, a sexual assault survivor advocate. Thomashow, a former Michigan State University student, brought the first Title IX case against Larry Nassar at MSU in 2014, which led to an investigation and contributed to Nassar’s eventual firing from the university.
Rep. Jackie Speier, D-California: United States Air Force Staff Sergeant Logan Ireland, who served in Afghanistan and Qatar.
Rep. Darren Soto, D-Florida: Doug Lowe, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and Federal Aviation Administration specialist at the Orlando International Airport.
Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Arizona: Ellie Perez, a DACA recipient, and the first undocumented City of Phoenix employee, the first undocumented member of the Democratic National Committee, and a former campaign aide.
Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Michigan: Jean Buller, former teacher at Walled Lake Middle School, who recently retired after 30 years in the school district, and 2018 Michigan Science Teacher of the Year.
Rep. Norma J. Torres, D-California: Joe Rodgers, a Federal Aviation Administration Engineer Technician at Ontario International Airport.
Rep. Xochitl Torres Small, D-New Mexico: Arlean Murillo, ambassador to the New Mexico Secretary of Education’s Family Cabinet and, as the wife of a U.S. Border Patrol agent, a volunteer with the Border Patrol Agent Family Network.
Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Massachusetts: Lawrence Police Officer Ivan Soto, worked tirelessly during the gas explosions in his community last year, responding to fires even when his own house went up in flames.
Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Michigan: Haley Petrowski, a cyberbullying prevention advocate and Adrian College student.
Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Florida: Senior Chief Jeffery S. Graham, officer in charge of Coast Guard Station Ponce de Leon Inlet in New Smyrna Beach.
Rep. Jennifer Wexton, D-Virginia: Linda McCray, a constituent who works at the Washington Air Route Traffic Control Center and was furloughed during the shutdown.
Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-New York: Commissioner Geraldine Hart, who previously led Long Island’s Federal Bureau of Investigations field office and gang task force.
5 notes · View notes
theliberaltony · 4 years ago
Link
via Politics – FiveThirtyEight
We’re fast approaching President Biden’s 100th day in office and already Congress has passed a massive $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid package; helped usher in Biden’s history-making Cabinet picks; and approved a measure in the House that would give undocumented immigrants, including those currently with temporary protections under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, a pathway to citizenship.
To understand just how much of the president’s agenda is getting through Congress and the extent to which various members of Congress support that agenda, we’re once again tracking how often representatives and senators agree with Biden and how that compares with our expectations, based on Biden’s 2020 vote margin in the member’s state or district. (If this sounds familiar, it’s because we did the same for former President Trump.) We’ve also added a number of new features to help illustrate how members of Congress vote relative to one another and identify the outliers in each party. (Hint: Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Krysten Sinema of Arizona might not be the only thorns in Biden’s side for the next several years.)
A member of Congress’ “Biden score” is just a simple percentage of how often a senator or representative supports the president’s agenda. (We calculate this by adding the member’s “yea” votes on bills that Biden supported and “no” votes on bills Biden opposed, then divide that by the total number of bills on which that member has voted and we know Biden’s position.) As we did during the Trump administration, we’re relying on the Office of Management and Budget’s “statements of administration policy” to determine the administration’s stance on a bill. To read more about what types of measures we’re tracking, check out our detailed methodology post from 2017 — it’s about Trump-era congresses, but the same rules still apply. And, as a reminder, these ratings will update through the 117th Congress.
It’s early yet — we have just 13 votes that aren’t related to the confirmation of Biden’s Cabinet,1 but there are two interesting trends we’ve noticed at the margins so far: 
Republicans are not unilaterally voting against Biden’s agenda
After Biden was elected last year, story after story predicted that Republicans would thwart his agenda as control of the Senate remained in limbo and that Trump retained an ironclad grip on the party. And while the latter is still  at least partially true, it’s also not yet entirely clear the extent to which they’re impacting the GOP’s ability to compromise. Republicans, for instance, haven’t entirely stymied Biden’s agenda. 
Sure, no Republican in the House or Senate voted in favor of Biden’s COVID-19 relief bill. But in the Senate, many have backed his Cabinet picks, and in the House, Republicans and Democrats have found common ground on bills like reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act and allowing farmworkers a pathway to legal immigration status. 
Now, it doesn’t mean these bills featured overwhelming bipartisan majorities, but 140 different House Republicans have voted at least once for something Biden supported. And for some members who fall in this category, the choice appears to be a matter of political caution. Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith and Michigan Rep. Fred Upton — two of whom represent districts Biden either won in 2020 or was competitive in — are so far the GOP members backing Biden’s agenda most frequently.
House Republicans who back Biden the most
The 11 Republican House members who vote with Biden’s positions most often, and how often we anticipated they’d vote with Biden based on their district’s 2020 vote margin
Representative District 2020 vote margin biden score plus-minus* Brian Fitzpatrick PA-1 D+ 5.8 76.9% -2.1 Chris Smith NJ-4 R+10.5 61.5 +43.8 Fred Upton MI-6 R+4.5 53.8 +20.3 Carlos A. Gimenez FL-26 R+5.6 46.2 +16.4 John Katko NY-24 D+ 9.0 46.2 -42.3 Jeff Van Drew NJ-2 R+2.9 46.2 +6.2 MarĂ­a Elvira Salazar FL-27 D+ 3.2 41.7 -26.0 Don Young AK at-large R+10.1 40.0 +20.8 Tom Reed NY-23 R+11.2 38.5 +21.8 Mike Bost IL-12 R+14.2 33.3 +19.5 Adam Kinzinnger IL-16 R+16.0 33.3 +21.6
*Plus-minus is the difference between a member of Congress’s actual Biden score and his or her predicted Biden score.
Sources: U.S. House, U.S. Senate, Office of Management and budget, Daily Kos, @unitedstates
But not all House Republicans are interested in backing Biden’s agenda. About one-third of members — 72 total — have completely opposed everything on Biden’s agenda so far. This includes Biden’s coronavirus stimulus package, but also things like increasing the waiting period for background checks on gun sales, expanding unionization and collective bargaining rights and an omnibus police reform bill named after George Floyd. (Only a handful of Republican representatives supported these measures.)
One thing we found surprising, though, is that even some of the most pro-Trump House members, according to our tracker of Congress and Trump, have supported at least one item on Biden’s agenda. Take Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, for example, the House’s No. 2 Republican who ended Trump’s term with a 98.2 percent Trump score rating overall. He was among the 121 House Republicans who approved a special waiver to allow retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin as secretary of defense. (Austin’s appointment required this waiver because he had only been retired from the military for four years, instead of the seven years required by law.) Even House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy — who supported Trump’s agenda 97.3 percent of the time — supported the same waiver. Granted, this is the only Biden-supported bill that they’ve backed; as such, both Scalise and McCarthy still rank very low in terms of backing Biden’s agenda with a Biden score of 7.7 percent so far.
In the Senate, every sitting member has supported Biden at least once (yes, even Sens. Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and Mitch McConnell). An important caveat here, though, is almost all of the Senate votes so far — save for the COVID-19 aid package — were on or related to Cabinet confirmations.
However, the top Senate Republicans backing Biden’s nominations so far shouldn’t come as much of a shock, considering many were long seen as potential Senate swing votes or are members of the so-called G-10 — a group of 10 deal-making moderate Republicans who reportedly want to negotiate with Biden and other Democrats. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine leads the pack with a 91.3 percent Biden score. She’s followed by Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski (90.9 percent), Ohio Sen. Rob Portman (87 percent), Utah Sen. Mitt Romney (87 percent) and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (78.3 percent).
The usual suspects back Biden in the Senate
The 10 Republican senators who vote with Biden’s positions most often, and how often we anticipated they’d vote with Biden based on their state’s 2020 vote margin
Senator State 2020 vote Margin Biden Score plus-minus* Susan Collins ME D+ 9.1 91.3% -1.4 Lisa Murkowski AK R+ 10.1 90.9 +18.9 Rob Portman OH R+ 8.0 87.0 +12.3 Mitt Romney UT R+ 20.5 87.0 +29.3 Lindsey Graham SC R+ 11.7 78.3 +8.7 Shelley Moore Capito WV R+ 38.9 77.3 +40.6 Richard Burr NC R+ 1.3 75.0 -7.6 Chuck Grassley IA R+ 8.2 73.9 -0.5 Mitch McConnell KY R+ 25.9 73.9 +22.7 Mike Rounds SD R+ 26.2 73.9 +23.0
*Plus-minus is the difference between a member of Congress’s actual Biden score and his or her predicted Biden score.
Sources: U.S. House, U.S. Senate, Office of Management and budget, Daily Kos, @unitedstates
To be sure, a lot of what we’re seeing now among Republicans is pretty small in the grand scheme of things (i.e., supporting Cabinet nominations isn’t that surprising when Republicans don’t have enough votes to block them). Perhaps we’ll get a better sense of which GOP senators want to work with Biden via Democrats’ big infrastructure proposal, but if Democrats move to pass that via budget reconciliation, we still might not have a sense of who those senators are, as Democrats won’t need their votes. At this point, it’s unclear how many real opportunities for bipartisanship there will be, especially if Biden tries to push items forward that are consistent with what Republican voters want, but aren’t necessarily in line with what their GOP representatives want.
Democrats who don’t side with Biden are in the minority
Meanwhile, most Democrats support Biden 100 percent of the time. 
In fact, the only time Senate Democrats have bucked the president’s agenda was when 14 of them voted against granting Austin’s waiver. This wasn’t a major flashpoint in the party, as Austin’s confirmation was never really in jeopardy. Instead, it mostly mirrored what happened when Congress approved a similar waiver in 2017, as many of the same Democrats expressed opposition to making a similar exception for Trump’s former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis.
At this point, the two senators who have arguably received the most attention as being potential roadblocks to the president’s agenda — Manchin and Sinema — haven’t actually voted against any of the things Biden supports. Now, this is in large part because, again, almost all of the Senate votes so far were on noncontroversial Cabinet confirmations. And any controversial policy proposals both objected to, like raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour, have been cut from the final bill. So the two senators are still exerting their power to block legislation in ways that aren’t captured by our data. That’s why we should keep an eye on these two members — and others from the more moderate wing of the party — going forward, especially when it comes to their votes on Biden’s infrastructure and climate proposals.
In the House it’s much of the same: Representatives who don’t vote with Biden 100 percent of the time are the exception, not the rule. Even members from competitive districts that Biden lost — Iowa Rep. Cindy Axne, Illinois Rep. Cheri Bustos, Pennsylvania Rep. Matt Cartwright and New Jersey Rep. Andy Kim — are completely supportive of the president’s agenda. 
There have been some defectors in the lower chamber, though. And those members fall into two main categories: Progressive Democrats who were against supporting the Austin waiver and lawmakers from competitive districts. 
Let’s examine the latter category first. Maine Rep. Jared Golden, who won one of the most competitive House districts, only has a 53.8 percent Biden score — the lowest among all House Democrats. Why? Well, Biden lost his district by nearly 8 points last year and Golden only barely wrested his seat out of Republicans’ grip in 2018.
So far, Golden has voted against Austin’s waiver, legislation allowing farmworkers to get legal immigration status, increasing the waiting period for federal gun background checks, requiring background checks for all gun sales and the coronavirus stimulus package, among other things. Beyond Golden, other members in competitive districts to watch are Wisconsin Rep. Ron Kind (76.9 percent Biden score), Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar (92.3 percent) and Texas Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (92.3 percent). Biden either lost their districts or won by fewer than 5 points in 2020, so we can likely expect for them to continue to deviate from Biden’s agenda.
Progressive Democrats have long criticized establishment members of their party as too centrist and cautious, but so far the measure that the largest number opposed was also the Austin waiver. Excluding that, the most liberal Democrats — including New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Missouri Rep. Cori Bush, Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley and New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman — have supported Biden 100 percent.
So, to recap: Democrats in both chambers are, so far, largely unified, with some more interesting splinters in the House among members facing competitive reelection bids in 2022. And in the Senate, we’ll likely see more fissures among Democratic members as Biden moves to pass more controversial agenda items. At this point, though, it’s hard to know what the progressive wing will do with Biden’s later proposals since they don’t really have the votes to bring legislation to the floor on their own and their main power will be — similar to Manchin and Sinema — in blocking bills.  
There’s definitely not enough data to make sweeping statements about how senators and representatives are taking to Biden’s presidency. But at this early juncture, it’s fair to say Republicans might not be completely against compromise and most Democrats will be in lockstep with the president. We’ll continue updating our interactive as more votes are recorded along with publishing stories about the most interesting trends we see as the administration gets to work. 
1 note · View note