Republicans

The Art World Takes a Stand Against Trump

Adele M. Stan

On August 3, long before the conflagration at Charlottesville marked a turning point in Donald J. Trump’s presidential career, Norman Lear threw down a gauntlet. Though Lear would accept the Kennedy Center honor to be awarded to him in December for his unique role in American society as the pioneering creator of politically charged situation comedies, he announced that he would not attend the White House reception preceding the event, a decision Lear said he made in protest of Trump’s denial of funding to the arts. 

Three Trump Speeches and the Death of a Nation

Michael Winship

Donald Trump is not a president but he plays one on TV. And a terrible one at that. Watching him last week during what were, arguably, the worst of many horrible days of this presidency, was to see pure, rampaging id. Aggressive, needy, without logic or reason, Trump continues to rule with ignorance and incoherence, seemingly oblivious to the havoc he causes or maybe just thoroughly enjoying it. 

When Did Democrats Become the Party of Elites?

Leonard Steinhorn

From the New Deal through the ’60s, the Democrats were able to show that government was an essential tool to correct market inequities, protect the little people from unchecked power and special interests and ensure that the American birthright included safeguards against crippling poverty and misfortune. Government, most Americans believed, was their defender and their voice. 

Will Mike Pence Pardon Donald Trump?

Marty Kaplan

But bullies like Trump are cowards at heart. However appealing he finds sliming his prosecutors like a stressed hagfish, the thought of running away to spend more time with his 9-iron might prove irresistible. Would Pence trade the Oval Office for Trump’s holding his resignation hostage to a pardon? Pence could use the same reason Gerald Ford gave for pardoning Richard Nixon in 1974: To write the ending of a nightmarish chapter in our history. 

McCain’s Health Battle Casts Ugly Glare on GOP Healthcare Assault

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

The high-risk pools that McCain touts supposedly would move thousands of medically indigent persons in pools to ensure low cost access to coverage. In fact it would do just the opposite. The bulk of those in the pool would be the sickest and most in need of continuous medical treatment. They would pay more, not less for that coverage. To cover the high cost of maintaining these pools, states would have to pony up more tax dollars or impose premium assessments on insurers who in turn would simply hike their prices to cover the assessments. 

Trump's Ugly Midyear Record on Civil Rights

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

His first nomination out the box was Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions to head the Justice Department, the umbrella agency that the Civil Rights Division is under. The total remake of the department was a top priority for Trump. Sessions hit the ground running. He demanded the delay, if not the end, of federal consent decrees on police misconduct, a new war on low-level drug offenders, silence on criminal justice reforms, and a full-throated endorsement of private prisons. Given Sessions’ intense dislike of the Voting Rights Act, enforcement of the law is even more imperiled.

The GOP Healthcare Mess

Paul Kleyman

Starr worries that congressional Republicans are not only acting to repeal President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA), but aim to restructure Medicaid into a program with federal-budget caps so tight it would break down one of the principal Great Society health protections of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. Medicaid and the Medicare program have been fundamental to health care in the United States since 1965. 

The Problem With the Republican Healthcare Plan

Marty Kaplan

They must be baffled by how devoid of mojo their old battle cries have become. “Jobs-killing Obamacare” packs no punch in an economy that’s added more than 10 million jobs since the Affordable Care Act passed. “Disaster” and “death spiral” sound demented to someone who’s gone from no insurance to comprehensive coverage. “Higher premiums, higher deductibles, higher co-pays” may in some cases be accurate, but for Americans long suffering from rising prices, the real news is the slowing of the rate of increase.

Why Mike Pence Would Be Worse Than Trump

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

A President Pence would move quickly, adeptly, and expertly at trying to ram legislation and initiatives through Congress and via executive order fiat to gut or eliminate every one of these protections. The key word here is expertly. He knows the legislative process through and through. He is part and parcel of the GOP establishment. GOP senators and congresspersons are comfortable with him. He would smile affably, make no bombastic, outrageous statements or tweets, and work quietly and businesslike behind the scenes to implement his agenda. 

Impeaching Trump Is Not an Option Yet

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Few subjects have been more hotly debated, scrutinized, and endlessly rehashed, than whether #45 can or will be impeached. A deluge of petitions has been circulated online, and tens of thousands of signatures have been gathered for his removal. The issue of a Trump impeachment roared back on the public and media plate at a recent anti-Trump tax disclosure rally in Washington D.C. where speaker after speaker called for his head by way of impeachment.

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