Page 6 - Florida Sentinel 2-24-17

Trump News
Poll: Country Divided Evenly Over Obamacare; Congress Members Receiving Major Backlash About Repeal
Trump Tweets About Angry Crowds Republican Congress Members Are Facing At Nationwide Town Hall Meetings
Pig farmer confronts U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley at a town hall meeting Tuesday.
Town Hall crowds became rowdy at times with Republican Congress members who hosted them.
The 2010 health care law is becoming more popular, even as it heads toward the chop- ping block — further compli- cating efforts by President Donald Trump and con- gressional Republicans to re- peal and replace it, as they continue to try and erase all traces of reform and acts by former President Barack Obama.
While both Trump and Republicans in both cham- bers of Congress campaigned on repealing the Affordable Care Act — passed exclusively with Democratic votes and signed by then-President Barack Obama — a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll shows voters are now split evenly on the law.
Forty-five percent of regis- tered voters approve of the law, the poll shows, and 45 percent disapprove.
However, Republican U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, who has a central role in the repeal and replace debate as a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, is get- ting major backlash from his home state of Iowa.
He and GOP lawmakers across the country, are facing heat from constituents who are packing well-publicized town halls to try to deter Re- publicans from repealing President Barack Obama’s signature health care law.
For Grassley, what a dif-
ference eight years makes. More than 100 Iowans on Tuesday packed into a small farm town community center to urge him not to repeal Obamacare, and to air their opposition to President Donald Trump’s agenda, his Cabinet nominees
and his Supreme Court pick. Democratic activists have framed this week as a crucial time to make their voices heard, particularly as Repub- licans in Congress remain deeply divided about how to dismantle the health law and
what should take its place. Chris Petersen, a pig farmer from outside of Clear Lake, Iowa, who worries about losing the health cover- age he gets under Obamacare, showed up at the Iowa Falls comunity center with a gift for Grassley: Extra Strength
Tums.
“You’re going to need them
in the next few years,” said Petersen, 62, a self-describe progressive Democrat with insulin-dependent diabetes. “People are disappointed.”
President Donald Trump
weighed in on the controversy at town halls and other events on Tuesday, claiming in a tweet: "The so-called angry crowds in home districts of some Republi- cans are actually, in numerous cases, planned out by liberal ac- tivists. Sad!"
However this is what Republi- can Congress members faced in their home states:
FLORIDA
Here in Florida, a crowd of sev- eral hundred turned hostile dur- ing an event with Republican Rep. Gus Bilirakis earlier this month.
CALIFORNIA
In California, chapters of the group Indivisible pressured Re- publican Rep. Paul Cook to hold a town hall — even creating "missing" stickers to slap onto milk cartons.
KENTUCKY
In Kentucky, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pushed back at around 1,000
anti-Trump protesters who showed up outside his event, telling a crowd of business lead- ers inside that "winners make policy and the losers go home." IOWA
In Maquoketa, Iowa, members of a crowd booed and chanted "do your job!" at Republican Sen. Joni Ernst near the end of a roundtable, NBC affiliate WHO of Des Moines reported.
TENNESSEE
In Tennessee, Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn was asked about the president's chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, whom the questioner referred to as a "white supremacist." Ban- non has said he isn't a racist or a white nationalist. Another woman demanded that Trump be required to release his tax re- turns. Both were met with ap- plause.
Some of the most contentious moments came after Black- burn was asked about the qual- ifications of Betsy DeVos to be
education secretary. When the senator said, "I think Ms. DeVos is going to be a fine sec- retary," she was met with boos. UTAH
Republican Rep. Jason Chaf- fetz was booed several times at a town hall in Utah this month and struggled to be heard. Due to concerns over alleged “recent acts of intimidation and vio- lence,” the Utah GOP asked the state’s congressional delegation last week to either delay holding town hall meetings or hold tele- town halls instead.
The state GOP repeated those concerns again Monday, citing an advisory from the House Ser- geant at Arms last Thursday telling members of Congress to maintain “enhanced security awareness.”
SOUTH CAROLINA
In South Carolina over the week- end, protesters also aired their views at a 3-hour town hall held by Republican Rep. Mark San- ford and Sen. Tim Scott.
Thousands Demonstrate Against President On Presidents Day
Tens of thousands of protest- ers attended demonstrations across the country to rally against President Trump on President’s Day.
Protesters used the federal holiday to organize “Not my President Day” rallies in major cities, following several week- ends of organized protests against the new president.
Rallies took place in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and Balti- more, among other cities. More than 47,000 people on Facebook said they would attend a rally in New York City, and tens of thou- sands of others said they would attend other rallies nationwide.
The events on the federal hol- iday didn't draw nearly as many
Protesters took to the streets on Presidents Day to protest against Donald Trump and labeled it ‘Not My President Day’.
people as the million-plus who thronged the streets following the Republican president's inau- guration a month earlier, but the message was similar.
Thousands of flag-waving pro- testers lined up outside Central Park in Manhattan. Many in the crowd chanted "No ban, no wall. The Trump regime has got to fall." They held aloft signs saying
"Uphold the Constitution Now" and "Impeach the Liar."
Protesters have gathered nearly every weekend since Trump took office in January. On his first full-day in the White House, nearly 3 million people participated in "Women's March" protests around the world — one of the largest of which took place in Washington, D.C..
PAGE 6-A FLORIDA SENTINEL-BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2017