Page 6 - Florida Sentinel 7-7-17

White House and Political News
Indiana Republicans’ Quest For ‘Obamacare Horror Stories’ Backfires!
That sure didn’t go as planned.
Indiana Republicans (home state of Vice President and its former governor Mike Pence) called for people to share “Obamacare horror sto- ries” on social media on Mon- day, but the only horror many people expressed was at the idea of losing it if the GOP re- peal plan passes Congress.
The post drew thousands of replies on Facebook and dozens on Twitter, and the vast majority had the opposite of “horror” stories.
Instead, they recounted how the Affordable Care Act had helped them, and urged Re- publicans to keep it in place.
Passing new health care leg- islation has become a central issue for Republicans. For years, GOP lawmakers have campaigned on a message of repealing and replacing Oba- macare, more formally known as the Affordable Care Act.
House Republicans passed a bill in May, but Senate Re- publicans, led by Majority
Senate Leader Mitch McConnell did not have enough votes to pass the bill.
Leader Mitch McConnell, R- Ky., missed a self-imposed deadline last week — after a handful of Republican senators joined all Democrats in oppo- sition.
At a fundraiser in Kentucky on Friday, McConnell vowed to continue re-working the Senate bill until he collects enough votes to pass through the chamber.
It will be challenging for Mc- Connell. A recent poll from USA TODAY/Suffolk Univer- sity found that just 12 percent of Americans supported the Senate's health care plan.
The measure repeals and re- places key provisions of Oba-
maCare and includes deep cuts to Medicaid.
An analysis by the Congres- sional Budget Office (CBO) re- vealed 22 million more Americans would lose health- care insurance in the next decade if the Senate bill is passed.
Among Republicans, only 26 percent said they supported the Senate bill, with 52 percent saying they needed more infor- mation.
Still, the poll found that eight in 10 Republicans supported repealing Obamacare, showing the tightrope that Republicans must walk — even on a simple Facebook post.
44 States Refuse To Hand Over Voter Information: Florida Is Not One Of Them
Gov. Rick Scott’s administration is still not saying whether Florida will provide voter data information sought by the Presi- dential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, even though Scott, a Republican like President Donald Trump, is a close ally of Trump. Scott posted this picture on Twitter of himself with Trump while Trump was president-elect. (@FLGovScott Twitter account)
The count is 44, of the states that are refusing to hand over personal voter in- formation to a new White House commission on voter fraud, which was formed last month in the wake of Presi- dent Donald Trump’s un- substantiated claims that millions voted illegally in last year’s presidential election.
The 50 secretaries of state across the country were re- portedly sent the letter re- questing the information about voters.
The letter, signed by com- mission vice chairman and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), asked for names, addresses, birth dates and party affiliations of regis- tered voters in each state. It also sought felony convic- tions, military statuses, the last four digits of Social Secu- rity numbers and voting records dating back to 2006, according to a copy of the let- ter obtained by The Hill.
Many states flatly said they would not comply with the administration’s request for sensitive voter information.
Other states, however, said they were willing to do the
bare minimum to comply with the request by only pro- viding voter information that was already available to the public.
In every state that refused, however, election officials from both parties are putting up some form of resistance to the Trump administration’s demands for voter informa- tion. Critics of the initiative fear the data will be used to create an inaccurate picture of voter fraud, a relatively rare phenomenon in the U.S.
However, Florida is not among the states reported that have refused to comply. Florida’s Secretary of State, Ken Detzner was appointed by Governor Rick Scott, when Kurt Browning re- signed to become the super- intendent of Pasco County Schools in 2012.
On last Friday, Gov. Scott said he hadn’t seen the letter. On Monday, a spokeswoman for his office referred ques- tions to the Department of State.
“We have received the let- ter,” a spokeswoman for the agency wrote in an email. “We are reviewing it.”
President Trump To Meet Face To Face With Russian President This Week
President Trump will meet face to face with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, this week.
The encounter between the two men, the first since Trump became president, will be closely scrutinized in light of the allegations of Russian meddling in last year’s U.S. election — and because of the ongoing probes into whether there was any collusion be- tween the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
But it is far from certain that Trump will even bring up the issue of Russian interference.
At a White House briefing last week, national security ad- viser H.R. McMaster in- sisted “there’s no specific
President Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin.
agenda” for the meeting.
“It’s really going to be what- ever the president wants to talk
about.”
McMaster also sought to
play down the importance of the Putin meeting in general, saying that it “won't be differ- ent from our discussions with any other country, really.”
Trump’s last high-profile meeting with Russians turned
into a debacle. Meeting Russ- ian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and ambassador Sergey Kisylak in the Oval Office in May, Trump was re- ported to have revealed highly classified information.
He also apparently cele- brated his decision to fire FBI director James Comey, de- scribing him to the Russians as “a real nut job.”
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