Telling Voters What Democrats Stand For

Democrats stand for many things that are popular with a majority of Americans. They oppose cutting tax rates for the wealthiest taxpayers and multinational corporations. They oppose changes to Medicare and Social Security that would reduce future benefits or notably alter eligibility requirements. They oppose laws that disenfranchise voters and restrict reproductive healthcare access and choices. And they want some immigrants, known as "dreamers," to be able to stay in this country.

But there are hard questions for the Democrats.

What exactly is their health-care policy likely to be in the future? Expand Medicare and Medicaid benefits for senior citizens? Stand pat with the 2010 Affordable Care Act that still leaves at least 30 million Americans without healthcare, or move toward a Medicare-for-all type of plan.

What is their economic policy, other than rhetoric about helping working families? What is their response to concerns among many workers about the impact of automation and globalization that leaves increasing numbers of Americans without employment. What is their response to the weight of student load debt carried by so many, and tution costs that put college and trade school access increasingly out of reach of young Americans.

Democrats see a divided Republican Party led by Trump as an easy target for criticism. For now, that will remain the principal focus heading into the midterm elections. But as they begin what amounts to a three-year campaign cycle of midterm elections followed by a critically important 2020 presidential race, will Democrats be forthright in assessing and dealing with their own vulnerabilities?

Read more at WaPo - Democrats think 2018 will be a good year, but are they realistic about their own problems?

The 7 Most Pressing Issues Facing Rural Texas

In 2017, rural schools lost crucial funding, two hospitals closed and natural disasters wreaked havoc in what some regard as “flyover country.”

Read the full story at the Texas Observer

The Formula for a Blue Texas

A formula you say? There’s a formula for a blue Texas? Well, sort of. I mean this in the sense that a sober quantitative accounting of the challenge Democrats face in Texas provides a useful guide to how the blue Texas goal can actually be attained. More useful I think than the countless breathless accounts of grassroots Democratic organizing in Texas, which make little effort to explain which groups have to move and by how much to be successful.

So here’s the “formula”. In 2016, Clinton improved over Obama in Texas, reducing his 16 point deficit in the state to 9 points in 2012. How did she do this? The dataset developed at CAP for our Voter Trends in 2016 report indicates that Clinton improved over Obama among both white non-college-educated and college-educated voters. The Democrats’ deficit among Texas’s white non-college-educated voters fell from 60 points in 2012 to 55 points in 2016. The shift toward Clinton among white college graduates in the state was even larger—from a 30-68 percent deficit in 2012 to 37-57 percent in 2016, a margin improvement of 18 points. The white college-educated improvement cut Clinton’s deficit in the state by about 4.5 points and the white noncollege improvement moved things in her direction by about 1.5 points, for a total shift of 6 points toward Clinton from better performance among whites. The rest of Clinton’s gains relative to Obama were accounted for by improvements in Latino turnout and support.

Secure Elections Act

A bipartisan group of six senators has introduced the “Secure Elections Act,” to eliminate insecure paperless voting machines from American elections while promoting routine audits that would dramatically reduce the danger of interference from foreign governments.

The bill reads like a computer security expert’s wish list. Computer scientists have been warning for more than a decade that these machines are vulnerable to hacking and can't be meaningfully audited. States have begun moving away from paperless systems, but budget constraints have forced some to continue relying on insecure paperless equipment. The Secure Elections Act would give states grants specifically earmarked for replacing these systems with more secure systems that use voter-verified paper ballots.

Click Here to read “New bill could finally get rid of paperless voting machines”

Planning For 2020 Democratic Party Primaries

The Democratic National Committee Unity Reform Commission was created by the delegates to the 2016 Democratic National Convention. The Commission was chartered to review the Party’s presidential nominating process.

The commission held meetings through 2016 and adopted a report of recommendations during its final meeting in December 2016. These recommendations on how the Party will select delegates to the 2020 Democratic National Convention, who will select the Party’s next presidential nominee, will now proceed to the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee for consideration.

The rules committee will meet through 2018 and create its report of 2020 delegate selection rules to the full body of DNC members by August 2018. Those rules will specify how the Party will conduct 2020 state primaries and caucuses, and to what extent superdelegates will have a role in selecting the Party’s next presidential nominee.

Click Here For URC’s report details:

Dems Wonder: Is Opposing Trump Enough To Win Primaries?

One of the most significant questions facing Democratic candidates and voter in House races this year is whether running against Donald Trump — something nearly every House Democratic candidate will promise to do — will be enough to secure primary victory when two or more Democrats are running for the same congressional seat, or state legislative seat? Can congressional and legislative hopefuls win over primary voters on criticism of Trump alone, or are the increasingly influential (millennial) progressives right when they say Democratic voters demand something more?

The 2016 presidential campaign generated a daily Republican reality show of theatrics that drove up voter registrations and turnout in Texas that year. In Texas, a record-breaking 15 million people registered to vote before the November 2016 presidential election. According to the Texas Secretary of State, that was 78 percent of our voting-age population, and more than 1.3 million additional registered voters than four years earlier.

Voter turnout for the 2018 Texas Democratic Primary likely will exceed turnout numbers of past midterm primary years. If the more progressive millennial voters really care about their issues, they will have to register and vote for primary the candidates who support those issues. If millennials don’t bother to vote in the 2018 Texas Primary, they are likely to end up with “me too conservative” Democrats on their November 2018 ballots.

February 5th is the last day you can register to vote in Texas primaries. Early voting for the Tuesday, March 6, 2018 primary election will begin on Tuesday, February 20, 2018 and run through Friday, March 2, 2018.

Read more here: McClatchyDC - Dems wonder: Is opposing Trump enough to win primaries? 

Decline and Fall of Neoliberalism in the Democratic Party

From the late 1980s to 2016, “centrist” neoliberal ideas held hegemonic sway among the Democratic elite. But the economy created by this ideology — and the ensuing crises — is a major reason why Clinton lost to Trump and the party is completely out of power today. This obvious failure has provided an ideological opening that the American left has been eager to fill.

Now Democrats must decide how to move forward. Should it follow Elizabeth Warren's lead and promise a return to the trust-busting ways of the early 20th century? Or should it emulate the more sweeping, Nordic-style politics of Bernie Sanders? Or perhaps the Democratic Socialists of America are right and something even more extreme is needed. The Week is publishing a four-part series to examine the Democratic Party‘s failures and analyze the potential for Democrats to transform the country.

Click Here to read part one of The Week’s four part series:

Collin County 2018 Primary Ballot

Early voting for the Tuesday, March 6, 2018 Democratic and Republican primary elections will begin on Tuesday, February 20, 2018 and run through Friday, March 2, 2018. All of Texas' state executive officers and state representatives, and half of the state senators will be up for election, as well as a United States Senate seat, and all of Texas' thirty-six seats in the United States House of Representatives. A number of county level offices will also be on 2018 ballots.

March 6, 2018 Primary Election Information

• Early Voting Polling Locations & Hours
• Election Day Vote Centers
• Sample Ballots
• Early Voting and Election Day Rosters

Additional Election Information

• Registration Search
• Early Voting Polling Locations and Hours
• Election Day Vote Centers
• Voting for Disabled Voters
• Absentee or by-mail voting
• Want to be an election worker?

Quick Links

• Texas Secretary of State Election Division
• Collin County Democratic Party
• Collin County Republican Party
• Collin County Libertarian Party
• Green Party of Texas

In the final weeks of 2017, voters in Virginia, New Jersey and Alabama turned out in record numbers for off-year and special elections that, perhaps, forecast the mood of voters nationwide for 2018 midterm elections. Voters in Virginia, New Jersey and Alabama altered the United States Senate. Lone Star State Democrats and Republicans will next test the mood of voters with the earliest primary election in the nation. Only one other state, Illinois, holds a primary in March, two weeks after Texas' primary.

Texas Democrats will decide who will carry the Democratic party's banner into the battle for governor and a record number of other congressional, statewide and legislative, and county offices in the nation's biggest GOP stronghold. Texas has 10 Democrats running to determine who will take on Gov. Greg Abbott, who himself faces minor opposition from two Republicans in the GOP primary. Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez and Andrew White, the son of former Gov. Mark White, are two of the best known names in the race for Democrats.

At the federal level, Democrats have the opportunity to remake the state's Congressional delegation with 8 open congressional seats up for grabs, even though most are in districts heavily gerrymandered to favor Republicans.  Democrats are running in all 36 of Texas' U.S. House races, for the first time in 25 years. One of the most watched races in Texas will be for the U.S. Senate where Ted Cruz faces his first re-election test since his stunning 2012 victory against Lt. Gov. Dewhurst. Four lesser known Republicans are running against Cruz in the Republican primary. On the Democratic side, El Paso Democrat Beto O'Rourke first needs to get through a primary with two other Democrats to get to his highly anticipated battle with Cruz.

• Who’s on the Texas primary ballots in 2018?

Many races up and down Democratic and Republican primary ballots across Texas have multiple Democrats and multiple Republicans running against each other. At least one, and often two or more, Democrats are running for 133 of the state's 150 House of Representatives seats and 14 of the state's 15 state Senate seats.

More than 346 Young Democratic Texans have filed to represent Texans in county courts, county parties, the Texas House of Representatives, the Texas Senate, and U.S. Congress. Of the more than 346 Young Democrats running: 36 are running for Congress, 55 are running for the Texas House of Representatives, 5 are running for the Texas Senate, and Many other offices up and down the democratic ticket. Young Democrats are poised to run the largest youth targeted voter turnout plan for 2018. We know that young voters are more progressive and will soon be the largest voting block- we’re prepared to get folks voting now, not later.

Most of the races with 3 or more Democrats running for the same office are likely to go to a runoff election on May 22nd, when no candidate gets above 50 percent of the vote.

What the turnout looks like in the Texas primary will tell a lot about what lies ahead for Republicans and Democrats in Texas and the nation in 2018. If there is big Democratic voter turnout — traditionally low in Texas gubernatorial cycles — it could signal that the higher than expected turnout among those Democratic voter cohorts for Doug Jones in Alabama’s special election to fill that state’s open U.S. Senate seat is in fact a developing trend nationally that could have significant impact on the November election.

Similarly, primary turnout among suburban white men and women, with and without college degrees, who helped elect Donald Trump in 2016, will tell Republicans, and Democrats, much. If those traditional Republican voters turnout in numbers for the the primary, it signals they will likely turnout again in November to help Republicans comfortably carry that Election Day. But if those Republicans don’t turnout, Republicans on November ballots face an usually tough midterm year, not just in Texas, but nationwide.

For the 2016 primary election, Collin County had 501,000 registered voters. Registrations increased to 540,000 for the November 2016 election. Projecting from historic averages, Collin County will likely have about 560K registered voters for the 2018 primary election and 585K registered voters for the Nov. 2016 election.

High Democratic voter enthusiasm this year, combined with higher voter registration numbers and Democratic primary ballots packed with candidates,  will likely drive record turnout numbers for the Democratic Party of Collin County's 2018 midterm primary election. With the exception of the 2008 Primary election, Republican Primary Election turnout has far outpaced Democratic Primary turnout in Collin County for the past quarter century.

But Democratic Primary turnout this year could well approach Republican turnout numbers of past midterm elections. Republican Primary turnout for the last midterm election in 2014 generated 46,459 Republican ballots cast. That's compared to 9,584 Democratic ballots cast in the Democratic Primary that year.

Total primary election turnout could top 80,000 with about 40,000 ballots cast by Republicans and an equal number of ballots cast by Democrats - and it could be more. That would equal or exceed the 40,185 ballots cast by Democrats in the 2016 Presidential Primary Election.

My assumption is this is a Democratic wave year. Wave elections have that special designation because like a tsunami swamps land they swamp voting trends set by past elections. Like a tsunami, they are driven by energy generated from a major seismic event in national politics. This year, Trump is that seismic event. We can’t look at Collin in isolation.

Exceptionally high Dem turnout and lower GOP turnout for all the 2017 special and uniform elections around the US suggests 2018 is a Dem wave year.

Consider 2010 GOP wave election turnout in context to prior midterm elections. GOP Primary turnout that year was more than triple prior midterm years. 2010 GOP turnout was even higher than 2008 GOP primary turnout. GOP turnout jumped an energy state in that wave year.

Consider too Collin’s jump in registered voters since the 2014 midterm. The registration count for the Nov 2017 Election was 540K - and that was after the county purged 40k registration records preparing for the 2018 Registration Card mailing. I think the registered voter count will increase to 560K before the Feb 5th cutoff date. (Our 2014 primary registration count was a lackluster 435K.) Our registration count on Feb 5th and last minute registration application activity during January will be predictive of turnout too.

Total primary turnout of 15 percent lines up with the last few primary years, including the 2010 GOP wave year. I think that is reasonable, and perhaps low in context of election turnout trends through 2017. Turnout of 15 percent pegs our total primary turnout at 84K ballots cast. I’ll be shocked of that skews mostly to GOP ballots cast.

And, more Dem candidates are on primary ballots for more offices in Collin, and across TX, than any time in nearly a generation. If all those candidates are actually out campaigning and canvassing voters to GOTV, (like Republican tea party activist did in Collin 2010 like republicans never had before) that will add to Dem turnout enthusiasm already generated by the Trump effect.

I think GOP turnout enthusiasm will be generally down this year, as it was through all the 2017 elections. And, I think Dem Primary turnout will at least equal 2016 Primary turnout, just as 2010 GOP wave Primary turnout more than equaled 2008 Primary turnout.

There isn’t much time for candidates on primary ballots to gain name recognition  —  early voting starts on Tuesday Feb. 20th. Half or more of in person voters cast their ballots during early voting in Collin County and other suburban counties around the state. Thousands of senior Texans and Texans in the military and overseas, will begin marking their absentee mail ballots by mid-January. Military and overseas ballots must be out by Jan. 20th according to the Texas Secretary of State's election calendar.

Offices on the 2018 primary ballot in Collin County

Texas Voter Registration Certificates For 2018

by Michael Handley

Pursuant to Texas state election law, new Voter Registration Certificates are mailed to all "Active Status" registered voters in December of odd numbered years. “Suspense Status” voters do not receive a new certificate.

New yellow color certificates were printed by the election registrar office of each Texas county and mailed between November 15th and December 5th. Voters whose renewal certificates are returned to the registrar as undelivered will be placed in "suspense" by January 2, 2018, following the mailing.

The certificates are valid for two years beginning January 1, 2018 through December 31, 2019.

Certificates must list jurisdictional numbers for seven designated territorial units: Congressional & State Legislative Districts, County Commissioners’, Justice of the Peace precincts and the City and School District precincts, if defined. In addition to the aforementioned, counties may include 3 additional districts for a total of ten jurisdiction.

You MUST be registered to vote in the county in which you currently reside, and have a currently dated government issued photo I.D., to vote in any Texas election. You must be registered, or have mailed your registration application to be postmarked, no later than midnight of the thirtieth day before the election date. And, as of the date of this article, you are still required to present photo I.D. at the polling place to vote in person. The last day to register to vote in any election is the 30th day before Election Day.

Every registered Texas voter should have received their new 2018-19 yellow Voter Registration Card (VRC) by the first part of January 2018, or within thirty days after you submitted your registration application. If you asked to register to vote while updating your driver's license with the Texas DPS, and you never received a VRC, your registration application may not have been processed.

If you have not received a new VRC, you may NOT be properly registered to vote. You should immediately check your registration status and take action to properly register, if you find you are not registered to vote in the county where you reside.

To check your Collin Co. registration status - click here. To check your registration status in another Texas county - click here. If you find you are not registered to vote, you can find the Voter's Registration application for Collin Co. by clicking here or any county by clicking here. For specific information about voting in Texas, click here to find the Secretary of State’s pamphlet on Texas Voting.

Al Franken: The Obvious Setup and Liberals Took the Bait

Last Thursday, Los Angeles conservative radio host and Fox News Sean Hannity guest regular Leeann Tweeden charged that Franken forced her to kiss him, mistreated her when she rebuffed him, and took a photo with his hands grabbing her breasts when she was asleep—all when they were both touring Iraq and Afghanistan with the USO, entertaining American military personnel, back in 2006.

Will Tax Repatriated Earnings Boost American Economy?

Brookings Institution: As the Trump administration and Congressional Republicans attempt to overhaul the U.S. tax code, one focal point will be how to “repatriate” the $2.6 trillion of overseas profits accumulated by U.S. corporations. Given how we talk about these earnings, you could be forgiven for thinking U.S. companies have stashed their cash inside a mattress in France. They haven’t. Most of it is already invested right here in the U.S.

To clear up a common misconception, ”repatriation” is not a geographic concept, but refers to a set of rules defining when corporations have to pay taxes on their earnings. For instance, paying dividends to shareholders triggers a tax bill, but simply bringing the cash to the U.S. does not. Indeed, nearly all of the $2.6 trillion is already invested in the U.S.

Proponents of the Republicans’ Big 6 Framework are fond of arguing that “bringing earnings home” will increase funds available for domestic investment and growth. That’s not only illogical—it’s disingenuous. Here’s why:

Democrats Offer America A Better Deal

"When you lose an election with someone who has, say, 40 percent popularity, you look in the mirror and say what did we do wrong?" Schumer said, speaking on ABC's This Week Sunday. "And the No. 1 thing that we did wrong is ... we didn't tell people what we stood for."

The simple truth is, Democrats haven't talked much about the fact that America is no longer working the way it should for "We the People" Americans. Democrats haven't been talking about incomes and wages not keeping up with the cost of living.  Democrats haven't been talking about wage stagnation, underemployment, the exploding cost of a college education and the erosion of pensions are leaving many without hope. From rural towns to inner cities, Democrats haven't been talking about the millions who can no longer achieve the American dream. Meanwhile, the American people have watched as Washington special interests, millionaires and billionaires at home and foreign, and powerful multinational corporations acquire more and more wealth and power to dominate America's citizens and democratic institutions from local school boards to the federal government.

"In the last two elections, Democrats, including in the Senate, failed to articulate a strong, bold economic program for the middle class and those working hard to get there," wrote Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) in a New York Times op-ed. "We also failed to communicate our values to show that we were on the side of working people, not the special interests. We will not repeat the same mistake. This is the start of a new vision for the party."

On Monday, House and Senate Democrats unveiled their A Better Deal legislative agenda that will again make America work for "We the People."

The "Better Deal" campaign strategy is modeled after the GOP's 1994 "Contract With America" legislative agenda campaign that resulted in Republicans gaining 54 House and 9 U.S. Senate seats.

The "Better Deal” message also plays off the title of President Trump’s first and best-known book, “The Art of the Deal.” It is true that Trump has so far shown himself to be one of the worst dealmakers ever to reside in the White House, unable even to get his own party to agree on something it has been promising for seven years, the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act. It is also true that Trump has reneged on all of his populist promises, instead following the standard GOP game plan of tax cuts for the rich and entitlement cuts for everyone else.

But if there is one lesson Democrats should have learned from 2016, it is that opposition to Trump is not by itself enough to win elections. If Democrats use the "Better Deal" simply as a stick with which they beat Trump's in ability to close any legislative deal, they could lose more Congressional and state house seats the 2018 midterms.

The Monday morning Better Deal rollout focused on three broad parts of the “A Better Deal” legislative agenda: creating new jobs; lowering prescription drug costs; and restraining the power of corporations:

1) Pharmaceutical companies can without restraint  raise the price of lifesaving drugs without justification. Democrats demand rules to stop prescription drug price gouging and further demand drug companies justify price increases to the public. Democrats will also pass legislation to allow and mandate that Medicare negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices for older Americans.

2) Current antitrust laws are designed to allow huge corporations to merge, padding the pockets of investors while sending costs skyrocketing for everything from cable bills and airline tickets to food and health care. Democrats will pass legislation to again level the competitive free market playing field by breaking up corporations that have bought up all their competitors to create single seller market monopolies, and by reinstating FTC and SEC regulations to make sure big multinational corporations can not - through acquisition of all competitors - become a market's single seller of goods and services.

3) There are millions of unemployed and  underemployed Americans, particularly those without a college degree.  Democrats will pass legislation to foster secure full-time, living wage jobs. Democrats will pass legislation to give employers, particularly small businesses, a large tax credit to train American workers for unfilled jobs. This will have particular resonance in smaller cities and rural areas, which have experienced an exodus of young people who aren’t trained for the jobs in those areas.

In the coming months, Democrats will roll out additional legislative agenda proposals, from rebuilding rural America, to guaranteed healthcare availability, to fundamentally changing our trade laws to benefit American workers, not multinational corporations.

Mike Collier Officially Announces For Texas Lt. Gov.

Incumbent Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is getting a Democratic challenger when he seeks re-election in 2018. Mike Collier officially announced he is running for the state office at a campaign stop in Round Rock, Texas.

A crowd of supporters gathered at the Sharon Prete Main Street Plaza in Round Rock on Saturday, June 17, 2017, to hear Collier announce he will challenge Patrick in 2018. He told the crowd they need a lieutenant governor that will bring Texas together, not apart.

Many in Texas Politics consider the lieutenant governor to be the most powerful person in state government because the person holding that office sets the legislative agenda for the state senate. Nothing passes the Texas Senate without the lieutenant governor’s approval.

Collier has criticized Patrick for not prioritizing legislation to fix Texas' public school funding, which places heavy property tax burdens on Texas home owners.

"We're very different in terms of public education," Collier said Saturday. "I'm pro-public education. I'm pro-teacher and retired teacher and he's not. We have very different points of view in terms of tax policy. I attribute high property taxes to republican fiscal policies. I'll show that on the campaign trail."

Collier announced in March of this year he was preparing to run for Texas Lt. Gov. in 2018. At the time, Collier said he planned to travel around the state and listen to voters to gauge support for his campaign before making a final decision to run for the office. "I will make an official announcement to run when I am confident I can run a winning campaign," Collier said in March.

In an email sent to supporters in March, Collier said, "Our Lt. Governor simply isn’t living up to our expectations," Collier said in the letter. "Texans want someone to fix our broken politics. It starts with sending Dan Patrick back to the radio entertainment business and putting someone serious in charge of the Senate." Collier wrote:

I love Texas and I’m proud to be a Texan. We're no nonsense, we love our families, and we have a generous spirit.

We expect our leaders to reflect these values, and when they don't, it's time to make a change.

Our Lt. Governor simply isn’t living up to our expectations. Instead of solving problems, bringing Texans together, and showing genuine compassion, he’s playing political games and pitting Texan against Texan.

Like you, I’ve had it.

That’s why today, I’m assembling a campaign team to run against Dan Patrick for Texas Lt. Governor. I'll be traveling the state, listening to Texans, raising money, building grassroots support, and when I am confident that I can run a winning campaign, I'll make a formal announcement.

We need a Lt. Governor that brings Texans together, not an ideologue that chases headlines and drives us apart.

Over the last few years, I’ve traveled all over Texas, talking to Texans who love our state and are worried about our future. Texans want someone to fix our broken politics. It starts with sending Dan Patrick back to the radio entertainment business and putting someone serious in charge of the Senate.

Collier ran an unsuccessful campaign for Texas Comptroller in 2014, losing to Republican Glenn Hegar in the lowest turnout election since 1942, during WWII.

Mike Collier, served the Texas Democratic Party as its finance chairman, from early 2015 to March 2017. He resign that post in March to focus on his campaign for lieutenant governor.

“Over the past year, Mike Collier has dedicated his time and talent to help build the permanent party infrastructure necessary to win,” said Gilberto Hinojosa, the state Democratic Party’s chairman. “In no small part due to his efforts, Texas Democrats had the resources and vision to earn the best election cycle in two decades.”

Mike Collier Speaking At 
A 2016 Collin County Town Hall

Should Collier, a Houston-area resident, win the Democratic nominating primary in March 2018, he will challenge Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who was elected to his first term in 2014. Patrick said early this year he would run for re-election in 2018. While the GOP holds a clear advantage in statewide elections, Patrick has become a key lightening rod for Democrats as they focus on the 2018 midterms.

Collier says his number one legislative priority as Lt. Gov. will be strengthening Texas' public K-12 schools and universities. His number two priority, which is related to his goal of strengthening Texas' public schools, will be the state's tax policies. Collier says the tax scales in Texas have been tipped to place the mounting burden to fund Texas' public schools on Texas homeowners, as Republicans have increasingly eliminated business taxes paid by corporations doing business Texas. Collier says corporations, who depend on a well educated workforce, should pay their fair share of educating their future work force.

Collier's number three priority is corruption. He believes the one-party system in Texas, where Republicans have controlled the state's financial decisions through one party control of the state legislative, executive and judicial branches of government since George Bush was governor, has left the state's public education and transportation systems in decline.

Mike Collier joined BlogTalkUSA's Eyes Wide Open DemBlog Talk talk radio program co-hosts Michael Handley and Rheana Rheana Nevitt Piegols on several occasions over the past two years. Listen to these programs to get to know the new candidate running for Texas Lt. Gov.

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Mike Collier joined BlogTalkUSA's Eyes Wide Open DemBlogTalk co-hosts Michael Handley and Rheana Nevitt Piegols on May 30, 2017 to talk about how his campaign for Texas Lt. Gov. is shaping up.

Program Link

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Mike Collier joined co-hosts Michael Handley and Rheana Nevitt Piegols on April 11, 2017 to talk about his just released book, in which Mike relates stories about his experiences running for statewide office in 2014, and traveling the state since talking to Texans.

Program Link

Find Mike Collier's book, "Out of Comptrol: A Converted Democrat's Improbable Quest to Save Texas Politics," at the following links:

• At Google Books
• At Amazon Books
• At KOBO Books

Mike Collier joined co-hosts Michael Handley and Rheana Nevitt Piegols on March 7, 2017 to discuss his decision to run for Texas Lt. Gov.

Program Link

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Mike Collier joined co-hosts Michael Handley and Rheana Nevitt Piegols to talk about Texas' state budget and economy on Tuesday, December 8, 2015.

Program Link

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After the 2014 election, Mike Collier embarked on a 2015 Texas "listen tour" talking Democrats across Texas for Texas Democratic Party Chair, Gilberto Hinojosa. Mike joined co-hosts Michael Handley and Rheana Nevitt Piegols on a September 2015 program to share what he learned on his listening tour.

Program Link

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Mike Collier Speaking At A 2014 Campaign Stop,  When He Was 
Running For Texas Comptroller

Sen. Bernie Sanders Responds To Pres. Trump

Senator Bernie Sanders recorded a 14-minute long video response to President Trump’s first address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night.

“Tonight, President Trump once again made it clear he plans on working with Republicans in Congress who want to repeal the Affordable Care Act, throw 20 million Americans off of health insurance, privatize Medicare, make massive cuts in Medicaid, raise the cost of prescription drugs to seniors, eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood, while at the same time, he wants to give another massive tax break to the wealthiest Americans,” Sanders said. ...“Let me be very clear in stating that I think those priorities are wrong.”

He also brought up the numerous contentious town halls that took place across the country recently.

“As a result, the Republicans are getting very, very worried,” he said. “They’re not so cocky anymore about simply repealing Obamacare. And they should be worried.”

Sanders also called upon Americans affected by the health care act to “keep showing up, keep calling Congress and continue the fight. The Republicans are now on the defensive, and we have to continue to push them back.”


Senator Bernie Sanders
Watch former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear deliver the "official" response to President Trump's first address to a joint session of Congress for the Democratic Party.

Democrats: Talk To Older Voters About GOP Plan To Repeal Medicare Benefits

The Affordable Care Act (ACA)  not only provides affordable access to health insurance for working-age Americans and their families, it also provides older Americans covered by Medicare and Medicaid a list of additional covered benefits. The ACA, a.k.a.Obamacare, improved Medicare coverage, boosted taxes and reduced program spending. Older Americans on Medicaid also would face a significant loss of benefits, because any effort to repeal Obamacare would affect the law’s major expansion of Medicaid, including how Washington pays states for administering the program.

For starters, the ACA greatly expanded the roster of tests and procedures that Medicare enrollees can get with little if any cost to make sure enrollees are healthy and to help them stay that way. Medicare’s list of so-called wellness provisions includes many items added by the ACA:

• Abdominal aortic aneurysm screening
• Alcohol misuse screening and counseling
• Bone mass measurements
• Breast cancer screening (mammograms)
• Cardiovascular disease (behavioral therapy)
• Cardiovascular disease screening
• Cervical and vaginal cancer screening
• Colorectal cancer screening
• Depression screening
• Diabetes screening and self-management training
• Glaucoma tests
• Hepatitis C screening test
• HIV screening
• Lung cancer screening
• Medical nutrition therapy
• Obesity screening and counseling
• Prostate cancer screening
• Sexually transmitted infections screening and counseling
• Shots (flu, pneumococcal, and Hepatitis B)
• Tobacco use cessation counseling
• “Welcome to Medicare” preventive visit
• Yearly “Wellness” visit

Good health does cost money, of course, but so does having to treat people who have not been taking care of themselves. Perhaps all of these measures would survive the repeal process. However, considering that some of these benefits might disappear, Medicare enrollees ought to work with their doctors right now to make sure they’re taking full advantage of these wellness benefits.

Another main Obamacare feature has been its reduction in out-of-pocket spending in Part D Medicare prescription drug plans. This has been accomplished through the elimination of the so-called “donut hole” by 2020. Medicare says enrollees have saved more than $2,000 per person, on average, because of this single change.

It’s quite possible, of course, that the donut hole will be totally gone by the time the “replace” components of “repeal and replace” actually have taken effect. Given the shouts from both parties about high drug prices, it seems unlikely that Republicans would have much appetite for being tagged with efforts to make people spend more money on prescription medicines.

Obamacare’s other big Medicare impact came via financial improvements it put in place to help the program. It raised a bunch of taxes, including requiring high-income wage earners to pay higher Medicare payroll taxes and stiff premium surcharges for Medicare Part B and D premiums. Health providers and Medicare Advantage insurance plans were also willing to accept lower payment levels from Medicare in exchange for the law’s provisions that would expand their access to more insurance customers.

Before the passage of the ACA, the Medicare trust fund that pays claims for Part A hospital and nursing home expenses had been projected to run short of funds by 2017. The ACA has pushed that date out more than 10 years.

Republicans reportedly want to do away with many of these taxes. Unless other funding streams are created to replace them, the longer-term finances of the program would be at greater risk. Ironically, these actions would “force” Republicans to cut health care spending to curb runaway deficits.

As actual GOP plans come into sharper focus, sharp Medicare battle lines will form for politicians and the public alike.  Expect the proposals to come coated in friendly sounding packages that tout health care improvements. But it will be crucial to look inside the packages to get an understanding of whether the Medicare program that would emerge from their enactment is one you want to have.

READ MORE: How plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act could affect Medicare

• What's going to happen to 70 million Americans who rely on Medicaid?
• Why the Emerging Bill to Repeal the Affordable Care Act Will Fail
• GOP Agenda To Cut Seniors' Healthcare
• What Working Class Americans Lose When Trump Scraps Obamacare
• Bernie Sanders Gets Ted Cruz To Support A Single-Payer Healthcare System
• GOP Bill To Repeal ACA - Obamacare 
• Republicans Looking For Obamacare Replacement Should Work With Democrats
• Sanders And Cruz Debate Healthcare Repeal For American Workers
• GOP Hit Seniors With Higher Healthcare Costs
• GOP Looking For A Healthcare Strategy
• Even Most Republican Voters Say Government Has Responsibility For Healthcare
• AARP: GOP Plan To Convert Medicare From “Defined Benefit” To “Defined Contribution” Program
• Republicans Plan To Destroy Social Security and Medicare
• Repealing Obamacare is a huge tax cut for the rich
• Obamacare repeal would also affect your employer health insurance

Race For DNC Chair Tightens

New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley announced Saturday he has decided to withdraw his bid to be the Democratic Party's next national chairman and back Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison to lead the party.

"While it was a tremendous honor to run for DNC Chair over the past few months, I am proud to throw my support behind Keith so we can ensure that the next Chair of the DNC is dedicated to investing in and strengthening state parties and ensuring that the DNC is an accountable organization," New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley said in a statement today. "As I've talked to the DNC membership, it's clear Keith has widespread support, and I know as our next DNC Chair Keith will successfully unite and grow our party."

Ellison said he is "proud" to have Buckley's support. He added that he asked Buckley to "lead our effort to provide the support and resources the state parties need in a new and innovative 57 state strategy." (There are 50 state parties and seven in the territories and the District of Columbia.)

Ellison has the backing of many Democratic Party leaders, including U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (MA), Tammy Baldwin (WI), Amy Klobuchar (MN), Al Franken (MN),  and numerous other party leaders including members of Congress and state Democratic Party leaders.

CNN announced Friday it will host a debate next week for the candidates running for chairman of the Democratic National Committee. The event in Atlanta is being called "Debate Night: Democratic Leadership Debate" and is scheduled for Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET, just days before Democratic officials vote on a new chairman at the DNC's meeting in the same city Feb. 23-26.

"CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash and New Day anchor Chris Cuomo will moderate the primetime event live from the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia just days before the Democratic Party chooses a new national leader," the network said in a press release. "The candidates will debate their visions and strategies for the 2018 midterm elections, how to rebuild the Democratic Party and the role of the DNC under the Trump administration."

Since mid-January, the DNC chair candidates have participated in four "DNC Future Forums," the last of which was last weekend, as well as several additional forums host by various activist groups.

More:

• DNC Chair Candidate Forum In Baltimore
• National Democratic Women's Club Forum for DNC Candidates
• DNC Chair Candidate Forum In Detroit
• DNC Chair Candidate Forum Live Streams And Candidate Guide
• But Clinton Won By 2.86 Million Votes
• Click here to view recorded live streams of the Baltimore, Detroit, Phoenix and Houston Future Forums

DNC Chair Candidate Forum In Baltimore

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) held it's fourth and final regional day long 'Future Forum' in Baltimore last Saturday, in advance of its February 23rd-26th meeting to elect new party leadership. As with the first three forums, DNC Chair candidates, DNC members, guest speakers, and other Democrats discussed how the party goes forward after losing to Republicans, over the last 8 years, more than 1,000 state and federal level legislative and executive branch seats held by Democrats.  

Ten candidates for DNC chair lined up on stage for 90 minutes to discuss their views on how the party goes forward:

• Sally Boynton Brown, Executive Director of the Idaho Democratic Party
• Ray Buckley, Chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party
• Pete Buttigieg, Mayor of South Bend, Indiana
• Keith Ellison, U.S. House of Representatives, Minnesota 5th District
• Jehmu Greene of Texas, Democratic strategist, Fox News political analyst, and former Rock The Vote president
• Jaime Harrison, Chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party
• Tom Perez, 26th United States Secretary of Labor
• Peter Peckarsky, a Wisconsin attorney and Democratic progressive activist
• Sam Ronan of Ohio, activist and Air Force veteran
• Robert Vinson Brannum, Veterans Committee chair of the NAACP’s Washington D.C. branch

When they meet on February 23–26, 2017, the 447 members of the Democratic National Committee will elect a new Chairperson and other party officers.

The DNC chairperson candidates offered opinions during their 90 minute discussion forum on why over 1,000 of the party's incumbent office holders lost elections to Republicans during the 2010 - 2016 election years.

GOP Bill To Repeal ACA - Obamacare

Republicans in the House (Tea Party) Freedom Caucus voted among themselves Monday night to band together and support only a 2017 Affordable Care Act (ACA) "Obamacare" repeal bill that is at least as comprehensive as the repeal bill passed by the Republican controlled House and Senate in 2015.

“If it’s less than the 2015 [bill], we will oppose it,” Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) told a small group of reporters Monday night.

By insisting the 2015 repeal bill effectively be copied as the initial 2017 repeal bill, the GOP again confirmed the party's hard line intent to repeal affordable healthcare for millions of Americans.

The 2015 ACA repeal bill was passed by the Republican controlled House and Senate in late 2015, but was not signed by President Barack Obama when it reached his desk in January 2016.

The 2015 repeal bill rolled back Medicaid expansion funding to pre-2010 levels and ended the mandate for businesses over a certain size to offer group health insurance to employees along with the subsidies that helped pay for the mandated insurance, plus more...

Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) Repeal Bill of 2015 (December 7, 2015 @ healthaffairs.org).

• Poll: 8 in 10 Americans say GOP should keep money for Medicaid expansion

Arctic Sea Ice Volume Collapsing

Polar weather has been far warmer this winter than any winter on record, shocking scientists who are watching sea ice volume decline to record lows for the date. Winds have driven large amounts of the oldest ice out of the Arctic while the weather has been far too warm for months for the ice to thicken like it normally does by February. And now the north pole is fifty degrees F above normal. Again.

Read the full story at Daily Kos:

8 In 10 Americans Support Social Security

AARP: Fifty-five million working Americans do not have a way to save for retirement out of their regular paycheck. With many American workers anxious about their financial security, there is strong support among conservatives and private sector workers for policies that would make it easier for workers to save for retirement, according to a new AARP survey.

The nationally representative survey of private sector workers ages 18-64 shows that 8 in 10 (80%) support state-facilitated plans designed to help employees save their money for retirement. There is also broad agreement among American workers of all races, ethnicities, and political ideologies that elected officials should help small businesses offer their employees an easy way to save for retirement.

Other key findings from the survey include:

• Three in four (74%) private sector workers feel very or somewhat anxious about having enough money to live comfortably through their retirement years. Just a quarter say they are not anxious. Anxiety is high among all racial groups, with large majorities of Latinos (77%), whites (74%), African Americans (73%), and Asian Americans (70%) all saying they are anxious they will not be able to financially support a comfortable retirement.
• Eighty-three percent (83%) agree elected officials should do more to make it easier for workers to save for retirement.
• Eighty-one percent (81%) of political conservatives agree that elected officials should do more to make it easier for workers to save for retirement, as do eighty-six percent (86%) of moderates, and eighty-nine percent (89%) of liberals.
• Eighty-four percent (84%) of private sector workers age 18-64 say elected officials should make it easier for small businesses to offer their employees a way to save for retirement.
• Seventy-six percent (76%) or three in four political conservatives agree that elected officials should make it easier for small businesses to offer retirement plans to their employees, as do about four in five moderates (85%), and liberals (90%).

This survey was conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago with funding from AARP. Data were collected using AmeriSpeak®, NORC’s probability-based panel designed to be representative of the U.S. household population including the 50 states and the District of Columbia, and a supplemental address-based sample from TargetSmart. Interviews for this survey about retirement security were conducted online and via phone between November 1, 2016, and January 16, 2017, with 3,920 adults ages 18-64 employed in private sector industries. Interviews were conducted in English, Spanish, Korean, Vietnamese, and Chinese.

Republicans Looking For Obamacare Replacement Should Work With Democrats

NY Magazine: "The Republican Party, faced with the catastrophic real-world consequences of repealing the Affordable Care Act, is divided over how to proceed. Some nervous Republicans want to figure out what they want to put in place of Obamacare.

Senator Mike Lee insists that Republicans repeal Obamacare first, before they decide on an alternative. And his reason is straightforward: If people saw the Republican alternative, they might not like it! “There is a lot less agreement about what comes next,” he tells Julie Rovner. “If we load down the repeal bill with what comes next, it’s harder to get both of them passed.”

A Republican ad promises, “Health insurance that provides more choices and better care at lower costs, provides peace of mind to people with preexisting conditions … House Republicans have a plan to get there, without disrupting existing coverage.”

But when people find out what Republicans plan to put in place of Obamacare they will see the Republican "Repeal and Replace" ads were less than empty promises. It's time for Democrats to promise their "replacement" for Obamacare - Medicaid for All.

• Medicare is FAR less wasteful than private insurance.

Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) has introduced his bill, The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act," in every Congress since 2003. It is co-sponsored by more than 50 Members of Congress and support continues to grow. If Republicans want to repeal and replace Obamacare, tell them to replace it with Medicare for All.

Rep John Conyers: "Half a century ago, addressing the convention of the Medical Committee for Human Rights, Martin Luther King Jr. declared, "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane."

"I strongly agree with Dr. King, which is why I have been a firm supporter of President Obama’s landmark Affordable Care Act (ACA). The ACA has resulted in 17.6 million uninsured people gaining health coverage as the law’s coverage, and minorities have seen the largest increase in insurance coverage: About four million Latino adults gained coverage, an 11.5% drop in the uninsured rate, while nearly three million African-Americans gained insurance, a 10.3% reduction. Another seven million white adults became insured, representing a 6% drop.

But there is still much more to be done to eliminate injustice in health care in the United States, while making our system more cost-efficient. The United States still spends almost twice as much per person on health care as any other country, yet our key outcomes – life expectancy, infant mortality and preventable deaths – too often lag behind our peers. A recent Commonwealth Fund study ranked the U.S. healthcare system dead last among 11 highly developed countries in terms of quality, efficiency and access to health care.

That is why I am leading the charge in the House of Representatives for single-payer, universal healthcare system.  By implementing a “Medicare for All" system – the standard for health care throughout the industrialized world – we can achieve hundreds of billions of dollars in cost savings that can be used to cover the nation's remaining uninsured and upgrade coverage for millions of underinsured citizens. More and more people across the country understand that a single-payer healthcare system is the only way to guarantee quality care and at the same time reduce medical costs. A poll from [date] showed that more than half of Americans -- including 80 percent of Democrats and a quarter of Republicans -- support expanding health reform to "Medicare for All."

That is why I have introduced my bill, The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, in every Congress since 2003. It is co-sponsored by more than 50 Members of Congress and support continues to grow. "

Sanders And Cruz Debate Healthcare Repeal For American Workers

Senators Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz debated the future of health care in the US Tuesday night. The town hall debate highlighted some of the issues surrounding the GOP's committment to repeal the Affordable Care Act -- a sweeping health care law that diectly covers some 20 million Americans as well as who have health insurance through their employers. The evening began with each lawmaker laying out starkly different views of the controversial law.

"If you are one of 20 million Americans who finally has received health insurance, forget about it -- you're gone," Sanders warned about repealing Obamacare. "That means when you get sick, you ain't gonna be able to go to the doctor. And when you end up in the hospital, you'll be paying those bills for the rest of your life, or maybe you'll go bankrupt."

Cruz, a Texas Republican who made his name in national politics by fiercely opposing the health care law, said former President Barack Obama made a series of promises that were broken.

"If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor ... Millions discovered that was not true," Cruz said.



Related:

• GOP Agenda To Cut Seniors' Healthcare
• What Working Class Americans Lose When Trump Scraps Obamacare
• Bernie Sanders Gets Ted Cruz To Support A Single-Payer Healthcare System

Democrats Framing The Story Of Us?

The Story of Us by David Leonhardt - NYT Op-Ed Columnist

If any number of things had gone the other way — James Comey, Russian interference, a less distrusted nominee — the Democrats might now be starting their third straight term in office. And of course Hillary Clinton did win the popular vote, by no small margin.

So I understand why many sober Democrats have urged the party not to exaggerate the political lessons from the 2016 election. But it would also be a mistake to underreact.

Presidential politics are, by far, the party’s strong suit — and it still couldn’t beat Donald Trump. In addition to the White House, Republicans hold the House, the Senate and about two out of every three governorships and state legislatures.

GOP Use Double-Speak To Hide Gutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid

LATimes: Politicians aiming to cut Social Security and Medicare use weasel words to hide their plans. Let's call them on it.

In this era in which the Orwellian manipulation of language by politicians to say the opposite of what they mean has reached a fever pitch, we should be especially wary when conservatives hide their plans to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits behind a smokescreen of euphemism.

Jared Bernstein, a fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and a former chief economist to Vice President Joe Biden, has put in a plea to journalists to call out policy makers when they pull this stunt—and not to empower politicians by doing the same thing.

Read the full story at the LATimes.

DNC Chair Candidate Forum In Detroit

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) held it's third of four 'Future Forums' in Detroit Saturday, giving DNC members and other Democrats a chance to speak about how the party goes forward after losing to Republicans, over the last 8 years, more than 1,000 state and federal level legislative and executive branch seats held by Democrats.

The Detroit forum event began at 9 a.m. Saturday and continue throughout the day, featuring guest speakers and candidates for the several DNC leadership positions, including the candidates for DNC chair:

• Sally Boynton Brown, Executive Director of the Idaho Democratic Party
• Ray Buckley, Chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party
• Pete Buttigieg, Mayor of South Bend, Indiana
• Keith Ellison, U.S. House of Representatives, Minnesota 5th District|
• Jehmu Greene, Political Analyst
• Jaime Harrison, Chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party
• Tom Perez, 26th United States Secretary of Labor
• Peter Peckarsky, a Wisconsin attorney and Democratic progressive activist
• Sam Ronan of Ohio
• Robert Vinson Brannum, Veterans Committee chair of the NAACP’s Washington D.C. branch

When they meet on February 23–26, 2017, the 447 members of the Democratic National Committee will elect a new chair.

Regional forums with DNC chair candidates have already been held in Phoenix and Houston, and another forum is scheduled for Feb. 11 in Baltimore. Click here to view the recorded live streams of the Detroit, Phoenix and Houston forums.

United Steelworkers Local 1999 President Chuck Jones told attendees of the Detroit Future Forum gathering of Democrats Saturday working class Americans need to be brought back in the fold of the party, arguing that President Donald Trump convinced many likely Democratic voters to switch sides in 2016.

GOP Agenda To Cut Seniors' Healthcare

Republicans working to repeal the Affordable Care Act are working to stick it to one of the most important voting blocks within the GOP base - Senior Citizens. Based on exit polling, many of the demographics that would be hit hardest by the repeal voted for Trump in the presidential election.

A sizable minority of Americans don’t understand that Obamacare is just another name for the Affordable Care Act, according to a Morning Consult survey. In the survey, 35 percent of respondents said either they thought Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act were different policies (17 percent) or didn’t know if they were the same or different (18 percent). This confusion was more pronounced among people age 18 to 29 and those who earn less than $50,000 — two groups that could be significantly affected by repeal.

Among Republicans, a higher percentage (72 percent) said they knew Obamacare and the A.C.A. were the same, which may reflect the party’s longstanding hostility to the law. Though Republicans were more likely to know that Obamacare is another name for the A.C.A., only 47 percent of them said expanded Medicaid coverage and private insurance subsidies would be eliminated under repeal (compared with 79 percent of Democrats), while 29 percent said Medicaid and subsidies would not be affected and 24 percent said they didn’t know. A large block of Republican voters do not understand repealing Obamacare will affect the popular provisions of the A.C.A. AARP is working to change that political equation.

AARP, the nation’s largest organization of senior citizens, with a membership of 38 million older Americans age 50 and older, announced Monday it was launching a comprehensive campaign to protect Medicare and Medicaid from the GOP's chopping block. Repealing "and replacing" the Affordable Care Act also takes big bites out of Medicare and Medicaid.

“The average senior, with an annual income of under $25,000 and already spending one out of every six dollars on health care, counts on Social Security for the majority of their income and on Medicare for access to affordable health coverage,” wrote AARP CEO Jo Ann Jenkins in a recent letter to Congress. “We will continue to oppose changes to current law that cut benefits, increase costs, or reduce the ability of these critical programs to deliver on their benefit promises. We urge you to continue to do so as well.”

• AARP President: Paul Ryan’s Medicare Plan Could Hurt Seniors

The GOP's wish list for radical restructuring America's Social Security, Affordable Care, Medicare, and Medicaid benefit programs will literally destroy the quality life earned by America's retired seniors. Here are just two examples of how the GOP's restructuring goals will hit seniors hard with their repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act. One of those proposals would relax or eliminate the ACA’s “age bands” cap. The other would transform Medicaid into a so-called block grant.

Democrats Must Build A 21st Century Party

Robert Reich isn’t the only person to notice that the Democratic Party is in dire straits. All the Democrats in the running to be the Democratic Party's next leader are saying it too.

The former Secretary of Labor and UC Berkeley professor wrote an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle to confront the party with seven hard truths. His conclusion, if they don’t deal with these realities, is harsh: a third party is going to form that will replace them.

Here are those seven realities:

BlogTalkUSA: Eyes Wide Open DemBlogTalk - 01/31/2017

Listen to this week's BlogTalkUSA.com "Eyes Wide Open DemBlogTalk" talk radio program cohosts Rheana Nevitt Piegols and Michael Handley and their guest Bruce Horst discuss affordable healthcare as the moral choice for Christians. With Republicans about to repeal the Affordable Care Act — labled Obamacare by Republicans — Bruce steps forward from the ranks of Christian Evangelicals to say his fellow Evangelicals have driven him from the church over their stance Christians must oppose legislation that extends healthcare to the poor and children and other Americans denied healthcare because of financial barriers or preexisting health conditions.

• http://www.blogtalkradio.com/blogtalkusa/2017/02/01/eyes-wide-open-demblogtalk

Bruce Horst, a former Conservative Evangelical Christian from Texas, caught our interest when he took to Facebook about 2 weeks ago to brilliantly call out his former Conservative Evangelical Christian brethren for cheering the idea of 20 million people losing their health insurance! You will not want to miss this interview that starts at the 30 minute time mark of the recorded program!

Dems to David Brock: Stop Helping, You Are Killing Us

As David Brock attempts to position himself as a leader in rebuilding a demoralized Democratic Party in the age of Trump, many leading Democratic organizers and operatives are wishing the man would simply disappear.

Brock’s political evolution is well-known: the former anti-Clinton right-winger who starting in the late 1990s transformed into a relentlessly pro-Clinton Democratic operative who operates Media Matters for America as well as the American Bridge and Correct the Record super-PACS.

Brock's Correct the Record PAC operation coined and pushed the "Bernie Bros" bashes against supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, trolling them with that meme on social media. Clinton's supporters quickly shared Brock's Bernie Bros memes, virally pushing them into the primary's discourse.

Brock's PAC operation also published opposition articles and ads against Sanders and Donald Trump's GOP opponents during the 2016 primary cycle. Some of the "bad blood" still circulating between Sanders and Clinton supporters tracks back to Brock's less than factual negative attack campaign against Sander and his "Bernie Bros" followers during the primary. Another of Brock's primary goals was to help Trump win the GOP nomination on the theory Trump would be the weakest general election candidate against Clinton.

The friction between Brock and Democrats is widespread among alumni of Senator Bernie Sanders' and President Obama’s campaigns and White House, as well as Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 run. They all say they want Brock to stay far away from the Democrats’ future plans.

“I don’t think David Brock has been helpful to the party to date, and I don’t think he will be a big part of its future,” a former senior Clinton campaign official told The Daily Beast.

Another senior 2016 Clinton aide, who asked not to be named because the ex-staffer did “not want to deal with Brock’s bullshit,” described Brock and his organizations in 2016 as “useless—you might as well have thrown those [tens of] millions of dollars down a well, and then set the well on fire.”

Bottom line, what Democrats across the board seem to be saying about David Brock is, with friends like him, who needs enemies.

Read the full article at the Daily Beast: Dems to David Brock: Stop Helping, You Are Killing Us

GOP Hit Seniors With Higher Healthcare Costs

NPR: Republican lawmakers meeting in Philadelphia this week say they want their replacement of Obamacare's Affordable Care Act to be done by spring. There is no consensus on a plan yet, but several Republicans in Congress have already circulated proposals that could reduce or eliminate features of the federal health law that have benefited older Americans. Here are some examples:

Prescription drugs

The Affordable Care Act expanded Medicare's prescription drug benefit. Before the ACA, people on Medicare had to deal with a gap in that insurance coverage that came to be known as the doughnut hole. That's the point at which Medicare would stop paying part of the cost of drugs, and beneficiaries would have to buy them at full price. Then, when the patient's out-of-pocket costs reached a level deemed to be "catastrophic," Medicare would start paying most of the cost of the drugs again.

A 2011 study from the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that when patients had to pay full price, they'd skip some of their prescribed medications — and that could, potentially, result in sicker patients and higher costs for Medicare.

Gradually, the ACA has been closing the doughnut hole coverage gap. According to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, beneficiaries have saved more than $23.5 billion in prescription drug costs. It's unknown if this program would be maintained in a Republican plan that replaces the ACA.

Medicaid

Medicaid is commonly thought of as the program that provides health care for the poor. But it also pays for long-term care for a lot of older people, including the majority of nursing home residents.

One idea in some of the Republican proposals for replacing the Affordable Care Act is to turn Medicaid from a guaranteed benefit into a block grant to states. States would get a fixed amount of money from the federal government, and could make their own decisions on how to spend it.

That's an idea that's been popular for some time among conservatives such as House Speaker Paul Ryan. They argue that states know their needs better than Washington does, and the block grant would give states flexibility in meeting those needs.

Critics fear this could do away with many protections that federal law currently provides for vulnerable older people. They also worry about what might happen in an economic downturn, when the demand for Medicaid goes up, but the amount of federal money allocated for it stays the same. For example, would states have to choose between cutting services for poor children versus cutting programs for the frail elderly?

Limiting the cost of insurance premiums for older adults

Before the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies could charge people in their 50s and 60s many times more than they'd charge a younger person for the same policy. The affordable care act put a limit on that. Now Insurance companies can only charge older people three times as much as they charge people a few decades younger. But the various GOP replacement proposals either set higher limits — five or six times higher — or they don't have any limits at all.

A study sponsored by the Rand Corporation and the Commonwealth Fund found that if older Americans were charged five times more for insurance than younger people, about 400,000 would no longer be able to afford to buy health insurance.