Mediaboss Marketing

Democrats are taking the public option for a test drive.

The proposal for a new public insurance plan is enjoying its first signs of life this Congress: Senate health committee chair Patty Murray and House health committee chair Frank Pallone sent a letter on Wednesday to lawmakers, policy experts, patient advocates, and the health care industry asking for input on public option legislation they plan to draft.

The letter, on its own, doesnt do much. Nevertheless, after the public option was excluded from the major policy proposals so far from the Biden White House and will reportedly be left out of the presidents budget, this is the first indication that Democrats are still serious about the idea.

If Democrats do write a bill and try to get it moving through the House and/or Senate, it would be the first real test in more than a decade of how a public option would stand up to political scrutiny.

Republicans, struggling to find an effective message with which to oppose President Joe Biden, would likely jump at the chance to accuse Democrats of wanting the government to take over peoples health care, as they did in the campaign against the Affordable Care Act before their gains in the 2010 midterms. The industry is already aggressively making a case against the expansion of government health care.

But Democrats are moving forward in part because they believe the politics of health care have changed since the ACA debate, when the public option was scuttled because it didnt have enough support in the Senate despite the partys 60-seat supermajority.

The ACA survived Republican repeal attempts in 2017 and is now fairly popular with the American public. The public option polls well with voters, too, enjoying support from more than two-thirds of US adults in a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll. Nearly half of Republicans said they support it; Democrats believe opposing a public option could actually be a tough vote for some of their colleagues across the aisle.

But opinions are not hardened yet, and people might still be persuadable. Policy ideas can appear more popular in the abstract before they become prominent, polarized fights; the evidence that positive or negative messaging can substantially move support for or against Medicare-for-all is a telling example.

Framing a public option as more choice can be effective with some independents and Republicans, academics who have tested public opinion on the issue say. But does that effect last once theres a Republican and business campaign portraying the policy as socialism? Or has the rehabilitation of the ACA, which Democrats think has been driven by meaningful policy successes, eroded the effectiveness of such a message?

That big political question could determine the fate of any future proposal to expand government health care. Wed start to get some idea of the answer if Democrats manage to advance a public option bill this Congress.

This is also a chance for Democrats to home in on a specific plan. As Sarah Kliff and I previously reported, there are several public option proposals floating around Washington. Some would be intentionally limited to select populations; others would be more expansive, with the longer-term goal of enrolling as many Americans as possible.

The Pallone-Murray letter asks for feedback on a number of key policy questions: Who should be eligible for the public option? How much should it pay providers? What benefits should the plan offer?

Expectations should be tempered about whether the public option is going anywhere anytime soon. Democrats are playing it slow, with the proposal thus far excluded from their plans for any budget reconciliation bill that could pass without any Republican votes in the Senate. It might not comport with the rules that restrict what policies can be passed via the reconciliation process. It would also need nearly unanimous support among Democrats to pass, given their thin majorities in the House and Senate. It is easy to imagine a scenario in which a public option bill narrowly passes the House but doesnt clear the Senate.

Still, this step from Pallone and Murray is notable: Two of the top Democrats working on health care are giving the public option a shot.

Read more:
Democrats in Congress want to draft a public option health care plan - Vox.com

Democrats, and activists especially, are tired after four years spent dutifully knocking on doors and begging strangers to please vote. Marianne Burke, a 67-year-old retiree who leads the Democratic group Fairfax Indivisible, has noticed a clear decline in volunteer engagement since Bidens win. In February, she struggled to get group members to help mail postcards reminding Virginians to register to vote, and she had to write hundreds of them herself. She gets it: Theres not this urgency. You dont wake up in the morning and say, My God, whats [Trump] gonna do today? she told me. Im cautiously optimistic that Democrats will rally in time to help Democrats win in November, she added. But it is so nice to not have to constantly worry so I can understand why they wouldnt want to. Michael Zuckerman, a 70-year-old professor at George Washington University, told me hes worried about his fellow Democratic voters. Their work has made a difference, and we need to keep it up, Zuckerman said, after we met at the park for Gooditiss event. Hes volunteered for Democratic candidates since 2016. Weve come very close to losing democracy, and Im not sure were out of the woods.

Read: If Democracy is dying, why are Democrats so complacent?

Some races in Northern Virginia, like Gooditiss, could be close. (Shes running unopposed in next months primary; her Republican opponent, Nick Clemente, is already outraising her.) Republicans also have a chance to win at least a few seats near Richmond and Virginia Beach. At the statewide level, the gubernatorial race between the Republican Glenn Youngkin and a soon-to-be-nominated Democrat could go either way, election analysts told me. (Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe is the front-runner.) Youngkin can win if Democratic turnout in November is low, and if he can earn the support of a few of the suburbanites who couldnt stomach Trump.

Persuading them shouldnt be difficult, argues Tom Davis, a former GOP lawmaker from Virginia, because Youngkin, the former CEO of the private-equity firm the Carlyle Group, appeals to suburban sensibilities. Hes [Harvard] business school; hes got an educational pedigree, Davis told me.* He speaks their language. John Chamberlain, a 64-year-old software salesman from Great Falls, in Northern Virginia, is a registered Republican who voted for Biden in 2020. But it was more of a vote against Trump, he told me. I still believe the Democrats are missing something. Chamberlain likes Youngkins business background, and hes considering voting for him over the Democrat in November.

State Democrats plan to defend their progress with suburbanites by talking about Trump and Trumpism as much as possible. At a press conference in Alexandria last week, party leaders underlined the fact that Donald Trump has endorsed Youngkin. They referred to the Virginia Republican Party as the Virginia Trump Party, and warned voters against supporting the Trump-Youngkin agenda. Down the ballot, Gooditis is prepared to defend herself against negative ads by reminding voters of the events of January 6. Its very easy for us to say, Yeah, but they supported the guy who told people to attack the U.S. Capitol. So who are you going to listen to? she said.

Here is the original post:
Virginia Elections Will Test the Democratic Coalition - The Atlantic

Last year, in the midst of a presidential election campaign and a pandemic, the U.S. Postal Service was politicized by President Donald Trump and his administration as had never been done before. Critics accused the postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, of making changes to mail delivery to increase Mr. Trumps chances of re-election, a charge he vehemently denied.

This year, the Postal Service has returned to its traditional role of being the one thing in Washington that Democrats and Republicans can reliably agree on. It is heartening to see lawmakers from both parties lining up behind the Postal Service Reform Act of 2021 legislation introduced in the Senate and House that would help bring the mail into the 21st century.

Its no secret that the rise of email, e-commerce and electronic payments has created an existential crisis for the post office, which has knitted the nation together for more than 245 years. The volume of first-class mail has plummeted. From 2007 to 2020, it declined by 45 percent. Revenue from domestic mail fell 36 percent to $38.7 billion from $60.6 billion over the same period, curtailing the ability of the Postal Service to fund its own operations. A chorus of voices, including this editorial boards, have called for scaling back service in various ways to respond to rising costs and falling demand. More radical critics have called for privatizing mail delivery altogether.

Privatization is a bad idea. The Postal Service is arguably the only government agency that exists in every American neighborhood rural and urban, rich and poor. It has an enviable infrastructure that includes the largest fleet of trucks in the country and the largest number of brick-and-mortar storefronts. It remains among the most trusted and most popular government agencies. Many people depend on the post office to receive lifesaving medications and Social Security checks. Privatizing its functions would squander something valuable that we all share. Any downsizing must be done with great care.

Mr. DeJoys 10-year plan for the agency, announced in March, seeks to address the hemorrhaging of cash in part by raising rates and streamlining service, in some cases cutting back on hours and employees. On Friday the Postal Service announced that a first-class stamp would cost 58 cents, up from 55 cents, starting this summer

Some cutbacks and rate increases are necessary. But what the post office really needs is reimagining. An alliance of more than 80 national organizations, including the American Postal Workers Union, has put out a proposal to use the existing infrastructure in new ways anchoring the expansion of broadband access in rural areas or checking in on elderly and disabled people for whom mail carriers are the only point of daily human contact. The alliances plan also includes expanding the provision of financial services, such as affordable check-cashing, which could be vital in underserved areas. A 2015 report by the Postal Service Office of Inspector General estimates that such services could provide meaningful assistance to 68 million Americans who either dont have a bank account or rely on expensive payday lending programs to cash checks. The Postal Service is already the single largest provider of paper money orders nationwide, and it offered savings accounts to customers until the late 1960s. The inspector generals report estimated that the expansion of such services would generate about $1 billion in new revenue annually.

The Postal Service Reform Act would not explicitly authorize this kind of expansion, but it would leave the door open for experimentation by including a provision to allow more cooperation with state and local governments to offer nonpostal products on their behalf.

The bill would also put the Postal Service on firmer financial footing by removing a 2006 congressional requirement that the agency set aside large amounts of cash to cover the cost of employee post-retirement health benefits 75 years into the future. It is unreasonable to force the Postal Service to prefund retiree benefits that far ahead, something no other entity public or private is expected to do. The bill would also require the Postal Service to enroll all of its employees in Medicare when eligible, significantly reducing the agencys health care costs. Although mail carriers pay taxes into Medicare and are the second-largest contributor to Medicare in the country Medicare enrollment is voluntary for retirees.

Those changes, as requested by Mr. DeJoy, would help stop the financial bleeding at the agency, which has operated at a loss since 2006. It would save an estimated $45 billion over 10 years, freeing up money to make much-needed investments in modernization. A separate postal reform bill includes $8 billion to make a majority of postal trucks electric vehicles, which would be an enormous leap toward reducing emissions. Thats a plan that can be embraced by both environmental activists and corporations like Amazon, which ships packages through the Postal Service. As Amazon brings more deliveries in-house, the potential loss of revenue for the Postal Service poses a challenge that must be met with creativity and collaboration with other businesses that might fill the gap.

Far more needs to be done to bring the U.S. Postal Service into the digital age. But this is a step in the right direction. The post office has always been able to adapt to technological change from the pony express to the advent of airmail. It will be able to adapt once again, if Congress allows it to invest in itself and innovate.

Visit link:
Opinion | Democrat or Republican, You Probably Love the Post Office - The New York Times

A new book describes former President Barack Obama as a "parasite" on the Democratic Party, using it as a "host" during his first term to get reelected.

The description appears in a chapter of Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats' Campaign to Defeat Trump, written by Edward Isaac Dovere, a writer for the Atlantic, and former chief Washington correspondent for Politico.

OBAMA SLAMMED TRUMP IN PROFANITY-LACED REMARKS TO DONORS, BOOK REVEALS

"In his second term, he cared about what happened to the husk as much as any parasite does," Dovere writes, according to a report by Fox News.

The journalist cites Democratic losses in 2010, when Republicans took the majority in the House in a sweeping red wave, followed by 2014, when the GOP took control of both chambers in Congress.

"The numbers are hard to ignore: During his eight years in office, Obama oversaw a net loss of 947 state legislative seats, 63 House seats, 11 senators, and 13 governors," Dovere said.

Dovere said the former president only had two major success stories during his time in the White House: Supreme Court rulings upholding his signature healthcare plan, ObamaCare, and declaring same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states.

"In hindsight it's hard not to see delusion in the self-assurance and the celebration and the sense of moving forward of those two weeks in America," Dovere writes.

Dovere's book also talks about first lady Jill Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders. He claims Jill Biden told now-Vice President Kamala Harris to "go f*** yourself" after she referred to her husband, now-President Joe Biden, as a racist during a 2020 presidential primary debate.

The book also reports Sanders, a self-described socialist, has "minimum requirements" during his travels, including a request for a king-sized bed kept at 60 degrees and comfortable rights on private flights.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Dovere's book was compiled from more than 400 interviews over a four-year period. It chronicles the battle to remove former President Donald Trump from the White House. The book is set to release next week.

Original Location: Obama described as 'parasite' on the Democratic Party in new book

See the original post:
Obama described as 'parasite' on the Democratic Party in new book - Denver Gazette

One Sunday afternoon last September, a 16-year-old called Aaron Pryor was shot to death in a driveway near his home in Oakland, California. Even by the standards of midday drive-by shootings, it was an awful crime. Surveillance footage showed the killer fired more than a dozen rounds, before fleeing. No one was arrested for the murder, but local media didnt seem especially interested in finding out who did it. They already knew. The coronavirus killed Aaron Pryorthats what they told us.

One local TV station noted that violence in the area had risen since the pandemic beganthey must be connected. Pryor's football coach agreed. "It was COVID that really killed this kid," he told reporters. The coach didnt explain how exactly COVID had done this killing, or what COVIDs motive might have been. But no one asked. Everyone, particularly people in power, seemed happy to blame the pandemic. You heard that a lot. Across the country, in New York City, Mayor Bill De Blasio put responsibility for rising crime rates squarely on the virus.

De Blasio, MSNBC September 2020: Katy Tur: So, police organizations will say that part of the reason that crime is up is because there has been a cut in funding to the NYPD. What do you say to that? Mayor DeBlasio: This predates any funding decisions, that's just the truth. The perfect storm I mentioned started in March and April, when everything shut down and we saw the violence start in earnest May into June, into July. It's clearly because things came unglued

Right, it must have been the pandemic. It makes sense because we forced everyone to stay home. Thats why there are so many people on the street shooting each other and pushing strangers into oncoming subway cars. Does that make sense to you? No, it doesnt make sense to anyone. But thankfully experts soon emerged to explain why something so obviously untrue must in fact be true.

"Because the stresses of the pandemic are everywhere," explained a former CIA officer called Jeff Asher to the New York Times, "you are seeing this everywhere." Except were not seeing it everywhere, thats not true.

The coronavirus may be global, but rising crime rates are not global. Police in Canada reported that crime fell by 18 percent between March and October 2020. In the U.K., crime saw its biggest annual decrease in a decade. In Sweden and Russia, crime dropped too. Even in Mexico, which is in the middle of a drug war, there were fewer homicides in 2020 than there were in 2019. For normal countries, the pandemic meant more Netflix and less killing.

But not here. In the United States, the opposite happened. A lot of Netflix, even more killings. You're seeing the data on your screen now; it's from a nonprofit called The Council on Criminal Justice and researchers at the University of Missouri. It shows the average weekly homicide rate in 21 major cities. Killings spiked in late May, well after the pandemic began.

According to the Council on Criminal Justice, "Homicides, aggravated assaults, and gun assaults rose significantly beginning in late May and June of 2020. They jumped by 42% during the summer and 34% in the fall when compared to the summer and fall of 2019." So far this year, these sad trends have continued.

Murders are up 800 percent in Portland, 56 percent in Minneapolis, 27 percent in Los Angeles, 22 percent in New York, and 40 percent in Philadelphia.

So you have to ask yourself, because your life may depend on it, why is this country different from Sweden, Russia, and Mexico? You know the answer. Its not COVID. Its that in our country, stupid, malicious people took full controlthe Democratic Party took full control of the countryand their policies resulted in a huge number of killings. Here they are, bragging about their plans.

OBAMA: the folks in law enforcement that share the goals of reimagining policing REP JERRY NADLER: Reimagining policing in the 21st century. Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan: Rethinking and reimagining policing SEN. Dick Durbincommunity efforts to reimagine policing AL SHARPTON: We have to reimagine what policing looks like JESSICA BYRD, ACTIVIST: Reimagining policing, reimagining our public safety ALI VELSHI: Reimagine a citizen-led approach REP JULIAN CASTRO: You can begin to reimagine law enforcement EDDIE GLAUDE: Reimagine public safety in this country OAKLAND MAYOR LIBBY SCHAAF: To reimagine public safety LA MAYOR ERIC GARCETTI: What can we do to Reimagine public safety ANTONIO BROWN, ATLANTA CITY COUNCIL: A budget thats reflective of reimagining public safety SEN KAMALA HARRIS: We must reimagine what public safety looks like

Well, they definitely reimagined public safety, they made the public much less safe. According to a report in Axios, 20 major U.S. cities have slashed their police budgets in the last yearthey defunded the police. Collectively, theyve cut more than $840 million from law enforcement.

In Atlanta, in a story we love to read, one city councilman who voted to strip $73 million from the police -- a genius called Antonio Brown -- just had his car stolen in broad daylight by children. Who were not held back by the police, they were defunded. Must have been COVID that did it. Meanwhile, at least twenty-five cities have pulled police out of public schoolshows that going to work? You know the answer. At universities, activists have pushed for the same thing -- total abolition of the police. When they said they were going to defund the police, they meant it.

At The University of Chicago, dozens of students swarmed the home of the college president. One of them, an especially entitled young lady called Madeline Wright, shouted through a megaphone. Quote: "Were going to fight to abolish this (expletive) system, not reform it." Professors at the school joined her. One of them, a character called Damon Jones, led seminars on the problem of "over-policing" in the neighborhood around the university, its called Hyde Park, its where Obamas from. He wrote dozens of posts on Twitter last summer explaining that because University of Chicago police stop more African Americans than White people, in a predominantly Black neighborhood, theyre racist.

Whats interesting is that Damon Jones hasn't said anything on Twitter about police since January. That's when Yiran Fan, a 30-year-old Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago, was murdered in a killing spree on Chicago's South Side, along with two other people. At that point, its possible that morons like Damon Jones realized theres a reason that the University of Chicago has one of the largest private police forces outside of the Vatican. Why? Because the neighborhood around the school is a very dangerous place. Thats not the fault of the police, thats the reason they have police. It could be true about the city of Chicago which is now a dangerous place and becoming more so by the day. Why has that happened? Its happened because people with a political agenda have taken over law enforcement. It was in Chicago that BLM activists declared looting, stealing was a form of reparations.

BLM ACTIVIST ARIEL ATKINS, August 2020: They get upset when people start looting People in this city are struggling through a pandemic so I dont care if somebody decides to loot a Gucci or a Macys or a Nike because that makes sure that person eats. That makes sure that person has clothes. That makes sure that person can make some kind of money because this city obviously doesnt care about them. Not only that thats reparations.

So you have to steal from Gucci to eat. Stealing is reparations. Now thats insane and only a sick society would listen to someone like that. That would be dismissed immediately in a healthy society. Did a single Democratic politician push back? No. So guess what happened? In the city of San Francisco, Walgreens has closed 17 different stores. Why? Because prosecutors in San Francisco and in many places in California but not just there, no longer charge shoplifters, so people steal whatever they want. Theres so much theft, the stores cant afford to stay open. Theyre not closing as a political statement, they cant afford to have their merchandise stolen. This is not the country you were born in. Heres what it looks like:

KTVU (October 2020 package): The Walgreens on Van Essen in San Francisco will close its doors for good. Customers say the store is known for being a notoriously easy place to shoplift. WOMAN: Ive heard Walgreens is real easy to steal from REPORTER: Why is that WOMAN: Because they dont chase you REPORTER: Neighbors say shoplifting may be a major factor in why the store will soon close. Customers say the shelves are bare, with the company not even bothering to restock.

To be clear, its not that Americans have grown more prone to steal, its that stealing is now allowed. And when you allow something, you get more of it. This is a result of policies with the intention to get more stealing. Designed to give us more murder, more rape, more pushing people in front of subway cars. Its happened because the people in charge allowed it to happen.

Its happening everywhere, particularly in New York, where several candidates for mayor running to replace Bill De Blasio have said that anyone who opposes stealing is quote "criminalizing poverty." Who are the people with views like that? They arent normal people. Needless to say, most of the people with these views are pampered out-of-touch liberalstheyre the only ones who could afford to have views like that. Actress Cynthia Nixon certainly fits that description. Nixon expressed outrage the other day that CVS in her neighborhood was trying to prevent thieves from walking off with the inventory.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Quote: "I can't imagine thinking that the way to solve the problem of people stealing basic necessities out of desperation is to prosecute them."

Youve got to wonder what would happen if you showed up at Cynthia Nixons place tonight and tried to help yourself to some quote, "basic necessities." Would Nixon understand your theft as a profound form of protest? As a profound form of social justice, and applaud it? Or would she tell her bodyguards to shoot you, and then thank them profusely when they did? Not a tough question. Youd be dead in seconds. Cynthia Nixon doesnt mean a word of what she says about crime. None of them mean a work of what they say about crime. Theyre just trying to feel like good people in a world that confuses destruction for virtue. These people need help. They should be nowhere near power. Unfortunately, at the moment, they run the Democratic Party and all of us are seeing the results of that.

This article is adapted from Tucker Carlson's opening commentary on the May 27, 2021, edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight."

Read this article:
Tucker Carlson: Democrats have reimagined public safety, making the public much less safe - Fox News