Archive for the ‘Republican’ Category

Gunman went to Republican baseball practice with a list of names – Los Angeles Times

The man who shot House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and others at a congressional baseball practice earlier this week had with him a piece of paper with doodles and the names of three lawmakers, according to a person familiar with the case.

The person told the Associated Press on Saturday that investigators weren't sure of the significance of the names and didn't know whether it was a list of people he was targeting. This person was not authorized to speak publicly about the case and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The person did not disclose the names, but said those listed had been briefed.

Scalise's trauma surgeon said Friday that the GOP whip can hope to make an excellent recovery even though he arrived at the hospital Wednesday at risk of imminent death.

Dr. Jack Sava of MedStar Washington Hospital Center said there was a good possibility that the Louisiana Republican will be able to return to work in his full capacity.

Sava declined to put a timeline on when that might happen or when Scalise, 51, will be able to leave the hospital. The doctor described how a bullet from an assault rifle entered Scalise's hip and traversed his pelvis, shattering blood vessels, bones and internal organs along the way.

For now, Scalise remains in critical condition in the hospital's intensive care unit.

Scalise, the No. 3 House Republican, arrived at the hospital via helicopter in shock, with intense internal bleeding, Sava said.

Since then, the lawmaker has undergone multiple surgeries and procedures to stop the bleeding and repair bone. He has been brought out of sedation periodically and been able to recognize and communicate with his family, Sava said.

Scalise was wounded when a gunman opened fire at a GOP lawmaker baseball practice Wednesday morning.

Several other people were also injured in Wednesday's shooting before Scalise's security detail and other police officers gunned down the assailant, who later died. The shooter was an Illinois man, James T. Hodgkinson, who had lashed out against President Trump and Republicans over social media.

Sava said Friday that there were still hundreds of bullet fragments in Scalise's body, but that doctors have no intention to try and remove all the bullet fragments at this point.

Nonetheless, said Sava, We fully expect him to be able to walk and hopefully run.

Sava said that after being released from the hospital, Scalise will require a period of healing and rehabilitation.

I feel a lot more confident and a lot more optimistic than I did two, three days ago, Sava said. I think that his risk of death right now is substantially lower than when he came in; he was as critical as you can be when he came in.

Sava said he told Scalise's family: I am not declaring victory until he's playing ball in his backyard with his family.

Also suffering relatively minor injuries were two Capitol Police officers, David Bailey and Crystal Griner, and House GOP aide Zachary Barth. Griner remains hospitalized at MedStar Hospital after getting shot in the ankle, and Sava described her in good condition.

Bailey was spotted Friday in the Capitol, on crutches and out of uniform, accepting congratulations from fellow officers.

Lobbyist Matt Mika, who was also shot multiple times and critically wounded, has undergone additional surgery and doctors expect a full recovery, his family said Saturday.

In a statement, Mika's family said he would remain in the intensive care unit at George Washington University Hospital at least through the weekend. They said he was able to communicate through notes and signed the game ball from Friday's congressional baseball game.

Mika is a lobbyist for Tyson Foods and a former aide to Michigan Republican Rep. Tim Walberg.

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Gunman went to Republican baseball practice with a list of names - Los Angeles Times

The average Republican doesn’t even know what’s in that legislation: Bernie Sanders blasts GOP on health care An … – Salon

On Sunday Sen. Bernie Sanders I-Vt., said it wascompletely unacceptable that the Senate Republicans have been secretively handling their health care proposal that would repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act in a closed-door process.

During an interview on Face the Nation host John Dickerson asked Sanders if he was on board with halting all Senate business because Senate Republicans are designing their health care bill in total secrecy. I believe it is 10 Republicans working behind closed doors to address 1/6th of the American economy. Thats what health care is. Republicans. The average Republican doesnt even know whats in that legislation, Sanders explained.

My understanding is that it will be brought forth just immediately before we have to vote on it. This is completely unacceptable, he added. I mean, nobody can defend a process which will impact tens of millions of Americans and nobody even knows whats in the legislation.

The most important part, according to Sanders, is that the Republicans have purposely kept the proposal hidden because its a disastrous bill.

Who is going to defend cutting Medicaid by $800 billion at the same time as you give massive tax breaks to the wealthiest 2 percent? So they want to keep it secret. They dont want the media involved. They dont want members of Congress involved. And in the last minute, they present it. They push it through, Sanders explained.

Sanders also said that the health care bill that passed in the House at the beginning of May was the worst piece of legislation frankly against working class people that I can remember in my political life in the Congress.

But Sanders is far from the only one who has taken issue with theclosed-door process, even some Republicans have spoken out about it. On Sunday Sen. Marco Rubio R-Fla., who was also on Face the Nation criticized his own colleagues and said, The Senate is not a place where you can just cook up something behind closed doors and rush it for a vote on the floor.

Especially on an issue like this, Rubio added.

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The average Republican doesn't even know what's in that legislation: Bernie Sanders blasts GOP on health care An ... - Salon

Virginia’s Wake-Up Call to the GOP Establishment – The Atlantic

Ever since Donald Trump became president, wary Republican elites have believed he was an anomalya unique candidate who owed his success to celebrity appeal and weak opposition, despite some noxious views and behavior. Take away Trump the person, they believed, and there would be no Trump phenomenon.

That viewpoint got a rude wake-up call this week, in a Virginia Republican primary that wasnt supposed to be a contest at all. And while the GOP establishments preferred candidate still won, the surprise result showed theres still a substantial appetite in the partys base for the populist impulses Trump represents.

Virginia elects governors in the odd-numbered years after presidential elections, and this year, it was Democrats whose primary looked like a pitched battle. Two well-credentialed progressivesone the sitting lieutenant governor, the other a former congressman and Obama administration officialwere locked in a battle for the partys soul. But despite polling showing a tight race, the Democratic establishment candidate, Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, pulled out an easy win, defeating Tom Perriello by a 12-point margin.

On the Republican side, meanwhile, Ed Gillespie expected to coast to an easy victory over his main challenger, Corey Stewart, a Trump acolyte who highlighted his hard line on immigration and support for Confederate monuments. It doesnt get much more establishment than Gillespie, a former D.C. lobbyist and chairman of the Republican National Committee. Polls had shown Gillespie up by 20 points over Stewart, a local county board chairman. Gillespie had all the major endorsements and many times as much money as Stewart.

But off-year elections, where turnout varies wildly and partisans are often late to decide, are devilishly difficult to poll. Virginia primaries have defied the pollsters before: In 2014, grassroots conservatives delivered a shocking defeat to Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, just weeks after Cantors pollster had told him he was winning by 34 points.

In this case, Gillespie and Stewarts vote totals hovered within a point of each other for hours after the polls closed. Gillespie was finally declared the winner by just over 1 percentage point, drawing 43.7 percent of the vote to Stewarts 42.5 percent.

I spent the weekend before Tuesdays vote following Stewart and Gillespie, on the theory that their primary was an early test of the Trump eras most pressing political question: whether the unorthodox new president represents a long-term political realignment or just a weird one-off. Had Gillespie walked away with the primary as expected, it might have been evidence that the Republican fever had broken, and that the GOP was looking to return to business as usual with sensible, practical candidates rather than race-baiting firebrands.

Virginia isnt exactly Trump country: The state went for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Trump won the states primary by a narrow margin over Marco Rubio. Despite its Southern geography, Virginia today is an urban, transient, diverse, highly educated state, where many local Republican activists are wealthy consultants and lobbyists like Gillespie. When I went to see Gillespie campaign at a local fair, I met one such activist, a former mining-industry lobbyist who lives in the D.C. suburbs. Gillespies campaign was premised on the notion that Virginia Republicans were looking for a candidate who, while not openly repudiating Trump, was the polar opposite of Trump in temperament and orientation, emphasizing tax cuts and economic growth over culture-war controversies.

Stewarts theory was the opposite: that Trump changed everything and showed what the GOP base was really looking for. Serving as the Trump campaigns Virginia state chairman last October, he led activists in a march on the RNC headquarters, where he charged that the establishment pukes were undermining Trumps campaign. (He was fired for the stunt.) Last weekend, Stewart told me he had warmed to Reince Priebus, the former RNC chairman now serving as White House chief of staff, but still believed the Republican establishment was hampering Trumps presidency.

The Stewart supporters I spoke to, at a campaign rally in a diner in Fredericksburg, were galvanized by his nationalist message. There were numerous Confederate flag bumper stickers in the parking lot, and one woman wore a stars-and-bars hat with the word REBEL. They told me they were disgusted with Republican leaders like House Speaker Paul Ryan, and put all their faith in Trump.

On Tuesday, there turned out to be a lot more of these types of Republican voters than Ed Gillespie expected.

Trump had an effect on the Democratic side of Tuesdays primary as well. More than they competed on policy, the Democrats vied to be the most virulently anti-Trump, with the winner, Northam, airing an ad in which he called the president a narcissistic maniac. And Democrats were clearly energized: More than 540,000 turned out to vote in the Democratic primary, compared to 370,000 in the Republican primary.

In Fredericksburg, I asked Stewart if he believed Trump had changed the face of American politics. Thats what this election is going to help answer, Stewart replied. He certainly was a different kind of Republican. The question is, did that start a new era in Republican politics? Or are we going to revert back to the same old same old, with more establishment candidates winning nominations?

Stewart, of course, believed he was going to win, and he didnt. But in coming as close as he did, he gave the Republican establishment a scareand showed that a sizable portion of the GOP base doesnt want to go back to business as usual. Far from being weary of the controversial and unorthodox president, a lot of Republicans want more candidates like Trump.

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Virginia's Wake-Up Call to the GOP Establishment - The Atlantic

Alexandria Gunman Carried List With Names of 3 Republican Lawmakers – New York Times


New York Times
Alexandria Gunman Carried List With Names of 3 Republican Lawmakers
New York Times
WASHINGTON The gunman who targeted Republican congressmen this week at a baseball field in suburban Washington was carrying a list with the names of at least three lawmakers, and had pictures of the ballpark stored on his cellphone, two law ...
Scalise shooter James Hodgkinson had list of Republican lawmakers' namesFox News
List of Republican congressmen found with baseball practice shooterCNN
Congressional Baseball Shooter Hated Republicans, Has Died of InjuriesSlate Magazine (blog)
USA TODAY -Twitchy -POLITICO Magazine -Washington Post
all 1,573 news articles »

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Alexandria Gunman Carried List With Names of 3 Republican Lawmakers - New York Times

The Shooting Attack on Republican Lawmakers – New York Times


New York Times
The Shooting Attack on Republican Lawmakers
New York Times
On Wednesday morning there was a shooting at a baseball field filled with Republican members of Congress practicing for a charity game. Only the diligence of their police protectors prevented a mass killing. The gunman has been identified as a ...
Dems Win Congressional Baseball Game, Give Trophy to Republican Steve ScaliseBreitbart News
Democrats Down Republicans, Both Down the RhetoricRoll Call
Somber Republicans miss Scalise in first post-shooting meetingCNN International
ESPN -New York Magazine -The Atlantic
all 5,575 news articles »

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The Shooting Attack on Republican Lawmakers - New York Times