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At Democrat's 'Listening Session,' Concern About Trump, Minus the Jeers New York Times Credit Lauren Justice for The New York Times. LA CROSSE, Wis. Representative Ron Kind stood in front of the crowd gathered at an American Legion post in his district in western Wisconsin and listened. As a Democrat in the House minority, that is ... and more »

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At Democrat's 'Listening Session,' Concern About Trump, Minus the Jeers - New York Times

Renee C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA

I forgot about this until Rachel Maddow mentioned it on her show last night:

A Democrat on the Federal Election Commission is quitting her term early because of the gridlock that has gripped the panel, offering President Trump an unexpected chance to shape political spending rules.

The commissioner, Ann M. Ravel, said during an interview that she would send Mr. Trump her letter of resignation this week. She pointed to a series of deadlocked votes between the panels three Democrats and three Republicans that she said left her little hope the group would ever be able to rein in campaign finance abuses.

The ability of the commission to perform its role has deteriorated significantly, said Ms. Ravel, who has sparred bitterly with the Republican election commissioners during her three years on the panel. She added, I think I can be more effective on the outside.

Ravel is not the first Democrat to resign a post early after Trump's election win. SEC Chair Mary Jo White is another high-profile Democrat who's resigned, and there have been several others as well.

Why? With Republicans in control of everything, isn't this precisely the time when Democrats should want to retain as much power as they can muster for as long as they can? Ravel's resignation will break the FEC's frequent deadlocks, but it will break them by almost certainly giving Republicans total control over election policy. This is precisely the thing that Ravel has been fighting against the past three years.

I don't get it. What am I missing here?

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Another Democrat Hands Over the Reins to Republicans - Mother Jones

Immigration: The deportation rules announced this week by Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly were greeted with the expected outrage from the usual suspects. But since when is enforcing the law a crime?

In this case, the law that Kelly plans to enforce is the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which was approved by 52 Democrats in the Senate and 202 Democrats in the House in a Democrat-controlled Congress and was signed into law by President Johnson, a Democrat.

That hasn't stopped today's Democrats from decrying the DHS memo as obscene and horribly un-American.

New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez says the policies described in Kelly's memo are "xenophobic." Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called it a "mass deportation plan to round up and quickly deport anyone who is undocumented." He said Democrats would oppose it and "continue fighting for what is right."

News accounts, meanwhile, said the DHS memos were creating fear and panic among immigrant communities.

Others complained that the DHS plan would let the government deport illegals to Mexico, even if they originated from another country, that they could be deported for something as mundane as a traffic ticket, and that the rule, as The New York Times put it, "strip such immigrants of privacy protections."

What the memos say, however, is that DHS will enforce the 1965 law.

Critics say, for example, Kelly wants to enlist local law enforcement to help identify and arrest illegals. CNN says the memos "expand the federal government's ability to empower state and local law enforcement agencies to perform the functions of immigration officers."

Not true. This ability is drawn directly from the 1965 law and has been used ever since as a "force multiplier." It was Obama who sharply scaled the program back after he won re-election in 2012.

The decision to ship illegals back to Mexico, even if they came from another country, is also drawn directly from the law which also, by the way, makes it clear that illegals can be deported simply for the crime of being in the country illegally.

As far as "stripping" immigrants of "privacy protections," what Kelly's memo actually says is that DHS will abide by the 1974 Privacy Act, which provides privacy protections for information collected by the federal government about U.S. citizens. These protections, the law makes clear, do not extend to visitors or aliens.

In early 2009, the DHS decided on its own to extend the Privacy Act to illegals, because it was easier to do so. Kelly's memo simply rescinds that 2009 "guidance memorandum."

This doesn't strip immigrants of any privacy rights which they didn't have to begin with but simply better aligns DHS policy with federal law.

In addition, DHS is scrapping Obama's Priority Enforcement Program, which was also implemented after Obama won re-election and was in force for all of two years. PEP severely limited which illegals would be deemed a priority for removal, supposedly to focus the agency's efforts on high-risk illegals.

But as Kelly states, Obama's PEP "failed to achieve its stated objectives (and) hampered the Department's enforcement of the immigration laws." So the agency is going back to the Secure Communities Program that PEP had replaced.

For the most part, then, what Kelly is doing is wiping away various roadblocks set up by Obama that hampered enforcement of the 1965 law.

It's true that Kelly plans to hire 10,000 more agents and officers, but many of these personnel will go toward speeding up what is an absurdly long removal process and to better enforcing existing laws.

In any case, the memos make clear that DHS still intends to prioritize their deportation efforts on illegals who are 1) criminals, 2) drug traffickers or 3) national security risks. Anyone want to object to that?

If Democrats don't like the 1965 law which their party wrote and passed they should try to convince the public that it needs to be changed, rather than mindlessly attack the president who tries to enforce its provisions.

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Democrats Attack Trump For Enforcing Their Own Immigration Law - Investor's Business Daily

Chicago Tribune

Republican Health Plans Have Winners And Losers, Just Like Obamacare FiveThirtyEight Last week, Republican members of the House put forward the outline of a replacement plan for the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama's signature health care bill. The ACA was decried by Republicans as an unmitigated financial disaster and ... Republicans suddenly realize destroying the health-care system might be a bad ideaChicago Tribune The Republican Obamacare Dilemma In One 6-Minute VideoHuffington Post The End of the Republican Health-Care CharadeBloomberg MSNBC -The Independent -Common Dreams all 631 news articles »

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Republican Health Plans Have Winners And Losers, Just Like Obamacare - FiveThirtyEight

In their districts this week, Republican members of Congress are facing pushback from angry town-hall crowds over the potential repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Some lawmakers are offering up a degree of sympathy in response, whether by defending the right to protest or attempting to convince voters they understand their concerns.

Can Mexico Block Trumps New Deportation Rules?

Republican Senator Tom Cotton told an agitated town hall audience in Arkansas on Wednesday that he wouldnt deny that Obamacare has helped many Arkansans, after a woman said the law saved her life. When another woman insisted she wasnt a paid protester, the senator tried to reassure the crowd that wasnt a charge he planned to make: Youre all Arkansans and Im glad to hear from you, he said. Thank you to everyone for coming out tonight, whether you agree with me or disagree with me. This is part of what our country is all about.

Other Republican lawmakers have gone even further in making clear over the past week that they believe the people showing up at town halls and expressing alarm over the possibility of Obamacare repeal are genuine and should be listened to.

This wasnt an artificial crowd. It wasnt manufactured. It was real people with real concerns in terms of what came next on healthcare, GOP Representative Mark Sanford of South Carolina told CNN after holding a town hall of his own lasting almost four hours over the weekend.

In Iowa, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley told reporters on Tuesday that its all legitimate, as he too faced questioning at town halls over the fate of the healthcare law. If Hillary Clinton had been elected president, thered be people from the conservative end of the spectrum [who would] probably be doing the same thing.

Those acknowledgements might not be enough to allay the fears of people worried that they might lose health coverage if the Affordable Care Act is repealed. But they mark a contrast with the way the White House has characterized the protest and agitation taking place, and also appear to be a departure from how some Republican lawmakers talked about the activism at town halls when they first started generating national headlines earlier this month.

After video footage of an agitated crowd in Utah chanting Do your job! at House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz went viral, the GOP congressman went on the defensive. Suggesting that people at his town hall were not acting in good faith, Chaffetz said that what happened was bullying and an attempt at intimidation. The Deseret News reported that Chaffetz claimed that the protestors included people brought in from other states to disrupt the meeting.

The White House has also attempted to downplay the crowds. During a press conference last week, President Trump seemed to dismiss protesters by arguing that they arent residents of the lawmakers districts. They fill up our rallies with people that you wonder how they get there, but theyre not the Republican people that our representatives are representing, he said. On Tuesday, he tweeted: The so-called angry crowds in home districts of some Republicans are actually, in numbers cases, planned out by liberal activists.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer acknowledged during a press briefing earlier this week that some people are clearly upset, but similarly suggested the activism may not accurately reflect the sentiment of the lawmakers constituents. There is a bit of professional protestor, manufactured base in there, he said. It is a loud, small group of people, disrupting something in many cases for media attention.

In states across the country, liberal activists are taking a page out of the Tea Party playbook to help organize turnout at town hall events. Some of those activists are following guidelines that draw inspiration from Tea Party tactics as a way to put pressure on members of Congress and generate headlines, explicitly recommending that activists reach out to media, during and after the town hall. Still, that doesnt necessarily mean the people voicing concern at town halls are exclusively liberal activists. CNNs Eric Bradner and MJ Lee, meanwhile, have reported that theres no evidence of paid protesters.

Its too early to say what kind of impact the town hall protests might have, if much at all, beyond energizing liberal activists. The extent to which voter dissatisfaction is or isnt widespread is also difficult to gauge from protest alone. This week, a Pew Research Center survey found that most Republican voters have a favorable view of Trump and trust the president more than GOP leaders in Congress.

Even if some GOP lawmakers adopt a sympathetic tone toward angry town hall crowds, that isnt necessarily an indication that theyre changing course. When Cotton told the crowd on Wednesday that he wouldnt deny Obamacare has helped people in the state of Arkansas, he quickly added it has also hurt many Arkansans.

And some Republican lawmakers have voiced frustration at events. If all you want to do is vent, this will not be profitable, Republican Senator Bill Cassidy said during a Louisiana town hall on Wednesday amid shouts and yelling. Later, the senator lamented to reporters: The unfortunate thing is there was so much common ground that they would not listen to, adding unfortunately, people came in with their prejudices, and with their prejudice, they would not listen.

But Cassidy defended the right to protest. I assume theyre Americans who care about our country, he told Gambit, a Louisiana newspaper, after the event, dismissing the possibility that people in the room were paid protestors. He added: Theyre coming out with their Constitutionally protected right to assemble and speak. And isnt that a good thing!

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Republican Lawmakers Face Hostile Town-Hall Crowds - The Atlantic