Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America cheer the news that the Clinton Global Initiative is shutting down. They also sigh as more and more Democrats publicly state that Donald Trump is an illegitimate president. And they unload on a reviewer who pans “Patriots Day” because a white male is the hero, the resilience of the Boston is presented as a good thing and police are the good guys.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America enjoy watching more Clinton campaign fingerpointing – this time at Huma Abedin. They rip the intelligence community for being willing to offer anonymous stories to the press on Russian election hacking but being unwilling to brief members of Congress. And they get a kick out of celebrities launching a new video begging GOP electors to reject Donald Trump.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud Donald Trump for selecting retired U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis to be Secretary of Defense. They also roll their eyes as Clinton campaign officials contend white supremacists won the election for Trump. And they explain why Trump’s deal is good for Carrier employees but a bad model to follow as an economic policy.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America cheer Defense Secretary Ash Carter for stopping the government’s efforts to get re-enlistment bonus money back from soldiers fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. They also sigh as the latest WikiLeaks revelations show the Clinton Foundation also worked to line Bill’s pockets with huge speaking fees. And they unload on Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber for suggesting the only thing needed to improve Obamacare is to jack up the penalties on people who don’t buy insurance.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud Jim’s colleague, David French, for ripping the Democrats who are horrified over Donald Trump’s actions but were only too eager to defend Bill Clinton in the 1990’s. They’re also a bit uneasy as Russia moves missiles around, asks their people if they’re ready for nuclear war and makes other ominous moves. And they react to a poll showing Trump’s lead in Texas is now at the margin of error.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America react to Liberty University students denouncing Jerry Falwell, Jr. for making the school synonymous with Donald Trump. They also discuss reports of Trump pulling mostly or entirely out of Virginia, making his road to victory more difficult. They have fun with the Clinton team’s contradictory explanations for all the embarrassing emails coming out from Wikileaks. And they they note Bob Dylan’s winning of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Top Clinton campaign officials are under fire after the latest batch of emails from Wikileaks referred to the Catholic Church as a “Middle Ages dictatorship,” suggested some conservatives convert to Catholicism out of political expedience and that Clinton’s campaign chairman considered the creation of nominally Catholic organizations to erode support for the church itself.
Two exchanges among the latest batch of 1,200 emails released by Wikileaks are drawing the most scrutiny on this issue. The first came in in 2011 in an email from John Halpin of the Center for American Progress to John Podesta and Jennifer Palmieri. Podesta is now Clinton’s campaign chairman and Palmieri is a top spokeswoman.
After mocking News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch for having his Catholic children baptized in the Jordan River, Halpin broadens the discussion.
“Many of the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all Catholic (many converts) from the SC and think tanks to the media and social groups,” wrote Halpin.
“It’s an amazing bastardization of the faith. They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy,” he continued.
“I imagine they think it is the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion. Their rich friends wouldn’t understand if they became evangelicals,” replied Palmieri.
In a 2012 email, Podesta corresponds with Voices for Progress President Sandy Newman. Newman was looking for ways to build a movement to weaken the power of the Catholic church in the political debates over contraception, particularly with respect to the contraception mandate imposed as part of President Obama’s new health care law.
“We created Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good to organize for a moment like this. But I think it lacks the leadership to do so now. Likewise Catholics United. Like most Spring movements, I think this one will have to be bottom up,” wrote Podesta, noting that former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend would be a good choice to lead such a movement.
Republican Vice Presidential nominee Mike Pence immediately slammed the emails on Wednesday.
“Hillary Clinton should denounce those bigoted, anti-Catholic, anti-evangelical remarks and her campaign staff should apologize to people of faith and do it now,” said Pence.
For many observant Catholicsm the contents of these email exchanges are deeply troubling.
“It’s hard to know where to start, to be honest,” said Maureen Ferguson, senior policy adviser at The Catholic Association.
However, she says her first reaction was oddly one of gratitude.
“We should all be grateful that we’re getting a preview of this before Election Day, so that we can go into the voting booth with very clear eyes knowing what a Hillary Clinton administration would look like,” said Ferguson.
“People at the highest level in her campaign are just displaying blatant bias and discriminatory attitudes towards people of faith. The way that they’re mocking Catholics and evangelicals, there is obviously no respect here for those who cherish their first amendment freedom of religion,” she added.
While appalled at the comments, Ferguson says no one should be expect the Clinton team to think otherwise.
“On the one hand, it’s very surprising and stark to read these attitudes in black and white, but on the other hand we should not be surprised. This anti-Catholic, anti-people of faith bias comes on the heels of eight years of an administration which has been systematically undermining our religious liberty,” said Ferguson.
She points specifically to the Obama administration’s imposing of the contraception mandate.
“Remember the HHS mandate on contraceptives, telling Catholic nuns that had to be paying for contraceptives. This is using the heavy hand of the federal government, threatening massive government fines on a group of nuns (Little Sisters of the Poor) who are serving the elderly poor, unless they get in line with this liberal agenda,” said Ferguson.
She also says Hillary Clinton has also laid down the gauntlet on religious freedom. In April 2015, Clinton told the Women in the World Summit that biblical and moral opposition to abortion would be in the cross hairs of her administration.
“Laws have to backed up with resources and political will and deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed,” said Clinton.
Ferguson is especially galled at Podesta for wanting to create nominally-Catholic groups to challenge Catholic authorities on cultural issues.
“He admits to having been a part of creating these groups called Catholic Alliance for the Common Good and another one called Catholics United. Their specific purpose is to undermine the Catholic Church,” said Ferguson.
She says this is nothing new for Democrats.
“We all became familiar over the years with Catholics for a Free Choice, which was a pro-abortion group that put the name ‘Catholic’ on it it to undermine the Catholic position in defense of the sanctity of human life. In these emails, John Podesta even admits to creating these two liberal Catholic front groups as a way to subversively attack the church,” said Ferguson.
Ferguson admits this has been a tough election season for many observant Catholics, being repulsed by Clinton’s positions on a host of issues vitally important to them and by Donald Trump’s behavior past and present.
“I think so many of us Catholics feel quite homeless in this election,” she said.
But that does not mean both options are equally terrible in her eyes.
“I think most people wish we had different choices in this election, but we should at least be clear-eyed about what a Hillary Clinton administration would look like. It would be full of people who are aggressively attacking our freedom of religion,” said Ferguson.
“Trump has made a lot of pledges on religious liberty and a lot of the people around him and a lot of the people around him, like Mike Pence for example, have come out very strongly. He has a history of very good positions on life and religious liberty and issues related to the family,” said Ferguson.
Health care expert Grace-Marie Turner says Bill Clinton’s public criticism of Obamacare and obvious infighting within Obama’s own administration proves the U.S. health care system is in big trouble on its current course.
The former president made headlines Monday, when he discussed the big problems created by President Obama’s signature domestic legislation.
“The people that are getting killed on this deal are small business people and individuals who make just a little too much to get any of these subsidies. Why? Because they’re not organized. They don’t have any bargaining power with insurance companies. They’re getting whacked,” said Clinton.
“So you’ve got this crazy system where suddenly 25 million more people have health care and the people busting it sometimes 60 hours a week wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. It’s the craziest thing in the world,” said Clinton.
Turner, who actively fought Clinton’s health care reform in the 1990s and the push for Obamacare says, Clinton is on the right track – but only to a point.
“He’s got the diagnosis right. People are very unhappy with this law. The longer it’s in place, the more unhappy they are. He’s clearly hearing from small businesses. He’s hearing from families who cannot afford their premiums,” said Turner.
However, Turner suspects Clinton’s solution to the problem will only create more problems.
“What he’s doing I fear is teeing up, if Hillary is elected president, even more government control over the health sector. The American people know the problem is too much government control over health care,” said Turner.
She also says his characterization of what those millions of new people with health care coverage are receiving is badly misleading.
“He’s saying people have health care. No, they have health insurance. Ask people how hard it is to find a doctor to see them. People on Medicaid still have to go to hospital emergency rooms, particularly if they need specialty care,” said Turner.
Turner says the reasons for Obamacare’s failures are obvious.
“The health insurance companies are absolutely in straitjackets. The American people are being told the kind of health insurance they must buy, soup to nuts and absolutely everything anybody could think of, instead of actually having a policy that may work for them and their families that they may be able to afford. That’s not a choice they have right now,” said said Turner.
She fears a Hillary Clinton presidency would look to add a public option or some other way to increase government control of the health care system. Bill Clinton hinted similarly by suggesting those not qualifying for subsidies should be able to buy in to Medicare or Medicaid at a cost that’s comfortable for them, even if they don’t qualify for them.
Turner says that’s a recipe for disaster. She says the average senior citizen couple pays about $160,000 into the Medicare system but ends up needing more than $400,000 in care. She says the math of stuffing more people into that system should be clear to everyone.
“The system is not sustainable. It will go broke. It will go broke even faster if you put more people on it,” said Turner.
The Obama administration is also reportedly split on what do about insurance companies dropping out of the exchanges and demanding reimbursement in the billions of dollars. Some in the administration are apparently trying to work around existing law that forbids insurance company bailouts to keep the system alive.
At the same, the Justice Department is also fighting back against court challenges from insurance companies to pay them overdue subsidies.
Turner says this contradiction shows a fierce debate playing out within the administration.
“You have a big disagreement between the political people who want to do everything they can to rescue Obamacare and the civil servants who understand that these payments are illegal. Congress has passed very specific legislation forbidding any more corporate welfare,” said Turner.
Turner says this public infighting, plus the Clinton comments prove this administration understands the perilous state of our health care system.
“They know it’s in trouble. We have been talking since the beginning, since before this law passed, about the problems with this law. It was totally predictable that this was going to happen. Finally the supporters are saying it has problems. I think it is a whole other level when former President Bill Clinton basically says the law is a mess and a crazy scheme,” said Turner.
She says it will be difficult to fix the law because the Democrats are only interested in spending more money in a bad direction and Republicans want nothing to do with that. Turner says real negotiation will have to take place since Republicans will have to be part of the discussions, unlike 2010 when the law passed with support only from Democrats.
But Turner isn’t interested in tinkering with what she sees as a failure. She wants to return to healthy competition in the health care sector.
“Give consumers choices. They’re happy with the product. They’re engaged in helping to make sure that they spend their health care dollars wisely. And they see the savings when they make smart decisions,” said Turner.
“That’s what we need more of, not more government spending and government control, thinking that somehow we’re going to be able to spend enoughto that everybody can have all the health care they want all the time without any strings attached. That’s not possible,” said Turner.
Radio America’s Brett Winterble and National Review’s Jim Geraghty discuss Obama’s comments on crediting teachers for your success, the Treasury Department’s secret escapades and Hilary Clinton’s poor treatment in Egypt.
