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Bright Midterm Forecast, Biden Targets Handguns, Biden Tired of Staff Corrections

May 31, 2022 by GregC

Listen to “Bright Midterm Forecast, Biden Targets Handguns, Biden Tired of Staff Corrections” on Spreaker.

Join Jim and Greg as they welcome an even brighter forecast for Republicans in the 2022 midterms. They also strongly reject President Biden’s suggestion that 9mm handguns ought to be banned. And they react to Biden reportedly being frustrated that his staff keeps telling reporters that he meant something other than what he said.

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Filed Under: congress, Constitution, Economy, Elections, Guns, History, Humor, Journalism, News & Politics, Russia Tagged With: 3MartiniLunch, Biden, congress, corrections, elections, guns, handguns, midterms, staff

Arizona Election Laws Stand, SCOTUS Protects Donor Privacy, & Former Staff Bash VP Harris

July 1, 2021 by GregC

Listen to “Arizona Election Laws Stand, SCOTUS Protects Donor Privacy, & Former Staff Bash VP Harris” on Spreaker.

Jim and guest host applaud SCOTUS for upholding an Arizona election law that is similar to Georgia’s election integrity laws which dooms Democrats’ hopes of overturning them. They give another round of applause to SCOTUS for protecting donor privacy, overturning a California law which forces nonprofits to disclosing donor information. Finally, they giggle at former staff members’ complaints of mistreatment from VP Harris which seem to be a little too critical.

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Filed Under: Podcasts Tagged With: Arizona, California, donors, election laws, Kamala Harris, National Review, SCOTUS, staff, Three Martini Lunch

Staffers Crush Katie Hill, Support Builds for Barrett, Clueless in Kansas

October 7, 2020 by GregC

Listen to “Staffers Crush Katie Hill, Support Builds for Barrett, Clueless in Kansas” on Spreaker.

Join Jim and Greg as they watch staffers of disgraced former California Rep. Katie Hill accuse her of abusing and mistreating her staff just as Hill’s victim narrative is about to become a movie. They also cheer new polling showing a significant jump in support for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett in just one week. And they have fun as the Democrat running for U.S. Senate in Kansas has no idea what the Patriot Act is.

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Filed Under: congress, Constitution, Elections, Entertainment, History, Humor, law, News & Politics, polls, Social Media, Supreme Court Tagged With: abuse, Amy Coney Barrett, Barbara Bollier, Katie Hill, National Review, Patriot Act, poll, Senate, staff, Supreme Court, Three Martini Lunch

The Obamacare Trump Card

August 1, 2017 by GregC

http://dateline.radioamerica.org/podcast/8-1-FUND-BLOG.mp3

With Senate Republicans unable to pass a health care bill, President Trump might be able to shake up the debate and motivate swift congressional action by ordering the end of the Obamacare exemption for lawmakers and their staff members.

As Obamacare was debated in 2009 and 2010, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, proposed an amendment that would require all members of Congress and their staff members to be subject to the new law.  Eventually, that amendment got watered down to allow exemptions for committee staff members.

Columnist John Fund says lawmakers and office staffers soon realized they didn’t like how the new law impacted them.

“They quickly discovered as the exchanges were being set up that the exchanges were going to prohibit the payment of subsidies to anyone with an exchange policy who was getting that policy from their employer.  In other words, you could have your own policy, but you couldn’t have your employer pay for it,” said Fund.

Before long, lawmakers and their employees were looking for special favors from the president.

“That meant that Congress would lose about 70 percent of its subsidies for health care.  They were, of course, traumatized by this.  They went behind the scenes to President Obama, who quietly made a call to the Office of Personnel Management.  That’s the group that manages all federal employees,” said Fund.

“[The Office of Personnel Management, or OPM,] decided that the exchange would include Congress and its staff, that Congress qualified for a ‘small business exemption,’ which meant that it had fewer than 50 employees.  Well, Congress has a thousand employees, so that’s preposterous.  This was clearly an illegal interpretation of the law,” said Fund.

Of course, Congress has no interest in addressing that misinterpretation of the law.

“It has persisted because Congress doesn’t want to go and vote on reimposing the same restrictions that all Americans labor under with Obamacare on itself.  In other words, it doesn’t want to do it in public.  It wants to do it more sneakily behind the scenes,” said Fund.

Fund says if Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, really wanted to take a principled stand on Obamacare, he would have focused on this issue instead of his vote to kill the so-called skinny repeal last week.

“Rather than John McCain voting against Obamacare reform and shutting the whole process down, if John McCain had really been courageous what he would have done is offered an amendment on the Senate floor, saying whatever happens, Congress should not be exempt from Obamacare.  He didn’t do that,” said Fund.

After Obama directed the OPM to exempt Congress and the staffers, then-Sen. David Vitter, R-Louisiana, repeatedly pushed legislation to reinstate the requirement for the rules of Obamacare to apply to everyone on Capitol Hill.

Not only did neither party act on his efforts, but some lawmakers were so irate that they asked staffers to draft legislation to remove the exemption for any lawmakers who supported Vitter’s bill, as well as the staffers for those members.

That idea went nowhere but Fund says it typifies the attitude of too many officials in Washington.

“What’s sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander.  They believe they’re above the law.  They don’t come out and say that because it sounds awful in a democracy.  But the bottom line in Washington is you watch what people do, not what they say,” said Fund.

The good news, says Fund, is that President Trump can reverse this policy just as easily as President Obama put it in place.

“It wasn’t even an executive order.  Believe it or not, it was just a phone call to the Office of Personnel Management saying, ‘You work for me.  You issue this,'” said Fund.  “Donald Trump could literally pick up the phone tomorrow and declare Congress is now covered by Obamacare fully and completely.”

A poll conducted by Independent Women’s Voice just prior to Obamacare’s implementation in 2013 shows 93.7 percent of American voters wanted Congress to abide by the rules along with every other American.

“The only ones who don’t think it’s unfair are the friends and family of Congress,” quipped Fund.

However, Fund says there is one condition under which Trump should consider allowing the exemption to continue.

“I think the best way to get Congress to, shall we say, see the light is to reform Obamacare for everyone.  Let Congress keep its exemption if other Americans can do the same thing,” said Fund.

But given the entrenched polarization in Congress, would threatening to remove the exemption really move the needle?

“If Donald Trump took this issue to the people and said, ‘I am sending a bill to Congress that will transform health care and reform Obamacare, and included in it is the provision that Congress should be covered by Obamacare and I demand a vote on it,’ Congress is going to have to do something,” said Fund.

Fund says Trump would be wise to give Congress fair warning rather than to rescind the exemption in a surprise, but he believes the president needs to hang this threat over lawmakers’ heads.

“Before Trump did it publicly, he should meet privately with members of Congress and say, ‘Look, I’m putting you on notice.  Fair warning.  I might do this.  Let’s work out something now and let’s get something to the floor that we can vote on, so I don’t have to do this,'” said Fund.

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Filed Under: News & Politics, Podcasts Tagged With: congress, exemption, news, obama, Obamacare, staff, Trump

Trump Shake-up Speculation, Lefty Road Rage, Self-Marriage Increasing

May 15, 2017 by GregC

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America serve up three crazy martinis today.  They shake their heads at the the rampant speculation that’s constantly swirling around the Trump administration staff – from the same people who had no idea Trump was going to fire James Comey.  They also react to the Tennessee woman who forced her Republican congressman off the road, started beating on his windows and blocked his path – all to very little reaction from the media.  And they discuss the left’s emerging acceptance of polygamy and open marriages while also updating the rise of sologamy, otherwise known as marrying yourself.

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Filed Under: News & Politics, Podcasts Tagged With: congressman, Martini, National Review, polygamy, road rage, sologamy, staff, Trump

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