Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America discuss President Trump’s firing of acting Attorney General Sally Yates after she refused to defend his executive order. They also groan as former President Obama injects himself into politics just 10 days after leaving office. And they defend Tom Brady against the SJW sports media demanding Brady explain where he supports and opposes Trump.
Trump
Three Martini Lunch 1/30/17
Greg Corombos of Radio America and David French of National Review discuss President Trump’s orders seeking to reduce federal regulations. They also say Trump is on the right track with his refugee policy but did not implement it well, and they unload on the hysterical left-wing reaction to the policy. And they practice their shocked faces as Iran defies the United Nations and tests a ballistic missile – the ones that carry nuclear warheads.
Three Martini Lunch 1/27/17
Greg Corombos of Radio America and David French of National Review cheer the many thousands of Americans marching for life and against abortion Friday in Washington. They also shake their heads at President Trump’s suggestion that a 20 percent border tax on Mexican imports might be a good way to pay for a border wall. And they discuss all the humiliating concessions and retractions Atlantic magazine has to make following its story suggesting ultrasound is used to deceive women into believing their unborn babies are people with heartbeats who can feel pain.
‘It’s A Very Encouraging Time’ for Pro-Life Activists
As pro-life activists take part in the annual March for Life in Washington, they are more optimistic than any time in recent memory as a Republican Congress and a pro-life president get to work and more and more younger Americans join the cause thanks to modern science.
Leaders in the movement, like Susan B. Anthony List Vice President for Government Affairs Marilyn Musgrave, expect President Trump to make good on all his pro-life campaign promises.
“He made a pledge to work to defund Planned Parenthood, to support the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, to make the Hyde Amendment permanent, to nominate pro-life justices to the Supreme Court. I might add that that’s the big one. That is the big one,” stressed Musgrave.
There’s already been action on two of those promises. On Monday, President Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy, which forbids U.S. tax dollars from going to any organization performing or advocating for abortion in foreign countries. In addition, the House of Representatives passed legislation to make the Hyde Amendment permanent. The Hyde Amendment prohibits taxpayer dollars from funding abortions in the U.S.
Musgrave applauds Trump and the House. She notes that every Republican who voted was in favor of the bill, along with three Democrats.
“It is very good times for us because we have hope that we can actually make gains for life,” said Musgrave.
She also says there is no reason Republicans can’t defund Planned Parenthood.
“I believe defunding Planned Parenthood, redirecting those dollars to other health care providers that don’t do abortion, I think that’s the one that’s most quickly attainable by the House and Senate through the reconciliation process,” said Musgrave.
Reconciliation is a budgeting process that skirts the possibility of a filibuster, meaning a simple majority in the Senate could defund Planned Parenthood.
Musgrave says accomplishing the Trump promises would save countless lives.
“The Hyde Amendment has saved over two million lives since 1976. It’s my prayer that at this time in history, we will look back on our efforts, our marching, our support for women and their babies, the acts of this Congress and this president, we will look back and know that many, many lives have been saved,” said Musgrave.
In addition to favorable political winds at the moment, Musgrave says the future of the pro-life movement is bright because of the thousands of young people who are actively part of the effoet to protect the unborn.
“The March for Life, with now the faces of many young people, is an incredible encouragement to me,” said Musgrave. “We are seeing the new face of the pro-life movement and that is incredibly encouraging as we see millennials speaking up for life.”
She says one reason for the youth infusion is that science keeps showing the humanity of the unborn.
“I can remember the day when they said it was just a blob of tissue. That’s what they would tell a pregnant woman. Now we know that those precious little babies are operated on in utero. We know that they can feel pain after the fifth month of pregnancy,” said Musgrave.
“We know these things. It’s not disputable anymore. So the preciousness of that unborn child, the humanness is ever more an more evident, especially to the millennials that are marching,” said Musgrave.
Musgrave says the real scientific game-changer is the sonogram or ultrasound. And while some recently claimed ultrasounds give women false evidence of their baby’s humanity, Musgrave says those images are very powerful to mothers dealing with an unplanned pregnancy.
“When women see the image, they know that that is a child. That is their baby. So there is a reason that the pro-choice crowd doesn’t want women to see the ultrasound. The humanness of that child is very evident right there for the mother to see,” said Musgrave.
She says many ministries are centered around giving women the chance to see their babies.
“It’s just precious to me when you see local communities, pro-life people supporting mobile ultrasound units. And I love it when a pastor gets up in a church and saying, ‘Because of your donations for this mobile ultrasound, you have saved many lives,” said Musgrave.
Musgrave says the ultrasound had a profound impact in her family.
“I remember the day I saw the picture of my grandson, Isaac. It was an ultrasound picture. I knew even then that he was going to look just like his daddy. And by the way, he does. That ultrasound speaks volumes. That’s the image that we see, that people are sharing with their family and friends. Science is on our side,” said Musgrave.
The March for Life will be the second for Musgrave in less than a week. She scoped out the Women’s March on January 21. In addition to missing any consistent message among the demonstrators, Musgrave was especially bothered by the number of men carrying signs in support of Planned Parenthood.
“Does that in any way relieve you of your responsibility for your sexual actions? If children are produced by that, do you just want them aborted? Do you not want them supported and taken care of? It was an interesting emotional time for me to be among those marches,” said Musgrave.
However, Musgrave firmly believes the pro-life side is advancing and that the combination of science, young activists and allies in Congress and the White House means the future is very bright.
“Now we have the opportunity to do things in the pro-life movement that I’ve not seen in my lifetime. It’s a very encouraging time,” said Musgrave.
Three Martini Lunch 1/26/17
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are encouraged by President Trump’s vow to enforce existing immigration laws. They also rip Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for her Syria trip and going easy on Assad in her analysis. They unload on disingenuous Democrats upset about Trump looking to end sanctuary cities, and they note the rise of Canada’s Trump – and it’s someone you may well be aware of.
Three Martini Lunch 1/25/17
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are very encouraged by the final two names President Trump is reportedly considering for the Supreme Court vacancy. They also cringe as Trump once again insists he lost the popular vote only through rampant voter fraud by illegal aliens. And they slam Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel for claiming a lack of federal assistance is to blame for the huge number of murders in his city.
The Road to Repeal and Replace
Republicans are committed to repealing and replacing President Obama’s health care law, but one of the law’s fiercest critics warned that overhauling such a huge part of the economy will take time and might be a bit messy but will hopefully show clear results within two years by taking the federal government largely out of the health care business.
Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner says President Trump and congressional leaders are smart to make repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act the top priority out of the gate in 2017.
“The individual mandate, the employer mandate, the taxes, the Medicaid expansion all are on the table for repeal. They’re going to provide a safety net. If you’re on Obamacare now, you’ll be able to continue to keep your coverage for at least two years. After that, they’re building the bridge so that people will have better options for going forward,” said Turner.
This week, Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, introduced a bill that would give the states the option of keeping the current system in place if those states’ leaders felt it was best for their citizens.
Turner says any truly effective plan would only allow the states to keep Obamacare as a transition for a couple of years.
“This whole law is not working. It’s like a house of cards. Once some parts of it start to fall, others do as well. But the money can continue to flow. That’s really the main thing states want. ‘Can you give us some money our citizens are getting through the exchanges for their subsidies and for Medicaid,” said Turner.
However, she says states may have the long term option of keeping their own exchanges in operation.
“Some of the states that have existing exchanges that they have set up may continue to use that exchange. Others may decide to do private exchanges. Others may set up a new kind of, much more flexible exchange state exchange to give people the opportunity to buy plans that are a lot more flexible,” said Turner.
She says removing power from Washington and sending it back to the states has to be a bedrock of any reform.
“It has not worked for the federal government to tell citizens of Manhattan they have to buy exactly the same coverage as somebody in rural Montana. That doesn’t work. You’ve got to have more flexibility where the states decide what kind of policies to approve that meet the needs of the citizens and the resources of the state,” said Turner.
“So the states will have a lot of leeway to use these new resources, meet goals, but not have to jump through all of these tens of thousands of pages of Obamacare regulatory hoops and instead thinking what’s the best way to solve this problem,” said Turner.
The Affordable Care Act was passed in March of 2010 but did not begin implementation until the disastrous healthcare.gov roll-out in October 2013. Turner says patience will be a virtue as Congress and the Trump administration try to turn this ship around.
“There’s a long lead time. The plans have to figure out what the states are saying are the parameters. You know, what’s considered insurance. Then they have to design their policies. Then they have to go back for approval. Then they have to start marketing them out. That can actually be an 18-month or even a two-year process,” said Turner.
Turner says hopes for much lower premiums heading into the next coverage period are not well-placed.
“They’re just not going to see any relief this year. I think that will be very hard. But they’re trying to see what they could do to speed this process up so the people have better options in 2018 at least, certainly 2019,” said Turner.
Given that Washington would have a much smaller role, Turner is confident the new policies and increased options will be available to consumers much more quickly than Obamacare was launched.
And she says the politicians can read the calendar too.
“The replace part is going to rely on markets and rely on states and make sure that people are covered in the meantime. So I don’t have that crystal ball. I wish I did, but I know that they are very motivated to show results before the 2018 elections,” said Turner.
Turner is optimistic that the states and the marketplace can turn things around. She says the creation of Health Savings Accounts in 2003 were available to consumers within weeks.
“That legislation passed in early November in 2003. On January 1, 2004, less than two months later, the first Health Savings Account was sold. That’s how quickly the market can turn around if you’re giving them new flexibility, new freedom and the ability to turn around and sell something that people actually want to buy,” said Turner.
Three Martini Lunch 1/24/17
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud the vast majority of President Trump’s executive orders. They also groan at the news President Obama defied Congress to send $221 million to the Palestinian Authority on his final morning as president. And they shake their heads as two-thirds of Senate Democrats even oppose Mike Pompeo to lead the CIA.
Trump Order Weakens Obamacare
While the White House press corps pores focuses on how many people showed up on Inauguration Day, President Trump’s first executive order is already weakening Obamacare in preparation for the repeal and replace effort in Congress in the coming weeks.
The order instructs all relevant agencies, primarily the Department of Health and Human Services, to “ease the burden” of Obamacare. If that sounds vague, that’s exactly how it was intended.
Health care policy expert Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says the lack of specifics means a lot of actions can be taken to protect patients.
“Departments and agencies with control over Obamacare under the Affordable Care Act ‘shall exercise all discretion and authority available to them to waive, defer, grant exemptions or delay the implementation of any provision in the act,'” said Matthews.
“They can also relieve the states of cost, fee, tax, penalty or regulatory burdens on individuals, families, health care providers, health insurers, patients, recipients and so forth and so on,” said Matthews.
So what does all that mean?
“It’s a very broad statement, which says those people who are in charge, basically the secretaries – primarily of Health and Human Services but perhaps also the IRS and maybe a few other agencies, have the freedom under this executive order to try to step in and say, ‘We’re going to try to reduce the burden of Obamacare with respect to mandates, penalties and taxes,” said Matthews.
And despite Obamacare being passed by Congress, Matthews says the way it was written allows the Trump administration to take the teeth out of the law even before Congress acts.
“There was nearly 3,000 references to the word secretary in the Affordable Care Act. Nearly all of those apply to the secretary of Health and Human Services. The language was, ‘The secretary shall determine,’ ‘the secretary shall decide,’ ‘the secretary shall set penalties’ and so forth. The law itself gave the secretary of Health and Human Services a lot of discretion to carry this out,” said Matthews.
“I would argue that the ability to provide all that power to the secretary to implement the law also provides a lot of power to the secretary to un-implement the law,” said Matthews.
Matthews says Trump is exercising “transitional authority,” a power that Obama claimed when changing or delaying certain components of the law. It’s something Matthews says Obama became quite brazen about.
“President Obama had moved the situation to the point where he said in a speech, ‘I’m going to do what I feel like needs to be done out there. If Republicans don’t like it, sue me,'” said Matthews.
Republicans cried foul at the time, but Matthews says this usage is only undoing what Obama shouldn’t have been able to do in the first place.
“Once they set the precedent, it’s hard to be too critical of it. Conservatives felt like that was overreaching. But if [Obama] overreached, I’m not sure it’s bad overreaching to pull it back and say, ‘You never had the authority to do that.’ We’re in essence bringing it back to the status quo ante,” said Matthews.
Matthews also points out that this will take place in a very brief window before Congress acts to repeal and replace the law.
“This is very temporary and it’s meant to begin relaxing these burdens while Congress takes action to actually repeal and replace the legislation,” said Matthews.
In addition to easing the burden of the law before Congress gets to work, the executive order stands as a message to Congress. Matthews says Trump is asking lawmakers to follow his lead.
“The executive order that Donald Trump released in essence says, ‘Here’s the flag. I’m showing you where I’m going on this. You have my permission to begin to scroll this thing back as far as you can within the limits of the law,” said Matthews.
Three Martini Lunch 1/23/17
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America scratch their heads over White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s special briefing to scold the media over coverage of crowd size at the inauguration and the location of the Martin Luther King bust in the Oval Office. They also shake their heads as the huge “women’s march” is really nothing more than an anti-Trump movement that likely turned off more potential allies than it attracted with all the vulgar speech and costuming. And they discuss Sen. Marco Rubio’s decision to support Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State just two weeks after blasting him during Tillerson’s confirmation hearings.