ActRight

Dave Gergen was the kindest boss I ever had. He was in charge of me for most of the time I toiled happily as a speechwriter for Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford in 1973 and 1974. Intelligent, witty, a loving and caring man. I still run into him from time to time at lush watering spots. Still always a m…

“What makes Republicans more fit to govern than Democrats? Well for starters, with Republicans, bad bills fail.”

AHCA failure is a failure for the president, but it's much more a failure for House leadership and Paul Ryan. They had seven years to prepare.

Giving voter registration forms to refugees? Sketchy.

‘Debacle” does not have to be the last word on Republican efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare. They can still improve the health-care system, reduce the power of the federal government, and make good on important campaign promises — but only if they start over on health care. Republicans more or less fell into a losing strategy. They began by thinking they could quickly repeal Obamacare and then replace it at leisure. To their credit, they substantially modified their plan in response to criticism, attempting to do portions of both repeal and replace in one bill. But this new approach was a bad fit for the old schedule. A viable repeal-and-replace plan could not be slapped together as fast as Republicans wanted to move. Compounding the problems were Speaker Ryan’s high-handedness and President Trump’s erratic leadership. This week’s embarrassments make it hard to see the opening that remains for Republicans. The fact is that Republicans reached a fair degree of consensus during this process. Take the House Freedom Caucus. It is being excoriated in some quarters for its inflexibility, but in fact most of its members made their peace, whatever their misgivings, with the idea of providing tax credits to help people who otherwise could not buy health insurance. They insisted only that those tax credits be coupled with deregulation to lower premiums. House Republican leaders insisted that they would like to see more deregulation, too, but feared that the Senate parliamentarian would rule that any bill with it would be subject to a filibuster. The parliamentarian has, however, said that she has not been consulted about how much deregulation she would allow. Cutting regulations could be key to finishing the unification of the party. The Congressional Budget Office has previously found that cutting down on Obamacare regulations would increase coverage, since it would make it possible for people to buy low-premium coverage they prefer. While some specific deregulatory measures make moderate Republicans jittery — even a careful relaxation of the rules governing pre-existing conditions would induce some queasiness — improving the coverage numbers would allay their main concern about replacing Obamacare. Expanding the tax credit for people making a little bit too much money to qualify for Medicaid could allay it more. This basic approach would be compatible with a variety of legislative tactics. House Republicans could try to pass an aggressive bill without much regard for whether it can pass the Senate: At least they would have outlined and stood for a set of health-care policies that make sense, that offer something for conservatives and moderates, and that can serve as the basis for future action. Or they could work with the parliamentarian and with senators to see whether they could get a bill better than this week’s past the finish line. If they went this route, Republican leaders would not spring a new bill on their followers and allies and tell them they have to vote for it posthaste. There would have to be more patient cajoling and less last-minute bullying. We know many Republicans on the Hill and inside the White House feel that they have already spent enough time on this issue. But we have no sympathy for this complaint. They have spent seven years saying they were going to replace Obamacare. They didn’t say they were going to spend a few weeks on a half-baked plan and then give up. Back to work, ladies and gentlemen.

In 2015, video of Yale's "shrieking girl" screaming at professor Nicholas Christakis over a Halloween costume email went viral. A year later, Dr. Christakis ...

If reality is nothing but a ‘narrative,’ then of course it’s important to control what people say.

The good news is no one can say President Trump didn’t try to persuade House Republicans that they should pass the American Health Care Act. He invited lawmakers to the White House, dispatched his key aides to Capitol Hill, worked the phones, cajoled, charmed, arm-twisted, threatened . . . He did everything short of actually attempting to understand why House Republicans didn’t want to vote for it. President Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan chose to cancel the vote on the AHCA late Friday afternoon. Earlier this week, the loudest argument from Trump was that if House Republicans didn’t pass the bill, it could cost the GOP their majority in 2018. This may or may not be true; it’s also possible that passing a disappointing replacement could cost the GOP their majority. Either way, Trump went so far as to threaten primary challenges to those who didn’t sign on. It’s not that the House Republicans who refused to vote for the bill didn’t fear such a threat, or that they were nonchalant about keeping their majority. They held out not because they lacked motivation to replace Obamacare. No, in the end, they simply didn’t like what was in the bill and didn’t have faith that the Senate would improve it, or that it would get better in conference committee. At least for now, a significant number of House Republicans fear the consequences of passing an insufficient bill more than the consequences of failing to pass a bill. EDITORIAL: Reboot Some Republicans felt that the American Health Care Act wouldn’t do enough to lower premiums, which many consumers find too high. The CBO score said that the bill would reduce the costs of insurance eventually . . . but increase them in the first three years. It’s fair to ask whether voters would feel warm to Republicans in fall of 2018 if a GOP replacement plan passed and they still found themselves paying too much for too little care. Some House Republicans want to repeal Obamacare’s requirement that insurance plans cover outpatient care, emergency-room visits, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental-health and addiction treatment, prescription drugs, rehabilitative services, lab services, preventive care, and pediatric services. On the one hand, mandating so much coverage does add to the costs of insurers, raising premiums. On the other hand, consumers like being comprehensively covered. It appears President Trump cared a lot more about getting a win than about what, exactly, he would be winning. Others contended that the replacement just worked too much like Obamacare to meet their standards. Mo Brooks of Alabama declared, “It doesn’t deliver on the promise I made to fully repeal Obamacare.” Representative Rick Crawford of Arkansas tweeted that “the bill currently maintains [Obamacare’s] overall structure/approach, an approach that cements the federal government’s role in health insurance.” Conservative health-policy wonks, meanwhile, had their own objections. Avik Roy pointed out that the AHCA “would lead to significant spikes in net insurance premiums for lower-income participants in the individual insurance market, with particular problems for those in their fifties and sixties.” These are thorny issues that involve trade-offs. You can try to to sweep away everything that’s bad about Obamacare, but there’s no way to do that without disrupting millions of voters’ lives. You can try to control costs, but that’s hard to do without limiting benefits. You can’t enact some of Republicans’ favorite proposals, such as tort reform and selling insurance across state lines, without either some support from Senate Democrats or the elimination of the filibuster. As House Freedom Caucus chair Mark Meadows put it, almost no one in his caucus wanted to vote no. They wanted to get to yes but simply didn’t see enough good in the bill to make voting for it worthwhile. A strong leader can help sort out conflicting priorities, but there’s little sign that President Trump had any interest in that role. Throughout the last days of arm-twisting, there were ominous reports that he was quite passionately attempting to persuade House Republicans to pass the bill, without really understanding what was in the legislation that made them so reluctant to vote for it. An unnamed House GOP aide told CNN that when it came to the details of the legislation, Trump “either doesn’t know, doesn’t care or both.” In the Los Angeles Times, Michael Steel, a former GOP leadership aide, offered a bizarre portrait of a president who’s somehow simultaneously eager and clueless: Ryan has learned that his wonky style of communication is wasted on Trump ​given the president’s lack of interest in policy details, Steel said. But he has come to value Trump’s eagerness to exert pressure on wavering Republicans. It appears President Trump cared a lot more about getting a win than about what, exactly, he would be winning. And that lack of focus on the details helped deny him the victory he wanted so badly. — Jim Geraghty is National Review’s senior political correspondent.

The president showed humility and leadership.

Members of the establishment press have wildly mischaracterized Energy Secretary Rick Perry's decision to involve himself in a dispute at his alma mater over a newly-elected gay student body presiden

“The problem is, ladies and gentlemen, a big part of the Republican party is progressive. That is, they are utopian statists,” Levin said.

Convicted terrorist and one of the faces of left-wing activist has agreed to take a plea deal where her citizenship would be revoked and she would be deported.

The doctrine of the Living Constitution is a perfect example of how behind every double standard is an unconfessed single standard.

In the wake of an alleged rape at Rockville High School in Maryland by at least one illegal immigrant last week, Montgomery County Superintendent Dr. Jack Smith is accusing parents of "racism and xenophobia."

Guess how investors in Starbucks reacted when a fellow investor had the guts to stand up at the annual shareholder meeting and question why CEO Howard Schultz gave all the lovin’ to the Obama Administration but reserved its scorn for the Trump Administration. Five points for saying they considered the question carefully. Ten points for saying they listened sullenly but made no response.

If our founding fathers wanted to provide health care for everyone by the way of the government, don't you think they would have proposed it

Despite polls showing that 71% of Canadians would not have voted for the measure, Canada's Parliament, with the strong backing of Justin Trudeau's Liberal government, passed a motion this week 201 to 91 that critics say singles out Islam for special protection. Tabled by Muslim liberal MP Iqra Khalid, M-103 urges the federal government to “condemn Islamophobi," despite the fact that the term “Islamophobia” is nowhere defined in the motion.

Democrat voters are apparently tired of the status quo. A new pol suggests that all of the candidates you would expect the party to run in 2020 get beaten by 'someone new.' There's just one little problem with that. The Democrats don't really have anyone new. Newsweek reports: WHO SHOULD RUN IN...

President Donald Trump has approved the Keystone XL pipeline, a move that has been long awaited on both sides of the aisle. The State Department announced on Friday that they have approved of a permit to build the pipeline.

Republican Gov. Doug Ducey is taking on those would weigh down Arizonans with unnecessary regulation.

The longer a politician stays in Washington, as a rule of thumb, the more difficult it becomes to keep his nose clean. Democrats ought to apply that reasoning and skip over Maxine Waters if they're looking for a new conscience of the House. After three decades in Congress, the California Democrat has a more than checkered past. But that didn't keep her from predicting President Trump's political demise. Get ready for impeachment, Waters cryptically tweeted out of the blue on Trump's 61st day in office and without further explanation. If Waters hasn't completely discredited herself already — last week, she claimed, sans evidence, that the salacious details about Trump contained in the BuzzFeed dossier were true — then a quick review of her record should be enough to dissuade Democrats from following her lead.

Gabriel Sherman writes that Steve Bannon has privately expressed concern that the AHCA betrays Donald Trump's populist supporters.

How Donald Trump lost $4 million to the sharp end of a Samurai Sword. By Joe Audritt In 1992 Casino high roller, Akio Kashiwagi, was brutally slaughtered in his home while owing millions of dollars…

Apparently the Washington DC Police have a little history being involved with human trafficking... More Videos: https://www.verydicey.com Twitter: https://tw...

Eighteen days that shook the Republican Party—and humbled a president.