U.S. Politics

[Rick Plant]

Congressman-Elect Pat Ryan: SCOTUS Abortion Decision 'Shifted' NY-19 Campaign Ground

Rep.-elect Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.) joins Meet the Press NOW to discuss his bellwether special election. Ryan says he felt the ground “shifting” after the Supreme Court’s abortion decision.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Gretchen Whitmer @gretchenwhitmer

✅ Secured $400 refund checks for every Michigan driver
✅ Free or low-cost child care for 150,000 Michigan kids

I will keep working to put money back in Michiganders’ pockets.



https://twitter.com/gretchenwhitmer/status/1561834534957637639

[Rick Plant]

Marco Rubio announces he opposes abortion for rape and incest

On Thursday, in a clip released from an upcoming interview CBS4 News Miami's Jim DeFede had with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), the senator tipped his hand on abortion policy, revealing that he personally opposes abortion in all cases — including rape and incest.

"I do not believe that the dignity and the worth of human life is tied to the circumstances of conception," said Rubio. "But I recognize that that's not a majority position."

He also broadly defended the Supreme Court's decision overruling the Roe v. Wade precedent guaranteeing the right to an abortion in the United States, claiming that the decision simply takes the debate out of "Washington" to back into states — even though numerous states are heavily gerrymandered and their legislatures barely accountable to voter preference on policy.

A number of states, including Texas, have "trigger laws" on the books that eliminate abortion rights in virtually all cases, which have now taken effect after the Supreme Court's decision.

While most states have some form of protection for life of the mother, those protections can be ambiguous to the point doctors don't know if an emergency procedure is allowed. Many of these laws don't provide relief for rape and incest at all, which in the state of Alabama specifically, means rapists could gain custody from the women they impregnated.

Many Republicans have long defended forcing rape survivors to carry pregnancies, one of the most famous being 2012 Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin, who suggested women's bodies can simply block themselves from being pregnant if it's a "legitimate rape." In this year's midterms, some Republicans agree, with Michigan gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon even saying rape survivors could find "healing" through being forced to raise a baby.

Watch below:

"I do not believe that the dignity and the worth of human life is tied to the circumstances of their conception. But I recognize that that's not a majority position." - @marcorubio on why he personally opposes abortion in all cases including rape and incest.@CBSMiami

Watch: https://twitter.com/i/status/1562955681778790401

[Rick Plant]

Biden fires up Democratic faithful at midterms rally with Maryland party leaders



Fresh from a series of policy wins, President Joe Biden kicked off the general election campaign season Thursday night with a well-attended rally at Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville.

Roused by an exuberant crowd in deeply Democratic Montgomery County, leading national and state party leaders expressed growing hope for Democrats nationally in the November mid-term elections.

“Let me state the obvious, there’s a lot at stake in this election,” Biden told the crowd of more than 2,400 in the school gymnasium.

The event was studded with Maryland’s own Democratic powerhouses, including House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Sen. Ben Cardin and the Democratic nominees for governor and lieutenant governor, Wes Moore and Aruna Miller.

After being introduced by Moore, Biden opened his 29-minute speech with generous remarks about several Maryland Democrats who had spoken before him, sprinkled with some good-natured ribbing.

“Wes is the real deal. Folks, he is a combat veteran. The only drawback is, he’s a Rhodes Scholar.”

Speaking of Maryland’s U.S. senators, Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, Biden told the crowd, “You have literally two of the best senators in the United States.”

“They’re strong and principled and effective,” he said. “Keep them. You need them. No, I need them.”

Biden turned next to the two members of the House of Representatives who spoke, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Jamie Raskin.

“Steny Hoyer, he’s been my friend for a long time. And how about that Jamie Raskin? He’s done an incredible job coming out of tragic circumstances for his family.”

A long list of party celebrities and statewide candidates served as warm-up acts to Biden, offering many of the same talking points about Democratic accomplishments of the past 18 months — the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, bipartisan infrastructure act, gun reform laws — and drew contrasts with the Republican party under the influence of former President Donald Trump.

Some of the loudest bouts of applause throughout the night were for Biden’s student debt relief plan announced earlier in the week.

Vows to restore and protect reproductive rights also received especially loud cheers.

Biden promised the crowd that if Democrats win a majority in Congress, he would codify the rights once guaranteed by Roe v. Wade and said “I’m going to ban assault weapons in this country.”

“Were going to do it for your kids. Who are going to learn how to read and write in school, instead of duck and cover,” Biden said.

But the Democratic luminaries also stressed that they would not take anything for granted in the upcoming general election.

“People have said to me since our primary win: ‘Isn’t it great that you have to go up against Dan Cox?’” Moore told the crowd. “My answer is clear and consistent: Do not underestimate what we’re up against.”

Moore continued: “It is not ‘great’ that in November we are facing an election denier. An insurrectionist who called for Mike Pence to be hung for certifying a free and fair election,” Moore said. “For me, patriotism meant leaving my family and wearing my country’s uniform and leading soldiers with the 82nd Airborne in Afghanistan. For Dan Cox, patriotism meant organizing buses to join him at the capitol on January 6th.”

The emotional crest of the 2 1/2 long program was delivered by Raskin, long a folk hero in his Montgomery County-based district but rapidly becoming a national progressive icon due to his regular prosecution of the legal and political cases against Trump and his defense of U.S. democracy.

To wild cheers and applause, Raskin sought to delineate the differences between Democrats and Republicans, name-checking Thomas Jefferson, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, John Lewis, “the great Elijah Cummings,” and “the last great Republican president, Abraham Lincoln” along the way.

He ended his speech by quoting Frederick Douglass and Thomas Paine.

“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered,” Raskin said. “…The more difficult the struggle, the more glorious the end.”

Hoyer, known over his 55 years in Maryland politics for his long and passionate speeches, lamented having to follow Raskin on the program.

“These are the times that try Steny Hoyer’s soul, going after Jamie Raskin,” he quipped.

Attracting crowds

For hours before the rally, traffic snarled in downtown Rockville, with a massive line of wannabe attendees circling the high school property.

More than 2,400 people crammed into the school’s gymnasium, with nearly 1,300 others in overflow spaces in the school’s cafeteria and auditorium.

Before heading to the main event, Biden briefly appeared in both overflow rooms to greet supporters.

When Biden walked onto the stage in the school’s auditorium, the surprised crowd of several hundred stood up and cheered, according to a pool report.

“The good news of being in an overflow room is you can leave when I start to speak,” Biden told the crowd, which he addressed for about four minutes.

In the cafeteria, Biden posed for a group photo with the crowd, bending down so everybody could fit in the frame. He took three photos with different parts of the crowd behind him.

On the way to the rally, Biden stopped at a fundraiser at a private home in Bethesda. About 100 people were on hand and the event was expected to raise $1 million for the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Grassroots Victory Fund.

He told the crowd gathered that he “underestimated how much damage the previous four years had done in terms of America’s reputation in the world” and that the party has “got to win” in November.

WATCH: President Joe Biden joins Wes Moore for DNC rally Thursday at local school

[Rick Plant]

Joe Biden @JoeBiden

We had to take on the big drug companies to pass the Inflation Reduction Act.

For decades, Big Pharma fought to block giving Medicare the power to negotiate for lower prices.

And, for decades, Big Pharma won.

Not this year. The American people won. And big pharma lost.

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1562951850357583872


Sen. Wyden says Inflation Reduction Act will lower costs for prescription drugs and cut the federal deficit

It's an especially sweet victory for Oregon's senior Senator, who is widely seen as the architect of the measure that will allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices.

PORTLAND, Ore. — Oregon's senior Senator Ron Wyden was at a pharmacy on West Main Street in Medford when President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law this week.

It was an especially sweet victory for Wyden, who has fought drug companies for decades in an effort to bring down the cost of prescription drugs. He's widely seen as the architect of the measure in the package that will allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices.

"I was telling the seniors (at the Medford pharmacy) that there was a dose of good news," he said. "A big dose of good news for thousands of senior citizens in Oregon and hundreds of thousands across the state, because they were going to get a fair shake, finally, for their medicine."

Wyden was a guest on this week's episode of Straight Talk to discuss how the Inflation Reduction Act will bring down costs for Oregonians, among other topics.

Oregon's other Senator, Jeff Merkley, also discussed the new law when he appeared as a guest on Straight Talk last week.

Beating Big Pharma

Wyden and other Democrats have been pushing to give Medicare the power to negotiate drug prices for decades, ever since President Bill Clinton proposed his health care overhaul in 1993.

Under the Inflation Reduction Act, Medicare will initially be able to negotiate prices for ten drugs. The first round will start with the most expensive like cancer and arthritis drugs, Wyden said, with more added to the list later.

Wyden called the new approach a seismic shift in the relationship between Oregon seniors and Big Pharma, and a long-overdue change to the restriction that prevented Medicare from negotiating.

"Big Pharma guarded that restriction like it was the Holy Grail," he said. "I called the restriction a curse. Now, it has been lifted. The gospel in Washington, DC is 'Big Pharma doesn't lose.' This time, Oregon seniors and folks across the country beat Big Pharma."

The legislation also includes a provision, written by Wyden, that mandates a financial penalty for drug companies if they raise their prices faster than the rate of inflation.

"So, this would mean for the first time since Medicare began in 1965, there would actually be consequences for Big Pharma price gouging," he said. "That sends a pretty powerful message".

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Catherine Cortez Masto @CortezMasto

We got it done: we capped the price of insulin for thousands of Nevadans at $35 a month, and we're lowering costs by allowing Medicare to negotiate prices.

Now, I’m going to keep fighting to lower costs for all of our families.

https://twitter.com/CortezMasto/status/1562879986326900738


Sen. Cortez Masto touts drug savings under new law



Honey Lalumondiere, a 77-year-old resident of Silver Sky Assisted Living in Las Vegas, takes insulin every day, costing her more than $100. Starting in January, Lalumondiere will only have to pay $35 per month thanks to the recent passing of the Inflation Reduction Act.

President Biden last week signed the $430 billion bill, which aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions, inflation and the cost of prescription drugs.

U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., hosted a roundtable Tuesday at Silver Sky Assisted Living, an affordable assisted living facility in Las Vegas, with different senior groups, doctors and residents to discuss how the new legislation will impact Nevadans and their cost of health care. Cortez Masto is running for re-election to a potential second term in November’s general election.

The legislation focuses on helping patients who are on Medicare, which is federal health insurance for people 65 and older as well as some younger people with disabilities. In Nevada, there are about 390,000 people on Medicare, according to the White House.

The legislation will cap the amount Medicare patients spend on out-of-pocket drug costs at $2,000, which will take effect in 2025 and will benefit 12,000 Medicare patients in Nevada who go above that cap, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. And for Lalumondiere and the 22,000 or so other Nevadans with Medicare who use insulin, the cost will be capped at $35 per month.

Capping prices for drugs

It also keeps drug prices in Medicare from rising faster than inflation. Drug companies must pay Medicare a rebate if they increase drug prices faster than inflation starting in 2023, according to the White House.

Under the Inflation Reduction Act, the department of Health and Human Services can negotiate prescription drug costs, looking at drugs that have no competition on the market, have been on the market for at least seven years and the drugs that have the highest spending under Medicare, Cortez Masto said.

“Those are some of the conditions that they will start looking at which drugs to start with,” she said. One cancer drug, for instance, costs about $181,000 to $242,000.

Vaccines will also be free for Medicare patients starting in 2023, so seniors will be able to get free vaccines for conditions ranging from the flu to shingles.

https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/sen-cortez-masto-touts-drug-savings-under-new-law-2629178/

[Rick Plant]

In Arizona, Blake Masters backtracks on abortion and scrubs his campaign website

Masters, the GOP Senate nominee in Arizona, said on his campaign website that he supported a "a federal personhood law" — until Thursday.



Arizona Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters softened his tone and scrubbed his website's policy page of tough abortion restrictions Thursday as his party reels from the Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

In an ad posted to Twitter on Thursday, Masters sought to portray his opponent, Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, as the extremist on the issue while describing his own views as "commonsense."

"Look, I support a ban on very late-term and partial-birth abortion," he said. "And most Americans agree with that. That would just put us on par with other civilized nations." (Late-term abortions are extremely rare, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracker.)

Just after it released the ad, Masters' campaign published an overhaul of his website and softened his rhetoric, rewriting or erasing five of his six positions. NBC News took screenshots of the website before and after it was changed. Masters' website appeared to have been refreshed after NBC News reached out for clarification about his abortion stances.

"I am 100% pro-life," Masters' website read as of Thursday morning.

That language is now gone.

Another notable deletion: a line that detailed his support for "a federal personhood law (ideally a Constitutional amendment) that recognizes that unborn babies are human beings that may not be killed."

The personhood effort is an anti-abortion rights pursuit that would grant the same rights and legal protections to fetuses, in some cases before viability, as any person. The fetal personhood laws would classify abortion as murder and eliminate all or most abortion exceptions in states where the procedure is strictly curtailed, The New York Times reported.

An Arizona law recognizing the personhood of a fetus from the moment of fertilization is blocked in court. In Congress, the personhood bill sponsored by Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., called the "Sanctity of Human Life Act," says, according to its summary, that "each human life begins with fertilization."

Masters did not outline on his campaign site when in a pregnancy he thought personhood began. His campaign pointed NBC News to his recent comments saying he interprets such a federal law as applying to the third trimester of a pregnancy.

In addition, Masters previously expressed support for "the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, the SAVE Moms and Babies Act, and other pro-life legislation." The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act would make it a criminal offense to perform or attempt to perform an abortion 20 weeks after conception.

Now the website states he backs "a law or a Constitutional amendment that bans late term (third trimester) abortion and partial-birth abortion at the federal level" and "pro-life legislation, pregnancy centers, and programs that make it easier for pregnant women to support a family and decide to choose life."

Masters’ backtracking is one of the clearest signs of how much the Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate federal abortion protections is scrambling the political landscape, energizing Democrats both to turn out at higher-than-expected rates in some bellwether contests and to flood their candidates and campaign committees with small-dollar donations.

Masters’ campaign pointed to an interview with The Arizona Republic this month in which he expanded upon his abortion rights views, after he prevailed in a Republican primary that pulled all the conservatives rightward. The campaign did not immediately answer a follow-up question about why the website was updated.

In the interview, Masters, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump, said he believed a federal "personhood law" would work to ban all abortions in the third trimester, although, as the newspaper reported, he had in February expressed support for banning abortions earlier. Speaking to The Republic, Masters added that Arizona’s soon-to-take-effect ban on abortions after 15 weeks — with exceptions only for the life of the mother — is "reasonable."

"The federal government should prohibit late-term abortion, third-trimester abortion and partial-birth abortion," he said. "Below that, states are going to make different decisions that are going to reflect the will of the people in those states, and I think most reasonable. I think that’s what most people certainly in this state and nationwide are looking for."

In another instance of a language change, Masters' website included this pledge: "Strip taxpayer funding from Planned Parenthood, all other abortionists, and any organization that promotes abortion."

Now the sentence no longer mentions "abortionists" — a term coined by abortion rights opponents — nor "any organization that promotes abortion."

Another promise was eliminated from the website: "Remove funding for any research that uses embryonic stem cells of aborted fetal remains."

"If Blake Masters thinks that he can quietly delete passages from his website and disguise just how out of touch and dangerous his abortion stance is, he’s in for a rude awakening," Kelly spokesperson Sarah Guggenheimer said in a statement to NBC News.

Masters is far from the only Republican feeling the impact that abortion politics are having on the midterms. Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel fretted about the post-Roe Democratic small-dollar advantage in a call to donors that Politico reported Wednesday. Before the Supreme Court’s decision in June, McDaniel also expressed concern about the energizing effect that abortion could have for the left if Roe were overturned, according to two sources who had spoken with her about it in the past and spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose private conversations more freely.

"It’s a big fundraising concern, because we’re seeing a huge boost on the Democrats’ side," one of the Republican sources said. "We never expected Democrats to sit out. We expected them to put their jerseys on. Now the candidates have to navigate this in the states."

In Arizona, a once-red Republican bastion that is now a purple swing state, voters opposed the Supreme Court’s decision 52% to 33%, according to a poll this summer from OH Predictive Insights. Only a majority of Republicans were in support, while most independents sided with Democrats in opposition.

Chuck Coughlin, an Arizona Republican pollster, said he just wrapped up a survey of voters that suggests Masters is trailing Kelly by 10 points. A recent Fox News survey found Kelly up by 8 points, too.

"Abortion is a devastating issue for Republican candidates," Coughlin said. "There are three constituencies who don’t like the Republican position: women, independents and voters over 64 — who are just tired of all the change and chaos and want to go back.

"What Mr. Masters is discovering is there no such thing as political startups," he added of the venture capitalist, whom tech mogul Peter Thiel has spent millions backing. "You can’t make it up as you go along."

Masters won his primary this month and has taken to tying Kelly closely to President Joe Biden in hope of undercutting his image as a moderate. Kelly's campaign has labeled Masters "dangerous."

Kelly's campaign holds a significant edge in fundraising over Masters, who emerged from a bruising primary.

Masters has taken aim at Kelly for voting for the Women’s Health Protection Act, which failed in the Senate this summer. The legislation would have prohibited states from banning and criminalizing abortion at any stage when a woman’s health was at risk, a determination that would need the approval of a health care provider, such as a doctor, a nurse or a physician assistant

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/arizona-blake-masters-backtracks-abortion-scrubs-campaign-website-rcna44808

[Rick Plant]

White House shines light on Republicans who are criticizing student debt cancelation after getting their PPP loans forgiven

The White House used its Twitter account to point the finger at a handful of GOP lawmakers.



The White House hit back at Republicans in an uncharacteristic manner Thursday by using its Twitter account to go after GOP lawmakers who are bashing President Joe Biden's move to cancel some student debt after they personally benefited from having Paycheck Protection Program loans forgiven during the Covid pandemic.

In a series of tweets, the White House highlighted several congressional Republicans — Reps. Vern Buchanan of Florida, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, and Markwayne Mullin and Kevin Hern of Oklahoma — who it said had tens of thousands of dollars in PPP loans forgiven as part of a federal program intended to help those harmed by the coronavirus.

Like many of their GOP colleagues, the lawmakers have blasted Biden over his student loan decision.

Greene, who said on Newsmax that “it’s completely unfair” for student loans to be forgiven, had $183,504 in PPP loans forgiven, according to the White House.

Kelly, who tweeted that Biden's move was poised to benefit “Wall Street advisors” at the cost of “plumbers and carpenters,” had $987,237 forgiven, the White House said.

Under Biden's student debt plan, borrowers who earn less than $125,000 a year, or $250,000 for couples who file taxes jointly, will be eligible for up to $10,000 in debt cancellation. Pell Grant recipients, who make up the majority of student loan borrowers, will be eligible for an additional $10,000 in debt relief, for a total of $20,000.

The Paycheck Protection Program was promoted in 2020 as offering loans that could be forgiven if the companies spent the money on business expenses. The requirements for federal student loan forgiveness have been much more stringent over the years.

Buchanan, who according to the White House had more than $2.3 million in PPP loans forgiven, tweeted that Biden's move was “reckless” and a “unilateral student loan giveaway.”

The White House also highlighted criticism and PPP loan forgiveness amounts from Mullin ($1.4 million) and Hern (more than $1 million).

NBC News has reached out to all five lawmakers for comment.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/white-house-shines-light-republicans-are-criticizing-student-debt-canc-rcna44904