U.S. Politics

[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

[Rick Plant]

Raphael Warnock recounts his rise to the U.S. Senate in a new memoir

Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock gained national attention in January 2020 when he won a high-profile Senate runoff race. But before that, he was best known as a senior pastor at Atlanta's historic Ebenezer Baptist Church. He is running for reelection this year. His new book "A Way Out of No Way" looks at his personal and professional career. He joins Judy Woodruff to discuss.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

White House blasts 'radical' Republican abortion bans

The White House on Friday blasted the latest set of "radical" abortion restrictions in four more states run by Republicans, signaling President Joe Biden's determination to lean on the issue ahead of tight November congressional elections.

There are now full-scale abortion bans in 12 Republican-controlled states, which had prepared so-called trigger laws ready to be activated when the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision ensuring automatic rights to abortion access nationwide.

"Today marks the latest attack against the fundamental rights of Americans as new abortion bans go into effect in Idaho, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas," Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

"These near-total abortion bans are part of a growing effort by Republican legislators to roll back the freedoms Americans have relied on for nearly half a century. Today's radical steps take away women's reproductive rights and put personal health care decisions in the hands of politicians instead of women and their doctors," she said.

The Supreme Court ruling two months ago put jurisdiction over abortion access in the hands of individual state legislatures, immediately turning swaths of the country into areas where getting the procedure has become all but impossible.

Jean-Pierre echoed Biden's frequent demand for Congress to pass a new law enshrining nationwide abortion rights and urged "people across the country to make their voices heard" ahead of the November midterm elections, which will decide whether Democrats retain their narrow hold on the legislature.

Republicans have fought for decades to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and finally achieved their goal in a Supreme Court that tilted sharply to conservative interpretations of the constitution after Donald Trump filled three vacancies during his one-term presidency.

Polls show the court's ruling was unpopular with a majority of Americans, however, and Democrats hope the issue will help them fend off a previously predicted sweep by Republicans in the midterms.

"I think the American people realize this is just beyond the pale, it goes too far," Biden told reporters at the White House.

Meanwhile, the White House is trying to help women who want to circumvent the bans by supporting their travel to states that do allow abortions.

The health department on Friday announced increased federal funding for states where the authorities want to help such women.

"We have seen the gut-wrenching stories of women suffering and not getting the care they need because of newly-enacted laws that restrict abortion care," Health Secretary Xavier Becerra said.

The new federal assistance will "protect women's access to reproductive care, including abortion," he said.

© Agence France-Presse

[Rick Plant]

Facts:

[Rick Plant]

Gretchen Whitmer Holds Big Lead In Michigan

A new EPIC-MRA poll in Michigan finds Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) has a sizeable lead over challenger Tudor Dixon (R), 50% to 39%.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2022/08/26/poll-whitmer-leading-dixon-by-double-digits-for-michigan-governor/65419492007/?gnt-cfr=1


Biden Says GOP Has Turned Toward “Semi-Fascism"

“President Biden on Thursday night launched a push toward the midterm elections with a fiery speech in Rockville, Md., in which he cast the Republican Party as one that was dangerously consumed with anti-democratic forces that had turned toward semi-fascism,” the Washington Post reports.

“It was some of the strongest language used by Biden, a politician long known — and at times criticized for — his willingness to work with members of the opposite party.”

Said Biden: “The MAGA Republicans don’t just threaten our personal rights and economic security. They’re a threat to our very democracy. They refuse to accept the will of the people. They embrace — embrace — political violence. They don’t believe in democracy.”

He added: “What we’re seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy. It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something — it’s like semi-fascism."

Read More Here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/25/fiery-midterm-speech-biden-says-gops-turned-toward-semi-fascism/