Politics

Anthony Scaramucci Called Me to Unload About White House Leakers, Reince Priebus, and Steve Bannon

Friday, 28 July 2017 08:45

Lizza writes: "On Wednesday night, I received a phone call from Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director. He wasn't happy."

The new White House communications director has become obsessed with leaks and threatened to fire staffers if he discovers that they have given unauthorized information to reporters. (photo: Jabin Botsford/Getty)

Anthony Scaramucci Called Me to Unload About White House Leakers, Reince Priebus, and Steve Bannon

By Ryan Lizza, The New Yorker

28 July 17

He started by threatening to fire the entire White House communications staff. It escalated from there.

n Wednesday night, I received a phone call from Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director. He wasn�t happy. Earlier in the night, I�d tweeted, citing a �senior White House official,� that Scaramucci was having dinner at the White House with President Trump, the First Lady, Sean Hannity, and the former Fox News executive Bill Shine. It was an interesting group, and raised some questions. Was Trump getting strategic advice from Hannity? Was he considering hiring Shine? But Scaramucci had his own question�for me.

�Who leaked that to you?� he asked. I said I couldn�t give him that information. He responded by threatening to fire the entire White House communications staff. �What I�m going to do is, I will eliminate everyone in the comms team and we�ll start over,� he said. I laughed, not sure if he really believed that such a threat would convince a journalist to reveal a source. He continued to press me and complain about the staff he�s inherited in his new job. �I ask these guys not to leak anything and they can�t help themselves,� he said. �You�re an American citizen, this is a major catastrophe for the American country. So I�m asking you as an American patriot to give me a sense of who leaked it.�

In Scaramucci�s view, the fact that word of the dinner had reached a reporter was evidence that his rivals in the West Wing, particularly Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, were plotting against him. While they have publicly maintained that there is no bad blood between them, Scaramucci and Priebus have been feuding for months. After the election, Trump asked Scaramucci to join his Administration, and Scaramucci sold his company, SkyBridge Capital, in anticipation of taking on a senior role. But Priebus didn�t want him in the White House, and successfully blocked him from being appointed to a job until last week, when Trump offered him the communications job over Priebus�s vehement objections. In response to Scaramucci�s appointment, Sean Spicer, an ally of Priebus�s, resigned his position as press secretary. And in an additional slight to Priebus, the White House�s official announcement of Scaramucci�s hiring noted that he would report directly to the President, rather than to the chief of staff.

Scaramucci�s first public appearance as communications director was a slick and conciliatory performance at the lectern in the White House briefing room last Friday. He suggested it was time for the White House to turn a page. But since then, he has become obsessed with leaks and threatened to fire staffers if he discovers that they have given unauthorized information to reporters. Michael Short, a White House press aide considered close to Priebus, resigned on Tuesday after Scaramucci publicly spoke about firing him. Meanwhile, several damaging stories about Scaramucci have appeared in the press, and he blamed Priebus for most of them. Now, he wanted to know whom I had been talking to about his dinner with the President. Scaramucci, who initiated the call, did not ask for the conversation to be off the record or on background.

�Is it an assistant to the President?� he asked. I again told him I couldn�t say. �O.K., I�m going to fire every one of them, and then you haven�t protected anybody, so the entire place will be fired over the next two weeks.�

I asked him why it was so important for the dinner to be kept a secret. Surely, I said, it would become public at some point. �I�ve asked people not to leak things for a period of time and give me a honeymoon period,� he said. �They won�t do it.� He was getting more and more worked up, and he eventually convinced himself that Priebus was my source.

�They�ll all be fired by me,� he said. �I fired one guy the other day. I have three to four people I�ll fire tomorrow. I�ll get to the person who leaked that to you. Reince Priebus�if you want to leak something�he�ll be asked to resign very shortly.� The issue, he said, was that he believed Priebus had been worried about the dinner because he hadn�t been invited. �Reince is a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac,� Scaramucci said. He channelled Priebus as he spoke: � �Oh, Bill Shine is coming in. Let me leak the fucking thing and see if I can cock-block these people the way I cock-blocked Scaramucci for six months.� � (Priebus did not respond to a request for comment.)

Scaramucci was particularly incensed by a Politico report about his financial-disclosure form, which he viewed as an illegal act of retaliation by Priebus. The reporter said Thursday morning that the document was publicly available and she had obtained it from the Export-Import Bank. Scaramucci didn�t know this at the time, and he insisted to me that Priebus had leaked the document, and that the act was �a felony.�

�I�ve called the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice,� he told me.

�Are you serious?� I asked.

�The swamp will not defeat him,� he said, breaking into the third person. �They�re trying to resist me, but it�s not going to work. I�ve done nothing wrong on my financial disclosures, so they�re going to have to go fuck themselves.�

Scaramucci also told me that, unlike other senior officials, he had no interest in media attention. �I�m not Steve Bannon, I�m not trying to suck my own cock,� he said, speaking of Trump�s chief strategist. �I�m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the President. I�m here to serve the country.� (Bannon declined to comment.)

He reiterated that Priebus would resign soon, and he noted that he told Trump that he expected Priebus to launch a campaign against him. �He didn�t get the hint that I was reporting directly to the President,� he said. �And I said to the President here are the four or five things that he will do to me.� His list of allegations included leaking the Hannity dinner and the details from his financial-disclosure form.

I got the sense that Scaramucci�s campaign against leakers flows from his intense loyalty to Trump. Unlike other Trump advisers, I�ve never heard him say a bad word about the President. �What I want to do is I want to fucking kill all the leakers and I want to get the President�s agenda on track so we can succeed for the American people,� he told me.

He cryptically suggested that he had more information about White House aides. �O.K., the Mooch showed up a week ago,� he said. �This is going to get cleaned up very shortly, O.K.? Because I nailed these guys. I�ve got digital fingerprints on everything they�ve done through the F.B.I. and the fucking Department of Justice.�

�What?� I interjected.

�Well, the felony, they�re gonna get prosecuted, probably, for the felony.� He added, �The lie detector starts�� but then he changed the subject and returned to what he thought was the illegal leak of his financial-disclosure forms. I asked if the President knew all of this.

�Well, he doesn�t know the extent of all that, he knows about some of that, but he�ll know about the rest of it first thing tomorrow morning when I see him.�

Scaramucci said he had to get going. �Yeah, let me go, though, because I�ve gotta start tweeting some shit to make this guy crazy.�

Minutes later, he tweeted, �In light of the leak of my financial info which is a felony. I will be contacting @FBI and the @TheJusticeDept #swamp @Reince45.� With the addition of Priebus�s Twitter handle, he was making public what he had just told me: that he believed Priebus was leaking information about him. The tweet quickly went viral.

Scaramucci seemed to have second thoughts. Within two hours he deleted the original tweet and posted a new one denying that he was targeting the chief of staff. �Wrong!� he said, adding a screenshot of an Axios article that said, �Scaramucci appears to want Priebus investigated by FBI.� Scaramucci continued, �Tweet was public notice to leakers that all Sr Adm officials are helping to end illegal leaks. @Reince45.�

A few hours later, I appeared on CNN to discuss the overnight drama. As I was talking about Scaramucci, he called into the show himself and referenced our conversation. He changed his story about Priebus. Instead of saying that he was trying to expose Priebus as a leaker, he said that the reason he mentioned Priebus in his deleted tweet was because he wanted to work together with Priebus to discover the leakers.

�He�s the chief of staff, he�s responsible for understanding and uncovering and helping me do that inside the White House, which is why I put that tweet out last night,� Scaramucci said, after noting that he had talked to me Wednesday night. He then made an argument that journalists were assuming that he was accusing Priebus because they know Priebus leaks to the press.

�When I put out a tweet, and I put Reince�s name in the tweet,� he said, �they�re all making the assumption that it�s him because journalists know who the leakers are. So, if Reince wants to explain that he�s not a leaker, let him do that.�

Scaramucci then made a plea to viewers. �Let me tell you something about myself,� he said. �I am a straight shooter.�

10 comments

Jeff Sessions Urges Melania to Work Harder on Campaign to Stop Cyberbullying

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=9160">Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker</a>

Thursday, 27 July 2017 13:58

Borowitz writes: "Saying that the problem 'is far worse than I imagined,' Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday urged First Lady Melania Trump to intensify her campaign against cyberbullying."

First Lady Melania Trump. (photo: Remo Casilli/Camera Press)

Jeff Sessions Urges Melania to Work Harder on Campaign to Stop Cyberbullying

By Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker

27 July 17

The article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column, "The Borowitz Report."

aying that the problem �is far worse than I imagined,� Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday urged First Lady Melania Trump to intensify her campaign against cyberbullying.

Speaking to reporters from his office at the Justice Department, Sessions said that, whatever Mrs. Trump had done to eliminate the scourge of cyberbullying, �It clearly has not been enough.�

�From my perspective, cyberbullying is very much a growing problem,� he said. �And with every passing day it gets worse and worse.�

Sessions said that, while he understands that Mrs. Trump has many other responsibilities as First Lady, �anything you can do to get cyberbullying to stop will be very much personally appreciated by me.�

�Please help,� he said, his voice quavering.

In an official statement released later in the day, the First Lady said that she had �kind of forgotten� about her campaign to stop cyberbullying but that she would �get right on it.�

6 comments

'Stupid or Liar': What Justine Damond's Death Proves About All Lives Matter

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=44501">Michael Harriot, The Root</a>

Thursday, 27 July 2017 13:43

Harriot writes: "Less than a week after Justine Ruszczyk was killed by a fatal gunshot wound to the abdomen from a Minneapolis police officer's gun, the police chief has been forced out, the mayor is on thin ice, and the new chief is an African-American man with deep roots in Minneapolis."

Protesters march through the street demanding justice for Justine Damond. (photo: Getty)

'Stupid or Liar': What Justine Damond's Death Proves About All Lives Matter

By Michael Harriot, The Root

27 July 17

e�ve played this game before. It derived from a bit by podcaster Adam Carolla, who takes inane statements from politicians, celebrities and people in the news and asks: Are they stupid or are they lying?

Today�s episode of �Stupid or Liar� focuses on the death of Justine Ruszczyk (Her name was not Damond. It was going to be Damond after she was married. If America adhered to that as the journalistic standard, my high school yearbook would have referred to me as �Sir Michael Harriot, husband of Janet Jackson�).

Less than a week after Justine Ruszczyk was killed by a fatal gunshot wound to the abdomen from a Minneapolis police officer�s gun, the police chief has been forced out, the mayor is on thin ice, and the new chief is an African-American man with deep roots in Minneapolis.

As soon as I heard about this incident, I ran to my computer and waited. I�ve seen the routine so many times, I knew exactly what would happen. Immediately following her death, some industrious news reporter would release her criminal history�even if it had no bearing on the shooting�like media outlets did when they reported the killings of DeJuan Guillory and Walter Scott.

If she had a clean criminal record, they�d at least put out the most menacing, villainous photo of her, the way they did Trayvon Martin. They�d go back as far as her high school teachers or her neighbors to find a personality defect that would adequately describe why the valiant hero cop feared for his life.

I sat patiently in front of the screen waiting for a Google alert from the mayor, police chief or police union explaining how there was no need to jump to any conclusions or take any actions until they conducted a �thorough investigation.� I knew it was coming. It always happened this way.

I�m still waiting.

During my wait, an attorney called Ruszczyk the �most innocent� police shooting victim he�s ever seen. Robert Bennett�the lawyer who made these comments�is either blatantly lying or he is the stupidest white man in the long, storied history of stupid white men.

Is there even a superlative for the word �innocent?� If so�is Justine Ruszczyk more innocent than Rekia Boyd, who was simply talking on her cellphone when an off-duty cop fired a bullet into her skull? Was John Crawford III�s innocence permanently erased in the .36 seconds it took for cops to burst into Walmart and eliminate his existence for the unmitigated gall of buying a BB gun? A lawyer like Bennett, who represents �high-profile police-shooting victims,� would know about these cases. If he doesn�t, then, by definition, that makes him stupid.

stu�pid

?st(y)o?op?d/

1. having or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense.

Ruszczyk�s death happened fewer than 20 miles from the St. Paul, Minn., courthouse where Police Officer Jeronimo Yanez was acquitted of murder in the death of Philando Castile. Castile was in his car posing no threat to the officer who killed him. Yanez shot him on July 6, 2016. For context, on July 7, 2016, this article appeared:

I�m sure an article like this will be coming out about Justine Ruszczyk pretty soon. I know it has been over a week, but she�s from Australia, which is another country on the other side of the world, which means reporters probably have to translate her criminal record from Australian to English, which could take a while. I�m sure that�s what the holdup is about.

While I�m sitting here, I might as well wait for the All Lives Matter people to explain how we don�t know the whole story. Blue Lives Matter will probably come out en masse, too, to defend the honor of the Somali cop who shot her. If they don�t care about race, then the All Lives Matter advocates will implore us to wait until authorities do their due diligence. That�s probably what�s going to happen, right?

Unless they were lying this whole time.

To be fair, maybe the All Lives Matter people are so blinded by the combination of privilege and reflexive defensiveness that comes free in every package of white supremacy that they have no idea that responding to �Black lives matter� with �All lives matter� is akin to telling a man dying of a heart attack about their bout with acid reflux. Perhaps they don�t know that there is not a sane human being in the United States who wonders whether white lives matter. Maybe All Lives Matter is just stupid.

The man who killed Rekia Boyd was acquitted of involuntary manslaughter because�according to a judge�the fact that he fired an unregistered weapon into a dark alley wasn�t proof of �recklessness.� Two days after Ruszczyk�s death, federal authorities declined to press charges against the cops who shot John Crawford.

Anyone who insinuates that Crawford, Boyd, Castile, et al. were not as innocent as Ruszczyk are conflating innocence with whiteness. None of the others had committed a crime. All of them are dead.

The media immediately named her shooter�as did the city of Minneapolis�as a Muslim of Somali descent. Staunch conservatives and white allies alike all say this has nothing to do with race. Quick�tell me Jeronimo Yanez�s religion. Can you tell me from which country Officer Sean Williams�John Crawford�s killer�descended? Stupid liars, the whole lot of them.

None of this is Justine Ruszczyk�s fault. She is as blameless as the previously mentioned victims�but not more so. It is disingenuous to have a discussion about this entire incident and sidestep the obvious fact that part of the uproar about her death stems from the fact that she was a classically attractive white woman. Anyone who does so is either being dishonest or willfully ignorant�two euphemisms for ... you know.

In just six days, Justine Ruszczyk�s death uprooted the entire government of the 46th-largest city in America. Two countries are outraged. People of all colors, religions and ethnicities are protesting.

They all have a right to be upset, but we should be clear: If it had anything to do with the fact that Ruszczyk was a bride-to-be, Sean Bell�s killers would be in jail. If it had anything to do with the fact that she was the one who called 911, then the men who shot Brendan Hester would be locked up. If her immigrant status makes others empathetic toward this tragedy, where were these same outraged advocates for swift justice when the men who shot Amadou Diallo walked away scot-free?

Justine Ruszczyk is an innocent, pure victim because she is white, and we all know it. No one wants to admit it, so I�ll just sit here and wait for them to treat her with the same disrespectful criminal taint that they do every victim of color. Maybe they�ll find a stash of CDs she was trying to sell or uncover a stash of loose cigarettes. Maybe there were Skittles in her pocket. I�m sure they�ll dig up something. I�ll wait.

There�s no way I�m that stupid.

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FOCUS | Orange Is the New Orange: Why Trump Must Resign by Nagasaki/Nixon Day

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=36753">Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, Reader Supported News</a>

Thursday, 27 July 2017 12:31

Excerpt: "Angst, fear, and loathing are the overwhelming emotions six months into the disastrous Trump presidency. Just exactly who or what do we have at the helm of the United States Ship of State, and the little red button that could end life as we know it?"

Trump at a campaign rally. (photo: John Sommers II/Getty)

Orange Is the New Orange: Why Trump Must Resign by Nagasaki/Nixon Day

By Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman, Reader Supported News

27 July 17

To prevent nuclear war, ecological collapse, economic ruin and the Jim Crow destruction of our democracy, August 9 has been designated for demonstrations to demand Trump�s resignation.

Flagship rally will be at the world famous CHAIN REACTION sculpture in Santa Monica, California, at 7 pm PST. Demonstrators are encouraged to wear orange jump suits and t-shirts, and yellow wigs or hats, in solemn evocation of the likely upcoming indictments of Trump and his mafia family, Russian and otherwise.

Group photos with �RESIGN� signs are also encouraged.

Please notify us through freepress.org and solartopia.org about upcoming events.

ngst, fear, and loathing are the overwhelming emotions six months into the disastrous Trump presidency. Just exactly who or what do we have at the helm of the United States Ship of State, and the little red button that could end life as we know it?

The planet and its leaders are watching in horror as the ship appears to be capsizing. Trump and his fools enrich themselves, all the while gleefully decimating domestic social programs, dooming the environment, and destroying our nation�s relationships around the world.

Simply put, what we have is an international criminal hell-bent on continuing his crime spree within and without his corrupt administration. Making the world safe for oligarchy.

Casinos, luxury hotels: Money laundering

Let�s see, casinos, pricey real estate, the Russian mob, the U.S. mafia ... hmmm. One plus one plus one equals money laundering.

The notorious meeting between Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, and assorted Russian operatives spawned new allegations and suspicions that the Trump family colluded with Russian intelligence to try to gain electoral victory over Hillary Clinton. The details remain murky but the truth is likely more diabolical.

Not that Clinton wasn�t busy demonizing the Russians and using the Clinton Foundation for political payoffs.

The meetings with Putin�s comrades and Trump�s entourage may indicate the president may merely be a bagman and money washer for the Russian mafia.

This perception is magnified by Trump�s unprecedented refusal to release his tax forms, which may indicate his net worth to be largely in rubles.

Trump has a long history of involvement with the Russian government. Trump�s first visit to Russia was in 1987 at Soviet ambassador Yuri Dubin�s invitation.

Craig Unger�s New Republic article, �Trump�s Russian Laundromat,� essentially argues that Trump�s money laundering for Russian mobsters is what propelled his worldwide real estate empire.

Trump�s closely-held private real estate holdings, according to Unger, provide the perfect resources for illegal money laundering. Unger cites �a flow of highly suspicious money from Russia.� He points out, �Over the past three decades at least 13 people with known or alleged links to Russian mobsters or oligarchs have owned, lived in, and even run criminal activities out of the Trump Tower and other Trump properties. Many used his apartments and casinos to launder untold millions in dirty money.�

Business Insider noted that U.S. attorney general Jeff Sessions and the Department of Justice recently settled a major money-laundering case involving a real estate company owned by the son of powerful Russian government official Pyotr Katsyz, former vice governor of the Moscow region. Katsyz�s son Dennis owns the real estate company Prebezon, which was accused of laundering millions of dollars through New York City real estate when the case was �unexpectedly settled two days before going to trial in May,� according to Business Insider.

The attorney representing the Katsyz family was none other than Natalia Beselnitskaya, who met with Donald Trump Jr. on June 9, 2016, to allegedly disclose damaging information concerning Hillary Clinton. She was described as a �Russian government attorney� in Trump Junior�s emails. Democratic House Judiciary Committee members sent a letter to Sessions inquiring about Beselnitskaya�s involvement in the settlement.

Also in attendance on June 9 was Renat Akhmetshin, described by CNN as �a U.S. citizen lobbyist promoting Russian interests and a former Soviet military officer,� and Aras Agalarov, owner of the Crocus Group, a Moscow-based property company.

The mystery man, or the 8th person who emerged at Donald Trump Jr.�s meeting with Russians, turned out to be Irakly �Ike� Kaveladze, a Crocus Group vice president accused of laundering more than $1.4 billion into the U.S. from Eastern Europe. Kaveladze allegedly used 2,000 shell companies to launder money into the U.S.

Essentially, Trump Jr.�s meeting was a perfect Russian triumvirate representing an alleged money launderer, the Russian military, and a pro-Putin oligarch.

If Trump is to be impeached and his clumsy cover-up of Russian ties revealed, it will be because the laundered money was easy to follow from the election tampering to Putin meddling.

Forget about the Russians, Trump supports American-made election riggers

While Trump's apparent law-breaking focuses on the Russians, his primary anti-American assault is his bogus Election Integrity Commission led by Kris Kobach, whose Crosscheck program stripped countless non-millionaire citizens from the voter rolls in at least 30 states, critical to putting Trump in the White House. The man who rigged Ohio�s 2004 election, Ken Blackwell, also serves on the Commission.

As Americans, we cannot allow this high-tech Jim Crow destruction of the electoral process to lead to a permanent, one-party dictatorship.

This official lynch mob must be replaced by a national commission to promote universal hand-counted paper ballots and universal automatic voter registration, with legally protected, transparent voter rolls.

At least now the media and establishment have to admit U.S. election systems can be and have been hacked � a fact the Free Press has investigated and reported for over 15 years.

Resign or be convicted

All of this raises the blackmail issue. Which foreign entities, including crime syndicates, have information to compromise Trump and his close personal entourage?

It�s not just the Russian connections we should be investigating. As The New Yorker pointed out, �Throughout the Presidential campaign, Trump was in business with someone that his company knew was likely a partner with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.�

Trump�s �Trump Tower Baku� was a failed luxury hotel project in Azerbaijan, considered one of the world�s most corrupt nations. His partner was Zaya Mammadov, a billionaire oligarch tied to Iran�s Revolutionary Guard, who worked as the Azerbaijan Transportation Minister for $12,000 a year.

The Guardian reported in mid-June that �Donald Trump � like Richard Nixon� is now �under investigation for obstruction of justice.� There is already speculation that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is also investigating Trump�s alleged money laundering.

Trump has questioned Mueller�s impartiality regarding the Russian investigation and has contemplated firing Mueller in perhaps his own version of the infamous �Saturday Night Massacre,� when Nixon fired Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox.

Donald Trump must resign the presidency by August 9, the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki and the resignation of Richard Nixon.

In Trump�s brief tenure, he�s already fired James Comey, the FBI Director, for failing to pledge personal loyalty. Trump went on to try to intimidate Comey by suggesting he might have �tapes� of their conversations. The Washington Post reported that Trump then tried to get CIA director Mike Pompeo and Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats to kill the FBI investigation into Trump�s Russian connections.

Trump�s coverups must stop. If by August 9 he hasn�t resigned, he needs to be convicted, perp-walked, and removed.

Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of THE STRIP & FLIP DISASTER OF AMERICA�S STOLEN ELECTIONS (www.freepress.org) where Bob�s FITRAKIS FILES are also available. Harvey�s SOLARTOPIA! is at www.solartopia.org, along with HARVEY WASSERMAN�S HISTORY OF THE US.

33 comments

FOCUS: Trump's Phony Victory

Thursday, 27 July 2017 11:32

Galindez writes: "Yesterday�s vote to start the debate on repealing and/or replacing Obamacare was all symbolism. The worst-kept secret in Washington is that Republicans still don�t have a plan that will get 50 votes."

President Trump with Republican House members in the Rose Garden. (photo: Reuters)

Trump's Phony Victory

By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News

27 July 17

esterday�s vote to start the debate on repealing and/or replacing Obamacare was all symbolism. The worst-kept secret in Washington is that Republicans still don�t have a plan that will get 50 votes.

The latest plan, which may come to a vote before Friday, is a being called the �skinny.� The bill would end the individual mandate and the employer mandate while eliminating the tax on medical equipment. One reason we need to fear this bill is that Senator Dean Heller from Nevada views the bill favorably. He views the bill favorably because it would not cut Medicaid funding.

Eliminating the mandate, while possibly a popular political movement, would be a back door to repeal. The mandate is what pays for coverage of pre-existing conditions. Eliminating the individual mandate would at the least cause insurance companies to raise premiums. More likely it would cause many insurance companies to get out of the healthcare market.

The Republican dilemma is still that the Freedom Caucus crowd will probably not accept a plan that doesn�t cut Medicaid and allow insurance companies to provide less coverage.

The Democrats will likely stand together and seek as few as three votes from the GOP side of the aisle to kill every Republican bill for repeal.

I, like many of you, think Obamacare needs more than tweaking, but I don�t trust the Republicans to replace it with a plan that values people over the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Until real reform comes that puts people first, we must continue to resist Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare.

The Republicans argue that the Democrats are not offering a solution. They only have to look as far Congressman John Conyers� expanded and improved Medicare for All bill to find the real solution.

Obamacare is not the problem � the insurance industry is the problem. We pay more and get less than other countries. If Republicans really wanted to lower costs for individuals and employers, they would eliminate private insurance and join the rest of the world and provide public healthcare for everyone.

Trump, Ryan, and McConnell want a victory so bad that before the week is out they will spin anything as repeal. We can�t allow them victory. If they really want to lower premiums and provide greater choice they will support single payer. Under single payer, you can go to whichever doctor you choose. Employers would pay less for healthcare and could hire more employees at higher wages. It�s really a no-brainer, unless you are making money in the insurance industry. No, it�s not free, your taxes will go up, but that is offset by the elimination of premiums, co-pays, and prescription drug costs. And if you get sick, everything is covered without forcing you into debt. Why continue the unsustainable health insurance system? It doesn�t need reform� it needs to be abolished.

Scott Galindez attended Syracuse University, where he first became politically active. The writings of El Salvador's slain archbishop Oscar Romero and the on-campus South Africa divestment movement converted him from a Reagan supporter to an activist for Peace and Justice. Over the years he has been influenced by the likes of Philip Berrigan, William Thomas, Mitch Snyder, Don White, Lisa Fithian, and Paul Wellstone. Scott met Marc Ash while organizing counterinaugural events after George W. Bush's first stolen election. Scott moved to Des Moines in 2015 to cover the Iowa Caucus.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

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