Dear Readers,
It has been an eventful week. For all past newsletters (and more), make sure to go to the blog at http://www.electreport.blogspot.com
Health Care Failures
And yet again, the GOP replacement to ObamaCare goes down in flames, being pulled from the floor without so much as a vote this week. Graham-Cassidy was scrapped after many Republican senators announced their attention to not vote for it, and afterwards Sen. Lindsey Graham freely admitted he had no idea what he was doing. In addition, this week Congress failed to reauthorize the CHIP program, which provides health insurance to 9 million children and has existed for 20 years. It is primarily federally funded, though the states do also provide some, and if they don’t reauthorize it soon, funding might be gone as soon as March.
Alabama
Not that it was much of a surprise, but homophobic far-right judge Roy Moore handily won the Republican primary for the open Senate seat in Alabama. Senate Republicans spent $9 million to support Luther Strange in this race, and the president even endorsed him.
Some referred to the election as a referendum on Trump’s influence, since the candidate Trump endorsed lost. This is ridiculous. Were it not for Trump, Roy Moore could not have gained enough support to win. Moore belongs to Trump’s brand of outspoken, “tell it like it is”, vaguely racist Republicanism. And Trump’s obviously reluctant endorsement of Strange doesn’t change that. No, this was a referendum on widely hated Mitch McConnell, who proudly supported Strange and will pay for it.
Golfing While PR Burns
As Hurricane Maria, a category 4 storm, wrecked Puerto Rico, President Trump sat at Mar-A-Lago. He has yet to visit the island (though he will this week), and at first cared much more about criticizing Colin Kaepernick than helping the millions of Americans without power in Puerto Rico. He has since at least nominally tried to help them, but made a big deal of insulting San Juan’s mayor, after she said “If anyone out there is listening to us, we are dying, and you are killing us with the inefficiency and the bureaucracy.” Trump, among many other things, said that the island's leaders "want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort." Yes, the victims of the hurricane need to help each other when none of them have power or water, as opposed to the man that governs them, you know, doing what a government should do and initiating disaster response? Sickening.
Catalonia
Catalonia, a region of Spain with a linguistic minority that makes up 20% of the Spanish economy, held a vote on independence today. The Spanish government declared the referendum unconstitutional beforehand, but they proceeded with the vote anyway. The Spanish government sent police, who injured nearly a thousand protesters, and even raided some polling statements. The votes we have show 90% voting to secede, and the actions of the Spanish government certainly will cause support for independence to increase further. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has called the vote illegal. Whether or not you agree with the Catalonian cause, the Spanish government has no justification for their actions today.
Thanks for reading! Please let me know what you think.
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