Ted Cruz agrees with AOC

Freshman Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez found an unlikely ally in Republican Sen. Ted Cruz on Thursday.

Ocasio-Cortez shared an analysis from Public Citizen on Twitter that found that close to 60% of former members of the last Congress have taken lobbying jobs or jobs that influence federal policy more broadly. Along with the study, she shared a message that “if you are a member of Congress + leave, you shouldn’t be allowed to turn right around & leverage your service for a lobbyist check. I don’t think it should be legal at ALL to become a corporate lobbyist if you’ve served in Congress.”

At a bare minimum, Ocasio-Cortez suggested that there should be a longer wait period.

The law currently prohibits former Senators from taking lobbying positions for two years after leaving office, while the ban is only one year for former representatives. Despite this, the law is not often rigidly enforced and former members of Congress have exploited loopholes. More than a dozen former members of Congress have joined lobbying firms this year to date.

To the surprise of many, Cruz agreed with Ocasio-Cortez’s concern, writing, “Here’s something I don’t say often: on this point, I AGREE with @AOC Indeed, I have long called for a LIFETIME BAN on former Members of Congress becoming lobbyists.” While Cruz noted that the “swamp would hate it,” he said it could nevertheless serve as an opportunity for “bipartisan cooperation.”

Ocasio-Cortez quickly took Cruz up on the offer. Tweeting at him, she wrote, “if you’re serious about a clean bill, then I’m down. Let’s make a deal.”

She stipulated that they need to agree on a bill that does not contain any “partisan snuck-in clauses” or “poison pills”—just a simple bill that would prohibit members of Congress from becoming paid lobbyists when they leave office. If he agreed to that, she wrote, she would co-lead the bill with him.

Cruz quickly replied: “you’re on.”

Twitter proceeded to serve as a sounding board for other members of Congress to sign on as co-sponsors as well. Democrat Sen. Brian Schatz and Republican Rep. Chip Roy expressed a willingness to team up with Cruz and Ocasio-Cortez.

Trish Regan vs. China

With tensions between China and the United States running high, the fight between the two global powers has shifted — at least for now — from dry back-room trade negotiations to a buzzier, more high-profile arena: American prime-time television.

On one side is Trish Regan, an American television host from the Fox Business Network. On the other is Liu Xin, the Chinese host of an English-language program on China Global Television Network, an international arm of China’s propaganda machine.

After days of sparring on Twitter, the hosts, whose two television networks are most favored by their respective national leaders, will face off in a live debate about trade and technology on Wednesday night in the United States (Thursday morning in China).

The debate is unlikely to be seen live by the public in China, where international television channels are largely limited to five-star hotels that cater to foreigners. Still, many Chinese are excited about the showdown, with some academics mobilizing to support Ms. Liu by offering her talking points via social media.

abortion ban

5/24/19 - Missouri to ban abortions after eight weeks

Florida to allow more teachers to carry guns

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — More Florida teachers will be eligible to carry guns in the classroom under a bill Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Wednesday that immediately implements recommendations from a commission formed after a mass shooting at a high school in Parkland.

DeSantis signed the bill in private and didn't issue a statement afterward. But he previously made it clear he supports the changes made to the law enacted after a rifle-toting former student walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and killed 17 people in February 2018.

"We did a lot for public safety," DeSantis said immediately after the legislative session ended Saturday. "The Marjory Stoneman Douglas bill, people had disagreements on, but ultimately ... I think we're going to be safer."

The bill was one of the most contentious of the legislative session that ended Saturday. It expands the "guardian" program that allows school districts to approve school employees and teachers with a role outside the classroom, such as a coach, to carry guns. School districts have to approve and teachers have to volunteer. They then go through police-like training with a sheriff's office and undergo a psychiatric evaluation and a background check.

The new law expands the program to make all teachers eligible regardless of whether they have a non-classroom role.

Democrats spent hours arguing against the bill, saying it could lead to accidental shootings, or that a teacher could panic and fire during a confrontation with students. Republicans emphasized that the program is voluntary, and that law enforcement in some rural districts could be 15 minutes or more away from a school if a shooter attacks.

Medicare for America

On one side, there’s “Medicare for All,” which has come to mean the Bernie Sanders position: replacing the entire existing U.S. health insurance system with a Medicare-type program in which the government pays most medical bills directly.

On the other side, there’s “Medicare for America,” originally a proposal from the Center for American Progress, now embodied in legislation. While none of the announced Democratic candidates has endorsed this proposal yet, it’s a good guess that most of them will come around to something similar.

The big difference from a Sanders-type plan is that people would be allowed to keep private coverage if they chose — but they or their employers would also have the option of buying into an enhanced version of Medicare, with substantial subsidies for lower- and middle-income families.

The most important thing you need to know about these rival plans is that both of them would do the job.

Many people realize, I think, that we’re the only advanced country that doesn’t guarantee essential health care to its legal residents. My guess is that fewer realize that nations achieve that goal in a variety of ways — and they all work.

Every two years the Commonwealth Fund provides an invaluable survey of major nations’ health care systems. America always comes in last; in the latest edition, the three leaders are Britain, Australia and the Netherlands.

What’s remarkable about those top three is that they have radically different systems. Britain has true socialized medicine — direct government provision of health care. Australia has single-payer — it’s basically Bernie down under. But the Dutch rely on private insurance companies — heavily regulated, with lots of subsidies, but looking more like a better-funded version of Obamacare than like Medicare for All. And the Netherlands actually tops the Commonwealth Fund rankings.

So which system should Democrats advocate? The answer, I’d argue, is the system we’re most likely actually to create — the one that will play best in the general election, and is then most likely to pass Congress if the Democrat wins.

--- Paul Krugman, 3/21/19

who will lose insurance if ObamaCare is overturned?

The Affordable Care Act once again faces legal hurdles after President Donald Trump and his administration supported a lawsuit questioning the health-care law's constitutionality.

If the lawsuit succeeds and the courts decide to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, millions of Americans could lose their health care if a replacement plan is not established. Though Trump wanted to replace the law with a new Republican plan before the 2020 elections, the GOP refused to bring forward its own proposal until it wins a majority in the House of Representatives.

The Department of Justice on Wednesday asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to overturn Obamacare after a federal judge in Texas ruled the law unconstitutional, citing the removal of a tax penalty levied against citizens without health insurance. The Trump administration reduced the tax penalty, called the individual mandate, to $0 in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Though Obamacare remains law while it awaits deliberation in the courts, about 25 million Americans may be left uninsured if the law is struck down in its entirety.

bulky-item pickup? call for appointment

Starting May 15 residents from Foster Village to Hawaii Kai — including busy Waikiki — will have to go online to schedule appointments for bulky-item pickup service.

The city Tuesday announced the debut of its curbside bulky-item collection pilot program.

To schedule appointments, single- and multi-family households within the Department of Environmental Services’ zones 1-8 may log on to opala.org. Pickup service begins June 3. Those unable to schedule online should call the department at 768-3200 between 6 a.m. and 2 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

Single-family homes may schedule up to five bulky items per appointment, while multi-unit residential buildings may schedule up to 20 bulky items per appointment, according to the city.

Associations of apartment owners, property managers or residential managers are required to consolidate bulky-item collection appointments for tenants and store items in onsite holding areas between appointments, according to the city.

Those unable to wait between appointments may drop off items at convenience centers listed at opala.org. A map illustrating the various pickup zones is also available on the website.

OK, how about infrastructure?

WASHINGTON — Democratic congressional leaders emerged from a meeting at the White House on Tuesday and announced that President Trump had agreed to pursue a $2 trillion infrastructure plan to upgrade the nation’s highways, railroads, bridges and broadband.

Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, said that there had been “good will” in the meeting and that it was “different than some of the other meetings that we’ve had.” Standing alongside Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he said the group planned to meet again in three weeks, when Mr. Trump was expected to tell them how he planned to actually pay for the ambitious project.

Alabama approves abortion ban

Alabama's House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a near-total abortion ban, a piece of legislation that the bill's sponsor called a "direct attack" on Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that protects a woman's right to an abortion. Politicians in the statehouse voted against adding an amendment that would have added an exception for victims of rape and incest.

After several hours of contentious debate Tuesday evening, Alabama politicians overwhelmingly passed House Bill 314, the "Human Life Protection Act," 74 to 3, pushing the bill forward to the state Senate. Of the state's 105 representatives, 28 refused to vote after Republicans blocked the rape and incest amendment.

If passed into law, the legislation would criminalize abortion, classifying it as a Class A felony in Alabama. That means that a doctor caught performing abortions in the state would face up to 99 years in prison under the proposed law.

"The heart of this bill is to confront a decision that was made by the courts in 1973 that said the baby in the womb is not a person," said Representative Terri Collins, the bill's sponsor, during the debate. "This bill addresses that one issue. Is that baby in the womb a person? I believe our law says it is."

Because federal law supersedes state law, Alabama would be in violation of the U.S. Constitution if lawmakers attempted to implement the legislation, noted several politicians. If passed, the legislation would likely join a host of other contested laws that anti-abortion activists hope will rise to the Supreme Court and potentially overturn Roe v. Wade. The proposed law flatly rejects the decision, saying that "judges and legal scholars have disagreed and dissented with its finding."