Author: Worldcrew

Democrats are turning to an immigrant brought into the U.S. illegally as a child to give a Democratic response to President Donald Trump’s address to Congress.

Astrid Silva, 28, said millions of people living in the United States are worried, whether it’s about being deported, losing their health insurance coverage or being discriminated against because of their sexual orientation. She made the comments in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday at the Capitol.

Silva, who will deliver the response in Spanish, said she wants them to know there are people who care about them. And she wants the president to understand his policy choices will affect millions of families around the nation.

“It’s very important for President Trump to understand that even though he spent so much time campaigning about deporting us, now that he is president, he does have to make these choices,” said Silva, a resident of Las Vegas. “He needs to see us as humans. That’s what we are. We’re families trying to find a better life.”

Democrats also tapped former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear to give the party response. As governor he aggressively expanded access to health insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans are vowing to repeal.

Silva is part of a group of 750,000 immigrants who were brought into the U.S. without authorization as children but later received deportation relief under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program authorized by former President Barack Obama in 2012. She became pen pals with former Sen. Harry Reid. Obama ended up highlighting her story during an address to the nation about a similar deportation relief program for the parents of children who are American citizens or legal residents.

Silva, who was 4 when she was brought to the U.S., said her parents and millions of other families now feel the consequences of Trump’s election every day.

“My parents are thinking twice about going to the grocery store,” she said. “Their friends are calling them and asking them what they do if ICE comes to their door — things that for many years were in the back of our minds but it wasn’t necessarily an everyday occurrence.”

Democratic lawmakers have invited several immigrants to be their guests at the address. In contrast, three people with loved ones killed by someone in the United States illegally will sit near first lady Melania Trump.

Despite White House promises that the speech will be an optimistic vision for the country that crosses traditional lines of party and race, Democrats expect to hear little that they will like.

But Democratic Congressman Joe Crowley of New York said he doesn’t expect any outbursts from Democratic lawmakers in attendance. “As much as we have nothing in common with the president, we do respect the office of the presidency. Keeping that in mind, we will be polite but we will show very little if any enthusiasm at all for what I anticipate his speech will be about.”

Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California said she’ll skip the speech. She said she would have considered attending if the president had apologized for certain actions, citing the mocking of a disabled reporter as an example.

“I don’t feel good about it, so I won’t be here,” Waters said.

Others are taking different paths to show their displeasure. Democratic Congressman Eliot Engel of New York announced he would not try to shake hands with the president as he customarily does. Many lawmakers arrive hours early to position themselves for an aisle seat so they can greet the president.

Dozens of female lawmakers were wearing white on Tuesday in honor of women’s suffrage. “Know that we stand committed and ready to fight on behalf of all women and girls,” said Democratic Congresswoman Julia Brownley of California.
…

Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross easily won confirmation as U.S. commerce secretary on Monday, clearing President Donald Trump’s top trade official to start work on renegotiating trade relationships with China and Mexico.

The U.S. Senate voted 72-27 to confirm the 79-year-old corporate turnaround expert’s nomination, with strong support from Democrats.

Ross is set to become an influential voice in Trump’s economic team after helping shape the president’s opposition to multilateral free trade deals such as the now-scrapped Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Ross drew votes from 19 Democrats and one independent, partly because of an endorsement from the United Steelworkers union for his efforts in restructuring bankrupt steel companies in the early 2000s, which saved numerous plants and thousands of jobs.

Ross was criticized by some Democrats as another billionaire in a Trump Cabinet that says it is focused on the working class, and for being a “vulture” investor who has eliminated some jobs.

Reuters reported last month that Ross’s companies had shipped some 2,700 jobs overseas since 2004.

The investor will oversee a sprawling agency with nearly 44,000 employees responsible for combating the dumping of imports below cost into U.S. markets, collecting census and critical economic data, weather forecasting, fisheries management, promoting the United States to foreign investors and regulating the export of sensitive technologies.

While commerce secretaries rarely take the spotlight in Washington, Ross is expected to play an outsize role in pursuing Trump’s campaign pledge to slash U.S. trade deficits and bring manufacturing jobs back to America.

Trump has designated Ross to lead the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada, a job that in past administrations would have been left to the U.S. Trade Representative’s office.

Ross will join other major players on the economic team, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Gary Cohn, director of the White House National Economic Council.

Some experts said Ross could serve as a counterweight to advisers such as Peter Navarro, the University of California-Irvine economics professor who heads Trump’s newly created White House National Trade Council. Navarro has advocated a controversial 45 percent across-the-board tariff on imports from China that Trump threatened during his campaign.

“I expect that Ross will quickly become the administration’s chief trade spokesman, and that Navarro’s influence will be felt indirectly, rather than through public statements or testimony,” said Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow and trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

At his confirmation hearing, Ross downplayed chances of a trade war with China, while calling it the “most protectionist” large economy. He vowed to level the playing field for U.S. companies competing with Chinese imports and those trying to do business in China’s highly restricted economy.

Ross, estimated by Forbes to be worth $2.9 billion, built his fortune in the late 1990s and early 2000s by investing in distressed companies in steel, coal, textiles and auto parts, restructuring them and often benefiting from tariff protections put in place by the Commerce Department.
…

Cambodia’s government has threatened to expel several media outlets, including the Voice of America, and is using U.S. President Donald Trump’s criticisms of the press as justification.

In a Facebook post Saturday, Phay Siphan, a spokesman for Cambodia’s cabinet, threatened to “take action” against the media outlets, which he said are threatening the country’s peace and stability.

It appears to be the first time a foreign government has used Trump’s treatment of the media as justification for its own censorship activities — something press watchdog groups have warned could happen.

Trump has called press coverage he dislikes “fake news,” referring to it as “the enemy of the people.” Last week, the White House banned several organizations, including the New York Times and CNN, from an informal press gaggle with Press Secretary Sean Spicer. The White House argued it was trying to include more reporters in the event, however the action drew strong criticism from media outlets, which called it an insult to democratic ideals.

In his Facebook post, the Cambodian spokesman appeared to reference the White House’s move to exclude certain media organizations from the gaggle, saying it sent a “clear message” that some journalists’ reporting “does not reflect reality.”

“President Donald Trump thinks that the news reported by these organizations did not reflect the truth, which is the responsibility of the professional reporters,” the spokesman said. “This means that freedom of expression must respect the law and the authority of the state.”

The spokesman specifically took aim at Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, both U.S.-government funded broadcasters, as well as the local Voice of Democracy, an independent, nonprofit radio station.

Though Cambodia’s constitution provides for a free press, most media are indirectly controlled by the state and closely monitored. The government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has been in power for three decades, has in the past criticized VOA and RFA, saying they were fomenting instability.

In his Facebook post, Phay Siphan accused the broadcasters of being “foreign agents,” and said they must “reconsider” their use of airtime before the government takes unspecified actions.

The story was first reported by the Phnom Penh Post, an independent paper based in the Cambodian capital. After the warning was issued, the paper reached out to Phay Siphan, who said any media outlet that doesn’t follow the government’s orders would be expelled.

“Shut it down. Very simple. Expel them,” he said. 

In a statement, Jing Zhang, the acting director of VOA’s East Asia Pacific division, rejected the characterization of VOA as a “foreign agent.”  

“VOA is a media organization that reports news in an objective, fair and balanced manner,” he said. “Millions of VOA listeners and Facebook fans in Cambodia can attest to our journalistic integrity.”

The U.S. State Department replied to VOA’s request for comment by saying, “The United States has long supported freedom of the press as fundamental to any democracy.”

But some human rights groups and ex-diplomats warn that it may not be the last time an authoritarian government cites the Trump administration’s behavior as justification for their own press crackdown.

“It’s hard enough to be a journalist in dictatorships like Cambodia when the United States is setting a good example,” Tom Malinowski, the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy and Labor, told VOA.

“Now every dictator who wants to ban media he doesn’t like can say, ‘Trump does it so why can’t I?'” said Malinowski, who served under former U.S. President Barack Obama.

In October, the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonpartisan media rights watchdog, warned that Trump’s presidency would represent an “unprecedented” threat to press freedom.

“The consequences for the rights of journalists around the world be far more serious,” said the CPJ statement. “Any failure of the United States to uphold its own standards emboldens dictators and despots to restrict the media in their own countries.”

White House officials have insisted that Trump respects freedom of the press, saying he is only fighting against what they see as unfair media coverage. 

Spicer, Trump’s chief spokesman, on Friday defended his decision to bar several news organizations from the gaggle, saying he was only trying to include, not exclude, more reporters.

“We had a pool and then we expanded it, we added some folks to come cover it,” Spicer said. He later added: “We are going to aggressively push back. We’re just not going to sit back and let, you know, false narratives, false stories, inaccurate facts get out there.”

VOA’s Mony Say in Washington and Narin Sun in Phnom Penh contributed to this report.
…

In the days after President Donald Trump’s election, thousands of teenagers across the nation walked out of class in protest. Others rallied to his defense.

It was an unusual show of political engagement from future voters who may alter America’s political landscape in 2020 — or even in next year’s midterm elections.

Now, a new survey of children ages 13 to 17 conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research with the permission of their parents finds that America’s teens are almost as politically disillusioned and pessimistic about the nation’s divisions as their parents. The difference? They aren’t quite as quick to write off the future.

Eight in 10 feel that Americans are divided when it comes to the nation’s most important values and 6 in 10 say the country is headed in the wrong direction.

Nyles Adams, a 14-year-old from New York City, was in kindergarten when Barack Obama was sworn in as the nation’s first black president. Adams, the grandson of Trinidadian immigrants, remembers watching the inauguration on TV and talking with his mother about the particular significance of Obama’s election for his black, immigrant family.

Now, with Trump as president, he feels America’s best days are behind it, and the nation will be worse off in 40 years. Yet like 57 percent of his peers, he is still optimistic about the opportunity to achieve the American Dream.

“Sometimes it does get you down, but I try not to focus on it too much because I see myself as someone who despite all the odds that are against me, I’m still going to prevail,” he said.

That youthful optimism is hard to crush. While rates vary by race, 56 percent of all teens surveyed believe America’s best days are ahead, compared with the 52 percent of adults in an AP-NORC poll conducted in June 2016 who said the nation’s best days are behind it.

But like adults, the poll reveals deep divisions along familiar lines.

Just a quarter of teens say they have a lot in common with people of different political views. Three in four already have a party preference, including 29 percent who say they’ll be Democrats, 23 percent Republicans and 24 percent independent or another party. Less than one-third have a favorable impression of Trump, but only slightly more think well of Hillary Clinton.

Elijah Arredondo, a second-generation Mexican-American from La Habra, California, disliked both major party candidates but is now worried about his family under Trump.

His mother signed up for the Affordable Care Act, which Trump has promised to dismantle and replace.

“I feel like anyone can achieve the American Dream, but for some people it’s a lot harder for them to do, so these things help people,” he said.

Caroline Millsaps of Garner, North Carolina, describes herself as a liberal Democrat and says climate change and women’s rights are her top political concerns. Last year, she took time away from her busy competitive dance schedule to attend two Bernie Sanders rallies with her mother.

Like 40 percent of teens surveyed, she feels she has a “moderate” amount in common with people of different political views.

“I always watch Fox News to get a different perspective, and I have some friends who support Trump and so I’ll ask them, ‘What is your opinion on this?'” she said. “I try to see both sides of the situation and see which side fits my view best.”

Millsaps, 16, talks about politics daily with her parents and that has strongly influenced her views.

Nearly 40 percent of teens surveyed said they did the same at least weekly and, like Millsaps, those talks seem to sway them. A majority of respondents said they agree with their parents’ political views most of the time. Only 3 percent disagree most of the time.

Sophie Svigel, 17, attends a private Christian school in Dallas and identifies herself as a conservative Republican. She talks to her Republican parents about politics and almost always agrees with them, but is also heavily influenced by her faith-based school, she said.

“I feel like a lot of the bad things that are going on are not really spoken of and are hidden,” she said. “I feel like the politicians and people in politics speak very vaguely about the problems that we’re facing.”

That cynicism echoes in the AP-NORC poll. Just 16 percent of teens feel the federal government is doing a good job promoting the well-being of all Americans, and not just special interests. Fewer than 2 in 10 teens surveyed feel the federal government is doing a good job representing most Americans’ views.

Jessi Balcon from Bend, Oregon, has tried to fight that cynicism by pouring her energy into delivering food to homeless people and engaging in open-minded debate with those whose politics are different from hers. Nine in 10 teens say they have participated in civic activities like volunteering or raising money for a cause.

“It’s not you versus me, it’s us versus the problem and the problem isn’t other people,” said Balcon, 17, a Green Party supporter.

“There are a lot of really big problems that we need to solve, but I think that getting angry is the worst thing that we can do,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what side of politics they’re on, conservative or liberal. I don’t want to hate anyone.”
…

President Donald Trump’s choice to be secretary of the Navy, businessman Philip Bilden, said Sunday he was withdrawing from consideration for the post, citing concerns about privacy and separating himself from his business interests.

Bilden’s withdrawal raises similar issues to that of Vincent Viola, Trump’s nominee for Army secretary who stepped aside earlier this month. Just last week, the Pentagon sought to tamp down reports that Bilden might pull out.

Bilden was an intelligence officer in the Army Reserve from 1986-1996. He relocated to Hong Kong to set up an Asian presence for HarbourVest Partners LLC, a global private equity management firm. Bilden recently retired from HarbourVest Partners after 25 years.

In a statement released Sunday by the Pentagon, Bilden said he determined that he would not be able to satisfy the Office of Government Ethics requirements without what he called “undue disruption and materially adverse divestment of my family’s private financial interests.”

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in a statement that he would make a recommendation to Trump for a nominee in the coming days.

On Feb. 19, after press reports suggested that Bilden might drop out, the Pentagon issued a statement saying Bilden had assured Mattis he remained committed to serving as Navy secretary if confirmed by the Senate and that Mattis was confident Bilden was “the right leader” to rebuild the Navy and Marine Corps.

Viola cited his inability to successfully navigate the confirmation process and Defense Department rules concerning family businesses. A military veteran and former Airborne Ranger infantry officer, he was also the founder of several businesses, including the electronic trading firm Virtu Financial. He also owns the National Hockey League’s Florida Panthers and is a past chairman of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
…

Police say scores of headstones have been vandalized at a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia.

A police spokeswoman said preliminary estimates are that 75 to 100 graves were damaged at Mount Carmel Cemetery in the Wissinoming section of the city.

WPVI-TV reported that a man who came to visit his father’s grave Sunday morning discovered headstones toppled. Police said a vandalism report came in just after 9:30 a.m. Sunday.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia lists Mount Carmel as a Jewish cemetery in northeastern Philadelphia.

The damage comes less than a week after a Jewish cemetery in suburban St. Louis reported more than 150 headstones vandalized, many of them tipped over.

Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon called the damage reported in Philadelphia “shocking and a source of worry.”
…

In Washington, bipartisan calls are growing for an independent probe of Russian efforts to impact last year’s U.S. election and any ties between Moscow and President Donald Trump’s inner circle. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports the White House is trying to fend off the escalating controversy as the president prepares for his first speech to Congress
…

President Donald Trump signaled Saturday that he would not take part in the annual dinner of the White House Correspondents’ Association, a star-studded gala that is normally a political imperative for the U.S. chief executive.

The formal dinner is over two months away, but Trump broke the news with a tweet saying, “I will not be attending the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!”

A day earlier, Trump had excoriated White House reporters and media outlets he believes are deliberately spreading “fake news” about his administration, in a speech to a large gathering of American conservatives. And a few hours later, his White House staff excluded a number of high-profile news organizations from a regular briefing, including CNN, The New York Times, Politico, the Los Angeles Times and Buzzfeed.

The White House Correspondents’ Association protested the way in which the briefing was conducted. Although there was no immediate reaction to Trump’s tweet, the WHCA said recently that plans for the annual dinner on April 29 were going forward, to “celebrate the First Amendment and the role a free press plays in a healthy republic.”

The correspondents group presents a series of awards for political reporting at the dinner and promotes its scholarship program, “to highlight and support up-and-coming journalists who are the future of our profession.”

Money raised from those attending the dinner is used to support the scholarship program. The entertainment highlight of the annual affair usually is a comedic “roast” of the president by a well-known comedian.

Because of the turbulent relationship between the U.S. press and the White House since Trump was sworn in last month, preparations for this year’s dinner had been somewhat tentative. The dinner is normally the central event in a whirlwind weekend of parties and receptions hosted by news media groups, but several of the most popular gatherings already have been canceled, including those hosted in the past by Bloomberg News and Vanity Fair and The New Yorker magazines.
…

President Donald Trump’s administration will begin rolling back Obama-era environmental regulations in an “aggressive way” as soon as next week, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Saturday — adding that he understood why some Americans wanted to see his agency eliminated.

“I think there are some regulations that in the near term need to be rolled back in a very aggressive way. And I think maybe next week you may be hearing about some of those,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt told the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.

Pruitt added that the EPA’s focus on combating climate change under former President Barack Obama had cost jobs and prevented economic growth, leading many Americans to want to see the EPA eliminated.

WATCH: EPA Head Pruitt Wants to Restore Role of States

“I think it’s justified,” he said. “I think people across this country look at the EPA much like they look at the IRS [Internal Revenue Service]. I hope to be able to change that.”

Pollution fears

Pruitt was confirmed as EPA head last week. His appointment triggered an uproar among Democratic lawmakers and environmental advocates worried that he will gut the agency and reopen the doors to heavy industrial pollution. He sued the EPA more than a dozen times as his state’s top attorney and has repeatedly cast doubt on the science of climate change.

But his rise to the head of the EPA has also cheered many Republicans and business interests that expect him to cut back red tape they believe has hampered the economy.

WATCH: EPA Head Pruitt: US Better at Growing Economy

Trump campaigned on a promise to slash regulation to revive the oil and gas drilling and coal mining industries.

Three targets

Pruitt mentioned three rules ushered in by Obama that could meet the chopping block early on: the Waters of the U.S. rule outlining waterways that have federal protections; the Clean Power Plan requiring states to cut carbon emissions; and the U.S. Methane rule limiting emissions from oil and gas installations on federal land.

A Trump official told Reuters late Friday that the president was expected to sign a measure as early as Tuesday aimed at rescinding the Waters of the U.S. rule.

WATCH: EPA Head Pruitt: Republicans Have Nothing to Be Apologetic About Concerning Environment

Pruitt said in his comments to the CPAC summit that the rule had “made puddles and dry creek beds across this country subject to the jurisdiction of Washington, D.C. That’s going to change.” He also suggested longer-term structural changes were in store at the EPA.

“Long term, asking the question on how that agency partners with the states and how that affects the budget and how it affects the structure is something to work on very diligently,” Pruitt said.

Like Trump, he said cutting regulation could be done in a way that does not harm water or air quality.
…

Former Labor Secretary Tom Perez was elected head of the Democratic National Committee on Saturday, charged with overseeing the formidable task of rebuilding a party left shattered by the presidential win of Republican Donald Trump.

Perez, who served under former President Barack Obama, and U.S. Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota were the front-runners in the race.

Perez, the first Latino to hold the post, won on a second ballot by a margin of 235-200, in a contest widely seen as a proxy fight between defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her chief party rival, Bernie Sanders.

Immediately after the vote count, Perez moved to make Ellison the deputy party chairman, and DNC members ratified his choice.

“We are all in this together,” Perez said, calling on Democrats to fight what he called “the worst president in the history of the United States.”

Earlier Saturday, Perez told the 474 DNC members that the party was “suffering from a crisis of confidence, a crisis of relevance.” He also sought to define the tasks ahead as Democratic stalwarts push to regain the party’s stature in the aftermath of Clinton’s defeat.

“We need to make house calls, we need to listen to people. We need to get back to basics,” he said.

Perez, considered the establishment pick and a political moderate, is the son of Dominican immigrants. Ellison, a progressive, was the first Muslim elected to Congress.

Ellison, endorsed by Sanders and his progressive followers, said the Democrats were in “this mess because we lost not one election, but a thousand elections” — at all levels of government, from local councils to the White House — in November.

The new DNC chairman will oversee a party financially drained by the 2016 election, but one that has been energized this year by grass-roots protests against Trump and his policies. Notable among the protests was the nationwide Women’s March on Washington on January 21, the day after Trump’s inauguration, that produced one of the largest turnouts ever seen in the United States.

Perez will also face the challenge of restoring party fortunes after heavy losses in the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections that produced the Republicans’ current majority in both houses of Congress. He must also coordinate the development of potential candidates to challenge Republicans for the White House in 2020.
…

Democratic senators are protesting the Trump Organization’s acceptance of a valuable trademark from the Chinese government without asking Congress first if doing so is constitutional.

A group of 13 senators warned President Donald Trump in a letter Thursday that they intended to hold him accountable to his oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution. Additional Democrats signed a letter Friday to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that complained about Trump getting special treatment from China.

“A president must not have two masters,” said Thursday’s letter, led by Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal. “If you continue to refuse to request and receive congressional approval before accepting favors from foreign governments, we will be unable to serve our constitutional role. Such a situation is unacceptable.”

The letters came in response to China’s February 14 registration of a trademark for construction services to Trump. He secured the mark only after fighting for 10 grinding years in China’s courts to win back rights from a man named Dong Wei. A bureaucratic about-face after Trump declared his candidacy has raised questions about whether his political rise is benefiting his family business. These concerns are particularly sharp in China, where the courts and bureaucracy reflect the will of the ruling Communist Party.

Emoluments clause

Critics say the trademark award violates the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution, which bars public servants from accepting anything of value from foreign states unless approved by Congress. While the actual value of Trump’s China trademarks is unclear, Trump himself has said he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending them. Trump has significant intellectual property interests abroad, including 49 pending and 77 registered trademarks in China alone. Most come up for renewal during his term.

Alan Garten, chief legal officer of the Trump Organization, did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment. He has previously said that Trump’s trademark activity in China predates his election. Garten has also noted that Trump turned management of his company over to his children and a team of executives in order to remove himself from his business and its trademark portfolio.

Last week, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California called the China trademark registration “a clear conflict of interest and deeply troubling.” Feinstein is a signatory to both of this week’s letters, too.

“At a time when the United States has pressing economic, diplomatic and security concerns at play in our relationship with the People’s Republic of China, the possibility that the government of China is seeking to win President Trump’s favor by granting him special treatment for his businesses is disturbing,” said the letter to Tillerson, also signed by Senators Ben Cardin of Maryland and Jack Reed of Rhode Island.
…

Republicans in the U.S. Congress are working to overhaul the nation’s health care laws in their effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, considered by some to be one of former President Barack Obama’s most significant legislative achievements.

U.S. media outlets reported details Friday of potential replacements for the health care law, frequently referred to as Obamacare. The details were obtained from draft legislation circulating among lobbyists and congressional staff.

One proposal would cap the amount of money the federal government gives to states for Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor, which was expanded under Obama. The Washington Post reported that another idea gaining traction would allow those who gained access to Medicaid when the program was expanded to keep their benefits, while additional enrollees would be excluded.  

End to subsidies

The Republicans’ draft would end income-based tax subsidies to help individuals purchase health insurance. It also calls for tax credits of up to $4,000 for people 60 years or older, but would allow insurers to increase the rates they charge older people.

The Associated Press reported that Republican governors from seven states want Medicaid to change from an open-ended federal entitlement to a program designed by each state, within a financial limit. Ohio Governor John Kasich leads the group, which is said to be concerned that a new law could shift high health care costs from Washington to the states.

Public opinion surveys indicate a broad majority of Americans oppose repealing the health care law unless lawmakers can come up with an acceptable substitute plan.

President Donald Trump, along with many Republicans in Congress, campaigned on a pledge to repeal Obamacare, but the party’s lawmakers have since faced complaints that simply abandoning Obamacare would leave millions of Americans without any protection against high-cost medical emergencies. Republicans say they expect to decide on a replacement for the present law in the coming weeks.

Vice President Mike Pence, painting the legislative situation in dramatic terms, said Friday that “America’s Obamacare nightmare is about to end.”

Pledge, but no details

“President Trump and I want every American to have access to quality and affordable health insurance,” Pence said, “which is why we’re designing a better law that lowers the cost of health insurance without growing the size of government.” He did not, however, give details of the “better law.”

Congressional committees are still working on the new bills under consideration, and the proposals will still face a period of debate in the full Congress.

Democratic lawmakers argue the existing law has helped slow the rise in Americans’ health care spending and brought coverage to the poor. They also note the current plan guarantees insurance for people with long-standing health problems, to whom insurers often had denied coverage in the past.

Democrats passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010, when they had majority control of both houses of Congress. Republicans have opposed the law since its passage, and they tried more than 50 times unsuccessfully to repeal it during the Obama administration. Trump’s party argues that prices are too high for Affordable Care Act insurance coverage, and that individual states should have more control than the federal government over the issue.

The health care law has enabled 20 million previously uninsured Americans to obtain coverage, but it has been plagued by difficulties, including rising premiums and some large private insurers’ decisions to leave the system.
…

U.S. companies led by tech firms Yahoo, Apple and Microsoft have criticized the Trump administration’s decision to revoke Obama administration guidance that allowed transgender public school students to use the bathroom of their choice.

Their statements evoked the opposition expressed by many businesses last year when North Carolina passed a law forcing transgenders to use public restrooms matching their gender assigned at birth.

The resulting boycotts have cost North Carolina more than $560 million in economic activity, according to the online magazine Facing South.

Role for business

Companies lacked the same opportunity to protest with their dollars in this instance, since the Trump administration action pertains to schools, but still signaled they stood with the Obama policy of using the federal government to expand transgender civil rights.

“It’s ultimately going to come down to the business community to stop it because it’s so bad for business,” said Christopher Gergen, chief executive of Forward Impact, an entrepreneurial organization in Raleigh, North Carolina.

In unveiling the new direction Wednesday, Trump administration officials argued that transgender policies should be an issue for the states to decide.

“The action taken by the administration is troubling and goes against all that we believe in,” Yahoo said in a statement.

Social conservatives have hailed the decision by the Justice and Education departments to defer transgender bathroom policies to the states, calling it a victory for privacy and traditional values.

But companies have tried to persuade state and local governments to side with transgender people.

“We support efforts toward greater acceptance, not less, and we strongly believe that transgender students should be treated as equals,” Apple said in a statement.

Microsoft President Brad Smith looked to history as a guide, referencing the date that the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, when President Abraham Lincoln declared freedom for slaves.

“Since Jan. 1, 1863, the federal government has played a vital role in protecting the rights of all Americans. Let’s not stop now,” Smith said on Twitter.

Rights rollback ‘is wrong’

Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey joined other tech firms criticizing the Trump administration’s position.

“Rolling back rights for transgender students is wrong,” Dorsey said in a tweet Thursday. “Twitter and Square stand with the LGBTQ community, always.”

In response to the North Carolina law, companies such as Deutsche Bank and PayPal canceled expansion plans, costing the state jobs.

By invoking states’ rights, the Trump administration is potentially emboldening legislatures in other states that are considering laws similar to North Carolina’s HB2.
…