Joy Reid nails hypocrite ‘fiscal conservatives’ fine with Trump’s big spending on the ‘Great Wall’

SARAH K. BURRIS/Raw Story

President-elect Donald Trump admitted himself that he never thought his “Great Wall” was going to happen. Just days following his electoral win, Trump revealed that the “big, beautiful wall” will probably just a fence.

Even Trump surrogate Newt Gingrich admitted that Trump’s wall wasn’t rea.

“He may not spend much time trying to get Mexico to pay for it,” Gingrich said. “But it was a great campaign device.”

Thursday, Trump further admitted that when he said that “Mexico will pay for it,” what he really meant was “Congress will pay for it.” Meaning, taxpayers will pay for it. The United States will simply send Mexicio the receipt and they’ll reimburse us. Promise.

Now, Trump’s wall is causing trouble for self-described “fiscal conservatives” in Congress, who are aligning themselves with Trump’s policies, even if it contrasts with their long-held political beliefs.

“We’re going to get reimbursed but I don’t want to wait that long,” said Trump. “But you start and you get reimbursed.” He later added in a tweet, “the dishonest media does not report any money spent on building the great wall for sake of speed will be paid back by Mexico later.”

“Today, the president-elect got slightly more detailed about who will actually pay for the wall and, surprise, it’s you!” MSNBC’s Joy Ann Reid said while filling in for Chris Hayes.

Reid explained that the Trump transition and the House Republicans are ready to move forwad paying for the wall with taxpayer dollars. “You’re welcome,” Reid said.

MSNBC contributor Josh Barro told Reid that his fiscally responsible sensibilities have a problem with using $10 billion of taxpayer money on Trump’s wall.

“It felt like shtick, like how could anybody believe this was going to happen?” Barro said. He then cited a poll that The Washington Post conducted in September that revealed only 21 percent of American voters believed that Trump would really build the wall.

“So, on one hand, that’s a lot of people, on the other hand, that’s less than half of the people who voted for him,” Barro said. “So, a lot of the people voting for Trump, they realize that, this was just a thing he was saying. It was not going to happen.”

Barro noted that Trump’s calculations of $10 billion are also a little off. Many calculations anticipate that it will likely cost twice that if it is built to what Trump promised to his voters.

“So, it starts adding up to real money, a billion here, a billion there,” Barro continued. “It’s something that ends up being a non-trivial item in the federal budget if we foot the bill for it.”

Reid cited another report that revealed members of Congress can’t go back to their districts and tell their constituents that there will be no wall.

“So, now you have Steve King, one of these Republicans, … say if Trump can get funding for the wall from Congress, I’m not going to say let’s wait for the Pesos,” Reid quoted.

It’s forcing the GOP into a contorted position to be fiscally responsible while racking up deficits for projects they didn’t even campaign on and Americans (2 to 1) are against.

“I think they have to be worried in both directions!” Barro said. “If they try to not appropriate the money to build the wall they could be attacked in the primary but if they do go along with spending what ends up being $20 billion or whatever on this wall, that’s something they can be attacked for in the general election.”

Check out the full conversation below:

2016 Trump Disagrees With 2013 Trump On Budget Cuts

By Bryce Covert/Think Progress

On Wednesday, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump railed against an arbitrary cap on spending that Congress set as a compromise in early 2013.

Known as sequestration or the sequester, the automatic budget cuts have been in place ever since, hitting both defense and non-defense discretionary spending. But Trump only focused on the military side of the ledger.

“As soon as I take office,” Trump pledged, “I will ask Congress to fully eliminate the defense sequester,” arguing it will increase certainty about the future for military leaders and “most importantly we will be defended, because without defense we don’t have a country.”

Not too long ago, Trump seemed to feel the exact opposite about sequestration. Back in 2013, as the cuts were about to go into effect, he went on Fox and said they didn’t go far enough. “This is a very minor amount of the cuts that have to be made ultimately,” he said at the time. “I think you’re going to have do a lot more cutting if you’re going to balance budgets… This is just the beginning.”

He also warned that if sequestration’s cuts didn’t happen, “Eventually you’re going to have a big fat explosion… We have to get our debt at the least way down.”

Trump’s spoken less urgently about the national debt during his campaign, although he did say on Thursday that he would ask Congress to “fully offset the costs of increased military spending” once it did away with sequestration. He offered up reducing other government spending and “mak[ing] government leaner” by addressing improper payments, unpaid taxes, and a reduced federal workforce.

But analysts have already warned that his ideas to cover the increase won’t cut it. The Committee for a Responsible Budget, a conservative deficit hawk group, estimated that it would cost $450 billion through 2026 to lift the defense sequestration’s caps. Yet Trump’s proposals to pay for that amount would cover less than two-thirds of it, still costing the country $150 billion.

That’s a big figure to add to government spending if Trump is still concerned about debt. And Trump’s military plan would likely swell spending levels beyond their pre-sequester levels. His proposal calls for more troops, more aircraft, more ships, and new missile defense systems.

Trump has blithely proposed big spending before. According to a variety ofestimates, his tax plan would cost about $10 trillion over a decade, mainly to pay big benefits to the wealthiest Americans. While he’s said he would revise that plan to make it less costly, he’s yet to release an update.

Trump has also shown no interest in reversing the budget cuts that sliced into non-defense programs like public health, early childhood education, housing for the poor, and meals for the elderly. Although Congress reached a budget deal at the end of 2013 that alleviated some of the cuts, they still continue to leave a deep mark on these programs. Nutrition for the elderly has continued to feel the full brunt, as has domestic violence prevention, education funds for disabled students, and a variety of other government operations.

If Trump cut that spending even further to pay for an increase on the defense side, it could have devastating impacts on public health and safety, scientific research, public education, housing assistance, and even government agencies like the Transportation Safety Administration.

Boehner Encourages Obama To Take Executive Action, One Day After Voting To Sue Obama Over Executive Action

BY ESTHER YU-HSI LEE/Think Progress

Hours before Congress broke for the August recess, House Republicans claimed that the President could use executive action to fix the border situation with unaccompanied children fleeing violence in the Central American countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. In a press statement released Thursday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and other House Republican leaders indicated that President Obama could address the crisis “without the need for congressional action,” a statement tinged with some irony given that just the day before, House Republicans had slammed the President with a lawsuit claiming executive overreach.

“This situation shows the intense concern within our conference – and among the American people – about the need to ensure the security of our borders and the president’s refusal to faithfully execute our laws,” the House Republican leadership press release stated. “There are numerous steps the president can and should be taking right now, without the need for congressional action, to secure our borders and ensure these children are returned swiftly and safely to their countries.”

Boehner made the statement even though the House still had time Thursday before it broke for the August recess to vote through a $659 million supplemental emergency bill to deal with the child arrivals at the border. The House could still potentially offer up a fix to the border situation when the GOP holds an emergency meeting on Friday morning. Still, Republican leaders are struggling to reach the necessary 218 vote threshold, with some calling on a vote for a separate measure that would defund a 2012 presidential initiative that grants temporary deportation reprieve and work authorization for some undocumented immigrants.

At odds with Boehner’s statement is a lawsuit that House Republicans hadauthorized Wednesday, which criticizes the President over claims that he had unlawfully overused executive orders. The lawsuit enumerates a number of areas in which they allege Obama had employed executive overreach, but they especially targeted the President for not fully implementing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Their lawsuit does not specifically mention immigration. Republicans often cite a 2012 executive order known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program as a prime example of executive overreach.

Republicans have claimed that the DACA program was responsible for the surge of child arrivals at the southern border since the beginning of the 2014 fiscal year, as well as the reason why they could never pass immigration reform. It seems that the executive action that House Republican leaders have expressed the most interest in since last year has been to dismantle the DACA program, voting three times to dissolve the DACA program, an issue that researchers found has little to do with the current border crisis (eligible DACA applicants must have entered and continuously lived in the United States before June 2007).

Many Obamacare Critics, Including Koch Brothers, Accepted Its Subsidies

CHARLES BABINGTON/Talking Point Memo

WASHINGTON (AP) — Several big corporations have reaped millions of dollars from "Obamacare" even as they support GOP candidates who vow to repeal the law. This condemn-while-benefiting strategy angers Democrats, who see some of their top congressional candidates struggling against waves of anti-Obamacare ads partly funded by these companies.

Among the corporations is a familiar Democratic nemesis, Koch Industries, the giant conglomerate headed by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. They and some conservative allies are spending millions of dollars to hammer Democratic senators in North Carolina, Alaska, Colorado, Iowa and elsewhere, chiefly for backing President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., renewed his criticisms of the Kochs this week. In a Senate chamber speech, Reid noted that Koch Industries benefited from a temporary provision of the health care law.
The Early Retiree Reinsurance Program, Reid said, "helped the company pay health insurance costs for its retirees who are not covered by Medicare." Reid asked sarcastically: "So it's OK for Koch Industries to save money through Obamacare" even as Koch-related groups seek the law's repeal.
When Congress enacted the health care law in 2010, it appropriated $5 billion for the temporary reinsurance program. The goal was to subsidize employers' costs for workers who retire before they become eligible for Medicare. Hundreds of employers applied — many were corporations, cities and public universities — and virtually all the money was soon distributed.
"If the Affordable Care Act is so awful," Reid asked, "why did Koch Industries use it to their advantage?"
Federal records show that Koch Industries received $1.4 million in early retiree subsidies. That's considerably less than the sums many other employers received. A Koch Industries spokesman said he had no comment on Reid's latest criticisms.
The Koch consortium may be the loudest "Obamacare" critic among the subsidized employers. But many others accepted the subsidies while heavily backing GOP House and Senate candidates, most of who call for repealing the 2010 health care law.
For instance, United Parcel Service received $37 million from the program's subsidies for early retirees. From 1989 through this year, political action committees affiliated with UPS donated $32 million to federal candidates and political parties. Of that, 64 percent went to Republicans, according to records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Union Pacific Railroad's employee health system received $9.7 million in subsidies. Republicans received more than two-thirds of the nearly $20 million in political donations from the railroad's PACs in the 25-year period tracked by the center.
Altria Client Services Inc. received nearly $11 million in the early retiree subsidies. And Republicans received 71 percent of the nearly $24 million in Altria-related political donations from 1989 to 2014.
One of the biggest subsidy recipients was AT&T, at $213 million. More than half of the $56 million in AT&T-related political donations went to Republicans during the 25-year period.
Spokesmen for AT&T and Altria declined to comment about accepting "Obamacare" subsidies while funding candidates who want to repeal the law.
Other companies that steer most of their political donations to Republicans, and the early-retiree subsidies they received, include: Pfizer Inc., $23 million; GlaxoSmithKline, $14 million; Southern Company Services, $7 million; Lockheed Martin Corp., $4 million; CSX Corp., $2.2 million; KPMG LLP, $1.4 million; and Deloitte LLP, $1.2 million.
The data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics omits much of this year's heavy political spending, because many major players are not required to report donations. The Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity is among those "super PACs" that can keep their finance details private, even as it dominates the airwaves in some states, like North Carolina, with competitive Senate races.
The Kochs and their allies show little sheepishness about denouncing a federal health law that benefited them. In fact, the Koch-related group FreedomPartners is spending more than $1 million on ads criticizing Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado and Rep. Bruce Braley of Iowa, Democrats running in tight Senate races.
Their alleged wrongdoing? Accepting campaign donations from health companies that benefit from "Obamacare."

Congresswoman Says She Supports Equal Pay Laws, Voted Against Them Four Times

BY BRYCE COVERT/Think Progress

On CNN Wednesday, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) told host Wolf Blitzer that she supports equal pay for women despite voting against a measure that would help women achieve that goal.

In response to a question from Blitzer about President Obama’s call for equal pay in his State of the Union Address on Tuesday and whether she is “with the President when he says that there should be laws mandating equal pay for equal work for women,” McMorris Rodgers, who gave the official Republican response, replied:

Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Republicans and I support equal pay for equal work.My message last night was one about empowering everyone in this country, no matter what your background, no matter where you live, what corner of the country, no matter what your experiences are. We want you to have the opportunity for a better life.

Watch:

But McMorris Rodgers actually voted against laws meant to address the pay disparity between men and women four times. She voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Acttwice, which lengthened the time for victims of pay discrimination to file a complaint. She also voted twice against the Paycheck Fairness Act, a measure aimed at closing the gender wage gap by ending the practice of salary secrecy, thus giving women and others a better chance of rooting out discrimination, narrowing the guidelines for what pay disparities are justified, and strengthening penalties for discrimination as a way to deter it, among other things.

Republicans may say they support equal pay, but they voted unanimously against the Paycheck Fairness Act in the Senate 2010 and just 10 voted for it in the House. Senate Republicans blocked it again in 2012 with a filibuster.

Meanwhile, progress on closing the gender pay gap has stalled. Women have made just 77 cents, on average, for every dollar a man makes for the past five years.

Fox: Wendy Davis And Her "Stilettos" Are More Scandalous Than Chris Christie

HANNAH GROCH-BEGLEY/Media Matters For America:

Fox News is now suggesting that minor contradictions in Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis' life story constitute a more important political "scandal" than accusations of corruption and political retribution by NJ Gov. Chris Christie's administration.

On the January 23 edition of Fox News' Happening Now, co-host Jon Scott accused "op-eds and pundits [for] tearing into [Christie's] character," while ignoring the "political scandal in Texas." This scandal, according to Scott, was that Davis' life story had "holes" in it, partly because she didn't pull "herself up by her stilettos" and instead relied on some financial help from her second husband in order to attend law school:

Scott: The interesting thing about Wendy Davis is this story that has propelled her to state-wide stardom, maybe even national stardom. She says she was married at 19, teenage mother, divorced, lived in a trailer, made it through Texas Christian University and Harvard Law School, and now she is where she is today, a state senator and maybe the next governor of Texas. The problem is, there are some holes in that story.

[...]

The suggestion that she pulled herself up by her stilettos and made it through Harvard Law School doesn't exactly jive with the fact that her husband, her then-husband, paid for it all, then as soon as it's all paid for, she left him, and he got custody of the two girls.

Michael Barone, a Fox News contributor, argued during the segment and in a Washington Examiner piece that Christie's record as governor of New Jersey was being scrutinized by media "because he might be a successful presidential candidate," and that Davis should come under similar media scrutiny for these details of her life because her run for governor could potentially "turn Texas blue," a move which would have national significance.

But the reason to scrutinize Christie's record is not that he might run for president. It's that he has been accused of corruption and petty political retribution in his position as the current governor of New Jersey. At no point during the segment did either Scott or Barone delve into the details of "Chris Christie's problems," but they are far more than minor contradictions in a timeline of life events.

Christie has admitted that his administration caused a massive traffic jam on the George Washington Bridge, in what is alleged to have been political payback against a local mayor. Though the governor claimed he was unaware of his staff's actions, and later removed two top aides, his administration was subsequently accused by a different mayor of holding Hurricane Sandy relief funds hostage for political reasons.

There are at least three separate legal investigations examining the accusations launched against the Christie administration.

In contrast, Davis is not currently under investigation for possibly abusing the power of her office as state senator. There are some small, legitimate questions about her presentation of her life story, but those questions have been blown out of proportion by conservative media, who have launched an absurd and often sexist campaign against her. Right-wing radio hosts and Fox contributors have implied she is an unstable and unreliable mother, unfit for public office, and have attacked her for defying gender norms by leaving her spouse to pursue her career (a move many male politicians have made, with little media fanfare).

Scott's sexist joke about Davis' stilettos is just the latest example of these demeaning attacks, and furthers the network's desperate attempt to bury the Christie scandal by deflecting attention to unrelated stories.

Fox has previously attempted to compare Christie's scandal to the September 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, and to the IRS scandal, in which bureaucrats largely based in Cincinnati allegedly devoted inappropriate scrutiny to conservative groups. The network also devoted less than 15 minutes of coverage to Christie on the day the scandal broke, and mentioned the revelations about Hurricane relief only once the day they emerged.

Cropped images via The Texas Tribune and Gage Skidmore, using a Creative Commons License.

‘No free lunch’ Republican bills taxpayers for his food but tells poor kids to work for theirs

By Travis Gettys/Raw Story

A Georgia Republican who suggested school children do cafeteria work because there’s “no such thing as free lunch” billed thousands of dollars for his own meals to taxpayers.

WSAV-TV found that Rep. Jack Kingston, who’s running for the U.S. Senate, had filed expense reports for as much as $4,182 worth of lunches for his office staff over the past three years.

That could have purchased nearly 2,000 school lunches, reported Talking Points Memo.

Kingston, who opposes the federal school lunch program, drew widespread criticism last month when he suggested children clean school cafeterias or sweep up in exchange for their meals.

“But one of the things I’ve talked to the secretary of agriculture about (is), why don’t you have the kids pay a dime, pay a nickel to instill in them that there is, in fact, no such thing as a free lunch?” Kingston said. “Or maybe sweep the floor of the cafeteria — and yes, I understand that that would be an administrative problem, and I understand that it would probably lose you money, but think what we would gain as a society in getting people — getting the myth out of their head that there is such a thing as a free lunch.”

That’s a lesson that Kingston apparently hasn’t learned himself.

In addition to his own taxpayer-funded meals, the station reported, the congressman also received $4,289 in free meals billed to third-party groups such as the Georgia Bankers Association and the Congressional Institute.

WSAV reported that Kingston traveled abroad on congressional business at a taxpayer cost of $24,313, which includes more than just meals, and filed expense reports for $145,391 in meals for campaign events.

Watch this video report posted online by WSAV-TV:

WSAV: News, Weather, and Sports for Savannah, GA

After Cuccinelli Loss, Conservatives Suddenly Realize Campaign Spending Is a Problem

BY JOSH ISRAEL/Think Progress

Tuesday, as he conceded defeat in the Virginia governor’s race, Ken Cuccinelli II (R) told supporters that he had come closer than polls had indicated “despite being outspent by an unprecedented $15 million.” But while he and his conservative supporters now lament that money cost them the victory they felt they deserved, they have long been the defenders of the system of campaign finance non-regulation in Virginia and nationally.

Conservative groups like the Center for Competitive Politics have long argued that “money doesn’t buy elections.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R), whose own political action committee gave $5,000 to Cuccinelli’s campaign, has for years advocated for an end to limits on campaign contributions, believing “money is speech.” While the 2010 Citizens United ruling weakened federal contribution limits, Virginia has long been one of a handful of stateswith no limits whatsoever. The only restriction Cuccinelli supported over his time in the state senate was on contributions from foreign nationals.

Because of the Old Dominion’s anything goes system, candidates can accept millions of dollars from any individual or corporation seeking to ensure their victory. While Governor-Elect Terry McAuliffe raised over $32 million, Cuccinelli himself reported at least $19 million in donations — including hundreds of thousands from fossil fuel companies who preferred a climate-change denier to a candidate focused on green energy.

Leading up to the election, the Cuccinelli campaign repeatedly highlighted the money gap, attacking McAuliffe for as being “bought and paid for,” “exclusively driven by big money,” and “willing to sell his out Virginia families to the highest bidder.” When McAuliffe embraced campaign finance reform in an April interview, agreeing that “there’s just way too much money in politics,” Cuccinelli’s campaign pooh-poohed the idea as “hypocrisy.” “McAuliffe complaining about money in politics is the equivalent of Bobby Knight criticizing cursing among college basketball coaches,” they answered.

In campaign post-mortems, conservatives from Linda Chavez to Ralph Reedboth echoed the candidate’s concession and blamed Cuccinelli’s loss on money. Jenny Beth Martin, national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots, lamented that the pro-corporate U.S. Chamber of Commerce went from making seven-figure investments in the 2009 campaign for Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) but spent nothing on Cuccinelli. “Just think what would have happened if the business and donor classes of the Republican Party would have helped.” Ben Domenech blamed the “donor class” as “sore losers” who threw a “temper tantrum” by not opening up their wallets for a more conservative nominee.

As Zack Beauchamp noted Thursday, Cuccinelli got “killed in the fundraising race,” in large part because business leaders did not care for his anti-corporatist stances against a tax increase to increase transportation funding and corporate welfare. Cuccinelli embraced anti-government populist ideas — as well associally conservative ones — but not the priorities of some business interests. Had Cuccinelli embraced their agenda, as McDonnell did in 2009, others in the business community might well have supported him as enthusiastically as the energy sector did.

In an October press release called “Big Money,” the Cuccinelli campaign highlighted a fundraising appeal, sent by the chairman of the University of Virginia Council of Foundations to a hedge fund manager, explaining that he hoped to enlist a large number of UVA alums to support McAuliffe. “The more influential names we have associated with our shared voice the more likely we are going to have the future Governor’s ear,” he wrote.

Therein lies the problem. If money really is the determining factor in who wins elections, candidates who agree with powerful moneyed interests like the Chamber will always have the upper hand over those who do not. And as Virginia saw with McDonnell’s Star Scientific scandal, those wealthy benefactors will be the ones with the freest access to the politicians they bankroll. And if states are the laboratories of democracy, as the late Justice Louis Brandeissuggested, the experiment of unlimited money in Virginia might be a warning sign to conservatives nationally that “anything goes” campaign finance laws may not always work out in their favor.

Under Bush, Republicans Vigorously Defended Health Care Reform Despite Serious Glitches

BY IGOR VOLSKY/Think Progress

Millions of Americans try to enroll in health care benefits during the first days of a new government health care program. They rely on indispensable government website that had been “pitched as a high-tech way” to sort through available coverage options. They’re encountering countless glitches and technical errors: the website freezes, displays incorrect plan information and sends insurers erroneous reports.

Administration officials — clearly caught off guard by the surge of technical difficulties — respond to “tens of thousands of complaints” from angry beneficiaries and promise to “fix every problem as quickly possible.”

This sounds like the familiar story of the last few days of the Obama administration’s rollout of the exchanges. But, actually, those quotes, and that scenario, are taken from the Bush administration’s efforts to implement the Medicare prescription drug benefit in 2005 and 2006.

Not only was Bush’s rollout “anything but smooth,” but administration officials had “some trouble getting the [online] tool up and running” and had to delay its debut for weeks. What’s more, computer glitches caused low-income beneficiaries to go without needed medications and sent pharmacies the wrong drug information. Before it was all resolved, Dr. Mark McClellan, Bush’s head of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), appeared at hearings before the House Committee On Energy And Commerce, laying out the flaws in the law’s implementation and detailing how the administration would address them.

As the House Energy and Commerce Committee holds its first hearing on the implementation of the the Affordable Care Act on Thursday, it’s worth noting that some of the very same Republicans who are lashing out against Obamacare, arguing that the botched rollout is proof that the government cannot implement effectively and should repeal the law entirely, gave the Bush administration a pass and urged Americans not to pre-judge such a complicated process. At least four of the Republicans still on the committee had argued that early implementation hurdles should not taint the entirety of reform:

REP. JOE BARTON (R-TX): “This is a huge undertaking and there are going to be glitches. My goal is the same as yours: Get rid of the glitches. The committee will work closely with yourself and Dr. Mark McClellan at CMS to get problems noticed and solved.” [Barton Statement via Archive.org, 2/15/2006]

REP. TIM MURPHY (R-PA): “Any time something is new, there is going to be some glitches. All of us, when our children were new, well, we knew as parents we didn’t exactly know everything we were doing and we had a foul-up or two, but we persevered and our children turned out well. No matter what one does in life, when it is something new in learning the ropes of it, it is going to take a little adjustment.” [Murphy Floor Speech via Congressional Record, 4/6/2006]

REP. MICHAEL BURGESS (R-TX): “We can’t undo the past, but certainly they can make the argument that we are having this hearing a month late and perhaps we are, but the reality is the prescription drug benefit is 40 years late and seniors who signed up for Medicare those first days back in 1965 when they were 65 years of age are now 106 years of age waiting for that prescription drug benefit, so I hope it doesn’t take us that long to get this right and I don’t believe that it will. And I do believe that fundamentally it is a good plan.” [“Medicare Part D: Implementation of the New Drug Benefit,” 3/1/2006]

REP. PHIL GINGREY (R-GA): “I delivered 5,200 babies, but this may be the best delivery that I have ever been a part of, Mr. Speaker, and that is delivering, as I say, on a promise made by former Congresses and other Presidents over the 45-year history of the Medicare program, which was introduced in 1965 with no prescription drug benefit. And what we have done here is add part D, the ‘D’ for ‘drug’ or, if you want, the ‘delivery’ that we have finally provided to our American seniors.” [Gingrey Floor Speech via Congressional Record, 4/6/06]

Ultimately, the Bush administration fixed the law’s technical glitches, but more than half of the beneficiaries who ended up signing up for insurance didn’t do so until after the first of the year. Significantly, they signed up for coverage despite the Bush administration’s well-publicized initial glitches in extending coverage to low-income beneficiaries. Whereas only 21 percent of seniors had a favorable impression of the law and 66 percent didn’t know what was in it in April of 2005, by November of 2006, “half of the seniors polled said the program was working well or that just minor changes were needed.”

Tea partier at Ted Cruz town hall: ‘Canada is not really foreign soil’

By David Edwards/Raw Story:

Even so-called birthers who falsely believe that President Barack Obama was Kenyan born and not a legitimate U.S. citizen seem to think that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) won’t have the same problem because “Canada is not really foreign soil.”

The Texas Tribune caught up with on of those birthers, Republican voter Christina Katok, at a tea party rally where Ted Cruz was speaking earlier this week.

Katok said that she never thought Obama met the constitutional standard of “natural born” citizen because, she reasoned incorrectly, that he was born in Kenya. The president was born in Hawaii and has released his birth certificate to prove it.

Earlier this week, Cruz released his Canadian birth certificate to The Dallas Morning News, proving that he was definitely born in a foreign country to an American mother.

But Katok told the Tribune that she wouldn’t hesitate to vote for Cruz.

“As far as I’m concerned, Canada is not really foreign soil,” she explained, adding that she was more worried about the president’s “strong ties to Kenya.” She noted that Obama had not released his long-form birth certificate until after he was elected.

For his part, Cruz has vowed to renounce his Canadian citizenship, which could require a security check and an eight-month waiting period.

Speaking to National Instruments in Austin on Thursday, Cruz poked fun at his own birth certificate situation, and at the same time, he seemed to be stoking those who don’t believe the president is a U.S. citizen.

“I promise that while y’all are out I’ll try not to give any like really juicy piece of crazy news,” Cruz said, adding, “I am secretly a citizen of Ethiopia.”

Watch this video from The Texas Tribune, broadcast Aug. 22, 2013.