Chairman of Senate Finance Committee is set to oversee confirmation of many cabinet nominees and approval of president-elect’s legislative agenda
.. Mr. Hatch was one of the first senators to endorse Mr. Trump for president.. The committee will handle several other priorities for Mr. Trump, including replacing President Barack Obama’s health-care law and overhauling the tax system... Mr. Trump doesn’t have close ties with many members of Congress, so Mr. Hatch has become an important middleman between Mr. Trump and the Senate. A few weeks ago, Mr. Trump tapped Mr. Hatch’s chief of staff, Robert Porter, to assist with his transition process... Mr. Hatch has also forged a close relationship beginning this summer with Reince Priebus, who has been chairman of the Republican National Committee and is Mr. Trump’s incoming chief of staff. Mr. Hatch donated a total of $75,000 from his political-action committee to the RNC and Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign, one of the few senators to do so... Mr. Hatch endorsed Mr. Trump in May, when the nomination was all but sewn up. Still, he was among the first senators to do so... When Mr. Trump suggested a federal judge’s Mexican heritage should disqualify him from overseeing a case involving Trump University, the now defunct real-estate school, Mr. Hatch told the Los Angeles Times: “Be nice to him. He’s a poor first-time candidate.”.. At the summer’s Republican convention, Mr. Hatch sat in the Trump family’s box on occasion.. In October, after the release of a tape of Mr. Trump making lewd comments about groping women, Mr. Hatch was steadfast in his support, though he called Mr. Trump’s comments “offensive and disgusting.”.. Last month, the two had several conversations about potential nominees for secretary of state, including former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Time Warner CEO: Democrats, not Trump, Threatened First Amendment
Speaking to the Business Insider IGNITION conference in New York City, Bewkes pointed out that the Democratic Party “had a campaign plank to change the First Amendment, and they were doing it in the guise of campaign finance reform.”
Indeed, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton ran on an explicit pledge to change the First Amendment in order to overturn the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, which held that free speech extended to unions and corporations.
In Twist, Trump Victory Could Defang Anti-Establishment G.O.P. Caucus
But in a twist that could alter the dynamics of the next Congress, these anti-establishment Republicans, known as the House Freedom Caucus, could find their influence crippled by the ascension of an anti-establishment figure to the White House.
.. “It has been roses and sunshine. It’s unbelievable,” said Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma. “It is just amazing what a difference the Trump victory has made.”
.. The earliest and most ardent backers of Mr. Trump, like Representatives Chris Collins and Lee Zeldin of New York, and Tom Marino and Lou Barletta of Pennsylvania, are not Freedom Caucus members. They come from the kind of Rust Belt districts that buoyed Mr. Trump to victory last week.
.. But legislation has never been the group’s primary focus. It has instead been united in what it sees as a Robin Hood-like mission to seize power from their party’s leaders on behalf of House members.
.. discussed whether to press for rules changes that would allow committee members to choose their own chairmen, an idea that the leadership would be certain to reject.
.. Mr. Trump’s victory defanged the Freedom Caucus’s most serious threat: a challenge to the speakership of Paul D. Ryanof Wisconsin, which could have been used as leverage toward other goals.
.. A sharply diminished House Republican majority would have empowered the Freedom Caucus
.. “Paul Ryan raised incredible sums of money to help our folks withstand a barrage coming from the other side,” Mr. Collins said in an interview with CNN.
.. But there is one force Republicans do not want to cross, Mr. Cole, who is not a member of the Freedom Caucus, said: their constituents, who supported Mr. Trump in large numbers.
Who Broke Politics?
As far as anyone can tell, Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House — and the leader of what’s left of the Republican establishment — isn’t racist or authoritarian. He is, however, doing all he can to make a racist authoritarian the most powerful man in the world. Why? Because then he could privatize Medicare and slash taxes on the wealthy.
And that, in brief, tells you what has happened to the Republican Party, and to America.
.. if Hillary Clinton wins nonetheless, they have made it clear that they will try to block any Supreme Court nomination, and there’s already talk of impeachment hearings.
.. When Mrs. Clinton famously spoke of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” out to undermine her husband’s presidency, she wasn’t being hyperbolic; she was simply describing the obvious reality.
.. Well, when Newt Gingrich shut down the government in 1995, he was trying to, guess what, privatize Medicare.
.. Can anything be done to limit the damage? It would help if the media finally learned its lesson, and stopped treating Republican scandal-mongering as genuine news.