BY PRIYANKA ARIBINDI, BRIAN BEUTLER

& CROOKED MEDIA

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

—Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade. Can’t a guy just love spreading disease?

DON'T SPREAD LIES

In an act of stunning journalistic malpractice, the country’s largest newspaper, USA Today, published an op-ed by President Trump that’s shot through with lies about his party’s health care record and the Democratic health care agenda. The op-ed is abhorrent, but it’s also a window into the most basic truth about the election: Republicans aren’t running on offense about tax cuts, or the Supreme Court, or any aspect of their substantive agenda, because that agenda is hideously unpopular. That’s especially true when it comes to the Republican quest to repeal Obamacare and eliminate protections for people who have pre-existing medical conditions.

Among Trump’s lies:

• ”We have seen Democrats across the country uniting around a new legislative proposal that would end Medicare as we know it and take away benefits that seniors have paid for their entire lives.”
• “I also made a solemn promise to our great seniors to protect Medicare. That is why I am fighting so hard against the Democrats' plan that would eviscerate Medicare.”
• ”I promised that we would protect coverage for patients with pre-existing conditions and create new health care insurance options that would lower premiums. I have kept that promise.”

This is just a small taste of the dishonesty—as the Washington Post’s fact checker noted, “almost every sentence” of the op-ed “contained a misleading statement or a falsehood.” Some facts:  

• Many but not all Democrats support expanding Medicare so that it will benefit seniors and non-seniors alike. The most popular Democratic Medicare-for-All plan would expand benefits for seniors.
• Republicans have consistently proposed privatizing Medicare and starving it of funds over time; Trump’s corporate tax cut law includes provisions that depleted Medicare’s revenue stream.
• Trump and his Republican majorities have dedicated themselves to eviscerating protections for people with pre-existing conditions, and continued their assault even today.

Republicans across the country have told versions of the same lie about the party’s position on pre-existing conditions, and it’s the most galling lie of all.

• On Wednesday, 50 Republican senators teamed up to reject a Democratic resolution that would have withdrawn a Trump administration rule that allows insurance companies to sell junk health plans that don’t guarantee coverage for pre-existing conditions.
• Even before Republicans voted the resolution down, President Trump threatened to veto it. Because Republicans control Congress and have protected him from accountability, this was the first real veto threat of his entire presidency.
• Trump instructed his Justice Department to support the GOP state attorneys general who are challenging the Affordable Care Act’s pre-existing conditions protections in federal court.

From Brian: Republicans spent about a week pretending that a Brett Kavanaugh-based surge of GOP enthusiasm had fundamentally changed the trajectory of the election, but the party’s actual campaign strategy is the same as it ever was: lying about health care and trying to scare their voters about minorities.

Category 4 Hurricane Michael made landfall in Florida today with 155 mph winds—just shy of a Category 5 storm—making it the strongest hurricane to hit the Gulf Coast in decades. President Trump responded to the catastrophe by traveling north to lead a racist MAGA incitement rally: “Departing the @WhiteHouse for Erie, Pennsylvania. I cannot disappoint the thousands of people that are there - and the thousands that are going. I look forward to seeing everyone this evening.”  

U.S. intelligence reportedly knew that Saudi officials intended to capture and possibly harm Jamal Khashoggi, the missing Saudi journalist who entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, last week, and never re-emerged. The intelligence community is supposed to warn citizens and legal U.S. residents like Khashoggi of threats like these, and the Trump family’s corrupt relationship with the Saudis is raising questions about whether the government tried to protect Khashoggi, and, if not, why. Now, nearly two dozen senators are insisting the president open an investigation of Khashoggi’s disappearance and potential human rights violations, which could trigger sanctions on any foreign actors who are found responsible.

Florida GOP gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis once wrote a book justifying the Founders’ decision to enshrine slavery in the Constitution, and criticizing liberals who say that was wrong. This is the same Ron DeSantis who warned Florida voters not to “monkey this up” by electing his opponent, Andrew Gillum, who is black. Ron DeSantis is...racist.  

A California man who unknowingly abetted Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election, and cooperated with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, has been sentenced to six months in prison. In 2016 he sold Russian officials bank account numbers, which they used to set up PayPal accounts and fund their efforts to promote disinformation on Facebook.

Taylor Swift, who won artist of the year at the American Music Awards last night, used her acceptance speech to continue encouraging fans to vote. “This award and every single award given out tonight were voted on by the people,” she said. “And you know what else is voted on by the people? It is the midterm elections on November 6. Get out and vote.” Break the internet Taylor, or at least the Vote Save America servers →  

One of the men accused of attempting to assassinate Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro earlier this year died in what government officials have ruled a suicide, but critics say he was murdered.

The Dow closed down over 800 points today, the third largest point loss in its history.

A white woman in Georgia followed, harassed, and ultimately called the police on a black man who was babysitting two white children.

On Crooked Conversations: In the last episode of their special series, Julissa Arce and Grace Parra discuss what it means to be nearing majority status but not hold majority power. They sit down to talk to Ana Valdez from the Latino Donor Collaborative to discuss the economic power of Latinos in the US. Then Julissa talks to Diane Guerrero from Orange Is The New Black to discuss how important it is for Latinos to get out and vote in November.

Listen →

Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp is running against Democrat Stacey Abrams in the state’s gubernatorial election, but with less than four weeks to go before the election, he has purged voter rolls and frozen more than 53,000 voter registration applications—more than enough to make the difference in a close election. Throughout his tenure as secretary of state, Kemp’s office canceled more than 1.4 million voter registrations total, and 670,000 registrations in 2017 alone. Nearly 70 percent of voters whose registrations Kemp has frozen are black, whereas 32 percent of Georgians are black, suggesting this is part of a familiar, systematic GOP effort to disenfranchise black voters (who tend to vote for Democrats).

Simultaneously, the Supreme Court allowed a voter ID provision in North Dakota that will prevent thousands of Native American voters from casting ballots next month to take effect. The provision prohibits people without residential street addresses on their state IDs from voting, and because the U.S. postal service doesn’t deliver to residences on rural reservations, many tribal members use P.O. boxes to get their mail, and list their P.O. box numbers on their IDs. Republicans enacted this law after Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) was first elected to the Senate, with overwhelming native support, by a 2,000 vote margin.

If you or someone you know is affected by North Dakota’s law, use these instructions to vote and share them so others can too →

And while you’re at it, vote for people who won’t stand for this → votesaveamerica.com/states

Last month, 67 percent of Democrats and 69 percent of Republicans were motivated to vote in midterm elections next month.

Now, in the aftermath of the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation saga, 77 percent of Democrats say they are motivated to vote, while Republican motivation has dropped by a point, to 68 percent.

Keep the motivation high. Tell your friends. Text your friends who you only see once in a while because they're just a LOT. Let’s do this → votesaveamerica.com

Continuing a long tradition of establishment-conservative support for right-wing authoritarians and Latin American military juntas, the Wall Street Journal has endorsed far-right Brazilian nationalist Jair Bolsonaro, who wants to reimpose the dictatorship that governed the country until 1985.

Hey WSJ, it’s sweet that you like providing this newsletter with content, and maybe you think supporting people who want to kill their political enemies is a great way to own the libs, but consistently landing yourself in this section is not something to be proud of.  

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