Random Politics & Religion #25

As Senate Republicans, largely outside public scrutiny, hash out details over their health care plan, Democrats are hammering them for what they say is a lack of transparency.

Seven years ago, Republicans were complaining about Obamacare negotiations -- an imperfect comparison, considering Democrats held a number of bipartisan hearings and markups, a White House summit and President Barack Obama even addressed the GOP caucus -- often tweeting their disgust at what they said was backroom deal-making.

Current Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, then representing Georgia's 6th Congressional District, said Democrats were "sacrificing the trust of the American people."

He also told CBS News in 2010: "The negotiations are obviously being done in secret and the American people really just want to know what they are trying to hide."

Vice President Mike Pence, then an Indiana congressman, called the drafting of legislation affecting "100%" of Americans "simply wrong."

Then-House Speaker John Boehner gave an impassioned speech on the House floor during the debate, saying in part, "Look at how this bill was written. Can you say it was done openly? With transparency and accountability? Without backroom deals struck behind closed doors, hidden from the people?"

His response: "Hell no, you can't."

He asked the House if they had read the bill.

His response: "Hell no, you haven't."

"If you rush this thing through before anybody even knows what it is, that's not good democracy," Boehner's successor, Paul Ryan, said in 2009.

Linda McMahon, who leads the Trump administration's US Small Business Administration, said in January 2010 that American health care was too "important" to be done behind closed doors.

Rep. Vern Buchanan, a Republican congressman from Florida, went even further at the time, demanding that all conference committee meetings should be public.

"Ramming through a partisan bill" is like "going to war with out asking Congress's permission," Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee, told "Fox News Sunday" in 2009. "You might technically be able to do it, but you'd pay a terrible price in the next election."

"(F)or Harry Reid yesterday to say, well, I'm going to ram it through no matter what, that makes me wonder if there's an agenda behind this," Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, told CNN in 2010.

Top GOP aides have told CNN's Phil Mattingly and Lauren Fox that the deal-making in darkness is by design, so that GOP members can continue to give feedback to the drafters. They realize that once the bill's draft goes public, they cede control of the narrative -- and the bill's language.

CNN's John Berman asked Republican Sen. Mike Rounds Tuesday about whether there was some irony about Republicans drafting their health care bill behind closed doors.

"No question about it," he said with a chuckle. "I think there is."

I'm too lazy to read can someone make FFXIAH on audio book ?

The ACA went through 79 committee hearings and almost 200 witnesses testify.

Belgian troops patrolling Brussels Central Station "neutralized" a person after a small explosion on Tuesday, a police spokesman said, adding that there were no other casualties and the situation was under control.

He could not confirm media reports that the person had been wearing an explosive vest and it was not clear whether the person shot was still alive. Prime Minister Charles Michel urged people via Twitter to follow instructions from the authorities.

The station and adjacent historic downtown area, including the baroque Grand Place city square were packed with tourists and locals on a hot summer evening, were evacuated as police set up a security cordon, witnesses told Belgian media.

Het Laatste Nieuws tabloid newspaper quoted what it said were witnesses saying a man shouted "Allahu Akbar" in Arabic before a small explosion. Soldiers ran toward the spot, saw wires protruding from the man's clothes, and shot him. That account could not be independently confirmed.

The city has been on high alert for more than 18 months since Brussels-based Islamic State militants carried out attacks in Paris that killed 130 people there in November 2015 and later bombed Brussels airport and the city's metro in March last year. Those bombings killed 32 people.

The police spokesman said: "There was an incident at Central Station. There was an explosion around a person. That person was neutralized by the soldiers that were on the scene.

"At the moment, the police are in numbers at the station and everything is under control."

Prime Minister Michel and the interior minister were in the national crisis center monitoring developments.

The ACA went through 79 committee hearings and almost 200 witnesses testify. The current Republican plan has had none. There's not even a comparison.

If Republicans are hypocrites for showing a lack of transparency in the health care bill, then Democrats are hypocrites for being mad about it.

Did anyone actually read the ACA it was thousands of pages.

/raises hand.

Of course I did, it's a tax law.

The times Republicans complained about transparency in health care talks
CNN - Orignal has links and tweets

Four score and seven years ago our media overlords created CNN. Now in 2017 it is the worldwide leader in facts I don't like.

I thought FFXIAH.com was in the running at least.

Oh we do our best or worst I'm not sure which.

We're the best at being the worst!

The ACA went through 79 committee hearings and almost 200 witnesses testify. The current Republican plan has had none. There's not even a comparison.

Apparently the "Polls" were wrong again, all that huffing about a "Democrat win in the hip modern educated suburbs" was total ***.