Sanders Questions: Beginning Of The End Edition

It’s the beginning of the end for President Trump and the Republican Congress to find a way to keep the government open despite controlling the executive and legislative branches of government themselves. Perhaps part of the problem is President Trump is busy hawking books by Fox and Friends anchors online rather than negotiating agreements on outstanding issues like CHIP funding, the fate of the Dreamers, and final details of his massive tax cut for the wealthy.

American Bridge Rapid Response Director Emily Aden calls on White House Press Sarah Huckabee Sanders to answer the following questions:

1. What is President Trump doing to protect 800,000 young Dreamers, whose futures are at risk because of his callousness and ineptitude in Congress, during this end of the year funding scramble?

2. Did President Trump instruct Donald Trump Jr. to invoke attorney client privilege when asked by the House Intelligence Committee about their conversations after news broke […]

Read more after the jump.

Editorial Roundup: Tax Cuts For The Rich Edition

This week editorial boards all across the country ripped into President Trump and the Republicans for their tax plan that will crush the middle class to pay for billions in tax breaks for the super rich and explode the deficit for generations to come. Additionally, Trump took his boldest step yet to undercut the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau, made a racist slur about a sitting US Senator, and was rebuked for re-tweeting hateful anti-Muslim propaganda videos.

Here’s what Americans read in their local newspapers this week:

 

11/25
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Estate Tax Repeal: ‘Donald Trump In A Stretch Limo, Not A Farmer On A Tractor’

Trump’s claim about “millions” of farms and family businesses is not even close to the truth. The Tax Policy Center at the Brookings Institution found only 80 of them among the 5,500 estates subject to the tax last year. Most fortunes are amassed, […]

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American Bridge Statement On Alex Azar Hearing

American Bridge Rapid Response Director Emily Aden released the following statement on Alex Azar’s confirmation hearing today before the Senate HELP Committee:

“This morning, Alex Azar failed miserably to convince the American people that he is anything other than a former drug company president looking out for his bottom line. Unsurprisingly, he doubled down on his hostility to the Affordable Care Act, women’s right to birth control coverage, and paid cheap lip service to the high costs of prescription drugs that made him his millions. In round after round of questioning he proved he simply has no good answer about his record raising the prices of life saving medication. If he is confirmed he will carry out the bidding of the industry that made him rich and his ultimate boss- Donald Trump.”

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Five Things To Know About Alex Azar

This morning the Senate HELP Committee will hold its first hearing on HHS Secretary nominee, and former Big Pharma CEO, Alex Azar. Azar is a candidate hand-picked for the drug and insurance companies and will do anything to keep industry profits high even when it means raising insurance premiums and costs for lifesaving medication for the American people. It’s no surprise Azar, like Donald Trump, wants to destroy the Affordable Care Act and turn Medicaid into a block grant program, both of which are on industry bucket lists, raise costs for consumers, and disproportionately hurt women and working families.

American Bridge Rapid Response Director Emily Aden stated, “Donald Trump picked Alex Azar to lead HHS because he knows he can trust Azar to carry out his dangerous and destructive health care agenda. From dismantling the Affordable Care Act, to raising prices for prescription drugs, to rolling back access to women’s health […]

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American Bridge Statement On Repeal Of Access To Birth Control For Hundreds Of Thousands Of Women

This morning, President Trump announced his administration will end guaranteed coverage for birth control without out-of-pocket costs, leaving it to individual employers to decide what health care services and prescriptions their female employees deserve to access.

In response, Emily Aden, Director of American Bridge’s Protect Women’s Health Care Initiative, released the following statement: 

“Access to birth control is fundamental to women’s health care, and to politicize it as the Trump administration is doing is an insult to women across the country. Decisions about birth control are decisions women make on their own with consultation from their doctors, not their bosses, and it’s sad that in this day and age politicians like Donald Trump still don’t understand that. He ought to be ashamed of this partisan attack on women’s health that will hurt hundreds of thousands of American women.”

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American Bridge Launches Women’s Health Initiative

Today, American Bridge launched a new women’s health initiative, Protect Women’s Health Care, that combines a world-class opposition research operation, video tracking, and media monitoring to expose the Trump administration for what it is: a clear and present danger for women. Coinciding with the roll out of this new website, American Bridge kicked off a digital advertising campaign to promote select content on Facebook.

The new site can be viewed by clicking here:
http://protectwomenshealthcare.com/

“Every day under President Trump brings a new controversy or crisis, but we cannot lose sight of the danger he poses to women amidst all the other chaos,” said director of American Bridge’s women’s health initiative Emily Aden. “This initiative is designed to shut out the noise and hone in on all of the the big and small ways the Trump administration is rolling back decades of progress for women.”

This new website features explainer-style […]

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CBO Score Confirmed: No Woman Is Safe Under TrumpCare

Following the release of CBO’s report, American Bridge spokesperson Lizzy Price made the following statement:

“No woman is safe under Trumpcare. The Republican plan to rip away health care options would leave millions of women without a place to turn for care.”

According to the CBO Report, de-funding Planned Parenthood would cause 15 percent of underserved and low-income women to lose access to care.

See excerpts from American Bridge’s report on women’s health care:

Planned Parenthood offers more contraceptive options: Only half of community health centers that receive Title X funding provide IUDs or implants on-site. Planned Parenthood offers more contraceptive options for women, making it easier for women to find long-acting contraceptives.

Planned Parenthood serves more contraceptive patients: Planned Parenthood clinics serve over twice the amount of contraceptive clients than federally-qualified health clinics.

Planned Parenthood clinics have shorter wait times: When compared […]

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VIDEO: American Bridge Releases GOP Fact Check on Women’s Health, “Hands Off Our Care”

Today, Bridge Project unveiled a new campaign to push back against Republican attacks on women’s health care – which can be found in their new ACA repeal bill. While Republicans claim that community health clinics can take the place of Planned Parenthood services, the facts say otherwise.

The campaign features a web video fact check of Republicans’ assertion that community health clinics could replace Planned Parenthood.

“For decades, women have trusted Planned Parenthood to help keep them healthy. The GOP seems hell-bent on getting rid of what is sometimes the only health care option for women,” said American Bridge President Jessica Mackler. “Ripping away health care options for women will have detrimental effects in communities all over the country. Women and families are already struggling to make ends meet and Republicans’ siege on health care will only make it harder […]

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The Conservative Attack On Contraceptive Coverage

Today, the Supreme Court will hear a new challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive coverage requirement. Two companies are arguing that obligating businesses to provide insurance plans that cover contraceptive services free of charge intrudes on their owners’ religious rights. A victory for the companies could open the door for any private for-profit employer to interfere with its employees’ health care on the basis of the employers’ personal beliefs.

In this case, the plaintiffs are challenging commonsense public policy. The costs associated with birth control interfere with women’s ability to use it consistently and effectively, leading to higher numbers of unintended pregnancies. That leads to more abortions and negative outcomes for mothers, babies, and families who do go through with an unplanned birth.

Allowing women to plan their pregnancies yields healthier babies, more stable families, and better economic and social outlooks for women. There’s also evidence that covering contraceptives saves insurance companies, employers, and taxpayers money; one study suggested that unintended pregnancies cost taxpayers $11 billion each year.

Yet leading conservative politicians and right-wing groups insist on slapping a scarlet letter on contraceptive care, painting this sound health care policy as a question of religious intrusion. According to Rep. Steve King (R-IA), for example, “preventing babies from being born is not medicine.” And Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) insists that the controversy over women’s access to contraception “is not about women’s rights or contraception, this is about the religious liberties that our country has always cherished.” However, these Republican critics are out-of-step with the mainstream. Polling shows that 99 percent of women – including most Catholic women – have used birth control, and most women approve of the contraceptive coverage rule.

Read more after the jump.

GOP Union: Rep. McMorris Rodgers In Lockstep With Tea Party’s Sen. Lee

Hoping to break the trend of awkward or forgettable State of the Union responses, Republicans have selected Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers to counter President Obama’s annual address tonight.

As a top lieutenant to Speaker John Boehner who generally steers clear of controversy, McMorris Rodgers could seem like a logical choice to try and represent the more welcoming GOP that party leaders called for after the 2012 election. However, a brief review of her record indicates that McMorris Rodgers is no less extreme than many of her Tea Party colleagues. In fact, on several key issues, McMorris Rodgers is closely aligned with Tea Party responder Sen. Mike Lee.

Both McMorris Rodgers and Lee oppose increases in the minimum wage, support deep cuts to food stamps, and have voted against unemployment benefits. McMorris Rodgers has opposed equal pay for women and supported several attempts to restrict women’s health care choices – including notorious legislation that would have redefined rape as “forcible rape” – while Lee believes the Violence Against Women Act is unconstitutional.

Read more after the jump.