HHS Health Plans Undermine Obamacare, Kushner Won't Give Up Sec. Clearance, And GOPer Faces Protests On Gun Control

February 21st, 2018 Top Stories --------------------------------------------------------------- [How The Trump Admin Is Using Junk Health Plans To Undermine Obamacare]( The Gist: When Trump administration’s senior HHS staff unveiled a draft rule this week that would expand the sale of cheap, skimpy, short-term health plans, they described it as a “lifeline” for the currently uninsured, and insisted the rule change won’t destabilize Obamacare’s individual market. The department’s move is just the latest in a lengthy series of administrative actions that have destabilized and chipped away at the Affordable Care Act, including repealing of the individual mandate, making it easier for states to cull their Medicaid enrollees, and cutting off CSR subsidies that offset the cost of insuring low-income individuals. [NYT: Kushner Pushing Back On Kelly’s Effort To Revoke Interim Clearance]( The Gist: Jared Kushner, son-in-law and senior adviser to President Donald Trump, has pushed back on chief of staff John Kelly’s effort to reign in the use of interim security clearance and argued that he needs to keep his interim access to classified material, the New York Times reported Tuesday night, citing White House officials and others briefed on the situation. [GOP Rep. Faces Protests At Town Hall: ‘We’re Done With Thoughts And Prayers’]( The Gist: During a town hall in his Colorado district Tuesday night, Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) faced a barrage of questions about gun control in the wake of the deadly school shooting in Florida last week. During a moment of silence for the victims of the shooting, several attendees called for action on gun control instead of prayers. From The Reporter's Notebook --------------------------------------------------------------- An aide to a Republican Florida state lawmaker was fired on Tuesday evening after he told a reporter that two of the students who survived a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School were “crisis actors” instead of real students, [TPM’s Nicole Lafond reports](. State Rep. Shawn Harrison and House Speaker Richard Corcoran, both Republicans, announced the aide’s termination on Twitter Tuesday evening. The aide, Benjamin Kelly, served as a district secretary for Harrison. Kelly is just the latest to embrace the conspiracy theory being peddled by the far-right, who claim the students who survived the Florida high school shooting and are advocating for gun control, are actually actors being paid by left-wing, anti-gun groups. Agree Or Disagree? --------------------------------------------------------------- Josh Marshall: "Facebook was a bad actor by complicity in the entire 2016 election Russian interference campaign. As I’ve noted in other posts, it’s an engine built to maximize engagement for ad sales and data collection which operates with no need to price its negative externalities. To pull that out of jargon into more concrete terms, it’s like a factory that is highly profitable in large part because it can dump its toxic waste into the local river. Facebook is designed to do stuff like this. [So it’s not some shocking or unexpected occurrence that this happened]( Say What?! --------------------------------------------------------------- "Both kids in the picture are not students here but actors that travel to various crisis (sic) when they happen." - An aide to Florida State Rep. Shawn Harrison (R) [claiming]( on Tuesday that several Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students who had recently been interviewed on CNN were anti-gun plants. BUZZING: Today in the Hive --------------------------------------------------------------- From a TPM Prime member: "Show the bodies. Show the scene. This is not an antiseptic debate about differing ideologies. Show the scene. On television. Show the dead. If high school students have to see it, then so should the rest of the country. Show the bodies. Then talk." Related: [FL Lawmakers Vote Down Bill To Ban Assault Rifles In Front Of Student Survivors]( Have something to add? Become a [Prime]( member and join the discussion [here](. What We're Reading --------------------------------------------------------------- ‘I Would Rather Not Be Alone.’ Behind Their Anger, Florida Students Are Still Teens Struggling With Trauma. ([The Washington Post]( Inside Donald Trump's Twitter-Fueled Weekend Meltdown ([Time]( [unsubscribe from this list]( | [update subscription preferences]( | [view email in browser](