You still don't have to visit your grandparents, the Obama administration announced today, but you will have to pay the people who do more. House Republicans -- the group that gave us the guy who thinks vaginas have brains -- are hitting the White House on education. And one day after the horrific Navy Yard shooting, House Republicans vowed to introduce and pass a comprehensive gun control bill. Just kidding, they introduced another Obamacare repeal measure. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Tuesday, September 17th, 2013
HOUSE REPUBLICANS UNVEIL OBAMACARE REPLACEMENT BILL - Or is it the Obamacare replacement replacement? We're losing track of these things. Roll Call: "While the House GOP continues to grapple with how to defund or delay Obamacare in a continuing resolution or debt ceiling deal, the conservative Republican Study Committee is preparing to unveil its bill to fully replace the 2010 health law. At a news conference set for Wednesday, RSC Chairman Steve Scalise of Louisiana and RSC Health Care Working Group Chairman Phil Roe of Tennessee will roll out their long-anticipated 'repeal-and-replace' legislation. Fellow GOP Reps. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Renee Ellmers of North Carolina, John Fleming of Louisiana, Paul Gosar of Arizona and Todd Rokita of Indiana are also expected to attend the event...Scalise didn't give a lot of details during that phone call , but said the bill would include protections for people with pre-existing conditions -- one of the main benefits of Obamacare...He promised, however, that it would not 'put in place mandates that increase the costs of health care and push people out of the insurance that they like.'" [Roll Call]
GREAT TIMING FOR POVERTY REPORT - Food stamps kept 4 million Americans out of poverty last year, the government announced Tuesday in its annual update on income, poverty and health insurance coverage. Coincidentally, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives this week are moving legislation that would reduce enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program by roughly the same number. According to a new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office, 3.8 million fewer Americans would receive food stamps next year if the GOP nutrition bill became law. The bill would trim SNAP spending by about 5 percent, saving $39 billion over 10 years. [HuffPost]
The poverty rate held steady at 15 percent in 2012. No big change for median income, either. The percentage of people without health insurance decreased slightly. [Census.gov]
DAILY DELANEY DOWNER - Unemployment insurance played a smaller role in reducing poverty in 2012 than it did in previous years, according to government data released Tuesday -- and not just because fewer people are unemployed than before. Benefit cuts enacted by Congress and state legislatures around the country played a role as well. Unemployment insurance lifted 1.7 million Americans from poverty last year, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday in its annual update on income, poverty and health insurance in America. In contrast, unemployment insurance helped 2.3 Americans rise from poverty in 2011, and 3.2 million in 2010. [HuffPost]
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NAVY ADMITTED ALEXIS DURING CRIMINAL WAIVER PERIOD - The Bush administration really keeps on giving. David Wood: "Alleged Washington Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis was able to enlist in the Navy in 2007, despite an earlier shooting incident in which he claimed to have 'blacked out' -- a record which normally might have disqualified him for military service. But at the time, the Navy and the other military services were struggling to reach their wartime recruiting goals, and were granting thousands of waivers to potential recruits with criminal backgrounds. The Navy declined to release Alexis' personnel records, and a spokesman for the Navy Recruiting Command, in Millington, Tenn., said the command does not keep data on waivers. Navy officials confirmed Tuesday that during his military service, Alexis was cited for many instances of misconduct, including unauthorized absence from work, insubordination, absence without leave, disorderly conduct and a minor failure of a room inspection." [HuffPost]
OBAMA CALLS FOR PERSONNEL REVIEW - See if we can avoid hiring another one of these guys. Politico: "President Barack Obama ordered a review of standards for contractors and employees across federal agencies in the wake of the Navy Yard shootings, the White House said Tuesday. The review, to be conducted by the Office of Management and Budget, will examine the oversight and security standards for federal employees. It is in addition to an ongoing review of intelligence community contractors Obama ordered after contractor Edward Snowden began leaking a trove of classified documents." [Politico]
MANCHIN PLOTS GUN CONTROL STRATEGY - Grim: "Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Tuesday that he will revisit the idea of passing gun safety legislation in the wake of Monday's mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard. He told reporters he plans to meet with Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), with whom he cosponsored a bill to expand background checks that died in the Senate earlier this year. The violence and the resulting crime scene just blocks from the Capitol, Manchin said, had made it difficult for many of his colleagues to fly back into D.C., and so he hadn't had a chance to speak to them about the bill. 'I'll see Pat today,' Manchin said, adding that he was open to changing the legislation. 'I'm willing to work with all my colleagues. [But] I'm not going to support a loophole.' If he can't find the votes, he said, he won't force the Senate to go on record again. He said he'd rather wait to see whether his fellow senators change their minds on the issue. 'It's ridiculous to put people back on if there's not support,' he said. Manchin is also open to moving on a bill that would improve mental health services and block the mentally ill from purchasing weapons. The suspected shooter on Monday was reportedly hearing voices, yet he was able to obtain his gun legally." [HuffPost]
Harry Reid with an additional dose of hopeless: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday gun control legislation doesn't have the votes to be approved by the Senate. Reid said he, as a result, has no plans to bring a gun control bill to the floor in the wake of a rampage at the Washington Navy Yard during which a gunman killed 12 people. 'We're going to move this up as quickly as we can, but we've got to have the votes first,' Reid told reporters. 'We don't have the votes. I hope we get them, but we don't have them now.' Reid said expanded background checks are necessary to prevent people with mental illness from wielding guns." [The Hill]
Heartbreaking portraits of Navy Yard victims by HuffPost's Jason Cherkis and Mike McAuliff.
JANET YELLEN WILL DELIGHT THIRD WAY - Be careful what you wish for. Zach Carter: "While supporting Yellen has become a cause célèbre for progressives opposed to Summers' regulatory hostilities, Yellen supported a host of economic policies during the Clinton era that have since become broadly unpopular. She backed the repeal of the landmark Glass-Steagall bank reform and she supported the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement. She also pressured the government to develop a new statistical metric intended to lower payments to senior citizens on Social Security...Yellen's reputation as a more consumer-friendly economist than Summers rests largely on her tenure as president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve during the Bush years, when she identified the emerging housing bubble and called for deploying stronger regulation to limit its damage... Yellen referred to deregulating banking as a way to' modernize' the financial system, and indicated that breaking down Glass-Steagall could be the beginning of a process allowing banks to merge with other commercial and industrial firms." [HuffPost]
OBAMA GIVING OUT GIFTS - Dave Jamieson: "In a move that will change working conditions for two million Americans, the Labor Department announced Tuesday the enactment of a new rule that will extend minimum wage and overtime protections to home care workers, one of the fastest-growing occupations in the country. As of Jan. 1, 2015, the long-awaited change will end a 38-year-old carveout that excluded workers who attend to the elderly and disabled in their homes from the basic labor protections enjoyed by most Americans. The home care industry... [claimed] it would raise prices on low-income customers and force companies to cut workers' hours. The White House, however, has said that such a rule would rectify an injustice for a large pool of workers who log long hours for generally low pay...Most hourly workers in the U.S. are protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act, the bedrock Depression-era law that established the federal minimum wage and time-and-a-half for hours worked over 40. But when Congress tweaked the law in 1975, it added the so-called "companionship exemption," which excluded workers who provide 'companionship services for individuals who (because of age or infirmity) are unable to care for themselves.'" [HuffPost]
HOUSE REPUBLICANS HITTING WHITE HOUSE ON EDUCATION - Joy Resmovits: "On Tuesday, a group of high-ranking GOP legislators wrote Attorney General Eric Holder to argue that the Department of Justice lawsuit over [school vouchers in Louisiana] will force Louisiana students to 'remain in failing schools.' The group -- which includes House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), chairman of the Education and the Workforce Committee -- also charged that the DOJ suit could 'cause other states to feel pressured to shut down similar initiatives that provide countless children the opportunity to receive a better education.'...In August, DOJ sued the state of Louisiana, seeking to block implementation of its voucher program starting next school year in the 34 Louisiana school districts under desegregation orders. The department argues that 'the loss of students through the voucher program reversed much of the process made toward integration.'" [HuffPost]
HUFFPOST HILL CHATS WITH KURT BARDELLA BECAUSE WASHINGTON - Kurt Bardella -- Washington's own living, breathing LinkedIn profile -- paid us a visit yesterday to promote his new comms firm, Endeavor. Bardella seems to be serious about the whole thing, evidenced by his firm's website that is vaguely remenescent of a Mumford and Sons album cover and the pocket square he was wearing (we're pretty sure pocket squares are Washington power ties for people under 40). Anyhoo, Kurt Bardella: still happening.
BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR - Here is a baby elephant trying to wake up a dog.
PATRIARCHY UPDATE - Laura Bassett: "Women still earned only 77 cents for every dollar that men earned in 2012, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2012, the median earnings of American women working full time year-round were $37,791. American men earned a median income of $49,398. The gender wage gap has hovered at about 77 cents on the dollar since 2007. Women are also lagging behind men in terms of re-employment after the recession. The number of men working full time year-round increased by 1 million between 2011 and 2012, while the number of full-time working women remained close to the same. Within some minority groups, the wage gap is even worse: African-American women earn 69 cents for every dollar paid to African-American men, and Latinas earn just 58 cents on the dollar compared to Latino men. The disparity grows wider when these women are compared to non-Hispanic white men." [HuffPost]
COMFORT FOOD
- Girl flips out when taken to a surprise Taylor Swift concert. [http://bit.ly/16cgKnq]
- Bill Nye the Science Guy appeared on Dancing with the Stars and Cha-Cha'ed to the "Weird Science" theme. [http://bit.ly/1aP8dzm]
- A history of acne treatments. [http://bit.ly/14ZpYEa]
- Following in the footsteps of Levi Johnston and other American heroes, Dennis Rodman filmed a pistachio commercial. [http://usat.ly/151JPCy]
- Bored Elon Musk is Twitter's most innovative fake Twitter account. [http://bit.ly/19YjWqF]
- The world's smallest car is smal., has a combustion engine. [http://bit.ly/181JN1B]
- Cat is pushed to the limit. [http://huff.to/16chh8L]
TWITTERAMA
@delrayser: On this Constitution Day please take a moment to think about the 2nd Amendment and also all those other words that are in there for filler.
@samsteinhp: you got just ONE letter wrong RT @Salon: The real reason the NSA goes silent after a mass shooting... slnm.us/5urXiCP
@elisefoley: Have you taken personal responsibility for your life yet? RT @stefanjbecket: One year ago tomorrow: Mother Jones posts Romney 47% tape
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