Donald Trump's inauguration: These Democrats are skipping the big event

What a surprise! Most are blacks or Hispanic. 

Congressman Hank (Guam is going to tip over) Johnson is not going either. 

He’s in Guam moving everything to the middle of the island.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cesSRfXqS1Q

He later said he was speaking 'metaphorically'. Do you think he's lying?

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A growing number of Democratic lawmakers are boycotting President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration, particularly after revelations of Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 election.

Some members of Congress have said they will be protesting in DC and in their districts instead. Here's a list of Democrats who have publicly said they won't be at the ceremony Friday.

Georgia Rep. John Lewis

The civil rights icon declared Friday that he would boycott the event because he doesn't see Trump as a "legitimate" president in light of Russian interference.

"You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong," Lewis told NBC News.

Trump harshly responded Saturday, calling Lewis "all talk" and "no action" and saying he should focus more on "fixing and helping" his district rather than "complaining" about the Russia's role.

California Rep. Mark Takano

"'All talk, no action.' I stand with @repjohnlewis and I will not be attending the inauguration," Takano tweeted Saturday.

New York Rep. Yvette Clarke

"I will NOT attend the inauguration of @realDonaldTrump. When you insult @repjohnlewis, you insult America."

Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva

"I will not be attending the inauguration of Donald Trump as our next president," the Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair said Friday on the House floor. "My absence is not motivated by disrespect for the office or motivated by disrespect for the government that we have in this great democracy, but as an individual act, yes, of defiance at the disrespect shown to millions and millions of Americans by this incoming administration, and the actions we are taking in this Congress."

Michigan Rep. John Conyers

The office of Conyers, the dean of the United House of Representatives, confirmed to CNN he won't be attending the inauguration.

California Rep. Mark DeSaulnier

"It is with a heavy heart and deep personal conviction that I have decided not to attend the #TrumpInauguration on January 20, 2017," the California lawmaker tweeted Friday.

New York Rep. Nydia Velazquez

Velazquez tweeted Friday that she will be participating in a women's march protesting policies that activists say are harmful to American women.

"I will not be attending inauguration of @realDonaldTrump but WILL participate in the @womensmarch on January 21st," she tweeted.

Oregon Rep. Kurt Schrader

"I'm just not a big Trump fan. I've met the guy and never been impressed with him," he told Oregon Public Broadcasting Friday. "I'll do my best to work with him when I think he's doing the right thing for the country. But he hasn't proved himself to me at all yet, so I respectfully decline to freeze my ass out there in the cold for this particular ceremony."

Missouri Rep. William Lacy Clay

The lawmaker's spokesperson told the St. Louis Post Dispatch that Clay will be in his home state speaking to school children.

California Rep. Barbara Lee

Lee said she'll spend the day "preparing for resistance."

"Donald Trump has proven that his administration will normalize the most extreme fringes of the Republican Party. On Inauguration Day, I will not be celebrating. I will be organizing and preparing for resistance," she said Thursday in a statement.

New York Rep. Jose Serrano

"I will not attend the #inauguration2017 next week- cannot celebrate the inauguration of a man who has no regard for my constituents. #Bronx," he tweeted Thursday.

Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez

"I cannot go to (the) inauguration of a man who's going to appoint people to the Supreme Court and turn back the clock on women and turn back the clock on immigrants and the safety and freedom that we fought for them," Gutierrez said last month on CNN's "New Day."

California Rep. Jared Huffman

"I have decided that instead of attending the inaugural ceremonies in Washington this month, I'll spend time in California with my constituents making a positive difference in our community," he wrote on Facebook Tuesday. "From helping to build homes for local families to pitching in on cleaning up flood debris to welcoming new US citizens at a naturalization ceremony --- it will be an action-packed couple of days. Stay tuned here for more details."

Massachusetts Rep. Katherine Clark

"I support the peaceful transition of power, but I don't feel that I need to attend the pageantry associated with and for this president," she told the Boston Globe earlier this month.

Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer

"There is unprecedented concern by my constituents about the many threats posed by a Trump administration seeking to implement the President-elect's policies on health, environment, nuclear weapons and immigration, to name but a few," he said on Facebook.

Donald Trump's inauguration: These Democrats are skipping the big event

Same song different singer

Update:

Where does Lewis get off calling a duly elected president an illegitimate president? Of course, Trump went on the attack. Or should I say… fell for it.. again. My advice, wake up, you just got sucker punched. Now these losers are painting Lewis as another MLK Jr and Trump the new George Wallace.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/01/14/democrats-celebrities-and-republicans-defend-democratic-rep-lewis-after-trumps-tweets.html

According to 2015 data from the Census Bureau, Georgia's 5th Congressional District—which is majority African-American and includes most of Atlanta—as a poverty rate of more than 17 percent, above the national average of 13.5 percent. 

A 2015 report by the Federal Bureau of Investigation ranked Atlanta as 14 among 20 of the most violent U.S. cities.

When the facts are FACTS their only option call it racism knowing it's the only card they have left.

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John Lewis: Trump isn't a legitimate president

The reasoning here is if you're not a Democratic president you're not legitimate. They came up with the same song when Bush was elected in the first go-around. Anyone remember...'a president selected not elected'? There is not one shred of proof the Russians tampered in any way affecting the election results. Yet to delegitimatize Trump they'll keep hammering away on this complete falsehood in the hope if they repeat it enough some a-hole might believe them! 

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Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) said he doesn't believe Donald Trump is a legitimate President in an interview on NBC News "Meet The Press With Chuck Todd."

"You know, I believe in forgiveness. I believe in trying to work with people. It will be hard. It's going to be very difficult. I don't see this president-elect as a legitimate president," Lewis said when asked if he would "forge a relationship" with the president-elect.

When pressed on why he believes Trump's presidency is illegitimate, Lewis pointed to intelligence reports of Russian interference in the election.

"I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton," Lewis said.

Trump acknowledged this week that Russia was responsible for some hacking during the campaign, though the president-elect and many on his team assert that it had no effect on election results.

Lewis, in the interview, also said he wouldn't attend the inauguration.

"I don't plan to attend the inauguration. It will be the first one that I miss since I've been in Congress," Lewis said. "You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong, is not right."

Same song different singer

Her last two tweets

Her last two tweets

Bernie Sanders’s claims that ‘36,000 people will die yearly’ if Obamacare is repealed

“As Republicans try to repeal the Affordable Care Act, they should be reminded every day that 36,000 people will die yearly as a result.”

— Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.), in a tweet, Jan. 12, 2017

With the fate of the Affordable Care Act hanging in the balance, the rhetorical warfare is only going to get worse. Earlier this week, we looked at an exaggerated GOP claim about Obamacare premiums.

Then this tweet caught our eye:

As Republicans try to repeal the Affordable Care Act, they should be reminded every day that 36,000 people will die yearly as a result.

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) January 12, 2017

How is this number calculated and is it credible?

The Facts

For context, more than 2.6 million people died in the United States in 2015, or nearly 7,200 per day. So Sanders is suggesting repeal of the law would increase the number of deaths by 1.4 percent.

Sanders obtained the figure of 36,000 from a calculation by ThinkProgress, a left-leaning website, according to his aides. Essentially, ThinkProgress assumed that repeal will result in 29.8 million people losing their insurance and that one person will die for every 830 people who lose their insurance. That yields a number of 35,903.

So this is an estimate based on two other estimates. How credible are the other two estimates?

The Obama administration says that about 20 million people have gained insurance because of the ACA. We’ve done some digging on this number — some conservative analysts have raised questions about it — but it generally seems in the ballpark. Surprisingly, more of the increase in coverage comes from the expansion of Medicaid, not the creation of the exchanges for individual insurance.

The larger number of 29.8 million comes from an Urban Institute report that assumes Republicans will repeal parts of the law through the reconciliation process without outlining any replacement plan, thus leading to a near collapse of the nongroup insurance market. That’s a pretty big assumption.

Moreover, one cannot assume that everyone will automatically lose coverage. One recent study has indicated that nearly 30 percent of the gain in the insured came from people who were already eligible for Medicaid. This is known as the “woodworker” effect. In theory, these people still would be eligible even if the expansion of Medicaid was repealed, though the authors of the report dispute that, saying the woodworker effect took place precisely because of policies in the law.

In any case, nearly 30 million is certainly a high estimate.

The other part of the calculation is even more problematic. It stems from a study on the effect of the Massachusetts health-care law implemented by then Gov. Mitt Romney, not the Affordable Care Act.

The study compared changes in mortality rates for adults from 2001-2005 to the rates in 2007-2010, after the law was implemented. The research indicated that for every 830 adults who gained insurance, there was one fewer death per year.

But the study clearly noted that “we do not have individual-level insurance information and thus cannot directly link mortality changes to persons gaining insurance coverage.” Moreover, it said the results could not be directly applied to the Affordable Care Act because “Massachusetts differs from the rest of the nation, including lower mortality, higher income and baseline insurance coverage rates, fewer minorities, and the most per capita physicians in the country.”

There are wrong ways and right ways to cite this kind of data. When the White House Council of Economic Advisers in December cited the report, it appropriately noted that it was based on data from Massachusetts: “If experience under the ACA matches what was observed under Massachusetts health reform, an estimated 24,000 deaths are already being avoided annually.”

But Sanders not only directly applied the formula to the ACA, but he also assumed that withdrawing insurance would have the same impact as adding insurance. Benjamin Sommers, the lead author of the study, said: “You’re right that giving insurance versus taking it away may not produce mirror image effects — that adds further uncertainty to the discussion.”

Sommers, who helped implement the ACA as an Obama administration official in 2011-2014, said applying the formula could produce “a reasonable ballpark estimate of what is a difficult question to answer, but it’s clearly not a definitive fact.” He added that Sanders’s tweet was “not a very nuanced assessment. Twitter isn’t the best venue for assessing complex research findings.”

Warren Gunnels, a Sanders policy aide, also pointed to a detailed 2009 study that estimated that out of every 1 million people without insurance, 1,000 will die because they lacked insurance. The study followed a group of patients for 12 years and found that those without insurance had a higher rate of mortality. Roughly speaking, if all 20 million people who gained insurance under the Affordable Care Act lost it, that would mean 20,000 deaths. Not only is that about half as much as the figure touted by Sanders, but it also assumes Republicans will simply leave everyone now covered without health insurance.

The Pinocchio Test

Certainly, the impact of changes in the health-insurance market on the death rate is an important issue in the debate over Obamacare, especially if Republican pledges to keep everyone covered fall short. But the Fact Checker often warns readers to be wary of scare statistics that lack context.

Sanders has tweeted as a definite fact an estimate that a) assumes Republicans will gut Obamacare without a replacement b) assumes the worst possible impact from that policy and c) assumes that data derived from the Massachusetts experience can be applied across the United States.

Those are three very big assumptions. Take away any one of them, and Sanders’s claim that repeal of the law will cause 36,000 people to die a year falls apart.

Ordinarily, this sort of fuzzy math would be worthy of at least Three Pinocchios. But ThinkProgress, in calculating the number, at least said this many people “could” die. Sanders instead stated it as a definitive fact — that 36,000 will die. That tips this claim into Four-Pinocchio territory.

Four Pinocchios

Bernie Sanders’s claims that ‘36,000 people will die yearly’ if Obamacare is repealed

The MSM at their FAWNING best

Matt Lauer: I 'burst out crying' at Biden's Medal of Freedom 

Wonder if they'll be so emotional after Trump gives Mattis a metal for wiping ISIS off the face of the Earth?

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NBC's Matt Lauer says he was reduced to tears when he watched President Obama surprise Vice President Biden with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Thursday.

"I'm glad there were no cameras in my apartment yesterday because I was just sitting there weeping ... I just burst out crying when I saw that moment. It was incredible,” Lauer, who recently signed a reported $20 million per year contract extension through 2018, said Friday on "Today."

The waterworks were on for Biden himself as well on Thursday when Obama shocked his vice president with the Medal of Freedom. Biden had to turn from the cameras momentarily to compose himself.

NBC News’s chief foreign affairs correspondent, Andrea Mitchell, shared the same sentiment in a report recapping the medal ceremony, saying the friendship between the two men is something “rarely seen” in Washington politics.

"It’s a bond like we've never seen before. At times, more like a White House buddy movie than a political partnership," Mitchell observed.

"After eight years, the Bidens and Obamas forging a friendship so close they consider themselves family. ... Their friendship often reaching a fever pitch on social media," she continued.

"Biden tweeting a photo of a friendship bracelet on the President’s birthday: 'Happy 55th, Barack! A brother to me, a best friend forever.'”

After the "Today" report, guest co-host Meredith Vieira called the event “so beautiful.”

Mitchell later admitted on MSNBC that the surprise White House event had her "in tears" as well.

“You know, every time I watch this — I'm just watching that ceremony — I was in tears,” the “Andrea Mitchell Reports” host said. “We are seeing so much dissension and disruption in Washington and around the country and to see this relationship, this partnership pretty seamless on policy, if they had disputes, they were over their, you know, little lunches and breakfasts that we didn't see.”

Obama and Biden leave office after eight years when President-elect Trump is inaugurated on next Friday. 

The MSM at their FAWNING best