President Donald Trump Thursday afternoon at 4:15 PM ET will make yet another attempt to promote his anti-immigrant and racist agenda, and he will do so from the White House. Using the White House for political purposes is inappropriate at best, and can be illegal.

“The White House is making plans for President Trump to deliver an immigration speech today from the Roosevelt Room around 4:15 pm before leaving for rally in Missouri,” CNN’s Jeff Zelany reports. “Today’s theme is expected to be asylum — part of pre-election immigration announcements,” according to sources.

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Jennifer Epstein, the White House reporter for Bloomberg News, adds that Trump’s speech Trump will be “on what an official described as the ‘immigration crisis.’ The ‘crisis’ is no different now than a month or a year ago other than that Election Day is five days away.”

The speech will presumably be televised live. Afterwards, Trump will head to Missouri for yet another campaign rally. He is holding 11 such rallies in the last eight days before the midterms.

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Trump Threatens to Veto a Resolution by Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin – Who’s Running for Re-Election

On Tuesday, for the first time ever, President Donald Trump’s White House issued a threat to veto a piece of legislation pending in Congress — and their choice was revealing.

The White House has just issued the first veto threat of the Trump administration.

It’s on a resolution of disapproval for regulations that would expand short-term health insurance that was touted as an alternative to Obamacare. pic.twitter.com/o1AtXMdQuX

— Gregory Korte (@gregorykorte) October 9, 2018

Senate Joint Resolution 63, authored by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), is a resolution that would repeal the Trump administration’s new regulation on unregulated “short-term” health insurance plans. The regulation essentially eliminates the “short-term” aspect of these plans, allowing people to enroll in them year-round for up to three years, despite the fact that these plans do not have to cover essential benefits or protect pre-existing conditions.

In effect, Trump is creating an entirely separate health insurance market of “junk plans” unrelated by the Affordable Care Act, and encouraging healthy people to enroll in those instead, driving up premiums an estimated 1 percentfor people who want proper coverage. For this reason, health experts broadly oppose Trump’s regulation, and 16 medical trade groups and patient associations have endorsed Baldwin’s resolution.

In addition to Baldwin’s resolution, Trump’s regulation is also the focus of a lawsuit by 7 health care advocacy and mental health groups, which alleges that “the creation of a parallel individual insurance market consisting of plans that are not subject to the ACA’s consumer protection standards” is a violation of the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act.

The “junk plan” expansion is one of many attempts by Trump to sabotage Obamacare, doing through executive action what he could not get through Congress.

Since taking office, Trump and his officials have slashed time, funding, and resources for open enrollment in the marketplaces, revoked cost sharing subsidies to insurers, and tried to expand religious exemptions from the birth control mandate to secular employers. To turn back increased Medicaid enrollment under Obamacare, they are authorizing Republican states to impose work requirements on certain enrollees, some of which are so extreme it would be literally impossible to qualify for Medicaid. And as if all that weren’t enough, Trump’s Justice Department is supporting a GOP state lawsuit against their own administration that argues for eliminating protections for pre-existing conditions entirely.

This week, Baldwin filed a discharge petition to force a vote on her resolution, which has the support of all 49 Democratic senators. The vote is scheduled for later today.

Image via Facebook 

President Donald Trump must believe Jim Comey has important information that can harm him – and generate even more scandal. Ahead of the release of his new book – and his nation-wide book tour – the Republican National Committee, with the backing of the White House, is launching a campaign to discredit the former FBI director who Trump fired for not stopping the Russia probe.

“The battle plan against Comey, obtained by CNN, calls for branding the nation’s former top law enforcement official as ‘Lyin’ Comey’ through a website, digital advertising and talking points to be sent to Republicans across the country before his memoir is released next week. The White House signed off on the plan, which is being overseen by the Republican National Committee,” CNN reports Thursday morning.

That website, which is already online, makes accusations including, “Comey may use his book tour to push the phony narrative that President Trump obstructed the Russia investigation.” It also claims the former FBI director “wants to portray himself as a non-partisan, by-the-book Boy Scout rather than a politically motivated Washington insider.”

In caustic language RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, in a statement to CNN, describes Comey as “a liar and a leaker,” with a “complete lack of credibility.”

The goal of the White House and the RNC is to “remind Democrats why they disliked Comey by assailing his credibility, shining a new light on his conduct and pointing out his contradictions — or the three Cs,” CNN notes.