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Former Rep. John Dingell has been released from the hospital following a heart attack last week. His wife, Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., joked that it was because the nurses and doctors had “heard all of John’s stories and decided it was time.”
The congresswoman thanked Henry Ford Hospital in a statement on Tuesday for her 92 year old husband’s care following his heart attack Sept. 17.
“We will not miss the hospital but the staff are truly unbelievable and became friends in this last week. He is planning fishing trips with several of them,” she said.
The former congressman sported a University of Michigan sweatsuit as he was pushed in a wheelchair to be discharged and announced that he was “breaking out of this place.”
I’m breaking out of this place. Thank you for all of your kind words and prayers. Thank you @HenryFordNews for your phenomenal staff. And thank you @UMichFootball and the @Lions for not further complicating my health this weekend. Blessings on you all. pic.twitter.com/YiFbTXUnOx
“The Michigan football team and the Detroit Lions wins this past weekend also greatly contributed to his healing. We thank everyone for the kind thoughts and prayers over the past week,” Debbie Dingell added. “Home never looked better and the doctors are amazed at his passion and strong spirit. We are lucky.”
Dingell announced his pending hospital release on Twitter on Monday in his usual joking style.
He retired at the end of 2015 as the longest-serving member of Congress. Debbie Dingell succeeded him as Michigan’s 12 District representative.
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Dozens of programs for military veterans turned farmers, small rural businesses and expanding foreign markets for agriculture will end Sunday if lawmakers do not extend the expiring 2014 farm bill.
Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts of Kansas said Monday that “it’ll be a tall order” to get a replacement for the current law completed and enacted before the midterm elections in November.
Roberts said he wants to avoid a farm bill extension because interest groups will use the time to lobby more for their positions and make it more difficult for Roberts and his ranking member, Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, along with House Agriculture Chairman K. Michael Conaway of Texas and ranking member Rep. Collin C. Peterson of Minnesota, to reach a consensus.
The four are the principal negotiators trying to bridge differences between the House and Senate versions of the farm bill.
Major programs such as crop insurance and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — formerly known as the food stamp program — would continue without an extension or new farm bill because they have permanent authority and funding baselines. Funding for some other farm programs would expire over several months, with the dairy program becoming the first to lapse, in December.
Others, however, such as the Conservation Reservation Program, have permanent funding baselines but not permanent authority. That means they would continue to operate but could not approve new contracts, issue new block grants or do anything beyond honoring prior agreements.
An additional 39 so-called orphan programs identified by the Congressional Research Service would lose authorization and mandatory funding Oct. 1. Spending for this group totals $2.8 billion over the five-year, $489 billion farm bill.
“While this total may be a relatively small fraction … the effect may be particularly important to specific farm bill titles and to the programs’ beneficiaries,” the CRS said. “Notable programs among this group include certain conservation programs; most of the bioenergy (including biofuels), rural development, and research title programs; various nutrition title pilot programs and studies; organic agriculture and farmers’ market programs; trade promotion programs; and outreach to socially disadvantaged and military veteran farmers.”
Last week, Peterson said he was more optimistic than ever that the principals were closer to resolving key differences on the farm bill, but it is likely that negotiators will miss the Sept. 30 deadline. He said differences still existed on Title 1 of the farm bill, which includes contentious limits on farm subsidy payments. Peterson made the comments Friday on the “Adams on Agriculture” radio program.
Like Roberts, Peterson said he sees no need for an extension if they reach an agreement this week or are close to a compromise, but supporters of the orphan programs think otherwise.
“It’s a bit shortsighted to say there’s no impact” from allowing programs to expire for several weeks or months, said Greg Fogel, policy director for National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
Small, beginning and minority farmers would lose access to programs designed to help them, Cora Fox, policy associate for the Center for Rural Affairs, said in a statement.
“In the absence of a new farm bill, it is imperative that lawmakers extend current legislation,” Fox said. “Farmers and ranchers across the country rely on important programs that will sunset without an extension of the 2014 farm bill.”
The spending package scheduled for a Wednesday vote in the House includes a continuing resolution to extend government funding through Dec. 7, but it does not provide lifelines for the farm bill programs.
Fogel said that if there’s no conference report this week, Congress would likely wait to vote after November’s midterm elections.
If a lame-duck Congress approves a new farm bill conference report, Fogel said he would expect expired programs to be slow in restarting as USDA implements the wide-ranging legislation.
Peterson said negotiations have focused on waivers provided to states. The waivers exclude single able-bodied adults without dependents from current SNAP work requirements and ease limits on how long this group of beneficiaries can receive food aid.
“We’re really down to the waivers,” Peterson said, without providing details.
Roberts also mentioned waivers Monday night as he talked about trying to reach consensus on SNAP.
“We’re still exploring ways to address the whole nutrition situation, the work requirements,” Roberts said, adding that negotiators are talking about possibly looking into overhauling how states issue work waivers for recipients. “If we can get the waiver challenge behind us, working with the administration would really be very helpful,” Roberts said. “If we do that, I think we could probably get ourselves to a farm bill.”
Changing to the waiver process would give USDA authority to limit waivers given to states and thereby reduce the number of SNAP recipients excluded from current work requirements under the program.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue recently said restricting state SNAP waivers would be a step forward in ending what he considers to be a weakening of work requirements for a segment of SNAP recipients ages 18 to 49.
Watch: McConnell to Family Research Council: ‘We’re Changing America’
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Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is slated to meet with President Donald Trump on Thursday amid rumors he may lose his job — a move that could cause major repercussions for the future of the probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Watch a recap of other senior Trump administration officials who have left for other jobs or have resigned under pressure.
A Democratic outside group is going up with its first attack ad against Matt Rosendale, the Republican challenging Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in Montana, for being from Maryland and not being a real rancher.
The Majority Forward spot, shared first with Roll Call, features an actor playing Rosendale as he struggles to work what the narrator calls a “multimillion-dollar trophy ranch.”
Majority Forward is the affiliated nonprofit of Senate Majority PAC, the super PAC that works to elect Democrats to the Senate. The ad is part of the group’s previously announced seven-figure fall reservation in the state.
Democrats have been attacking Rosendale, the state auditor, for being from out of state, using his past as a land developer to argue he doesn’t understand Montana values, especially when it comes to public lands. Democrats have seized on a May story by Talking Points Memo about the Republican nominee never having owned cattle.
The ad accuses Rosendale of dressing up as a rancher and shows the actor wearing white boots, unpacking a saddle from the trunk of a Jaguar and struggling to carry hay.
Democrats are using Rosendale as a foil against Tester, who’s running as a longtime Montana farmer.
In a state President Donald Trump won by 20 points in 2016, Republicans’ best shot at winning the seat is nationalizing the race. To that end, Trump recently held a rally for Rosendale in Billings. Since then, national Republicans released polling showing the race tightening. Donald Trump Jr. is scheduled to rally for Rosendale on Tuesday in Bozeman, while Vice President Mike Pence is headed to the state next week.
Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the race Tilts Democratic.
Watch: In Montana, Searching for Votes in the ‘Teepee Capital of the World’
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GOP Rep. Mia Love has a theory for why the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic National Committee are targeting her seat — and it’s not because her Democratic opponent, Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams, has pulled within single digits in numerous polls this summer.
It’s because, she said in an interview on Fox News radio Monday, she is black, Republican, and successful.
“They do not like the fact that I am a black female Republican doing everything I possibly can to talk about the issues that help people go from the lowest common denominator up,” Love said in the interview.
Love has been docked by McAdams and in the media for questionable campaign fundraising methods after she did not face a primary challenger for her re-election bid in Utah’s 4th District.
She lamented that her race with McAdams has plunged into a quagmire of negative advertisements, bombastic rhetoric, and media stories based on opposition research.
“They want to just do character assassination, and I’m telling you what Brian, I’m not going to allow them to do that,” Love told host Brian Kilmeade. “This is absolutely — it’s below me. ... This is something that’s happening not just to me, but around the country. This is the way that they’re trying to win. They will buy, they will cheat, they will assassinate your character to try and win.”
But Love isn’t holding back from running negative ads against McAdams.
A new commercial from her campaign is narrated in a voice resembling former president Bill Clinton’s in which the narrator thanks McAdams “for all your help.”
The ad points to McAdams’ internship more than 20 years ago in the Clinton White House and his work for Hillary Clinton’s Senate and presidential campaigns.
“Ben, you are a great friend to Hillary and me,” the Bill Clinton impersonator says in the ad. And he says he’s sure he’ll be a big help to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi if elected.
The Clintons (and President Donald Trump, for that matter, but to a lesser extent) are deeply unpopular in Utah, where third-party candidate Evan McMullin garnered 21.5 percent of the vote in the 2016 presidential election and Libertarian Gary Johnson collected 3.5 percent.
Those figures hold true for the 4th District, where Trump paced Clinton by 7 points despite garnering just 39.1 percent of the vote.
Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the race between Love and McAdams Leans Republican.
Andrew Roberts, McAdams’ campaign manager, told the Deseret News that Love’s new commercial is “as phony as Mia Love.”
McAdams said he wasn’t “sure what to call dredging up a two-decades-old college internship other than desperate.”
“Frankly,” he said, “Love’s ads should serve to remind Utahns of how broken and dishonest Washington politicians like Mia Love are.”
But Love’s campaign manager, Dave Hansen, fired back via the Deseret News that the commercial only intended “to make sure voters understand” that McAdams’ political “background and training” has its roots in the Clinton camp.
Watch: As Early Voting Begins, A Look at Minnesota's Uber-Competitive House Races
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