Guest post by Kurt Navratil

It was the tail end of a gray but delightful Blue Ridge autumn Sunday, an eventful day with a neighborhood celebration, friends, neighbors sharing a meal on the street and kids in costumes everywhere. I was finally relaxing when a lightning bolt came through my computer. 

The announcement of a meeting for conversation at a Salem coffee shop. 

On Monday at 9am. 

Roanoke constituents have waited for an opportunity to speak with Congressman Ben Cline for months now. Every Monday, gathered in downtown Roanoke, hundreds have been looking for, searching for, watching for an appearance, a hint of presence of the congressman– to no avail. 

The invitation promised local representatives of the Republican Party, the party that controls all three branches of the federal government, a government in the middle of an extended shutdown, gathering in a coffee shop not five miles from the VA Hospital in Salem, no more than ten  miles from more than two other hospitals, more than four rehabilitation centers, more than five retirement centers, all with hundreds of patients and dozens of medical professionals and all concerned about shutdown impact on care being provided, professionals being paid, supplies being purchased, ambulances needing gas. 

Surely there will be a crowd at this gathering! Thank heavens Mill Mountain Coffee has a large seating area that can accommodate over a hundred people. 

I got to thinking: is this real?

This doesn’t make sense. A meeting for a conversation on a Monday? At 9am? Who can come to that? Most people are at work.

Cline and Griffith– purposefully difficult to find on a good day– willing to hold “a conversation”? Together? In public? With constituents?  

And who is this invitee from West Virginia? The attorney general of West Virginia in Salem. What? Why?

I sent it to a friend and she was gob smacked. 

“Wow. There will be cameras, a crowd, security! We should go early!” 

“But what if it’s fake,” I replied.

“Well, we can get a coffee…” she said.

Having found one friend, I decided to see who else I could recruit. My most potent political friend– he’ll join me, I thought.  But he has to work. I sent texts and emails to eight more friends. Previous commitments, a doctor appointment, out of town. It’s now close to 9pm on Sunday.

On Monday morning I head to Salem. Empty parking spaces all along Main Street. Curious…. Must be fake; no camera trucks, no Fox News. Nothing.

I park in the rear and go in the back door. I see a room to the left and glance in—a tiny space with a big table. Surely nothing happening in THAT closet. I walk to the main, expansive front room that has maybe seven people scattered about, drinking coffee, eating breakfast. I order a coffee and sit down. 

8:15. Nothing. 

My friend shows up. “Where is the crowd?”. 

8:30. Nothing. 

My friend recognizes two people sitting over by the wall. They saw the announcement and wanted to see if it was real. 

Another woman is sitting by herself. I introduce myself and ask if she’s here for the “conversation”? “Yes” she replies. “Come join us,” I offer. 

And then in walks Delegate McNamara.

One from our group wanders back to the tiny room and rushes back to us . “They are gathering in the back!” (McNamara must not have gotten the email to use the back door.)

We rush to the small room in the back of Mill Mountain Coffee.

I’m no architect, but this room is small. Maybe 15 ft by 12 ft with a large conference table in it. It holds maybe 12 people. And here’s McNamara, and a couple others milling about. No Cline. No Griffith. I wouldn’t recognize the attorney general of West Virginia.  No Suetterlein.  The main attractions are not here, but McNamara is.

We ask him if he supports the Republican-controlled government shutdown. Silence. What about clemency for George Santos?  Silence. From there, questions from the table start to roll in.  At one point McNamara turns his back on the questioners. Silence. 

Then Morgan Griffith enters. Then, the attorney general of West Virginia arrives. Three Republican elected officials. Questions are directed to the front of the cramped space and Griffith requests more room. 

No one moves. 

He’s peppered with more questions about shutdown, health care, pay for the VA.

A Roanoke County veteran of the armed services, a person who gave years of their life to serve this country, who gets care from the VA, asks a question about health care for veterans. “We are not here to talk about that,” Griffith replies. “We’re here to talk Miyares”.

The questions continue.

And in strolls Ben Cline.  

They actually did this. They scheduled a 9am Monday meeting in a tiny back room of a Salem coffee house so that they could limit attendance, control the discussion, and sneak out with minimal exposure.

Being with so many interested and engaged constituents of these Republican do-nothings was inspiring. The questions were accurate, well posed, respectful and pressing. It was clear that the rah-rah for Jason Miyares was sidelined. Instead, we heard the people ask about the failures for which these elected Republicans are responsible.

Did they answer questions? No! Did they acknowledge the moral bankruptcy of the Republican autocrats? No! To every question, the partisan Republican response was “it is being litigated,” “it’s the Democrats,” “as a supporter of non-partisan…,” “when it gets to the Supreme Court…”  All deflection and duplicity.

We must, in this district, find every single appearance Ben Cline schedules and confront him with the issues that matter to the people of the Sixth Congressional District– funding for health care, for veterans’ care, for education, for clean water and air, for freedom from government overreach and illegal seizure, improvements to infrastructure and transportation. The Salem Surprise represents the opening salvo in the aggressive and relentless pursuit of making these elected representatives face the people and answer for their deeds and the misdeeds of the immoral and abhorrent Trump administration.

As a cutoff of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) nears, Congressman Cline is trying to portray himself as a staunch defender of the program that helps feed more than 40 million Americans– including more than 30,000 families in the Sixth Congressional District.

(Why is Cline is giving an interview to a rightwing media outlet in Florida while holding only one very limited town hall meeting for his Sixth District constituents since November of last year?)

Cline continues to blame Congressional Democrats for the standoff that has shut down much of the federal government since October 1. He lied that Democrats were refusing to vote to keep the government open in order to demand “free health care for illegal aliens” while ignoring the Democrats’ insistence to maintain a tax credit that helps 22 million American citizens lower their health insurance premiums. Without the tax credit, many of those Americans could see their monthly premiums double or triple and millions would be forced to drop their health insurance entirely.

In an interview with the rightwing NTD News, Cline said: “The fact [is] that Democrats haven’t agreed to just continue funding while we work out extraneous policy issues.”

Millions of people losing health insurance is “extraneous,” Congressman?

And remember that Cline proudly voted for Trump’s notorious Big Ugly Bill that will reduce SNAP benefits for food-insecure Americans by $186 billion over the next decade.

Cline called this “a great victory for American families.”

And one final thought on SNAP for Congressman Cline and every other elected official to consider:

Cardinal News reports:

The Virginia General Assembly kicked off a special session on Monday aimed at redrawing the commonwealth’s Congressional map through a constitutional amendment, but the bill’s text has not yet been made available by Democrats who are championing the effort. 

The special session comes on the heels of similar efforts in Texas, California and North Carolina and a handful of other states across the country. The effort began in Texas after President Donald Trump pushed the state’s Republicans to redraw their Congressional maps to create more GOP House seats in an effort to help the party maintain control of the House of Representatives after the midterm elections. 

…..

House of Delegates Republicans held a press conference with the five Republican members of Virginia’s Congressional delegation ahead of the start of the session. Virginia’s Congressional Republicans could see their numbers dwindle should the effort to redraw the state’s districts through a constitutional amendment be successful. 

…..

Rep. Ben Cline, R-Botetourt County, said the effort to redistrict Virginia’s maps was due to “strong arming” from the U.S. House of Representatives Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat from New York, and U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, also a Democrat from New York. 

“Instead politics has led the day,” Cline said. “It is their motivation, it is what is leading them to travel all across the country to demand these redistrictings.”

Congressman Cline, of course, never voiced even the mildest disapproval of Trump’s strong arming of the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature and their supine willingness to do his bidding.

If he had, perhaps we could take his objection to the Democrats’ redistricting plan more seriously.

Sorry, Congressman: Your party doesn’t get to play by one set of rules and expect Democrats to play by another.

Remember last June when Congressman Cline pretended to be concerned about the supposed risks to water quality of the abortion drug mifepristone?

Now Cline had joined 11 of his pro-forced-birth Republican colleagues in a letter to Health and Human Serivices Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. protesting the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a generic version of mifepristone.

The approval of a generic version of this dangerous drug not only contradicts the announced review but also runs directly counter to this Administration’s stated pro-life agenda. It is clear that rogue actors within the FDA are working to undermine both the sanctity of life and the Administration’s commitment to protecting it. For this reason, we respectfully urge that you consider the director of the Office of Generic Drugs, the director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, and other bureaucrats responsible for this reckless decision as part of your reduction-in-force evaluations.

In other words, they want Kennedy to fire anyone who had anything to do with the approval.

But White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, in one of her lucid moments, defended the decision.

“It’s not an endorsement of this drug by any means. They are just simply following the law,” Leavitt told reporters. “By law, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services must approve a generic drug application if the application demonstrates the drug is the ‘same’ as the brand-name drug.”

Mifepristone is one of the two medications used in most U.S. abortions. Manufacturer Evita Solutions first applied for approval in 2021, according to FDA’s approval letter, and it was granted earlier this week.

The FDA wrote that the company’s mifepristone tablets were “therapeutically equivalent” to the brand-name version, Mifeprex, which has been available in the U.S. since 2000.

As for the letter’s claim that mifepristone is a “dangerous drug,” the FDA’s website (still) states:

Mifepristone is safe when used as indicated and directed and consistent with the Mifepristone Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) Program. The FDA approved Mifeprex more than 20 years ago based on a thorough and comprehensive review of the scientific evidence presented and determined that it was safe and effective for its indicated use.

The real concern of Cline and the other Republicans is that wider availability of mifepristone will allow more women to make their own reproductive decisions. And it seems this is something they just can’t accept.

Congressman Cline is propagating the Republican lie that Democrats are shutting down the federal government in order to demand “free health care for illegal aliens.”

As The New York Times explains:

The Democrats’ budget proposal seeks to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire at the end of the year, and roll back Medicaid cuts in the tax cut and domestic policy law signed by President Trump in July. But the proposal does not provide free health care for unauthorized immigrants.

Unauthorized immigrants are largely barred from federally funded health care programs. They cannot buy health care plans on government exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act and therefore cannot receive any subsidies. They are also ineligible for Medicaid, Medicare and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The Democrats’ budget proposal does not make them eligible for these programs.

Thus Cline ignores the Democrats’ main demand: to maintain a tax credit that helps 22 million American citizens lower their health insurance costs.

Known as the enhanced premium tax credit, the subsidy has been used by millions of low- and middle-class households since it was authorized under the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021. Since then, spurred by the tax credit, the number of people who have enrolled in ACA marketplace health insurance plans has almost doubled, according to health care publication KFF.

…..

The cost of premiums for people who buy their insurance through the ACA marketplaces could more than double, rising from an average of $888 in 2025 to $1,904 in 2026, according to a Sept. 30 analysis by KFF. About 4 million people would likely drop their insurance coverage if the credit is allowed to expire because they wouldn’t be able to afford the costs, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated.

But it is set to expire at the end of 2025, and leading Democratic lawmakers are making a funding deal to keep the government open contingent on Republicans agreeing to extend the credit.

Congressman Cline: I think you are intelligent enough to know you are lying about this.

So please stop it.