Isn’t Obamacare repeal simply dead and gone? I never thought GOP leaders thought they could pull this off, just wanted to deceive their voters looking like they tried. Even what they actually hoped to achieve has eluded them. It’s this simple: GOP is saying “if we can’t cut taxes for the rich we just don’t give a shit anymore.”
This just in …
Trump-Russia investigators probe Jared Kushner-run digital operation
McClatchydc.com: “Investigators at the House and Senate Intelligence committees and the Justice Department are examining whether the Trump campaign’s digital operation – overseen by Jared Kushner – helped guide Russia’s sophisticated voter targeting and fake news attacks on Hillary Clinton in 2016.”
Russian government officials were reportedly overheard discussing Trump associates months before he declared his candidacy
In light of Donald Trump Jr.’s recent disclosures about his contact with a Russian lawyer, US investigators are taking a renewed look at conversations Russian government officials had about Trump associates before the presidential campaign, according to The Wall Street Journal.
New details emerge on Moscow real estate deal that led to the Trump-Kremlin alliance (Michael Isikoff, Yahoo News)
While in Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant in November 2013, Donald Trump entered into a formal business deal with Aras Agalarov, a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin, to construct a Trump Tower in the Russian capital. He later assigned his son, Donald Trump Jr., to oversee the project, according to Rob Goldstone, the British publicist who arranged the controversial 2016 meeting between the younger Trump and a Kremlin-linked lawyer.
Just sayin…
Kushner is the story, not Jr
“Now we see that community undermining this president for good reason. Still, I am disturbed they have such power…..my point is that a president who challenges our intelligence community gets screwed.”
craig,
but what if those intel guys you’re so worried about do their thing via the 25th amdmt? iow, provide the principals/congress with the necessary info. same result, just more by the book…. or shall we say by the constitution.
from salon article “The 25th Amendment at 50: Democratic bill lays groundwork to remove Trump from office in historic move”
Here is why everyone is suddenly talking about the 25th Amendment
This has been precipitated, of course, by a recent bill sponsored by Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, one that would create a congressional “oversight” commission which could declare President Donald Trump to be incapacitated under the 25th amendment and consequently remove him from office.
✔
@robreiner
I hear talk of invoking 25th amendment is making DT furious. Hey DT, 25th amend. 25th amend. 25th amend. #25thAmendmentNow
1:30 AM – 3 Jul 2017
Bink, lost wages emotional distress whiplash. I like it. Causation will be your biggest issue. Make sure to sue trump ?and the employer. Throw McMertle ? in, too.
bb, since scotus says corporations are people, perhaps Naruto should incorporate. guess that depends on age and residency criteria in that state.
your hope that child status is awarded brings up the question whether in that state a child can have copyright rights.
Global money laundering of stolen governmental largesse has two favorite ways to wander: Real Estate and Gambling. Move the proceeds off shore, exchange for “safe” currencies. Let those dollars, pounds, and Euros come home squeaky clean.
Trump & Kushner enterprise areas: Real Estate & Casinos
Sure they could be pure as the driven snow. Could be. See Christie about a bridge up for sale.
Naruto at the Oscars anxiously awaiting award
Craig,
Repealing Obamacare care will continue to be a republican priority. The house GOP will continue to push it. Ryan needs it to hang on to what little credibility he has with left with the reactionaries in his party,as well as to take some of the tarnish off his image as a brilliant policy man.
Sooner or later the Senate will pass something. Their voters did not send them to D.C. To govern they sent them there to get rid of Obamacare. They can take care of the tax breaks when they do tax reform.
It’s high time that the GOP is no longer able to get their way by stamping their feet, holding their breath, and changing the rules.
Any “card” can be overplayed. Same with the “GOD” card. Pretty soon even the most hide-ious hide-bound work-a-dayers are going to know exactly what they’re talking about when they holler “God”……and that it ain’t God.
Justice Dept Defies Court Order to produce Sessions Russian contacts
Holy Deep State. I enjoyed your comments, Craig, regarding spookville’s control. You have seen it first hand and you live in the swamp (DC). So, I do not doubt what you have seen with your own eyes did actually occur. The internets are rife with conspiracy blogs, however. I would like you to know that according to this recent blog post, President Carter was run by the Trilateral Commission and part of the Atlanticist clique. The Akamai Tree.
Who knew? And that Clinton worked for the CIA….
patd…I see Naruto had his ‘tooth’ whitened for the award ceremonies.
Can’t wait to see realDonaldTrumpjr. visiting hubby in jail
that will make for a great life-style blog post — what to wear on visiting day
what to tell the kids about dad’s absence
She’s a pig
He also put in blue contacts and had his hair bleached. He must be looking for a job at fox.
Ms Cracker, HA ! I want to see the enquirer cover.
BW, there’s a bar near Langley where they hang out and talk shop (unclassified, of course). haven’t been for a while. i’ll bet they’re buzzing these days. DT really has pissed them off
All the repubs need to do is pass the ACA and call it trumpcare. Then, tell the marching morons through the vast network of fake news outlets that that trumpcare is a vast improvement over Obamacare and good for “climate change”. Being one entire syllable shorter, it will save a lot of hot air.
I hear the new health plan will cover russian fever.
Ugh, i said i’d never participate here, again. Oh, well…
CC, i like the cynicism, it’s 9 months too late, but you know what they say. Point is, the GOP really does want to take away healthcare from poor people- they hate the idea of their “hard-earned” (sitting in an air-conditioned office typing on a keyboard) taxes benefitting brown people.
xrep, your comments from last night were hardly Pertinax to the discussion, womp womp.
Craig, the bar in Langley inspires some classic bar ‘pick-up’ lines.
SFB has worked very hard to antagonize the IC. I said it as he attacked them, it never pays to attack those who know about you. The important thing is with this gang all the IC needs to do is release what they have from foreign work and what other IC countries have. The SFB family has a lot of stuff out there to release.
Oh no PG who did your hair this morning? They don’t like you.
The Praetorian Guard was the paramilitary force responsible for protecting the Emperor of Rome, CC. Guess what they did when they didn’t like the boss.
In the analogies I’m making, perhaps counterintuitively, Republican Congressional Leadership is the PG, as they are attempting to defend and deflect attacks against this administration, but like the PG, they’ll eventually get tired and bored of doing so.
Can the Deep State hurry the fuck up, please?
speaking of craven Uriah Heep behavior – Grassley goes to the top of the heap
Democrats should be making sure every Trump apologist is repeated as often as possible
I think PG should stay in office until the end of his term and suffer all the humiliations that will entail.
Penceacostal is much more dangerous…to women (hard as that might be to believe)
I live in a rural area that is not wealthy. Many people I know will lose their health insurance if ACA is repealed. What American value, what are we winning when we say if you are not a big
financial success you don’t get health care. If that is the value then we really are the ugly Americans inside and out.
.
bw & xr, that fancy dressed Naruto strongly resembles flotus…. I think it’s the eyes. altho’ could be the chic colors reminiscent of recent couture
npr: Senate Health Care Bill Revisions Released In Attempt To Appease GOP Critics
The new bill makes some big changes, but also leaves some major parts of the original BCRA draft intact — it would still repeal the individual and employer mandates, it would still mean cuts to Medicaid spending, and it would still allow states to opt out of key parts of Obamacare.
[they list changes]
Health-care isn’t a right. It implies work for other people, and those people need to be compensated for their time and expertise. Republicans believe that heath-care benefits are an incentive employers provide to employees to work hard and stay loyal to the company- you know, keep those fires of industry burning in the engine of the Great American Machine, so it can roll over the rest of the world.
That’s capitalism for you- it makes enemies out of all of us. Unfortunately, communism just makes everybody poor.
bink, thanks for the clarification. does that make trump Caesar?
new republic:
Mitch McConnell is trying to make liars out of Republican opponents of his odious health care bill.
The Senate majority leader has sought to bridge the divide between his most and least conservative members by giving the former a major concession and the latter trivial consolation prizes, along with a vague promise that they’ll get their way in the future.
The updated Republican health care bill now includes a provision, spearheaded by Senator Ted Cruz, that would allow insurance companies to sell essentially unregulated health plans, creating a death spiral in the market for regulated plans that cover care for sick people. On the other side of the divide, the Republican senators that wanted the bill to be more fiscally generous get zero extra dollars for premium subsidies and zero extra dollars for Medicaid. McConnell has instead plussed up funds to stabilize markets and backstop plans that cover sick people. Insurance company money, in other words.
Given everything that wavering senators like Nevada’s Dean Heller said about the original draft of the bill—that it was unsupportable unless McConnell dialed back the Medicaid cuts—they should continue to oppose the revised version. McConnell’s final pitch to them, according to The Washington Post, is that the “bill’s deepest Medicaid cuts are far into the future, and they’ll never go into effect anyway.”
The cynicism here is breathtaking. Any senator who flips to yes on the basis of this promise is taking all the risks with their constituents’ lives that they claimed to oppose, and insulting those constituents’ intelligence on top of it. As we’ve seen in recent years with budget sequestration, Congress doesn’t automatically undo scheduled spending cuts when deadlines come due. The proposition is that the most vulnerable citizens should take a flyer on the hope that the least honest governing party in memory will take another vote at some point in the future to spare them, after voting to sacrifice them in the here and now.
i doubt they’ll get enough votes to hold a vote
the atlantic:
What’s Inside Mitch McConnell’s Latest Health-Care Proposal
The revised Senate bill would keep more of Obamacare’s taxes while allowing insurers to wiggle out of its regulations. Will Republicans go for it?
Healthcare is a human right. In America we have had primarily employer based health insurance which employers now want to end.
plan b
(CNN)With the prospects for passing the current Senate Republican health care bill still in jeopardy, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, are working with their GOP colleagues on an alternative approach to replacing Obamacare: keeping much of the federal taxes in place and sending that money to the states to control.
“Here is what will happen,” Graham said in an exclusive interview with CNN’s Kate Bolduan. “If you like Obamacare, you can re-impose the mandates at the state level. You can repair Obamacare if you think it needs to be repaired. You can replace it if you think it needs to be replaced. It’ll be up to the governors. They’ve got a better handle on it than any bureaucrat in Washington.”
Cassidy, who is a physician, explained that the plan would keep popular protections under Obamacare, including a ban on denying coverage for pre-existing conditions.
“The essential health benefits will still be there. We can’t repeal those as part of the process and so you’d still have the protection. This perfectly fulfills the Jimmy Kimmel test,” Cassidy explained, referring to the exchange he had earlier this year with Kimmel after the late night host made an emotional plea about protecting people with pre-existing conditions like his newborn son, who was born with congenital heart disease.
Graham and Cassidy, who have been working closely with former Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, argue that one of the main reasons that Republicans are having such a hard time agreeing is because they are working from the Obamacare template — particularly federal control of health insurance.
“The reason we can’t pass a bill is because we are trying to do it in Washington, so stop it,” Santorum, a CNN contributor, told CNN. Both senators agree that the key to making their plan work, is giving states flexibility. “A blue state can do a blue thing, a red state a red thing,” Cassidy said. “My state is going to repeal and replace Obamacare with something that gives power to the patient, but that starts with us giving power to the states.”
[….]
Graham told CNN that he believes their new idea would address the problems found in the original bill.
First, it would maintain taxes on wealthy Americans put in place by Obamacare, taxes intended to help pay for insurance subsidies. That revenue, which they estimate to be about $500 billion, would be sent to the states.They are still waiting to see a score from the Congressional Budget Office to confirm that figure.
“We’re leaving in place the taxes on the wealthy, taking that money and giving it back to the governors to come up with better healthcare,” Graham said.
you can be sure that mcconnell has included big subsidies for the insurance companies in his trumpcare reveal.
Healthcare is about insurance. It is a ‘right’ for us to keep getting screwed-over. Take the most natural of things and make money off of it…create more sick humans.
It just means more people will leave Wyoming and wherever the idiot Ban Sasse is from
They will all move to Oregon
Nah, like i said the other day, it makes him Didius Julianus.
Julius Caesar was a genius, a field general, and a statesman- Trump’s a hustler, a puppet, and a stooge. I’d never insult the memory of the Great Kaiser by comparing him to that fat, orange dullard.
I still think it will be president ryan. pence can’t wipe-off the manafort dirt and bill moyers has been making the case against pence for some time.
“Healthcare is a human right”
It’s obviously not or everyone would already have it.
Ok, whatever- peace.
President Ryan yikes
I say grin and bear it with PG
Just because you aren’t accorded the right doesn’t make it not one
It makes a human right worth fighting for
I got a new one for my birthday
Bink it’s good we celebrate Julius Caesar today. It’s his birthday, 100 BC
.
KGC you’re right! If they give this to the states, first chance I get I’m outta Texas. And I can guarantee you I’m not moving to Oklahoma or Kansas.
This should be the time when Dems hold townhalls all over the country to talk about fixing the current problems with the ACA and moving toward a single payer. They have to capitalize on the gooper’s failure to understand their own constituency.
Now would also be a good time to point out, a lot, that whatever happens, it won’t be close to what Trump promised and that he would rather people have nothing then keep the ACA.
What kind of a doctor was Tom Price – he’s an orthopedic surgeon possibly (for the most part) among the biggest assholes on earth
I think it is a job requirement
Craig
Not all that familiar with the Intelligence types but I am on the Civil Service side. They always struck me as an episode of “Yes Minister” where the politicians just get in the way of getting the job done. Sure there is waste & no desire to get the budget cut, but at the same time dedication to the safe running of the nation.
I suspect that Intelligence may be the same. They have more in common with their global counterparts (at least with those among the long standing allies) and don’t like politicians getting in the way of running the world safely.
Might as well give Will & Julie their due:
craig & Jamie, have a hunch that intel folk will convince mattis & co time is ripe for an intervention-type “come to jesus meeting” and strongly encourage the sick cic it’s best to retire while he still has his knee caps and can keep his tower, mal-a-ego, and spend his golden years golfing in new jersey.
“so long, suckers, i’m announcing my voluntary resignation to spend more time with family while I’ve still got it” sounds so much better to a monomaniacal egotist than forced retirement, judgement of incompetence and/or coup d’état
from wapo’s “Live on stage, Joe and Mika happily dish about their complex relationship — with the president”
“It’s like when we went over to the White House, Donald said, ‘Hey, is this your first time in the Oval Office?” Scarborough relayed. “Mika said no. He said, when was your first time? Mika said, when I was nine.” (Brzezinski’s father was a diplomat and President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser). The president then said, according to Scarborough, “But, Joe, I guess this is your first time,” at which point the former Republican congressman reminded the president that he was a former congressman and had been in the Oval Office plenty.
McConnell Care Health Lite- the appearance of care
Facade Insurance from the people who think if you are poor should just die of shame anyway
No matter where the courts go with our cousin Naruto, the issue of the trumpfs will hang on to our lives.
heart warming story from pbs newshour:
JUDY WOODRUFF: And now to a NewsHour shares, something that caught our eye, that might be of interest to you, too.
Navy teams around the globe are often called in to assist in rescue efforts. But, this week, one maritime mission in the Indian Ocean helped a unique creature in need.
The NewsHour’s Julia Griffin explains.
JULIA GRIFFIN: It was a routine patrol for a Sri Lankan naval team Tuesday morning, when they spotted something unusual bobbing among the ocean waves, not a bird or a boat, but rather a fully grown Asian elephant, struggling to stay afloat nearly 10 miles offshore.
Elephants are some of the best swimmers of land mammals, thanks to buoyant bodies and trunks that can be used as snorkels, but this pachyderm appeared fatigued and distressed.
Officials believe the animal had been trying to cross the Kokkilai Lagoon off the country’s northeast coast when it was swept out to sea. Deciding to intervene, the Navy and Department of Wildlife dispatched additional teams to the area, initiating a mammoth-sized rescue effort.
The divers plunged into the salty water to soothe the elephant and loop a tow rope around its body. Over the next 12 hours, they gently towed Jumbo, as it was affectionately dubbed, back to the Sri Lankan coast. And as day turned to night, rescue teams reached their destination, releasing Jumbo exhausted but alive into the shallow water.
For the PBS NewsHour, I’m Julia Griffin.
JUDY WOODRUFF: What a happy ending. And who knew that elephants could swim?