I’m going to bed and scheduling this open thread for midnight, when the Senate might vote on the so-called “skinny repeal” bill. I’ll leave it to our night owls and early risers to report and react.
User-Supported News Commentary Hosted by Craig Crawford
The final count is going on now.
MURKOWSKI NO
McCain voted NO
Collins NO
Affirmative: 49
Negative: 51
McCain came through. Amazing!!
Good Night all
Huzzah!
Hi Mortonie
Good to see you comment.
excerpt from the guardian:
McCain, a six-term senator who was his party’s 2008 presidential candidate against Barack Obama, told reporters to “wait for the show” as he arrived for the vote in the Senate chamber.
Once on the Senate floor, McCain was lobbied by the vice-president, Mike Pence, who was there to preside in case of a tie, for over 20 minutes. The two went back and forth and occasionally disappeared from the chamber altogether.
[…]
Republicans could tell that the mood was changing in the Senate as the vote approached. “You could see, honestly, the body language in the entire chamber change the last two hours,” David Perdue of Georgia told the Guardian. “You guys were up there, you could see it. One side was kind of ebullient and talking, and the other side was very subdued, and all of a sudden, it began to change. And I think it was an instinctive reaction to maybe, ‘This thing’s not going to pass tonight.’ And nobody knew for sure until you saw three votes.”
“This is what democracy is,” Perdue said. “It’s messy.”
“This isn’t about wins and losses. I actually respect Chuck Schumer’s comments tonight. He admitted Obamacare’s broken, we’ve got to fix it.
“I think there’s a mood right now in the Senate, from McCain’s comments the other day to Schumer’s comments tonight, I think there’s a growing sense that, ‘Let’s get this done.’”
The first-term Georgia Republican cast no blame on McCain. “I don’t think he turned on anybody,” said Perdue. “I think he voted his conscience. He loves America.”
Not all Republicans were so sanguine.
An emotional Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, declared immediately after the vote on the Senate floor. “This is clearly a disappointing moment … So yes, this is a disappointment. A disappointment indeed.” He added: “Our only regret tonight is that we didn’t achieve what we had hoped to accomplish. I think the American people are going to regret that we couldn’t find a better way forward.”
Of course now my cynical little self is considering that all of the above was political theater and that neither the Speaker or the Leader wanted this to pass. How to get it done without upsetting the base? Go through all the procedural motions and get three senators who wouldn’t be hurt by the vote and send the Repeal down in dramatic flames.
critterville flexes its muscles on sanctions bill
house 419 – 3
senate 98 – 2
and a big fickle finger of fate to you, twit
LOLOLOLOLOLOL.
I wonder if McMertle will ask McCain for the price of the plane ticket to be reimbursed?
Love Jamie’s theater review 😉
Senator Murkowski is the one with the biggest target pinned to her. She’s been through nasty stuff before but this vote + the tweeting wrath of an unstable President ramping up his fellow unstables could enter scaryville.
#45 does not like strong women. Or defiant women. Or women at all. Except for Ivanka. Strange but true tales from the darkside.
They cobbled it together in secret. They voted on it under cover of darkness.
And yet, the sunlight smoked those stinkin’ vampires.
Cheers! to McCain and any of the others who had the common decency not to pull the rug out from under us to let us be swallowed by a sinkhole.
Now it’s time for Congressmen and the insurance companies who own them to buddy up to the fact that they can’t keep raising premiums and reducing coverage so the 1% can buy a second boat and a third summer house.
I do hope Amazon figures out a way to get into the market to drive costs down. I know it’s probably only tele-doc & not for everything, but if they aren’t gonna let us have single payer, they need to let Bezos innovate the system.
I still say single payer, now!
cbs had a good tag line this morning for the mooch reince story
“the fight house”
business insider:
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was moved to near tears while speaking about Sen. John McCain early Friday morning after the Republican “skinny repeal” of Obamacare failed on the Senate floor.
Schumer echoed the sentiments of Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, who earlier declared that it was time for lawmakers to “move on” from efforts to repeal the existing law, officially known as the Affordable Care Act. Schumer choked up as he turned his attention to McCain, who was recently diagnosed with brain cancer.
“And let’s turn the page in another way. All of us were so inspired by the speech and the life of the senator from Arizona,” Schumer said. “And he asked us to go back to regular order; to bring back the Senate that some of us who’ve been here a while remember.”
“Maybe this can be a moment where we start doing that,” he said.
will they return to regular order? any kind of order, regular or irregular?
bloomberg editorial board:
Trump’s Twitter Habit Destabilizes the World
For humanity’s sake, delete your account.
Like the rage of Achilles, Donald Trump’s tweets are sudden, explosive and freighted with tragedy. Yesterday brought the most foreboding yet. “After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow……”
And then: nothing. For a full nine minutes, the world was left to ponder what those ominous six periods might portend. “At the Pentagon,” reports BuzzFeed, the tweet “raised fears that the president was getting ready to announce strikes on North Korea or some other military action.”
[….it goes on from there in same vein….]
For a full nine minutes, the world was left to ponder
new contest to come up with best idea of what was happening during those fateful 9 minutes.
my first guess: he had pressing business to attend to on his golden throne that entailed a lot of “paper” work
McCain held a middle finger up to the nose of SFB. The bill was bogus, so killing it was a good thing. Making it better was getting a dig in on SFB as payback for the bad mouthing he did on McCain.
rarely would I quote Krauthammer, but this time he’s spot on:
Trump relishes such a cat-and-mouse game and, by playing it so openly, reveals a deeply repellent vindictiveness in the service of a pathological need to display dominance.
Dominance is his game. Doesn’t matter if you backed him, as did Chris Christie, cast out months ago. Or if you opposed him, as did Mitt Romney, before whom Trump ostentatiously dangled the State Department, only to snatch it away, leaving Romney looking the foolish supplicant.
[declaring war or martial law is well within the possibility of what Krauthammer describes as the twit’s “deeply repellent vindictiveness in the service of a pathological need to display dominance”]
Will Trumpcare cover a sprained neck? (Asking for a friend)
Jamie, thanks for the late night vote tallying.
McCain redeems his Monday vote, maybe even makes up for giving us Palin?
I never did think GOP leaders truly wanted to repeal Obamacare and own the aftermath:
The GOP’s Big Lie To Its Own Base
What Trumpcare?
next step in their playbook:
McConnell blames Democrats after crucial health care loss
peggy noonan wsj:
Trump Is Woody Allen Without the Humor
Half his tweets show utter weakness. They are plaintive, shrill little cries, usually just after dawn
The president’s primary problem as a leader is not that he is impetuous, brash or naive. It’s not that he is inexperienced, crude, an outsider. It is that he is weak and sniveling. It is that he undermines himself almost daily by ignoring traditional norms and forms of American masculinity.
He’s not strong and self-controlled, not cool and tough, not low-key and determined; he’s whiny, weepy and self-pitying. He throws himself, sobbing, on the body politic. He’s a drama queen.
[….she continues relentlessly….]
Greetings from the desert. It was almost midnight here in the west when the show was completed with speeches by McConnell and Schumer. It was, indeed, relief, not celebration, to turn in knowing that Americans with pre-existing medical conditions, seniors in long-term care, young adults under 26, rural community clinics, and millions of others would not lose their health insurance. One outcome of this debacle is that more Americans than ever now know about health insurance and health care. Let’s keep the issue alive by pushing for Medicare For All.
I may be giving him too much credit but in retrospect I believe McCain’s gambit in the Monday vote was an attempt to return the Congress to what he plead for in his speech to the Senate – regular order. I hope I’m right. I think he longs for the days when he and Ted Kennedy and their senior colleagues were at the tops of their parties and actually worked together to get legislation passed – you know, before the GinGrinch revolution. (Or I may just be viewing the past through rose colored glasses).
The Worst Is Yet To Come
Scaramucci seems like a pleasant fellow.
I am glad McCain came forward earlier and said he was discussing the vote with his governor. As it should be. State abuse by the feds can really set the local economies into a tailspin. All those recent graduates of the tech and nursing schools…suddenly forced out-of-jobs.
KGC…I am so biased for my state Senator, Heinrich. Vid on grid protection. Here are his current committee assignments.
la times; McCain’s surprise vote doomed GOP healthcare bill, but did it open the door for Senate bipartisanship?
[….good play by play article…. it concludes with this from sen Cassidy…]
“Nothing’s ever accomplished by a pessimist, so maybe this is what had to happen for there to be bipartisanship. … So we’ll see.”
Yesterday morning, after threats to Alaskan Senators the night before? zinke flys over Organ Mountain/Desert Peak monument area.
zinke is up north today and on Saturday scheduled to horseback ride with NM democratic Senators Udall and Heinrich…location not disclosed, no press. zinke is as secretive as the rest of the trumpence cabinet.
how odd that the enactment and then the survival of the affordable care act were dependent upon two senators both with the same diagnosis, brain cancer, but who were/are from different political parties, backgrounds and ideologies.
McConnell can blame democrats if he so chooses. The fact is he had the votes and he couldn’t deliver. Blaming democrats is a bit like saying, I’m not very good at my job, but it’s someone else’s fault.
Make no mistake about it, this was never about health care. It was a pathetic attempt to tarnish the legacy of a Black president. It was from the beginning and continued to be so until the bitter end. The health and welfare of countless millions was held hostage to racism. To draw any other conclusion would be to deny reality.
Ok, I’m with Bob Schiefer on this one, On CBS this morning he said he was no longer saying “I’ve never seen anything like this” because young people have turned it into a drinking game and he doesn’t want to add to the drunken debauchery . Mean while on the same segment Norah and Gail were discussing self fellatio and Charlie was setting there with his grandfather smile.
Can these folks get any worse? the obvious answer,” just wait around you ain’t seen nothin’ yet”.
BTW I rarely agree with Noonan but this time she is spot on.
Jack
McCain did himself no favors with his vote to proceed to debate. The reaction to that vote was almost universally negative. I think he knew it. His vote yesterday may have been as much about legacy as anything. The Maverick rides again blah,blah,blah. Whatever the reason,I’m glad he took the vote. Big middle finger to both Mitch and Trump.
I thought I would feel light and fluffy after reading the news that ACA repeal went down early this morning. But I don’t. I feel kind of wrung out, which surprises me because I’ve taken a very pragmatic approach to all of this. What was going to happen was going to happen. I wrote my emails to my senators and diligently did all the things I felt I could do in the ways that worked best for me.
Now it’s done. No repeal. And maybe the possibility that congress can work on fixing the things that don’t work on the ACA.
For me, in this moment, the result of this vote is that I don’t have to worry about going bankrupt if my cancer comes back. I should be dancing. But I’m not. At least not today.
Maybe tomorrow.
When folks like Noonan and Kruathammer turn on you, you know you are in real trouble.?
bw, zinke stomping around out there is an echo of insensitivities from last century vis a vis anything to do with native americans.
all long these lines, I recommend new book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI”, by David Grann. here’s review at Cherokee one feather
jace, without that vote to proceed I don’t think they could now be in a position to proceed to regular order in order to fix what both sides agree need to be fixed in aca.
On the bright side for the GOP, they can still campaign on repealing Obamacare in 2018. No doubt it will boost fund raising.
Patd,
If there had ever been a willingness on the part of republicans to fix the ACA it would have been done by now. A new and improved ACA would be an admission that Obama had the right idea. That’s simply never going to happen.
I don’t think the goopers will be campaigning on health care or much of anything else
they have revealed themselves as worthless – they can only obstruct not govern
I hope the PG loyalists now see that he is not good at business – he has a lot of money so he looks like a success but he is responsible for none of it and he has more the most part made his money out of the pockets of American tax payers
Ivanka is a fraud a vocal fry and so shallow she could be the mississippi river
I agree with Jace saying that if the Reactionaries had any good ideas on improving ACA they would have to admit Obama was on to something good for the American people and they don’t have any good ideas. Paraphrasing Jace.
the guardian:
The tagline of Michael Moore’s new one-man stage production – “Can a Broadway show bring down a sitting president?” – could be mistaken for the worst kind of New York City navel-gazing.
[….]
On Friday, Moore’s first Broadway show, The Terms of My Surrender, will open for a 12-week run at the 1,018-seat Belasco Theater. It is the latest entry in a large and growing body of theater to grapple with life under Trump, from a controversial production of Julius Caesar earlier this summer to a current Broadway adaptation of 1984, which became a bestseller after Trump’s inauguration.
“The rush is on,” wrote the Washington Post theater critic Peter Marks, “to vent onstage about Trump.”
There are signs, however, that Moore, the provocateur-auteur behind the critically acclaimed documentaries Roger and Me and Bowling for Columbine, intends to do more than just vent. Moore is not saying yet what his latest performance will entail, but he seems serious about its stated goal of bringing down the president.
“We have to form an army of citizens and come at him like a swarm of bees,” Moore said on the Stephen Colbert show Wednesday. “I suggested a few months ago that we have an army of satire, because I think the way to bring him down is with satire. His thin skin is so thin, all we need is like a thousand or a million little comedy shivs – non-violent, don’t hurt him – but just under his skin, because he can’t take being laughed at.”
“To say it’s just about Trump would simplify it,” Moore said of his new work in a separate interview with the New York Times. “I think people will find themselves laughing one minute and wanting to go look for some pitchforks and torches the next.’
[….]
“You have to come see the show,” said Moore, who is also working on a Trump documentary called Fahrenheit 11/9. “I will say this: I refuse to live in a country where Donald Trump is president, and I’m not leaving. So something’s got to change.”
“What I want to do is I want to fucking kill all the leakers and I want to get the President’s agenda on track so we can succeed for the American people.”
https://www.vox.com/2017/7/27/16053278/scaramucci-anthony-new-yorker
United States of Turkey! Gobble gobble.
Did you know that Turkey is a major grower of tomatoes?
bink, thanks for posting that vox link. also on it was this possible bombshell which, if not a dud he concocted for more attention, may backfire on the mooch since the info is apt to confirm they’ve found evidence of criminal behavior instead of just hint at it.
Scaramucci confused Lizza by suggesting he had damaging information about President Trump’s White House aides. “O.K., the Mooch showed up a week ago … This is going to get cleaned up very shortly, O.K.? Because I nailed these guys. I’ve got digital fingerprints on everything they’ve done through the F.B.I. and the fucking Department of Justice.”
here goes another Benghazarama
from cnbc: House Judiciary Committee Republicans on Thursday called for a new special counsel — to investigate Hillary Clinton, James Comey and Loretta Lynch.
“The fucking Department of Justice”
We’ve handed our government to a literal organized crime syndicate, and they act like it. Joe Pesci, Mooch is stealing your schtick.
North Korea launched missile, may have landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone http://reut.rs/2v6viN5
~Great~
Kim & Trump are going to try to out-crazy each other and it doesn’t matter which one wins, because everyone else loses.
I didn’t think I could like anyone in Trumpco less than BananaNazi, but mini-the-moocher is moving up on my sh/+ list very quickly.
SNL character conversion chart:
BananaNazi = The Grim Reaper
(Prediction) mini-the-moocher = The Devil, who signs off by blowing the kiss of death
The talk of the vote should be “They did not sit down, they persisted. And a guy joined them.”
I’m going to peacefully protest our criminal puppet-regime in public, tonight. Sign ideas welcome. Something tactful- nothing vulgar, sexual, or profane. TIA!
BB – That’s a good tag line!
Three sensible Republicans with balls, and two were women.
How difficult, really, would it be to expand Medicare? It seems like they could have that in place by 2020. Leave ACA, with all of its problems, in place for two years…but stop the insurance and pharmaceutical companies from price gouging.
Those over a certain income would still need supplemental insurance though, just like folks over 65 do now, but it would be a step in the right direction…for everyone but the folks at the insurance company making a killing on high-priced, worthless policies.
bink, how about a simple but elegant “we the people”
What I want to do is I want to fucking kill all the leakers . . . .
I’m on a death watch for the entire administration, its aides, its maids, and its doormen. It’ll be another night of the long knives. Of course, if he is going to do the job well, Smooch-Of-Death will have to murder Mr Big, too. So, the answers to the important questions are : Smooch, in the Oval Office, with the Letter Opener.
How can one not love this guy ?
the atlantic:
…..the episode seems to help clarify McCain’s status as he reaches the twilight of a long Senate career. John McCain is not, despite some of the most fevered denunciations, a man without principle. Under intense pressure Thursday night and into Friday morning, he refused to budge. But his principles are unusual—he values process, decorum, and Senate traditions to a degree that many observers find strange—and anyone who expects him to be a hero for their own ideological cause is likely to be disappointed.
[….]
….the centrality of process to McCain’s choices. The traditions of the Senate can seem not only inscrutable but pointless to outsiders. Obeisance to them can sometimes make one look like a maverick, as it did Friday, or like a sheep, as it did on Tuesday. Certainly, it can seem silly to prioritize them over policy outcomes or party goals. But it is an ethos, and it’s one to which John McCain stayed true this week.
Ms Dallas, the ripuplicans don’t even want to keep Social Security. They will certainly oppose expanding Medicare – to their dying breaths.
I can’t wait for the deadbeat to start launching radioactive tweet storms against that miserable weakling mcconnell.
From the Dugout of Dread I felt two days ago, my spirit is rising to the giddy Heights of Happiness. As Churchill might write, we now stride upon the sunny uplands.
In other news, putin is kicking out all the US dips.
What happens when a wiffle ball player decides to play hard ball?
Bink
I think your sign should thank Jessica Reznicek and Ruby Montoya
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2017/07/24/dakota-access-protesters-claim-responsibility-pipeline-sabotage/504136001/
Bink, I’d love to help you with a sign idea, but by excluding anything vulgar, sexual, or profane, I’m coming up empty.
That’s what you get for taking orders from Pussy G
Headline : Two Gals & Terminal Cancer Patient Stomp On Mitch & DT.
Suggestion for Mr Bink’s sign :
Isaiah 3:15
.
too long for Bink’s sign but pretty funny
I think this might be the sign for Bink
Or, Micah 2:3
Bink
Your dog could be your sign
Obama credits supporters for thwarting health care repeal http://nbcnews.to/2w6RXWu
obama should have also credited governors, hospitals and other med folk in that statement.
The Atlantic is overthinking McCain’s motives in casting the pivotal ‘no’ vote. Quite simply, for that old naval officer, it was the right thing to do.
We all got to enjoy an implosion in the Senate during the wee hours, and an filthy explosion in the WH yesterday. With trump’s communications director talking about bannon’s auto-fellatio, the xtian right must be getting ulcers and the vapors. For them such talk is worse than Smooch-Of-Death threatening to kill conway, et al.
Anywhat, Smooch-O-D brings new meaning to the assertion that bannon is self-serving.
Mr Flatus,
Do you think that frum understands the concept of the right thing to do as anything other than whatever works ?
I have my doubts.
my suggestion for snl’s scaramoucci – rosie perez (sans Hispanic accent and the right hair style)
she can play toughness, impart that special regional persona, speak newyorkese just like tony and she would be a creditable competitor with the other oval office characters for trump’s affections. also would infuriate dt with another female playing his male staffer
she is a multi-talented actress dancer director, did the view and even says her political piece once in awhile as seen in this 2010 vid
If only Smooch-O’-Death would make a fellatio crack about General Mattis. THAT would make for great tv.
re that latest north Korean test flying over japan or within Japanese waters, does japan have capability of reciprocating?
x-r, you’re on fire today. Self-serving – LMAO.
patd, Rosie’s an inspired suggestion, but I’m betting it’s Taran Killam or Bobby Monahan. Taran kinda looks like mooch and Bobby could do a mean Joe Pesci. And Beck Bennett could probably do one. I don’t think any of the females on the case are cut out for it, but I could be wrong – until I saw her do it I never would have thought that Melissa could do Spicey like she did.
Priebus is out: Trump just said on Twitter he’s replaced Chief of Staff Reince Priebus with his head of Homeland Security John Kelly.
Bye, bye Reince, we hardly knew ya. (Damn, Kelly will prolly be a competent Chief of Staff). I wonder if the punkin will try to put Ruuuuddeeee in the DHS slot.
prince rebus can now get a $10M!LL!ON contract for his tell-all book, and another $10M!LL!ON for the movie rights.
Whatcha think, Poobah? I doubt that Mooch will do that “pistols at ten paces or go outside to the Rose Garden and settle this like men” schtick with Kelly.
my guess is gov who ate nj gets homeland
if Kelly didn’t insist Mooch report to him instead of the president he’s an idiot
You are right about that, Poobah. I bet he’d call him “son” in derision at some point.
OK, patd, now you’re really scaring me.
Pogo – Taran & Bibby left SNL.
In light of that friggin’ jag joining Trumpco, maybe we should start talkin’ like wiseguys & usin’ our Vegas mobster names, again.
Kelly was on a Sunday show dishing it pretty deep awile back. I don’t trust him.
Damn, blue, I don’t keep up.
I think painting Trump as the abusive boss will resonate with a lot of Trump voters
well not really painting revealing
The Mooch’s wife has dumped him after 3 years of marriage because she hates Trump … along with other non disclosed reasons though I find his phallic poses highly suspect.
I mean really. Are we in a soap opera, a gangsta movie, or a documentary on rise of a dictator?
Mooch’s ex-to-be’s last name is Ball.
One more than he has.
What Trump doesn’t get: New chairs don’t keep the roof from caving in.
WTF? drumpf’s approval at Gallup has gone up 3 points this week. WTF are they surveying?
Jamie, I’m guessing mooch took the job in DC to get away from the wife (a chickenshit move, btw) – you know this has had to have been coming and hating drumpf is an easy explanation for her – other than the obvious, that he’s become a flaming ash hole.
Price gouging, colluding to fix prices…Congress could fix (neuter) the greedy insurance & pharmaceutical companies if they wanted.
The mooch’s marriage problems are just another lovely distraction while Trump palms cards.
‘Newsies’ asking each other whether or not ripoffs and Dems can now work together. Hell, rippers can’t even work with each other.
nawaz sharif is out as prime minister of Pakistan. I hope that the next guy is friendlier to us.
Meanwhile in the West Wing tonight…..
Ha! Good one, Corey!
Epitaph for Skinny Repeal:
You Can Never Be To Rich Or Too Skinny
Good Riddance
Glad to see Kelly moved to chief of staff, He should make a good one. His Black and white view of the world may have worked fine as a Marine but it sucked when dealing with domestic issues in home land security. It should be just fine as CofS. Notice he didn’t stop the leaks out of his department either.
Jack
He’s got the whole world in his hands.
And they are very small.
Christi and Rudy a DHS would be non starters for dems, probably some republicans as well.
Glad to see Prebius gone, and leaving with a lot of the polish knocked off the turd.
Last meeting between Prebius and the Mooch.
Note to Reince: cancel all fishing trips!
Must be a deck of small cards.
approval at Gallup has gone up 3 points this week. WTF are they surveying?
sympathy votes, pogo.
all these generals (even tho ret.) in wh and agencies, not too long or too hard to march in martial law and or military coup or install dear leader as emperor
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POSTED Jul 28, 2017