Author: Pogo

By Pogo, a Trail Mix Contributor

Well, here we are, playing out this one act play that has been panned so often yet again as the Republican congress tries to kill Obamacare, throw 50 or so million people off the healthcare rolls and cut Medicaid spending way back – all at the expense of the poor and the medical providers who provide care for them.

As Wapo reports:

A final GOP effort to dismantle the Affordable Care Act burst into view this week in the Senate, where leaders began pressuring rank-and-file Republicans with the hope of voting on the package by the end of the month.

The renewed push comes nearly two months after the last attempt to overhaul the law known as Obamacare failed in a dramatic, early-morning vote, dealing a substantial defeat to President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and prompting many to assume that the effort was dead.

The latest proposal would give states control over billions in federal health-care spending, repeal the law’s key mandates and enact deep cuts to Medicaid, the federally funded insurance program for the poor, elderly and disabled. It would slash health-care spending more deeply and would probably cover fewer people than the July bill — which failed because of concerns over those details.

The appearance of a new measure reflected just how damaging Republicans consider their inability to make good on a key campaign promise of the past seven years: to repeal and replace President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement.

***

With Democrats united firmly against the bill, Senate GOP leaders can afford to lose only two of 52 Republican votes, enabling them to pass the measure with a tiebreaking vote from Pence. They lost three in the July vote: Sens. John McCain (Ariz.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine).

None of those three committed to voting for the bill Monday, expressing reservations if not outright opposition.

***

The proposal would slash health-care spending more deeply and would probably cover fewer people than the July bill, which failed precisely because of such concerns. Under the new bill, starting in 2021, the federal government would lump together all the money it spends on subsidies distributed through the ACA marketplaces and expanded Medicaid programs covering poor, childless adults who earn up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level.

This approach would generally result in less money for states that expanded Medicaid under the ACA and more money for states that didn’t. That’s because it would redistribute the money allotted to the 30 states that opted to expand Medicaid and spread it out among all 50 states.

OK, it’s time for the 3 Republican Senators who showed the LAST time that they actually have a head, a heart and a spine to vote no again and time for those senators who said they would vote no the last time but caved to find theirs.

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Julia Jacobo posted this over on ABC news Saturday.

The rest of the 2017 hurricane season will be ‘active’ with more storms to come, NOAA meteorologist says

Meteorologists predicted the 2017 hurricane season to be a busy one, and the activity may continue in the coming months, Dr. Gerry Bell, lead seasonal hurricane forecaster for NOAA, told ABC News.

“We certainly expect more storms to come,” Bell said.

The official hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, but the most active months are August, September and October, Bell said.

“We are right in the heart of an active season right now,” he said.

And the Atlantic is 1-2 degrees warmer than average (fake news? you be the judge). As the old salts say, batten down the hatches – it looks like it might be rough one.

What with Hurricane Jose doing pirouettes in the Atlantic (Did they predict that?  I don’t think so.) we could be in for another couple months of wait and see, hope and pray, and all that jazz.

I’d suggest stocking up on rum – it’s kinda traditional for the Caribbean and points south.

By Pogo, a Trail Mix Contributor

In his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee this week, Attorney General Beauregard Sessions went all suth’un on the Senators.

WaPo reports:

Sessions opened his testimony to the panel with a fiery assertion that he never had any conversations with Russians about “any type of interference” in the 2016 presidential election.

“The suggestion that I participated in any collusion … is an appalling and detestable lie,” Sessions said.

***

“If any brief interaction occurred in passing with the Russian ambassador during that reception, I do not remember it,” Sessions said. If he did have a conversation with the ambassador, it was “certainly nothing improper.”

Why, suh, th’ mere suggestion that I would do such a dishonorable thing is an insult to me and to mah family name.  Why, in a different time I would call you out and challenge you to a duel.

(So if he can’t remember having a conversation with Sergei, how can he say whether that conversation could or could not be improper?  But I digress).

He went on to say things like:

“I am not able to discuss with you or confirm or deny the nature of private conversations that I may have had with the president on this subject or others,” Sessions said.

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) pressed Sessions to explain how he could decline to answer questions about his talks with the president without the White House asserting executive privilege.

“I am protecting the right of the president to assert it if he chooses, and there may be other privileges that apply,’’ answered Sessions. “At this point I believe it’s premature for me to deny the president a full and intelligent choice about executive privilege.’’

And this, ladies and gentlemen is gobbledygook from the Attorney General of the United States.  So exactly WHY did he go before the Senate Intelligence Committee again?   Not to put too fine a pint on it, but I’d say your continued engagement as Mad Magazine’s image person is secure.

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By Pogo, a Trail Mix Contributor

Yesterday on WaPo, Joel Goldstein published an article entitled Trump opponents have rediscovered the 25th Amendment. Here is what you should know about it. Although it is not really much of a source for travelling, hopefully, down that road it is worth the read, particularly this section:

Section 4: The amendment empowers the vice president and Cabinet to declare a president incapacitated

The section that some have recently discussed addresses the problem of a president who is unable or unwilling to acknowledge his or her inability “to discharge the powers and duties” of the presidency.

Under current law, the vice president and a majority of “the principal officers of the executive departments” — which the legislative history makes clear are essentially the Cabinet officers listed in the line of presidential succession — may declare the president incapacitated by a written notice to the speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate. At that point, the vice president automatically takes over presidential powers and duties as acting president.

While it offers little hope of seeing the so-called President kicked out in the foreseeable future, one can hope, right?

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By Pogo, a Trail Mix Contributor

So the so-called president asked the DIRECTOR of the FBI to let the Flynn investigation go. Hmmm, would that constitute obstruction of justice … particularly if he fires the DIRECTOR of the FBI when he didn’t let it go?

And really, as the so-called president has to be thinking, “What the hell is a MemCon anyway?” And what the hell, who knew Comey kept notes?

 

Heheheheh. Drip, drip, drip.
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