Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

Daily Mail with a super-gossipy piece about a new book on Steve Bannon. Supposedly details how Chris Christie and Paul Manafort fell out with Trump among other items

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4704854/Trump-fired-Chris-Christie-row-cellphone-germs.html

Christie certainly seems to not really wanna help out his Don anymore.

http://time.com/4861843/chris-christie-donald-trump-jr-russia-meeting/

[Dr. Strangelove]

Ron Johnson accuses Mitch McConnell of a "significant breach of trust" and of being "duplicitous" on Medicaid. McConnell very much needs Johnson's vote.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/ron-johnson-accuses-mcconnell-of-significant-breach-of-trust/article/2008883

Edit: To follow up on that, this is from 3 weeks ago when the initial bill failed. The RNC abandoned Ron Johnson during the campaign and expected him to lose. Now he may hold a grudge and intends to annoy leadership as much as possible for the next 6 years

http://www.thedailybeast.com/republicans-left-ron-johnson-for-dead-last-year-now-he-could-kill-their-health-care-bill

[Dr. Strangelove]

Breaking: Mike Lee (UT) and Jerry Moran (KS) announce they will block the bill from moving to a vote. Say they want to start from scratch; hold hearings; get some Democrats to vote for it. Healthcare Bill sounds like it's dead.

Moran in particular said something like "I won't be a rubber stamp for bad policy" which seems like a shot at McConnell or maybe Trump.

EDIT: Being pointed out that Jerry Moran was one of the few Senators to hold public town halls over the 4th of July recess. Did those influence him? Maybe so

[Wild Hoss]

Jerry Moran has a lot of old, poor, farm folk on Medicare in his state...and yes he heard from them. And others.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/polit...159927569.html

[Ernestmodest]

Was lurking around, if anyone of you guys cares here is a read about what is going to happen with global housing market during Trump presidency: https://tranio.com/world/news/what-t...y-market_5219/

[Dr. Strangelove]

Trump White House basically waited till 10PM last night to announce they were re-certifying the Iran Deal; says Iran is complying with the letter of the agreement but "not in spirit"

http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/17/politics/trump-iran-complying-nuclear/index.html

[Wild Hoss]

LOL

[Dr. Strangelove]

[ame]https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/887281650308190208[/ame]

[ame]https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/887282306460905473[/ame]

[froot loops]

It seemsike a pretty good argument for partisan news.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Portman's comments this morning make it sound like there's no chance he'll vote for repeal w/o replacement.

[Wild Hoss]

Sounds like the "freedom to be uninsured' pitch isn't going over super well. Shocker.

[Ghengis Jon]

But it only affects the poor, the disabled and the elderly, so that makes it all okay. McConnell should be selling it as "GOP mandated access to excruciating agony and untreated illness".

[froot loops]

The whole process has been 75 percent wealthy tax cut, 25 percent of 7 years of rage at Obama. Maybe also 100 percent donor service.

If it really was about health care, you could probably fix some of the issues with the exchanges, make some reasonable medicaid cuts and some more fine tuning with how its taxed and call it a replacement. Trump could demagogue it as he fixed Obamacare with a superior replacement and they could have successfully triangulated the issue Bill Clinton style.

It's the weird thing about Trump, he has this desperate need to be loved, yet he hasn't the first clue on how to do the Clinton style triangulation. It's all about that base, except in this case the base doesn't really like the bill.

[Wild Hoss]

It's the weird thing about Trump, he has this desperate need to be loved, yet he hasn't the first clue on how to do the Clinton style triangulation. It's all about that base, except in this case the base doesn't really like the bill.

I don't think there is any great mystery...he's every bit the clueless, hedonistic idiot son of the rich that most of us pegged him as ages ago. He doesn't possess the tools or temperament to maneuver politically at this level, or any level, really. He can either force or intimidate people into doing what he wants, or he throws hissy fits.

[Da Geezer]

A good thing for Republicans that the bill is dead. There will be no massive bailout for the insurance companies, and the states that took the "expanded" Medicaid money will have to find funding elsewhere. I guess the insurance companies make more from the subsidies up to 400% (!) of the poverty level

The best thing for all would be a straight-out repeal. They are still talking a 2-year window for implementation of a repeal. It seems to me that the Congress has to put a gun to their collective head in order to get anything done, witness the periodic last-hour passage of the debt limit ceiling.

In other news, over 50% of all births in the US are now billed to and covered by Medicaid. Does anybody here think those on Medicaid should be required to practice birth control while on welfare?