The the vice president casting the tie breaking vote, the Senate voted 51- 50 to debate the repeal and replace of the Affordable Care Act. But just what are they debating? The plan emerging in the hours before the successful vote was for the Senate to vote in the days to come on competing repeal-and-replace …
Tag: Politics
Jul 23 2017
Trumpcare: Is This Thing Finally Dead?
Update 15:25 7/23/2017: Karoli Kuns at Crooks and Liars ha an excellent summary of the parliamentarian’s ruling on what’s in and out of the Trumpcare bill: Good news! Almost everything the Senate and House want to do to gut health care for the entire country has been ruled out of order by the Senate parliamentarian, …
Jul 21 2017
The Russian Connection: Sessions Lied. No Kidding
It’s Friday night. It’s late July and really hot n Washington DC and the Trump administration is getting really desperate to find a way to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller. But, he has to fire Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III. After Trump’s interview with the New York Times where he trashed Sessions, it looks …
Jul 21 2017
Reshuffling the Deck Chairs: Three More Overboard
Well, folks it’s Friday and the news dump has started early. This morning Press Secretary Sean “Spicey” Spicer resigned his position in a pique over the appointment of former transition team official and Wall Street financier Anthony Scaramucci as the new communication director. The office has been empty since the resignation of Mike Dubke in …
Jul 19 2017
The Russian Connection: The Eighth Man
Now there are eight. The Washington Post identified the eighth person in the room with Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner as Ike Kaveladze, a Russian born US citizen who was implicated in a money laundering scheme in 2000, and is now a senior vice president at Russian real estate developer Aras Agalarov’s …
Jul 18 2017
Dead Again, Naturally
The Republican House Trumpcare 2.0 was dead on arrival in the Senate. Late last night the Senate’s second version (by my count that would have been 4.0) bled to death before it even reached the floor when two more senators defected to the rational side, or maybe not, depending on the reasons. It doesn’t matter, …
Jul 14 2017
The Russian Connection: Junior And Jared Excellent Adventure
One of the worst ways to handles a political scandal is to not put it all out on the table from the start. It’s the “drip, drip, drip” that’ll will get you. While Donald the Lesser dropped the e-mails that led up to the meeting with a Russian lawyer who has dubious connections to the …
Jul 11 2017
The Russian Connection: Worse Than Collusion
Update: 7/11/2017 18:00 CET Donald Jr. released the e-mails before seeing his lawyer and before the NYT. Russian Dirt on Clinton? ‘I Love It,’ Donald Trump Jr. Said By Matt Apuzzo, Jo Becker, and Adam Goldman The June 3, 2016, email sent to Donald Trump Jr. could hardly have been more explicit: One of his …
Jul 07 2017
Trumpcare On Life Support
The good news, Trumpcare, also known as the Better Health Care Act, is on life support and Senate Majority Leader, who wrote the bill, is now considering pulling the plug. The bill doesn’t have enough votes and any further tinkering is likely to just make it worse. It’s handful of supporters are trying to convince …
Jul 07 2017
The Russian Connection: The Monkeys Are Throwing Wrenches
The school of dirty tricks has gotten more ingenious and nefarious in the age of the internet. Rachel Maddow Says Forged NSA Document Being Shopped Around To News Outlets By Rachel Shapiro, HuffPost MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow said she had a “strange scoop” to share with audiences Thursday night after receiving what she believes is a …
Jul 06 2017
The Russian Connection: Trump, G-20 and Putin
Donald Trump is in Europe again displaying his ignorance bigly. His first stop was in Poland where he was assured of a warm welcome by crowds bused in by the conservative government. He then proceeded to bash CNN, MSNBC, Barack Obama and America’s own intelligence agencies. He flew to Hamburg where he will meet for …
Jun 30 2017
The Russian Connection: Republican Disruption
Whatever are they up to? Grassley, Graham want the FBI’s Russia surveillance warrants By Austin Wright, Politico Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and panel member Lindsey Graham are asking the FBI to turn over some closely guarded secrets: its applications for warrants to spy on people suspected of helping Russia meddle in last year’s …