Here’s the latest scheme on the Legislative Evil known as Trumpcare:
Topher SpiroVerified account @TopherSpiro
1: ALERT: McConnell just sent a revised bill to CBO. They’re close to a deal. This is CODE RED.
2: Vote expected in mid-July. Republican staff reportedly told lobbyists “The store is open”—meaning they think they can buy off moderates.
3: If these moderates don’t feel the heat over recess, guess what? They’ll cave in no time. Remember how weak Cassidy was?
4: This revised bill is probably McConnell’s last shot. He has no time for CBO to score one after this. EVERYTHING RIDES ON THIS.
5: Happy Fourth! Protesting Trumpcare this week is the pinnacle of democracy and patriotism 🇺🇸
Senate asks for CBO score with, without Cruz proposal
Senate Republicans have asked the Congressional Budget Office to analyze Sen. Ted Cruz’s proposal for further health insurance deregulation, and they’ve asked for one estimate of a health care bill that includes his changes and one that doesn’t, according to a GOP aide familiar with the discussions.
The bottom line: That would give Republicans a better idea of the impact of his proposal, which would let insurers sell health plans that don’t meet Affordable Care Act standards — including, potentially, waiving the pre-existing condition rules — as long as they also sell plans that comply with all of the ACA insurance regulations.
What to watch: Among the issues CBO would have to weigh: would the non-ACA plans be cheaper, what would happen to premiums in the ACA plans, and what would happen to the cost of federal subsidies.
https://twitter.com/TopherSpiro/status/881172782536695808
More Nightmares with everyday:
Andy SlavittVerified account @ASlavitt
NEW: The Senate is quietly pushing a subtle change in the health care bill:
not just to gut Medicaid, but to allow states to eliminate it.
After I finish a cable TV appearance I will tweet about this. Follow if interested. 2
BACKGROUND: There is a conservative view that Medicaid ⬆️ over-treatment & ⬇️ employment. Been argued in several TV debates I’ve been on.3
I have seen no data to support this– and have seen data which contradicts this. Nevertheless, it is consistent w a free market ideology.4
In this ideology, the best thing to do with Medicaid (& Medicare) is to give everyone a subsidy to buy their own insurance. 5
HOW SENATE BILL SOWS SEEDS FOR END OF MEDICAID: Baseline– the bill cuts 15 mm off & puts a cap on care for everyone else. It gets worse.6
The new state waiver process in the Senate bill already allows Medicaid to be replaced by giving ppl a subsidy. 7
The requirements of the waiver explicitly say that governors can do without legislature & that all waivers must be permanent changes.8
All it would take is 1 conservative governor ever to eliminate Medicaid for a state. A pitch the Koch Bros could hit. It gets worse. 9
The Federal taxpayer money currently going to Medicaid can be used for any purpose– does not need to be used w low income/disability/etc.10
Rather than plussing up Medicaid, Senate is selling conservatives that plussing up tax credits will allow Medicaid to be replaced.11
As @ThePlumLineGS points out, this “plussing up” would be woefully inadequate, meeting 22% of the need.
Centrist Senators are being told this solves their Med expansion problem too. I heard that came up at the meeting w Trump last week.13
This plays into horrible polls & pushback from govs over Medicaid cuts causing Senate to consider easing some tax cuts.14
As Medicaid cuts take hold, the incentives to end Medicaid will be high. And it would just take a single conservative governor to do it.15
CALL CALL CALL CALL CALL CALL
We are now on the clock. We have to fight, people. Call the GOP out. Call those Senators.
Ohhhhh I’m going, Chicas! I’m going!
😍😍😍
https://twitter.com/3ChicsPolitico/status/882822021368950784
How pitiful…
https://twitter.com/thehill/status/882696095876481024
https://twitter.com/thehill/status/882789707024912385
https://twitter.com/AlBoeNEWS/status/882786401787322368
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/882772537758953473
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/882786482280378368
We’ll see SG..
With McCain and Ms Lindsey, seeing is believing…
https://twitter.com/shomaristone/status/882786512542330881
When Russia dollars and ‘progressives’ align…so much warping occurs..
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1qgmEO5KMso
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=prLT2hRhe78
Never forget fam, this was once the darling of ‘liberals and progressives’…a Democratic congressman and chair of the ‘progressive caucus’…
For years, this guy of the olive pit in my sandwich chipped my tooth, I’m suing…and his 32 years his junior 3rd wife who’s roughly the same age as his daughter…were constant fixtures on the ‘progressive’ circuit…
When the line between ‘progressives’, racists of every stripe including ‘libertarians’ and right-wingers consistently blur….beware fam..
“…With issues of North Korea’s continued nuclear threats, Syria, Islamic State and global terrorism on the agenda — and Trump’s political future on leaders’ minds — the eyes of the world are trained toward the two men’s meeting on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit.
“I worry a little about this meeting because Putin is going to walk into the room very well prepared, and I’m not certain Trump will come into that room prepared,” said Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and career diplomat who now is a senior foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington.
Should Trump prove unprepared, that won’t be for lack of effort on the Americans’ side.
Leading up to his first face-to-face meeting with Putin, U.S. intelligence officials have prepared a detailed psychological profile of the long-serving Russian strongman, a former KGB officer who spent decades recruiting spies for the Soviet Union and mastered the art of bending people to his will.
The profile, according to two U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the preparations, is part of a thick binder prepared for Trump. The ‘president’** often doesn’t read the usual briefing books and relies on in-person briefings, the officials said, so aides also have written a list of tweet-length sentences that summarize the main points Trump could bring up with Putin.
(Asterisks mine.)
Trump should expect a strong backlash if he doesn’t tell Putin to keep out of future U.S. elections, warned the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), in a telephone interview.
“If he doesn’t have the courage to raise the issue, Putin will conclude he can walk over our affairs and the ‘president’** won’t object,” Schiff said. “That would be a big mistake.”
Advisors including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James N. Mattis are trying to carefully script Trump’s interaction to head off any attempt by Putin to manipulate the encounter to his advantage, the U.S. officials said.
Putin is known to prepare assiduously for such high-stakes encounters with foreign counterparts, developing a command of policy objectives and honing a strategy to extract concessions, one U.S. official said.
“Putin was and is a KGB officer, and KGB officers are specialists at one thing: seduction, how to persuade others to do what you want,” said John Herbst, a foreign policy expert at the Atlantic Council and a U.S. ambassador to Ukraine under President George W. Bush.
Putin is expected to look for ways to further undermine NATO and exploit divisions within, such as the tension between Trump and Merkel evident at the NATO summit and after Trump’s disavowal of the Paris accord on climate change. She told reporters in Germany that the G-20 meetings would be “thorny.”
Russian officials have also made overtures to the Trump administration about regaining two properties previously used by Russian intelligence services: a mansion on Long Island, N.Y., and a large house in Maryland. The Obama administration demanded the Russian government vacate both properties in December and kicked out 35 alleged spies in retaliation for Russian interference in the U.S. election…”
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-fg-trump-putin-20170704-story.html
At some point, somebody will need to point out to the media that when it comes to ‘calling out and forcefully taking on’ Putin/Russia …for the buffoon, it’s so much more than merely about ‘discrediting his ‘win’…🙄🙄
LOL…they promised him ‘adoring’ crowds as a ‘prerequisite’ …
”…When ‘President’** Trump arrives in Poland, in Warsaw’s Krasinski Square, to speak on Thursday, he’ll be greeted by an enthusiastic audience of supporters — the Polish government has made sure of it.
According to news reports out of the country, Poland’s conservative ruling party is busing supporters to the capital to boost Trump’s ego. This is not just a courtesy to the U.S. president, who’s been accused of traveling with his own gaggle of human applause machines, it’s the fulfillment of a promise made to the White House, the AP reports.
Newsweek says all members of the country’s ruling party have been told to bring 50 supporters to Warsaw for the event, described by one lawmaker as a “great patriotic picnic.” As the magazine notes, for old-timers in Poland, this will be a familiar scene:
The tactic is a mirror of that adopted when Poland was a member of the Soviet bloc, and the Communist Party would bus agreeable crowds to Warsaw to greet visiting dignitaries from Moscow.
Among those in the adoring crowd that greets Trump will be the country’s president, Andrzej Duda. Elected in the summer of 2015, Duda is a member of the right-wing Law and Justice Party, and, like Trump, he’s an anti-immigration nationalist with an authoritarian streak…”
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/poland-is-busing-trump-supporters-to-warsaw.html
This person should be shot.😠😠
https://youtu.be/nB1fs7OAlFg
Eeeww..
LOL..
NASTY! What were they thinking? Stop messing up food. Good grief!
we know what that means..
uh huh
uh huh
they are SHYT, compared to real Medicare.
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/882621334303518721
will my lips ever be unpursed today?
MEMBERS ONLY: Inside The Hard Left’s Plan to Tea Party the Democrats
Obstruction and destruction will never lead to progress.
Justin Rosario
7 hours ago
The hard left, in its pursuit of punishing the Democratic Party, has
abandoned the concept of real world progress in favor of a nonexistent
political purity. The belief is that crippling the party will force them
to swing to the far left and bring about liberal utopia. It won’t work.
Here’s the theory:…
https://thedailybanter.com/2017/07/members-only-the-hard-lefts-plan-to-tea-party-the-democrats-wont-work/
Social Media, Dear.
All you need is a janitor spotting AFO landing, and it’ll be on like Donkey Kong.
https://twitter.com/snkscoyote/status/882422507084668930
LIPS PURSED
Bernie Sanders is the Democrats’ real 2020 frontrunner
He’s staffing up, touring the country, and still drawing record crowds.
Updated by
Matthew Yglesias@mattyglesiasmatt@vox.com
Jul 5, 2017, 8:01am EDT
Amid a swirl of speculation about Joe Biden, Kamala
Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker, and practically everyone else
under the sun as potential Democratic presidential contenders, most of
the political class is ignoring the elephant in the room. Bernie Sanders
is, by some measures the most popular politician in America, by far
Democrats’ most in-demand public speaker, and the most prolific
grassroots fundraiser in American history.
If he were 10 or 20 years younger, his absence from a 2020 cattle call held by the Center for American Progress
back in May would have been glaring. As things stood, the whisper among
everyone in the halls was simply that he’s too old and obviously won’t
run.
But make no mistake: Sanders is the real 2020 Democratic frontrunner.
He’s doing exactly what a candidate who fell short needs
to do to run a second time. He’s established a national political
organization, he’s improved his ties with colleagues on Capitol Hill,
he’s maintained a heavy presence in national media, and he’s traveling
the country talking about issues.
In subtle ways he’s shifted his policy commitments to the
center, making himself a more broadly acceptable figure in the party.
At the same time, he’s held on to a couple of signature issues —
Medicare-for-all and tuition-free public college — that give him exactly
the kind of clear-cut and broadly accessible agenda that mainstream
Democrats lack.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/5/15802616/bernie-sanders-2020
Sorry, but not one person mentioned in this entire article…including those on this list of ‘potentials’, will do for me..
Everyone is busy trotting out and trying to force-feed everyone their preferred candidate…so I too reserve the right to reject each and every one of them..
We need to do better as Democrats…Enough of these manufactured and force-fed folks..
I said it..
For what it’s worth, and just like with their fleeting ‘pro’-Ben and Candy Carson republican counterparts, I recognize and appreciate the usually racist sliver of Bernie supporters who’re now ’embracing’ Nina…even if it’s only to temporarily attempt to disprove their well-earned hostile/anti-black reputation ..
It is important however to remind them – and Nina Turner, that establishment Dems and the ‘feminists’ among them, typically only patronize and humor black folks …But generally rally behind, and enthusiastically support and prefer their favorite blacks – mixed and not ‘too black’…and without that inconvenient and burdensome blood of slaves actually running in their veins…
They figure they can always finagle – or borrow – by way of or some sort of ‘association’…if and when it’s needed or called for … some tenuous but easily exaggerated and hyped-up and ‘convincing’, ‘connected’…but sufficiently removed …and certainly ‘freeing’ and not as ‘angry’ or white guilt inducing, but enough of a cover, validation and proof of ‘wokeness’ for lip-service ‘progressive allies’ …And a semblance of ‘connection’ to that all-important ‘Civil Rights’ narrative…for the purposes of the periodic invocation of the ‘descendant of slaves’ references that usually make for powerful moments in speeches and as periodic biography boosters…but not too much that it ‘bogs down’ …or takes away from the much preferred bland ‘cross-cultural’ slant that can be sold as less ‘angry’ at ‘whitey’…and so much more ‘accepting’ and ‘open-minded’…
Good luck with that Nina..
https://twitter.com/OhNoSheTwitnt/status/881842696490504193
Well, a dead racist is one less, hmmm?
The hell of it is, when the protests save the ACA and Mitch and Ryan have to give it up, these Trump voters will vote for Trump again in 2020 if he runs.
https://twitter.com/ClintSmithIII/status/882603407042899969
Pops is looking good.
“…OUT AND ABOUT IN THE HAMPTONS — LALLY WEYMOUTH held her annual summer party last night at her house in Southampton. There was a long gold carpet entrance from where the parking was to a big tent next to her house. She served champagne, rare filet, fried chicken, cornbread, a big chocolate cake, ice cream and cookies decorated as American flags. Brother Don Graham did a big tribute to toast Lally (whose birthday is tomorrow) and shouted out Steven Spielberg’s upcoming film about how Ben Bradlee and Katharine Graham challenged the government for the right to publish the Pentagon Papers in 1971 (Tom Hanks is playing Bradlee and Meryl Streep is playing Graham). Don made a big deal that Spielberg was there and jokingly conceived a Spielberg movie about Lally and described the cast (some actors and some in the room).
— SPOTTED: Jared and Ivanka chatting with Joel Klein and Alan Patricof, Kellyanne Conway on the dance floor, Boyden Gray, Chris Ruddy, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and wife Iris, Katharine Weymouth, Mary Jordan, Richard Cohen, Margaret Carlson, Gillian Tett, Steven Spielberg chatting with Steve Clemons and Robert Hormats, Carl Icahn, Tom Lee (famous for doing a leveraged buyout of Snapple and now lives in Princess Radziwill’s house), David Koch, John Paulson, Dina Powell, Richard Edelman, George Soros and his wife Tamiko Bolton, former Florida Gov. and Sen. Bob Graham (Lally’s uncle), her cousin Gwen Graham (who is running for Florida governor), Maria Bartiromo, Ray Kelly, Bill Bratton, Jeff Rosen, William Drozdiak, Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.)..”
http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/playbook/2017/07/02/the-president-posts-a-video-of-himself-pummeling-a-man-with-cnn-logo-on-his-face-cnn-we-will-keep-doing-our-jobs-he-should-start-doing-his-sasse-punts-on-20-221143
“…As someone who has watched two seasons of House of Cards, I understand that much of politics is sycophantic glad-handing with the enemy next to a tray of lightly sweating cheese cubes, carefully wheedling one another over low orchestral music and the tinkle of ice cubes in Scotch glasses. If it’s going well, there’s some elbow grabbing. If it’s going really well, some literal back-patting. Everyone hates each other.
Knowing these things as I do, I have to wonder what our friend and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is doing cavorting with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump? At a party hosted by Lally Weymouth, the former owner of the Washington Post and currently a senior associate editor there? I also wonder what the other dozens of journalists, employed not just by the Washington Post, but such outlets as Bloomberg and The Atlantic, are doing with this opportunity?
Who are all these rich, almost-completely white people? Here’s a breakdown:
Joel Klein: Former Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education; then Executive Vice President of News Corps.; now an executive at New York-based health start-up Oscar.
Alan Patricof: Investor; founder and chairman of New York Magazine; a Democrat who supported Hillary Clinton, though he often lunched with Young Jared Kushner.
Boyden Gray: Former counsel to President Bush and a main architect of the Clean Air Act; former ambassador to the E.U.
Chris Ruddy: CEO of Newsmax; Trump confidant.
Katharine Weymouth: The former publisher of the Washington Post; daughter of Lally Waymouth.
Mary Jordan: Washington Post correspondent “currently traveling America writing about the Trump era.”
Richard Cohen: Washington Post columnist.
Margaret Carlson: Bloomberg News columnist; the first female columnist at Time.
Gillian Tett: U.S. managing editor of the Financial Times.
Steve Clemons: Washington editor-at-large of The Atlantic.
Robert Hormats: Vice Chairman of Kissinger Associates.
Carl Icahn: Billionaire investor. (Informal Trump adviser)
Charles Koch: One half of the infamous Koch brothers and CEO of Koch Industries.
John Paulson: An investor and one of Trump’s top economic advisers during his campaign.
Dina Powell: The U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategy to Trump, evidently hand-fed to him by Mika Brzezinski.
Richard Edelman: Founder of the PR firm Edelman Group.
Maria Bartiromo: Anchor at FOX News.
Ray Kelly: Former Commissioner of the NYPD.
Bill Bratton: Ibid.
Jeff Rosen: Legal commentator.
William Drozdiak: A non-resident senior fellow at Brookings Center of the United States and Europe; senior advisor for McLarty and Associates.
Steven Spielberg is there too, unfortunately for him.
http://jezebel.com/heres-everyone-whos-partying-with-jared-and-ivanka-in-t-1796590925
Hmmmm. I’m looking at Chuck Schumer.
You & me both Liza
https://twitter.com/greenhousenyt/status/882633080430788608
22-Year-Old Father Accused of Raping and Killing 8-Month-Old Daughter Cleared on All ‘Erroneous’ Charges
Published 28 minutes ago
A young father from Detroit was exonerated after being accused of murdering and sexually assaulting his 8-month-old infant daughter, who died April 23.
James Lee Saltmarshall, 22, faced charges of felony murder, first-degree child abuse and first-degree criminal sexual conduct. On Thursday, all charges against Saltmarshall were dropped “in the best interest of justice,” Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy’s office said in a statement Thursday.
http://www.bet.com/news/national/2017/07/05/22-year-old-father-accused-of-raping-and-killing-8-month-old-dau.html
Uh huh
https://twitter.com/Charlen92128804/status/882334532967550976
https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/882645287885561856
uh huh
https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/882613824788062208
https://twitter.com/AriBerman/status/882641967351463936
Minnesota’s one of them.
Tell me a bit more about your Sec of State – Steve Simon, Ametia..
Is he as good and decent and consistent a human being as he is impressive in interviews…?
I saw him interviewed and was rather impressed by him…
Dems need to be spotlighting more of these folks…if their humanity, biography, actual accomplishments hold up as well as their pubic persona..
Public**
Please watch..
For anyone who doesn’t understand what this is really all about …and what the future plans include..
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kVHS6F2TkFk
The various expressions on most of the Chinese folks faces…
Simultaneously making their own calculations…even as the RT woman is making her prepared psych-warfare pitch courtesy of her erstwhile KGB boss boss …who she occasional shoots solicitous glances at ..
The Chinese meanwhile are thinking to themselves…the bullshitters looking to bullshit the bullshitters…to go along, align…and at what cost to their own State-owned propaganda/Restricted and tightly controlled and Supervised media/various plots and agenda….And will they ever be to extricate themselves if and when the dubious alliance no longer serves their purposes…
Decisions, decisions..
Hope my entire fam had a great and fun-filled 4th…
Hi eliihass, my time off was delightful. How are you and fam?
I got in some fun-filled hubby time, and some writing/journaling.
❤️❤️As it should be sis…Hubby time with a spot of hobby time..
I did, Eliihass, and was tired as everything. Been trying to catch up on some errands today. The heat here is a killa. It drains your energy. Hope your 4th was great.
I know you must have cooked up a storm as usual SG…stay cool and please don’t forget to keep hydrated…these heat waves creep up and can do damage..
Morning distraction, this is great.
SHORT: WHO IS PROFITING FROM ALL THE CHAOS?
THE RICH & POWERFUL COWARDS!
And as pathological, cruel, sociopathic, greedy and corrupt as he is, he’s still an unwitting fool and tool in the larger scheme of things..
She was interviewed on BBC earlier today…and I was going to share as soon as I could find a video that’ll play in the States..
Here’s the BBC interview from earlier…she was pretty good…I’ve had my issues with her in the past, but much of this I agreed with…
The Hardtalk interviews with their rotating hosts, Stephen Sackur, Zeinab Badawi etc. are mostly designed to be blunt, confrontational and to play devils advocate…but, I really don’t know if Zeinab Badawi was actually just playing devil’s advocate this time around…or actually believed what she was spouting..
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pz-TMKWzlyI
Speaking of ‘spouting’
Damn shame when a British comedian has to use humor to show Americans how incredibly STUPID they are to buy into the rubbish being passed off as news.
LOL @ ‘supermodel’…
Indiana GOP request for Obamacare horror stories goes wrong
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/340627-indiana-gop-request-for-obamacare-horror-stories-goes-wrong
LOL Don’t fuck with people’s lives. IT DOES.NOT.BODE.WELL.
Good Morning,Everyone 😐😐😐
Good Morning, Rikyrah & Everyone.