Trump 21: Tweeting Us Into the Apocalypse

July 17, 2017

4 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Apparently Trumplethinskin has postponed his visit to the UK indefinitely:

"Oh, thank goodness", May mumbles under her breath.

You know this chafes for him. It's an embarrassment, but he's such a coward that he doesn't want to face a jeering crowd. How does he think she's going to take care of it when he can't take care of it here in his own country?

July 17, 2017

Trump officials open border to 15,000 more foreign workers

The degree of hypocritical bull shit from TT and cognitive distortion from his orange zombies is astounding.

Quote

The Department of Homeland Security on Monday announced a one-time increase of 15,000 additional visas for low-wage seasonal workers for the remainder of this fiscal year, a seeming about-face from President Trump's "Hire American" rhetoric, following heavy lobbying from fisheries, hospitality and other industries that rely on temporary foreign workers.

The increase represents a 45 percent bump from the number of H-2B visas normally issued for the second half of the fiscal year, said senior Homeland Security officials in a call with reporters Monday.

The visas are for workers taking temporary jobs in the seafood, tourism, landscaping, construction and other seasonal industries — but not farm laborers.

Businesses can begin applying for the visas this week, but must first attest that their firms would suffer permanent "irreparable harm" without importing foreign workers. They will be required to retain documents proving that they would not otherwise be able to meet their contractual obligations or provide other evidence of severe financial loss, the officials said.

Asked how allowing more foreign workers aligns with Trump's America First policies — especially as the White House kicks off what it has promoted as "Made in America" week — one of the Homeland Security officials said the increase "absolutely does" fit in with Trump's campaign promises.

"We're talking about American businesses that are at risk of suffering irreparable harm if they don't get additional H-2B workers," he said. "This does help with American businesses continuing to prosper."

Another official said the government made the decision after "considering the interest of U.S. workers" and has created a tip line for reports of worker exploitation and abuse.

"[Secretary John Kelly] first and foremost is committed to protecting U.S. workers and strengthening the integrity of our immigration system," she said.

The officials briefed reporters in advance about the new policy on the condition that they not be named.

Businesses' petitions will be reviewed on a first-come, first-served basis, and granted without regard to industry type, geographic location or firm size, the officials said. Given that the summer is half over and that normal processing time takes 30 to 60 days, the officials recommended that businesses pay the $1,225 fee for expedited processing within 15 days.

But the increase may come too late for some Virginia seafood processing plants that pick crab, shuck oysters and pack bait, said Mike Hutt, executive director of the Virginia Marine Products Board, which represents the state’s seafood industry.

"This could be light at the end of the tunnel. But here we are in July, and some of these companies still don't have workers," Hutt said.

The lack of workers has led to at least one company shutting down an assembly line this summer, he said, hurting not just the processing plant but also workers involved in hauling, packaging and refrigerating the seafood.

Congress paved the way to increasing the number of H-2B workers in May when it passed an omnibus budget to avert a government shutdown. Part of the deal included giving the secretary of homeland security the authority to increase the number of seasonal foreign workers, after consulting with the secretary of labor, “upon determination that the needs of American businesses cannot be satisfied in fiscal year 2017 with United States workers who are willing, qualified, and able to perform temporary nonagricultural labor.” (Farm workers enter the U.S. under a different visa, known as the H-2A.)

Current law limits the number of such visas issued to 66,000 a year — split among two halves of the year. The cap has already been reached this year. Visas for more than 120,000 positions have been requested so far in fiscal 2017, according to Department of Labor statistics. The seafood industry, which began its hiring season in April, competes with other industries, such as landscaping and tourism, that rely heavily on temporary summer workers.

The H-2B program previously drew strong bipartisan support because lawmakers have a vested interest in supporting their home state industries — whether it’s crab-picking in Maryland, ski resorts in Colorado or logging in Washington. But some senators have criticized their colleagues' efforts to bypass public debate about changing immigration law.

Other critics dispute that there really is a labor shortage in the industries that rely most on the seasonal guest worker visas, accusing the industries of exploiting foreign workers at the expense of American jobs.

“This is yet another example of the administration and Congress failing to keep the Trump campaign promise of putting American workers first,” said Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, which lobbies to lower immigration levels.

Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, said that instead of "propping up unsustainable businesses by allowing them to become so dependent on foreign workers," the Trump administration should be providing incentives for such employers to hire the "hundreds of thousands" of teenagers, seniors and others looking for entry-level work.

"Is it really that no one will do the work?" Vaughan said. "Or is it just easier for them to use the body shops that find the workers?"

While some companies use the H-2B program to hire lifeguards, carnival workers and maids, others used it to import engineers, tax preparers and occupational therapists — "jobs that clearly are not unskilled and not so exotic that no Americans can be found to fill them," Vaughan and her colleagues wrote in an analysis of H-2B data released last week.

"These cases suggest that the level of scrutiny for visa approval is inadequate and that employers may be using the program as a way around the rules of other guestworker programs," Vaughan wrote.

Some of Trump’s closest allies on immigration on Capitol Hill have also called for cuts to the H-2B program, citing the president’s campaign as evidence that American workers are opposed to increases in temporary, low-skilled workers from abroad.

In May, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) gave a blistering speech on the Senate floor opposing a measure in the omnibus spending bill that authorized the doubling of H-2B visas that could be issued during the remainder of fiscal 2017.

“A lot of the arguments for this kind of program boil down to this: No American worker will do that job. That is a lie. It is a lie. There is no job that Americans will not do,” Cotton said. “If the wage is decent and the employer obeys the law, Americans will do the job. And if it’s not, they should pay higher wages. To say anything else is an insult to the work ethic of the American people who make this country run.”

Cotton and Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) are working on an immigration bill that would, over the coming decade, slash by half the current number of 1 million foreigners each year who received green cards allowing them to live permanently in the United States. The senators met twice with Trump on the bill, and Cotton said in a recent interview that the president supported their efforts but also asked them to address temporary workers. The senators are working closely with the White House on a new version of the legislation that could be unveiled by the end of summer.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, in May beseeched their congressional colleagues to remove the H-2B provision and give the Judiciary Committee time to consider any changes to immigration laws.

“This move by leadership and appropriators cedes portions of this authority to the executive branch without a public debate,” Grassley and Feinstein said. “We understand the needs of employers who rely on seasonal H-2B workers if the American workforce can’t meet the demand, but we are also aware of the potential side effects of flooding the labor force with more temporary foreign workers, including depressed wages for all workers in seasonal jobs."

Trump in February had called on Congress to pursue a “merit-based” immigration system that would favor high-skilled workers and close off avenues to lower-skilled immigrants and extended family members of permanent U.S. residents.

But Trump himself has used H-2B visas to hire temporary workers at his golf resorts in Palm Beach, Fla., and Jupiter, Fla.

“I’ve hired in Florida during the prime season — you could not get help,” Trump said during a 2015 primary debate. “Everybody agrees with me on that. They were part-time jobs. You needed them, or we just might as well close the doors, because you couldn’t get help in those hot, hot sections of Florida.”

July 17, 2017

I don't like what you are saying about me, even if it is the truth, so... White House Wanted Correspondents Chair To Condemn Politico Article

Quote

The president of the White House Correspondents’ Association said President Donald Trump’s administration wanted him to publicly criticize an article Politico reporter Tara Palmeri wrote about media access.

Appearing on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” Sunday, the correspondents’ association president and Reuters reporter Jeff Mason confirmed that it was Palmeri’s reporting he’d been asked to condemn.

He refused to do so and didn’t reveal the name of the reporter until this weekend.

Palmeri, who was also on “Reliable Sources” Sunday, said she wasn’t surprised by the revelations, saying she had heard the White House wanted her removed from the association.

“Which they don’t have power to do. They’re an independent association. And they were upset because I wrote a story that was completely factual, that over the course of the trip, the president had not given a press conference. That is plain and simple,” she said. “And we also did not get access to senior administration officials regularly until my story came out. After that, we had so much more access to them.”

She criticized the President’s constant attack on the media and defended the work she and others have done to cover the new administration.

“I think at the end of the day, we’re supposed to be balanced. We shouldn’t be pro-Trump or anti-Trump,” she said. “We should just be all about the facts and the issues and I think there is a prerogative to say ‘Oh they’re being anti-Trump,’ but no we’re being critical, it’s our job to be critical regardless of who the president is.”

Trump continued his crusade against the media this weekend, tweeting Sunday that “Fake news is distorting democracy in our country.”

July 17, 2017

"Behind the Trump team’s bluster, a dark legal strategy"

Spoiler

President Trump’s attorney, Jay Sekulow, seems to be an adherent of the just-yell-louder-school of legal argumentation. Sekulow has employed this tactic for decades, dating at least to his maiden outing before the Supreme Court in 1987, when American Lawyer magazine described Sekulow as “rude and aggressive.”

And so it was on Sunday, when Sekulow completed his second “full Ginsburg,” a reference to William Ginsburg, the hapless lawyer for Monica Lewinsky who did his client no service by making the rounds of all the Sunday shows. Sekulow makes Ginsburg look like Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

He combines bluster and obstreperousness (“I’m going to answer your question, I am, and you’re going to let me answer it,” he lectured/interrupted Fox News’s Chris Wallace”) with obfuscatory legal jargon (“I’m not in privity of contract, as we say, with the party that’s responsible for the actual payment of the bill.”)

Sekulow compulsively redirects (“I wonder why the Secret Service, if this was nefarious, why the Secret Service allowed these people in,” he told ABC’s Jonathan Karl). He is internally inconsistent (“I mean, opposition research in campaigns happens all the time,” he told CBS’s John Dickerson, just after noting that Donald Trump Jr. had said that “if he had to do it all over again, there are things he would do differently.”)

So watching a Sekulow performance, it is tempting simply to ask: Why is this man shouting?

The better question is: What is this man shouting? Because if you turn down the volume and pay attention to what Sekulow is saying, you can deduce the disturbing outlines of where the president’s legal team may be heading. As Sekulow made the rounds Sunday, he signaled the expansion of the Trump team’s assault on former FBI director James B. Comey and, in turn, on the legitimacy of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. This is worrisome, because it lays the foundation for firing Mueller and/or issuing pardons and declaring, “Case closed.”

Thus, when Wallace asked Sekulow whether the Trump team’s repeated denials of dealings with Russia were now “suspect,” it triggered this disquisition:

“I think it’s important to put the framework here. How did we end up with a special counsel? Here’s how. … The FBI director at the time, James Comey, had a series of meetings with the president of the United States. In those meetings, he took notes. He put them on his government computer, put them in his government desk, and when he was terminated from [that] position, which you would acknowledge that the president had the authority to do, he gave them to a friend of his to leak to the press … to get a special counsel, and the special counsel is appointed.”

In this retelling, Mueller is the fruit of the poisonous tree planted by Comey. Therefore, Mueller’s appointment is illegitimate and he should go — and with him the investigation.

“So the basis upon which this entire special counsel investigation is taking place is based on what? Illegally leaked information that was a conversation of the president of the United States with the then-FBI director,” Sekulow told NBC’s Chuck Todd. “And that to me is problematic from the outset. And I think that raises very serious legal issues as to the scope and nature of what really can take place.”

Does it? In his previous round of Sunday shows, Sekulow muddied the waters by claiming that Comey had violated attorney-client privilege in revealing his conversations with Trump. As Wallace explained Sunday, this assertion was incoherent, since Comey was not acting in any way as Trump’s lawyer.

Sekulow’s pivot — to claiming that the conversations were protected by executive privilege — is scarcely more convincing. Perhaps Trump could have asserted privilege to bar Comey from testifying before Congress, especially before the firing. That’s different from asserting that Comey’s decision as a private citizen to reveal information about his conversations with the president was “illegal,” even if Comey proceeded through the distasteful cutout of a memo leaked by a friend. If such disclosures were against the law, every administration veteran who wrote a tell-all book would be in jail.

Another strand of Sekulow’s argument involves the notion that the memo was essentially government property, not Comey’s to decide to convert to his own use, even if the information contained in it is unclassified. Irony alert: This argument requires concluding that Comey took something of value from the U.S. government, while asserting that the Trump campaign did not solicit anything of value from the Russian government. On the Lawfare blog, Timothy Edgar and Susan Hennessey assess the argument that Comey’s action violated the conversion statute as “cutout.”

Even if it weren’t, what would be the relevance? Comey’s alleged crime wouldn’t make Mueller’s appointment void or voidable. A leak of classified information that is intended to trigger a criminal investigation doesn’t make the ensuing investigation improper.

But watch that space. I suspect — and fear — that we haven’t heard the last of this bogus argument.

Scary stuff.

July 18, 2017

"This country deserves much better than Trump"

Spoiler

It’s exhausting, I know, but don’t let outrage fatigue numb you to the moral bankruptcy and gross incompetence of the Trump administration. This ugly departure from American norms and values must be opposed with sustained passion — and with the knowledge that things will probably get worse before they get better.

Heaven help us, look where we are. We have a president — commander in chief of the armed forces, ostensibly the leader of the free world — whose every word is suspect. President Trump is an inveterate liar. He dismisses provable facts as “fake news” and invents faux facts of his own that bear no relationship to the truth. He simply cannot be trusted.

We have a president whose North Star is naked self-interest, not the good of the country. Trump cares about his family, his company and little else. He dishonors the high office he holds, then reportedly spends hours each day railing against cable-news coverage that he finds insufficiently respectful. His ego is a kind of psychic black hole that devours all who come into its orbit.

We have a president whose eldest son, son-in-law and campaign chairman met with emissaries purportedly sent by the Russian government to deliver dirt on Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton. Trump claimed on Twitter that “most politicians” would have gone to such a meeting, which is another lie. Try to find politicians who say they would have attended.

We have a president who fired the director of the FBI for continuing to investigate “this Russia thing” — a sophisticated effort by the Russian government, according to U.S. intelligence officials, to tip the election in Trump’s favor. Will he also try to fire special counsel Robert S. Mueller III? If he does, will Congress let him get away with it?

We have a president — was he made in Russia? — who has declared this to be “Made in America” week, despite the fact that so many of the retail products that bear his name or that of his daughter Ivanka are made in Mexico, China, Indonesia and Bangladesh. When asked about this irony by Politico, a White House spokeswoman responded, “We’ll get back to you on that.” They won’t.

Trump has broken his promise to help the struggling middle class. After pledging health insurance “for everybody,” he supported legislation that would strip more than 20 million people of coverage. His approval rating, according to a new Post-ABC News poll, has fallen to 36 percent — a historic low for a president at this point in his tenure. Yet Trump continues to enjoy strong support from self-identified Republicans, whose resentment against liberal “elites” he plays like a violin.

His administration is in shambles. Members of his inner circle snipe at one another via anonymous quotes to reporters. They compete for the president’s favor not by doing their jobs well but by showing a willingness to defend anything he says and does, no matter how ridiculous. In the space of a week, his surrogates went from “the campaign had no meetings with Russians” to “there was a meeting but no collusion” to “collusion is not actually a crime.” One wonders how they sleep at night.

Trump presents the world with something new: In place of American leadership, there is a vacuum. In keeping with the pattern set at the Group of 20 summit, adversaries will try to use Trump’s ignorance to their advantage while allies try to nudge him into doing the right thing. The “madman theory” of foreign relations can only be employed effectively by a leader who is actually steadfast and serious; Trump is neither.

There is no point in looking to Republicans for salvation. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) still hope to get Trump to sign into law massive cuts in taxes and entitlements. Many rank-and-file members fear Trump’s loyal support among the base. The former “party of Lincoln” has adopted the moral code of the Oakland Raiders’ late owner Al Davis: “Just win, baby.”

So that is what Democrats and independents have to do — win. As long as there are pro-Trump majorities in the House and Senate, there will be no real congressional oversight and no brake on an out-of-control president’s excesses. Incumbency and gerrymandered districts mean that winning anti-Trump majorities in 2018 will be difficult. But not impossible.

The Democratic Party needs a plan, a message and a sense of urgency. Trump hopes to bully critics into submission, but the country is bigger than this one president. And much better.

Not just America, the world deserves better.

July 18, 2017

"Is the presidency good for Trump’s business? Not necessarily at this golf course."

Spoiler

At President Trump’s golf club in Southern California, there is a driving range on a cliff, with a stunning view of the blue Pacific. There’s room for 24 golfers.

But, on a recent afternoon, there was only one.

And he was playing with a guilty conscience.

“I feel like I’m cheating on my wife,” said Richard Sullivan, a 59-year-old doctor.

His wife is a fierce opponent of the president’s politics. She’d recently caught Sullivan with a freebie water bottle with the Trump logo. “Don’t ever go to Trump again,” she ordered. Sullivan had stopped playing full $300 rounds of golf here, but sneaked back to the range.

He often found it empty. “It’s just dead all the time,” Sullivan said.

For two years, Donald Trump has been running a first-of-its-kind American experiment. Can one man be the face of a polarizing political movement and a successful hospitality business?

Certainly, some parts of Trump’s empire stand to benefit from his new power. His Mar-a-Lago Club serves as a “winter White House,” where paying guests might watch a national-security meeting unfold over dinner. Trump tweeted repeatedly from his Bedminster, N.J., course this past weekend promoting the U.S. Women’s Open tournament that was happening there.

But in Los Angeles County, the experiment doesn’t seem to be going well.

Since Trump entered the presidential race in June 2015, revenues from greens fees at the L.A. club has dropped by 13 percent, according to figures from the city government.

Charity golf-tournaments, another core piece of the club’s business, have moved away: ESPN relocated its celebrity tournament. The L.A. Galaxy soccer team withdrew. The L.A. Unified School District also moved, forfeiting a $7,500 deposit it had already paid Trump’s course.

Hollywood, another source of revenue for the club, has largely stopped coming to film TV shows and movies, according to city permit records.

And the club’s wedding business seems to have been affected as well. Couples used to hold big outdoor ceremonies at a city park across the street, then return to Trump National for a reception.

Nobody’s done that since November, according to city records.

The troubles at the L.A. club mirror those that have been reported at some other Trump properties. Together, they illustrate an unexpected side effect of the presidency: In some cases, it has proven a challenge to sell the president’s brand, without offering proximity to the presidency itself.

In Manhattan, the banquet business is down at the Trump SoHo hotel, according to radio station WNYC. In the Bronx, both golf revenue and banquet revenue are down at Trump’s golf course, according to records released by New York City.

The Washington Post reached out to four officials at the Trump Organization with questions about the California course. Just one responded.

“David — please stop reaching out to me. Thank you,” Eric Trump, the president’s son, wrote in an email message.

The challenges facing Trump’s course can be seen in a series of public records provided by the city of Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., and Los Angeles County, which collect taxes from the course and issue permits for some activities there.

Together, they offer a portrait of a business that seems to be struggling under the weight of its name.

Trump’s course is set on Pacific cliffs, about 30 miles south of downtown Los Angeles. The area is heavily Democratic, represented in Congress by a fierce Trump critic, Rep. Ted Lieu (D). Since Trump won the election, the club has been the scene of both small acts of defiance — the Hollywood Reporter reported that it saw someone urinate on the sign — and a large, expensive act of vandalism.

In March, Trump’s course was vandalized by people calling themselves environmental activists, who carved the words “No More Tigers. No More Woods” into the turf at the 5th green. The crime, which has not been solved, caused about $20,000 in damage, according to the sheriff’s department.

Trump says he spent $27 million to buy this course, and $250-plus million to repair it and reopen it in 2006. Under the previous owner, the 18th fairway had fallen into the ocean. “The most expensive golf course ever built,” Trump has called it. Unlike most other Trump clubs, it is open to the public, instead of being limited to dues-paying members.

The course has some disadvantages that predate Trump’s political rise. It is maddeningly difficult, with skinny fairways and shot-bending wind gusts off the ocean. And it costs up to $300 a player. A county course nearby charges $45 for a round.

“Most people don’t play it regularly. It’s a one-off kind of golf experience,” for tourists or golfers looking for a splurge, said Gene Krekorian, a California golf-course appraiser who has assessed this course. “It’s a spectacular facility, but it’s way overpriced.”

But the Trump course had found other ways to make money.

Hollywood, for instance, didn’t care how the course played — just how it looked. When the ABC television show “Modern Family” needed a location for a scene where a stodgy, luxurious golf club would host a gay wedding, Trump National played the part.

...

The CBS TV drama “Criminal Minds” transformed the Trump clubhouse into a faux U.S. Embassy in the Caribbean. In the film “Horrible Bosses 2,” a group of boneheads argued next to a putting green. In a Geico insurance commercial, a caveman crashed a golf cart. Even the TV commercials paid well — about $20,000 for a one-day ad shoot, according to a producer who filmed there.

But soon after, Trump entered the presidential race, with fiery populist rhetoric and speeches blasting illegal immigrants. That played poorly with the customers he had cultivated for this California course: Hollywood, athletes, rich Californians and young people planning weddings.

Within a month, ESPN had canceled. So had the school district, whose students are 74 percent Latino. “There was absolutely no reason to host our largest fundraiser at a Trump facility,” an official said. The L.A. Galaxy said Trump’s remarks “do not reflect our club’s values of respect and diversity.”

“It was a great place. And our golf tournaments haven’t been the same since then,” said Andy Bales, a Christian minister who leads the Union Rescue Mission on Los Angeles’s Skid Row. His group had held golf tournaments at the Trump club every year since 2011. In 2016, they left. “It just became too much of a controversy for our donors — some of our donors — and our team members to continue to utilize that property.”

In all, 12 tournaments or charity events stopped returning to the Trump course in 2015 or 2016, according to a Post survey of groups that had previously staged events there.

Not all cited politics in their decisions. But all of them were gone, depriving the Trump club of at least $250,000 total in rental fees and catering costs, according to interviews and a review of IRS charity records.

In the same period, city-issued permits for filming at Trump National also showed a decline. There were 28 issued in the two years before Trump entered the race. In the two years afterward, there were only 11.

“We got a lot of flak for shooting there. Really, you know, ‘What are you doing?’ There are a lot of Democrats in my business,” said Kent Feuerring, a producer who helped arrange one of those shoots, a commercial for Samsung TVs shot at the course in February 2016.

In the months since Trump took office, only two companies have obtained permits to shoot at the course. They were not big Hollywood productions. There was an ad for a Japanese golf-club company, aimed at the Japanese market. The other was for a Munsingwear ad, featuring “exterior action and dialogue with golfers,” according to a city permit.

It’s not clear what was being advertised. A spokeswoman for the company did not respond to questions. Munsingwear’s products appear to include golf clothes and a line of men’s underwear.

...

Another barometer of success: the permits issued by the city for outdoor weddings at an oceanfront park next to the course, where the couples returned to Trump National for their reception.

These are only a subset of all weddings held at the club — couples often use the city park for larger weddings. Before Trump got into politics, the club averaged 17 such weddings a year.

When he was a candidate, the figure fell to 11 in 2016.

So far this year, it’s zero. None have been issued since November.

Even getting people to come and play golf appears to be difficult these days.

...

On the same day that Sullivan was playing alone on the Trump driving range, 30-year-old Sherry Park of West Hollywood was practicing putts at Los Verdes, the Trump course’s crosstown rival.

“I’m a flaming liberal, so I can’t go there,” Park said. Trump’s course, she added, is “beautiful.” “If he weren’t president, I would definitely go.”

The Trump course’s revenue from greens fees and golf-cart rentals fell about 12 percent, from about $3.3 million before Trump entered the race to about $2.9 million in each of the two years since. Those figures can be calculated from the money that the City of Rancho Palos Verdes gets from its “golf tax,” a 10 percent levy on greens fees and cart rentals.

During the same period, golf courses around Southern California experienced a slight upswing in business, said Craig Kessler of the Southern California Golf Association, relying on figures provided by public golf courses across the region. So the Trump course’s decline doesn’t seem to match a broader trend.

“It’s under-performed the market since 2015,” Kessler said. “Just at the time when the rest of the industry was starting to see some upticks . . . it seems to have gone into a decline.”

On one recent summer Saturday, it was easy to spot signs of the Trump course’s troubles. Just before 7 a.m., for instance, the course’s online schedule showed 40 of the day’s 65 tee times were still available.

Later that same night — when golf clubs become social hubs here — the contrast was even more obvious.

At Los Verdes, the clubhouse bustled with preparations for a wedding reception. At Terranea Resort, another nearby club, there was another wedding reception, a live band and a mentalist performing for a crowd. Cars circled the parking lot, looking for spaces.

At the Trump club, the parking lot was a quarter-full.

The ballrooms were empty and quiet. No weddings.

At the course’s upscale restaurant, with $56 steaks, a keyboardist played mood music for a dinner crowd of two.

Nearby, in the half-full Golfers’ Lounge, was 60-year-old Steve Patrick, a tavern owner from nearby working-class San Pedro, Calif.

He was a Trump supporter — and a Trump customer, in a place where both are rare.

“He’s the most persecuted president that’s ever lived in the history of the United States,” Patrick said.

Gee, so the "brand" isn't doing well everywhere...

July 18, 2017

Another fact checker: "No, President Trump, you haven’t signed more bills than any other president"

Spoiler

“We’ve signed more bills — and I’m talking about through the legislature — than any president ever.”
— President Trump, remarks at a “Made in America” event, July 17, 2017

Shortly after the president made this statement, he amended it: “I better say ‘think,’ otherwise they’ll give you a Pinocchio. And I don’t like those — I don’t like Pinocchios.”

We always appreciate it when politicians acknowledge our Pinocchio ratings. And President Trump has certainly earned his fair share. So, even with his caveat, is he close to correct?

The Facts

When Trump reached the 100-day mark, his staff touted that he had signed more bills — 28 — than any president since Harry Truman, who had signed 55. (Trump was way behind Franklin D. Roosevelt, who signed 76 bills in his first 100 days. All but one president between 1901 and 1949 had beaten Trump as well.)

Trump apparently is under the mistaken impression that he’s now ahead of Truman. “For a while, Harry Truman had us. And now, I think we have everybody,” he said.

But actually Trump has not even caught up to Truman’s 100-day total — and he’s fallen behind other recent presidents.

Trump has signed 42 bills so far in his first term. According to data compiled by GovTrack, as of July 17, Jimmy Carter had signed 70 bills, George H.W. Bush had signed 55, and Bill Clinton had signed 50. So now Trump is behind three recent presidents, not to mention FDR, Truman and other earlier presidents.

Just counting bills does not measure the quality of the output — or whether it is meaningful. Barack Obama had signed 39 bills, but his legislation appears to have been substantial, totaling 1,957 pages, compared with 880 so far for Trump, according to GovTrack. Our colleague Philip Bump has documented that 60 percent of the bills signed by Trump so far have been just one page long.

The Pinocchio Test

Tempted as we are to give the president Pinocchios for his statement, he seemed to be speaking off the cuff and was operating on outdated information from his first 100 days. We don’t play gotcha here at The Fact Checker, and we appreciate that he added a caveat. He certainly appeared to pause for a moment and wonder if he was right. For Trump, that’s a step in the right direction.

But he’s way off the mark and actually falling behind in legislative output. For readers demanding Pinocchios, we’ve added the Pinocchio rating tool below so they can render their own verdict.

Readers rated it at four Pinocchios and the author rated Drumpf's claims "very wrong". And, Trumplethinskin doesn't like Pinocchios? Well, he should stop lying.

July 18, 2017

Interesting article from USA Today: "Will Trump's exercise and eating habits catch up to him as stress mounts?"

Spoiler

He’s 71, holds down an incredibly stressful job, and is overweight. He doesn’t exercise. His eating habits are less than ideal. And to top it all off, he doesn’t get enough sleep.

For anyone walking into a doctor’s office with those symptoms, stern warnings to change one's lifestyle are sure to follow.

But President Trump’s attitude toward diet and exercise isn’t simply a personal issue. It resonates in his policies on public health. Already his administration has relaxed nutritional standards on school lunches and he has yet to name any members of the president’s fitness council.

It could also impact his judgment. USA TODAY reported recently that neurologists say Trump shows most symptoms of sleep deprivation — including diminished cognition and anxiety — and a June report shows exercise is the single best medicine for a good night’s sleep.

Stress is likely what ages presidents the most, says physician Anupam Jena, a Harvard Medical School health care policy professor and author of a study on politicians' mortality rates.

“Trump has got an awful lot of stress with whatever’s going to happen with the Russian probe," says Jena.

Jena’s 2015 study looked at the mortality rates of politicians from around the world and found their life expectancy was 2.7 years shorter than the person who failed to beat them in an election.

Jena, an internal medicine doctor, says healthy eating, increased exercise and a good night's sleep are the key ways political leaders can offset their risk of an early death.

Those who know Trump, including physicians, say they aren't worried about him.

"The guy is not a health nut, but he's always in motion," says Chris Ruddy, the CEO of the media company Newsmax, who has known Trump for 20 years.

Ruddy says Trump will often chide him if he "needs to lose a few pounds," and is always monitoring his own weight.

After he was the target of jokes for eating pizza with a fork in 2011, Trump declared he could more easily eat just the cheese if he used utensils.

"I like to not eat the crust so we can keep the weight down at least as good as possible," he said.

Washington cardiologist Ramin Oskoui also advised Trump on health care policy during the campaign and reviewed Trump's medical information last year. He concluded that the data "seemed fairly reassuring. He has high cholesterol and was taking appropriate medication."

"He seems to have gotten good care and followed the recommendations of his Internist," Oskoui said in an email. "While the records were brief, they were pretty reasonably straight-forward and transparent. I wouldn't say the same thing about [Democratic nominee Hillary] Clinton."

Harold Bornstein, Trump's doctor until he started using White House physician Ronny Jackson this year, said he wrote Trump's health report in five minutes and used the president’s “kind of language.”

Even if Bornstein was embellishing to the degree his patient prefers, medical experts consulted by USA TODAY say Trump's approach to food and fitness are frightening for 71-year-old man under his amount of stress.

"Do I worry he’s going to have a heart attack or stroke in office?" asks Cleveland Clinic physician and diet book author Michael Roizen. "From a medical standpoint, you would worry about that."

No fan of fitness

Trump believes everyone has a finite amount of energy to use throughout his or her lifetime, so he doesn't exercise beyond playing golf while riding a cart. He is best known as a fan of fast food, which he has discussed often in media interviews, or higher-end burgers at his country clubs, which Ruddy confirms.

Regardless of her patients’ sleep problems, Maryland sleep medicine doctor and neurologist Helene Emsellem says appointments “invariably include a discussion of diet and exercise" as they try to solve them.

Despite its sleep-inducing qualities, Trump has stated openly that excercise is overrated, even going so far as to say that it can create more problems than it cures.

‘‘All my friends who work out all the time, they’re going for knee replacements, hip replacements — they’re a disaster,’’ Trump said in a September 2015 New York Times Magazine article.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, an informal adviser to the president, finds Trump's aversion to actual exercise irrelevant.

"Donald Trump is one of the those people who is genetically disposed to have high energy," says Gingrich, who lauded Trump's frequent golf outings. Trump travels the course at a rapid pace, he said.

Golfing also keeps him from eating. Ruddy says Trump once told him: "You'll love golf — four hours when you're not eating or thinking about food."

Playing golf while riding a cart burns only about half as many calories than walking, or an average of 411 calories for nine holes, according to a study by Neal Wolkendoff of the Colorado Center for Health and Sport Science.

Golf = one piece of KFC

That's about the same calories in one extra crispy Kentucky Fried Chicken breast. It's also just under what Trump burns with three hours of sleep, says neurologist William Winter, author of The Sleep Solution.

"For Trump, his lack of sleep can create problems with his weight" and metabolism, says Winter. Sleep deprivation suppresses the chemical leptin, which makes us feel full.

"This will have the effect of making POTUS eat more to feel full," says Winter.

The White House doesn't comment on how often Trump golfs. Politifact, which has been tracking Trump's golf through public sightings and other reports, says the president has golfed 19 times between his inauguration and July 5. (The site also compares Trump to former President Barack Obama, who golfed eight times at this point in his presidency.)

The Department of Health and Human Services and its President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition recommends 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity, 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity, or a combination of the two every week.

But that predated Trump’s administration, which has allowed the President’s Council to languish. “To be announced” is all the site says under members and leadership. Former California governor, Mr. Universe and recent Trump nemesis Arnold Schwarzenegger is an ex-chairman of the council.

Conversely, President George W. Bush, who WebMD called “President Buff,” used the elliptical machine two days, lifted weights two days, ran four miles four days and did “lots of stretching" in a typical week, according to information released by the White House during his administration. He was also an avid cyclist.

Obama worked out for about 45 minutes for six days a week, alternating between cardio-strength training and weightlifting, according to Men's Health which dubbed him one of their "Heroes of Health and Fitness" in 2015.

Diet and exercise were also former first lady Michelle Obama's signature issues. As the fitness council lay dormant, Trump's Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue relaxed the nutritional standards for school lunches and delayed deadlines for adherence, notes nutrition expert and author Marion Nestle, a New York University professor.

"One of the things Michelle Obama did was exert an enormous moral force for keeping kids healthy," says Nestle. "These things have to be changed at societal level and it’s really nice if you have a government that promotes it."

A fast foodie

While he was president, Bill Clinton came the closest to what Gingrich calls Trump's "middle American eating habits." Like Trump, Clinton also didn't drink alcohol.

Clinton, however, "ran with the Secret Service agents five days a week," says Roizen.

At 71, Trump is also considerably older than his predecessors, but that doesn't mean he is supposed to exercise any less. It does mean he's in step with other 70-somethings. Roizen says less than 1% of adults aged 65 do the basic level of recommended exercise, which includes cardio, resistance training and walking about 10,000 steps a day.

Trump has talked often of his love of fast food. Gingrich reiterated what has been written in the past about Trump's attraction to both fast food and hygiene.

"It’s definable," Gingrich says of fast food. "He's looking for consistency and reliability."

Trump and now-First Lady Melania Trump appeared on a video on Martha Stewart's website in 2006 as Stewart prepared "Donald's favorite sandwich" — meat loaf.

The food choices on Trump's campaign plane reported by the New York Times included chateaubriand, shrimp cocktail, chicken, sea bass and potatoes au gratin. Trump chose liberally from the potatoes and shrimp that day.

One of the few recent Trump meals journalists have reported on — a May 8 dinner attended by three Time correspondents — included two scoops of ice cream with pie for him, one for everyone else and a fruit plate for Vice President Pence. Trump also got an extra side of sauce for his chicken.

White House and former Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks declined to respond to questions about Trump's health, beyond sending the link to an article about the president now using the White House physician.

While many have noted Trump already looks like the presidency has taken a toll on him, Gingrich isn't one of them.

"I think he looks he’s having the time of his life," says Gingrich. "My hunch is it won’t age Donald Trump at all."

I'm certainly not the best eater or exerciser, but I'm not POTUS, and I'm two decades younger than the TT. Also, I am trying to improve, unlike a certain toddler we all know.

July 18, 2017

Awwww...one of man baby's golf courses isn't doing so well...

Quote

The Washington Post reports that the Trump National Golf Course Los Angeles has faced a 13 percent year-over-year drop in greens fees since the start of the year.

Additionally, the course has seen charities flee as they look for less controversial venues to hold their charity tournaments. What’s more, the course has not hosted any weddings since last November’s election, despite the fact that it used to be a popular destination for receptions.

And finally, the Post reviewed permitting records and found that Hollywood studios have “largely stopped” using the club as a shooting location — thus taking out another key source of revenue.

“It’s just dead all the time,” said Richard Sullivan, a 59-year-old doctor who used to more frequently attend the Trump golf course.

July 18, 2017

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Interesting article from USA Today: "Will Trump's exercise and eating habits catch up to him as stress mounts?"

Hide contents

He’s 71, holds down an incredibly stressful job, and is overweight. He doesn’t exercise. His eating habits are less than ideal. And to top it all off, he doesn’t get enough sleep.

For anyone walking into a doctor’s office with those symptoms, stern warnings to change one's lifestyle are sure to follow.

But President Trump’s attitude toward diet and exercise isn’t simply a personal issue. It resonates in his policies on public health. Already his administration has relaxed nutritional standards on school lunches and he has yet to name any members of the president’s fitness council.

It could also impact his judgment. USA TODAY reported recently that neurologists say Trump shows most symptoms of sleep deprivation — including diminished cognition and anxiety — and a June report shows exercise is the single best medicine for a good night’s sleep.

Stress is likely what ages presidents the most, says physician Anupam Jena, a Harvard Medical School health care policy professor and author of a study on politicians' mortality rates.

“Trump has got an awful lot of stress with whatever’s going to happen with the Russian probe," says Jena.

Jena’s 2015 study looked at the mortality rates of politicians from around the world and found their life expectancy was 2.7 years shorter than the person who failed to beat them in an election.

Jena, an internal medicine doctor, says healthy eating, increased exercise and a good night's sleep are the key ways political leaders can offset their risk of an early death.

Those who know Trump, including physicians, say they aren't worried about him.

"The guy is not a health nut, but he's always in motion," says Chris Ruddy, the CEO of the media company Newsmax, who has known Trump for 20 years.

Ruddy says Trump will often chide him if he "needs to lose a few pounds," and is always monitoring his own weight.

After he was the target of jokes for eating pizza with a fork in 2011, Trump declared he could more easily eat just the cheese if he used utensils.

"I like to not eat the crust so we can keep the weight down at least as good as possible," he said.

Washington cardiologist Ramin Oskoui also advised Trump on health care policy during the campaign and reviewed Trump's medical information last year. He concluded that the data "seemed fairly reassuring. He has high cholesterol and was taking appropriate medication."

"He seems to have gotten good care and followed the recommendations of his Internist," Oskoui said in an email. "While the records were brief, they were pretty reasonably straight-forward and transparent. I wouldn't say the same thing about [Democratic nominee Hillary] Clinton."

Harold Bornstein, Trump's doctor until he started using White House physician Ronny Jackson this year, said he wrote Trump's health report in five minutes and used the president’s “kind of language.”

Even if Bornstein was embellishing to the degree his patient prefers, medical experts consulted by USA TODAY say Trump's approach to food and fitness are frightening for 71-year-old man under his amount of stress.

"Do I worry he’s going to have a heart attack or stroke in office?" asks Cleveland Clinic physician and diet book author Michael Roizen. "From a medical standpoint, you would worry about that."

No fan of fitness

Trump believes everyone has a finite amount of energy to use throughout his or her lifetime, so he doesn't exercise beyond playing golf while riding a cart. He is best known as a fan of fast food, which he has discussed often in media interviews, or higher-end burgers at his country clubs, which Ruddy confirms.

Regardless of her patients’ sleep problems, Maryland sleep medicine doctor and neurologist Helene Emsellem says appointments “invariably include a discussion of diet and exercise" as they try to solve them.

Despite its sleep-inducing qualities, Trump has stated openly that excercise is overrated, even going so far as to say that it can create more problems than it cures.

‘‘All my friends who work out all the time, they’re going for knee replacements, hip replacements — they’re a disaster,’’ Trump said in a September 2015 New York Times Magazine article.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, an informal adviser to the president, finds Trump's aversion to actual exercise irrelevant.

"Donald Trump is one of the those people who is genetically disposed to have high energy," says Gingrich, who lauded Trump's frequent golf outings. Trump travels the course at a rapid pace, he said.

Golfing also keeps him from eating. Ruddy says Trump once told him: "You'll love golf — four hours when you're not eating or thinking about food."

Playing golf while riding a cart burns only about half as many calories than walking, or an average of 411 calories for nine holes, according to a study by Neal Wolkendoff of the Colorado Center for Health and Sport Science.

Golf = one piece of KFC

That's about the same calories in one extra crispy Kentucky Fried Chicken breast. It's also just under what Trump burns with three hours of sleep, says neurologist William Winter, author of The Sleep Solution.

"For Trump, his lack of sleep can create problems with his weight" and metabolism, says Winter. Sleep deprivation suppresses the chemical leptin, which makes us feel full.

"This will have the effect of making POTUS eat more to feel full," says Winter.

The White House doesn't comment on how often Trump golfs. Politifact, which has been tracking Trump's golf through public sightings and other reports, says the president has golfed 19 times between his inauguration and July 5. (The site also compares Trump to former President Barack Obama, who golfed eight times at this point in his presidency.)

The Department of Health and Human Services and its President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition recommends 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity, 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity, or a combination of the two every week.

But that predated Trump’s administration, which has allowed the President’s Council to languish. “To be announced” is all the site says under members and leadership. Former California governor, Mr. Universe and recent Trump nemesis Arnold Schwarzenegger is an ex-chairman of the council.

Conversely, President George W. Bush, who WebMD called “President Buff,” used the elliptical machine two days, lifted weights two days, ran four miles four days and did “lots of stretching" in a typical week, according to information released by the White House during his administration. He was also an avid cyclist.

Obama worked out for about 45 minutes for six days a week, alternating between cardio-strength training and weightlifting, according to Men's Health which dubbed him one of their "Heroes of Health and Fitness" in 2015.

Diet and exercise were also former first lady Michelle Obama's signature issues. As the fitness council lay dormant, Trump's Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue relaxed the nutritional standards for school lunches and delayed deadlines for adherence, notes nutrition expert and author Marion Nestle, a New York University professor.

"One of the things Michelle Obama did was exert an enormous moral force for keeping kids healthy," says Nestle. "These things have to be changed at societal level and it’s really nice if you have a government that promotes it."

A fast foodie

While he was president, Bill Clinton came the closest to what Gingrich calls Trump's "middle American eating habits." Like Trump, Clinton also didn't drink alcohol.

Clinton, however, "ran with the Secret Service agents five days a week," says Roizen.

At 71, Trump is also considerably older than his predecessors, but that doesn't mean he is supposed to exercise any less. It does mean he's in step with other 70-somethings. Roizen says less than 1% of adults aged 65 do the basic level of recommended exercise, which includes cardio, resistance training and walking about 10,000 steps a day.

Trump has talked often of his love of fast food. Gingrich reiterated what has been written in the past about Trump's attraction to both fast food and hygiene.

"It’s definable," Gingrich says of fast food. "He's looking for consistency and reliability."

Trump and now-First Lady Melania Trump appeared on a video on Martha Stewart's website in 2006 as Stewart prepared "Donald's favorite sandwich" — meat loaf.

The food choices on Trump's campaign plane reported by the New York Times included chateaubriand, shrimp cocktail, chicken, sea bass and potatoes au gratin. Trump chose liberally from the potatoes and shrimp that day.

One of the few recent Trump meals journalists have reported on — a May 8 dinner attended by three Time correspondents — included two scoops of ice cream with pie for him, one for everyone else and a fruit plate for Vice President Pence. Trump also got an extra side of sauce for his chicken.

White House and former Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks declined to respond to questions about Trump's health, beyond sending the link to an article about the president now using the White House physician.

While many have noted Trump already looks like the presidency has taken a toll on him, Gingrich isn't one of them.

"I think he looks he’s having the time of his life," says Gingrich. "My hunch is it won’t age Donald Trump at all."

I'm certainly not the best eater or exerciser, but I'm not POTUS, and I'm two decades younger than the TT. Also, I am trying to improve, unlike a certain toddler we all know.

Oh no, can you imagine the insane conspiracy theories that will develop if Trump croaks while in office? Also, I'm betting now that they'll find him logged on to twitter with a half composed tweet when he does finally kick the bucket.

July 18, 2017

Integrity? We don't need no stinking Integrity

Eighth person in Trump Tower meeting is identified

Quote

An American-based employee of a Russian real estate company took part in a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between a Russian lawyer and Donald Trump Jr., bringing to eight the number of known participants at the session that has emerged as a key focus of the investigation of the Trump campaign’s interactions with Russian.

Ike Kaveladze’s presence was confirmed by Scott Balber, an attorney for Emin and Aras Agalarov, the Russian developers who hosted the Trump-owned Miss Universe pageant in 2013. Balber said Kaveladze works for the Agalarovs’ company and attended as their representative.

Balber said Tuesday that he received a phone call from a representative of Special Counsel Robert Mueller over the weekend requesting the identity of the Agalarov representative , which he said he provided. The request is the first public indication that Mueller’s team is investigating the meeting.

Donald Trump Jr. agreed to take the meeting on the promise that he would be provided damaging information about Hillary Clinton as part of a Russian government to help his father’s presidential campaign, according to emails released by Trump Jr. last week.

Rob Goldstone, a music promoter, told Trump Jr. in an email that his client, Emin Agalarov, a Russian pop star, requested that Trump Jr. meet with the lawyer.

The full list of the participants has remained a mystery until now, despite a statement from Trump Jr. that he was releasing his emails in an effort to be “transparent” about the meeting, which he has said amounted to nothing.

Balber said Kaveladze works as a vice president focusing on real estate and finance for the Agalarovs’ company, the Crocus Group. Aras Agalarov requested that Kaveladze attend the meeting on his behalf, Balber said. Kaveladze is a U.S. citizen and has lived in this country for many years, according to Balber, who is said he is representing the man.

Balber said Kaveladze believed he would act as a translator, but arrived to discover that the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya had brought her own translator, a former State Department employee named Anatoli Samochornov. Samochornov has declined to comment, citing a non-disclosure agreement he signed as a professional translator. Balber said he believes the list of participants known to the public is now complete.

Other participants in the meeting were Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of the president and Paul Manafort, a top campaign aide, as well as Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-American lobbyist who was lobbying to lift sanctions imposed in 2012.

July 18, 2017

52 minutes ago, milkteeth said:

Oh no, can you imagine the insane conspiracy theories that will develop if Trump croaks while in office? Also, I'm betting now that they'll find him logged on to twitter with a half composed tweet when he does finally kick the bucket.

Oh, the tinfoil hat brigade will be out in force if that happens. I agree with the logged into twitter, but add that he'll be on the porcelain throne with his cell phone in one hand and either a diet coke or a piece of KFC in the other. Sorry for the mental image...here's some brain bleach:

Politico posted a good article: "Trump blindsided by implosion of GOP health care bill"

Spoiler

President Donald Trump convened a strategy session over steak and succotash at the White House with senators Monday night, trying to plot an uphill path to repealing Obamacare and replacing it with a GOP alternative.

He made an impassioned pitch on why Republicans needed to do it now — and the political peril they could face if they didn’t “repeal and replace” after promising to do it for years. He also vented about Democrats and the legislative process. “He basically said, if we don’t do this, we’re in trouble,” said one person briefed on the meeting. “That we have the Senate, House and White House, and we have to do it or we’re going to look terrible.”

Meanwhile, two senators — neither invited to the dinner — were simultaneously drafting statements saying that they couldn’t support the current Senate health care bill. They released the statements just after Trump’s White House meal concluded.

Trump had no idea the statements were coming, according to several White House and congressional officials. His top aides were taken aback, and the White House was soon on the phone with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

The abrupt collapse of the current plan blew up what the White House wanted for months and undoubtedly set back Republicans in their goal to overhaul President Barack Obama’s legislation. It certainly frustrated a number of the president’s top aides, who have negotiated to-the-letter certain packages for certain senators for a summer solution.

But Trump, who has not fretted over the details of the proposed legislation, seemed ready to try something else — trading rib-eye negotiations for his favorite pastime.

Within an hour, Trump was back on Twitter, where he put forward a different idea — one he has posited privately for months — after talking to McConnell and top aides.

“Republicans should just REPEAL failing ObamaCare now & work on a new Healthcare Plan that will start from a clean slate. Dems will join in!” he tweeted.

Trump is fine doing it that way, said one White House aide — as “long as something gets done.”

To Trump, the Obamacare fight has always been about scoring a win. He doesn’t care nearly as much about the specifics, people close to him say, and hasn’t understood why legislators won’t just make deals and bring something, anything, to his desk.

He has said publicly and privately he didn’t understand it would take this long. “Nobody knew health care could be so complicated,” Trump said in February. At a different point, he said only Middle East peace would be harder.

Along the way, Trump has weighed various options, from not paying cost-sharing subsidies and letting the law implode to repealing it without a replacement — which he veered back to Monday night on Twitter.

“He told us months ago we could just let it blow up and blame the Democrats,” said one activist who met with Trump at the White House.

He praised the conservative version of the law passed through the House in a Rose Garden fête before trashing it as “mean” in a meeting with moderate senators.

Earlier Monday evening, just after Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) announced their opposition, a White House official said the team would go back to working with individual members on the bill. There was no desire, this person said, to restart negotiations from scratch.

White House officials said they purposely picked veteran lawmakers who they saw as allies to attend the dinner with Trump, not legislators they thought were on the fence. But the bill was already on a knife edge, with a vote delayed this week due to the absence of Arizona Sen. John McCain due to a medical procedure.

Trump has privately wondered why legislators don’t seem to listen to him, and the blow from Moran and Lee illustrated the limits of the president’s capacity to master the art of the Washington deal.

“None of the people at the dinner were the ones they should have been worried about,” said one person involved in the discussions.

Trump allies have sometimes attacked Republicans the White House needs to support the bill. He has alienated some senators with his unorthodox tweets and his inattention to policy details, even as they have praised others on his staff. He has sometimes expressed a view that Democrats would like to work with Republicans, as he did Monday night, even though his staff harbors skepticism.

“Why would Trump call McCain crusty Monday afternoon?” one White House official asked. “Because that’s the word that came to his brain.”

According to several people briefed on the matter, Trump and McConnell were prepared to make similar statements Monday evening. But Trump pre-empted the Senate majority leader — sending a quick tweet that took even some of his staff by surprise. “There it is,” one aide said, two minutes after promising news within “an hour.”

“Regretfully, it is now apparent that the effort to repeal and immediately replace the failure of Obamacare will not be successful,” McConnell said, in a missive from Don Stewart, his spokesman.

A White House official, per usual policy, said Trump’s tweet would speak for itself.

He really does seem like he's auditioning for the remake of "Clueless".

July 18, 2017

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I agree with the logged into twitter, but add that he'll be on the porcelain throne with his cell phone in one hand and either a diet coke or a piece of KFC in the other. Sorry for the mental image...here's some brain bleach:

I will never eat KFC again. (Disclaimer: I don't eat it anymore anyway)

July 18, 2017

The WaPo wrote this great analysis. It's annotated, so you have to read the article to see the notes: "Trump’s peculiar analysis of the GOP health-care bill’s defeat suggests he’s clueless"

Spoiler

President Trump either has no idea about what just happened in the health-care debate, or he's really good at pretending like it.

Trump was asked a few questions about the just-imploded Senate GOP health-care bill on Tuesday afternoon at the White House, and his answers at once suggested he didn't really grasp the strategy at all and he hadn't paid much attention to the senators he needed to convince. He even suggested only four GOP senators would have opposed it -- which is highly doubtful in the first place -- and called that "a pretty impressive vote."

Below are his answers, with our annotations in yellow.

On whether he is disappointed:

I’m disappointed -- very disappointed. I don’t know, but I’m certainly disappointed. For seven years, I’ve been hearing "repeal and replace" from Congress. I’ve been hearing it loud and strong, and when we finally get a chance to repeal and replace, they don’t take advantage of it. So that’s disappointing. So I would say I’m disappointed in what took place, and it will go on. And we’re going to win on taxes, we’re going to win on infrastructure and lots of other things that we’re doing. We’ve won and are winning the war on the border. We are very much decimating ISIS -- you can see that, you can see that better than anybody see it, the soldiers that are here today. We’ve had a lot of victories but haven’t had a victory on health care. We are disappointed. I am very disappointed because, again, even as a civilian for seven years on health care, I’ve been hearing about repeal and replace and Obamacare is a total disaster. Some states had over a 200 percent increase, 200 percent increase in their premiums and their deductibles are through the roof. It’s an absolute disaster. And you’ll also agree that I’ve been saying for a very long time "Let Obamacare fail and then everybody is going to have to come together and fix it." And come up with a new plan and a plan that is really good for the people with much lower premiums, much lower costs, much better protection. I’ve been saying that -- Mike, I know you’ll agree -- let Obamacare fail and it will be a lot easier. And I think we're probably in that position where we'll let Obamacare fail. We're not going to own it. I'm not going to own it. I can tell you the Republicans are not going to own it. We'll let Obamacare fail, and then the Democrats are going to come to us and they are going to say, "How do we fix it, how do we fix it?" or "How do we come up with a new plan?" We’ll see what happens, but I am disappointed because for so many years, I’ve been hearing repeal and replace. I’m sitting in the Oval Office, right next door, pen in hand, waiting to sign something and I’ll be waiting. And eventually, we’re going to get something done, and it’s gonna be very good. But Obamacare is a big failure. It has to be changed. We have to go to a plan that works. We have to go to a much less expensive plan in terms of premiums. Something will happen and it will be good. It may not be as quick as we had hoped but it is going to happen.

On Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) announcing their opposition Monday night:

They had their own reasons. I was very surprised when the two folks came out last night because we thought they were in fairly good shape but they did. You know, everybody has their own reason. If you really think about it, you look at it, we have 52 people, we have no Democrat support, which is really something that should be said. You should have Democrats voting for a great plan for a lot of people. We had no Democrat support. You had 52 people, you had 4 nos. No we might have had another one someone in there. But the vote would have been if you look at it, 48-4. That’s a pretty impressive vote by any standard, and yet you have a vote of 48-4 or something like that and you need more. That’s pretty tough. So the way I look at it is in '18, we’re going to have to get some more people elected. We have to go out and get more people elected that are Republicans. And we have to probably pull in those few people who voted against it. They’ll have to explain to you why they did, and I’m sure they’ll have very fine reasons. But we have to get more Republicans because if we get it passed in the House, we would have gotten it very much -- you know you can’t use his head as a stand, we don’t want that to happen. You’re messing with the wrong guy here -- I think we’re doing very well actually in '18. I would be not surprised if something is done long before that. In any case, because the margin is so small, the majority margin is so small, we’re going to have to go out and get more Republicans elected in ’18. I’ll be working very hard for that to happen. It would be nice to get Democrat support, but really they are obstructionists. They have no ideas. They have no thought process. All they want to do is obstruct government and obstruct period. In this case, think of it, so many good things we didn’t get one vote and their plan has failed. And, by the way, Obamacare isn’t failing. It’s failed. Done.

On whether he blames Mitch McConnell:

No.

The one note I'll include here is my favorite, in response to "I’m sitting in the Oval Office, right next door, pen in hand, waiting to sign something and I’ll be waiting.":

Quote

Even if the Senate passed this bill, it bears noting, there would still have been a conference committee to resolve the differences between the House and Senate versions, and then more votes.

Trump seems to suggest this would have been the end of it if it passed, and he would just have signed it. That’s simply not the case.

It just shows he has no idea how laws are made. Maybe we should start running Schoolhouse Rock on Faux News.

July 18, 2017

"Trump now wants to gamble his presidency and his party on the strength of his salesmanship"

Spoiler

President Trump claims he wants to do with the Affordable Care Act what he’d done several times with his businesses: Let it fail and move on.

After a 12-hour stretch in which a Republican Obamacare-overhaul bill collapsed, was replaced and then the replacement collapsed, Trump told reporters that he was going back to a strategy he had pitched on the campaign trail: Let Obamacare fail, then rebuild the health-care system once it does.

...

But health care is not like an Atlantic City casino. Its failure would have massive, hard-to-predict repercussions. And the negative effects of that almost certainly unpleasant fallout would land largely at the feet of Trump and his party.

The Kaiser Family Foundation has asked a related question in polling in the past several months. Survey respondents were asked which is closer to their point of view: that Democrats own the problems of Obamacare because they wrote the bill or that Republicans do because they control the Congress and the White House. Each time the question was asked, about 6 in 10 respondents said that the problems are now the responsibility of the GOP.

...

Fewer than a third of respondents say that Obama and the Democrats are to blame.

Interestingly, this is one of the few areas where there isn’t a big partisan split. That Republicans would be to blame for problems is a position held by a majority of Democrats, as expected — but also a majority of Republicans and independents.

...

Trump’s position seems to be that he can, through sheer force of salesmanship, change America’s mind.

In January, he argued that Democrats bore the blame for Obamacare’s problems, a position he hinted at on Tuesday.

...

(Never mind that in 2013, he declared that his party would own the policy if it didn’t kill it with a government shutdown looming.)

...

Clearly Trump falls into that 30 percent of Americans who think Democrats should bear the blame.

But the Kaiser question is in the abstract. A collapse of the health-care system as currently structured might mean millions of Americans without the ability to buy mandated insurance policies — or policies that have become so expensive that they are prohibitive for people to buy.

Mind you, that’s not the path that we’re on now. The Congressional Budget Office has repeatedly indicated that the Obamacare market is “stable in most areas” — not, as Trump often argues, in a “death spiral.” What could weaken that stability, the CBO wrote in May, was the withdrawal of insurers from marketplaces based on “lack of profitability and substantial uncertainty about enforcement of the individual mandate and about future payments of the cost-sharing subsidies to reduce out-of-pocket payments.” Margins for insurers hit a new high in the first quarter of this year, but the health-care debate — and Trump’s repeated threat to withhold payments to insurers — means that the other risks are very real. (Blue Cross Blue Shield in North Carolina cited the political turmoil and Trump’s threat as factors for its more-than-expected increase in premiums in 2018.

If the marketplace becomes substantially disrupted and Americans face spiking insurance costs or the inability to enroll in coverage, it’s hard to see how the party that currently runs Washington will escape blame. Trump is confusing Obamacare in the abstract with a particular-thing-that-would-have-happened. It’s a bit like the captain of the Titanic intentionally ramming an iceberg and assuming that the passengers’ families would blame the people who built the ship.

Tweets like this probably won’t cut it.

...

After all, the Senate bill that failed required only 50 votes for passage — but the Republican majority couldn’t secure them.

What Trump is promising to members of his party is that turning the knobs that could prompt Obamacare to start to tailspin would lead America to blame the people who made the plane, not the ones now piloting it. He’s promising, in essence, that his salesmanship can convince America that his political opponents bear the blame for the crash.

That’s an awfully risky promise for Republicans to accept from a guy who can’t even get half the country to say he’s doing a good job.

I wouldn't expect him to be able to sell ice to someone in a desert.

July 18, 2017

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

The one note I'll include here is my favorite, in response to "I’m sitting in the Oval Office, right next door, pen in hand, waiting to sign something and I’ll be waiting.":

I was gong to pick on him for acting like a little kid who has his big boy crayon and loves to ~~scrawl~~ sign his name, but then my really sick mind jumped thoughts of other connotations of "big boy crayon". I need to go puke and then lock myself in the prayer closet for my disgusting thoughts.

July 18, 2017

I see man baby's fee fees are hurt

Quote

The collapse of the Republican bid to repeal and replace Obamacare Monday, alongside chaos brewed by the Russia scandal, has revealed a stunted presidency and a White House struggling to master the levers of power.

Trump was prepared to shoulder no blame for the failure of the bill on Tuesday, and warned he would now simply let Obamacare fail.

"We're not going to own it. I'm not going to own it. I can tell you the Republicans are not going to own it. We'll let Obamacare fail and then the Democrats are going to come to us," Trump told reporters at the White House.

Fuck him.

July 18, 2017

On 7/17/2017 at 0:02 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

“A transcript of the chat, seen by senior diplomats, reveals his touchiness. Mr. Trump says: ‘I haven’t had great coverage out there lately, Theresa.’

Oh FFS he doesn't get great press in the States (save for Fox) so why is he still here?

July 18, 2017

Welcome to (This Bill Won't Get) Made in America Week! They should really drop the theme thing. Or just try for honesty. How about "Get Me Something to Sign Week." Or "Let's Replace Our Lawyers Week." "Celebrate Ivanka" Week. "Take Personal Responsibility W.... oops, no, not that.

July 19, 2017

So Trump met with Putin a second time without his translator or anyone else. The man is a total fool and being played by Putin.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/18/world/europe/trump-putin-undisclosed-meeting.html

Quote

The hourlong conversation in Hamburg, Germany, took place at a private dinner among world leaders at a concert hall on the banks of the Elbe River during the Group of 20 economic summit meeting, with only a Kremlin interpreter present to listen to the exchange.

Quote

But the intimate dinner conversation, of which there is no official United States government record, because no American official other than the president was involved, is the latest to raise eyebrows. Foreign leaders who witnessed it later commented privately on the oddity of an American president flaunting such a close rapport with his Russian counterpart.

How much more can the GOP turn a blind eye to?

July 19, 2017

12 hours ago, formergothardite said:

So Trump met with Putin a second time without his translator or anyone else. The man is a total fool and being played by Putin.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/18/world/europe/trump-putin-undisclosed-meeting.html

How much more can the GOP turn a blind eye to?

Unfortunately, they have a bigly blind spot, it's the size of Russia. Apparently, he "lashed" out on twitter, big surprise, whining that the media was ascribing something "sinister" and that as president, he's expected to interact with other leaders. Um, well, if you just swung by and said, "nice weather today, isn't it, Vlady?", that would be a reasonable interaction. Sitting for an hour without a US security team member and/or translator is unacceptable.

July 19, 2017

Maybe that's because his base is as delusional as he is: "The Daily 202: Teflon Trump gets blamed less by base for Obamacare fail than Senate GOP"

Spoiler

THE BIG IDEA: President Trump has a funny way of talking about Republicans as if he’s not one of them, let alone the leader of the party.

...

Maybe it’s because he was a registered Democrat until as recently as 2009.

Or maybe he still sees himself as the outsider who hijacked the GOP from the establishment in a nominating contest that no one but him thought he could win.

Or maybe it’s because, until late in life, he was an outspoken advocate of universal health care. Trump heaped praise on Canada’s single-payer system and said the United States should emulate it in a book he wrote called “The America We Deserve” in 2000.

Another plausible explanation for why Trump doesn’t want his own brand too closely associated with Republicanism is that he likes to have scapegoats handy if things go poorly. He will happily take credit for legislative victories and run away from defeats.

As the Senate GOP all but admits defeat in its seven-year quest to overturn the Affordable Care Act, Trump’s reaction gives credence to this theory. “I’m not going to own it,” the president told reporters in the Roosevelt Room yesterday. “I can tell you the Republicans are not going to own it. We’ll let Obamacare fail, and then the Democrats are going to come to us.”

-- Whatever the reason, Trump has often talked about Republicans in the third person since taking office. Consider these examples specific to the health-care debate:

“I say to the Republicans, if you really want to do politically something good, don't do anything,” Trump said in a speech to the National Governors Association meeting in February. “Sit back for a period of two years, because '17 is going to be a disaster—a disaster!—for Obamacare if we don't do something.”
“Action is not a choice, it is a necessity,” he said the very next day in his address to a joint session of Congress. “So I am calling on all Democrats and Republicans in Congress to work with us to save Americans from this imploding Obamacare disaster. … On this and so many other things, Democrats and Republicans should get together and unite for the good of our country.”
“The Republicans, frankly, are putting themselves in a very bad position — I tell this to Tom Price all the time—by repealing Obamacare, because people aren't going to see the truly devastating effects of Obamacare,” Trump said in March after a “listening session” with “Obamacare victims.”
In an interview with the Fox Business Network to reflect on his first 100 days in office, Trump explained that he had been unable to accomplish as much as he promised partly because of the Republicans. “You have certain factions,” he told Maria Bartiromo. “You have the conservative Republicans. You have the moderate Republicans. So you have to get them together, and we need close to a hundred percent. That's a pretty hard thing to get.”
After the House passed its health bill in May, Trump predicted it would quickly get through the Senate. “The Republicans are very united like seldom before,” he said. “The Republicans came together all of a sudden two days ago, and it was like magic. They just came together. They are very, very united. Every group from the Freedom Caucus to the Tuesday Group to every single group.”

He’s also tweeted about congressional Republicans as if they are a very distinct entity:

...

After holding a premature celebration in the Rose Garden when the House passed its bill, Trump privately complained that their measure (which he had publicly endorsed) was “mean.” He then complained to Fox News when Barack Obama called the bill mean, on the grounds that he had actually been the first to use that word. You really can’t make that up:

...

-- Across the mainstream media, this morning’s press clips are brutal for Trump. Ahead of his six-month anniversary in office Thursday, there are hundreds of stories out there about how the president is not living up to his promises and has shown himself unable to make big deals.

But, but, but: That is not the vibe you get at all when you check out the right-wing sites where many of the president’s supporters consume their news. Many conservative outlets are pinning the blame on Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and moderate Republican senators, just as they blamed Speaker Paul Ryan when the health-care bill ran into speed bumps in the House.

Here is a taste of what Trump’s base is seeing:

...

“Why the GOP Congress will be the most unproductive in 164 years,” by The Week’s David Faris: “It turns out that the GOP-controlled Congress can't seem to pass any meaningful laws at all. Either they have forgotten how, or the divisions in their own increasingly radicalized caucus are proving too difficult to surmount. Whatever the explanation, thus far these GOP legislators are on track to be the least productive group since at least the Civil War.”
“The ObamaCare Republicans,” by the Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board: “This self-inflicted fiasco is one of the great political failures in recent U.S. history, and the damage will echo for years. … If the ObamaCare Republicans now get primary opponents, they have earned them. … If Republicans can’t be trusted to fulfill a core commitment to voters — whether repeal and replace, or simply to reduce the burden of government — then what is the point of electing Republicans?”
“The GOP's Arrogance Was Thinking That 52 Votes Is A Majority,” by Forbes’ Stan Collender: “The GOP's numerical majority is not an ideological majority, and the collapse of the health care debate shows definitively that Senate (and probably House) Republicans are anything but ideologically aligned on major issues.”

-- On his radio show yesterday, Rush Limbaugh launched a gendered attack against the three moderate senators who announced that they would not vote for full repeal of Obamacare: Susan Collins (Maine), Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska). “Now we find out the Republican caucus in the Senate is infected with essentially leftist members,” Limbaugh said on his program, which attracts millions of listeners each afternoon. “Collins, Murkowski, Capito – these three female leftists in the Republican caucus are running the Senate, not Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell is not running the Senate! These three women are running the Senate. The conservative Republicans in the Senate are not running the Senate. Three liberal women who call themselves Republicans are running the Senate!”

A favorable write-up of Limbaugh’s comments is getting played high on Breitbart.com this morning.

-- “Behind the scenes, White House officials were pointing fingers at Republican leadership,” Politico reports.

-- Because the meltdown of the repeal effort just happened, there is no current polling on who will get blamed most. But a good indicator is probably how people reacted when the House bill failed the first time. In a poll conducted during the first week of April, the Kaiser Family Foundation asked: “Who do you think is to blame for the fact that the health care bill did not pass?” Among GOP voters, only 10 percent blamed Trump while 27 percent blamed Republicans in Congress. (The rest either blamed Democrats or said they didn’t know.) Among people who approved of Trump’s job performance at the time, slightly more blamed the House GOP and even fewer blamed Trump.

Relatedly, despite all evidence to the contrary, 74 percent of Republicans in the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll said Trump was making significant progress on his agenda.

A FLAWED STRATEGY:

-- “Senators pushed Trump to the sidelines. He happily stayed there. Republicans are paying the price,” by senior congressional reporter Paul Kane: “Behind closed doors, the thinking went, GOP senators would reach the consensus … without the din of Trump’s tweetstorms getting in the way. This week, however, brought a painful reminder for Republicans of how difficult major legislative undertakings can be with a president who is doing other things, picking fights with TV news hosts and devoting an inordinate amount of time to a mounting scandal about his 2016 presidential campaign. … Overall, the effort to shore up support for the proposal really lacked a central salesman.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Trump’s onetime primary rival who has been backing him up on health care, reflected candidly on McConnell’s theory of the case after things fell apart: “Let us work through the process and allow it to work its way through the system, and then you can come in at the end and close it. That’s the advice (Trump) took. … The flip side is it’s very difficult to do big things without the involvement of the president. So it’s kind of a Catch-22. … The bottom line is there are members here who understood the president’s preference and were willing to vote against it anyway. … This is the Senate. Leadership sets the agenda, but senators vote in the interests of their states. … Republics are certainly interesting systems of government, but certainly (it’s) better than dictatorship.”

-- “The failed promise to repeal and replace Obamacare surely will affect the mood and enthusiasm of the Republican base heading toward 2018,” writes Dan Balz, The Post’s chief correspondent. “When the Gallup organization asked Americans about the future of Obamacare recently, 30 percent of Americans said they favored ‘repeal and replace,’ but 70 percent of Republicans picked that option. GOP lawmakers will have left them empty-handed, perhaps disillusioned. … In normal times, a party would look to its president to hasten the healing process and pick up the pieces. But these are not normal times. Trump operates by his own standards. And this is a Republican Party that has yet to come to terms what is has become and what is expected of a majority party.”

-- Congressional Republicans, not Trump, are on the ballot next November. If the midterm elections are bad for the GOP, can you imagine him taking responsibility the day after or seeing it as a repudiation of his leadership? Of course not.

-- Trump is not behaving like someone who believes he’s in a foxhole with Senate Republicans.

The White House has been not-so-quietly trying to recruit a Trumpist primary challenger to principled conservative Sen. Jeff Flake in Arizona. Trump himself has been encouraging people to take on the incumbent next year. “Kelli Ward, who has already launched her campaign, and Robert Graham, a former state GOP chair and Trump adviser who is considering it, both told CNN on Monday they have had multiple conversations with White House officials about opposing Flake in the Senate primary,” Eric Bradner reports. “Another potential candidate — state treasurer Jeff DeWit — has had multiple conversations with Trump… Trump was furious at Flake last fall when the Arizona senator called on Trump to withdraw from the presidential race after the emergence of the ‘Access Hollywood’ tape. He told a small group of Arizona Republicans last fall — including Graham — that he would spend $10 million on defeating Flake in the 2018 Senate primary…” (Politico’s Alex Isenstadt also had some great reporting on this earlier in the week.)

-- “Trump made explicit what Republicans had been hoping since the repeal fight started — that whatever happened, voters would blame the Democrats for their health-care costs,” David Weigel reports. “It’s an audacious strategy that flies against current polling and electoral history. It counts on messaging, distracted voters and a built-in electoral advantage to guide the party past the rocks. …

“In interviews Tuesday, Democrats who face re-election in 2018 expressed disbelief at the idea that they, not Trump, would be held accountable for problems with the health-care system. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who may be challenged by longtime ACA opponent Gov. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), said that he was eager to work with Republicans on shoring up the subsidies. Voters back home, he said, clearly saw the Trump administration as the impediment to fixing the law. ‘Let me tell you, people are coming out of the woodwork,’ said Nelson. ‘I go to the Tampa Bay Rays game, I throw out the first pitch, and people are begging: Don’t let them take away my health care. People are onto this.’ Nelson is one of 10 Democrats up for reelection in states won by Trump last year, a factor that Republicans once thought would scare incumbents into making deals. Instead, Democrats have grown more confident about their 2018 chances, with few top-tier candidates jumping into ‘Trump state’ races, and credible Democrats running for seats in Nevada and Texas.”

WHAT'S NEXT?

-- “At the heart of the failed Senate effort to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act were irreconcilable differences over the proper role of entitlements and how far the party should go to pursue its small government mantra,” Damian Paletta writes. “Both wings of the GOP revolted — senators who rejected steep cuts to Medicaid, a health program for low-income Americans, and others who felt the cuts were not deep enough. Now, with the split unresolved, the party is struggling to find a way to govern despite controlling the White House and Congress. And that may leave it at risk of failing to pass any landmark legislation. … With the Republican Party divided, these fights are expected to continue, and potentially intensify. Trump has shown an ideological openness to support most any GOP bill that has a chance of passage, hoping to notch a legislative victory after experiencing numerous defeats.”

-- With Obamacare intact (for now), the 10 million Americans who buy insurance on the ACA marketplaces still face lingering uncertainty. Amy Goldstein and Paige Winfield Cunningham report: “These consumers could face a rocky few months at the least, as the insurers on which they rely decide how to respond to the political chaos. Some companies could become more skittish about staying in the marketplaces for 2018, while others could try to ratchet up their prices depending on how events in Washington unfold. … Most immediately, the administration has the power to decide whether to halt the billions of dollars in payments to health plans that help their lower-income ACA customers afford deductibles and other coverage expenses. Those cost-sharing subsidies benefit 7 million Americans. … The other decision is whether to ease off enforcement of the ACA’s penalty for Americans who shirk the coverage mandate.”

-- Trump has repeatedly toyed with the idea of ending the subsidies, the next round of which are supposed to go out to insurers by tomorrow. Politico’s Paul Demko and Josh Dawsey report: “Trump has repeatedly told aides and advisers that he wants to end the subsidy payments, and he has not changed his position, according to several people who have spoken with him. … ‘My advice to the plans this morning was, “If you get it, cash the check quickly,' one health care lobbyist who represents insurers said Tuesday. Two White House officials said a final decision on the subsidies had not been made. One person said various aides and advisers had issued conflicting opinions in recent days. Asked whether Trump would actually pull the plug, a different administration official said this time is ‘different’ — and that administration officials had begun looking at how they would end the payments. ‘But no decision has been made,’ the official said.”

-- McConnell announced last night that, at Trump's request, he will hold a vote on the motion to proceed to debate on the bill early next week. Axios’s Caitlin Owens reports: “[Collins, Murkowski and Capito] are being encouraged to vote yes on the first vote, which begins debate on the bill ... There would then be debate and an opportunity to amend the bill while it's on the floor. So while [McConnell] has told members the vote will be on the 2015 repeal bill, the final bill voted on could end up being something else. … But two of the three holdouts would have to agree to vote yes on the motion to proceed if the vote is held before Sen. John McCain returns from surgery. That's a big if, and some are skeptical: ‘No one believes a deal can be made at this point. The three ladies are waaaay smarter than that,’ a third senior aide told me.”

-- With little hope among Republicans for a one-party solution, Chuck Schumer is repeating his offer to work with his GOP colleagues to reach a bipartisan solution. (Ed O’Keefe and Sean Sullivan)

-- Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), whose state expanded Medicaid under the ACA, wrote a New York Times op-ed urging the Senate GOP to work on fixing the current law: “In the uncertainty created by the Senate plan’s collapse, Congress should guard against a hasty next step. Just taking up the fatally flawed House plan is not an answer, and this idea should be immediately rejected for the same reasons senators rejected the Senate’s own proposal. Also, simply repealing Obamacare without having a workable replacement is just as bad. Both would simply yank health coverage out from under millions of Americans who have no other alternative. After two failed attempts at reform, the next step is clear: Congress should first focus on fixing the Obamacare exchanges before it takes on Medicaid.”

HOW IT’S PLAYING:

-- “Tuesday brought more tension,” Robert Costa, Kelsey Snell and Sean Sullivan report in a detailed tick tock. “There was finger-pointing and faction-forming as (Vice President) Pence and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus worked to repair relationships with senators … During a Senate lunch, when McConnell broached voting Wednesday on a bill that would simply repeal Obamacare, he was met with resistance … McConnell had speakers lined up to support his plan, but a number of senators, fuming over the Monday drama and other issues, asked for a pause rather than quick legislative action.”

-- “Republicans, ignore Trump’s call to ‘let Obamacare fail.’ Do this instead,” by The Post’s Editorial Board: “Mr. Trump is apparently indifferent to the pain that sabotaging the individual health insurance market would cause millions of Americans. Congress must therefore act responsibly. … [Chuck Schumer] on Tuesday morning endorsed bipartisan cooperation to stabilize insurance markets. If Mr. Schumer is serious, he should appoint a panel of Democrats who are willing to cooperate to serve as his side’s negotiators.”

-- “Trump Finds That Demolishing Obama’s Legacy Is Not So Simple,” by the New York Times’ Peter Baker: “Determined to dismantle his predecessor’s legacy, Mr. Trump in the space of a couple of hours this week reluctantly agreed to preserve President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran and failed in his effort to repeal Mr. Obama’s health care program. The back-to-back events highlighted the challenge for a career developer whose main goal since taking office six months ago has been to raze what he sees as the poorly constructed edifices he inherited.”

-- “Why repeal-and-replace was doomed from the start,” by Post columnist Kathleen Parker: “During almost a decade of writing sporadically about health care in its various iterations, I’ve interviewed dozens of people from a mix of related fields — medical, business, legislative and political. Not once have I found a single person who thought the GOP could pull off a repeal-and-replace.”

-- “Trump Seems Much Better at Branding Opponents Than Marketing Policies,” by the Times’s Emily Badger and Kevin Quealy: “He has promised ‘great healthcare,’ ‘truly great healthcare,’ ‘a great plan’ and health care that ‘will soon be great.’ But for a politician who has shown remarkable skill distilling his arguments into compact slogans — ‘fake news,’ ‘witch hunt,’ ‘Crooked Hillary’ — those health care pitches have fallen far short of the kind of sharp, memorable refrain that can influence how millions of Americans interpret news in Washington.”

-- “Health care collapse a blow to McConnell,” by Politico’s John Bresnahan and Burgess Everett: “It’s a serious defeat for McConnell, and one that leaves deep bitterness among rank-and-file GOP senators, as moderates and conservatives blamed each other over who is at fault for the setback.”

-- “Why Obamacare Passed but the GOP Health Bill Failed,” by The Wall Street Journal’s Naftali Bendavid: “Democrats entered the 2008 election expecting to win and planning to push health care as a top priority. In contrast, many Republicans didn’t expect to capture the presidency in 2016, and the GOP didn’t have a health proposal ready.”

-- “The Health Bill’s Failure: Resistance Works,” by the Times's David Leonhardt: “[Sen. Jerry Moran] clearly felt political pressure to oppose the bill, and his recent meetings with constituents were a big part of that pressure.”

-- “Trump Is Showing The World What A Weak American Presidency Looks Like,” by BuzzFeed’s Tarini Parti, Adrian Carrasquillo and John Hudson: “Trump’s struggles go beyond health care. More than six months into Trump’s presidency, Republicans have no legislative accomplishments other than the confirmation of (Gorsuch), a confusing foreign policy, and a White House that is perpetually in damage control mode. From lawmakers and governors to donors and foreign policy experts, a certain realization is sinking in within the party, based on more than a dozen interviews in recent days: Donald Trump has been a historically weak and ineffective president.”

-- “Medicaid shows its political clout,” by Politico’s Rachana Pradhan: “Medicaid may be the next “third rail” in American politics. Resistance to cutting the health care program for the poor has emerged as a big stumbling block to Obamacare repeal, and Republicans touch it at their political peril.”

-- “Trumpcare Collapsed Because the Republican Party Cannot Govern,” by New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait: “The cohesion Republicans possessed in opposition disintegrated once they had power, because their ideology left them unable to pass legislation that was not cruel, horrific, and repugnant to their own constituents.”

-- “GOP may not be punished if it can't pass repeal,” by the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Drew Altman: “When you look at the polling, the idea that the base will rise up and punish Republicans if they don't repeal the ACA appears to be exaggerated, and possibly even a political fiction.”

-- “Murkowski, Sullivan hope for a path forward on failed health care bill,” from Alaska Dispatch News’ Erica Martinson: “Alaska's Republican U.S. senators are not ready to give up on repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, though they have differing viewpoints about how to get there amid a failing process in Congress. … Murkowski called for Republicans to start over, run the bill through an open and bipartisan committee process and leave Medicaid reform at a later date. Sullivan urged his Republican colleagues to continue negotiating among themselves on the draft that was on the table. … At the Senate GOP policy meeting Tuesday afternoon, both Murkowski and Sullivan said they spoke up among their colleagues. Murkowski made clear why she wasn't willing to vote for a repeal without a replacement plan. Sullivan offered a plea for continued negotiations.”

-- “Capito, Manchin oppose repealing ACA without replacement plan,” by Charleston Gazette-Mail’s Jake Zuckerman: “In 2015, Capito voted in favor of an Obamacare repeal bill that then-President Barack Obama vetoed. Ashley Berrang, a spokeswoman for Capito, said the senator needs a working replacement before she votes for a repeal, and the most recent versions are not up to snuff. … Manchin said he questions whether a repeal vote will go the distance, and that he’s planning to work with the other senators who used to serve their states as governors to find an approach to reform the ACA with people who are used to working in a bipartisan fashion. … He said he had not spoken to Capito yet on the new tactic but that she is invited in on the brainstorming sessions.”

...

There are lots of videos and tweets in the article, as well as links to some excellent articles.

July 19, 2017

This is a clip from an article published during the Nixon administration. Does any of this sound familiar?

July 19, 2017

It sounds all too familiar. In fact, I'm already preparing myself for the eventual pardon(s) of the Trump crime family by whoever is president after him.

July 19, 2017

@Zola -- if a Repug follows him, no doubt there will be a pardon.

A good analysis: "Why did Trump meet with Putin? Here are three possibilities."

Spoiler

President Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Group of 20 summit two weeks ago in an informal meeting that had been kept secret until Tuesday night. The meeting, which the White House insists was much ado about nothing but which reportedly lasted as long as an hour, came after an official one that had been made public. The informal meeting included just Trump, Putin and Putin's interpreter, as The Washington Post's Karen DeYoung and Philip Rucker report.

That means we'll probably never really know what was said. The question then is why: Why did Trump see fit to do something that may look so suspicious and raise even more concerns about his relationship with Russia? And why did he and/or the White House not disclose it?

I've been thinking about Trump's flirtation with Russia for the better part of the past two years, and I've boiled it down to three possible explanations:

1. There is something nefarious going on

This is the preferred theory of Trump's opponents. It's the idea that Trump met secretly with Putin because they had some business that needed to be discussed away from prying eyes — even the prying eyes of Trump's own secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, who was the only other U.S. official in the earlier, two-hour-plus meeting.

It's tough to dispute that it looks like Trump was trying to avoid this being news. If the White House knew about this and said nothing, that looks suspicious. And if Trump kept it secret from the White House itself, that looks suspicious, too. What couldn't be discussed in that longer-than-expected previous meeting of which we have no official record? Was Trump even friendlier with Putin than he was when he apparently didn't press him all that hard on Russia's alleged hacking in the 2016 election?

If there is something nefarious going on, a private, undisclosed conversation that was reportedly out of earshot of other world leaders would be a great place to do it. And given the Russian government's and Trump's track records, it's not like we're going to get a straight answer on what they talked about.

2. Trump is oblivious to how this might be perceived

I've framed many of Trump's actions under the rubric of Adam Carolla's “Stupid or Liar” theory before. This reason would be the “stupid” part of that equation.

Given the Russia investigation is targeting Trump himself, in addition to his much-criticized friendliness toward Putin, it's difficult to think that Trump is simply unaware of how something like this might be perceived. But Trump has demonstrated a pretty good lack of political awareness in plenty of other areas, including numerous instances with regard to the Russia investigation. (Think: Telling Lester Holt that the Russia investigation was on his mind when he fired FBI Director James B. Comey, which has led special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to investigate Trump for potential obstruction of justice.)

Trump also has shown that he disregards the advice of those around him, so even if someone in the White House was telling him to tread lightly around Putin, there is no guarantee he would heed that advice.

If Trump is indeed oblivious to how this kind of thing could play out, he's got real problems on that front.

3. Trump is simply addicted to causing controversy and/or sees it as a GOP base play

Whenever a politician does something suspect, the analyst in me is trained to look for the political advantage. Trump's unexpected victory in the 2016 election had plenty of folks hailing his little-understood political genius and suggesting the media simply missed what appealed to Trump supporters.

There is also a significant chance that Trump loves the kind of coverage that ensues from these kinds of meetings. He's got plausible deniability that anything unsavory happened — after all, who is going to contradict that? Putin? The interpreter? — and it gets the media in a fuss about what may have happened. Trump seems to love the idea of wielding all of that fuss and using it to decry the “fake news media” to rally his base.

And perhaps that's the calculation. But at this point, Trump and his team have to be wondering: What's the payoff? What is he really getting out of it? Trump's approval rating is the lowest in modern presidential history, the GOP-controlled Congress hasn't passed any signature legislation, his party split on one of his major promises on the health-care bill, and all Trump has to show for it is a mostly intact group of Republican voters who say they still like him.

If Trump has designs upon being a great president and winning so much that people would get tired of it, stuff like this sure doesn't seem to be paying dividends.

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Trump 21: Tweeting Us Into the Apocalypse

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