United States Congress of Fail (Part 3)

[onekidanddone]

I posted about this on my wall or what ever it is called but I'll also talk about it here because I just need it I'm in a major panic attack mode with the vote in the Senate. The bullies are winning and I'm trying not to to scream and cry. Feeling hopeless and so very alone.

[fraurosena]

2 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

I posted about this on my wall or what ever it is called but I'll also talk about it here because I just need. I'm in a major panic attack mode with the vote in the Senate. The bullies are winning. Trying not to to scream and cry. Feeling hopeless and so very alone.

Did you see McCain's speech? His level of snarkiness is coated with a thin veneer of politeness, but boy does he say some true things!

Maybe that will help you feel somewhat better. Even if it's just a little.

Also, remember, this vote was simply about whether to debate the bill, nothing more than that.

So, catch your breath a little. Things aren't as dire as you think, thankfully.

[candygirl200413]

I really refuse to listen to anything McCain says because for all that talk in his speech, why vote against it? That's his MO, talk the talk but never ever walk the walk.

[CTRLZero]

37 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Did you see McCain's speech? His level of snarkiness is coated with a thin veneer of politeness, but boy does he say some true things!

The Washington Post has a transcript, and it is a rather masterful, thoughtful speech compared with Trump's off-the-cuff idiocy.  Let the debate begin.

[onekidanddone]

My husband spent just over 24 hours in the hospital over the 4th of July to the delightful cost of almost 8 grand. Pancreatitis, I don't recommend it. My daughter had two aliphatic reactions in school this spring sending her to the ER. My out of pocket costs for the blood tests to find out what caused my kid's attacks cost over $1,000. My 93 year old mother depends upon home health care, meals-on-wheels. Mom is going blind, extremely frail and her short term memory is fading quickly.

I have health insurance through my job.  My mom has insurance, a pension and survivor benefits from my dad.  She is able (so far) to stay in her own home.

All that being said, I feel as if we all just getting by. In reality I know we are doing much better than so many Americans.  What is going to happen to them? The working poor? The disabled who can't work?  The parents who can't afford child care but need two incomes to make it through a month. 

 

[onekidanddone]

Music helps sometimes.  I'm a little skived out by the backup band and their masks, but close your eyes and just listen.

Quote

 

 

[nvmbr02]

Chris Hayes was right on with this tweet.

 

[JMarie]

On ‎7‎/‎22‎/‎2017 at 11:07 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

“I’m a doctor. The life expectancy of the American male is not 86. It’s less,” Ward said in the August 2016 interview, adding later: “He’s become pretty sour. A pretty sour old guy.”

 

According to Wikipedia, she's an ER doctor.  I'd hate to take my 89 year old father to the ER and have her be his doctor.

[onekidanddone]

9 minutes ago, JMarie said:

According to Wikipedia, she's an ER doctor.  I'd hate to take my 89 year old father to the ER and have her be his doctor.

She probably eats Soylent Green

[Cartmann99]

I'm sorry that John McCain has cancer, but he will always be a giant jackass in my book for leaving his sickbed to vote for this.

Also, my two senators are not worth a bucket of warm piss. 

19 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

She probably eats Soylent Green

Shhh! Don't give away the secret of the new healthcare bill.

[CTRLZero]

I'll always associate John McCain with Sarah Palin (who is definitely not my favorite person), so that's a wretched legacy to have.  It will be interesting to follow the debate.  In my state, we have counties that no longer have access to health care, affordable or otherwise, due to the foot dragging and uncertainty caused by these congressional meanies.  I really don't know what to do about the situation.  I'm on a first name basis with my congressional reps, but it's preaching to the choir.  Like most of you, I worry about the folks who will be unable to afford and/or access health care, especially since it's happening up close and personal to neighboring counties.

1 hour ago, Cartmann99 said:

 

1 hour ago, onekidanddone said:

She probably eats Soylent Green

Shhh! Don't give away the secret of the new healthcare bill.

Hey, is this one of those leaks I was reading about?!?

[GreyhoundFan]

Lovely, in addition to ruining healthcare, the Repugs are going after the CBO, basically because they don't like facts. "Congressional Budget Office is Freedom Caucus’s target in spending bill"

Spoiler

Conservative hard-liners in the House are hoping to gut the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan scorekeeper whose analysis has recently bedeviled Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, by amending a massive spending bill set to be debated later this week.

An amendment filed Monday by Rep. H. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) would eliminate the agency’s Budget Analysis Division, cutting 89 jobs and $15 million of the CBO’s proposed $48.5 million budget. A separate amendment filed by Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) would also eliminate the same division and specify that the CBO instead evaluate legislation “by facilitating and assimilating scoring data” compiled by four private think tanks — the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, and the Urban Institute.

Both Griffith and Meadows are members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, but complaints about the CBO have been widespread among Republicans in recent months after the agency found that various iterations of the party’s health-care legislation would result in an increase of more than 20 million uninsured Americans over the coming decade. Critics have attacked the CBO’s analysis and pointed to its projections on the Affordable Care Act as evidence that the office, now led by a Republican-selected director, cannot be trusted to accurately analyze complex legislation.

The criticism compelled the eight former directors of the CBO, which was created in 1974, to sign a letter Friday objecting to “recent attacks on the integrity and professionalism of the agency and on the agency’s role in the legislative process.”

But conservatives say the CBO’s scorekeeping function is best left to other outlets.

“They’re the one group that makes a weatherman’s 10-day forecast look accurate,” said Meadows, the Freedom Caucus chairman, during a Monday appearance at the National Press Club. “There’s plenty of think tanks that are out there. And so we ought to take a score from Heritage, from AEI, from Brookings, from the Urban Institute and bring them together for a composite score that would represent a very wide swath of think tanks and their abilities. We think that’s a pragmatic way to use the private sector and yet let Congress depend on a score that is accurate.”

The White House has also attacked the CBO’s credibility as the health-care repeal effort has languished. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) at times has criticized the agency’s health-care estimates, but he also defended it from attacks last month, telling reporters that “it’s important that we have a referee.”

“It is important that we have a scorekeeper,” he said. “We can always complain about the nature of the score.”

The amendments are being offered to a $790 billion spending bill that combines appropriations for the military, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Energy and for Congress itself scheduled to come to the House floor for debate on Wednesday. The bill was largely written by Republicans and is not expected to garner support from Democrats, meaning that even if it passes the House, it is unlikely to emerge from the Senate intact. But the CBO provision could become subject to negotiations if it is adopted in the House.

Both amendments take advantage of a recent change to House rules pushed by Griffith that allows any member to target discrete programs or even individual employees for reduction or elimination. The provision, known as the Holman rule, was in effect from 1876 until 1983.

“When someone gives you bad advice again and again, why would you trust them to help you make big decisions?” Griffith said in a statement explaining his amendment. “I believe Congress would be better served if CBO becomes an aggregator of predictions made by third-party public policy groups across the political spectrum, from left to center to right.”

Um, Morgan, the advice is only "bad" because it isn't what you want to hear.

[GreyhoundFan]

So, it looks like Pence broke the tie for the healthcare bills to go to debate.

The first vote was on the "BRCA" with the Cruz amendment. It failed by nine votes, according to Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC. He just had Al Franken on, who talked about it for a little bit. Supposedly there are going to be more votes tomorrow.

[onekidanddone]

3 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

So, it looks like Pence broke the tie for the healthcare bills to go to debate.

I don't really like Pence breaking the tie, but I'm just saying thank you for keeping up on all this.  Sometimes I just come here instead of reading the WoPo or NYT. 

[GreyhoundFan]

1 minute ago, onekidanddone said:

I don't really like Pence breaking the tie, but I'm just saying thank you for keeping up on all this.  Sometimes I just come here instead of reading the WoPo or NYT. 

You are most welcome. It's nice to have people who understand how concerning this all is.

Murkowski and Collins voted against going to debate, along with all 48 Dems. So, it was 50-50. Of course, the TT didn't understand, and seemed to think, in an excerpt of a speech shown on Lawrence O'Donnell's show, that the vote to proceed meant all would go his way. He also didn't understand that Pence's tie break meant the vote was 51-50. He said, "So the vote was 51 to whatever." Lawrence O'Donnell made sure to say the TT doesn't understand or know anything, especially about the senate.

I haven't seen an accounting of who voted against the BRCA in the first vote, other than all 48 Dems.

 

One other thing that was interesting. When they were voting on whether to proceed to debate, there were many protesters in the senate gallery, shouting, "kill the bill, don't kill us." McConnell had a hissy, as expected. But as Al Franken pointed out, such vocal opposition is basically unheard of in the senate gallery. Al Franken then looked at the camera and appealed to all viewers to express their displeasure as it makes a difference.

[GreyhoundFan]

Indivisible has some good action items. If you are in a state where both of your senators are Dems, but know people in WV or NV, they have a tool where you can call your acquaintances and ask them to call their senators to push for saving the ACA. Their tool lets you patch them through to their senator's office.  

 

[candygirl200413]

Plus don't forget McCain was talking about in speech about how democrats held no meetings/hearings/anything in relation to the ACA even though the repugs added many amendments that cause some of the issues related to ACA.

Also I don't know if any of you have noticed this, but I follow at least my dem senator (Bob Casey) as well as my rep( a dem) and governor (another dem) and every once in a while I'll see reactions with the facebook smileys and I'll read the comments and so many today were saying how they're glad the aca is being repealed because insurance will be affordable?

[GreyhoundFan]

It looks like McTurtle is going to chip away at the ACA: "Senate embarks on new round of voting to peel back Affordable Care Act"

Spoiler

Senate Republicans planned to forge ahead with proposals aimed at revamping the Affordable Care Act Wednesday, hoping to produce some sort of legislation that could garner enough support to serve as the basis of a negotiations with the House.

But after winning a key procedural victory with the help of Vice President Pence’s tiebreaking vote Tuesday, it appeared unclear what sort of health-care rewrite could gain traction. On Tuesday night, just hours after opening debate, Senate Republican leaders were unable to pass a bill that they had spent weeks crafting but that never gained sufficient traction with the rank-and-file.

Fifty-seven senators — including nine Republicans — opposed the updated version of the measure known as the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), while 43 supported it, portending a difficult road ahead for the GOP rollback effort.

The nine Republicans who opposed the repeal-and-replace legislation late Tuesday underscored the challenge Senate GOP leaders face in building consensus in coming days. The group included hard-like conservatives like Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) as well as centrists like Sens. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine).

Given all the disagreement, Republicans are focused on passing narrower changes to current law by the end of the week, known as “skinny repeal,” in hopes of keeping the debate alive in a House-Senate conference.

There is some hope that the debate can begin anew, and perhaps include consideration of measures rejected on the Senate floor this week.

“When you get all done with it in a conference committee, you can come back in and take the most popular items that are out there and put them back in to the bill if they gain you votes or if they really improve the bill,”’ said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) after Tuesday’s vote.

Several senators emphasized they feel a strong imperative to deliver some sort of health-care accomplishment, after vowing for seven years to unwind the law former president Barack Obama ushered into law with only Democratic support.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who had raised objections earlier this month about Senate leaders’ proposal to make deep cuts in Medicaid, said he could back a more modest measure as long as he thought it represented some sort of improvement over the current law.

The “skinny repeal” option would repeal the ACA’s mandates that individuals buy plans and that employers with 50 or more employees provide coverage, said lobbyists and Senate aides, as well as eliminate the law’s tax on medical device manufacturers.

“My endgame is to have something that is fair to patients across the country,” Cassidy told reporters Tuesday night. “Now, I’m not quite sure how we get there, but I am all for anything that gets us one step closer to that end game.”

Still both supporters and critics of GOP leaders’ strategy said there was no way to predict what sort of legislation would come out of the series of votes underway this week. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), one of just two Republicans to vote against the motion to proceed with the health-care debate, said late Tuesday that “there’s been a lot of discussion about” about a scaled-back bill, but no definitive proposal.

“We’ll try to get down to where we can find that agreement, but I don’t know if any of us have identified what that may be,” she said.

President Trump, for his part, took to Twitter Wednesday morning to criticize Murkowski for not voting to start debate. “Senator @lisamurkowski of the Great State of Alaska really let the Republicans, and our country, down yesterday. Too bad!” he tweeted.

On Tuesday the Senate is scheduled to vote on at least one repeal proposal, by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) that would eliminate large parts of the ACA and impose restrictions on federal funding for abortion services. It is also expected to consider an amendment by Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) that would send health-care legislation back to committee for further consideration.

Democrats hope the vote on their amendment will give particular discomfort to Republicans like Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), who complained that the GOP bill was written in secret by a small number of senators.

Republicans warned that the voting schedule could change at any time, however.

Trump has been pushing aggressively for Republicans to pass a repeal-and-replace plan, saying opposing the procedural motion to proceed with debate would be tantamount to endorsing the law known as Obamacare.

Speaking at a joint news conference in the Rose Garden on Tuesday, the president said he is “very, very sad” for the Republicans who opposed the motion but “very happy with the result” of the vote.

“Now we’re all going to sit together and try to come up with something really spectacular,” he said. “It’s a very, very complex and difficult task, something I know quite a bit about.”

Tuesday’s proceedings were marked by high drama, including the return of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to the Capitol just 1 1/2  weeks after he underwent surgery related to his recent diagnosis of brain cancer, and Pence’s move to cast the tiebreaking vote. The intensity of the debate, including protesters who yelled “Kill the bill!” in the Senate chamber after the voting had begun, underscored the stakes involved in overhauling a health-care system that affects one-sixth of the U.S. economy and how tens of millions receive medical care.

All 48 members of the Democratic caucus voted against the procedural motion to start debate, along with two GOP centrists, Murkowski and Susan Collins (Maine).

Republicans have struggled mightily to get to this point, and there is no guarantee they will win final passage of the bill. In a sign of how muddled the situation remains, McCain took to the floor after voting to move ahead and declared, “I will not vote for the [BCRA] as it is today. It’s a shell of a bill right now.”

Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) echoed these sentiments, tweeting, “I support a full repeal of Obamacare & will continue to oppose the BCRA.”

Democrats signaled that they won’t stand in the way of plans to vote on different versions of the legislation.

“These votes, frankly, are a lot tougher for them than they are for us. They are squeezed in both directions,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), the party’s top vote-counter, acknowledged that some Democrats might support GOP-written amendments to the bill that have bipartisan support. But he said Democrats will focus mostly on process over policy, and keep pushing Republicans to return the legislation to committee and proceed with regular procedure. There have been bipartisan complaints that the legislation was drafted — by McConnell and a handful of leaders — without enough transparency.

Recognizing their lack of leverage in the chamber, Senate Democrats decried Republicans’ policies and procedural approach in a rally with supporters outside the Capitol. “How about we fill the streets outside every Republican office in America?” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).

Several patient-advocate organizations and progressive groups decried the vote, warning that it could open the door to rollbacks in the expanded coverage the ACA has provided through new benefits requirements and greater federal support for insurance coverage.

“Republican leaders are using undemocratic and unprecedented means to rob coverage and critical services from millions of women, sending them back to a time when Women’s Health Care Services were not considered essential,” Nancy Northup, president and chief executive of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Nathan Nascimento, vice president of the conservative group Freedom Partners, urged senators to use the votes to partly repeal the law and then keep pushing for full repeal. “And then use the next available opportunity to keep their promise by repealing the rest of Obamacare, including its costly regulations and choice-stifling mandates,” he said.

I think it's going to be a confusing and scary few days.

[GreyhoundFan]

How very true. And, how very sad: "McConnell’s wager on Republicans’ spinelessness appears to be paying off"

Spoiler

When House Republicans tried to pass an Obamacare replacement plan back in March, it failed thanks to the resistance of the far-right House Freedom Caucus. Two months later, Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) made a different bet: If you satisfy the right, enough moderates will cave to pull the bill across the finish line. That gamble paid off, with the measure passing 217-213. Now Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is making a similar wager on Senate Republicans’ spinelessness. Unfortunately, so far it seems to be working, with McConnell pulling together 50 votes to move forward on repealing Obamacare.

During McConnell’s doomed initial push for an Obamacare replacement, the GOP leader was trapped between skeptics on both ends of the caucus. The right, including Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.), Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Mike Lee (Utah), wanted to rip up Obamacare root and branch. The moderates, including Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), Rob Portman (Ohio) and Dean Heller (Nev.), opposed steep cuts to Medicaid and opioid addiction treatment.

With the resurrection of Obamacare replacement, GOP leaders had to decide what the latest version of the bill would look like. Because they opted to forgo a Congressional Budget Office score, this version would need 60 votes. Since that would be impossible to reach, this version would be more of a symbolic gesture. But it would set the terms for the intra-party debate the rest of the week as GOP leaders hashed out a final iteration behind closed doors. On Saturday, conservatives got a commitment to include Cruz and Lee’s amendment to allow insurance companies to sell plans that don’t comply with Obamacare’s mandate.  (That would send the exchanges into a “death spiral,” but never you mind.) Paul also got what he wanted: a vote on a clean repeal of Obamacare.

What did the moderates get for their votes to proceed? A Portman amendment to the bill restoring “a small portion of the Medicaid cuts” to go with previously added and similarly pitiful funding to treat opioid addicts. Both were token gestures, yet Portman voted yes. A month ago, Heller said he would not vote for the bill because of its steep Medicaid cuts. The cuts remained largely intact, yet Heller voted yes. A week ago, Capito said she would vote for the bill only if there was a replacement plan “that addresses my concerns.” No one knows whether there will be such a plan, yet Capito voted yes. (Heller, Capito and their defenders will say that it’s just a procedural vote to begin debate, not on the bill itself. But Heller and Capito both specifically said they would vote no on that motion.)

Worse, simply by voting for the motion to proceed, the moderates have undercut their influence. McConnell’s new strategy heavily depends on the fallback option of “skinny repeal” — a bare-bones repeal of the mandate and a few other features of Obamacare. The bill would then go to a House-Senate conference committee, where it would be completely rewritten, and then it would go back to the Senate for an up-or-down vote. Make no mistake: The House Freedom Caucus and Senate conservatives will have far more influence over that committee than moderates in either chamber. And then the moderates would be told to vote for a bill that they didn’t like and barely influenced, for the good of the party.

Sen. Richard Burr (N.C.), a GOP stalwart, was rightly ridiculed on Monday for saying, “I’ll vote for anything.” But at least he was being honest. Again and again, we’ve seen GOP moderates go through the motions of being “deeply concerned” about an Obamacare alternative — or a controversial nominee or the latest development in the Russia scandal — then vote with the party anyway as though nothing has happened. Soon they will be faced with a final bill, one that will rip health insurance away from millions. The question is whether they will cave yet again. Those that choose cowardice may hope that voters won’t judge them, but history will not be so kind.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

This is a great, and very clear, description of where the health care debates and votes stand at the moment.

Spoiler

• The Senate is scheduled to vote on Wednesday afternoon on a proposal to repeal major parts of the Affordable Care Act without providing a replacement.

• President Trump lashed out Wednesday morning at Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, one of two Republicans who voted on Tuesday against beginning debate to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

• After the vote to begin debate, the Senate considered a comprehensive replacement for the Affordable Care Act, but that fell far short of the support it needed to pass.

Where did everything leave off Tuesday night?

Understandably, confusion is rife over what the heck is happening on the Senate floor: What was that vote Tuesday night? Why did Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, give that impassioned speech saying he would not vote for the Senate health care bill as it stands, then turn around and cast a yes vote on Tuesday night?

Continue reading the main story

An explainer:

When the Senate voted 51-50 to begin debating the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, technically senators were bringing the repeal bill that was passed in the House to the Senate floor. For now, that is the bill that senators are trying to reshape.

On Tuesday night, Senate Republican leaders brought to the floor their most complete version of a plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. That measure had been worked out behind closed doors by the majority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and it would dismantle major parts of the current health care law, including the requirement that most people have health insurance.

But it also included an overture to Senate conservatives, a measure championed by Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, that would allow insurance companies to sell stripped down, low-cost insurance plans as long as they also offer insurance policies that comply with federal standards, including the requirement that plans cover “essential” services like maternity care, mental health treatment and prescription drugs.

For moderates, the legislation includes $100 billion to help pay out-of-pocket medical costs for low-income people.

Because that broad version of the Senate health care measure had not yet been assessed by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, it needed 60 votes to overcome a Democratic objection that it violated Senate rules.

But it got only 43 votes, demonstrating that even after weeks of refining the legislation, Senate leaders still fell far short of enough support for their replacement plan, from both ends of the party’s ideological spectrum.

Mr. McCain had previously made clear that he wanted to secure amendments to that broad repeal-and-replace bill. The vote on Tuesday night could be interpreted as a sign of support for that general approach.

The debate goes on.

What’s happened so far on Wednesday?

Mr. Trump opened the day by attacking Ms. Murkowski.

...

But Mr. Trump’s public shaming is not an effective strategy for Ms. Murkowski, who has dealt with worse from her party. In 2010, Ms. Murkowski retained her Senate seat in a historic win as a write-in candidate. She had lost Alaska’s Republican primary that year to a Tea Party challenger and was largely abandoned by Republican leadership. Since then, she has not felt beholden to her party.

Now what happens in the Senate?

Senators are set to consider a different repeal measure on Wednesday.

This measure would repeal major parts of the health law but would not provide a replacement. The legislation resembles a bill that passed the Senate in 2015 but was vetoed by President Barack Obama in early 2016.

Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, supports that approach. But some Republicans worry that repealing the law without providing a replacement would leave many Americans without health care coverage. Such a “repeal only” measure is not expected to garner enough votes for passage.

The vote for this measure had been expected to take place around midday Wednesday, but it has now been delayed until later in the afternoon.

Then what happens?

Republicans are using special budget rules to try to pass a repeal bill, so the debate is limited to 20 hours, and Democrats cannot delay it with a filibuster. Later this week, the Senate will hold what is known as a vote-a-rama, an exhausting marathon of amendment votes.

The nine Republicans who voted against the comprehensive replacement measure on Tuesday night are an indication of the problem that Senate Republican leaders continue to confront: The party caucus still does not agree on what should be in a health care repeal bill that would have enough support to win Senate approval.

One solution might be to pass a pared-down health plan that has support from at least 50 of the 52 Republican senators, and then turn to working out a compromise with the House.

 

[GrumpyGran]

On 7/24/2017 at 11:07 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

I so hope one of these women pull off an upset and beat Brat: "‘It’s grilling time’: Five women line up to challenge Rep. Brat"

  Reveal hidden contents

When Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) complained months ago that female constituents pressuring him to hold a town hall were “in my grill no matter where I go,” he didn’t know how prescient those words were.

Five women — and one man — are running for the Democratic nomination to challenge the two-term congressman from suburban Richmond next year. The group includes a former CIA operative, a civil attorney and a Marine turned commercial airline pilot.

Women, mostly Democrats, are entering House primary contests in record numbers in Virginia.

Many say they are running to channel their frustration with President Trump. Democratic organizations — long desperate for female candidates — are recruiting them aggressively.

For a Democratic Party riding high on activist fervor, even a long shot district like Brat’s, which has been in Republican hands since the early 1970s, seems within reach.

“When my heart was broken and our dreams were dashed on November 8, I wasn’t sure what lay ahead of us,” said Susan Swecker, chairwoman of the Virginia Democrats. That feeling soon gave way to hope, she said. “The whole thing has been very exhilarating and exciting.”

Brat declined an interview for this article but through an aide dismissed the pack of Democrats vying for the chance to take him on as acolytes of the House minority leader.

“Dave is hard at work keeping his promises to pass positive, principled policies that put our country back on the right track,” his chief of staff, Mark Kelly, said in a statement. “Nancy Pelosi desperately wants another vote for her liberal agenda that puts more power in the hands of Washington. Dave looks forward to a debate of ideas about America’s future after the Democrats pick their liberal nominee next June.”

Democrats say their best chance to flip a House seat in Virginia is a district already represented by a woman who has at times distanced herself from Trump. Rep. Barbara Comstock (R), of Northern Virginia, has seven Democratic opponents, four of whom are women.

A Democratic woman is considering challenging Rep. Scott Taylor, a Republican freshman from Virginia Beach. And two Democratic women are competing to run against Rep. Rob Wittman, whose eastern Virginia district includes parts of Prince William and Fauquier counties.

There’s even a Democratic woman taking on Maryland’s only Republican representative in Congress, Rep. Andy Harris, who hails from the Eastern Shore.

The day after the election, phones started ringing at Emerge America, an organization Andrea Dew Steele created 15 years ago in California, to prepare women to run for office. Today there are programs in 20 states, with 10 more in the works.

“This is a completely different kind of experience to have so many women wanting to run like this,” Steele said. “Normally you have to recruit women heavily and convince them to step up and run.”

Women hold about 20 percent of the 535 seats in Congress; 21 in the Senate and 84 in the House, according to the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University.

Research shows women didn’t run for office previously because they were less likely to identify themselves as qualified — a point that has not changed — and they were less likely to receive encouragement or be recruited — a factor that is changing.

Since Election Day, Emily’s List, a national group that endorses women who favor abortion rights, has heard from 16,000 women interested in running for office at all levels of government, compared with the 920 women who reached out during the 2016 cycle.

Emily’s List is talking to more than 130 women who are either running or considering a bid in at least 80 House districts, spokeswoman Alexandra De Luca said.

Jennifer L. Lawless, director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University, said women are running because many Democrats believe they can take advantage of Trump’s low approval rating, win competitive open seats, or pick off Republicans whose association with Trump could make them vulnerable.

In the past several election cycles, 70 percent of women who have run for office were Democrats, she said.

Yet Lawless cautioned that a record number of women candidates won’t necessarily translate into a record number of women in office.

“The stars have to align pretty perfectly for Democrats,” she said.

Brat’s comments earlier this year encouraged online liberal groups and constituents, some armed with “It’s grilling time” signs, to lash out at him at a rowdy town hall in Blackstone in February. Yet privately, Democrats acknowledge he will be tough to beat.

Buoyed by a reputation as the economics professor who unseated House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in 2014, Brat entered Congress with a national profile and sailed to reelection two years later by double digits. Trump won his district by 6 points.

The primary race on the Democratic side will force candidates to spend money and resources while Brat keeps up his frequent TV appearances touting the causes of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus.

Abigail Spanberger, 37, has captured early attention with a compelling biography and a profile in Elle Magazine. A former CIA operations officer stationed around the world, she grew up in the district and returned three years ago to work in the private sector.

She wasn’t sure she’d run for office until the day of the health-care vote in the House when she heard from a friend whose daughter suffers from a genetic disorder.

The mother said the repeal of the Affordable Care Act would leave her worried not just about her daughter’s condition but also going bankrupt over medical bills.

Spanberger texted her husband, “I’m definitely running. This is it for me. This is my turning point,” she said.

Eileen Bedell, 44, ran against Brat last year and is the only Democrat with experience seeking public office. An attorney specializing in civil litigation, she grew up in Arlington and Fairfax and has lived in the district for about 20 years. Brat’s support for repeal of the Affordable Care Act and his embrace of Trump make him vulnerable, she said.

“I call him Trump-lite,” she said. “Dave is Trump before Trump was Trump in Virginia.”

Kim Gower, 54, left a consulting career to earn her doctorate from Virginia Commonwealth University and teaches at the University of Mary Washington. A Michigan native, she has lived in the district most of the past decade.

Helen Alli, 52, considers herself a community activist and has served on the Richmond Economic Development Authority. Alli, who has lived in Henrico for 30 years, said she served in the Army for four years and owns a weight-loss and hormone-therapy business.

Janelle Noble, 35, owns a small IT consulting firm. She has lived in Louisa for 1o years and said she would like to see more subsidies for farms. She favors a basic universal income modeled after an experiment in Finland.

The only male candidate in the race, Dan Ward, served two stints in the Marines, including three years with the State Department under Hillary Clinton. He retired in 2014, bought a small farm in Orange and returned to an earlier career flying for a commercial airline.

“Dave Brat represents the extreme right,” he said. “He’s on TV all the time saying some crazy stuff.”

In addition to Brat’s infamous “in my grill” comment, the congressman has raised the ire of Democrats for defending Trump and accuses reporters of perpetuating “fake news.”

Brat’s Twitter and Instagram accounts recently posted a photo of the smiling congressman standing beside a man holding a sign that read “Hillary for U.S. ambassador to Libya.”

The photo, taken at a July 1 gun show in Fredericksburg, was quickly deleted because “it was being misinterpreted. Goal here is informing/sharing, not inflaming. Happy 4th,” according to a tweet Brat posted that evening.

He has positioned himself as a foil to Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), who is leading a Trump investigation as vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who suggested Trump’s son committed treason.

“Mark Warner is seeing smoke everywhere he goes, like he’s in a Cheech and Chong movie,” Brat said on CNN last week. “And Kaine now thinks the son is worse than Benedict Arnold. We’ve gotten a little hysterical.”

Asked how a Democrat who has never held political office could emerge from a six-way nomination fight to topple a telegenic congressman with national notoriety, Democrats noted that stranger things have happened.

“Look, nobody thought Dave Brat was going to upset Eric Cantor,” said Swecker, the state Democrats chairwoman. “That was the upset of the century until now.”

Oh, I'd love to see his smug ass out of a job.

Go, @GreyhoundFan, go! By my count you can get in four votes beside the one in your home district. It will be a long day on the road for you but doable. And we know you won't encounter any resistance because Trump and Kobach tell us it happens all the time!

Use any Republican excuse you want. The end justifies the means. Or maybe the means don't take into account the end? Or try this-make a promise and then do it because you made a promise! I know you've got this.

[GreyhoundFan]

It looks like the teabaggers' wet dream of repeal with no replace has been voted down.

Spoiler

• The Senate on Wednesday afternoon rejected a proposal to repeal major parts of the Affordable Care Act without providing a replacement. Follow the live vote tracker to see how each senator voted.

• President Trump lashed out Wednesday morning at Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, one of two Republicans who voted on Tuesday against beginning debate on repealing the health law.

• Blue Cross Blue Shield warns senators against repealing the mandate that almost everyone have insurance without something to take its place.

Senate rejects ‘repeal only’ measure

The Senate on Wednesday rejected a measure that would have repealed major parts of the Affordable Care Act but would not have provided a replacement, signaling that the “clean repeal” bill that conservatives have embraced cannot get through Congress.

...

 

[formergothardite]

So what comes next now that the first couple of repeal/replace/repealnoreplace things have failed? 

[GreyhoundFan]

@formergothardite -- according to the WaPo, the next vote is supposed to be the "skinny" repeal, here is some info:

Quote

Repeal the individual and employer mandates, as well as the taxes on medical device companies

Leave the Medicaid expansion, subsidies, and marketplace regulations such as preexisting conditions protections in place

The CBO has not scored the plan as a whole, but pieces have been scored in the past. Eliminating the individual mandate, for instance, would cause 15 million more people to become uninsured over the decade.

 

Also up is the Graham-Cassidy Amendment, which includes:

Quote

Keep the ACA’s taxes on the wealthy in place

Give that money to the states to administer their own health insurance programs

The CBO has not scored the plan, so experts expect it would need 60 votes to pass.

 

Moderates are more likely to vote no on the skinny repeal and teabaggers are more likely to vote no on the Graham-Cassidy Amendment.

There also may be more votes on side deals McTurtle is most likely making.

 

CNN posted a video of approximately 70 protesters outside two Repug senators' houses. I don't think Boozman will listen, but there is a slight chance with Portman.

[GreyhoundFan]

Argh, the "skinny repeal" is gaining traction. "GOP momentum grows for more modest plan to overhaul Obamacare"

Spoiler

The Senate rejected a proposal Wednesday that would have repealed major parts of the Affordable Care Act, but Republican leaders were growing more confident about their chances of passing a more modest overhaul of the health-care law later this week.

Republicans appeared to be ­coalescing around a “skinny repeal” that would abolish the individual and employer insurance mandates and perhaps just one tax in an attempt to sustain their seven-year quest to unwind President Barack Obama’s health-care law. But even if they succeed — and start negotiations with the House — they will face significant obstacles in accomplishing anything more substantial.

Top Republicans such as Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the chamber’s third-ranking Republican, said that although leaders have not yet found “the sweet spot” between conservatives and centrists, they had picked up support for a more modest plan because it did not include deep cuts to Medicaid. Some Republican senators were simply open to any legislation that could keep alive the roller-coaster push for an overhaul.

“We’re edging closer and closer” to getting 50 votes for a bare-bones plan, Thune said. He said leaders were betting that some Republicans who defected on votes this week would feel more pressure to support any bill that emerged from negotiations with the House to face a final vote in the Senate.

“Voting on something at the end of the process when it’s the only train leaving the station . . . I think that’s a different vote for a lot of people,” he said.

More than half a dozen centrists from states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act objected to the original Senate draft that was considered on Tuesday night. It would have cut the program for low-income Americans by $772 billion over 10 years and curtailed its long-term growth rate.

Yet even if Republicans agree on a minimalist plan to alter the ACA, uniting with their House colleagues to enact a bill would be far more challenging. On Wednesday — even before the skinny repeal came up for a vote — some House conservatives were calling it untenable.

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), chairman of the House Freedom Caucus and a key player in negotiating the House-passed bill, told reporters recently that a skinny repeal would be “dead on arrival” in the House and that a conference committee would have to be convened to work out a compromise.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) overcame serious opposition from his rank-and-file members to begin debate on health care — a prospect that seemed dim just last week. President Trump has taken to Twitter and made public statements challenging Senate Republicans to support an overhaul or take ownership of the ACA’s failure.

But in two votes over the past 24 hours, lawmakers rejected differing approaches to rewriting the landmark 2010 law. The open voting process — which is likely to drag on for the rest of the week — has laid bare the fact that Senate Republicans haven’t been able to find a comprehensive replacement for the law they have relentlessly lambasted.

Republicans on Wednesday lacked answers for how or even whether they can break their gridlock by simply extending their endeavor, but appeared determined to press ahead.

“I think it’s a good idea to start with what we agree on and see how big we can get the bill from there,” said Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), who has pushed for a repeal of the law and has repeatedly clashed with GOP leaders.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) said that a scaled-back bill “is not a solution to the problem” the American health-care system is facing, but that there did not appear to be another option.

GOP leaders have little room to navigate when it comes to crafting a bill, as just three defections within their ranks would deprive them of the 50 votes they need to pass legislation with the assistance of Vice President Pence, who can break a tie.

And in each of the two most important votes the Senate has cast since taking up the bill, at least 13 percent of Republicans defected to join Democrats in opposition.

“This certainly won’t be easy. Hardly anything in this process has been,” McConnell said on the Senate floor Wednesday.

In an effort to muster enough votes for a narrow bill, GOP leaders suggested that even some proposals that have died in the Senate could come up again once they enter negotiations with the House.

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (Tex.) said proposals offered by Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) that were rejected Tuesday as part of a broader rewrite measure could resurface. Graham, meanwhile, said he is willing to go along with the skinny repeal — but only if he is assured that a plan he has offered would be reconsidered.

Portman’s measure calls for adding $100 billion in federal funding to help consumers with out-of-pocket medical costs and allowing states to provide cost-sharing assistance to low-income people who transition from Medicaid to private insurance with a federal tax credit. Cruz’s amendment would let insurers offer health plans on the ACA market that do not provide the full benefits required under the law, as long as they offer at least one option that does.

A total of 57 senators, including nine Republicans, voted against the measure that included both of those provisions. But Cornyn said that passing a skinny repeal would buy time for the Congressional Budget Office to score those two plans, which may be revisited in a conference committee.

Senate Democrats announced late Wednesday afternoon that a preliminary CBO estimate found that 16 million people would lose coverage if Republicans enacted a handful of the policies floated for the pared-down repeal bill. The analysis was based on the assumption that the GOP wants to repeal the individual and employer mandates, end a 2.3 percent tax on medical device manufacturers, ban funding for Planned Parenthood and repeal prevention health funds.

In a sign of how the prospect of a spike in the uninsured rate continues to worry governors, a bipartisan group of 10 of them — including Republicans Brian Sandoval of Nevada and John Kasich of Ohio — urged Senate leaders late Wednesday to work together with governors in developing a new plan and to reject a skinny repeal, which they said “is expected to accelerate health plans leaving the individual market, increase premiums, and result in fewer Americans having access to insurance.”

Senate Republicans hope that once their members are faced with enacting an imperfect measure, or not accomplishing one of their chief legislative goals, they will decide that some progress is better than none.

That sort of thinking prompted Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) to say Wednesday that a skinny repeal is a “Trojan horse” that would lead House conservatives to push the plan back to a much more aggressive attack against the ACA.

“There is no such thing as ‘skinny’ repeal; it’s a ruse to get to full repeal, with all the concomitant cuts to Medicaid and tax breaks,” Schumer said on the floor.

The Senate also voted down a pair of attempts by Democrats to end debate by forcing two Senate committees to review and debate the legislation, and an amendment from Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) affirming support for Medicaid and asking for the Senate to review the program further. Democrats grew frustrated by the spectacle Wednesday evening and threatened to stop offering amendments until GOP leaders released details of the narrow repeal measure they plan to offer.

Meanwhile, the ongoing uncertainty on Capitol Hill sent jitters through the insurance industry.

Joseph R. Swedish, the chief executive of Anthem — the nation’s second-largest health insurer — said on a conference call to review second-quarter earnings that the company is reassessing its participation in ACA marketplaces for next year. Anthem has decided to largely withdraw from the markets in three of the 14 states it participates in, and he said it may stop participating elsewhere unless the markets seem stable.

He cited, in particular, the question of whether Congress and the Trump administration will continue “cost-sharing subsidies” that the ACA provides insurers to help lower-income customers — about 7 million this year — afford deductibles and other out-of-pocket expenses.

Noting that Anthem’s “2018 market footprint” for selling ACA health plans is not fully decided, Swedish said, “If we aren’t able to gain certainty on some of these items quickly, we do expect that we will need to revise our rate filings to further narrow our level of participation.”

The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association warned that even the skinny repeal Republicans now envision could undermine the individual insurance market because it would eliminate the requirement that Americans buy insurance or pay a tax penalty. The measure, which remains subject to negotiation, also would probably eliminate the ACA’s requirement that employers with 50 workers or more provide health coverage, and a medical device tax that generates $19.6 billion in federal revenue over a decade.

“If there is no longer a requirement for everyone to purchase coverage, it is critical that any legislation include strong incentives for people to obtain health insurance and keep it year-round,” the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association said in a statement.

A CBO estimate in December projected that repealing the ACA’s individual mandate would leave 15 million Americans uninsured most years and prompt premiums to rise by 20 percent.

Several Republicans appeared wary Wednesday of moving too quickly to undo the health-care law without a replacement in hand. That proposal was defeated on a vote of 55 to 45, with seven Republican senators — including John McCain (Ariz.) and Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), who chairs one of the key committees that would normally craft a health-care bill — opposing it.

Alexander said after the vote that although he supported an outright repeal in 2015, his constituents could not tolerate that kind of uncertainty now.

“I don’t think most Tennesseans would like the idea of our saying to them, ‘We’re going to cancel insurance for 22 million Americans and then trust Congress to replace it in two years,’ ” he said. “I think most pilots, when they take off, like to know where they’re going to land.”

The mood among Republicans on Wednesday was far from the buoyant excitement that some expected to accompany the first votes to fulfill their long-standing promise to repeal the ACA. Instead, they described feeling frustrated and unhappy with their options.

“The mood is nothing,” Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.) told reporters after Tuesday’s failed vote on the Senate GOP’s original plan. “It’s perfunctory.”

I wish I could take off tomorrow and go join the protesters at the US Capitol. McTurtle and his minions are just not going to rest until the screw over the American people.