Trump fail

Funny.  That particular record hasn't shown up in Trump tweets.

Nor this one.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Doesn't Care, So No Need to Understand

For the last nine months, the lodestar of American government has been Trump’s volatile appetite, rather than the interests of citizens.

[...]

Sabotaging the health care system has always been morally obscene, but before the repeal process faltered, it was at least possible to construe the vandalism as an intended catalyst for some larger goal. Now, its only upshot is to turn innocent people into the collateral damage of a demented revenge fantasy.

Though Trump demonstrably does not care, it is still unclear whether he understands that his desire to win—whether winning in his mind means stomping on Barack Obama’s legacy, or just notching a signing ceremony—is being channeled into policies that will increase suffering.

[...]

“They will have so many options,” Trump said Thursday. “This will cost the United States government virtually nothing, and people will have great, great health care, and when I say ‘people’ I mean by the millions and millions.”

Nope and nope.

[...]

On Thursday morning, President Donald Trump assembled an audience of non-health-care professionals in the Roosevelt Room of the White House to applaud him as he signed an executive order crafted primarily for the purpose of making him feel better about his failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

At a subconscious level, Trump seemed given over to the fact that he was participating in an empty charade. Upon concluding his mostly-scripted remarks, Trump turned away from the order and attempted a swift exit, having apparently lost track in his own mind of the very thing he’d convened the event to do.

[...]

It is anyone’s guess whether the instructed agencies will follow through with the order in earnest. There is a precedent in this administration of political appointees slow walking or even shelving Trump’s most vindictive commands. There are also compelling reasons to believe that at least some of the order’s aspirations are unlawful. But if the government implements it aggressively, it is alarmingly plausible that Trump will be blindsided by the blowback.

[...]

He has, in other words, basically no idea what he just set forth as the policy of his own government.

[...]

It is theoretically possible that Trump weighed all of these concerns and determined that, on balance, he’d rather own the consequences than be caught “losing” the health care fight.

But the unprompted nature of his decisions is much more consistent with a broader pattern of Trump tasking others with giving form to his impulses.

  Crooked

Which is exactly what he just did with the Iran nuclear deal, as well.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Trump the Ignorant, Trump the Cruel

Leave aside the fact that he presented no evidence for his charges[against Iran]. Do you think he could find Iran on a map? Do you think if you gave him three possible answers as to what the capital of Iran is, he’d get it right? If you Photoshopped the face of the Ayatollah Khomeini into a photo of ZZ Top, do you think he’d be able to tell you which of the four bearded guys wasn’t in the band?

Nowhere is he more clearly at sea than in foreign policy—and John Kelly should be ashamed to have stood up before a microphone and said how smart this gossoon is.

  Charles P Pierce

I have seen presidents give great speeches and I have seen presidents do very bad things. I have seen presidents give very bad speeches and do very great things. But I do not believe that any president* ever has been so much of a colossal dick to his own citizens in word and deed as this president* was on Thursday morning. Imagine you're an American in Puerto Rico, and you come home from a hard morning collecting radioactive water so your family will have something to drink, and you hear your president* calling you and your fellow citizens lazy spongers. Calling this cruelty is too dignified. What the president* tweeted is cheap and ignorant. It's every yob on a radio talk-show suddenly discovering that he has control of the federal government.

[...]

Now, since Labor Day, there have been three once-in-a-century storms and a massacre at a concert, and everybody in the country knows that the federal government is the only institution with the capacity—and the moral obligation—to act to relieve the suffering. Platitudes about markets and bootstraps don't slake the thirst of people so desperate that they'll drink chemical waste to survive. Oddly, neither Trump nor [Pau] Ryan nor anyone else is saying this stuff about the people in Houston or in Florida. Maybe there aren't any market forces. Maybe there's a lack of bootstraps. Or maybe there's some other reason. Give me a second and I might come up with it.

  Charles P Pierce

Brave Bob Corker thinks the president* is a serious threat to blow up the world, and Principled Ben Sasse is deeply concerned about the mean things the president* said about NBC. Surely, they must see that his pointless assault on the sick and vulnerable is also of a piece with his unfitness for office, which weighs so heavily on their minds.

However, I checked with The Weather Channel, and they say a hard freeze in Hell is unlikely before Christmas.

Nearly 6 million [ACA] enrollees, or 57%, qualify for the cost-sharing payments this year, according to the most recent data from the Department of Health and Human Services. [...] The uncertainty over the subsidies' fate was a key reason that many insurers are substantially hiking their rates for 2018 -- some by more than 20%.

[...]

Insurers have already signed contracts committing them to participating in 2018 and setting their rates. They must continuing offering the reduced deductibles and co-pays to eligible enrollees, but they won't be paid for them. That's why many asked for such large rate hikes.

In fact, the Congressional Budget Office decided it couldn't wait for the Courageous and Principled Men of Courageous Principles to decide that decimating millions of lives because the previous guy made a mug out of you at a formal dinner party is evidence of a seriously warped mind that shouldn't be within an area code of actual power.

The CBO found that the move would cause premiums for people whose care is supported by the payments to climb 20 percent higher by 2018 and 25 percent higher by 2020. They also estimate that the move would increase the federal deficit by $194 billion dollars by 2026 [...] because insurers would compensate for the lost subsidies by raising premiums across the board, forcing more people to depend on government tax credits.

  Charles P Pierce

Not to worry. The GOP is about to fix the tax code.

This is America.

Sabotage by Executive Fiat

The White House claims the government cannot legally continue to pay the [ACA] subsidies because it lacks formal authorisation by Congress.

  Guardian

You know, like it can't keep bombing Middle Eastern countries because it lacks a formal war declaration by Congress.

Most serious analysis disagrees. I guess we're about to find out. 

Doctors’ groups also warned of “dramatic, if not catastrophic, increases in premiums across the country” and millions of Americans losing coverage. Nineteen states plan to sue.

[...]

Trump’s claim that Iran has not lived up to the spirit of the nuclear deal and his threat to terminate it also put him at odds with his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, and his defence secretary, Jim Mattis. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he welcomed what he called a courageous decision, but the leaders of Britain, France and Germany said they stood committed to the agreement.

Evan McMullin, a former CIA operative and independent presidential candidate, wrote via email: “I think the president’s actions on healthcare and Iran are the latest examples of his standing political strategy, which is to throw red meat to his base in order to maintain his base, as evidence of his unfitness and inability to govern mounts.

“If anything, his use of this tactic seems to be accelerating as it becomes increasingly clear, even to some of his closest friends and political allies, that he is failing.”

In a nutshell. No pun intended.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Can We Do Something Constructive Now?

Emerging from a closed-door lunch meeting, Republican senators told reporters that leadership had decided to call off a vote this week on a bill to repeal much of the Affordable Care Act and convert Medicaid into a shrinking block grant.

“I don’t believe there is going to be a vote,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) said, declining to reveal how she would have voted on the controversial bill, but adding: “There’s still a lot of work to do on health care.”

Minutes later, the bill’s authors made the official announcement.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), flanked by Senate GOP leaders, promised the measure would pass eventually, but acknowledged it won’t happen by the Sept. 30 deadline.

  TPM

Eventually? So they're STILL not giving up?

“With a process that gives more intention and time we will repeal Obamacare with a block grant.”

Graham’s co-author, a visibly downcast Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), then confirmed to reporters: “We don’t have the votes.”

[...]

“Let’s engage each other and find a bipartisan path forward,” he said.

Ya think?

Waiting for the nasty tweet from Dotard J.

..but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

GOP Determined to Be White Supremacists Without the Label

After the collapse of Obamacare repeal in Congress, which would have cut hundreds of billions of dollars and millions of people from Medicaid–the public health insurance program for the poor–red states and their allies in the Trump administration are preparing to use a powerful administrative tool as a backdoor route to that same goal.

Over the past few months, after Trump’s HHS signaled openness to granting these Medicaid waivers, nearly a dozen Republican-controlled states have submitted or are preparing to submit requests that they openly acknowledge will lead to fewer people being covered as a result. In those so-called waiver requests, some states are seeking to impose work requirements and drug tests on the low-income population that depends on Medicaid, while others are proposing cuts in coverage for vision, dental care, and non-emergency medical transportation, lifetime limits, defunding of women’s health clinics, and requiring people below the federal poverty line to pay insurance premiums.
  TPM

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

A new CBS News poll finds that only 34 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s response to Charlottesville, while 55 percent disapprove. Only 35 percent say his description of the events is accurate; 55 percent disagree.

But among Republicans, 67 percent approve of Trump’s response, and 68 percent say he’s describing events accurately. So, while the American people are broadly rejecting Trump’s handling of the violence, Trump and Bannon may be right that it is rallying Republicans behind him, never mind what it is doing to the rest of the country.

  WaPo

Good Morning, How Did You Sleep?

So now, it's not just Congress, it's Mitch McConnell personally who's responsible for the failure of Obamacare repeal.  He should have been working harder while the Rump was golfing.

via GIPHY

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The WSJ Transcript Has Been Published

Sample:

TRUMP: I’d rather see repeal and replace because I — I can do either way. If you remember, it was — you know, it was an idea that I had very early on, repeal. Trouble with repeal is you’ll have millions of people out there that — well, it’s like we just got the highest confidence in many years; you know, people out there that will say, well, you know, how do we know we’re going to have health care? And I hate to do that to people. [...] I’ve always — I’m always concerned about that. I don’t like it. I don’t like it from that standpoint. Now, with that being said, you might be able to make a very good deal because I think there’s a lot of pressure on the Democrats. But the Democrats are nothing more than obstructionists. That’s all they can do. That’s all they seem to be good at. So they’re obstructionists, so what they will do, even though it’s for the good of the country, they will obstruct. They can’t do anything about Obamacare, and I understand that. They don’t want to vote against it. But now, once it’s done — it was my original theory: Once it’s begun, now they can get together. They can do something. But they won’t do that. There’s too much — and this isn’t with respect to me; this is years. This is years, Gerry. I mean, if you look at what’s been going on over the last long period of time. I actually asked people that are political people — I could ask you people — you know, is it the worst you’ve seen it? And I’ve had every single person, no, actually there’s certain other times that were worse. There were certain times in Obama’s administration that were worse.

[...]

I’m very proud of opening up regulations. One of the reasons you see optimism is because people can actually use their land. They can farm their land. I’ve had tremendous and tremendous — look, I had 45,000 people there yesterday. It’s the biggest crowd they’ve ever had, and they were — they were going wild yesterday in West Virginia. But people can actually use their land and they can build.

Good luck reading it.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Like He's Always Said

Very consistent message:  Get in there and repeal and replace!  Stand back and let Obamacare fail!  Get in there and repeal and replace!  Stand back and let Obamacare fail!  What day is it? - What hour?

And do these sound like a threat to you?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 8/1:

Somebody Woke Him Up

Oh, that's what he said from the beginning is it?

One fat assed president didn't do anything to help get that atrocity - whatever it finally was - passed, unless you count alternating cheering and disparaging tweets help.  And I'm going to forever call it Trumpcare.  Nobody wanted it aside from Trump and the GOP Congress critters who simply wanted to undo what Obama did.

Are we sick of winning yet?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Can We Stop Now?

From the Guardian

Whatever that means coming from Mitch McConnell.

They're Going to Drag This Out for Eternity

Must be having some trouble getting all the votes they need.

The Train Wreck That Is Trumpcare

Workin' on his night tweets.

So Much for the GOP Win on Health Care

After —on a narrow, party-line vote—a motion to proceed to debating various plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act on Tuesday afternoon, Republicans brought their first plan up for a vote late Tuesday night, only to watch it fail 43 to 57 in a procedural vote.

Nine Republicans joined with Democrats to kill the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA): Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Susan Collins (R-ME), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Rand Paul (R-KY), Bob Corker (R-TN), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Mike Lee (R-UT) and Dean Heller (R-NV).

Scathingly dubbed “Trumpcare 3.0” by Democrats, the bill [...] would have gutted more than $700 billion from Medicaid and sharply cut the tax credits available for low income people to buy health insurance.

  TPM

Nine.

The Truth About John McCain

[T]he ugliest thing to witness on a very ugly day in the United States Senate was what John McCain did to what was left of his legacy as a national figure. He flew all the way across the country, leaving his high-end government healthcare behind in Arizona, in order to cast the deciding vote to allow debate on whatever ghastly critter emerges from what has been an utterly undemocratic process. He flew all the way across the country in order to facilitate the process of denying to millions of Americans the kind of medical treatment that is keeping him alive.

[...]

In 2000, I thought McCain might be the person to lead his party back to marginal sanity at least. But he wanted to be president, so he became like all the rest of them. Yes, he scolded that person who said Barack Obama was a Muslim, but he chose as his running mate a nutty person who still may believe he is. Yes, he put his name on a campaign finance reform bill, but he also voted for every member of the Supreme Court who subsequently eviscerated that law, and others like it, and he's been absent from that fight ever since. There have been very few senators as loyal to the party line as John McCain. He has been a great lost opportunity to the country. Now, he will end his career as the face of whatever wretchedness is brought on the country by whatever the bill finally is.

[...]

[T]his is something of a pattern. In 2000, George W. Bush's campaign slandered him and his young daughter, and radical fundamentalist Christians joined in so eagerly that McCain delivered the best speech of his career, calling those people "agents of intolerance." By 2006, he was on Meet The Press, which ultimately always was the constituency he cared most about, saying that the late Jerry Falwell was no longer an agent of intolerance. He was hugging Bush, and he was speaking at Liberty University.

[...]

So he got a standing ovation when he walked into the chamber, and that was all right, and then he cast the vote to proceed. And then, having done so, he climbed onto his high horse and delivered an address every word of which was belied by the simple "yes" he had traveled so far to cast.

[...]

His "yes" won the day for a secret process that produced a bill that nobody's seen yet.

[...]

He could have struck a blow for these noble sentiments—and, most notably, for "regular order"—by voting no. It would have been the most resounding vote of his long career. But he said, "yes."

[...]

The Republicans have the votes now. Dean Heller and Rob Portman and Shelley Moore Capito have lined up with their party once, and the likelihood is their respective prices will be met again because this is not a policy issue any more, it is pure politics now, a promise made by an extremist majority to its unthinking base. That's what the end of this ugly day looked like, a day on which the final bloody death of Barack Obama's legacy was placed on the fast track by people who know better, and on which Susan Collins of Maine was more of a maverick than John McCain ever was.

  Charles P Pierce

Amen.

"Vote-a-Rama"

The two "no" GOP votes were Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine.  And kudos to those two brave women.  And now we know why it was so important for John McCain to get back in and vote even if it killed him.

So, our first question is, then why did she vote yes?

And this responding tweet may be the most to the point:

But wait, that's not all...

The Senate voted on Tuesday to begin debate on repealing the Affordable Care Act. Republican leaders have not yet said which version of their legislation they will be debating.

  NYT

So how did these supreme assholes vote to begin debate on something they don't even know what it is?

After debate, they will begin a “vote-a-rama” — a period of successive votes on the offered amendments. Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, could introduce a substitute amendment that would replace all of the others.

Jesus God help the United States.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Trumpcare - Spin a Wheel

President Donald Trump can’t seem to decide what he wants Congress to do on health care, but internally, aides say there isn’t much point in keeping him on message, and they’ve generally stopped trying.

“There is no mechanism in place for making sure the president stays on message when he doesn’t have one,” a senior Trump administration official told The Daily Beast on Wednesday.

  The Daily Beast

Oh, Dude, you are SO fired!

Trump will continue to be engaged in the fight for Obamacare repeal, White House and congressional officials said on Wednesday. But it’s not immediately clear that he has settled on what policy to push.

[...]

The president has floated no fewer than four different health care proposals in the past 48 hours. As the Senate GOP’s Obamacare replacement bill hit the skids on Monday evening, Trump mused that they should simply go for repeal and leave it at that. The following morning, as the repeal efforts prospect’s diminished further, Trump suggested leaving Obamacare in place—”as I have always said”—and waiting for what he’s described as its inevitable failure before officially repealing it and moving on a replacement.

On Wednesday morning, after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had admitted that the Republican repeal effort lacked the necessary support, Trump was back to promoting Obamacare replacement. “The Republicans never discuss how good their health care bill is,” he complained.

By Wednesday afternoon, the president was promoting health care policies that weren’t even in the Senate bill.

[...]

“Nothing he says really changes what’s happening,” a senior White House official told The Daily Beast. “Mitch [McConnell] knows what the score is. He’s gonna do what he can do, and at the end of the day the president can say that’s what he wanted all along.”

Officials spoke to The Daily Beast on the condition of anonymity because they were not cleared to discuss legislative strategy.

No. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they don't want to lose their jobs.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Republicans in a Bind on Health Care

This was a stunning defeat for McConnell. Not only did his big tax cut bill itself go down, but Moran, for one, made it clear that he wouldn't even vote to begin debate on the newest dead fish. That's not disagreement. That's outright insurrection.

[...]

[The GOP health care bill], it should be noted, is a fish that died sometime in 2015. The Republicans passed it knowing that then-President Barack Obama would veto it, and they also knew the votes weren't there to override him. So it was a safe, base-stroking vote for Republicans like Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Subsequent to the vote, however, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the 2015 bill would have stripped health insurance away from 33 million Americans. Now, people like Murkowski have to decide if they want to vote to do this for real. Missouri's Roy Blunt already has said that a full repeal that kicks the really monstrous effects down the road past the 2018 midterms wouldn't get 50 votes in the Senate. But, make no mistake, the basic mindset of the Republican majorities is that healthcare is neither a human right nor a responsibility of the people acting together through their government. That has not changed.

  Charles P Pierce

Indeed, it never will.

Maybe the bill will be a better deal after lunch, eh?

(And, Jesus, where have his defenders on Twitter gone?)

TWEET! TWEET!

via GIPHY

So now it's a Republican Senators' promise, not his, eh?

Which Russian mobster has business interests in the US that are depending upon those tax cuts?

Also, I thought he could fix everything. In fact, the ONLY person who could.

Their dead bill is going to get better at lunchtime.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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