It looks like it, for now. The Senate is showing little interest in any encore votes anytime soon. Trump on Monday threatened to end subsidies to insurers and also took aim at coverage for members of Congress. But the White House insistence appears to have done little to convince congressional GOP leaders to keep trying. …
Trump is a nasty unpleasant human being. Can we all agree on that? Good. In addition, he seems unable or unwilling to persuade people to do what he’d like them to do; all he seems capable of doing is bullying them. Case in point: “I talked to the president at length about that exact issue …
Years and years ago I recommended a series of books about a family of archaeologists excavating Egypt in the late 19th-early 20th century. They were written by a woman using the pen name Elizabeth Peters. Her real name was Barbara Mertz; she died in 2013. She left an outline and notes for another book in …
The Senate couldn’t pass the “skinny repeal” bill tonight. It failed on a 49 Aye – 51 Nay vote at 1:30 AM. Senator John McCain provided the 51st vote against it. There will be pages of analysis and post-mortems in tomorrow’s papers and probably a bunch of surly Trump Tweets too. I just hope the …
Why did Trump tweet a reversal of policy toward transgender military personnel? If this reporter in Politico is right, it’s because a House bill which contained funding for his precious border wall was being held up by a bunch of so-called fiscal hawks (that’s their excuse; I suspect the usual bigotry) who didn’t want any …
Headline: John McCain to return to Senate Tuesday for health care vote McCain’s office announced Monday night that he would return Tuesday — a surprise to most in Washington who expected him to miss the crucial vote and return to Washington at a later date. McCain is expected to get GOP leadership one vote closer …
Continue reading ‘McCain never has been much of a “Maverick”’ »
Summer has arrived, there is no question about that. Have some summer songs from my era.
When Sandy Denny died in 1978 it was one of the greatest losses English folk music ever suffered. She was only 31, but she’d already contributed to Fotheringay and before that to Fairport Convention, two of the best traditional English music bands of the time. She’d released four solo albums after she left Fotheringay. Her …
Anthony Scaramucci, hired to direct White House communications, blows smoke with the same disregard for facts as his boss and his predecessor. “I certainly see the American people probably see the president the way I do,” he added, contradicting a raft of recent polls showing Mr. Trump’s approval rating below 40 percent nationally. “But we …
Continue reading ‘Meet the new boss, just like the old boss’ »
Today is the six-month anniversary of Trump’s inauguration and already: Some of President Trump’s lawyers are exploring ways to limit or undercut special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation, building a case against what they allege are his conflicts of interest and discussing the president’s authority to grant pardons, according to people familiar with …