Is Obamacare safe?

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. …

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Is this zombie really dead?

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 …

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Control your impulses, turkey

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 …

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McCain never has been much of a “Maverick”

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 …

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Roots music, English version

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 …

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Meet the new boss, just like the old boss

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 …

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Six months in office

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 …

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