Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Apologies
I'm sorry for the lack of a post last week. I've taken on a new project in my off hours that cut into my time for writing the blog. I still have all the notes that I started last week, but I'll include them in this week's post. Again, I apologize for the missing post. Umm... err... Happy Memorial Day?
Thursday, May 18, 2017
What's in the Background?
I didn't link to last week's edition, because news was breaking so fast that I felt it was obsolete by the time I hit publish. It's there if you want to read it, but now, a week later, I feel it's even more obsolete. This week has been even crazier. So instead of focusing on the big issues in the foreground (Comey, Russia-Trump, Trump intelligence), I wanted to hit several subjects for a paragraph or so that are under the radar a bit.
Impeachment
This is an undercurrent below the foreground issues, although it's moving to the foreground a bit. Friends, there will be no impeachment of Donald Trump. He will be your president through 2020 at least, with a possibility for 2024. Give up that hope. There's a long sequence of events that would have to happen, and they won't for the same reason — parties don't turn on their own man. Nixon held on to most of the GOP support. Clinton held on to most of the Democrat support. You're not going to see 15-16 Republicans switch on Trump in the Senate to vote him out of power, even if he is impeached by the House. Further, unless the Senate switches, the Senate Majority Leader is Mitch McConnell, whose wife is Trump's Secretary of Transportation. The only other option is for Trump to resign. He's been defiant in the face of investigation and shown no signs of backing down. We've seen plenty of evidence that Trump has no shame (Khizr Khan, John McCain, Access Hollywood, firing Comey, sharing classified intel, etc.). He's not going anywhere.
Republican Legislation
The GOP had some big legislation in the works this year, and none of it has made it through the Republican-controlled Congress (confirmation of Justice Gorsuch was a Senate-only thing, so it doesn't count). Of those priorities, a national transportation program and the American Health Care Act were the chief among them. The AHCA passed the House, but senators have repeatedly said that they're kind of ignoring that entirely and starting over. It's anyone's guess how long that will take, but I'm going to bet on one of the following outcomes: a) Senators reach agreement, but it expands on Obamacare rather than reversing it or b) Senators never reach an agreement and it falls apart. As for a transportation plan, that's a rare situation in which Democrats might actually work together with Republicans. But instead, there's been no forward momentum. In addition, the tax reform issue that is the other priority of the GOP Congress has been silent. If there's progress, I haven't heard about any. Perhaps that's because Congress is busy solving whatever crisis-of-the-day is taking place across town at the White House. Or maybe it's because the real divides that are in the Republican party are harder to solve than they'd anticipated.
Jailing Journalists
This is a serious threat that has gotten little attention. A week ago, a reporter in West Virginia attempted to ask HHS Secretary Tom Price a question about the AHCA (Trumpcare, if you will). As Price ignored him, the reporter repeatedly asked the question, raising his voice. The reporter says he was not warned to back off or anything before he was arrested for "willful disruption of state government processes", a misdemeanor with a sentence of up to 6 months in jail. Quite simply, he was arrested for yelling his questions too loudly. It would be one thing if this were an isolated incident, but it might not be. One under-covered portion of the Comey memos is that Trump asked Comey to arrest journalists who publish classified information. But this flies in the face of a landmark Mass Communication Law (required for my degree) case: New York Times v. U.S. In short, the Times had obtained what's called the then-classified Pentagon Papers, which revealed that the U.S. was bombing Laos and Cambodia in the Vietnam War and other information unknown to the public about the war. Then-President Nixon claimed he had the executive right to prevent the Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers. The Supreme Court eventually decided in a 6-3 vote that the First Amendment freedom of the press is greater than the Executive Branch's desire for secrecy. The modern interpretation is that journalists can print anything they get their hands on — they're not the leakers. If the government discovers the leak, they can punish the leaker. But they can't punish the journalist.
Trump and Twitter
Here's a tip for the national news media, and you at home: Ignore what President Trump writes on Twitter. It gets everyone riled up, but rarely on anything of substance. That's because what he writes on Twitter is rarely of substance. They're usually deflections or distractions or completely without base in facts. The sooner the national media learns to ignore them or to hand-wave them off, the better.
Racism in Blue Springs
There were two incidents of anti-black racism recently in my hometown. In one, someone painted "DIE N-----" on a black-owned barbershop window. In another, at my old high school, a biracial student found racial slurs written on her homework after she'd left it in an unlocked physics drawer. At a recent community meeting on race relations that was full of anger but poorly attended, it was revealed that the area that black students gather at my old school is referred to by some students as "Africa." I never heard those things when I was there more than 10 years ago. That said, there were definitely racist students. I am glad to see Principal Charlie Belt is taking a strong stand against racism, but how can the community heal if people have a hard time admitting there's a problem? It seems like a pair of incidents that the city would really like to just go away.
Summary Judgments
One little pet peeve about equality that I found: On the House Judiciary Committee's listing of members, there are color photos in the same background for the GOP members, while the Democrat members are in black and white in differing backgrounds. It honestly draws more attention to the fact that 10 of the 16 Democrats are a minority (women, black, Hispanic and Asian). Only 2 of the 24 Republicans are a minority (women). Is there any reason the photos need to be different? Can't the committee schedule "Everyone take a photo day?" Further, why are the committee members separated into "Majority" and "Minority?" You can't just list the members together? It seems divisive and unbalanced. I don't care who is at fault — fix the optics here, people. • • • The Kansas City Star has really been incredible lately. There was this column by Sam Mellinger (I had lunch with him once in high school when I job shadowed another KC Star employee), whose mom had died days before Mother's Day. There was this story about a local alterations shop owner who, at age 70, had run seven marathons in seven days on seven continents (!). Then there was this story about a local woman who used trails to walk across Kansas City, south to north, in three days. It's about 43 miles. • • • Trump's properties do not have a very secure technology system. • • • Donald Trump favorite and far-right crazy Alex Jones had to issue a retraction/apology after falsely claiming Chobani yogurt was causing tuberculosis in Idaho because it hires immigrants. Yeah, reread that sentence. • • • This story caused me to shake my head. • • • I don't have a race until June 10, but I'm trying to get up to 4 miles to make up for the 4-miler I didn't do. I ran 3.5 miles today, so I'm almost there. • • • Evie didn't want to go to day care today. She said her toe was sick (she smashed it earlier in the week). Nice try, kid.
Impeachment
This is an undercurrent below the foreground issues, although it's moving to the foreground a bit. Friends, there will be no impeachment of Donald Trump. He will be your president through 2020 at least, with a possibility for 2024. Give up that hope. There's a long sequence of events that would have to happen, and they won't for the same reason — parties don't turn on their own man. Nixon held on to most of the GOP support. Clinton held on to most of the Democrat support. You're not going to see 15-16 Republicans switch on Trump in the Senate to vote him out of power, even if he is impeached by the House. Further, unless the Senate switches, the Senate Majority Leader is Mitch McConnell, whose wife is Trump's Secretary of Transportation. The only other option is for Trump to resign. He's been defiant in the face of investigation and shown no signs of backing down. We've seen plenty of evidence that Trump has no shame (Khizr Khan, John McCain, Access Hollywood, firing Comey, sharing classified intel, etc.). He's not going anywhere.
Republican Legislation
The GOP had some big legislation in the works this year, and none of it has made it through the Republican-controlled Congress (confirmation of Justice Gorsuch was a Senate-only thing, so it doesn't count). Of those priorities, a national transportation program and the American Health Care Act were the chief among them. The AHCA passed the House, but senators have repeatedly said that they're kind of ignoring that entirely and starting over. It's anyone's guess how long that will take, but I'm going to bet on one of the following outcomes: a) Senators reach agreement, but it expands on Obamacare rather than reversing it or b) Senators never reach an agreement and it falls apart. As for a transportation plan, that's a rare situation in which Democrats might actually work together with Republicans. But instead, there's been no forward momentum. In addition, the tax reform issue that is the other priority of the GOP Congress has been silent. If there's progress, I haven't heard about any. Perhaps that's because Congress is busy solving whatever crisis-of-the-day is taking place across town at the White House. Or maybe it's because the real divides that are in the Republican party are harder to solve than they'd anticipated.
Jailing Journalists
This is a serious threat that has gotten little attention. A week ago, a reporter in West Virginia attempted to ask HHS Secretary Tom Price a question about the AHCA (Trumpcare, if you will). As Price ignored him, the reporter repeatedly asked the question, raising his voice. The reporter says he was not warned to back off or anything before he was arrested for "willful disruption of state government processes", a misdemeanor with a sentence of up to 6 months in jail. Quite simply, he was arrested for yelling his questions too loudly. It would be one thing if this were an isolated incident, but it might not be. One under-covered portion of the Comey memos is that Trump asked Comey to arrest journalists who publish classified information. But this flies in the face of a landmark Mass Communication Law (required for my degree) case: New York Times v. U.S. In short, the Times had obtained what's called the then-classified Pentagon Papers, which revealed that the U.S. was bombing Laos and Cambodia in the Vietnam War and other information unknown to the public about the war. Then-President Nixon claimed he had the executive right to prevent the Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers. The Supreme Court eventually decided in a 6-3 vote that the First Amendment freedom of the press is greater than the Executive Branch's desire for secrecy. The modern interpretation is that journalists can print anything they get their hands on — they're not the leakers. If the government discovers the leak, they can punish the leaker. But they can't punish the journalist.
Trump and Twitter
Here's a tip for the national news media, and you at home: Ignore what President Trump writes on Twitter. It gets everyone riled up, but rarely on anything of substance. That's because what he writes on Twitter is rarely of substance. They're usually deflections or distractions or completely without base in facts. The sooner the national media learns to ignore them or to hand-wave them off, the better.
Racism in Blue Springs
There were two incidents of anti-black racism recently in my hometown. In one, someone painted "DIE N-----" on a black-owned barbershop window. In another, at my old high school, a biracial student found racial slurs written on her homework after she'd left it in an unlocked physics drawer. At a recent community meeting on race relations that was full of anger but poorly attended, it was revealed that the area that black students gather at my old school is referred to by some students as "Africa." I never heard those things when I was there more than 10 years ago. That said, there were definitely racist students. I am glad to see Principal Charlie Belt is taking a strong stand against racism, but how can the community heal if people have a hard time admitting there's a problem? It seems like a pair of incidents that the city would really like to just go away.
Summary Judgments
One little pet peeve about equality that I found: On the House Judiciary Committee's listing of members, there are color photos in the same background for the GOP members, while the Democrat members are in black and white in differing backgrounds. It honestly draws more attention to the fact that 10 of the 16 Democrats are a minority (women, black, Hispanic and Asian). Only 2 of the 24 Republicans are a minority (women). Is there any reason the photos need to be different? Can't the committee schedule "Everyone take a photo day?" Further, why are the committee members separated into "Majority" and "Minority?" You can't just list the members together? It seems divisive and unbalanced. I don't care who is at fault — fix the optics here, people. • • • The Kansas City Star has really been incredible lately. There was this column by Sam Mellinger (I had lunch with him once in high school when I job shadowed another KC Star employee), whose mom had died days before Mother's Day. There was this story about a local alterations shop owner who, at age 70, had run seven marathons in seven days on seven continents (!). Then there was this story about a local woman who used trails to walk across Kansas City, south to north, in three days. It's about 43 miles. • • • Trump's properties do not have a very secure technology system. • • • Donald Trump favorite and far-right crazy Alex Jones had to issue a retraction/apology after falsely claiming Chobani yogurt was causing tuberculosis in Idaho because it hires immigrants. Yeah, reread that sentence. • • • This story caused me to shake my head. • • • I don't have a race until June 10, but I'm trying to get up to 4 miles to make up for the 4-miler I didn't do. I ran 3.5 miles today, so I'm almost there. • • • Evie didn't want to go to day care today. She said her toe was sick (she smashed it earlier in the week). Nice try, kid.
Thursday, May 11, 2017
A Deserving Firing That Makes No Sense
FBI Director James Comey is now Former FBI Director James Comey after he was surprisingly fired by President Trump. It's a decision that has a) simultaneously sidetracked from and refocused the media on Russia-Trump investigations and b) shown itself to be the right move from the absolute wrong person to do it. I'll also explain why I'm so disheartened and depressed by the move.
Tracking the Reasoning
It's hard to keep track of the reasonings behind Comey's firing, because they seem to change by the hour. At first, the White House claimed that Comey's dismissal was at the recommendation of AG Jeff Sessions and deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, including their memos in the original release. Those memos claimed Comey was fired for the way he handled the Clinton email investigation.
Let's start with the reasoning behind the move, from a public standpoint. Officially, Trump's letter and others from the Department of Justice (AG Jeff Sessions and deputy AG Rod Rosenstein) said that Comey's dismissal was because of the way Comey had handled the Clinton email investigation. Specifically, Rosenstein said the biggest complaint is that Comey overstepped his authority by a) declaring there would be no prosecution without sending it to then Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who should be making that decision b) revealing the results of the investigation in a public press conference. Further, Rosenstein blames Comey for c) the Oct. 28, 2016, letter to Congress that informed about new evidence arising in the Clinton case — the Huma Abedin emails. Trump praised that letter in public in the days following, particularly on the campaign trail, so c) rings particularly hollow. He has also said in a new interview that he'd already decided to fire Comey regardless of Rosenstein's memo. So it seems, based on Trump's own words, that these were justifications after the fact and not the reasoning behind the act.
Yet looking at the on-the-surface reasons for firing Comey, those ARE legitimate claims coming from anyone but Trump. Many independent observers, like myself, would note that Lynch was out of the picture because she had already recused herself from the Clinton investigation (because the GOP had raised a stink about her meeting with former President Bill Clinton on an airplane for 10 minutes). She had publicly said that she was deferring to the FBI's judgment, so a) is a rather silly reason to fire Comey. However, b) is a VERY good reason to fire Comey. The c) Oct. 28 letter is an even better reason to fire Comey. There is evidence — good, compelling, mathematical evidence — that the Comey letter swung the election. Even if it only had a 1 percent effect, that's enough to swing Michigan/Wisconsin/Pennsylvania, which swung the election. Yet as late-night hosts have pointed out, Trump's claims are essentially: I'm firing Comey for how badly he treated Hillary Clinton. When boiled down like that, it's ridiculous on its face.
There's an even better, unstated reason to fire Comey — the seeming admission that his testimony before Congress last week was inaccurate. Specifically, he'd told Congress that Abedin had forwarded "hundreds and thousands" of emails to the computer she'd shared with her husband, Anthony Weiner. Comey said it was a "regular practice" — an implication of active participation and ongoing wrongdoing. But it turns out that Abedin's computer was simply making an automatic backup for most of those emails. She had forwarded emails to be printed out, but none were marked classified at the time (a few were designated classified after the fact, but she was legally within her bounds at the time). So that's an inaccurate testimony before Congress — problematic. Yet this is not the stated reason for Comey's firing.
Trump has said publicly that Comey was "not doing a very good job," but has given little reasoning behind that and, honestly, hasn't been pressed by the media too much as to what he means by that.
Comey had few friends on Capitol Hill — partly because of the Oct. 28 letter that Democrats (probably rightly) believe swung the election, and partly because the Trump-Russia investigation is... inconvenient at best and potentially damaging at worst for Republicans.
Trump-Russia Investigation
So yes, Comey probably should be fired. Yes, Democrats who openly dislike how Comey handled the Clinton investigation are also now upset that Comey is out. But that's because there's another side to this: Comey was the only investigator left in the chain without ties to Trump. The Trump-Russia investigation appears to have some legs to it. Days before his firing, Comey had asked — of all people — Rosenstein for more money/resources to investigate the Trump-Russia connections. Former CIA Director James Clapper tweaked his previous statements about Trump-Russia ties during testimony this week, when he effectively said that he hadn't known about the FBI investigation. He also implied, in an exchange with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) that there was an investigation of some sort into Trump's business ties with Russia. Trump has even hired a law firm to defend himself against claims he had business ties with Russia. Former Acting AG Sally Yates was asked by Congress if she knew of any evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. She said she couldn't answer that, because it was classified (!!!). The FBI had recently issued grand jury subpoenas to associates of Flynn for business records. Heck, on Wednesday (after the Comey firing and disastrous Yates testimony on Flynn), Trump met with the very same Russian diplomat Flynn had been accused of lying about meeting/speaking.
Trump has already replaced the Attorney General and the Acting Attorney General with an ally (Sessions) and Rosenstein, who apparently directed the Comey dismissal. He's also fired all the Obama-era U.S. Attorneys and prosecutors. The CIA Director is now a Trump appointee. The only "independent" group investigating the national security issue of collusion between the sitting president and a foreign power will now be headed by a Trump appointee. Trump fired the last threat to his presidency. It's also highly disingenuous of Trump to claim that the Clinton investigation was the reason he fired Comey, while Trump not only benefitted from those actions, but praised them at the time. Heck, he even described Comey last week on Twitter as "the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton" for giving her a "free pass" which would imply that he was mad at Comey not for how he handled not prosecuting Clinton as he said, but for not prosecuting her hard enough. He also praised Comey for his "guts" in investigating Clinton and declared that what Comey did in his letter was "the right thing" in the days afterward. Further, nearly half a year later after Comey's biggest supposed missteps and four months after being sworn in as President, suddenly Trump has a problem with Comey right when the Trump-Russia investigation was gaining steam. He's right that Democrats didn't like Comey. But they liked him a heck of a lot more than Trump because of the Trump-Russia investigation, and Comey was at least a reasonably independent actor. Democrats are right to want to pursue that, because it's a national security issue and it's a "this guy is just as corrupt as we said he is" issue. The Democrats are not wrong. (Follow-up: The Senate Intelligence committee has subpoenaed Gen. Flynn for documents related to his Russia connections. This is the first time they've used that power since the 9/11 Commission, and the first time for documents since the 1970s.)
GOP Reaction
But remember: Democrats have no power right now. They don't have the Senate, and probably won't until 2020 at least. They don't have the House, and would have to get a little lucky to flip it in 2018 (though that is plausible). So it's Trump's fellow Republicans who have the power to decide if the Trump-Russia investigation continues or goes independent. And their response has been mixed and confusing. Sen. McCain is calling for an independent investigation, but Sens. Graham and Cruz have supported Comey's firing and been pretty quiet re: Trump-Russia. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C. and the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee (investigating Trump-Russia) said he was "troubled by the timing and reasoning" behind Comey's firing. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said he was "having trouble" with the Comey firing. Conservative Sens. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) expressed their frustration, too. Finally, Sen. Bob Corker threw his ire to the pile. If you add in the Democrats, Burr, Flake, Sasse, Lankford and McCain, that's a majority of senators upset with how this was handled. But the most powerful man in the Senate is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who rejected calls for a special prosecutor. Reminder: His wife is Trump's Secretary of Transportation. Republicans are showing they care more about their party than about the country. If they cared about the country, they'd be calling for an independent investigation to restore faith in the process.
Nixonian?
Finally, it's not gone unnoticed that President Trump has been acting like Richard Nixon. Let's go over the connections. Trump's speech at the RNC was lifted, admittedly, from the 1968 RNC speech of Richard Nixon. Trump met literally the day after firing Comey with Nixon Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. According to CNN, longtime Trump ally Roger Stone asked for Comey to be fired (though Trump refutes this and Stone has been... let's go with dodgy on his involvement, but he's super happy about it). Stone was a self-described "dirty trickster" for Nixon and has a Nixon tattoo on his back. He tweeted about Comey's firing that "Somewhere Dick Nixon is smiling." Why? Because Nixon fired the special prosecutor in charge of the Watergate investigation. It was called the Saturday Night Massacre. Long history short, Nixon ordered his AG to fire the special prosecutor in charge of Watergate. The AG refused, and resigned in protest. Nixon then ordered his Deputy AG to fire the special prosecutor. He refused, too, and resigned in protest. Finally, the Solicitor General (Robert Bork) was brought in to fire the special prosecutor. Nine months later, Nixon was impeached on obstruction of justice charges. He resigned two weeks later.
One important distinction: Congress had turned on Nixon, but it was also already the opposition party. Trump's party still controls Washington. VP Mike Pence and McConnell have now publicly defended Trump's actions. The House is Republican. The Senate is Republican. If Trump is to go down over this, it'll take Republicans turning on him — and I don't think they have the courage to do so. They've shown no desire for that so far, and I know why: If you're going to take on someone from your own party in a public way, it better be for a GREAT, inarguable reason. It's just not worth the battle for most Republicans right now.
Conclusion
The original reasons for Comey's firing are, to some extent, good reasons coming from anyone but Trump. But coming from Trump, who has praised the exact same actions — and benefitted from them — it does not seem genuine. So it seems this is either a fairly naked reaction to the Russia-Trump investigation or at least that Comey was a threat to Trump. But the people with the power to do anything about it seem so disinterested in stopping it. So that's why I'm disheartened: It's going to take Republican leadership and Republican effort to continue the Trump-Russia investigation. I don't think McConnell will ever do anything against Trump because of his wife's position in Trump's Cabinet. Paul Ryan is too intertwined in Trump policy to sever ties, either. In this instance, the GOP has nothing to gain from an investigation and everything to lose. So call me cynical, but I think this spells the end for major revelations from the Trump-Russia investigation.
Summary Judgments
Take a guess at the only one country has ever given up its nuclear weapons willingly. Give up? It's South Africa. • • • More from Foxtrot Alpha on President Trump attempting to set back a state-of-the-art aircraft carrier's launch technology. • • • The President believes he invented the phrase "priming the pump." He is wrong, and here's proof. • • • I was real sick last week, so I didn't run. I never got around to running this week, so I'll get back on that horse next week. My next race is June 10, so I have plenty of time, but I'd like to run a 4-mile practice to make up for missing the 4-miler Trolley Run because I was sick. • • • Yesterday, Alyson took the kids to day care, which means they leave after I do. When I came home from work, I found a blanket on our bed, and a whole bunch of stuffed animals there, too. I forgot about it, and then later when we went to bed, Alyson asked why there were stuffed animals on our bed. After jogging her memory, Alyson told me Evie had asked "Do you want to play with my friends?" after I'd left in the morning. Alyson hadn't paid much attention to Evie since she was getting ready for work herself, but that's how our bed ended up with Evie's animals.
Tracking the Reasoning
It's hard to keep track of the reasonings behind Comey's firing, because they seem to change by the hour. At first, the White House claimed that Comey's dismissal was at the recommendation of AG Jeff Sessions and deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, including their memos in the original release. Those memos claimed Comey was fired for the way he handled the Clinton email investigation.
Let's start with the reasoning behind the move, from a public standpoint. Officially, Trump's letter and others from the Department of Justice (AG Jeff Sessions and deputy AG Rod Rosenstein) said that Comey's dismissal was because of the way Comey had handled the Clinton email investigation. Specifically, Rosenstein said the biggest complaint is that Comey overstepped his authority by a) declaring there would be no prosecution without sending it to then Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who should be making that decision b) revealing the results of the investigation in a public press conference. Further, Rosenstein blames Comey for c) the Oct. 28, 2016, letter to Congress that informed about new evidence arising in the Clinton case — the Huma Abedin emails. Trump praised that letter in public in the days following, particularly on the campaign trail, so c) rings particularly hollow. He has also said in a new interview that he'd already decided to fire Comey regardless of Rosenstein's memo. So it seems, based on Trump's own words, that these were justifications after the fact and not the reasoning behind the act.
Yet looking at the on-the-surface reasons for firing Comey, those ARE legitimate claims coming from anyone but Trump. Many independent observers, like myself, would note that Lynch was out of the picture because she had already recused herself from the Clinton investigation (because the GOP had raised a stink about her meeting with former President Bill Clinton on an airplane for 10 minutes). She had publicly said that she was deferring to the FBI's judgment, so a) is a rather silly reason to fire Comey. However, b) is a VERY good reason to fire Comey. The c) Oct. 28 letter is an even better reason to fire Comey. There is evidence — good, compelling, mathematical evidence — that the Comey letter swung the election. Even if it only had a 1 percent effect, that's enough to swing Michigan/Wisconsin/Pennsylvania, which swung the election. Yet as late-night hosts have pointed out, Trump's claims are essentially: I'm firing Comey for how badly he treated Hillary Clinton. When boiled down like that, it's ridiculous on its face.
There's an even better, unstated reason to fire Comey — the seeming admission that his testimony before Congress last week was inaccurate. Specifically, he'd told Congress that Abedin had forwarded "hundreds and thousands" of emails to the computer she'd shared with her husband, Anthony Weiner. Comey said it was a "regular practice" — an implication of active participation and ongoing wrongdoing. But it turns out that Abedin's computer was simply making an automatic backup for most of those emails. She had forwarded emails to be printed out, but none were marked classified at the time (a few were designated classified after the fact, but she was legally within her bounds at the time). So that's an inaccurate testimony before Congress — problematic. Yet this is not the stated reason for Comey's firing.
Trump has said publicly that Comey was "not doing a very good job," but has given little reasoning behind that and, honestly, hasn't been pressed by the media too much as to what he means by that.
Comey had few friends on Capitol Hill — partly because of the Oct. 28 letter that Democrats (probably rightly) believe swung the election, and partly because the Trump-Russia investigation is... inconvenient at best and potentially damaging at worst for Republicans.
Trump-Russia Investigation
So yes, Comey probably should be fired. Yes, Democrats who openly dislike how Comey handled the Clinton investigation are also now upset that Comey is out. But that's because there's another side to this: Comey was the only investigator left in the chain without ties to Trump. The Trump-Russia investigation appears to have some legs to it. Days before his firing, Comey had asked — of all people — Rosenstein for more money/resources to investigate the Trump-Russia connections. Former CIA Director James Clapper tweaked his previous statements about Trump-Russia ties during testimony this week, when he effectively said that he hadn't known about the FBI investigation. He also implied, in an exchange with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) that there was an investigation of some sort into Trump's business ties with Russia. Trump has even hired a law firm to defend himself against claims he had business ties with Russia. Former Acting AG Sally Yates was asked by Congress if she knew of any evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. She said she couldn't answer that, because it was classified (!!!). The FBI had recently issued grand jury subpoenas to associates of Flynn for business records. Heck, on Wednesday (after the Comey firing and disastrous Yates testimony on Flynn), Trump met with the very same Russian diplomat Flynn had been accused of lying about meeting/speaking.
Trump has already replaced the Attorney General and the Acting Attorney General with an ally (Sessions) and Rosenstein, who apparently directed the Comey dismissal. He's also fired all the Obama-era U.S. Attorneys and prosecutors. The CIA Director is now a Trump appointee. The only "independent" group investigating the national security issue of collusion between the sitting president and a foreign power will now be headed by a Trump appointee. Trump fired the last threat to his presidency. It's also highly disingenuous of Trump to claim that the Clinton investigation was the reason he fired Comey, while Trump not only benefitted from those actions, but praised them at the time. Heck, he even described Comey last week on Twitter as "the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton" for giving her a "free pass" which would imply that he was mad at Comey not for how he handled not prosecuting Clinton as he said, but for not prosecuting her hard enough. He also praised Comey for his "guts" in investigating Clinton and declared that what Comey did in his letter was "the right thing" in the days afterward. Further, nearly half a year later after Comey's biggest supposed missteps and four months after being sworn in as President, suddenly Trump has a problem with Comey right when the Trump-Russia investigation was gaining steam. He's right that Democrats didn't like Comey. But they liked him a heck of a lot more than Trump because of the Trump-Russia investigation, and Comey was at least a reasonably independent actor. Democrats are right to want to pursue that, because it's a national security issue and it's a "this guy is just as corrupt as we said he is" issue. The Democrats are not wrong. (Follow-up: The Senate Intelligence committee has subpoenaed Gen. Flynn for documents related to his Russia connections. This is the first time they've used that power since the 9/11 Commission, and the first time for documents since the 1970s.)
GOP Reaction
But remember: Democrats have no power right now. They don't have the Senate, and probably won't until 2020 at least. They don't have the House, and would have to get a little lucky to flip it in 2018 (though that is plausible). So it's Trump's fellow Republicans who have the power to decide if the Trump-Russia investigation continues or goes independent. And their response has been mixed and confusing. Sen. McCain is calling for an independent investigation, but Sens. Graham and Cruz have supported Comey's firing and been pretty quiet re: Trump-Russia. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C. and the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee (investigating Trump-Russia) said he was "troubled by the timing and reasoning" behind Comey's firing. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said he was "having trouble" with the Comey firing. Conservative Sens. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) expressed their frustration, too. Finally, Sen. Bob Corker threw his ire to the pile. If you add in the Democrats, Burr, Flake, Sasse, Lankford and McCain, that's a majority of senators upset with how this was handled. But the most powerful man in the Senate is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who rejected calls for a special prosecutor. Reminder: His wife is Trump's Secretary of Transportation. Republicans are showing they care more about their party than about the country. If they cared about the country, they'd be calling for an independent investigation to restore faith in the process.
Nixonian?
Finally, it's not gone unnoticed that President Trump has been acting like Richard Nixon. Let's go over the connections. Trump's speech at the RNC was lifted, admittedly, from the 1968 RNC speech of Richard Nixon. Trump met literally the day after firing Comey with Nixon Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. According to CNN, longtime Trump ally Roger Stone asked for Comey to be fired (though Trump refutes this and Stone has been... let's go with dodgy on his involvement, but he's super happy about it). Stone was a self-described "dirty trickster" for Nixon and has a Nixon tattoo on his back. He tweeted about Comey's firing that "Somewhere Dick Nixon is smiling." Why? Because Nixon fired the special prosecutor in charge of the Watergate investigation. It was called the Saturday Night Massacre. Long history short, Nixon ordered his AG to fire the special prosecutor in charge of Watergate. The AG refused, and resigned in protest. Nixon then ordered his Deputy AG to fire the special prosecutor. He refused, too, and resigned in protest. Finally, the Solicitor General (Robert Bork) was brought in to fire the special prosecutor. Nine months later, Nixon was impeached on obstruction of justice charges. He resigned two weeks later.
One important distinction: Congress had turned on Nixon, but it was also already the opposition party. Trump's party still controls Washington. VP Mike Pence and McConnell have now publicly defended Trump's actions. The House is Republican. The Senate is Republican. If Trump is to go down over this, it'll take Republicans turning on him — and I don't think they have the courage to do so. They've shown no desire for that so far, and I know why: If you're going to take on someone from your own party in a public way, it better be for a GREAT, inarguable reason. It's just not worth the battle for most Republicans right now.
Conclusion
The original reasons for Comey's firing are, to some extent, good reasons coming from anyone but Trump. But coming from Trump, who has praised the exact same actions — and benefitted from them — it does not seem genuine. So it seems this is either a fairly naked reaction to the Russia-Trump investigation or at least that Comey was a threat to Trump. But the people with the power to do anything about it seem so disinterested in stopping it. So that's why I'm disheartened: It's going to take Republican leadership and Republican effort to continue the Trump-Russia investigation. I don't think McConnell will ever do anything against Trump because of his wife's position in Trump's Cabinet. Paul Ryan is too intertwined in Trump policy to sever ties, either. In this instance, the GOP has nothing to gain from an investigation and everything to lose. So call me cynical, but I think this spells the end for major revelations from the Trump-Russia investigation.
Summary Judgments
Take a guess at the only one country has ever given up its nuclear weapons willingly. Give up? It's South Africa. • • • More from Foxtrot Alpha on President Trump attempting to set back a state-of-the-art aircraft carrier's launch technology. • • • The President believes he invented the phrase "priming the pump." He is wrong, and here's proof. • • • I was real sick last week, so I didn't run. I never got around to running this week, so I'll get back on that horse next week. My next race is June 10, so I have plenty of time, but I'd like to run a 4-mile practice to make up for missing the 4-miler Trolley Run because I was sick. • • • Yesterday, Alyson took the kids to day care, which means they leave after I do. When I came home from work, I found a blanket on our bed, and a whole bunch of stuffed animals there, too. I forgot about it, and then later when we went to bed, Alyson asked why there were stuffed animals on our bed. After jogging her memory, Alyson told me Evie had asked "Do you want to play with my friends?" after I'd left in the morning. Alyson hadn't paid much attention to Evie since she was getting ready for work herself, but that's how our bed ended up with Evie's animals.
Thursday, May 4, 2017
A Deep Dive on the American Health Care Act
The biggest question with any bill is addressing what problem it's trying to solve. With the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), the problem was easy to identify: Too many people are uninsured. Of course, there are many complex and intricate issues stemming from that, but that was the crux of the bill. It was hoped that by reducing the number of uninsured, that overall health care costs would fall. But cost savings were not the primary issue.
So here we are with the Republican alternative, the American Health Care Act (AHCA). On the surface, it's trying to improve upon Obamacare. But that's not really a problem to solve. Are they trying to lower costs? Improve access? Lower the number of uninsured? It's honestly unclear. So you have to look at what the bill does. And what it does, in leaps and bounds, is move the costs of health care away from the rich and healthy and onto the backs of the poor, sick and elderly.
This is not the best nor most in-depth analysis of the bill, but I'll try to split it up into three parts, What's In The Bill, What It Means and What's Next.
What's In The Bill
For a framework of how to discuss the bill, I want to go back to the seven questions that were splitting the GOP health plans back in February. I'll try to keep it brief, then I'll tack on a few questions at the end.
How much of Obamacare to keep?
The GOP bill holds on to a few popular Obamacare policies, like keeping children on parents' insurance until age 26. It removes the individual mandate for buying health insurance.
Whose costs need to be lowered: the government's or the people's?
Under Obamacare, the preference was to lower the people's costs at the expense of the government. The AHCA (through things like turning Medicaid into block-grant funding after 2020) tries to lower government costs by $337 billion by putting caps on future Medicaid spending. But if costs rise beyond the government's caps, those costs would have to be made up somewhere — inevitably in premiums and out-of-pocket expenses.
Who should have coverage?
In theory, everyone that has coverage would remain covered. However, because it would no longer be required and because it would be a lot more expensive for others, health care coverage could be lost for up to 24 million Americans. (NOTE: This is based on last month's bill. The newest version hasn't been rated by the CBO yet and will probably be even worse).
How to pay for the plan's changes?
Obamacare paid for itself with taxes on the wealthy and medical industries. The AHCA would use an estimated $840 billion savings on cuts to Medicaid to restore those tax cuts to the wealthy and medical industries. Everything else is largely covered by other means.
Keep Medicaid expansion or no?
The AHCA would block any further states from expanding Medicaid after its passage. It continues funding the Medicaid expansion as is through 2020, but turns funding of Medicaid AS A WHOLE into a block grant after that. These block grants would rise at a rate of medical CPI + 1%, but that's likely to be below the yearly Medicaid increases (Medicaid tends to have sicker people, so their costs tend to rise faster than medical expenses in general). States would be forced to make hard decisions in either what Medicaid covers in their state or who is eligible for Medicaid in their state.
Does this affect the Obamacare "age bands" — the difference between what you can charge older and younger people?
Obamacare capped the ratio at 3:1 — you could charge older people no more than three times the cost of a younger person. The AHCA raises that ratio to 5:1 — shifting more of the cost burden back on to older Americans.
Does this change Obamacare health care subsidies/exchanges?
The AHCA doesn't directly affect the Obamacare exchanges, but it would replace the Obamacare subsidies entirely. The Obamacare subsidies were based on income level, in that the poorer you were, the more of the cost was covered by subsidies. The AHCA changes it to a flat tax credit — $2-4,000 depending on how old you are, not how much you make. These tax credits are less generous than Obamacare for the poorest Americans.
OK, let's revisit the pre-existing conditions issue and the "10 essential health benefits" issue.
Under the AHCA, states can ask for a waiver to both on one condition: they set up a high-risk pool or set up some other system to help those with pre-existing conditions get coverage. This was given $130 billion in funding over 10 years. One of the last big concessions to get the last few votes was $8 billion more to this fund over 5 years. (High-risk pools were tried in 35 states before Obamacare, and none of them worked out because they were all underfunded, too expensive for its members, etc.) That sounds like a lot, but one expert put the cost of a 10-year program at $180 billion. Because the AHCA is almost certain to not be enough, the costs will be made up somewhere, likely in premiums and deductibles for the sickest Americans.
Anything else?
If you lose coverage, you can be charged a 30 percent premium for up to a year to get it back. For the poorest Americans, that's a high hurdle to overcome when getting back on board in case disaster strikes.
What It Means
It's surprising to me that Obamacare was attacked for being "shoved down our throats," when it took nine months from proposal to approval. The AHCA has one major hurdle to pass, but has even more been shoved down our throats — there's not even a current form of the bill available online when it was passed today because changes have been made even to the original bill introduced just two months ago.
Even more surprising is there is direct evidence that the AHCA is "shoved down our throats" — the GOP didn't even wait for its own three-days-available rule or even the usually required CBO report. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office produces a report on major legislation. Its report was pretty brutal against the AHCA two months ago, and this revised version will almost certainly be worse. Yet because the bill remained in flux and because the GOP hurried it along, the CBO didn't have time to file a report. They will be forced to do so per Senate rules before its consideration there.
Overall, I keep trying to look at the goal of this bill. I keep trying to figure out what problem it's trying to solve.
With less generous subsidies, poorer people will drop their health insurance — and face a high hurdle if they ever want to get it back again. Either on one way (less generous subsidies) or another (high re-entry hurdle), poor people will pay more.
With increased age bands, older people will pay more.
With a shift into high-risk pools, sicker people will pay more.
By removing the Obamacare tax hikes, rich people will pay less.
Without the individual mandate, healthy people who don't want insurance will drop it — leaving the relatively sicker people to pay more. If you're healthy and your insurance drops, there's no incentive to get it back — you're going to have to pay a 30 percent penalty for a year to get it back, so... wait until you need it, right?
Most Americans, with private insurance provided through their workplace, may not be affected much. But those with insurance from companies across state lines may see a change: Obamacare banned insurance companies from placing lifetime limits on benefits and capped out-of-pocket spending, but these only applied to the essential health benefits as defined by law, letting the company choose which state's benefits it preferred (since the 10 essential health benefits were in Obamacare, federal law rendered this a six-of-one, half-dozen-of-another thing). But if the "10 essential health benefits" federal law is overwritten and the option is left to each state, large companies could pick the skimpiest state benefit and apply it companywide, even across state lines. In theory, a national company could apply narrower health standards from one state to its employees across the country and mean that lifetime limits no longer meant anything.
Finally, this means the GOP can say they've put a plan out there and done something. Granted, it's not a law yet — it still needs to make it through the Senate. But they can tell their constituencies that they kept their campaign promises.
What's Next
Before I even get into the analysis machine, let's get something out of the way quickly: I don't care which side of the aisle you are on — today is not a day for singing. Reports came out that the GOP was singing the Rocky theme song. Do you know what your bill does? Did you spend even the hour or two that I did thinking through its ramifications? The CBO says 24 million people will lose their insurance! But sure, you're the underdog with control of both houses of Congress and the White House celebrate your victory over 24 million poor people with health insurance. And Democrats, you're not off the hook, either: You were caught singing "Hey Hey Hey Goodbye!" because you think this means the GOP is going to lose their seats — and the House majority — in 2018. NO. You don't get to sing, either. You don't get to sing unless you've won something. You haven't won anything. Your last flag bearer's major accomplishment just got potentially undercut and you're busy singing? Go out and win a damn election. This was tacky on both sides.
So now it moves to the Senate, but there is almost assuredly a deadline. If you're a Republican, you cannot let this last to 2018. If you want to repeal and replace Obamacare, it has to be done before primaries (spring 2018) and definitely debates against the opposition party in summer/fall 2018. If you're a Republican, you do not want to be fighting the Obamacare repeal on both sides and in Washington. So the deadline is probably the end of the year, and since Congress wraps up early, it's probably mid-November this year (Merry Christmas!)
The most powerful person in this whole debate you might never have heard of is Elizabeth MacDonough. She is the Senate Parliamentarian. To get this bill through Congress, the GOP had two paths: regular or reconciliation. The regular path, Schoolhouse Rock-style, would require enough Democrat votes to overcome a filibuster. Seeing that wouldn't happen, the GOP used reconciliation, which allows the GOP to get by with just a majority vote. Here's the problem: some of the things we've talked about may run afoul of reconciliation rules. For example, anything above that mentions "state waivers" may not work out.
That's why Republican Senators have already come out and started saying things like "We need to take it slow" and that they might need to start from scratch. I loved this quote from Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.: "I congratulate the House on the passage of its bill. The Senate will now finish work on our bill, but will take the time to get it right." That's some shade being thrown at the junior chamber by the very people that are key to its passage in the Senate.
Five moderate Republicans (or: enough to kill the House bill) have signed on to a compromise plan (Cassidy-Collins) that would actually expand upon Obamacare. Honestly, I think Democrats could even come around to that proposal.
There are two paths here that I see: A) The Senate delays, delays, delays, delays and suddenly it's the 2018 House elections! That outcome would determine if Mitch McConnell lets it see the light of day. B) The Senate sees that anything that would pass the Senate could not pass the House. That's because anything that pleases moderate GOP Senators like Susan Collins would be detestable to the Freedom Caucus in the House. So they delay it, obfuscate, and eventually let it die a silent death in committee or something.
There are too many moderate Senators to let THIS bill pass before the mid-terms. Thanks to this bill, there also may be too many House Democrats for ANY bill to be approved after mid-terms.
So here we are with the Republican alternative, the American Health Care Act (AHCA). On the surface, it's trying to improve upon Obamacare. But that's not really a problem to solve. Are they trying to lower costs? Improve access? Lower the number of uninsured? It's honestly unclear. So you have to look at what the bill does. And what it does, in leaps and bounds, is move the costs of health care away from the rich and healthy and onto the backs of the poor, sick and elderly.
This is not the best nor most in-depth analysis of the bill, but I'll try to split it up into three parts, What's In The Bill, What It Means and What's Next.
What's In The Bill
For a framework of how to discuss the bill, I want to go back to the seven questions that were splitting the GOP health plans back in February. I'll try to keep it brief, then I'll tack on a few questions at the end.
How much of Obamacare to keep?
The GOP bill holds on to a few popular Obamacare policies, like keeping children on parents' insurance until age 26. It removes the individual mandate for buying health insurance.
Whose costs need to be lowered: the government's or the people's?
Under Obamacare, the preference was to lower the people's costs at the expense of the government. The AHCA (through things like turning Medicaid into block-grant funding after 2020) tries to lower government costs by $337 billion by putting caps on future Medicaid spending. But if costs rise beyond the government's caps, those costs would have to be made up somewhere — inevitably in premiums and out-of-pocket expenses.
Who should have coverage?
In theory, everyone that has coverage would remain covered. However, because it would no longer be required and because it would be a lot more expensive for others, health care coverage could be lost for up to 24 million Americans. (NOTE: This is based on last month's bill. The newest version hasn't been rated by the CBO yet and will probably be even worse).
How to pay for the plan's changes?
Obamacare paid for itself with taxes on the wealthy and medical industries. The AHCA would use an estimated $840 billion savings on cuts to Medicaid to restore those tax cuts to the wealthy and medical industries. Everything else is largely covered by other means.
Keep Medicaid expansion or no?
The AHCA would block any further states from expanding Medicaid after its passage. It continues funding the Medicaid expansion as is through 2020, but turns funding of Medicaid AS A WHOLE into a block grant after that. These block grants would rise at a rate of medical CPI + 1%, but that's likely to be below the yearly Medicaid increases (Medicaid tends to have sicker people, so their costs tend to rise faster than medical expenses in general). States would be forced to make hard decisions in either what Medicaid covers in their state or who is eligible for Medicaid in their state.
Does this affect the Obamacare "age bands" — the difference between what you can charge older and younger people?
Obamacare capped the ratio at 3:1 — you could charge older people no more than three times the cost of a younger person. The AHCA raises that ratio to 5:1 — shifting more of the cost burden back on to older Americans.
Does this change Obamacare health care subsidies/exchanges?
The AHCA doesn't directly affect the Obamacare exchanges, but it would replace the Obamacare subsidies entirely. The Obamacare subsidies were based on income level, in that the poorer you were, the more of the cost was covered by subsidies. The AHCA changes it to a flat tax credit — $2-4,000 depending on how old you are, not how much you make. These tax credits are less generous than Obamacare for the poorest Americans.
OK, let's revisit the pre-existing conditions issue and the "10 essential health benefits" issue.
Under the AHCA, states can ask for a waiver to both on one condition: they set up a high-risk pool or set up some other system to help those with pre-existing conditions get coverage. This was given $130 billion in funding over 10 years. One of the last big concessions to get the last few votes was $8 billion more to this fund over 5 years. (High-risk pools were tried in 35 states before Obamacare, and none of them worked out because they were all underfunded, too expensive for its members, etc.) That sounds like a lot, but one expert put the cost of a 10-year program at $180 billion. Because the AHCA is almost certain to not be enough, the costs will be made up somewhere, likely in premiums and deductibles for the sickest Americans.
Anything else?
If you lose coverage, you can be charged a 30 percent premium for up to a year to get it back. For the poorest Americans, that's a high hurdle to overcome when getting back on board in case disaster strikes.
What It Means
It's surprising to me that Obamacare was attacked for being "shoved down our throats," when it took nine months from proposal to approval. The AHCA has one major hurdle to pass, but has even more been shoved down our throats — there's not even a current form of the bill available online when it was passed today because changes have been made even to the original bill introduced just two months ago.
Even more surprising is there is direct evidence that the AHCA is "shoved down our throats" — the GOP didn't even wait for its own three-days-available rule or even the usually required CBO report. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office produces a report on major legislation. Its report was pretty brutal against the AHCA two months ago, and this revised version will almost certainly be worse. Yet because the bill remained in flux and because the GOP hurried it along, the CBO didn't have time to file a report. They will be forced to do so per Senate rules before its consideration there.
Overall, I keep trying to look at the goal of this bill. I keep trying to figure out what problem it's trying to solve.
With less generous subsidies, poorer people will drop their health insurance — and face a high hurdle if they ever want to get it back again. Either on one way (less generous subsidies) or another (high re-entry hurdle), poor people will pay more.
With increased age bands, older people will pay more.
With a shift into high-risk pools, sicker people will pay more.
By removing the Obamacare tax hikes, rich people will pay less.
Without the individual mandate, healthy people who don't want insurance will drop it — leaving the relatively sicker people to pay more. If you're healthy and your insurance drops, there's no incentive to get it back — you're going to have to pay a 30 percent penalty for a year to get it back, so... wait until you need it, right?
Most Americans, with private insurance provided through their workplace, may not be affected much. But those with insurance from companies across state lines may see a change: Obamacare banned insurance companies from placing lifetime limits on benefits and capped out-of-pocket spending, but these only applied to the essential health benefits as defined by law, letting the company choose which state's benefits it preferred (since the 10 essential health benefits were in Obamacare, federal law rendered this a six-of-one, half-dozen-of-another thing). But if the "10 essential health benefits" federal law is overwritten and the option is left to each state, large companies could pick the skimpiest state benefit and apply it companywide, even across state lines. In theory, a national company could apply narrower health standards from one state to its employees across the country and mean that lifetime limits no longer meant anything.
Finally, this means the GOP can say they've put a plan out there and done something. Granted, it's not a law yet — it still needs to make it through the Senate. But they can tell their constituencies that they kept their campaign promises.
What's Next
Before I even get into the analysis machine, let's get something out of the way quickly: I don't care which side of the aisle you are on — today is not a day for singing. Reports came out that the GOP was singing the Rocky theme song. Do you know what your bill does? Did you spend even the hour or two that I did thinking through its ramifications? The CBO says 24 million people will lose their insurance! But sure, you're the underdog with control of both houses of Congress and the White House celebrate your victory over 24 million poor people with health insurance. And Democrats, you're not off the hook, either: You were caught singing "Hey Hey Hey Goodbye!" because you think this means the GOP is going to lose their seats — and the House majority — in 2018. NO. You don't get to sing, either. You don't get to sing unless you've won something. You haven't won anything. Your last flag bearer's major accomplishment just got potentially undercut and you're busy singing? Go out and win a damn election. This was tacky on both sides.
So now it moves to the Senate, but there is almost assuredly a deadline. If you're a Republican, you cannot let this last to 2018. If you want to repeal and replace Obamacare, it has to be done before primaries (spring 2018) and definitely debates against the opposition party in summer/fall 2018. If you're a Republican, you do not want to be fighting the Obamacare repeal on both sides and in Washington. So the deadline is probably the end of the year, and since Congress wraps up early, it's probably mid-November this year (Merry Christmas!)
The most powerful person in this whole debate you might never have heard of is Elizabeth MacDonough. She is the Senate Parliamentarian. To get this bill through Congress, the GOP had two paths: regular or reconciliation. The regular path, Schoolhouse Rock-style, would require enough Democrat votes to overcome a filibuster. Seeing that wouldn't happen, the GOP used reconciliation, which allows the GOP to get by with just a majority vote. Here's the problem: some of the things we've talked about may run afoul of reconciliation rules. For example, anything above that mentions "state waivers" may not work out.
That's why Republican Senators have already come out and started saying things like "We need to take it slow" and that they might need to start from scratch. I loved this quote from Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.: "I congratulate the House on the passage of its bill. The Senate will now finish work on our bill, but will take the time to get it right." That's some shade being thrown at the junior chamber by the very people that are key to its passage in the Senate.
Five moderate Republicans (or: enough to kill the House bill) have signed on to a compromise plan (Cassidy-Collins) that would actually expand upon Obamacare. Honestly, I think Democrats could even come around to that proposal.
There are two paths here that I see: A) The Senate delays, delays, delays, delays and suddenly it's the 2018 House elections! That outcome would determine if Mitch McConnell lets it see the light of day. B) The Senate sees that anything that would pass the Senate could not pass the House. That's because anything that pleases moderate GOP Senators like Susan Collins would be detestable to the Freedom Caucus in the House. So they delay it, obfuscate, and eventually let it die a silent death in committee or something.
There are too many moderate Senators to let THIS bill pass before the mid-terms. Thanks to this bill, there also may be too many House Democrats for ANY bill to be approved after mid-terms.
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