I requested full hearing/debate taking at least another month.
the lady i talked to didn't seem to be fazed at my not having the acronym right! and even if you or someone you know called on the prior version of the bill, call again - it's a new one. bastards.
I called Toomey's local office. They seemed surprised. Was I supposed to call something else?
it stands for BReast CAncer
That never even occurred to me.
The funny thing is that they actually say: "BRCA stands for BReast CAncer susceptibility gene". Why not BCSG?
The name was probably mostly used (by the people who developed it) in contexts where "susceptibility gene" is the class of things they are talking about.
the phone number in the op is for the sen finance comm - CALL THAT NUMBER. 202.222.4515.
O.K. But I thought my own state was more important.
They asked me where I was calling from. Fortunately, I remembered to say "Pittsburgh Pennsylvania" instead of "the downstairs bathroom."
you can do both, or all three - both state senators *AND* finance comm! the point is the fin comm is keeping a running tally of all calls saying hold a goddam hearing, so that there is the possibility of a LARGE number of calls say do your damn job becoming a public pressure point. you have to believe at this point there are repub sens just looking for an out to having to vote for this piece of crap.
I'm not worried about good senator. I don't think shitty senator will listen, but I feel obligated to try.
13: Good senators you thank for their opposition and ask they not only continue to oppose but also withhold consent and otherwise use all available means to block.
Jesu Christu on a bicycle, I just learned one elaboration to the new bill text is it offers restored DSH funding to states that rescind their Medicaid expansion by 2021. So it bribes states to kick people off.
I called both of mine. I tried the number in the OP several times but got a weird error message.
I got an error the first time, but went through to a very polite, efficient operator (or whatever) on the second.
I can't call right now, but I know Warren will do the right thing. I'm pretty sure that Markey will be fine too.
Just a few more hours,
And I'll be right home to you.
I think I hear them calling,
Oh Beth what can I do.
Beth what can I do.
Don't even get me started on gene names. We have a project now that spits out gene symbols that might be interesting and every time I look one up there's a 50% chance I'll say WTF does that mean.
Does long distance even cost extra any more?
15- is that even legal under Roberts' bullshit ruling about Medicaid? Can't withhold funding to induce states to do something else.
20.2: Interesting. DSH is a lot less money than the whole of the state Medicaid program which was at issue in that case - last year pre-cuts about $12b nationwide.
Andy Slavitt (last CMS admin) reports that all the new funds being shoveled on to solve the various problems the bill creates (opioids, preexisting, etc.), besides still being deeply inadequate, are all entirely distributed at the discretion of the HHS secretary. Like instead of cutting everything by 35%, they're cutting it by 40% and reallocating 5% into a slush fund the Trump administration can put in the pocket of Peter Thiel or whoever.
And now the vote has been delayed at least a week while McCain recovers from surgery.
So the senate bill appears to be dead. Hopefully the Republicans will take a break for awhile.
I'm wondering, is the timing of McCain's surgery completely coincidental, or did he schedule it such that he would delay the vote without being held responsible for delaying the vote?
"Never attribute to cunning that which is adequately explained by senility."
The official story, at least, is that they found the blood clot during a routine physical and it had to be treated right away. So that implies that they couldn't have planned the timing deliberately.
I found the blood clot during Comey's testimony.
"Never attribute to duplicity that which is adequately explained by senility."
What would the Patient Mossy say that the Fast Mossy needs to know?
"Rhyme has disproportionate rhetorical effect."
Look who's down with the gente.
Man, this is vexing. They pivoted quick-like last night to full repeal-and-delay, almost certainly (under normal political logic) to save face while knowing they would lose, but that doesn't prevent them from bringing the whole thing back in another month or two when they think activists are sapped out.
The third and fourth votes were relatively safe conservatives Lee and Moran, Lee coming from the not-repealy-enough camp, and they were both possibly covering for the putative moderates like Heller, Capito, Murkowski who didn't want to support but also didn't want to stick their neck out opposing. So the moderates never really came through, which is concerning for next time (Capito came out with an opposing statement, but 12 hours after it mattered).
It's increasingly painfully obvious how much everyone including Ryan and McConnell have to treat the White House is a void of empty windbaggery and skirt around it as best they can. Monday night 45 was having dinner with Senators supposedly to persuade, but the confirmed names included nobody likely to swing either way; all about making him feel part of the process, I'd guess. And then he spins his wheels again on Twitter in the same old patterns.
Thanks again of course to all those who made calls or otherwise pressured. Even when pressure works on GOPers, it will rarely be clear that it did, so this is what success looks like.
Speaking of this, McCain's "clot above his left eye" was true only in the sense that parts of your brain are above your eye. Did everybody else know this? I was just wondering why a clot in his face was even an issue.
So the moderates never really came through
Republican moderates didn't come through, you say? Weird.
everyone including Ryan and McConnell have to treat the White House is a void of empty windbaggery and skirt around it as best they can
The hidden downside of having a complete shithead for president.
34 The senators dining with the Pres weren't on the fence, they were supporters strategizing how to get those on the fence to sign on. Which is something of a problem for Sen. Daines, who's been pretending (and only fooling morons) to be undecided.
At first I thought McConnell was going to go with repeal to have a failure to get 60 votes, so they can blame Dems. Now I see that there is a 51 vote repeal option, so I think McConnell is pushing it despite certain failure so that no one can (ie Trump and the rightists) blame him later for not taking the obvious course.
Given how insurance works (i.e. mathematical models of risk), just by continually threatening to blow something up, they can blow it up. It's going to get much worse before it gets better.
The senators dining with the Pres weren't on the fence, they were supporters strategizing how to get those on the fence to sign on.
"Strategizing" has to be in quotes there. There's no way the dinner served any function besides ego-assuaging and publicity.
Another word of warning, we can't rely on the filibuster or the limits of reconciliation. They've been working within that so far, but it gets them to 50 I can absolutely see them nuking the filibuster just like they did for Gorsuch - McConnell's known preferences notwithstanding. Or just as likely, they bull it past the parliamentarian, or make "fixes" to reconciliation procedure so it stops being a bar.
41.1 may be overassuming. There could have been periods when Trump was not in the room with the rest of them, for example.
On the positive side, checking Twitter just now for the latest bloviation on the filibuster, I find that when viewing his feed on its own, my Chrome plugin Make Trump Kittens Again changes the avatar for every single tweet into a different kitten image.
There's no way the dinner served any function besides ego-assuaging and publicity.
Assuming they didn't all vomit at the thought of who they were working with, they probably got some nutrition.
Twit re Daines: Daines staffer appears to claim Daines did not actually support BCRA despite going on group date with Trump meant for BCRA supporters
It's like they said, either it gets 50 votes or it gets 30.
At least Daines didn't punch anybody to evade having to admit supporting Trumpcare.
I can see them bullying the parliamentarian on one or two issues, but I don't see them abandoning the filibuster altogether. On average the Republicans benefit from the filibuster, and once it's gone, it's gone.
I can see them abandoning the filibuster when they have 52 votes, demanding it be returned when they have 48 votes, and making the average Trump voter think the whole thing is an evil plot by liberals.
I can see them shitting on the Lincoln Memorial and blaming Nancy Pelosi.
46: espite going on group date with Trump
He only let Trump put the tip in.
44: Assuming they didn't all vomit at the thought of who they were working with, they probably got some nutrition.
New model for this (and future) election(s)? America binging on the wild high of voting for an out-and-out racist, grifter scum and then impeaching/25th-ing so as not have to live under the resulting farcical governance.
"We'll let Obamacare fail. We're not going to own it. I'm not going to own it."
This thread is dead, but the WaPo confirms my sense that the dinner with only hardliners was a sign Trump was out of the loop as far as negotiations and persuasion went.
Republicans in Washington were dumbfounded that, with the GOP health-care bill on the line, Trump decided to spend his time eating with allies rather than trying to win over adversaries. And it blew up in his face in the most spectacular way.
"The senators who announced their opposition last night were two that have been most vocal about their hesitation to McConnell's efforts for weeks," said a Republican who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the president's strategy. "It hasn't been a secret who those people are, and those are who the president should be wining and dining. To be spending valuable time with reliable 'yes' votes doesn't seem to make much sense."
In this case, blaming it on Trump is unfair. The Senate Republicans couldn't pass a healthcare bill, because they couldn't agree on what they are trying to do.
I blame them all in different ways (giving "blame" a morally neutral horse-race meaning). The congressional GOP were too tied to mutually contradictory promises and unserious about policy to craft something winning, and at the same time Trump has been too chronically stupid and passive to be reasonably expected to fill any role in helping them.
Yes. Not only has Trump not helped, he's the prime offender on mutually contradictory promises.
Trump has been so passive on this, I'm thinking "The Void*" might be a good name for a book about his presidency and not just because of the pee tape.
* Yes, this is Sen. Franken's joke, but I stole it.
34: that doesn't prevent them from bringing the whole thing back in another month or two when they think activists are sapped out.
I've been trying to get it straight on just what the deadline is for them bringing a repeal-and-delay bill forward under reconciliation: they can only do so under the FY2017 budget, no? Which expires September 30 ... no ifs, ands, or buts, right?
Trump did his part -- he got elected President.
Also, with respect to Senate rules: I'm unclear whether there's any reason short of optics and public opinion and momentum that they feel they have to dispense with Obamacare repeal before moving on to tax reform.
I'd been getting some sense that Senate rules *require* them to either ditch any ACA bill or bring something to the floor, before moving to the next agenda item.
I gather they intend to tackle tax reform as a reconciliation bill to the (as yet non-existent) FY2018 budget ....
60 I think that's right, but actually, they probably have the ability to fudge that, along with everything else.
Weren't we supposed to be having a debt ceiling exercise around now?
It sounds like Trump is going to make an effort to revive the health care thing with the Cruz amendment today.
62 I think the point was to use spending reductions from the health care bill to fund tax cuts in the tax reform. That is, HC cuts spending more than taxes, so they have some additional room to cut taxes. I could well be wrong about this.
New idea: If you can't afford health insurance, you get a job working on the wall.
64: In the House at this point (as of latest update yesterday), that's gone by the wayside, as I understand it. Essentially, they're giving up on tax cuts packed into the ACA repeal bill, and moving them into the 2018 budget bill, aka tax reform aka tax cut reconciliation bill.
See here:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/house-budget-proposes-medicare-cut-tax-cut-for-rich.html
As for how they're going to fund those tax cuts, there's a big battle, not unlike the battle between hard conservatives (the Freedom Caucus in the house) and so-called moderates (the "Tuesday Group"). Roughly: the 2018 budget bill proposes again to defund Obamacare, as well as sharply reduce Medicaid (again, now here in this bill rather than in ACA repeal) along with Medicare.
More here on the internal Republican argument over that:
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/18/15983410/republican-civil-war-budget-resolution-tax-reform
(Sorry for full links - new computer)
Trump has been so passive on this, I'm thinking "The Void*" might be a good name for a book about his presidency and not just because of the pee tape.
How about "Giant Sucking Sound"?
They are so going to keep going until the destroy the health insurance system. There's really no other thing they can do and still be them.
69: Right, we're past Biff and into Murphy's timeline now.
Who's Biff?
They have to destroy Obamacare because they said it was evil. If they don't destroy it, it means they were either wrong (about Obamacare), completely incompetent, or evil. They should admit all of those but can't admit any. Thus Obamacare will be destroyed. The only issue is making sure they destroy it in such a way as to keep all the blood on their own hands. That part seems working nicely.
It reminds me of the people on hidden planet that tried to destroy the universe in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
In the sense of "The universe will fit with my theory not matter who I have to kill" and, probably, in the sense of liking post-Beatles Paul McCartney-style songs.
Speaking of which, the NYT interview with Trump is really something. The race continues--he can only "govern" as an autocrat.
Actually I'm not that comfortable with how the accessoids at the Times have been playing this game; on one hand just letting him ramble (occasionally prompted/nudged along by them) gets "interesting" (and clickable) stories in which Trump reveals much. But they really do not ask hard questions or followup obvious BS/contradictions so Trump gets basically his version "out there). (For instance I am not really sure Trump is all that pissed at Sessions, the Times has been there before with Trump v. Sessions or Trump v. Bannon backstabbing porn which has not really come to anything--not saying it's a Trumpian master plan of deception but he does have an effective low cunning when it comes to media.)
Time in the Trump administration: The gaping, distended anus of the résumé.
Like the sands of time through an hour glass which is going through your digestive system, so are the days of Trump.
63: I think the debt ceiling got pushed to August. I've gotten more optimistic that the GOP leadership, or some of it, doesn't want a debt ceiling fight, especially since there was no promise there unlike health care.