Bastille Day

An American in Paris:  Trump flew off to Paris on Wednesday night.  While on Air Force One he chatted with the press pool, conflating North Korean hacking of Sony with Russian election interference before moving on to his usual “anyone could have hacked the DNC” explanation.  Upon arriving in Paris he ogled Brigitte Macron and complimented her for being “in such good shape” proving you can take the man out of Access Hollywood but you can’t take Access Hollywood out of the man.  Later during his joint press conference with President Macron, he ditched his anti-Paris campaign rhetoric, instead saying that he now loves the city and can’t wait to visit again.  He stuck to the script when asked about the Don Jr fiasco:  the meeting was short, nothing came of it, it’s called opposition research and many people say it’s okay because everyone does it, Don Jr is a great young man and it’s all former Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s fault because she gave the “Russian lawyer” a visa.  He didn’t name any of the “many” people who say it’s okay to take information from foreign government sources and did not mention that when Al Gore’s team received a package containing tapes of George Bush’s debate preparation, they immediately sent the package to the FBI.  Nor did he mention that his lawyers had been told about Don Jr’s meeting in late June and that he had signed off on the misleading press release that said the meeting was just about adoptions.  This morning NBC reported that a former Russian counter intelligence officer turned “lobbyist” accompanied the Russian lawyer to her meeting with Don Jr, Manafort and Kushner.  Trump didn’t mention that either.    

Health Care is Complicated:  Oh how I wish this would go away but sadly its back.  Majority Leader McConnell released what feels like the gazillionth version of Trumpcare on Thursday morning.  There weren’t many surprises.  The bill includes a version of the so-called “Cruz” Amendment, permitting states to offer skimpy insurance policies as long as they also offer Obamacare compliant policies.  The effect of the “Cruz” Amendment is that younger, healthier people are likely to go for the cheaper no care policies while others with any pre-existing conditions (think asthma, congenital heart problems, freckles, being a woman, being over 50) will prefer the more complete plans.  Sadly for them, their plans will be so much more expensive that most of them will be priced out of the market. The bill retains two taxes on the wealthy: a tax on investment income and a payroll tax for high-income households.  It includes a few slush funds, one directing $45 billion for opioid funding and two others directed towards Florida and Alaska with enough money left over for McConnell to allocate to individual wavering senator’s pet projects on an as needed basis.  The bill also allows people to use money from health savings account to pay insurance premiums. Steep Medicaid cuts and the provision defunding Planned Parenthood remain.  Senator Susan Collins, who is a strong “no,” said that there is little about this bill that she can support.  She faults Obama for not getting any Republican votes for Obamacare and believes that it would be wrong for Republicans to move forward without reaching across the aisle to get Democratic input.  She also points outs that the Senate plan is overreaching by reducing not only the Medicaid expansion but also cutting back on basic Medicaid, a program that predates Obamacare.  Rand Paul, who votes no on most things, remains a “no” here.  McConnell can only afford to lose one more vote so he spent the day meeting with a number of moderates including Nevada’s Senator Heller, whose Republican Governor still wants him to vote no.  So far the other potential “no” voters are on the sidelines waiting for the scoring report which is expected early next week.  Complicating matters for McConnell, Senators Graham and Cassidy announced that they are working on their own plan, an amendment which would involve keeping all of the Obamacare taxes, passing the money on to the States, letting each state decide whether to go “blue” with Obamacare or “red” with whatever crappy plan suits their philosophy.  Earlier this week, Trump told the Christian Broadcasting Network’s Pat Robertson that resolving health care is harder than achieving peace between the Palestinians and Israel.     

Stranger and Stranger: Marc Kasowitz, Trump’s combative lawyer may be in bigly trouble.  Wednesday night, stressed over an article in Politico about some of his personal troubles, his struggle with alcohol, and the likelihood that he cannot get the security clearance he should have in order to effectively represent Trump, he struck out at a critic with a series of expletive filled emails.  Though he apologized Thursday morning, it may be too little too late.  Jarod Kushner remains under fire.  All told he amended his security clearance disclosure three times, adding up to 100 meetings with foreign officials that he omitted from his earlier filings.  Speaking for a lot of Democrats, Connecticut Senator Murphy said that “in a normal political world Kushner would no longer have his job,” adding that “at the very least he should absolutely have his security clearance revoked.”  So far Republicans are blocking Democratic efforts to pull that clearance.  Jared and Ivanka are ditching Washington for a few days, they are in Sun Valley attending Allen & Co.’s  Annual Media and Tech Conference.  Jared may be planning his next career.  Now for the weirdest news of the day, Peter Smith, the 81 year old Republican operative who said that he had worked with former advisor Mike Flynn to find the Russian hackers who he thought might have Hillary Clinton’s missing emails committed suicide on May 14, shortly after he told his story to the Wall Street Journal. At the time of the article, the Journal had reported that he had died, but had not reported the suicide.

Russian Sanctions:  A few weeks ago the Senate passed a bill calling for additional sanctions on Russia and Iran by a 98 to 2 vote. The bill continues to languish in the House.  Majority Leader Ryan claims to be firmly behind the sanctions but remains under Trump’s spell and under pressure from the White House so he hasn’t brought the bill up for a vote.  The White House asserts that Trump’s opposition has nothing to do with his love for Russia, claiming instead that decisions on sanctions should rest with the President, a reasonable view except that Trump is president and no one trusts him to make good decisions with regard to Russia.  A disingenuous Ryan is blaming uncooperative Democrats for the delay. 

Budget Preview:  The Congressional Budget Office released a preliminary analysis of the White House’s budget plan , the one that drastically cuts everything except for military expenditures and provides funding for Trump’s beautiful “solar” wall.  The plan would reduce the deficit by about a third over ten years but it would not eliminate the deficit altogether despite White House claims that it would.  The chief reason for the discrepancy is that the White House projections use an unrealistic annual growth rate of 2.8%.  The CBO projects a more realistic 1.9%.  

Vivre la revolution.