Overwhelmed and Beleaguered

Today’s the Day:  The big health care voting process begins today.  Majority Leader McConnell plans to ask the Senate to vote to bring a mystery bill to the Senate floor keeping his plans as vague as possible.  If he can muster the fifty votes, plus Pence, needed to get to the floor, he will then shape a health bill on the fly, taking a little from the House plan, a little from the Senate bill, and a lot away from Obamacare, leaving at least twenty two million or more, if he goes with a straight Obamacare repeal, without health insurance.  The strategy sounds preposterous, after all this is about health care and Medicaid and impacts one sixth of the economy.  Nevertheless many Republican Senators say that they will vote to move forward with whatever McConnell proposes.  Trump ranted “Obamacare is death, its broken, its gone” and spent the day attacking Democrats for being obstructionists and threatening the few doubting Republicans to get with his program or else.  He attended a Boy Scout Jamboree in West Virginia with West Virginia Senator Moore Capito hoping that a ride on Air Force One would be enough to convince her to abandon the health needs of her constituents.  And sadly despite the wacky inappropriate speech he delivered to thirty thousand boy scouts about his electoral college victory, the false news media, and the importance of voting yes for whatever his health plan may be, his strategy might work.  Late in the day, Senator McCain, the beneficiary of the best health care money can buy, announced that he will be flying to Washington to participate in the vote so the opposition is back to needing three Republican “no” votes to shut down the process.  I’d like to think that common sense would prevail and that Senators from states with large Medicaid populations, with rural populations and opioid addiction problems would see the light and vote against proceeding.  I’d like to think that faced with a monumental health crisis, Senator McCain would vote against a process that could lead to millions of people losing access to healthcare.  I’d like to think that the Senators would reach across the partisan divide, fix Obamacare’s flaws, restore stability to the individual markets and figure out a way to reduce premiums and drug costs but I am feeling very pessimistic about this process.  I hope I am wrong.    

The Overwhelmed Man:  Monday, before he met with Senate Intelligence Committee staff, Jared Kushner’s lawyers released a carefully worded eleven page treatise. Apparently Jared Kushner, Renaissance Man extraordinaire, has a few flaws.  He is easily overwhelmed, politically naïve, has attention deficit disorder and isn’t good with details.  Additionally, he didn’t seek the spotlight, did not collude with Russia, doesn’t believe that anyone else in the Trump organization did, and doesn’t rely on Russian funding for his businesses.  As to the Don Jr email, he didn’t read it in its entirety and somehow or other missed the subject line stating it was about getting confidential, Hillary damaging material from the Russian government.  If the meeting was inappropriate, then the blame belongs to little Donny, the person responsible for that meeting. Trump beware, throwing family under the bus is not a problem for Jared.  As to the four meetings he had with Russians,  they were all initiated by the Russians, he didn’t even know that Kislyak was the Russian Ambassador, he did discuss a back channel but only because he wanted to initiate conversations about Syria with Putin and his generals, and he only met with the Putin associated Russian banker because Kislyak asked him twice, nicely and it was part of his job to be diplomatic.  Lastly, despite all of his naivete and his attention problems, he is a highly valued aide and the very best person for all of his jobs.  Tomorrow, he gets to go through a similar routine with the House Intelligence Committee this time under oath.  Representative Devin Nunes, who is supposed to be recused from the Russia investigation, plans to attend to make sure that Ranking Member Adam Schiff, who Trump has now nicknamed Sleazy Schiff,  gets no answers to any tough questions.      

The Beleaguered Lawyer:  Trump started the day with a tweet asking “why aren’t the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G. looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations.”  He really, really wants Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign to save him from having to formally wield the axe so that he can then put a new Attorney General in place who would have the authority to fire Special Counsel Mueller, a misguided attempt to make the whole Russia investigation go away.  Later in the day, the Washington Post reported that Trump and his advisors are considering forcing Sessions out during the upcoming Senate August recess, assuming the recess ever takes place. An Attorney General appointed during the Senate recess could serve until January without going through a Senate confirmation process where he or she would presumably be asked whether firing Mueller would be an acceptable thing to do. There were rumors that in anticipation of a Sessions departure, Trump had already put former Mayor Rudy Giuliani on tap.  Giuliani, one of his most dedicated campaign supporters and the man who helped craft the original travel ban swatted that suggestion away adding that Sessions did the right thing when he recused himself from the Russia investigation.  In addition to Giuliani, Senator Ted Cruz is being suggested as a possible appointment.  It’s not clear that Cruz would understand or care that dismissing Mueller and launching an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s “crimes” would be a bigly step towards attaining banana republic status.      

The Scientist Who is Now an Accountant:  Up until last week Joel Clement was a senior scientist in the Department of the Interior responsible for helping endangered communities in Alaska prepare and adapt for the dire effects of their changing climate. In June, he and fifty of his colleagues were involuntarily reassigned to positions in areas outside of their expertise and in many cases far from their home bases.  Clement’s new assignment has him working in an accounting department that collects royalty checks, not the best use of his skills but a great place to stick a scientist if you don’t believe in climate change.  He is now also a whistleblower, drawing attention to Interior Secretary Zinke and the Trump administration’s ignorant efforts to deny science.

Trump woke up today, agitated and very nervous about something or everything: the health care vote, his Sessions strategy or Jared’s next round of testimony.  By 6:30 AM he’d already sent out a series of frazzled tweets, attacking Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Jeff Sessions, and Hillary Clinton.  Just another day in Trumpland.