Ticking Time Bombs

The Healthcare Clock is Ticking:   After the last attempt at repealing Obamacare failed, several key Republican mega donors threatened to close their wallets to the party which partially explains the impetus to push the Graham-Cassidy Obamacare repeal plan regardless of its content or dire impact on healthcare coverage. With the September 30 deadline date for passage by reconciliation looming, Majority Leader McConnell plans to bring Graham-Cassidy up for a Senate vote on Wednesday.  If all goes McConnell’s way he will then ship the bill to the House.  If House Speaker Ryan can get his blue state Republicans to vote against the interests of their states and constituents, the biggest losers under Graham-Cassidy, the bill will pass, Obamacare will die and donor wallets will reopen.    All eyes are now focused on Alaska Senator Murkowski and Arizona Senator McCain’s thumb. Senator Graham who previously said that he would never vote for a bill that had a specific state carveout, such as the Iowa benefiting “cornhusker kickback” that was for a time included in Obamacare, has included an Alaska targeted provision in his Graham-Cassidy legislation.  The “igloo kickback” will defer Medicaid cuts in Alaska for a few years in a craven attempt to influence Murkowski. During the last round of the Obamacare repeal fight, Murkowski said that she couldn’t be bought off.  We will soon find out if she meant it or if she is as fickle as Graham.  Though Senator Cassidy continues to claim that his plan covers people with preexisting conditions, VP Pence all but admitted it doesn’t when instead of answering a question about coverage he quoted Thomas Jefferson who said “that the government that governs least governs best” adding don’t you trust your governor and state legislature more than a “president in a far-off nation’s capital?”  In other words,  no pre-existing conditions coverage for you!  Yesterday, all fifty state Medicaid directors voiced their opposition to Graham-Cassidy, they clearly don’t trust their own state legislatures and governors.  Further complicating the upcoming vote, Senators Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar are scheduled to debate Senators Graham and Cassidy on the merits of single payer health care vs the Graham-Cassidy plan in a CNN town hall on Monday.  It’s not clear why Sanders and Klobuchar think that now is the right time to further fuel fears of “socialized medicine,” the Republican name for Bernie’s single payer plan  While the health care battle wages on, Health Secretary Price, continues to fly around the country on expensive private planes.  So far he’s racked up more than $300,000 in charter bills.  Price has no problem drastically cutting health care services but waiting in airports for delayed commercial flights is one thing he can’t bear.    

Sanctions and Tantrums:  Yesterday Trump announced an expansion of sanctions on North Korea and praised China for taking action to limit financial transactions with the Kim Jong Un regime.   The move and China’s cooperation were hailed as a success and an indication that despite his rhetoric, Trump was moving ahead with diplomatic actions.   Unfortunately Kim Jong Un remains focused on Trump’s Tuesday speech where he threatened to destroy the North Korean regime if it attacked Japan, South Korea or any other US ally.  Kim said Trump will “pay dearly” for those remarks, “I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged US dotard with fire.”  Overnight, he added further clarity to what he means by “fire,” he is now threatening to test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean. Japan is taking this threat very seriously, this morning their defense minister warned the country that they now must prepare for such a test. 

  

Dissing Manafort:  As Special Counsel Mueller tightens his noose around former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, the Trump administration is doing its best to further distance themselves from Manafort.  Ty Cobb, Trump’s in-house Russia lawyer, said “it would be truly shocking,” if true, if Manafort “tried to monetize his relationship with the president,” adding “it certainly would never have been tolerated by the president or his team.”  Of course, Cobb had nothing to do with Trump and his team during the campaign or early months of the administration so he has no idea what they would have tolerated.   Speaking at George Washington University Corey Lewandowski, the political operative who was fired and replaced my Manafort but who remains a Trump surrogate, said that if Manafort, Carter Page or Roger Stone colluded with Russian officials during the elections, they should “go to jail for the rest of their lives.”  For the time being, no one is saying much about Jared Kushner’s involvement nor have we heard much from the son-in-law.  Not only does throwing shade at Manafort, Page and Stone protect Trump, but the strategy also pushes Kushner, and more importantly Ivanka, away from the center of the Russian storm.  For now.