Republicans have tweaked their healthcare bill in order to win over skeptical senators. Let’s just say it may not be working. Rand Paul and Susan Collins seem to still be no votes. Republicans can lose only one more vote before the bill would be dead. Meanwhile, as we await the new CBO scores, the tweaking done to the bill still leaves many more losers than winners. Via The New York Times.
In a succinct analysis of the Senate Republicans’ latest version of the healthcare bill, Ezra Klein writes that it is terrible for people who are sick, people who have been sick and anyone who will get sick. Otherwise … Via Vox.
Mitch McConnell is apparently pitching the new healthcare bill to some of the moderates in his party by telling them not to worry, the worst parts of the bill are set so far down the road that they’ll never go into effect. Via New York magazine.
Lindsey Graham will hit Trump, but only so hard. And if Graham, who never supported Trump, isn’t ready to really take Trump on, that tells all you need to know about the rest of the Senate Republicans. Via The New Yorker.
From The National Review, Charles Krauthammer writes that the Trumpian nothingburger defense is now officially dead. Bungled collusion, he writes, is still collusion.
The false conspiracy theory involving the Russian lawyer who met with Don Jr. somehow made it all the way to remarks POTUS made from France. Buzzfeed explains the not-so-long-but-definitely-winding road through right-wing media that fake news took.
The New York Times prints excerpts from Trump’s first-off-the-record, then-on-the-record conversation with reporters aboard Air Force One that the White House finally released. You should read it just for the Putin fistfight line.
Eugene Robinson writes that Jared and Ivanka may well be beginning their plunge from grace. As Robinson says, “Gravity makes no allowance for grace.” Via The Washington Post.
A federal judge in Hawaii rules that grandparents actually are close family relatives. In fact, they’re the “epitome” of close family relatives. And so he writes that the Trump travel ban must make allowance for grandparents, grandchildren, aunts and uncles and others. Does this mean the travel ban is heading back to court for more? Via Politico.
Peter Beinart: Tucker Carlson is playing an important role on Fox as a critic of hawkish Republican foreign policy. At the same time, he undercuts that by being a complete apologist for Trump. Can he really play both roles at once? Via The Atlantic.
Photo by abbamouse, via Flickr: Creative Commons
