Tuesday News: Is Zombie Trumpcare Really Dead?; “The Trumps and the Truth”; “McConnell Has Weaponized Cynicism”

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Tuesday, July 18.

• Opposition from two more GOP senators spells potential end for health-care overhaul (“The decision by Sens. Mike Lee and Jerry Moran to join Rand Paul and Susan Collins in opposing the Republican rewrite of the Affordable Care Act threw the effort to pass health-care legislation into turmoil. In the wake of their announcement, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called for a showdown vote, White House aides vowed to press ahead and Democrats pounced on the opportunity to declare the effort dead.”)
• Health Care Overhaul Collapses as Two Republican Senators Defect (“President Trump said Congress should ‘start from a clean slate,’ and Senator Mitch McConnell said he would push a measure to repeal the law now and replace it within two years.” That’s crazy.)
• The Senate’s Latest Health Care Bill Is Dead. Is Trumpcare, Too?
• Vice President Pence’s bushel of false and misleading claims about health care (For anyone who wants Trump impeached, imagine President Pence? Yeah, shudddderrrr…)
• Trump’s treasury secretary is hurtling toward potential debt-limit fiasco (“Steven Mnuchin’s struggles to win support in Congress or the White House for his strategy to raise the federal debt ceiling are casting doubt on whether the political neophyte has the Washington clout to win approval of a measure that could be necessary to avoid a historic, market-rattling default on U.S. government debt.”)
• Trump blindsided by implosion of GOP health care bill (“While the president strategized with Republican lawmakers at the White House over steak, two senators were finalizing their statements tanking the current proposal.”)
• This country deserves much better than Trump (“Now it’s up to Democrats and independents to win in 2018.”)
• Trump’s poll numbers are bad. Here’s when the bottom will drop out. (“The president can’t make good on his promise to lead a resurgence in manufacturing jobs.”)
• 5 reasons why the Republicans can’t pass a repeal bill (“Bad polling, Medicaid’s popularity among reasons GOP just can’t get over the hump on Obamacare repeal.”)
• GOP reeling after healthcare collapse
• By Any Measure, Trump’s Boast on Signing Bills Is False
• Trump Recertifies Iran Nuclear Deal, but Only Reluctantly
• GOP faces growing demographic nightmare in West (“Republicans who have watched Nevada politics in recent years worry their party’s struggles in the Silver State will be a harbinger of things to come as the face of the American electorate changes — especially in other Mountain West states such as Arizona and Colorado.”)
• Conservative caucus withholding support from Republican budget
• BCRA is dead but Obamacare repeal is still alive (“The problem, fundamentally, for people who care about health insurance coverage is that of the four Republican defectors only one — Collins — objects to the bill on the grounds that it doesn’t cover enough people.”)
• EPA employees criticize efforts to reduce staffing ahead of House budget debate
• Coal and nuclear are uneconomic — more bombshells from Perry’s draft grid study (“High levels of wind penetration can be integrated into the grid without harming reliability.”)
• The Trumps and the Truth (“Don’t you get it, guys? Special counsel Robert Mueller and the House and Senate intelligence committees are investigating the Russia story. Everything that is potentially damaging to the Trumps will come out, one way or another. Everything. Denouncing leaks as ‘fake news’ won’t wash as a counter-strategy beyond the President’s base, as Mr. Trump’s latest 36% approval rating shows.”)
• CNN is paying Stephen Moore to lie to its viewers about health care (“If you’re going to give Moore air time, at least fact-check him”)
• Mitch McConnell is breaking the Senate (“Will the majority leader’s desire to win lead him to wreck the institution he says he loves?”)
• Is The Senate Health Insurance Bill Dead?
• Trumpcare as We Know It Is Dead (“There is almost no chance that the repeal-only measure will pass, especially because it already has a Congressional Budget Office score, and it’s even more horrific than the estimates for various versions of the failed GOP replacement plan.”)
• Mitch McConnell Has Weaponized Cynicism. We’ll All Pay the Price. (“This isn’t the way the country is supposed to work.”)
• Day by Day, Faith in American Democracy Is Being Tested at Every Level (“What do we have if we don’t have real elections?”)
• Gillespie sets priorities for health care reform in visit to Fauquier (“In response, the Virginia Democratic Party accused Gillespie of “changing the subject” while refusing to say anything about ‘Trumpcare’s cruel attack on mental health and substance abuse services.'”)
• McAuliffe Aims to Improve Trade With Mexico (“Gov. Terry McAuliffe has announced that Virginia and Mexico City have signed a Memorandum of Understanding designed to promote trade.”)
• Tim Kaine back in Boston for fundraiser
• Two more Democrats join 5th District race (“Ben Cullop, of Albemarle County, and Leslie Cockburn, of Rappahannock County, filed for candidacy on July 2 and 13, respectively, according to the Federal Election Commission’s website. They join Marine veteran Roger Dean Huffstetler, attorney and former prosecutor Andrew Sneathern and Adam Slate, who works for the University of Virginia Health System. All three are residents of Charlottesville.”)
• Kaine taps Clinton, Perriello alumni to staff 2018 re-election campaign
• In Virginia governor’s race, Democratic primary takes toll on Northam’s war chest (“Underestimating his GOP rival had an upside for Gillespie, who has far more cash on hand.”)
• Editorial: Why should rural Virginia care who gets elected governor? (“On Saturday, Gillespie and Northam hold their first debate. Their audience in Hot Springs will be a statewide one — lawyers from throughout the Old Dominion assembled at The Homestead for the annual Virginia Bar Association convention. But we still ask the candidates to give this part of the state some reason why we should have a stake in this year’s governor’s race. Northam may, or may not, do this today, when he releases what is billed as his ‘rural economic policy plan.’ We’ll see what it says.”)
• In Norfolk, Ed Gillespie touts ability to work with Trump administration on military, veteran issues
• Editorial: At last, the Maggie Walker statue offers a monument all Richmonders can be proud of
• NOAA to give VIMS $835K for ‘nature-based’ flood resilience work
• Richmond housing authority moving forward with plans to convert public housing to Section 8 model
• Groups Criticize ‘Militaristic’ Police Response at Protest (“The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia and other groups are asking Gov. Terry McAuliffe to investigate police’s response a gathering of protesters in Charlottesville to condemn a Ku Klux Klan rally.”)
• Loudoun supervisors consider increasing board salaries in 2020
• A vacant building, 70,000 bees and 100 pounds of inedible honey
• Humidity holds on, and temperatures rise with isolated storms