Monday, September 25, 2017

Bribery Monday

1. Can Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins be bribed? Those two Republican senators have said they needed to see how the Graham-Cassidy health care bill would affect their states. Presto! Graham and Cassidy got to work over the weekend and rewrote their bill to give more money to Alaska and Maine. They're rolling out the new version of the bill this morning ... which, just incidentally, the Congressional Budget Office will never be able to "score" before the end of the week. Question: If the latest Republican "fix" for Obamacare is so great, why would it take bribery to get it passed?

2. Charge of Massive Voter Fraud in New Hampshire Earns Four Pinocchios. Kris Kobach, Trump's top vote suppressor, keeps trying. Bless his heart.

3. American citizens in great distress following hurricane. Does Trump understand that the people of Puerto Rico are American citizens? They're not just brown people on some distant island. They're American citizens. And they're in much worse shape than either the people of south Texas or the people of Florida. Some 80% of local agricultural crops were destroyed by Maria, and the very real specter of starvation is facing thousands. Maybe Trump could take a break from tweeting about the brown people in professional sports and actually do something to help Puerto Rico.

4. Trump loves those self-inflicted wounds. The backlash against Trump's outburst against the National Football League for condoning protest has drawn its own high-powered backlash. Many team owners -- all or most of them million-dollar donors to Trump -- have condemned the comments and either symbolically or literally linked arms with their players. Meanwhile, a Trump lickspittle group started running Facebook ads urging Trump supporters to turn off NFL games on TV. Good luck with that project.

No comments: