Top Items:


Senate GOP Plans Health-Care Vote Next Week — Senate GOP leaders are planning to vote next week on legislation to repeal large chunks of the Affordable Care Act, even though they don't yet appear to have secured enough support to pass it.
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GOP considers cancelling August recess to salvage agenda — Alarmed by the stalemate on healthcare reform, lack of progress on tax reform and appropriations bills that are far behind schedule, Republican lawmakers across Congress are increasingly willing to consider cancelling the month-long August recess.
Discussion:
ABC News, Politico, Fox News, The Daily Caller, Infowars, Vox, Daily Kos, John Hawkins' Right Wing News, rubber hose, IJR, The Week and Axios


Democrats to halt Senate business over Obamacare repeal — Democrats will grind Senate business to a halt in a protest against Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare. — Beginning Monday night, Democrats will start objecting to all unanimous consent requests in the Senate, according to a Democratic aide.
Discussion:
ThinkProgress, New York Magazine, AOL, The Daily Caller, Shakesville, Daily Kos and Balloon Juice

Senate GOP considers deeper Medicaid cuts than House bill — A leading option in the Senate's ObamaCare repeal debate is to make even deeper cuts to Medicaid spending than the bill passed by the House, according to lobbyists and aides. — The proposal would start out the growth rate …
Discussion:
Vox, Washington Post, Axios, Daily Kos and Balloon Juice


House Republicans to Send McConnell a Letter Demanding Conservative Provisions in Senate Health Bill — The conservative Republican Study Committee is preparing to send a letter of demands to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell this week as he finalizes the upper chamber's version of the bill to replace Obamacare.


Worrying numbers on health care plan for ‘swing vote’ senators — Public Policy Polling, a Democratic polling firm, conducted polls in three states where a Republican Senator will have a key swing vote on the GOP health care plan: Nevada, West Virginia and Alaska.
Discussion:
Political Wire and Fusion

Dems threaten to gum up Senate over ‘secret’ ObamaCare bill
Discussion:
CNN, The Gateway Pundit, ThinkProgress, Daily Kos and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Spicer searching for candidates to take over White House briefing — White House press secretary Sean Spicer is leading a search for his own replacement at the briefing room podium as part of a larger plan to shake up the White House communications operations, according to two people with knowledge of the effort.
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Trump Weighs New Role for Press Secretary Sean Spicer — President's spokesman may move into more senior position — New spokesman may be hired, though discussions aren't final — The White House is weighing whether to move Press Secretary Sean Spicer into a more senior role focused …
Discussion:
Axios, The Daily Caller and twitchy.com, more at Mediagazer »


CNN's Acosta: Spicer is ‘kind of useless’
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, Washington Post, Political Wire and Daily Kos

Trump demands face time with favored Cabinet heads
Discussion:
Raw Story and twitchy.com


Megyn Kelly's Alex Jones interview got lots of attention, but not many viewers — Jones vs. Kelly: Battle between new and old media — Megyn Kelly's much talked about interview with Alex Jones got plenty of attention for Kelly and NBC, both good and bad, but not many viewers.
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Megyn Kelly's Alex Jones interview a ratings flop
Discussion:
Mediaite, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Washington Free Beacon and Infowars


The Daily 202: Congressional shooting clouds final days of Georgia special election — THE BIG IDEA: — JOHNS CREEK, Ga.—When Republican congressional candidate Karen Handel went table to table greeting patrons at Marlow's Tavern on Friday night, almost everyone asked her about the letters.
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Why The Georgia Special Election Matters
Discussion:
Politico, Washington Monthly and The Week

Georgia special election tweets traced to one source
Discussion:
ABC News


Officials: 17-year-old Muslim girl assaulted and killed after leaving Virginia mosque — Police found remains Sunday thought to be those of a missing Virginia teenager who they say was assaulted and disappeared overnight after leaving a mosque in the Sterling area, and a 22-year-old man …
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Russia to treat US jets in Syria as ‘targets’ after America guns down first regime warplane — Communication channel between Washington and Moscow to be suspended immediately — Russia has said it will treat US warplanes operating in parts of Syria where its air forces are present as …
Discussion:
CNN, Reuters, ThinkProgress, John Hawkins' Right Wing News and Daily Wire
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Pentagon working to re-establish ‘deconfliction’ line with Russia
Discussion:
The Guardian and Raw Story


Trump defiant as pressure grows — Washington (CNN)America is edging ever closer to a new long, national nightmare, given President Donald Trump's explosive response to signs that special counsel Robert Mueller is approaching the epicenter of White House power.
Discussion:
Raw Story and The Guardian
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Mueller team lawyer brings witness-flipping expertise to Trump probes
Discussion:
Politicus USA and The Daily Caller

We need a Robert Mueller resignation or a second special counsel
Discussion:
Scared Monkeys


Supreme Court to hear potentially landmark case on partisan gerrymandering — The Supreme Court declared Monday that it will consider whether gerrymandered election maps favoring one political party over another violate the Constitution, a potentially fundamental change in the way American elections are conducted.
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Supreme Court unanimously reaffirms: There is no ‘hate speech’ exception to the First Amendment
Discussion:
Power Line, Outside the Beltway and Daily Wire


Otto Warmbier dies days after release from North Korean detainment — Otto Warmbier, the University of Virginia student who was detained in North Korea for nearly a year and a half, died Monday afternoon, his parents announced. — Fred and Cindy Warmbier had no news about their son during his detention after March of last year.
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Mother with knife killed by police was pregnant and had mental-health issues, family says — Seattle police on Sunday shot and killed a 30-year-old old woman who had called officers to report an attempted burglary and then displayed a knife, SPD said. Police took three children from the home …
Discussion:
Washington Post, The Guardian, Conservative News Today, AOL, Daily Kos, New York Magazine, New York's PIX11 and The Root


The Trump Administration Has A New Plan For Dealing With Russia — A classified document by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson lays out a new path for Russia and the US. But does the president, weighed down by scandal and investigation, support it? — As the White House fends off accusations …


GOP Data Firm Accidentally Leaks Personal Details of Nearly 200 Million American Voters — Political data gathered on more than 198 million US citizens was exposed this month after a marketing firm contracted by the Republican National Committee stored internal documents on a publicly accessible Amazon server.
Discussion:
Politico, ThinkProgress, The Verge, Hullabaloo and Talking Points Memo, more at Techmeme »
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198 million Americans hit by “largest ever” voter records leak
Discussion:
The Hill, Washington Post, Mashable, The Daily Caller, The Week and Washington Free Beacon


Three shootings in 8 hours. Eight wounded. Some tourists say they won't be back. — “Multiple people down!” Bubba Hinson exclaimed as he live-streamed a video of what started as a mob stalling traffic, but turned into a mass shooting on Ocean Boulevard early Sunday morning.
Discussion:
Washington Post, The Root, The Daily Caller and AOL


Car rams police van on Champs-Elysees, armed suspect dead — Paris (CNN)Tourists strolling along Paris' famous Champs-Elysees boulevard watched in horror as a car rammed into a police van Monday afternoon — and some witnessed the car burst into flames as police grabbed the man inside and put him on the ground.
Discussion:
Daily Wire, TheBlaze, The Local and fox13now.com
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New Study Shows What Really Happened in the 2016 Election — The Democracy Fund Voter Study Group has a new survey of the electorate that explodes many of the myths that we believe about American politics. Lee Drutman has a fascinating report delving into the data.
Discussion:
Democracy Fund Voter … and No More Mister Nice Blog