memeorandum: Sanders lawyered up in federal probe of Burlington College (Morgan True/VTDigger)

9:55 PM ET, June 22, 2017

Top Items:

Our politics are divided. They have been for a long time. And while I know that division makes it difficult to listen to Americans with whom we disagree, that's what we need to do today. — I recognize that repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act has become a core tenet of the Republican Party.

Rand Paul / U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky:

Sens. Paul, Cruz, Johnson, and Lee Issue Joint Statement on Senate Health Bill — WASHINGTON - Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Ron Johnson (R-WI), and Mike Lee (R-UT) issued the following statement Thursday responding to the release of the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017:

Discussion: Breitbart, The Atlantic, Alaska Public Media, The Daily Signal, Fox News Insider, KTLA, Hit & Run, Politicus USA, The Daily Caller, Daily Wire, The Last Tradition, The Week and Balloon Juice

Mark Murray / NBC News:

NBC News/WSJ Poll: Public Overwhelmingly Disapproves of House Health Care Bill — Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of the House plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. — This new poll comes as Senate Republicans unveil their own health care legislation on Thursday.

Discussion: USA Today, Mother Jones, NBC News and Daily Kos

Jennifer Steinhauer / New York Times:

McConnell's Calculation May Be That He Still Wins by Losing — WASHINGTON — When it comes to managing Republicans' best interests, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, rarely loses. So it is possible that Mr. McConnell views the potential failure of a hastily written health care bill as an eventual boon.

Discussion: Axios, IJR and Mediaite

Charles P. Pierce / Esquire:

A Message to Trump Voters on the Occasion of This Healthcare Bill — You pulled the lever. This is what you were voting for. — Hello, suckers. — Yeah, you. All of you. All of you people who've been buying what the radicalized Republican party has been selling you since Reagan rode out of Trickledown Gulch back in 1980.

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog

Greg Sargent / Washington Post:
Here comes the Senate GOP's health bill. It's a cruel and cynical shell game.

Discussion: CNBC, Washington Examiner, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Times, Shareblue, Daily Kos, The Daily Caller, Balloon Juice, Center for American … and Little Green Footballs

Sarah Kliff / Vox:
The Better Care Reconciliation Act: the Senate bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, explained

Discussion: Center on Budget …, Washington Post, Slate, New York Magazine, Refinery29, The Week, Fusion and Arkansas Blog, Arkansas Times

Center for American ProgressCenter …:
Coverage Losses Under the Senate Health Care Bill Could Result in 18,100 to 27,700 Additional Deaths in 2026

Discussion: MattBruenig

David Nather / Axios:
The Senate health bill is out. Here's your speed read

Discussion: The Daily Signal, STAT, ThinkProgress, The Week, KTLA, Mediaite, AOL, Patterico's Pontifications and fox13now.com

Politico: Winners and losers from the Senate repeal bill

Caitlin Owens / Axios:
The conservative health care problem

Discussion: Politico, ABC News, neo-neocon and The Moderate Voice

Rachel Roubein / The Hill:
What's in the Senate healthcare bill

Discussion: Politico

CNN:
Senate finally unveils secret health care bill

Discussion: Business Insider, ThinkProgress, Vox, TheBlaze, Bloomberg, Salon, Mother Jones, Liberal Values, NPR, Refinery29, The Root, The Daily Caller, Joe.My.God., The Hill and Arkansas Blog, Arkansas Times

Audi McCullough / Washington Post: For me and my son, Medicaid cuts don't mean hard choices. They mean life or death.

New York Times:
Senate Health Care Bill Includes Deep Cuts to Medicaid

Bloomberg:

Trump Said to Not Have Recordings of Conversations With Comey — President Donald Trump doesn't have recordings of his conversations with then-FBI Director James Comey, according to a person familiar with the matter, capping weeks of speculation about whether such tapes exist.

Discussion: Business Insider, Mediaite, ThinkProgress, The Daily Caller, Raw Story, The Atlantic, Little Green Footballs, The Gateway Pundit, IJR, The Guardian, Political Wire and Axios

Jennifer Smith / Daily Mail:

EXCLUSIVE - James Comey visits The New York Times as President Trump admits he did NOT record their conversations and questions what else ousted FBI director leaked to the press — The former FBI director was spotted at The New York Times' Times Square office on Thursday He was accompanied …

Discussion: Raw Story and The Gateway Pundit

Rebecca Savransky / The Hill:
Gingrich: Trump was trying to ‘rattle’ Comey with tapes claim

Discussion: Politico, ABC News, Axios, Washington Post, The Gateway Pundit, Joe.My.God. and The Week

Robert Fife / Globe and Mail:

Canadian elite special forces sniper makes record-breaking kill shot in Iraq — OTTAWA BUREAU CHIEF — The Globe and Mail (includes correction) — A sniper with Canada's elite special forces in Iraq has shattered the world record for the longest confirmed kill shot in military history at a staggering distance of 3,540 metres.

Discussion: Washington Post, USA Today, Defense One, John Hawkins' Right Wing News, WPMT FOX43, TheBlaze, neo-neocon, Business Insider, IJR, Daily Mail, NPR, AOL, KFOR-TV and CBS Baltimore

Betsy Woodruff / The Daily Beast:

Republican Coal King Sues HBO Over John Oliver's Show … A Republican coal baron is suing John Oliver, HBO, Time Warner, and the writers for Oliver's show over the most recent episode of Last Week Tonight. — The suit, filed on June 21 in the circuit court of Marshall County, West Virginia …

Discussion: RedState, Fox News, Business Insider, Deadline, East Bay Times, New York Times and Grist, more at Mediagazer »

Scott Cohn / CNBC:

Trump's Carrier jobs deal is just not living up to the hype — Carrier, a division of UTC, will employ about 1,069 people for 10 years in exchange for $7 million in incentives. But there are crucial details in the fine print. — State and local governments spend at least $70 billion …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Bipartisan Report, The Hill, Daily Wire, Daily Kos, New York Magazine, Hit & Run, Mediaite and The Week

Alayna Treene / Axios: Carrier moving Trump jobs to Mexico

BBC:

Exploding cream dispenser kills French fitness blogger — A well-known lifestyle blogger in France has been killed by an exploding whipped cream dispenser. — Rebecca Burger's death was announced on Facebook in what her family called a “domestic accident”.

Discussion: Breitbart, Washington Post, NBC News, Fox News, KTLA, WREG-TV, Boing Boing, KFOR-TV, Fox 59, The Daily Caller and IJR

Alex Seitz-Wald / NBC News:

Pelosi Strikes Back: 'I Think I'm Worth the Trouble' — WASHINGTON — Pushing back on criticism from fellow party members after the Democratic loss in a Georgia special election this week, Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she's “worth the trouble” as Democrats' leader in the House.

Discussion: The Week, IJR and The Daily Caller

Heather Caygle / Politico:
Pelosi's Democratic critics plot to replace her

Discussion: ABC News, MSNBC and Axios

Patrick Smith / Telegraph:

Johnny Depp slams Donald Trump at Glastonbury and asks: ‘When was the last time an actor assassinated a president?’ — In a year that he would like to forget, which included his acrimonious divorce to Amber Heard, Johnny Depp appeared at a Q&A at the new Cinemageddon stage at Glastonbury.

Discussion: Press Association, Mediaite, The Gateway Pundit and TheBlaze

CNN:

Intel chiefs tell investigators Trump suggested they refute collusion with Russians — Coats and Rogers said interactions with Trump about the Russia investigation were odd, uncomfortable — (CNN)Two of the nation's top intelligence officials told Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team …

Discussion: New York Magazine, Mediaite, Business Insider, The Atlantic, Vox, Mother Jones, Bipartisan Report, Daily Kos, The Daily Caller, RedState, Shakesville, Axios and Talking Points Memo

WBRC-TV:

Alabama residents serve as Bill Cosby spokespeople — Birmingham native Andrew Wyatt was on hand with Cosby for the entire trial and acted as a spokesperson for the comedian's family. Ebonee Benson is also from Birmingham.

Discussion: Page Six, New York Times, New York's PIX11, WSPA-TV, CBS Philly, Mother Jones, Talking Points Memo, AOL, East Bay Times and Refinery29

Chris Francescani / ABC News:
2 Cosby holdouts prevented guilty verdict, juror says

Discussion: CNN, Associated Press, ThinkProgress, The Daily Caller, Heat Street and Mashable

Aarati Soman / Facebook:

Giving People More Control Over Their Facebook Profile Picture — Part of our goal in building global community is understanding the needs of people who use Facebook in specific countries and how we can better serve them. In India, we've heard that people want more control over their profile pictures …

Discussion: Mashable, The Daily Caller, BuzzFeed and The Verge, more at Techmeme »

Heather Kelly / CNNMoney:
Mark Zuckerberg explains why he just changed Facebook's mission

Discussion: The Verge and Gizmodo, more at Techmeme »

Adrian Carrasquillo / BuzzFeed:

Trump Told Democrats He Wants To Do Something About Deported Veterans. His Staff Was Less Open. — Sources say Democrats raised the issue of deported veterans in a private dinner last week. The president expressed support for doing something but his staff quickly told him it was complicated.

Discussion: Raw Story

Pew Research Center:

America's Complex Relationship With Guns — An in-depth look at the attitudes and experiences of U.S. adults — As a nation, the U.S. has a deep and enduring connection to guns. Integrated into the fabric of American society since the country's earliest days, guns remain a point of pride for many Americans.

Discussion: Washington Post, New York Times, The Trace, Washington Free Beacon, NBC News, NPR, The Guardian and Politico

New York Times:

Kamala Harris Was Silenced. Then She Silenced Us. — Last week, Senator Kamala Harris, a Democrat from California, made headlines when Republican senators interrupted her at a hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee while she interrogated Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Discussion: The Hugh Hewitt Show, Friendly Atheist and Washington Free Beacon

Rachel Weiner / Washington Post:

Former CIA officer accused of selling top secret information to China — A former CIA officer sold top secret and other classified documents to Chinese intelligence officials, according to charges filed Thursday in Alexandria federal court. — Kevin Patrick Mallory, 60, of Leesburg, Va. …

Discussion: ZeroPointNow, Politico and Axios

Morgan True / VTDigger:

Sanders lawyered up in federal probe of Burlington College — BURLINGTON — Jane Sanders has hired attorneys to represent her in a Justice Department probe of a land deal she orchestrated while president of the now-defunct Burlington College. — A former college employee who coordinated …

Discussion: Washington Free Beacon

Sam Stein / HuffPost:

All That Stands Between Democrats And A Massive Freakout Is This Man — The pressure is on Ralph Northam to score a win in his race for Virginia governor. Barack Obama is going to come off the sidelines to help. — Having lost a series of tantalizingly close congressional elections …

Discussion: Washington Post

Tae Kim / CNBC:

McDonald's hits all-time high as Wall Street cheers replacement of cashiers with kiosks — Cowen says McDonald's will upgrade 2,500 restaurants to its “Experience of the Future” technology by year-end, which includes digital ordering kiosks. — The firm raises its rating on McDonald's …

Discussion: Breitbart

John Harwood / CNBC:

Half of Americans want Democrats to control Congress as Trump struggles, poll shows — Americans now say by 50 percent to 42 percent they want Democrats to control Congress after the 2018 elections, according to a new NBC/WSJ poll. — As President Donald Trump continues to struggle …

Discussion: Bipartisan Report and Political Wire

Abby Phillip / Washington Post:

How Trump's dubious claims make the entire government react — The words leapt from President Trump's mind to Twitter at 8:26 a.m. on the Friday after he fired FBI director James B. Comey, setting off a cascade of activity inside and outside of the federal government to figure out what, exactly, he meant.

Tony Lee / Breitbart:

Elizabeth Warren on McConnell Bill: ‘These Cuts Are Blood Money... People Will Die’ — Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) accused Senate Republicans of using “blood money” to give wealthy Americans tax cuts after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) released the draft of the Senate's healthcare bill on Thursday.

Discussion: Washington Times and The Week