memeorandum: Koch political leader says GOP healthcare bill not conservative enough (Josh Delk/The Hill)

10:20 AM ET, June 25, 2017

Top Items:

Juliet Eilperin / Washington Post:

Senate health-care bill faces serious resistance from GOP moderates — A small group of moderate Republican senators, worried that their leaders' health-care bill could damage the nation's social safety net, may pose at least as significant an obstacle to the measure's passage as their colleagues on the right.

Discussion: The Week, Balkinization and New York Times

Jordan Rau / New York Times:

Medicaid Cuts May Force Retirees Out of Nursing Homes — ORANGE, Va. — Alice Jacobs, 90, once owned a factory and horses. She has raised four children and buried two husbands. — But years in an assisted living center drained her savings, and now she relies on Medicaid to pay for her care …

Norm Ornstein / The Atlantic:

The Kabuki Theater of the AHCA — The United States has never had a Senate leader as ruthless, as willing to bend, distort and break the rules, traditions and precedents of the Senate as Mitch McConnell. And the Senate has probably never had a majority leader as effective at accomplishing …

Josh Delk / The Hill:

Koch political leader says GOP healthcare bill not conservative enough — Leaders in the Koch brothers' influential political network bashed the new Senate Republican health care legislation attempting to replace the ObamaCare for not being conservative enough, The Associated Press reports.

Discussion: ABC News and The Week

James Hohmann / Washington Post:

Koch network withholding support of Senate health-care bill, pushing for changes — COLORADO SPRINGS — The Koch network is working with conservative allies behind the scenes to make changes to the Senate health-care bill that was unveiled this week, declining to endorse the measure as it stands.

Discussion: Political Wire

Kevin Robillard / Politico:
Koch network ramps up political spending while trying to push Trump team

Discussion: ABC News

Kerry Picket / The Daily Caller:

Grassley: Schumer Knew Trump Was Not Under Investigation When He Publicly Claimed Otherwise [VIDEO] — Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley called out Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer Thursday for lying when the New York Democrat claimed that President Donald Trump was under investigation and Schumer knew otherwise.

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit and Power Line

Mark Berman / Washington Post: Schumer: ‘Unseemly’ to confirm Gorsuch amid FBI probe of Trump campaign

Ariane de Vogue / CNN:
Anthony Kennedy retirement watch at a fever pitch

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit, Associated Press, The Hill, RedState, Political Wire and The Week

Paul Sperry / New York Post:

Sketchy firm behind Trump dossier is stalling investigators — A secretive Washington firm that commissioned the dubious intelligence dossier on Donald Trump is stonewalling congressional investigators trying to learn more about its connections to the Democratic Party.

Discussion: Instapundit

Bruce Bialosky / Townhall.com:

Congress Needs to Forget Trump and His Tweets and Pass the Big Bills — Democrats want to derail any positive activity by the Republican Congress by investigating a phantom Russian crime. But why do people like Majority Leader McConnell (R-KY) step in front of a microphone and say, “I'm not a fan of the daily tweets.”

Michael Hechtman / New York Post:

100-year-old crime boss beats the odds, is released from prison — John “Sonny” Franzese in 1966 (left) and 2010 (right). … Geriatric gangster John “Sonny” Franzese — the oldest guest of the federal prison system — is a free man at the age of 100. — The Colombo family underboss …

Discussion: The Daily Caller

Michael Kruse / Politico:

I Found Trump's Diary—Hiding in Plain Sight — Legally risky, undiplomatic and sometimes wrong, Trump's Twitter feed is a document for the ages. And historians don't want to lose it. — Lots of people want President Trump to stop tweeting. Mitch McConnell wants him to stop tweeting.

William D. Cohan / Vanity Fair:

The Untold Story of How Gary Cohn Fell for Donald Trump — As Goldman Sachs's long-suffering No 2., Cohn approached his board about his future. He didn't get the answer he wanted. And then Jared Kushner swooped in. This is how Goldman Sachs took over the White House.

Discussion: Axios

John Hayward / Breitbart:

Islamic State Poster Shows Car Crushing Skulls: ‘Run Over Them Without Mercy’ — A pro-Islamic State media operation called the Nashir News Agency published a poster calling for more vehicular jihad in the last few days of the Ramadan holiday season, depicting an SUV driving across a mountain …

Discussion: John Hawkins' Right Wing News

United States Senator Mike Lee:

The Missing Ingredient in BCRA: Humility — No, the Senate healthcare bill released yesterday does not repeal Obamacare. It doesn't even significantly reform American healthcare. — It cuts taxes. It bails out insurance companies. It props up Obamacare through the next election.

Discussion: CNN, RedState and Weekly Standard

Joel B. Pollak / Breitbart:
In Health Care Attacks, Democrats Risk Inciting Further Violence

Discussion: Althouse, The Gateway Pundit, TheBlaze, AOL, Talking Points Memo, John Hawkins' Right Wing News, USA Today, Washington Free Beacon, IJR and SARAH PALIN

CBS Philly: Hillary Clinton: GOP Is ‘Death Party’ If Health Care Bill Passes

Jeff Brady / NPR:

Some U.S. States Relax Restrictions On Cladding Suspected In Grenfell Tower Fire — The type of siding or “cladding” used on the Grenfell Tower in London — and suspected in the massive fire that killed dozens of residents — is not allowed on the exterior of tall buildings across most of the U.S.

Discussion: Gizmodo and The Atlantic

New York Times: Why Grenfell Tower Burned: Regulators Put Cost Before Safety

The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation:

Premiums and Tax Credits under the Affordable Care Act vs. the Senate Better Care Reconciliation Act: Interactive Maps — This map compares county-level projections of premiums and tax credits for marketplace enrollees under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2020 with estimates …

Discussion: Balkinization