memeorandum: McCain's surgery puts Obamacare repeal vote in doubt (Seung Min Kim/Politico)

McConnell defers vote on Senate health-care bill after McCain surgery — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) put off plans late Saturday to vote on a bill to overhaul the nation's health-care system next week, after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) announced he would be at home recovering from surgery …

Discussion: Political Wire

Julia Manchester / The Hill:

McCain to miss week, likely delaying healthcare vote — (R-Ariz.) will miss this week's votes in the Senate after undergoing surgery on Friday, depriving Republicans of a key vote on healthcare. — McCain's absence means Senate Republicans almost certainly will not have the 50 votes they'd need to win a procedural vote.

Seung Min Kim / Politico:

McCain's surgery puts Obamacare repeal vote in doubt — Sen. John McCain underwent surgery to remove a blood clot above his left eye and will stay in Arizona to recover next week - denying Republicans a key vote in their push to repeal Obamacare, where the GOP already has no room for error.

Discussion: ThinkProgress and CBS San Francisco

Seung Min Kim / Politico: McConnell: Senate to ‘defer’ on Obamacare repeal vote

Lachlan Markay / The Daily Beast:

Trump Campaign Paid Don Jr.'s Lawyer $50,000 Two Weeks Before Email Scandal … About two weeks before the release of emails showing Donald Trump Jr. seeking opposition research from attorneys representing the Russian government, his father's reelection campaign began paying the law firm …

Discussion: NPR, New York Magazine and Axios

Tom Boggioni / Raw Story:

MSNBC interview goes off the rails when Joy Reid holds Trump supporter's feet to the fire on Russia — DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY! — An interview on AM Joy grew heated Saturday morning when host Joy Reid refused to let a defender of President Donald Trump duck answering questions …

Aida Chavez / The Hill:
Trump re-election campaign doubles spending on legal fees

Discussion: Raw Story

New York Times:
Trump's Re-Election Campaign Doubles Its Spending on Legal Fees

Discussion: Politico and Talking Points Memo

Maggie Severns / Politico:
Trump campaign and fundraising committees raise $13.9 million in second quarter

Discussion: Fox News Insider

New York Times:

Soviet Veteran Who Met With Trump Jr. Is a Master of the Dark Arts — MOSCOW — Rinat Akhmetshin, the Russian-American lobbyist who met with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower in June 2016, had one consistent message for the journalists who met him over the years at the luxury hotels where he stayed in Moscow …

Discussion: Power Line and Business Insider

Discussion: IJR

Alexandra Alter / New York Times:

Comey's Writing a Book, and Publishers Are Eager to Pay Big Money for It — James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director who was fired in May by President Trump, is writing a book about his experience in public service, including his tumultuous and brief tenure in the Trump administration.

Discussion: Political Wire, Axios, Business Insider, New York Magazine, Mediaite and twitchy.com

Emily Smith / Page Six:

Kamala Harris meets with Democratic elite in Hamptons — MORE FROM: … The Democrats' “Great Freshman Hope,” Sen. Kamala Harris, is heading to the Hamptons to meet with Hillary Clinton's biggest backers. — The California senator is being fêted in Bridgehampton on Saturday …

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit

Delia Gallagher / CNN:

Catholic journal criticizes Trump ‘value voters’ — Things Donald Trump has said about the Pope — STORY HIGHLIGHTS — (CNN)Two close confidants of Pope Francis have written an article in a Jesuit journal that strongly criticizes some American religious supporters of President Donald Trump …

Discussion: The Hill

Jonathan Cohn / HuffPost:

‘Simply Unworkable’: Insurers Blast New Provision In Senate Health Bill — The industry sounds just as angry as the patient advocates. — Two organizations representing the U.S. health insurance industry just called a new provision of the Senate Republicans' health care proposal …

Discussion: ThinkProgress, New York Times and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Michael Hiltzik / Los Angeles Times:
Column Here are the hidden horrors in the Senate GOP's new Obamacare repeal bill

Discussion: New York Magazine, Vox, The Mahablog and Salon

Anna Wilde Mathews / Wall Street Journal: Insurers Oppose Cruz Amendment to Republican Health-Care Bill

Andrew E. Kramer / New York Times:

Huge Manafort Payment Reflects Murky Ukraine Politics — KIEV, Ukraine — Paul J. Manafort, President Trump's former campaign chairman, recently filed financial reports with the Justice Department showing that his lobbying firm earned nearly $17 million for two years of work for a Ukrainian political party with links to the Kremlin.

Tim Arango / New York Times:

Iran Dominates in Iraq After U.S. ‘Handed the Country Over’ — BAGHDAD — Walk into almost any market in Iraq and the shelves are filled with goods from Iran — milk, yogurt, chicken. Turn on the television and channel after channel broadcasts programs sympathetic to Iran. — A new building goes up?

Discussion: The American Conservative

Dean Baker / cepr.net:

Lessons on Labor Economics for the Owner of a Roofing Company in Nebraska — The NYT shows us that the skills shortage is real in an interview with Sarah M. Smith, the owner of a roofing company in Nebraska. In the interview, Ms. Smith explains why she needs foreign workers, on H2-B visas …

Discussion: New York Times