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Trump “loved” Scaramucci's quotes — but he hates being upstaged — Top Republicans tell us that yesterday may have been an inflection point in the West Wing meltdown — that if behavior like this continues, apparently sanctioned by the President, people will finally leave.
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Why Anthony Scaramucci's Rant Probably Ticked Off the FBI … In his immediately infamous phone call to a New Yorker staff writer, Anthony Scaramucci didn't just say the White House chief of staff was a “f-king paranoid schizophrenic” or accuse the president's chief strategist, Steve Bannon, of engaging in autofellatio.
Discussion:
New Yorker, Reuters, Washington Post, ThinkProgress, Salon, Breitbart, Refinery29, MyNewsLA.com, Above the Law, Vox, Hullabaloo, VICE News, Bloomberg, New York Times, CNBC, IJR, The Gateway Pundit, Mashable, Gothamist, The Root and Raw Story

The Daily 202: Trump's hardball tactics backfire as ‘skinny repeal’ goes down — THE BIG IDEA: President Trump's attacks on Republican senators are finally catching up with him, and Lisa Murkowski will not be bullied. — A last-ditch effort to keep the Obamacare repeal effort alive went …
Discussion:
Politico, VICE News, Washington Monthly, Above the Law, The Gateway Pundit, Just Security, Conservative News Today, Patterico's Pontifications, CNBC, The Daily Caller, vice, Mediaite, Political Insider blog, New York Magazine, Washington Free Beacon, Power Line, TheBlaze, Salon, The Week, Talking Points Memo, IJR, Common Dreams, Weekly Standard, New York Times and Fox News, more at Mediagazer »


Trump says he wants a ‘general’ to replace Priebus: report — President Trump has said privately that he wants to appoint “a general” to replace White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, The New York Times reports. — The president, the Times reported on Thursday, has so far focused …
Discussion:
ThinkProgress, New York Times, AOL, The Gateway Pundit, No More Mister Nice Blog and The Week


House Republicans despair after health care collapse — Speaker Paul Ryan had none of his Eagle Scout-like optimism. — At a closed-door conference meeting with House Republicans hours after Sen. John McCain scuttled perhaps the last best hope of repealing Obamacare, Ryan read an excerpt from …
Discussion:
Raw Story, Mediaite and Politicus USA


Onion Fact Checks: Anthony Scaramucci's ‘New Yorker’ Interview
Discussion:
Washington Monthly

Anthony Scaramucci's Empty Feud With Reince Priebus
Discussion:
NewsBusters, Politico, Washington Post and CNN

Mooch to lower profile after New Yorker fracas
Discussion:
IJR and Political Wire, more at Mediagazer »

STATEMENT BY SENATOR JOHN McCAIN ON VOTING “NO” ON “SKINNY REPEAL” — Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) released the following statement today on voting “no” on the so-called “skinny repeal” of Obamacare: — “From the beginning, I have believed that Obamacare …
Discussion:
Vox, The Atlantic, TheBlaze, New York Times, The Gateway Pundit, VICE News, Washington Post, PRI, New York Magazine, twitchy.com, The Daily Signal, Speaker.gov, FOX40, KTLA, CNNMoney, Lawyers, Guns & Money, The Week, Axios and TalkLeft
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Taking Stock Of Trumpcare's Epic Collapse — I was up late last night, like many of you, watching the drama unfold in the Senate chamber. Here's our Tierney Sneed's look at how it looked actually inside the chamber as it all happened. Let me share a few thoughts on what now certainly seems …
Discussion:
bradford-delong.com


How McCain tanked Obamacare repeal — Paul Ryan couldn't persuade him. Neither could Mike Pence. And in the end, President Donald Trump couldn't reel in John McCain either. — The president made a last-ditch effort, calling the Arizona senator and key holdout on the GOP's Obamacare repeal measure …
Discussion:
Vox, ABC News, Talking Points Memo, Washington Free Beacon, New York Times, Political Insider blog, Common Dreams, Mashable, The Week, Associated Press and Axios


The night John McCain killed the GOP's health-care fight
Discussion:
Shareblue, Wall Street Journal, CNN, The Daily Beast, CNBC, Splinter, Talking Points Memo, NPR, www.wnyc.org, IJR, ThinkProgress, JONATHAN TURLEY and The American Mirror

John McCain saved Republicans from themselves
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Refinery29, bradford-delong.com, AOL, Jezebel, New York Magazine, Pacific Standard and CBS News

Senate Rejects Slimmed-Down Obamacare Repeal as McCain Votes No
Discussion:
Vox, CNBC, Rewire, Business Insider, Talking Points Memo, WBUR, The Gateway Pundit, Daily Wire, Outside the Beltway, Politicus USA, NBC News, THE WARREN (HENRY) REPORT, Refinery29, Common Dreams, FiveThirtyEight, Lawyers, Guns & Money, fox8.com, The Times of Israel, AOL, The Atlantic, Power Line, CBS Pittsburgh, The Guardian, Washington Free Beacon, TheBlaze, KQED News, twitchy.com, TheStreet, IJR, CANNONFIRE, Little Green Footballs, CNN and Fox Business

Enough about McCain. It was Collins, Murkowski and red-state Democrats who killed Trumpcare.
Discussion:
Fox News, The Daily Caller, The Guardian, vice, CleanTechnica, Raw Story and DCReport.org

Kellyanne Conway calls GOP who voted against repeal “Loch Ness monsters of the swamp”
Discussion:
IJR

What was in the failed Senate ‘skinny repeal’ health care bill?
Discussion:
The Nation, Right Wing Watch, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and The Federalist

Obamacare Repeal Collapses as Senate GOP Blocks Health Bill
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, NBC News, The Hill, Vox, CNBC, Washington Examiner, Axios, neo-neocon, NPR, ABC News, Daily Wire, Mediaite, ThinkProgress, Common Dreams, Shareblue, USA Today, The Week, Washington Post, CBS New York, Politicus USA, Scared Monkeys, The Guardian, No More Mister Nice Blog, Deadline and Vox Popoli

What McCain did was hard. What Murkowski and Collins did was much harder.
Discussion:
CNN, Media Matters for America, New York Magazine, IJR, Talking Points Memo and New York Times

These Two Women Senators Are The Real ‘Mavericks’ Of The GOP Health Care Vote
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, LGBT Weekly, Washington Post and New York Times

Obamacare Is Alive Because It Has Made Life Better For Millions
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo


Part Four: The Secrets Of The Spy In The Bag — Vladimir Putin's former media czar was murdered in Washington, DC on the eve of a planned meeting with the U.S. Justice Department, according to two FBI agents whose assertions cast new doubts on the US government's official explanation of his death.
Discussion:
Political Wire and The Week, more at Mediagazer »

Trump Is Woody Allen Without the Humor — Half his tweets show utter weakness. They are plaintive, shrill little cries, usually just after dawn. — The president's primary problem as a leader is not that he is impetuous, brash or naive. It's not that he is inexperienced, crude, an outsider.
Discussion:
alicublog and The American Conservative

Why I'm running for president — John Delaney, a Democrat, represents Maryland's 6th Congressional District in the House. — The American people are far greater than the sum of our political parties. It is time for us to rise above our broken politics and renew the spirit that enabled us to achieve the seemingly impossible.
Discussion:
CNN, AOL, Outside the Beltway, Washington Free Beacon, The Daily Caller and BuzzFeed


Sally Yates: Protect the Justice Department From President Trump — The spectacle of President Trump's now daily efforts to humiliate the attorney general into resigning has transfixed the country. But while we are busy staring at the wreckage of Attorney General Jeff Sessions' relationship …
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Justice Department briefing at White House fuels ethics worries
Discussion:
Vox


Couple jump to their deaths because they 'can't afford' health care — A couple jumped to their death in Murray Hill early Friday. — Seth Gottfried — Manhattan parents struggling to pay their doctor's bills jumped to their deaths early Friday - leaving double suicide notes pleading …
Discussion:
Conservative News Today, Raw Story, John Hawkins' Right Wing News and Daily Wire


‘Our beautiful boy has gone’: Little Charlie Gard's parents announce that their brave warrior whose plight touched the world has finally died after battling devastating genetic illness he fought for so long — Charlie's parents had fought a lengthy legal battle to take their severely ill baby son to the US for treatment
Discussion:
Fox News Insider, Faithwire, The Daily Caller, TheBlaze and Patterico's Pontifications
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Charlie Gard dies: Baby's life-support withdrawn in hospice as parents ‘denied final wish’
Discussion:
National Review


Mark Meadows: New healthcare bill is coming ‘that can get to 51’ — Rep. Mark Meadows, a key negotiator in the effort to repeal and replace Obamacare, said a new effort is underway to write a bill that can pass the Senate that would include proposals offered by Sens. Lindsey Graham, Bill Cassidy, Ted Cruz, and Rob Portman.


Russia Seizes 2 U.S. Properties and Orders Embassy to Cut Staff — MOSCOW — Russia seized two American diplomatic properties on Friday and ordered the United States Embassy in Moscow to reduce its staff by September, in the Kremlin's first retaliatory steps against proposed new American sanctions.
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Vox, Wall Street Journal, TASS, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, New York Magazine, Shakesville and The Resurgent
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Russia demands U.S. reduce diplomatic staff in new round of conflict over election hacking
Discussion:
Politico, PEN America and Axios


Russia probe could reveal Trump's closest-held secrets — Since Election Day, President Trump's businesses have sold at least 30 luxury condos and oceanfront lots for about $33 million. That includes millions of dollars in properties to secretive shell companies, which can hide the identities …
Discussion:
Washington Monthly and The Daily Caller


Machete-wielding man ‘screaming Allahu Akbar’ kills one person and injures several others during rampage in Hamburg supermarket — A machete-wielding man has killed one and injured several others after going on the rampage through a German supermarket this afternoon.
Discussion:
RedState, Washington Free Beacon and Vox Popoli


Who Paid for the ‘Trump Dossier’? — Democrats don't want you to find out—and that ought to be a scandal of its own. — It has been 10 days since Democrats received the glorious news that Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley would require Donald Trump Jr. and Paul Manafort to explain …
Discussion:
Washington Examiner and RedState