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July 2017

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on July 28, 2017 37 Comments
We've had several discussions on how the over politicalization of sports is killing viewership, putting channels like ESPN in jeopardy. No one wants political toxicity infiltrating America's favorite past times. And Americans especially tend not to appreciate when anti-patriotic garbage becomes widely accepted in professional sports, like oh, say, NFL players protesting the national anthem.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 28, 2017 37 Comments
Reince Priebus, Trump's Chief of Staff, no longer has that position. He is being replaced by General (and Secretary of Homeland Security) John Kelly. Trump announced the move in a series of tweets:

Posted by Mary Chastain on July 28, 2017 17 Comments
Eleven-month-old Charlie Gard, who suffered from mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome, passed away on Friday, just a week before his first birthday. His mother announced that "Our beautiful little boy has gone, we are so proud of you Charlie."

Posted by Mary Chastain on July 28, 2017 5 Comments
President Donald Trump hasn't even signed the bill to pass new sanctions on Russia, but the Kremlin decided not to waste time. On Friday, Russian officials demanded that America reduce its number of diplomats to 455 by September 1 and shut down numerous American properties in the country. No one knows exactly how many people work at the U.S. Embassy, but Russian parliamentary vice-speaker Sergei Zheleznyak claims the move will kick out 700 people.

Posted by Mary Chastain on July 28, 2017 11 Comments
Congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump's administration decided to abandon the controversial border adjustment tax (BAT) and concentrate more on corporate tax in their tax reform approach. The joint statement read:
While we have debated the pro-growth benefits of border adjustability, we appreciate that there are many unknowns associated with it and have decided to set this policy aside in order to advance tax reform.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 28, 2017 98 Comments
Overnight the Senate failed to pass a so-called "skinny" repeal of Obamacare, when three Republican Senators (Collins, Murkowski and McCain) voted against the measure. Whether the "skinny" repeal was an actual repeal was doubtful. As unveiled late last night, it removed the mandate, the medical device tax, and defunded Planned Parenthood, but it was something of a charade. Several Senators voted for it only after Paul Ryan gave some assurance that the Senate bill could be subject to a conference with the House, and would not be passed by the House as is. But passing the "skinny" repeal kept hope alive that there might emerge some meaningful form of Obamacare repeal. The defeat of the bill killed any form of Obamacare repeal for the foreseeable future.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 27, 2017 17 Comments
On May 22, 2012, we registered our 100,000th comment from Oregon Mike. Yesterday we registered our 500,000th comment. There is no prize. No money. No special access. Just bragging rights. And the bragging rights go to .....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 27, 2017 21 Comments
Jeff Sessions' decision to recuse himself from all things Russia-related eventually led to the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, with the intervening impetus of Trump firing FBI Director James Comey and Comey leaking memos to the press. That recusal is the defining event so far of the Trump administration because the Special Counsel investigation seems to have developed into a search for a crime, rather than an investigation into a crime. I addressed this morass in There’s no good way out for Trump from Special Counsel quicksand:
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