Rush Limbaugh expresses excellent theory about Trump's posture toward North Korea

Rush opens the hour saying Trump is deliberately acting in an unpredictable fashion to counter North Korean unpredictability.

This is absolutely correct, even if Rush doesn't know much about the North Koreans, and even if Trump doesn't.

Spontaneous unpredictable outbursts of ferocity are central to North Korean self-identity. Trump is using their own value against them.

Beautiful, baby.

Researchers doubted US intelligence conclusions about 2013 "Syrian" gas attack, say rebels could have done it

McClatchy reported here in early 2014:

“I honestly have no idea what happened,” Postol said. “My view when I started this process was that it couldn’t be anything but the Syrian government behind the attack. But now I’m not sure of anything. The administration narrative was not even close to reality. Our intelligence cannot possibly be correct.”

Lloyd, who has spent the past half-year studying the weapons and capabilities in the Syrian conflict, disputed the assumption that the rebels are less capable of making rockets than the Syrian military.

“The Syrian rebels most definitely have the ability to make these weapons,” he said. “I think they might have more ability than the Syrian government.”

Both said they were not making a case that the rebels were behind the attack, just that a case for military action was made without even a basic understanding of what might have happened.

Peggy Noonan wins the Pulitzer Prize for commentary

Reported here.

Hey Trump, where's the Big Mac for Xi Jinping?

Here's Trump with O'Reilly in 2015 saying he wouldn't throw a dinner for China's leaders but give them McDonald's hamburgers instead.

The false question remains "Why did Trump win?"

Two examples from today.

Liz Peek of FOX reassured Steve Gruber this morning on his radio program in Michigan that Trump won in 2016 primarily because the voters were most concerned to ensure we had a Supreme Court seat filled by a Scalia clone.

And then Josh Brown assures his readers in the line up at Real Clear Markets that the most important reason was class warfare: a tax cut for the middle class and a big tax increase on rich speculators.

It's been five months since the election and we still can't agree about the political state of the country. Hint: libertarians don't agree about very much.

One could go on. Ann Coulter would tell you it was the promise of The Wall and an end to indiscriminate invasion by illegal aliens. Independent small business owners and self-employed people would tell you it was the promise of repeal of Obamacare. Veterans . . . veterans' affairs. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

These various opinions tell us more about the values of the individual coalitions Trump cobbled together to win, not why he won.

Meanwhile the narrow character of Trump's victory in key states, the result of former Democrat voters boycotting Hillary by the millions, goes underestimated by the winners . . . and the losers.

That's fairly typical, even for otherwise prudent presidents.

George Herbert Walker Bush thought victory in Kuwait made him golden, promptly raised taxes after we read his lips, and was shown the door.

The same will happen to Trump if he doesn't deliver on his program.

And because his program is a Duodetrigintapus, the question is really "How many of my twenty-eight legs can I get away with chopping off and still have enough left to strangle my opponent with in 2020"?

He's already cut off three. Repeal of Obamacare has failed. DACA has not been reversed (what, did they run out of pens in the White House?), and suddenly we have to burn $100 million worth of cruise missiles because someone used a politically incorrect weapon.

What's next, an assault weapon ban?

There's still plenty of time for Trump to prove that he isn't some suicidal sea monster.

But at the rate he's going he'll be a legless jellyfish by Christmas.

Hey McMaster, let the Syrians solve their civil war, it's THEIR civil war, not ours

You say organic, Drudge says oragnic, let's call the whole thing off

George Will reminds us that the Great War, like the Great Depression, wasn't so great

Because war is essentially uniformitarian, hence the uniforms.

Here in The Washington Post.

Bomb the airfields? Yes Ma'am . . . Sir . . . er

Trump's Council of Economic Advisors to be headed by Kevin Hassett, a pro-immigration, free-trading globalist

FTAlphaville (registration required) summarizes all his problems here, with links.

The libertarians are thrilled.

Looks like Donald Trump is proving to be the Manchurian Candidate Hassett thought Obama was.

Ann Coulter promoted Michael Savage's show on her Twitter feed today

Because he was ranting against Trump's attack on Syria.

I was listening anyway. It was a good presentation of our side of the story vs. Trump.

Good on her. Good on him.

Utterly ridiculous story speculates Pompeii victims were gay

Would you embrace your male friend on the ground as you were both gasping for air while suddenly being overcome and buried by a pyroclastic flow? In your house? In a bar? 

Just ask the survivors of the Twin Towers what men and women did for each other in those dire circumstances.

This story is pure clickbait.

Numbskull Hannity calls Syria strike "successful"

But Syrian jets are still using the runways.

One-two punch: GDP forecast for 1Q2017 tanks to 0.6% today after crappy jobs and vehicle sales numbers

According to the Atlanta Fed here.

The Obama economy is still in big trouble under Trump.

Congress is off for two weeks. Maybe things will improve a little.

Trump's attack on Syria has not prevented the enemy from using the airfield

So reports the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, according to CNBC here.

Gorsuch confirmed to Supreme Court 54-45

The roll call vote is here.

3 Democrats joined the Republicans in confirming despite the changing of the filibuster rule.

1 Republican did not vote.

ADP had private payrolls up 263,000 earlier this week, but we only get 98,000 from the BLS today

When the expected BLS increase to total nonfarm was 180,000.

What's up with that?!

Long story short: Forget ADP, and employment gains have slowed by 15% in the last year. 

ADP is designed to try to predict what the BLS is going to say, and is known to fail at this. It is questioned why ADP even bothers. I agree.

A government measure from the Household Survey, the sum of usually full-time and usually part-time, not seasonally adjusted, is up only 1.89 million (157,500 per month) year over year in March 2017.

Total nonfarm, on the other hand, from the Establishment Survey, is up 2.135 million, not seasonally adjusted (178,000 per month) year over year.

That last number, 178,000 per month, is what the BLS also says is the current 3-month average in March 2017.

Compare that to March 2016 when the 3-month average was 209,000.

There's the truth.

The soft number of 98,000 in the headline today contributed to the climb-down in the 3-month average this month. It will be revised next month, probably up because it's so low. But it's the revisions down for the previous two months totaling 38,000 which are the clue to look farther back.   

The absolute number is not important because we can't be certain about it. It is only an estimate anyway, not an actual count. But we can be certain that the long-term behavior of the estimates shows an employment slow down of about 15% year over year.

It was well underway before Trump even got elected.

You can see that in full-time employment gains. Measured in March year over year, full-time gains peaked in March 2015 at almost 3 million additions. Gains have steadily fallen since, to 2.5 million in March 2016 and just 2 million now in March 2017.

And the bottom line there is we've added about only 4.7 million full-time jobs since March 2008 on net.

After NINE years.

The country remains mired in shrunken conditions from which it has not escaped.

In a real recovery, the 10 million full-time jobs lost in 2009 and 2010 would have been fully replaced by 2013 at the latest. It took until 2015, and the momentum immediately started to recede.

Trump's little display last night burned up almost $100 million in cruise missile costs

The terrorists can bankrupt the US with every atrocity at this rate: $1.17 million per victim.

Drudge as Trump propagandist: Switches to "total employed" from "95 million not in labor force"

Drudge is excited about 5.6 million extra jobs . . . after 10 years

Trump ... goooooooood.

Obama ... baaaaaaaaaad.

The Deep State: Eisenhower knew it as the military-industrial complex

The military leadership is shot through with liberal neocons bent on perpetual war to keep the warriors busy.

What interest does its intelligence network have in telling the truth to a civilian commander in chief about who did what with which to whom in Syria?

They all lied about WMD in Iraq, as surely as Obama & Co. lied to us about Obamacare.

Trump's just their latest patsy to keep the money flowing to the underlying businesses.

Trump sets off Hillary's canceled fireworks display from last November, right after she advises this Syria attack

Hillary Clinton on Thursday called for the United States to bomb Syrian air fields. ... "I really believe we should have and still should take out his air fields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop sarin gas on them."

Total nonfarm jobs up only 98,000 in March, but Trump made sure we're talking about Syria instead

And even more "just words" from Trump: Stay out of Syria! Rebels are Islamists, not allies!

6 September 2013

4 September 2013

12 September 2014

Just more words: Trump promised no involvement in the Middle East like Bush promised no nation-building

29 August 2013

31 August 2013

2 September 2013

Looks like Trump's tweets on Syria in 2013 were "just words": Everything he's said now is up for grabs

June 2013

August 2013

September 2013

Michael Savage just said "emacerated"

"Macerated" is a word, but not "emacerated".

Michael Savage obviously didn't get his PhD in English, but how do you get a PhD and make mistakes like that?

He also makes flubs like "you and I" when he means "you and me".

The way to Obamacare repeal is through repeal of the filibuster

Harry Reid's fateful end of the filibuster in 2013 for lower court and executive branch nominees looks set to be ended also for the higher court.

Once accomplished, nothing in principle stands in the way of removing the filibuster rule for legislation.

And that means Obamacare can be repealed with a simple majority of Republicans.

From the story here:

And now, with political polarization at an extreme, the Senate is on the verge of killing off the Supreme Court filibuster, the one remaining vestige of bipartisanship on presidential appointments. For now the filibuster barrier on legislation will remain, though many fear it could be the next to go.

Those who lament this development should look to themselves.

Popular election of Senators from 1913 has made the Senate little more than a Super House, where the filibuster ended in 1842. The continuance of the filibuster in the Senate is thus an anachronism and a farce in an age of rule by 535 demagogues.

If anyone wishes to imbue the Senate with the supposed august character of its past, start by rescinding the popular election of its membership, thus making the Senate once again the creature of the states the constitution meant it to be.

For such a Senate the filibuster might once again become appropriate, but not for this one. 

Barry Manilow: It Looks Like He Faked It

There once was a Jew named Pincus

who thought all along he'd hoodwinked us

He made the girls swoon as Manilow

but lived with a guy on the down-low

He's out now the queer, in his wrinkles.

Climate warmist Michael Mann tells Congress he's not affiliated with the Climate Accountability Institute

From the story here:

When asked directly if he was either affiliated or associated with CAI, Mann answered “no.”

Mann is listed among the CAI Council of Advisors here.

Rob Schneider's Laugh of the Day: People keep taking pictures of HillaryClinton in the woods like she's Bigfoot

Here.

Opioid epidemic is far more likely an effect of this depression economy than one of its causes

Jeffrey Snider, here:

What the cash flow and profit series tell us is that Economists once again have it backward. The opioid epidemic is far more likely an effect of this depression economy than one of its causes. If businesses are forced to utilize so much less labor, it is because there is no cash nor expectation for growth in profit by which to put more of it to productive use. ...

The problem is the erosion of the national basis for income, the jobs that the Trump administration has correctly focused upon in at least its economic rhetoric. The means to correct the deficiency so far proposed, however, will, in all likelihood, do little or nothing toward alleviating it. For as much as the Federal Reserve in 2017 will claim that this is now a purely fiscal problem, it is instead still a monetary one just as it has been all along.

AP Obama details Obama policies already reversed by Trump

1. Climate change

2. Internet privacy

3. Abortion/Family Planning

4. Keystone XL Pipeline

5. Dakota Access Pipeline

6. Fuel efficiency standards

7. TPP

8. Abortion/Mexico City Policy

9. Fiduciary Rule

Story here.

Owners' equity in real estate has hardly returned to the levels of more responsible times, barely at 2006 level

Lyin' Susan Rice is in the middle of the unmasking scandal

Reported here and here.

And right now the boob Rush Limbaugh is ranting against homeownership and its tax deduction

Rush says the mortgage industry lobbied to get the mortgage interest deduction, not realizing it's been there since the Income Tax became law in 1913.

It's like a conspiracy, this coordinated attack on homeownership today.

Real Clear Markets doesn't hide its libertarian bias, runs three anti-homeownership articles today

The American Dream That's Not Backed Up by History APRIL 1, 2017 10:00 AM EDT By Stephen Mihm

Is the American Dream Killing the American People? By Robert Samuelson April 03, 2017

Ilargi: Our Economies Run On Housing Bubbles Posted on April 1, 2017 by Yves Smith By Raúl Ilargi Meijer, editor of Automatic Earth

That last one is a doozy, from Occupy Wall Street friendly Naked Capitalism, showing to what depths libertarianism will stoop to advance its ideology. 

University of Georgia historian minimizes the magnitude of foreclosures during the Great Depression, missing their significance for the value of homeownership today

Stephen Mihm, at Bloomberg here:

While home ownership became increasingly popular in the early twentieth century, the U.S. was still a majority-renter nation in 1930, though by this time homeowners numbered 48 percent of the total population. But the Great Depression knocked that figure back down to 43 percent, roughly on par with late nineteenth century levels.

Things changed dramatically in the 1940s, when home ownership levels began moving toward unprecedented highs, hitting 66 percent by 1980. Economists are still arguing over why that happened, but the most compelling explanations are pretty banal and do little to support the sentimental blather associated with home ownership.

Does this guy even know that the nonfarm foreclosure rate nearly quadrupled between 1926 and 1933?

Through 1933 there were over 1 million completed foreclosures, about 1% of US population of the time. Compare that to the current crisis. We've had 8.5 million completed foreclosures since 2004, about 2.5% of population. 

Homeownership as a cultural value in the post-war was so high because so many people lost their homes before it.

And it still is today and will continue to be, despite what some people say with an axe to grind from the safety of their sinecures.

Robert Kuttner gets out there pretending there isn't already a shadow government

Here, ignoring Obama's Organizing for Action and the Deep State, which must be the point (oh look, a deer):

If this were a parliamentary democracy, there would be a leader of the opposition, and a whole “front bench” of opposition spokespeople, issue by issue ― a kind of Shadow Cabinet. ... Even better would be if a leading Democrat put herself forward now, as the presidential candidate for 2020. That way, there would be head-to-head comparisons and challenges, as well as almost equal coverage. 

Hey Trump, we're still waiting for you to repeal Obamacare "immediately"

Trump tweeted this about one month after Obama vetoed HR 3762.

Hey Trump, we're still waiting for repeal of DACA and DAPA "immediately"

Laugh of the Day: Guy named "Stone" wants Trump to back legal pot

Here.

Grand Rapids, Michigan, climate update for March 2017

Mean average temperature was 35.0 degrees F in March 2017 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The mean for March is 34.1.

The lowest minimum temperature was 12.0. The mean for March is 7.

The highest maximum temperature was 71. The mean for March is 66.

Precipitation was 3.27 inches. The mean for March is 2.46.

March snowfall was 4.7 inches. The mean for March is 9.1.

Heating degree days came to 921. The mean for March is 953. The total through March from July 2016 comes to 4975 vs. mean to date of 5849.

The heating season to date has been about 15% warmer than normal.

Wikileaks publishes CIA's Marble software used to disguise hacks as Russian, Chinese etc. to mislead forensic investigators

From the story here:

Experts who've started to sift through the material said it appeared legitimate - and that the release was almost certain to shake the CIA.

Justin Amash, Republican best known for throwing spit balls from the back bench

Krauthammer thinks Trump might go for single payer in the end, in which case Americans should get it, good and hard

Think of it as socialism with Republican characteristics.

Krauthammer, here:

Obamacare may turn out to be unworkable, indeed doomed, but it is having a profound effect on the zeitgeist: It is universalizing the idea of universal coverage.

Acceptance of its major premise — that no one be denied health care — is more widespread than ever. Even House Speaker Paul Ryan avers that “our goal is to give every American access to quality, affordable health care,” making universality an essential premise of his own reform. And look at how sensitive and defensive Republicans have been about the possibility of people losing coverage in any Obamacare repeal. ...

As Obamacare continues to unravel, it won’t take much for Democrats to abandon that Rube Goldberg wreckage and go for the simplicity and the universality of Medicare-for-all.

Simplicity? Draco's laws were simple. The penalty for every crime was death.

I wonder if Krauthammer has a clue what he's talking about.

Total Medicare outlays in 2015 came to $632 billion.

Total Medicaid outlays in 2015 came to $552 billion country wide (read the Notes).

Total Social Security and Disability outlays in 2015 came to $897.1 billion.

That is a total of $2.0811 trillion from 2015 total net compensation of $7.4158 trillion, or 28%, without even talking about "universal coverage" yet.

Yet all your typical American pays now for this is 10.63%:

6.2% in Social Security tax and 1.45% for Medicare, plus whatever taxes are paid at the state and local level toward Medicaid, which federal law mandates must account for at least 40% of program revenues. So $221 billion from 160.8 million wage earners across the country in 2015 represents another 2.98% paid by them at the state level.

The status quo therefore is funded only 38% by its beneficiaries, at best. I say "at best" because many beneficiaries pay NOTHING because they don't work and never have. But I digress.

So bring about Krauthammer's revolution, for that is what he's talking about, and reset the table as follows.

Total healthcare outlays in the United States in 2015 came to $3.2 trillion. Add in $897.1 billion for Social Security and Disability, and you now have a "universal" obligation bloated to $4.097 trillion, which represents 55% of net compensation that year.

That's your tax.

You've become France, Germany, Denmark or some other Western European paradise which depends on the United States for its defense.

And that's before even talking about funding the $1.2 trillion part of the federal budget which is discretionary, like defending ourselves against that little fat kid playing with hydrogen bombs in North Korea.

Of course there's another chunk of money out there being made in the United States apart from net compensation, about $8 trillion in 2015. The recipients of this income typically pay the lower capital gains tax rates, not the payroll and income tax rates which are for the chumps.

It's a nice little system which isn't paying its fair share for socialism in the United States, even though it is rich guys who typically shout the loudest on behalf of it. They do this because they know it will keep the little guy down, from whom they don't want the competition some day. But tax that system equally to net compensation and you cut that 55% tax in half, to say 27.5%. That, however, means a big fat tax increase on the rich, and on everybody else. I doubt they'll stand for that any more than they open their checkbooks now to make patriotic voluntary donations to the US Treasury.

We live in a fantasy land where no one wants to pay what it costs for anything.

We think we can have our cake and eat it too.

We want infrastructure spending, and a tax cut dammit.

57-year old female spacewalker drops and loses 18-pounds of thermal shielding outside International Space Station

Can't they find anybody younger and stronger to do this job and do it right?

She's on her 8th spacewalk for crying out loud.

Story here.

Property and sales tax revenues in fiscal 2016: $915.49 billion

$374.79 billion in sales and gross receipts taxes and $540.7 billion in property taxes.

Beancounter says so here.

The combined total is about 28% of total state and local revenues in fiscal 2016, which came to $3.26 trillion, according to usgovernmentrevenue.com .

National Review becomes the magazine for trannies, greens and higher taxes

Trump declares war on the House Freedom Caucus

Obama Real GDP Averaged 1.48%, never got above 2.6%

Obama finishes with the worst GDP growth record in the post-war

Bush era current dollar GDP grew 38.97% vs. Obama era at 29.62%

Had Obama era current dollar GDP grown at the Bush rate, we would have $1.36 trillion more GDP at the end of 2016 than we do.

Clinton era neocon seriously worries about US starvation and societal collapse from EMP attack

James Woolsey, here.

Yeah, but Bill Clinton enabled North Korea's current nuclear capabilities, which you won't learn from the story.

Hillary's new mantra is R.I.P.E.

Resist.

Insist.

Persist.

Enlist.

h/t to a caller to the Chris Plante Show

The Laugh of the Day is an oxymoron from Rush Limbaugh

"Genuine, legitimate fraud."

As opposed to your fake, illegitimate fraud.

So good, so good . . .

James Brown

Maxine Waters

Just when Bill O'Reilly begins to turn me on, he somehow immediately finds a way to turn me off

Liberals never apologize for ridicule.

Here:

[Maxine Waters] deserves a hearing and should not be marginalized by political opponents. In fact I made that mistake this morning on Fox & Friends. I said in a simple jest that the congresswoman's hair distracted me ["I didn't hear a word she said, I was looking at the James Brown wig"]. Well that was stupid, I apologize. It had no place in the conversation.

DNC didn't allow FBI to examine servers for malware, used private firm issuing opinion it was Russian, other firms disagree

The Miami Herald has the story here.

Mark Levin's twisting of Mitch McConnell's statements about Obamacare repeal failure is as bad as MSM

Levin is proving to be as untrustworthy as the main stream media in reporting the news, as for example the source of the McConnell quotations provided below. But read the statements, and forget the commentary, whether The Hill's or Levin's.

McConnell isn't resigned to Obamacare staying in place forever as Levin implied on the radio tonight. McConnell is resigned to the recent failure to overturn Obamacare, that's all.

Of course the bill that failed is out of the question going forward.

McConnell, quoted in the story here, acting above it all and nonpartisan for public consumption, which is his job as Senate Majority Leader:

"[W]e have the existing law in place and I think we’re just going to have to see how that works out." 

"We believe it will not work out well, but we’ll see. [Democrats] have an opportunity now to have the status quo go forward, regretfully," he added. ...

"I want to thank the president and the Speaker, they went all out to try to pass a repeal and replacement," McConnell said. "I’m sorry that didn’t work, but our Democratic friends now have the law that they wrote in place, and we’ll see how that works out."

LawNewz calls armed teenage burglars shot dead in Oklahoma kitchen by homeowner's son "victims"

For a change it wasn't WaPo.

Story here.

This is why 100 lawyers at the bottom of the sea is called a good start.

Trump reverses Obama's Clean Power Plan, lifts ban on coal mining leases on federal lands

Another promise kept. Now if we could just get back all the income we lost because Obama deliberately did nothing about middle class jobs for eight years.

From the story here:

The Clean Power Plan required states to collectively cut carbon emissions [CO2] from power plants by 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.

Second night in a row, Mark Levin praises HR 3762 as a "clean repeal bill"

After trashing it as a sham last week.

That audio of Paul Ryan talking all tough about reintroducing the veteod HR 3762 after the 2016 election really impressed Mark Levin.

HR 3762 wasn't a clean repeal in the Senate's form passed by the House. It was veto bait, and political posturing.

Alabama's Mo Brooks introduces one sentence Obamacare Repeal Act

The Obamacare Repeal Act, here:

"Effective as of Dec. 31, 2017, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is repealed, and the provisions of law amended or repealed by such Act are restored or revived as if such Act had not been enacted," the bill states.

Last week HR 3762 was a sham, now Mark Levin calls the Freedom Caucus standing for it heroes

Mark Levin obviously used the weekend to bone up on the legislative history.

Why weren't bills for Trump to sign lined up like planes on a runway on January 20th?

Glenn Reynolds wants to know, here.

Ted Poe quits House Freedom Caucus because it sees itself as the opposition party to the Republicans

Well there you go. It dawns on Ted that their self-identity is not Republican.

He's right. They see themselves as libertarians.

Here:

[T]he Freedom Caucus has always been the opposition caucus against the Democrats, and now that we are in the majority, it continues to be the opposition caucus.

Jim Jordan blames House leadership for not beginning 2017 with HR 3762 from 2015

Quoted here:

Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), a member of the [House Freedom] caucus, also said that House Republican leaders were the ones who had moved the goal posts, not the caucus, when they decided against bringing up a bill that would simply have repealed the 2010 health law.

“You know when the goal posts were moved? When they didn’t start with the legislation we all voted for 15 months ago,” Mr. Jordan said on Fox.

Mick Mulvaney, charter member of House Freedom Caucus, is not too happy with it

Quoted here:

Mick Mulvaney, formerly a member of the Freedom Caucus and now Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, denied any move against the speaker.

“Never once have I seen him blame Paul Ryan,” Mulvaney said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “The people who are to blame are the people who would not vote yes.”

Mulvaney was one of the leading officials lobbying House Republicans to pass the bill, which was pulled less than an hour before lawmakers were due to vote.

“We haven’t been able to change Washington in the first 65 days,” Mulvaney said. “I know the Freedom Caucus. I helped found it. I never thought it would come to this.”

Laugh of the Day: Hillary arrested for trying to scale White House fence for a second time

Since 2012 Republicans have voted against the Bush tax cuts and against repeal of Obamacare

We have no representation.

Mark Meadows: Ousted Boehner, voted against the original HR 3762 in October 2015, leads House Freedom Caucus against Obamacare repeal in 2017

Clearly Mark Meadows is Trump's number one problem in the US House of Representatives.

In view of the fact that Meadows was in the extreme minority in October 2015 voting with only six other Republicans against Obamacare repeal in the form of HR 3762, it was hypocritical of him to accuse John Boehner of bypassing the majority in the House in the summer of 2015 and filing the motion for him to vacate the chair. Meadows bypassed the majority in October.

Meadows only flipped his position on HR 3762 when it was revamped and hardened by the Senate to make a political point to the voters back home.

In other words, Meadows only supported the bill when it allowed him to hide behind the skirts of the Senate version which both they and he knew was designed merely to be vetoed:

[T]he Senate's version would have implemented a two year phase-out of Medicaid expansion and exchange subsidies.

The House agreed to the Senate's changes, so the final version of the bill included the Senate's modifications.

There were concerns in Congress – particularly among lawmakers from states that have expanded Medicaid – that repealing the law would result in millions of people losing their health insurance coverage. But Politico reported that "senators were reminded that the president would veto the repeal bill anyway, meaning Republicans could vote on the measure without having to deal with the political risks of actually making major changes to existing law."

But there are still 206 Republican members in the US House in 2017 who voted for the original, honest HR 3762 in October 2015, and who should do so again in 2017, if only someone (not Mark Meadows, and not Paul Ryan) would lead them there:

The House version of H.R. 3762 included repealing the individual mandate, the employer mandate, the medical device excise tax, and the "Cadillac tax" on expensive employee health insurance premiums.

It also included a measure to eliminate federal Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood for one year. But it called for increasing funding for community health centers by $235 million/year for two years (a 6.5 percent increase over the currently scheduled funding).

Republicans used the budget reconciliation process to ensure that their bill could advance through the senate as long as it received a simple majority of at least 51 votes, instead of needing 60 votes. By using reconciliation, the measure was filibuster-proof, and advanced to a vote in the Senate.

Hey Donald Trump, lay off already, I'm tired of all this winning

Paul Ryan could have passed repeal easily, but deliberately crafted a bill that wouldn't pass

The 206 Republicans in the current House of Representatives named below voted for H.R. 3762 in October 2015, repealing Obamacare with the additional votes of 33 Republicans no longer there (Mulvaney, Pompeo, Price and Zinke resigned in 2017 to serve in Trump's administration--all voted for repeal in 2015). The bill passed the House 240-189-5.

More importantly the repeal bill passed the Senate as well, winding up on Obama's desk, where Obama promptly vetoed it.

Now we're supposed to believe Paul Ryan couldn't whip this vote again, and couldn't require repeal votes from the 28 freshmen just elected in 2016. All he needed was 216 votes. He had 206 in his pocket, 206 Republicans he could publicly and effectively intimidate if he needed to, and needed only 10 more from the freshman class.

How hard was that?

We can only conclude Paul Ryan and leadership deliberately didn't bring up that repeal bill again for a vote because they knew it would pass. They obviously didn't want repeal to pass. They crafted a different bill they knew the Republican caucus would reject.

Now it is Paul Ryan who must be rejected.

Abraham Aderholt Allen Amash Amodei Babin Barletta Barr Barton Bilirakis Bishop (MI) Bishop (UT) Black Blackburn Blum Bost Brady (TX) Brat Bridenstine Brooks (AL) Brooks (IN) Buchanan Bucshon Burgess Byrne Calvert Carter (GA) Carter (TX) Chabot Chaffetz Coffman Cole Collins (GA) Collins (NY) Comstock Conaway Cook Costello (PA) Cramer Crawford Culberson Curbelo (FL) Davis, Rodney Denham Dent DeSantis DesJarlais Diaz-Balart Donovan Duffy Duncan (SC) Duncan (TN) Emmer (MN) Farenthold Fitzpatrick Fleischmann Flores Fortenberry Foxx Franks (AZ) Frelinghuysen Garrett Gibbs Gohmert Goodlatte Gosar Gowdy Granger Graves (GA) Graves (LA) Graves (MO)

Griffith Grothman Guthrie Harper Harris Hartzler Hensarling Herrera Beutler Hice, Jody B. Hill Holding Hudson Huizenga (MI) Hultgren Hunter Hurd (TX) Issa Jenkins (KS) Jenkins (WV) Johnson (OH) Johnson, Sam Jordan Joyce Katko Kelly (MS) Kelly (PA) King (IA) King (NY) Kinzinger (IL) Knight Labrador LaHood LaMalfa Lamborn Lance Latta LoBiondo Long Loudermilk Love Lucas Luetkemeyer MacArthur Marchant Marino Massie McCarthy McCaul McClintock McHenry McKinley McMorris Rodgers McSally Meehan Messer Moolenaar Mooney (WV) Mullin Murphy (PA) Newhouse Noem Nunes Olson Palazzo Palmer Paulsen

Pearce Perry Pittenger Poe (TX) Poliquin Posey Ratcliffe Reed Reichert Renacci Rice (SC) Roby Roe (TN) Rogers (AL) Rogers (KY) Rohrabacher Rokita Rooney (FL) Ros-Lehtinen Roskam Ross Rothfus Rouzer Royce Russell Ryan (WI) Sanford Scalise Schweikert Scott, Austin Sensenbrenner Sessions Shimkus Shuster Simpson Smith (MO) Smith (NE) Smith (NJ) Smith (TX) Stefanik Stewart Stivers Thompson (PA) Thornberry Tiberi Tipton Trott Turner Upton Valadao Wagner Walberg Walden Walorski Walters, Mimi Weber (TX) Webster (FL) Wenstrup Westerman Williams Wilson (SC) Wittman Womack Woodall Yoder Yoho Young (AK) Young (IA) Zeldin

Obamacare: Democrats ram it down your throat , but Republicans shove it up your ass.

Flashback January 1, 2013, 2257 hours: 151 House Republicans who voted against making the Bush tax cuts permanent

The roll call vote is here.

Adams Aderholt Akin Amash Amodei Austria Bachmann Bachus Bartlett Barton (TX) Berg Bilirakis Bishop (UT) Black Blackburn Bonner Boustany Brooks Broun (GA) Bucshon Burgess Campbell Canseco Cantor Capito Carter Cassidy Chabot Chaffetz Coffman (CO) Conaway Cravaack Crawford Culberson DesJarlais Duffy Duncan (SC) Duncan (TN) Ellmers Farenthold Fincher Flake Fleischmann Fleming Flores Forbes Foxx Franks (AZ) Gardner Garrett

Gibbs Gingrey (GA) Gohmert Goodlatte Gosar Gowdy Granger Graves (GA) Griffin (AR) Griffith (VA) Guinta Guthrie Hall Harper Harris Hartzler Hensarling Huelskamp Huizenga (MI) Hultgren Hunter Hurt Issa Jenkins Johnson, Sam Jones Jordan King (IA) Kingston Labrador Lamborn Landry Lankford Latham Long Lummis Mack Marchant Massie McCarthy (CA) McCaul McClintock McHenry McKinley Mica Miller (FL) Mulvaney Myrick Neugebauer Nugent Nunes

Nunnelee Olson Palazzo Paulsen Pearce Pence Petri Poe (TX) Pompeo Posey Price (GA) Quayle Rehberg Renacci Rigell Rivera Roby Roe (TN) Rogers (AL) Rohrabacher Rokita Rooney Roskam Ross (FL) Scalise Schilling Schmidt Schweikert Scott (SC) Scott, Austin Sensenbrenner Smith (NE) Southerland Stearns Stutzman Terry Tipton Turner (OH) Walberg Walsh (IL) Webster West Westmoreland Whitfield Wilson (SC) Wittman Wolf Woodall Yoder Young (IN)

Flashback January 1, 2013, 0159 hours: Senate Republicans who voted against making the Bush tax cuts permanent

From the roll call vote (89-8-3) here:

Grassley of Iowa, Lee of Utah, Paul of Kentucky, Rubio of Florida, Shelby of Alabama.

Demented Jim of South Carolina didn't vote, and neither did Mark Kirk of Illinois (stroke victim).

Democrats still controlled the Senate at the time, the close of the 112th Congress, 53-47. Their caucus power increased by 2 in the 113th Congress.

John Boehner must be laughing his ass off this morning

John Boehner got Obama to sign the Bush tax cuts, but Paul Ryan can't even get a bill on Trump's desk. 

Trump's Obamacare repeal disaster

Real GDP forecast for 1Q2017 from the Atlanta Fed: 1.0%

Watch how fast that great Obama economy becomes Trump's awful economy.

HR 3762 should have been on Trump's desk on January 20th, but Republicans were too full of themselves for that

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/03/24/its-true-trump-didnt-pledge-obamacare-repeal-in-64-days-he-pledged-it-in-one/?utm_term=.87eb1e98525d

We'd be long into tax reform by now.

Day One repeal of Obamacare my sweet German-American ass.

Mark Levin is a jerk . . .

He complains about the left criticizing conservatives while bashing the 2015 bill conservatives and all Republicans except for 7 (Mark Meadows!) passed through the House and Senate and to Obama's desk!

P.O.S. is Mark Levin.

Mark Levin calls HR 3762 a sham

Mark Levin is what is wrong with conservatism.

We don't need no stinkin' new bill: Obamacare repeal H.R. 3762 passed the Senate on Dec. 3, 2015 52-47

The roll call vote is here.

Senate Republicans passed the repeal of Obamacare despite two defections, from liberal Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Mark Kirk of Illinois.

Pass H.R. 3762 again and dare Trump to veto it.