Day 64: Crash and Burn

Today's coverage continues to be dominated by the Republican health care bill, the American Health Care Act (AHCA). After high drama in DC today, the bill is dead. Paul Ryan decided that bringing it to a vote when he knew the numbers were against him would be bad politics, and so Ryan and Trump conceded defeat and withdrew the bill. The Affordable Care Act remains the governing law, likely for at least another year. Trump immediately blamed Democrats for not supporting the bill, completely ignoring his own inadequacies and the inadequacies of his party. Who knew you couldn't ram a complete overhaul of health care through Congress in three weeks? Here's an overview of where things now stand, along with the damage that has been done to the administration.

In other news:

• The administration approved the Keystone XL pipeline today, completely ignoring all environmental concerns.
• Nunes continues to find himself in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. Apparently he's convinced Manafort to testify before his committee, but scuttled public hearings with former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Director of the CIA John Brennan, and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. Democrats immediately cried foul, "[an] attempt to choke off public info". The entire mess reeks of colluding with the White house, which happens to be the subject of their investigation. Republicans are being particularly spineless on this. Alas, it looks like we're stuck with Nunes.
• ICE released it's first "public safety report" in accordance with some executive order or other. The obvious outcome is to reduce safety in the areas highlighted in the report. Add to this that ICE is targeting sanctuary cities for deportation raids... This is all disgusting.
• Eric Trump is keeping his father updated on the business world. Blind trust my ass.

To celebrate the death of the AHCA, I knitted a pink pussy hat for my pet hedgehog. Here's a picture. You're welcome.