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Seemingly the only thing in Donald Trump’s professional life ever made in America is the adviser who thought “Made in America Week” would be a good idea free of bad press about their boss. In terms of terrible political developments that should die but just won’t, the Senate health care bill is now rivaling Michael Bloomberg presidential rumors in its lifespan. And like your lawyer friend who still thinks his ska-pop band can go big, Republican members of Congress don’t seem to have the heart to tell Mitch McConnell that it’s time to focus on more productive things. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Monday, July 17th, 2017:

HEALTH CARE BILL TAKING A REALLY LONG TIME TO DIE - It’s starting to make Sonny Corleone’s departure from the Earth seem brisk. Matt Fuller: “The Senate health care bill remains in a curious state of buoyancy ― without enough support to go anywhere, but lacking enough opposition to sink. Simply put: The bill is not dead, despite Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) vowing to vote against it and a healthy coalition of more than a half-dozen Republicans who have ‘serious concerns,’ according to Collins. With Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) recovering from a surgery to remove a blood clot above his left eye, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) officially does not have the votes to bring the GOP health care bill to the floor. Facing that reality, he delayed the vote yet again. But there’s a lesson in that delay: McConnell believes he can actually pass this. If he didn’t, with the backlog of legislative items already keeping senators in session into their August break, he could just take a failed vote and clear the measure from his calendar. He’s not doing that ― at least not yet.” [HuffPost]

Maybe this is how we finally get the Lisa Murkowski International Airport in Fairbanks: “President Trump plans to host a group of Republican senators at the White House on Monday night as he seeks to persuade them to back the Senate’s new healthcare bill. White House press secretary Sean Spicer announced the meeting but declined to provide a list of senators expected to attend. [The Hill’s Jordan Fabian]

Members of Congress are super-eager to make “Game of Thrones” analogies in their political attacks, go figure.

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CIVILIAN FATALITIES SOARING UNDER TRUMP - He’s bombing the shit out of them, in fact. Samuel Oakford: “Civilian casualties from the U.S.-led war against the so-called Islamic State are on pace to double under President Donald Trump, according to an Airwars investigation for The Daily Beast. Airwars researchers estimate that at least 2,300 civilians likely died from Coalition strikes overseen by the Obama White House — roughly 80 each month in Iraq and Syria. As of July 13, more than 2,200 additional civilians appear to have been killed by Coalition raids since Trump was inaugurated — upwards of 360 per month, or 12 or more civilians killed for every single day of his administration. The Coalition’s own confirmed casualty numbers — while much lower than other estimates — also show the same trend.” [Daily Beast]

THIS IS SUCH A DUMB IDEA - Unless the president wants everyone to remember all the made-in-America Polish workers his contractor treated horribly. Ed Mazza: “President Donald Trump is set to declare this week ‘Made In America’ week to help promote products manufactured in the United States, according to The Hill. But he’s already coming under fire for the move, given that Trump-branded products are often manufactured overseas. Many of Trump’s clothing items have been made in Mexico and China. During the campaign last year, his use of steel and aluminum from China became a campaign issue. And just last week, The Washington Post reported on the fashion line of first daughter and White House aide Ivanka Trump, finding that much of it is made by low-wage workers in countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia and China. White House spokeswoman Helen Aguirre Ferre was asked on Sunday if the president would use ‘Made in America’ week to push his daughter to make those products in the United States.” [HuffPost]

Here are photographs of our big boy president playing in a fire truck. HONK HONK!

JUST WAIT FOR ‘MADE IN AMERICA WEEK’ TO RIGHT THIS SHIP - Marina Fang: ”New polls show President Donald Trump’s approval ratings are at historic lows, as Trump hits the six-month mark of his presidency this Thursday. Only 36 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s job performance as president, according to a new Washington Post/ABC News poll released Sunday, slightly down from 42 percent in April. Only 25 percent strongly back Trump. A Bloomberg poll released Monday found Trump’s approval rating at 40 percent. The result is the lowest for any president in 70 years. Trump’s most recent predecessors, Barack Obama and George W. Bush, had approval ratings of 59 percent around this point in their presidencies.” [HuffPost]

ONE DAY SEAN SPICER WILL FLACK FOR AN OIL COMPANY WHO DUMPED A BUNCH OF OIL IN THE GULF AND HE WILL BE SO GOOD AT IT - Really, when we’re caught red-handed murdering someone, we’ll wanna Spice up our lives. Marina Fang: “White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Monday appeared to be confused about Donald Trump Jr.’s June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer, claiming it was about adoptions — contradicting both Donald Trump Jr. and the president, who have both confirmed the true reason for the meeting. During an off-camera briefing with reporters, Spicer claimed that ‘the president has made it clear through his tweet, and there was nothing as far as we know that would lead anyone to believe that there was anything except for a discussion about adoption,’ referring to the original reason Trump Jr. gave for meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.” [HuffPost]

EXTREME GUY MAKING EXTREME PRESIDENT MORE EXTREME - It’s a shame Tom Clancy isn’t alive to write a bunch of fawning books about a president who stops a conspiracy by China to take out our country through unfair trade. Nancy Cook and Andrew Restuccia: ”Peter Navarro, one of the White House’s top trade advisers...has nonetheless emerged as an influential force in the White House who appeals to President Donald Trump’s protectionist impulses. Navarro has earned a reputation for stalking the halls of the West Wing at night and on the weekends to find a moment to slip into the Oval Office to privately discuss trade with the president, according to one White House official and a close adviser to the administration. It’s his way of maintaining influence through proximity. His clout, dating back to the campaign, has informed the president’s thinking on everything from NAFTA to new lumber tariffs to potential trade restrictions on steel and aluminum. A former economics professor at the University of California-Irvine who unsuccessfully ran for office four times, Navarro has a well-established reputation as an academic with hardline views on the threat that China poses to the U.S.” [Politico]

This is extremely not true. ”‘We’ve signed more bills — and I’m talking about through the legislature — than any president, ever,’ Mr. Trump said at a ‘Made in America’ event at the White House. ‘For a while, Harry Truman had us. And now, I think, we have everybody.’” [NYT’s Michael D. Shear and Karen Yourish]

YOUR HUDDLED MASSES YEARNING TO PEEL SHRIMP - Trump’s immigration policies are incoherent. Tracy Jan: “The Department of Homeland Security on Monday announced a one-time increase of 15,000 additional visas for low-wage seasonal workers for the remainder of this fiscal year, a seeming about-face from President Trump’s ‘Hire American’ rhetoric, following heavy lobbying from fisheries, hospitality and other industries that rely on temporary foreign workers. The increase represents a 45 percent bump from the number of H-2B visas normally issued for the second half of the fiscal year, said senior Homeland Security officials in a call with reporters. The visas are for workers taking temporary jobs in the seafood, tourism, landscaping, construction and other seasonal industries — but not farm laborers.″ [WaPo]

Talkin’ about ethics. “Actions by President Trump and his administration have created a historic ethics crisis, the departing head of the Office of Government Ethics said. He called for major changes in federal law to expand the power and reach of the oversight office and combat the threat. Walter M. Shaub Jr., who is resigning as the federal government’s top ethics watchdog on Tuesday, said the Trump administration had flouted or directly challenged long-accepted norms in a way that threatened to undermine the United States’ ethical standards, which have been admired around the world.” [NYT’s Eric Lipton and Nicholas Fandos]

WELL THIS IS JUST #$&*ING GREAT - This headline is terrifying – “Good News For Russia: 15 States Use Easily Hackable Voting Machines.” Jessica Schulberg: “Touch-screen machines can be programmed to change votes and are nearly impossible to audit, computer experts say.” [HuffPost’s Jessica Schulberg]

BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR - Here’s a horse not fooled by fake horses.

CHRIS CHRISTIE’S COSTLY COOTIES - This needs to be true, even if it isn’t. Daniel Bates: “Donald Trump fell out with Chris Christie, a new book reveals, by screaming at him: ‘You know my number, just give it to the President, I don’t want your f***ing phone’. Trump became furious on election night when the New Jersey governor offered to use his own mobile phone to take a congratulatory call from Barack Obama. As a germophobe he was also horrified at the idea of having Christie’s phone next to his face.″ [Daily Mail]

COMFORT FOOD

- Dogs know what suitcases mean. They don’t like what it means.

- “Lady Gaga murder conspiracy” is not actually the name of Lady Gaga’s next album.

- Conference Call Bingo is depressingly accurate.

TWITTERAMA

@sarahcpr: “Like him or not, he’s the President” says local man eating shit sandwich, which, he exclaimed, is still a sandwich

@singernews: I ALREADY BOUGHT A BACKPACK !! STOP SHOWING ME BACKPACK ADS ON EVERY WEBSITE!!! I DON’T NEED ANOTHER ONE!!

@erroorinn: wait. WAIT.



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it’s a LIKERT SCALE

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