Once again, Burgess Everett and Seung Min Kim have explained why John McCain is a senator of not be messed with (http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/22/john-mccain-obamacare-repeal-opposition-243036).
In announcing today that he won’t support Graham-Cassidy, the fourth GOP attempt to place medical care beyond the reach of the majority of Americans, Sen. McCain, who was defeated in 2008 by the eponymous author of Obamacare, has once again thrown cold water on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s efforts to ram through legislation by ignoring the process which, before McConnell, was a hallmark of our legislative system.
When McConnell learned of McCain’s defection, he told associate solitary reporter Melissa Smith that McCain would be happier as a Democrat.
Which, as of today, he is, and ASR Smith is the first to report it.
With Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer at his side, the senior senator from Arizona said, “It took me a while, but I finally saw the light.” Schumer smiled munificently, then said, “John, your junior colleague from Arizona, Jeff Flake — he’s making a lot of sense by criticizing Donald Trump nearly every day. He should join us, don’t you think?”
Flake promptly walked in from stage right, to thunderous applause from Schumer, Colorado’s senior senator, Michael Bennet, and their Democratic colleagues.
Flake, the author of the bestselling Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle, said, “Since Donald Trump and Robert Mercer are bankrolling my primary challenge because I criticize Trump several times a day, my conscience tells me now is the best possible time to jump.”
Soon, the three senators were joined by Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, whose state would be even worse off than Maine under Graham-Cassidy because so many Alaskan villages are so remote. Schumer greeted her with a wide grin, and he didn’t even need his dropdown glasses to tell that with her defection, the Dems have flipped the Senate.
McConnell, quite dispirited, turned the gavel of Senate Majority Leader over to Schumer, and went slinking back to Kentucky to buy famed racehorse I’ll Have Another, and I'll have another bourbon straight up."
“I'll Have Another was grandsired by Distorted Humor — a phrase that beautifully characterizes Trump,” McConnell said, "and now that he’s retired, that’s just what I’m gonna do myself.”
“I’ll visit my wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, at least once every four years, unless she decides to become a Democrat, in which case she can go straight back to Taiwan and never come back.”
All smiles, McCain continued, “now that the Democrats control the Senate, I’ll keep my chairmanship of the Armed Service Committee, and I’ll persuade Jim Mattis to grab Kim Jongun and keep him in the Hanoi Hilton, where I was a guest for seven years.”
“Then I’ll kick Jared Kushner off his job as Middle East peace negotiator and send him back to Manhattan to make real estate deals — the one thing he’s really good at."