[guest post by Dana]

Apparently not enough votes to push forward the Senate health-care bill in its current form:

Facing intransigent Republican opposition, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, has told senators he will delay a vote on his legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act, dealing President Trump an embarrassing setback on a key part of his agenda.

Republican leaders had hoped to take a page from the playbook used to get a bill over the line in the House, appeasing the most conservative members of their conference while pressuring moderates to fall in line with fewer concessions.

But as opposition mounted in both camps, even against a vote just to take up the bill, Mr. McConnell decided he would delay consideration until after the Senate’s weeklong July 4 recess.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) believes that there are more than just five Republican senators opposed to the current legislation. [The five being Dean Heller, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Ron Johnson, Susan Collins.]

Surprisingly, Sen. Ted Cruz has not revealed his hand:

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas was among those Republicans who shared concerns in weekend calls with Trump.

“We continue to make progress,” Cruz told reporters Monday, as Democrats, who oppose the bill, planned an almost-all-night protest session.

Cruz is part of the gang of four conservatives — including Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky — who have said they cannot vote for the bill as is. Among the changes being pursued is one provision that would allow insurers to offer cheaper policies that do not meet ACA’s requirements and another to let consumers sock more money into health savings accounts

“We can get there and I’m hopeful we will get there,” Cruz said. However, he declined to say whether he would agree to Wednesday’s procedural vote.

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

[guest post by Dana]

CNN supervising producer John Bonifield is caught in an undercover video by James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas admitting there is a lack of proof regarding possible involvement between President Trump’s campaign and Russia:

“I mean, it’s mostly bullshit right now,” Bonifield says. “Like, we don’t have any giant proof.”

He confirms that the driving factor at CNN is ratings:

“It’s a business, people are like the media has an ethical phssssss…All the nice cutesy little ethics that used to get talked about in journalism school you’re just like, that’s adorable. That’s adorable. This is a business.”

According to the CNN Producer, business is booming. “Trump is good for business right now,” he concluded.

Bonifield further goes on to explain that the instructions come straight from the top, citing the CEO, Jeff Zucker:

“Just to give you some context, President Trump pulled out of the climate accords and for a day and a half we covered the climate accords. And the CEO of CNN (Jeff Zucker) said in our internal meeting, he said good job everybody covering the climate accords, but we’re done with that, let’s get back to Russia.”

Bonifield also acknowledged: “I haven’t seen any good enough evidence to show that the President committed a crime.” He continues:

“I just feel like they don’t really have it but they want to keep digging. And so I think the President is probably right to say, like, look you are witch hunting me. You have no smoking gun, you have no real proof.”

Also, yesterday it was reported that 3 CNN journalists resigned after being involved in a bit of messy report that ended with an apology and retraction of their story:

Three prominent journalists at CNN resigned on Monday after the cable news network was forced to retract and apologize for a story on its website involving a close ally of President Trump.

The article — linking Anthony Scaramucci, a hedge-fund manager and Trump confidant, to a Russian investment fund supposedly being investigated by the Senate — was removed from CNN.com late last week after the network decided it could not fully stand by its reporting.

The resignations are a black eye at a sensitive moment for the news organization, which has emerged as a regular target of Mr. Trump and his supporters. The president relishes dismissing the network’s coverage as “fake news,” and his closest advisers have accused the channel of harboring a bias against Mr. Trump.

…

CNN’s president, Jeffrey A. Zucker, has invested enormous resources into political and investigative coverage of the Trump White House, and he was deeply upset by last week’s reporting errors, according to two people briefed on the network’s discussions over the weekend who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Mr. Zucker helped lead an internal inquiry that found the story was published despite concerns expressed by CNN’s standards team, the people said. Thomas Frank, a veteran reporter who wrote the story; Lex Haris, executive editor of investigations; and Eric Lichtblau, an investigative editor and reporter hired from The New York Times in April, submitted resignations on Monday morning.

Also noted in the NYT, this comes on the heels of CNN firing Kathy Griffin for her tasteless photo of her holding a facsimile of Trump’s severed head, ties cut with CNN special host Reza Aslan after he tweeted some vulgar stuff toward President Trump, and being compelled to publish a correction on another story that “inaccurately predicted the congressional testimony of James B. Comey”. The report adds: “CNN’s investigative work has won plaudits this year, and the network had highlighted the hiring of marquee journalists as a sign of its commitment to reporting.”

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana