DOA: With the announcement by two senators that they are opposed to the Republican healthcare bill, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been denied the votes to even bring the measure to the floor for debate. This effectively kills, for now, the seven-year Republican effort to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Senators Mike Lee of Utah and Jerry Moran of Kansas said last night they won’t vote for the bill. Both said the bill doesn’t go far enough. Lee said in a statement, “In addition to not repealing all of the Obamacare taxes, it doesn’t go far enough in lowering premiums for middle class families; nor does it create enough free space from the most costly Obamacare regulations.”

The Republican failure raises the distant possibility that they might get together with the Democrats to fix what’s wrong with Obamacare without repealing it.

Minority leader Chuck Schumer said, ““Rather than repeating the same failed, partisan process yet again, Republicans should start from scratch and work with Democrats on a bill that lowers premiums, provides long-term stability to the markets and improves our health care system.”

The President tweeted last night, “Republicans should just REPEAL failing ObamaCare now & work on a new Healthcare Plan that will start from a clean slate. Dems will join in!” No, they wouldn’t.

Fake President: Donald Trump declared this to be “Made in America Week,” but first took to Twitter again yesterday to defend his oldest son in the Russian connection mess. “Most politicians would have gone to a meeting like the one Don jr attended in order to get info on an opponent. That’s politics!”

It would be hard to find a politician who agrees.

Otherwise, the President was busy yesterday promoting stuff that’s made in the good ole’ USA: baseball bats, Gibson guitars, Stetson hats, Campbell’s soup, Caterpillar earth movers, and more. Trump says, “Buy American!” and do as he says, not as he does.  Trump’s own clothing, home decor pieces and other Trump goods are made in Bangladesh, China and Mexico.

The pens the President used yesterday to sign his declaration were partially made in China and assembled in the US.

Outgoing head of the Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub, told the NY Times that the ethical standards of Trump and his administration have made the US a “laughingstock” in the rest of the world.

Shaub is distressed in particular about Trump’s repeated visits to his corporate properties, golf courses, and the Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida on 54 days since he took office. “It creates the appearance of profiting from the presidency,” Shaub said. “Misuse of position is really the heart of the ethics program, and the internationally accepted definition of corruption is abuse of entrusted power. It undermines the government ethics program by casting doubt on the integrity of government decision making.”

Murder x 4: Prosecutors in Pennsylvania have made a quick deal to spare the death penalty and accept a guilty plea from 20-year-old Cosmo DiNardo in the murders of four young men. DiNardo was charged along with his cousin, Sean Kratz.

   Three bodies were found in a 12 ½ foot grave and prosecutors said they made the deal so DiNardo would tell them the location of the fourth body, half a mile away on a wooded mountaintop.

School Daze: Thousands of former college students who owe a collective $5 billion in student loans may have their debts forgiven because the company that owns the loans can’t prove it.  The National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts, which bought the loans from banks that issued them, has been suing has been suing people who default, and having a hard time producing the loan papers.

It is similar to what happened with many subprime mortgage loans in which the paperwork was either missing or such a mess that loans were forgiven. Courts have already dismissed dozens of the college lawsuits.

According to the NY Times, National Collegiate’s lawyers pleaded in a court filing that, “As news of the servicing issues and the trusts’ inability to produce the documents needed to foreclose on loans spreads, the likelihood of more defaults rises.”

20-20 Hindsight: Doctors in Britain were about to operate on a 67-year-old woman thinking they were about to remove a cataract to improve her fuzzy vision. It wasn’t necessary. The anesthesiologist first found 17 disposable contact lenses one on top of the other in the woman’s eye. Then the surgeon found 10 more.

What’s amazing is that the woman never noticed, and even more amazing, that the doctors didn’t notice until they were about to operate.

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