Dasvidaniya! Dianne Feinstein has a 2016 buzzkill for Dems; Media pins O-care failings on GOP (Sunday open thread)

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**Written by Doug Powers

This post Kentucky Derby open thread can be considered off and running…

On CNN a couple days ago, Wolf Blitzer asked Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who had just attended a briefing on the matter, if there yet was any evidence that anybody from the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to interfere in any way with the 2016 election. With four words, Feinstein killed a lot of buzzes:

When a sizable portion of your party’s election loss narrative is waving bye-bye:

However, since some Dems are going to demand a scalp from somebody for the 2016 debacle, perhaps there’s blood in the water elsewhere:

While testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, FBI Director James Comey revealed that Huma Abedin, a top aide to Hillary Clinton, forwarded thousands of emails, including classified information, to her husband, Anthony Weiner.

On MSNBC on Thursday morning, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) called for a special prosecutor to investigate if Abedin committed a crime by forwarding the classified material.

“If there was classified information and it was improperly passed to a person unauthorized to receive it, yes, naturally it’s a crime,” Blumenthal said. “Without knowing what the intentions were and so forth, there is potentially a prosecutable crime.”

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The Republicans’ AHCA isn’t even a law yet, but check out Politico’s health care reporter pinning every train wreck from this point forward (or maybe even retroactively as well) on the GOP:

Call it Obamacare, Trumpcare or GOPcare, but Republicans now own health care.

The House Republican vote Thursday to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act means the GOP now has to answer for every problem with the health care law: the premium increases due to materialize this summer, more insurers leaving the markets, and regions where no one is willing to sell coverage at all anymore.

The stage is set to blame the GOP even if Obamacare remains intact:

It will likely take many years before the public can accurately judge whether the GOP plan — if it gets to Trump’s desk — makes good on those pledges. But in the short-term, the American public feels Republicans are responsible for the future of the Democrats’ health care law.

This really cracked me up:

As the House hands off the repeal effort to the Senate, there are enough bad headlines expected in the next few months to keep the blame war spinning.

Translation: “We’re going to write a lot of bad headlines about the GOP.”

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Speaking of bad headlines about the GOP…

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They didn’t leave much room for additional panic if the AHCA actually becomes a law, but the “m” in millions would probably just be swapped out and replaced with a “b.”

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If this becomes a reality I’d give anything to see Gilbert Gottfried play the part of Anthony Weiner:

Two months after HBO commissioned a miniseries about President Donald Trump’s surprising election, Sony Pictures Television’s TriStar is poised to turn the spotlight on Hillary Clinton’s stunning loss.

TriStar Television has optioned Shattered, the book by journalists Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes about Clinton’s shocking upset, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. The studio is eyeing Shattered as a limited series; a network is not yet attached. Sources tell THR that TriStar is eyeing premium cable networks like HBO, Showtime and Starz as well as streaming services like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu.

When it airs, viewers in Wisconsin trying to tune in will only see a test pattern.

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Two stories from the Washington Post on the same day:

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“Democracy Dies in Darkness” while contradiction thrives in broad daylight.

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Rahm Emanuel’s priorities in a nutshell…

The wind-up:

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And the pitch:

Under its mayor Rahm Emanuel, the city of Chicago is taking a shot at the new direction the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is taking under President Trump.

“Here in Chicago we know climate change is real and we will continue to take action to fight it,” reads a new climate change page on the website for the city. The page takes its information from an earlier version of the EPA website.

The page notes that “this information may not be readily available on the agency’s webpage right now.”
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Emanuel said the Trump administration can try to “erase decades of work from scientists and federal employees on the reality of climate change,” according to Politico. “But burying your head in the sand doesn’t erase the problem.”

IMAX-sized projection there, Rahm.

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And finally, former President Obama made an endorsement a couple days ago for today’s election in France:

Obama’s hoping his support will do for Emmanuel Macron what it did for the anti-Brexit movement, Hillary’s campaign and hundreds of Democrat seats around the countr… wait, never mind.

“I’m very grateful for that endorsement.” – Marine Le Pen

Have a good Sunday all!

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe