• Enumerati

  49%

  A new Politico/Morning Consult poll finds opposition to the Republican health bill is growing. “As the GOP-led Senate prepares to take up the measure, only 35% of voters surveyed approve of the bill passed by the House last month. Nearly half of voters, 49%, disapprove of the bill. The other 16% don’t know or don’t have an opinion, the poll shows.”

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• Enumerati

  52%

  Republican support for stronger gun control laws is up seven points from a year ago. More than half of Republicans (52 percent) said they oppose stricter gun control, down seven points from the June 2016 poll, according to a recent Morning Consult poll. The poll, conducted in the days following the shooting that wounded House Majority Whip Steve Scalise — along with a lobbyist, congressional staffer and a member of the Capitol Police — found 44 percent of Republicans said they support strengthening gun laws.

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• Enumerati

  $2.9 billion

  Donald Trump’s office properties aren’t bringing in as much cash as banks that loaned him money had expected, Bloomberg reports. That’s the biggest finding in an updated assessment of the president’s net worth, which has slipped to $2.9 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, down from $3 billion a year ago.

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• Enumerati

  $2.1 million

  “President Trump’s pick to be the next FBI director, Christopher Wray, billed New Jersey taxpayers more than $2.1 million in legal charges and expenses while representing Gov. Chris Christie as his personal attorney before during and after the Bridgegate trial,” WNYC reports.

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• Enumerati

  18%

  A new AP-NORC poll finds that less than a third of Americans support President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, with just 18% of respondents agreeing with his claim that pulling out of the international agreement to reduce carbon emissions will help the U.S. economy.

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Poetic Justice

Vlad the Comedian

Buck Banks | Jun. 15, 2017

We think we know why Putin always seems to be smilin’—
He uses sarcasm and humor on Trump to beguile him.
And his latest jest
Is surely one of his best —
He’s offering Jim Comey political asylum!

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• Verbatim

  “Our brand is worse than Trump. We can’t just run against Trump.”

  — Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), quoted by the New York Times, explaining Democratic losses in four special elections this year.

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• Verbatim

  “Inch by inch by inch, the Trump administration is rolling back press access, which means less information for the public. And lack of accessibility is only half the problem. Lack of accuracy in official statements is a big issue too. … The president’s anti-media defenders may support the administration’s approach, but it’s hard to justify the rollback in accountability. It’s not just the White House, either: the State Department and the Pentagon have all but stopped holding on-camera briefings, too. … This isn’t exclusive to the executive branch. There are heightened concerns about legislative branch secrecy as well.”

  — Brian Stelter

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• Verbatim

  “This is a very important issue. You know, we shouldn’t try to do it in the dark. And whatever final bill is produced should be available to the American public and to the members of the Senate, certainly, for enough time to come to grips with it… And we are going to insist — and the American people are going to insist — that it be done in a transparent, a fair and open way.”

  — Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), quoted by NBC News on October 2, 2009, nearly three months before passage of the Affordable Care Act.

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• Verbatim

  “So the White House press secretary is getting to a point… where he’s just kind of useless.”

  — CNN’s Jim Acosta, quoted by The Hill, complaining that Sean Spicer won’t answer questions on camera.

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• Verbatim

  “The process is better if you do it in public, and that people get buy-in along the way and understand what’s going on. Obviously, that’s not the route that is being taken.”

  — Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), quoted by the New York Times, on drafting the Senate healthcare bill.

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