Toss this on to the pile of problems Senate Republicans are facing in repealing Obamacare and the Medicaid expansion that went with it: Medicaid expansion is ridiculously popular. Seriously, hugely popular, even among Republicans. More popular than just about any politician could hope to be.

The House bill would significantly reduce federal funding to states that expanded their Medicaid programs to low-income adults under the ACA. A vast majority (84%) of the public say it is important that states that received federal funds to expand Medicaid continue to receive those funds under any replacement plan.

This includes large majorities of Democrats (93%), independents (83%) and Republicans (71%).  Support for continued funding for the Medicaid expansion is also popular among people living in states that have not expanded their Medicaid program. […]

When asked about this proposed change, seven in 10 (71%) say Medicaid should largely continue as it is today, while fewer (26%) say it should be changed to limit federal funding while letting states decide who and what to cover. Democrats and independents largely favor the status quo (90% and 70%, respectively) while Republicans split, with similar shares supporting the status quo (47%) and the alternative (48%).

Overall six in 10 Americans (58%) say Medicaid is either “very” or “somewhat” important for them and their family, including a majority of Democrats (64%) and independents (57%), and nearly half (46%) of Republicans.

Very few people who aren't Republican—and not too many of them!—like the idea of their fellow Americans losing their insurance. Seems that it's just elected Republicans and their Koch overlords. That's even with a little over half (52 percent) of Republicans who think Medicaid is "welfare," as opposed to the 60 percent of Americans who just call it "health insurance."

That's a reflection of the nearly 60 percent of Americans who say Medicaid is important to them—because it is the insurance that covers their children, or their elderly parents, grandparents, or spouses. It's the primary payer for long-term care, covering at least half of all patients in long-term care. Which, by the way, would be far too expensive for just about everybody but the Koch brothers to pay for out of pocket. That's why it’s so popular and so important to Americans—it makes some of the hardest parts of life—like having to put a parent in a nursing home—a little easier because it at least takes away the specter of having to bankrupt trying to afford it.

So good luck, Mitch McConnell, taking all that away.

Being a good Republican in this day and age means that you like who Donald Trump likes and his enemies are your enemies. U.S. intelligence is bad, Vladimir Putin is good. McClatchy found that attitude fully on display at the weekend’s North Carolina Republican Convention:

“There’s nothing about Jim Comey that I trust,” said state Sen. Ron Rabin. “There’s nothing consistent about what he says.”

Asked whether Comey has any credibility, he offered a view shared by many Republican activists gathered at this airy waterfront convention center: “None. Zero.”

Comey may have handed Trump the election, but he wasn’t a loyal foot soldier, so screw that guy. Putin’s Russia, on the other hand ...

“Putin suggested Russia’s being made a scapegoat for hacking,” [secretary of the Union County GOP] said. “That’s what I think too.” [...]

Others didn’t go that far, but a number of people questioned whether Russia had really sought to interfere with the U.S. election.

“We need to do everything we can to become allies with Russia,” said T.J. Johnson, the vice president of the North Carolina Federation of Republican Men. “As for election meddling, I don’t think they really had anything to do with it.”

Loyalty to Dear Leader is all that matters here. 

The good news is, Trump's base is shrinking. The bad news—the very, very bad news—is, these people still control the Republican Party, and the Republican Party still controls most of American government, and they’ve shown they’re willing to do just about anything to keep that control.

El Cenizo, a tiny Texas border town where the 34-year-old mayor gets paid $100 a month, is quickly emerging as one of the leaders in the growing resistance to the state’s discriminatory “show me your papers” law, which will turn local law enforcement into federal immigration agents and force sanctuary cities to honor all ICE requests to turn over undocumented immigrants. El Cenizo, along with the League of United Latin American Citizens, Maverick County, and the county’s sheriff, filed the first lawsuit against Senate Bill 4 in May. Later that month, the national ACLU and ACLU of Texas joined City of El Cenizo, Texas v. State of Texas:

On one side is Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and the GOP-led state legislature. Emboldened by President Trump’s blunt rhetoric on illegal immigration, they passed a law in May that forces “sanctuary cities” such as El Cenizo to help detain and deport those who are in the country unlawfully. Uncooperative local governments face large fines, police chiefs and sheriffs could be jailed, and elected officials could lose their jobs.

On the other side are progressive activists such as [Mayor Raul] Reyes, part of a fast-growing younger generation that is largely Hispanic and U.S. born but lacks the political power of conservative white voters. With him are advocates who have pressured Dallas, Houston and other cities to resist cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement because they fear it will lead to racial profiling or deportations for minor offenses.

In El Cenizo—“sprung from a shantytown of landscapers, farmworkers and house cleaners who could not afford the rent in nearby Laredo”—it’s personal, and a risk the town’s leader is willing to take as even the mayor of the 1.4 million-strong city of Houston continues to waffle on suing the state over the legislation. “People have been posting that they should make an example out of me and that they should lock me up,” said Mayor Reyes. “It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make for this cause. I know I will be on the right side of history.”

“He’s trying to defend us,” said one 72-year-old Mexican immigrant about the mayor. “He sees the injustices that are happening with the people.”

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, former financial exec, meet budget director Mick Mulvaney, former Freedom Caucus crusader. This is where Wall Street hits a wall of ignorance.

Mulvaney along with Trump's chief economic adviser Gary Cohn have signaled their willingness to see riders added to a bill to raise the debt ceiling. Bloomberg writes: 

"At the end of the day, Congress is going to raise the debt ceiling because they have no other choice,” Cohn said in a [Friday] interview on CNBC, brushing aside objections by conservative lawmakers who question the need to increase the limit.

“Treasury secretary would love to do a clean debt ceiling -- I get that. But if we need to get things attached to get it through, we’ll attach things,” Cohn continued.

That right there is a wink to the House crazies that they can go ahead and demand things like spending cuts as a condition of raising the debt ceiling. Except that Republicans will almost surely need Democratic votes to pass that bill. 

For their part, Democrats are more likely to insist on their own concessions, such as an assurance that the administration will continue making Obamacare subsidy payments to insurance companies.

Though Treasury secretaries have traditionally represented official administration policy on debt, not in Trumpworld. Mulvaney's made sure to publicly poke Mnuchin in the eye.

There are plenty of things standing in the way of Senate Republicans finding a Trumpcare solution, much less one that could get 50 votes and also be able to pass in the House—because the House's already-passed version of Zombie Trumpcare is not going to work. The main thing working against them, besides themselves and their disaster of a president, is time.

Here's the reality: The GOP health care debate is stalled in Congress, and its uncertainty has clogged up the legislative pipeline to Trump's desk. Republicans can't move on—and many are ready to do so—until they resolve the fate of their long-promised health care bill. […]

While a vote is not in sight, multiple aides close to the negotiations say that senators are acting in good faith and that everyone wants to get to "yes" on a bill—they just have no idea what that bill looks like. How to craft a bill that can win over warring factions and pass procedural hurdles is a question without an answer. […]

The pressure to act—or move on—is building. The reconciliation protections to pass health care with 51 Senate votes expire at the end of September—but senators and aides are operating under an assumption that if there is no bill by the August break, then hopes for health care legislation have likely tanked.

June could be a make-or-break month for the bill because, if the Senate has to negotiate a final bill with the House, it will likely need to be close to a deal by the July Fourth recess—just four weeks from now.

Which also means that June could be make-or-break for the resistance. Most senators studiously avoided having to face their constituents at town hall meetings over the Memorial Day break, precisely because they didn't want to face the pressure. Which means it's working. So let's keep it up.

Texas Republicans have done a bang-up job when it comes to passing incredibly outrageous and restrictive abortion legislation this year. Last month, they passed a series of dangerous anti-abortion bills that could actually become law including a ban on insurance coverage for abortions. Then they went so far as to try to make it legal to charge anyone connected with an unlawful abortion with a crime—and by anyone this includes the person who drove the woman to the procedure, and even the receptionist who booked the appointment. But as for addressing pregnancy deaths and trying to actually save women’s lives? Well, that’s too much of a stretch for these lawmakers.

Lawmakers in Texas largely failed to take any significant action to address the state’s skyrocketing rate of pregnancy-related deaths just months after researchers found it to be the highest in not only the U.S., but the developed world.

Legislators introduced proposals to address the issue after a University of Maryland-led study found that the state’s maternal mortality rate doubled between 2010 and 2012. But several key measures didn’t even make it to a vote, falling victim to Republican infighting over other issues.

What’s so hard about this? The state has the highest rate of pregnancy-related death in the developed world. Surely, since these lawmakers are so concerned about saving babies, they could actually find a way to give a crap about the women who are bearing them, too.

This is the ultimate hypocrisy. They don’t care about babies and they don’t care about women or their health. And once again this phenomenon is tied to race, with black women making up a significantly high percentage of the maternal deaths in the state. One Democrat thought that was worth learning more about. His colleagues? Not so much.

German newspaper Der Speigel got a chance to see what happened behind closed doors at the recent G7 summit. What the record of those meetings revealed was leader after leader attempting to reach Donald Trump—through logic, through common sense, through dollars and cents. All of them took a turn at trying to break through to a man whose mind was walled in by ignorance.

Strike one ...

The newly elected French president, Emmanuel Macron, went first. ... "Climate change is real and it affects the poorest countries," Macron said.

Strike two …

Then, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reminded the U.S. president how successful the fight against the ozone hole had been and how it had been possible to convince industry leaders to reduce emissions of the harmful gas.

And, with the final pitch ...

Finally, it was Merkel's turn. Renewable energies, said the chancellor, present significant economic opportunities. "If the world's largest economic power were to pull out, the field would be left to the Chinese.”

Trump was not only unmoved, his Rose Garden break with the rest of the world was seen as overtly hostile.

Jon Ossoff continues to be a better candidate than Karen Handel. With just over two weeks until the June 20 special election in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District, the race continues to be hard-fought, and Handel continues to be kind of … weak. While Ossoff continued hitting Handel on her history of defunding cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood, someone wrote Handel some lines, for her appearance at the state Republican convention, attempting to make her sound witty or relevant or something:

Riffing on the 1979 hit “Devil Went Down to Georgia,” she compared House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi – a favorite foil of the GOP – with a certain horned character: “Nancy is coming down to Georgia. She’s looking for a seat to steal.”

She added, rhyming: “Well, Nancy, my name is Karen. And it might be a sin. But I’ll take your bet – you’re going to regret – cause Georgia’s got Handel in.”

Oh, my. Next time any Republican tries to claim that this seat isn’t gerrymandered to benefit Republicans, point them to that “seat to steal” line, but mostly, oof. What Handel succeeded at showing here is that a nearly 40-year-old country song is too hip for her to successfully riff on. It was also an interesting contrast to something she said about Democrats the previous night at a fundraiser: “Let me tell you they’re determined. They’re also kind of angry.” A lot of Democrats are angry, for sure. But Handel whined about other people’s anger the night before she slotted Nancy Pelosi in as the devil, so … yeah.

Ossoff, meanwhile, is running an ad featuring breast cancer survivors pointing out that Handel “jeopardized cancer screenings for thousands of women” and that “If Karen Handel didn’t want to fund Planned Parenthood, she didn’t have to take the job at Susan G. Komen.” Ossoff followed up the ad by saying that “What we don’t need is for career politicians to be imposing their rigid personal views at the expense of public health in Georgia.” (Watch the ad below.)

The most important thing right now is for every Democrat in the 6th District to vote. Early voting is going on now—click here for full early voting locations and hours. 

Can you chip in $3 to help Jon Ossoff finish strong?

The Intercept just published a story detailing a cyberattack carried out by the Russians that targeted U.S. voting systems in the run up to the 2016 elections. The Intercept writes:

RUSSIAN MILITARY INTELLIGENCE executed a cyberattack on at least one U.S. voting software supplier and sent spear-phishing emails to more than 100 local election officials just days before last November’s presidential election, according to a highly classified intelligence report obtained by The Intercept.

The top-secret National Security Agency document, which was provided anonymously to The Intercept and independently authenticated, analyzes intelligence very recently acquired by the agency about a months-long Russian intelligence cyber effort against elements of the U.S. election and voting infrastructure. The report, dated May 5, 2017, is the most detailed U.S. government account of Russian interference in the election that has yet come to light. [...]

The report indicates that Russian hacking may have penetrated further into U.S. voting systems than was previously understood. It states unequivocally in its summary statement that it was Russian military intelligence, specifically the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, that conducted the cyber attacks described in the document:

Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate actors … executed cyber espionage operations against a named U.S. company in August 2016, evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions. … The actors likely used data obtained from that operation to … launch a voter registration-themed spear-phishing campaign targeting U.S. local government organizations.

The report does not conclude one way or the other whether the cyberattack influenced the election’s outcome and the extent of the incursion remains unclear.

The NSA report has also been independently verified by CBS News now.

There is no "Trump infrastructure plan." There never was, and anyone who believed otherwise was not paying attention. As a businessman, he was continually proven a crook, and he does not have "plans," he merely says whatever the person in front of him wants to hear and then says the opposite the next day. The plan as presented was that Donald Trump was going to spend "one trillion dollars" on infrastructure. The actual Donald Trump "infrastructure" plan, now that he's banked the votes of the people he promised that nonsense to, is to cut infrastructure and you rubes will have to figure out the rest on your own.

President Trump will lay out a vision this coming week for sharply curtailing the federal government’s funding of the nation’s infrastructure and calling upon states, cities and corporations to shoulder most of the cost of rebuilding roads, bridges, railways and waterways.

Got that? It's a federal cut. By "spend a trillion dollars," casino-man Trump and his hired-on business buddies mean they'll be spending zero new dollars, they'll demand states and cities make up that difference or blame them afterward for not doing so, and they'll be selling off as much of the rest of that “infrastructure” as they can, from air traffic control to highways, to Donald Trump's banking and construction buddies. The actual plan still doesn’t exist yet, only the “contours,” but he’ll be introducing it anyway because like the tax “plan” and the healthcare “plan,” including details would only make the plan look even more farcical and implausible than the one-sheet-of-paper version.

The federal government would make only a fractional down payment on rebuilding the nation’s aging infrastructure. Mr. Trump would rely on a combination of private industry, state and city tax money, and borrowed cash to finance the rest. It would be a stark departure from ambitious infrastructure programs of the past, in which the government played a major role and devoted substantial resources to paying the cost of large-scale projects.

Trigger warning: This story contains graphic details of national Democrats and high-dollar donors acting irrationally and being inexplicably stupid. 

The Democratic base is on fire, staging inspirational protest after inspirational protest, posting eye-popping fundraising figures through small-dollar donations, and closing the gap significantly in deep-red districts in Kansas and Montana.

Republicans are on high alert, with good reason. Paul Ryan's Super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, has vowed to raise $100 million toward protecting the House in 2018, including dropping $7 million on the Georgia race between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel.

And then there's the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), presenting the urgency of a slug on a hot California day. The Washington Post writes:

In Montana, the group spent $340,000 to attack Republican Greg Gianforte; its GOP counterpart, the National Republican Congressional Committee, spent $1.8 million against Rob Quist.

A memo the DCCC issued the day after Democrat Quist’s six-point loss mocked Republican groups for spending a combined $6 million to triumph in a traditional GOP stronghold but also said it “Refused to Waste Money on Hype,” claiming that polling did not justify more of its own investment.

Are you joking? The DCCC was smugly covering its butt with a memo while Republicans saved a seat by eking out a 6-point win in a district Trump won by 20. And the Republicans are the dumb ones?? Psst, Democrats, you guys lost. Just FYI. Wonder if "the polling" is the same foolproof stuff that Hillary relied upon—‘cuz that worked out well.

It gets worse. High-dollar Democratic donors are also keeping their powder dry because they think there's better things to do than drive a stake through the heart of Trump's agenda by winning back the House next year.

Lawyers on the left and right agree: The idiot in chief has really outdone himself with his latest Twitter rant concerning his flailing Muslim ban effort. Not only did he explicitly contradict his own communications team's assertion that the order isn't a "ban," he castigated his Justice Department for rewriting the order, which he subsequently gave his imprimatur by signing it into law.

Thanks, Donald, you're really doing wonders for your case that's pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. In other tweets, he touted his administration's "EXTREME VETTING" and threatened to seek a "much tougher version" of the order.

Even Kellyanne Conway's husband, George Conway, once under consideration for a Justice Department post, advised Trump to shut the heck up, writes Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post:

“These tweets may make some ppl feel better, but they certainly won’t help OSG get 5 votes in SCOTUS, which is what actually matters. Sad,” he wrote, using abbreviations for Office of Solicitor General and the Supreme Court. [...]

Omar C. Jadwat, the ACLU lawyer who argued the case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, wrote that Trump’s tweets amounted to “a promise: let me do this and I’ll take it as license to do even worse.” In an interview, Jadwat said the president’s tweets “seem to undermine the picture the government’s been trying to paint.”

Of course, the whole point of rewriting the order was to make it seem more narrowly tailored and focused on safety rather than being broadly based on religious bias.