Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) suggested….that he’d like to duel with female senators he blames for the Senate’s failure to repeal and replace ObamaCare (A)

“Congress gives more care and consideration to bills renaming post offices than it has to legislation with staggering consequences for the health care system.” (B)

“After a strangely quiet weekend, this week Senate Republicans are scheduled to push through votes on a budget-reconciliation bill designed to repeal and/or replace Obamacare. There are at least six big questions that are hanging fire at the moment:
Can McConnell find a formula for a version of BCRA that snags 50 votes?
Will an ailing John McCain show up to save McConnell’s bacon?
Will Mitch McConnell go for broke on bringing up the bill even if he’s not sure he has the votes?
Where are Paul and other wavering senators on beginning debate?
Is a “straight repeal” of Obamacare truly doomed?
How will Republicans deal with potentially calamitous Senate parliamentarian’s rulings?” (C)

“Apparently short of votes even to begin that process, President Trump ratcheted up pressure for Republican senators to get on board, criticizing them for inaction and warning that they risked betraying seven years’ worth of promises to gut the health law and revamp it if they did not….”
“The remarks from Mr. Trump, who has been largely absent from the policy debate, had the ring of a threat by a president who has grown frustrated watching Republicans repeatedly try and fail to reach consensus on his promise to immediately roll back the health law and enact a better system. He said their constituents would exact a price for inaction — “you’ll see that at the voter booth, believe me” — and hinted that any Republican who did not support the bid to open debate on an as-yet-determined health bill would be painted as complicit in preserving a health law passed on the basis of “a big, fat, ugly lie.”” (D)

“Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, a holdout on the bill, said confusion reigns among lawmakers.
“We have no earthly idea what we will be voting on,” Paul said on Fox News Monday afternoon. “Last week they said we’re going to vote on a clean repeal. I said hooray, that’s what we promised. Now I’m told it may be the new Senate leadership bill, which is a big insurance bailout that I’m not for and doesn’t repeal Obamacare. So nobody has told us.”” (E)

(A) Senate Republicans Don’t Know What Health Care Bill They’re About To Vote For. That’s Nuts., by Jeffrey Young, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/senate-republicans-dont-know-what-health-care-bill-theyre-about-to-vote-for-thats-nuts_us_59761b30e4b0e79ec19ae12b
(B) GOP lawmaker suggests duel with female senators, by Jacqueline Thomsen, http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/343477-gop-lawmaker-female-senators-are-responsible-for-healthcare-bill-failure
(C) Six Key Questions About the Senate Health-Care Bill As the Endgame Approaches, By Ed Kilgore, http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/six-final-questions-about-the-senate-health-care-bill.html
(D) Senate Heads Toward a Health Care Showdown Vote Tuesday, by Thomas Kaplan and Julie Hirschfeld Davis, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/24/us/politics/senate-health-bill-obamacare-repeal-and-replace-trump-mcconnell.html
(E) Trump: Senate GOP needs to fulfill promise to end ‘Obamacare nightmare’, by Jeremy Diamond, MJ Lee and Lauren Fox, http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/24/politics/senate-trump-health-care-vote/index.html