My prediction: tomorrow’s tweet will be some variation on the theme that McCain should not have been allowed to vote because he has a brain tumor which of course affects his thinking (because that is about the level of the Cheeto in Chief).
Well, John Boehner was right.
McCain’s tumor is smarter than Trump.
Just sent this:
I suspect these two will need all the love they can get, given the institutional misogyny of the Republican party and its supporters. I think I remember something about them getting death threats; I’d bet folding money they’ll be getting them now.
Man, I can’t believe McCain saved our bacon on this one.
Maybe, to quote Dylan, he “was lookin’ to do just one good deed before he died.”
Mitch isn’t giving up on this, of course. But this was big.
I’ll do the same for them, when I can sound more sensible. 
So … McCain rushed back to DC, voted to let the debate start, and then shut the vote down After giving a speech about bi-paartisanship. If only he’d had that brain surgery sooner!
So, where do we stand? The ‘skinny repeal’ that was just voted down was McConnell’s amendment to whatever the hell bill it was that they voted to proceed to debate on, back on Tuesday.
So if I understand this correctly, the bill itself is still on the floor, amendments to that bill can still be offered and voted on, ditto the bill itself. So anytime Mitch gets a new idea of something that he might get 50 votes for, he can bring it to the floor without further ado. Again, if I understand this correctly.
Not sure what sort of bill he’d try that hasn’t already been tried, but this shit sandwich came awful close.
Nope, that was it. Rung down the curtain, joined the Congress Invisible…
The other tactical thing is that this afternoon, the House goes on recess until after Labor Day. While it looked like the Senate was on the verge of passing a bill, many conservatives (who had Ryan’s ear, evidenced by his passing ‘martial law’ as jsgoddess mentioned in post #1051) were inclined to delay the beginning of their recess for a few days if that would give them the opportunity to rush the Senate bill into law.
Now they’ve got no reason not to go home today, so presumably that’s what they’ll do. And that would postpone any House vote until September, when people are back from their vacations and more likely to notice what’s in the news. They really would have preferred to push this through during the summer.
Not least because they have kind of a lot of shit to do next September. Not having the tax cuts from health care is going to foul up their attempts at tax reform, plus they need to do something about the budget. Plus-plus the Obamacare mess is going to be deflating like the Hindenburg all Autumn before the enrollment starts in November.
Confusion to the enemy!
Color me pleasantly surprised.
These Republican ghouls are only happy when they hurt people or destroy something beautiful. Heaven help their next target now that these arsonists have a pent up load of nihilistic hate to unleash. The West Wing was a lie.
Brother and Sisters, let us not forget rest of the picture and take a moment to pay our utmost contempt to The Koch brothers who have spent tens of millions over the last decade trying to buy legislators for the primary purpose of defeating Obamacare. At least for the moment, by the thinnest razor edge of margins, our democracy is not yet totally for sale.
One more thought on Sens. McCain, Murkowski, and Collins:
This bill would have gone down if McCain had stayed home in Arizona, and Collins and Murkowski would have deservedly gotten all the credit. (And all the brickbats from conservatives too, of course.)
Instead, McCain flew east, injected himself into the middle of everything, extended the process for an agonizing extra few days by voting for the Motion to Proceed on Tuesday, and then got to play the hero by being the third vote for finally killing the process he’d kept alive.
Such a drama queen. What glimmer of good feeling I had toward him in the wee hours is gone. Fuck him.
Much thanks to Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins for hanging tough. And I bet neither of them would have anything to worry about in a duel with Blake Farenthold. 
There’s a possible big-ass fly in the ointment: Loser Trump is going to be pissed. He might accept defeat in a dignified and generous fashion. Ha! Good one!
Or he will go on a rampage of sabotage. That’s the other possibility. Remember how he was talking about that, screwing it up until the Dems beg for mercy? That’s my bet. Love to be wrong, but I’m probably not.
I bet there are some powers that be regretting delaying the vote until McCain could get back from surgery. They were counting on his “yes” and got a “no” instead.
I think he’s been saving his anti-pee party, anti-Trump pellet for the right moment. I guess he figured now was as good a time as any.
It wouldn’t have made a difference. If McCain stayed home, the “no” votes from Murkowski and Collins would have been enough to kill the repeal.
One could take the charitable view that McCain played the villain (from the Republicans’ perspective), taking some heat off from Collins and Murkowski. I doubt that was his motive, but I wonder if that would be the effect.