Mitch McConnell: No Recess Until You Finish Taking Away Americans' Healthcare

And no ice cream until you pass tax cuts

Mitch McConnell is serious about at least looking like he's going to kill Obamacare, and has announced the Senate's August recess will be delayed by two weeks so it can catch up on the important work of leaving tens of millions of Americans without health insurance, because those darned Democrats keep preventing Republicans from agreeing on whether the bill should be merely brutal, horrible, and deadly to the poor, or extra-brutal, double-horrible, and mega-deadly to the poor. Also, McConnell is astounded that Democrats haven't confirmed Donald Trump's first wave of judicial nominees after a whole two months, the laggards.

“To provide more time to complete action on important legislative items and process nominees that have been stalled by a lack of cooperation from our friends across the aisle, the Senate will delay the start of the August recess until the third week of August,” McConnell said.

After all, during McConnell's first two years as majority leader, Republicans rushed to confirm a whopping 20 Obama judicial nominees. Beyond killing off the nation's progress in reducing its uninsured rate, McConnell also wants to pass a defense authorization bill and raise the debt ceiling, which is now a Republican priority instead of a reason to threaten shutting down the government.

And damn it, Mitch McConnell has had it with all the Democratic obstructionism making Republicans unable to agree on a health care bill. It's not entirely clear what cavalcade of horrors McConnell will dump into the latest Senate version, which like its earlier incarnation is being written in such complete secrecy that Senate Republicans are pretending there isn't even a draft yet, as Vox explains. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. Who said it was any of your business? Yeah, they released a draft last month, and the CBO scored it, and it's wildly unpopular, but thanks to Republican mind magic, that draft has ceased to be already, as Texas Senator John Cornyn tweeted last Friday:

How can Democrats oppose a bill that doesn't exist yet? Silly Democrats! Now get all these wheelchairs out of my office. People in the wheelchairs? There's no bill, so there's nothing to protest, so Cornyn doesn't see any protesters.

As Vox explains, this is the niftiest of technically correct wordplay, since what the Senate is working on in secret is actually an amendment that would eventually take the place of the House's Killing-Obamacare bill:

Yes, it’s technically a discussion draft that has not been filed for a vote. But it’s a bill. It is 145 pages that the Senate could take up and pass, if Republican leaders had the votes. The CBO itself refers to it as “the Senate bill” in its analysis.

So you see, if there's no bill, there's nothing for conservatives and "moderates" to disagree on, although -- wouldn't you know it -- there's still something to blame Democrats for "obstructing." And those silly protesters are protesting nothing, you see!

A staffer with Senator Burr just told the protesters here that there is no bill for them to protest pic.twitter.com/1fkQ31smmg 

— Jeff Stein (@JStein_Vox) July 10, 2017