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PoliGAF 2017 |OT2| Well, maybe McMaster isn't a traitor.

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S

sphagnum

Banned
So Reince paid an intel firm that employs an ex-KGB agent and operates in Russia to dig up oppo dirt on Hilldawg during the campaign:

As the general election was taking shape last summer, the Republican National Committee initiated a series of payments to a low-profile firm started by retired Central Intelligence Agency officers that worked closely with an ex-Russian spy.

The payments attracted attention in political and intelligence circles, largely because the Virginia-based firm, Hamilton Trading Group, had particular expertise in Russia, which was emerging as a major campaign issue at the time.

...

The firm produced two dossiers that tried to make the case that Clinton intervened in Bulgaria and Israel, respectively, on behalf of energy companies that had donated to the Clinton Foundation, according to people briefed on the reports.

...

Adding to the intrigue are the firm’s intelligence connections in Russia, where it was known to perform background checks and provide security services for American officials and companies.

That work was handled by a former KGB agent named Gennady Vasilenko, a Cold War adversary-turned-friend of Wickham’s co-founder, Jack Platt, a retired CIA officer who passed away in January.

Vasilenko declined to comment.
Click to expand...

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/rnc-hillary-clinton-intelligence-firm-payments-236436
 
R

RustyNails

Member
Cesare Borgia said:
Pelosi is a legend. I'd hope this disaster makes people realize how hard this shit actually is, why majorities alone don't guarantee victories, why horse trading/compromises happen, and why leadership matters. Not just the Speaker, but the president. A lot of democrats ended their political careers for Obama, to get the ACA passed.
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Hank Paulson reportedly kneeled before Pelosi in order to pass the first Bailout under George W. Loved this scene from Too Big to Fail

pC0bBY2.png
 
S

sc0la

Unconfirmed Member
Chumley said:
CNN reporting right now that they don't have the votes and this entire thing is hinged on Trump's threat working

lol
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I don't think it's a threat for leverage as much as he is bored of the healthcare thing already. He has to feed his ego and if he can't "make deals" by just showing up on this he will move on to whatever he thinks makes him look good/strong next. saving 15 jobs or having a big league rally
 
N

NihonTiger90

Member
Dana Bash on AC360 just reporting that a Senior White House Official told her the president doesn't think the speaker did enough to get the health care bill passed.

Trump is lining Ryan up for political execution if this fails tomorrow.
 
M

Mirand

Member
Did a quick check of Fox News to see the spin and the top headline is about the smoking gun that Obama spied on Trump. Ok....
 
S

SneakersSO

Member
NihonTiger90 said:
Dana BAsh on AC360 just reporting that a Senior White House Official doesn't think the Speaker did enough to get the health care bill passed.

Trump is lining Ryan up for political execution when this fails tomorrow.
Click to expand...

HAH, thats actually fantastic. Trump gets to take Ryan to task after having to play his game these last few months. The in-fighting is beautiful. The funny thing is, outwardly, everyone is saying Trump is the one who didn't really step up to the plate, and the fact that Trump has already thrown has hands up means he was the first one to give up on it, technically. I'm hoping Ryan uses that as fuel to mudsling back after the weekend.
 
B

balladofwindfishes

Member
NihonTiger90 said:
Dana Bash on AC360 just reporting that a Senior White House Official told her the president doesn't think the speaker did enough to get the health care bill passed.

Trump is lining Ryan up for political execution when this fails tomorrow.
Click to expand...

If they're already making excuses for why it failed, they know it's done
 
C

Cesare Borgia

Banned
S

SneakersSO

Member
balladofwindfishes said:
Shouldn't he be... like, helping? This is his department. He should be out there helping to whip. Seems the White House has given up completely.
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Thats the thing that has me feeling more 'confident' that this isn't going to pass - the White House has been sending very clear messages, both internally & externally, that they don't believe it will pass and have already started to try & figure out how to pin this on Ryan. All before its even gone to a vote.

Trump & his administration needed to be putting forth an image of union & solidarity right now, when really he's making it look like "Every man for himself".
 
Emerson

Emerson

May contain jokes =>
SneakersSO said:
Trump & his administration needed to be putting forth an image of solidarity right now, when really he's making it look like "Every man for himself".
Click to expand...

It basically is. Just yesterday we had a credible report that the FBI believes Trump's team may have directly colluded with a foreign adversary, and now all of D.C. is waiting anxiously for the other shoe to drop while pretending everything is business as usual.
 
D

Diablos

Member
I get what Trump is doing by drawing a line in the sand and going home.

It's a shock to the system; you either vote for what they got to this evening, or you're responsible for the ACA staying in place indefinitely. A law that everyone in the GOP has been desperate to repeal since 03/23/2010. Lots of people in business who work quickly through big things employ this strategy. You poured a lot of your time and effort into a mad rush to try and make something happen, you've given enough concessions, and you go home while those on the fence ponder the alternative (something they hate being left intact as though Obama were still President, in this case). The problem is, Washington is not a ho hum hotel business where you can just do that all the time.

It's a long shot but it just might work. There is so much riding on this and their legislative agenda is running out of time. If this doesn't happen it wounds Trump, Ryan, the whole GOP, really, and what they want to do.

It's still very possible this passes and then we have to suffer through the back and forth between the House and Senate. But right now it seems more likely to fail.

Paul Ryan is such a muppet. He's a nutty pretty boy who doesn't know how to get anything done. I miss Nancy Pelosi.
 
N

neurosisxeno

Member
SneakersSO said:
Thats the thing that has me feeling more 'confident' that this isn't going to pass - the White House has been sending very clear messages, both internally & externally, that they don't believe it will pass and have already started to try & figure out how to pin this on Ryan. All before its even gone to a vote.

Trump & his administration needed to be putting forth an image of union & solidarity right now, when really he's making it look like "Every man for himself".
Click to expand...

This is what happens when winning takes precedent over messaging. The Republican Party is an alliance of people whose only real unifying trait is that they aren't Democrats. That helps win elections, but without some kind of insane supermajority they can't agree on anything. I didn't expect this to get trough once the Freedom Caucus and AARP were against it. To appease the HFC you have to do a clean repeal which pisses off old white people, and the more moderate members of the GOP cannot afford to lose those votes.

As someone said, people threw out their political careers to get the ACA implemented, because they believed in Obama and the change they were making. I've never once seen a Republican put themselves out there like that. If they thought they could pull the wool over people's eyes and destroy the ACA with a lazily thrown together "repeal and fuck it" Bill they are sorely mistaken.
 
P

pigeon

Banned
neurosisxeno said:
This is what happens when winning takes precedent over messaging. The Republican Party is an alliance of people whose only real unifying trait is that they aren't Democrats. That helps win elections, but without some kind of insane supermajority they can't agree on anything. I didn't expect this to get trough once the Freedom Caucus and AARP were against it. To appease the HFC you have to do a clean repeal which pisses off old white people, and the more moderate members of the GOP cannot afford to lose those votes.

As someone said, people threw out their political careers to get the ACA implemented, because they believed in Obama and the change they were making. I've never once seen a Republican put themselves out there like that. If they thought they could pull the wool over people's eyes and destroy the ACA with a lazily thrown together "repeal and fuck it" Bill they are sorely mistaken.
Click to expand...

The only Republicans who believe in what they're doing right now are the Freedom Caucus.
 
S

Slime

Banned
sphagnum said:
That work was handled by a former KGB agent named Gennady Vasilenko, a Cold War adversary-turned-friend of Wickham's co-founder, Jack Platt, a retired CIA officer who passed away in January.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/rnc-hillary-clinton-intelligence-firm-payments-236436
Click to expand...

So, uhh, does anyone know how this guy died?

EDIT: Probably just old age. He was like 81 apparently.

Here's a NYT article about these guys from 2001, btw:

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/07/us/fbi-spy-case-may-explain-arrest-of-a-kgb-agent.html
 
broz0rs

broz0rs

Member
The CBO report today was worse and now they are doing last minute changes to try and woo Freedom members. There will be no CBO score for the bill that goes up for a vote tomorrow. I'm hoping Freedom members vote no and try to set up a power play for House leadership. They took down Boehner, why not Ryan as well?
 
D

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
Chumley said:
This just broke - https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/...grets.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&referer=

The bill is deader than dead. Ryan already getting thrown under the bus. Here we go.
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He is more interested in a win, or avoiding a loss, than any of the arcane policy specifics of the complicated measure, according to a dozen aides and allies interviewed over the past week who described his mood as impatient and jittery.
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It's hard to negotiate over something when you neither know about nor care about the details.
Until this week, Mr. Trump was slow to recognize the high stakes of the fight, or the implications of losing. He approved the agenda putting health care first late last year, almost in passing, in meetings with Mr. Ryan, Vice President Mike Pence and Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff.
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This guy is a dunce.
At a meeting inside shortly after, Mr. Trump announced that he was pressed for time and needed to go make calls for more votes.

A reporter informed him that the vote had already been called off.
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*snicker*
 
M

More_Badass

Member
At a meeting inside shortly after, Mr. Trump announced that he was pressed for time and needed to go make calls for more votes.

A reporter informed him that the vote had already been called off.
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Sounds like a guy who's definitely on top of things
 
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