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Priebus getting sacked for possible leaking isn't surprising, there have been leaks this was about to happen..
The more interesting internal WH conflict is against Bannon/Sessions. Bannon wrote some of Trumps major foreign policy/America first speeches and Sessions has been the personification of the tougher immigration stance.
Trump attacking Sessions this week was a big deal. This was followed by the trial balloon about replacing Sessions in a recess appointment (another leak that wasn't frowned upon)
Then Scaramucci goes after Bannon: “I'm not Steve Bannon, I'm not trying to suck my own cock. I’m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the President. I’m here to serve the country"
Trump supporters should be a little concerned this signals a policy shift. If Bannon and Sessions go the Democrat wing of the WH (Ivanka and Kushner) have more influence.
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I think the health care thing really sheds a lot of light on how terriblly the GOP has become a divided party, which has seemingly rejected governing in a democracy - reflecting a wider attitude which rejects compromise as 'flip flopping' or whatever.
In opposition they fought everything and that's come back to hurt them now, where individual members won't toe the line anymore, after (seeming) to realize that hold-outs don't get punished. Trump is betting now that he can distance himself from the GOP and try to hold on to his support.
It's pretty fucking scandalous that they can't get something done. I wonder if there is an opportunity for some one to open a proper debate about what good healthcare looks like. Obamacare is a dog, but all the other ideas are equally bad or worse. It's time to look at working systems from other places and make bold action. I'm wondering whether Trump will now go that way if he is free from GOP influence.
Surprisingly, one of the best things I read this week was a piece suggesting that Bannon wants a higher tax rate on the very rich (income over 5 million) - with apparently some support from Trump. If Trump goes full populist and starts talking that plus expanding medicaid - he's going to be very hard to stop. That looks like the center of US politics to me, and it's an empty space right now.
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On health care - the 'skinny repeal' was not the right way forward. No one should be upset it failed.
It's worth noting that there is agreement between Dems and Reps that they want a managed private insurance system that is used in several countries.
In particular they seem to agree that Switzerland might be a model that fits the US needsThat model relies on penalties and politicians are cowards
There were other issues with Obamacare, but the fundamental one was not having tough penalties. It got worse than that.. the implementation of some penalties/taxes was delayed until well after the 2016 election. Cowards.
What the Reps have proposed so far is fixing less important side issues. They have been too scared to fix the penalty issue. Cowards.
One way forward is a bipartisan bill. Incredibly unlikely, because both parties have legitimate disagreements on other parts of the bill... and they want the other side to be responsible for increasing the penalties.
The other way forward is if Trump stops being disengaged on this.
The President using the bully pulpit can push people into line and provide cover for those who are in agreement.However he has shown no willingness to get his hands dirty. Compare his effort with Obamas (lying) effort.
He's running out of time though. The mid terms aren't that far away and politicians get even more scared with an approaching vote.
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@Rembrandt said in US Politics:
What the hell? Scaramucci's wife is divorcing him because she doesn't like Trump
http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/344395-scaramuccis-wife-files-for-divorce
If true that is a pretty bitchy move.
That's a fairly long bow...
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So as the more invested Fern members of this thread will know, Hillary Clinton has a book coming out which will tell all; What Happened
This is her seventh book with Simon & Schuster since 1996, and the publisher in a news release said Clinton’s latest work is a “cautionary tale” of forces that might have worked against her during the election.
“She speaks about the challenges of being a strong woman in the public eye,” according to the AP, which obtained the release. “The criticism over her voice, age and appearance, and the double standard confronting women in politics.” -
Not really. Pew research says that 47% of leftie Dems can't even handle being friends with a Trump supporter. The white, educated cohort within that are even more partisan.
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@Tregaskis said in US Politics:
Not really. Pew research says that 47% of leftie Dems can't even handle being friends with a Trump supporter. The white, educated cohort within that are even more partisan.
I read some of the comments section. The USA is fucked.
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@Tregaskis said in US Politics:
Not really. Pew research says that 47% of leftie Dems can't even handle being friends with a Trump supporter. The white, educated cohort within that are even more partisan.
You mean "love trumps hate" was just bullshit virtue signalling?
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@Baron-Silas-Greenback said in US Politics:
@Catogrande said in US Politics:
@booboo Blood on the carpet alright. Possible that Scaramouche was brought in just to lay the groundwork.
Not surprising really. I imagine he has been on thin ice for ahile with all the leaks etc. Not big news really.
What is masssively significant is the humiliating failure on healthcare last night. 3 republican senators have fucked the whole healthcare agenda for the GOP.I agree, not too surprising on Preibus after all the recent noise and particularly Scaramucci's tirade. More evidence of a confused administration though, deciding one of you major picks is wrong for the job. In re the leaks I think there are a few interesting questions which are unlikely to get answered.
Is Preibus guilty and if so why did he leak?
Is he innocent (ash) and this is a convenient hook to get rid without actually saying I picked a wrong'un?
Have some leaks been manufactured to provide an excuse for blood letting? -
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@reprobate said in US Politics:
i'm astonished that scarramucci's tirade isn't considered enough to have him sacked.
Perhaps at ay other time but when you've just sacked your Chief of Staff 6 months into the job you don't want to be sacking his successor just days into the job.
Or do you?
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@Catogrande said in US Politics:
@reprobate said in US Politics:
i'm astonished that scarramucci's tirade isn't considered enough to have him sacked.
Perhaps at ay other time but when you've just sacked your Chief of Staff 6 months into the job you don't want to be sacking his successor just days into the job.
Or do you?
i dunno. a communications director who (presumably? mistakenly / could be drunkenly?) goes on-record with a left leaning reporter slagging not only the guy getting sacked, but bannon too? sucking his own cock?
not only is his behaviour just incredibly inappropriate, it is incompetent in the absolute extreme in several ways specific to his job.
unless of course it was deliberate/planned, in which case there are 2 options - deliberate with trump's consent, or deliberate just by scaramucci himself - which have different implications. that's all a bit conspiracy theory for me though - evidence right now points to him just being a fucking idiot. -
@reprobate
You could easily be right in any of those assumptions and I agree that none of them is a good look. Strangely though I find none of it surprising. -
@Baron-Silas-Greenback said in US Politics:
Surely that's a joke? If he won he'd be in his eighties during his presidency.
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@Salacious-Crumb said in US Politics:
The Publicly Available Evidence Doesn’t Support Russian Gov Hacking of 2016 Election
Three days ago, the Washington Post ran this article by Philip Bump — “Here’s the public evidence that supports the idea that Russia interfered in the 2016 election”.
This gist of the article was, since we can’t know what the classified evidence is that supports the U.S. government’s finding in favor of Russian government intereference, there is plenty of public evidence which should convince us.
Bump is wrong about that. The public evidence isn’t enough to identify Russian government involvement, or even identify the nationality of the hackers involved. That doesn’t mean that the Russian government isn’t responsible. It means that we don’t know enough to say who is responsible based solely on the publicly known evidence, including classified evidence that’s been leaked.
Here’s a recap:
Dems have been awfully-awfully quiet about Rooskiegate the past couple weeks, and not just because of calls to subpoena leading Dems for their own Rooskie collusion, and not just because Debbie Wasserman' Schultz is in a mountain of hurt with her own foreign-cyber scandal ready to explode, and not just because Hillary has a new book coming out titled "What Happened," but much more probabaly because the most pathetic witch-hunt of our lifetimes still can't find jackshit.
Anyway, some more good background for those looking to scrapbook the greatest political hoax of the past 15 years and anybody curious:
Intel Vets Challenge ‘Russia Hack’ Evidence
Consortium News / July 24, 2017
In a memo to President Trump, a group of former U.S. intelligence officers, including NSA specialists, cite new forensic studies to challenge the claim of the key Jan. 6 “assessment” that Russia “hacked” Democratic emails last year.
MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Was the “Russian Hack” an Inside Job?
Executive Summary
Forensic studies of “Russian hacking” into Democratic National Committee computers last year reveal that on July 5, 2016, data was leaked (not hacked) by a person with physical access to DNC computers, and then doctored to incriminate Russia.
Signed by:
FOR THE STEERING GROUP, VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITYWilliam Binney, former NSA Technical Director for World Geopolitical & Military Analysis; Co-founder of NSA’s Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center
Skip Folden, independent analyst, retired IBM Program Manager for Information Technology US (Associate VIPS)
Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq & Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)
Larry C Johnson, CIA & State Department (ret.)
Michael S. Kearns, Air Force Intelligence Officer (Ret.), Master SERE Resistance to Interrogation Instructor
John Kiriakou, Former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former Senior Investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Linda Lewis, WMD preparedness policy analyst, USDA (ret.)
Lisa Ling, TSgt USAF (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Edward Loomis, Jr., former NSA Technical Director for the Office of Signals Processing
David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former U.S. Army Infantry/Intelligence officer and CIA analyst
Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East, CIA
Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)
Cian Westmoreland, former USAF Radio Frequency Transmission Systems Technician and Unmanned Aircraft Systems whistleblower (Associate VIPS)
Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA
Sarah G. Wilton, Intelligence Officer, DIA (ret.); Commander, US Naval Reserve (ret.)
Ann Wright, U.S. Army Reserve Colonel (ret) and former U.S. Diplomat(Some might recognize half these signatories as the same skeptical "haters" and "deniers" who led the dissent calling B.S. on Dick Cheney's stockpiles-of-mushroom-clouds-in-45-minute stovepipe-kabuki-theatre back in '02 when they were accused of being on Saddam's payroll. Oh, those were good times.)
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