Magox

Spare me your bull ****. No one said to go to war. And if you are so concerned about the deaths of innocent people then why not care about the innocent people being killed indiscriminately in Syria? With the mentality you hold you would have allowed Nazi Germany to run through all of Europe. And the U.S didn't go to war, dipstick. What they purportedly did was A) send a message and B) take out some of their chemical weapon capabilities. And in regards to "barrycare" lite, that's fine. Rather than get 75% of what "conservatives" wanted, now you are going to see Trump drop his loser nationalist buddies that you love and essentially give the the Freedom caucus a strong message that you either compromise on a package or he'll attempt to go with the Democrats and get a deal. And what many of you yahoo's don't seem to get is that Trump is about the least ideological person we've seen become president in our life time. He sold you all a bill of goods, he lied to you all and you all ate it right up, because that's how gullible some of you are. All he cares about is getting things done, whether it is of a leftist, righty or centrist ideology he just wants to get a deal done. So if he has to get a healthcare deal or tax reform package with lots of democrats and very few nationalists or staunch conservatives, he'll try to do that. Will he be successful? Who knows? But he wants a deal. Now that Bannon is being reduced to a minimal role and Flynn being out, he's starting to gain more support again. And now we are seeing Cohn, Dina Powell, Kushner, Ivanka and the generals starting to take more control, you are seeing a more normalized and centrist sort of policy. That's where I believe his sweet spot will be.

" DEBKAfile's Military forces". That's their sourcing?

Because they thought he would be more chummy chummy with Russia, which would have all sorts of implications if that were to be the case for Europe.

I don't want to give Trump too much credit for having this much forethought but if conventional wisdom surrounding Syria is to be believed (which I personally put at about 75%), then this potentially achieved many thing for Trump. A) Gave Syria some pause regarding what they can and cannot do. B) Let Russia know that there is a new sheriff in town C) Let Iran know that pretty much everything that they thought they had with the US is no longer the case and that they will have to rethink their strategy D) Let Suni Middle East allies know that Trump most likely has their back E) Provided conventional US allies such as England, Germany France etc. a sigh of relief and that a more conventional FP is among them. F) Made N Korea a lot more paranoid of what the US may do and that Trump could be on the verge of taking their leader and their nuke capabilities out. G) Provided a lot more breathing room with these Russia "scandals". He no longer will be viewed as a Putin Puppet. Takes a lot of the steam out of that argument.

I think all too often people fall into the trap believing that everything is a zero-sum decision. You know, there are more colors in the decision making spectrum than just black or white.

No, you dipstick. He tried listening to Flynn and Bannon and got burned, and is seeing that once you have the awesome responsibility of the presidency and the access to intelligence that the rest of us aren't privy to, perspective tends to change. You become more of a grown up and realize that just saying "Repeal Obamacare" or "We only want to take on ISIS" are much easier said than done and are not realistic objectives without having to compromise on those objectives. You can still want to go in the direction of the things that you campaigned on, but to believe that you can implement 100% on the bluster through the campaign is a fool's errand. Watching you yahoo's, the alt-right, the nationalists and some of the anti globalist "con" media hucksters get all up in a tizzy is amusing to say the least.

CNN has gone absolutely batschitt hysterical over Trump and his administration. They have sold out their supposed core principles of being civil libertarians and being the party of war restraint because of him.

To be fair, the sort of throws that Mahomes makes with his body all contorted similar to what we would see out of Rodgers, Rivers or Favre with that gunslinger mentality gives many more hopes that he has that "it' factor more so than Cardale. Not saying that Cardale won't end up being a good QB, just that Mahomes seems to bring a lot of excitement along with that gun of an arm that people crave for.

Two points: A) It is definitely an embarrassing moment for Flynn considering he did say that those who are asking for Immunity usually are people have committed a crime. So, yeah there is that. and B) Obviously we don't know what he's going to say, but my guess is that he won't say anything that the Democrats or mainstream media will be able to latch on to that would incriminate Trump, his team or him. I'm guessing he's frustrated with all the distortions from the media and he wants to set the record straight. I could be wrong, but that's my guess.

If that is the case, then that would mean they have picked up about 10 - 15 people over the past week. I'm guessing a few of the Freedom Caucus guys are coming to their senses, some of them are a complete lost cause. If Trump doesn't go the bipartisan route (which is my preferred way but not Ryan's), then I believe they should go the Krauthammer approach which is to load up the bill with everything they want, knowing that much of it will be stripped once it gets to the Senate parliamentarian so that they could actually vote on a bill that most of them would be more agreeable with.

So, is Ryan trying to bluff the Caucus into being more reasonable or is he being serious? Sounds like to me a good cop bad cop routine between him and Trump.

Which reminds me, can we all agree that Dave Chappell (sp?) is one funny MF'er? And the SJW's are making a big stink over his latest routine. Which begs the question, would GC be nearly universally revered in the comedy world today with all the PC running amok?

So, even though these things have already been happening, the general consensus is that we don't like that they could potentially sell that browser data? Right?

The heat is on! Some are already in retrospect seeing what they had done was as in one of their own words "overplayed their hands".

I don't know how this could be solved, but the most intransigent politicians from both the left and right reside in districts where their biggest threats are not from the opposing party but from someone who can outflank them from the most extreme end in the primary process. It's a problem, I won't say that gerrymandering is the biggest reason why the political process has broken down and why politicians are failing the country, but this certainly isn't helping.

Passing a purely free market bill will never be politically palatable for the American people moving forward. If there is one thing that Obama did achieve with Obamacare, it's that he won the public argument in that expanded coverage has got to be a key tenant to any healthcare plan moving forward. On the other hand, UHC has been fraught with inefficiencies and national budget busting economies throughout the globe. If both parties could actually do what is in the best interest of the American public, there is a working marriage and partnership between government and the private sector. Yes, Obamacare does that to a degree, but there are plenty of market based reforms and medical pricing and transparency measures that could be made that could lower premiums, not include mandated coverages and expand coverage even more so than the ACA.

I'm not a legal or ethics expert, but does this seem right, unethical or possibly somewhere along the way on this effort to gather this information, possibly illegal? Sounds contrived, right?

When I say Obamacare tax cuts, I am referring to the taxes that the ACHA were going to cut due to Obamacare's taxes that were imposed. So yes, it is existing law and if you cut those taxes, that is in fact a tax cut.

Trump talking about Bipartisanship again. Is he bluffing and sending a message to the Freedom Caucus or is he being serious? I think one thing is clear, if a bill does get through whether it's Republican only or with some moderate Democrats, what the Freedom Caucus had originally wanted will never come about. My hopes is that they try to go the bipartisan route, you'll have much more of the country behind it, it would incorporate the goals of expanded coverage and market based reforms. Not to mention when you do things on a bipartisan basis, the odds of the legislation enduring the test of time go up dramatically. I know I've said this a few times, but the key is that they need to identify those that are willing to negotiate in good faith, the rest they have little use for.

It's going to be interesting seeing how the more progressive wing ushers in their "messaging" issues to flyover America. I'm sure it is just a matter of tinkering with their message that will do the trick.

I don't know, maybe there is more to it. But what I do know is that there is an effort from Democrats and a complicit media with more assigned investigative reporters searching for the smoking gun than what we've probably ever have seen and I don't think I'm being exaggerative when I say this. Any mention of Russia with any official or connection to Trump gets hyper sensationalized to the nth degree by the mainstream and social media. I certainly won't vouch for Trump because I do believe at heart he is capable of doing some corrupt ****, but all this "smoke" with the exception of Roger Stone who is one shady dude doesn't seem that out of the norm from what I've read. And no worries and need to apologize. I was simply trying to have you see what I believed to be an effective point that Tom made.

I'm sure that if you dug deep enough into any major political campaign, you could find lots of "smoke" when dealing with such a large influential country such as Russia. The instances that Tom brought up was just to illustrate that similar-like circumstances occur to other campaigns as well. It is not unusual for people that have been in politics and part of the DC game for decades to be hired to lobby for foreign countries, simply because they have more access to American people in power than the average Joe. Is it unseemly and off-putting? Sure. But it's par for the course.

You're still not understanding what Tom was saying. Read it a couple time if you have to, let it sink in............

That wasn't the point. But if you didn't see that from his post and this is your visceral reaction, then why bother?

I point you to DC TOM's post #460