Magox

Hypocrites from the left and hypocrites from the right are two sides of the same coin.

Tgreg, This is from the Intercept, you often source them. Essentially they speculate the same things DC Tom and I believe to be the case:

I tend to lean towards Krauthammer's take of all this:

This is for any of you who want to get the substantive breakdown of events you can go here and here It comes from the guys on over at hotair which is definitely right leaning, but they are honest and not political hacks like most of the liberal and conservative media. Of course, since it is kinda lengthy and substantive, I would expect that well over half of the board would have no interest in reading this. I'm not here to argue who is worse, I just don't tend to think in those terms.

Yes and No. Most likely one of three things happened. A) Someone from FBI or Justice Department went to FISA courts and got the phone tap, which would be legal. In order to have gotten this they would have to prove probable cause for whatever case that they were making. B) They illegally phone tapped it C) This is all tangential related FISA meta data collection requests and Trump lies that Obama ordered the phone tap. Under scenario A, it would make sense now that this is out for the Obama people to leak that there were people under the Trump campaign that were under investigation and FISA did approve phone taps. Of course, they run the risk of Trump using the bully pulpit/twitter to say "Obama people admits to phone tapping private citizens during election campaign". Of course the media's headlines would be "Confirmed that Trump campaign is under investigation". Under Scenario A, Trump could probably fight this in the public eye and end up being a wash. Scenario B is unlikely, Trump would have access to this information and he could easily produce the goods. Scenario C is the most likely scenario. Again, I believe that the previous administration, Democrats and the media are trying to discredit him at all costs, most of it with hyped up bull ****. But what is right is right and what is wrong is wrong. And anyone viewing Trump with clear eyes knows that this guy is big league bull **** and anything that comes out of his mouth or out of his twitter should be viewed with a high degree of skepticism. This is not a black or white issue. Both sides can be horrible at the same time.

I'm not excusing any of that, believe it or not it was The Intercept's Greenwald's work on WAPO that opened my eyes to a few things. I 100% absolutely believe there is a McCarthy like witch hunt that is going on, and that the media and Democrats are the main perpetrators of this occurrence, along with the ones who I always suspected would be capable of this McCain/Graham. However, that's not what we are talking about. The FBI and FISA courts are one thing, it's another to directly accuse Obama of ordering phone taps. This is a serious charge, Trump isn't just charging anyone he's charging the last US president. The onus is on him to provide proof. If he does provide proof then it will be the biggest scandal since Watergate and that wouldn't be an exaggeration. I dislike Obama on a substantive policy level but I don't find him to be a relatively dishonest man. I don't believe that he would "order" such a thing. Is it possible that some of his cronies carried this out? Yeah, sycophants are capable of doing lots of irrational actions. Like I and Ben Sasse says, the onus is on Trump to now back up what he says. I have a deep disdain for the press, but this is such a humongous accusation, the press should be all over this from both an investigative level and from a standpoint of incessantly pressing the White House for proof. I don't see this story going away.

Senator Ben Sasse Of course Trump will do no such thing and allow his Trumpettes to speculate/defend on his behalf.

Talking about alternate facts, anyone check out Trump's tweet today?

It's a very serious accusation, one would logically think that they would provide proof. This will happen, right? Right???

I've already been super high on Mahomes and after watching that, I am convinced he has the "it" factor. I would be a happy man if we get him with our first round draft choice.

Its normal, both liberals and conservatives on this board, on social media and real life politicians have shown their massive hypocrisy. It's been a real hoot to see

Good, dare them to object to repealing Obamacare. Lets see how that plays out for them.

Here are a couple areas I'd like for anyone who cares how the Repeal and Replace could work only in part through Budget Reconciliation. Outside of Budget Reconciliation, you have to get the good old 60 Filibuster proof amount of votes to push important parts of the health plan. If anyone is interested in really understanding how something like this would need to be done, have a read. And here.

Depends, give me an example.

TYTT, I've read more about this than I would have liked to have but in order for reconciliation to be used, is that many provisions in a replace bill wouldn't have a specific budgetary impact, which within the confines of budget reconciliation does not meet the criteria. Such as selling insurance across state lines, tort reform, maintaining people that are 26 years old on their parents policies or covering people with pre existing medical conditions. These are priorities of Trump and that are in the goals of the House/Price/Trump health plan. The only way they could circumvent the process is to eliminate the fillibuster.

The repeal they can to through reconciliation, but the vast majority of the replace cannot be done under reconciliation.

On a substantive level, rather than repeal and replace the whole law, they should just look to repeal parts of the law and replace parts of it. The idea that you are going to get 60 people to vote for the replace parts of the law that Rand, Cruz and Lee would like are next to nil. I'm playing all the scenarios out in how they will do this and I just don't see it. You guys are seeing the political climate out there, do you really think there is an appetite for Democrats to work with Trump? Seriously, aside from a handful of Dems at most, this would be political suicide. One of the problems is that Repubs will pay a heavy political cost for not repealing and replacing the law. But if anyone is able to hoodwink the entire base, it's Trump. He could suggest/instruct them to Repeal parts of the law and to replace in piecemeal parts. I think there is a shot they could replace parts of the law and get to that 60 vote threshold. I don't know. Someone, help me out. Help me see a way where Democrats will help join in to get 60 votes on a replace.

Tiberius is Baskin?

In December.

I take him for his word, in regards to the conversation he had with the Russian ambassador. Whatever the case may be, he sloppily handled it. Not buying his explanation of the context he believed to be answering the question. Maybe he forgot.

Of course there would have been noise. The calculation is simple, if he had of said what I had suggested or something along those lines, would he have still been confirmed? I'm pretty sure he would have. Sure, there would have been critical coverage, but not enough to sink him. His Senate colleagues on the GOP side wouldn't have sold him down the river for that. He's got too much cred on the right wing and establishment for that to have happened. But now, the pressure is so great from both sides of the aisle, at the very least he'll have to recuse himself of any possible investigation.

Does it look like to you that "he knew better"? To me, it looks like he didn't know better or else he wouldn't be going through this unnecessary shitstorm. A simple "we had an informal discussion about ________________, which is usual for members of the senate, but nothing related to the campaign" would have sufficed. Now he plays right into the hands of the media and rather than have a second day of Trump's positive press coverage speech and follow up of the mini rally he had today, the message gets stepped on with this crap.

I just read the question from Franken, and he asked if anyone from the Trump campaign had communicated with any Russian official during the 2016 campaign? He said not to his knowledge. Technically you can make the argument that he wasn't part of the campaign, but he should have known better. Call what you will, at end of the day it was deceptive. I hate that we are discussing this, because it fits right into the media's penchant to over sensationalize every little damn thing. But he screwed up

I don't buy that explanation. That's not what the question was. As much hyperventilation as there has been over Russia, he should have known better. He either forgot, lied or at best misled.

I understand that the motives are politically contrived and I also understand that Russia is the new boogieman, Democrats have now reversed roles with many Repubs as the new "Neocons". Putting that aside, he either A) lied or B) forgot, which castes doubt on his capacity to be AG.