Off Topic - something is happening regarding Manafort testifying before the House (?) Intel committee. For a second there was a banner on the front page of the Washington post which then turned to a link for a Press Conference (top of the page) for Congressman Schiff. https://www.washingtonpost.com/
I don’t think this dumbass realizes that the House vote is just one half of the equation. It still has to get through the Senate before it goes to his desk.
Oh School House Rock! Where are you when we need you?
Trump’s* Congress refuses to let public or CBO see changes to republican healthcare-murder bill; but vote to fast-track legislation and by-pass the usual legislative safeguards.
This fish rots from the head down.
Maybe that’s because of the upcoming Trump* story:
Allegedly, Trump* entered into an agreement with a private Russian oil conglomerate Rosneft for 0.5% of the companies total profits in exchange for lifting U.S. sanctions.
The details of this arrangement were established at the Mayflower Hotel in a private meeting attended by Trump*; Jeff Sessions; Kushner, Lewandowski; Manafort and Bud McFarlane [see: Iran-Contra] among others.
This would be the 3rd meeting Jeff Sessions had with the Russians that he failed to reveal under oath.
Manafort has volunteered to testify.
Ryan thinks he can call this car wreck trumpcare and blame it on Mr. Trumpsky; & vice versa. Faux News will bondo, hammer and paint the result for public consumption.
Even the insurance industry does not like what they see because their profits under the dreaded ACA went waaaay up. If they lose 20 million or so insurance policies, financial prospects are not so good.
Wow. Shit, meet fan.
The one banner (about Manafort) almost immediately switched to the link to the press conference. I may have conflated those as meaning they were related. Seems to be more about changes in which hearings will be open or closed.
Very interesting - even the timing of Manafort agreeing to testify - announced by Nunes days after he takes a public drubbing for his bizarre behavior playing tattler of classified material to the WH - with a possible explanation (Manafort) of what he (Nunes) was talking about. Of course it would be a contradictory narrative as Nunes in his press conference(s) said that what he found was not involved in the Russia investigation.
Crazy news days this week.
Wasn’t Tillerson also banging Rosneft? I believe so.
Oh good gawd. It keeps getting worse.
To quote Feinstein: Trump is going to “get himself out.”
The questions now are:
- Is Pence implicated in this too? Prior knowledge aka part of the cover-up?
- Will Drumpf and company be able to secure pardons?
Which means it just gets better and better.
One of the problems - one of many, many, many such problems - with having such an ignorant blowhard for a President, is that he has no factual foundation from which to negotiate or cajole members of Congress to vote for this malodorous piece of crap. He can’t participate in any meaningful give-and-take on the bill because he doesn’t know what’s in it, wouldn’t understand it even if he read it, doesn’t know why anyone thinks it’s an improvement over what the ACA did, doesn’t even really know what the ACA does. He just knows that it’s a “dis-ass-tuh” and that his fellow bazillionaire Mar-a-Lago members don’t like to pay for their employees’ health insurance. So, asking or expecting Donald J. Trump, who doesn’t know a blessed thing about health care or insurance or underwriting or anything really, to become engaged in the typical horse trading that takes place in order to get a given piece of legislation passed, is just a fantasy. All the man knows how to do is threaten people. But when your own approval rating, just 8 weeks into the job, is in the 30’s, and the approval rating for the bill in question is in the teens, you can blow all the threatening smoke you want; you just don’t have that much leverage. And that’s the only thing Donnie Deadbeat knows how to do.
He badly needs to be put in his place. For once, I am pulling for the Freedom Caucus/Crazy Wing of the GOP. Vote “No”.
Where IS Pence? I haven’t heard a peep out of him in a long time.
He’s been busy eviscerating health insurance for ob-gyn care and other icky stuff.
He simply said “we’ll have to see.”
“I call upon all Americans to do everything they can to pass this critical, life-or-death legislation.”
“Now watch this drive.”
Given the steadily accelerating rate Putin is killing off anyone capable of testifying against his regime Manafort is most likely going to ask for a deal and protection. There’s no way anyone can hope to contain this mess. Not with Trump tweeting away the store and rank amateurs like Nunes providing cover fire.
I don’t think Pence was in on anything before he joined the campaign. He was well ensconced in a reelection campaign here. Regardless of his boyscout image - it is hard to imagine that he has stayed outside of this vortex of swirling corruption and illegalities since he joined the campaign. The whole “Flynn has to go!” only after it became known that he had lied to Pence - but long after the Trump had been told of Flynn’s action - suggests maybe they have kept him out of the loop.
Nobody knew passing legislation could be so complicated.
Pence it too much of a heartland square to wittingly collaborate with the knee jerk corruption that is second nature to Trump and his thugs.