Epstein Secrets

stice Department lawyers on surveillance issues; firing Cheney's dearest friend, Donald Rumsfeld, from his Pentagon job; letting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice win the argument over whether to bomb a Syrian nuclear reactor site (we didn't). Finally understand that he had been seriously played by Cheney, in

been a weird amnesty and amnesia about people's misjudgment on the most consequential decision of our times.... Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bremer, Rice, McCain, Abrams, and others including the pro-war press claque are still offering their judgments unfazed. One of my father's saying is, "history i

e, and Florida participated in the suit asking the Supreme Court to declare the whole plan unconstitutional. Nonetheless, Mr. Scott recently shocked Tea Party activists by announcing his support for the Medicaid expansion. But his support came with a condition: he was willing to cover more of the uninsure

e new national-security adviser, and Condoleezza Rice, the new Secretary of State—rise, especially on

ffairs. After the election, Cheney saw the influence of his principal ideological opponents—Stephen Hadley, the new national-security adviser, and Condoleezza Rice, the new Secretary of State—rise, especially on issues such as Syria, North Korea, and the Administration's policy on torture. Cheney's recent memo

ot as monolithically opposed to a deal as one might think. Last year's talks taught the White House that there are divisions between the hard-right Tea Party faction that is unilaterally opposed to any tax hikes and more traditional Republicans who are so concerned about the long-term deficit that under

ervatives like Paul D. Wolfowitz pressed a doctrine of preventive war and put it into effect in Iraq. Eventually, more pragmatic conservatives like Condoleezza Rice pulled the president back toward diplomacy. Over the last four years, Republicans tried to paper over their divisions. In the 2008 and 2010 electi

has derided Mr. Obama's handling of foreign policy (notably on Iran and Israel) with overheated rhetoric but only vague hints at alternatives. Ms. Rice (whose rhetorical jab at Mr. Obama's "leading from behind" was a big applause line) and Mr. McCain (whose calls for aiding the Syrian opposition dr

oconservatives who opposed even the modest defense cuts suggested by former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates have come up against neo-isolationist Tea Party-backed tax-cutters and their guru, Grover G. Norquist. At the same time, some Republicans who have long said that government spending doesn't gener

oy milk. You got lactose-free ice cream. You got Rice Dream. You got beauty products never tested on an

ontested that Reagan actually "wrote the playbook" for today's far-right GOPers. He compared Reagan's views on income inequality and race to today's Tea Party ("On race, his ideas couldn't be more Tea Party if he shouted them from a rascal scooter") and even credited him for inspiring today's colorful Tea

Brennan, the CIA director; James Clapper, the director of national intelligence; Susan Rice, the outgoing National Security Advisor; and Ben Rhodes, Rice’s deputy and an Obama favorite. Movie scenarios were painted: a cabal of intelligence community myrmidons, privy to all sorts of damning evidence of

ain off-again presidential candidate, in 2010; at a meeting in Trump Tower, Bannon had proposed to Trump that he spend half a million dollars backing Tea Party-style candidates as a way to further his presidential ambitions. Bannon left the meeting figuring that Trump would never cough up that kind of dough.

ught Katie Walsh. “That’s what you think?” Bannon, joining Walsh in a pitiless contempt for the White House effort, targeted Kushner, Cohn, Priebus, Price, and Ryan in a series of calls to reporters. Kushner and Cohn could, per Bannon, be counted on to run at the first sound of gunfire. (Kushner, in fac

right, meanwhile, was more and more challenged by younger conservatives. In the Obama years, the conservative movement was increasingly bewildered by Tea Party rejectionism and a new iconoclastic right-wing media, exemplified by Breitbart News, which was pointedly excluded from the CPAC conference. In 2011,

National Republican Senatorial Committee, 112 National Security Advisor Brzezinski as, 66 Flynn as, 4, 17, 95, 101-7, 191 McMaster as, 176, 188-89 Rice as, 6, 41 National Security Agency (NSA), 102, 223 National Security Council (NSC), 42, 103, 105, 176, 185-86, 190-91, 193, 265, 267 Navarro, Peter,

9 Suzy magazine, 15 Swan, Jonathan, 299 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020135 Syria, 42, 183-84, 188-93, 219, 226, 265 Taliban, 267 tax reform, 87, 167, 224, 290 Tea Party, 5, 18, 26, 33, 58-59, 128, 161-63 Thiel, Peter, 21, 222, 309 Thrush, Glenn, 91, 277 Tillerson, Rex, 4, 21, 86, 211, 225, 229, 265, 267, 296, 304-6 T