Premise: 'Okay,' I muttered to White.

Hypothesis: I yelled towards White.
Answer: no

Premise: A few people sat around a slime green table playing poker.

Hypothesis: People played cards.
Answer: yes

Premise: Brinkley skirts the arguments against his rosy vision.

Hypothesis: Brinkley is optimistic in his viewpoint and in the book he ignores arguments that contradict him.
Answer: it is not possible to tell

Premise: Something else rasped across his sciatic nerve.

Hypothesis: Fear rasped across his sciatic nerve.
Answer: it is not possible to tell