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Sheepdog

Protecting America from excessive stool loitering
Dec 1, 2015
8,912
14,237
What authority would Kushner have over the Saudi government?
It's just a rumor and deserves no attention. It was published in the gossip column of a right-wing shitrag.

But what about the rumor is difficult to understand? I shouldn't have to explain this to a grown man, but I pity you so I will. Why would Kushner need to have any 'authority over' the Saudi government? Kushner is a senior advisor and the son-in-law of the President - he has great formal and informal authority within the Trump administration.

The implication of the rumor is not that Kushner ordered the murder, just that he provided assurances that Trump wouldn't skullfuck them if they did. And seeing as Trump didn't, then the Saudis would have been correct in accepting Kushner as having the authority to speak on behalf of his dad-in-law and eskimo brother.
 

BeardOfKnowledge

The Most Consistent Motherfucker You Know
Jul 22, 2015
60,547
56,268
It's just a rumor and deserves no attention. It was published in the gossip column of a right-wing shitrag.

But what about the rumor is difficult to understand? I shouldn't have to explain this to a grown man, but I pity you so I will. Why would Kushner need to have any 'authority over' the Saudi government? Kushner is a senior advisor and the son-in-law of the President - he has great formal and informal authority within the Trump administration.

The implication of the rumor is not that Kushner ordered the murder, just that he provided assurances that Trump wouldn't skullfuck them if they did. And seeing as Trump didn't, then the Saudis would have been correct in accepting Kushner as having the authority to speak on behalf of his dad-in-law and eskimo brother.
Do you really think that if Kushner had said not to do it they'd have listened to him? You cant actually be that delusional.
 

Sheepdog

Protecting America from excessive stool loitering
Dec 1, 2015
8,912
14,237
Do you really think that if Kushner had said not to do it they'd have listened to him? You cant actually be that delusional.
I will try to explain this to you very carefully and only because I see it as a challenge to see if I can fix a malfunctioning brain. At no point does this rumor entail that Jared Kushner suddenly had the 'authority' to tell Saudi Arabia what to do or not do. Rather, the rumor entails that Saudi Arabia recognized the theoretical authority of Kushner's father-in-law to get the US government to do all kinds of shit to Saudi Arabia if Saudi Arabia did something to piss said father-in-law off. Like, for example, killing a US resident journalist of a prominent newspaper, which could potentially set off a massive shitstorm that severely damages the Kingdom's image and ability to conduct diplomacy with countries in the world, in turn putting political pressure on said father-in-law to retaliate for domestic political reasons.

Had Kushner told them 'we don't want you to fuck with that journalist' then Saudi Arabia of course could have ignored Kushner, but they would be doing so under the assumption that they were defying Trump - not Kushner - and open to all kinds of potential retaliation. You see, there are things called ambassadors, envoys, advisers that countries have through which diplomacy between countries is often conducted. They are intermediaries, kind of like messengers, in very simplistic terms, if that word is a bit too difficult. They are expected to convey the official position of their countries leadership. It is why when there is a diplomatic crisis between two countries, usually the first thing that happens is each ambassador gets summoned.

And where your failure to understand these simple concepts gets even more ridiculous is that the murder was a massive fuck up that did cause huge problems for Saudi Arabia. And that's without Trump caving to pressure to retaliate, which could have easily happened. It's not at all implausible that the Saudis were less retarded than their subsequent actions made them look and were legitimately worried about the potential fallout if they didn't talk to the Americans first.
 

BeardOfKnowledge

The Most Consistent Motherfucker You Know
Jul 22, 2015
60,547
56,268
I will try to explain this to you very carefully and only because I see it as a challenge to see if I can fix a malfunctioning brain. At no point does this rumor entail that Jared Kushner suddenly had the 'authority' to tell Saudi Arabia what to do or not do. Rather, the rumor entails that Saudi Arabia recognized the theoretical authority of Kushner's father-in-law to get the US government to do all kinds of shit to Saudi Arabia if Saudi Arabia did something to piss said father-in-law off. Like, for example, killing a US resident journalist of a prominent newspaper, which could potentially set off a massive shitstorm that severely damages the Kingdom's image and ability to conduct diplomacy with countries in the world, in turn putting political pressure on said father-in-law to retaliate for domestic political reasons.

Had Kushner told them 'we don't want you to fuck with that journalist' then Saudi Arabia of course could have ignored Kushner, but they would be doing so under the assumption that they were defying Trump - not Kushner - and open to all kinds of potential retaliation. You see, there are things called ambassadors, envoys, advisers that countries have through which diplomacy between countries is often conducted. They are intermediaries, kind of like messengers, in very simplistic terms, if that word is a bit too difficult. They are expected to convey the official position of their countries leadership. It is why when there is a diplomatic crisis between two countries, usually the first thing that happens is each ambassador gets summoned.

And where your failure to understand these simple concepts gets even more ridiculous is that the murder was a massive fuck up that did cause huge problems for Saudi Arabia. And that's without Trump caving to pressure to retaliate, which could have easily happened. It's not at all implausible that the Saudis were less retarded than their subsequent actions made them look and were legitimately worried about the potential fallout if they didn't talk to the Americans first.
What was the fallout to Saudi Arabia again? Oh, yeah everyone stopped buying their oil and selling them weapons to commit a genocide. Oh, wait. None of that happened.

Admittedly I always do enjoy your posts, particularly the longer ones because I know you're going to use a bunch of insults to try to detract from not having any idea what you're talking about. You should consider a career in political debates.
 

Freeloading Rusty

Here comes Rover, sniffin’ at your ass
Jan 11, 2016
26,916
26,743
Donald Trump Jr. Slammed For Outing Alleged Whistleblower, As Major News Outlets Decline To Publish Name
Donald Trump Jr. Slammed For Outing Alleged Whistleblower, As Major News Outlets Decline To Publish Name
Topline: Some right-wing news outlets and conservative circles in Washington—including Donald Trump Jr.—are actively trying to spread the identity of the alleged impeachment whistleblower, while major news outlets decline to publish the name amid concerns for the whistleblower’s safety.

  • Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, tweeted a link on Wednesday to a Breitbart article that named the alleged whistleblower, immediately drawing criticism that he was putting the whistleblower in danger (Trump Jr.’s tweet also included the name of the alleged whistleblower).
  • Right-wing outlets, including Rush Limbaugh on his radio show, have been circulating the name of the alleged whistleblower since last week, citing an October 30 Real Clear Investigations report that included a name and photo of the alleged whistleblower. Executives at Fox News, though, have instructed hosts not to name the whistleblower, CNN reported.
  • Real Clear Investigations is an offshoot of RealClearPolitics, a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. (RealClearPolitics did not immediately respond to request for comment from Forbes.)
  • With the exception of Real Clear Investigations, major news outlets (including Forbes) have published scant details about the whistleblower, according to Washington Post media writer Paul Farhi, because of “several factors: concerns that revealing the name could jeopardize the whistleblower’s safety; legal questions about whether the whistleblower’s identity is protected by federal law; and potential adverse public reaction to such a disclosure.”
  • Both Dean Baquet, executive editor of the New York Times, and the Associated Press added that the identity of the whistleblower is almost a moot point because a call transcript released by the White House and on-the-record testimony from top administration officials have confirmed much of what the whistleblower alleged.
  • Trump Jr. dismissed the outrage, saying in a follow-up tweet: “Are they going to pretend that his name hasn’t been in the public domain for weeks now? Numerous people & news outlets including Real Clear Politics already ID’d him.”
  • While whistleblowers have some protections under federal law, there is no statute stopping the president or a member of Congress from revealing their name.
Key background: While RealClearPolitics is the only nonpartisan outlet to reveal the name of the whistleblower, the New York Times in September published some details about him, including the fact that he is a male CIA officer who was detailed to work at the White House. Since then, other outlets have corroborated the New York Times but have not published additional details.


Meanwhile, Trump himself and some members of Congress, including senators Rand Paul and Lindsey Graham, have called on the whistleblower’s identity to be revealed, with Graham, according to the Associated Press, saying Wednesday that, “Nobody should be prosecuted based on an anonymous accusation.” Earlier this month, Trump called the whistleblower a “spy” working to undermine his administration.

Chief critics: The whistleblower’s lawyer, Andrew Bakaj, said in a statement that he could neither confirm nor deny the whistleblower’s identity, and that anyone publishing the name of the suspected whistleblower “puts that individual and their family at risk of serious harm.”

News peg: House Democrats have launched an impeachment inquiry into Trump’s actions in response to a phone call between Trump and Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky. On the July call, Trump directed Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter for corruption. Trump and Rudy Giuliani claim that then-vice president Biden pushed for the resignation of Ukraine’s top prosecutor in an effort to quash an investigation into Burisma Holdings, where Hunter Biden had a board seat.
 

Freeloading Rusty

Here comes Rover, sniffin’ at your ass
Jan 11, 2016
26,916
26,743
Stone Trial Opens With Information Indicating Donald Trump May Have Lied to Robert Mueller
Stone trial opens with information indicating Donald Trump may have lied to Robert Mueller
Roger Stone is on trial, and the proceedings are bad news for President Donald Trump, with federal prosecutors citing evidence that suggests Trump might have lied to Special Counsel Robert Mueller. And that sort of lying can be a crime.

The trial kicked off on Wednesday at a federal courthouse in Washington, DC, with a bit of a circus atmosphere. The neo-fascist Proud Boys were there, as well as other luminaries of the alt-right, to support Stone, the dirty trickster and conspiracy theorist who has been a Trump adviser since the 1980s. Facing seven felony counts, Stone is charged with lying repeatedly to the House Intelligence Committee, obstructing justice, and witness tampering. But this case goes beyond Stone’s alleged lies: prosecutors have revealed new information about how Trump tried to benefit from the Russian operation during the 2016 campaign that hacked the Democratic National Committee’s servers. And they are producing material undercutting Trump’s claim to Mueller that he has no recollection of talking to Stone during the campaign about WikiLeaks. This information also presents a new wrinkle in the Trump-Russia scandal: Trump might have thought in 2016 that his campaign, in effect, was colluding with WikiLeaks. That’s because the campaign was communicating with Stone about WikiLeaks’ plans and intentions and campaign officials (and perhaps Trump) believed Stone was in contact with WikiLeaks.

“The evidence in this case will show that Roger Stone lied to the House Intelligence Committee because the truth looked bad,” lead prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky said in his opening statement on Wednesday. “The truth looked bad for the Trump campaign and the truth looked bad for Donald Trump.”

One of the key points Mueller investigated was whether the Trump campaign had interacted with WikiLeaks or Russian intermediaries in 2016 when Moscow was using WikiLeaks for its operation to subvert the US presidential campaign (which was mounted in part to help Trump win). Trump refused to be questioned in person by Mueller and his investigators. Instead, he agreed to answer written questions on a limited number of subjects. Several of the queries Mueller submitted to Trump focused on whether he was ever told Stone had been in touch with WikiLeaks and whether he or anyone associated with his campaign had spoken to Stone about WikiLeaks. In his written response, Trump replied, “I do not recall being told during the campaign that Roger Stone or anyone associated with my campaign had discussions with any of the entities named in the question regarding the content or timing of release of hacked emails.” He also noted, “I do not recall discussing WikiLeaks with [Stone], nor do I recall being aware of Mr. Stone having discussed WikiLeaks with individuals associated with my campaign.” And Trump, who has boasted of possessing a prodigious memory, claimed to have “no recollection of the specifics of any conversations I had with Mr. Stone between June 1, 2016” and Election Day. The impression Trump provided: as far as he knew, he and his campaign had had nothing to do with Stone and WikiLeaks.

Mueller’s report characterized Trump’s responses as “inadequate.” Zelinsky’s opening statement suggests Stone’s trial could show Trump’s statements were false.

On June 14, 2016, the Washington Post reported that the DNC had been hacked by Russia. On that same day, Zelinsky said, Stone, an unofficial campaign adviser, spoke by phone with Trump. Zelinsky also cited another suspicious call. This occurred on July 31, 2016—not too long after WikiLeaks had at the start of the Democrats’ convention released thousands of DNC emails and documents stolen by the Russians. Stone phoned Trump and the two men spoke for about 10 minutes. Prosecutors don’t know what the men discussed, according to Zelinsky, but about an hour later, Stone emailed Jerome Corsi, a right-wing conspiracy theorist who was helping Stone’s efforts to attack Hillary Clinton. Stone instructed Corsi to travel to London and “get to” Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who was holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy to avoid arrest by British authorities.

Corsi has since claimed that he did not speak to Assange or anyone connected to WikiLeaks. Yet on August 2, Corsi emailed Stone, “Word is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps. One shortly after I’m back. 2nd in Oct. Impact planned to be very damaging.” The next day, Stone emailed his former lobbying partner Paul Manafort, who at this point was the Trump campaign’s chairman. Stone, according to Zelinsky, told Manafort he had an idea “to save Trump’s ass,” and he asked Manafort to call him.

Stone later emailed Trump campaign CEO Steve Bannon, who joined the Trump campaign after Manafort’s mid-August ouster, and asserted that time was running out for Trump to salvage his candidacy. Stone said in this message, sent on August 18, that he knew how to win the election “but it ain’t pretty.” Bannon wrote back, in part: Let’s talk ASAP.” Zelinsky told the court that Bannon will testify that he and Stone “had been talking all summer long” about WikiLeaks and that Stone had told Bannon what he had been claiming publicly: that he had inside information on WikiLeaks. (Stone now insists he had been lying and possessed no inside connection to WikiLeaks.) In October 2016, when Assange gave a bizarre press conference widely seen as a dud because he did not disclose new material on Hillary Clinton, Bannon immediately emailed Stone to ask, “What was that?” Stone assured Bannon that Assange still planned to release additional emails. And days later, WikiLeaks began releasing messages the Russians had swiped from Clinton campaign chief John Podesta. Trump touted those releases extensively in the final weeks of campaign, declaring, “I love WikiLeaks.”

The story that Zelinsky began telling at the start of the trial raised the possibility (or probability) that Trump and his campaign did interact with Stone regarding the WikiLeaks releases of stolen Democratic documents—and that they considered Stone a backchannel to Assange and his organization. (It remains an open question whether Stone had indeed obtained inside information on WikiLeak’s plans. Stone’s lawyers argued Wednesday that he only was sharing information that was already public.) Yet Trump told Mueller he had no memory of him or anyone else connected to his campaign communicating with Stone about WikiLeaks. That seems hard to believe. Lying to Mueller could be a crime—similar to the crime that Stone has been charged with. And though Mueller noted in his final report that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted on a federal charge, he did indicate that a president could be prosecuted once he or she leaves office.

The Stone trial is expected to last several days, and it may well continue to produce information that, as Zelinsky said, looks “bad for Donald Trump.”
 

Freeloading Rusty

Here comes Rover, sniffin’ at your ass
Jan 11, 2016
26,916
26,743
Donald Trump approves mission to return US troops to Syria to 'secure oil'
Donald Trump approves mission to return US troops to Syria to 'secure oil'
Donald Trump has approved a mission for US troops to return to Syria to "secure" its oil fields, despite promises to withdraw all forces from the war-torn country.

Under Mr Trump’s new plan, troops would protect a large swath of land controlled by Syrian Kurdish fighters that stretches nearly 90 miles of the oil-rich province of Deir Ezzor in the east.

The Pentagon will not say how many of the some 2,000 forces it once had in Syria would remain, however officials have suggested the total number could reach as many as 800.
 

Freeloading Rusty

Here comes Rover, sniffin’ at your ass
Jan 11, 2016
26,916
26,743
Cant add a poll but feel free to give your opinion.

Do you (AMERICANS) feel 'happier' with your current president?

Has your wage gone up beyond the rate of inflation over the last few years?





Everything Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle Said on Their Volatile The View Interview
Everything Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle Said on Their Volatile The View Interview
“I sort of believe that the American people — and again, I understand with full disclaimer, I’m the son of a rich guy from New York — but I spend a lot of time in middle America… and honestly, people are happy,” he said.

“They see the results, they see wages going up. No idea how many democrats come up to me and say, Don, I wish they’d let him do his job. And that’s the problem. The Democratic party has left the working class that they used to represent.”