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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
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I'd say probably not, given that he's already testified. If the discrepancies are significant enough then it could go either way, but based on what we're seeing they may have already got what they wanted from him.
He's a pretty slippery dude. Just look at everything that went on at Blackwater Xe Academi, or his current super shady venture. I'm sure he'll land on his feet, we just need to make sure we get everything he knows first.
edited 6th Apr '18 12:40:00 PM by archonspeaks
They should have sent a poet.DOW is down 700 points (erasing this week's gains and then some), mostly due to fears of an impending trade war with China.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/04/06/investing/stock-market-dow-jones-trade-war-china/index.html
On the economic subject, you see a lot of stories where businesses and individuals in Russia or a given Banana Republic get sanctioned specifically. Any chance of that happening to the Trump Organization/various individuals involved in it?
Speaking of Republicans who are not Trump, it looks like Gov Kasich is not not running for President by visiting New Hampshire. Full article text
That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - SilaswJust saw this Political Cartoon courtesy of Steve Benson, setting the Stormy Daniels scandal to the tune of "Windy" by The Appreciation
.
x5 The reason I ask, is because he testified before the House Intel committee, instead of with the FBI, or even the senate, and I think we can all agree that that investigation was a sham.
I've actually seen speculation that part of the reason why the House Republicans were so eager to shut the investigation down, is because they were worried that they would get implicated in this. We already know that other Republicans have used Cambridge Analytica, and may have some sort of financial tie to them or a related shell company.
edited 6th Apr '18 12:55:04 PM by megaeliz
The Pruitt story, just got weirder, if that were possible.
Lobbyist couple had to change the locks on Pruitt
But the new Environmental Protection Agency administrator didn’t leave when his lease ended, instead asking the lobbyist couple who became his disgruntled landlords to revise his lease several times, according to two people with knowledge of the situation.
The couple, Vicki and Steve Hart, became so frustrated by their lingering tenant that they eventually pushed him out and changed their locks. After trying to nudge Pruitt out of their home over the course of several months, the Harts finally told Pruitt in July that they had plans to rent his room to another tenant.
“The original arrangement was that he would be there living out of a suitcase … and it just kept going and going,” said one of the people with knowledge of the arrangement.
The condo, in which Pruitt rented a bedroom for $50 a night, has attracted the attention of the EPA’s inspector general, which said Thursday it was considering opening an investigation, alongside already-existing reviews of Pruitt’s taxpayer-funded first-class travel, his use of a special hiring authority to grant raises to aides and his spending on a soundproof phone booth for his office....
...Both people familiar with the condo arrangement described Pruitt as a difficult tenant who, intoxicated by his newfound power, paid little attention to the headaches he was causing others.
Prior to Pruitt’s arrival in Washington, Steve Hart — an energy lobbyist who, like Pruitt, is a native Oklahoman — had been a friend and supporter of the EPA administrator’s. He and his wife, a health care lobbyist, viewed the six-week living arrangement as a favor to a friend.
They drew up a lease running from February through April 1, 2017, said the people familiar, in order to make sure neither they nor Pruitt ran afoul of ethics rules, which prohibit political appointees from accepting gifts from lobbyists. Under the terms of that lease, Pruitt paid a cut-rate of $50 per night to live in the Hart’s condominium.
That favor turned into a headache for the couple when Pruitt repeatedly asked to extend his lease and the couple began to wonder if he would ever leave. “There were gentle questions regarding, ok, when are you going to leave and what have you...and they even started sending him ads of places close by that he could rent,” said the first person.
“Scott Pruitt is the Kato Kaelin of Capitol Hill. He is the long-term houseguest who takes advantage of his hosts and refuses to take a hint about when it’s time to leave,” the second person said.
A spokesman for Pruitt did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The Harts eventually told Pruitt, who had to be reminded repeatedly to pay his rent, that they had plans to rent the room to somebody else — and that he needed to find another place to live, according to the people familiar with events. They also informed him in early August that they were changing the locks on their door.
This is just bizarre.
edited 6th Apr '18 1:17:05 PM by megaeliz
Pruitt in general is bizarre, considering his obsession with privacy and secrecy and such. I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere down the line we learn that he's legitimately a little off.
Edit: Although in this case the answer may be no stranger than that he enjoyed living it up at the fancy condo, and perhaps tried to impress people by passing it off as his own or something.
edited 6th Apr '18 1:15:55 PM by TheWanderer
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |NY Times article about the new Sanctions.
Trump Administration Imposes New Sanctions on Putin Cronies
The sanctions are designed to penalize some of Russia’s richest industrialists, who are seen in the West as enriching themselves from Mr. Putin’s increasingly authoritarian administration.
The action freezes the oligarchs’ assets and prevents any American entities or individuals from doing business with them or their business operations. It also restricts foreign individuals from facilitating transactions on their behalf.
They grow out of an oddly disjointed policy toward Russia on the part of the Trump administration: While President Trump continues to call for good relations with Mr. Putin, Congress and much of the rest of the administration are pushing through increasingly punitive efforts that are sinking relations with Moscow to lows not seen in years.
“The Russian government operates for the disproportionate benefit of oligarchs and government elites,” said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. “Russian oligarchs and elites who profit from this corrupt system will no longer be insulated from the consequences of their government’s destabilizing activities.”
Among those sanctioned are Oleg V. Deripaska, an oligarch who once had close ties to Mr. Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort.
Also sanctioned was Suleiman Kerimov — a financier close to Mr. Putin; Vladimir Bogdanov, a top executive of Surgutneftegaz, a Russian oil company; Igor Rotenberg, another oil executive; Kirill Shamalov, an energy executive who married Mr. Putin’s daughter, Katerina Tikhonova; Andrei Skoch, a deputy of the Russian Federation’s State Duma; and Viktor Vekselberg, chairman of the Renova Group, a Russian investment firm.
The sanctions have been under consideration for some time and were not imposed solely because of the recent poisoning in England but rather “in response to the totality of the Russian government’s ongoing and increasingly brazen pattern of malign activity around the world,” a senior administration official said in a conference call with reporters, adding: “But most importantly this is in response to Russia’s continuing attack to subvert Western democracies.”
The sanctions come just as investigators working for Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel looking into the possibility of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, have begun to question Russian oligarchs about possible financial links between those in Mr. Putin’s orbit and people close to Mr. Trump.
Friday’s penalties could be particularly painful for Mr. Putin’s regime. While Russia’s oligarchs make nearly all of their money in Russia, many stash their families, lovers and much of their wealth in places like London, New York and Miami.
Targeted sanctions against the oligarchs are seen as a particularly good way to punish Mr. Putin’s aggressive moves while sparing wider Russian society, which is already suffering under Mr. Putin’s thumb.
The sanctions come just three days after Lt. Gen. H. R. Mc Master, in his final speech as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, warned darkly about the growing Russian menace.
“For too long some nations have looked the other way in the face of these threats,” he said, adding: “And we have failed to impose sufficient costs.”
The new sanctions grow out of legislation passed by Congress overwhelmingly last year and designed to limit Mr. Trump’s ability to lift sanctions already imposed on Russia. Lawmakers in both parties feared that the president would suspend sanctions imposed by President Barack Obama as he pursued warmer relations with Moscow as promised during his campaign and first year in office.
The Trump administration opposed that legislation but quietly acceded to it after it passed with a veto-proof majority. Within that law was a measure requiring the administration to create a list of Russian oligarchs. Lobbying around the creation of the list became intense as Russia’s wealthiest citizens feared punishing sanctions to come.
That is exactly what happened on Friday.
The sanctions list will only hasten the slide of Washington-Moscow relations. This week, 60 American diplomats left Russia as part of a tit-for-tat series of expulsions that followed the nerve-gas poisoning of Sergei V. Skripal, a former Russian double agent, and his daughter.
Mr. Skripal’s poisoning on British soil prompted more than 20 countries to expel more than 100 Russian diplomats and intelligence officers, the largest such coordinated action ever. British officials believe that Mr. Skripal’s poisoning, which occurred after an assassin smeared a nerve agent on the door handle of his home, was such a risky operation that it is unlikely to have been undertaken without approval from the Kremlin.
Russia has denied involvement in the poisoning.
But the attack is seen as part of a pattern of increasingly aggressive moves by Mr. Putin, including the seizure of Crimea, military interventions in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria, tacit support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical attacks on his own populace, a direct attack by Russian mercenaries on American troops in Syria and the hacking of elections in the United States and Europe.
The Trump administration’s responses to Mr. Putin’s needling have been uneven. Although Congress gave the State Department $120 million in 2016 to counter Russian hacking efforts, the department has so far spent none of it. And Mr. Trump said this week that he wants American forces to leave Syria soon, an exit that would benefit Iran, Russia and its ally, Mr. Assad.
But the administration has also imposed considerable economic penalties on Russia, with Friday’s action the latest in a string of similar moves.
NATO allies are now thinking anew about more coordinated responses to track and sanction Mr. Putin’s cronies. Both the British Parliament and the United States Congress are considering legislation that would require that the owners of companies and properties be disclosed.
Hundreds of millions of dollars in property in cities like London, New York and Miami are estimated to be owned by Russian oligarchs, who use corporate shields and attorney to hide their identities.
Is calling Pruitt "the Kato Kaelin of Capitol Hill." an insult to Kato, given the general trend of any comparison directed at this administration being an Insult to Rocks?
edited 6th Apr '18 1:39:16 PM by sgamer82
Blake Farenthold resigns from Congress effective immediately.
Presumably all those sexual harassment allegations weren't worth the trouble anymore.
edited 6th Apr '18 2:14:12 PM by TheRoguePenguin
edited 6th Apr '18 2:22:14 PM by TroperOnAStickV2
Hopefully I'll feel confident to change my avatar off this scumbag soon. Apologies to any scumbags I insulted.![]()
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Thank God there are republicans in the administration and congress that won't tolerate Russia's current worldwide dickishness, even if they have to go over the president's wishes.
edited 6th Apr '18 2:25:36 PM by Grafite
Life is unfair...Double posting here to share the obligatory dumping of cold water on Democrats
; how dare we get our hopes up that the Blue Wave will give us anything but abject failure. Full article text
Rep Blake Farenthold (R-TX) is resigning due a scandal involving him paying off a sexual harassment accuser with tax payer money.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/06/politics/blake-farenthold-resigns-congress/index.html
His district is R+13, so it probably isn't winnable, barring a serious local/national wave.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.![]()
This isn't really new, the odds of the Democratic Party taking the senate was very unlikely to begin with and Jones' victory simply downgraded it to unlikely. Doesn't mean that abject failure is likely or plausible, it's not.
edited 6th Apr '18 3:13:42 PM by Fourthspartan56
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangS.C. Republicans introduce bill to consider secession over gun rights [1]
The bill, which was referred to the state House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, would allow South Carolina lawmakers to debate whether to secede from the United States if the federal government were to violate the Second Amendment.
It states that "the general assembly shall convene to consider whether to secede from the United States based upon the federal government's unconstitutional violation of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution if the federal government confiscates legally purchased firearms in this state."
You tried that once, and look how that worked out for you.
On a more serious note, this seems like something that could easily have been promoted by the Kremlin.
edited 6th Apr '18 3:28:59 PM by megaeliz
Secession isn't really a serious agenda item. Like, nowhere even near the realm of realism. The people who put that bill forward know it just as well as we do, which is why it's such an easy way for them to get in the news without actually doing anything. Especially for a state like South Carolina, which receives seven times its statewide revenue in federal funds every year.
edited 6th Apr '18 3:42:23 PM by archonspeaks
They should have sent a poet.

edited 6th Apr '18 12:29:40 PM by megaeliz