Trump 39: The Return of the Wall

[fraurosena]

Aha! We've been theorizing about this in these threads, and yes, of course we were right. Russia stands to gain by the steel slat wall-fence that the presidunce wants so badly. 

But don't blindly believe a random meme, here's an article from December saying the same thing:

Guess Who Is Likely To Profit If Trump Gets His Border Wall? RUSSIAN Steel

Quote

The latest design of Trump's 'wall' (which he acknowledges is a barrier more than a wall) includes high steel slats with spikes (the better to impale people and birds with). Some estimates have the slats costing upwards of $24.5M per mile (for a 1,993 mile border that logistically cannot be contiguous). That's a lot of money, especially with the steel tariffs that Trump has demanded.

The question must now be who will profit for all that steel? Well if the past is predictive, it's the Russians.

Four days after his inauguration, Donald Trump signed a handful of executive memos to advance the Keystone XL pipeline and revive the U.S. steel industry. He invited builder TransCanada Corp. to reapply for a permit denied by Barack Obama and ordered up fast-track rules forcing not only Keystone but also all new U.S. pipelines to be made from American steel. “From now on, we’re going to be making pipeline in the United States,” he said.

Made-in-America Keystone was a stunt. Most of its pipes had already been manufactured, a fact the White House grudgingly admitted when it exempted the project from any new Buy American rules a few months later. While some of Keystone’s pipes were made in the U.S., at least a quarter of them came from a Russian steel company whose biggest shareholder is an oligarch and Trump family friend. The company, Evraz North America, supplied Keystone from its steel plants in Canada and for years has lobbied in Washington against Trump-style protectionism.

The oligarch who owns Evraz, Roman Abramovich is a very close ally to Putin (owing much of his significant wealth to him) and a personal friend to Trump and the Kushners.

Shutting down the government was a weird hill for Trump to die on at this particular time. Even with Republican control on both houses of Congress, they couldn't pass wall/barrier funding--because of Trump himself refusing to include DACA in the deal. Now, in the lame duck before the Dems take over the House majority, he thinks he has leverage to insist on funding, solely based on the ravings of Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh? They're not even smart enough to figure out that he still couldn't get the votes from the Republican senate majority to pass anything all year.

Maybe what the Dems need to do to get Trump to back down from his insistence that barrier funding is included in the CR is to write in the caveat that all products must be steel certified as being 100% American-made or funding is withdrawn entirely. And if it brings the whingeing of Coulter and the like, the fact that they don't care about hurting the American steel industry should be thrown in their faces immediately.

Here's another article from last year that mentions Abramovich and his company Evraz:

U.S. tariffs may test their mettle, but Russian steelmakers safe

Quote

Russian metals and mining companies face relatively little harm from any introduction of U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, analysts and company representatives said on Friday.

Russia’s top two steelmakers and its leading aluminum producer saw their share prices fall after President Donald Trump said he would impose hefty tariffs to protect U.S. producers.

Trump said the duties, 25 percent on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum, would be formally announced next week, although White House officials later said some details still needed to be ironed out.

Russia shares Europe’s concern about the decision, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday, adding that Moscow is “carefully analyzing the situation which is forming in trade relations after this statement”.

Russian deputy prime minister Arkady Dvorkovich said he expected some damage to Russia from the new duties, Interfax news agency reported, but he added that any harm would be more significant for the European Union and China.

Analysts also said the long-term impact for Russian steel and aluminum producers would be muted.

RUSSIAN EXPOSURE

For Severstal, a leading steel producer, and Rusal, the small size of their U.S. sales makes it easy to redirect to other markets, analysts said.

The roughly 300,000 tonnes of steel that Severstal exports to the United States can easily be channeled elsewhere, BCS Global Markets experts said.

This was echoed by company representatives, who told Reuters the United States accounted for just 2 percent of Severstal’s sales, though the company’s shares were down 2 percent.

“As for aluminum, it is a virtually zero issue as Rusal sells only around 10 percent to 15 percent of volumes there and will send the material elsewhere at virtually no cost,” BCS wrote in a note.

Rusal, controlled by businessman Oleg Deripaska, saw its share price fall 3.3 percent. The company did not reply to a request for comment.

Russian steelmakers with sizeable exports to the United States would be protected from the impact of tariffs by their U.S. assets, analysts said.

Steel producer Evraz, co-owned by Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich, exports 0.4 million tonnes of steel slabs to the United States, but its North American assets sell 2.2 million tonnes on the U.S. market, VTB Capital analysts said. Domestic price rises would more than offset the new costs.

Evraz shares were up 0.2 percent. The company did not reply to requests for comment.

Similarly, though the new tariffs would cost top Russian steel producer NLMK an additional $150 million, this would also be offset by the 2.2 million tonnes of steel it sells in the United States, VTB Capital said.

NLMK, controlled by billionaire Vladimir Lisin, said in February that it had placed on hold a project to increase its U.S. rolling mill capacity until more information was available about the possible tariffs, after they were recommended by the U.S. Commerce Department.

Despite warning that hardline U.S. tariffs could cause a “systemic shock” for the global steel market, NLMK said it had no plans to leave the United States.

A representative of NLMK said on Friday the company was declining to comment until Washington makes an official decision.

And another article from last year showing the close ties Abramovich has to Putin... and the presiduncial family:

Owners of western Canada’s biggest steel company on U.S. Treasury's new ‘Putin list’

Quote

 

A Russian steelmaking giant that employs over 1,000 people in Regina has seen its major shareholders named on the so-called “Putin list” — a who’s who of 114 Russian politicians and 96 oligarchs said to have directly benefitted from links to President Vladimir Putin.

The U.S. Treasury list was a legal requirement under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017, brought in response to alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.

Perhaps the most famous oligarch named is Roman Abramovich, a major shareholder in the London-listed Evraz PLC, which owns Evraz North America. Evraz employs 1,800 people in Canada, with sites in Regina as well as Calgary, Camrose and Red Deer in Alberta.

Aleksandr Abramov, non-executive chairman of Evraz PLC and Aleksandr Frolov, its CEO, are also listed. In Evraz PLC’s 2016 annual report, Abramovich is listed as owning 31.03 per cent of all shares in the company, Abramov 21.38 per cent, and Frolov 10.68 per cent.

The “name and shame” oligarch list has been mocked as it is a carbon copy of a Forbes magazine ranking of Russian billionaires. In Russia, it has drawn scorn because some of those listed do not, in reality, enjoy Putin’s favour.

Yet the list has spooked rich Russians who fear it could make them informally blacklisted in the global financial system.

Some of those listed — noted on the nine-page document by asterisks — are already under sanction, but the Trump administration has decided not to immediately punish anybody else, leading some U.S. lawmakers to accuse Trump of giving Russia a free pass.

“The list has no bearing on Evraz North America’s operations,” Evraz North America said in an emailed statement.

“Evraz North America, a wholly owned subsidiary of Evraz plc … is headquartered in the United States.

“We have a long legacy of business success and are proud of our deeply American and Canadian roots, which include steel manufacturing facilities that have been in operation for many decades.”

The office of Steven Bonk, Saskatchewan’s economic minister, said it was aware of the company’s ownership structure but was not concerned.

“Irrespective of who owns Evraz, the company has always been an important business presence in Regina and Saskatchewan,” a statement read. “In our view, Evraz is a good corporate citizen, supporting many worthy causes in the community.

“Our government is focused on ensuring pipelines can get built so that Evraz can maintain and possibly expand employment at its Regina facility.”

Irrespective of who owns Evraz, the company has always been an important business presence in Regina and Saskatchewan

Peter Warrian, a steel industry expert at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global affairs, said the inclusion of major individual steel industry players on the list was, “obviously an area of some concern.”

“There may be a second shoe to drop,” he said. “That is the Trump administration implementing steel tariffs, citing national security concerns. There are expectations in the steel industry that that’s on the way.”

Though the report isn’t a sanctions list, Russian President Vladimir Putin called it a hostile and “stupid” move spearheaded by Trump’s political foes. “All of us, all 146 million, have been put on some kind of list,” he said at a meeting with activists from his ongoing presidential campaign. “Certainly, this is an unfriendly move, which further exacerbates the already strained Russia-U.S. relations and hurts international relations as a whole.”

In Forbes’ most recent figures, Evraz major shareholder Abramovich’s wealth is pegged at $11.2 billion USD — making him the 145th richest person in the world.

He has known ties to Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner. His wife Dasha Zhukova — a dual U.S.-Russia citizen from whom he recently separated — is a longtime friend of Trump. The two women have been pictured at various social gatherings, including a 2014 trip to Russia and a 2016 outing to tennis’ U.S. Open. 

In a release in 2015, Evraz said it had made over 550 miles (885 kilometres) of pipe for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which was halted under President Barack Obama but re-launched under Trump. Evraz has made at least 24 per cent of the large-diameter pipe for Keystone XL in Regina.

After re-floating the project, Trump backtracked on his own earlier “America first” directive that all pipe used would have to be built using American steel only, indicating that pipe already constructed elsewhere could be used.

The move was welcomed at the time by Canadian Minister of Public Safety Ralph Goodale, who tweeted in March 2017 that, “Canada has been working hard to make this point. Important for companies like Evraz Steel.”

Abramovich, also owner of Chelsea Football Club in the English Premier League, was once the protégé of famed Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, with the pair partnering up at Russian oil company Sibneft in 1995.

They later had a spectacular falling out, when in 2011 Berezovsky — who had fled Russia to the U.K. in 2000 in fear of the Putin regime — took Abramovich to court seeking billions, saying he had been coerced by Abramovich into selling him discounted Sibneft shares. Abramovich had made much of his fortune when Sibneft was sold to state gas giant Gazprom for $13.1 billion USD in 2005.

Abramovich, however, won the court case. Berezovsky was found dead at his U.K. home in 2013. Suicide was suspected but an inquest returned an open verdict on his death.

Though the new “Putin” report has caused a stir, a person’s inclusion on the unclassified list does not mean that “the U.S. Government has information about the individual’s involvement in malign activities,” the report reads.

Putin has pointedly steered clear of criticizing Trump, describing the list as part of U.S. political infighting. He said the Kremlin had pondered possible retaliation while waiting for the list to be announced, but decided to refrain from action.

“We were ready to take retaliatory steps, and, mind you, serious ones, which would cut our relations to zero,” he said. “But we will refrain from taking these steps for now.”

In the build-up to the list’s release, Russia hawks in Congress had pushed the administration to include certain names, while Russian businessmen hired lobbyists to keep them off.

In the end, the list of 114 Russian officials released just before a Monday evening deadline included the whole of Putin’s administration, as listed by the Kremlin on its website, plus the Russian Cabinet, top law enforcement officials and senior executives at state-owned companies.

U.S. officials said more names, including those of less-senior politicians and businesspeople worth less than $1 billion, are on a classified version of the list being provided to Congress.

Under the law that authorized the “Putin list,” the government was required to sanction anyone doing “significant” business with people linked to Russia’s defence and intelligence agencies, using a blacklist the U.S. released in October.

But the administration decided it didn’t need to penalize any additional persons, for now. State Department officials said the threat of sanctions had been deterrent enough.

 

 

[formergothardite]

We all knew there was a bigger reason he must get money for the wall. His supporters he can just say "we built the wall" but for Russia he actually has to build the wall. 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[47of74]

Fuck head is whining about Spike Lee now;

Quote

President Donald Trump is going after director Spike Lee, who used his Oscar acceptance speech to urge mobilization for the 2020 election.

Trump tweeted Monday that Lee did a “racist hit on your President.” Trump claimed that he had “done more for African Americans” than “almost” any other president.

Lee won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay Sunday for his white supremacist drama “BlacKkKlansman,” sharing the award with three co-writers. The film includes footage of Trump after the 2017 violent white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Lee did not directly name Trump. He spoke about black history and his family history, saying his grandmother’s mother was a slave, before stressing the presidential election next year.

That's rich considering fuck head is now the Grand Wizard of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Former campaign staffer alleges in lawsuit that Trump kissed her without her consent. The White House denies the charge. "

Spoiler

A staffer on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign says he kissed her without her consent at a small gathering of supporters before a Florida rally, an interaction that she alleges in a new lawsuit still causes her anguish.

In interviews with The Washington Post, and in the lawsuit, Alva Johnson said Trump grabbed her hand and leaned in to kiss her on the lips as he exited an RV outside the rally in Tampa on Aug. 24, 2016. Johnson said she turned her head and the unwanted kiss landed on the side of her mouth, which she called “super-creepy and inappropriate.” 

“I immediately felt violated because I wasn’t expecting it or wanting it,” she said. “I can still see his lips coming straight for my face.”

Johnson said she told her boyfriend, mother and stepfather about the incident later that day, an account all three confirmed to The Post. Two months later, Johnson consulted a Florida attorney about the unwanted kiss; he gave The Post text messages showing that he considered her “credible” but did not take her case for business reasons. The attorney gave Johnson the name of a therapist, whose notes, which The Post reviewed, reference an unspecified event during the campaign that had left her distraught.

In a statement, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders dismissed Johnson’s allegation as “absurd on its face.”

“This never happened and is directly contradicted by multiple highly credible eye witness accounts,” she wrote.

Two Trump supporters that Johnson identified as witnesses — a campaign official and Pam Bondi, then the Florida attorney general — denied seeing the alleged kiss in interviews with The Post.

While more than a dozen other women have publicly accused Trump of touching them in some inappropriate way, Johnson is the only accuser to come forward since he took office and the only one to allege unwanted contact during the campaign. Trump faces a defamation lawsuit in New York brought by Summer Zervos, a former “Apprentice” reality TV contestant, who claims he forcibly kissed and groped her in 2007.

Johnson, an event planner who lives in Madison County, Ala., is seeking unspecified damages for emotional pain and suffering. The federal lawsuit, filed Monday in Florida, also alleges that the campaign discriminated against Johnson, who is black, by paying her less than her white male counterparts. A campaign spokeswoman, Kayleigh McEnany, rejected that claim as “off-base and unfounded.”

The Post first contacted Johnson nearly a year ago, while reporting on misconduct allegations against Trump, but she declined to comment. In recent days, Johnson’s attorney gave The Post a draft copy of her complaint, and Johnson and others connected to the lawsuit agreed to be interviewed.

Trump agrees to turn over his calendar in Summer Zervos defamation suit.

Johnson said she began to consider coming forward in October 2016, after video surfaced of Trump bragging about kissing and groping women without their consent. That was the moment, she said, when she came to view the kiss as part of a pattern of Trump doing whatever he pleased to women.  

She said she was nervous about speaking out but had come to regret having worked on the campaign. “I’ve tried to let it go,” she said, beginning to cry. “You want to move on with your life. I don’t sleep. I wake up at 4 in the morning looking at the news. I feel guilty. The only thing I did was show up for work one day.”

She said she talked to a few other lawyers as she considered her options before, in June of last year, finally hiring Hassan Zavareei, the Washington attorney bringing the lawsuit. Three months later, she moved to seal a years-old court case in which two family members had briefly sought a temporary restraining order against her. The family members joined her request to have the records sealed, documents show.

Johnson, a 43-year-old mother of four, does not have a long history of political activism. She registered as a Democrat in California several years ago. She said she voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 but thought Trump might be able to use his business experience to help struggling black communities. 

Johnson got interested in the Trump campaign through her stepfather, Jacob Savage, a retired microbiology professor who said he has been active in Republican politics for decades. She met Trump at a November 2015 rally in Birmingham, Ala., where Johnson said the candidate looked her up and down. “Oh, beautiful, beautiful, fantastic,” he said, according to the lawsuit.

She said she looked past the comment and, two months later, took a job as the campaign’s director of outreach and coalitions in Alabama. Johnson said she thought she could put her background in human resources and event planning to use on a political campaign.

For the three months before the general election, Johnson was assigned to Florida. Her main responsibility was managing the recreational vehicles that traversed the state as mobile campaign offices. It was inside one, on a rainy afternoon in Tampa, where Johnson said the candidate pressed his lips against hers.

Wearing a dark suit and red tie, carrying an umbrella, Trump walked up to the RV as Johnson stood back and took video. “Good job, boss,” she said as he greeted supporters, according to footage she provided to The Post. 

Johnson brought volunteers into the RV to take pictures with Trump. She noticed that Trump was attempting to make eye contact with her, she said in the interviews and lawsuit. When it was time for the rally, Johnson said Trump passed her as he exited the RV.

“I’ve been on the road for you since March, away from my family,” she told him, according to the lawsuit. “You’re doing an awesome job. Go in there and kick ass.”

Trump grasped her hand, thanked her for her work and leaned in, she said.

“Oh, my God, I think he’s going to kiss me,” she said in an interview, describing the moment. “He’s coming straight for my lips. So I turn my head, and he kisses me right on corner of my mouth, still holding my hand the entire time. Then he walks on out.”

She said she stood there, feeling humiliated, and Bondi gave her a smile as she walked out of the RV. Karen Giorno, director of the Florida campaign, grabbed Johnson’s elbow and gave it a tug, Johnson said in the interviews and lawsuit.

Bondi and Giorno said they do not recall seeing Trump kiss Johnson. They denied reacting the way Johnson described. 

“Do I recall seeing anything inappropriate? One hundred percent no,” Bondi said in an interview. “I’m a prosecutor, and if I saw something inappropriate, I would have said something.”

Giorno dismissed the allegation as “ridiculous,” saying “that absolutely did not happen.”  

Sanders urged The Post to speak with Stephanie Grisham, a spokeswoman for first lady Melania Trump. Grisham, who was Trump’s press director in 2016, said she did not see the alleged kiss and was in front of Trump as he exited the vehicle. 

Later that day, Johnson called Miguel Rego, her boyfriend of several years. He, too, was working on the campaign in Florida. “I thought it was crazy that he had kissed her. I didn’t know how to process it,” said Rego, recalling the conversation.

Then Johnson called Savage, her stepfather. “I felt it was a betrayal of trust,” Savage said. “I felt I was responsible because, had I not introduced her to the campaign, she would not have been in that position.”

Johnson also discussed the incident with her mother, Anne Savage. “She was hysterical,” Savage said.

Johnson, however, continued working for Trump, even after an opportunity to work in the campaign’s New York headquarters was offered and abruptly rescinded in mid-September, according to her and campaign officials. The position was never filled.

About six weeks after the alleged kiss, on Oct. 7, 2016, The Post published the videotape of Trump boasting about his sexual aggression to an “Access Hollywood” host. “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them,” Trump said in 2005. “It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

Johnson said she was stunned.

“I felt sick to my stomach,” she said. “That was what he did to me.”

Johnson said she stopped going into the office and, about three weeks before the election, she quit. “She is having nightmares because of what happened,” therapist Lisheyna Hurvitz wrote on Oct. 27, according to notes that Johnson obtained and provided to The Post.

Johnson also was talking to attorney Adam Horowitz, who represents sexual abuse victims, including children. “I believe you and want to see you gain justice and expose this behavior,” Horowitz wrote to Johnson in a text dated Oct. 28, 2016. “Right now my practice simply cannot dive into something like that which would be so time-consuming with an uncertain outcome.”

She said she once again tried to put the event behind her and even attended one of the inaugural balls. She also twice applied for jobs in the administration. She said she felt she had earned those opportunities through her work on the campaign. Johnson said that, while she was disappointed, being passed over for those jobs had no bearing on her decision to sue.

Johnson said she grew agitated as the #MeToo movement emboldened women to speak up about sexual misconduct. She said she was also motivated to act as she saw the impact of the president’s policies, specifically the detention of immigrant children. “Babies in cages — I didn’t think it was going to be this bad,” she said.

In September, acting on the request from Johnson and her relatives, a Georgia judge sealed the court records stemming from the years-ago family dispute. According to the records, Johnson’s half sister and her father, on behalf of a younger half sister, briefly obtained a temporary restraining order against Johnson in 2006. They alleged that she was calling the younger sibling’s school and falsely claiming that the teenager was using drugs. The older sibling wrote that she fired Johnson from her business for using “company property” to arrange extramarital affairs for herself online.

The family members withdrew the petitions less than three weeks later, before the case could be heard by a judge and before Johnson had the opportunity to respond in court. A clerk inadvertently provided the sealed records to The Post.

“These false allegations came in the context of a family dispute that was resolved amicably years ago,” Zavareei said. “Ms. Johnson’s family stands firmly behind her pursuit of justice against Donald Trump for the sexual assaults he has committed against Ms. Johnson and so many other women over the course of decades.”

Her father and two half siblings either could not be reached or declined to comment.

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

Probably people don't know this because she didn't.

[47of74]

36 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

Once again I wish fuck head was on this here board so I could make use of the fuck you emoji.  Of course we'd probably all burn it out. 

I hope Reid has left instructions that fuck head and his family are not welcome at his funeral.

21 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

Probably people don't know this because she didn't.

And I have a rather obscene response to the type of jobs she created that is best left unshared. 

[Dandruff]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Former campaign staffer alleges in lawsuit that Trump kissed her without her consent. The White House denies the charge. "

Doesn't Mike Pence also have a potential claim?

59 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

Probably people don't know this because she didn't.

U.S. jobs?  Any jobs?  One would think that daddy would have started bragging before now.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Alisamer]

49 minutes ago, Dandruff said:

U.S. jobs?  Any jobs?  One would think that daddy would have started bragging before now.

A few US jobs, surely. Her hairstylist, makeup artist, personal shopper, bodyguard, nanny...

The rest? Poverty stricken non-US 13-year-olds in sweatshops, I'd bet.

Exactly how far away from reality does he have to get before he can be removed for incompetence? A poor person making claims like he does would be involuntarily committed by this point. 

[AmazonGrace]

Trump can't close an umbrella. Putin, on the other hand:

 

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, AmazonGrace said:

Trump can't close an umbrella. Putin, on the other hand:

 

As a kid I joined a judo dojo for a couple of years. I made it to an orange belt before I had to stop due to an ankle injury (and being a fickle kid never picked it up again after I healed). But I know enough to tell you that what Putin's doing is really incredibly basic stuff that even a 'red slip' belt learns before they attain their first official, white, belt. So sorry, not impressed at all, Mr. Putin.

[AmazonGrace]

 

If you drive north from Mexico towards the US border, then turn left, and then turn left again, you're driving south back towards Mexico.

[fraurosena]

As if we needed more proof the presidunce is a moron.

Can you imagine any other president doing this? Obama? Bush? Clinton? Bush sr? Carter? Ford? Nixon? Johnson? Kennedy? Any of them?

[HerNameIsBuffy]

13 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

As if we needed more proof the presidunce is a moron.

Can you imagine any other president doing this? Obama? Bush? Clinton? Bush sr? Carter? Ford? Nixon? Johnson? Kennedy? Any of them?

He’s a child.  A giant, gross, dangerous child.

[AmazonGrace]

This is just so weird.

[GreyhoundFan]

2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

As a kid I joined a judo dojo for a couple of years. I made it to an orange belt before I had to stop due to an ankle injury (and being a fickle kid never picked it up again after I healed). But I know enough to tell you that what Putin's doing is really incredibly basic stuff that even a 'red slip' belt learns before they attain their first official, white, belt. So sorry, not impressed at all, Mr. Putin.

I don't disagree, but compared to Dumpy, whose exercise consists of opening cans of Diet Coke and unwrapping Big Macs, Putin is Mr. Fitness.

[smittykins]

2 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

This is just so weird.

I’m surprised he didn’t do the “slant eyes” gesture.

[fraurosena]

Sweet Rufus. I don't like the name of the thing, so you can explain what the thing is, and I agree that the thing is what we want to do, but I don't like the name, so we're not going to do it. Oh, you're changing the name? Good, then we can do the thing. But not if it's that other name, because I don't like that name and I don't agree with it.

 

[Audrey2]

16 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Sweet Rufus. I don't like the name of the thing, so you can explain what the thing is, and I agree that the thing is what we want to do, but I don't like the name, so we're not going to do it. Oh, you're changing the name? Good, then we can do the thing. But not if it's that other name, because I don't like that name and I don't agree with it.

 

Did anyone else watch this mess and think of the old Abbott and Costello baseball routine, Who's on First?

[AmazonGrace]

I think it makes perfect sense. Trump doesn't respect contracts or deals or consider them binding. He'd wipe his butt with anything that's not signed in blood in the presence of the devil (or he would if he could find his butt, anyway) so of course a paper that says "memorandum of understanding" is meaningless to him.

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[Howl]

On 2/25/2019 at 6:12 AM, fraurosena said:

Russia stands to gain by the steel slat wall-fence that the presidunce wants so badly. 

I'm STILL gobsmacked by how entwined the Russians are with EVERYTHING U.S. politics and economy and influence.  I don't think it's an exaggeration to describe this as a cancer.  

This is an actual, accurate headline from the mainstream, non-fake news outlet, CBS: Russia says US sought "advice" ahead of Trump-Kim summit on North Korea's nukes

No, I am not making this up!  Although we've all got Trump outrage fatigue, this is still bat-shit crazy, utterly insane. 

Quote

Lavrov, who is also visiting Vietnam this week, said in comments carried by Russian news agencies on Monday that Russia believes that the U.S. ought to offer Pyongyang "security guarantees" for the disarmament deal to succeed. He also mentioned that "the U.S. is even asking our advice, our views on this or that scenario of" how the summit in Hanoi could pan out.

Lavrov just happens to be visiting Viet Nam at the same time as Trump.  Who knew? Kismet! 

Let's say that nobody in the Administration/WH actually solicited Russia's opinion on how to deal with Kim.  The WH didn't vigorously or even anemically bother to dispute this, and Lavrov has clearly stated Russia's policy advice in a damned headline. 

Crazy times. 

Meanwhile, "Alexa, order all the flavored popcorn!"  Cohen is on the Congressional hot seat testifying today and tomorrow.  

 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

40 minutes ago, Howl said:

I'm STILL gobsmacked by how entwined the Russians are with EVERYTHING U.S. politics and economy and influence.  I don't think it's an exaggeration to describe this as a cancer.  

This is an actual, accurate headline from the mainstream, non-fake news outlet, CBS: Russia says US sought "advice" ahead of Trump-Kim summit on North Korea's nukes

No, I am not making this up!  Although we've all got Trump outrage fatigue, this is still bat-shit crazy, utterly insane. 

Lavrov just happens to be visiting Viet Nam at the same time as Trump.  Who knew? Kismet! 

Let's say that nobody in the Administration/WH actually solicited Russia's opinion on how to deal with Kim.  The WH didn't vigorously or even anemically bother to dispute this, and Lavrov has clearly stated Russia's policy advice in a damned headline. 

Crazy times. 

Meanwhile, "Alexa, order all the flavored popcorn!"  Cohen is on the Congressional hot seat testifying today and tomorrow.  

 

I have more hopes of learning something from Cohen than the Mueller report, although no hopes of either making a damn bit of difference.

(on a personal note Michael Cohen looks like a less handsome version of my ex-husband and I’d like to stop having to look at him, please.)