What exactly did we lose? John Podesta’s emails?
The respect of the rest of the world, any chance at reasonable governance for the next four years…
Assuming this isn’t a whoosh, the russian government has confiscated plenty of assets in the past, Yukos Oil being the most famous.
They don’t need the army for this; a judge simply reads from Putin’s teleprompter, then the police seize the asset, same as any legal ruling.
As for what they’d do with a hotel, what would you do with prime real estate that’s generating revenue?
Morgenstern didn’t say we CAN do nothing to Russia. Morgenstern said we WILL do nothing to Russia:
Structural integrity.
I think you misread my post. . Here’s why the US won’t do anything.
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Trump refuses to believe the Russians are behind it. He thinks the FBI and the CIA are wrong. As he said, it could be some fat kid sitting on his bed…
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I linked, in another thread, to an expert pointing out that we’d have bigger cyber rocks to toss in a cyber war, but we also have glassier houses. Our entire infrastructure is internet linked. Military, financial, law enforcement, educational, navigation, political, electrical generation and distribution, etc. We can’t afford to become involved in a cyber war and risk an attack in any of those areas. We’d hack Putin’s porn accounts, and the Russians would DNS bank transactions, and that’s just the beginning.
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Some dildo tossed a cyber rock at the dope not all that long ago, and this place was down for about 30 hours. That was a novice, not a team of professionals with government backing.
Be afraid. As it stands we’re in no position to get involved in the cyber war they started when they invaded, then manipulated, our political process.
Trump refuses to admit the Russians are behind it. Of course he knows they are; Trump is deeply in debt to Putin and his minions.
Make no mistake; Republicans have basically elected Vladimir Putin, and the USA will dance to Putin’s tune until there’s some diplomatic blunder and war begins.
I wish people understood how possible this really is. From cyber war, to a trade war, even a real shooting war.
And the Republicans don’t give a shit.
This is the really amazing part to me. The party of Reagan now embrace the Russians, and don’t have a problem with the president being in Putin’s pocket. All because they put party before country.
The Republican Party is now beholden to the Russian leader. And they embrace this as a good thing.
The most horrifying failure of the human brain may well be its propensity to believe ‘nothing ever really changes.’
This year, this fallacious thinking permitted many to either fail to vote, or to vote without real thought for the consequences. (Thinking of both Brexit and the US election, here.)
Things are going to change, and they will change for the better only for a fraction of the top 1%. For everyone else, it’s going to be very, very bad.
Again, the tendency to believe everything will basically tick along as before even if Vladimir Putin is now (de facto) in charge of US foreign policy, may be a part of this. But, yes: the GOP is now firmly in the Party Before Country camp.
I came in to say that the 25th Amendment isn’t about impeachment, it’s an alternative method of Presidential removal which requires the agreement of the Vice-President and the majority of the Cabinet. It was intended to apply more to mental health situations than general ethical failure.
But now that I actually read the relevant article, I see that if the President contests his removal, he gets to come back in a few weeks unless two-thirds of Congress say otherwise. So it actually is harder than impeachment (which takes two-thirds of the Senate but only a simple majority in the House). So never mind.
[QUOTE= The 25th Amendment to the US Constitution, Article 4]
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
[/QUOTE]
Well, as long as the GOP members of Congress are getting what they want out of Trump, it’s unlikely that either portion of the Constitution (the Article I Section 9 “emoluments clause” or the Amendment 25 Section 4 “unable to discharge” clause) will come into play.
So you can be certain that he will try to keep them happy with lots of goodies–plenty of privatization, scapegoating of Muslims and immigrants, repeal of ‘burdensome regulations’ (such as honoring pension obligations) and the like.
The other shoe actually dropped three days ago, but the story was broken by The Wall Street Journal and I don’t like to offer citations only from paywall-sources. Today, however, a lot of sites are covering the story:
The new stories emphasize Flynn’s being paid by Turkey, rather than Trump’s own incentive to try to please the Turkish dictator (as detailed in the OP of this thread and the sources cited in it)–
Why Trump is being given a pass on this is difficult to understand if “the media” is as hostile to him as Trump and his surrogates claim; it’s clearly true that Trump, and not just Flynn, is motivated to do Erdogan’s bidding in this regard. Perhaps that information will receive more attention as the story continues to develop.
It could happen that tomorrow morning Gulen is whisked away to Turkey to be falsely accused of orchestrating last year’s coup attempt and I doubt a significant proportion of Americans would understand what had happened or care about it.
They wouldn’t care that the Trump administration would have to be complicit for this to happen. They wouldn’t care that our justice system was bypassed inside our own country by Turkey’s little Putin. They wouldn’t care about the injustice being done in general just as they do not care about the injustices in Turkey right now.
What happens in Turkey and to Turks is just not an emotional issue to Americans. The thwarting of our extradition process wouldn’t raise our collective heart rates more than a beat or two.
It’s different with Russia. In many minds, Russia pushed the election in Trump’s favor and that pisses them off. The fact that so many are inaccurately pissed off over how their candidate became President creates a negative emotional response in Trump supporters. So there are sizeable factions of Americans in conflict who feel a stake in the Russia story.
Unfortunately, we are in a collective who-gives-a-shit bubble concerning Turkey. I think it deeply unfortunate because I’ve watched how it went from a country moving toward liberal democracy to signing their democracy over to Erdogan and his buddies in the space of 15 years.
I see one parallel after another between what has happened to Turkey’s democracy and what is happening here, but their “otherness” and our ignorance and arrogance prevents us from learning from it.
That’s why I do not see much coming from this.
But to contribute to this thread, Guiliani is now on Reza Zarrab’s defense team. Reza Zarrab is on trial for helping people to violate the Iran sanctions. He escaped prosecution in Turkey on corruption charges and is linked to Erdogan. President Erdogan has taken a strong interest in Zarrab’s case.
So in America, the two issues of biggest interest to the Turkish President are Fetullah Gulen and Reza Zarrab. There are Trump advisors who have a financial interest in these events working out in Erdogan’s favor involved in both of these issues. I have a hard time seeing this as a coincidence. It’s hard not to see it as corruption.
Granted, these are former Trump advisors and there may be some ethical way to profit off of their closeness to Trump, but I would like it thoroughly investigated.
So to be clear though, despite the thread being bumped the Tote Board is still at zero, right?
I would say his refusal to put out the standard statement supporting pro-democracy protestors in Russia counts as a “1”.
How often is this standard statement generally put out?
Every time.
He’s at “2” considering the improvement in attitudes toward Putin and Russia among Republicans.
Well, since he campaigned on friendlier relations with Russia I have a hard time calling this capitulation, let alone making it two capitulations but whatever floats your boat. Personally, I’ll wait til I see some real action taken.
You’re absolutely correct about the news from Turkey being neglected in the USA. I will say that the downfall of democracy hasn’t been ignored entirely, but certainly most American news outlets (and certainly network news) have paid it little attention.
As you say, there are lessons we Americans could be learning (and probably are failing to see).