Fate

Please. No one has ever done it like the Clintons.

Prove it.
They didn't make their money from The Carlyle Group and thr Iraq War the way the Bushes did...

The WSJ went on to outline the details of the family's investment. The bin Laden firm invested $2 million in Carlyle Partners II Fund, which raised a total of $1.3 billion overall. The fund purchased several aerospace companies among 29 deals. "So far, the family has received $1.3 million back in completed investments and should ultimately realize a 40% annualized rate of return," a Carlyle executive told the WSJ.

http://theinternationalcoalition.blogsp ... -rich.html

They made their money mostly from speaking engagments and board appointments . So did George Bush. But thats on top of his Carlyle connections.

Bill Clinton has been widely criticized for milking his presidency for tens of millions of dollars, and former first lady Hillary Clinton, who is running for president in 2016, has been attacked for using her time in the White House to boost her income, partly through book sales and speeches.

It turns out that former President George W. Bush has been doing much the same thing. Politico reports that since he left office in 2009, "Bush has given at least 200 paid speeches and probably many more, typically pocketing $100,000 to $175,000 per appearance. The part-time work, which rarely requires more than an hour on stage, has earned him tens of millions of dollars. Relative to the Clintons, though, he has attracted considerably less attention, almost always doing his paid public speaking in private, in convention centers and hotel ballrooms, resorts and casinos, from Canada to Asia, from New York to Miami, from all over Texas to Las Vegas a bunch, playing his part in what has become a lucrative staple of the modern post-presidency.

http://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/a ... ing-office

Isn't part of ExxonMobil and Russian co-operation also about Iran?

It would help them mightily if sanctions were lifted further.

Yes.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... cord-looms
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... -to-pounce

freeman3 wrote:why isn't it an act of war when another country tries to manipulate who gets elected in our country? I guess we are so polarized that another country deciding who gets elected in our country is ok so long as it's the guy we like."

Again, it matters what they did. If all they did was hack the DNC and the RNC and release "private" information of those two private organizations, why should the electorate get angry? Russia just made us better informed. The fact that they were selective in their release of info is unfortunate, but I'm never gonna say that I wish I was less informed.

I am pretty sure if you go through just about any candidate or political organization's emails you are going to find embarrassing ones that don't reflect the spin that is put on in public. Allowing a foreign power to manipulate what information we see should be concerning to everyone. For instance, what if Assange is a Russian puppet paid to put out information harmful to the West. Yeah, I wanted to know the information that Snowden and Manning leaked. But it puts a different slant on things if there was a foreign power behind it.

Getting back to your question, while you personally want as much information as you can get it should give one pause to know that your getting the information is part of an orchestrated attempt by a foreign government to get in effect a "Manchurian Candidate" elected.

Russia decided who was elected?
hmmm, that's news to me.

As far as Trumps cabinet positions so far, several do strike me as outright lies and those bother me. I am not going to play blind partisan as so many of our liberal friends do. But not all were such, not liking an appointment is fair but to claim it was a lie as to what he promised goes too far.

actually I don't mind a "lie" or two if he felt these very few appointments were simply too qualified to overlook and frankly, having a FEW of these "insiders" may be a good thing. I do agree he has far too many so far however and it does smack of a great big lie!

rickyp wrote:Fate

Please. No one has ever done it like the Clintons.

Prove it.
They didn't make their money from The Carlyle Group and thr Iraq War the way the Bushes did...

The WSJ went on to outline the details of the family's investment. The bin Laden firm invested $2 million in Carlyle Partners II Fund, which raised a total of $1.3 billion overall. The fund purchased several aerospace companies among 29 deals. "So far, the family has received $1.3 million back in completed investments and should ultimately realize a 40% annualized rate of return," a Carlyle executive told the WSJ.

http://theinternationalcoalition.blogsp ... -rich.html

They made their money mostly from speaking engagments and board appointments . So did George Bush. But thats on top of his Carlyle connections.

Bill Clinton has been widely criticized for milking his presidency for tens of millions of dollars, and former first lady Hillary Clinton, who is running for president in 2016, has been attacked for using her time in the White House to boost her income, partly through book sales and speeches.

It turns out that former President George W. Bush has been doing much the same thing. Politico reports that since he left office in 2009, "Bush has given at least 200 paid speeches and probably many more, typically pocketing $100,000 to $175,000 per appearance. The part-time work, which rarely requires more than an hour on stage, has earned him tens of millions of dollars. Relative to the Clintons, though, he has attracted considerably less attention, almost always doing his paid public speaking in private, in convention centers and hotel ballrooms, resorts and casinos, from Canada to Asia, from New York to Miami, from all over Texas to Las Vegas a bunch, playing his part in what has become a lucrative staple of the modern post-presidency.

http://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/a ... ing-office

Nice. The Bin Ladens and the Bushes. Next stop, your shrink.

Well, we should be careful with characterizing Russia's actions here Tom. I think there is an consensus in the US intelligence community that Russia at least attempted to leak information that was damaging to Hillary Clinton. The next inference reasonably would be that Russia was attempting to get Trump elected with these leaks. That would constitute an attempt by Russia to influence our presidential election. Once it is to shown that the hacks into the DNC and Clinton campaigns were linked to Russia then I think it pretty much follows that Russia was trying to help Trump. I am of course relying on the opinions of those who work in the intelligence community, though it appears that at least publicly that we know that the information was tracked through Russian computers.

Proving Russia actually decided the election is far more difficult because there were so many potential causal factors in an election. But if Russia's actions were determined to have caused enough changes in votes that the outcome of the election was changed then I don't know we would say that Russia decided who was elected but they were a causal factor in the outcome. We probably will never be able to say definitely that Russia's actions changed the outcome of the election, but certainly the leaked emails were highly embarrassing to the Clinton campaign and given the closeness of the vote in the battleground states a very slight difference in the vote could have changed the result. I would say that their actions probably played a role in the outcome but I am partisan; I think any reasonable, objective person would say that those leaked emails could have been the difference.

And far as I know nothing similar has happened in a US presidential campaign, before we go down the road that this is routine, it's happened before, blah blah blah.

And now Trump has nominated a guy who stands to get very, very rich if his company is able to work with Putin to develop oil fields. Again, I don't think we have ever anything like it in American politics. I never had to worry that Reagan, and Bush I and II were in the pockets of a foreign power. Now I do.

freeman3 wrote:I am pretty sure if you go through just about any candidate or political organization's emails you are going to find embarrassing ones that don't reflect the spin that is put on in public. Allowing a foreign power to manipulate what information we see should be concerning to everyone. For instance, what if Assange is a Russian puppet paid to put out information harmful to the West. Yeah, I wanted to know the information that Snowden and Manning leaked. But it puts a different slant on things if there was a foreign power behind it.

Getting back to your question, while you personally want as much information as you can get it should give one pause to know that your getting the information is part of an orchestrated attempt by a foreign government to get in effect a "Manchurian Candidate" elected.

It's just so sad. We had an election. Clinton lost.

How long will the denial last?

As for Tillerson, he's got enthusiastic support from Condi Rice (who is an expert in Russian studies) and Bob Gates (who is an old hand in government). So, can we at least wait until we hear what he has to say before starting a lynch mob?

Yeah, Tillerson is going to be oh so tough on Russia and jeopardize that 300 billion deal? And what about the sanctions against our oil companies working in Iran? Let's see how long that lasts.

Really, Trump could not find one other candidate who is not compromised because of massive financial dealings with Russia?

freeman3 wrote:Yeah, Tillerson is going to be oh so tough on Russia and jeopardize that 300 billion deal? And what about the sanctions against our oil companies working in Iran? Let's see how long that lasts.

Really, Trump could not find one other candidate who is not compromised because of massive financial dealings with Russia?

Thanks for listening to Tillerson before making up your mind.

And, btw, I would not have picked him. Even so, it is fair to listen first.

Even if he is a man of the utmost integrity his business dealings with Russia are too significant for him to be Secretary of State. It is important that our politicians are not placed in a position where they are making decisions that would benefit themselves that would ultimately hurt the country. Judges will typically recuse themselves if they have a case before them that could significantly affect their financial interests for that reason even though they would say that they could decide the case on its merits. A Secretary of State cannot "recuse" himself from dealing with Russia. He really cannot say anything to change that.

More than anything, it shows an appalling lack of judgment by Trump. I did not worry so much about executive orders with Obama because I knew he would not use them unless there were was reasonable support for the use of them. But with Trump...I am not sure what the limits are. Get accused of being cozy with the Russians, having people on his campaign staff with ties to Russia, there is evidence that Russia tried to interfere in our elections....so what does Trump do--he doubles downs and finds probably the guy in the United States with the most business dealings with Putin. Unbelievable.

And what if he feels compelled to overcompensate and show how tough he can be on Russia? Unlikely but even if true we don't need a war because our Secretary of State wants to show he is not bought by Russia.

Tillerson is already extremely rich. I don't know the exact figure but as somebody who's been President and CEO of Exxon for many years he's almost certainly a billionaire already. He's also approaching the mandatory retirement age for his company so he'd soon have been stepping down from that role in any case. Now ok, he'll own a lot of shares which would increase in value in the event that the deal with Russia can be resuscitated, but it's not like he's reliant on this deal to make his fortune. He's one of the richest men in America already. It's conceivable that at this point in his career he'll be more motivated by the prestige and the challenge of the SoS job than he is by adding a few more millions to his already unspendable bank balance.

I read that he is worth 150 million. How did such a poor man get into a Trump cabinet...anyway, Russia appears to really like the pick.https://mobile.twitter.com/Kasparov63/s ... 3290068992

Maybe Tillerson is satisfied, maybe he wants a couple of billion--I don't know and I don't want to find out. In any case, after Russia's interference in our election now is not the time to go for their preferred choice for Secretary of State after they just got the president they want. Hopefully, there are still a few Republican patriots left in the Senate that realize it is more important to beat Russia than the Democrats. I haven't even complained about his billionaire's club of modern robber barons in the Cabinet but I draw the line at a Russophile as Secretary of State. Last time I checked Russia is not our friend.

freeman3 wrote:I read that he is worth 150 million. How did such a poor man get into a Trump cabinet...anyway, Russia appears to really like the pick.https://mobile.twitter.com/Kasparov63/s ... 3290068992

Maybe Tillerson is satisfied, maybe he wants a couple of billion--I don't know and I don't want to find out. In any case, after Russia's interference in our election now is not the time to go for their preferred choice for Secretary of State after they just got the president they want. Hopefully, there are still a few Republican patriots left in the Senate that realize it is more important to beat Russia than the Democrats. I haven't even complained about his billionaire's club of modern robber barons in the Cabinet but I draw the line at a Russophile as Secretary of State. Last time I checked Russia is not our friend.

Right. I remember your outrage when President Obama/Secretary Clinton pressed the reset button for no apparent reason.

I also remember how liberals--and Obama--mocked Romney for saying Russia was our #1 geopolitical foe.

So, now that Obama let Putin run wild for 8 years, you're angry because Tillerson is going to be Secretary of State?

Erm, okay.