Trump's business network reached alleged Russian mobsters

>Trump's Russian connections are of heightened interest because of an FBI investigation into possible collusion between Trump's presidential campaign and Russian operatives to interfere in last fall's election. What’s more, Trump and his companies have had business dealings with Russians that go back decades, raising questions about whether his policies would be influenced by business considerations.

>Trump told reporters in February: "I have no dealings with Russia. I have no deals that could happen in Russia, because we’ve stayed away. And I have no loans with Russia. I have no loans with Russia at all."

>Yet in 2013, after Trump addressed potential investors in Moscow, he bragged to Real Estate Weekly about his access to Russia's rich and powerful. “I have a great relationship with many Russians, and almost all of the oligarchs were in the room,” Trump said, referring to Russians who made fortunes when former Soviet state enterprises were sold to private investors.

>Five years earlier, Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. told Russian media while in Moscow that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets" in places like Dubai and Trump SoHo and elsewhere in New York.

>New York City real estate broker Dolly Lenz told USA TODAY she sold about 65 condos in Trump World at 845 U.N. Plaza in Manhattan to Russian investors, many of whom sought personal meetings with Trump for his business expertise.

>“I had contacts in Moscow looking to invest in the United States,” Lenz said. “They all wanted to meet Donald. They became very friendly.” Many of those meetings happened in Trump's office at Trump Tower or at sales events, Lenz said.
...

>Dealings with Russian oligarchs concern law enforcement because many of those super-wealthy people are generally suspected of corrupt practices as a result of interconnected relationships among Russia's business elite, government security services and criminal gangs, according to former U.S. prosecutor Ken McCallion, as well as Steven Hall, a former CIA chief of Russian operations.

>“Anybody who is an oligarch or is in any position of power in Russia got it because (President) Vladimir Putin or somebody in power saw some reason to give that person that job,” Hall said in an interview. “All the organized crime figures I’ve ever heard of (in Russia) all have deep connections and are tied in with people in government.”

>FBI Director James Comey acknowledged at a congressional hearing into Russian interference in the U.S. election March 20 that many wealthy Russians may have close ties to the Kremlin and may be acting on its behalf.

>Trump has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection to any of the individuals mentioned in this article.

>However, the deals, and the large number of Russians who have bought condos in Trump buildings, raise questions about the secrecy he has maintained around his real estate empire. Trump is the first president in 40 years to refuse to turn over his tax returns, which could shed light on his business dealings.

>The White House declined to comment about this article, referring questions to the Trump Organization in New York. Amanda Miller, a spokeswoman for the Trump Organization, denied any transactions with people named in this article.

>“The allegations ... are entirely without merit," Miller said in an email. "The Trump Organization never entered into a single transaction with any of these individuals and the condominium units were all owned and sold by third parties — not Trump.”
...

>Trump's privately held company works through a network of subsidiaries and partnerships that make direct connections hard to trace, particularly since he has refused to release his tax filings. In addition, some of the Trump Organization's investors and buyers operate through shell companies and limited liability corporations that hide the identities of individual owners.

>Trump and the Trump Organization signed licensing agreements for an ownership stake in properties such as Trump SoHo and Trump International Beach Resort, which bear the Trump name without requiring an investment by him. In the SoHo project, Trump received an 18% share of the profits in return for use of his name,according to a deposition Trump gave in 2007 for a defamation lawsuit he brought against an author.

>Among Trump's partners in the SoHo project was Felix Sater, a Russian immigrant who spent a year in prison for the 1991 stabbing. He later cooperated with the FBI and the CIA for a reduced sentence after he was convicted in a $40 million stock manipulation and money-laundering scheme in New York state.

>Sater was a partner in the Bayrock Group, which developed the Trump SoHo. Sater's criminal past was not well-known until publicly divulged in 2007. As he sought investment opportunities in Russia, he carried business cards identifying him as a senior adviser to the Trump Organization that included the company's email and phone number.

>In February, Sater introduced a Ukrainian politician pushing a pro-Russian peace proposal to Michael Cohen, Trump's personal lawyer and former chief counsel at the Trump Organization, Cohen told NBC News.
...

>Sater, 51, did not respond to multiple emails sent to his company or to calls seeking comment. He wrote on his company website that he made some bad decisions in the past but that he had paid his debt to society and helped the government with "numerous issues of national security, including thwarting terrorist attacks against our country.” His website was dark last week, displaying the message, "Maintenance mode is on."

>One source of financing recruited by Bayrock for the SoHo project was Alexander Mashkevich, according to a deposition by former Bayrock partner Jody Kriss in a federal lawsuit. A Bayrock investment pamphlet lists Mashkevich as a source of financing for the Bayrock Group. Mashkevich, a Kazakhstan mining billionaire, was accused in Belgium in 2011 in a $55 million money-laundering scheme. Mashkevich and two partners paid a fine and admitted no wrongdoing.

>Federal indictments in New York, California and Illinois allege that people who bought Trump condos include felons and others accused of laundering money for Russian, Ukrainian or central Asian criminal organizations.

>One indictment describes Anatoly Golubchik and Michael Sall, who own condos in Trump International Beach Resort in Sunny Isles Beach, Fla., and Vadim Trincher, who owns a unit in Trump Tower in Manhattan, as members of a Russian-American organized crime group that ran an illegal gambling and money-laundering operation.

>Money laundering was an issue for Trump's Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City, which was fined $10 million in 2015 for failing to report suspicious transactions. Federal rules are designed to protect the U.S. financial system from being used as a safe haven for dirty money and transnational crimes, Jennifer Shasky Calvery, director of the U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen) said at the time. It was the largest penalty the agency ever levied against a casino since reporting requirements began in 2003, according to The Wall Street Journal.

>"The Trump Organization admitted that it failed to implement and maintain an effective (anti-money laundering) program; failed to report suspicious transactions; failed to properly file required currency transaction reports; and failed to keep appropriate records as required by (the Bank Secrecy Act)," FinCen said in a statement.

>The statement said warnings over repeated violations went back to 2003, but it did not mention Russians.

>In Los Angeles, the federal lawsuit filed in 2014 by lawyers for the Kazakh city of Almaty accuses former mayor Viktor Khrapunov of owning three Trump SoHo units through shell companies used to hide hundreds of millions of dollars allegedly looted by selling state-owned assets. Kazakhstan is a former Soviet republic.

>The Trump SoHo project "was largely financed by illegally obtained cash from Russia and Eastern European sources, including money provided by known international financial criminals and organized crime racketeers," former prosecutor McCallion wrote on his blog in October. McCallion was an assistant U.S. attorney in New York from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s under presidents Carter and Reagan. He later investigated several Trump investors on behalf of private clients who wanted to invest in Trump SoHo and alleged they were cheated by Bayrock out of the opportunity to do so.

>McCallion, as a private lawyer, also represented former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko in a 2011 lawsuit alleging that Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager, engaged in a racketeering and money-laundering scheme to hide $3.5 billion in stolen funds, much of it by buying U.S. real estate.
...

>Manafort's co-defendants were Dmitry Firtash, a Ukranian gas executive under federal indictment for bribery, and Semyon Mogelivich, identified by the Justice Department as head of a transnational criminal organization that posed a threat to U.S. national security. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2015 because Tymoshenko was unable to show the role of each defendant in the alleged money-laundering plot.

>Manafort resigned from the Trump campaign in August, days after Ukrainian investigators alleged that secret ledgers showed $12.8 million was put aside for Manafort by the party of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted in a popular uprising in 2014. More details about the alleged secret payments surfaced March 20.

>Manafort, who has acknowledged working for pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians, has denied receiving off-the-books pay and said his compensation covered campaign staff, polling and television ads in Ukraine.

>Manafort also allegedly worked for a Russian billionaire to advance Putin's interests a decade ago, the Associated Press reported March 22.

>Firtash, a major donor of Yanukovych's party, was indicted in 2013 by U.S. prosecutors in Chicago for allegedly paying officials in India $18.5 million in bribes for licenses to mine titanium ore. Firtash said he is an innocent victim of American efforts to punish political allies of Putin. His extradition from Austria to the United States was approved in February and then put on hold while an Austrian judge considers a Spanish indictment against him on charges of money laundering and organized crime.

>In an interview with USA TODAY, McCallion said he spent years looking into the Trump Organization, the businesses and individuals that dealt with it, and the possibility that Trump's real estate empire may depend on hundreds of millions of dollars from Russians.
...

>“The FBI is always concerned if public officials can be blackmailed,” McCallion said. “It’s Russian-laundered money from people who operate under the good graces of President Putin. If these people pull the plug on the Trump Organization, it would go down pretty quickly.”

>Luke Harding, author of A Very Expensive Poison, about the 2006 lethal poisoning of defected Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium-210 in London, said the lawlessness in former Soviet republics like Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan explains why businessmen from those countries seek safe havens to invest their wealth.

>“If you steal money in a place like Russia, you have a problem,” Harding said. “You need to convert it to rubles and dollars and put it somewhere someone can’t steal it from you. One place to do that is buy real estate in New York, Miami or London.”

>Ariel Cohen, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, said not all wealthy Russians are crooks or beholden to Putin. “It’s more complicated than that," Cohen said.

>"There are oligarchs who are FOPs (friends of Putin) and there are those who lost their assets due to corruption, abuse of power, a crummy legal system and the lack of property rights," he said. "Many of these people moved abroad, to London, New York and Florida. They are refugees from the corporate raiding Russian-style practiced for the last couple of decades."

>Some became wealthy before Putin's rise to power "and in some cases are in hidden resentment or quiet opposition to Putin," Cohen said. “A lot of these people run big businesses, banks, retail, oil and gas, and these are legitimate businesses that pay taxes" in Russia.

>Here is a closer look at some of the Trump project investors or condo buyers with alleged ties to organized crime and the Russian government:

>Felix Sater
...
>Alexander Mashkevich
...
>Peter Kiritchenko
...
>Viktor Khrapunov
...
>Anatoly Golubchik, Vadim Trincher and Michael Sall

dripski dripski dripski

>>126359
Enough about Russia:

what about the Marcels and their network of deep state oligarchs.

Inb4 fake news

>>126412
INB4 /pol/ raid.

lock up and strip these criminals of their money.

>>126416
who? Congress?

>>126384

>deep state

Ah, latest buzzword.

>Trump has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection to any of the individuals mentioned in this article.

Make this the first line of this thread so we don't have to read further.

>>126450
>>Trump has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection to any of the individuals mentioned in this article.
I just accused him. There you go.

where's the part about Hillary selling North Korea, Iran, and Putin 50% of America's uranium and then laundering the money through a cannibalistic pedophilia ring fronting as a chain of pizza stores?????????????????

>>126467
No where because it's crazy nonsense

>>126467
Not that she did any of that stuff in the first place, but Hillary isn't President so nobody cares but Trumpcucks what she does or did.

>>126463
>>>/pol/

personal accusations are not the news .

>>126529
For all you know I'm Senator Al Franken.

>>126535
Fuck off back to Minnesota.

>>126544
Make me.

I hate this Russia meme

>>126552
In Soviet Russia, memes hate you.

>>126467
>>126470
>>126525
Samefag

>>127232
you know you're always wrong when you do this.
t. the last guy on the list

p.s. just get 4chanX already you newfag.

>>127234
So you're just one of two people stupid enough to think that's someone's actual opinion and not a poorly constructed strawman?

>>126535
Maybe not a senator. But , working for the Federal Government? Sure.


;^)

>>127277
>TFW working for the Feds but not getting paid to shill

Feels pretty good actually

Reminder that all these "Russian connections" stuff is nonsense. All billionaire businessmen have connections to other countries, including Russia, Hillary met with a Russian ambassador during her campaign, Obama did 22 times, and John Podesta had numerous connections to Russia.

The Russia hysteria is bullshit to warm up for war (they're attacking Assad and Putin the same way they did with Saddam prior to the Iraq War) and trying to prevent any sort of detente between the two countries.

I honestly can't tell who are just shills, or naive Democrats/leftists still pushing this retarded narrative.

https://theintercept.com/2016/12/14/heres-the-public-evidence-russia-hacked-the-dnc-its-not-enough/
https://theintercept.com/2017/01/04/washpost-is-richly-rewarded-for-false-news-about-russia-threat-while-public-is-deceived/
https://theintercept.com/2016/08/08/dems-tactic-of-accusing-adversaries-of-kremlin-ties-and-russia-sympathies-has-long-history-in-us/

Globalists like Soros are pushing for offensives against Russia, and they're using any excuse to justify more aggression against them, like they did with the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" lies in 2003. This is where the "Russia hacked the election", "Wikileaks is a Kremlin front", "Flynn and Sessions are connected to Russia (even though Sessions has been working in the government for 40+ years), "Trump is a Putin plant", etc. stupidity comes from.

>Soros urges giving Ukraine $50 billion of aid to foil Russia:
http://archive.is/zbg16

>Hacked emails expose George Soros as Ukraine puppet-master:
http://archive.is/2RW37

>George Soros (Hillary's primary financer) instructing Hillary on what policies to carry out as Secretary of State:
https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/28972

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4371304/Russia-makes-jibe-claims-hijacked-election.html

With the Russian election hacking scandal having gone from the merely strange, to the bizarre, to the ironic, to the McCarthyist, and most recently, jumping the patently absurd shark – as of last night, anyone who is against Hillary is “influenced by Russia” according to a former Clinton advisor – Russia decided to have some fun at the expense of US paranoia.

On Saturday, the ministry posted the following audio file of the “new” automated telephone switchboard message for Russian embassies.

“You have reached the Russian embassy, your call is very important to us. To arrange a call from a Russian diplomat to your political opponent, press 1. To use the services of Russian hackers press 2. To request election interference, press 3 and wait until the next election campaign. Please note that all calls are recorded for quality improvement and training purposes.”

>>127568
>>127585
The Democrats want a nuclear war to kill off the human race. They are quite open about it, and its because Hillary is so hateful that she wants to destroy the world and kill off all life on it. This is what liberals have been trying to do since the Dark Age of Reason when they challenged god and king.

>>127587
>>127585
>>127568
>Trump dindu nuffin! Look at Soros, not Trump! not Mercer or Tillerson or Wilbur Ross and all the Bank of Cyprus connections! Putin a good boi!
It's too late. It's already over, it's only unfolding in slow motion.

>>126359
And Obama admitted to using coke and smoking weed. Doesn't mean a damn thing if they were never charged for it.

>>127617
>Doesn't mean a damn thing
It means something in the court of public opinion. Look at his approval ratings.

>>127587
Trump is the one actively advocating a new arms race and demanding Vladdykins return Crimea. How is he for detente with Russia again?

>>127613
>It's too late

You've been pushing this stupid Russia narrative for months now. It hasn't worked, and no one cares anymore. You've cried wolf too many times, and it was a bullshit narrative from the get-go.

>>127623

None of it has anything to do with Russia though.

>>127637
Read the OP article, genius.

>>127640

I did, and it's the same paranoid shit that has been pushed for months. Assuming any sort of people that ever had connections with Trump or his "condos" being involved in other countries or having investments there (like Russia) is significant, or something worthy of impeachment. Still nonsense after all this time.

You've been pushing this stupid shit for months. It hasn't worked, it's not going to work.

You cry if someone who shaked hand with Trump decades ago breathed in the same direction as a Russian, yet you don't care about all the connections US officials have with Israel, Saudi Arabia, Europe or other countries.

>>127641
Pretty much. The American people love Trump (excluding those in the cities, but I don't consider them to be real Americans anyways), and if the Democrats continue their little Clinton engineered tirade, then the US will be a one party system come 2020.

>>127641
>I don't believe it so it must not be true!
I don't understand how people can be in denial when the evidence is right there copypasted in the OP post. It's not my personal narrative, it's reality crashing down around your circlejerk. Remember, Trump is the one who claims not to have any dealings with Russia in the past decade but they keep coming out with more dealings he had with them. He could make a lot of this just go away if he'd only release his tax returns but you know as well as I that he won't because he's guilty as hell and he knows it. As if he's really still under audit right now.

inb4 "real americans" don't care

>>127613
Russians working on overtime. And no, I don't think all or even most Trumposters are Russians or are trolling, but I do think a few, especially the super pro Putin ones, are.

>>127646
>He could make a lot of this just go away if he'd only release his tax returns but you know as well as I that he won't because he's guilty as hell and he knows it

He already did that, there was nothing to report on.

>>127695

You guys really are brainwashed.

All the elites need to do is scream: "Russia is bad!", "Putin is evil!", "Russia hacked the election!", and you believe it because you're a fucking moron. Then the only "evidence" they can even find is the fact that a billionaire businessman who spent decades doing business around the world has connections to people who were involved in Russia, or had investments there. That's literally it.

>Wikileaks is a front for the Kremlin!
>Jeff Sessions, who has been working in the US government for 40 years, is a Putin agent!
>Flynn is a Putin plant!
>Jill Stein is a Putin plant!
>Trump is a Putin agent!
>all of Trump's managers were working for the Russians!
>4chan is a Russian operation!
>the FBI is a front for the Kremlin!
>Le Pen is a Putin plant (they're unironically starting to say this)
>the Russians hacked the election!
>Roger Stone is a Putin agent!

It's so absurd that I'm amazed that even the most deluded Democrats are still being taken for a ride with this shit.

And they started pushing the "Russia is evil ebul!" narrative before Trump ran for office, it was absurd even back then. Russia hasn't been a problem since it dropped global communism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMrsujiTXeE

It's exactly like with Saddam Hussein. "HITLER 2.0!", "HE HAS WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!", "HE THREW KUWAITI BABIES OUT OF INCUMBATORS AND TRAMPLED THEM TO DEATH UNTIL BABY BLOOD TISSUE AND BONESPLINTER WERE ALL OVER THE FLOOR AND HE GASSED THE KURDS"

Even some of the reasonable leftists like Michael Tracey and Kyle Kulinsky who don't like Trump realize how stupid this Russia nonsense is, and how it's been peddled for the last years.

>>127700
Your entire greentext list is based on a bunch of false or misleading premises. When you start taking the allegations against Trump seriously, let us know. The investigation on the part of the world's press isn't going anywhere. They *will* get his complete tax returns for a recent year eventually, and when they do they will know exactly how much nefarious foreign investment he's been trafficking with.

>>127700
The Dems need to be wiped out before they start a nuclear war. This is all apart of their plan to extinct the human race to get back at us people for not electing Clinton. It wasn't the Republicans who started WWII, destroyed multiple nations, dropped a nuke on Japan, and did all those other war crimes? It wasn't a republican who started the Vietnam War, and it wasn't conservatives who started the French Revolution or Communism. No, since the 17th century, with the rise of so called reason has the left been destroying human civilization. Or how about Obama droning small towns in America and dumping chemicals in our porridge to turn us all gay and drive down the birth rates of rural whites. They are so evil that they will slit their own throat to drown us with their blood.

>>126359
I want to know weither or not the Mercers and the Kochs have anything to do with this.

>>127705
Oh boy the Birchers are here.

>>127707
They both hate Trump, so no.

>>127710
it's because of /mlpol/

>>127711
>They both hate Trump
Not sure on Koch, but the Mercers:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/29/politics/mercer-trump-nonprofit/

https://www.democracynow.org/2017/3/29/full_interview_jane_mayer_on_the

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/27/the-reclusive-hedge-fund-tycoon-behind-the-trump-presidency

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/no-one-knows-what-the-powerful-mercers-really-want/514529/

>>127711
>the family that funds both Breitbart and half of Trump's campaign hates Trump
Not bloody likely. Just stop posting since you obviously have no idea what you are talking about.

>>127701
>They *will* get his complete tax returns for a recent year eventually, and when they do they will know exactly how much nefarious foreign investment he's been trafficking with.

Yeah, zero.

>>126359
muh russians! Does anyone still believe this horseshit?

>>127720
everyone except you and /pol/

All part of what we planned...
Do I have to explain KEK to all you newbies? In America we need change because under the covers most politicians and the 1% globalists have been selling out the American people for decades.

How do you get corrupt people to change? You give them terrible pain. Trump was put into power by our vote because we know he is going to be the worst president ever. Donald Trump is that very visible pain and that pain will inspire real change. It is all part of the plan of people that really love this country and love ALL the people in it. Would you rather have blatant disgusting Trump or sneaky Hilary? Choose the one who is mostly likely to inspire real change after 4 years...and that would be the in your face Trump, a bigly man with a supersized ego who feels no need to strongly cover his greedy moves. Trump's Tweets or Hilary's private e-mail server are both bad, but seeing how government fails via a public twitter feed is priceless. We deserve better. In sum folks, Kek is the god of chaos...who has a frog's head (I am not making this up). According to the legend, out of Chaos comes order but you need chaos first. The sheeple
outside of 4chan think KEK means LOL and we like it that way. It spreads the message faster. All hail the clan of kek!!

>>127737
This is some powerful 8D chess.

>>127700
Russia is run by a dictator who kills journalist and started a border war just a few years ago. It's not that they're a military or political threat, but that they're run by obvious villains, and it would be stupid to trust them as allies. The alternative isn't war, it's what we've had for the last 30 years, a terse formal relationship, pure politics, while we make sure they don't shit in our backyard while we aren't looking (which they might just've managed to do finally).

>>127699
Oh really, would you mind posting them for us comrade?

>>127701
>Your entire greentext list is based on a bunch of false or misleading premises.

No, literally every one of them was said at one point, some of them even led to people being fired (Flynn and one of Trump's managers). Both bullshit, but it shows you the power the media and the deep state have.

>The investigation on the part of the world's press isn't going anywhere
Of course it isn't. They're all owned by the same globalist interests who want war with Russia, and have for years. They will keep pushing random bullshit about Russia and grapsing at straws. Good thing it's losing its effects though, people have become numb to the Russia fear-mongering.

http://imgur.com/a/Jozzw
http://imgur.com/a/KljAA
http://imgur.com/a/Mwd57

Meanwhile those same outlets ignore Israel's influence, Saudi Arabia's influence, problems with the CIA, EU, NATO, which are more concerning than "muh Russia".

>They *will* get his complete tax returns for a recent year eventually
Is this still a talking point that's being used unironically? After Rachel Maddow embarrassed herself by showing the ones from 2005 that proved he did pay his fair share and there nothing of substance.

"Russia" and "tax returns" are the main talking points the shills go back to when they don't have anything new.

>>127734

No, no one except Democrats and leftists clinging to something that they hope will get Trump impeached, desperately. Every poll shows it's only them, and neocons like John McCain and Bill Kristol.

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/03/29/poll-minor-shift-trump-administration-relationship-russia/22016097/
>But if there is one bright spot for the Trump administration, it appears the recent developments have not shifted public opinion significantly on the matter.

>>127761
>Russia is run by a dictator who kills journalist

The US is "allied" with Saudi Arabia, a dictatorship that constantly get people killed.

And do you really think countries like Israel, the US, or other Western governements don't get people killed? They do constantly. Who do you think were responsble for killing all these ambassadors or Seth Rich? The European and American governments (and its agencies like the CIA) are guilty of similar things, they're just better at hiding it, and they allow in millions of potential terrorists in their countries which is a threat to their citizens bigger than the occasional assassination.

>started a border war
The US has started countless wars and invasions over the last decades. Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam war... The truth is that the US is the biggest warmongerer out of all the countries. Crimea had belonged to Russia since the 18th century, and the way it was annexed was completely bloodless and done democratically.

Either way, the fact that you can only think of things as villain/the "good guys" shows you can't be taken seriously. Having better relationships with other countries for the good of everybody and for strategic purposes doesn't hinge on whether you think they're too mean or not.

>The alternative isn't war
It's what they're pushing for though with this narrative. They are just trying to prevent any sort of detente or better relationships between the countries, and trying to justify further aggression against them

>>127792
>muh deep state
>muh globalist elites
>muh blind defense of Russia
>muh Saudis are evil meme
Jesus, is there anything you won't parrot from Alex Jones's or Rush Limbaugh's show last week? Is there anything for which you won't apologize for or rationalize away for Trump and his lackeys? Nice post full of meaningless buzzwords you got there though.

>>127814
>defending the Saudis
>whining about Russia
>still no argument in sight
>talks about "meaningless buzzwords", while his post is full of them

Neck yourself shill.

>>127829
lol thanks for the bump Trumpcuck.

>>127793
Consider for a moment the benefits we get from an Allied relationship with Saudi Arabia over someplace like Russia. What does Russia provide that could not be supplemented elsewhere.
Also, read my fucking post before you just spout whatever shit you're projecting. I'm saying we shouldn't cozy up to the government of a guy who offers us nothing, and has shown time and again that he is a disestablishing force in the world, and is trying to legitimize his fascist government by allying with greater powers.
The US has the greatest military in the world, but the idea that we're going to go to war with fucking Russia when we won't even set feet on North Korea is absurd. You're using the threat of war as an excuse, all this shit you're supposing must be true because it fits your narrative could also easily be explained by calling the bluff of a paper tiger.
There is no reason we have to make our relationship with Russia any better, and there are plenty of good reasons we shouldn't.

>>127587

>implying liberal thinking didn't result in every scientific advancement to date
>implying, by definition, liberals aren't the reason you have everything nice that you have in your life
>11/10 bait worked
>fuck you for making me read that completely batshit drivel

>>127814
The Saudis are evil you silly fuck.

>>128050
Well it's a good thing they own 1/5th of the American economy then, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_Holding_Company

>>127793
>Hurr-durr, USA is just as bad...
So what? How does it excuse Russia? At least Americans get high living standards from their government treating the rest of the world like shit - Russian government on the other hand treats Russians even worse.

>>128051
Every body agrees this is a problem.

>>128139
Problem? All their real estate holdings and corporate holdings aren't the real problem. That money is mostly being invested in American banks.

The real problem is that we're dependent on them for oil, and that the average price of gasoline would rise to over $10 a gallon if Saudi Arabia cut off all ties tomorrow. Whole trucking companies would go out of business overnight in such a scenario, unable to afford fuel for their fleets. The supply chain would break down, causing further chaos.

>>128001
Why is scientific advancement so great? Why are shitters entitled to a good life? All these good things around you are making you weak.