sheeeit

Whatever. Never once have i suggested that an investigation was not appropriate. I stated many times that I supported Mueller's appointment and will accept whatever he finds. I have said that I would support impeachment if any of the following: 1) Collusion/conspiracy with russia 2) Firing mueller without a very good reason and only if a competent replacement was put in charge 3) money laundering 4) tax fraud etc. Just because I do not believe those things happened does not mean that they shouldn't be investigated. People post all kinds of speculation every day. Wild ass speculation. Just because I find holes in some of that speculation and present another side to it doesnt mean i am some trumpkin. I have my own theory on what has happened and, of course, I am going to argue for my opinion. Isnt that what this is supposed to be for? I am also not going to hide from my opinions. Opinions are not worth anything if they are not shared.

Did not see the 3rd party part. My strong suspicion is that it was a grey area and the parties decided to blow up the deal as a result. The particulars of the entity bylaws are a far cry from bribery. But I will gladly concede that the attorneys may have missed something technical. But you are misrepresenting my point. I am not saying it is impossible for shady deals to get put together. I am talking about this articular deal. Do you think it is even remotely possible that the lawyers and bankers (and there would be several of each representing the buyer seller and debt holders) on this deal would not be aware of a huge commission being paid out to an unknown third party? If you agree with that, do you think there is even a remote chance that all of them collectively would agree to go forward anyway knowing the stakes involved? Cohen? Are you suggesting that Qatar and Glencore and the Bank of Singapore used Cohen? What does Cohen have to do with any of this? I suppose you are suggesting that Cohen did some sort of contract with Rosneft for Trump? You think they used lawyers and a paper trail for a bribe?

The deal structure is not that unusual. Whenever you have multiple partners buying a stake in a company, it is almost always (99%) set up in a new entity. Glencore and Qatar would not want any of this particular investment to get comingled with their other assets. The legal structure of the deal is pretty typical. And Rosneft would have multiple divisions and entities in and of itself. In energy, virtually every new "deal" gets set up in a new entity. Each deal is separated from each other for liability reasons. But ultimately there is a holding company that controls all of the entities. Using the UK as the holding company is also common for deals in that part of the world. The govt/laws there are very stable as is the economy. There are also some tax reasons. As to the stock buy back, it is not uncommon at all for the selling party to have buy back provisions in the deal. They are typically pretty lucrative to the buyers and, as a result, are rarely acted on. But, just ask yourself, why in the world would anyone go to alll of that trouble just to hide a bribe payment? The companies involved spent hundreds of millions on bankers and lawyers to get the deal done. You think it makes sense to spend all of that money and time and effort and everything else just to hide a bribery payment? I mean that is just completely nonsensical. I looked at the chart you referenced. It is actually pretty comical in the "associations" the use to make it into trumps orbit. Wilbur Ross- Former Chairman of Cypress Bank with zero connection to this deal. Tillerson- Connected because Exxon made deals with Rosneft in 2012. Manafort- He knew russians? Carter Page- I see no connection whatsoever. Guilianni/Kushner etc- None of them have any direct connection to the deal at all and only have specious connections to unrelated people. The connections trying to be made are so thin they are silly.

I have no illusions about Glencore. They do what every other major energy player does at times. I am not saying that, on their own, Glencore would not do something nefarious. I am saying not in a deal like this. It might be the tiniest bit possible if the entire deal was financed privately by Qatar and Glencore but it wasn't. Banks in singapore provided many billions in funding. Are we to assume that hte singapore bankers were also in on the bribe? I would think that the banks would like to get repaid on their loans. Openly entering into a situation involving bribing a US presidential candidate seems a bit risky for most banks. You think it is possible that the lawyers for the singapore banks were ok with the set up? When you loan someone billions you get to see every financial transaction.

You are kind of making my point. Of course the bankers will try and get the deal done, that is their job. But they have massive liability if they obfuscated something as egregious as what people are alleging. But that is also why I included the lawyers. Your point above that even a tiny issue can derail a deal because the attorneys pour over every detail. Do you think that there is any way possible that the attorneys and bankers would not be aware if there were hundreds of millions of bribes being paid as part of the deal? You have to agree that they would have to know. Impossible that they would not. As an attorney, you know that you would have massive liability issues if you did not disclose completely the nature of those payments. You would probably quit the deal over something like that but, at a minimum, you would paper the transaction to cover your ass in every way possible. That is why these types of things are just so crazy. Somehow we are to believe that russians wanted to bribe trump to lift sanctions first (which is believable that they would want to do that) then they got Qatar and Glencore to go along with it then they got the Singapore bank to go along with it, then they got all of the outside i-bankers and lawyers to go along with it. Knowing full well that if anyone in the chain anywhere cracked, they could all go to jail at worst and definitely lose a ton of money at best and, probably most important, lose out on any chance to work with the US ever again or any of the US allies that the US told not to work with them. Essentially suicide. And they would risk all of that to bribe a guy that no one thought had any chance to win. If you guys step back from this you surely can see how this would never happen. Again, I would believe that Rosneft might bribe someone. I can believe that Glencore and Qatar could bribe someone. But there is just no way it could happen as part of a deal like the one that was done. Way too many moving parts and no way to keep the story straight. Carter Page!! Thats according tot eh dossier right? All of these people are going to risk professional ruin by trusting Carter Page. Come on.

Lulz. I only know that I know more about these types of deals than you do, which was obvious with your stupid commissions/proceeds retort. I am very hopeful there are people on here with some experience also in this type of deal so that they can verify what I am saying.

This is going to be pointless I am sure and I have no reason to think you have the capacity to actually understand it, but maybe others will. No one suggested the commissions had to come from the sales proceeds genius. What I am saying (and every banker and attorney will agree) is that if there was some commission to some unrelated 3rd party that it would have to be disclosed to the buyers. The attorneys and bankers for Glencore would never let Glencore close on the deal without knowing exactly what and who that commission was for. Zero chance. This is not some spy novel. Serious professionals were part of this transaction. banks put in billions of dollars. Qatar's investment arm put in billions. Glencore put in hundreds of millions. And for you guys to be correct, they all would have had to knowingly go along with the bribe to Carter fucking Page. The odds of getting found out are massive. It defies logic on every scale.

I know you guys are ginned up over this Rosneft stuff but you need to be prepared for a big let down. I know it makes for fascinating speculation but reality still exists in the end. I won't go into all of the details but point out a few things. The deal that was struck between rosneft and Qatar/Glencore was agreed on sometime in January 2016, well before trump was a likely winner of anything. The due dilligence for this deal (especially considering that it was a private company with some govt ownership) would have been massive. Every asset of Rosneft, every contract, every piece of equipment etc. would be verified by the purchasers. That process would take 9-10 months at least and cost upwards of $30M. Alleging that in the middle of the due diligence where you have investment banks and lawyers up to their ears in work and fees, that the selling party offered a massive commission to someone that had no impact on the deal whatsoever is just plain crazy. It could not happen in any way. Further, you have a very well respected and spectacularly successful energy company in Glencore that is part of the deal and putting in $300M of its own money. Do you guys really think there is any way that Glencore is going to willingly go along with some sort of bribe/commission to trump et al? There is a 0% chance of that happening. Glencore would run from that as fast as they could. And Glencore, as part of the purchase, had access to every single dime from Rosneft and where it was going. Every dime. For you guys to be right, the investment bankers and attorneys for Glencore would have to just completely disregard $100Ms in fees going somewhere unknown. I am sure Glencore would be happy to buy into a company that was bribing a foreign govt. Even more so, they were apparently bribing the guy that, at the time, everyone in the world thought had a maybe 5% chance of actually winning. It is ridiculous on its face. Glencore would risk its entire investment, reputation and possible legal standing, to bribe trump? Before you guys rip me, this does not mean trump is clean. This is not a defense of trump. This is an attempt at basic thinking. Trump may well go down (I still very much doubt it) but it is possible. But the Rosneft angle is just ridiculous.

Jesus. Most people not like you and Hugo and crew do not live this stuff 24/7. This guy had 1000 other things going in his life and I doubt he even remembered the email stuff at the end. And yea, i cant imagine why anyone would not want to die a slow and excruciatingly painful death by inoperable cancer.

And we are done here.

No one ever wins arguments on this topic. The reality is that Israel is going nowhere in any of our lifetimes. But it is beyond ridiculous to try and pin these latest deaths on the IDF. The riots have been going on for months. People have been getting killed for months. Israel has told the palestinians that anyone (man, woman, child) that tries to broach the barricades is going to get repelled. Every single Palestinian knows this. The whole episode is tragic. But letting kids anywhere near this is 100% on the parents and the leaders today. I also like the prison analogy. Did I miss something? Aren't 100% of the Palestinians free to go anywhere they want? Curious term.

Well we were in college. I think we were afraid of getting kicked out. But isnt one of the hallmarks of college to come up with some overly elaborate scheme just to get free drinks?

College cheap was the best. Went to a university that had casinos in a neighboring state that wasn’t too far away. My roommate and I would elaborately plan out our roulette wagers so that we would break even. We would go in and sit across from each other and mirror our bets so that we could get as many free drinks as possible. As I recall, table minimums were $2. Green killed us occasionally but it was always good for a 4-5 free drink head start on the evening. One night we were into our deal and the roulette guy figured out pretty easily what we were doing. He was cool though and just told us to sit next to each other and bet black and red so we didn’t have to keep track of all of the numbers.

To keep the BJ thought going you are doubling down on stupid. Hitting on a 16 when the dealer shows a 6 is a dumb play and people doing that will likely lose money in the long term. A person doing that next to you does not change your odds. The odds getting better the farther away from the first seat is only true if you are counting. If not, no change.

It depends on what happens. The US puts sanctions back on Iran. We have little to no trade with Iran so it does not mean much by itself. But maybe other countries will have to decide if they want to stay in the good graces of the US or Iran? It is a complex thing. I am not saying it is a good strategy or the right strategy, but the US has tremendous power to influence others. Plus, Israel is still the wild card. IMO (and it is only an opinion) I think the leaders of Iran are scared to death of Israel. They will never, ever admit that, but I believe that it is true. I also believe that the leaders of the rest of the world do not want Israel bombing Iran facilities. The deal that was done put Israel in a tough spot as they could not really do anything to Iran after the deal was put in place. By the US dropping out, Israel becomes a wild card once again. It is possible that those 2 things will force the rest of the world to renegotiate a deal with Iran that has actual teeth. Again, just an opinion.

The Prince stuff is great. As I have said, I do not think Prince will get accused of doing anything by Mueller. But the fun side is that the supposed reason for the meeting with russians was to set up a back channel. Which is interesting for a lot of reasons. I thought it was Kushner that had the back channel communications? And before that Flynn? And before that Manafort? And before that Carter Page? Or was it the meeting with Nataliya? What about the russian mob? What about whoever trump colluded with in the election? I mean, surely there is a back channel communication established already? But maybe not. Maybe it made sense to the russians to try and get a back channel through a guy that is not even in the admin. And a billionaire that they could surely blackmail for......? And, since the whole point of setting up back channels is to avoid detection, they thought it would be wise to get as many people involved in the process as possible.

I have also like reading about this line of thinking. Yesterday we had inspectors on the ground that Iran obviously knew about so people asked about the sites that were not eligible to be inspected and the retort was we will know from our IC. Today, we, apparently, have no inspectors on the ground, but, even more amazing, our IC can longer do anything apparently. Yesterday our IC was so good that it did not matter that we did not have access to certain sites. Today, our IC is so bad that they we have no way of knowing anything at all.

The irony of this post is spectacular. Calling someone out for not understanding something and then posting something that you clearly have no understanding of. How do you think low-enriched uranium becomes highly enriched genius?

It depends totally on the language of the contract. Companies enter into bad contracts all of the time. The contract could have been written that Cohen would meet a certain number of times throughout the year and offer his opinion on stuff. If Novartis decided after the first meeting that Cohen's opinion was stupid, they still had to honor the contract as long as Cohen kept agreeing to show up as agreed. Sounds like Cohen just did a sales job on Novartis. I am curious though as to what you guys think Novartis was paying for? Or what they got? Direct access to Trump? Inside info?

So what is illegal? Are you claiming that ATT buying Cohen's assistance is illegal? Is working as a middleman illegal? You seem to be implying that Cohen was illegally getting foreign money or dirty money into the RNC. Super. I hope they catch him on that and put him in jail.

I am not sure he has to legally. If he met with them, had calls with them, set up meetings for them then he can claim he did his job. Or, ATT can sue him and ask for their money back. Of course it could be something else. I have a hard time believing that ATT willingly gave money to Cohen to set up a slush fund to fix things for Trump. I have already said I think Cohen is shady and there very well may be some incriminating stuff in his files. We shall see.

Look I think Cohen is shady as fuck. I hope he gets nailed if he actually committed a crime. From what has been reported, I have not seen a crime yet. Shady dealings for sure. But if Cohen pimped himself as a consultant with insights into Trump and people paid him for it, then I do not think he did anything illegal. It is pretty hilarious that people think ATT could "buy" net neutrality for a few hundred grand. Trump was vocally against it from the campaign trail. Also, this is a great site https://www.publicintegrity.org/. Go there and search for Obama, Bush, Clinton, Trump etc. You will find reams of stories about bundlers and corps and friends of every one of them that got plum govt jobs, multi million dollar contracts, loans etc. This is nothing new. It is shady and bad, but not new. I have stated many, many times that it is impossible to get money out of politics. Impossible. The way to fix the problem is having strictly termed people that never run for reelection.

First, this is the problem with any POTUS entering into such a dramatic deal without congressional approval. Because if we let one guy do it, then we do not have a choice if the next guy wants to undo it. The original deal was terrible. IMO, it was the epitome of political grandstanding which actually made the situation worse. The Iranians said they only coveted nuclear capabilities for energy, yet, the recent report by Israel makes it abundantly clear that they want nuclear military capabilities. The 2 biggest problems with the original deal are 1) the timelines and, 2) the access. Obama has openly admitted that this deal gives Iran the capability to have advanced enough centrifuges that they could enrich uranium to military grade in a number of days. Certainly in a shorter time than any inspections could stop it. Why would we agree to a deal that lets the Iranians have the advanced centrifuges? They are completely unnecessary for energy production. It was an absolute horrible part of the deal and the one that, essentially, makes the deal worthless from a practical standpoint. A whopping 10 or so years Iran has to wait to get everything they wanted and we released 100s of billions to them. Literally, the deal from Iran's prospective was- we get 100s of billions in cash, we get trade sanctions lifted, we get advanced centrifuges, we get limited inspection and, if we wait a whole 10 years, we get the ability to enrich military grade uranium in a matter of days. That is the deal of century for Iran. Again, purely political grandstanding. The access is equally as bad. Iran was in bad, bad shape financially and politically. Bad shape. They HAD to make a deal. Yet, we did not demand unfettered access to their potential sites. It is baffling why we would do that. It is like Aggy facing the death penalty for football recruiting violations and Texas agreeing to let them off the hook if we get to inspect their recruiting of punters only. I am hopeful that the advanced centrifuges and access issues can be renegotiated in a new deal. We shall see.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/03/politics/missouri-lawmakers-special-session-greitens-impeachment/index.html Perhaps there is hope. Republicans impeaching a republican. Baby steps. Hopefully you can drink some good bourbon this weekend and step back from the ledge for a few days.

Every once in a while Hugo's true nature peeks out. It is funny that Politico (which is rated as liberal) is now a propaganda arm for Trump. This was just an opinion piece (one I do not personally agree with very much). There is probably a 50-1 ratio of opinion pieces that are against Trump. When you guys use words like tyranny, you are just making total fools of yourselves.