Get over here and slide me some skin you old so and so

Well this is certainly a take

They're just laughing at everyone. 'Hey you sent anyone in another country to murder someone you don't like this week, Haha high five'.

I didn't think the crown Prince would be a fan of Putin though considering all the help Putin has been giving Saudi's enemies the last few years.

This is straight disgusting

CIA leak apparently they know of 11 communications from the prince that leads CIA to conclude he directly ordered this. Immediately raises the question, is the CIA always intercepting every communication of dozens of world leaders? If so that seems pretty impressive.

No doubt his ego is sustained by that Putin high-five.


https://twitter.com/LibyanBentBladi/...31247170387968

Not that it matters but

Just saw on NYT Lindsay Graham quote “There is no smoking gun, but there is a smoking saw”

He also said "MBS is Crazy" " A wrecking ball"

bear in mind that Lindsey Graham is only mad about this because it hurts public support for his anti-Iran Saudi/Israeli/US coalition. He wants someone in charge of Saudi Arabia that doesn't make his war ambitions harder, that's it.

Don’t worry I had no notion that Graham was being noble, just that it was a pretty wild quote.

At least he draws the line at murder of the means one is allowed to take to achieve their political objectives. The Kavanaugh stuff was fine though. And I assume he isn't opposed to gerrymandering, voter suppression laws, the stuff the GOP is doing in Michigan now, etc.

till a priceless quote

What doesn't Schumer grow some balls and call on the U.S. to cut ties with Saudi Arabia? They need us more than we need them.

Because he doesn't give a **** and because most rich people and big corporations do not want U.S. to cut ties with Saudi Arabia.

#dadjokes

No one of significance has told him to, yet

#lifelongcelebatebachelorjokes

Not confident Lindsey Graham consistently draws this line though.

Define us and them.

People that sell services and whatever else in the extraction industry to Saudi Aramco or whoever, they surely want Saudi busiess. Our President wants to sell them hotels, he would like to do business with them. The defense industry wants to do business with them. A bunch of firms backed by Saudi dollars or with big Saudi shareholders (e.g. Lyft) want Saudi money. Foreign policy hawks want Saudi Arabia to constrain Iran, although this is hard to decouple from American extraction industry interests who also want different leadership in Iran and fund a lot of hawkish propaganda.

I mean give Trump credit, in his own way he sort of bumbles around into the brash truths no one wants to say, but what is American foreign policy but "well there's a lot of capital at stake here, and this is just one dead journalist." Sure, it's all exaggerated bluster nonsense about $50 billion dollar arms deals and ****, but his core point is usually blunter and at least spoken, most American elites are a little more circumspect about it. And Trump is pretty transparent that we're not going to let one dead guy disrupt deals or however the frames it. The one dead guy and hundreds of thousands of starving Yemenis and whatever else isn't going to impede capital flows basically.

So in sum: the Saudis sit on top of huge amounts of resources they just pull straight up from the ground and is funneled almost directly upward to a small circle of elites, mostly the royal family. They want to take that capital and turn it into an even bigger pile of money and they want to be even more powerful in the Middle East, so they want to invest their capital somewhere to make their pile of money into a bigger pile of money, and they want to buy weapons to wage their proxy war with Iran for influence in the region (see their war in Yemen against the Houthis, which the Saudis see as essentially fighting Iran).

So you have a small group of Saudi people with a ****ton of money they want to make into even more money, and a desire to beat up a neighbor.

Enter Americans, with promises to grow money, that is, firms to invest in (VC firms that are capital starved, tech firms that are capital starved) or stuff that can help them either beat up their neighbors or pull up money from the ground even faster or more efficiently or whatever (firms with munitions to sell, and extraction industry goods/services to sell). They want all of that capital the Saudis have. This too is not a large group of people, but they are powerful and have influence over affairs of American governance.

In this way we can see that you have a small group of people with a lot of capital and power are deeply interested in a relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States.

And so I disagree with your conclusion. Some Saudis and some Americans want to do business with each other, this important to them.

Appreciate the well-reasoned, detailed reply. Thank you.

From the Democrats' perspective, there seems to be room to exploit Trump's position. While Trump may have a logical argument, he is much more effective making emotional arguments than reasoned ones. If the Democrats went to the mat against the Saudis, their arguments would be simple and clear: this behavior is unacceptable and we will no longer provide arms, assistance, or diplomatic support. Maybe there are better spots to attack Trump on, but they need to stop passing up spots with a modest but clear edge, unless they want 2020 to depend solely on conditions/issues outside their control (economic conditions, Trump's policies) Relying on Trump's unforced errors was enough for 2018 but it is risky to expect the same for 2020.

While your argument is sound, I believe the Saudis still have more at stake (their survival) than most American businesses (who have investment opportunities outside of Saudi Arabia and would still potentially be free to invest in Saudi Arabia) and American consumers (i.e. gas prices). It is not clear to me that the Saudis could or would dramatically cut OPEC production and cause gas prices to skyrocket. There are obviously many factors at stake. Don't really have more to add so I'll stop here.

Why do you presume that the Democrats have any interest in going to the mat against the Saudis?

This isn't "a spot" for them. Most of them are primarily interested in appeasing their donors. Their donors are firmly on the side of continuing BAU.

Because I presume they want to defeat Trump in 2020 and I don't give a **** what their donors who support the Saudis think.

DVaut1 is right about the money part. Trump is willing to say what others are thinking but not willing to say out loud. In the end it comes out to the same thing: Big money isn't going to let a political murder stand in the way of making big money.

I generally disagree that ^^^ really matters to them. It's on the list, but not at the top.

You may not, but they do. That's the point.