American Politics Thread: Orange is the new POTUS

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

Didn't Obama allow US citizens to sue Saudi Arabia?

No, Obama tried to prevent that from being possible.

Congress proposed a bill to allow allow US citizens to sue other governments. Obama told them not to pass it (because it would open the door to allow the US government to be sued by citizens of other countries). Congress passed it anyway. Obama vetoed it, again voicing strong concerns about repercussions from other nations. Congress then overrode that veto, and afterwards leaders of congress attempted to blame Obama for the bill.

Saudi Arabia is (of course) lobbying hard in Washington to have this act overturned, and it almost certainly came up in Trump's meetings with them. At the same time, the first lawsuits have been brought against Saudi Arabia and are heading toward the discovery phase this summer.

[Muta]

How come no one is publicly calling out Saudi Arabia as a state sponsor of terrorism? They're the worst of them all. I know the US government wouldn't for obvious reasons, but media outlets and foreign officials should, and they don't at least not nearly enough. It's frustrating to watch.

[MolsonInBothHands]

How does one sue Saudi Arabia, or any other country. In what court? How do you collect?

[MoneyGuy]

And how does the president control who you can and can't sue?

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by octothorp

No, Obama tried to prevent that from being possible.

Congress proposed a bill to allow allow US citizens to sue other governments. Obama told them not to pass it (because it would open the door to allow the US government to be sued by citizens of other countries). Congress passed it anyway. Obama vetoed it, again voicing strong concerns about repercussions from other nations. Congress then overrode that veto, and afterwards leaders of congress attempted to blame Obama for the bill.

Saudi Arabia is (of course) lobbying hard in Washington to have this act overturned, and it almost certainly came up in Trump's meetings with them. At the same time, the first lawsuits have been brought against Saudi Arabia and are heading toward the discovery phase this summer.

And the Saudis spent $270,000 in Trump's Washington hotel on a benefit dinner shortly after his election. As did Bahrain shortly after

Trump Hotel in DC received $270K in Saudi Arabia-linked payments made after Trump's election, w/@ByronTau https://t.co/iGAmSs6W53

[photon]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

And how does the president control who you can and can't sue?

Can't make or change a law without the president.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

Trump’s freaking out, and it’s only Tuesday
Who's EXCITED!!!?

ME!!!

@costareports

I'm told by two WH sources that Pres. Trump does not plan to put down Twitter on Thursday. May live tweet if he feels the need to respond.

[MoneyGuy]

Originally Posted by photon

Can't make or change a law without the president.

A lawsuit doesn't require a change of law.

[DuffMan]

Saudis own a whole floor in Trump tower.

[AltaGuy]

Originally Posted by MolsonInBothHands

How does one sue Saudi Arabia, or any other country. In what court? How do you collect?

That's the whole issue - the Saudis have billions, if not trillions, of dollars in assets to seize in the US. Mostly in Goldman Sachs, etc. So you get a judgement, march down to Goldman with an order, and seize your funds.

Obviously, this imperils a great number of Wall Street banks and the funds they hold for the Saudis. If the Saudis tried to pull that money out (or some of it) because they felt it was at risk, it would be a severe problem for the banking system.

Wall Street is the real driver behind not having the ability to sue foreign governments on US soil, not really any one particular country.

This also kind of answers the question: "why is no one calling out Saudi Arabia as the worst sponsor of terrorism?" Because the US financial system depends on having that money in the US to operate. A crisis with the Saudis brings down Wall Street.

[photon]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

A lawsuit doesn't require a change of law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justic..._Terrorism_Act is what they're talking about, a law was changed to allow lawsuits to be able to proceed.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

ME!!!

@costareports

I'm told by two WH sources that Pres. Trump does not plan to put down Twitter on Thursday. May live tweet if he feels the need to respond.

That could be interesting...Comey giving testimony, Trump tweeting, then someone says "Mr. Comey, Trump just tweeted in response that you are a liar and a scum, how do you respond?"

Also, what a gong show.

[Street Pharmacist]

An honest question:

If/when a Democrat takes the WH, do they pardon any whistleblowers left? I honestly wonder what flood of information on what Trump and his cronies have been up to? I mean there's quite a bit now, but what are we missing?

[nik-]

Sorry, but why would the US want to open the pandora's box of implying support for the process of allowing citizens of one nation to sue the governments of other nations for the deaths of civilians?

I mean really. Think about it.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by nik-

Sorry, but why would the US want to open the pandora's box of implying support for the process of allowing citizens of one nation to sue the governments of other nations for the deaths of civilians?

I mean really. Think about it.

That was Obama's reasoning for wanting to veto that bill

[AltaGuy]

Originally Posted by nik-

Sorry, but why would the US want to open the pandora's box of implying support for the process of allowing citizens of one nation to sue the governments of other nations for the deaths of civilians?

I mean really. Think about it.

I've already got my suit all drawn up for the last time US customs defamed and harassed me!

[FlameOn]

How the NSA leaker got caught: Physical copies of documents printed contain hidden watermarks that are traceable to when and what printer did the printing for a specific document. This made it very easy for the NSA to track down who had leaked the docs.

When reporters at The Intercept approached the National Security Agency on June 1 to confirm a document that had been anonymously leaked to the publication in May, they handed over a copy of the document to the NSA to verify its authenticity. When they did so, the Intercept team inadvertently exposed its source because the copy showed fold marks that indicated it had been printed—and it included encoded watermarking that revealed exactly when it had been printed and on what printer.

The watermarks, shown in the image above—an enhancement of the scanned document The Intercept published yesterday—were from a Xerox Docucolor printer. Many printers use this or similar schemes, printing faint yellow dots in a grid pattern on printed documents as a form of steganography, encoding metadata about the document into its hard-copy output. Researchers working with the Electronic Frontier Foundation have reverse-engineered the grid pattern employed by this class of printer; using the tool, Ars (and others, including security researcher Robert Graham) determined that the document passed to The Intercept was printed on May 9, 2017 at 6:20am from a printer with the serial number 535218 or 29535218.

Armed with this evidence, the NSA was able to quickly determine who had printed the document by checking audit logs. NSA investigators quickly narrowed it down to Reality Leigh Winner, a 25-year-old contractor for Pluribus International Corporation, a company that provides analytical, translation, and cyberwarfare development services to the intelligence community. Winner was working at the NSA's Fort Gordon, Georgia facility. Her identification was apparently aided, according to the Justice Department's arrest warrant affidavit, by her contacting The Intercept from her work e-mail

https://arstechnica.com/security/201...ts-nsa-leaker/

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

An honest question:

If/when a Democrat takes the WH, do they pardon any whistleblowers left? I honestly wonder what flood of information on what Trump and his cronies have been up to? I mean there's quite a bit now, but what are we missing?

No. Both parties have a similar belief in leaks of information. It would not be in the Democrats' best interest to pardon a whistleblower as that may encourage others to out the dirty things the Dems do in office. People in positions of power do not want whistleblowers protected as it exposes them and their bad behaviors. They would prefer they rotted in jail.

[Muta]

"Trump schedules speech during Comey testimony"

https://www.apnews.com/c7559200fbbd4...omey-testimony

... of course he would.

[photon]

A bit off topic, I listened to Al Franken's book Al Franken, Giant of the Senate and it was pretty good, amusing throughout and had some interesting insights into how things work. Nothing really surprising though, and the humour I'm sure had a lot of punches pulled. EDIT: And there's a whole chunk on Ted Cruz, that was pretty funny.