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Ancient Iraqi Artifacts Imported By Hobby Lobby to be Forfeited

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Re: Ancient Iraqi Artifacts Imported By Hobby Lobby to be Forfeited

#131

Post by mordachai »

If you read the indictment, you'll see that it is very clear that it was not a straightforward or honest mistake.

Here's just one small tip, of many: If you're buying antiquities from a war-torn region, and the seller tells you to instead wire the money to eight different people, none of whom is him, it's possible that this transaction is not on the up and up.

Oh, and a second tip: if you're legally exporting things you think you bought lawfully, don't disguise them as something else.

But yeah... I get it, you're not really interested in the truth of the matter. You're just trying to pretend that you're smart or some crap like that.

Re: Ancient Iraqi Artifacts Imported By Hobby Lobby to be Forfeited

#132

Post by Brendinooo »

hsod wrote: post #122
Brendinooo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DOJ makes it clear that they broke laws. I'm not disputing that. Clearly they did something wrong, and are paying a pretty penny for it (pocket change for the CEO, but almost twice what they paid overall). And as I said, I'd like to think I'd have acted better. People are making good points in this thread. I'm not blindly trying to defend a company I know very little about; just trying to poke some holes in the g…

When does skepticism become solipsism?

An excellent question.

Perhaps around the same time that underlying beliefs supersede reason.

Re: Ancient Iraqi Artifacts Imported By Hobby Lobby to be Forfeited

#133

Post by spamizbad »

rabboRubble wrote: post #69

What boggles me in this case is that the Hobby Lobby people involved are not not already on a fast track for criminal charges. There are cases where simply donating money intended for orphan to the wrong type of Islamic organization has led to jail time. What more giving millions to buy black market artifacts from ISIS! I'll try to dig up a link about the charitable donation. Edit: Supreme Court ruling on providing s…

It's weird how you can provide significant economic resources to a terrorist organization and get off with a paltry fine, but the FBI is willing to sting mentally-disabled people and throw them in jail[1]

[1]: https://theintercept.com/2015/07/13/another-terror-arrest-an... http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a47390/alabama-isis-pey...

Re: Ancient Iraqi Artifacts Imported By Hobby Lobby to be Forfeited

#134

Post by bogomipz »

dragonwriter wrote: post #128
bogomipz wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's incorrect. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi the father of AQI, Daesh, ISIL, ISIS etc was most certainly in Afghanistan. He was there to fight the Soviets with the mujahideen as well as later on to run a training camp there. It's hard to imagine that without being a member of Al Queda. Anyway: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jun/08/iraq.alqaida1 Also the structure of Al Queda is that of a franchise: https://www.nyti…

> That's incorrect. No, its not. The group that became al-Qaeda in Iraq was founded in Jordan in 1999 as “Organization of Monotheism and Jihad” and was not affiliated with al-Qaeda. It affiliated with al-Qaeda simultaneously with it's 2004 rebranding as al-Qaeda in Iraq. > The structure of Al Queda is that of a franchise Yes, and just as sometimes a pre-existing unaffiliated business signs up with a commercial franch…

>"Yes, and just as sometimes a pre-existing unaffiliated business signs up with a commercial franchise, sometimes a pre-existing unaffiliated jihad group would join al-Qaeda."

No you are completely wrong. This is exactly how you become part of Al Queda - you start an affiliate. This is not some grey area:

"As such, AQ’s dominant strategy since 2001 has been to encourage affiliate organizations to attack the West, sometimes with financial or operational support. [40] AQ gained affiliates post-9/11, as several groups either emerged or reoriented themselves to pledge allegiance to bin Laden. These groups included Al Qaeda in Yemen (AQY) (which later became Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP), Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which have been among the most deadly AQ affiliates throughout the 2000s'

Source: http://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgi-bin/group...

Re: Ancient Iraqi Artifacts Imported By Hobby Lobby to be Forfeited

#135

Post by wavefunction »

TheGirondin wrote: post #124
s73ver wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe those people need to be made aware that Hobby Lobby did this. And that it could have contributed to the rise of ISIS.

No one in the US has contributed more the rise of ISIS than Democrats. The current situation in northern Iraq is exactly what was predicted would happen if the US withdrew before the Iraqi government was stable enough. In response, Democrats said that the anti-government AQ forces were "freedom fighters" and said that what happened there was "none of our business." This is the "peace" Democrats wanted.

I'm curious what responsibility you lay at the feet of Republicans who invaded and destabilized Iraq for manufactured reasons?

Re: Ancient Iraqi Artifacts Imported By Hobby Lobby to be Forfeited

#136

Post by wavefunction »

mason240 wrote: post #119
petraeus wrote: post #83

Ever since Drumpf was elected ignorance is now permissible as a total excuse from the law

This was in 2010 - so according to you that makes it President Obama's fault.

But the settlement occurred in 2017, so according to the calendar it's back to being President Trump's fault.

Re: Ancient Iraqi Artifacts Imported By Hobby Lobby to be Forfeited

#137

Post by dragonwriter »

TheGirondin wrote: post #124
s73ver wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe those people need to be made aware that Hobby Lobby did this. And that it could have contributed to the rise of ISIS.

No one in the US has contributed more the rise of ISIS than Democrats. The current situation in northern Iraq is exactly what was predicted would happen if the US withdrew before the Iraqi government was stable enough. In response, Democrats said that the anti-government AQ forces were "freedom fighters" and said that what happened there was "none of our business." This is the "peace" Democrats wanted.

> No one in the US has contributed more the rise of ISIS than Democrats

The invasion of Iraq and the bungling of early phases of the occupation are the main reason AQI, as such, existed and began the process by which it metastasized into ISIS.

While some Democrats do near some responsibility for that as enablers, they weren't the ones directing the relevant policies.

Re: Ancient Iraqi Artifacts Imported By Hobby Lobby to be Forfeited

#138

Post by tanderson92 »

pyroinferno wrote: post #106
tanderson92 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/jul/01/...

Your "article" says they were offering it unknowingly. This does not support OP's implication that they dropped it to protest Obamacare.

No, the article says they claimed they were offering it unknowingly. Here are the facts:

> In 2012, a lawyer for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit Washington law firm, called Hobby Lobby's general counsel to inform him of the health law's contraception requirement and to ask whether the company wanted to file a suit.

> Mr. Green says he was shocked to discover Hobby Lobby was in fact offering in its insurance plan some of the emergency contraceptives at issue. He called for the insurer to revoke that coverage and signed onto the lawsuit.

He only dropped the coverage subsequent to being approached by a lawyer from a conservative group shopping for people to use to sue the government.

Readers will draw their own conclusions but to me that does support the implication.

Re: Ancient Iraqi Artifacts Imported By Hobby Lobby to be Forfeited

#139

Post by dragonwriter »

bogomipz wrote: post #134
dragonwriter wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's incorrect. No, its not. The group that became al-Qaeda in Iraq was founded in Jordan in 1999 as “Organization of Monotheism and Jihad” and was not affiliated with al-Qaeda. It affiliated with al-Qaeda simultaneously with it's 2004 rebranding as al-Qaeda in Iraq. > The structure of Al Queda is that of a franchise Yes, and just as sometimes a pre-existing unaffiliated business signs up with a commercial franch…

>"Yes, and just as sometimes a pre-existing unaffiliated business signs up with a commercial franchise, sometimes a pre-existing unaffiliated jihad group would join al-Qaeda." No you are completely wrong. This is exactly how you become part of Al Queda - you start an affiliate. This is not some grey area: "As such, AQ’s dominant strategy since 2001 has been to encourage affiliate organizations to attack the West, som…

> No you are completely wrong. This is exactly how you become part of Al Queda - you start an affiliate

Which doesn't change that for the first five years of its existence the group that later rebranded as al-Qaeda in Iraq was not an affiliate, nor, more to the point which you falsely claimed was incorrect originally, does it change the fact that just as the rebranding from AQI to ISIS was a rebranding of an existing organization, so was the rebranding to AQI in 2004.

The arguments you make seem to be directed against the claim that the Zarqawi organization was not, at least when it was called AQI, really part of al-Qaeda. This might be a fine point to argue against, but for the fact that it's not an argument anyone has actually made in the thread, and your arguments against it are completely irrelevant to the comments they actually respond to.

Re: Ancient Iraqi Artifacts Imported By Hobby Lobby to be Forfeited

#140

Post by epistasis »

TheGirondin wrote: post #117
kevmo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how the "justice" system works in America. Giant crime by a party with a lot of money? DOJ will just slap you with a relatively small fine. Bag of weed? You're going to jail, buddy!

So when someone from HL inevitably is jailed over this, will you admit that you and your outlook are wrong?

I'm not OP, but I do share OPs views the about disparity in laws themselves for white-collar crimes on the order of $3M and drug possession of $ values 100,000 less.

If there is a criminal prosecution, that would certainly affect my outlook for the better, and I would gladly admit that I was wrong to the degree that I was! I really hope that you're correct on the "inevitably," but I'm also extremely doubtful.

That said, I'm not sure that we have the full picture here. With somebody as political as Hobby Lobby's management, and as politically viewed as they are, there's probably an entirely different side to the story that never makes it out.

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