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No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

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Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#551

Post by sodosopa »

cm2187 wrote: post #409
jorblumesea wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

House of Saud, maybe, they are dumb enough to think this would work. Given their inept handling of the Khashoggi I wouldn't be surprised. I doubt anyone in the US intelligence profession would think Bezos would call off the WaPo because of some scandalous photos. "Just blackmail the richest man on the planet, that will totally work!"

> "Just blackmail the richest man on the planet, that will totally work!" Given the number of people and media who seem to be convinced without a doubt that Trump is being blackmailed by Russia...

Well we know for s fact that Besos is wealthy. We’re not doubtful of that. We are just doubtful of claims of someone who says they’re rich and generally lies to the public, maybe a Trump tax return would help to make him more believable.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#552

Post by [deleted] »

brisance wrote: post #521
pjc50 wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump has been making transparent threats on Twitter since before getting elected. Until now they've been pretty empty threats.

He solicited a hostile foreign power to interfere in the 2016 elections. In many countries this would be equivalent to treason. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2016/jul/27/donald...

[deleted]

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#553

Post by azeotropic »

wkearney99 wrote: post #537
azeotropic wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well Kashoggi is dead and MBS got away with it. Moreover, MBS's enemies know know what he's willing to do, and what he can get away with, and may be frightened into compliance. From MBS's perspective this sounds like a success.

Has "thus far gotten away with it".

Predictions are difficult, particularly about the future

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#554

Post by koolba »

brisance wrote: post #521
pjc50 wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump has been making transparent threats on Twitter since before getting elected. Until now they've been pretty empty threats.

He solicited a hostile foreign power to interfere in the 2016 elections. In many countries this would be equivalent to treason. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2016/jul/27/donald...

That video is the ultimate test for whether the viewer's political beliefs and biases are strong enough to override their sense of humor.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#555

Post by lunchables »

slg wrote: post #285

It seems like a lot of people are not reading between the lines of this post. Bezos apparently believes that he was hacked by either the US or Saudi government and that now one or both of those governments are using the National Enquirer as an attack dog against him. That accusation is much bigger than any other piece of this story. EDIT: Here [1] is a reporter from the Washington Post backing that up. The Bezos' cam…

I don't think that's the implication at all. He's saying Trump's friends are involved to help him politically.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#556

Post by lunchables »

creaghpatr wrote: post #549
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No this is just a total fabrication of how things work. Please don't do this.

That seems to be a plausible explanation. Can you refute the argument besides just calling it BS? Otherwise, it's an interesting theory.

No Five Eyes member is going to randomly tap some US citizens phone because the Saudis asked without some serious investigation.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#557

Post by ltc5505 »

_ei8q wrote: post #543
mc32 wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he’s just implying they have more competence than the FBI in finding alleged missing emails. His comms is very non literal -and people take him literally. His whole campaign was off hand blue collar jokey remarks. Pundits understood him literally, so they failed to understand him at all. His nomination competitors also saw him in this light and ultimately failed. Mostly, J think they failed to understand his…

The example Thiel used in the original "seriously but not literally" argument was the wall. Of course Trump wasn't talking about a literal wall, he said, it was more of a metaphor for, you know, something. This argument was always embarrassingly stupid, but anyone still making it after Trump shut down the government for a month over literal wall construction has forfeited their right to be taken seriously at all.

Sadly, you'll still find people (even in this thread) that claim "of course Trump's campaign wasn't meant to be taken literally." With statements like "if you took what Trump said on the campaign literally, then you missed the point."

So then if _The Wall_ was figurative, why did he shut down the government over its funding?

"No he meant that one literally."

Okay... So what about the fact that the wall would be funded by Mexico? He claimed that he would literally make them write a check.

"That was obviously figurative."

An exhausting stretch of logic by those who can't burden themselves with introspection.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#558

Post by ineedasername »

On Gavin de Becker: If you've done some shady stuff, it's hard to imagine a worse person to have investigating and digging into your activities than Gavin de Becker. Here's a excerpt from Gavin's wikipedia entry on just a little of his work over the years. This Bezos issue isn't even his first foray up against a tabloid:

Along with the United States Marshals Service, he co-designed the MOSAIC Threat Assessment Systems, which is used to screen threats to Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, members of United States Congress, and senior officials of the Central Intelligence Agency... De Becker testified in the successful 1994 civil case arising when The Globe tabloid accused an uninvolved man of being the actual assassin of Senator Robert Kennedy. Globe tried to get de Becker's testimony thrown out by a higher court; however, it was ultimately upheld[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_de_Becker

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#559

Post by JeremyBanks »

koolba wrote: post #554
brisance wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He solicited a hostile foreign power to interfere in the 2016 elections. In many countries this would be equivalent to treason. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2016/jul/27/donald...

That video is the ultimate test for whether the viewer's political beliefs and biases are strong enough to override their sense of humor.

Did you miss the part where Russia was actually listening and did what he said, and he had reason to know it?

His "joke" was deliberate treason.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#560

Post by Fezzik »

420codebro wrote: post #467
willvarfar wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can Bezos get a US court to impound the photos? Something akin to the UK 'super injunction'? That would make being caught leaking the photos perjury. The stakes are so high that AMI might well not dare to do that. Its easy to imagine that Bezos, whatever he is saying publicly, is also getting excellent legal consul privately and that two can play at the games that AMI is so infamous for.

Nope. We have no prior restraint here.

All 50 States have statutes that allow for preliminary injunctions... If Bezos filed a lawsuit he could absolutely seek a court order restraining AMI from publishing the photos pending the outcome of a lawsuit. See, for example: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=7.40.020
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