Luxury home sales plunge 45%, with Miami and the Hamptons hit hardest

[Cold War]

2 minutes ago, spin_dry said:

Those places are amazing in the winter. There’s a little mom and pop place down in the Keys that make winter the furthest thing from your mind. As much as I bitched about winter, I really would miss 4 actual seasons. 

Yeah, I get it.  But, you feel so much better when the sun is shining all the time,  every thing isn’t gray and brown. 

[Sleepr2]

10 hours ago, SnowRider said:

That’s rich coming from a fucking moron who gets gut hooked by Tucker  

Russian collusion. 

[Snake]

4 hours ago, Sleepr2 said:

Russian collusion. 

 

On 5/26/2017 at 8:47 PM, SnowRider said:

The latest  This getting good...sit back and enjoy the shitshow 

 

'This is serious': Jared Kushner reportedly tried to set up a secret Trump-Russia backchannel

(Jared KushnerGetty Images) 
Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and top White House adviser, was willing to go extraordinary lengths to establish a secret line of communication between the Trump administration and Russian government officials, The Washington Post reported on Friday.

During the presidential transition period leading up to Trump's inauguration, Kushner held a series of meetings with the Russian ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak, and the head of a Moscow bank that was under US sanctions.

In talks with Kislyak in December, Kushner floated the possibility of setting up a secure line of communication between the Trump transition team and Russia — and having those talks take place in Russian diplomatic facilities in the US, essentally concealing their interactions from US government scrutiny, The Post wrote, citing US intelligence officials briefed on the matter.

Kislyak reportedly passed along that request to Moscow. The Post's Ellen Nakashima, Adam Entous, and Greg Miller reported that the Russian ambassador was "taken aback" by Kushner's request, because it posed significant risks for both the Trump team and the Kremlin. 

Kushner, who did not disclose the meeting on his security clearance form, is now a subject in the FBI's investigation of Russia's election interference, and whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow to undermine Hillary Clinton.

"GOOD GRIEF. This is serious," said Bob Deitz, a veteran of the NSA and the CIA who worked under the Clinton and Bush administrations.

"This raises a bunch of problematic issues. First, of course, is the Logan Act, which prohibits private individuals conducting negotiations on behalf of the US government with foreign governments," Deitz said. "Second, it tends to reinforce the notion that Trump's various actions about Comey do constitute obstruction."

"In other words, there is now motive added to conduct," Deitz noted. "This is a big problem for the President." 

Kushner did not previously disclose the December meetings to US officials during his background check, and the White House only acknowleged them after news outlets reported on it. It follows a pattern among key Trump advisers that unfolded during and after the 2016 election.

"If you are in a position of public trust, and you talk to, meet, or collude with a foreign power" while trying to subvert normal state channels, "you are, in the eyes of the FBI and CIA, a traitor," said Glenn Carle, a former top counterterrorism official at the CIA. "That is what I spent my life getting foreigners to do with me, for the US government."

Carle noted that, if the Kushner-Kislyak meeting and reported discussion were an isolated incident, then it could be spun as “normal back-channel communication arrangements among states." 

"If Jared Kushner was trying to set up a backchannel with the Russians, doesn't that mean he wasn't colluding with them?" a White House official said in response to the story, according to CNN.

But Kislyak and the Trump campaign interacted extensively, and Trump associates either kept those interactions secret from US officials or misrepresented them, as was the case with Michael Flynn, who was forced to resign in February for similar reasons. 

Reuters reported earlier this month that Flynn and Kislyak also spoke about setting up a secret backchannel during the transition between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin "that could bypass the US national security bureaucracy."

"We know about the multiple meetings of Trump entourage members with Russian intel-related individuals," Carle said. "There will be many others that we do not know about." He noted that while this reported backchannel is "explosive," it is worth questioning who planted the story — the Post reportedly received an anonymous letter in December tipping them off to the Kushner-Kislyak meeting.

(President Donald Trump meets with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak.Russian Embassy) 

Additionally, as a longtime diplomat, Kislyak would have known that his communications were being monitored. So the possibility remains, Carle said, that the Russians used the meeting with Kushner to distract the intelligence community and the public from potentially more incriminating relationships between the campaign and Moscow.

Indeed, Kushner also met with the CEO of Russia's state-owned Vnesheconombank, Sergey Gorkov, in December 2016, The New York Times reported in late March. The meeting — which had not previously been disclosed and came on the heels of Kushner's meeting with Kislyak at Trump Tower — caught the eye of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russia's interference in the 2016 election and whether any members of Trump's campaign were complicit.

Kislyak reportedly orchestrated the meeting between Kushner and Gorkov, who was appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in January 2016 as part of a restructuring of the bank's management team, Bloomberg reported last year.

The Kremlin and the White House have provided conflicting explanations for why Kushner met with Gorkov.

Former CIA Director John Brennan, in testimony Tuesday before the House Intelligence Committee, said that he was concerned by some of the "interactions" between Russian officials and members of the Trump campaign that took place during the election last year.

Republican Rep. Tom Rooney asked Brennan if he ever found "any direct evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Putin in Moscow" while he was the CIA director.

Brennan replied that "there was intelligence that the Russian intelligence services were actively involved in this effort ... to try to get individuals to act on their behalf either wittingly or unwittingly." He added that he was "was worried by the contacts that the Russians were having with US persons" and "had unresolved questions" by the time he left office about whether" the Russians had succeeded in getting Americans to do their bidding.

Pressed further, Brennan said that "the information and intelligence revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and US persons involved in the Trump campaign that I was concerned about because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals. It raised questions in my mind about whether the Russians were able to gain the cooperation of such individuals."

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/serious-jared-kushner-reportedly-tried-235303259.html

 

On 5/25/2017 at 8:26 AM, SnowRider said:

Looks like excellent reporting. The only thing fake about it is you don't like the content and corrupt ineptness of your boys inner circle. 

Reporting on conversations between Russia and themselves while making clear they do not know said conversations involved collusion is excellent reporting.  SBYL Union Delivery Boy MoeMoe 

 

[Frostynuts]

17 hours ago, spin_dry said:

I got a great deal on a country home. Some excellent deals for cash buyers 

Isn,t it always cash that the seller receives ? I doubt if they care where the cash comes from.

[ArcticCrusher]

1 hour ago, Frostynuts said:

Isn,t it always cash that the seller receives ? I doubt if they care where the cash comes from.

They don't.  Nobody cares.

[Steve753]

11 minutes ago, ArcticCrusher said:

They don't.  Nobody cares.

You said different when I said I use credit to pay for everything. 

[spin_dry]

3 minutes ago, Steve753 said:

You said different when I said I use credit to pay for everything. 

The Dave Ramsey cult can’t make up their minds.  

[Steve753]

Just now, spin_dry said:

The Dave Ramsey cult can’t make up their minds.  

You remember him saying that don't you.

[spin_dry]

5 minutes ago, Steve753 said:

You remember him saying that don't you.

Uh huh. It’s like bizarro world with these people. I swear that they just enjoy conflict. Either that or they’re fucking crazy. I even got slammed for using my credit card for the points though I don’t carry a balance. Fucking odd  

Edited March 11, 2023 by spin_dry

[J. Jackson]

I use my credit card for every purchase that I can, why wouldn't you as long as you pay the balance every statement. I have almost 1.2 million pts accumulated which has almost $12000 of buying power or roll it into a bank account. No brainer.

[Steve753]

13 minutes ago, J. Jackson said:

I use my credit card for every purchase that I can, why wouldn't you as long as you pay the balance every statement. I have almost 1.2 million pts accumulated which has almost $12000 of buying power or roll it into a bank account. No brainer.

Same here.

Edited March 11, 2023 by Steve753

[SkisNH]

1 hour ago, spin_dry said:

Uh huh. It’s like bizarro world with these people. I swear that they just enjoy conflict. Either that or they’re fucking crazy. I even got slammed for using my credit card for the points though I don’t carry a balance. Fucking odd  

You are just to stupid to realize you are conflating 2 different things...the idea that you got some magical big dick swinging deal because you had cash, with the general principle that paying for your lifestyle with cash is a wise idea. 

No matter how hard you try...you can't undo what you posted. 

[Big Crappie]

17 hours ago, spin_dry said:

Panguitch area. It’s 4 hours southwest of Moab. 2 hours from St George. There’s not much in the St George. 1000 square foot for $400-500k near St George. 

Very nice area. Congratulations. 

[spin_dry]

4 hours ago, SkisNH said:

You are just to stupid to realize you are conflating 2 different things...the idea that you got some magical big dick swinging deal because you had cash, with the general principle that paying for your lifestyle with cash is a wise idea. 

No matter how hard you try...you can't undo what you posted. 

When interest rates are at 7% I consider the ability to pay cash for a home a big dick swinging deal. 

[SkisNH]

16 minutes ago, spin_dry said:

When interest rates are at 7% I consider the ability to pay cash for a home a big dick swinging deal. 

Yeah...but that's not what you said.