Miscellaneous News

kwaigonegin said:

But this law subverts what you just said. This is not individuals vs individuals .. This is against a nation state!

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That's why its a disaster in the making. This will come back to bite the US. They allow emotions rather than ration to dictate policy.

Jeff Head said:

I cannot say why they did what they did, Kwaig.

There are perhaps service elements in Saudi Arabia who had a hand that their government did not stop...or has not done enough, so therefore the US Government is saying to the victims, "We know you cannot get at the subversives (like Ben Laden), but you can go after the Saudi government."

it would be the international version of not having the evidence for a criminla trial, but having enugh to go for a civil law suite.

The burden of proof is completely different between the two.

Maybe something like that is going on.

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Well like I said this opens a can of worms because it can be easily turned back on the us. With this amendment, a half way decent lawyer can get millions of Vietnamese, Libyans, Iranians, Iraqis, grenadians, Nicaragua, afghanis and many dozens other countries to sue the US for billions if not trillions for our roles in the past and present.

Jeff Head said:

Well, we should be careful to not get too political here about this law and veto.

I will say this. The representatives of the people of the United States in the Senate and the House OVERWHELMINGLY vetoed this President...and for the first time since he came to office.

It was the most bi-partisan thing that has happened in the last eight years.

Most of them have read the parts of the report on 911 and its ties to various people and countries...and they voted OVERWHELMINGLY for this.

That should tell us all something.

And with that, let's no go into any more of the politics of it.

Thanks.

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Tells me how overwhelmingly broken the American political system is when the only bipartisan thing the congress can do is something this incredibly stupid.

dingyibvs said:

Tells me how overwhelmingly broken the American political system is when the only bipartisan thing the congress can do is something this incredibly stupid.

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Well...clearly, theyre are a LOT of people who do nt believe it is stupid.

...and,even with the many problems it has...conditions in the US are ones that many millions of people are willing to risk their very lives to get to.

I guess my point is, we have free elections coming upp. The outcomes is going to have a significant long term impact.

Yet, those elections will occur and for the vast, vast majority of people in the country, they will be peaceful and will lead to more peaceful elections in the future.

There are many, many places in the world...probably a sizable majority of nations, where that cannot be said.

Jeff Head said:

Well...clearly, theyre are a LOT of people who do nt believe it is stupid.

...and,even with the many problems it has...conditions in the US are ones that many millions of people are willing to risk their very lives to get to.

I guess my point is, we have free elections coming upp. The outcomes is going to have a significant long term impact.

Yet, those elections will occur and for the vast, vast majority of people in the country, they will be peaceful and will lead to more peaceful elections in the future.

There are many, many places in the world...probably a sizable majority of nations, where that cannot be said.

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Amen! As many problems as this country has for the most part it is a functioning republic. People may disagree with many things but at the end of the day majority of Americans still view this country and still stand one and united as one nation. Compare to our history we're living in the best of times. I'm not one those folks who remisce about the 'good old days" of the 50,60s etc because in reality those days were not very good for a significant portion of Americans.

This coming election is very divisive .. Probably the worse I've seen and likely in the modern era but you know what? One thing I'm sure about is regardless of who wins the voters are not going to go out and kill each other .. i.e civil war. Heck we have many families whose spouses do not even agree politically yet they still love each other. That is what makes America great I think.

Jeff Head said:

Well, we should be careful to not get too political here about this law and veto.

I will say this. The representatives of the people of the United States in the Senate and the House OVERWHELMINGLY vetoed this President...and for the first time since he came to office.

It was the most bi-partisan thing that has happened in the last eight years.

Most of them have read the parts of the report on 911 and its ties to various people and countries...and they voted OVERWHELMINGLY for this.

That should tell us all something.

And with that, let's no go into any more of the politics of it.

Thanks.

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Far be it for me to feel sorry for the House of Saud, but two very practical questions do suggest themselves.
1) In which Jurisdiction would any such case be held?
2) How would any judgement be enforced?

I hate to say I told you so .. But yeah I told you so. I disagree with Obama on multitudes of things but this one I felt he made a good case.
There were a million other things congress could've veto him on but they chose this one. And now like I said as late as yesterday it was a big mistake!

People and ... politicians are people SHOULD NEVER EVER make laws based on emotions and this was exactly what happened!

Those idiots in congress were too scared to make the right decisions and voted based on the emotional outrage of their constituents but failed to realized that a much bigger harm may have been enacted.

Now you have this lady who is suing the gov of S.A and you know what will come out of it? Zilch! Unlike civil courts, sovereign countries are not bound by U.S Courts! How is it going to be enforced? Will a private US citizen take up arms against an entire sovereign US ally? Will the US government go to war so seize assets cause of a pi ate lawsuit against a foreign entity? What should've happened is she sues individuals within the Saudi government for punitive damages.... IF indeed the entire S.A government was actively involved either as active participants or material source then the US government needs to deal with it as such.. Not private citizens.

This law will allow exponentially many many more people to usurp and damage US interests around the world than the other way around.for every spouse of family member killed on 9/11who who sues S.A there will be 1000 spouses/families who will be suing US from dozens of different countries for any different events.

Senators Blame Obama For Not Helping Them Understand Their Own Bill

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Seems almost like a spoof!

SampanViking said:

Far be it for me to feel sorry for the House of Saud, but two very practical questions do suggest themselves.
1) In which Jurisdiction would any such case be held?
2) How would any judgement be enforced?

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Well, since it's US lawmakers who came up with this, any such case could only be heard in an American court.

As for enforcement, well any financial penalties could be enforced by court order seizing sovereign owned assets in the US, and/or funds held in US banks.

It's just like the French Mistral deal with Russia. It was a domestic US law not and international one used to fine BNP Paribas a billion dollars to get the French to kill the deal. The US government was behind that maneuvering. Civilians who don't care about geopolitics are going to be driving this one. No country is going to be investing in the US for fear their assets will be seized and taken away from them.