What the Actual Everliving FUCK?!?

[berni_mccoy]

This country, at the behest of a murderous dictator, is going to hand over a FUCKING AMBASSADOR?!?

This can not stand!

[ellie]

1. I know

What the hell is going on?

[MontanaMama]

2. I'm hearing this balloon floated but

how in the world can they get this done? Take him Ambassador McFaul into custody and ship him over there?

[Fred Sanders]

3. According to Sarah it is all "under consideration".

[JI7]

4. Michael Flynn was going to kidnap the turkish cleric in the US

and turn him over to Erdogan

[BlueJac]

5. Traitors do things different then what we are used to...

fucking unreal.

[Bleacher Creature]

6. Every day I think we've hit rock bottom. And then it gets worse. NT

[oberliner]

7. No

Why do you think that is actually happening?

[berni_mccoy]

8. WH said they are considering the request

Former Ambassador McFaul, the Ambassador in question, will be on Rachel tonight to discuss the implications should the request be granted. 11 other Americans will be handed over with him should it be so.

Here is a link with the story
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/397701-white-house-trump-open-to-russia-questioning-us-citizens

[oberliner]

9. State Department Calls Russian Request to Question Former Ambassador "Absolutely Absurd"

State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert fields questions from reporters on a range of issues, including a request by the Russian government to question former U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul and others, which she calls “absolutely absurd.”

https://www.c-span.org/video/?448646-1/state-department-calls-russian-request-question-ambassador-absolutely-absurd

[berni_mccoy]

11. Since when has Trump considered anything the State Dep. Has said?!?

You can’t be seriously suggesting they will stop him from doing it

[oberliner]

13. There has been no statement that he is being handed over to Russia

That isn't happening.

[berni_mccoy]

14. QUOTE

“Sanders said during a White House press briefing that Trump is “gonna meet with his team” to talk about the potential for Russian officials to question U.S. citizens like Michael McFaul, who was ambassador to Russia from January 2012 to February 2014.”

I watched the presser. They are seriously considering it. Putin snaps his fingers and Trump jumps into action.

[oberliner]

15. His "team" will tell him that it is absurd

[berni_mccoy]

16. WTF are you smokin'?

Cause I want some. Must be good shit.

[oberliner]

17. The US is not handing McFaul over to Russia

There is literally zero chance of that happening.

[berni_mccoy]

18. I hope to Hell you are right. Less than two years ago

I would have thought the same of our govt even considering it

[oberliner]

23. Understandable

Line have certainly been crossed, but I do not believe there is a chance of this happening.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

20. I'm inclined to agree.

Then again, after they first floated the idea of separating immigrant families in 2017 I swore that would never happen.

Who the hell knows.

[FSogol]

22. What is the chance of baby prisions? Or toddlers appearing in court w/o legal rep?

[oberliner]

24. That predates Trump

[FSogol]

25. Bullshit. N/t

[oberliner]

26. Why Is the Obama Administration Keeping Toddlers Behind Bars? (AUGUST 17, 2016)

Twenty-two mothers who have been interned with their children for up to a year in a for-profit immigration detention facility entered the ninth day of a hunger strike on Wednesday. Neither the mothers nor their children have committed any crimes, nor have they been charged with any. They have no idea when they will be released. Advocates and attorneys representing the women tell The Nation that their children are suffering, they feel that they’ve been lost in the system and their desire for freedom has become desperate.

The women and their children are housed six to a room at the Berks County Family Detention Center in Leesport, Pennsylvania. They share a bathroom with a short curtain but no door. They’re awoken at 6:30 every morning for the first of several mandatory check-ins. During the night, a guard shines a flashlight into their eyes every 15 minutes. Most of them are badly sleep deprived. Many of their kids are showing symptoms of early childhood trauma and other developmental problems; some have stopped growing. The youngest detainee at Berks is 2 years old, and has spent around half of his life in detention. Like the other children, he isn’t allowed to sleep in his mother’s bed at night.

https://www.thenation.com/article/why-is-the-obama-administration-keeping-toddlers-behind-bars/

That's from The Nation.

At least the children weren't separated from their mothers like in the Trump policy, but it was still toddlers behind bars, as the headline notes, and it was pretty awful.

[FSogol]

28. Crappy both parties are the same thinking. Note the differences:

Families aren't separated, children aren't taken from their parents to other undisclosed locations, small numbers of detainees, not thousands, no plan to punish, no plan to permanently separate, no parents deported while children stay behind as wards of the govt in a Devos-profiting adoption/care scheme.

The incidence mentioned in your article happened because of an influx of people, including unaccompanied minors (not unaccompanied toddlers and infants) showing up on the border. I think when historians and reporters get around to investigating why this happened, they'll find that the Mercers (and probably the Russians) promoted coming to the US in Central America. They planned on making immigration a big issue in the election to stir up white nationalism and nativism.

None of this is in anyway comparable to purposely separating families with no intention or plan of reuniting them. Is there no Trumpian policy you won't defend with "but both parties are the same-isms"?

[oberliner]

29. Both parties aren't the same: The Republicans are a million times worse

The Trumpian policy of separating children from their parents is despicable and indefensible. What the Trump administration is doing with respect to the border right now is sick and disgusting and is an affront to humanity.

Toddlers being held in detention centers, though, is something that predates Trump - that has been going on for many many years unfortunately.

The Nation article has nothing to do with "an influx of unaccompanied minors showing up on the border", by the way. Maybe you should read it? (The excerpt I provided references a two-year old detainee and his mother who had been in detention together for nearly a year since they were denied asylum and were attempting to challenge the legality of their deportation).

In any case, the article speaks to a longstanding problem regarding ICE and for-profit detention facilities that progressives and activists have been speaking out about for many years.

[smirkymonkey]

10. I can't believe they are even considering this.

This is madness. Fuck them!

[GusBob]

19. Reasons

1. He was an Obama appointee
2. Anything Obama does, Trump is against

[Tommy_Carcetti]

21. 3. He's a witness to the Mueller investigation.

Notorious Russian trolls were more than happy to reveal certain facts to him while trolling him online.

Including information about certain activities of Carter Page.

[nolabear]

12. He's going to be on Rachel tonight. Should be very interesting.

[Jake Stern]

27. McCaul is going nowhere

Trump can't just "hand" him to the Russians. McCaul is an American citizen entitled to certain rights, including due process, whether or not Trump agrees. Even Trump's DOJ has to go through the proper steps, including an extradition hearing and I just don't see a judge signing off on sending a former diplomat to Russia where he faces brutal treatment or even death.


More pieces of the sky courtesy of Chicken Little and Co.