The Financial Times reports Tillerson Gets Rough Ride from Russia Hawks on the Hill.
The rough ride was from Senator John McCain, Senator Marco Rubio, and Senator Lindsey Graham.
Rex Tillerson, Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of state, faced a tough grilling over his relationship with Russia and its president Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, while also stumbling on whether ExxonMobil had lobbied against Russian sanctions.
Mr Tillerson faced pointed questions from Marco Rubio, a Republican member of the Senate foreign relations committee, who several times said he found some of Mr Tillerson’s answers “troubling” and “discouraging”.
Leaving the committee hearing into Mr Tillerson’s nomination, Mr Rubio told reporters he was “prepared to do what is right” in regards to confirming or blocking Mr Tillerson’s appointment, leaving open the possibility that he could be leaning towards the latter.
In addition to Mr Rubio, two other Republican senators — John McCain and Lindsey Graham — have also stated that they have concerns about Mr Tillerson’s relationship with Mr Putin.
All I Need to Know
That’s about all I need to know. Anyone the collective neocon trio of McCain, Graham, and Rubio is displeased with, is assuredly a better choice than someone they like.
Rubio Makes Ass Out of Himself
During the hearing, Mr Rubio showed the committee a list of political opponents of Mr Putin who had died, grilling Mr Tillerson on whether those individuals had been killed on the orders of the Russian president, and whether Mr Putin should be classified as a war criminal.
When Mr Tillerson replied that he needed more access to classified information to form a judgment, Mr Rubio shot back: “None of this is classified, Mr Tillerson. These people are dead.”
If there is information, not allegations that Putin killed those people, let’s see it.
Tillerson’s non-rush-to-judgment is precisely what the US needs as Secretary of State.
His responses weren’t perfect. But no one else’s would have been either.
Drain the Swamp
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Those 3 are all RINOs and have only themselves in mind. They could care less about this country. Mclame should be in prison for Abscam. He’s VERY lucky his Dad was a great commander or he’d be a nobody that was kicked out of the Academy.
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A couple of key articles germane to the this discussion:
http://journal-neo.org/2017/01/11/five-american-diplomats-trump-can-reset-detente-with/
http://journal-neo.org/2017/01/07/john-mccain-caught-red-handed-planting-landmines-in-georgia/
The first article says to fire nuland et al if the neo con cabal in statedept-could not agree more;
Second article lays out mccain’s dodgy activities recently in Ukraine and Georgia; i am not familiar with Henry Kamens but he certainly lays it on the line against the neo con war monger.
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Unfortunately, the good people of Florida, South Carolina and Arizona will have to be convinced that it’s time for this war mongering trio to go.
Unless of course you’re condoning political assassination.
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Only question left: Will the neocons manage to start a war with Russia before the 20th? Good thing Putin has patience.
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After peddling complete slander about a president elect, and consorting with a known foreign spy to do so, and misleading the American public for months… the bigger question is whether McCain’s crimes are sufficient for him to be removed from Congress.
Much smaller crimes have forced other Congress members out.
Anyway, the war mongers will have plenty of opportunity to kill people along the Mexican border — its looking more and more like Mexico’s government may collapse into a failed state even if Trump does nothing
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Mr Committee Chairman — I have here a list of 300 million US citizens who were massively overcharged for health “insurance” that has exorbitant deductibles making the insurance nearly worthless. The fraudulent funds collected went to subsidize health care for dead beats and illegal aliens, to pay for ambulance chaser lawyers, and to pay for an over-staffed under-qualified FDA approval system.
And you losers exempted yourselves from this fraud! Some example you set.
Mr McCain, is that the way you behaved in Hanoi Hilton? One set of privileges for you, piss all over the little guys?
Why should we believe your POW story, when you clearly behave like an elitist scum now that you are home?
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Google the article written by Rolling Stone in 2008 regarding McShame. Not a fan of Rolling Stone by any means but their reporting is backed up by his current behavior…..
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I have no idea whether McCain’s PoW story is accurate or not…
But I do know that his present day behavior suggests it is not. The senator is not suffering alongside his constituents, he is happily accepting the prison warden’s special treatment
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These three idiots want to keep the US at war. Rubio apparently learned nothing from his presidential foray. Florida voted for Trump, so you would think Rubio could a least remember this factoid. If he votes against Tillerson I hope the voters in FL demand his head.
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Rubio is playing to his constituency since Florida has a lot of military industry: Navy ports, Coast Guard, Lockheed. General Dynamics, Boeing.
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His constituency are the arm chair generals in the domino park on Calle Ocho. Someone needs to tell them Fidel is dead and the cold war has ended . Tell Rubio stop drinking so much Cuban espresso it’s affecting his brain.
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Rubio’s mannerisms were hateful and deliberately showed contempt. These people seem to have no idea the damage they are doing to the credibility of our government…to its own people.
Virtually DEMANDING that Tillerson name all of his list of leaders as war criminals, is ridiculous. It is apparent he has no concept of responsibility, that he thinks he can simply throw insults and bombs at world leaders without any consequence. He should be serving in a government along with those he condemns, like Duterte.
The complete lack of civility and respect by these people is unimaginable, especially after so many of them condemned Trump for his actions on the campaign trail….the one instance where it has traditionally been acceptable to be disrespectful.
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Credibility? You cannot damage what isn’t there.
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@madashellowell
I see, more fake news from the Alt-Right dribblers, and their circle jerk of obsequious sycophants.
“Virtually DEMANDING that Tillerson name all of his list of leaders as war criminals, is ridiculous.
As an Australian living in Indonesia, I’m acutely aware of the nefarious meddling by the US, in Indonesian politics, with the goal of raping the country’s natural resources.
One example, is of Exxon’s hiring of local Indonesian soldiers, to keep the peace, and to crush any dissent from the local people from Aceh, who were against, and despised the presence of Exxon, in what the locals believed, was Exxon’s theft of their natural resources.
This was going on while the people of Aceh, were undertaking a separatist movement, in order to break away from Indonesia
Exxon used this as a cover, and exploited the conflict for their own ends.
The soldiers employed by Exxon, beat, tortured and murdered, those who spoke out and protested against Exxon’s presence in Aceh.
So if Rex Tillerson was honest, he would include himself as a war criminal, or at the very least, a murdering mercenary, to keep the oil flowing for Exxon.
“The complete lack of civility and respect by these people is unimaginable.”
I’m sure the people of Aceh agree, although they would go much further, and say Tillerson’s “lack of” remorse is “unimaginable.”
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It’s a good thing his questioning only lasts for a few minutes, otherwise Chris Chrisie would be tweeting about the famous Rubio talking points and sound bites he is famous for.
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What we need is A NEW WORLD ORDER, the current one is pretty crap!
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Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. (Churchill)
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I have no love for any of Trump’s picks but the Main Stream Media is still out publishing Fake News to set the ground to declare any Trump pick as “Pure Evil”.
So far Julian Assange is the only reliable source.
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I have no problem with most of his picks with exception to the Goldman types, but hey, if they are corrupt, maybe Trump can corrupt them to our advantage. There is some advantage to having people who can be bought in your service. He just needs to keep a close eye on them. He is used to dealing with smart high earners and seems to have survived them. Lets hope he is as smart as he needs to be. I know he’s smarter than me. After 50 years of attempting to dominate the world through my wood working empire, my four current employees have fallen short of the task….I doubt Trump will be calling on me or any of my subordinates. But hey, at least Tillerson has set at one of my desks for many years! I have had “proximity” with many of the powerful, unfortunately none of it rubbed off.
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if Murphy hadn’t been so busy bitching about Trump, he might have won since a lot of Floridians were disgusted with Rubio’s pro illegal stance, and missing most of his votes anyway.
The voters of Florida had no real choice, and no time to put somebody else out before the election –since Rubio lied and said he would not run. I have previously learned that if Rubio is talking, he is probably lying.
For the record, I voted for the libertarian candidate, but he was not allowed to participate in the debates.(of course) and got zero coverage.
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I didn’t know there were any libertarians running. I thought they had sold the rights to that name!
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Whose worse, puppets like these three, Pelosi, Schumer, and the others that never get voted out, or their constituents? You couldn’t have a bigger reason for term limits, yet you hardly ever hear it discussed. Without short term limits there will never be any serious reform!
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As has been often said, the people get the governments they deserve.
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It’s not just term limits that we need. It is also (a) mandatory public financing of ALL federal political campaigns; (b) increases in the minimum age for House, Senate, and POTUS/VPOTUS to 35, 45, and 55, respectively; (c) 50% pay cuts for members of House and Senate; (d) forfeiture of paychecks for Reps and Sens anytime that government expenditures exceed government receipts: (e) maximum of three (3) terms in House OR one in the Senate (but not both); (f) elimination of the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, Education, Veterans Affairs, Labor, Commerce, Interior, HUD, Homeland Security, and Small Business Administration; g) changing Election Day to the first Saturday and the first Sunday after the first Friday in November; and (h) repeal of the 17th Amendment. That’s not all we need, but it’s a heckuva good start.
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Mr Tillerson is one smart Dude Trump made and excellent choice, I watched the hearing Little Marco is still sore about being called Little Marco
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I watched some excerpts of the hearing. Rubio does have small hands!
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Who are you anymore Mish?
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Mish is, more than anything else, a libertarian. Libertarians are anti-warmonger. This is not hard to figure out.
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Tillerson had to same some things I disagree with, like Russia being a threat because of its ties to countries that commit war crimes (read Syria). However, if Tillerson had said anything reasonable regarding Russia,he wouldn’t be confirmed. So we’ll just have to wait and see.
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That was my take on it also, woot. I hate to say it, but the US commits war crimes also. I am hoping The Donald will put us back on the right track – toward peace.
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One should never hate to say the truth.
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Agree, but what I meant is, I hate it that that is the truth.
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Are you suggesting that invading other countries and dropping bombs from drones remotely is anything close to an act of war comparable to “supposedly” releasing incriminating TRUTHFUL emails?
You Russian SHILL!
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Da Komrade!
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Mish , your wp,com servers are slowwww….
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The underestimated Tillerson has the respect of Putin. A much better choice than some political hack.
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Having nothing to do yesterday, I turned on the hearing. I was appalled that Rubio would actually ask those questions that had nothing to do with Tillerson’s ability to do the job. The questions were downright stupid and ugly. Is Putin a war criminal, how do you feel about the slaughter of innocents in allepo and the list continued. I sat there reflecting on the questions and quite frankly this administration could all be brought up on war criminal charges. I guess they forget Syria, Iran and Russia are actually fighting ISIS and if you read foreign news with people actually in allepo none of them state what our media and government are putting out. These are our allies with reported actually in allepo by the way, not some stupid US MSM with no on the ground until after the offensive was over.
Many forget not one of our MSM sent reporters into the fight or the area. War is ugly no doubt but our government needs to look in the mirror as we are the root cause to most of the refugee crisis and opps, Russia is actually doing something about the Syrian civil war and fighting ISIS.
The problem is our government clearly stated they wanted to remove a sovereign leader because like so many in the region they disagreed with this administration. War needs to stop to be honest and yes it does bother me we may well be in war yet before this administration leaves office. Deploying a brigade to Poland is nutso crazy.
I wonder how we as Americans would like missiles again deployed in Cuba as retaliation. We would be pissed yet that Brigade sits on the direct border with Russia. Ahh the game of Risk is getting real dangerous these days.
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We are going to see an administration of executives. Generals are executives. These are no nonsense people who look at complex problems and figure out solutions. Look for many interagency reforms in which we will not hear about as well as big policy changes. Tillerson will be excellent because now the department of defense and the state department will work together instead of opposing each other.
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Rubio is a Neocon he is paid by them and told what to say. He should not be elected in any office, he with McCain and Graham and many others like bill Kristol et .
are traitors.!!!!
Why are people so gullible voting these thugs into office. Pleas e use twitter to make people aware.
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Tillerson’s comments on China scared the bejesus out of me. I trust Russia not to go full retard with the US (unless the US starts it) but I do not trust China to be so pragmatic and measured. If even half the quotes in this Globe and Mail piece are accurate we are in deep trouble with this guy.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/tillerson-sets-stage-for-clash-with-beijing-says-china-should-be-barred-from-islands/article33593899/
There he is quoted as saying “We’re going to have to send China a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops and, second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed.”
Why not just declare war and get it on. If it were up to me I would be strengthening relations with Russia, and eliminating dependence on China for all our manufactured goods – can we even make the things we need to live anymore?
I am not happy with Trump, consider him a loose cannon and woefully unprepared for the position, but like Mish hoped he would keep us from the war HRC and current policies were heading us to. Now I am just disgusted with all of them.
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I am not happy with Trump, consider him a loose cannon and woefully unprepared for the position,…..
Come on Peter if Obama someone who has never held a real job made it thru without blowing us up surly Trump can handle it, and if your scared just think what the rest of the world is thinking. Time to put up or shut up
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“The sooner the US rids itself of neocons like McCain, Graham, and Rubio, the better off the US will be, and the safer the world will be.”
Just how fucking gormless are you?
And Tillerson is an appropriate replacement??
“…and the safer the world will be.”
Ha ha ha.
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