Saudi King Arrests Billionaire Prince Bin Talal, Dozens Of Others In Cabinet Crackdown

originally posted by: CB328
This does look like it could be somehow related to Trump. IF true Americans should be very scared, this could be a prelude to some kind of crackdown on freedom here, or another Saudi run 9-11 to give Trump power?

Go do some research on Mohammad bin Salman and then come back and comment. You're making yourself look silly.

originally posted by: CB328

POST REMOVED BY STAFF

Oh? More ties to Podesta. Interesting.

m.huffpost.com...

a reply to: blackadder01

We've survived a long time as a Nation without Saudi paws in our lives

If it wasn't for the recycling of Petrodollars your country would be a 3rd world nation

originally posted by: TheConstruKctionofLight
a reply to: blackadder01

We've survived a long time as a Nation without Saudi paws in our lives

If it wasn't for the recycling of Petrodollars your country would be a 3rd world nation

Right, because it’s not like companies like Google, Facebook ,and people like Mark Cuban, bill gates, and others aren’t from here and don’t have their hands in things world wide....

The US is a lot more resilient than you think, despite your obvious hate for us

originally posted by: DJW001
a reply to: Iamonlyhuman

So the absolute ruler of Saudi Arabia is cracking down on Trump critics? I guess a king can do that. But why?

Well no.

The King isn't responsible. He isn't running the show, the Crown Prince is.

The Crown Prince is consolidating his power by removing his rivals and strengthening his own power base. His support lies outside of the traditional Wahhabi clerical circles that historically the House of Saud has drawn much of it's power from.

What has actually happened is the Crown Prince has orchestrated a soft coup to align the government of Saudi Arabia more with his interests.

If he is successful then he will have a very smooth ascension to the Throne. If he is unsuccessful he will likely be imprisoned, or Saudi Arabia will collapse into civil war over succession.

The recent social reforms in Saudi Arabia can be traced back to Prince Mohammad. Saudi Arabia under him will likely be a very different beast to what it has historically been.

Things might even change for the better under King Mohammad.

The fact he was a Trump critic has nothing to do with it.

originally posted by: CB328

POST REMOVED BY STAFF

Republicans love the Saudis because of their interests in the oil industry.

The same reason the Democrats like the Saudis.

Political system has very little impact on US foreign policy.

originally posted by: Iamonlyhuman
The Saudi purge:

www.zerohedge.com...

In a shocking development, Saudi press Al Mayadeen reported late on Saturday that prominent billionaire, member of the royal Saudi family, and one of the biggest shareholders of Citi, News Corp. and Twitter - not to mention frequent CNBC guest - Al-Waleed bin Talal, along with ten senior princes, and some 38 ministers, has been arrested for corruption and money laundering charges on orders from the new anti-corruption committee headed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, while Royal princes’ private planes have been grounded.

Wow, a total of 11 princes & around 30 ministers arrested on corruption charges.

To summarise today's even more bizarre Saudi news day:

Trump urges Aramco IPO
Lebanon PM resigns
Saudis intercept missile
Major cabinet reshuffle; 3 Saudi princes - who run the anti-graft committee - arrested for money-laundering
A total of 11 princes, >30 ministers arrested on corruption

I'm wondering if this could have anything to do with Kushner took unannounced trip to Saudi Arabia.

This will end up tied to Podesta and Manafort in the end.

They're cleaning house because the truth is going to come out about where Hillary's money came from. This is going to get interesting.

originally posted by: LogicalGraphitti
They're cleaning house because the truth is going to come out about where Hillary's money came from. This is going to get interesting.

It already did come out, just nobody cared at the time. Throes' link below is very interesting (thanks Throes)

originally posted by: Throes
m.huffpost.com...

The Podesta Group’s March 2016 filing, required under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, shows that Tony Podesta himself oversees the Saudi account. At the same time, Tony Podesta is also a top campaign contributor and bundler for Hillary Clinton. So while one brother runs the campaign, the other brother funds it with earnings that come, in part, from the Saudis.

originally posted by: Iamonlyhuman

originally posted by: LogicalGraphitti
They're cleaning house because the truth is going to come out about where Hillary's money came from. This is going to get interesting.

It already did come out, just nobody cared at the time. Throes' link below is very interesting (thanks Throes)

originally posted by: Throes
m.huffpost.com...

The Podesta Group’s March 2016 filing, required under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, shows that Tony Podesta himself oversees the Saudi account. At the same time, Tony Podesta is also a top campaign contributor and bundler for Hillary Clinton. So while one brother runs the campaign, the other brother funds it with earnings that come, in part, from the Saudis.

They've been paying the Podestas for years for PR work in the US.

Remember the whole debacle over victim families of 911 being able to sue the Saudis.....it all ties in.

Aircraft carrying government officials, including a prince, believed to have crashed in Saudi Arabia

Wow! I wonder if this is connected to the purge yesterday and the missile attack?

The crash took the lives of Saudi Prince Mansour bin Meqrin and other senior officials on duty.

He is the son of Prince Muqrin al-Saud, former Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.

originally posted by: abago71
Aircraft carrying government officials, including a prince, believed to have crashed in Saudi Arabia

Wow! I wonder if this is connected to the purge yesterday and the missile attack?

The crash took the lives of Saudi Prince Mansour bin Meqrin and other senior officials on duty.

He is the son of Prince Muqrin al-Saud, former Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.

Uh oh....the death machine has begun...gotta cover it all up!

a reply to: abago71

Just for the record, there are literally thousands of princes and princesses in Saudi Arabia. Here are a few excerpts from a 2011 article to get the point across:

The managing director of another bank in the kingdom told the ambassador that he divided royals into four tiers, according to the cable. The top tier was the most senior princes who, perhaps because they were so wealthy, never asked for loans. The second tier included senior princes who regularly asked for loans. “The bank insists that such loans be 100 percent collateralized by deposits in other accounts at the bank,” the cable reports. The third tier included thousands of princes the bank refused to lend to. The fourth tier, “not really royals, are what this banker calls the ‘hangers on’.”

It begins with a line that could come from a fairytale: “Saudi princes and princesses, of whom there are thousands, are known for the stories of their fabulous wealth -- and tendency to squander it.”

The most common mechanism for distributing Saudi Arabia’s wealth to the royal family is the formal, budgeted system of monthly stipends that members of the Al Saud family receive, according to the cable. Managed by the Ministry of Finance’s “Office of Decisions and Rules,” which acts like a kind of welfare office for Saudi royalty, the royal stipends in the mid-1990s ran from about $800 a month for “the lowliest member of the most remote branch of the family” to $200,000-$270,000 a month for one of the surviving sons of Abdul-Aziz Ibn Saud, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia.

Grandchildren received around $27,000 a month, “according to one contact familiar with the stipends” system, the cable says. Great-grandchildren received about $13,000 and great-great- grandchildren $8,000 a month.

Special Report: U.S. cables detail Saudi royal welfare program

a reply to: enlightenedservant

Wow. There is a lot of them....and I thought I had a large family.

What tier would you guess the son of the former Crown Prince would be in?

originally posted by: LogicalGraphitti
They're cleaning house because the truth is going to come out about where Hillary's money came from. This is going to get interesting.

house of saud bail out trump repeatedly, blame hillary.
ats logic 2017.

Apparently you didn't read the article in my prior post...

a reply to: abago71

I have no clue. lol At most, I was only keeping up with a half dozen or so of the most powerful/notorious ones. I knew about the prince in the OP because of his ridiculous wealth (even for Saudi standards), his investments in Western countries, and his activist ex-wife.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

I remember reading an article in a UK newspaper in the mid-nineties detailing the stipends these royals got. At the time (when oil prices were at such a low) they were apparently worried they'd have to start cutting back a fair bit. No doubt the post-9/11, post Commodities Modernization act which enabled the oil bubble helped ease their financial stress.

I wonder also how the rumors of a petro-yuan/ruble relate to all this as well.

a reply to: ManBehindTheMask

I do not hate the US people - what I do despise is their ignorance as to the unearned privilege they enjoy through the petrodollar and at the point of a gun invasion of Nation States in the name of spreading freedom, when its all about resources.

a reply to: ChadeS

They seem to temporarily reduce benefits every time oil prices are in a slump. And lately, they've been reducing other things to get costs down.

In the last year or so, they switched their business calendar over to the Gregorian calendar. Even though a lot of people here thought they were doing it to modernize, they were really doing it as a cost cutting measure since the Islamic calendar has 10 fewer days. That means that salaried workers would get paid the same for 365 days as they previously had for 354-355 days. And monthly benefits would get paid every 30 or 31 days instead of every 29 or 30 days, though I'm not sure if that affected the monthly payments going to the princes that I listed above. (The official and social calendars are still based on the Islamic calendar, though.)