It appears that the power of Kim Kardashian moves no limits . . . at least when it comes to President Donald Trump. Kardashian reportedly called Trump to intervene after the arrest of American rapper A$AP Rocky for assault in Stockholm. As discussed earlier, Trump not only asked for bail (which is not an option in Sweden) but raised the diplomatic relations between the countries if Sweden were to continue its prosecution. Sweden understandably stuck with the rule of law and refused to simply release the rapper. Now Trump has now sent an Ambassador as an envoy to sit on a simply assault case. Ambassador Robert O’Brien “leads the U.S. government’s diplomatic efforts on overseas hostage-related matters.” The over-top-response to the case is an embarrassment for this country. Sweden is simply enforcing its laws and refusing to grant waivers for powerfully connected celebrities. We have responded by making it look like the trial of A$AP Rocky is the new Nuremberg trials.
Rocky, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, is accused with two others of beating a 19-year-old man in Stockholm on June 30. Prosecutors relied on a videotape as the key evidence in the case.
Mayers, 30, pleaded not guilty to to the assault charge and claims self-defense. It may well have been self-defense but there is no reason to question the ability of the Swedish system to adjudicate the case fairly.
Instead of trusting an ally, we send a diplomat known for dealing with hostage-related matters. Furthering the insulting narrative for Sweden, friend and rapper RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan declared that he was “disappointed that a judge cannot discern that this is not a man you hold hostage.”
For his part, Trump has declared “Give A$AP Rocky his FREEDOM.” We do so much for Sweden but it doesn’t seem to work the other way around. Sweden should focus on its real crime problem! #FreeRocky.”
All of this because Sweden had the temerity to arrest of powerful rapper and a friend of the Kardashians.
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Looks like Sweden decided it was best to yield to Prez Trump & let Asap Rocky leave Sweden so the country could get back to allow the Islamic nuts get back to raping Sweden’s young kids, robbing, doping & murdering the locals while the burn down Swedish cities.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9643933/aap-rocky-allowed-leave-sweden-after-being-released-while-awaiting-verdict-over-street-fight/
This A$AP Rocky might want to see if he can get his hands on any classified material to leak, then duck into an Ecuadorian embassy. He could get the “Free Assange” group on his side and the critics of the Swedish legal system can claim he’s being railroaded.
“Trump Back In Cincinnati After Failing To Deliver New Bridge He Promised 3 Years Ago”
“Trump later called the Brent Spence Bridge “dangerous” and told area residents “we’re going to get it fixed.” He has not.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-promise-ohio-kentucky-bridge_n_5d4349dce4b0aca3411ad088
‘A top aide to former Ohio governor and 2016 Republican presidential hopeful John Kasich said the reason Trump has not delivered is not complicated. “He’s a liar,” said John Weaver. “Yet some of the suckers still flock.”’
‘Despite this, Trump has already started making similar promises for a second term. During a visit to southwestern Louisiana in May, Trump promised residents a new bridge to replace a dangerous through-truss span over the Calcasieu River ― but only if voters there helped him win reelection. “If we win this election, which is just 16 months away, we’re giving you a brand new I-10 bridge,” he said. “We’ll have it all set to go day one, right after the election.”day one, right after the election.”’ (from the HuffPost article, above)
Why can’t the State of Ohio build it’s own bloody bridges?
(Gov. Katsh!t knows perfectly well that earmarks are appropriated by Congress, btw).
Who holds the purse? Remember all the rhetoric against building the wall? From Congress.
The Infrastructure Plan that Trump keeps demanding has to go through Congress. The Never Trumper Republicans and Democrats are not eager to fulfill his wishes. Democrats want higher taxes and higher spending. Trump wants higher spending to rebuild America.
The problem is not what you’ve noted, that Trump “lied” about wanting to rebuild bridges and airports. Rather, there are factions unwilling to work together and at complete odds, philosophically. One of the criticisms is that Trump and Pelosi just hammered out an infrastructure plan, but they agreed on a tremendous spending amount, rather than a concrete list of what would be done. It is very difficult to do things that way, but there has been resistance for years over this. Republicans are hesitant to vote for a large blank check. This is what you get when people dig in their heels and refuse to cooperate. It’s going to be very wasteful, surely. There is also disagreement on how to pay for it, with Democrats, obviously, trying to recall the tax relief bill and raise taxes.
Have you noticed how this spending bill has just dragged and dragged, and now they finally have a dollar amount but no projects listed? Sounds like a slush fund that Democrats would be eager to have access to if they win the next election.
Now, it’s up to the House to generate a revenue bill. The Democrat-held House.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/the-bipartisan-infrastructure-mess/
“A$AP Rocky trial: Trump sends hostage affairs envoy to Sweden in ‘shameful abuse of office’”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-sends-hostage-affairs-envoy-091736173.html
Excerpt:
It is unclear why Mr O’Brien, whose job is to advise the government on hostage issues, was selected for the trip.
Dan Baer, a former US ambassador to the Organisation for Security & Cooperation in Europe, called the move a “shameful abuse of a serious office.”
“Imagine how seriously O’Brien will be taken by other actors now that he has made a mockery of himself by allowing his office to be instrumentalized thus,” he said on Twitter.
“Trump’s clown like behaviour makes us weaker.”
The president had demanded that Sweden release the rapper in a series of tweets published earlier this month.
“Sweden has let our African American community down in the United States. I watched the tapes of A$AP Rocky, and he was being followed and harassed by troublemakers,” he said.
“Treat Americans fairly!”
The president also called on the Swedish government to “give A$AP Rocky his freedom”.
Mr Trump spoke to Stefan Lofven, the Swedish prime minister and offered to personally guarantee the rapper’s bail but was told Mr Lofven could not intervene in a legal case.
A senior Trump administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the special envoy’s presence at the trial was part of an effort to convey the president’s concern.
Mr O’Brien is also in Stockholm support the US citizens involved “and, to, hopefully, bring them home”, the official added.
During the trial prosecutors said 19-year-old Mustafa Jafari and a friend got into an argument with Mr Mayers and one of his bodyguards near a fast-food restaurant where the rapper’s entourage had eaten.
They allege in court documents that Mr Mayers and the two other men thought to be part of his entourage beat and kicked the teenager while he was on the ground.
Witnesses in the case are expected to testify on Thursday.
The trial continues.
i watched these two videos
https://www.tmz.com/2019/07/31/asap-rocky-bodyguard-chokeslam-video-alleged-victim-mustafa-jafari/
and I think that Mustafa Jafari is the following:
a- a refugee not a Swedish person
b- the sort of belligerent person that comes from a certain part of the world reknowned for its belligerence
c- he was acting offensively and the bodyguard was acting in self defense.
just because a big guy whoops a little guy, doesn’t mean the little guy didn’t provoke it.
there’s other contextual things in that content which indicates Jafari was at fault.
I think Jafari has unclean hands and the Swedish crown needs to dismiss the case. I can accept the legitimacy of this diplomatic pressure.
OOOO loooks like the case against Rocky be fallin apart
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-02/key-witness-aap-rocky-trial-changes-her-story-says-she-didnt-see-rapper-hit-victim
Maybe, but maybe not:
From the ZH article:
*** However, both women testified that they saw Mayers and his partners beating and kicking Jafari.***
Excerpt:
The woman testified that she heard a bottle being crushed but could not say whether Mayers’ entourage threw the bottle to the ground or hit Jafari with it. She said she didn’t see Mayers holding a bottle during the scuffle.
Her friend testified that she didn’t see anyone hitting Jafari with a bottle.
However, both women testified that they saw Mayers and his partners beating and kicking Jafari.
“Everything happened very quickly. We were scared for our lives,” the first woman told the court. “He (Jafari) was bleeding. He showed his injuries on his hand. He also said he had a sore back.”
Her friend testified that she didn’t see anyone hitting Jafari with a bottle.
However, both women testified that they saw Mayers and his partners beating and kicking Jafari.
“Everything happened very quickly. We were scared for our lives,” the first woman told the court. “He (Jafari) was bleeding. He showed his injuries on his hand. He also said he had a sore back.”
Anonymous – there is no “maybe not” about it. The witness changed her story. Which means when she said A$AP hit Jafari with a bottle, it wasn’t true.
A$AP has also accused Jafari of sexually harassing women all along the way, “slapping their butts as he passed.” He claimed Sweden prevented him from meeting with American diplomats “in violation of Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, to which Sweden is a signatory.” Then, a petition circulated about racism in Sweden, and how racist it was to arrest two black guys after a fight, when they had video proof that the other guy was the aggressor, who repeatedly assaulted them. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination had recently released a report on rising racism in Sweden, as well as increased use of the N word.
Then, of course, there is the bystander you can hear, off camera, who said that Jafari assaulted (difficult to make out the word), he and his girlfriend.
And now, you have a woman who changed her story, recanting a very serious allegation. Was she the woman in the hijab speaking Arabic to Jafari? Did she know him? Why would the women be scared for their lives? From the video, A$AP can be heard asking the woman to tell Jafari to leave them alone. From a later video, they did nothing to the women, who weren’t in any danger from the fight. So, were they lying about that, too? This didn’t happen quickly, although when violence broke out, it was probably over quickly. We had lengthy videos on the stalking.
TMZ Report (needs to be verified)
https://www.tmz.com/2019/07/09/asap-rocky-inhumane-conditions-jail-swedish-sweden/
“Our sources say an official from the U.S. Embassy in Sweden told A$AP Rocky’s team that the person from the U.S. Consulate who visited Rocky in the jail reported back, “Walking into that place was like walking into a toilet.”
The Embassy official also said they have visited several prisoners at that facility over the past year and all of them lost “a shocking amount of weight.”
A$AP Rocky is being held in a Swedish jail with shockingly inhumane conditions — feces hurled about and not cleaned up, wretched food and facilities that are not fit for human beings … this according to sources with direct knowledge of Rocky’s situation.
Our sources tell TMZ … the rapper is sleeping on a yoga mat with no blankets. There is a prisoner in the next cell with severe mental issues who slams his head against the concrete wall and hurls feces every which way … feces that are not cleaned up.
The water, we’re told, is not clean and the food is not edible … for the first 5 days A$AP Rocky ate an apple a day, and that’s it.
We’re told the facility is filthy and “disease ridden.”
As we reported, A$AP Rocky is being held for 2 weeks while prosecutors decide whether to charge him for aggravated assault stemming from a street brawl … despite a video showing the alleged victim harassing and even physically attacking Rocky and his crew prior to the incident.”
Please take note on the conditions that the Consulate allegedly reported. Feces being thrown, an apple for a day’s meal, no potable water. This needs to be verified, but the more information comes out, the more it looks like the US was justified for intervening. Of course, this could have been done quieter, but Trump is not going to get a personality transplant any time soon.
What would have helped the situation was if TMZ had first asked A$AP if they had footage about the incident, as the original article only contained the fight. However, as they were in Sweden, perhaps they did not have access.
I would have understood if they had arrested both parties, and sorted it out. Run a drug test on Jafari. Had A$AP’s group surrender passports while this was under investigation. I think an opportunity was lost when Jafari was not drug tested. Will anything happen to Jafari, whom is on video repeatedly assaulting A$AP’s bodyguard? What about the allegations of repeated sexual harassment, and the incident with the other couple? Did they investigate Jafari’s path through the city that day, interviewing witnesses about his own behavior, or was everything centered on that fight?
Sweden has suffered a blow to the reputation of its fair country. We have read for years how the country has experienced increasing crime and sexual harassment.
Now the country has a petition circulating, drawing attention to the increasing racism in the country. The conditions of its jails have come into question. The justice system is now questioned, as the man on camera repeatedly assaulting a bodyguard went free, while the people he assaulted and stalked got arrested when they got into a fight with him. There is a witness who made a false allegation, recanting her story. Here in the US, people get paroled whole the DA decides on their case. In Sweden, they stay in jail, allegedly with feces thrown at them. Then there were the allegations that Jafari was sexually harassing women, touching women’s der·ri·ères without permission and, apparently, with impunity.
This has been an embarrassment to the country. I am very curious to discover how the court rules. Sadly, since no toxicology assay was run, it will now be impossible to prove if Jafari was crazed on drugs, which would be why when they put him down, they had to ensure he stayed down this time, negating his threat. Once a threatening person submits, and the threat is withdrawn, the fight should end. However, if the person was on drugs, and kept coming, one would have to ensure they stayed down in order to remove the threat. That point will now be impossible to prove. Well, unless I was wrong and they did drug test Jafari, and kept silent about it.
It should be noted that racism is quite common in the Middle East. You’ll hear racist comments from time to time, especially if you are with an older group who lived in the ME before emigrating. The culture is more permissive of it than here in the US, where racism is condemned by a high majority.
It makes one wonder why Jafari targeted this particular group, to throw his headphones at, and then stalk for so long. His interest moved on quickly from his many alleged other targets that day. Why fixate on the black group? I do not know the answer, or if authorities even asked it.
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/outrageous-racism-graced-arab-tv-ramadan-180616134620046.html
More on why Trump intervened, and on why he sent certain diplomats highly talented in negotiations. Please note that the conditions of the Swedish jail have not been confirmed.
It appears that elites are quick to rush to judgment, and that particular disdainful comments were made on those involved – Trump, of course, the rapper, and the reality star, commonly dissed by Anna Wintour, who brought the issue to the President’s attention. Rather than focus on the case, the interest seems to have lain that a reality star was able to get through the phone tree to Trump’s office. Granted, this person has also been championing prison reform. Had it been Barbara Streisand, it would likely have been lauded. I don’t personally care for the Kardashian TV show. However, the show has nothing to do with whether A$AP required an escalation in assistance from his country or not. It is expected for a country to intervene when a citizen is denied access to the consulate. While I would have wished that Trump’s involvement had been smoother, that is not his style.
From a July 9th article:
“There is a treaty — the Vienna Convention for Consular Relations — which both Sweden and the United States signed. Under the treaty, when a foreigner like A$AP Rocky is detained, he has a right to immediately see an official from the U.S. Consulate. Our sources say Rocky asked for the meeting, but when an official from the American Consulate arrived at the detention center to meet him, he was squarely denied access — a clear violation of the treaty.
Our sources say the U.S. official believes he was denied access because Swedish officials did not want him to see the conditions inside the facility.
Rocky’s team persisted and eventually the consulate official was allowed to see him 2 days later, but only in the presence and earshot of 2 Swedish guards. Rocky and the official could not have a private conversation and they believe it was “a clear intimidation tactic.”
Our sources say Rocky’s team is trying to get the State Dept. involved to help get him out. So far, the Swedish courts have shut him down. By the way … court proceedings in Sweden are closed to the public and the media.”
https://www.tmz.com/2019/07/09/asap-rocky-inhumane-conditions-jail-swedish-sweden/
The Swedes would not have jailed him if he were Muslim.I see him as a political prisoner.
Paul….Good point.
There’s a reason we have a Department of State whose Foreign Service conveys messages to foreign governments – because elected politicians aren’t always great at diplomacy. The dog’s breakfast John Kerry made of Syria, including the part he played in enabling ISIS, is eloquent proof of that. So are Donald Trump’s Tweets to foreign heads of government..
It’s hard to defend the President’s Tweets to Sweden when the facts which the press has shown favor the Swedish government. They don’t have bail to let A$AP Rocky out on, because their government doesn’t allow bail for anyone – it’s not a concept of theirs. There was apparently probable cause to believe that the rapper and his entourage broke Swedish law. Since Sweden is not North Korea, personal diplomacy by the President didn’t stand much chance of getting this guy out on the street before his court date came up.
That Kim Kardashian apparently enjoys a seat on Trump’s kitchen cabinet is something that’ll cost him votes in 2020 among serious-minded people. Presumably, the President wants to be re-elected.
Many people see Mr. Trump as the only alternative to the lack of contact with reality shared by those people contending for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency. Mitt Romney, for example, showed he was capable of losing to Barack Obama right after Obama’s foreign policy self-destructed and his first Secretary of State should have been investigated for graft and possibly treason, but was not. So let’s not think about Romney.
But Donald Trump is fully capable of losing to Donald Trump in 2020. All he has to do is insult the intelligence of the people he needs to vote for him. This drama in Sweden is one of the things that could help him lose the support he needs to win in 2020.
Donald Trump’s main obstacle in winning re-election is showing that his judgment is better than that of those who run against him. Letting the diplomats work quietly and Swedish courts follow their own law without appearance of being bullied by the nuclear superpower they should be able to trust as an ally would show very good judgment. If A$AP Rocky hasn’t hired the best Swedish criminal defense lawyer he can afford yet, this would be a nice time to do so.
“Letting the diplomats work quietly and Swedish courts follow their own law without appearance of being bullied by the nuclear superpower they should be able to trust as an ally would show very good judgment.”
Hear, hear.
Kim Kardashian will earn the Donald votes. She is without a doubt the most powerful social media “influencer” out there. She basically invented the whole category herself.
I am not a fan of hers but the Donald? Savvy
Mr. Kurtz…..Kim’s former step-daddy is now a “girl’, so I cut her a lot of slack.
And, she seems to actually care about others.
bruce jenner like one of the huggest disappointments ever. i remember when i looked up to him back when he won the Decathalon
Mr K…..yes, a big disappointment.
I did say “something that’ll cost him votes in 2020 among serious-minded people.” Then again, other voting blocs worked out really well for Obama in two elections.