LAST EDITED ON Jul-31-17 AT 03:54PM (MST)[p]Not sure about "lefties" but my IQ is over 80 so I will explain this given your confusion and the fact you get your news from Faux.
It's a given that sanctions will remain and become even stricter. Your candidate Dear Leader has failed to deliver a lifting of sanctions as promised to Putin.
The Sanctions Bill is veto-proof meaning if Trump decided to Veto it, it will quickly come back up for a vote and he will lose.
Given that, Putin must do something to save face.
Read the following carefully:
We do not have 755 American diplomats in Russia. Again, we do not have 755 American diplomats in Russia.
Putin took a page out of Trump's playbook, lie and exaggerate, he just grabbed a number out of thin air. More importantly he said numbers of personnel to remain are 455.
"The US embassy has refused to comment on how many staff it has and what the breakdown is between local hires and diplomats, but a 2013 internal report into the Russia mission noted that the state department deployed 301 diplomats and 934 locally hired staff positions in Russia. Allowing for small changes over the past four years, this would fit roughly with Putin?s statement that 755 should be dismissed to leave a total of 455.
Theoretically, this could mean the Americans could merely release the majority of their local staff and would not need to send any diplomats home, but the embassy relies on a huge staff of caterers, drivers, gardeners and cleaners to keep it running. The only way to make the cuts without sending dozens of diplomats home would be to make career diplomats start pruning the hedges and answering the phones.
Russians who work for the US missions are likely to be the biggest casualties. Their lives are already make extremely difficult. One former local employee reported men he presumed to be FSB agents arriving at his family home and tailing him across Moscow, asking him why he was working for the Americans and telling him he ought to become an informant if he was a patriot. Eventually, he left the job.
Russian citizens will be hit hardest by smaller US staff at the embassy. Wait time for a visa to travel to US will increase dramatically,? former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul wrote"
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/31/vladimir-putin-us-embassy-staff-reductions-russia
Birthday candles buddies or not, Trump had a deal with Putin and failed. Putin is shifting tactics, expect whatever dirt Putin has on Trump to start leaking out to the press.
We may have our presidential Golden Moment yet.
