**BREAKING: U.S. Orders Russia to Close Consulates in New York, D.C. and San Francisco

[SummerSnow]

http://fortune.com/2017/08/31/russian-embassy-us-retailation-against-russia/

Reuters
12:52 PM ET
The United States is requiring Russia to close its consulate in San Francisco and two annex buildings in Washington, D.C. and New York City, the State Department said on Thursday, in response to the Kremlin's decision to shrink the U.S. diplomatic mission in Russia.
Last month Moscow ordered the United States to cut its diplomatic and technical staff in Russia by more than half, to 455 people, after Congress overwhelmingly approved new sanctions against Russia.
"We believe this action was unwarranted and detrimental to the overall relationship between our countries," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement on Thursday."In the spirit of parity invoked by the Russians, we are requiring the Russian Government to close its Consulate General in San Francisco, a chancery annex in Washington, D.C., and a consular annex in New York City," Nauert said. "These closures will need to be accomplished by September 2."

[FLPanhandle]

1. Someone must have strong armed Trump into agreeing to this

No way Trump signed off on this without objections.

[SummerSnow]

2. Desperate move on his part

[Hassin Bin Sober]

19. He didn't look happy about it. They had to pull him out of a meeting

[lunatica]

22. LOL!

That's great!

[FoxNewsSucks]

32. That is such a GREAT show,

They got the right writers, and it is so true and hilarious.

The only bad thing is that he's so good at impersonating the pussygrabber that I can barely stand to watch it sometimes. I am so fucking sick of tRump and his butthole mouth that it's hard to watch.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

34. I had seen this guy's impersonation but....

.... I didn't know until last week that there was an actual show.

Alec Baldwin is great for lampooning Trump's impersonation but this guy really has Trump down

[SummerSnow]

36. THIS should get an Oscar!!!!

[misanthrope]

41. That is hilarious!!

Because it's too true.

[berni_mccoy]

42. K&R Just for this... LOL

[Hassin Bin Sober]

43. The whole skit is hilarious

[Iliyah]

3. Trying to look innocent

[Zoonart]

13. "No Puppet...No Puppet...

you're the puppet."

[Me.]

4. Yahoo

Closer and Closer

[BigmanPigman]

5. I guess this is supposed to be sufficient for destroying our election and

dividing the country. Seems fair to me.

[Bleacher Creature]

6. This is awesome news!

At some point, the relationship between Trump and Putin will crumble. And the moment that happens, Putin will consider Trump's presidency to be more harmful than not.

And when that happens, it'll be time to release a certain tape . . .

[SummerSnow]

9. The pee-pee tapes

[Leith]

18. Sonehow I Think

that a pee-pee tape would be the least of PINO's worries. Russian has lots more that is more damning than shitgibbon and prostitutes pissing on a bed. The trumpanzees would like the tape.

[LenaBaby61]

37. "At some point, the relationship between Trump and Putin will crumble.

And the moment that happens, Putin will consider Trump's presidency to be more harmful than not.

And when that happens, it'll be time to release a certain tape . . ."

TOTALLY agree with your assessment, and it feels like that time may be coming sooner rather than later.

[maveric]

7. Are consulates the same as "Embassies"?

Just a quick ask.

[mopinko]

12. iirc there is only one embassy, but you can have as many consulates

as you need. they do most of the same things.

[Pope George Ringo II]

16. Embassies are in capitals

Consulates are anywhere else. Embassies have the ambassador, consulates have consuls. If you need a visa, a passport, information, or whatever you'll never worry about the difference. Really the difference is that ambassadors get to talk to the host country's diplomatic personnel on things private citizens don't. Sometimes a big business deal involves the embassy, but it's mostly about government-to-government contact.

[lunatica]

23. No. they're not the same

You find Consulates in the rest of the country and some towns and these can many times be in someone house. It's like the Embassy has a bunch of delegates that can do the small stuff for it.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

30. Also, temporary consulates can be

set up to deal with specific issues.

A while back I was a paralegal for an attorney, now a U.S. Citizen, who'd grown up in Peru. Once during the year or so I worked for him, his office became a temporary consulate for a day to handle some legal issues for local Peruvians.

[maveric]

44. Thank you all so very much.

😎

[MontanaMama]

8. GTFO Russia.

Now, who locked 45 in the closet to get this done?

[Not Ruth]

10. About time

[Igel]

15. No, it's good they waited.

You need some hefty administrative processing to get a visa to Russia, and every summer a lot of students and researchers heading there for study have their visa processing backed up well into August. There's almost always angst on SEELangs over this. SEELangs is the Slavic and East European Language listserv that Russianists and Slavists set up for keeping in touch with each other and current on issues confronting the Slavist community. (A "Slavist" studies things Slavic, and SEELangs is mostly language, linguistics, and literature, from Slavic librarians to faculty to high school teachers to professional translators and historians or political scientists. I think Brits call us "Slavicists" but they also say "Slavonic" languages and not "Slavic".)

My oral fluency in Russian was never what it should have been because I didn't study there. For most Slavists a stint in-country in a language study program, an immersion program, or even as an ESL teacher really helps them as undergrads and as grads. You want things like this. In fact, Title VI is set up to make sure that understudied but strategically important languages and cultures have grad students and researchers funded. (Even if the faculty usually reduce the language study requirement to something entirely pro forma and use the Title VI funding to encourage not language acquisition and competence but fund students who are going to go on to be researchers and faculty in things unrelated to strategic or national security.)

Back in the '70s when I started studying the language most of my parents' peers were like, "Why are you studying a communist language?"

My response was simple. In WWI we had a large German-speaking community in the US and getting US-citizen translators for German was a piece of cake. After WWI German was an "enemy" language and those communities quickly transitioned to English, so that by the US entrance into WWII we had a real shortfall of German translators and interpreters. This severely hurt interrogation of prisoners, translation of intelligence intercepts, and the ability to send people behind German lines. They had to set up crash courses in German, and that's not a good thing. German was not just out of vogue for study by US citizens it was frowned upon for a decade or two, and immigrants weren't considered trustworthy. Japanese had the same problem, but it didn't go from having a surfeit of linguistic skills by those who could easily get clearance to virtually none. It started out near none and just stayed there. Japanese was not a prestige language.

It's likely that Russia will prioritize economic visas more than educational visas. That's in *their* self interest. Educational visas are in the US' interests.

[leftstreet]

11. Retaliation because Trump Tower Moscow thing was confirmed?

Wasn't it Peskov who just confirmed it?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

14. So what else is about to break?

[ProudLib72]

21. Yeah, this is what I was thinking

What will we get tomorrow that will fuel the news cycle over the weekend?

[Weekend Warrior]

17. "We believe this action was unwarranted and detrimental to the overall relationship between our..."

I thought the administration thought it was beneficial to us.

[mercuryblues]

20. More like

Someone in those consulates are ratting on trump. This closure is to flesh him/her out and stop the leaks.

[Pachamama]

24. Great news - glad to have them out of San Francisco....

[C Moon]

25. I'm sure Trump got an okay from Putin to do this...

in an attempt to save Putin's newly bought country.

[ffr]

26. Good! Now my computer won't run like there are four other people using it.

Fucking no good Russians!

[lark]

27. Bet drumpf is really unhappy about this.

How dare we retaliate against his BFF, Pootie.

[Not Ruth]

28. I know where to put the Houston homeless

[ailsagirl]

29. About time is right!!!!!!

[Squinch]

31. As Putin realizes that he has backed a horse that is crazier than a rat in a butter tub,

I wonder what his thoughts are about how to cut his losses.

[RecoveringJournalist]

33. Yes

I honestly don't care if Trumplestiltskin was forced or anything. This needed to happen. He needs to be putin his place.

[malaise]

35. The Con must be going down

Rec

[BainsBane]

38. Exactly what I was thinking

They are closing in on him.

[malaise]

40. Pence is sure behaving that way

Hope they have him too

[RainCaster]

39. Who will stay in his hotels? nt