***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[blastercombo]

Proof da system works


“But da pulled out on nyc”

 

[IATT]

Tax breaks.. subsidies.. bailouts

And other "welfare" for the wealthy missing?

 

[whywesteppin]

Tax breaks.. subsidies.. bailouts

And other "welfare" for the wealthy missing?

Umm, it's called Trickle Down Welfare for a reason.

 

[blastercombo]

Tax breaks.. subsidies.. bailouts

And other "welfare" for the wealthy missing?

Massage coupons

 

[Belgium]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/house-...ump-contact-with-matthew-whitaker-11551144842
House Investigators Probe Trump Contact With Matthew Whitaker
Interest centers on a U.S. attorney’s office inquiry into Michael Cohen, Trump Organization
The House Judiciary Committee believes it has evidence that President Trump asked Matthew Whitaker, at the time the acting attorney general, whether Manhattan U.S. attorney Geoffrey Berman could regain control of his office’s investigation into Mr. Trump’s former lawyer and his real-estate business, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Berman, a former law partner of Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani who in 2016 donated to the Trump campaign and whom the president personally interviewed for the U.S. attorney job, last year had recused himself from involvement in the matter. He didn’t give a reason, but legal experts said his interim status at the time the probe began would have made his involvement appear improper. The investigation began as a probe of the business dealings of Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer, and has broadened to examine the Trump Organization.

Mr. Cohen on Wednesday is set to deliver public testimony for the first time before the House Oversight Committee, in which he is expected to talk about his decade of working for Mr. Trump and about the hush-money payments he arranged during the 2016 campaign to women who alleged sexual encounters with Mr. Trump. Mr. Cohen has pleaded guilty to charges including campaign-finance violations and lying to Congress, and last year he was sentenced to three years in prison.

Federal prosecutors have directly implicated the president in the payoff scheme, referring to him in court papers as “Individual-1,” alleging publicly what The Wall Street Journal previously had detailed in its reporting on those payments.

Mr. Trump has denied wrongdoing.

There is no sign Mr. Whitaker acted on any request from Mr. Trump, which the New York Times reported last week. But the House Judiciary Committee is investigating whether Mr. Whitaker may have perjured himself in his appearance before the panel earlier this month, according to one of the people familiar with the matter. Mr. Whitaker told the panel: “At no time has the White House asked for nor have I provided any promises or commitments concerning the special counsel’s investigation or any other investigation.”

Any evidence that Mr. Trump sought to intervene in the federal prosecutors’ probe could propel further lines of inquiry by lawmakers into whether he has tried to obstruct the investigation into his business dealings.

Mr. Trump, a person close to the president said, is expected to aggressively defend himself after Mr. Cohen’s Wednesday testimony, which the former Trump lawyer postponed following threats he alleged were made by the president against his father-in-law. But the timing of the testimony will also pose a complication: Mr. Trump will be in Vietnam, preparing for a second summit the next day with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

During his Feb. 8 hearing, Mr. Whitaker also denied news reports that Mr. Trump had lashed out at him after federal prosecutors in late November obtained a guilty plea from Mr. Cohen, and he refused to say whether he had ever spoken to the president about the case. The Judiciary Committee said in a letter to Mr. Whitaker this month that it had identified individuals with direct knowledge of phone calls from Mr. Trump in which he had expressed frustration over Mr. Cohen’s guilty pleas.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.), the House Judiciary chairman, tweeted last week that the panel wanted the former acting attorney general to return and “clarify his testimony.”

Mr. Whitaker declined to comment. Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec also wouldn’t comment on Mr. Whitaker’s private conversations with the president, saying Mr. Whitaker stood by his committee testimony. Mr. Trump last week called reports of the conversation about Mr. Berman “fake news.”

Mr. Trump in the past year has had frequent private discussions with advisers and allies in which he has complained about federal prosecutors, whose investigations into Mr. Trump’s business and inaugural committee are examining dealings by some of the president’s closest associates.

Several congressional committees have also said they plan to probe the hush-money payments Mr. Cohen arranged during the 2016 campaign to women who alleged sexual encounters with Mr. Trump.

People close to the president said he believes Mr. Cohen’s coming testimony will be a distraction from his talks with Pyongyang. “What the president is doing with North Korea is a very, very big deal,” one of the people said. “For that to be sidetracked for nothing other than a partisan ****show—it’d frustrate any president,” the person said.

The White House declined to comment.

White House advisers have privately expressed relief that the hearing will take place while the president is limited in his ability to monitor the coverage. “You’re not going to have a president who is up in the White House residence watching the hearing and then watching the coverage for 24 hours straight,” a person close to the president said. Even on the lengthy flight back to Washington, this person added, “that’s one of the few places where the person doesn’t have the full TiVo replay capacity that he does in the White House and residence.”

Mr. Trump has also expressed irritation that Congress is now examining Mr. Cohen’s business dealings, after federal prosecutors in New York spent months building a case and charging his former lawyer. “He’s frustrated that Congress wants to keep peeling at this,” one of the people close to Mr. Trump said.

Early last year, Mr. Trump was watching television in his private dining room in the White House as he vented about prosecutors’ apparent growing interest in his and his associates’ finances.

Talking to advisers, Mr. Trump appeared concerned that an “out-of-control prosecutor” examining a person involved in large business transactions would easily be able to find a “technical violation,” a person close to the president said.

“If they really want to, they can always find something on anyone,” Mr. Trump said, according to this person.

Excerpts:

 

[whywesteppin]

snowflake

 

[noskey]

Dude talking about helping blacks meanwhile he took out an entire page ad in the paper saying the Central Park dudes should be executed

ALLEGEDLY, the Central Park 5 should be executed IF TRUE that they are black committed a crime. Due process has not always been afforded to those who look like Pauly Manafort. SMH and YIKES to you libflakes jumping to conclusions. Until we hear President Elect Donald "Vald Daddy" Trump on video and in front of me live tell us what was in his heart then we cannot condemn him or wish him to do better.

 

[IATT]

 

[IATT]

Ummmmmmmmm ummmmmm ummmmmmmm

 

[noskey]

Ummmmmmmmm ummmmmm ummmmmmmm

What. A. Moron.



Sorry, phone auto corrected. Meant to say:
What. A. MERICAN. John Corny Cornyn about to run this authoritarian fade over the libcucks in the Senate. Musty Mueller wont even be able to comprehend what kind of a left hook and right jab hit him when Dapper Donald "WWE Superstar" Trump and John "Right Cross" Cornyn tag team him in the octagon

 

[Nike Jordan]

 

[Mark Antony]

And yet republicans are against handouts

Heard a wealthy exec say this "people vote based on the handout they think they can get"

 

[whywesteppin]

Heard a wealthy exec say this "people vote based on the handout they think they can get"

aspirational voters.

 

[frshstunna]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...s-boss-and-gets-earful-in-return?srnd=premium
Trump’s Trade Chief Lectures His Boss and Gets an Earful in Return
An exasperated Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. trade representative, tried to gently educate his boss, Donald Trump, on the meaning of a “memorandum of understanding” in the Oval Office on Friday, leading to a presidential lecture in front of television cameras and a top Chinese official.

The exchange between the president and his top trade negotiator unfolded Friday when the president was asked during a meeting with a Chinese trade delegation about how long so-called memorandums of understanding would last in an eventual accord with Beijing. Negotiators have been drafting MOUs on areas such as agriculture, non-tariff barriers, services, technology transfer, currency and intellectual property as the two nations work toward a deal.

Trump told gathered reporters that the memorandums would “be very short term. I don’t like MOUs because they don’t mean anything. To me, they don’t mean anything.”

Excerpts:

The video makes it even funnier ...This a true clown thats supposed to be in charge

 

[Mark Antony]

The video makes it even funnier ...This a true clown thats supposed to be in charge

Trade chief was pissed

 

[AEA18]

While the Trump administration is continuing many of the anti-immigrant policies of the Clinton and Obama administration, his efforts to criminalize all immigrants represents a new twist, says Prof. Aviva Chomsky

 

[Belgium]

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/...ery-lender-battles-mueller-to-remain-shrouded
Manafort’s Mystery Lender Battles Mueller to Remain Shrouded
The company that made a $1 million loan to Paul Manafort’s family is fighting to keep secret who provided the money, despite requests from Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

In what has become a curious sideshow to Manafort’s sprawling legal battles, an obscure Nevada lender says it has a right to be paid back without Mueller asking too many questions. The lender offered to identify the money’s source to Mueller if he promised to keep it confidential, according to a court filing on Monday. Mueller refused.

The company, Woodlawn LLC, is now moving to collect anyway. The court shouldn’t allow the special counsel’s office to run up fees and costs for the company “by engaging in wasteful discovery,” the company said in its filing.

The loan came at a perilous time for Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, around the time of a raid on his properties. Woodlawn provided $1,025,000 to a Delaware entity controlled by Manafort’s wife in August 2017. Manafort himself guaranteed the loan, with a Baxter Street condominium in Manhattan pledged as collateral.

As part of a plea agreement with Mueller’s office last fall, Manafort forfeited many of his family’s assets to the government, including the Baxter Street condominium. Woodlawn claims it has a “first priority security lien” on that property and now wants to the judge to declare it.

The ultimate source of the loan remains a mystery. Last month, Bloomberg News reported that Woodlawn had installed a Hollywood bit player named Joey Rappa as managing member in 2018. The loan’s backer or backers wanted to remain anonymous given the “potential for public embarrassment,” and Rappa agreed to assume the role, Keith Berglund, a lawyer for Woodlawn, said in December. Berglund has since replaced Rappa as managing member.

This month, Mueller’s office requested more information about who provided the money. Woodlawn’s offer to hand over the information confidentially to the special counsel is similar to one made to Bloomberg last month.

In the papers filed in federal court in Washington, Woodlawn argued that whatever the government might find wouldn’t affect its legal interest in the Manafort property.

David Smith, Woodlawn’s attorney in the forfeiture case, and Berglund didn’t respond to requests for comment on Monday. Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel office investigating Russian election interference, declined to comment.

Prosecutors have said that Manafort was desperate for cash after he stopped his consulting work in Ukraine and joined the Trump campaign in March 2016 at no salary.


Manafort, 69, was convicted last year by a Virginia jury of tax and bank fraud and then pleaded guilty to conspiracy in Washington. He awaits sentencing in both cases.

Negotiations about the loan began in March 2017, before Manafort was arrested or convicted of any crime. The parties agreed to terms in July, Woodlawn said. The mortgage agreement was signed on Aug. 7, a few weeks after Manafort’s Virginia house was raided by the FBI but before news of the raid was made public.

“Woodlawn decided to go ahead with the loan because Woodlawn’s investors were worried that the Manaforts could sue them for breach of contract,” the lender wrote in its filing. “This was an arms-length loan at a market rate of interest by a legitimate lender, not a sham.”


Rappa, a production associate on “The Nutty Professor” and a former assistant to Keanu Reeves, was briefly made managing member of Woodlawn because “he did not have a high public profile nor any known associations with anyone who was of interest to the special counsel,” Berglund said in December.

Russian Billionaire
When Rappa was selected, Berglund didn’t know that he was working on a movie with Andrew Intrater, an American financier who is a cousin of Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, Berglund said.

Intrater is chief executive officer of Columbus Nova, a New York-based investment firm that has managed money for Vekselberg’s Renova Group. Intrater attracted attention last year over his $250,000 donation to Trump’s inauguration and Columbus Nova’s half-million-dollar payment for consulting services to a company set up by longtime Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. Intrater and Vekselberg have been interviewed by Mueller’s office. Neither has been accused of wrongdoing.


Intrater had nothing to do with the Woodlawn loan, his lawyer and Berglund have said. Rappa severed his ties with Woodlawn in December, following inquiries from Bloomberg.

Berglund said last year that Rappa’s involvement in Woodlawn amounted to a “highly unfortunate favor he did for me.”

 

[getback]

 

[IATT]

The video makes it even funnier ...This a true clown thats supposed to be in charge

@dwalk31

 

[frenchbreadbuilds]

What’s funny about this is that trump supporters go around dress like this looking for this exact reaction. This dude wanted to be inflammatory.

 

[mplsdunk]

he did him a favor.

 

[aepps20]

indeed comrade. #Civility is working. The young conservative could've easily unloaded a 15 punch combination and dropped the Lib but he kept his cool and CLEARLY WON the bout on my scorecard.

 

[stuntman mike]

don’t jump to conclusions. maybe the kid had a scorpion on his back and the guy just saved his life.

 

[plansb]

She just as dumb as her dad and her simple brothers

 

[getback]

UBI and Universal Health Care