Liberal Forum

Termin8tor » 30 Mar 2017 3:20 pm » wrote:
You saw the original explanation I gave some time ago and commented on it.

You have recently had a day or two of semi-lucidity.

Now you're back to ugly psychotic babbling.

F*** off.

Senators Are ‘Increasingly Concerned’ Carl Icahn Is Profiting off Trump Adviser Role

Several Democratic senators pressed billionaire investor Carl Icahn on Monday to clarify his role as an adviser to President Donald Trump, saying his position in the administration raised "alarming" questions about potential conflicts of interest with his stakes in the biofuels and pharmaceutical industries.

The senators, led by Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, sent a letter to Icahn pointing out that, as a Trump adviser on regulation, he has made policy proposals that benefit his own investments - which range from an oil refinery to an nutritional supplement manufacturer.

"We write because we are increasingly concerned about the role you are playing in the Trump Administration and the possibility that you are breaking federal conflict of interest laws," the seven senators wrote in the letter, seen by Reuters.

Calls to Icahn's office and lawyer were not immediately answered.

Icahn has been thrust into the limelight in recent weeks after the Renewable Fuels Association said he had informed them that Trump was preparing an executive order to overhaul the U.S. biofuels program in a way that benefited refiners.

The White House quickly denied it had an executive order in the works, and pointed out that Icahn held an informal, unpaid role as adviser to Trump.

The senators said that despite the administration downplaying his role, Icahn has disclosed to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that he was a special adviser, meaning it is important to shareholders of the companies in which he holds stakes in.

Icahn owns an 82% stake in CVR Energy, which along with other refining companies, has called for changes to the Renewable Fuel Program to shift the burden of blending biofuels into gasoline away from refiners and further down stream to marketers.

Icahn has said the change would help the entire refining industry, not just CVR.

Icahn also owns stakes in Herbalife and Bristol Meyers-Squib.

The senators said Icahn had helped Trump pick the heads of the Treasury, Commerce, and the SEC, which have some oversight over the companies in which he has a stake.

"Your ownership of each of these companies – and others – raises alarming questions about how you, and the Trump Administration, are handling your many conflicts of interest," the senators wrote.

In their letter, the senators said Icahn should be re-classified by the Trump administration as a special government employee, making him subject to ethics requirements.

When Trump announced in December that Icahn would be a special adviser, Trump made clear he would "not be serving as a federal employee or a Special Government Employee and will not have any specific duties.

"The letter also includes over a dozen questions about Icahn's ties to the administration, including whether he has received waivers from ethics requirements, and whether he has divested from some of his financial holdings.

E.P.A. Chief, Rejecting Agency’s Science, Chooses Not to Ban Insecticide

Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, moved late on Wednesday to reject the scientific conclusion of the agency’s own chemical safety experts who under the Obama administration recommended that one of the nation’s most widely used insecticides be permanently banned at farms nationwide because of the harm it potentially causes children and farm workers.

The ruling by Mr. Pruitt, in one of his first formal actions as the nation’s top environmental official, rejected a petition filed a decade ago by two environmental groups that had asked that the agency ban all uses of chlorpyrifos.

The chemical was banned in 2000 for use in most household settings, but still today is used at about 40,000 farms on about 50 different types of crops, ranging from almonds to apples.

Late last year, and based in part on research conducted at Columbia University, E.P.A. scientists concluded that exposure to the chemical that has been in use since 1965 was potentially causing significant health consequences.

They included learning and memory declines, particularly among farm workers and young children who may be exposed through drinking water and other sources.

But Dow Chemical, which sells the product under the trade name Lorsban, along with farm groups that use it, had argued that the science demonstrating that chlorpyrifos caused such harm is inconclusive — especially when properly used to kill crop-spoiling insects.

An E.P.A. scientific review panel made up of academic experts last July also had raised questions about some of the conclusions the chemical safety staff had reached.

That led the staff to revise the way it had justified its findings of harm, although the agency employees as of late last year still concluded that the chemical should be banned.

Mr. Pruitt, in an announcement issued Wednesday night, said the agency needed to study the science more.

“We need to provide regulatory certainty to the thousands of American farms that rely on chlorpyrifos, while still protecting human health and the environment,” Mr. Pruitt said in his statement.

“By reversing the previous administration’s steps to ban one of the most widely used pesticides in the world, we are returning to using sound science in decision-making — rather than predetermined results.”

The United States Department of Agriculture, which works close with the nation’s farmers, supported Mr. Pruitt’s action.

“It means that this important pest management tool will remain available to growers, helping to ensure an abundant and affordable food supply for this nation,” Sheryl Kunickis, director of the U.S.D.A.

Office of Pest Management Policy, said in a statement Wednesday.

Dow Agrosciences, the division that sells the product, also praised the ruling, calling it in a statement “the right decision for farmers who, in about 100 countries, rely on the effectiveness of chlorpyrifos to protect more than 50 crops.”

But Jim Jones, who ran the chemical safety unit at the E.P.A. for five years, and spent more than 20 years working there until he left the agency in January when President Trump took office, said he was disappointed by Mr. Pruitt’s action.

“They are ignoring the science that is pretty solid,” Mr. Jones said, adding that he believed the ruling would put farm workers and exposed children at unnecessary risk.

The ruling is, in some ways, more consequential than the higher profile move by Mr. Trump on Tuesday to order the start of rolling back Obama administration rules related to coal-burning power plants and climate change.

In rejecting the pesticide ban, Mr. Pruitt took what is known as a “final agency action” on the question of the safety and use of chlorpyrifos, suggesting that the matter would not likely be revisited until 2022, the next time the E.P.A. is formally required to re-evaluate the safety of the pesticide.

Oklahoma Bar Launches Investigation to Determine If Trump's EPA Chief Lied Under Oath

EPA chief told Congress he only conducted official attorney general business on professional email account, but document dump showed otherwise.

Termin8tor » 30 Mar 2017 8:30 pm » wrote:Watts's judgment is a little strange. He claimed that when Trump said that the election was rigged, Trump was following Russian propaganda.

That's utterly ridiculous.

Being concerned with crooked pro-Democrat journalism and extensive Democrat voter fraud doesn't have the slightest thing to do with Russia.

As Trump talked of rigged election, Putin plotted to tarnish Clinton win.

WASHINGTON -- While Donald Trump warned of a rigged election, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a campaign focused on "impugning the fairness" of an election that Hillary Clinton seemed likely to win, according to a declassified intelligence report of foreign interference in the U.S presidential race.

The report by the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and National Security Agency said part of the Russian effort involved challenging the legitimacy of a possible Clinton victory.

That's the same message Trump delivered in the closing weeks of the campaign, when he said "this whole election is being rigged" and refused to pledge to support Clinton if she won.

Termin8tor » 30 Mar 2017 8:30 pm » wrote:You didn't even watch the video, Dim. Watts said that Putin wants to destroy democracies from the inside out....sow chaos and dissension.

That's exactly what you're doing by spreading rumors and accusations with zero evidence to back any of them up.
So who is Putin's Pet?

Little Miss Marxist.

Termin8tor » 30 Mar 2017 8:31 pm » wrote:I think you're a psychopathic liar and are mentally ill.

Misty » 30 Mar 2017 10:12 pm » wrote:Billionaire Carl Icahn is special adviser to the president on overhauling federal regulations.
Months before Trump was even elected president, the guy who was the inspiration for Gordon Gekko was lobbying his longtime friend to roll back a regulation affecting a company in which he holds an 82 percent stake.

Draining the swamp.

Cannonpointer » 31 Mar 2017 12:14 am » wrote:All this shows is that tRump is doing all he can to keep lobbyists from pestering the congress.

You can't drain the swamp without the assistance of the residents, mostly snakes and alligators, DIM.

The real issue,which you happily ignore, is serial rapist Bill Clinton, PSYCHO.

Huey » 28 Mar 2017 7:02 am » wrote: Lmmfao!

Misty » 30 Mar 2017 10:12 pm » wrote:Billionaire Carl Icahn is special adviser to the president on overhauling federal regulations.
Months before Trump was even elected president, the guy who was the inspiration for Gordon Gekko.....

Misty » 31 Mar 2017 12:03 am » wrote: I'm not the psychopathic liar who said that when Trump said the election was rigged, he wasn't following Russian propaganda.

I notice that you plucked that one part out of my post but ignored the instances where Manafort and Trump were promoting FAKE News stories from Sputnik and RT during the campaign.

What's wrong?
Couldn't come up with a plausable enough lie for why they were doing that?

Maybe you can't call that collusion, but it sure looks like they were taking full advantage of what Russia was doing and were more than happy to play along.

Misty » 30 Mar 2017 11:53 pm » wrote: That's right jackass.
That is my goal.
To destroy democracies from the inside out, and this forum is the base of my operation.

Misty » 30 Mar 2017 1:50 pm » wrote:Where did you cite this affidavit?
Show me.

Terry McAuliffe — Virginia’s Voter-Fraud Guru
By Hans A. von Spakovsky & Grant Strobl — March 30, 2017
Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, the former head of the Democratic National Committee, is at it again, vetoing six bills aimed at preventing voter fraud and illegal voting. What does he have against election integrity? Why does he want to make it easier to commit fraud and harder for election officials to detect or deter it?

Voter fraud is a problem, in the Commonwealth of Virginia and nationwide. The database that the Heritage Foundation started less than two years is already up to 474 cases and 755 criminal convictions — and this is just the tip of the iceberg, since many cases go unreported and unprosecuted. According to a 2016 report by the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a small sample of only eight counties in Virginia showed 1,046 non-citizens who were registered to vote, many of whom had voted before they were removed from the voter rolls. Heritage’s database shows voter-fraud convictions in Virginia for everything from absentee-ballot fraud to false registrations to vote buying.

Yet this disturbing reality does not appear to faze Terry McAuliffe. On Monday he vetoed three of the bills. The first, Senate Bill 1253, would require poll books to include DMV photographs. Virginia already mandates a photo ID to vote; this bill would actually speed the voting process on Election Day by waiving the voter-ID requirement if a DMV picture already exists in the voter file, while acting as a check on individuals who might be trying to use a fake ID. Yet Governor McAuliffe professes to believe that this attempt to streamline the process would somehow lead to “voter confusion.” Perhaps it is the governor who is confused.

The second bill he vetoed, Senate Bill 1455, would have implemented a state version of a federal law (42 USCS § 1973i) making it unlawful to pay individuals to register to vote. Instead of giving local prosecutors an additional tool to use, McAuliffe dismissed the bill as redundant and claimed that “there is no evidence this activity is occurring in the Commonwealth.”

Perhaps McAuliffe should review the case of Appalachia, Va., mayor Ben Cooper. He and 14 co-conspirators were convicted in 2007 of absentee-ballot fraud and buying votes with cigarettes, beer, and pork rinds. Being registered to vote is a necessary precondition to getting paid to vote. In any event, state prosecutors can’t enforce federal laws and should not have to depend on federal prosecutors to go after wrongdoing in their state. Why would McAuliffe not want to give Commonwealth prosecutors the same ability to go after this kind of criminal behavior?

The third bill, Senate Bill 1581, would have required general registrars to match voter-registration information with Social Security Administration data and other state-board-approved databases to verify the name, date of birth, and Social Security number of the applicant. The bill would also require a yearly audit of voter lists using the same databases, to verify the accuracy of the information being submitted by registrants. McAuliffe vetoed this bill, too.

That was just one day in Governor McAuliffe’s efforts to suppress all effort to improve the integrity of the election process. But there is more.

Earlier this month, McAuliffe vetoed House Bill 2343, which was similar in nature to Senate Bill 1581. A small step toward identifying improperly registered voters, the bill would have required the Department of Elections to provide general registrars with the resources to compare registration data with registration data in other states and other databases to identify voters who are registered in more than one state. Is this a problem in Virginia? As of February 2016, the Kansas Interstate Crosscheck Program showed that 284,618 voters registered in Virginia were also registered in other states.

This bill would have improved the accuracy of voter rolls and ensured that dual-registered voters are not illegally voting twice. Yet Governor McAuliffe again made the completely unsubstantiated claim that investigating those who are registered in more than one state could lead to “improper disenfranchisement.”

McAuliffe also vetoed two companion bills, House Bill 1428 and Senate Bill 872, which simply extended Virginia’s photo-ID requirement to absentee voting. It required that voters who submit absentee-ballot applications must include a copy of a legally acceptable form of identification.

Nationwide, there are many cases of absentee-ballot fraud, because it is the easiest type of election fraud to commit. A 1998 report from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement called absentee ballots the “tool of choice” of vote thieves. That’s why states like Alabama, Kansas, and Wisconsin have extended their voter-ID laws to absentee ballots.

Yet Governor McAuliffe claims that adding a voter-ID requirement to absentee ballots is “unnecessary” and “could improperly disenfranchise” voters. That same meritless claim was made against Virginia’s voter-ID law for in-person voting, and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals threw it out last December because there was no evidence whatsoever that a voter-ID requirement disenfranchised any legitimate voters. In reality, the real disenfranchisement is when a legal vote is canceled by an illegal one.

One of McAuliffe’s most outrageous vetoes killed Senate Bill 1105. The bill was simple: Municipalities should investigate and audit voter rolls if there are more registered voters than eligible voters, or if more people vote than are registered. The reports from these investigations would be sent to the State Election Board and would be made public. Again, McAuliffe claimed that this bill, which merely calls for an investigation when there is evidence that there are more voters than there should be, risks “improper disenfranchisement.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/4 ... d-virginia

Huey » 31 Mar 2017 8:44 am » wrote: The problem isn't Reagan?

Cannonpointer » 31 Mar 2017 10:38 am » wrote:Don't you mean SERIAL RAPIST Reagan, DIM?

Huey » 31 Mar 2017 10:40 am » wrote: He was too old. Viagra was years away.

Judge approves $25 million settlement of Trump University lawsuit.

A U.S. judge on Friday approved a $25 million settlement to resolve a class action lawsuit that claimed fraud against President Donald Trump and his Trump University real estate seminars.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego concluded a lengthy and contentious lawsuit that played a prominent role in the presidential campaign last year.

The Trump University students, who paid as much as $35,000 for the seminars, claimed they were lured by false promises that they would learn Trump's investing "secrets" from his "hand-picked" instructors.

One Trump University student objected to the deal, in particular a provision blocking students from opting out of it. She said in court papers she would like to seek full recovery from Trump, plus punitive damages and other relief.

An attorney for that student could not immediately be reached for comment.

During the campaign, Trump vowed to continue fighting the fraud claims but agreed to the settlement soon after he was elected. He has admitted he did not personally select the instructors, but his lawyers have described the claim as sales "puffery."

Last year, Trump accused Judge Curiel of bias based on the Indiana-born judge's Mexican ancestry.

In his ruling on Friday, Curiel called the $25 million settlement "extraordinary" in that it represented an estimated 80 percent recovery for the students.

"The amount offered in settlement provides significant and immediate recovery," Curiel wrote.

Misty » 31 Mar 2017 12:35 pm » wrote:Two of the plaintiffs in the Trump 'University' lawsuit wanted to opt out of the settlement and sue the president individually.
Judge Curiel said no.


Looks like Judge Curiel had the last laugh.

Termin8tor » 31 Mar 2017 9:27 am » wrote:Of course businessmen are going to be consulted about necessary deregulation. They're the ones that have to deal with massive amounts of unnecessary paperwork that have devastated parts of the country, and badly hurt the country overall.

Trump Adviser Carl Icahn Lobbies for Rule Change That Benefits Icahn

“This looks more like what you’d see in a banana republic.”

Since Election Day, the billionaire New York investor (Carl Icahn) has emerged as the most powerful person in the $24 billion ethanol industry.

That’s due in part to his stake in two oil refineries, but mostly it’s because of his relationship with President Donald Trump.

Icahn has known Trump for more than two decades and was an early supporter during the campaign.

Trump rewarded Icahn in December by making him special adviser to the president on regulatory reform, giving Icahn the perfect platform to influence federal policies that affect his $20 billion business empire.

“This looks more like what you’d see in a banana republic,” says Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen, a liberal watchdog group.

“You’ve got a strongman who surrounds himself with billionaires or wealthy advisers who conduct the business of government to benefit their business.”

Icahn would seem to inhabit an extraordinary position of privilege in the Trump administration. Except that he’s not technically a part of the administration.

As a special adviser, he’s not a government employee and receives no compensation.

That means he doesn’t have to relinquish any of his vast financial holdings, nor is he subject to federal ethics rules that typically apply to people who work for the president.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... fits-icahn

Misty » 31 Mar 2017 12:57 pm » wrote: He's not just being 'consulted' jackass.
He has been named Trump's special adviser on regulatory reform.

Why don't you actually try reading what I post before you just spit out some knee jerk response?

And just admit that you don't give a **** that Trump is turning this country into a banana republic.

Termin8tor » 31 Mar 2017 9:31 am » wrote:Only someone mentally ill or deeply dishonest would ignore the many reasons Trump and millions of Americans have to believe that the election was to a large degree rigged.
The two key points being 1) the corrupt conservative-hating MSM and 2) Democrat voter fraud, which for years you have dishonestly denied as being significant.

Garry Kasparov, a world chess champion, chairman of the Human Rights Foundation and Russian pro-democracy leader, is “deeply troubled” by Donald Trump’s suggestion that the election could be “rigged” because it’s “exactly what Vladimir Putin wants everybody to believe.”

http://www.theblaze.com/news/2016/10/26 ... heres-why/

Termin8tor » 31 Mar 2017 9:31 am » wrote:I honestly can't keep up with the lies and Disinformation you spread. I barely looked at that because you have just about zero credibility.
You tell lies faster than a speeding bullet.