Liberal Forum

Huey » 05 May 2017 10:05 pm » wrote:Just curious butch, who thought it was a good idea to make you a senior moderator?
Curious minds want to know....

Not those who are sheeple and post whatever you are told to post.
Critical thinking dearie...

larryc12 » 06 May 2017 8:33 am » wrote:This is very simple. She is your typical leftist loon who cannot accept that the American people weren't having a criminal for POTUS, when she would rather have a criminal who belongs in prison than someone who did some things that were inappropriate, especially with women. So now it's "the Russians, it's Comey!" when all either of them did was expose the malfeasances of Hillary Clinton. She, among the other loons, doesn't care about that and that is evidence of her own lousy character.

In a Beijing ballroom, Kushner family flogs $500,000 ‘investor visa’ to wealthy Chinese.

The Kushner family came to the United States as refugees, worked hard and made it big — and if you invest in Kushner properties, so can you.

That was the message delivered Saturday by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner’s sister to a ballroom full of wealthy Chinese investors, renewing questions about the Kushner family’s business ties to China.

Over several hours of slide shows and presentations, representatives from the Kushner family business urged Chinese citizens gathered at the Ritz-Carlton hotel to consider investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a New Jersey real estate project to secure what’s known as an investor visa.

The EB-5 immigrant investor visa program, which allows foreign investors to invest in U.S. projects that create jobs and then apply to immigrate, has been used by both the Trump and Kushner family businesses.

But President Trump’s vow to crack down on immigration, as well as criticism from members of Congress, has led to questions about the future of a program known here as the “golden visa.”

The EB-5 has been extremely popular among rich Chinese who are eager to get their families — and their wealth — out of the country, though the fact that some move their money out illegally has made the program unpopular with the Chinese government, too.

In the ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton on Saturday, Chinese investors were advised to invest sooner rather than later in case the rules change.

“Invest early, and you will invest under the old rules,” one speaker said.

The woman identified as “Jared’s sister” was believed to be Nicole Kushner, who is involved in the family business, not Dara Kushner, who generally stays out of the spotlight.

But the woman’s face was not clearly visible from the back of the ballroom, where reporters were told to remain.

Saturday’s event in Beijing was hosted by the Chinese company Qiaowai, which connects U.S. companies with Chinese investors.

The tagline on a brochure for the event: “Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States.”

Qiaowai is working with Kushner to secure funding for Kushner 1, a real estate project in New Jersey.

Promotional materials tout the buildings’ proximity to Manhattan and note that the project will create more than 6,000 jobs.

“This project has stable funding, creates sufficient jobs and guarantees the safety of investors’ money,” one description reads.

Although there was no visible reference to Trump, the materials noted the Kushner family’s “celebrity” status.

Wang Yun, a Chinese investor who attended the event, said the Kushner family’s ties to Trump, via son-in-law Jared, were a part of the project’s appeal — but also a source of concern.

“Even though this is the project of the son-in-law’s family, of course it is still affiliated,” Wang.

Wang reasoned that the link to Trump would be a boon if the presidency goes well but could be disastrous if it does not: “We heard that there are rumors that he is the most likely to be impeached president in American history.

That’s why I doubt this project.”

Many of the people who attended the event declined to be interviewed, citing privacy concerns, or were blocked by organizers from speaking to the news media.

Though the event was publicly advertised in Beijing, the hosts were exceptionally anxious about the presence of reporters.

Journalists were initially seated at the back of the ballroom, but as the presentations got underway, a public-relations representative asked The Washington Post to leave, saying the presence of foreign reporters threatened the “stability” of the event.

At one point, organizers grabbed a reporter’s phone and backpack to try to force that person to leave. Later, as investors started leaving the ballroom, organizers physically surrounded attendees to stop them from giving interviews.

Asked why reporters were asked to leave, a public-relations representative, who declined to identify herself, said simply, “This is not the story we want.”

Termin8tor » 06 May 2017 8:47 am » wrote:You hit it right on the head.

Huey » 06 May 2017 7:38 am » wrote: Nobody told you to troll me all week long.

Termin8tor » 06 May 2017 2:06 pm » wrote:The facts don't matter in the slightest.
She lies faster than a speeding bullet.

Huey » 06 May 2017 2:53 pm » wrote:Anyone forcing you to respond?
Game, set, match.
You ain't that bright.

September 17, 2009

Nearly 45,000 annual deaths are associated with lack of health insurance, according to a new study published online today by the American Journal of Public Health.

That figure is about two and a half times higher than an estimate from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 2002.

The study, conducted at Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance, found that uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts, up from a 25 percent excess death rate found in 1993.

“The uninsured have a higher risk of death when compared to the privately insured, even after taking into account socioeconomics, health behaviors, and baseline health,” said lead author Andrew Wilper, M.D., who currently teaches at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

“We doctors have many new ways to prevent deaths from hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease — but only if patients can get into our offices and afford their medications.”

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2 ... -coverage/

“Sore winner” syndrome: Why are Donald Trump’s supporters still so angry? Abraham Lincoln understood.

The political right often seems to take little joy in its victories, instead remaining focused on its defeated enemies.

Compromise is unacceptable: Right-wingers seem to demand total capitulation and when their adversaries continue to resist, they are enraged.

The best description of this phenomenon comes from Abraham Lincoln in his famous address at New York’s Cooper Union in 1860.

Trying to explain how impossible it was to deal with the Southern slave states using normal democratic means, he asked, “What will it take to satisfy them?”

This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right.

And this must be done thoroughly — done in acts as well as in words.

Silence will not be tolerated — we must place ourselves avowedly with them.

Senator Douglas’ new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private.

We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure.

We must pull down our Free State constitutions.

The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.

This is why the right-wingers are so angry.

It’s not enough for them to win.

Those who opposed Trump must stop opposing him.

We must agree that Muslims should be banned from entering the country, agree we should torture and kill suspected terrorists and their families, agree immigrants should be rounded up and deported, agree there should be guns in schools, agree women should be punished for having abortions and agree to all the rest of it.

Until we stop resisting completely and declare that we are “avowedly with them,” they will continue to believe that “all their troubles proceed from us.”

That is not going to happen.

Trump’s forces may have won the election but they have not won the hearts and minds of the American people who didn’t vote for him.

And they won’t.

Trump issues broad, 'Bush-style' signing statement on spending bill.

WASHINGTON — President Trump signed a $1.1 trillion spending bill on Friday, and used the opportunity to attach a signing statement that asserted presidential prerogatives on issues of war powers, marijuana and government spending.

The signing statement was Trump's first as president, and could signal that he intends to use the tool to vigorously defend what he sees as the president's constitutional authority.

Through the statement, Trump reserved the right to disregard 89 different provisions in the spending bill.

"This is a George W. Bush-style signing statement," said Christopher Kelley, a Miami University political scientist whose work on Bush's signing statements brought attention to a formerly obscure presidential tool.

"It's a line-by line series of objections that lead to dozens and dozens of challenges that you just did not see in the Obama administration."

A signing statement is a written pronouncement issued by a president as he signs a bill into law.

They can be used to explain the president's positions, prod Congress to pass more legislation, or to put the president on record raising constitutional issues with a bill.

But during the Bush administration, critics said the practice allowed the president to rewrite laws he disagreed with after he had signed them — rather than vetoing bills and sending them back to Congress.

Among the provisions that Trump said he was reserving the right to disregard:

► Marijuana: The spending law forbids the Justice Department from spending any money to prevent 44 states from implementing their own laws on medical marijuana. Yet Trump said that law conflicts with his constitutional responsibility to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." leaving open the possibility that his administration could challenge state and local medical marijuana laws.

► Weapons systems: Several provisions forbid the administration from canceling weapons programs, such as the RQ-4B Global Hawk or A-10 aircraft. Another forbids the president from funding nuclear-armed interceptors — a form of missile defense that uses nuclear weapons to shoot down other nuclear weapons. Trump said those provisions "unconstitutionally limit my ability to modify the command and control of military personnel and materiel."

► White House "czars:" Congress had blocked the president from hiring certain Obama-era White House "czars," including key policy advisers on health care, climate change, the auto industry and urban affairs. Trump said he has "well-established authority to supervise and oversee the executive branch and to obtain advice in furtherance of this supervisory authority."

► Affirmative action: Congress has established programs giving preferences based on race and sex in hiring, grants and government contracts. Trump said he would interpret those provisions "consistent with the requirement to afford equal protection of the laws" under the Constitution.

► Guantanamo Bay: Trump even raised issues with provisions trying to restrict the president's ability to release suspected terrorists from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — although his objection is different from that of President Barack Obama. Trump said the law "does not include an exception for when a court might order the release of a detainee to certain countries," and therefore said he was reserving the right to disregard it.

Jennifer Hing, a spokeswoman for the House Appropriations Committee, said the committee was still reviewing the president's signing statement to determine how to respond.

The spending bill keeps the government open through Sept. 30, avoiding a government shutdown through a series of compromises on contentious issues like a border wall, immigration enforcement and funding for Planned Parenthood.

Judith Slater: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Eleven plaintiffs are now part of a racial discrimination lawsuit against Fox News, executive vice president of legal and business affairs Dianne Brandi and former controller and senior vice president of accounting Judith Slater.

On April 4, Monica Douglas, a credit and collections supervisor at Fox News, joined Tichaona Brown and Tabrese Wright in the lawsuit, which alleges they endured “years-long relentless racial animus at the hands of their white supervisor, Slater.”

New allegations, including mocking Douglas for being disfigured as the result of treatment for breast cancer, are included in the amended complaint.

“The allegations in the amended complaint make clear that Fox, at the highest levels, was on notice of Ms. Slater’s racist conduct for years and unfortunately did nothing about it,” said Jeanne Christensen, one of the lawyers representing the women.

Trump Administration Hires Official Whom Five Students Accused of Sexual Assault

A political appointee hired by the Trump administration for a significant State Department role was accused of multiple sexual assaults as a student several years ago at The Citadel military college.

Steven Munoz was hired by the Trump administration as assistant chief of visits, running an office of up to 10 staffers charged with the sensitive work of organizing visits of foreign heads of state to the U.S. That includes arranging meetings with the president.

At The Citadel, five male freshmen alleged that Munoz used his positions as an upperclassman, class president and head of the campus Republican Society to grope them.

In one incident, a student reported waking up with Munoz on top of him, kissing him and grabbing his genitals.

In another, on a trip to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., a student said that Munoz jumped on him in bed and he “felt jerking and bouncing on my back.”

An investigation by The Citadel later found that “certain assaults likely occurred.”

A local prosecutor reviewed the case and declined to seek an indictment.

Munoz’s hiring raises questions about the Trump administration’s vetting of political appointees, which has been both slow and spotty, with multiple incidents of staff being fired only weeks into their jobs, including for disloyalty to Trump.

The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Misty » 07 May 2017 12:20 pm » wrote:FOX News kept a known racist on the payroll for years.

Misty » 07 May 2017 1:38 pm » wrote: Grabbing people by the genitals.
No big deal for The Groper-In-Chief.

Trump-Murdoch friendship will test Sessions, former U.S. attorneys say.

President Trump's friendship with Rupert Murdoch could soon become a liability for the Justice Department.

The president and the 21st Century Fox executive chairman talk almost every day, White House sources say.

Murdoch frequently offers Trump advice on policy, strategy and messaging. Murdoch's Fox News is favorable to Trump, and Trump is generous in giving praise -- and interviews -- to Fox News.

At the same time, Trump's Justice Department is conducting an investigation into 21st Century Fox's handling of financial settlements with women who accused Roger Ailes, the former Fox News chairman and CEO, of sexual harassment. (Ailes has denied all the allegations.)

The relationship between Trump and Murdoch will test the independence of the Justice Department and particularly Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who is also a close friend and influential adviser to the president, two former U.S. attorneys in another Republican administration told CNNMoney.

"This is a major test for Sessions," said Paul K. Charlton, the former U.S. attorney for the District of Arizona. "He needs to show his independence from the president."

Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Sessions' predecessor, came under fire last year after she met privately with former President Bill Clinton while his wife, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, was under an FBI investigation regarding her emails.

While Lynch said the conversation did not pertain to the investigation, she also said that because of the concern it raised she "certainly wouldn't do it again."

At the time, Trump called the meeting "terrible" and "horrible."

But given Trump's friendships with both Sessions and Murdoch, there are similar concerns regarding the investigation into Fox News.

Earlier this week, Murdoch called Trump a "friend" while introducing him at a World War II memorial event in New York.

Trump has praised Murdoch in the past, and in January tweeted, "Rupert Murdoch is a great guy who likes me much better as a very successful candidate than he ever did as a very successful developer!"