Liberal Forum

Misty » 03 Oct 2017 9:36 am » wrote: Okay, so you posted one pic of her on a truck.
I posted several pics and YouTube videos that show her wading through the contaminated water.

She was in the water while 45 (who would never dare set foot in that water) called her a poor leader from the comfort of his golf resort.

PostmodernProphet » 03 Oct 2017 11:15 am » wrote: because you asked for proof that she was riding around in a military truck surrounded by reporters........did you think that she waded through six miles of water to shake the hand of a guy in a kayak?.......hardly, she would have been too far away from the camera.......

PostmodernProphet » 03 Oct 2017 11:16 am » wrote: and yet when the San Juan mayor complained supplies weren't being delivered they were stacked behind her in the picture........the only problem that hadn't been dealt with was the truck driver's union following her instructions......

Cannonpointer » 04 Oct 2017 12:04 pm » wrote:The golf picture is a standing icon of tRump's dishonesty. He promised that he would forego golf - for which he had criticized his predecessor - if elected. Instead, he plays it MORE often, and in places that are far more expensive to tax payers, but advantageous to him in that it gives his properties global exposure.
His golfing is BOTH hypocritical, in that he's doing what he criticized in another and promised to forego himself, AND to his pecuniary advantage - while expensive to the public he pretends to represent, which is mercenary.
If he were a democrat, you'd get it. He's not, so you don't.

Misty » 03 Oct 2017 12:30 pm » wrote: They passed Obamacare, remember?
Obama had to deal with a Republican House for much of his presidency and only had a veto proof majority in the Senate for a very short while.

Republicans have control of both houses of Congress and a president who is desperate to sign any bill they would send him, and they can't seem to do a **** thing.

You can't blame Dems for that.

Ricky Tavy » 03 Oct 2017 12:47 pm » wrote: To be fair, trump is also saddled with a Regressive Congress. Also, he has the added burden of an incompetent executive.

Misty » 03 Oct 2017 12:52 pm » wrote: He's so desperate to have a signing ceremony, I have a feeling he would sign a bill legalizing pedophilia if they sent it to him.

PostmodernProphet » 03 Oct 2017 1:27 pm » wrote: they also can't get through if the union drivers are on strike.......that's been pretty well documented already.....

PostmodernProphet » 03 Oct 2017 7:22 pm » wrote: sure......she was providing vital relief efforts by shaking the hand of a man in a kayak while a film crew took her picture......at least he was smart enough to sit in a kayak......

Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. Were Close to Being Charged With Felony Fraud

New York prosecutors were preparing a case. Then the D.A. overruled his staff after a visit from a top donor: Trump attorney Marc Kasowitz.

In the spring of 2012, Donald Trump’s two eldest children, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., found themselves in a precarious legal position.

For two years, prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office had been building a criminal case against them for misleading prospective buyers of units in the Trump SoHo, a hotel and condo development that was failing to sell.

Despite the best efforts of the siblings’ defense team, the case had not gone away.

An indictment seemed like a real possibility.

The evidence included emails from the Trumps making clear that they were aware they were using inflated figures about how well the condos were selling to lure buyers.

In one email, according to four people who have seen it, the Trumps discussed how to coordinate false information they had given to prospective buyers.

In another, according to a person who read the emails, they worried that a reporter might be onto them.

In yet another, Donald Jr. spoke reassuringly to a broker who was concerned about the false statements, saying that nobody would ever find out, because only people on the email chain or in the Trump Organization knew about the deception, according to a person who saw the email.

There was “no doubt” that the Trump children “approved, knew of, agreed to, and intentionally inflated the numbers to make more sales,” one person who saw the emails told us. “They knew it was wrong.”

In 2010, when the Major Economic Crimes Bureau of the D.A.’s office opened an investigation of the siblings, the Trump Organization had hired several top New York criminal defense lawyers to represent Donald Jr. and Ivanka.

These attorneys had met with prosecutors in the bureau several times.

They conceded that their clients had made exaggerated claims, but argued that the overstatements didn’t amount to criminal misconduct.

Still, the case dragged on.

In a meeting with the defense team, Donald Trump, Sr., expressed frustration that the investigation had not been closed.

Soon after, his longtime personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz entered the case.

Kasowitz, who by then had been the elder Donald Trump’s attorney for a decade, is primarily a civil litigator with little experience in criminal matters.

But in 2012, Kasowitz donated $25,000 to the reelection campaign of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., making Kasowitz one of Vance’s largest donors.

Kasowitz decided to bypass the lower level prosecutors and went directly to Vance to ask that the investigation be dropped.

On May 16, 2012, Kasowitz visited Vance’s office at One Hogan Place in downtown Manhattan — a faded edifice made famous by the television show, “Law & Order.”

Dan Alonso, the chief assistant district attorney, and Adam Kaufmann, the chief of the investigative division, were also at the meeting, but no one from the Major Economic Crimes Bureau attended.

Kasowitz did not introduce any new arguments or facts during his session.

He simply repeated the arguments that the other defense lawyers had been making for months.

Ultimately, Vance overruled his own prosecutors.

Three months after the meeting, he told them to drop the case.

Kasowitz subsequently boasted to colleagues about representing the Trump children, according to two people.

He said that the case was “really dangerous,” one person said, and that it was “amazing I got them off.” (Kasowitz denied making such a statement.)

Vance defended his decision.

“I did not at the time believe beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime had been committed,” he told us.

“I had to make a call and I made the call, and I think I made the right call.”

Just before the 2012 meeting, Vance’s campaign had returned Kasowitz’s $25,000 contribution, in keeping with what Vance describes as standard practice when a donor has a case before his office.

Kasowitz “had no influence and his contributions had no influence whatsoever on my decision-making in the case,” Vance said.

But less than six months after the D.A.’s office dropped the case, Kasowitz made an even larger donation to Vance’s campaign, and helped raise more from others — eventually, a total of more than $50,000.

(read more at link in title)

Cannonpointer » 04 Oct 2017 12:39 pm » wrote:She wasn't playing golf on the public dime.

Misty » 04 Oct 2017 12:59 pm » wrote: I love when you visit my thread and bat clean-up.

Betsy DeVos' security detail could cost up to $6.54M over the next year.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' security detail could cost up to $6.54 million from now through the end of September 2018, an Education Department official told POLITICO on Monday.

That projected cost is seen as a "high water mark" that the agency doesn't plan to exceed, said spokeswoman Liz Hill.

An agreement governing DeVos' protective detail — which is provided around the clock by the U.S. Marshals Service — was just renewed for fiscal 2018, which began on Saturday.

The Education Department paid the marshals $5.28 million for her protective detail from February through September of this year — about $2.5 million less than what was projected.

That's because both agencies were able to find cost savings, Hill said.

For example, DeVos pays for the marshals to fly with her on her own private plane, which reduces travel costs, she said. DeVos foots the bill for the plane.

It's extremely unusual for the Education secretary to be protected by marshals — the past four Education secretaries have been protected by the Education Department’s own small security force.

Misty » 04 Oct 2017 1:21 pm » wrote: This cabinet really loves to spend our money.

The gun lobby: See how much your representative gets.

Attention is being thrust back on the gun lobby as lawmakers give gun control measures a fresh look in the wake of the Las Vegas mass shooting – the deadliest in modern U.S. history.

Gun rights groups overwhelmingly support GOP candidates, contributing $5.9 million into Republican campaigns in the 2016 election cycle, compared with $106,000 to those of Democrats.

It’s also the most money gun lobbyists have given in a campaign year since at least 1990.



The Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan think tank that tracks money in politics, found that in 2016 more than half of the members of the House of Representatives — or 232 of the 435 — received money from gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America.

That money went disproportionately to Republicans. Only nine Democrats received campaign contributions from these groups.

POLITICO tallied contributions to representatives in the 2016 election cycle.

Some, like Ryan Zinke, no longer serve in Congress.

Zinke now heads the Department of the Interior, but he received $79,000 in 2016, making him the recipient of the second-highest contributions, after Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan.

(search your representative at link in title)

crimsongulf » 04 Oct 2017 1:25 pm » wrote:Seems she was paying out of her pocket for a good bit.

The Education Department paid the marshals $5.28 million for her protective detail from February through September of this year.

crimsongulf » 04 Oct 2017 1:25 pm » wrote:Do you have a link for what security costs were for Arne Duncan?

It's extremely unusual for the Education secretary to be protected by marshals — the past four Education secretaries have been protected by the Education Department’s own small security force.

Misty » 04 Oct 2017 1:49 pm » wrote: Did you miss this part?

That was for 8 months.

No, but he did not use U.S. Marshalls.
Missed this part too?

At least she uses her own plane.
Hopefully she's not billing the government for the use of it.
But it wouldn't shock me if we found out that she did.

crimsongulf » 04 Oct 2017 1:51 pm » wrote:so basically we have nothing to compare to

“I entrusted my life and my family’s lives to that team for seven years,” Arne Duncan said of the department’s security detail.

“They could not have been more professional, more committed, more thoughtful. I can’t say enough about how much I respected them.

Many of the security personnel are former Secret Service agents who have been at the department for many years, as far back as the tenure of Education Secretary Rod Paige, who served from 2001 to 2005 under President George W. Bush, according to former department officials.

One former official said the agency’s guards have protected multiple secretaries and are “top-notch security professionals.”

Duncan said he “never for one second doubted” the security team’s ability to do its job and never saw a need to ask for additional protection.

“That’s a waste of taxpayer money,” Duncan said of the use of U.S. marshals.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/ed ... 1bb7ba32a2

Misty » 04 Oct 2017 1:59 pm » wrote:
Just found this:


Why does she need the more expensive U.S. Marshals when the Dep't has a perfectly good security detail, mostly made up of former Secret Service agents?

White House budget director Mick Mulvaney energetically corrected President Donald Trump on Wednesday, insisting that the President did not really mean creditors or the government would have to wipe out Puerto Rico’s debt.

“I wouldn’t take it word for word with that,” Mulvaney said on CNN, before a lengthy explanation of the need for Puerto Rico to tackle its own debt.

Trump made the comment to Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera after touring the devastation left on the island Tuesday, nearly two weeks after Hurricane Maria wreaked havoc on the U.S. territory.

Before the interview, Trump had insisted that Puerto Rico’s government “work with us” to fund both the hurricane recovery and its debt.

“We’re going to work something out,” he said Tuesday of the island’s $72 billion debt, which in 2016 was put under the control of a federally appointed financial oversight board in accordance with the so-called PROMESA legislation.

“I don’t know if it’s Goldman Sachs but whoever it is, you can wave good-bye to that,” Trump told Rivera of the debt.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/m ... ign=buffer