Liberal Forum

Misty » 11 Jun 2019 6:18 pm » wrote:

Misty » 04 Jun 2019 5:20 pm » wrote:Another swamp creature.

OOPS: ELAINE CHAO CAUGHT PIMPING HER FAMILY BUSINESS WITH CHINA

The swamp creatures are at it again.

Chao created special path for McConnell’s favored projects.

The Transportation Department under Secretary Elaine Chao designated a special liaison to help with grant applications and other priorities from her husband Mitch McConnell’s state of Kentucky, paving the way for grants totaling at least $78 million for favored projects as McConnell prepared to campaign for reelection.

Chao’s aide Todd Inman, who stated in an email to McConnell’s Senate office that Chao had personally asked him to serve as an intermediary, helped advise the senator and local Kentucky officials on grants with special significance for McConnell — including a highway-improvement project in a McConnell political stronghold that had been twice rejected for previous grant applications.

The circumstances surrounding the Owensboro grant and another, more lucrative grant to Boone County, highlight the ethical conflicts in having a powerful Cabinet secretary married to the Senate’s leader and in a position to help him politically. McConnell has long touted his ability to bring federal resources to his state, which his wife is now in a position to assist.

Chao’s designation of Inman as a special intermediary for Kentucky — a privilege other states did not enjoy — gave a special advantage to projects favored by her husband, which could in turn benefit his political interests. In such situations, ethicists say, each member of a couple benefits personally from the success of the other.

“Where a Cabinet secretary is doing things that are going to help her husband get reelected, that starts to rise to the level of feeling more like corruption to the average American. … I do think there are people who will see that as sort of ‘swamp behavior,’” said John Hudak, a Brookings Institution scholar who has studied political influence in federal grant-making.

In fact, days after launching his 2020 reelection campaign McConnell asked Owensboro’s mayor to set up a luncheon with business and political leaders at which the senator claimed credit for delivering the grant.

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao Still Owns Shares She Pledged To Divest

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao still owns shares in a major construction firm despite pledging to divest them, according to a new report by the Wall Street Journal.

Chao had served on the board of the company, Vulcan Materials, for about two years before joining the Trump administration as head of the Transportation Department.

In part of her ethics agreement, Chao said she would end her financial interests in the company by taking “a cash payout for all of my vested deferred stock units” by April 2018.

But a financial disclosure report released by the Transportation Secretary’s husband, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), revealed Chao had maintained ownership of somewhere between $250,000 and $500,000 worth of Vulcan stock.

The Wall Street Journal estimates Chao has netted more than $40,000 from the stock since April 2018, the date she agreed to cash out on her shares.

The Transportation Secretary has been one of the most vocal advocates of President Trump’s plan to invest $1 trillion into U.S. infrastructure, and critics are concerned federal funds would be directly allocated to Vulcan, one of the nation’s largest suppliers of construction materials.

Termin8tor » 11 Jun 2019 6:25 pm » wrote:Little Miss Marxists's reality-free thread.
Censoring all information that doesn't fit her Democrat Talking Point Liar view of the world.

Termin8tor » 13 Jun 2019 12:18 pm » wrote:

Stop repeating the same crap a hundred times a day and maybe I'll stop moving your ****.

Little of what I post is "the same."

Termin8tor » 10 Jun 2019 8:52 am » wrote:Indictments are coming, and they won't be for process crimes.

Termin8tor » 06 Jun 2019 3:55 pm » wrote:Indictments are coming, and they won't be for process crimes.

Termin8tor » 06 Jun 2019 6:32 pm » wrote:Indictments are coming, and they won't be for process crimes.

Termin8tor » 04 Jun 2019 6:32 pm » wrote: Indictments are coming, and they won't be for process crimes.

Termin8tor » 04 Jun 2019 9:18 pm » wrote:Indictments are coming, and they won't be for process crimes.

Termin8tor » 05 Jun 2019 8:52 am » wrote:Indictments are coming, and they won't be for process crimes.

Termin8tor » 05 Jun 2019 8:57 am » wrote:Indictments are coming, and they won't be for process crimes.

Termin8tor » 13 Jun 2019 6:48 pm » wrote:Indictments are coming, and they won't be for process crimes.

Termin8tor » 13 Jun 2019 10:48 pm » wrote:Indictments are coming, and they won't be for process crimes.

Termin8tor » 14 Jun 2019 10:08 am » wrote:Indictments are coming, and they won't be for process crimes.

Termin8tor » 13 Jun 2019 2:24 pm » wrote:.....sick **** that you are......

Termin8tor » 13 Jun 2019 6:48 pm » wrote:Indictments are coming, and they won't be for process crimes.

I agree with Trump when he's correct, and he's absolutely correct
that there was an attempted coup against him by corrupt Obama and Deep State officials.


But sick **** that you are, you refuse to even read the evidence.

I'm not the sick **** who wastes hours writing a bunch of crap in this thread, knowing that it is only going to be sent to the Peanut Gallery.
That sick **** is you.

Stop repeating the same crap a hundred times a day and maybe I'll stop moving your ****.

Gregg Jarrett: Broad Scope of Durham Probe Includes “Non-Governmental Actors” Like Glenn Simpson, Nellie Ohr, the DNC and Hillary Campaign(VIDEO)
Jim Hoft by Jim Hoft June 10, 2019 110 Comments
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As TGP’s Cristina Laila reported earlier a new letter from the Justice Department addressed to Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) reveals John Durham’s investigation into Spygate is much larger than previously known.
AG Barr’s review of the FISA abuses and surveillance against Trump’s campaign is “broad in scope and multifaceted,” according to the DOJ letter.

The letter to Nadler, penned by Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd, indicates Fusion GPS, foreign intelligence services and non-governmental organizations and individuals are all a target of US Attorney John Durham’s investigation into the origins of Spygate.


“The Review is broad in scope and multifaceted, and is intended to illuminate open questions regarding the activities of U.S. and foreign intelligence services as well as non-governmental organizations and individuals,” Boyd wrote.

Durham’s investigation of the investigations involving both the 2016 presidential campaigns (plural) is so massive that the Justice Department had to clear existing office space to make room for the team of US Attorneys, other personnel and DOJ employees.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/0 ... ign-video/

Oh, Another Omission? Carter Page Says The Mueller Report Only Tells Half The Story
Matt Vespa Matt Vespa...
"I was asked various questions, not only by State, FBI, etc, but also the CIA," he said. "I had a long-standing relationship with the CIA going back decades essentially, and I was always very transparent, open."

"I had a longstanding relationship with the CIA, going back decades, essentially," Page said. "I was always very transparent, open."

“Deception by omission,” as some have noted while combing through this report? It wouldn’t be the first time.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa ... o-n2547850

Why the Steele dossier is a red herring in the response to Trump's 'oppo research' comments

“My Campaign for President was conclusively spied on,” Trump tweeted last month.

Federal watchdog agency recommends removal of Kellyanne Conway from federal office for violating the Hatch Act

The Office of Special Counsel on Thursday recommended the removal of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway from federal office for violating the Hatch Act, which bars federal employees from engaging in political activity in the course of their work.

The report submitted to President Trump found that Conway violated the Hatch Act on numerous occasions by “disparaging Democratic presidential candidates while speaking in her official capacity during television interviews and on social media.”

The agency described her as a “repeat offender.”

The decision about whether to remove Conway is up to Trump.

A senior White House official said Thursday the president is unlikely to punish Conway and instead will defend her.

The White House counsel immediately issued a letter calling for the agency to withdraw its recommendation that Conway be removed — a request the Office of Special Counsel declined.

In an interview, Special Counsel Henry Kerner called his recommendation that a political appointee of Conway’s stature be fired “unprecedented.”

“You know what else is unprecedented?” said Kerner, a Trump appointee who has run the agency since December 2017. “Kellyanne Conway’s behavior.”

“In interview after interview, she uses her official capacity to disparage announced candidates, which is not allowed,” he said, adding: “What kind of example does that send to the federal workforce?

If you’re high enough up in the White House, you can break the law, but if you’re a postal carrier or a regular federal worker, you lose your job?”

Conway did not reply to a request for comment.

In the past, Trump has privately dismissed concerns about the Hatch Act, sympathizing with aides found to have violated it, according to current and former White House officials.

The White House on Thursday said the agency’s assessment of Conway’s actions was “deeply flawed” and violated “her constitutional rights to free speech and due process.”

“Others, of all political views, have objected to the OSC’s unclear and unevenly applied rules which have a chilling effect on free speech for all federal employees,” deputy White House press secretary Steven Groves said in a statement.

“Its decisions seem to be influenced by media pressure and liberal organizations, and perhaps OSC should be mindful of its own mandate to act in a fair, impartial, nonpolitical manner, and not misinterpret or weaponize the Hatch Act.”

Legal experts said that if the president refuses to enforce Hatch Act violations, it will reduce the force of the law.

“He’s essentially writing the Hatch Act out of existence,” said Andrew Herman, an attorney in Washington who specializes in election law and congressional ethics and investigations.

“He’s telling Congress, ‘I don’t care what you enact.

I’m not going to faithfully meet my duties to make sure that the law is upheld.’ ”

Democratic lawmakers said the White House response sends the message that complying with the law is optional.

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (Md.), chairman of the House Oversight committee, said he will hold a hearing this month with the Office of Special Counsel about its findings and seek Conway’s participation.

Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), a member of the committee, said that Conway should resign and that if Trump does not act to fire or discipline her, he would support “legislative action.”

“We can’t have this,” he said. “We can’t have people violating the law with impunity when all other federal employees are subject to the Hatch Act, and they take it seriously.”

'Defiant attitude'

In its 17-page report, the Office of Special Counsel found that Conway repeatedly attacked 2020 Democratic presidential candidates while she was being interviewed by media outlets in her official capacity and tweeted about the candidates from her official account.

The agency noted that Conway attacked former vice president Joe Biden’s lack of “vision,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts spent “decades appropriating somebody else’s heritage and ethnicity,” and called Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey “sexist” and a “tinny” “motivational speaker.”

During a one-week period leading up to the 2018 midterm elections, Conway posted at least 15 messages on Twitter that were political and in support of midterm election candidates or the Republican Party, according to the report.

“Her defiant attitude is inimical to the law, and her continued pattern of misconduct is unacceptable,” the agency wrote.

The Office of Special Counsel is a quasi-judicial independent agency that adjudicates claims of retaliation by whistleblowers and administers the Hatch Act and other civil service rules.

It is a separate agency from the office run by now-former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who led the investigation into Russian interference.

The agency is led by Kerner, who was a career prosecutor in California.

He has served on the Republican staff of the House Oversight and Reform Committee and was staff director under the late senator John McCain (R-Az.) of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

The Hatch Act, also known as the “Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities,” was signed into law in 1939 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Then-Sen. Carl Hatch (D-N.M.) introduced the bill amid allegations that Democratic politicians gained an unfair advantage in the 1938 midterms through employees at the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal employment agency.

In a letterto Kerner this week before the agency released its report, White House counsel Pat Cipollone requested his agency withdraw its recommendation for Conway’s removal.

Cipollone wrote that the agency has inconsistently applied Hatch Act standards across Democratic and Republican administrations and said it did not provide Conway enough time to respond to its allegations.

The office has no legal authority to establish binding social media rules for federal employees and has applied an “overbroad interpretation” of the Hatch Act, Cipollone wrote.

“The White House takes seriously the principles codified in the Hatch Act and has continued to take affirmative steps to ensure compliance.

At the same time, the White House must ensure that OSC exercises its significant authority in an appropriate and neutral manner,” Cipollone wrote.

The agency declined the White House’s request.

“OSC respects the White House Counsel’s Office but respectfully disagrees with their position, and will not withdraw the report,” said Zachary Kurz, a spokesman for the office.

Trump can simply decide not to follow the agency’s recommendation, legal experts said.

“Because Kellyanne Conway is a presidential appointee, the Office of Special Counsel itself does not have authority to discipline her,” said Daniel Jacobson, who worked on ethics and compliance matters at the White House Counsel’s Office during the Obama administration.

“They can only recommend disciplinary measures, and it is up to the president to take up the recommendation or not.”

Jacobson said he could not recall a previous episode in which the agency recommended such drastic action against a White House appointee.

“How unique is this? I am not aware of any other time, to my mind, ever, where the Office of Special Counsel has recommended the removal of a White House presidential appointee,” Jacobson said.

The agency can prosecute violations by civil servants, mostly though the Merit Systems Protection Board.

That board imposes discipline against anywhere from six to a dozen civil servants a year for Hatch Act violations, which range from suspension without pay for 30 to 90 days to firing, Kerner said.

Pattern of violations

Since Trump took office, Conway has been reprimanded for numerous ethics violations.

In 2017, she was upbraided for touting the clothing line sold by Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump.

The White House said Conway was “counseled” after that misstep, but no further disciplinary action was taken.

In 2018, Conway violated the Hatch Act on two occasions by making public comments supportive of one candidate and against another ahead of a special Senate election in Alabama.

Conway has brushed off the findings.

“Blah, blah, blah,” Conway said last month when asked about the violations. “If you’re trying to silence me through the Hatch Act, it’s not going to work. Let me know when the jail sentence starts.”
Kerner said Thursday that her ongoing violations show “this is someone who simply isn’t going to stop.”

The reprimands of Conway are among a series of Hatch Act violations by Trump administration officials.

In late 2018, the Office of Special Counsel found six White House officials in violation of the law for using their official Twitter accounts to send or display political messages supporting Trump.

Others reprimanded by the Office of Special Counsel for political messages include former interior secretary Ryan Zinke; Stephanie Grisham, the first lady’s spokeswoman; Dan Scavino, former White House social media director; and Nikki Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Trump often praises Conway on TV and appreciates the way she deflects questions and attacks his political enemies, current and former White House aides said.
“She’ll do the shows that nobody else dares go near,” Trump said in a speech last spring praising her. “She’ll just — I’ll say, do this one or that one. No problem, sir. Others say, sir, do you think I could take a pass, please, I beg you please. Great going, Kellyanne. Thank you. What a help.”

Since Trump took office, the Office of Special Counsel has fielded an unusually high number of queries from civil servants on both sides of the political divide about what is permissible for them to say in the workplace, agency officials said.

As the 2020 race is getting underway, federal agencies have been reminding employees that politicking at work is not allowed.

In the heat of a political campaign, federal employees cannot “engage in communications that are directed at the success or failure” of Trump or any other candidate, according to OSC guidance.

They can donate to a political campaign on their time, but they cannot solicit money or bundle campaign contributions for a candidate. And they can’t do anything official at work, including tweeting, that appears to endorse the president for reelection or endorse a Democrat trying to unseat Trump.

This week, acting defense secretary Pat Shanahan sent 750,000 Defense Department civilians two memos reminding them to limit “active partisan political activities or actions” on the job.

The missives come in the wake of an episode in which the White House requested that the USS John S. McCain warship be kept out of sight during Trump’s visit to Japan.

Termin8tor » 14 Jun 2019 3:11 pm » wrote:

They just thumb their noses at the law.

Federal watchdog agency recommends removal of Kellyanne Conway from federal office for violating the Hatch ActThe Office of Special Counsel , blah, blah

Of course he's not going to fire her because he said she's a 'terrific person' so I guess it's okay for her to break the law.

You could find thousands of federal employees that violate the law.

Termin8tor » 14 Jun 2019 3:11 pm » wrote:Isn't it just amazing that the only people Mueller's partisan hacks go after are Trump people.

Mueller and his hacks are going to be exposed for the frauds they are.

You could find thousands of federal employees that violate the law.

Yes and they get disciplined or fired for it all the time.

This has nothing to do with Mueller you stupid jackass.
The head of the Office of Special Counsel is Henry Kerner, who was nominated to that position by Trump.

Why the **** do you remove the link back to my posts when you quote me?
No one knows who said what and they can't link back to those posts to see if you are misquoting the person you are responding to.
Do you do that to everyone, or just me?

I will have to look into that.

It’s not true that Trump didn’t condemn neo-Nazis or white nationalists. He excluded them from his “very fine people” remark: “And you had people, and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis or the white nationalists because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, okay?

” ....the people that Trump pretty clearly meant to defend....(were) garden-variety supporters of the Robert E. Lee statue, and there are a lot of them in Virginia
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/t ... ntroversy/

Misty » 11 Jul 2017 4:54 pm » wrote:

Termin8tor » 11 Jul 2017 3:43 pm » wrote:

Misty » 11 Jul 2017 1:29 pm » wrote:Drip...drip...drip....
And the rolling disclosure continues.
That nothingburger seems to be packed with protein.

Pink slime.
Hey psycho, if receiving information is a "thing of value" and a crime, why aren't you shrieking in outrage that HRC officials actually got that from Ukraine?
Because you don't care about actual felonies committed by Democrats, just imagined fake crimes by Repubs with zero evidence to back your claims up.

First of all, It was not an HRC 'official' it was a Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee who got some dirt on Manafort from the Ukrainian embassy.

And she (Alexandra Chalupa) undertook her investigations into Trump, Manafort and Russia on her own.

She began researching Manafort’s role in Yanukovych’s rise, as well as his ties to the pro-Russian oligarchs who funded Yanukovych’s political party as part of some pro bono work she was doing for another client interested in the Ukrainian crisis.

Chalupa left the DNC after the Democratic convention in late July to focus fulltime on her research into Manafort, Trump and Russia.

She said she provided off-the-record information and guidance to “a lot of journalists” working on stories related to Manafort and Trump’s Russia connections, despite what she described as escalating harassment.

Chalupa this month told Politico that, as her research and role in the election started becoming more public, she began receiving death threats, along with continued alerts of state-sponsored hacking.

But she said, “None of this has scared me off.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/u ... ire-233446

The Clinton campaign may have used some of Chalupa's findings to their advantage, but they did not solicit them, and she was not working for the campaign.

She continued her research, on her own, even after she left her consulting gig at the DNC and was no longer being paid by them.

Curious that you believe that if HRC's campaign had solicited dirt on Manafort from Ukraine, that would be a felony, but when Fredo and two other top people on the Trump campaign are actually being shown to have solicited dirt on HRC from Russia, that's just an 'imagined fake crime.'

Double standard much?

Also from my source:

Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office.

The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort’s resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump’s campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine’s foe to the east, Russia.

But they were far less concerted or centrally directed than Russia’s alleged hacking and dissemination of Democratic emails.

Russia’s effort was personally directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, involved the country’s military and foreign intelligence services, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

There’s little evidence of such a top-down effort by Ukraine.

Longtime observers suggest that the rampant corruption, factionalism and economic struggles plaguing the country — not to mention its ongoing strife with Russia — would render it unable to pull off an ambitious covert interference campaign in another country’s election.

If Chelsea Clinton and her husband and John Podesta had conspired with a foreign entity, in order to gather oppo research on Trump, I would have no problem saying that was wrong.

Huey » 15 Jun 2019 6:19 pm » wrote:
Could you describe the Steele info for us?

They just thumb their noses at the law.

Why the Steele dossier is a red herring in the response to Trump's 'oppo research' comments.

Trump’s Tariffs Did More to Fix Border Crisis in Two Days Than Congress Did in 20 Years
https://www.lifezette.com/2019/06/trump ... -20-years/