Jared Kushner Baltimore Slum Lord

It strikes one as ironic and hypocritical, reading how the president attacked a city and region when his own son-in-law was directly involved in creating the rat infested living conditions he was criticizing.

President Trump targeted Baltimore in his most recent Twitter outburst, describing Rep. Elijah Cummings as a “brutal bully” and calling his district, Maryland’s Seventh, a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.” Ironically, Trump’s rendition of Baltimore matches the way local tenants have described rental properties owned by his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner.

Kushner Companies, where Jared was CEO from 2008 to 2017 before joining the Trump administration, owns some 9,000 rental properties in Maryland, with more than 7,200 in Baltimore county. As reported by the Washington Post, the real estate firm has generated hundreds of complaints including raw sewage coming from kitchen sinks; rodent and maggot infestations; mold; and faulty electrical wiring.

Numerous others complain of illegal fees and threats of eviction to force their rent payment.
“Basically, Kushner has been creating a race to the bottom in terms of poorly maintained properties,” Shannon Darrow, a program manager at the tenant advocacy group Fair Housing Action Center of Maryland, said. “He’s been very, very deeply implicated.”
Baltimore county officials fined Kushner Companies in 2017 for violating over 200 code violations in their apartments.

“We expect all landlords to comply with the code requirements that protect the health and safety of their tenants,” county officials said in a statement, “even if the landlord’s father-in-law is president of the United States.”
“We had to both threaten significant fines as well as withholding federal payments to ensure there was compliance."

Kushner Companies Were Supposed To Provide Subsidized Housing

The New York Times reported in 2017 that because Baltimore County has no public housing, Kushner Company’s properties served as the “de facto substitute". The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has given Kushner's real estate firm $6 million in subsidies since 2015.
The company was using local taxpayer dollars to help subsidize these apartments and they remained in terrible condition.
Although Kushner Companies received federal aid to help provide housing for low-income residents, the company’s affiliates aggressively pursued former tenants for unpaid debt, filing at least 1,250 legal actions against tenants from 2013 to 2017. Judges awarded a total of $5.4 million to Kushner affiliates against tenants who owed $4,400 on average.

Kushner’s Conflicts Of Interest

Kushner still retains an ownership stake in the company, which is facing ongoing lawsuits for the alleged violations. Kushner’s firm moved the suits to state court after a federal judge ruled the company’s investors had to be disclosed.
Kushner Companies isn’t the only business involved with the president’s son-in-law under public scrutiny. Cadre, a real-estate company partly owned by Kushner, has risen fivefold in value since Kushner joined the White House in 2017. Located in the Cayman Islands, a tax haven that guarantees accounting secrecy, Cadre manages more than $522 million in assets. Because the firm’s investors are not disclosed to the public, in fact, are kept in strict confidentiality, critics are concerned it could be used by foreign leaders, foreign industrial magnates and billionaires to influence Kushner’s policy agenda.

Despite maintaining 25% ownership of Cadre, Kushner failed to include the company on his first ethics disclosure, contributing to controversy regarding his security clearance.
And Kushner is handling delicate foreign policy for America...a position of great importance and trust. Irony and hypocrisy abound.

Trump: Black leaders boycotting him go against 'own people'

MMMMM
 The Associated Press       SARAH RANKIN        Jul 30th 2019 
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that black legislators planning to boycott his appearance at a Virginia event commemorating the 400th anniversary of the rise of American democracy are going "against their own people."

Trump said African Americans "love the job" he's doing and are "happy as hell" with his recent comments criticizing a majority black district in the Baltimore area and its congressman.

Trump spoke at the White House before heading to historic Jamestown in Virginia.

Black state lawmakers plan to stay away from Trump's speech, in part over what they call Trump's disparaging comments about minority leaders.

A last-minute announcement that the president would participate in the Jamestown commemoration Tuesday marking the first representative assembly in the Western Hemisphere injected tension into an event years in the making. Some other top Democrats have also pledged a boycott in protest.

"The commemoration of the birth of this nation and its democracy will be tarnished unduly with the participation of the President, who continues to make degrading comments toward minority leaders, promulgate policies that harm marginalized communities, and use racist and xenophobic rhetoric," the caucus said in a statement Monday.

The boycott comes after Trump's weekend comments referring to U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings' majority-black Baltimore-area district as a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess." A caucus statement didn't specifically mention Cummings but said Trump's "repeated attacks on Black legislators and comments about Black communities makes him ill-suited to honor and commemorate such a monumental period in history."

Black Caucus chairman Del. Lamont Bagby told The Associated Press in an interview that the group reached a unanimous decision to boycott the event more than a week ago but that the president has "continued his attacks" since then, including with his remarks about Cummings' district.

The anniversary comes at a time of heightened election-year partisanship in the aftermath of political scandals that rocked Virginia's top state elected leadership.

In Washington, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said the caucus was pushing "a political agenda."

"President Trump passed criminal justice reform, developed opportunity zones securing record-setting investment in distressed communities, and pushed policies that created the lowest unemployment rates ever for African Americans, so it's a bit confusing and unfortunate that the VLBC would choose to push a political agenda instead of celebrate this milestone for our nation," she said in a statement.

Caucus members also pledged to boycott the rest of a weeklong series of events marking the anniversary and have instead planned alternative commemorations Tuesday in Richmond, Virginia's capital.

At an early-morning ceremony, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam told a gathering of dignitaries that the ideals of freedom and representative government spread from Jamestown in 1619. But he also noted the first assembly was significant for those not included: women, enslaved Africans and Native Americans.

Northam called that the paradox of Virginia, America and its representative democracy.

Trump is scheduled to give remarks later Tuesday morning, joining with state and national leaders and others at a commemorative session of the Virginia General Assembly.

Today's Virginia General Assembly, considered the oldest continuously operating legislative body in North America, grew out of the assembly that first gathered in 1619.

The anniversary comes as lawmakers in Virginia are grappling with the fallout from scandals that engulfed the state's top three elected officials earlier this year.

A blackface photo scandal nearly destroyed Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam's career. Then, as it looked like Democratic Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax might ascend to the governorship, two women accused him of sexual assault. Fairfax, who plans to attend Tuesday, has vehemently denied those allegations.

Attorney General Mark Herring, also a Democrat, has separately faced calls to resign after acknowledging he dressed in blackface decades ago.


All three men remain in office.

Mueller edges closer to saying Trump committed obstruction

Yahoo News                DYLAN STABLEFORD
In his congressional testimony Wednesday, former special counsel Robert Mueller again walked up to the line of saying President Trump committed obstruction of justice — but didn’t quite cross it.

Mueller reiterated the assertion in his report that he was constrained from bringing charges against Trump because of a 2000 memo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which states that “the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting president would unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.”

Mueller’s report, which was released in April, detailed 10 incidents of possible obstruction of justice by Trump.
Under questioning from Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., Mueller agreed that Trump’s conduct appeared to meet the three requirements for a charge of obstruction: an ongoing federal judicial proceeding, knowledge of that proceeding, and a corrupt attempt to interfere with the proceeding. But he stopped short of saying that the president actually committed a felony.

“The reason, again, that you did not indict Donald Trump is because of OLC opinion that you cannot indict a sitting president, correct?” Lieu asked Mueller.

 “That is correct,” Mueller replied.

Mueller was also asked by Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla., whether "lies by Trump campaign officials and administration officials impeded" his investigation.

Earlier in his testimony, Mueller said that while the longstanding policy prevents the Justice Department with charging the president with a crime, Trump could be indicted after he leaves the White House.

“Could you charge the president with a crime after he left office?” Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., asked Mueller.

“Yes,” Mueller replied.

“You believe that he committed — you believe that you could charge the president of the United States with obstruction of justice after he left office?” Buck asked.
Mueller answered “yes,” but the exchange did not clarify whether he was just acknowledging that the impediment to indicting Trump would be removed after he left office, or claiming that the evidence was sufficient to sustain a charge.
So, the report does not state, nor imply, Trump did anything specifically that was or could be felonious...it pointed to actions which "could be" "considered reasonable" for further investigations, but allegations of impropriety where not found within the scope of the investigations fact findings. The Dems are using "double speak" to invalidate the past 2 years of investigative analysis. The Dems have concluded Trump is guilty and are going to extreme efforts to "make it so".
Innocent until Proven Guilty - a hallmark of American Law, a foundation upon the establishment of the Constitution, is being demolished by the Dems.

Let's hear from  Witchy :
Some one needs to remind Nunes that it was Republicans who started the Steele Dossier and that John McCain gave it to the FBI first
Update: 
 A Conflake was just trying to bully Mueller and tell him he did not have the power to exonerate Cheeto.....but but but Cheeto is the one who said Mueller exonerated him!!!!
------------------------------------
The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website funded in large part by New York hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, initially retained the firm Fusion GPS that conducted opposition research on Donald Trump and a number of other Republican candidates.
I thought the GOP were the party of family values and law and order. The Russian Crime boss is none of those. Trump is an adulterer and he has broken just about every law there is to break. He cons people out of their money like Trump University, refuses to pay contractors that do work for him, uses his position in the WH to profit his companies, invites Russians into the WH, colluded with Russians and betrayed the country for his own personal gain. I don’t believe anything the con man says?
How can there be law in order when the guy in the WH is a criminal? From day one, trump attacked our FBI and Intel officials. The FBI was known as honorable until trump came along? Trump is supposed to represent the law for all the people of this country. Instead, he chooses to enforce the law on others like DACA and Muslims while claiming foul when he himself is under criminal investigation. Now trump has kidnapped children and babies from parents. Even worse, girls are missing and can’t be found. Why isn’t this a crime? 
 Where is congress? What does it mean when the guy that’s supposed to protect us and enforce laws is the law breaker?
Can we please learn a lesson from this? Never allow a person to run for office that refuses to show his tax return, declared bankruptcies, can’t get a security clearance, American banks will not give him a lone, known to be an ill moral person or has shown himself to lack wisdom!
Meanwhile, the REPUBLICANS were UNABLE TO REFUTE A SINGLE FACT ON COLLUSION and obvious OBSTRUCTION.  We have a FELON in the White House.  He can join his buddies in the JAIL CELL.
Not one Republican could REFUTE a SINGLE FACT about Trump AND HIS OBSTRUCTION.
When you watch the Hearing  and see all this People in that Room  and Outside , they all want to take a Paycheck home. Guess what . We the   People pay all their  Paychecks  for all that  Nonsense ,beyond obvious what happened....cheeto is an illegitimate president, corruptly installed by a hostile foreign power and a corrupt electoral college.....time for the House to hold preliminary impeachment hearings and eventual impeachment of this criminal president.

A word from our  house expert---Mr. Humble :

This is the REPBUBS. attempt when they SEE the " WALLS " of TRUTH is EASY!; you got it CLEARLY from the LYING "TRUMPASAURUS " REPUB'S GOP ( GRAND OLD PARTY ); all of AMERICA can SEE how the MAGA/MAWA AGENDA is TREATING this country! I don't know about you AMERICA?! but EVEN in the 100's of YEARS; REPUBLICANS has went to 1) SUPPRESSION of the VOTING for PEOPLE of COLOR, 2) The LIMITATIONS at the POLLING PLACES, of REACHING QUOTAS for those that were LOCKED OUT of VOTING, 3) USING ICE to ( WITHOUT WARRANTS REMOVE ) people that have BEEN in this COUNTRY 10+ or 4) TAKING away woman of COLOR + NON COLOR the ABILITY to make THEIR OWN ASSERTION as to WHY she isn't COMPETENT enough REGARDLESS of AGE/SUPER SUPERVISED MENTOR?!; IT is as CLEAR the SUPPRESSION the GOP (GRAND OLD PARTY) " the WRINKLED NECK CLUB " I want " JUSTICE for ( NEVER MIND KAPERNICK ) but the HATE GROUPS that follow HIS as a POTUS the INCREASE to HATE GENERATED BY HIM!: GOD BLESS THE REAL AMERICA!( the DIVERSIVED AMERICA)

Nuff Said           HeHe

Elizabeth Warren Doesn’t Have To ‘Look At His Heart’ To Know Trump Is Racist

The Democratic senator said the president is “trying to stir up as much hatred and dissension in this country as possible.”
By David Moye
Sen. Elizabeth Warren has a plan for everything, it seems ― except for calling President Donald Trump a racist.

At a time when Trump is being widely condemned for his racist Twitter tirade against four congresswomen ― and even though he has used the name “Pocahontas” as a slur against Warren on multiple occasions ― the Massachusetts Democrat declined to directly call the president a racist.

But she willingly described his words and deeds as racist.

When CNN’s Manu Raju asked Warren on Tuesday if she considered Trump to be racist, the Democratic presidential candidate sought to change the subject to the bigger issue: how Trump’s actions affect the country at large.

“I just think what the president has said is appalling, and he’s trying to stir up as much hatred and dissension in this country as possible,” Warren said, according to Mediaite. “Because it serves his political ends. He thinks if he can set American against American, that somehow he prospers. But I’ll tell you this, the United States suffers.”

Raju asked her again: “Is the president a racist?”

“Look at his remarks,” Warren replied. “He’s made racist remarks, and he’s been racially hateful to people. That’s what matters.”

Raju pressed on, perhaps feeling that the senator was beating around the issue.

She responded that the journalist didn’t need a direct answer from her when there is tons of evidence from Trump himself.

“I don’t have to look at his heart ― that’s not the point,” Warren said. “He behaves ― look at what he’s done, it’s racist. What he’s done over and over and over ― it’s not the first time.”


Manu Raju
✔
@mkraju
 Elizabeth Warren to us on whether she thinks Trump is a racist: "I don't have to look at his heart ... Look at what he's done. It's racist, what he's done over and over andmbedded video

Say it loud Senator  Warren ...the Cheeto Blimp is going town.
HeHe

President Trump defends racially charged Twitter attack

 

US President Donald Trump has redoubled his attack on four Democratic congresswomen, accusing them of "hating our country".

"If you are not happy, if you are complaining all the time, you can leave," he told a heated news conference outside the White House.
On Sunday Mr Trump called on the women, who are from ethnically diverse backgrounds, to "go back". He was widely accused of racism and xenophobia, which he denied.

Mr Trump first sparked a furore in a series of tweets on Sunday in which he said the women "originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe".
"Why don't they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how," he wrote.

He did not explicitly name the women, but the context made a clear link. The three US-born women, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley, and Ilhan Omar, who came to the US as a refugee aged 12 - all called the president racist and were backed by members of the Democratic Party. Ms Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx in New York, about 12 miles (19km) away from the Queens hospital where Mr Trump was born.

What did Trump say?
"These are people that in my opinion hate our country," President Trump told reporters on Monday.
"As far as I'm concerned if you hate our country, if you're not happy here, you can leave. You can leave right now. I don't know who's going to miss 'em," he said, to applause from some in the audience.
Asked by a reporter if he was concerned that his tweets had been seen by some as racist, Mr Trump said he was not.
"It doesn't concern me because many people agree with me," he added.

Mr Trump lashed out particularly at Ms Omar, saying she "hates Israel" and "hates Jews", as well as suggesting she supported the jihadist group al-Qaeda.
"I don't know, I never met her, I hear the way she talks about al-Qaeda," Mr Trump said.
"Al-Qaeda has killed many Americans. She said, 'you can hold your chest out, when I think of America, when I think of al-Qaeda, I can hold my chest out.'"

US media reported that Mr Trump's false accusations probably refer to a 2013 interview where Ms Omar was discussing a college terrorism class. She did not praise al-Qaeda in the interview. Ms Omar instead recalled a class in which "every time the professor said 'al-Qaeda', his shoulders went up".
Ms Omar went on to point out that you do not say "America" or "England" with that same intensity, adding "but you say these names [of terrorist groups] because you want the word to carry weight. You want it to mean something".

   

 

  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (left), Rashida Tlaib (centre) and Ayanna Pressley (right) accused the president of racism

On Monday, Republican Senator Susan Collins said in a statement the tweets were "way over the line" and should be removed, while Republican Congressman Will Hurd, who is African American, described the comments as "racist and xenophobic".  But Republican Congressman Andy Harris defended Mr Trump, "Clearly it's not a racist comment. He could have meant go back to the district they came from, the neighbourhood they came from."
Really??? What a disgrace .... the way Republicans give Trump a free pass on every offense he commits. Telling people of colour to go back to where they came from cannot be regarded as anything other than a blatant evocation of a well-worn lexicon of racist language and sentiment that's as old as the hills.

But usually politicians who want to play the race card reach for the "dog whistle" - a political nudge and a wink that tells their supporters that they share their views but they cannot easily be voiced in a liberal democracy without alienating people whose support they will need. President Trump, however, has pushed the boundaries on racially charged language ever since he became a candidate.

Remember how Mexicans were Rapists and Drug dealers, how there were "good people" on both sides of the argument when white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, and how the President didn't see why America should allow more people in from "shithole" countries in Africa.
So what is his strategy? Keeping his core support fired up is unquestionably part of it. And exploiting divisions within Democratic ranks which have had racial overtones in recent days is another reason for his actions.
But in many ways, we should not be surprised by this President ratcheting up the political heat in this particular way. After all, it's a short intellectual step from the economic nationalism in the idea of America First, to a nationalism that sees a threat from the enemy within.

Despite criticism, President Trump launched another Twitter tirade on Monday morning, calling on the women themselves to apologize - to him and "the people of Israel".
Mr Trump has also accused Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi of racism, after she said the president's campaign slogan, Make America Great Again, was "about making America white again".
"That's a very racist statement," Mr Trump said. "I'm surprised she'd say that."

 

 Nancy Pelosi says a resolution condemning the president's comments is forthcoming

In a letter to Democrats on Monday, Mrs Pelosi announced a resolution in the House to condemn the "disgusting attacks".
And on the Senate floor, Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called out conservatives, saying:
"My Republican friends, he's not backing off. Where are you?"
Also on Monday, Mr Trump's attorney general William Barr delivered remarks at a Department of Justice forum on battling anti-Semitism, where he condemned "identity politics" and said he was "deeply concerned about the rise in hate crimes and political violence" in the last decade.
Kudos to Mr Barr if he is sincere and not just paying lip service. Lest we forget the support he threw behind Trump when the Mueller report came out and the very limited access he allowed the public to have to the facts.

In his initial Twitter thread, Mr Trump did not specifically mention a link to recent news events, but immigration at the southern border was a dominant topic in US news at the weekend.  On Friday, Ms Ocasio-Cortez, Ms Tlaib and Ms Pressley testified to a House committee about conditions in a migrant detention centre they had visited. They expressed horror about alleged mistreatment happening "under American flags".
The president replied by tweeting that children's detention centres had had "great reviews" and the adult male areas were "loaded up with a big percentage of criminals".
This is not the first time Mr Trump has been accused of racism. For years, he made false claims that former President Barack Obama was not born in the US - propagating the racist "birther" conspiracy.

Mr Trump and his father Fred Trump were sued by the Department of Justice in 1973 for discrimination against African Americans in their renting practices. They settled the case without admitting guilt in 1975 but were accused again by the justice department in 1978 of an "underlying pattern of discrimination" against black tenants.

Losing sight of honor compassion and concern for humanity .... in exchange for one man's vanity

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 GOT YOUR PRIORITIES STRAIGHT YET??

Japan whaling: Why commercial hunts have resumed despite outcry

 

Compliments of The BBC:                           

Japan has resumed killing whales for profit, in defiance of international criticism. Its last commercial hunt was in 1986, but Japan has never really stopped whaling - it has been conducting instead what it says are research missions which catch hundreds of whales annually. 

Now the country has withdrawn from the International Whaling Commission (IWC), which banned hunting. It sent out its first whaling fleet on 1 July, with permits to catch 227 whales. The first whale - a minke - was brought back to shore that day.

Isn't whaling banned?

Whales were brought to the brink of extinction by hunting in the 19th and early 20th Century. By the 1960s, more efficient catch methods and giant factory ships made it obvious that whale hunting could not go unchecked.
So in 1986, all IWC members agreed to a hunting moratorium to allow whale numbers to recover.
Conservationists were happy but whaling countries - like Japan, Norway and Iceland - assumed the moratorium would be temporary until everyone could agree on sustainable quotas. Instead it became a quasi-permanent ban.

 

There is a long history to anti-whaling protests

But there were exceptions in the moratorium, allowing indigenous groups to carry out subsistence whaling, and allowing whaling for scientific purposes.  Tokyo put that latter clause to full use. Since 1987, Japan has killed between 200 and 1,200 whales each year, saying this was to monitor stocks to establish sustainable quotas. Critics say this was just a cover so Japan could hunt whales for food, as the meat from the whales killed for research usually did end up for sale.

Why is Japan restarting whaling now?

In 2018 Japan tried one last time to convince the IWC to allow whaling under sustainable quotas, but failed. So it left the body, effective July 2019.  Whaling is a small industry in Japan, employing around 300 people. About five vessels are expected to set sail in July.
The whaling "will be conducted within Japan's territorial waters and Exclusive Economic Zone", Hideki Moronuki of the Japanese fishing ministry said in June.

This means Japan will no longer hunt whales in the Antarctic, as it did under its earlier research program. The catch cap of 52 minke whales, 150 Bryde's whales and 25 sei whales is also lower than the 333 cap set for last year's research hunt.
Like other whaling nations, Japan argues hunting and eating whales are part of its culture. A number of coastal communities in Japan have indeed hunted whales for centuries but consumption only became widespread after World War Two when other food was scarce.
From the late 1940s to the mid-1960s whale was the single biggest source of meat in Japan but since become a niche product again.

Is Japan's plan legal?

"Within its 12 mile coastal waters, Japan can do whatever it wants," Donald Rothwell, professor of international law at the Australian National University, said.
Beyond that, in its 200 miles (322km) exclusive economic zone and of course the high seas, the country is bound by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.  Article 65 of said convention mandates that "states shall co-operate with a view to the conservation" of whales and "shall in particular work through the appropriate international organizations for their conservation, management and study".

 

Traditional whaling often resulted in a drawn-out death for the animal

Having left the IWC, Japan is no longer part of any such international organization and that "directly raises questions issues whether or not Japan would be consistent with the convention," Mr Rothwell explains.
It's not clear if any country would try to bring Japan to court over this - in its defense, Japan might argue that for years it did try to co-operate within the IWC without any results.
Even if there were to be a ruling or injunction against Tokyo, there'd be no mechanism to enforce it.

What environmental impact will Japan's whaling have?

The ministry will allow for the hunting of three species: minke, Bryde's and sei whales.
According to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, minke and Bryde's whale are not endangered. Sei whale are classified as endangered but their numbers are increasing. So in terms of numbers, Japan's commercial whaling will have only a minimal impact. In fact, some defenders of whaling argue that whale meat has a smaller carbon footprint than pork or beef.

 

Is eating whale meat more ethical than commercially farmed pork or chicken?

Conservationist groups like Greenpeace or Sea Shepherd remain critical of Japan's resumption of whaling but say there are no concrete plans yet to tackle the country over this.
Japan "is out of step with the international community", Sam Annesley, executive director at Greenpeace Japan, said in a statement, urging Tokyo to abandon its hunting plans.

Besides the question of stock sustainability, a key argument against the hunt is that harpooning whales leads to a slow and painful death.  Modern hunting methods, though, aim to kill whales instantly and it backers say the near-global anti-whaling sentiment is deeply hypocritical., compared to, say, industrial meat production.
But even if Japan does defy the criticism and stick with whaling, there's a good chance the contentious issue will gradually die down by itself. Japanese demand for whale meat has long been on the decline and the industry is already being subsidised. Eventually, commercial whaling might be undone by simple arithmetic. No more demand for whale meat. Hopefully that happens before there are no more whales.