The Golden Couple (Ivanka and Jared)

[fraurosena]

2 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Ivanka stepped in it by misquoting Einstein

Here's the tweet...

Maybe that would work in Faux Spews Bizzaro world, but here in the real world it's the other way around.

So this is how alternative facts are born...

[candygirl200413]

@AmazonGrace I only saw a screengrab and that was the same exact words that came to my mind.

[GreyhoundFan]

"This Petition For Macy’s To Drop Ivanka Trump Is Blowing Up Fast"

Spoiler

A new petition calls for Macy’s to drop Ivanka Trump’s line from their stores over poor labor conditions at its international production facilities. 

The petition received over 30,000 signatures in the first 24 hours after it was launched Thursday, according the women’s right’s group UltraViolet, and has received some 46,000 signatures as of Monday afternoon.

The group cites the Ivanka Trump company’s ties to alleged sweatshops abroad and takes issue with President Donald Trump celebrating “Made In America” week last week despite the fact that much of his family’s merchandise is made elsewhere.

...

It also takes issue with Ivanka Trump portraying herself as an advocate for women: 

″[E]ven worse is that Ivanka ― who has made herself out to be the White House’s leading advocate for women with her signature push for a meager paid parental leave policy ― has her brand’s products made exclusively in foreign sweatshops where abuse, dangerous conditions, criminally low pay, and child labor are the norm, according to a bombshell investigative report by the Washington Post.” 

The Post report, published earlier this month, notes that Trump’s clothing and accessories are almost exclusively made overseas in places like Bangladesh, Indonesia and China. According to the paper, “her company lags behind many in the apparel industry when it comes to monitoring the treatment of the largely female workforce employed in factories around the world.”

“If Ivanka Trump is serious about serving as a ‘champion’ for working moms, she can start by living up to the values she claims to have by ensuring the women workers who make her brand’s products have access to safe, humane working conditions,” said UltraViolet co-founder Nita Chaudhary in a statement. “To stand on the stage at the Republican National Convention and claim to millions of Americans that you are an advocate for working mothers ― while exploiting women in countries abroad to make a buck — is a shameful display of hypocrisy.”

Representatives for Trump’s brand declined to comment on the record, and Macy’s has yet to respond to an inquiry from HuffPost.  

As for the first daughter, she was noticeably under the radar during her father’s “Made In America” week, CNN noted. The White House did manage to defend her brand, however, saying that her goods are made overseas due to “capacity” and “scalability” issues. 

I'm guessing this will be part of tomorrow's tweetstorm.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Jared Kushner ‘forgets’ to disclose his assets? Seize them."

Spoiler

You’ve heard of the so-called Pottery Barn rule: “You break it, you buy it”?

Maybe it’s time for the banana republic rule: “You forget it, you forfeit it.”

For the 39th time, top presidential adviser (and son-in-law) Jared Kushner has revised  his financial disclosure forms. Kushner disclosed 77 additional assets, collectively worth millions of dollars. These items were “inadvertently omitted” from previous versions of his federal forms, according to a document the White House released Friday.

Hey, I get it.

Financial assets — like meetings with Russian officials — can easily slip one’s mind. Especially if one’s mind is preoccupied with brokering peace in the Middle East, managing diplomatic relations with China, renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement and fixing the entire U.S. government.

And honestly, who among us has not forgotten a multimillion-dollar asset here or there?

Surely we’ve all reached into the couch cushions, searching for the TV remote, and pulled out a forgotten New Jersey liquor license worth between $500,001 and $1 million. Why, just the other day I was looking for a quarter for the office soda machine and instead stumbled upon a neglected personal art collection valued between $5 million and $25 million.

Maybe Kushner really did forget all those assets, including a stake in a start-up valued at $5 million to $25 million. Just as maybe he really did accidentially submit a security-clearance form that left off more than 100 contacts with foreign nationals.

One reason to give him the benefit of the doubt, at least on his financial forgetfulness: Kushner, like many of President Trump’s senior officials, is really rich. And really rich people, almost by definition, have a lot of assets to keep track of.

They also tend to have far-flung holdings structured in complicated ways, with LLCs inside LLCs inside LLCs, matryoshka-doll-style. This is both to minimize tax burdens and maintain some level of privacy.

All of which is to say that maybe it’s legitimately difficult for someone such as Kushner to keep track of what he owns (and whom he owes).

It’s true that willfully omitting an asset on one’s federal financial disclosure form comes with the risk of criminal action. But how motivating can a threat of prison possibly be if Kushner knows he can just go back and add anything that the press happens to dig up?

That’s exactly why we need the banana republic rule (named for the lawless state, not the store).

It might push Kushner — and other ultra-wealthy people serving the president — to be excruciatingly thorough on these forms. Here’s how it would work.

Above a certain value — let’s say $1 million — any assets that are “forgotten” on federal disclosures can be seized by Uncle Sam. If they weren’t memorable enough for these forms, then clearly you’re rich enough that you don’t really need them.

Treasury gets to take them, without compensating you.

“That’s socialism!” you might protest. But really, it’s not so different from another policy that the definitely-not-socialist Trump administration already backs enthusiastically: civil asset forfeiture.

This is when law enforcement seizes private property without proving the owner is guilty of a crime, often without even charging the owner with a crime. Just last week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced he was restarting a federal forfeiture program the Obama administration had shut down.

“Civil asset forfeiture takes the material support of the criminals and instead makes it the material support of law enforcement,” Sessions explained, even though the stuff being seized is not necessarily providing “material support” for any crime or any criminal.

With such tenuous logic, why shouldn’t Sessions support appropriating possibly-innocent-but-still-kinda-suspicious financial disclosure omissions, too?

I’m not the first one to suggest a fix like this, by the way.

In the 1960s, famed University of Chicago economist Arnold Harberger proposed a self-assessed property tax system that worked much the same way. You’d register the value of your assets with the government — and you’d be required to sell your property at these self-declared valuations to any buyer.

For example, if you preposterously  claimed your fancy golf club was worth no more than $5 million, you could be forced to sell it at that price on the spot. Likewise, if you omitted an asset entirely, that would be equivalent to saying the asset was valued at zero — and it could be taken from you without compensation. Lowballing or outright omissions could be much more costly than simply paying a fairly assessed tax.

This so-called Harberger tax is intended to encourage greater honesty, much needed in countries where institutional enforcement is weak. 

Back in the ’60s, Harberger was pitching this idea to Latin American countries struggling with corruption and lawlessness. But all of a sudden it seems so relevant here in the United States.

I think that's a great idea!

[GreyhoundFan]

I love Dana Milbank: "Jared Kushner’s only excuse: He has no idea what he’s doing"

Spoiler

Do you have a problem — trouble at work, relationship stress, or just some really hard math homework — that you can’t resolve on your own? You should turn to the man who is fixing problems for more than 300 million Americans.

You should ask Jared Kushner.

President Trump does it. When he needed somebody to negotiate peace in the Middle East, he asked Kushner. When he needed somebody to be his point man with China and with Mexico, he asked Kushner. When he needed somebody to solve the opioid epidemic, reform veterans’ care, overhaul the criminal justice system and reinvent the entire federal government, Trump again turned to Kushner. Even when he just needed somebody to strap a flak jacket over his navy blazer and fly off to Baghdad, Kushner was the one he asked.

The president’s 36-year-old son-in-law has done all this and more, even while keeping up with a demanding family life since the election: a beach trip to Hawaii, a ski trip to Aspen, another ski trip to British Columbia. Clearly he has time to help you, too. Kid has a fever? Rattle in the transmission? Weeds in the lawn? Ring around the collar? Ask JK.

But what happens when Jared Kushner has a problem? What happens if — and I’m speaking strictly hypothetically here — Kushner were to neglect to mention in his security-clearance forms that he had had more than 100 meetings with foreigners, including some Russians? Sure, you can ask him. But he won’t have a good answer.

The seen-but-not-heard Kushner met with the Senate Intelligence Committee on Monday (at a session closed to the public, naturally). He explained his repeated lapses — he had to amend one disclosure form three times — by saying, essentially, that he was new to politics and so terribly busy that he couldn’t keep up with everything. And he used the hoariest excuse of all: He blamed his assistant.

“My experience was in business, not politics,” he said in a written statement, and described himself as overwhelmed. “I must have received thousands of calls, letters and emails from people looking to talk or meet on a variety of issues and topics, including hundreds from outside the United States,” he wrote, and “I could not be responsive to everyone.” He explained that he just didn’t know he was sitting down with people promising dirt on Hillary Clinton from the Russian government because it “was typical for me to receive 200 or more emails a day during the campaign. I did not have the time to read every one.”

Kushner explained how a full accounting of his foreign contacts fell through the cracks “amid the scramble of finalizing the unwinding of my involvement from my company, moving my family to Washington, completing the paper work to divest assets and resign from my outside positions and complete my security and financial disclosure forms.” A “miscommunication” led his assistant to file his form prematurely.

He said he omitted not only meetings with Russians, but “over one hundred contacts from more than twenty countries.”

And this is supposed to help him?

That’s the trouble with Kushner’s defense in the Russia imbroglio. He’s essentially arguing that he isn’t corrupt — he’s just in over his head. He didn’t really know what he was doing, and he was too busy. Coming from the man charged with handling everything from Middle East peace to opioids, this isn’t reassuring.

This inexperience defense is consistent with Kushner’s filing Friday showing that he had previously neglected to disclose more than 70 assets, as required, including an art collection (with wife Ivanka Trump) worth as much as $25 million. The Middle East peace negotiator also did not disclose that he held Israeli government bonds.

Yet Kushner’s father-in-law entrusted him with what is arguably the most difficult portfolio ever to be assigned to a White House aide. His previous experience: running his family real estate business, which he took over in 2005 when his father was convicted of tax evasion. The next year, Kushner bought a $1.8 billion Manhattan building, near the top of the real estate cycle, and his family has been trying to find investors to keep the project afloat.

So now Kushner is defending himself by playing the ingenue: “All of these were tasks that I had never performed on a campaign previously,” and “I could not even remember the name of the Russian ambassador.” Kushner, arguing that he didn’t seek to create a “back channel” with Russia, explained that he merely asked the Russian ambassador if he “had an existing communications channel at his embassy we could use.”

The defense leaves one big question unanswered: Why is a man of such inexperience in charge of so much?

Don’t ask.

Oh, that's just lovely, he held Israeli government bods, but didn't disclose it. I guess I'm lucky that I only have US bonds, so they aren't as easy to forget.

[GreyhoundFan]

The eternally snarky Alexandra Petri has a great take on Jared: "Jared Kushner: Boy wizard or total ignoramus?"

Spoiler

Does Jared Kushner know anything about anything?

A) Yes. Of course.

He is a wunderkind. (You get to be a wunderkind well into your 30s when you look like him.)

He has a hand in All Things That Are Good. From opiates to peace in the Middle East to running government like a business, no subject, no matter its complexity, eludes him. He touches and transcends it all. Anything good that happens, happens by his command.

His mind is like a steel trap, but much better because a steel trap is an oldfangled technology of a bygone age. Kushner’s mind is something better, like a driverless car. Not in the sense that he lacks direction and does not know where he is going at such a high rate of speed, just in the sense that he is probably worth millions and many people overseas have great hopes for his future.

He is all-seeing and all-knowing. He is the thing that looks back at you when you look into the little camera on your computer. Nothing that occurs can do so without his knowledge. Not one bird falls from the sky, not one leak drips from the Oval Office, not one trial balloon floats or falls, but Kushner knows it. He plays chess in all eight dimensions and a ninth that we haven’t even heard of. He is perfectly in control at all times. Look on him! Look on him and marvel at such wisdom in the body of one so young! He is the one true force behind the scenes, the one who knows what he is doing, the puppetmaster, the Svengali of all Svengalis.

No, of course not.

He is but a tiny, beardless youth! Look how young he is! Barely out of short pants! What can he know of life in this world? What can he know of business?

He takes all meetings. Of course he does. He doesn’t know better. He can’t help it. He doesn’t know how the government works, or how communications work or what forms espionage might take. He is but a simple soul, young and trusting and open to the world. Life has not scarred him yet. He is a mere butterfly, crushed on the wheel. Ah, the poor young butterfly! Ah, the cruel wheel!

He is still learning. And he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know! But who does?

He does not understand numbers or emails. In fact, he has never seen an email before. Do not send him a complex email where he would have to do more than skim the chain, or where he might have to glance even for a moment at the subject line. It will make him very upset.

Meetings bore him. He plays on his phone until they are over.

He does not know the meaning of the “collusion.” He does not know the meaning of any words. He is, as we said, quite young as yet in the ways of the world.

He does not understand how to fill out a simple form. Of course not! He is but a simple man, if you can even call him a man yet. (You should not.) But someday, when he is old enough, he will learn. In the meantime, he should be put somewhere where he cannot do any damage, perhaps in charge of making peace in the Middle East or revamping all of government or fixing the opiate crisis left in his bounce castle with his bear and his chocolate milk.

Why are so many people asking him difficult questions? It is much too late for him to be awake and speaking to adults.

He does not seek the limelight. He never asked to be put in this position. Adviser to the president? No, no. He is very junior. Like a mint.

He is very sorry, but he cannot help you and he would like to go home now, he is tired, and it is time for his nap.

c) He is a true miracle of science who, amazingly, can persist in both states at once, even when observed.

But not observed too closely.

LOL: "...he is very junior. Like a mint." Now when I open a box of Junior Mints, I'm going to think of Jared.

[JMarie]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

The eternally snarky Alexandra Petri has a great take on Jared: "Jared Kushner: Boy wizard or total ignoramus?"

  Hide contents

Does Jared Kushner know anything about anything?

A) Yes. Of course.

He is a wunderkind. (You get to be a wunderkind well into your 30s when you look like him.)

He has a hand in All Things That Are Good. From opiates to peace in the Middle East to running government like a business, no subject, no matter its complexity, eludes him. He touches and transcends it all. Anything good that happens, happens by his command.

His mind is like a steel trap, but much better because a steel trap is an oldfangled technology of a bygone age. Kushner’s mind is something better, like a driverless car. Not in the sense that he lacks direction and does not know where he is going at such a high rate of speed, just in the sense that he is probably worth millions and many people overseas have great hopes for his future.

He is all-seeing and all-knowing. He is the thing that looks back at you when you look into the little camera on your computer. Nothing that occurs can do so without his knowledge. Not one bird falls from the sky, not one leak drips from the Oval Office, not one trial balloon floats or falls, but Kushner knows it. He plays chess in all eight dimensions and a ninth that we haven’t even heard of. He is perfectly in control at all times. Look on him! Look on him and marvel at such wisdom in the body of one so young! He is the one true force behind the scenes, the one who knows what he is doing, the puppetmaster, the Svengali of all Svengalis.

No, of course not.

He is but a tiny, beardless youth! Look how young he is! Barely out of short pants! What can he know of life in this world? What can he know of business?

He takes all meetings. Of course he does. He doesn’t know better. He can’t help it. He doesn’t know how the government works, or how communications work or what forms espionage might take. He is but a simple soul, young and trusting and open to the world. Life has not scarred him yet. He is a mere butterfly, crushed on the wheel. Ah, the poor young butterfly! Ah, the cruel wheel!

He is still learning. And he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know! But who does?

He does not understand numbers or emails. In fact, he has never seen an email before. Do not send him a complex email where he would have to do more than skim the chain, or where he might have to glance even for a moment at the subject line. It will make him very upset.

Meetings bore him. He plays on his phone until they are over.

He does not know the meaning of the “collusion.” He does not know the meaning of any words. He is, as we said, quite young as yet in the ways of the world.

He does not understand how to fill out a simple form. Of course not! He is but a simple man, if you can even call him a man yet. (You should not.) But someday, when he is old enough, he will learn. In the meantime, he should be put somewhere where he cannot do any damage, perhaps in charge of making peace in the Middle East or revamping all of government or fixing the opiate crisis left in his bounce castle with his bear and his chocolate milk.

Why are so many people asking him difficult questions? It is much too late for him to be awake and speaking to adults.

He does not seek the limelight. He never asked to be put in this position. Adviser to the president? No, no. He is very junior. Like a mint.

He is very sorry, but he cannot help you and he would like to go home now, he is tired, and it is time for his nap.

c) He is a true miracle of science who, amazingly, can persist in both states at once, even when observed.

But not observed too closely.

LOL: "...he is very junior. Like a mint." Now when I open a box of Junior Mints, I'm going to think of Jared.

You're supposed to think of Seinfeld whenever you open a box of Junior Mints.

 

[GrumpyGran]

On 7/25/2017 at 1:41 PM, JMarie said:

You're supposed to think of Seinfeld whenever you open a box of Junior Mints.

 

He's my role model. Next week I'm going to perform brain surgery, drive an 18-wheeler across the country and fly a commercial airliner full of people to Europe! I don't know how to do any of that so there may be some mistakes but everybody's okay with that, right?

If it goes horribly wrong, by September I will have forgotten how it all happened. Because I am obviously very busy doing things I have no business doing.

[GreyhoundFan]

The tweets that are screencapped in this article are a hoot: "Woman Slams Jared Kushner In NY Times Comment Section, And Twitter Lost It"

Spoiler

Jared Kushner told Senate investigators: "I did not collude with Russians, nor do I know of anyone in the campaign who did..." 

The New York Times reported on Kushner's prepared, voluntary statement in an attempt to harness the political storm surrounding the ongoing Russia investigation.

His conflicting accounts of Russian meddling continue to draw skepticism from the press. 

On the subject of the infamous 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer, which Kushner has admitted attending, the senior White House advisor said he was unaware of the damaging information against Clinton because he didn't read the email chain from Donald Trump Jr., titled 'Re: Russia - Clinton - private and confidential,' according to the NYT.

One commenter on the NYT article nailed it when she said, "I don't take meetings without knowing what they are and I'm a suburban divorced woman who works part-time in a jewelry store." 

...

Twitter praised her for her pointed comment, and the wisecracks were overflowing.

...

My absolute favorite comment:

Quote

People that take meetings not knowing what they are about wind up in Amway.

 

[GrumpyGran]

3 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

The tweets that are screencapped in this article are a hoot: "Woman Slams Jared Kushner In NY Times Comment Section, And Twitter Lost It"

  Hide contents

Jared Kushner told Senate investigators: "I did not collude with Russians, nor do I know of anyone in the campaign who did..." 

The New York Times reported on Kushner's prepared, voluntary statement in an attempt to harness the political storm surrounding the ongoing Russia investigation.

His conflicting accounts of Russian meddling continue to draw skepticism from the press. 

On the subject of the infamous 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer, which Kushner has admitted attending, the senior White House advisor said he was unaware of the damaging information against Clinton because he didn't read the email chain from Donald Trump Jr., titled 'Re: Russia - Clinton - private and confidential,' according to the NYT.

One commenter on the NYT article nailed it when she said, "I don't take meetings without knowing what they are and I'm a suburban divorced woman who works part-time in a jewelry store." 

...

Twitter praised her for her pointed comment, and the wisecracks were overflowing.

...

My absolute favorite comment:

 

Other things that happen when you take a meeting without knowing the purpose of the meeting:

You end up listening to an aggressive timeshare pitch

You end up listening to an aggressive investment pitch

You end up listening to an aggressive new wonderful community pitch

You end up being solicited to kill someone

You end up muling drugs from a foreign country

I know all of this. Wunderkind doesn't know this but he is tasked with solving all of our problems? Because his FIL, the head honcho, doesn't know how to solve any of our problems??

[nvmbr02]

Looks like the golden couple isn't actually doing much "advising" right now.

 Ivanka and Jared find their limits in Trump's White House

One of the bigger things I am curious about... since when did First daughters have a legacy? She is the adult child of the president, nothing more. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

2 hours ago, nvmbr02 said:

Looks like the golden couple isn't actually doing much "advising" right now.

 Ivanka and Jared find their limits in Trump's White House

One of the bigger things I am curious about... since when did First daughters have a legacy? She is the adult child of the president, nothing more. 

 

I love how she is reading Eleanor Roosevelt's biography for inspiration and guidance. Um, Ivanka, the only thing you have in common with Eleanor is female parts. Eleanor not only cared about the less fortunate, she took action. Oh wait, like you, she came from a wealthy family, but unlike you, she didn't live in a gold palace in the sky, she inhabited the real world and made it a better place.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Ivanka Trump is part of the problem"

Spoiler

Foolish optimists expected Ivanka Trump to be a moderating force in the White House. But by now it should be clear that she’s not part of any solution, which by definition means she’s part of the problem.

Can anyone tell me why, other than nepotism, she has an office in the White House and a back-bench seat at meetings of the Cabinet? Washington is full of people who are smart, successful, well-educated — and actually have experience in developing and implementing government policy, which Ivanka completely lacks.

It is true that the president’s daughter was once seen as the socially acceptable face of the Trump brand. She and her husband, Jared Kushner, were identified with the progressive social views of the rarified social circles in which they traveled. No less an authority on daughterhood and the White House than Chelsea Clinton, whom Ivanka describes as a “very good friend,” said before the inauguration that “we have so much more in common than we have disagreement about.”

Ivanka promised to champion issues of concern to women, including paid family leave. And it was hoped that she could hold President Trump to his former live-and-let-live views when it came to issues such as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights.

Wrong, apparently.

The president’s sudden decision last week to bar transgender individuals from military service was just the latest example of Ivanka’s lack of influence. She was reportedly taken by surprise when the president announced the ban in an early-morning tweet. So was almost everyone, including the military officials who are supposed to enforce the new policy of discrimination, which they don’t much seem to like. But the mean-spirited decree must have been especially galling for Ivanka, who in June had tweeted that she was “proud to support my LGBTQ friends and the LGBTQ Americans who have made immense contributions to our society and economy.”

Ivanka and Jared reportedly lobbied Trump not to abandon the Paris climate change accord, seen by most scientists and world leaders as the most significant step to date in limiting the heat-trapping carbon emissions that are rapidly warming the planet. The president pulled out of the pact anyway.

She had no discernible influence in the health-care battle, which perhaps should be no surprise. Trump pledged health insurance “for everybody” but became so desperate for a legislative win that he would have settled for health care “for nobody,” which is roughly what was in the bill the Senate rejected last week.

Ivanka has continued to advocate a national program of guaranteed paid family leave, similar to those in many other industrialized countries, which she described in a recent letter in the Wall Street Journal as not an entitlement but “an investment in America’s working families.” She did have enough juice to get budget director Mick Mulvaney to allocate some money for such a program — $25 billion over 10 years — but it is unclear whether the funding will survive the appropriations process.

If it does, I’ll congratulate her. If not, she might want to work to help Democrats take control of both the House and the Senate in 2018. I’m sure they would be happy to vote for a much better family leave program, covering not just childbirth but also other family needs such as elder care.

Where Ivanka does apparently have real influence is in matters of personnel. She and Jared are reported to have urged Trump to bring in foul-mouthed Anthony Scaramucci as White House communications director. Seriously, that’s the guy you wanted shaping the administration’s message? Scaramucci was dismissed Monday after just 10 days on the job. He had only two things to offer: North Korean-style hosannas to the strength, wisdom and general magnificence of his dear leader, President Trump; and an undeniable talent for imaginative swearing.

Ivanka is also said to have supported the defenestration of Reince Priebus in favor of John F. Kelly as chief of staff. It is true that Priebus didn’t do a very good job, but that’s mostly because he wasn’t allowed to — and Ivanka was one of his headaches, though perhaps not the worst. She is one of many aides who enjoy unfettered access to the president. If Kelly is not allowed to function as a gatekeeper, he, too, will fail.

Meanwhile, Ivanka’s line of shoes, clothing and accessories — conspicuously not Made in America — has come under new scrutiny. And one disillusioned friend of hers told me she and Jared must have “drunk the Kool-Aid.” In her White House role, she’s not helping the nation, and she’s sure not helping herself.

Yes, she is part of the problem. But she'll keep smiling pretty and the BTs will swoon.

[Cartmann99]

From the article @nvmbr02 posted:

Quote

Another close friend of the family, who has known Ivanka Trump her entire life, said: “She wanted to be the apple of her father’s eye. There’s no question, she worked hard to be the perfect image her father wanted.”

 In other words, Ivanka desperately needs the approval of her father, and the thought of losing his love is terrifying to her. She might be able to moderate some stuff around the edges, but she's too enmeshed with Daddy to really stand up to him. 

[nvmbr02]

2 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

From the article @nvmbr02 posted:

 In other words, Ivanka desperately needs the approval of her father, and the thought of losing his love is terrifying to her. She might be able to moderate some stuff around the edges, but she's too enmeshed with Daddy to really stand up to him. 

To me this is exactly the reason why she doesn't belong in the white house. I don't see how a daughter working for a parent can be effective in this setting. The US government is not a family business.  

[candygirl200413]

Also she doesn't really have to try that hard, as evident that Trump has had some disgusting feelings about how attractive his daughter is.

[Childless]

8 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

From the article @nvmbr02 posted:

 In other words, Ivanka desperately needs the approval of her father, and the thought of losing his love is terrifying to her. She might be able to moderate some stuff around the edges, but she's too enmeshed with Daddy to really stand up to him. 

I find this so sad.  Why can't she be herself and still have her father's love and respect?  A truly good parent would love you for who you are and not wish you would morph yourself into their ideal.  The more I hear about the Trumps, the more I'm convinced they are an incredibly disfunctional family with a warped sense of love (and I haven't even touched on the incestuous thoughts running rampant).  If this is what money does to you, I'm glad I don't have any.

[GrumpyGran]

On 7/31/2017 at 3:08 PM, nvmbr02 said:

Looks like the golden couple isn't actually doing much "advising" right now.

 Ivanka and Jared find their limits in Trump's White House

One of the bigger things I am curious about... since when did First daughters have a legacy? She is the adult child of the president, nothing more. 

 

She was born with a golden legacy up her ass. Oh, and Ivanka, if you'd like people to lower their expectations of you, quit spending their money. Why exactly did your office need to be renovated? Especially when you don't seem to spend that much time in it.

Poor thing, desperately trying to show Daddy that she can "win." And yet, Dark Ivanka is the one he keeps close. No agendas for her, no disapproving opinions, annoying husband and children to interfere. Always there for him to do his bidding without judgment. That's what he really wants from you Ivanka.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Ivanka to the rescue? Her interruptions have eased two recent interviews with President Trump."

Spoiler

When Ivanka Trump was about 10 years old, she used to dial her dad's office from a school pay phone during recess.

“He would pick up the phone every single time, and he'd put me on speaker phone,” Ivanka Trump recalled in a CNN interview last year. “It wouldn't be a long conversation. He'd introduce me to whoever was in his office. … I laugh now that it didn't matter who was there. It was colleagues. It was titans of industry. It was heads of countries. He'd always take my call. And he'd always tell everyone in the room how great a daughter I was and say cute things.”

Not much has changed. Donald Trump is president now, but he still seems to welcome interruptions by Ivanka, who has an office in the White House and no longer needs to place collect calls to reach her father.

A full transcript of the Wall Street Journal's July 25 interview with the president — which Politico obtained and published Tuesday — shows that Ivanka popped in to chat with Journal editor in chief Gerard Baker about a party they both attended, their daughters who share the same first name (Arabella), and a Journal editorial that Ivanka considered “so very good.”

Only six days earlier, Ivanka and her Arabella had walked in on the president's interview with the New York Times. Here's an excerpt:

TRUMP: Hi, baby, how are you?

ARABELLA KUSHNER: Hi, Grandpa.

TRUMP: My granddaughter, Arabella, who speaks — say hello to them in Chinese.

KUSHNER: Ni hao.

[laughter]

TRUMP: This is Ivanka. You know Ivanka.

IVANKA TRUMP: Hi, how are you? See you later, just wanted to come say hi.

TRUMP: She’s great. She speaks fluent Chinese. She’s amazing.

PETER BAKER, TIMES REPORTER: That’s very impressive.

TRUMP: She spoke with President Xi. Honey? Can you say a few words in Chinese? Say, like, “I love you, Grandpa.”

KUSHNER: Wo ai ni, Grandpa.

BAKER: That’s great.

TRUMP: She’s unbelievable, huh?

[crosstalk]

TRUMP: Good, smart genes.

In its introduction to the Wall Street Journal transcript, Politico noted that “Ivanka Trump has often made an appearance during interviews with her father, including with the New York Times and Politico, to make small talk.”

It is unclear whether the interruptions are strategic or coincidental. As I mentioned, Ivanka has been making cameos in her father's meetings since she was a little girl.

Whether planned or serendipitous, the effect is obvious: Ivanka brings levity into the room whenever she shows up. In less than a week, she broke up serious conversations between President Trump and reporters about former FBI director James B. Comey (Times) and health care (Journal). That's certainly not a bad thing for the president.

As uncomfortable questions about his campaign and Russia pile up, Trump would be wise to maintain an open-door policy toward Ivanka — or maybe even outfit his desk with an emergency call button that can summon his daughter quickly, if an interview grows too tense.

Ivanka has to step in to distract during interviews. To quote the TT: "SAD".

[nvmbr02]

Kushner family business being subpoenaed by U.S. attorney for the investment for visa scandal they had a few weeks back.U.S. Attorney

Subpoenas Kushner Cos. Over Investment-For-Visa Program

 

Spoiler

Kushner Cos., the New York property development business owned by the family of White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, has been subpoenaed by New York federal prosecutors regarding its use of an investment-for-immigration program, according to people familiar with the matter.

The subpoena concerns at least one Jersey City, N.J., development financed in part by a federal visa program known as EB-5: twin, 66-floor commercial-and-residential towers called One Journal Square, said a person familiar with the subpoena.

A spokesman for the Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office, which issued the subpoena, declined to comment. The Kushner Cos. general counsel, Emily Wolf, said in a statement that “Kushner Companies utilized the program, fully complied with its rules and regulations and did nothing improper. We are cooperating with legal requests for information.”

The subpoena, received by the company in May, was a document request that included a demand for emails, according to a person familiar with it.

It isn’t clear what potential violations are being probed by the U.S. attorney.

In early May, the company drew attention for a marketing campaign in Beijing and Shanghai that solicited Chinese investors for One Journal Square, saying that up to 300 individuals who put $500,000 each into the project could be eligible for green cards under the EB-5 program, according to marketing materials reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The EB-5 program, which offers green cards to aspiring immigrants who invest at least $500,000 in certain U.S. businesses that have been determined to create at least 10 jobs per investor, has been at the center of debate in Washington. Critics say the program is being used to boost wealthier areas of the country instead of aiding poorer ones as intended.

A green card permits a foreign national to live and work in the U.S. indefinitely. The majority of EB-5 visas go to wealthy Chinese individuals.

Kushner Cos. used the EB-5 program for another Jersey City property known as Trump Bay Street. It is unclear whether the scope of the subpoena concerned that project as well.

The marketing push in China, held for potential investors at hotels, was led by Mr. Kushner’s sister Nicole Meyer, a principal at Kushner Cos., and included a video clip and photo of President Donald Trump, the Journal reported in May. Ms. Meyer also mentioned Mr. Kushner during her pitch, according to the New York Times.

After public criticism, the company said that “Ms. Meyer wanted to make clear that her brother had stepped away from the company in January and has nothing to do with this project.”

It added: “Kushner Companies apologizes if that mention of her brother was in any way interpreted as an attempt to lure investors. That was not Ms. Meyer’s intention.” The company subsequently canceled its additional appearances in China at presentations for the project.

Mr. Kushner, who is married to Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka, had been running the Kushner business before last year’s election. Mr. Kushner subsequently resigned from the business and sold his personal stake in some projects and assets to family members and others.

Mr. Kushner, however, retains a stake in Trump Bay Street, according to his latest personal financial disclosure form, filed in July, which lists assets in that property worth between $1 million and $5 million. He also disclosed receiving between $15,000 and $50,000 in rent or royalties from that property.

For One Journal Square, Mr. Kushner reported receiving between $1 million and $5 million in capital gains.

Mr. Kushner’s personal attorney said in a statement Wednesday that he had recused himself from “matters concerning the EB-5 programs.”

The EB-5 program is particularly popular with high-end developers in New York, who recruit heavily in China.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked the Department of Homeland Security and the Securities and Exchange Commission in May to investigate Qiaowai Group and the U.S. Immigration Fund, companies involved in marketing the Kushner One Journal Square project.

In a letter dated May 24, Mr. Grassley said he was concerned about the companies allegedly telling investors they could guarantee both visas and that the investments would be successful, and worried about potential violations of federal law and securities regulations.

A representative for Qiaowai Group couldn’t be reached for comment. spokesman for the U.S. immigration fund declined to comment.

The U.S. government limits EB-5 visas to 10,000 each year. Lawmakers and others have raised questions about whether the visas are appropriately obtained in some instances, and the SEC and Justice Department have brought several cases in recent years alleging fraud by those who raised funds through the program.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Ivanka and Jared, move back to New York"

Spoiler

After delivering a blistering speech critiquing Donald Trump’s performance as president at a recent conference, I was challenged by an audience member to say something nice about our commander in chief. I answered without a second’s hesitation.

For almost a decade, Mika Brzezinski and I had the pleasure of occasionally crossing paths with Ivanka, Don Jr. and Eric Trump. I explained that in those encounters, the president’s children were unfailingly deferential and polite. Long before their father’s election, the Trump children enjoyed a stellar reputation among most Manhattan influencers for being hard-working and well raised. They possessed few of the flaws too easily recognizable in other wealthy and well-connected kids. Often, conversations that centered on the boorish behavior of Trump himself would end with someone citing his children as a mitigating factor against whatever severe judgments were being handed down.

I once told Trump that a good way to judge most people is by the children they raised, and that by that measure, he seemed to be an unqualified success. The Donald’s response was uncharacteristically humble.

“Anything good you see in my children is the result of them having a great mother,” he quietly said, with no cameras rolling to catch this fleeting glimpse of humility.

Much has changed in the five years since Trump delivered that self-aware confession. The Manhattan developer is now the least popular first-year president in the history of presidential polling. His oldest son is caught up in a federal investigation involving attempts by Russia to undermine American democracy. Federal prosecutors are also reportedly investigating the finance and business dealings of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has repeatedly been forced to amend federal disclosure forms to add omitted information on his financial assets and contacts with foreign nationals, including from Russia. Even Trump’s daughter Ivanka, despite her concerted efforts to keep a low profile during the campaign and to round off her father’s roughest edges inside the White House, has become the subject of controversy.

Her decision to sit alongside foreign leaders at the recent Group of 20 summit in Hamburg was slammed as “grotesque” and “banana-republicky.” In a recent tweet, she declared that she would be “serving alongside John Kelly,” just as the retired four-star Marine general let it be known that all access to the Oval Office would go through him. The real estate heiress not only appeared to be claiming the West Wing as her territory, but she also betrayed a troubling sense of entitlement that one might expect from other billionaires’ daughters but not this one. Kelly and White House insiders know that Ivanka Trump is as ill-prepared to face the brutish realities of Washington as her father. And tragically, neither seems to know what they do not know.

Which brings us back to Kushner.

Though Donald Trump might be loath to admit it, Kushner did much to elect his father-in-law. By quietly building a successful online fundraising and targeting operation far beyond his candidate’s comprehension, Kushner gave Trump a fighting chance to keep the 2016 presidential race close, in the hope that lightning would strike at the right time. It did. And that’s when Kushner’s problems began.

The quiet diplomacy Kusher employed so effectively during the campaign gave way to the sort of stubborn arrogance that often infects the winning side of presidential campaigns. Trump’s shocking victory led his son-in-law to believe he could reinvent government like Al Gore, micromanage the White House like James Baker and restructure the Middle East like Moses. Kushner’s confidence seemed to reach its apex whenever the subject turned to Middle East peace. His bizarre belief that the world began anew the day Trump was inaugurated was exposed again this week when a leaked audiotape caught Kushner telling White House interns: “We don’t want a history lesson. We’ve read enough books.”

Americans have seen enough headlines over the past six months to better understand why nepotism does not work in the White House. Though my words may suggest otherwise, I genuinely like Jared and Ivanka. I also love Joey, Andrew, Katherine and Jack Scarborough. But I wouldn’t let them run my morning show any more than Trump should let his children run roughshod over White House operations. Vice presidents, not daughters, should sit in G-20 summits. And a secretary of state should broker Middle East peace. Not an inexperienced 36-year-old son-in-law.

I have no doubt that Trump’s daughter and son-in-law believe they are working hard to make America and the world a better place. But now the best thing they can do for their country is to move back to New York and let professionals run the White House.

Yes, and take the rest of the shady bunch with you.

[candygirl200413]

I got so excited that they really left though!!

[fraurosena]

 Kushner-Owned Company Lobbied Against Obamacare Repeal

Yes, you're reading that right. Lobbied AGAINST repeal.

Spoiler

Jared Kushner owned a stake in his brother’s Obamacare-dependent health insurance company when it hired lobbyists to fight repeal of the law shortly before he divested from it earlier this year.

Kushner’s younger brother, Joshua Kushner, co-founded Oscar Health Insurance to capitalize on Obamacare’s individual insurance markets by offering a web-friendly insurance option aimed mostly at younger and urban consumers. The company is heavily dependent on Obamacare’s private insurance exchanges.

Joshua Kushner’s heavy involvement in the company has been widely reported. But his older brother’s partial ownership, through a stake in Joshua’s technology investment firm Thrive Capital, has been little noticed.

Jared Kushner did not list his holdings in Oscar Health Insurance on his personal financial disclosure form because he was not required to do so, as he included Thrive. But that company’s ownership, through a company called Mulberry Health, Inc., was highlighted by the White House’s own attorneys as a reason he needed to divest in Thrive around the time President Trump was sworn into the White House.

“One major holding of multiple Thrive Capital funds is Oscar Health Insurance. Mr. Kushner’s continuing interest in Oscar could require his recusal from a variety of particular matters that will have a direct and predictable effect on the health insurance industry,” White House Deputy Counsel Stefan Passantino wrote to the Office of Government Ethics in a letter explaining what Kushner would sell to avoid potential conflicts of interest and why. That letter is dated Jan. 25, 2017, less than a week after Trump’s inauguration.

>link to document<

Passantino’s letter was posted on the OGE’s website among documents that it has released pursuant to Freedom of Information Act requests.

It’s unclear exactly how much money Jared Kushner, who is Trump’s son-in-law and one of his closest advisers, had tied up in Oscar Health. His personal financial disclosure doesn’t break out the individual investments held by Thrive Capital, which Kushner had between $6 million and $11 million tied up in.

But while that appears to be far from Kushner’s largest venture, he wasn’t just a minor investor in the company, which in early 2016 received a $2.7 billion valuation.

A 2013 report to the New York State’s Department of Financial Services on Oscar’s corporate organization stated that the Kushner brothers were “deemed the ultimate controlling persons in Oscar’s holding company system because they are the only members of Thrive Partners III GP, LLC, which is the general partner in Thrive Capital Partners III, L.P.”

>flowchart screenshot<

Three weeks before the White House wrote to the Office of Government Ethics outlining Kushner’s divestment plan, Oscar’s parent company hired lobbyists to prepare for the coming GOP efforts to repeal Obamacare. It is unclear if Jared Kushner had any involvement in the parent company’s hiring of the lobbyists during the Trump transition, though a White House source said that he had no involvement in Mulberry Health hiring lobbyists and no dealings with those lobbyists.

Oscar’s founders have been upfront about the importance of Obamacare to the company’s creation — and ongoing success.

“I don’t think we could do this without Obamacare,” Mario Schlosser, one of the company’s co-founders and one of Joshua Kushner’s college friends, told the Washington Post in 2013.

In the election’s wake, Schlosser and Kushner co-wrote a blog post on the company’s website in November 2016 arguing for the law’s importance and calling for it to be tweaked, not dismantled.

“While the ACA has significant flaws, we believe the majority of this pain [from rising insurance rates] is a result of the preexisting faults of our healthcare system,” the pair wrote, mentioning some of the law’s “serious shortcomings in design” but calling for relatively minor changes in the program rather than a dramatic overhaul.

Oscar’s parent company hired lobbyists to help make sure that vision was put to practice — three weeks before the White House officially announced Kushner’s plans to divest from the company. On Jan. 3, Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas, Inc. filed a lobbying disclosure form announcing their hiring by Mulberry Health, Oscar’s parent company. As of March, Mulberry had paid the lobbying firm $60,000 for its work, according to lobbyist disclosure filings.

Calls and emails to Oscar Health Insurance, Thrive Capital Partners and Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas were not returned. The White House declined to respond on the record for this story.

Jared Kushner seems to harbor similar views as his brother about Obamacare repeal. Sources confirm to TPM multiple outlets‘ reports that he was deeply skeptical of congressional Republicans’ push for Obamacare repeal from the start and called the push for the repeal a mistake — criticism that led Trump at one point to blow up at Jared Kushner and say he fully understood his position, according to Politico.

Jared Kushner’s involvement in the internal Obamacare debate included an early spring meeting he attended with House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), Trump, senior White House officials and House members, and Zeke Emanuel, the Democratic architect of Obamacare who Kushner played a role in bringing in to discuss the law with his father-in-law. A source in the room told TPM that Jared Kushner was vocally critical of the House Republicans’ plan for replacing the law during the meeting.

Capitol Hill sources tell TPM that Jared Kushner wasn’t intimately involved in the congressional push to repeal Obamacare. Ryan has talked to him multiple times since the election but only once about health care, according to a source familiar with the conversations. Jared Kushner was skiing with his family in Aspen when the House had to cancel its first vote on the Obamacare repeal bill due to lack of support. Senate Republicans said they’d had little contact with him.

But he didn’t completely step away from the issue, according to sources. He was at the table during a White House meeting between Trump and top Congressional Republicans to discuss health care in early June, when Trump joked on-camera that his son-in-law had “become much more famous than me.”

Jared Kushner’s involvement on health care concerned some government ethics experts, who suggested it violated the spirit if not the letter of Trump’s own executive order barring people from working on issues “involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related” to former employers or former clients for two years. The OGE’s guidance on the matter says that broad topics like health care reform legislation don’t qualify because “it is not focused on the interests of specific persons, or a discrete and identifiable class of persons.” To further parse Trump’s order, Kushner may not fall under these circumstances since he was the owner and not an employee of the company.

“From a public interest perspective, the whole things reeks. From a black and white reading of the executive order it’s a little more gray. But it certainly goes against any claims to draining the swamp,” said Stephen Spaulding of the good government advocacy group Common Cause. “We shouldn’t be in a position where we have to be parsing the order, there should be a clear separation.”

While other insurers have scaled back on offerings on the individual health care exchange markets due to uncertainty around the law and Trump’s threats to stop making cost-sharing reduction payments to insurers, Oscar has actually increased its offerings this year.

TL;DR, Jared owned a considerable stake in his brother's health insurance company and was a vocal opponant of the Obamacare repeal efforts. 

[fraurosena]

I don't think her ignorant ass has any idea who Ted Lieu is, other than a scary Asian dude.

 

[onekidanddone]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

I don't think her ignorant ass has any idea who Ted Lieu is, other than a scary Asian dude.

I have only one word to say to the disgusting little pampered princess in her golden tower  That word is Kapos.

From Wikipedia. She is not forced to be one, she chooses to be one.

Quote

A kapo or prisoner functionary (German: Funktionshäftling, see § Etymology) was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp who was assigned by the SS guards to supervise forced labor or carry out administrative tasks. Also called "prisoner self-administration", the prisoner functionary system minimized costs by allowing camps to function with fewer SS personnel. The system was designed to turn victim against victim, as the prisoner functionaries were pitted against their fellow prisoners in order to maintain the favor of their SS overseers. If they were derelict, they would be returned to the status of ordinary prisoners and be subject to other kapos. Many prisoner functionaries were recruited from the ranks of violent criminal gangs rather than from the more numerous political, religious and racial prisoners; those were known for their brutality toward other prisoners. This brutality was tolerated by the SS and was an integral part of the camp system.