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There do appears to be concerns with Kasowitz potentially having loose ethics and undermining the White House Counsel's office. There is very much an issue where Kasowitz's team should have a high profile criminal expert, which they do not.
Marc E. Kasowitz, a New York civil litigator who represented President Trump for 15 years in business and boasts of being called the toughest lawyer on Wall Street, has suddenly become the field marshal for a White House under siege. He is a personal lawyer for the president, not a government employee, but he has been talking about establishing an office in the White House complex where he can run his legal defense.
His visits to the White House have raised questions about the blurry line between public and private interests for a president facing legal issues. In recent days, Mr. Kasowitz has advised White House aides to discuss the inquiry into Russia’s interference in last year’s election as little as possible, two people involved said. He told aides gathered in one meeting who had asked whether it was time to hire private lawyers that it was not yet necessary, according to another person with direct knowledge.
Such conversations between a private lawyer for the president and the government employees who work for his client are highly unusual, according to veterans of previous administrations. Mr. Kasowitz bypassed the White House Counsel’s Office in having these discussions, according to one person familiar with the talks, who, like others, requested anonymity to discuss internal matters. And concerns about Mr. Kasowitz’s role led at least two prominent Washington lawyers to turn down offers to join the White House staff.
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Partly because of concerns that Mr. Kasowitz is undermining the White House Counsel’s Office, at least two veteran Washington lawyers — Emmet Flood, a partner at Williams & Connolly, and William A. Burck, a partner at Quinn Emanuel — rejected offers to join the counsel’s office to help represent the administration in the Russia inquiry, according to people familiar with the hiring discussions,
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Previous administrations tried to coordinate the activities of private lawyers before letting them interact with aides. Jane Sherburne, a White House special counsel who managed ethics issues during Mr. Clinton’s first term, said [Bill Clinton's personal attorney] Mr. Kendall was not allowed to meet with White House staff members until “we had gone through a whole exercise of having conversations with employees ourselves, talking to them about whether they wanted to retain their own counsel and telling them they didn’t have to talk to Kendall.”
www.nytimes.com
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On June 13 2017 03:03 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 03:01 ticklishmusic wrote:On June 13 2017 02:49 TheTenthDoc wrote:I dunno. Kasowitz didn't proofread his official press statement after letting Trump reshuffle it and also submitted a very unusual request to the Justice Department that Comey's releasing the memos to the press should be investigated as illegal. This is all concrete stuff that clearly illustrates at the bare minimum some frazzling and little experience with this area of law. He's also the guy that threatened to the sue the NYT over publishing the sexual assault allegations and totally ran away with his tail between his legs. pretty sure kasowitz will just file whatever trump tells him to file and say whatever trump tells him to say. it may not be legal best practice, but he knows where the money is coming from and how to keep it coming. Attorneys have a duty to zealously advocate the interests of their clients. Whether an attorney loses or wins a case, in and of itself, has nothing to do with the quality of the attorney. Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 03:04 Mohdoo wrote:
Does Kasowitz have much to lose by just doing what Trump tells him to do? So long as he is never blamed for things going wrong, seems like a good way to be incredibly wealthy. Exactly.
i mean, that was my point. kasowitz will do whatever trump tells him to do without quibbling, because its the easiest path and he gets paid handsomely to do so. on the other hand, my company's lawyers might dissuade us from some particularly trumpian course of action since it would damage our relationship in the long term. however i would characterize our setup with them as a legal and strategic advisory relationship, whereas kasowitz is more a "hey JD do what i tell you" arrangement.
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On June 13 2017 02:55 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 01:56 Mohdoo wrote:On June 13 2017 01:54 Lmui wrote:Up here in Vancouver which is currently an incredibly expensive place to live thanks to the influx of foreign money, this is what the city is doing to ensure affordability: http://bc.ctvnews.ca/vancouver-approves-20-64-living-wage-for-all-staff-1.3083830We're pretty closely aligned culturally to Portland, so this is something which Portland could do as well. There's a lot of employers which pay between minimum wage and living wages. About 5 years back, when I was a student, I worked as a cashier at Home Depot. It paid pretty well when I started ($8 min wage, $10 hourly) but by the time I left, I was making $10.50 I think when the min. wage got raised up to $10. Tracking the amount of people who're making anything from min-wage to min-wage +$2 would be good in order to get a reference for how many people are "stuck" at a below-poverty line wage. Portland is really against living wage because people like to demonize "burger flippers". We are really bad about needing to look down on other people in order to feel good about ourselves. Amen.
I was having a conversation with a conservative friend of mine about a year ago about increasing the minimum wage and he specifically cited, as one of the reasons, is that he didn't want people working in fast food(which he did in highschool) to be making as much per hour as his cop friend that was making sub $15. My first thought was that fast food people aren't working full time, in all likelyhood so you can't really directly compare it because of benefits, etc. Then I went with my second thought of "Why the fuck is a cop not getting paid at least $15/hr?"
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On June 13 2017 03:10 ticklishmusic wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 03:03 xDaunt wrote:On June 13 2017 03:01 ticklishmusic wrote:On June 13 2017 02:49 TheTenthDoc wrote:I dunno. Kasowitz didn't proofread his official press statement after letting Trump reshuffle it and also submitted a very unusual request to the Justice Department that Comey's releasing the memos to the press should be investigated as illegal. This is all concrete stuff that clearly illustrates at the bare minimum some frazzling and little experience with this area of law. He's also the guy that threatened to the sue the NYT over publishing the sexual assault allegations and totally ran away with his tail between his legs. pretty sure kasowitz will just file whatever trump tells him to file and say whatever trump tells him to say. it may not be legal best practice, but he knows where the money is coming from and how to keep it coming. Attorneys have a duty to zealously advocate the interests of their clients. Whether an attorney loses or wins a case, in and of itself, has nothing to do with the quality of the attorney. On June 13 2017 03:04 Mohdoo wrote:
Does Kasowitz have much to lose by just doing what Trump tells him to do? So long as he is never blamed for things going wrong, seems like a good way to be incredibly wealthy. Exactly. i mean, that was my point. kasowitz will do whatever trump tells him to do without quibbling, because its the easiest path and he gets paid handsomely to do so. on the other hand, my company's lawyers might dissuade us from some particularly trumpian course of action since it would damage our relationship in the long term. however i would characterize our setup with them as a legal and strategic advisory relationship, whereas kasowitz is more a "hey JD do what i tell you" arrangement.
Why do you think that Kasowitz's relationship with Trump is any less strategic? Just because Kasowitz does something that Trump says that is ill-advised does not mean that Kasowitz did not advise Trump against it. I do things for my clients all of the time that I advise them not to do.
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On June 13 2017 03:04 Mohdoo wrote:
Does Kasowitz have much to lose by just doing what Trump tells him to do? So long as he is never blamed for things going wrong, seems like a good way to be incredibly wealthy.
It depends. Opening up an office in the White House is a terrible idea and could get him in trouble if any of the white house staff become witnesses. Especially if they have their own attorneys. There are rules and laws against him speaking to any white house staff who has an attorney. And if he told them they “didn’t need attorneys yet” that is another problem.
Previous White Houses have kept the business of the White House and the defense of the president separate and compartmentalized. Because having the two meet is like crossing the streams.
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On June 13 2017 00:13 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 00:10 Gorsameth wrote:On June 13 2017 00:07 Mohdoo wrote:On June 13 2017 00:04 farvacola wrote:
You should support affordable housing and anti-gentrification efforts as well then. Absolutely not. I do not even slightly support anti-gentrification. Trying to force an area to not have increased market value is counter productive and has no long term goal. We don't gain anything by artificially allowing poor people to have some designated population density. They don't need to live in Portland when there are nearby areas they could otherwise live. When the distance between towns is big and public transport outside the inner city is non-existent then there is no other option. Good luck getting Americans willing to spend on a robust public transport network that would facilitate such a thing. Their not even willing to pay for road maintenance. Here's an example: My mom rents rooms in her house to college students. From her house to Portland State University, roughly centrally located in Portland, it is a 30 min bus ride. She charges $550/month including utilities etc. She often has trouble filling all her rooms because people don't want to commute that far. Can't speak for the other cities, but poor people can commute into Portland.
Please don't let this post speak for all Portlanders. I've gladly taken >30 min transits to PSU. PSU is primarily a commuter school and a large percentage of students live on the Max line or various bus routes.
Additionally I strongly support affordable housing and anti-gentrification I think you don't understand what will happen to the city if it becomes extremely expensive for everyone to live.
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It was given a permit to open in 2013...
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On June 13 2017 03:04 Mohdoo wrote:
Does Kasowitz have much to lose by just doing what Trump tells him to do? So long as he is never blamed for things going wrong, seems like a good way to be incredibly wealthy.
There's more than a few things Trump might ask of him that could result in him losing his license or at least have complaints opened up with the bar that could get tedious. Asking the DOJ to open up an investigation into Comey, which he's already done, could be one such thing (though it's unclear because there isn't much precedent for the President's private lawyer asking his own employees at the DOJ to open an investigation as potential retaliation for a witness' testimony).
I'm not sure where e.g. stating deliberate falsehoods in press releases could land him but it's probably not good.
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On June 13 2017 00:57 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 00:51 ticklishmusic wrote:
one of the issues is that it's not always slums or urban wasteland turning into new developments, it's regular middle class-ish neighborhoods that are suddenly getting priced out. it's great for homeowners, but not so great for the significant proportion of people who rent. in atlanta rent has been bumping up double digits in a lot of places. So if a family rents a house for $1500/month and someone offers that home owner $2500/month, by what set of ethics can that home owner be disallowed from renting to the $2500/month tenant? This is the case that never makes sense to me. In Portland, there is extremely widespread disdain for home owners who rent to someone more expensive than their current tenant. But if someone offered me the ability to generate an additional $1000/month, I don't think I would ever bring myself to say no. My local government telling me I need to rent to someone poorer feels like madness.
Do you at least see how if your family were renters that you might have a different perspective than you do since instead they own an extra house they don't even need?
On June 13 2017 03:10 Gahlo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 02:55 Danglars wrote:On June 13 2017 01:56 Mohdoo wrote:On June 13 2017 01:54 Lmui wrote:Up here in Vancouver which is currently an incredibly expensive place to live thanks to the influx of foreign money, this is what the city is doing to ensure affordability: http://bc.ctvnews.ca/vancouver-approves-20-64-living-wage-for-all-staff-1.3083830We're pretty closely aligned culturally to Portland, so this is something which Portland could do as well. There's a lot of employers which pay between minimum wage and living wages. About 5 years back, when I was a student, I worked as a cashier at Home Depot. It paid pretty well when I started ($8 min wage, $10 hourly) but by the time I left, I was making $10.50 I think when the min. wage got raised up to $10. Tracking the amount of people who're making anything from min-wage to min-wage +$2 would be good in order to get a reference for how many people are "stuck" at a below-poverty line wage. Portland is really against living wage because people like to demonize "burger flippers". We are really bad about needing to look down on other people in order to feel good about ourselves. Amen. I was having a conversation with a conservative friend of mine about a year ago about increasing the minimum wage and he specifically cited, as one of the reasons, is that he didn't want people working in fast food(which he did in highschool) to be making as much per hour as his cop friend that was making sub $15. My first thought was that fast food people aren't working full time, in all likelyhood so you can't really directly compare it because of benefits, etc. Then I went with my second thought of "Why the fuck is a cop not getting paid at least $15/hr?"
What's amazing is that people used to be perfectly fine with people working fast food making the equivalent of $15/hr, workers, and the economy did better, and rich people actually paid less in taxes despite having higher rates.
It's been an impressive trick on the masses to make them think (particularly the ones at or near the bottom) that it is really they that doesn't want a better minimum wage.
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Not surprising as average America has a pretty poor grasp of economics.
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I mostly figure the covfefe joke has kinda run its course but this is still really funny
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Basically everyones underpaid and whenever a group tries to get a pay raise those opposed play the dumb "they shouldn't be making more than emts" argument and pitting two underpaid groups against each other.
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On June 13 2017 04:27 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:
Basically everyones overpaid and whenever a group tries to get a pay raise those opposed play the dumb "they shouldn't be making more than emts" argument and pitting two underpaid groups against each other.
Presuming you mean underpaid and that people point to some other more respected but comparably underpaid professionals saying "FF workers can't make more than them!"
Or do you mean that those making 10's or 100's of millions a year for having wealthy parents are paid too much?
EDIT: You caught it.
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On June 13 2017 04:01 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 00:57 Mohdoo wrote:On June 13 2017 00:51 ticklishmusic wrote:
one of the issues is that it's not always slums or urban wasteland turning into new developments, it's regular middle class-ish neighborhoods that are suddenly getting priced out. it's great for homeowners, but not so great for the significant proportion of people who rent. in atlanta rent has been bumping up double digits in a lot of places. So if a family rents a house for $1500/month and someone offers that home owner $2500/month, by what set of ethics can that home owner be disallowed from renting to the $2500/month tenant? This is the case that never makes sense to me. In Portland, there is extremely widespread disdain for home owners who rent to someone more expensive than their current tenant. But if someone offered me the ability to generate an additional $1000/month, I don't think I would ever bring myself to say no. My local government telling me I need to rent to someone poorer feels like madness. Do you at least see how if your family were renters that you might have a different perspective than you do since instead they own an extra house they don't even need? Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 03:10 Gahlo wrote:On June 13 2017 02:55 Danglars wrote:On June 13 2017 01:56 Mohdoo wrote:On June 13 2017 01:54 Lmui wrote:Up here in Vancouver which is currently an incredibly expensive place to live thanks to the influx of foreign money, this is what the city is doing to ensure affordability: http://bc.ctvnews.ca/vancouver-approves-20-64-living-wage-for-all-staff-1.3083830We're pretty closely aligned culturally to Portland, so this is something which Portland could do as well. There's a lot of employers which pay between minimum wage and living wages. About 5 years back, when I was a student, I worked as a cashier at Home Depot. It paid pretty well when I started ($8 min wage, $10 hourly) but by the time I left, I was making $10.50 I think when the min. wage got raised up to $10. Tracking the amount of people who're making anything from min-wage to min-wage +$2 would be good in order to get a reference for how many people are "stuck" at a below-poverty line wage. Portland is really against living wage because people like to demonize "burger flippers". We are really bad about needing to look down on other people in order to feel good about ourselves. Amen. I was having a conversation with a conservative friend of mine about a year ago about increasing the minimum wage and he specifically cited, as one of the reasons, is that he didn't want people working in fast food(which he did in highschool) to be making as much per hour as his cop friend that was making sub $15. My first thought was that fast food people aren't working full time, in all likelyhood so you can't really directly compare it because of benefits, etc. Then I went with my second thought of "Why the fuck is a cop not getting paid at least $15/hr?" What's amazing is that people used to be perfectly fine with people working fast food making the equivalent of $15/hr, workers, and the economy did better, and rich people actually paid less in taxes despite having higher rates. It's been an impressive trick on the masses to make them think (particularly the ones at or near the bottom) that it is really they that doesn't want a better minimum wage.
And when all else fails and local governments try to raise the minimum wage, pass state laws preventing them from doing so.
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On June 13 2017 04:30 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 04:27 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:
Basically everyones overpaid and whenever a group tries to get a pay raise those opposed play the dumb "they shouldn't be making more than emts" argument and pitting two underpaid groups against each other. Presuming you mean underpaid and that people point to some other more respected but comparably underpaid professionals saying "FF workers can't make more than them!" Or do you mean that those making 10's or 100's of millions a year for having wealthy parents are paid too much? EDIT: You caught it.
yeah sometimes I type too fast. but CEO's are massively overpaid as well.
p.s. there is a bit of a legitimate argument in terms of what a minimum wage hike would do in poorer more rural communities but that's something separate and gets into the general issues with statewide pay. For example both my parents are teachers or have been and we have a good friend who's been teaching his whole life in San Jose (he's in his late 50s I think.) who has never even been able to consider buying a house.
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On June 13 2017 04:31 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 04:01 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 13 2017 00:57 Mohdoo wrote:On June 13 2017 00:51 ticklishmusic wrote:
one of the issues is that it's not always slums or urban wasteland turning into new developments, it's regular middle class-ish neighborhoods that are suddenly getting priced out. it's great for homeowners, but not so great for the significant proportion of people who rent. in atlanta rent has been bumping up double digits in a lot of places. So if a family rents a house for $1500/month and someone offers that home owner $2500/month, by what set of ethics can that home owner be disallowed from renting to the $2500/month tenant? This is the case that never makes sense to me. In Portland, there is extremely widespread disdain for home owners who rent to someone more expensive than their current tenant. But if someone offered me the ability to generate an additional $1000/month, I don't think I would ever bring myself to say no. My local government telling me I need to rent to someone poorer feels like madness. Do you at least see how if your family were renters that you might have a different perspective than you do since instead they own an extra house they don't even need? On June 13 2017 03:10 Gahlo wrote:On June 13 2017 02:55 Danglars wrote:On June 13 2017 01:56 Mohdoo wrote:On June 13 2017 01:54 Lmui wrote:Up here in Vancouver which is currently an incredibly expensive place to live thanks to the influx of foreign money, this is what the city is doing to ensure affordability: http://bc.ctvnews.ca/vancouver-approves-20-64-living-wage-for-all-staff-1.3083830We're pretty closely aligned culturally to Portland, so this is something which Portland could do as well. There's a lot of employers which pay between minimum wage and living wages. About 5 years back, when I was a student, I worked as a cashier at Home Depot. It paid pretty well when I started ($8 min wage, $10 hourly) but by the time I left, I was making $10.50 I think when the min. wage got raised up to $10. Tracking the amount of people who're making anything from min-wage to min-wage +$2 would be good in order to get a reference for how many people are "stuck" at a below-poverty line wage. Portland is really against living wage because people like to demonize "burger flippers". We are really bad about needing to look down on other people in order to feel good about ourselves. Amen. I was having a conversation with a conservative friend of mine about a year ago about increasing the minimum wage and he specifically cited, as one of the reasons, is that he didn't want people working in fast food(which he did in highschool) to be making as much per hour as his cop friend that was making sub $15. My first thought was that fast food people aren't working full time, in all likelyhood so you can't really directly compare it because of benefits, etc. Then I went with my second thought of "Why the fuck is a cop not getting paid at least $15/hr?" What's amazing is that people used to be perfectly fine with people working fast food making the equivalent of $15/hr, workers, and the economy did better, and rich people actually paid less in taxes despite having higher rates. It's been an impressive trick on the masses to make them think (particularly the ones at or near the bottom) that it is really they that doesn't want a better minimum wage. And when all else fails and local governments try to raise the minimum wage, pass state laws preventing them from doing so.
I'm no economist but it seems like it would probably be reasonably simple to look at both history and theory and come to the conclusion that our economy does much better when we have a bigger middle class and increased upward mobility.
Also that cutting taxes on the top earners doesn't increase that middle class as significantly as increasing their negotiating power (Unions, employment law, free disclosure of wage rates, etc...)
That's not to say Unions are perfect (shockingly they were racist like the rest of American institutions for one), or that we never get the laws wrong, but they are far more effective at the economic goals we're after than cutting taxes on "job creators" (a complete misnomer).
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EPT
