US Politics Mega-thread - Page 8614

On September 01 2017 02:40 Kyadytim wrote:

One of the things Trump campaigned on was lowering drug prices. Connected to that, I'd imagine that the older part of Trump's core support would be more likely to know people who were hit hard by some of Shkreli's price hikes.

On September 01 2017 03:01 Mohdoo wrote:


At the very least, Shkreli has a lot of support on T_D.

On September 01 2017 02:40 Plansix wrote:

Yeah, that is an amazingly stupid thing to say in this political climate.

Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser, wakes up each morning to a growing problem that will not go away. His family’s real estate business, Kushner Cos., owes hundreds of millions of dollars on a 41-story office building on Fifth Avenue. It has failed to secure foreign investors, despite an extensive search, and its resources are more limited than generally understood. As a result, the company faces significant challenges.

Over the past two years, executives and family members have sought substantial overseas investment from previously undisclosed places: South Korea’s sovereign-wealth fund, France’s richest man, Israeli banks and insurance companies, and exploratory talks with a Saudi developer, according to former and current executives. These were in addition to previously reported attempts to raise money in China and Qatar.

...

As 2015 drew to a close, there were no serious offers, and many in the company figured the plans were all but dead. Then Donald Trump began his meteoric political rise, and Jared Kushner was right on his coattails. Discussions heated up. Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, the Qatari businessman who had once run that nation’s sovereign-wealth fund, had earlier declined to even take a meeting with the Kushner Cos. executives, according to people familiar with the talks. In 2016, Al Thani agreed to invest $500 million from the private fund he runs, contingent on investment from others, which failed to materialize.

...

The Kushners opened discussions with Anbang, the Chinese insurance giant with such close ties to the ruling party that the federal government has forbidden it from buying near a U.S. military base. During months of talks—before and after the election—Jared Kushner negotiated a proposal for Anbang to put billions into the building and allow the family firm to take away $400 million in cash. After details of that plan were made public in March, Anbang walked away amid a crackdown on foreign investments by Chinese regulators.

Representatives of Kushners Cos. also discussed the project with an executive working for Fawaz Alhokair, a Saudi billionaire whose company has vast holdings in shopping malls, hotels and real estate overseas. Alhokair made a splash in the U.S. when he paid $87.7 million for a Park Avenue penthouse. Alhokair’s company considered a possible investment in late 2015, according to Simon Marshall, who was CEO of Alhokair until this year.

Marshall said he analyzed the retail portion of the proposal. The building’s financial viability relied on a plan to construct five levels of luxury shopping at the base of a gleaming new tower. Marshall, who had overseen Alhokair’s retail operations around the world, said he found the projections to be more than the New York luxury-retail market would bear.

“The numbers just didn’t work,” Marshall said in a telephone interview, adding that politics played no role in the decision not to invest. The proposal remained on the table into late 2016, he said, as Trump continued on his path to the White House.

...

Federal investigators know that Kushner met with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in Trump Tower last December and later met with Sergey Gorkov, head of the Kremlin-controlled VEB bank in two meetings that he didn’t, at first, disclose publicly or on his application for his national-security clearance. After those meetings became public, Kushner and the White House said the contacts were made in his role as a Trump adviser and didn’t involve discussion of his family business. But VEB and a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin described the meetings quite differently, noted Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. They said that Kushner was there in his capacity as head of his family’s real estate business. Investigators say they are studying those accounts with keen interest.

Donald Trump told us that he’d hire the best people. He didn't mention that he’d be unable to fire them.

The president is experiencing a bout of insubordination from his top officials the likes of which we haven't witnessed in the modern era. It's not unusual to have powerful officials at war among themselves, or in the presidential doghouse. It's downright bizarre to have them publicly undercut the president, without fear of consequence.

...

First, it was chief economic adviser Cohn saying in an interview that the administration—i.e., Donald J. Trump—must do a better job denouncing hate groups. Then, it was Secretary of State Tillerson suggesting in a stunning interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News that the rest of the government speaks for American values, but not necessarily the president. Finally, Secretary of Defense Mattis contradicted without a moment’s hesitation a Trump tweet saying we are done talking with North Korea.

...

This isn't the work of the deep state, career bureaucrats maneuvering or leaking from somewhere deep within the agencies. This is the shallow state, the very top layer of the government, operating in broad daylight, in fact wanting to be seen and heard differentiating themselves from the president of the United States.

Trump, of course, largely brought this on himself. He is reaping the rewards of his foolish public spat with Jeff Sessions and of his woeful Charlottesville remarks.

By publicly humiliating his own attorney general, Trump seemed to want to make him quit. When Sessions stayed put, Trump didn't take the next logical step of firing him because he didn't want to deal with the fallout. In the implicit showdown, Sessions had won. Not only had Trump shown he was all bark and no bite, he had demonstrated his lack of loyalty to those working for him.

On September 01 2017 04:37 Kyadytim wrote:

I don't even know what to make of that article. It seems like the author is just fed up with everyone involved and is publicly ranting about it rather than trying to write something informative.

On September 01 2017 04:43 Gahlo wrote:

First they came for the illegal immigrants...

On September 01 2017 05:10 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Hence the DACA move?

https://twitter.com/JohnJHarwood/status/903309779967377408