Just ask yourself…
WHAT IF….
44 had just ONE of these people….
JUST ONE….
Yeah, you know the answer to that.
The Trump Administration Is a Golden Age for Corporate Crooks
By Jonathan ChaitThe Republican Party’s main legislative achievement was to facilitate the direct transfer of hundreds of billions of dollars into the hands of business owners. (The proceeds of the Trump tax cuts are mainly going into stock buybacks, a simple windfall for owners of capital.) But a second, less visible channel is the Trump administration’s program of lax regulation. While the tax cuts spray money at business owners as a whole, weak enforcement of regulations confers a windfall targeted specifically at businesses that cheat their customers or break the law.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has brought dramatically fewer cases and lower penalties under Trump. From last February through September, the agency brought 15 cases and collected $127 million in civil penalties, in comparison with 43 cases and $702 million in penalties during a comparable period in 2016. Likewise, the Environmental Protection Agency is collecting far less in penalties from polluters than it did under any of the previous three administrations:
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created to fill in a bare spot in the federal regulatory design: financial products, which are inherently complex and in need of regulation, had been marketed to largely unwitting customers with a minimal amount of oversight, resulting in endemic fraud. Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s director of the CFPB, has called the agency itself a “sick, sad joke.” Just how his vision would translate into practice has already become apparent.
Chris Arnold reports for NPR that Mulvaney forced the agency to drop a lawsuit against alleged loan-shark outfit Golden Valley Lending. Arnold found a Golden Valley victim named Julie Bonenfant, from Detroit, who needed money after a breakup and having her car stolen led to falling behind on rent. Over the course of a year, Bonenfant paid $3,735 to Golden Valley for a $900 loan. “A key backer of Golden Valley was recently convicted of racketeering charges in a case involving another online lender, according to court documents,” reports Arnold.
A spokesperson for Mulvaney told Arnold that the decision to drop the case against Golden Valley, which CFPB staff had spent years building, was made by the agency’s staffers themselves. Staffers denied this wildly implausible defense, and Mulvaney’s spokesperson eventually retracted it.
https://twitter.com/vicenews/status/969308687528587264
https://twitter.com/NormEisen/status/969396784899346432
After all she did tell ‘white’ lies for chump.(smirk)
https://twitter.com/shadowandact/status/969365936875687938
https://twitter.com/itgurl_29/status/969388380541857793
https://twitter.com/itgurl_29/status/969389784065105922
https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/969415246967459841
https://twitter.com/TheRoot/status/969270842315198465
Uh huh! He got the wake up call message….
https://twitter.com/BBCWorld/status/969387361846091776
https://twitter.com/CREWcrew/status/969330695771475968
https://twitter.com/ABCNews4/status/969387402769895424
https://twitter.com/funder/status/969384664338259973
https://twitter.com/usblm/status/969306455194112001
https://twitter.com/VanityFair/status/969289074287763457
Chimp better pay her fees or she might sing like a bird. Like he has any money/ Yeesh!! He stays in financial trouble.
This SENILE, ANCIENT ARTIFACT RIGHT HERE.
Orrin Hatch Calls ObamaCare Supporters “Stupid Dumbass People”
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/3/1/1745869/-Orrin-Hatch-Calls-ObamaCare-Supports-Stupid-Dumbass-People
https://twitter.com/APEastRegion/status/969335247950286848
“To celebrate women’s history, the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) launched #HiddenHerstory, to uplift the undertold stories of powerful women throughout history. Celebrate #HiddenHerstory with us!”
Absolutely LOATHE this MOFO
Turley: Current Case for Trump-Russia Collusion ‘Does Not Hold Together Very Well’
http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/02/28/turley-case-trump-russia-collusion-does-not-hold-together-very-well
Sarah Huckabee Sanders just heaped more humiliation on Jeff Sessions
Asked if President Trump plans to fire the attorney general, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders replied, “Not that I know of.”
WAIT FOR IT @ the 7: 47 minute mark LOL
Boy, that close up of granny Sessions’ skin….just awful he needs moisturizer.
Boy does granny Sessions need moisturizer!
Condoleeza Rice is just a self-serving, opportunistic, slimy, greedy coward who’ll murk and obfuscate – and excuse and provide cover for racists, as long as she gets hers, and the racists specifically treat her ‘well’ …like admit her to a racist white-only golf club club ..
EXCLUSIVE: Trump admin seeking to deport wife of .@USArmy #7th Special Forces Group #veteran -hearing Monday in Arlington, Va. https://t.co/QLOnukKTFi pic.twitter.com/ZKiey6hNxs— Tara Copp (@TaraCopp) February 28, 2018
Senator Barack Obama 2008: “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Humph! Now what?! Say something?
https://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP/status/969313089157033986
Delta could say “Hey, wait a minute! We can relocate OUT of Georgia!”
PHUCK OUTTA HERE:
You walked in with your CHEST ALL PUFFED UP, JOHNNY BOY.
NOW YOU GONE PAY THE MUTHAPHUCKIN’ PIPER, DUDE
In an extraordinary development, the *entire* First Circuit — sitting en banc — has unanimously urged #SCOTUS to revisit precedents that all but nullify judicial review of whether a prison sentence is appallingly unjust and disproportionate to the crime. https://t.co/G5XqB0a7on
— Joshua Matz (@JoshuaMatz8) March 1, 2018
Judge Barron is an intellectual force to be reckoned with. His opinion for the entire First Circuit urging SCOTUS to revisit a terrible line of precedent is masterful. https://t.co/Lc9qPLmwOL
— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) March 1, 2018
Ben White
Verified account @morningmoneyben
5m5 minutes ago
Auto stocks just getting HAMMERED by the steel tariff announcement. Ford, $F, down 3.5%, $GM down nearly 5%. #MAGA
All of his economic advisors said “Don’t put in the tariffs!!!”Trump, who never run a company he didn’t bankrupt other than real estate, who can’t read a balance sheet,who can’t get a loan from an american bank, who destroyed stock holders with incomptence…disagreed.— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) March 1, 2018
NEWS: The bipartisan leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee have privately concluded that the HPSCI majority leaked Mark Warner’s private text messages to Fox News. https://t.co/pn9uLfGtZN
— Nicholas Fandos (@npfandos) March 1, 2018
https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/969065442470895616
So beautifully moving
😂😂😂
After seeing BLACK PANTHER, my lil friend wants to be ALL BLACK, not 1/2 BLACK
https://www.facebook.com/Gotdamnzo/videos/1841662479254247/?hc_ref=ARSjn40g02dDFhd9eGBMwoY_RNSDz9kVWulNfMsDi9z0CjdK4Prv_7hp4OPN4aSrfwU&pnref=story
“…HOUSTON — Maybe you are one of those people who harbor the vain hope that the Democratic Party will lead us from the wilderness. That the leadership will band together and, in a first step toward restoring national sanity, win control of the House in November.
If this is the kind of thing you dream about, my advice is to stay away from the House race here in District 7, a C-shaped sprawl of nearly 800,000 Texans who are 67 percent white and enjoy a comfortable median income of $71,000.
The district has been under Republican control since the 1960s and since 2001 has been represented by John Culberson, a Tom DeLay Republican who is not just a progressive’s nightmare but a moderate’s too. Anti-abortion, anti-Obamacare, anti-immigrant and pro-gun, Mr. Culberson hasn’t had much luck getting post-Hurricane Harvey relief down here, either. Still, his prosperous, conservative constituents remain loyal.
But in 2016, Hillary Clinton carried the district by a smidgen, and local Democrats saw an opening. Now seven of them are on the ballot in the election next Tuesday for the party’s nomination — and the chance to oppose Mr. Culberson in November and, possibly, help turn the House blue.
Unfortunately, the race has also exposed the self-immolative tendencies of the party out of power. Exhibit A is the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which last week decided to attack a candidate in the race. Another Democrat. And a woman. In District 7.
Let me try to explain, since the D.C.C.C. did not respond to phone calls or emails. On the ground, this race looked tough from the beginning, though not for obvious reasons. Three of the strongest candidates — Alex Triantaphyllis, Lizzie Pannill Fletcher and Laura Moser — all went to the same fancy private school, which meant that many well-heeled Houstonians had to go through the social agony of choosing one over the other two or giving to all three.
To make matters worse, the ideological differences among these three — and the other four candidates — are microscopic. As time went on, Mr. Triantaphyllis, a Harvard Law School graduate and a consultant who left a big firm to work for a popular nonprofit, won the hearts and minds of the downtown powers — the liberal ones, that is — while Ms. Fletcher, a corporate litigator and Planned Parenthood bigwig, got the most backing from Hillary Clinton loyalists. She was thought (by them) to have the best chance of appealing to Republican women who had had enough of President Trump.
Ms. Moser, whose husband was the videographer for President Barack Obama, skewed a little farther left. Her work history was spottier: She has been a freelance writer. All three candidates were native Houstonians, though Ms. Moser came home from Washington to run.
By the end of the third quarter of 2017, Mr. Triantaphyllis had raised the most money — more than Mr. Culberson. Ms. Fletcher came in second and Ms. Moser third. At the same time, Ms. Moser, who somewhat resembles a taller and younger Carol Burnett, was more colorful in person and better at grass-roots organizing than her competitors. If her politics were a little squishy, she was more entertaining — supporters could take a spin class with #MeToo’s Alyssa Milano!
It wasn’t hard to figure out how threatening that could be, especially to the old-line Clinton Democrats who lost to Mr. Obama in 2008 and remembered the betrayal of Bernie Sanders in 2016. Those people undoubtedly influenced the political action committee Emily’s List to endorse Ms. Fletcher — and should have listened to the grumbling among female voters here, who thought the organization should not have chosen between two female abortion-rights supporters.
Then came the D.C.C.C., with its high-stakes gamble of attacking Ms. Moser on its website. Maybe it believed, along with The Houston Chronicle, that Ms. Moser was too liberal to beat Mr. Culberson. (The paper endorsed Ms. Fletcher and another Democratic candidate, an oncologist.) Maybe the committee thought its gripes were legitimate — it complained that Ms. Moser was a “Washington insider” who had used her husband’s firm as her political consultants. But the first wasn’t true, and the second showed only that her husband worked cheap.
Virtually overnight, the story of interference from real Washington insiders went viral, and Ms. Moser became a glorious martyr, quoting Michelle Obama (“When they go low …”). Her profile is skyrocketing, her fund-raising is booming. And no doubt John Culberson is ecstatic about the Democrats being in disarray.
Note to the D.C.C.C.: Next time you think about sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, try believing in the democratic process instead…”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/27/opinion/seventh-congressional-district-texas.html
https://twitter.com/TheRoot/status/968903143634489344
See how they are?
https://twitter.com/shomaristone/status/969263776326352896
Yep
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry join Prince William and Kate in first royal engagement
By Morgan M. Evans
Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, Prince William and Princess Kate have attended their first royal event together.
On Wednesday, the royals appeared on the panel for the premiere Royal Foundation Forum in London, England, marking their first royal event together since Christmas, when the family joined the Queen in Sandringham, England, for her annual holiday celebration.
The inaugural event, which boasted the theme “Making a Difference Together,” presented programs and initiatives organized by the Royal Foundation that help to unite people and “tackle society’s biggest challenges, including mental health, the armed forces and wildlife,” according to Kensington Palace.
“We feel a tremendous responsibility to play our part in affecting societal change for the better,” Harry said in his speech at the foundation event.
Really?
Seriously?
Uh huh
Uh huh
Meghan Markle: UK Royal reporters shocked by racist abuse levelled at Prince Harry’s bride-to-be
By Europe correspondent Lisa Millar
Senior Royal reporters have lifted the lid on the extent of the abuse levelled at bride-to-be Meghan Markle over her mixed race background.
And they have told the ABC that one of their own colleagues was threatened with having acid thrown in her face over her reports.
The revelations came as Ms Markle joined her fiance Prince Harry, along with his brother Prince William and his wife Catherine, on stage officially for the first time.
The young Royals have been dubbed the Fab Four and are intent on using their appeal to further their charity work.
Ms Markle said she would continue to agitate for gender equality once she became a working Royal in eleven weeks.
But her mixed heritage — her mother is African-American — has sparked online abuse and threats unlike anything Royal observers have seen before.
Malia Obama got one piece of advice from her mom before heading to college — and she didn’t follow it
Abby Jackson
Before former first daughter Malia Obama headed off to Harvard in the fall, she received a sage piece of advice from her mother and former first lady Michelle Obama.
“Don’t wind up on Page Six,” Michelle said, according to Page Six itself. “I don’t know if she managed that.”
The New York Post’s iconic gossip column has featured many a celebrity in its pages, Malia being one of them.
Don’t forget about the Scandal/How to Get Away With Murder crossover event!
YES YES YES
Voting rights milestone: today, California expanded its automatic voter registration law to automatic voter *pre*-registration!
16- and 17-year olds who get their license/ID will now be automatically preregistered and ready to vote when they turn 18. https://t.co/pgnMcaXWDV pic.twitter.com/9Y8OGOiTZ0
— Taniel (@Taniel) March 1, 2018
I’m shocked that we even have an Ambassador to Mexico.
U.S. Ambassador to Mexico to Quit Amid Tense Relations Under Trump https://t.co/sELTppvFBb
— Mark S. Getzfred (@marknyt) March 1, 2018
https://twitter.com/RawStory/status/969261090038304770
The media is as usual back to actively partnering in the new push to rehab alt-right John Kelly’s deservedly thrashed reputation..
Don’t let them..
There will be no glossing over, no white-washing, no revisionism..
The genie is now permanently out of the bottle …and there will be no returning John Kelly to ‘upstanding, good, decent, honorable’ human being and retired general status..
We all now know exactly who and what he is..
He is, and has always been…PURE SCUM
“Kroger: No more gun sales at Fred Meyer stores unless you’re 21”
https://www.usatoday.com/money/
THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O’DONNELL 2/28/18
Student protests have Democrats pushing Trump to act on guns
In tonight’s Rewrite, Lawrence O’Donnell explains how Democrats are using the political momentum from the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where 17 people were killed on Valentine’s Day to convince the president to support their gun legislation
THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O’DONNELL 2/28/18
Lawrence: Hope Hicks made Sean Spicer look competent
The W.H. Communications Director says she will resign one day after revealing to the House Intel Cmte. she tells “white lies” for Trump. Lawrence O’Donnell examines Hicks’ record of bad decision-making in a job that requires her to make the White House look good.
Hope Hicks told LIES FOR WHITES
There
FIXED!
New questions surround the ‘Patriot Legal Expense Fund’
03/01/18 10:08 AM
By Steve Benen
…………………………
At first blush, the creation of the fund may not seem especially noteworthy. The Russia scandal has cast quite a net over much of Trump World, and I’m sure many of the president’s aides could use some financial assistance paying defense attorneys’ bills.
But given this gang’s lax approach to ethics and legal proprieties, it’d be helpful to know who’s contributing to the fund, how it will distribute money, who might be deemed ineligible for assistance, and what the fund will do to ensure compliance with conflict-of-interest rules.
At least for now, those are the questions no one is answering – and it’s part of a larger pattern.
Just this week, for example, the Trump Organization said it would “donate” its foreign profits to avoid legal trouble for the president. The Washington Post reported, however, that the Trump Organization hasn’t said how much money it donated. Or how it arrived at the figure. Or which foreign governments originally paid the president’s businesses. Or which parts of the president’s private-sector enterprise were included.
Meanwhile, Trump still won’t release his tax returns. Trump’s White House won’t release its visitor logs. Trump’s Florida resort has gone to court to keep its customer list secret. Trump’s White House even tries to obscure his golfing habits.
Mueller queries getting at heart of Russia collusion question
Carol Lee, national political reporter for NBC News, talks with Rachel Maddow about new reporting that special counsel Robert Mueller is asking interviewees whether Donald Trump knew about hacked DNC e-mails before they were released.
‘Javanka’ faction falling apart as Hope Hicks, others quit W.H.
Rachel Maddow reports on the resignation of White House communications director Hope Hicks, her legal context in the Trump Russia scandal, her political context as an ally of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner in the White House, and her personal context for Donald Trump.
LOL@”Javanka.”
Janus v. AFSCME: Rauner, Lisa Madigan and the Illinois case at the Supreme Court
GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democratic Attorney General Lisa Madigan were both inside the Supreme Court on Monday for Janus v AFSCME Council 31 oral arguments — a big Illinois case and a high point of the Rauner crusade to eradicate public sector unions.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/janus-v-afscme-rauner-lisa-madigan-and-the-illinois-case-at-the-supreme-court/
It’s call the Negro Wake Up Call.
The White House is furious at the embarrassing stories about the Department of Housing and Urban Development and Secretary Ben Carson https://t.co/H1LDdOjBsI pic.twitter.com/Fvosx8DOg2
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) March 1, 2018
Meanwhile, Pruitt (EPA), Zinke (Interior), Mnuchin (Treasury) and Shulkin (VA) are busy super-grifting on steroids at taxpayer expense …building security fortresses to sate the paranoia caused by their greed, flying 1st class, private jet and ‘borrowing’ government planes for personal use including to view eclipses and for honeymoon with vapid sugar babe turned 3rd wife…And fleecing taxpayers for private trips with wifey to Europe to tour castles and such…and strong-arming free tickets from officials to Wimbledon finals for wifey and lying that official is a friend – when said official insists they never knew you..
And let’s not start on $26 million dollar payouts to random fellow vapid NY social climbers and greedy, fair weather faux -‘friend’ of complicit, imported, vapid, lying, moving silicone, impostor.. Or the impostor’s taxpayer borne 18 hour spa trips to Florida …endless undocumented flights on empty Air Force/government planes for clothes-fitting sessions in NY in anticipation of the next public photo-op.. And of course every weekend spent in Florida golfing at huge expense to the taxpayer..
But Ben and Candy Carson and their $31,000 dining set is the most outrageous as far as the deciders of what offends are concerned..
How dare they..
Welcome to ‘you is black’ Ben and Candy – you awful, awful hypocritical ‘christians’ and heartless representatives of God, and even worse stewards of God’s resources..
LOL
The only possible name for Trump’s next reality series is “The Shit Show”.
It’s about a bunch of clowns who move into the White House and ruin America. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and a lot of you will wish YOU’D VOTED pic.twitter.com/0cAH2aINQb
— Ken Olin (@kenolin1) March 1, 2018
Now, this is something I can believe in.
Today’s a big day for @TheDemocrats, because we’re launching #IWillVote to talk to 50 million Americans about going to the polls this November. I committed to vote this morning — will you join me? https://t.co/zatV0zAKzA pic.twitter.com/BDiylrx7gP
— Tom Perez (@TomPerez) February 28, 2018
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Marine Le Pen: French judge opens probe into IS images https://t.co/hXgmmjPYJR
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) March 1, 2018
Exxon is abandoning Russian projects brokered by Rex Tillerson, ending hopes of drilling in Moscow’s Arctic ocean oil fields https://t.co/QuYInpLhi3
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) March 1, 2018
Oh, and a big PHUCK YOU to Maggie Haberman for trying to carry Hope Hicks’ water.
I am SO glad that Wolff came out with his book and just stomped all over hers.
BINGO! day late and several dollars short, Maggie.
After a crazy 24 hours, sources close to Trump tell Axios that he’s in a bad place — mad as hell about the internal chaos and the sense that things are unraveling. https://t.co/tm70Fp0iVR
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 1, 2018
https://twitter.com/jnajefferson/status/969211363796115456
ICYMI:
The NEW YORK STATE EXAMINER is looking at Kushner’s Bank Records.
Key words being NEW YORK STATE
STATE LEVEL CRIMES CAN’T BE PARDONED, Boo.
Bobby Three Sticks says ‘ Checkmate’.
BWA HA HA HA HA H AHA
Wake up call….
https://twitter.com/CREWcrew/status/969044655450021888
https://twitter.com/thehill/status/969219223649210369
You can’t make this stuff up..
Spreading legs for orange man and posing nude?
I guess I’ve been in the wrong program.
Yup..
“…In 2000, Melania Knauss, a Slovenian ‘model’ dating Donald Trump, began petitioning the government for the right to permanently reside in the United States under a program reserved for people with “extraordinary ability.”
Knauss’s credentials included ‘runway shows in Europe’, a Camel cigarette billboard ad in Times Square and — in her biggest job at the time — a spot in the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated, which featured her on the beach in a string bikini, hugging a six-foot inflatable whale.
In March 2001, she was granted a green card in the elite EB-1 program, which was designed for renowned academic researchers, multinational business executives or those in other fields, such as Olympic athletes and Oscar-winning actors, who demonstrated “sustained national and international acclaim.”
“We called it the Einstein visa,” said Bruce Morrison, a former Democratic congressman and chairman of the House subcommittee that wrote the Immigration Act of 1990 defining EB-1.
In all, of the more than one million green cards issued in 2001, just 3,376 — or a fraction of one percent — were issued to immigrants with “extraordinary ability,” according to government statistics.
Melania Trump’s ability to secure her green card not only set her on the path to U.S. citizenship, but put her in the position to sponsor the legal residency of her parents, Viktor and Amalija Knavs. The Washington Post reported earlier this month that the couple is now close to obtaining their own citizenship.
President Trump has proposed ending the sponsorship of relatives such as parents, slamming as “chain migration” the decades-long ability of U.S. citizens to assist relatives in obtaining legal residency.
“CHAIN MIGRATION must end now! Some people come in, and they bring their whole family with them, who can be truly evil. NOT ACCEPTABLE!” Trump tweeted in November.
Michael Wildes, an attorney for Melania Trump and her family, declined to comment on whether she sponsored her parents for green cards. He said he was not surprised that so few immigrants from Slovenia obtained EB-1 green cards in 2001 because the requirements are stringent.
“Mrs. Trump was more than amply qualified and solidly eligible,” he said. But he declined to discuss the qualifications that the first lady cited in her petition for permanent residency.
“There is no reason to adjudicate her petition publicly when her privacy is so important to her,” Wildes said.
A White House spokeswoman for the first lady referred questions about her immigration process to Wildes.
Immigration experts said the president’s efforts to restrict legal immigration spotlight lingering questions about how the first lady and her family members obtained residency in the United States.
The biggest one: how did she convince immigration authorities that she qualified for the EB-1 program?
Morrison, the former congressman and immigration expert, said that Melania Trump’s resume in 2001 seems “inconsistent” with the requirements of the visa.
To obtain an EB-1 under the extraordinary ability category, an immigrant has to provide evidence of a major award or meet at least three out of 10 criteria. Among them: evidence of commercial successes in the performing arts, evidence of work displayed at artistic exhibitions and evidence of original contributions to a field.
“What did she submit?” asked David Leopold, an immigration lawyer and a past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “There are a lot of questions about how she procured entry into the United States.”
The process of deciding who meets the “extraordinary ability” standard is subjective, said Sarah Pierce, an immigration expert at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank.
But it is generally thought that only the top two percent of people in their field would qualify, she said, adding that the “quintessential award you want to put on the application is Nobel Prize.”
The first lady came to the United States from Slovenia in 1996, first briefly on a visitor’s visa and then on work visas, according to Wildes.
Initially, she was not widely known in the highly competitive New York fashion world, according to people in the industry.
“She was never a supermodel, she was a working ‘model’ — like so many others in New York,” said one person who knew her in the 1990s and requested anonymity to discuss the first lady’s early years in the United States.
In 1998, at age 28, she began dating Trump after meeting him at a party, an association that raised her modeling profile. She started appearing on Page Six and in other celebrity columns on the arm of the real estate developer.
At the time, she was modeling on a work visa for skilled immigrants. Melania Trump received five H1-B visas between October 1996 and 2001, Wildes has said.
Under her husband’s administration, such temporary visas have been harder to get, dropping by more than 50,000 in 2017 compared with the previous year, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
In January 2000, in perhaps her most widely known photo shoot, Melania Trump appeared on the cover of British GQ magazine. She was photographed nude on a fur rug on Donald Trump’s private jet under the headline, “Sex at 30,000 feet. Melania Knauss earns her air miles.” (The magazine cover is noted, among others, in her official biography on the White House website.)
The accompanying article predicted that the political aspirations of Trump — then making a bid for the Reform Party nomination — could transform his Slovenian girlfriend into the first lady of the United States one day.
“I will put all my effort into it,” she told the magazine, “and I will support my man.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/questions-linger-about-how-melania-trump-a-slovenian-model-scored-the-einstein-visa/2018/02/28/d307ddb2-1b35-11e8-ae5a-16e60e4605f3_story.html?utm_term=.e3e135e1c2e9
Important fact: Divorced Marla in 2000; But was with another woman on a ‘date’ at the party where he and Melania claimed they met in 1998. As the story they told goes, he asked for her number, she refused and asked for his instead. He gave her his card – and she called him a week later, and they hooked up and started dating. She moved in with him in 2000. He got her a few gigs as favors through strong-arming and groveling – including Sports illustrated and the GQ spread… to try to make her ‘legit’ and build a previously non-existent ‘modeling’ portfolio.. She got a green card in 2001, they wed in 2005, and she got her citizenship in 2006.
Remember I shared here fam, about that solitary leaked joint tax filing …clearly embellished for the citizenship application …as I suspected..
Anyway, here are a few comments posted under this article:
leicester
6 hours ago
The position of First Lady is well-established. She is supported by public funds and maintains a paid staff. She’s a public figure; her right to privacy is severely diminished by that fact. Thus, her immigration background is fair game for the press.
I’d be very interested to learn what she submitted to earn the “Einstein Visa.” Did she falsely state she had a university degree, as she did for years on her website? Did she claim accomplishments that were not true? Or is there something amazing in her past that qualified her for the visa–something not yet known to everyone?
Then there are her parents, which seems more obvious. They’re the beneficiaries of what Trump now calls “chain migration.” No doubt about that hypocrisy.
The fact that Trump is making such a big deal about immigration only makes these matters more relevant. I hope it is all made clear.
seriouslee
6 hours ago
Anyone else here convinced she lied on her application? Which, by the way, is grounds for revoking her citizenship.
6 hours ago
Melania earned her visas and ultimate citizenship the same way she earned her miles. The most disgusting slap in the face to American women is this nude model, sexually promiscuous, gold digger, that can barely speak English
5 hours ago
Normally I would say that families of politicians should be off-limits but the Trump family has earned no such consideration. Melania made herself a part of the narrative when she cruelly parotted the birther lies of her husband. She publicly supported the immigration policies of her husband. She boasted she entered the United States “legally” and she publicly defended her husband after multiple women accused him of assault.
As far as I am concerned Melania has invited every but of scorn and derision heaped on her. When you live by the sword you better be prepared to die by the sword. This woman is garbage.
xerxes725
30 minutes ago
I’m sorry but NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT! I have good friends who have been deported or currently live in fear of deportation and this president gained office by playing on hostility towards immigrants both legal and illegal (he has proposed cutting legal immigration, not just deporting illegal immigrants). Even naturalized Americans can be deported years, even decades after gaining citizenship if they made even the slightest inaccurate statement on their original paperwork. So yes, it his highly relevant that this President’s wife is an immigrant and the details of how she obtained her citizenship DO matter. As is the fact that her parents are quietly gaining citizenship through “chain migration” while Trump and his party vilify that concept and demonize those who take advantage of it. If Trump and the repubs hadn’t gained power by playing to xenophobia and hostility towards immigrants both legal and illegal your point might be valid, but considering their history all that flies out the window. We absolutely are allowed to point out the hypocrisy! Do not tell me I can’t!
astute guy
51 minutes ago
Melania and trump are lucky that Stephen Miller (or John Kelly) wasn’t the Immigration Czar then.
1 hour ago
The strategy of shrugging off criticism by declaring honest inquiry to be a violation of privacy, works a lot better for Trump than I think it should.
sb01
1 hour ago
And an overaged model at that. I worked at the Ford Agency in the 60s and we never took on a new girl over 16. It was amusing telling 17 year olds that they were too OLD.
8 hours ago
How in the world does appearing nude on a fur rug, or in a string bikini qualify as “extrordinary ability”? Who was government employee who signed off on this?
8 hours ago
A mysteriously now wealthy ex-government employee.
7 hours ago
Or one who thought they had slipped this one “under the rug” but are sweating the WaPo scrutiny. Betting dollars to donuts the original paperwork/application has gone missing, was improperly scanned for archiving or otherwise will never be found.
Loans to Kushner business followed meetings at White House: NYT
Jesse Drucker, business and taxes reporter for The New York Times, talks with Rachel Maddow about new reporting that companies loaned hundreds of millions of dollars to the Kushner family business after meeting with Kushner at the White House.
Feb.28.2018
ICYMI:
The KKKeebler Elf poked Dolt45 in the eye by having dinner with Rosenstein and the Solicitor General in public, so that he could be seen.
https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/969230653299576832
ICYMI:
It was revealed last night that Kushner received two loans from folks that he had meeting in the White House:
$ 184 million from the Apollo Fund – triple the size of their usual loan
$ 300 million from Citigroup
Uh huh
Uh huh
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/969047123172917259
https://twitter.com/RawStory/status/969229021249703936
https://twitter.com/keithboykin/status/969216250055397376
https://twitter.com/samswey/status/969200080606638080
https://twitter.com/samswey/status/969166559779409920
Slavery, Jim Crow, White Supremacy and consequent colonization – physical and psychological, still influences every single last thing..
Including how black people are treated generally, and how they treat each other…and how they see themselves and others..
The Black Panther box office success and now routine cries of Wakanda are all well and good..
But there’s so much more work to be done beyond the superficial and the patronizing and the humoring, to actually overcome … to permanently undo and reverse the grievous damage done to the psyche of black folks in a largely dehumanizing world that mostly tolerates and still prefers its ‘black’ people preferably ‘mixed’, and treats black people as unequal, subhuman, inferior, unappealing, undesirable .. and has even subconsciously conditioned black people to see each other mostly as such.. except when there’s a non-black parent in the mix, or a billion or more dollars in the pockets of a massa-vetted and selected non-threatening token black – enabled and permitted by massa, that buys one a slight edge…
One of my biggest fears in these times ..especially as I see black children routinely wheeled out as props in photo-ops for this most treasonous crowd of white supremacist shysters currently holed up in and holding the People’s House hostage, is that 8+ years of starting to build and consistently reinforcing self-worth in black kids – and even adults, may all quickly be eroded…
I fear that our children may be bamboozled and soon impressed with the concept of the faux-strongman with faux-billions – no matter how immoral, ignorant, dishonorable, hollow, corrupt – as strong, impressive and aspirational … and the uneducated, hollow, vapid, lazy, promiscuous, immoral, plastic, surgically-enhanced, oversized silicone implants, designer-clad, gold-digging counterfeit of something, as the standard, and aspirational ‘classy’, ‘beautiful’, ‘lady’..
https://twitter.com/keatingthomas/status/968910864265826304
But Maggie Haberman reported Hope Hicks resignation had nothing to do with the hearing….🙄
https://twitter.com/Emolclause/status/969003201751076864
https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/969212987046232064
https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/969187471601950720
https://twitter.com/CNN/status/969193922621788160
DISTRACTION to cover for#45
https://twitter.com/chadwickboseman/status/969171356783955968
https://twitter.com/FallonTonight/status/969071212197396480
Maggie Haberman covering for Hope Hicks!
https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/968966712258453506
https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/968981878773600257
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/969043916489134080
https://twitter.com/MalcolmNance/status/968971250591727621
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Good Morning, Everyone.
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