Are you better off now than you were four years ago? Chris Hayes says the Biden campaign should embrace that argument because “it is nearly impossible to say that we were better off with Donald Trump as president in 2020.”
This is nuts! What a pandering liar. No one who ever went to a public school thinks that kids walked the halls and sat in classes armed. What crazy hillbilly fever dream is this. Think of the hormones of kids raging, fights happening all the time, now add guns. Oh yes it would be like it is today with angry upset kids having too much access to guns. Hugs. Scottie
'The media doesn't want to talk a lot about that because it doesn't fit their narrative.'@RonDeSantis says Iowa school shooter was 'hopped up on gender ideology'
This is profit. Yet Republican James Comer claims that Biden getting a loan repaid by his brother and his son when he was not in office is corruption. He mocked the reporting of tRump doing what they are trying to impeach Pres. Joe Biden for, which again Biden did not gain any profit. The republicans are so full of bull. They want to do to Biden what they did to Clinton with the Benghazi hearings. They held 9 hearings, were going to hold a 10th, even after the first 9 found no wrong doing or crime by Clinton. But the constant accusations on Fox and other right wing media tarnished her for something she did not do and brought her poll numbers down. The republicans are desperate to do that to Biden because their candidates suck. Hugs. Scottie
Arthur Delaney
Updated ·5 min read
Donald Trump’s businesses received nearly $8 million in payments from foreign governments while Trump was president, according to new research by Democrats on Capitol Hill.
Unlike Republicans in their efforts to pin corruption on President Joe Biden, Democrats on the House oversight committee have receipts — more than 400 pages of them — that show payments to Trump’s businesses from foreign officials likely seeking to influence the U.S. government.
Trump refused to divest from his business empire when he became president, creating an opportunity for anyone hoping to win his favor to put money straight into his pocket by staying at his hotels.
“When he arrived in the White House, Trump was determined not only to keep this well-branded global corporate empire going but to seize a new and unprecedented opportunity to make it ever more lucrative for himself and his family,” the oversight committee’s Democratic staff, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), said in their report.
Democrats and nonpartisan ethics experts have long argued that Trump’s refusal to divest violated the U.S. Constitution’s ban on presidents accepting gifts or “emoluments” from kings, princes or foreign states. Trump faced emoluments lawsuits, but the Supreme Court declared the cases moot after he left the White House in January 2021.
Meanwhile, since 2019, Democrats on the House oversight committee have sought records from Trump’s accounting firm reflecting his foreign income. After a federal court awarded access in 2022, Democrats said they’d found records reflecting more than $750,000 in payments from foreign officials at Trump’s hotel in Washington, D.C. Despite a court order requiring more material to be turned over, Republicans quietly shut down document production last year as they launched their quest for dirt on Biden.
Using documents obtained by the court order, plus already-public records, Democrats tallied $7.8 million in foreign payments from 20 countries during Trump’s presidency. Most of the sum came from Chinese sources, including China’s embassy in the U.S. and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, a state-owned enterprise that leased property at Trump Tower in New York. Democrats suggest in their report that the payments from ICBC could have affected the Trump administration’s decision not to sanction the bank for ties to North Korea in 2017.
Democrats stressed Thursday that their report was based on records from only two years of Trump’s time in the White House, and that the $7.8 million is likely an undercount of the full money Trump received from foreign governments.
“What we have is essentially the tip of the iceberg,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) told reporters. “So this $7.8 million is just a small window ― obviously a significant amount of money, but a small window ― into what is likely a fairly large sum of money and gifts.”
Though Democrats presented their report as a continuation of their investigation into Trump’s violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause, it’s clearly intended as a rebuke of the impeachment inquiry against Biden. The House of Representatives could hold an impeachment vote sometime in the coming months.
Republicans have accused Biden of improperly benefiting from his son Hunter Biden’s business deals, through which the younger Biden received millions of dollars from foreign nationals in China and Ukraine during and after Joe Biden’s time as vice president. Republicans have said Joe Biden may have accepted foreign bribes through his son’s work.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) speaks to journalists on the steps of the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 13.
The only problem with the allegations is that there’s not much proof. Republicans have sifted through years of Hunter Biden’s bank records without finding any significant cash flows to the president ― except for four $1,380 transfers that were apparently reimbursements for truck payments the president made on his son’s behalf in 2018. House oversight committee chair James Comer (R-Ky.) has nevertheless said that because Hunter Biden’s money came from foreign sources, the payments to his father were tainted, even if they were loan reimbursements.
As HuffPost has previously reported, the foreign payments that went directly to businesses controlled by Trump himself might be better examples of the kind of corruption Republicans are talking about.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a leader of the impeachment inquiry against Biden and one of the former president’s top defenders in Congress, deflected a question last year about Trump’s conflict of interest by pointing out that the former president donated his pay back to the government.
“President Trump didn’t take a salary,” Jordan said. “President Trump did so many good things for the country, did more of what he said he would do as president than any president, certainly in my lifetime.”
Raskin on Thursday ridiculed the no-salary argument.
“You don’t get to choose to refuse your salary and then take money from foreign governments instead,” he said. “The founders were emphatic that the president of the United States be someone who gets his money not from foreign governments, but rather from Americans.”
As for the impeachment inquiry against Biden, Raskin called it a hopeless wild goose chase.
“They found nothing, and look what we’ve been able to determine when we finally were able to extract just two years of information,” Raskin said.
Using documents from the Mazars settlement, Democrats tally $7.8 million Trump's business received from foreign governments while he was president https://t.co/8EOqw0RGHD
Donald Trump’s businesses during his presidency received at least $7.8 million in payments from the foreign governments and officials of 20 countries, according to a report released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. https://t.co/VqLafn1JOS
Donald Trump’s businesses received at least $7.8 million from 20 foreign governments during his presidency, according to a new report released by House Democrats.
Of course Stinky has received buttloads of cash from foreign governments, while president. Hell, the goddam Saudis were perpetually renting out 2 floors of Trump’s DC hotel, despite no one staying there most of the time.
This is why Trump likely assumed that Biden also received boatloads of foreign cash, because he has, OR he’s following Goebbels’ protocols.
Or when he’s accused of quoting Hitler, unwittingly reveals that he’s familiar enough with Hitler’s speeches to claim that he has used somewhat different phrasing. He’s ever the dangerous imbecile.
Watch the MEDIA let this SLIDE like ALL his other OUTRAGES! Never a WORD of media complaint or warning about his relentless FASCIST rhetoric, even about his stochastic terrorism!
Every DAY we heard about Hillary’s emails in 2016! WHEN do we hear about the REAL danger posed to the national security by the over 100 documents dealing with nuclear secrets that Trump held on to ILLEGALLY after he left office?! MEDIA, WHERE ARE YOU?!
Wow another song I never heard and yet really like. Great message in this one. Hugs. Scottie
The song “Dixie” was the composed by Daniel Decatur Emmett and acted as an unofficial anthem for the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. Union Dixie is a version by the north that mocks the Confederacy, saying that they are “traitors,” overrun by “rattlesnakes and alligators” and asserting that the Union will be victorious, and “each Dixie boy must understand that he must mind his Uncle Sam.” This version is performed by Tennessee Ernie Ford.
First, I was up all night. I got four hours sleep yesterday afternoon, and half an hour this morning. I have put a lot of this on my new big white board for a video I hope to do soon. That said, this video is a great and important watch. It details how the Fox right who claims all pro Nazi stuff is free speech and defends everything tRump spews is good is attacking University students for saying apartheid is bad. Also how they try hard to besmirch higher education and anything saying Israel is doing anything wrong. Again this is from the people who say nothing about tRump having meals with know Nazi white supremacists and never says a bad word about DeathSantis not disavowing the Nazis who support him. Hugs. Scottie
Same sex relationships and male gay brothels were normal until Christianity took hold. Then the bigotry started. Sexual activity was an accepted part of everyday life, until regressive repressive Christians ruined it for everyone. And they are still at it today. Hugs
Welcome back to 🤪Crazy Histories🤪 As long as humanity has existed, there have been physical and romantic relationships between people of the same gender. And like straight people, those of varying sexualities have also looked for release in more promiscuous places. They say the oldest job in the world is prostitution, and these gay brothels that date from antiquity to modern day certainly prove that… #ancienthistory#historydocumentary#homosexual
I like this video because the people learned how to use something already existing to create the power we need to live without using more fossil fuels. I also think there is a lesson here where if the land might someday make you dead with little to no warring, you maybe shouldn’t live there. Oh, and Thanks to Ten Bears for the video. Hugs. Scottie
“Manifest Destiny,” “annexation,” and “settlements” represent different terms with similar meanings: unethical and immoral robbery of other people’s land.
Green Line concrete wall separating Israel and Palestine. Security wall also known as West Bank Barrier.Photo: Shutterstock
On December 23, 2016, the 15-member United Nations Security Council took a highly controversial step by voting 14-0 (Resolution 2334) to condemn Israel’s construction of so-called “settlements” on the occupied West Bank taken after the 1967 War with its Arab neighbors.
The UN Resolution stated that Israeli settlements constitute “a flagrant violation under international law” and said that all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, must “immediately and completely cease.”
We must not use the past to justify surrendering to the supposed impossibilities posed by seemingly irreconcilable and intractable differences.
The United States chose to abstain, but throughout his presidency, Barack Obama had voiced the long-standing official policy of his country by designating Israeli settlements as a major impediment in any hoped-for two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then President-elect Donald Trump, on the other hand, blasted the United Nations’ vote. Trump’s proposed U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, a far-right-wing lawyer, did not support a “two-state solution,” but did support Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the “settlement” program, and Israel’s annexation of the occupied West Bank.
When in office, Trump unilaterally declared that the Golan Heights is a literal part of Israel. Trump’s unilateral movement of the U.S. embassy to the contested city of Jerusalem increased already inflamed tensions. He unilaterally pulled out of the Iranian nuclear deal, and Trump’s obvious support for and collusion with Netanyahu was intended to sway the Israeli election in Netanyahu’s favor.
Though declared illegal under international law, approximately 570,000 Israelis live in the more than 130 so-called “settlements” (a.k.a. stolen land) since the 1967 War. Approximately 475,000 Palestinians live in the West Bank and 230,000 in East Jerusalem.
Many see Israel’s “settlement” policy on the occupied West Bank in the same light as Russia’s illegal incursion into Eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, which likewise threaten political and military stability in the area and further endanger world peace.
Historian Joel Spring refers to this “cultural genocide,” as “the attempt to destroy other cultures” through forced acquiescence and assimilation to majority rule and standards. This cultural genocide works through the process of “deculturalization,” which Spring describes as “the educational process of destroying a people’s culture and replacing it with a new culture.”
An example of “cultural genocide” and “deculturalization” is evident in the case of Christian European American domination over Native Americans, whom European Americans viewed as “uncivilized,” “godless heathens,” “barbarians,” and “devil worshipers.”
White Christian European Americans deculturalized indigenous peoples through many means: confiscation of land, forced relocation, undermining of their languages, cultures, and identities, forced conversion to Christianity, and the establishment of Christian day schools and off-reservation boarding schools far away from their people.
The expansion of the republic and movement west was, in part, justified by overriding philosophical underpinnings since the American Revolution. Called “Manifest Destiny,” it was based on the belief that God intended the United States to extend its holdings and its power across the wide continent of North America over indigenous peoples from East Coast to West. The doctrine of “manifest destiny” embraced a belief in American Anglo-Saxon superiority.
“This continent,” a congressman declared, “was intended by Providence as a vast theatre on which to work out the grand experiment of Republican government, under the auspices of the Anglo-Saxon race.”
A mid-19th century missionary wrote: “As tribes and nationals the Indians must perish and live only as men, [and should] fall in with Christian civilization that is destined to cover the earth.”
Throughout the Alaska territory, Christian missionaries, including Presbyterians, Catholics, and Moravians, vied to win converts. Simultaneously, the United States government issued laws barring Alaskan Indian ceremonies regarded as “pagan” and contrary to the spread of Christianity.
During the early years of the new republic, with its increasing population and desire for land, political leaders like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson advocated that Native American lands should be obtained through treaties and purchases.
President Jefferson, in 1803, wrote a letter to then-Tennessee political leader Andrew Jackson advising him to convince Native Americans to sell their “useless” forests to the U.S. government and become farmers. Jefferson and other government leaders overlooked the fact that this style of individualized farming was contrary to Native American communitarian spiritual and cultural traditions.
Later, however, when he inhabited the White House, Jackson argued that white settlers (a pleasant term for “land thieves”) had a “right” to confiscate Native American land. Though he proposed a combination of treaties and an exchange or trade of land, he maintained that white people had a right to claim any Native American lands that were not under cultivation. Jackson recognized as the only legitimate claims for Native American lands those on which they grew crops or made other “improvements.”
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized President Jackson to confiscate Native American land east of the Mississippi River, “relocate” its former inhabitants, and exchange their former land with territory west of the River. The infamous “Trail of Tears” during Jackson’s presidency attests to the forced evacuation and redeployment of entire Native American nations during which many died of cholera, exposure to the elements, contaminated food, and other environmental hazards.
The Naturalization Act of 1790 excluded Native Americans from citizenship, considering them, paradoxically, as “domestic foreigners.” They were not accorded rights of citizenship until 1924, when Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act, though Asians continued to be denied naturalized citizenship status.
In addition, though Jackson founded the Democratic Party and brought greater popular control to government, as a farmer his wealth increased enormously through his enslavement of Africans, and he gave the lash to any who attempted escape.
I found a definition of “settler” as “a person who settles in an area, typically one with no or few previous inhabitants.” I would add an essential condition that for this person to settle, the area must not have prior claim by others who call it their home.
How could Columbus have discovered what would later be called “the Americas” when people lived on this land for an estimated 12,000 years after coming over the Bering Isthmus during a glacial age when sea levels dropped? How can one “discover” people who have been here so long? Actually, First Nation people discovered Columbus on their land!
We must interrogate (analyze) the concept of “settler,” of “discovery,” of “the New World” as distinguished from “the Old World.”
Say, for example, I own a house, and someone knocks on the door, walks in, pushes me outside, and claims: “I like your house, and I am now settling here. You get going on your way. Goodbye!” And he slammed the door in my face.
“Manifest Destiny,” “annexation,” and “settlements” represent different terms with similar meanings: unethical and immoral muggings and robbery of other people’s land. I fully support the United Nation’s courageous resolution.
Green Line concrete wall separating Israel and Palestine. Security wall also known as West Bank Barrier.Photo: Shutterstock
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