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#Post#: 13571--------------------------------------------------
Ivanka Trump
By: guest6 Date: December 23, 2016, 2:07 pm
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HTML http://m.tmz.com/#article/2016/12/22/ivanka-trump-flight/
There's no excuse for this. What in the world is wrong with
people? He should have acted like a reasonable and responsible
adult and kept his "opinion" to himself.
Ivanka Trump harassed by passenger
Ivanka Trump just had a bumpy start to her Xmas holiday ... an
out-of-control passenger on her flight began verbally berating
her
and "jeering" at her 3 kids.
Ivanka was on a JetBlue flight leaving JFK Thursday morning with
her family when a passenger started screaming, "Your father is
ruining the country." The guy went on, "Why is she on our
flight? She should be flying private." The guy had his kid in
his arms as he went on the tirade.
A passenger on the flight tells TMZ Ivanka ignored the guy and
tried distracting her kids with crayons.
JetBlue personnel escorted the unruly passenger off the flight.
As he was removed he screamed, "You're kicking me off for
expressing my opinion?!!"
#Post#: 13572--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ivanka Trump
By: Kerry Date: December 23, 2016, 2:18 pm
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I agree. The guy was some kind of nut.
I think too that Donald Trump should have realized that this
kind of thing could happen if he got his children involved in
politics. He doesn't seem to think ahead very much. There
are nuts out there.
#Post#: 13573--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ivanka Trump
By: guest6 Date: December 23, 2016, 2:24 pm
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IVANKA TRUMP TRADES JETBLUE FOR PRIVATE JET
Ivanka Trump just landed in San Francisco and this time around
there will be no crazy passengers harassing her ... because
she's upgraded to a private jet.
HTML http://m.tmz.com/#article/2016/12/22/ivanka-trump-jetblue-private-jet/
#Post#: 13574--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ivanka Trump
By: guest6 Date: December 23, 2016, 2:28 pm
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[quote author=Kerry link=topic=1146.msg13572#msg13572
date=1482524305]
I agree. The guy was some kind of nut.
I think too that Donald Trump should have realized that this
kind of thing could happen if he got his children involved in
politics. He doesn't seem to think ahead very much. There
are nuts out there.
[/quote]
They're going to have to take some special precautions for sure.
Because this sort of thing is going to keep happening, sadly.
#Post#: 13575--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ivanka Trump
By: paralambano Date: December 23, 2016, 2:37 pm
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I'm hoping that the flight attendants were modeling proper form
with a smile and a "buh-bye" for him as he exited the aircraft.
para . . . .
#Post#: 14491--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ivanka Trump
By: Kerry Date: April 5, 2017, 3:18 pm
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The SNL video called "Complicit" has been at You Tube for a
while. I saw it but didn't post it; but now there's news about
it. First, here's the SNL video.
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7o4oMKbStE
She was asked about it by CBS. She said she doesn't know what
being complicit means. Seriously! I want to hide my head in
shame at the thought she went to the same university I did. I
can assure you that if someone did a video about me and the
title was a word I didn't understand, I'd be looking it up.
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw0xln927lc
You know, a month or two ago, I might have agreed with her. Now
I think she and her husband Jared are enabling Donald Trump. I
probably should have figured this out back when she was asked
about his entering the dressing room of contestants which had
several very young girls and according to reports all she had
to say was, "Yeah, he does that."
#Post#: 14494--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ivanka Trump
By: paralambano Date: April 5, 2017, 3:32 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Kerry -
The videos you gave are unavailable in Canada. In any case, I
had seen a portion of the interview at home this morning on the
news. If it is indeed the entire portion, then I'm thinking that
she's sort of redefining the word complicit by using it in the
manner someone might if called crazy. Crazy? Ya, I'm crazy.
Crazy like a fox. I think she might have been saying that if
complicit means doing good, then so be it. I'm giving her the
benefit of doubt here. If she did ask the interviewer what the
word meant, then I retract what I've written here.
para . . . .
#Post#: 14495--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ivanka Trump
By: Kerry Date: April 5, 2017, 5:57 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=paralambano link=topic=1146.msg14494#msg14494
date=1491424364]
Kerry -
The videos you gave are unavailable in Canada. In any case, I
had seen a portion of the interview at home this morning on the
news. If it is indeed the entire portion, then I'm thinking that
she's sort of redefining the word complicit by using it in the
manner someone might if called crazy. Crazy? Ya, I'm crazy.
Crazy like a fox. I think she might have been saying that if
complicit means doing good, then so be it. I'm giving her the
benefit of doubt here. If she did ask the interviewer what the
word meant, then I retract what I've written here.
para . . . .
[/quote]I'll give the quote from CBS
HTML http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ivanka-trump-interview-what-it-means-to-be-complicit/:<br
/>
“If being complicit is wanting to, is wanting to be a force for
good and to make a positive impact then I’m complicit. I don’t
know that the critics who may say that of me, if they found
themselves in this very unique and unprecedented situation that
I am now in, would do any differently than I am doing,” Trump
said. “So I hope to make a positive impact. I don’t know what it
means to be complicit, but you know, I hope time will prove that
I have done a good job and much more importantly that my
father’s administration is the success that I know it will be.”
Then we had this too which leads me to believe she's naive and
could being set herself up for a big fall:
Trump also addressed criticism about the qualifications of
Kushner, who is playing a key role in foreign affairs and
running the White House Office of American Innovation, but has
had little experience in diplomacy.
“So, you know a lot of people would say the same about how could
somebody successfully win the presidency who had never been
engaged in politics and my father did that and Jared was
instrumental in helping his campaign succeed,” Trump said. “So,
you know Jared is incredibly smart, very talented, has enormous
capacity. He is humble in the recognition of what he doesn’t
know. And is tremendously secure in his ability to seek informed
viewpoints. He has an amazing team that my father has built at
the White House, and that he’s built that’s helping work on each
of these initiatives. So you know the myth that he is operating
in a silo is just that.”
Judging from the disastrous real estate deal Jared got into and
how that worked out, I certainly hope he learned something about
the perils of taking on too much debt. He seems to be like
Donald and Ivanka, very optimistic but also very naive at times.
He took on way too much debt when buying the property at 666
Fifth Avenue at a record price that made news, was overly
optimistic about how many tenants would be renting space and
about how much demand for that kind of real estate would
continue in New York City. The Chinese investment company which
was going to pull his chestnuts out of the fire has backed out.
Set the ethics aside momentarily; just look at the money.
March 22, 2017 --
HTML https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-22/kushners-troubled-tower-debt-empty-offices-and-rising-fees
By 2010, the building was 78 percent occupied and was earning
little more than one-third of what its lenders had anticipated.
After debt payments, it had a $35 million loss. The next year
brought a reprieve: Steven Roth’s Vornado Realty Trust swooped
in to become a 49.5 percent equity partner in the tower, and the
debt was refinanced -- providing temporarily lower interest
rates and segmenting a portion of the loans into the “hope
note,” with an understanding that it may never be repaid. The
note is now held widely by investors in bundles of debt
securities.
For a while, the arrangement worked. Debt payments dropped in
2012 and the property made money. But the break was short-lived.
Citibank, whose logo adorned the building and which occupied
one-fourth of its 1.45 million square feet of office space, was
leaving. Still, Kushner Cos.’ new partner took the exit in
stride, noting that Citi owed them rent until its lease was up
in 2014 -- plenty of time to find new tenants for the 41-story
tower.
“When we came into this asset some two years ago, it had been
off the radar for years, because of its broken capital
structure,” David Greenbaum, a Vornado president for New York,
said in a call with investors in November 2013. “We came in and
recapitalized this building and have since successfully leased
200,000 square feet, and are in current negotiations for an
additional 50,000 feet. Taking account of the Citibank space
which will be coming back to us in August of next year, we have
about 330,000 square feet to go.”
Kushner Cos.’ current situation -- with rising debt costs that
eclipse 666 Fifth’s income -- now looks familiar, and it’s once
again casting about for a savior. A spokesman for Vornado
declined to comment.
And the Chinese investment company said no, thanks. March 29,
2017
HTML https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-03-29/senators-please-ask-jared-kushner-about-666-fifth-avenue
The background: Anbang, an insurer and prolific deal-maker close
to China's government, had considered investing $4 billion in
666 Fifth Avenue. Kushner had overpaid for the building in 2007,
when he bought it with the help of bank loans for $1.8 billion.
The financial crisis ensued, occupancy rates plummeted and
Kushner had to be rescued by outside investors to keep the
troubled building afloat. Anbang's investment would have valued
the building at a handsome $2.85 billion, and also refinanced
about $1.15 billion in debt.
The possibility of a transaction brought scrutiny from two
Bloomberg news reporters, Caleb Melby and David Kocieniewski, as
well as from Congress and the New York Times. I discussed it in
a column here two weeks ago. And for good reason: Kushner is a
senior White House adviser who has Trump's ear on foreign
policy. The math of Trump's 36-year-old son-in-law being saved
from a reckless investment by China presented all sorts of
conflicts of interest and the potential for disastrous policy
moves by the White House.
So Anbang is now gone and all has been made right? Well, no.
Kushner's family still owns a building that needs a financial
lifeline, so 666 Fifth Avenue presents something that Congress
may want to examine more closely when Jared Kushner meets with
the Senate Intelligence Committee as part of an inquiry into
possible collusion between Trump's campaign team and Russia
during the 2016 presidential election.
For me, this kind of thinking mirrors Trump's comment about debt
being good, how he loved debt -- and his plan to spend loads of
money on some things which strike me as unnecessary while
cutting taxes on corporations and the rich. It doesn't add up.
I believe in being optimistic but I also believe in being
sensible and practical. Does this family think they can rack up
personal debt and the national debt and count on the Chinese to
finance it?
I also find it a little suspicious that while this deal with
Anbang was being talked about, Kushner was busy setting up the
meeting between Presidents Trump and Xi. One can't prove a
quid pro quo, but it smells.
You often hear conflicting things. I try to use psychology to
guess which is true; so when I heard staff at the White House
were passing around a satirical piece at the Onion about Kushner
and laughing, I tend to believe it since I know people often
resent it when they have a boss who shows favoritism to family
members.
HTML http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/jared-kushner-white-house-influence-236758
But Kushner's status as the big-issue guru has stoked resentment
among his colleagues, who question whether Kushner is capable of
following through on his various commitments. And some
colleagues complain that his dabbling in myriad issues and his
tendency to walk in and out of meetings have complicated efforts
to instill more order and organization into the chaotic
administration. These people also say Kushner can be a shrewd
self promoter, knowing how to take credit — and shirk blame —
whenever it suits him.
“He's saving the government and the Middle East at the same
time,” one senior administration official quipped.
In addition to being arguably the president’s most trusted and
influential adviser, Kushner also serves as Trump’s unofficial
hatchet man. And all eyes are on Kushner as White House insiders
predict a broader staff shakeup amid rising tensions between
Kushner and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.
And then the part about the Onion:
The creation of the office added to a perception around the
White House that Kushner’s portfolio is almost impossibly
ambitious, and that he prefers big-picture discussions to the
sometimes mundane and detail-oriented work involved in carrying
out policy changes.
On Wednesday, White House staffers and outside allies passed
around a story from the parody website The Onion indicating that
Kushner had “quietly moved the task ‘solve Middle East crisis’
to his to-do list for next week” because “there was simply too
much on his plate right now to bring stability to the fractious
region by end of day Friday.” Kushner did not see the piece, a
person close to him said.
From the Onion itself ---
HTML http://www.theonion.com/article/jared-kushner-quietly-transfers-solve-middle-east--55639
WASHINGTON—Admitting there was simply too much on his plate
right now to bring stability to the fractious region by end of
day Friday, Senior Advisor to the President Jared Kushner
quietly moved the task “solve Middle East crisis” to his to-do
list for next week, sources reported Tuesday. “Ushering in
lasting peace across the Mideast is definitely still a big
priority for me, but given everything else I’ve got going on
right now, I’m just going to need to bump it to next week when I
have a little more time on my hands,” Kushner reportedly said as
he crossed out the task on his pocket day planner and rewrote it
on the following page, acknowledging that he was just “too
swamped” at the moment with policy reports and real estate
development meetings to resolve the numerous wars, land
disputes, and centuries-old ethnic and religious tensions that
have long raged among the 350 million residents of the
geopolitical hotspot. “I was really hoping to at least knock out
the Arab-Israeli conflict before the weekend, but this week’s
kind of gotten out of hand. It’ll be fine, though—I’ll just
carve out an hour or two next week, hunker down in my office,
and sort it all out then. If I can push back a couple business
calls, I can definitely get this whole Middle East situation
ironed out by Wednesday—Thursday at the latest.” At press time,
Kushner reportedly pushed “solve Middle East crisis” back an
additional 30 minutes after deciding it would be better to get
“fix America’s opioid epidemic” out of the way first.
Let's be serious. I don't think a rational person could
seriously expect Kushner to fix all these things. How could he?
It must be for PR or a way of giving Kushner status while
claiming something is being attempted. So why would Kushner
accept all these responsibilities? It doesn't make sense to me.
I find it hard to believe Donald is setting Kushner up to fail
and equally hard to think Kushner is taking on more than he
thinks he can do. I can only chalk it up to reckless naivete;
and I attribute the same reckless naivete to Ivanka. Her
father has been making serious missteps, and so far I see
absolutely nothing being done to get him to change course. He's
still floundering, insulting people one day and then saying he
wants to work with them the next. First he insulted the
Democrats about the failed health care bill, then he said maybe
they could work together. Next he and Bannon lambasted the
Freedom Caucus and threatened to campaign against them next
election; and the latest is that he's trying to work with them
while by-passing Speaker Ryan. This is someone who's grasping
at straws, uncertain whom to trust -- striking out blindly in
anger and then altering course trying to cozy up to them. He's
eroding trust in his fellow Republicans. And if Ivanka really
wanted to be helpful, I'd think she would tell him to chill --
and stop attacking people when things don't go the way he
wants.
He doesn't seem to have one sensible political advisor, not if
he threw a fit and threatened to challenge Republicans in the
next primary. I ran the election numbers myself. Almost all
those Congressmen won in their districts by bigger margins than
Trump did. They're more popular in their districts than Trump
is. And doesn't anyone remember what Reagan said about never
attacking your fellow Republicans? I guess not. Roosevelt
tried it when some Democrats weren't as "progressive" as he
wanted and didn't vote the way he wanted. He went out and
campaigned against them. The Democrats lost seats that
election. There's an interesting story about two Democratic
Senators -- this article also has some of the details about how
Roosevelt tried to get rid of his fellow Democrats and failed.
HTML http://knoxfocus.com/2017/03/tennessee-american-neutrality-iii/
Senator Walter F. George beat two opponents and Roosevelt’s
preferred candidate ran last. Senator Millard Tydings crushed
Congressman Davey Lewis who had the all-out backing of the
Roosevelt administration. Cotton Ed Smith beat the sitting
governor to win the Democratic nomination, winning by a wide
margin. The purge had been an abject failure and as if that were
that not bad enough, the Republicans won seventy-two seats in
the House of Representatives from the Democrats and seven in the
Senate. A congressional coalition of Republicans and
conservative Democrats faced President Roosevelt in 1939. A
story oftentimes attributed to either Cotton Ed Smith or Walter
George, which may well be apocryphal, had one senator lamenting
FDR was his own worst enemy. George or Cotton Ed Smith,
depending on the story, was supposed to have snarled, “Not while
I am alive, he isn’t!” It summarized the challenge faced by
President Roosevelt and his administration.
You really can't run a government the way you run a family
business. Yet that is what it looks as if Donald Trump is
trying to do; and it's one of Kushner's job assignments too.
HTML http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/03/27/kushner-to-lead-new-wh-office-focused-on-using-business-ideas-to-fix-govt-bureaucracy.html
“We should have excellence in government,” Kushner said. “The
government should be run like a great American company. Our hope
is that we can achieve successes and efficiencies for our
customers, who are the citizens.”
I really object to the idea of trying to run the government like
a business. The purpose in business is to increase your income
and the size of your company while controlling expenses. I do
now want a government that keeps wanting more money and keeps
growing. I also hated it when Bill Clinton said that's what he
was going to do, and he then had the government start to charge
people for every little thing. Bureaucracy became motivated by
trying to make money, not to serve the people.
I have reservations that Kushner knows how to run a business.
The facts don't seem to bear that idea out. The family strikes
me as hopelessly naive.
#Post#: 14500--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ivanka Trump
By: paralambano Date: April 6, 2017, 11:06 am
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Kerry -
I still find it hard to believe that Ivanka wouldn't know what
complicit means. Again, by benefit of doubt, I think she might
have been asking the interviewer indirectly to say how she's
complicit. She appears to know what conflate means in the
interview.
Naive she might be. Winning an election by populist vote is not
the same as governing. Being a good person with good intentions
does not necessarily make one successful politically. It appears
to me so far to be fish out of water time. Politics too can be
an art and some remain journeymen and less. This is too high an
office to be the latter.
Kushner/Trump reminds me of Kennedy's meeting with Kruschev,
defender of Stalingrad. Kennedy reportedly came out of it white
as a ghost, his head spinning.
para . . . .
#Post#: 14504--------------------------------------------------
Re: Ivanka Trump
By: Kerry Date: April 7, 2017, 1:59 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=paralambano link=topic=1146.msg14500#msg14500
date=1491494781]
Kerry -
I still find it hard to believe that Ivanka wouldn't know what
complicit means. Again, by benefit of doubt, I think she might
have been asking the interviewer indirectly to say how she's
complicit. She appears to know what conflate means in the
interview.[/quote]After thinking about it a little more, I came
up with another explanation. She may know what the words means
to her and that could be the standard dictionary definition too.
She may have meant she didn't know what it meant when other
people were using it.
Have you noticed that Ivanka has a way of being mostly
non-controversial? She does that deliberately, and I commend
it her for it; but that comes at the price of being unclear at
times. And that's fine too if being too clear would stir up
pointless controversy or anger. So I can read her to mean, "I
know I'm intending to do good, so when people talk about me
being complicit as if I am doing something wrong by aiding and
abetting my father, I don't know how they're using the word and
maybe they don't know what the word means." It's easier for
some people to say I don't know instead of I don't think they
know. Add to this the slight unease she seems to exhibit during
the interview. Sometimes when you know people are hanging on
your every word, it can make you nervous and more apt to be
unclear.
[quote]Naive she might be. Winning an election by populist vote
is not the same as governing. Being a good person with good
intentions does not necessarily make one successful politically.
It appears to me so far to be fish out of water time. Politics
too can be an art and some remain journeymen and less. This is
too high an office to be the latter.[/quote]
And then perhaps she's not naive. I have to admit I could be
wrong. Her goal might to be clean up the White House of
unhelpful and negative influences. The same could hold true for
Kushner. There have been hints that this might be the case. It
would not surprise me if Bannon and Priebus depart shortly.
Here is something I am fairly sure about: That Ivanka and
Kushner actually care about Donald. My impression of Bannon and
Priebus is that they're opportunists, able to put on an act of
loyalty if that's what it takes. Both of them have created
strife inside the White House, angling to get their people jobs
in order to maximize their clout. This is not good, not good
at all, since it shows they're concerned about their own power
and not about how to make sure the power that belongs rightfully
to Trump gets used to maximum advantage in a rational way.
Trump himself is prone to setting pointless squabbles; and
Ivanka and Kushner probably know this, but they also probably
know having more trouble makers around is a recipe for disaster
that makes Donald look bad and ineffective. The rumors are
there that Kushner is not getting along that well with Bannon
who according to one rumor was so angry about something he
wanted to quit but stayed on only because Rebekah Mercer urged
him to stay.
HTML http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/bannon-resign-mercer-trump-236939
Five people, including a senior administration official and
several sources close to the president, tell POLITICO that Steve
Bannon, one of Trump’s closest advisers, has clashed with the
president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who’s taken on an
increasingly prominent portfolio in the West Wing. Bannon has
complained that Kushner and his allies are trying to undermine
his populist approach, the sources said.
Republican megadonor Rebekah Mercer, a longtime Bannon
confidante who became a prominent Trump supporter during the
campaign, urged Bannon not to resign. “Rebekah Mercer prevailed
upon him to stay,” said one person familiar with the situation.
Another person familiar with the situation, a GOP operative who
talks to Mercer, said: “Bekah tried to convince him that this is
a long-term play.”
Do you remember hearing that Trump signed the paper putting
Bannon on the NSC without knowing what he was signing? I can
see that happening. If you trust someone, you might do that.
It might also rub you the wrong way later when you find out what
happened; so maybe Donald was slightly irked by that. It may
have irritated both Kushner and Ivanka more who could have seen
Bannon as shamelessly trying to seize power by deception.
Then you have other conflicts. How far does a President go to
please a big donor? "Not too far," seems to be Ivanka and
Kushner's answer. If that is their answer, I agree.
“You have these New York interlocutors who are just not
political and who want to think that they’re above the way
Washington thinks, but if anybody is allied on delivering on
things that Trump ran on, it’s Bannon and Reince and the vice
president,” said the Republican who has spoken to Bannon
recently.
Kushner has also told people that he thinks Mercer and her
father, the hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer — who poured
$13 million into a super PAC that supported Ted Cruz’s campaign
in the Republican primary and came around to Trump after he won
the nomination — have taken too much credit for their role in
Trump's victory, and he has expressed misgivings about their
go-it-alone approach to outside spending boosting Trump’s
agenda.
“If Bannon leaves the White House, Bekah’s access and influence
shrinks dramatically,” said the GOP operative who talks to
Mercer.
Even if this is just a rumor, I can't see Bannon remaining too
much longer. I think it is probably true though. I can
interpret that interview with Ivanka that way. I think it was
Bannon who went ballistic first with the Freedom Caucus,
threatening them. Not sure about that but my guess is he got
angry first, blaming them and then Donald followed suit and
thought it would be smart to express anger about them in public.
If I were either Ivanka or Kushner, I'd be livid with Bannon
over that but wouldn't say so in public and probably would calm
down before talking to Donald about it. You don't hear either
of them on the news bad-mouthing people and stirring up trouble;
and that suggests to me, they know it's not wise to make enemies
when you don't need to. I believe too that their advice to
Donald would be more calming than Bannon's or Priebus'. I read
once that Kushner is one of the people who can talk to him when
he's upset and calm him down -- and can say things to him that
he needs to know without upsetting him.
Donald also once said something about Ivanka was struck me as
significant -- that she always tried to get him to do the right
thing -- and he liked that about her. That surely meant she
doesn't always agree with everything in private and opposes some
things using moral arguments about right and wrong rather than
political ones. The fact that he said that also told me he had
a conscience and was glad she appealed to it. So maybe she's
not as naive as I thought.
There was also a subtle shift in Trump's position when he talked
about Syria. He ended by saying, "God bless America and the
whole world." There was a shift too away from the campaign
mode isolationism or nationalism with concern shown for the
lives of people of other nations.
He also mentioned praying for wisdom. That could mean he
doesn't really trust the politicized religious leaders that much
if he wants wisdom from God. It suggests to me he was feeling
the weight of the office and couldn't call up religious leaders
to get answers from God through them. Surely Ivanka and
Kushner don't take some of the religious leaders who backed
him any more seriously than I do.
Bannon, Priebus and Ivanka were there with him when he gave his
remarks; and I think I'd put my money on it being Ivanka who
brought him around to expressing compassion for people in other
countries because they were people. I don't have all the
facts so can't judge the situation itself; but I can say
expressing compassion for others is right and his motive is
right even if the action itself may turn out to have been
misguided.
[quote]Kushner/Trump reminds me of Kennedy's meeting with
Kruschev, defender of Stalingrad. Kennedy reportedly came out of
it white as a ghost, his head spinning.[/quote]I may be a little
dull. How so?
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