Following up on last week’s incremental update on the Trump Russia Corruption Timeline it appears that there’s even more information coming out about Mar-a-lago member Cindy Li Yang, her links to the Chinese Communist Government and potential foreign campaign finance violations.
Cindy Yang, the South Florida businesswoman whose ties to President Donald Trump and the Chinese government were brought to light after the prostitution-related arrest of Patriots owner Robert Kraft, got a signed picture with the President after potentially engaging in illegal campaign finance practices, The New York Times reported Saturday.
Per the Times, when the Republican National Committee advertised a fundraiser for Trump last March at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Yang was “determined” to raise the $50,000 necessary to get a photo with the President.
With individual contribution limits federally capped at $5,400 per person, Yang had to get several other people to donate, as well. The Times described some of the “at least nine” people in Yang’s “orbit” who ultimately donated:
One of the $5,400 political donations came from a 25-year-old woman who gives facials at a beauty school, in a strip mall in nearby Palm Beach Gardens that is owned by Ms. Yang’s family. Another $5,400 came from a woman who says she worked as a receptionist at a massage parlor owned by Ms. Yang’s husband. A third gift of $5,400 came from an associate of Ms. Yang’s who had been charged in 2014 after a prostitution sting with practicing health care without a license, police records show.
Only one person spoke to the paper about their donation. Receptionist Bingbing Peranio confirmed to the paper that she’d made the donation and that Yang helped her fill out the check.
“I can’t say she was pushing me or not pushing me, but I worked there then,” Peranio told the Times. “I was working there. I didn’t say no.”
So basically she strong armed her business associates and employees into the donation so she could get the photo-op with Trump, and now Dems are asking the FBI and Secret Service “What did you know about Cindy Li Yang?”
Top Intelligence and Judiciary Committee Democrats on Friday wrote to the FBI, Secret Service and Director of National Intelligence asking them to investigate Cindy Yang, the south Florida businesswoman whose advertisements of her access to President Donald Trump came to light after Patriots owner Robert Kraft was arrested for allegedly soliciting prostitution in a spa she founded.
In addition to founding a chain of massage parlors “suspected of involvement in prostitution and human trafficking,” the Democrats wrote, Yang reportedly “created a business” — GY US Investments LLC, which TPM has covered — “that may be selling access to the President and members of his family to clients from China.”
“If true, these allegations raise serious counterintelligence concerns,” they added.
Yeah, ya think?
It would be pretty incompetent for FBI and Secret Service to allow a potential Chinese Intelligence Asset repeated direct access the Trump at Mar-A-Lago simply because she managed to coral a bunch of her employees at her husbands massage parlor to pay her way into close proximity with Trump, while she also has a business the sells access to Trump to Chinese Business leaders.
On top of that we have the new book by Vicky Ward about the Kushner’s which indicates that they’re just as entitled, incompetent, monstrously clueless, mendacious and vindictive as Trump is and their “we’re the moderates act” is just that, an act.
According to Ward, these two callow scions have no doubts about their abilities. She writes of Ivanka that “her father’s reign in Washington, D.C., is, she believes, the beginning of a great American dynasty.” Ivanka herself apparently told former White House economic adviser Gary Cohn that she expected to be president someday. (As I recall, it was reported at one time that she and Jared had chattered among friends about which one would be president first.) Did I mention they are arrogant?Ward makes it clear that the image of “Javanka” being moderating influences in the administration is nothing more than hype. We’ve known from the beginning that the two are quite adept at playing the media but it appears that in reality they don’t just fail to moderate Donald Trump, they don’t believe they have to. Perhaps the most widely shared anecdote in the book happened after the president’s ghastly remarks about the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville. Her response to Cohn’s concerns was to say, “My dad’s not a racist; he didn’t mean any of it. That’s not what he said.”
Ward makes it clear that the image of “Javanka” being moderating influences in the administration is nothing more than hype. We’ve known from the beginning that the two are quite adept at playing the media but it appears that in reality they don’t just fail to moderate Donald Trump, they don’t believe they have to. Perhaps the most widely shared anecdote in the book happened after the president’s ghastly remarks about the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville. Her response to Cohn’s concerns was to say, “My dad’s not a racist; he didn’t mean any of it. That’s not what he said.”
[...]
Even while serving in the White House, Kushner had no compunction about meeting with Chinese bankers and representatives for the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar to secure a loan for a white elephant building that was about to bankrupt his family business. The book describes former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson telling Kushner that his advice to the president to endorse Saudi Arabia’s aggressive diplomatic and strategic campaign against Qatar, an important American ally, “had endangered the US.” There is no evidence that Kushner cared. He got his loan
Basically Kushner supported a bogus international incident between the Saudis, UAE and Qatar which was based on faked emails from Russian Hackers which said Qatar was supportive of Isis in order to extort a $Billion loan for his family's failing property at 666 Park Ave - and it worked!
Yeah, I mean if Russian Hackers had only ever gone way out of their way to generate false PR in order to help Trump I'm sure we all would be completely up in arms about it.
Anywho...
This kind of incompetence isn't just limited to the Kushners and Trump himself. Apparently, many of his agencies have been trying to implement policies without thinking them through, without even the minimum legal reasoning and have been getting thin white hineys handed to them repeatedly in court challenges.
According to a report at the Washington Post, the administration of Donald Trump has a stunning fail rate when it comes to getting his policies implemented without federal judges smacking them down because they don’t meet minimums of legal reasoning.
Reporting on a database compiled by the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law, the Post reports that “the normal ‘win rate’ for administration officials to get new policies implemented with court approval is 70 percent. Under Trump, it has fallen to an almost non-existent 6 percent.
The report notes that administration lawyers are being hamstrung by having to present cases handed to them by policymakers that are woefully short on both facts and reasoning.
“In case after case, judges have rebuked Trump officials for failing to follow the most basic rules of governance, including providing legitimate explanations for shifts in policy, supported by facts and, where required, public input,” the Post reports, adding, “The rulings so far paint a remarkable portrait of a government rushing to implement sweeping changes in policy without regard for longstanding rules against arbitrary and capricious behavior.
Meanwhile reports are that White Supremacy exported from the US is on the rise internationally, but Trump remains willfully ignorant and clueless about it.
Despite President Donald Trump’s suggestion that white nationalist terrorism is not a major problem, recent data from the United Nations, University of Chicago and other sources show the opposite.
[...]
In researching our upcoming book on extremism – our joint area of academic expertise – we found that hate crimes have risen alongside the global spread of white nationalism. Racist attacks on refugees, immigrants, Muslims and Jews are increasing worldwide at an alarming rate.
Scholars studying the internationalization of hate crimes call this dangerous phenomenon “violent transnationalism.”
[...]
The United States is diversifying, but it remains 77 percent white. White supremacists, however, have long contended that the country’s demographic changes will lead to an extermination of the white race and culture.
The “alt-right” – an umbrella term describing modern online white supremacist movement – uses the same language. And it has expanded this 20th-century xenophobic worldview to portray refugees, Muslims and progressives as a threat, too.
Alt-right leaders like Richard Spencer, extremist Jared Taylor and the Neo-Nazi Daily Stormer editor Andrew Anglin also use social media to share their ideology and recruit members across borders.
They have found a global audience of white supremacists who, in turn, have also used the internet to share their ideas, encourage violence and broadcast their hate crimes worldwide.
“The hatred that led to violence in Pittsburgh and Charlottesville is finding new adherents around the world,” Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League, a civil liberties watchdog, told USA Today after the New Zealand attack.
So that's all bad, and it’s only going to get worse.
The remainder of this week’s daily events are as follows.
- March 14th —
- Beto O’Rourke announces his bid for 2020.
- Trump trashes the 737 and claims it’s not as good as his plane the 757 (Which he has one personally, and also is the same model as AF1).
- Willian “Rick” Singer who operated the college admissions bribe ring apparently used a fake charity to called Key Worldwide Foundation to collect the funds. [So that means the bribes he was paid were tax deductible.]
- Stuart Varney blames the college admissions scandal on “people who hate Trump.” '[I’m not sure if he means people with money, people who probably know him, or people who value the appearance of an education.]
- NPR reports that Andrew Weissman who led the prosecution of Paul Manafort, will soon be leaving Mueller's team.
- Ted Cruz, Ben Sasse and Lindsay Graham crash Trump’s dinner at the White House to try and offer him a way out of his border emergency declaration, and likely Veto but the WH counsel shuts the idea down. Later WH officials call them “trespassers.”
- Trump continues trying to push the GOP to stay in line on his fake emergency saying that a vote against him is a vote for Nancy Pelosi, Crime and Open Borders.
- AP reports that during a closed door interview with House Judiciary Former FBI Agent Peter Strzok told the committee that “there was no conspiracy to at the FBI" to stop Trump’s election.
- House votes unanimously 420-0 — with 4 GOP members, Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar and Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, voting “present” — to release the Mueller report to the public.
- Former Massage Palor Madam and likely Chinese Intel asset Cindy Li Yang claims she’s been “victimized” for supporting Trump. [No, I think facilitating likely illegal foreign payments in support of his campaign and allowing possible spies to access him might be the problem.]
- Former Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos defamation suit against Trump is approved to move forward by the NY appeals court.
- Trump says the left is “tough”, then says he has the support of Police, Military and Bikers and “if they get tough, it could be very, very bad.” [Which all sounds to everyone conscious like a threat and endorsement for political violence.]
- House Dems block Repub attempts to call for Cohen to be prosecuted - again — for perjury, so they run to AG Bill Barr directly.
- David Urban whines on CNN that it’s “irresponsible to talk of Trump inciting violence.” [Kinda a bit more irresponsible for him to do it.] Cuomo corners Kellyanne Conway over it, and Steve Cortez claims Trump has never said anything to endorse violence while Erin Burnett plays clip after clip after clip of him doing exactly that.
- House Dems are quietly investigating Ivanka Trump and her business dealings.
- The Fake Emergency is voted down in the Senate as 12 GOPers cross the line against it including Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Blunt, Collins, Mike Lee (R-UT), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Rand Paul (R-KY), Rob Portman (R-OH), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Pat Toomey (R-PA), and Roger Wicker (R-MS).
- Trump: VETO! But he doesn't do it right away because he wants to be on camera at the time.
- Mnuchin says he will try to shield Trump's tax returns from Congress.
- Devin Nunez blows a gasket on Fox while demanding that Mueller investigate and prosecute Hillary Clinton for something or the other to do with Russia.
- Lindsay Graham puts a hold on the resolution to release the Mueller report on the condition that Mueller also investigates Hillary Clinton — again, again. [Even though US Attorney John Huber has been already doing that in response to a request by other members of the Senate.]
- Former Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn says Trump refused to believe him when he said there were more jobs in solar than in coal.
- NY AG calls the Trump Charity Foundation a “Wing of his campaign.”
- Non-profit social justice media outlet Unicorn Riot releases leaks of plans by White Supremacist to commit violence including at 2017’s “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville including Slack and DIscord chat messages by members of Identity Evropa.
- March 15th —
- A White Supremacist terrorist gunman in Christchurch New Zealand attacks two mosques killing 49 people. The shooter also posts and 87 page manifesto which praises Donald Trump as a “symbol of white identity” and complains about “white Genocide”, he also posts a live stream of the attack on Facebook as it occurs. A 28-year-old white man is held in custody on murder charges, 2 others are also held.
- House Oversight Chairman Cummings request docs from the Foxnews.com Reporter Diana Falzone who was ordered to kill her story about Stormy Daniels just prior to the election.
- Trump offers his “Warmest Sympathy” is support of the New Zealand Massacre, but doesn't mention “hate” or “terrorism.” Then he re-tweets a link to an anti-Muslim website.
- North Korea blames Pompeo and Bolton for the “mistrust” of their nuclear negotiations, and threatens to end all talks. [Whoops, so much for that Nobel Peace Prize.]
- Trump tweets in support of “Jexodus” which is a so-called movement for Jews to leave the Democratic party, the he suddenly changes his tune on transparency and says “There should be no Mueller report.” [I suspect all the people under indictment and sentenced to prison like Cohen and Manafort might agree, but it’s too late for that.]
- Pompeo promises to pull the travel visas for staff of the International Criminal Court who may be trying to investigator any abuses by U.S. Troops in Aghanistan.
- WaPo reports that Trump’s Inauguration spent $8,000 per guest during a lavish dinner for diplomats.
- The cozy relationship between the FAA and Boeing comes under scrutiny after the crash of two 737 Max 8 planes.
- Rep. Rob Bishop (R-TX) says the “green new deal is tantamount to genocide.” Then he walks it back, kinda.
- Rep Louie Gohmert (R-TX) suggests that the mosque massacre was a “controversy… that should have been settled in court.” [Er, what?]
- Fox News calls the political motives for an attack against Muslim immigrants in New Zealand “Understandable.”
- WH Strategic Coms Director Mercedes Schlapp claims that privately Trump made it “very clear this was an act of terror.” [Yeah, but he didn't say a thing about that in public where any of his base might hear it.]
- Michael Flynn’s former business partner Bijan Kian says that all of his misstatements (lies) have yet to be made public.
- Oleg Deripaska sues the U.S. over sanctions. [Which were mostly dropped against his companies by Mnuchin at Treasury — so WTF?] He argues that he was wrongfully targeted by the Treasury, and that he has lost $7.5 Billion in assets due to the sanctions. [So he wants his money back?]
- Right-wing Australian Senator Faser Anning releases a statement blaming “the immigration program which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place” for the massacre.
- Steve Bannon rages that the Senate has “humiliated [Trump]” by forcing him to resort to a Veto to protect his fake emergency.
- NBC News reporter Ben Collins who covers extremism online says he tried to warn tech companies and Youtube, and they literally laughed at him.
- Mueller makes a court filing asking for Rick Gates sentencing to be push back another 2 months as he is “still cooperating on several ongoing investigations.”
- Limbaugh stokes a dumb conspiracy theory that that NZ Mosque shooter was “leftist out to smear Trump and his "enemies.”
- #MagaBomber Cesar Seyoc is scheduled to plead guilty next week.
- Trump finally says the attack in New Zealand was Terrorism calling it a “Monstrous Terrorist Attack” and a “Horrible, Horrible Thing.” He denies that White Supremacy is a growing problem [FBI and DHS have both been saying that it is] and claims it’s only a “small group of people.” Then he Vetos the bill cancelling his fake emergency.
- Security experts link Cindy Li Yang to the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) which is operated by the communist government to transfer tech from the US to China.
- March 16th —
- March 17th —
- March 18th —
- March 19th —
- March 20th —