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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-profit-sale-new-york-affordable-housing-complex

Trump To Get $36M From Sale Of Largest Subsidized Affordable Housing Complex

NEW YORK (AP) — The nation’s largest subsidized affordable housing complex was just sold for hundreds of millions of dollars, with some of the money going to a prominent critic of government housing programs: President Donald Trump.

Trump and other investors in Starrett City in Brooklyn have sold the 46-building complex to two real estate firms for $906 million, according to a statement Tuesday from the new owners. Trump’s financial disclosure documents last year show he owned 4 percent of the complex, giving him potential proceeds from the sale of about $36 million.

Under his federal budget plans, the Trump administration had proposed deep cuts in subsidized housing programs.

Starrett City has received subsidies from the federal government worth millions of dollars a year, including $78 million in 2009 alone, according to a letter last year sent by House Democrats to the president criticizing his continued ownership of the complex. The letter said the president shouldn’t own the buildings while overseeing the federal agency that would review any future sales and, meanwhile, determines the size of subsidies to renters that ultimately end up in his pocket.

The new owners, Brooksville Co. and Rockpoint Group, said that they worked extensively with state and federal regulators before receiving approval for the deal earlier this week. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the federal agency approving subsidies to Starrett City, said that it reviewed the sale as it does any other deal, and found nothing wrong.

Trump received as much as $5 million in income from his ownership of the complex, according to his financial disclosure document filed in July.

The Trump Organization has owned a stake in the property for decades, but it is not known what it originally paid for it. The company did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Under the terms of the sale, the new owners of Starrett City, now known as Spring Creek Towers, will spend $140 million on the property for capital improvements. Rent protections under the federal Section 8 program will be extended by 20 years through 2049.

Under his proposed federal spending plan for fiscal year 2019, Trump proposes slashing the budget for rental assistance programs by more than 11 percent compared with 2017. He also proposes to eliminate funding for the Public Housing Capital Fund, dedicated to supporting public housing complexes.

The budget also requests legislation that would require able-bodied tenants who are receiving federal housing assistance to work
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/cohen-promised-novartis-trump-access

Report: Cohen Promised Novartis Help Accessing Trump Administration

Michael Cohen reached out to pharmaceutical company Novartis in early 2017 and promised the company help in gaining access to President Donald Trump and his administration, STAT News reported Wednesday, citing a Novartis employee.

The revelation follows Novartis’ acknowledgement on Wednesday that the company signed a $1.2 million contract with Cohen in early 2017 to advise the company on how best to navigate health care issues with the new administration. The company claimed that after one meeting with Cohen, they concluded that he “would be unable to provide the services that Novartis had anticipated.” The company was not able to leave its contract, so it continued to pay Cohen without engaging with him.

“He reached out to us,” the Novartis employee told STAT News. “With a new administration coming in, basically, all the traditional contacts disappeared and they were all new players. We were trying to find an inroad into the administration. Cohen promised access to not just Trump, but also the circle around him. It was almost as if we were hiring him as a lobbyist.”

The employee told STAT News that Novartis decided against attempting to cancel its contract with Cohen in part because the company did not want to irk Trump.

Novartis was one of several companies to reveal this week that they paid Cohen through his firm Essential Consultants LLC, the same firm he used to pay porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000. The U.S. affiliate company of Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg also reportedly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to Cohen after the election. Special counsel Robert Mueller has reportedly questioned Vekselberg about the transactions.
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"The employee told STAT News that Novartis decided against attempting to cancel its contract with Cohen in part because the company did not want to irk Trump."

Westrbook.gif

These muthafuccas acting like that fool is some kinda mob boss they fear. Lol
 
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livew...ik-prince-questioned-by-mueller-investigators

Report: Blackwater Founder Erik Prince Questioned By Mueller Investigators

Blackwater founder Erik Prince has spoken to investigators on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team, the Daily Beast reported Wednesday, citing two unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

A spokesperson for Prince, Marc Cohen, did not confirm or deny the meeting to the publication.

“Erik gave a full and frank public account of events as they concern him to the intelligence committee and he has nothing else to add on this topic,” Cohen said. Prince testified before the House Intelligence Committee in November of last year.

The Daily Beast said it wasn’t clear what Mueller’s team discussed with Prince.

But several outlets have reported in the past on Mueller’s interest in a meeting days before President Donald Trump’s inauguration in the Seychelles between Prince; Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian sovereign investment fund; and, reportedly, George Nader, an adviser to the United Arab Emirates with deep ties in Trump’s circles.

The New York Times reported in March that Mueller’s team had questioned Nader, and Nader has since testified before a grand jury for Mueller’s probe, the Washington Post reported.
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https://www.mediaite.com/online/mon...nvited-from-an-event-bill-clinton-may-attend/

Monica Lewinsky Reacts After Being Disinvited from an Event Bill Clinton May Attend


Monica Lewinsky is throwing shade on Twitter after she was disinvited from an event because there was a chance of a very awkward reunion between her and Bill Clinton.

Lewinsky was apparently asked to appear at an upcoming event regarding social change. However, Lewinsky’s got a few things to say now since they apparently booted her to make way for the former President:





Wow.

The Huffington Post is reporting the event in question was Town & Country‘s annual philanthropic summit.
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This broad will never go away...
 
https://www.mediaite.com/trump/emai...sts-to-go-easy-on-trump-during-2016-election/


Emails Reveal Right-Leaning Salem Media Group Pushed Radio Hosts to Go Easy on Trump


According to emails obtained by CNNMoney, Salem Media Group pressured some of its employees to portray Donald Trump in a more favorable light during the 2016 election.

The emails were sent to Elisha Krauss and Ben Shapiro, both of whom cohosted KRLA‘s The Morning Answer.

“What I have been hearing on TMA… has not been in the spirit of ‘supporting the GOP nominee,'” Terry Fahy, general manager at Salem, wrote to Shapiro and Krauss on July 19, 2016. “In fact, it seems that the show gets into negative minutiae of the Trump campaign and the GOP convention (e.g. criticizing Trump for having his kids speak at the convention.) Do we really need a side by side audio comparison of Trump’s wife’s speech with Michelle Obama‘s? How is that ultimately relevant to the big picture and advance the cause?”

Krauss said Salem fired her because she didn’t change her expressed views after being asked for months to do so. This comes on the heels of Salem’s decision tofire writers en masse from conservative blog RedState last month; many people familiar with the matter believe Salem singled out critics of Trump’s.

Phil Boyce, a senior vice president at Salem told CNNMoney that Krauss’ firing had nothing to do with her ideology; rather, she was not pulling down ratings.

“Research shows that our listeners want our hosts to support the President when he does well, and criticize him if and when he does or says something wrong,” Boyce explained, adding that the RedState firings were “business related.”

“While your show is wildly entertaining and your positions make so much sense I have to salute,” Boyce wrote to Shapiro in one of the summer 2016 emails. “I do worry about the long-term implications of where this is all going.”

“For YOU I suggest that you become a trial lawyer,” he added. “You suspect your client is guilty, but you are paid to get him off. The jurors will ultimately decide his fate.”
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/...red-about-20-projectiles-at-israeli-positions

Israel Accuses Iranian Forces Of Rocket Attack On Golan

JERUSALEM (AP) — Iranian forces based in Syria fired 20 rockets at Israeli front-line military positions in the Golan Heights early Thursday, the Israeli military said, triggering an Israeli reprisal and further escalating heightened tensions between the two bitter enemies in neighboring Syria.

The Israeli military said its Iron Dome rocket defense system intercepted some of the incoming projectiles, while others caused only minimal damage. There were no Israeli casualties.

Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said Iran’s Al Quds force had fired the rockets at several Israeli bases, though he would not say how Israel had determined the Iranian involvement. The incoming attack set off air raid sirens in the Israeli-controlled Golan.

Israel “views this Iranian attack very severely,” Conricus told reporters. He said Israel had responded, but did not provide details.

“This event is not over,” he added.

Syria’s state news agency said early Thursday that Syrian air defenses had intercepted “hostile Israeli missiles,” and Syrian media later said the missiles were fired over southwestern Damascus.

The pro-Syrian government Al-Mayadeen TV said more than 50 missiles had been fired from Syria toward Israeli forces in the Golan Heights.

Earlier, Syria’s state news agency said rockets suspected to have been fired from Israel had hit southern Syria’s Quneitra province late Wednesday. Activists said it was artillery fire from Israeli positions in the Golan Heights. There were no reports of casualties.

Israel has been on heightened alert in recent days, anticipating an Iranian attack following Iranian vows to retaliate to what it says are recent Israeli strikes in Syria targeting Iranian outposts.

In the latest incident, Syrian state media said Israel struck a military outpost on Tuesday near the capital of Damascus. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the missiles targeted depots and rocket launchers that likely belonged to Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard, killing at least 15 people, eight of them Iranians.

Last month, an attack on Syria’s T4 air base in Homs province killed seven Iranian military personnel. On April 30, Israel was said to have struck government outposts in northern Syria, killing more than a dozen pro-government fighters, many of them Iranians.

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied most of the airstrikes. But for months, it has repeatedly said it will not accept a permanent Iranian military presence in Syria.

In February, Israel shot down what it said was an armed Iranian drone that entered Israeli airspace. Israel responded by attacking anti-aircraft positions in Syria, but an Israeli warplane was shot down during the battle.

Iranian forces moved into Syria after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011 to back the forces of President Bashar Assad. As that war winds down, and Assad appears to be headed toward victory, Israel fears that Iran, along with tens of thousands of Iranian-backed Shiite militiamen, will carry out attacks against Israel. President Donald Trump’s announcement Tuesday that the U.S. was withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran has triggered uncertainty and threatened to spark more unrest in the Middle East.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Moscow on Wednesday to meet with President Vladimir Putin and discuss military coordination in Syria.

Russia has also sent forces to Syria to back Assad. But Israel and Russia have maintained close communications to prevent their air forces from coming into conflict.

Together with Putin, Netanyahu toured a parade celebrating the anniversary of the World War II victory over the Nazis and then met the Russian president at the Kremlin for consultations.

After 10 hours together, Netanyahu said he conveyed Israel’s obligation to defend itself against Iranian aggression.

“I think that matters were presented in a direct and forthright manner, and this is important. These matters are very important to Israel’s security at all times and especially at this time,” he said.

Israel views Iran as its archenemy, citing Iran’s calls for Israel’s destruction, support for militant groups across the region and growing military activity in neighboring Syria. Israel has warned that it will not allow Iran to establish a permanent military presence in Syria.

Israel’s military went on high alert Tuesday and bomb shelters were ordered open in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights following reports of “irregular activity of Iranian forces in Syria.” After an uneventful night, the military on Wednesday called on residents to return to “full civilian routine,” meaning studies and excursions would continue as usual, although the shelters would remain open.

Amos Gilead, a retired senior Israeli defense official, told a security conference in the coastal town of Herzliya that Iran’s intentions in Syria meant a wider conflagration may only be a matter of time.

“They want to build a second Hezbollah-stan,” he said, referring to the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shiite militant group that last fought a war with Israel in 2006. “They are determined to do it and we are determined to prevent it. It means we are on a collision course.”
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/shouting-match-erupts-on-house-floor-over-house-chaplain

Shouting Match Erupts On House Floor Over Chaplain Rev. Patrick Conroy

A shouting match erupted on the House floor between Reps. Joe Crowley (D-NY) and Tom MacArthur (R-NJ) on Tuesday over House Chaplain Rev. Patrick Conroy, who was abruptly fired in April and quickly reinstated by House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) earlier this month, according to a Tuesday Politico report.

Crowley, a Catholic, proposed launching a special investigation into the mysterious firing of the Jesuit chaplain, who claimed he had never received a complaint about his work before he was pushed to resign by Ryan’s staff.

MacArthur, an Episcopalian, reportedly walked over to the Democratic side of the chamber and accused Crowley of politicizing a non-political issue, saying that he, a Republican, prays with Conroy. Crowley reportedly gestured angrily at the speaker’s seat, saying that Ryan made it a political issue when he fired Conroy in the first place.

According to Politico, the interaction became so heated that Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) came over to intervene, as bystanders were concerned that the argument would become physical.

Newly reinstated Conroy said his first opening prayer on Monday, calling for a spirit of cooperation and problem-solving to infuse the chamber’s work.
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/att-gave-info-mueller-cohen

AT&T Gave Information To Mueller About Cohen Payments Last Year

AT&T said in a statement released Wednesday evening that it had been approached by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team of investigators last year and had “cooperated fully” with their requests for information about payments they made to President Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen.

In a message sent to employees on Tuesday, the telecom company explained that Cohen’s firm was just one of several other companies that AT&T had been paying to better understand the new administration.

“When we were contacted by the Special Counsel’s office regarding Michael Cohen, we cooperated fully, providing all information requested in November and December of 2017,” the company said in a written statement provided to Dallas Morning News. “A few weeks later, our consulting contract with Cohen expired at the end of the year. Since then, we have received no additional questions from the Special Counsel’s office and consider the matter closed.”

It was revealed on Tuesday that AT&T was one of several companies to pay Cohen’s consulting firm in order to gain insight into the Trump administration, including the American affiliate of a company owned by a Russian oligarch who attended Trump’s inauguration.
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livew...thing-about-russian-oligarch-payment-to-cohen

Trump Said That He Knows Nothing About Oligarch’s Payments To Cohen

President Donald Trump told his lawyers that he does not know anything about payments to Michael Cohen from Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, according to a Wednesday Time report.

Rudy Giuliani reportedly added that the team is sure that Special Counsel Robert Mueller does not believe that Trump was involved in the payments and he is “chasing rainbows,” veering too far from the mission of the probe and its investigation into the Russia-Trump campaign interactions.

The payments were revealed Tuesday by Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels’ lawyer.

Per Time, Giuliani said that when the news broke, Trump was preoccupied by the release of three captives from North Korea early Thursday morning. “Which is a hell of a lot more important than some stupid claim that is probably two-thirds false from this ambulance-chasing lawyer,” Giuliani reportedly said.
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