RSN: Robert Reich | The Question Isn't Whether or Not Trump Has Committed an Impeachable Offense. It's Whether or Not Congress Will Act.

17 June 17 PM

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Robert Reich | The Question Isn't Whether or Not Trump Has Committed an Impeachable Offense. It's Whether or Not Congress Will Act. 
 
Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Facebook Page 
Reich writes: "President Donald Trump's Washington hotel saw almost $20 million in revenue during its first few months of operation - a period that coincided with his election and inauguration. His Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, which he's visited seven times as president, pulled in millions of dollars more than it had previously." 
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David Sirota | Donald Trump Owes at Least $315 Million to Financial Firms, Some of Which Are Lobbying the Federal Government 
David Sirota, International Business Times 
Sirota writes: "Financial disclosure documents released Friday by the Office of Government Ethics shed new light on President Trump's finances, even as he refuses to release his tax returns. The documents show that Trump owes hundreds of millions of dollars to major financial institutions - some with business before Trump's administration." 
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Standing Rock Sioux Chair on Militarized Repression and Ongoing Lawsuit to Stop Dakota Access Pipeline 
Dave Archambault, Nick Tilsen and Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! 
Excerpt: "The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has won a major legal victory in federal court which may have the power to force the shutdown of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline. District Judge James Boasberg ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration failed to conduct an adequate environmental review of the pipeline, after President Trump ordered the Army Corps to fast-track and greenlight its approval." 
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Trump Is Quietly Expanding All of Obama's Wars 
Abigail Tracy, Vanity Fair 
Tracy writes: "On the campaign trail, Donald Trump pitched Americans on an immiscible foreign-policy agenda, combining elements of staunch isolationism and a rejection of Bush-era interventionism with promises to 'bomb the shit out of ISIS.'" 
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Eoin Higgins, FAIR 
Higgins writes: "What speech on college campuses is free speech? If you've been following media coverage of college campus unrest over the past few months, you'd be forgiven for thinking the sole threat to freedom of speech on the quad in 2017 comes from a left-wing movement aimed at crushing any dissent from liberal values." 
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Dom Galeon, Futurism 
Galeon writes: "Earlier this month, Hawaii earned the distinction of being the first in the U.S. to formally accept the provisions of the Paris Climate Agreement after President Donald Trump decided to withdraw the nation from it, and now, Hawaii is taking the lead in embracing yet another innovative idea: universal basic income (UBI)." 
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Forget Coal, Solar Will Soon Be Cheaper Than Natural Gas Power 
Joe Romm, ThinkProgress 
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Kushner family in Beijing: 'Invest $500,000 and immigrate' to US

 The Idiocy Of Donald Trump's America.

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Can't make this stuff up. The hypocrisy is amazing. No wall needed when you can buy a plane ticket to fly over it for $500,000!

She is so privileged that she misses the point telling these RICH people how her grandfather came to the USA and built a business. He obviously came to the country poor and was allowed in and didn't have to or need to buy his way in..

Kushner family in Beijing: 'Invest $500,000 

and immigrate' to US

The Kushner family pitched wealthy Chinese businesspeople 

Saturday, hoping to lure them into investing in their real estate 

by promising it could land them an…

MONEY.CNN.COM

The Kushner family hopes to lure investments from wealthy business owners in China with the promise of American visas.

Nicole Kushner Meyer, the sister of White House adviser and President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, spoke at an event in Beijing on Saturday. She was marketing a Kushner-owned property in New Jersey -- invest in the development and get into the United States on a so-called EB-5 visa.

The EB-5 visa allows immigrants a path to a green card if they invest more than $500,000 in a project that creates jobs in the United States.

An ad for the event, held at a Ritz-Carlton hotel, said "Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States."

An advertisement for the Beijing event touts a Kushner Company investment opportunity.

Related: President Trump, off to New Jersey, can't stop advertising his own brand

The EB-5 visa has been used by the Trump and Kushner family businesses. Foreigners, particularly wealthy Chinese nationals, have used the EB-5 program as a ticket into the states. And that promise has helped attract foreign investments for U.S. real estate projects.

President Trump has taken an anti-immigration stance and vowed to severely tighten the use of work visas. The EB-5 program has come under fire by members of Congress on both sides of the aisle.

Lawmakers say the program essentially sells citizenship to high-income foreigners.

On Saturday, potential investors in the Kushner project were told they should act quickly because possible policy changes to the EB-5 program might raise the required minimum investment.

Nicole Kushner Meyer also told the crowd how her grandfather immigrated to the United States and built a business from the ground up.

And she mentioned Jared's new position in the White House -- though there were no overt references to President Trump.

Related: The two biggest ways the Trump family could benefit from his tax plan

"In 2008, my brother Jared Kushner joined the family company as CEO, and recently moved to Washington to join the administration," she said.

Jared Kushner serves as an influential senior adviser to the president. Trump has at various times said he would lead or play a key role in many policy areas from foreign affairs to business innovation.

His attorney, Blake Roberts, said Kushner is not involved in the operation of Kushner Companies and divested his interests by selling them to a family trust that he, his wife and his children are not beneficiaries of, which was suggested by the Office of Government Ethics.

"As previously stated, he will recuse from particular matters concerning the EB-5 visa program," Roberts said in a statement.

The event was meant to draw investors for 1 Journal Square, a $976.4 million residential and commercial project underway in New Jersey. The company says about 15% of it will be funded through the EB-5 program.

Jared Kushner has stepped away from the business since taking a key role in Trump's White House.

The Beijing event, which was organized by Chinese immigration agency Qiaowai, was open to the public. Reporters from the Washington Post and the New York Times attended but said they were later asked to leave.

Kushner Companies declined to comment. Qiaowai could not be immediately reached for comment.

--CNNMoney's Jethro Mullen contributed to this report.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/06/news/jared-kushner-nicole-family-event/index.html

RSN: Unauthorized Immigrants Paid $100 Billion Into Social Security Over Last Decade , Truth to Power: On Chomsky and "The Responsibility of Intellectuals"

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Truth to Power: On Chomsky and "The Responsibility of Intellectuals" 
 
Daniel Geary, Jacobin 
Geary writes: "Written in a withering, sarcastic tone, Chomsky's essay is a brilliant polemic against the Vietnam War and American imperialism more generally." 
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Yes, Liberals Are Planning Town Hall Protests. It's Called Democracy 
Ben Wikler, Guardian UK 
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GOP Considers Trimming Health Law's 10 Essential Benefits 
Michelle Andrews, NPR 
Andrews writes: "Maternity coverage is often offered as an example of a benefit that should be optional, and that's what Verma has advocated. If you're a man or too old to get pregnant, critics of the requirement say, why should you have to pay for that coverage to be included in your policy? But that a la carte approach is not the way insurance is designed to work." 
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Unauthorized Immigrants Paid $100 Billion Into Social Security Over Last Decade 
Roy Germano, VICE 
Germano writes: "Unauthorized workers are paying an estimated $13 billion a year in social security taxes and only getting around $1 billion back, according to a senior government statistician." 
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I Was a Muslim in Trump's White House. I Lasted 8 Days. 
Rumana Ahmed, The Atlantic 
Ahmed writes: "Like most of my fellow American Muslims, I spent much of 2016 watching with consternation as Donald Trump vilified our community. Despite this - or because of it - I thought I should try to stay on the NSC staff during the Trump Administration, in order to give the new president and his aides a more nuanced view of Islam, and of America's Muslim citizens. I lasted eight days." 
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Reported Trump Ambassador Pick Raises Conflict-of-Interest Questions 
Marisa Kabas, Rolling Stone 
Kabas writes: "While ambassador to a small island nation may not be the most prestigious appointment, Trump could have a personal stake in maintaining friendly relations with the country. The Associated Press reported on February 9th that the Trump Organization could be moving forward with a licensing deal for a beachfront resort, despite the president's pledge that his companies would cease foreign development deals while in office." 
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German Environmental Ministry Bans Meat at Official Functions to 'Set a Good Example for Climate Protection' 
Lorraine Chow, EcoWatch 
Chow writes: "Eating less meat is essential to curbing climate change, which is why Germany's Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks is only serving vegetarian food at official functions." 
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