Until now, it has been customary for those elected president of the United States to divest himself of his assets or put them into a blind trust, overseen by an independent person. This guaranteed that the president’s actions would never have any financial benefit to himself or his family.
The president is also expected not to hire any member of his family for any position. This is a matter of law. The law was passed after John F. Kennedy named his brother Robert as Attirney General.
Donald Trump’s unusual family business empire challenges these understandings, policies, and laws. His holdings and deals are worldwide. His son-in-law Jared Kushner also has an international business empire. In the absence of full disclosure, it is impossible to know to what extent their business interests are mixed up with policy decisions or to what extent they have separated from their business empires.
John Cassidy of the New Yorker has tried to sift through the issues.
It is worth reading.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Paraphrasing… The shell game is a threat to the legitimacy of our government. The members of Congress who are just pretending there are no serious conflicts of interest are also a threat to the legitimacy of our government.
In the long run, if Kushner is indeed The Secret Sharer to Trump, and will be making his decisions, we may be lucky. If, as many believe, that Trump either has onset or full fledged dementia, or with his glaring dangerous personality traits that define him, then at very least a young mind who can speak for him could moderate him.
This is the most frightening situation I can remember, including the Cuban missile crisis, and it seems some less ideologic Repubs are seeing this the same way. McCain and Lindsey Graham who are well respected among their colleagues are speaking out, and Susan Collins actually voted with the Dems this week. The more rational Repubs must find a way to keep Trump from the nuclear button, and in light of No. Korea now seeking to develop missiles to hit the US, we are in a Catch 22.
Why can Trump get away with all this? Only the Repubs can stop him.
https://theintercept.com/2017/01/11/the-deep-state-goes-to-war-with-president-elect-using-unverified-claims-as-dems-cheer
From Glenn Greenwald at Intercept…
Ellen Lubic
Perhaps Greenwald is right . I have said in the past that there may be cause for a reset of relations with Russia. That our expansion of NATO eastward was a terrible decision made by Clinton when no threat existed . Russia was a basket case under Yeltsin. So the military industrial war machine is reluctant to die.
But to assume that Greenwald is right, is to assume that the same devious intelligence services who have managed to create carnage around the globe are so unsophisticated that they would release totally unsubstantiated accusations that could easily be dispelled. The one about Cohen was never in the CNN story because it had already been dis-proven. .
I will bet that the other shoe has yet to drop..
What was Mike Flynn doing at that RT network dinner. I could easily explain Jill Stein or any of the left of center TV personalities who since Current TV disappeared have had no outlet for expression, in the corporate media. I have a difficult time explaining how a recent former national security official is doing sitting next to Putin.
I suspect we may find out.
Yes, Russia needs liebsenrahm
(Not how) what
I am old enough to never assume anything, much less that anyone is “right”. Greenwald has his perspective, as does the FBI and the CIA…the LA and NY Times, and Breitbart, etc.. I try to read broadly, and then perhaps come up with my own view. And Joel and Duane, as a trained academic, i try to always give the citation for where my posted info originated…like Intercept and AVAAZ.
Lebensraum. Sorry, the retentive part of me had to.
dianeravitch
No more so than we would tolerate the Warsaw pact in Canada in reversal of circumstance . Was Gorbachev, who was the real hero of the fall of the Soviet Union, wrong to assert that moving NATO close to the Russian border in former parts of the Soviet Union was a betrayal of the understanding when he agreed to let the Berlin Wall fall. ” NATO would not move one inch eastward” Gorbachev
“Ukraine should be free to create any government compatible with the expressed will of its people. Wise Ukrainian leaders would then opt for a policy of reconciliation between the various parts of their country. Internationally, they should pursue a posture comparable to that of Finland. That nation leaves no doubt about its fierce independence and cooperates with the West in most fields but carefully avoids institutional hostility toward Russia.” Kissinger
But we can get over this . Did anyone hear Tillerson criticizing Obama say, ” he would have flown intelligence flights in support of Ukrainian troops moving all assets into Eastern Ukraine” .
Does anybody remember that a U2 was shot down over Cuba on the same day as
“Then seems to have overflown, or came close to, Soviet territory. Not clear at this time exactly what cause was. Russian fighters scrambled—ours too.” By now, the reports concluded, the U-2 had almost certainly run out of fuel.”
Luckily we are still here to talk about it . Because Mad Dog LeMay was urging a Nuclear first strike. So there are no ——– lunatics in the Russian Military.
Did you forget that the USSR was a brutal dictatorship that exiled dissidents to Siberia and ruled with tanks and guns?
dianeravitch
Gorbachev killed the USSR . So technically what Gorbachev is saying and what Kissinger is alluding to. Is that there are power dynamics with in every nation that make certain things Taboo .
We fought a war with North Vietnam lost 55,000 boys. To this day it is still a Communist dictatorship.yet somehow we were able to have a reset with Vietnam 20 years before we any relations with Cuba .
Internal politics is what Kissinger is talking about, Gorbachev , Yeltsin , Soviet expert Stephen Cohen and what partially enabled Putin to take power with the promise to “Make Russia Great again”
Please Diane let us not pretend that human rights has ever been high on our priority list. Is the Chinese Military still harvesting body organs from Falun Gong and other political prisoners. Does that stop
us from doing 600 billion a year in trade with China . Sorry our perceived national interest has little to do with morals and everything to do with the interests of the “Power Elite” .
Nations act in their perceived interest. Those interest are the interests of those with political power. We know who they are in foreign policy and education.
Laura, the members of Congress pretending that there are no “serious conflicts of interest” have their own serious conflicts.
For instance, Trump’s choice for HHS, Rep. Tom Price:
“Rep. Tom Price, a Georgia Republican, bought and sold stock in about 40 health-care, pharmaceutical and biomedical companies since 2012, including a dozen in the current congressional session, according to a Wall Street Journal review of hundreds of pages of stock trades he filed with Congress.
In the same two-year period, he has sponsored nine and co-sponsored 35 health-related bills in the House.
His stock trades included Amgen Inc., Bristol Myers Squibb Co., Eli Lilly & Co., Pfizer Inc. and Aetna Inc.
His largest single stock buy was an August 2016 purchase of between $50,000 and $100,000 of an Australian biomedical firm, Innate Immunotherapeutics Inc., whose largest shareholder is a GOP congressman on the Trump transition team, according to the filings, which list price ranges. . The stock has since doubled in price.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trumps-pick-for-health-secretary-traded-medical-stocks-while-in-house-1482451061
And this is from the Wall Street Journal, which nobody would accuse of being some kind of left-wing mouthpiece! Far from it.
They all do this, and they will look the other way regarding Trump, Kushner, et al. There may be some pro forma posturing and quacking, but it’s not going to amount to much at the end of the day.
😦
Precisely, Zorba. The Senatorial old boys club, with some girls as well, has a hard time leaning in on their colleagues and other appointments. Feinstein mentioned that when first questioning Sessions this week. Bodes poorly for America.
Ellen, I’m afraid that you are correct.
Many of them have such “skeletons” in their closets, and they’re not going to want to poke around Price’s, lest somebody else pokes around theirs.
Many members of congress have made tons of money while there. It’s not due to their nice salary, I can guarantee you that. BOTH sides are guilty. How did they all become millionaires?!! If you are honest, you can find plenty of info on Pelosi (and hubby) as well as Reid who have raked in the dough due to sweetheart deals. On the right also. That’s the problem. They’re all corrupt. It’s dishonest to think it’s only one party…
Who said it was done by only one party? You’re reading into my comment something that I did not say. I gave Price as an example because he has been nominated by Trump for HHS.
Of course both sides do it. If you want to give us some Democratic examples of such ethics violations, knock yourself out.
The Glenn Greenwald article that Ellen posted here does a good job articulating what many commenters here have been saying about the Trump-Russia-hacking stuff. There is a point there. I personally find it very difficult, if not impossible, to take a sensible position on the merits of the subject, given Trump’s insanity and recklessness, as well as my own (very reasonable, I think) fears about where this country is headed.
Oligarchs being plutocrats being elf serving bastards who can never get enough to satisfy their sick avariciousness.
elf is supposed to be evil