Amy Mcgrath it is.
Amy Mcgrath it is.
Jay Dwight
Ballrooms, candles and luxury cottages: During Trump’s term, millions of government and GOP dollars have flowed to his properties | Washington Post
"President Trump welcomed the Japanese prime minister at Mar-a-Lago, in front of a towering arrangement of roses. The two could have met in Washington, but Trump said his private club was a more comfortable alternative.
“It is, indeed, the Southern White House,” Trump said, greeting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in front of the press in April 2018.
For Trump, there was another, hidden benefit. Money.
At Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s company would get paid to host his summit.
In the next two days, as Trump and Abe talked about trade and North Korea, Trump’s Palm Beach, Fla., club billed the U.S. government $13,700 for guest rooms, $16,500 for food and wine and $6,000 for the roses and other floral arrangements.
Trump’s club even charged for the smallest of services. When Trump and Abe met alone, with no food served, the government still got a bill for what they drank.
“Bilateral meeting,” the bill said. “Water.” $3 each.
Those 2018 payments, revealed here for the first time, are part of a long-running pattern whose scope has become clear only in recent months.
Since his first month in office, Trump has used his power to direct millions from U.S. taxpayers — and from his political supporters — into his own businesses. The Washington Post has sought to compile examples of this spending through open records requests and a lawsuit.
In all, he has received at least $8.1 million from these two sources since he took office, those documents and publicly available records show."
Last edited by guido; 10-28-2020 at 06:45 AM.
Guy Washburn
Photography > www.guywashburn.com
“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
– Mary Oliver
I read this. Many campaigns bill some times from companies they own. Romney did it. But with Trump the scale is unprecedented and its not just the campaign but his role in the government too. it's shocking that this has been normalized. He's clearly using his presidency to promote his properites and he's monetizing as much value out of white house spending as possible -Mike G
Interesting...
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...P=share_btn_tw
We also managed to appoint two judges to the High Court yesterday as well without rancour and partisan hand-wringing.
David Sipress in the current New Yorker
“I had to wait three years, eleven months, twenty days, thirteen hours, and fifty-three minutes to vote.”
Last edited by guido; 10-29-2020 at 07:10 AM.
The brilliant Gene Weingarten’s take on the current breadth of our political divide,
“What he has taken from me are two things: First, my genuine lifelong feeling that the United States, for all its weaknesses and failures, deserves, and has always deserved, the benefit of the doubt. Second: I find myself profoundly disliking and disrespecting almost half of my countrymen and women — that is, the group of Americans that support Trump. I have never felt such antipathy before, even in other sharply polarizing times, and it feels absolutely terrible.”
In Search of Healing: https://www.washingtonpost.com/magaz...untry-healing/
Trod Harland, Pickle Expediter
Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. — James Baldwin
Just donated to McGrath (running against McConnell) and Gideon (running against Pearl-Clutcher-in-Chief Collins)
Forgot about Harrison. He's running against another supine coward. I didn't even realize how "in-play" South Carolina is. Your post is a good reminder that I should make another contribution to his cause.
First time I've ever donated to someone whom I didn't know personally. Unfortunately, not on FB, so can't do the 4x-5x multiplier.
No need to shed tears for any of these invertebrates, especially Collins. With her brow-furrowing and pearl clutching bona fides, she can take over voicing Helen Lovejoy when she's elected out of office
Trump Strips Protections from Tongass National Forest | Outside Online
"On Wednesday, the Trump administration published a rule that will strip protections from 9.4 million acres of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. The move is being made despite overwhelming opposition from the general public and Native Americans who rely on the forest for food and clean water. It’s expected to decimate salmon populations and eliminate the largest carbon sink in the country, worsening the impacts of climate change. If that’s not bad enough, logging the Tongass requires massive financial support from taxpayers, resulting in a net loss to the government’s bottom line.
Published without comment or fanfare, in a possible attempt to influence Alaska’s Senate election, the rule works against the express desire of citizens to create a corporate welfare program that targets marginalized communities while destroying the environment. It’s all the worst parts of this Presidency wrapped up in a final fuck you to the country right before election day.
Encompassing 16.7 million acres of southeast Alaska, the Tongass is our nation’s largest national forest. But fewer than ten million acres of it are actually forested, with the rest being composed of glaciers, wetlands, and other ecosystems. Still, those forests are so large that they absorb eight percent of our country’s annual carbon emissions—equivalent to the total yearly emissions of ten million cars—and are composed of virgin, old-growth trees that grow up to ten feet in diameter, 200 feet tall, and 800 years old. No other part of our continent contains as much plant life per square mile. And the Tongass is full of animals, too, including five species of salmon, the densest populations of brown bears and bald eagles on the planet, the rare Alexander Archipelago Wolf (or Sea Wolf), orcas, humpback whales, otters, and much more. It’s common to hear the Tongass referred to as “America’s Amazon,” but since it’s a temperate, rather than a tropical, rainforest, it’s actually even rarer. About 2.4 million square miles of tropical rainforest remain across the planet, but only 117,000 miles of temperate rainforest exist. Destroying the Tongass’s 14,000 square miles of rainforest would eliminate 12 percent of all the temperate rainforest area remaining in the world. "
Last edited by guido; 10-29-2020 at 05:13 PM.
Guy Washburn
Photography > www.guywashburn.com
“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
– Mary Oliver
The older I get the faster I was Brian Clare
The Times had to class this as « opinion » because of the unnamed sources but this is downright scary and probably the cause of my recent over the top anxiety....
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/30/o...gtype=Homepage
« If I knew what I was doing, I’d be doing it right now »
-Jon Mandel
Josh Simonds
www.nixfrixshun.com
www.facebook.com/NFSspeedshop
www.bicycle-coach.com
Vsalon Fromage De Tête
Raised blind to anything but a zero-sum, extractionist outlook. Surely it goes hand in hand with a total disregard for, if not utter lack of awareness of, long term consequences. Whatever the reason, he seems well suited to life in a mining colony on a distant planet.
We ordered a bunch of household items on Monday for an assortment of projects, and the shipping date switched after the order from this week to November 3 - 6. All are being shipped by USPS. That's the way it should work, I think. Switch USPS over to vote delivery for X days on either side of the election (with possible exceptions for medication) and let the goods wait until that vital national service is completed.
We had snow overnight, so it looks like Christmas outside.
I will walk the dogs and think good thoughts.
Jay Dwight
The TCM election night picture is "Dr. Strangelove"
I guess they're not feeling hopeful ?
I figured they'd go for "Seven Days in May"
Again, to beat a dead horse, aided and abetted by that useful idiot Dr. Jill Stein and her supporters in those key swing states.
No significant difference between the candidates my arse.
Of course, this is not to condone what the current office holder has done, but he could have been stopped, and someone who had a shred of conscience and critical thinking ability should have urged for the greater good rather than some personal glory. After all, Bill Weld came out and basically urged his supporters to do just that, and Libertarians generally have more of a valid excuse. Greens don't. They ought to make up their mind about what is it that they want: role of spoiler or actual protection for the environment.
After the whole Nader fiasco and now this (as in, the entire repertoire of what the current administration has brought onto this nation), I can never forgive the Green Party in the U.S.
If he loses (and I fully expect a challenge to throw out mail-in ballots in swing states) so for no way certain, you should expect more of this type of wanton destruction between now and January 20. . . The period between Nov 3 to January will be like an abused spouse leaving the abuser. . . . The abuser will want to hurt her more before she leaves.... America is the abused spouse right now...
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