Monday, November 21, 2016

Sixty Days Before Inauguration and Trump's Administration is Already Shaping Up to be the Most Corrupt, Ever.

The administrations of Ulysses S. Grant and Warren G. Harding were notorious for corruption, but nobody has shown that either president personally benefited from the corruption.

Trump? Not so much.
About 100 foreign diplomats, from Brazil to Turkey, gathered at the Trump International Hotel this week to sip Trump-branded champagne, dine on sliders and hear a sales pitch about the U.S. president-elect’s newest hotel.

The event for the diplomatic community, held one week after the election, was in the Lincoln Library, a junior ballroom with 16-foot ceilings and velvet drapes that is also available for rent.

Some attendees won raffle prizes — among them overnight stays at other Trump properties around the world — allowing them to become better acquainted with the business holdings of the new commander in chief.
I do wish they'd stop with the "commander-in-chief" shit. Any president is only the CinC of the military. Unless you're in the service or work for the Feds, he's not your boss.
When President-elect Donald J. Trump met with the British politician Nigel Farage in recent days, he encouraged Mr. Farage and his entourage to oppose the kind of offshore wind farms that Mr. Trump believes will mar the pristine view from one of his two Scottish golf courses, according to one person present.
Trump wouldn't know a conflict of interest if it donned a leather glove and hit him in the face. If Hillary had won and did this, the Republicans in the House would convene impeachment hearings on the morning of January 23rd (Inauguration Day is on a Friday).

This is a machine translation, but you'll get the gist:
After President Mauricio Macri telephoned the new president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, it was discovered that the Republican tycoon asked Macri for permission to build a tower in downtown Buenos Aires.

"It was not counted yet, but Trump asked him to authorize a building he is building in Buenos Aires, it was not just a geo political talk," said Jorge Lanata in his monologue on the Journalism for All program. Trump asked the President permission to formalize the work of his new real estate development, he told La Nacion was interested in doing many years ago but they did not before because of the difficulties imposed by the FX market regulations and barriers to imports.
Let's be clear on this: Trump is personally using his election to get foreign governments to give his projects a green light. it's not a company that has rented his name, it's him directly.
US president-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s work when he took time out from planning the transition to his presidency in January to meet with his Indian business partners.

“He (Donald Trump) was praising Modiji as always and added that he is doing a great job,” Sagar Chordia, director of Panchshil Realty, told ET by phone from New York. Trump, he added, expects to strengthen and expand US’ relationship with India.
Trump had best hope that the GOP can hold onto both houses of Congress in `18. For if they lose one, the subsequent investigations will be epic.

Here's hoping that the press will do its fucking job. But given the nature of corporate ownership of the American media, you might have to look to foreign sources.

5 comments:

  1. Still betting the R's find an excuse and impeach and remove tRump in 2017. Then a nice, compliant Pence slids over and voila.

    The really beauty will be watching the R's try to explain it to all those tRump voters, and then try again to get their vote in '18 and '20.

    ReplyDelete
  2. CP88 and LRod can verify this. While I worked in ATC in Houston and Detroit, we had a yearly ethics briefing that controllers could not hold stock in any airlines, and we could not accept any "gifts" over a $50 value. We were also advised not to even give the impression of a conflict of interest. IIRC, discipline could include suspension up to termination.

    But I guess part of making America great again, is to run the government more like a business. Corruption and bribery, er, influence payments are allowed.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It looks like the worst of it may be straight up policy:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/opinion/build-he-wont.html


    -Doug in Oakland

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yep, still applies, DTWND. We also used to be enjoined for even being a flight instructor, hauling parachute jumpers or right seating with anyone to build time. It's become more rational, but you still can only own airline stock as part of an account that invests in baskets of stocks, and the transportation index alone would likely be a no-no still.

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  5. it'd be nice to think we'll have free and fair elections in 2018, but if the GOP's game-plan on voter suppression is any indication, we're f-cked. the only thing to hope for is utter collapse and the GOP tearing itself apart as the grifters back-stab each other for bigger pieces of the pie... during which the entire economy collapses back into a global DEPRESSION slapping every angry white into a massive guilt trip (which won't happen because those angry white voters have no shame or souls).

    ReplyDelete

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