I am always a little extra suspicious of no avatar posters who I've never seen and appear in politics. But I just wanted to say I like your posting.

That's all I ask. We don't have to agree on anything - I just want actual human beings who are willing to engage on the stuff they believe in. That is why I've stuck around and remained interested in this forum. I'm curious to see if it can happen in any kind of sustainable way.

There's really only a couple posters on here I consider flat out trolls. One has been exiled. Even bahbah I think genuinely believes his ideas.

Silly drink hang up? Look at the tweet.



What point is this guy trying to get across? If the scam is so huge, why are the drinks the point of the tweet? I didn't even see the article when scrolling on my phone. And yeah, the article is pretty messed up.

The amount that the President's businesses bill the United States Government should be exactly $0. His businesses should also not do business with people doing business with the United States Government. These things used to be patently obvious to everyone.

Still haven’t read the article Coordi? Pretty telling really.

Well, that is certainly ironic

Just sayin'

I actually do honestly believe that if most people were able to understand the current scope of inequality in the US, there would be instant unrest and mass stealing from the rich. And I honestly believe it would be lead by people like bahbah, who would finally understand just how much they're getting ****ed over.

So he is just posting in bad faith with no consequence.

No, I don't think so. I'm not sure why you think so but this isn't the place for that conversation. You can PM me if you want.

Miscommunications happen. I can understand how someone scrolling on the phone would see the tweet and not realize there's a link. I think his comment asking why someone focused on the bar tab (in writing the tweet) when there was other, worse, stuff in the article is a reasonable question, although not really one we can answer here. I also get that when there's disagreements it's fairly easy to read the part of someone's post you disagree with and overlook the rest of it. That happens to me unfortunately often. I think that happened to you here also.

So I think this is mostly just a series of miscommunications.

You literally couldn't read 3 sentences that I posted in direct reponse to you before, wrongly, trying to attack me for not reading, and now instead of apologizing, you are doubling down on bad faith??

Look in the mirror my friend

You repeat talking points from a company that went BALLISTIC because Obama used fancy mustard on a burger.

You dont get to talk about who is losing the plot

I don’t believe that a widening income gap means those at the lower end of the income spectrum are getting screwed over by those at the upper end. I do agree that as the rich have become richer, the poor have become poorer, but only in a relative and non-causal sense. But in an absolute sense, the lower income quintile is better off now than it’s ever been anywhere. And while we could compress the wage scale through taxation, all we’re doing there is overriding the value the market puts on low-wage earners economic contribution. So it’s not like high-wage earners are causing low wages, even though we could take some from the former and give it to the latter to make things more equal.

The bottom-line is if you show up to the marketplace with a bag of rocks and others aren’t willing to exchange what they’re bringing to the market for your rocks, the problem isn’t the market or the system nor is the optimal solution to start throwing rocks at the people who have things you want. The problem is your productive contribution isn’t valued much by the rest of society, even if you worked harder to gather the rocks than others did to gather their goods. The obvious fix for that is to get you the knowledge and skills so you can bring more value to the marketplace.

Some of the problem is that the article is a hit piece. There are some facts which may be misleading it's hard to tell and it also lacks a proper comparison. Think a lot of Republicans agree the government spends too much money on these things. Which is probably the major problem.

It does not offer a proper comparison of any prior administration. I doubt prior to Trump when entertaining world leaders the cost of the place ever factored into the decision on where to host. Could be wrong maybe when other administrations had world leaders they looked at it and said we have this 5 star hotel which is nice but the Hampton inn is 60% of the cost, we have to stay at the Hampton Inn. I doubt the rates talked about ever really applied to a Presidential delegation.

It also does not seem to be 100% trustworthy on the bar tab. Is this something the government usually picks up? If it is that should be a problem. But all it said is the WH paid it. But we do not know if someone individually reimbursed the WH. I hope that someone did reimburse the government. Which is somewhat standard practice for personal expenses. But it also may depend on who was there was the Chinese delegation or just Trump officials. But is it considered a reasonable expense when a President delegation travels?

As for Trump I have no problem having him select the location to host world leaders It might be best if an auditor looked over everything and verified the rates are reasonable and not out of line compared to other administrations hosting of leaders. But there is no showing the hotel raised it's rates for the government, just they would not give a discount. Which is sort of begs the question on whether it is a reasonable rate for a expensive hotel. The price of Hilton and Hampton really does not answer that question on whether the Mar Lago is out of line.

Before Trump Presidents distanced themselves from their business interests. The appearance of impropriety used to be enough to prevent conflicts of interest. This President doesn’t care about that.

Think that ship sailed when no one cared that Clinton took money from foreign governments while SOS. Whether their foundation, which pays a ton of the Clinton travel and their employees help assist lining up Bill's speaking fees or Bill's speaking fees directly.

SOS isn’t President and please show where foundation money went to her, if it had I’m sure it would have been shut down like Trump’s “charity.”

Guess I do not see the to much difference between SOS profiting and the President. At least in Trumps case it is a straight forward transaction the room costs x. Not sure why the Russians gave millions or Bill got 100,000's to speak.

As for evidence I am relying on Podesta emails which included a memo from Bland of the Foundation which point blank indicated part of the foundation employees duties were to to assist Bill Clinton Inc. To line up profitable speaking engagements for him and other deals.

You have no problem with countries giving Trump money for better treatment but do for an ex-President?

Guess before it was paying for a room at the Mar Lago. Now it is flat out giving him money. Guess if you show flat out giving him money, I do have a problem. And if you show the giving money affected their treatment that is a whole different thing.

It does not seem you cared that governments flat out gave the Clinton's money while she was SOS. Do you think it is a coincidence that Bill's speaking fees etc with foreign governments have dried up when Hillary is no longer a viable government position? That seems hypocritical.

I read the article. I remember the Dems complaining about GWB trips to his ranch in TX.

From the article:

Quote:

The bill was sent to the State Department, which objected to covering it. It was then forwarded to the White House, which paid the tab.

The unusual cocktail hour underscores a unique push and pull in the current administration: Donald Trump’s White House pays a bill and Donald Trump’s club reaps the revenue. (It’s unclear if the White House asked any of those drinking to reimburse the government; the White House declined to comment.)

So obviously TRUMP picked up the tab personally. A thousand $ bar tab to a billionaire is like less than a $ to folks on this forum pretty much.

Also TRUMP gives his paycheck away from the govt.

The "White House" does not equal Trump personally paying for anything. The White House is just another department of the government.

There is literally 0% chance Trump picked up the tab as opposed to it coming out of the White House's budget. You do understand that White House =/= Trump.

On the flip side each President is given $50,000 a year in expenses, $100,000 in travel and $19,000 in entertainment as part of his salary. So I think that there is a greater then 0% chance Trump ran it through his expense accounts for his personal expenses assuming he did not find the culprits and tell them to personally reimburse the government. But again we do not know which is some of the problem with the article.

lol

You have't shown that the money given to the foundation went anywhere but to the charitable causes it supported.

You seem to make a distinction between someone paying money to Trump property and just giving the money to Trump.

Both of these are bull**** positions.