Posts Tagged ‘ President Plutocrat ’

Gingrich’s statement that wealth trumps the rule of law

Dec 21st, 2016 9:20 am | By

Ok so it turns out there’s a fix – if you’re worried that Trump’s many profit-seeking ventures might conflict with his ability to do the presidenting well, just change the rules to make it so that they can’t. Yeah. By the same token, can we change the rules so that it’s ok for me to rob banks?

Newt Gingrich has a take on how Donald Trump can keep from running afoul of U.S. ethics laws: Change the ethics laws.

Gingrich, the former speaker of the House and one-time potential running mate for Trump, says Trump should push Congress for legislation that accounts for a billionaire businessman in the White House.

“We’ve never seen this kind of wealth in

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Trump vows to cover his ass

Nov 30th, 2016 9:06 am | By

The Times has another cruel headline about Trump, although this one won’t bother him because he won’t get it.

Trump Vows Steps to Avoid Appearance of Business Conflicts

Precisely. He’s throwing a damp kleenex over his business conflicts, but not, of course, actually terminating them. He’s hoping to conceal them; he’s not in the least hoping to do away with them.

The headline is pretty funny, really, despite the horror of the reality behind it. Trump promises to try to hide how corrupt he is. Cool, bro, thanks.

President-elect Donald J. Trump on Wednesday said he would take steps to separate himself from his vast, global business empire in the hopes of preventing the appearance of a conflict of

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The Queens boy

Nov 22nd, 2016 5:35 pm | By

Journalists and journalistic outlets must never again agree to meet with Trump off the record.

Margaret Sullivan at the Washington Post says what the tv people did wrong yesterday and the Times people did right today.

The disaster yesterday:

Brandon Friedman, a Virginia-based public relations executive, offered his theory on Twitter: “They walked into an ambush, agreed not to talk about it, then Trump went straight to the Post with his version.”

Then it was just a hop, skip and jump to a big headline on the Drudge Report, with its huge worldwide traffic: “Trump Slams Media Elite, Face to Face.” As Business Insider politics editor Oliver Darcy aptly put it, that is “how a lot of America will

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We are given an obscene Gehenna

Nov 20th, 2016 5:26 pm | By

A few years ago Stephen Fry drove around the US in a London cab with a tv crew. I’ve seen a couple of episodes of the resulting tv series, and liked them. One of the places he visited was Atlantic City

Would it not have been better to let the home of Monopoly, this seedy resort town and remnant of another way of holidaying, simply fall into the sea? Instead we are given an obscene Gehenna, a place of such tawdry, tacky, tinselly, tasteless and trumpery tat that the desire to run away clutching my hand to my mouth is overwhelming.  But no, I must brave the interior of the most tawdry and literally trumpery tower of them all

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El Dorado

Nov 20th, 2016 4:12 pm | By

The vulgarity of Trump Palace is breathtaking. US Magazine did a piece on it a year ago, so we can see how hideous it really is.

Compare the White House.

You don’t need eye protection in the second place.… Read the rest



“Conflict of interest” doesn’t even describe it

Nov 16th, 2016 5:57 pm | By

It gets worse. The Times asks questions about the conflicts of interest.

Even if he no longer manages his businesses directly, Mr. Trump will continue to own them and his family will be involved in deals, both foreign and domestic, to develop real estate projects or license his brand. He will still be aware of the existence of his business interests and how his actions as president will affect them. The conflicts between his private interests and his public role will be impossible to untangle.

And it’s not as if he’s such an obviously principled, public spirited, integrity-endowed guy that we can just trust him to get it right. No, it’s not. Very much the opposite.

And now we … Read the rest



Trump’s lobbyists

Nov 12th, 2016 11:30 am | By

Trump the populist, elected, we’re told, by people who want to overturn the DC Establishment and speak up for the workers.

President-elect Donald J. Trump, who campaigned against the corrupt power of special interests, is filling his transition team with some of the very sort of people who he has complained have too much clout in Washington: corporate consultants and lobbyists.

Jeffrey Eisenach, a consultant who has worked for years on behalf of Verizon and other telecommunications clients, is the head of the team that is helping to pick staff members at the Federal Communications Commission.

Michael Catanzaro, a lobbyist whose clients include Devon Energy and Encana Oil and Gas, holds the “energy independence” portfolio.

Michael Torrey,

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Not in any way a blind trust

Nov 12th, 2016 9:52 am | By

And then there’s that whole thing about the conflicts of interest. Sam Thielman in the Guardian:

When President-elect Donald Trump enters the White House next year he will bring with him potential conflicts of interest across all areas of government that are unprecedented in American history.

Trump, who manages a sprawling, international network of businesses, has thus far refused to put his businesses into a blind trust the way his predecessors in the nation’s highest office have traditionally done. Instead he has said his businesses will be run by his own adult children.

As someone on NPR said yesterday, that’s not a blind trust, that’s a 20/20 vision trust.

Donald Jr, Eric and Ivanka Trump are all on the

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