Donald Trump 2019

[zork 629]

3 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

Well, against my better judgement I sat through all eight minutes and twenty-five seconds of that video. Couple of things, Mr. Zork:

Other than hitting a few wrong notes here and there, his song was fine if a little boring. How very smart of him to copyright it. However, it has absolutely nothing to do with DJ. At all. He speaks of the natural beauty of America, a point with which I would never argue. Nor would I argue with his line about divided we fall, united we stand. He did have a verse about the flag waving in peace, but with the Middle East fiasco, that one may be tested quite quick.

He mentions that he was fired from his job at his AME church for supporting DJ. He doesn't mention anything other than that. Perhaps they take a hard line on mixing politics and religion? That is what churches are supposed to do.

Perhaps he should consider composing a song that discusses America and its ideals as a work in progress and one that is still under construction?

found it.

Edited September 18, 2019 by zork

[Mrs Whiggins 13049]

6 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I wonder if this will have any real impact.  Even assuming Trump can remove the waiver (perhaps he can) this doesn't stop CA from producing their own optional emission standards. Then it will be up to the car manufacturers from deciding what to do next.  If they follow Trump and his rules, they may find themselves getting hit that much faster on emission regulations once Trump is out of office (2021 or 2025.)   

The manufacturers may still elect to follow the CA emission standards regardless of Trump's order as it will be in their best interest long term.

I'm old enough to remember the pictures of LA before their stringency began to have an effect upon their smog. Sadly, I am also old enough to remember when I didn't see smog on the drive to Dallas. It's ugly. Houston actually surpassed LA one year I think. IIRC, LA's geography adds some additional problems to their efforts that maybe Houston doesn't have?

I prefer some long term outlooks and ideas when it comes to air  quality. We have poor air, we die. It's pretty simple. DJ doesn't do long term.

[DDD Dad 14250]

9 minutes ago, zork said:

found it.

Looks like DJ has found his new African-American.

[triplehorn 2664]

 

[SquishMitten 10398]

21 hours ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

So they'll be formally revoking state legislation designed to protect the environment at the Environmental Protection Agency? 

sim·u·la·tion

/ˌsimyəˈlāSH(ə)n/

Yeah. I just don't even see how they have the authority to do so. As I understand it, Federal law "preempts" state laws that goes outside the minimum/maximum (in this case, emissions cannot exceed X). But Federal law does not typically preempt State laws that improve upon the Federal law (in this case, California sets the maximum even lower). If a state enacted a law that allowed emissions in excess of the Fed, then that would be preempted. But that's not the case here. Feel like I'm either missing something, or this won't hold up in court. 

[DixonHur 11170]

22 minutes ago, triplehorn said:

 

Law and order party... something something

[High Plains Drifter 10970]

47 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

I'm old enough to remember the pictures of LA before their stringency began to have an effect upon their smog. Sadly, I am also old enough to remember when I didn't see smog on the drive to Dallas. It's ugly. Houston actually surpassed LA one year I think. IIRC, LA's geography adds some additional problems to their efforts that maybe Houston doesn't have?

I prefer some long term outlooks and ideas when it comes to air  quality. We have poor air, we die. It's pretty simple. DJ doesn't do long term.

 

I remember when you could drive into Austin on 290 from the west and not see any smog on the skyline.

[4th&Five 41457]

24 minutes ago, triplehorn said:

 

On the other hand there were some e-mails. 

[Fudge Nuggets 19146]

13 minutes ago, SquishMitten said:

Feel like I'm either missing something, or this won't hold up in court. 

Dotard knows it won’t hold up in court but he doesn’t care.  Today he gets to shout about dirty libruls in California infringing on your God given right to pollute at will (all the while taking their campaign money).  

Tomorrow when it gets shit stomped in court he will have moved on to the next great idea to MAGA.  Perhaps forcing immigrant kids currently free-loading in their posh cages to work in the beautiful coal mines like the good old days.

[Gil Bang 25897]

I'm old enough to remember the pictures of LA before their stringency began to have an effect upon their smog. Sadly, I am also old enough to remember when I didn't see smog on the drive to Dallas. It's ugly. Houston actually surpassed LA one year I think. IIRC, LA's geography adds some additional problems to their efforts that maybe Houston doesn't have?
I prefer some long term outlooks and ideas when it comes to air  quality. We have poor air, we die. It's pretty simple. DJ doesn't do long term.

I grew up here. When I was in elementary school, they didn’t let us go outside for recess for about 100 days a year due to excessive smog. It is much, much better than it was 30 or 40 years ago

[Judge Roybeanbag 11806]

[bolverk 29397]

Nice set of interactive heat maps showing progress we made in cutting down the rates of children with asthma due to NO2 and particulate matter around the country.

https://carteehdata.org/library/webapp/trap-asthma-usa

"Our analysis found that childhood asthma cases attributable to traffic pollution across the U.S. decreased, on average, by 33 percent between 2000 and 2010. In 2000, we estimated that 209,100 childhood asthma cases could be attributed to traffic pollution, while this number dropped to 141,900 cases in 2010. That’s a major win for public health.

What caused the decline in traffic-related asthma cases? There may be multiple causes, including more fuel-efficient vehicles, more stringent regulation on nitrogen oxide emissions and, potentially, reductions in total vehicle miles traveled due to the recession."

https://www.citylab.com/environment/2019/04/mapping-where-traffic-air-pollution-hurts-children-most/587170/

[Francisco 2.0 32318]

13 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:

 

I grew up here. When I was in elementary school, they didn’t let us go outside for recess for about 100 days a year due to excessive smog. It is much, much better than it was 30 or 40 years ago

 

You are lying.  Because the President is trying dammit to Make America Great Again!  It was better years ago! 

Or so I've been told.  

[RPM 26215]

4 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

We can be assured that Donald is referring to oil when he makes that claim.  In point of fact, the US currently consumes about 16% more petroleum product than it produces.  This doesn't sound like "energy independence" to me.  (For one thing, "petroleum" does not equal "energy", but I suspect that's a bridge too far for Donald's feeble brain.)

and our #1 importer is Canada

[DDD Dad 14250]

On the other hand there were some e-mails. 

Ah well nevertheless.

[jimmyjazz 45546]

Quote

"Our analysis found that childhood asthma cases attributable to traffic pollution across the U.S. decreased, on average, by 33 percent between 2000 and 2010. In 2000, we estimated that 209,100 childhood asthma cases could be attributed to traffic pollution, while this number dropped to 141,900 cases in 2010.

That's phenomenal.  A 33% reduction in one decade?  Of course, Donald doesn't care.

I am a severe asthmatic.  Until drugs like Advair came on the market, I was treading a fine line with the grim reaper.  I probably should have died on one occasion.  I huffed Primatene mist like a madman, and my heart is probably worse off for it.  My asthma is more related to allergies than pollution, mostly because I've never lived in an area where air pollution is a big problem, but I can't imagine surviving in those smog zones.  I simply would have died w/o modern meds, and maybe even then.

Donald Trump can kiss my ass.  I hope I get the chance to tell him so face to face one day.  Never thought I'd feel this way about any POTUS.

[UpperWestside 6134]

One of Dotard's elderly army members shot my friend a "who the fuck do you think you are speaking Spanish in America" look a little while ago. Just fuck these people. I hope he falls off the escalator at Dotard's tower. 

[Gil Bang 25897]

so, a trump protester and a San Diego TV reporter got into a heated cuss fight this morning in front of hundreds of people.  

I'll try to find video.  The reporter needs to be unemployed.   FWIW, KUSI is owned by a Texas company, McKinnon Broadcasting.   I think most reasonable folks would call it a pro-trump station. 

 

 

Edited September 18, 2019 by Gil Bang

[TwiceHorn 31263]

1 hour ago, SquishMitten said:

Yeah. I just don't even see how they have the authority to do so. As I understand it, Federal law "preempts" state laws that goes outside the minimum/maximum (in this case, emissions cannot exceed X). But Federal law does not typically preempt State laws that improve upon the Federal law (in this case, California sets the maximum even lower). If a state enacted a law that allowed emissions in excess of the Fed, then that would be preempted. But that's not the case here. Feel like I'm either missing something, or this won't hold up in court. 

The other angle would be that the Cali laws unduly burden interstate commerce.  The "dormant" commerce clause.

[6th Street 6355]

"Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve Fail Again! No "guts," no sense, no vision!! A terrible communicator!"

[Gil Bang 25897]

There's a chance that nobody here gives a fuck, but to buttress my "pro-trump" claims about KUSI, here's a tweet from them from earlier this year:

 

As if a US Congress Member is responsible for fighting crime locally. 

[Pescado_Rojo 19331]

Is KUSI a Sinclair station? 

[Gil Bang 25897]

4 minutes ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

Is KUSI a Sinclair station? 

no, but it may as well be.   There were rumors that some staff were fired because they aren't trumpkins. 

[Gil Bang 25897]

CA gov asks the same question that many of us have

 

@TahoeHorn where's the republican party?

[Longhornfan1024 1707]

12 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:

CA gov asks the same question that many of us have

 

@TahoeHorn where's the republican party?

Hating on the browns and padding the pockets of the rich.  That's been the true heart of the Republican party at least for my whole life.  All the other stuff was just lies to manipulate their way into power.  

[4th&Five 41457]

Get ready for TWEETAGEDDON!!!!

Former President Barack Obama said at a tech conference Wednesday that one key to his decision-making was relying on staff and surrounding himself with a diversity of viewpoints, before adding:

"The other thing that is helpful is not watching TV or reading social media."

[DixonHur 11170]

4 minutes ago, 4th&Five said:

Get ready for TWEETAGEDDON!!!!

Former President Barack Obama said at a tech conference Wednesday that one key to his decision-making was relying on staff and surrounding himself with a diversity of viewpoints, before adding:

"The other thing that is helpful is not watching TV or reading social media."

What a pussy...gotta go with your gut, regardless of what those pencil neck "experts" think

[Brisketexan 104557]

6 minutes ago, Longhornfan1024 said:

Hating on the browns and padding the pockets of the rich.  That's been the true heart of the Republican party at least for my whole life.  All the other stuff was just lies to manipulate their way into power.  

QF pithy truth. It really is that simple.  Shame on any of us -- including me -- for every thinking otherwise.

[sachick 1189]

1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

QF pithy truth. It really is that simple.  Shame on any of us -- including me -- for every thinking otherwise.

I figured it out when I was a kid. All the "rich" white people were Republicans. And aggys. That's when I became a Longhorn fan. I knew I wanted to be the opposite of them.

[Guest Lobo]

I only know (well) about a dozen Aggies.  And of those, I don't think I'd consider any of them "rich."  I find it rude and childish to count other people's money, but they're all basically middle class, one lawyer is comfortably upper-middle class and rising.  I do know that almost all of them, if not all, voted for Trump.  

[Blotto 23427]

38 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:

@TahoeHorn where's the republican party?

Standing in line to tongue Trump's asshole. No reason today should be any different than the last three years. 

[DixonHur 11170]

SIAP....this is exactly why I'm not taking the 2020 election for granted.  The Dems need to get their shit in gear and start putting DJ and GOP on defense.  Playing nice will get you beat.  It's time they wake up to the fact that the system is rigged against them.  Politics as usual won't work.

New study: Trump's Electoral College win was no fluke — and is likely to happen again

"Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin...found that the probability of the popular vote winner losing the electoral vote is about 40 percent in races decided by 1 percent (about 1.3 million votes) and roughly 30 percent in races decided by 2 percent (2.6 million votes) or less.

But these probabilities are “not symmetric across political parties,” the researchers say. Over the past 30 to 60 years, this asymmetry has favored Republicans. The statistical models used in the research predict that in the event of an inversion, “the probability that it will be won by a Republican ranges from 69 percent to 93 percent.”

“But conditional on a narrow popular vote loss for Democrats, modern Democratic candidates have had about a 35% chance winning the Presidency via inversion,” the researchers wrote, meaning that Republicans have a 65 percent chance of winning all future narrowly decided elections."

 

Spoiler

Republicans are expected to win 65 percent of close presidential races in which they lose the popular vote as a result of the Electoral College and the blue-state concentration of Democrats, according to a new working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin looked at the probability of “inversions” in presidential elections, where the popular-vote winner loses the electoral vote. These inversions happened in 2000 and 2016 and twice in the 1800s, meaning that the candidate with the most votes has lost 8 percent of the time in the last 200 years. 

Using statistical models that predicted an inversion in the 2000 and 2016 races, the researchers found that the probability of the popular vote winner losing the electoral vote is about 40 percent in races decided by 1 percent (about 1.3 million votes) and roughly 30 percent in races decided by 2 percent (2.6 million votes) or less.

But these probabilities are “not symmetric across political parties,” the researchers say. Over the past 30 to 60 years, this asymmetry has favored Republicans. The statistical models used in the research predict that in the event of an inversion, “the probability that it will be won by a Republican ranges from 69 percent to 93 percent.”

“But conditional on a narrow popular vote loss for Democrats, modern Democratic candidates have had about a 35% chance winning the Presidency via inversion,” the researchers wrote, meaning that Republicans have a 65 percent chance of winning all future narrowly decided elections.

“If elections continue to remain close,” as they have in recent races, the researchers wrote, “inversions will occur with substantially higher frequency” than they have in the past.

The researchers pointed to the Electoral College system and the high concentration of Democratic votes in blue states as the driving force behind this trend. “Democrats have tended to win large states by large margins and lose them by small margins,” the researchers explained, creating an asymmetry in the winner-take-all Electoral College system that favors Republicans. In 2016, for example, Hillary Clinton won California by about 3.5 million votes while losing Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin by less than 80,000 votes combined.

“Feasible policy changes — including awarding each state’s Electoral College ballots proportionally between parties rather than awarding all to the state winner — could substantially reduce inversion probabilities, though not in close elections,” the researchers concluded.

Michael Geruso, who led the research, told HuffPost that only scrapping the Electoral College system, rather than reforming it, would eliminate the growing chance of inversions in presidential races.

“The only change that would cause the Electoral College to always elect the winner of the national popular vote would be to change the system to have a national popular vote,” he said.

Another researcher, Dean Spears, told the outlet that the paper shows that Trump’s 2016 win was not a fluke, and the chances of a repeat are only increasing.

“I think a lot of people think that there was something special or improbable about the 2016 election. That with the politics of these times, 2016 was somehow a fluke. One of the important things that we learned is that that’s not true,” he said. “Not because it was unlikely, it was an inversion because an inversion is likely in a close election.”

Following Trump’s win, Hillary Clinton called for abolishing the Electoral College while Trump declared the system was “actually genius” despite calling it a “disaster for democracy” after President Obama won in 2012. 

Abolishing the Electoral College would require a constitutional amendment, which would have to be approved by three-fourths of Congress and three-fourths of the states, an unlikely scenario given the Republicans’ recent embrace of the system.

A growing number of states have signed on to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Sixteen states with a combined electoral vote total of 196 have pledged to award all their electoral votes to the popular vote winner once the compact reaches the 270 electoral votes necessary to clinch the election. 

John Koza, the founder of the group behind the compact, told the New York Times that eliminating the Electoral College would not just be more democratic but also allow more states, beyond the closely contested battleground states, to have a voice in the presidential race.

“The visible public problem right now with the electoral system is that the candidate who came in second gets the White House,” he said. “But the real problem is that very few states get the attention of the presidential campaigns.”

Fourteen of the 2020 Democratic candidates have called for abolishing the Electoral College, though not former Vice President Joe Biden or Sen. Kamala Harris. 

“Every vote matters,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said at a rally in Mississippi earlier this year. “And the way we can make that happen is that we can have national voting. And that means get rid of the Electoral College.”

 

[shnsajax 3589]

The minute Republican's lose Texas they will be screaming to remove the EC. 

[DDD Dad 14250]

1 hour ago, Gil Bang said:

so, a trump protester and a San Diego TV reporter got into a heated cuss fight this morning in front of hundreds of people.  

I'll try to find video.  The reporter needs to be unemployed.   FWIW, KUSI is owned by a Texas company, McKinnon Broadcasting.   I think most reasonable folks would call it a pro-trump station. 

 

 

FWIW McKinnon's headquarters is in San Diego but it does own a couple of TV stations (Corpus Christi KIII and Beaumont KBMT).  I looked them up a while back when I saw some ridiculous reporting that had been posted here on Surly.  They're cut from the same cloth as Sinclair Media, just smaller.

[Brisketexan 104557]

10 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

SIAP....this is exactly why I'm not taking the 2020 election for granted.  The Dems need to get their shit in gear and start putting DJ and GOP on defense.  Playing nice will get you beat.  It's time they wake up to the fact that the system is rigged against them.  Politics as usual won't work.

New study: Trump's Electoral College win was no fluke — and is likely to happen again

"Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin...found that the probability of the popular vote winner losing the electoral vote is about 40 percent in races decided by 1 percent (about 1.3 million votes) and roughly 30 percent in races decided by 2 percent (2.6 million votes) or less.

But these probabilities are “not symmetric across political parties,” the researchers say. Over the past 30 to 60 years, this asymmetry has favored Republicans. The statistical models used in the research predict that in the event of an inversion, “the probability that it will be won by a Republican ranges from 69 percent to 93 percent.”

“But conditional on a narrow popular vote loss for Democrats, modern Democratic candidates have had about a 35% chance winning the Presidency via inversion,” the researchers wrote, meaning that Republicans have a 65 percent chance of winning all future narrowly decided elections."

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Republicans are expected to win 65 percent of close presidential races in which they lose the popular vote as a result of the Electoral College and the blue-state concentration of Democrats, according to a new working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin looked at the probability of “inversions” in presidential elections, where the popular-vote winner loses the electoral vote. These inversions happened in 2000 and 2016 and twice in the 1800s, meaning that the candidate with the most votes has lost 8 percent of the time in the last 200 years. 

Using statistical models that predicted an inversion in the 2000 and 2016 races, the researchers found that the probability of the popular vote winner losing the electoral vote is about 40 percent in races decided by 1 percent (about 1.3 million votes) and roughly 30 percent in races decided by 2 percent (2.6 million votes) or less.

But these probabilities are “not symmetric across political parties,” the researchers say. Over the past 30 to 60 years, this asymmetry has favored Republicans. The statistical models used in the research predict that in the event of an inversion, “the probability that it will be won by a Republican ranges from 69 percent to 93 percent.”

“But conditional on a narrow popular vote loss for Democrats, modern Democratic candidates have had about a 35% chance winning the Presidency via inversion,” the researchers wrote, meaning that Republicans have a 65 percent chance of winning all future narrowly decided elections.

“If elections continue to remain close,” as they have in recent races, the researchers wrote, “inversions will occur with substantially higher frequency” than they have in the past.

The researchers pointed to the Electoral College system and the high concentration of Democratic votes in blue states as the driving force behind this trend. “Democrats have tended to win large states by large margins and lose them by small margins,” the researchers explained, creating an asymmetry in the winner-take-all Electoral College system that favors Republicans. In 2016, for example, Hillary Clinton won California by about 3.5 million votes while losing Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin by less than 80,000 votes combined.

“Feasible policy changes — including awarding each state’s Electoral College ballots proportionally between parties rather than awarding all to the state winner — could substantially reduce inversion probabilities, though not in close elections,” the researchers concluded.

Michael Geruso, who led the research, told HuffPost that only scrapping the Electoral College system, rather than reforming it, would eliminate the growing chance of inversions in presidential races.

“The only change that would cause the Electoral College to always elect the winner of the national popular vote would be to change the system to have a national popular vote,” he said.

Another researcher, Dean Spears, told the outlet that the paper shows that Trump’s 2016 win was not a fluke, and the chances of a repeat are only increasing.

“I think a lot of people think that there was something special or improbable about the 2016 election. That with the politics of these times, 2016 was somehow a fluke. One of the important things that we learned is that that’s not true,” he said. “Not because it was unlikely, it was an inversion because an inversion is likely in a close election.”

Following Trump’s win, Hillary Clinton called for abolishing the Electoral College while Trump declared the system was “actually genius” despite calling it a “disaster for democracy” after President Obama won in 2012. 

Abolishing the Electoral College would require a constitutional amendment, which would have to be approved by three-fourths of Congress and three-fourths of the states, an unlikely scenario given the Republicans’ recent embrace of the system.

A growing number of states have signed on to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Sixteen states with a combined electoral vote total of 196 have pledged to award all their electoral votes to the popular vote winner once the compact reaches the 270 electoral votes necessary to clinch the election. 

John Koza, the founder of the group behind the compact, told the New York Times that eliminating the Electoral College would not just be more democratic but also allow more states, beyond the closely contested battleground states, to have a voice in the presidential race.

“The visible public problem right now with the electoral system is that the candidate who came in second gets the White House,” he said. “But the real problem is that very few states get the attention of the presidential campaigns.”

Fourteen of the 2020 Democratic candidates have called for abolishing the Electoral College, though not former Vice President Joe Biden or Sen. Kamala Harris. 

“Every vote matters,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said at a rally in Mississippi earlier this year. “And the way we can make that happen is that we can have national voting. And that means get rid of the Electoral College.”

 

You're singing my song.  Trump is a two-term president.  Between racism/cultism, targeted disenfranchisement, and collaborative foreign interference, Trump will win the states needed to stay in office.  The Dems need a margin of 6-7% or larger to eke out a close win.

1 minute ago, shnsajax said:

The minute Republican's lose Texas they will be screaming to remove the EC. 

Not gonna happen.  Rumor's of the GOP's impending demise in this state are VERY exaggerated.  This is still a red state, and will be for a good while to come.  Again, bet on racism/cultism -- it has the proven track record.

[DixonHur 11170]

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

You're singing my song.

It's a depressing tune

[Brisketexan 104557]

Just now, DixonHur said:

It's a depressing tune

All songs are dirges now.

[DDD Dad 14250]

7 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

You're singing my song.  Trump is a two-term president.  Between racism/cultism, targeted disenfranchisement, and collaborative foreign interference, Trump will win the states needed to stay in office.  The Dems need a margin of 6-7% or larger to eke out a close win.

Not gonna happen.  Rumor's of the GOP's impending demise in this state are VERY exaggerated.  This is still a red state, and will be for a good while to come.  Again, bet on racism/cultism -- it has the proven track record.

Stop it.  I'm two days on the wagon this week.

[Chuckie Finster 22598]

9 minutes ago, shnsajax said:

The minute Republican's lose Texas they will be screaming to remove the EC. 

I saw this map of state visits by 2016 Presidential candidates and it really emphasized how full of shit any of the "BUT THEN THEY'LL ONLY VISIT A COUPLE OF STATES" argument is for keeping the electoral college.  At this point, i's purely a tool to allow the minority to stay in power, nothing more.

[Brisketexan 104557]

2 minutes ago, DDD Dad said:

Stop it.  I'm two days on the wagon this week.

Fool.

This is the order of the day, and will continue to be:

[DDD Dad 14250]

1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

Fool.

This is the order of the day, and will continue to be:

I like mine with a big rock of ice, thank you.

[Chad Fuck 17556]

I like mine with a big rock of ice, thank you.

Buy they spent so long trying to get the water out of it...

[DixonHur 11170]

4 minutes ago, DDD Dad said:

I like mine with a big rock of ice, thank you.

World's running out of ice...better get used to it straight up 

[DDD Dad 14250]

SIAP but this was predicted here many months ago.

 

[Biff Tannen 45491]

4 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

World's running out of ice...better get used to it straight up 

[DDD Dad 14250]

13 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Fool.

This is the order of the day, and will continue to be:

 

7 minutes ago, Chad Fuck said:

Buy they spent so long trying to get the water out of it...

 

6 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

World's running out of ice...better get used to it straight up 

[DDD Dad 14250]

Fuck it.  I'm drinking Scotch tonight.  Good thing I don't have any in my office.

[Francisco 2.0 32318]

I'm just imagining how much of a non-story among the GOP this would be if the military was paying for service members to stay at the Obama Inn.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/18/military-trumps-scottish-resort-1501877

 

Quote

Since Donald Trump took office, the U.S. military has spent nearly $200,000 at the president’s luxury Scotland resort, according to figures and documents the Pentagon provided to the House Oversight Committee.

The spending, which has all occurred since August 2017, paid for the equivalent of hundreds of nights of rooms at the Turnberry resort over approximately three dozen separate stays, the committee said.

The Air Force confirmed last week that its crews had stayed up to 40 times at Trump’s property since 2015, but it has not provided a breakdown of the number of stays since Trump was elected. The figures provided to the House Oversight Committee suggest the vast majority of stays have occurred since Trump took office, raising concerns among Democrats about a conflict of interest.

Quote

POLITICO first reported earlier this month that the Oversight Committee had been probing military spending at Turnberry since April to determine whether the money constituted a violation of the Constitution’s domestic emoluments clause, which prohibits the president from receiving any compensation from the federal government other than his salary.

After being elected, Trump chose not to fully divest himself from his business interests, choosing instead to put his holdings in a trust that he can receive money from at any time.

The committee’s probe has ramped up in the wake of POLITICO’s reporting on several overnight stays at the resort by U.S. Air Force crews, some of which have been multinight stays involving dozens of crew members and passengers.

 

 

Quote

The Pentagon documents showed that U.S. taxpayer funds “have been used to pay for more than three dozen separate stays involving hundreds of nights of rooms — all after the President was sworn into office,” according to a letter the committee’s chairman, Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) wrote to acting Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Wednesday.

The Democrats called the Pentagon’s response so far — about 21 pages of material turned over to the panel, but no underlying invoices or travel records — “woefully inadequate.”

But the department did reveal that the average cost of a room at Turnberry for military service members from August 2017 to July 2019 was $189, and that Turnberry expenditures during that time period “amounted to $124,578.96” — plus an “an additional $59,729.12” in unspecified charges to government travel cards.

 

 

Spoiler

“If both of these claims are accurate, it appears that U.S. taxpayer funds were used to purchase the equivalent of more than 650 rooms at the Trump Turnberry just since August 2017 — or the equivalent of one room every night for more than one-and-a-half years,” the congressmen wrote.

The Air Force launched an internal review of how it chooses overnight accommodations on long flights after revelations that air crews had stayed at Trump's Scotland resort while refueling at Prestwick Airport, a small commercial airport nearby.

Prestwick has long been debt-ridden — the Scottish government bought it in 2013 for £1, but it has continued to lose money in the years since. The airport signed a refueling contract with the Defense Department in August 2016, but in June the government announced its intent to sell the airport, which is about 30 miles away from Turnberry.

In their letter to Esper on Wednesday, Cummings and Raskin wrote that according to documents provided by the Pentagon, expenditures at the airport from the day Trump was inaugurated through June 21, 2019 amounted to nearly $17 million. But while the department claimed to pay $3.38 per gallon for fuel, the congressmen wrote, “it did not provide any information on contemporaneous fuel rates at non-commercial sites, such as military bases elsewhere in Europe.”

Air Force Brig. Gen. Ed Thomas, the chief spokesman, told POLITICO in a statement earlier this month that “initial reviews indicate that aircrew transiting through Scotland adhered to all guidance and procedures.”

But he acknowledged that U.S. service members “lodging at higher-end accommodations, even if within government rates, might be allowable but not advisable. Therefore, we are reviewing all associated guidance.”

Democrats in Congress are eyeing legislation to put a stop to the practice altogether.

Nearly three dozen Democratic senators this week co-sponsored a bill that would make it illegal for the federal government to spend taxpayer dollars at properties owned by the president, vice president or members of the Cabinet.

The Heightened Oversight of Travel, Eating, and Lodging, or HOTEL, Act was introduced by Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), a member of the Armed Services Committee and the top Democrat on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

“As elected officials, we must hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards and ensure that we are using taxpayer dollars responsibly,” Peters said in a statement.

Peters has also requested a formal probe of the Air Force’s use of Turnberry by the Pentagon’s inspector general. A spokeswoman for the IG, Dwrena Allen, declined to discuss the status of his request.

 

[Bama Chick 28596]

Aw, too bad .

[DixonHur 11170]

Never noticed it before, but in that picture she kind of looks like Donald in drag.