Actually This Is Pretty Scandalous

As most of us struggle to remain in the black year on year [we are doing our accounts yet again]

The three Mar-a-Lago trips in Palm Beach cost the federal treasury around $10m, based on figures used in an October government report analysing White House travel.

Conservative watchdog Judicial Watch estimated Mr Obama’s travel expenses totalled an average $12.1m in each of his eight years in the White House.

So in one month Trump is costing as much as Obama did in one year, this is forgetting

Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw also says it has cost local taxpayers $360,000 in police overtime for his three weekends in Florida since 20 January

.

Or the costs of disruption

Along with the added local law enforcement expenses that protecting the president brings, Trump’s arrival also prompts security restrictions that can lead to traffic jams, re-route boaters and ground local aviation businesses

Business Insider puts up a summary [not all]

Three trips to Mar-a-Lago since Trump's inauguration may have cost about $10 million, based on a government report from October that analyzed White House travel, The Post said. The expenses include the cost of US Coast Guard patrol boats on the shoreline.
Palm Beach County officials say they will request reimbursement of tens of thousands of dollars per day from the White House for their deputies who provided security and logistical support around the city.
Police officials estimate that it would cost New York $500,000 a day, or $183 million a year, to guard Trump Tower, where first lady Melania Trump and son Barron Trump live.
Secret Service and US embassy employees paid about $100,000 in hotel room bills during Eric Trump's trip to Uruguay, where he promoted a Trump-branded building.
If the Pentagon secures rental space in Trump Tower — needed for when the president returns to New York — it could cost $1.5 million per year, according to the building's website.
Secret Service paid $12,000 for tents, portable toilets, light towers, and golf carts during Trump's Super Bowl weekend trip to Mar-a-Lago.

These are of course over an above the cost of running the White House itself.

Who pockets the money generated by these trips to Mar-a-Lago? Trump Tower even? One can only presume that Trump benefits personally since he owns both.

The White House is built to be the Presidents home and work place with all the security systems in place [plus coverage by the capitals own defences].

After years screaming about the cost of the holidays of a Kenyan Muslim will the Republicans scream about this waste of public money? Hmmm. Will Hair Trump, since he was all so critical of the costs run up by the possibly non-American?

As for the use by Trump of "The Southern White House" this sounds like something out of a KKK fantasy novel.

The other amusing thing for his staff is that he gets his information from Fox "news" not them. Perhaps they could be fired to help pay for the Florida jaunts?

Running like clock-work eh, that's all we need, another damn cuckoo-clock in the world.

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Raggedy Ann's picture

when a rethug is in office. Especially a white rethug. Especially a rich white rethug. Maybe someone will start crying foul, but I doubt it.

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

@Raggedy Ann

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Oldest Son Of A Sailor's picture

@LaFeminista He's "Entitled" to these perks since he "Worked So Hard" for them...

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"Do you realize the responsibility I carry?
I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."

~John F. Kennedy~
Economic: -9.13, Social: -7.28,

It's not like Clinton didn't waste millions in taxpayer dollars handing out favors as SoS, laundering through the Clinton Global Foundation, which is where now?

Reminds me back when my postal carrier got outraged about Michelle Obama taking her offspring on vacation somewhere, the press with nothing better to do then whip up non-issues. Is it all over The Facebook? Catching hair on fire worldwide, travelgate! hashtag! russia! lol Thanks.

PEACE

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@eyo symptomatic of a corrupt system, no matter who does it and Trump has taken it to a whole new level.

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@LaFeminista and dying system and, but compared with spending $1Trillion to upgrade nuclear weapons and $1Trillion to create even more waste at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies - with the concomitant loss of our freedoms - Trump's selfish and excessive spending is small spuds. That doesn't mean it's not an outrage - it is - but in context with the spending on propping up global monopoly capital, it's not worth much attention.

It is good to know though.

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

@duckpin

1] A warmongering neocon
2] Corruption/self enrichment.

We will see Trumps personal wealth at the end of 4 years, I think it will surprise quite a few.

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@LaFeminista

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@LaFeminista Why would it? He's a greedy bastard.
If I prefer him to Clinton, it's not because he's good. It's because he's not crazy.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@LaFeminista These trips include the cost of security and the press transport. When it's an Air Force plane they include the life cycle costs of the aircraft and all it's maintenance.

Do you want the First Lady to buy a coach ticket out of Dulles and take a cab there?

Rich people take vacations and prominent rich people have expensive security. It doesn't get more prominent than POTUS.

Obama/Tump/Bush/Clinton/Reagan/Carter/Nixon... It doesn't matter. The press should find something else to complain about. Like secret prisons and "extraordinary rendition". Something that matters. They used to complain about the cost of Eleanor Roosevelt's travel too.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

@eyo it" so that makes it OK.

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@LaFeminista sorry for the harsh words, for me it's too soon and like brushing things under the rug, because Trump. Well give me a few months before I can begin to forget how we got here. I don't know, maybe I'll never look forward again, until the established take a look back to fix what's broke.

Peace, I'll stop shouting now. Wink

Edited to add descriptive tune.

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@LaFeminista @LaFeminista

There should be a cap or a federally approved per diem rate like there is for everyone else. Anything over it is at the President's own expense. Presidents shouldn't be able to enrich themselves at our expense.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

@dkmich campaign finance reform these days. Nor has he proved that there is no conflict of interest between his elected role and his businesses.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@dkmich OK, it's not just a distraction. You convinced me. But I still think it's a pretty small gnat to slap at, while we're being menaced by a fire-breathing dragon.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@LaFeminista of comments here are saying 'you didn't complain before, so why are you complaining now' rather than saying 'it's okay.' And you probably know that.

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dfarrah

@dfarrah @dfarrah

I don't think Trump has launched a hostile takeover of that...yet.

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@dfarrah It seems to me that there has to be a first complaint about any bothersome activity. That complaint is quite unlikely the first time the action is taken. Are you saying if we miss one we must be forever silent?

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@LaFeminista Someone else not only did it, but does it. Actually, make that nearly everyone. Probably Evo Morales doesn't do it, and hooray for him, but most of the rest of the world's political leadership lives and travels in luxury, at least while they're in leadership positions.

So, like I said, if you actually want to oppose this, you'd be opposing the behavior, which means you'd be looking at the behavior everywhere you could find it, or at least put up several examples that are happening right now. Your focus is on Trump. Therefore, I conclude that what you actually want to oppose is Trump. OK, but it seems to me there's a lot worse things Trump has done than visit FL (though I wish he'd go somewhere else. Within driving distance of me, eew.) There's also a lot more, shall I say, unusual things Trump has done wrong--things that not everybody else does, things that are not entrenched customs on nearly a global scale.

Using entrenched and endemic customs as a way of blaming an individual strikes me as not particularly useful. You won't get rid of the custom that way. It's also not the most effective way of attacking the individual. What it does, more or less, is create an atmosphere in which an individual can never be at ease, because any ordinarily accepted behavior could become a foundation for a new wave of criticism. So it's less about getting rid of a custom, or a person, than it is about creating an atmosphere of constant attack, which is a gesture more of undermining and vexing a particular leader than anything else.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal And if we're going to use the "create a vexing atmosphere to undermine the leader" strategy, we'll need a larger reach. The reason the MSM does it so often is they can reach such large numbers of people so easily. That spreads the vexing atmosphere until it is truly vexing to the leader in question.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal We could start with that "put our embassy in Jerusalem" thing. Jesus Christ!

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@LaFeminista @LaFeminista

...or lunacy or whatever the hell it is, to continually compare it to Hillary and what-ifs. It interferes with the constructive spirit we need now to build an optimistic alternative to Trumpworld and Democorporateworld.

I'm also tired of the arguments that "Oh someone else did

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Beware the bullshit factories.

riverlover's picture

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Amanda Matthews's picture

@riverlover
was it?

I've run into this problem myself. Why does it happen? Does it mean only certain types of graphics are only supported for some reason?

Just wondering

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

@Amanda Matthews is the file name, it was racist in my view, a pretty inflammatory way to speak truth. I think it might offend people so kind of glad it's hidden, but I don't know. Maybe it will appear again, we'll see. Thanks

Edit: here it shows up in this comment by riverlover http://caucus99percent.com/comment/243616#comment-243616
Sex workers, Italians, Muslims, Blacks. Next? heh

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riverlover's picture

@Amanda Matthews Maybe I can't borrow someone's artwork from FB? Too bad, 4 blocks: do you want to fix prostitution? Become a pimp and work from the inside. Don't like racism? Join the KKK and work from the inside. Etc.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

frivolous expenses and therefore are completely undeserving. However, in the competitive world of white man privilege, this is a small price to pay for such superior leadership.

~snark

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Lookout's picture

Hair Pumpkinfuehrer's plan is working out great. Unlike the Clintons he doesn't have to wait until he leaves office to increase his wealth, he'll use the office itself to do so. Another small example is the DAPL situation where his decisions add to his bottom line. Seems like it is ripe for court (and another case of charging the people to defend his right to profit off of the people).

I've been thinking it's not the swamp, but the DC tar pit (similar to the La Brea) with animals (in their suits) going extinct... caught in a mire of fossil fuel and pollution.

Lately I've been imagining them all covered with dirty oil (especially T-rex Tillerson)!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout it up.

The essay clearly assumes that Trump charged hotel fees, when we don't know that yet.

I used to think my side was factual; the Trump presidency has proven my thoughts were incorrect.

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dfarrah

@dfarrah blatant hypocrisy, so I do think it's important to point that out. We KNOW they all travel well, but for him to relentlessly slam on the black dude for doing what he himself does? While I would LOVE to think his supporters would see that and get it, I highly doubt they do.

While these expenses may be a "nothingburger" in the grand scheme, they do show, once again, how its all good when a rich white man does this, but let that Kenyan usurper do it and we should all be outraged. Not to mention the hubris of Trump and his entire family who will now be protected at US taxpayer expense for LIFE. Let his supporters chew on that little factoid while they struggle to put food on the table.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

Azazello's picture

Donald Trump is our first Fox News president. People wonder why he says the things he says, why he's always lying. But he doesn't think he's lying. After all, he saw it on Fox News. Many of us have older relatives who watch Fox News 24-7. It's easy to understand President Trump, he thinks just like your Fox News-watching crazy uncle.

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

@Azazello

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travelerxxx's picture

@Azazello

Each of us ... well, USAians anyway. Our very own Crazy Uncle Trump.

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Big Al's picture

It's become a quasi-royalty situation. Kings, Queens, Princes, Princesses, and all the benefits. I saw the first lady hired a new "social director" to plan all her fine dinners and things. It's absolutely ridiculous. I have to blame the American people on this.

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@Big Al Although Trump on a bill would make me feel queasy.

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Big Al's picture

@LaFeminista One thing I can't stand is England's Queen bullshit. Makes me sick. Whenever I hear things about Brits as far as being more aware than Americans or some such crap, I just say they still have Kings and Queens, what does that say about them?
If we did it, I'd give up.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

@LaFeminista
Clinton supporter and they mentioned that the dewlaps under his chin look like testicles. Of course right away I looked at some pictures of Trump and I'll be damned, it's true.

I wouldn't want that on our currency. But it's probably a moot point. Pretty soon if TPTB get their way we'll be a 'cashless' society and have no control over our money anyway.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

@Big Al Face it, these are not regular people than you would meet at Applebee's for a beer. They are rich people. This is how they all live.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Big Al's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Big Al What makes it quasi-royalty is not the pomp and circumstance so much as the renewed emphasis on hereditary passage of power.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

sojourns's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@sojourns Honestly, it's just plain gross. Like somehow the presence of African-American and/or women presidents is supposed to make it OK to pass the Presidency down through your family. Because they're black and/or female, so it's all good... Though I'll admit it started with the Bushes, disgusting little Tories that they are.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

earthling1's picture

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

Amanda Matthews's picture

he's used his many bankruptcies to avoid them. He's stiffed practically everyone who's ever worked for him and who knows how many banks. He hawked his various wares all the way through the primary like a shill at a carnival. This isn't that big a surprise. He's the ultimate wealthy parasite.

This is what happens when the 'left' decides to run someone like the Clinton creature who's unfavorable rating among voters was even worse than this guy's. But it was HER TURNNNNN!

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

@Amanda Matthews Republican.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

@LaFeminista

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

He was saying that he actually had to pay for those things himself. That it was not a taxpayer expense. Not sure, but maybe it was on 60 Minutes?

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@Sunspots that's how I remembered it too, and the media still blew a fuse. It's all too familiar.

Michelle's European Vacation

It is true that the Obamas visited Westminster Abbey, as well as a well-known local pub in Mayfair, as the e-mail says. The Obamas also visited Big Ben and Parliament. As an added treat for Sasha Obama’s 8th birthday, the Obama girls met the actors from the "Harry Potter" movies. But the Obamas paid for their own personal expenses – not U.S. taxpayers. Katie McCormick Lelyveld, Michelle Obama’s press secretary, told FactCheck.org in an e-mail: "All personal travel and expenses incurred were paid for personally."

I did not fact check the factcheck if you know what I mean. Too weary, hey maybe that's the goal! lol

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@eyo The whole issue looks like a distraction to me. Penny-ante stuff. Who the fuck cares what Michelle Obama's dress cost, or Trump's vacation cost, or anything like that? They control the entire money supply, and have invented systems of economics that provide false justification for shrinking our share of the pie infinitely. They're dismantling our country and selling it for scrap. They've even found a way to make destruction itself a money-maker (thanks, MIC!) And we're talking about one guy's luxury vacations.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

You have based an entire essay on the assumption that the government is picking up his tab at his property. Might one question if he even charged the government?

Here is your assumption:
Who pockets the money generated by these trips to Mar-a-Lago? Trump Tower even? One can only presume that Trump benefits personally since he owns both.

And then, to pile on more, you mention the security costs to the city. Do cities typically bear the cost for presidential visits? If they do, then why is this city any different from any other city?

The essay is just another outrage-of-the millisecond, and you don't even have the facts to support your outrage.

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dfarrah

@dfarrah The Federal Treasury is not part of Trump inc.

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@LaFeminista before you go off on another rant and have people assuming that Trump billed the government for his use of his hotel.

If you find out for sure that this happened, then rant away. Right now, your essay is built primarily on an estimate based on expenses from October. If the hotel is going to bill the government, that invoice should be easily obtainable, with a verifiable amount, so that people can deal in fact and not speculation.

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dfarrah

ZimInSeattle's picture

travel budget soon as there is an increasingly wimpy military that needs sprucing up.

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"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK | "The more I see of the moneyed peoples, the more I understand the guillotine." - G. B. Shaw Bernie/Tulsi 2020

Cassiodorus's picture

Even the economists admit it's completely faith-based, unlike in earlier eras when they could point to some sort of "gold standard" without admitting that gold was a fantasy too. (It's amusing to note in this regard that the residents of Thomas More's (1516) Utopia had little purpose for gold except to use it to fashion the chains by which criminals were held captive.) They print the stuff all the time, trillions of dollars of it, and hand it to the military-industrial complex, which fashions weapons in endless quantities so that CIA-backed militias can fight Pentagon-backed militias, thus continuing with endless warfare and keeping those cotton-linen dollar printing presses going, presumably indefinitely.

Perhaps a more central scandal amidst all of this is the "balanced budget" movement, pompously insisting upon the reality of money so that paltry Federal subsidies to the starving can be cut out of the budgets. At the forefront of this "balanced budget" movement, today, are the usual list of suspects, but especially -- you guessed it -- former President Bill Clinton, repeat participant in the Peterson Foundation's fiscal summits. No wonder I didn't vote for his wife. Without these people we might actually start proposing stuff such as, say, reparations for Black people (specifically the descendants of slaves and victims of Jim Crow -- Michelle might qualify, but not Barack) or other such meaningful expenses.

In this regard the society of money as a whole is a scandal. They have everyone controlled so we need the stuff, and never get enough, while the oligarchy prints as much as it likes for its buddies.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

@Cassiodorus

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@LaFeminista Yeah, the saner ones keep score like that. I'm starting to think the less sane version keeps score in bodies.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Amanda Matthews's picture

@Cassiodorus
Foundation is quite something. And talk about bulls... I mean nonsense.

The Mission Statement
"to increase public awareness of the nature and urgency of key fiscal challenges threatening America's future and to accelerate action on them. To address these challenges successfully, we work to bring Americans together to find and implement sensible, long-term solutions that transcend age, party lines and ideological divides in order to achieve real results."

These people rig the game for themselves and then they tell us that it was OUR irresponsibility that caused us to lose.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

edg's picture

Figures from October? Trump wasn't in office until January. Each of Obama's Hawaii trips cost at least $5 million, so how did you come up with the "Obama only cost $12 million a year" figure?

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@edg presidential travelling circus.

They pay for their own room and board I hope Trump got his rooms for free in his own resort.

It's the costs of AF1 security detail etc etc. Resorts are not designed like the WH so all the temporary measures have to be moved around.

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edg's picture

@LaFeminista It strains belief that a trip from DC to Florida costs almost as much as a trip from DC to Hawaii.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

After years screaming about the cost of the holidays of a Kenyan Muslim will the Republicans scream about this waste of public money? Hmmm. Will Hair Trump, since he was all so critical of the costs run up by the possibly non-American?

No. Of course not. After years of saying that we don't care how much Michelle Obama's dress costs (and I really don't), are we going to scream about luxurious holidays in FL? Rich people acting like rich people. Also, heads of state are generally expected to act like rich people, whether they are or not (they usually are). Do you expect Angela Merkel to stay at the German equivalent of a Motel 6? Should Michelle Obama, at a state function, show up in a dress from Target?

If the answer is yes, what you want is to change a custom.

If you have a problem with a custom, advocating against the custom would require attacking lots of people all at once--all the people abiding by the custom, in fact. Because what you'd be attacking is not a person, but a behavior.

If what you actually have is a problem with a person, I'd argue there's a lot more fruitful ways to attack him than to attack his acting in accordance with a custom shared by most of the world's heads of state.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal whole damn circus.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@LaFeminista Sure. Where we disagree is in strategy and tactics, not morality and policy.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
to do here in France. Doesn't prevent us not accepting what passes for normal at the top either.

One I write essays about [or diaries on ToP when I still did] for tactics and strategy I do where we have the possibility of changing something and that you have to do face to face.

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sojourns's picture

expenses hit the $100,000,000 mark per annum. Then you'll see a shit storm.

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

MarilynW's picture

for his first 2020 campaign rally in Florida. I believe that is against the law.

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To thine own self be true.

Unabashed Liberal's picture

Service protection, jacking up the bill exponentially on the American taxpayer.

WJC did very few things that I agreed with--but, limiting Secret Service protection to 10 years (post Presidency) was one policy that I applauded.

While I would prefer that all Presidents pay for their own protection, and that of their families, even while they're in Office--we know that it doesn't work that way. And, likely never will. Realistically, there's also no way to impose restrictions as to the number of family members, their travel habits, etc.

Since the hour is late, I'll find and post the piece about O's bill at EB later this week. (which overturned WJC's bill)

BTW, in typical WJC fashion--when he signed the law limiting Secret Service protection to 10 years (post presidency), he exempted himself, and FSC, and Chelsea, by making it effective 'after' his term was over. This was in the 90's, of course, which proves that with the C's--some things never change.

Wink

My understanding is that Barbara Bush relieved her security detail immediately following WJC's inauguration. (Don't know about Daddy Shrub, though.)

I think it would be doable to return to the 'C' era bill, and that DT should be pressured to enact such a bill. Obviously, he can easily afford to foot the bill for his security detail--which he's done for decades, anyway. Further, with the 'earning potential' that all Presidents have today, it's fair, IMO, to require them to provide their own post-Presidency security protection.

Mollie


"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went."--Will Rogers

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Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

k9disc's picture

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu