Summations Only

This morning while running errands, a caller on the Thom Hartman Show brought up Trump's golf trips to his own resorts.She cited the cost to us so far as totaling $200 million -- around the end of last year I saw it reported as over $100 million plus I don't know what her source was.
Also, we don't know the break-down of these figures. Do those figures just include what the resort gets paid? Or does it include all the costs including ones that Trump cannot profit from such as transportation (boy, are we lucky Trump Airlines no longer exists), salaries for his security entourage, support teams and the cost for their operations, etc? We need a full accounting of all those costs, including the bills from Trump's resorts. Of course, Trump will refuse all requests for those records and ignore all subpoenas for them. What is he hiding that he is so intent on covering up? We will eventually find out.They started out with that meeting between Trump and the Irish Prime Minister in an airport lounge next to the vending machines. Originally, Trump wanted the meeting to be at his local golf resort. In the discussion between Thom and the caller, it was pointed out that that Trump resort was in financial trouble approaching bankruptcy, so obviously Trump wanted some free publicity to promote it (I got that from news coverage at the time of that meeting). Also, Trump planned to rent three cars from his resort to take everybody there at a cost of $1 million. Plus there was all the income for that resort serving food and drinks, etc, for everybody who would be there to cover this meeting -- image Ray Kroc, creator of the MacDonald's chain, as the US President who insists on having a big event at a MacDonald's and you would understand Trump's motivation. Ireland declined and wanted that meeting to be at an Irish government building since it was official, so Trump, miffed that he couldn't make any money on this deal, instead had it in an airport lounge next to the vending machines.I should note at this point that when I presented to Faith how Trump is personally profiting monetarily from his far-too-frequent golf trips (Message 522), she chose to deflect and divert (Message 523), and completely ignored my request that she at least attempt to justify Trump's profiteering at every opportunity (Message 525).Of course, Trump's golf profiteering was not my first clue, but rather that was his Presidential campaign. You don't even need anyone to paint the picture for you. Trump's campaign headquarters leased office space from Trump and those campaign workers were fed by Trump-owned catering services, etc. Campaign contributions came in and ended up in Trump's pockets, which on the face of it would be a very convenient form of money laundering. And then what was Trump's nearly-first move in office? He immediately registered his re-election campaign, so that he could keep that cash-cow alive and continue to provide a pipeline for campaign contributions into his pocket. Later on, we discovered that some of those "campaign offices" that Trump was receiving lease payments for had never even been staffed (none of the locals ever saw anybody arrive nor leave), but rather was empty unused office space.The inauguration is also illuminating. I'm operating from memory, so do please check the figures, but Trump did for once in his life do something never seen before: he collected far more contributions for his inauguration than any President before, at least two or three times more than for Obama's. The difference is that Trump's inauguration didn't have much of anything to show for it, especially compared to Obama's star-studded affair. For having received so much in contributions, Trump's affair (dare we call it "tawdry"?) was very lackluster, especially compared to Obama's. So where did all that money go? It's been about a year since I last heard any news on this, but there was still about $50 million not accounted for. Previous inaugural committees had been able to close their books and account for all the money within six months, but to my knowledge Trump's inaugural committee has yet to close its books and to account for all the money -- please correct me if I'm off here (your brain-fever illusions don't count, Faith).The inauguration, and the Inaugural Ball especially, is illuminating. The Inaugural Ball and related events were held at the Trump International Hotel, as negotiated by Ivanka Trump, which overcharged the inaugural committee. This should inform us of the bills that Trump racks up at his golf resorts. Does Trump pay greens fees (ie, do we pay greens fees for Trump?)? What are they? Does he get any "owner's discount", or do they charge the full rate? Does he or any of his entourage ever get any kind of discount? Or are they all charged full price or even more? All indications speak for the latter, that Trump is bilking the government for every single dollar he possibly can. Because making money is all that he cares about ... apart from having his fragile ego fluffed to compensate for his many short-comings.And consider his Trump International Hotel. Anyone, including foreigns, who want to curry favor with Trump will stay at that hotel. There was that affair in which there was some big veterans' event and some "unnamed benefactor" reserved a block of rooms in the Trump International Hotel for veterans to stay in for free. That "unnamed benefactor" turned out to be a Saudi seeking to curry favor with Trump. Money laundering much?In that radio program, Thom Parkman described Trump's profiteering off of his golf resorts as a violation of the Constitution's Emoluments Clause because the Constitution prohibits the President from profiting from his office. I remember very early after the 2016 election Trump bragging that he would be the first President to make a profit from the office.Remember all the statements of irony that, considering all the horrendous crimes he had committed, the only way to send Al Capone to prison was for tax evasion? Wouldn't it be ironic that the only way we could impeach and remove Trump was because of his profiteering from his golf trips?

$200 million for Trump's golf outings seems high. The numbers I have seen run from $102-110 million. All of Obama's travel cost $115 million.

...Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It isn't fair to mention Faith since she's banned from this thread.--Percy

And he wasn’t on suicide watch at the time. them sneaky Demmycrat jailers!!Edited by Coragyps, : No reason given.

somebody had epstein wacked, whether it was trump or bill clinton or whoever seems irrelevant now.

And your evidence for that Chris?

Highly implausible. Would require an insane amount of collusion to successfully pull it off. He's just a little bitch who lived above the law for so long that it was hard to come to terms for actually being accountable for the first time in his privileged little life.

Oh, I don’t know. A man on suicide watch in a sensitive federal case like this doesn’t get much in the way of opportunities to hang himself, not that it can’t be done, mind you.First attempt was foiled easily. Makes a second attempt that much rarer.My own conspiracy theory is that he was counseled that doing the "right thing" would be best as a matter of honor, or expediency or as a favor for favored friends. After the first attempt was foiled his guards were convinced such vigilance was no longer necessary?Whether he had help or succeed on his own doesn't matter. There are a lot of powerful people from politics, business, academia, art and beyond who are breathing a great sigh of relief. Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

I've seen different stories about whether he was on suicide watch.Whatever the truth, it's a mistifying incident with pl of fodd for consp theorists.

... is that he really isn't dead. They substituted a look-alike and he has been smuggled out of the country and to an estate in Argentina.

If I were a betting man I would say his thought process went something like this: He thought he could give up a lot of other very rich and powerful elites and that it would buy him some of his freedom back. It didn't work. I think he slowly came to the realization that he was facing serious hard time and thought he was a giant, walking target. Surely he knew that once he got to prison (jail is much different) that not only would connected people be much more likely to pull off an actual hit, but that even if they didn't that the general population would whack him.1 He's now the lowest form of life in the prison system - a pedophile
2. Oh, except that he's now even lower than that because he's a snitch
3. And he's coming in as someone with connection to money, which means inmates would constantly be extorting himSo I think he thought of all of that and came to the realization that instead of being tortured and then savagely murdered in prison, either from a hit ordered by connected people or a pissed off general population, that he'd just head them off at the pass and do it himself.

That's definitely reasonable. If true, there was some serious fucking up going on in that prison and maybe higher up. There's a report the guards skipped checking him during the night.

skipping security checks on the most high profile prisoner in the world?