link.
https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2017/06/06/how-donald-trump-shifted-kids-cancer-charity-money-into-his-business/&refURL=https://www.facebook.com/&referrer=https://www.facebook.com/#
Christ on a fucking Triscuit. The whole Trump family is a mass of the most under handed disgusting con artists on the planet. This is called skimming off the top.
The Imbecile in Chief.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/tacky-and-offensive-trumps-tweets-send-an-unfriendly-message-to-britain/article35201490/?click=sf_globefb
link.
Donald Trump, a fan of spectacles and spotlights, has a habit of signing executive orders that don’t actually do anything. The president likes to appear before cameras and give theappearance of work, but in nearly every instance, Trump’s “accomplishments” are little more than political theater.
Yesterday, however, offered a rather extreme example of the phenomenon. The presidentannounced his support for privatizing America’s system of air-traffic control, and as the New York Times reported, the decision was accompanied by a rather ridiculous White House display.
At an East Room event that was choreographed like the elaborate ceremonies for enacting major legislation, Mr. Trump signed a memo and letter to Congress outlining his principles for overhauling the nation’s air traffic control system. He handed out pens to lawmakers who had been invited to attend, and reveled in several rounds of applause.But Mr. Trump’s announcement did not have any binding effect….
It had all the trappings of a major bill-signing ceremony – Trump even surrounded himself with Republican members of Congress, who were only too pleased to accept ceremonial pens – except the president didn’t sign any legislation. There wasn’t even an executive order. Timemagazine reported that a White House aide told reporters Trump had signed a “a decision memo and letter transmitting legislative principles to Congress.”
A “decision memo” doesn’t really exist in any formal sense; it’s just a document in which the president announced he’s decided to support an idea. The “letter transmitting legislative principles,” in this case, was Trump’s way of asking Congress to do something.
In other words, Trump World put on a show yesterday – part of a public-relations kickoff of the White House’s purported interest in infrastructure – which signified practically nothing.
The debate over whether to privatize air-traffic control will, apparently, now begin in earnest in Congress, where quite a few prominent Republicans have already joined Democrats in voicing skepticism about fixing a problem that doesn’t really exist.
And what of Trump’s broader infrastructure plan?
The president vowed to unveil this plan in May, but his aides are now telling reporters an official blueprint is still months away. We do, however, have a sense of what the Trump administration has in mind: the president’s vision involves “sharply curtailing the federal government’s funding of the nation’s infrastructure and calling upon states, cities and corporations to shoulder most of the cost of rebuilding roads, bridges, railways and waterways.”
As a candidate, Trump voiced support for a $1 trillion infrastructure overhaul, and criticized Hillary Clinton’s plan for not spending nearly enough money on this national priority. The White House has now signaled that the $1 trillion plan will never exist, and Team Trump actually intends to scale back federal efforts to improve the nation’s infrastructure.
Indeed, the Trump administration’s recently unveiled federal budget plan eyes cuts to infrastructure spending, which is the opposite of what the Republican president vowed to do if elected.
Congressional Democrats, who saw this as one of the key issues on which there could be bipartisan cooperation, are now effectively giving up, recognizing that everything Trump said he believed about infrastructure was, for all intents and purposes, a lie.
Phony signing ceremonies may make Trump feel better, but if he’s counting on having a real signing ceremony on an infrastructure package, the president should probably start lowering his expectations.
But a consistent theme, the sources said, was the concern about whether the president would accept the advice of his lawyers and refrain from public statements and tweets that have consistently undercut his position.
“The concerns were, ‘The guy won’t pay and he won’t listen,’” said one lawyer close to the White House who is familiar with some of the discussions between the firms and the administration, as well as deliberations within the firms themselves.
Because POTUS won't listen to others' advice, and won't pay his bills, four top law firms are refusing to represent him. Let that sink in for a moment. Via Yahoo News.
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Top lawyers with at least four major law firms rebuffed White House overtures to represent President Trump in the Russia investigations, in part over concerns that the president would be unwilling to listen to their advice, according to five sources familiar with discussions about the matter.
The unwillingness of some of the country’s most prestigious attorneys and their law firms to represent Trump has complicated the administration’s efforts to mount a coherent defense strategy to deal with probes being conducted by four congressional committees as well as Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller.
The president’s chief lawyer now in charge of the case is Marc E. Kasowitz, a tough New York civil litigator who for years has aggressively represented Trump in multiple business and public relations disputes — often with threats of countersuits and menacing public statements — but who has little experience dealing with complex congressional and Justice Department investigations that are inevitably influenced by media coverage and public opinion.
Before Kasowitz was retained, however, some of the biggest law firms and their best-known attorneys turned down overtures when they were sounded out by White House officials to see if they would be willing to represent the president, the sources said.
Among them, sources said, were some of the most high-profile names in the legal profession, including Brendan Sullivan of Williams & Connolly; Ted Olson of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; Paul Clement and Mark Filip of Kirkland & Ellis; and Robert Giuffra of Sullivan & Cromwell.
The lawyers and their firms cited a variety of factors in choosing not to take on the president as a client. Some, like Brendan Sullivan, said they had upcoming trials or existing commitments that would make it impossible for them to devote the necessary time and resources to Trump’s defense.
Others mentioned potential conflicts with clients of their firms, such as financial institutions that have already received subpoenas relating to potential money-laundering issues that are part of the investigation.
But a consistent theme, the sources said, was the concern about whether the president would accept the advice of his lawyers and refrain from public statements and tweets that have consistently undercut his position.
“The concerns were, ‘The guy won’t pay and he won’t listen,’” said one lawyer close to the White House who is familiar with some of the discussions between the firms and the administration, as well as deliberations within the firms themselves.
Other factors, the lawyer said, were that it would “kill recruitment” for the firms to be publicly associated with representing the polarizing president and jeopardize the firms’ relationships with other clients.
Another lawyer briefed on some of the discussions agreed that the firms were worried about the reputational risk of representing the president. One issue that arose, this lawyer said, was “Do I want to be associated with this president and his policies?” In addition, the lawyer said, there were concerns that if they took on the case, “Who’s in charge?” and “Would he listen?”
None of the lawyers who turned down the White House overtures responded to requests for comment by Yahoo News.
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