The way the Trump administration is selling access to the incoming cabinet may not be illegal or unprecedented, but this appears to be the best defense you can make of it:
“The way that I think about about is that what is happening right now is that President-elect Trump is pulling back the curtain on what has been going on for a while,” said Meredith McGehee, a government ethics expert and strategic adviser at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center. “These are all of the ways we have of raising money. He’s just doing it without shame or compunction.”
It’s not much of a defense, and it becomes a lot more inadequate when you consider that he’s supposed to be “draining the swamp.”
After all, how can Joe Six-Pack compete with this:
The cost of admission for the Cabinet dinner is included in a package for either $100,000 or $250,000 to the presidential inaugural committee, while dinner with Vice President-elect Mike Pence is open to donors and corporate underwriters at the $500,000 and $1 million-level as part of multi-day itineraries, with the level of access determined by the amount of cash given, according to inauguration brochures obtained by POLITICO.
I have a warning for the folks who are thinking of ponying up six-figure checks for the opportunity of attending one of these dinners. Donald Trump is a well-documented ripoff artist.
The invite states that only “select” Cabinet officials will attend, prompting concerns that only a few lower-profile nominees would be on hand. If that happens, “people will be pissed,” the Trump donor said.
If you’re thinking you’ll get to chat up James Mattis about how he got his “Mad Dog’ nickname or talk to Rex Tillerson about what its like to get the Order of Friendship award from Vladimir Putin, you may have to satisfy yourself with talking to Ben Carson about pyramidal grain storage or with Betsy DeVos about the best way to defend elementary schools from grizzly bears.
You may find yourself feeling like one of the folks who ponied up thirty grand for a degree from the unaccredited Trump University.
This is worth a look:
“…Corporatism was so much the heart of Italian Fascism that Mussolini insisted that Fascism should in fact be called Corporatism because it is a merger of the nationalist-military state and corporate power…”.
…in the light of this:
“…”Being a great president has to do with a lot of things, but one of them is being a great cheerleader for the country,” Trump said. “And we’re going to show the people as we build up our military, we’re going to display our military.
“That military may come marching down Pennsylvania Avenue. That military may be flying over New York City and Washington, D.C., for parades. I mean, we’re going to be showing our military,” he added…”.
Dude’s on a roll:
Josh Marshall @joshtpm 4h 4 hours ago
Trump Team released this new planning video for new military parades
via @YouTube
This:
might just become pertinent again.
The stories I could tell of private parties and access being sold at Conventions.
Hey – how much for the Party with Clooney? Want better seats for the acceptance speech? Well just write a check.
Obama tried to be different, and was in 2008. But the lobbyists returned in force in 2016
This was helpful to get on the public record and inform the Senators’ decision on this nominee:
Which swamp did you think Trump was going to drain?
I’ve been informed that it isn’t the one that Bernie Sanders might have meant by “draining the swamp”.
The National Review happy talk thinks it’s this:
Go with academics, media, and some consultants. The rest is Kristol-clone aspirational.
It is some financial institutions (the one’s that have not paid to play.) Some corporations (the ones seeking regulatory relief through donations). The consultants and rent-seekers (who are outside the Trump victory circle). And any institution that might possible prop up democratic or Democratic constituencies.
Some of Trump’s voters who listened in his rally know exactly what he’s up to and are cool with it.
Before going of on inaugural dinners, it is helpful to compare this one with past, expecially Democratic inaugural dinners and balls (adjusting for inflation).
Joe Six-Pack is likely to be OK with the idiots having their DC party as long as Joe Six-Pack doesn’t have to pay for it. If Trump can get corporations to wheel an deal for access, they are OK with it.
Now, we suspect what the mingling of private interests and public funds are going to mean in the Trump administration, but Joe Six-Pack is still with Trump until the actual governing starts biting. Inaugurations are not when that happens.
Obama started with 79% approval at his inauguration. Trump is starting with 42%.
Joe Six-Pack will notice when it gets to him, whatever “it” turns out to be.
Eight years ago, “we” at least got a free concert that had something for almost everybody:
looting public lands, big on the agenda
Rule #1. Most politicians lie like rugs (as we used to say) to get in office, make bullshit promises, and then do what they want, usually enriching themselves. “But he promised to drain the swamp!” And you were stupid and desperate enough to believe him. You deserve to be fucked in the …
Rule #2. Trump orders to his proposed cabinet members: Say whatever you think is appropriate to get confirmed. If your bullshit runs counter to mine, all the better. The idiot media will tout it as “dissension in the ranks” and the public will love it. Once we get in office, the cookie jar is ours to loot like the African potentate in Gambia. You think you’ve seen shameless bullshit … hold onto your hats.
Rule #3. Protesters will get the time-machine effect … or maybe the Israeli effect … tear gas, rubber bullets, attack dogs, dragged through the streets … they’ll be lucky to live to go to jail.
Rule #4. 1984 type journalism. Those native American protesters … a mass grave they’ll uncover decades from now.
Rule #5. And the best: A 9/11 type event, planned and executed by the Trumpettes. except this time, lots of people are looking for it: all Republicans will be labeled as traitors and terrorists, and treated accordingly. What fucking fun!
Now go back to your nice peaceful discussions.
Only if he survives…politically and/or physically…the enmity of the PermaGov and its covert actors…including the lying media.
If he does?
Then…yeah, you’ve probably hit several nails on several heads.
AG
This will be fun:
So… Frogs and Egyptian deities performing meme-magic. I’m telling you these people are mad as hatters but committed white supremacists.
Wall, the Sturmabteilung didn’t have to contend with the Los Zetas or the “Crips” and Bloods.” These “alt-right” nutters have the night of long knives to look forward to as soon as they’re no longer useful to Trump.
Interesting point. The SA was not a trivial force, however:
Not exceptional. Owning the streets was the raison d’être for the SA.
A few similarities and yuuge differences. For whatever reasons, these assholes are always within and among us. The “independence” streak in the US does seem to limit how large any one group of these manages to get. Then the fight each other. Chronologically, these US Alt-right guys appear to be much older, fatter, and less physically fit (lower testosterone) than their predecessors. Hitler was only 32 years old when he took over the Nazi party. Trump is more than twice that age and claims to be a multi-billionaire, a target and not an ally of brown-shirts.
Second time as farce?
One caveat:
“Mad as hatters” and “committed white supremacists” are synonyms.
Really.
Anyone U.S. citizen who has had any real contact with non-white people and is not totally insane in many respects simply cannot be a white supremacist…there is just too much evidence to the contrary. And anyone in the U.S. today who has not had extensive contact with non-white people has to be totally out to lunch from the get-go.
AG
the scientists exposing the Bushies’ 2002-3 lie that the seized aluminum tubes proved Saddam’s ongoing nuclear weapons program (even going so far, iirc, as to falsely declare certitude based on the tubes allegedly having no other possible use for which they were suitable).
Those DOE scientists said, Nope, the specs are wrong for centrifuge tubes. They’re right for conventional rocket bodies, though. Which, just coincidentally, happened to be the very purpose Saddam had declared they were intended for after the shipment was intercepted.
(Critical to note this was all prior to the launch of the War Crime of invading Iraq on March 19-20, 2003 “a day that will live in infamy”, and publicly reported by media prior to the War Crime.)
That’s background for this from atrios, pointing out that
(Let those facts sink in for a minute. Although if you opted not to for sanity-preservation purposes, I think everyone would understand.)
3. Sadly, but unsurprisingly, neither did some media hacks, who nevertheless felt compelled to tweet their ignorance.
[Have I ever mentioned the auto-format function here is stupid?]
You miss understood Trump, see he did drain the swamp. Look at his cabinet choices that clearly shows the swamp was drained low enough for Trump to find the bottom feeders that he wanted like himself to fill cabinet positions. He never said clean the swamp just drain it.