Newenglanddeac
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- May 1, 2011
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Good for Quatar. Great view there, Quatar. I am delighted for Quatar
The three-bedroom condominium was sold to Qatar by a pair of sisters who bought it for $5m in 2007. Trump owns the surrounding building, according to his real estate portfolio, and his company is paid monthly charges by residents. An archived listing for Qatar’s newest condominium said the common charges and maintenance fees totalled $3,151 a month.
It’s absolutely hilarious to me that there are people (apparently, a lot) who said Obama and his admin were the most corrupt in history, and look at the current administration and just whistle past the graveyard as if nothing is corrupt or unethical. Not shocking in the least, but hilarious nonetheless. Total lack of self awareness, or maybe they just don’t care about having standards (probably the latter).
In many of the videos, James Chao is introduced as founder and chairman of the Foremost Group shipping company, and, in discussing a 2016 biography about his life, speaks proudly of his daughter’s role as secretary of transportation, as she sits beaming by his side.
One interview with New China Press published on April 12, 2017, features the pair sitting in what appears to be the Department of Transportation, with DOT flags in view behind the interviewer. Long portions of the interview are in Chinese, with James Chao talking about his life story, with a copy of his biography on the screen, and Elaine Chao extolling her father’s success story as “lifting the status of Asian-Americans in America.” She also touts his $40 million gift to Harvard University.
Experts in government ethics said Elaine Chao’s media appearances with her father might violate a regulation that prohibits federal employees from using their public office for their “own private gain, for the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise, or for the private gain of friends, relatives, or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity.”
The Environmental Protection Agency’s internal watchdog launched three investigations this year into potential threats against Scott Pruitt, the agency’s administrator. All three cases were closed due to a lack of evidence that Pruitt had been seriously threatened, according to documents obtained by BuzzFeed News.
One of the threats, made in March, consisted of someone drawing a mustache on Pruitt’s face on the cover of Newsweek and taping the magazine inside of an elevator at an EPA building. The case was closed due to a lack of an “overt threat” against Pruitt.
For example, the EPA has spent more than $3 million on Pruitt’s first-class travel, lodging, and around-the-clock security detail, according to the Associated Press. EPA press officials have justified the costs by citing an “unprecedented” number of death threats against Pruitt. President Donald Trump has repeated the claim, tweeting on April 7 that “While Security spending was somewhat more than his predecessor, Scott Pruitt has received death threats because of his bold actions at EPA.” But the internal documents suggest none of the threats were serious enough to warrant much follow up.
Trump World consists of little else but arrogant assholes.
“Everyone was hiring ‘Trump whisperers’ in 2017 — every single hanger-on in the Trump orbit made a fortune in 2017,” one Republican consultant said. “And not necessarily to influence them, just to try to figure out who are the right people to talk to.”
"The question was ‘Who is the real influence?’" the consultant said. "Is it Gary Cohn? Steve Bannon? Wilbur Ross? How do we get to Jared and Ivanka? Does anyone know Dina Powell? Does anyone listen to Steven Mnuchin? There’s no point talking to Reince Priebus, right? Every single client we had was trying to figure it out."