The Singalong Thread: We're in the Money!

I am not a great fan of musicals but have heard the song from 42nd Street many times, it may even be the favourite song or the theme tune to the conduct of the President of the USA and his Ministers. He charges Americans to use his own business locations thus in practice not separating his business interests from the operations of the Presidency, while it is not clear if the Republicans use his properties to earn themselves brownie points from their leader but who knows? It can't hurt them when they plead with their leader for support and favours. Thus-

The RNC and other Republican committees and candidates have spent nearly $2 million of their donors’ money so far at hotels and resorts that enrich Trump personally.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/ent...b041fd2d242c97

By contrast, the available evidence for Theresa May suggests she needs to get out more. Where one racks up millions of $$ in profits, Mrs May has her salary as Prime Minister but she and her husband must pay Council Tax on the No 10 Downing Street apartment upstairs and all of the bills out of their salaries. She is not known to frequent the Royal Opera House or any other cultural venue.

Income and Costs
President of the USA: Income: Annual Salary: $400,000
--Other sources of income: Playing Golf in properties he owns: approx $67,141,480 in revenue so far.
http://trumpgolfcount.com/#services

Cabinet Members spending, as accounted for here:
• Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price resigned after having spent $900,000 on airfare in a mere seven months.
• Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson spent $31,000 to order a new “dining room set”—I don’t know why there’s a dining room in the HUD office and I don’t have the energy to find out—and then lied about it.

• Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke spent $139,000 on three sets of doors.
• EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt spent $43,000 on a phone booth.

Also in this elite club is Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin, who—per official documents newly obtained by the (partisan Democratic) watchdog group CREW—has spent a robust $995,443.81 on eight military jet trips since taking office last February. (CREW observes that Mnuchin has “apparently has never used commercial aircraft” during his tenure; he has previously defended his use of military jets by arguing that “there are times when I need secure communications to be in touch with the president and the National Security Council” during flights. LOL. The National Security Council. He’s the secretary of the treasury! LOL. “Sir, the North Korean missiles are inbound.” “My God—where’s Mnuchin?”)
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...taggering.html


Comparison with UK
Prime Minister Theresa May: Income: Annual Salary £142,500 ($192,880)
*The salary of the Prime Minister was reduced by £50,000 a year when Gordon Brown was Prime Minister.

Expenses: most of the Prime Minister's expenses are paid for by the Exchequer, including the use of 10 Downing Street for official Government business as well as country estates such as Chequers, I assume a similar arrangement exists in the USA.

Mrs May and her husband live in an apartment above the Government offices in 10 Downing Street for which they must pay Council Tax and all other expenses from their own salaries.

Mrs May Register of Interests: the link shows donations to her constituency party funds, and the costs of running her constituency office, which includes staff salaries of £116,959 for 2016-17. In addition Mrs May claims to own Discount cards for retailers Amanda Wakeley, Russell & Bromley and LK Bennett, and is an Honorary member of the Carlton Club. She and her husband continue to own the apartment they lived in before she became Prime Minister.
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/10...nhead#register

Mrs May's constituency party expenses can be found in this link (enter name of MP)
http://www.theipsa.org.uk/mp-costs/interactive-map/

Many MPs are also landlords, as shown here-but note comment from the article:
https://www.channel4.com/news/factch...-are-landlords

Parliament’s system of registering financial interests relies entirely on MPs’ honesty. Although errors can be reported and changed, there is no independent audit. Plus, although it can get them in trouble in Parliament, it is not illegal for an MP to not declare a financial interest.
Also, MPs are only asked to declare properties which they earn more than £10,000 a year from. And, of course, their financial interests are likely to change over time, so these figures are only a snapshot.

and
Most famously, 72 landlord MPs were among those who voted down requirements on landlords to ensure that homes are “fit for human habitation”.

Well, it's nice to know our leaders are at least personally doing well economically, they could be destroying the Country and having nothing to show for it, adding injury to insult.
We are putting our Confederate Flags in the museum, when will you Brits put the King and Queen into Retirement?
Or do they make up their salaries through Tourism, like Downton Abbey does?
The two World Wars did a number on the British Pound.
Trump's policies might make actually make the Country richer for a while, but in the long run the rich will get richer and the poor poorer. It's funny that there are no Republicans that identify as being POOR, they identify as WORKING CLASS. I guess they consider being poor a moral sin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJOjTNuuEVw

Quote:

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Originally Posted by buttslinger

Trump's policies might make actually make the Country richer for a while, but in the long run the rich will get richer and the poor poorer. It's funny that there are no Republicans that identify as being POOR, they identify as WORKING CLASS. I guess they consider being poor a moral sin.

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The poor must be punished by taking away their limited benefits to give them incentives to work harder at not being poor. The rich, on the other hand, must be given more to give them incentives to work harder at being rich.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by filghy2

The poor must be punished by taking away their limited benefits to give them incentives to work harder at not being poor. The rich, on the other hand, must be given more to give them incentives to work harder at being rich.

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Unemployment is at a twenty year low, if you have a job, Trump will say his work is done. The type or quality of job you have is up to you. Or so they say.

& guess which stupid cunts are paying £32million plus for a fucking wedding in two weeks time?
Yep, you got it Butt..... us silly bastards over here, everyone of us! That silly bastard will be there no doubt waving his Union Jack!

Of that figure, £30 million is the estimated cost of security, the cost of the wedding itself is around £1.7 million (see link). Security costs seem high to me because there is already a security infrastructure at Windsor Castle so they ought not to need a great deal more unless it is for the parade through town, which is also unnecessary.

I guess you won't be buying a Harry and Meghan Mug, then, Peejaye?

For what it's worth, which is not a lot, I think it should be a private wedding and I see no reason to involve the public in their happy day.
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/baz...-wedding-cost/

A King and Queen may be cornball, but I admit to standing around a couple hours to see the Queen's Coach roll by when I was in London. Trump couldn't come up with receipts for where he spent the 200 Million bucks donated for the Inauguration, finally they found out a Wedding Planner Friend of Melania snagged 26 Million. The STEALING started early. Nations are so much easier to run when you deduct the honesty and integrity.

According to this morning's Guardian/Observer-

Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, addressed a rally staged by an extreme Iranian opposition group in Paris on Saturday, calling for regime change in Tehran.Giuliani spoke to the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an umbrella coalition largely controlled by the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MeK), which was once listed as a terrorist organisation in the US and Europe and is still widely viewed as a Marxist-Islamist cult built around the personality of its leader, Maryam Rajavi.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...an-paris-rally

Giuliani is following in the footsteps of John Bolton, the man who met Tory MPs in secret recently to undermine the authority of our Prime Minister and discus a UK-US trade deal before the UK has even left the EU. Bolton's own record on supporting the terrorists is here-
http://www.theamericanconservative.c...r-for-the-mek/

The MEK has a grisly past, not just murdering Americans and supporting the occupation of the US Embassy in Tehran and being Saddam Hussein's unofficial warriors (against Kurds in particular), but hey, they were disarmed after Saddam's overthrow in 2003, and now claim to be a peaceful organization. If you want, you can swat up on the MEK's revolting history here -
https://www.meforum.org/articles/200...hedin-al-khalq
https://www.politico.com/magazine/st...n-group-214526
https://www.theguardian.com/politics...t-organisation

But here is what you also need to know: it pays to support the MEK and its bizarre Cult of Maryam Rajavi-

Some officials from the Trump administration have received money from the anti-Iran Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) to deliver speeches in support of the group. Trump’s transportation secretary, Elaine Chao, received $50,000 in 2015 for a five-minute speech to the political wing of the MKO. In March 2016, Chao received another $17,500 for a speech that she gave to the Iranian-American Cultural Association of Missouri, which reportedly has ties with the MKO terrorist group. Chao is the wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Former mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani, who is also likely to get a post in the Trump administration, has also acknowledged that he has been paid by the MKO for his appearances at the terrorist group’s events.
https://www.globalsecurity.org/milit...d/para/mek.htm

(Not always sure about the above link but I believe their facts on the money correct).

All together now...
We're in the money
we're in the money
we're in swamp nation and we're swampin' awayyy...


A real estate company part-owned by Jared Kushner has received $90m in foreign funding from an opaque offshore vehicle since he entered the White House as a senior adviser to his father-in-law Donald Trump.

Investment has flowed from overseas to the company, Cadre, while Kushner works as an international envoy for the US, according to corporate filings and interviews. The money came through a vehicle run by Goldman Sachs in the Cayman Islands, a tax haven that guarantees corporate secrecy.

Kushner, who is married to Trump’s elder daughter Ivanka, kept a stake in Cadre after joining the administration, while selling other assets. His holding is now valued at up to $50m, according to his financial disclosure documents.

more here-
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-goldman-sachs

All together now-

Money, Money, Money,
She's my honey,
Babe can we have some more?

Can McConnell be impeached?

Donald Trump's transport secretary designated a special liaison to help with grant applications from her senator husband’s state, paving the way to fund projects worth $78m (£62m), it has been reported.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a8952666.html

https://www.esquire.com/news-politic...ell-rand-paul/

I remember when Boehner used to pass out tobacco lobby checks to Republican congressmen on the floor of the House minutes before a vote on Big Tobacco sanctions.
If the Dems win 2020, Trump goes directly to jail, while the truth is released from jail. I don't want a flower child Democrat Prez, I want a former Federal Prosecutor.

There are going to be a lot of 5-4 decisions in the Supreme Court coming soon, including votes on gerrymandering, political funding, etc...
McConnell admitted if he has a shot to put in another Evangelical Judge to the Supreme Court before the 2020 election, he would.
You win some, and you lose some, but these criminals need to be perp walked out in front of the US, the World, and most importantly the people who voted for them.

Follow the money...a fascinating article on you-know-who and Deutsche Bank...but who owns the loans now?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/m...gtype=Homepage

Can someone confirm that judged on their earnings, the 45th President of the USA is now the most successful golfer in history?

I guess it depends on how much ends up in his pocket -please don't laugh- after he has paid his taxes....

Tiger Woods est, earnings from Golf- $120,698, 445

The 45th President of the USA- $138,000,000

https://trumpgolfcount.com/

Meanwhile, in the Mother of All Democracies, the Government awards lucrative contracts without tender, but the tendrils of marriage and friendship seem to do the trick instead...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-establishment

More details on the corruption at the heart of Government, with a new law suit pending for Boris Johnson and, n the context of Brexit, his version of The Last Days of Mankind, or How Rome Fell...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/21/tories-covid-contracts-public-trust-government

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...ti-covid-staff

As for The President of the USA, the more golf he plays, the more tax-payer's money pours into his businesses. He was so disinterested in the G20 summit (and who can blame him for that?) he buggered off to the fairways as soon as he had tried to convince them he would be representing the US for some time to come...

When Owen Paterson MP was found guilty of taking money from commercial firms to lobby the Govt, his natural response at his censure was of indignation, before he decided to quite the 'cruel world of politcs'. One wonders if or when the Government of Boris Johnson will 'pay' for the eye-watering sums of money they have spent on Covid so far, given that many of the firms who won contracts had no previous links to the NHS or the health care business...nice work if you can get it.

Eg,
-Ayanda Capital, a holding company registered in Mauritius that describes its business as "specialising in “currency trading, offshore property, private equity and trade financing”. Contract worth £253 million for face-masks, but even the Govt had to concede-
"In a legal letter to EveryDoctor and the Good Law Project received in August 2020, the government said that 43.5 mn masks supplied by Ayanda Capital were unsuitable as they had ear-loops, rather than head-loops, and cannot be used by the NHS. The letter also made clear that the initial approach to the government was made by Andrew Mills, an adviser to the international trade secretary, Liz Truss."

-Clandeboye Agencies Ltd, " a wholesaler of sweets. There is no evidence that the company has any experience in supplying PPE." Contract for PPE Gowns worth £108 million.

-Medpro Ltd, two contracts worth £122 million and £81 million for PPE -"It won the first contract worth £122 mn just 7 weeks after it was set up. It has also been awarded a second £81 mn contract for PPE. "The company is run by a former business associate of Tory peer Baroness Mone."
https://www.nhsforsale.info/covid-19...rivate-sector/

And more here-
https://www.tussell.com/insights/covid

Where's the money, Donald? Could this man's only true obsession, other than himself, be the wedge that opens the door into the most corrupt President of the USA?

""Trump's aims as president were totally different from any other president, Republican or Democrat," Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at New York University and expert on fascism, told Insider. "His aims were autocratic in that he wanted to turn public office into a vessel of making money for himself; to have private profit off of public office.""
Trump was 'extremely disciplined in grifting' and trying to use the presidency to make money, expert on fascism says (yahoo.com)