Apparently it’s only wrong when Hillary (allegedly) does it.
Even after repeatedly attacking Hillary — without evidence — for allegedly operating a pay-for-play scheme when she was Secretary of State, selling access and favors in return for big donations to The Clinton Foundation, the Trumps don’t seem to understand that selling access for money is a bad thing, even when they do it.
First, it was lunch with Ivanka that they were selling. Then, apparently, it was an inauguration weekend hunting and fishing excursion with the Trump boys that also included a few moments of facetime with daddy. For which they were asking a ONE MEEEEEELION DOLLAR donation on behalf of a charity that lists the two brothers as directors.
Here’s how the Associated Press tells the story:
Two recent fundraising pitches featuring the incoming first family were meant to benefit charities, but they also raised questions among ethics experts that the Trumps might be inappropriately selling access.
Oh reeeeeeally.
Last week, Eric Trump tried auctioning a coffee date with his sister Ivanka to raise money for a children’s hospital. Now, Eric and Donald Trump Jr. are named as part of a nonprofit venture that offered the chance to rub elbows with their father during inauguration weekend and go hunting or fishing with the sons in exchange for $1 million donations that would go to conservation charities.
These events are dissolving as quickly as they become public, suggesting the family is learning on the fly what’s acceptable.
I think what the AP writer meant to say was that “the family is still trying to figure out what they can get away with.”
Slate notes that
A Trump spokeswoman now claims that the details in the report “are merely initial concepts that have not been approved or pursued by the Trump family,” and that Don Jr. and Eric “are not involved in any capacity.” The statement, however, did not address the fact that on the paperwork the non-profit submitted to the Texas secretary of state, Don Jr. and Eric are listed as two of the group’s four directors, which suggests they are involved in what could safely be called “some capacity.”
It’s not really a shock that the incoming Trump regime is corrupt to its core. But it is a little surprising just how brazen they’re being about it.
NOTE: Feel free to repost the graphic at the top here, or any of the other Trump-related memes I’ve posted here. Let’s get some memes out there! Also, I like making them, even though my photoshopping skills are rudimentary at best.
Just the latest unsurprising development in America’s downwardly spiraling reality-TV culture. It’s what a critical mass, if not an outright majority, of people want, and it’s some fucked up shit for sure.
The weird thing is that kleptocracy is the better side of the Trump presidency. It’s almost preferable that he concentrates on that side of things rather than all of the other awful shit rattling around his orange head.
Kleptocracy, destruction of the environment and social safety nets, another war to the pile to divert attention from even more tax breaks for the rich, deconsturction of social progress to a Christian Sharia, pick your poison.
I overheard my Trump voting coworker saying he considered himself an environmentalist who distrusts the financial and real estate industries.
He also likes James O’Keefe videos. I can’t even express my reaction in words. I’ve really truly finally run out of evens to can’t.
http://33.media.tumblr.com/861e8d235e058e957a7dc8f2a7082f99/tumblr_n73qacrqgV1smcbm7o1_500.gif
http://ugc.reveliststatic.com/gen/full/2016/11/22/09/cz/zn/phh12zpcoc2qbwe.gif
The mental gymnastics people have to go through to justify not voting for an icky girl must be exhausting.
@weirwoodtreehugger
An “environmentalist” Trump voter? What, is this guy sincerely ignorant of Trump’s stance on environmental policy, his cabinet picks, etc?
This inability to get that the same standards apply to your guy and other guy has been a marked problem for a while. The thing I’m still seething about…nine or ten years ago, Britney Spears’ little sister had a baby. I don’t know if anyone else remembers this, it wasn’t a big story. She was sixteen or seventeen, the father was a high school classmate, and the kids decided to keep the baby and be engaged to get engaged once they got done with school. It was a really normal kind of thing, not good timing, but pregnancies happen.
Bill O’Reilly ripped the fuck into the family on his show. He called the parents pinheads, and ranted about how this was all the parents’ fault, and if they’d been taking care of their teenagers this wouldn’t have happened, lowering moral standards of America, blah blah.
Then, less than a year later, Bristol Palin’s pregnancy was announced to the world, and Bill sang a different tune. Accidents happen, even in such great families as this, and obviously the Palins are great parents, and how dare liberals not be thrilled that she was being so brave and mature and having the baby?
I wanted to fucking kill him, because I remembered how venomous he’d been about Jamie Lynn Spears in EXACTLY THE SAME SITUATION.
Let’s not even think about what would have been said about Malia Obama if the same had happened in her life.
All of my remaining conservative friends on Facebook brushed this away, ‘it’s for CHARITY, ha ha, dumbasses’, and even the liberals kind of felt they should not be too critical about that, and it was like WAIT, what was that whole pay for play thing supposed to be about again?
The Clinton Foundation is a charity, too. That didn’t seem to stop everyone from tearing into Hillary. Why is it okay for Trump to do this for conservative charities, when it’s the same damn thing? Worse, even – the Clinton Foundation fights disease and poverty. A “Conservative Charity” is like a Super-PAC waiting for someone to fund.
Oh, wait, it’s because they have no ethics or morals, it’s all about whose flag you’re waving. Forgot about that.
I am already so sick and tired of the bullshit duplicity by these goddamned talking head bobbles I want to spit. Nothing fazes these jerks. Nothing.
No lie they can’t spin. No corruption they can’t excuse.
I am so disgusted by these people. Assholes.
@Scildfreja: I read ‘conservative charity’ at first too, but it actually says ‘conservation’.
So still wrong, but not quite AS wrong.
@Rhuu
That depends on what the charity is “conserving”
Probably the trump family bank accounts though if we’re being honest here
If I had a spare million kicking around I’d happily spend it on a Trump-hunting expedition. Maybe for an extra million they’d release his cabinet choices into the wild too, to make a real weekend of sport.
Let’s be honest, the only facetime I want with Trump would be in the crosshairs of my sights.
I’m on pins and needles waiting for Donald Effin’ Trump to become president.
For Melania to become First Lady.
And for the kids to become First Kids.
These Trumps are thoroughly unconventional. Blazing their own effin’ trail.
I’m scared. And really mad.
But, as I remarked the day after that terrible, awful, shocking election, I guess this is why the virtues of inner peace are extolled.
Not to mention the virtues of revolution.
That’s the challenge that I hope we can meet.
Inner peace. And a revolution in our politics.
@Nobody Special
Your feelings are understandable.
But this is David’s comment policy:
@Nobody Special
Concurrence with Kat. It is, however, generally acceptable to wish those troubling this world with myriad fates relating to LEGO.
No, no, see, it’s bad when Hillary does it because she’s so sneaky that you can’t prove a thing. Even when there’s proof she didn’t do it, that only shows you how sneaky she really is! But on the other hand, it’s okay when Trump does it because it’s riiiiight there in your face. No sneakiness there at all, ya see?
@Troubelle : Sadly, my standard “I hope you step on an upturned plug” doesn’t always work with an international crowd. US electrical plugs are meek and inoffensive things, compared to the British plug which is like a medieval caltrop and is one of the most painful and unpleasant things to step on in bare feet.
And then of course there’s the Kuwait National Day event. Always, for yeeeears, hosted at the Four Seasons in Washington. Not any more …
next time it will be at Trumporama-by-White-House
I’m getting the impression that these people are trying to convince themselves, as well as the rest of us, that it really isn’t kleptocracy, nepotism, fraud, theft or any other misfeasance in public office so long as you are unabashedly brazen and bare-faced about it. You’re not lying to anyone about anything. And that means there’s absolutely nothing wrong with whatever you might be doing. Getting caught while being sneaky seems to be the only sin within this family’s comprehension. Never sneaky. Never wrong.
These are people with the moral compass and sophistication of impulsive four year olds who think that, as long as they say they didn’t mean to do anything wrong, it’s okay to do whatever you happen to blunder into. The shattered remnants of your friend’s favourite toy underfoot and the icecream drips adorning your T-shirt are trivial annoyances. Yeah, it’s broken and yeah, there’s no more icecream. And?
May the whole bang lot of them step on solid gold Legos forever.
They’re draining #Theswamp and filling it with #sewage. Turning it into #TheSewer.
I wonder whether the double standard has anything to do with that bit about there legally being no restriction on conflicts of interest for the president that Trump gleefully trotted out? I mean, when Hillary did it, she was Secretary of State, so clearly that was a big no-no, but Trump’s President(-elect), so he can do no wrong. Or something.
Double standard? I think there’s one standard for Trump … anything goes. For the rest of the world, it depends on how much he wants to punch down – but there’s no ethics freedom like Trump ethics freedom.
I’m beginning to think that Trump knows he’s won election as president. But he feels as though he’s been elected king.
That would make having his princes and princesses nearby, to learn their roles for when he abdicates in their favour, essential for royal succession rather than prohibited as nepotism. And he’s assured them that he won’t abdicate until he’s settled the most important law he needs to pass.
Abolish inheritance tax. That’s the biggie and that’s the one that will do his family the most good.
What’s the over/under on Trump being impeached at least once?
(reminder: impeachment isn’t the act of kicking the president out, it’s enough Congress members deciding together to essentially set up a trial and force other Congress members to vote on whether or not to actually kick the president out. Impeachment wouldn’t necessarily have to succeed)
I find that I am inordinately fond of your turn of phrase. Those plugs are indeed evil little buggers.
OT (but I thought it was worth mentioning):
http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/first-amendment-defense-act-would-be-devastating-lgbtq-americans-n698416
The more of this drek I see, the more I wonder if somewhere along the way I stepped through Alice’s looking glass and ended up on some strange and dystopian alternate earth.
ETA: I’m really disappointed that the CBC doesn’t have a single thing about this.
Is a conservative charity the one that buys all the birth control to save women from having access to it, or the one that takes in millions of dollars to spend yelling at poor people to work harder.
@Neremanh: The Newt has said explicitly that DJT can allow family and friends to violate these laws and can then issue executive pardons. (Newt and his buddies of course see nothing objectionable about this.)