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Why again did we decide that it's okay for our President to spend every weekend at his private, unsecured, for-profit clubs? The Secret Service has already sai

Why again did we decide that it's okay for our President to spend every weekend at his private, unsecured, for-profit clubs? The Secret Service has already said they can't and won't keep a log of all guests to Mar-a-Lago. Can you imagine the number of bugs/listening devices that are already there? Dozens of foreign nationals already work there on H2B visas[1], they have open-air national security crisis response meetings in front of random Palm Beach socialites[2], he's personally profiting off of the club's increased membership fees[3] and Secret Service expenses[4], existing members included several people with criminal backgrounds and most recently the proprietor of the 'massage parlors' that ensnared Robert Kraft[5] and she was already caught selling access[6] and illegally bundling contributions[7] -- This seems like a security risk approaching the level of all the Russian weirdness. [1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-mar-a-lago-club-in-florida-seeks-to-hire-40-foreign-workers/2018/07/05/5ef094b8-8099-11e8-bb6b-c1cb691f1402_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-mar-a-lago-cl... [2] - https://twitter.com/i/moments/831212884675981313?lang=en https://twitter.com/i/moments/831212884675981313?lang=en [3] - https://www.thedailybeast.com/mar-a-lago-membership-fee-doubles-to-dollar200k https://www.thedailybeast.com/mar-a-lago-membership-fee-doub... [4] - https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/405407-trumps-golf-cart-rentals-cost-taxpayers-more-than-300k-report https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/405407-trumps-go... [5] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/former-spa-owner-and-frequent-mar-a-lago-guest-sparks-concerns-about-porous-environment-at-presidents-club/2019/03/14/19c955a6-442e-11e9-aaf8-4512a6fe3439_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/former-spa-owner-and... [6] - https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/a-florida-massage-parlor-owner-has-been-selling-chinese-execs-access-to-trump-at-mar-a-lago/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/a-florida-massa... [7] - https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/a-florida-massage-parlor-owner-has-been-selling-chinese-execs-access-to-trump-at-mar-a-lago/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/a-florida-massa...

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> Why again did we decide that it's okay for our President to spend every weekend at his private, unsecured, for-profit clubs? We elected him. Presidents get this purview. If this pisses you off, register to vote, volunteer for campaigns and join your local political club.
- mikeyouse 8y ago
  My point is more -- Why this President? It would never been acceptable at any point in prior history. Jimmy Carter famously had to sell his family's peanut farm to avoid any perception of a conflict of interest. In the same election that Trump won, it was a huge campaign issue that people seeking influence donated to The Clinton Foundation -- a Foundation that the Clinton's did not, and could not financially benefit from. Yet it's okay that unelected Mar-a-Lago members that are currently putting money in the President's pocket can run a hundred billion dollar government organization from the shadows and steer its funds?[1] What changed in the American psyche? Why did we collectively assent to let this President break all of the norms that constrained previous administrations? [1] - https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/26/mar-a-lago-trump-investigation-va-contracts-1015803 https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/26/mar-a-lago-trump-i...
  - mikekchar 8y ago
    My honest opinion: previous Presidents (mostly) willingly followed the rules. This President thought, "I wonder what would happen to me if I didn't follow the rules". And the answer seems to be "Nothing". If anything's changed, I think it's a kind of "democratisation" of opinion. For example, the Washington Post was essentially able, though investigative reporting, to impeach a President. I don't think the same thing would happen now because the idea that "something must be done" used to come from those same media outlets. There was a more focused opinion driven by a few players. Now opinion can be swayed by anyone with a Twitter account (or access to Facebook data, it seems). Several people opined that Trump would not make it through his first term without getting impeached and I think he's shown that he has the ability to dilute public opinion. There have been several points in his first term where I think a President would have been devastated by public opinion had they tried the same thing in the past. He's had relatively no trouble navigating the issues. I think there is just no way to unify the chaos that is public opinion these days. And I will say, although I'm not a fan of Trump's policies (or actions), he's pretty darn good at surfing that chaos -- and stirring the pot so that the chaos continues. If you want to put a different kind of President in power in the next election you're going to have to pick someone who can diffuse that chaos and create a clear, powerful and unified message that the average person is going to identify with. I suspect it will be incredibly difficult.
Chris_Chambers 8y ago
Keep this whiny asspained bullshit off HN, please. This isn’t /r/politics.
conanbatt 8y ago
Its not about having a tight lead every second of every moment on the president. There are always millions of vectors of attack, its an impossible and fruitless game to evaluate how to break through to a single human being.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> Why again did we decide that it's okay for our President to spend every weekend at his private, unsecured, for-profit clubs? We elected him. Presidents get this purview. If this pisses you off, register to vote, volunteer for campaigns and join your local political club.

mikeyouse 8y ago
My point is more -- Why this President? It would never been acceptable at any point in prior history. Jimmy Carter famously had to sell his family's peanut farm to avoid any perception of a conflict of interest. In the same election that Trump won, it was a huge campaign issue that people seeking influence donated to The Clinton Foundation -- a Foundation that the Clinton's did not, and could not financially benefit from. Yet it's okay that unelected Mar-a-Lago members that are currently putting money in the President's pocket can run a hundred billion dollar government organization from the shadows and steer its funds?[1] What changed in the American psyche? Why did we collectively assent to let this President break all of the norms that constrained previous administrations? [1] - https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/26/mar-a-lago-trump-investigation-va-contracts-1015803 https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/26/mar-a-lago-trump-i...
- mikekchar 8y ago
  My honest opinion: previous Presidents (mostly) willingly followed the rules. This President thought, "I wonder what would happen to me if I didn't follow the rules". And the answer seems to be "Nothing". If anything's changed, I think it's a kind of "democratisation" of opinion. For example, the Washington Post was essentially able, though investigative reporting, to impeach a President. I don't think the same thing would happen now because the idea that "something must be done" used to come from those same media outlets. There was a more focused opinion driven by a few players. Now opinion can be swayed by anyone with a Twitter account (or access to Facebook data, it seems). Several people opined that Trump would not make it through his first term without getting impeached and I think he's shown that he has the ability to dilute public opinion. There have been several points in his first term where I think a President would have been devastated by public opinion had they tried the same thing in the past. He's had relatively no trouble navigating the issues. I think there is just no way to unify the chaos that is public opinion these days. And I will say, although I'm not a fan of Trump's policies (or actions), he's pretty darn good at surfing that chaos -- and stirring the pot so that the chaos continues. If you want to put a different kind of President in power in the next election you're going to have to pick someone who can diffuse that chaos and create a clear, powerful and unified message that the average person is going to identify with. I suspect it will be incredibly difficult.

Chris_Chambers 8y ago

Keep this whiny asspained bullshit off HN, please. This isn’t /r/politics.

conanbatt 8y ago

Its not about having a tight lead every second of every moment on the president. There are always millions of vectors of attack, its an impossible and fruitless game to evaluate how to break through to a single human being.