President Trump cannot continue to lie, lie, lie. It diminishes the office of the president and our standing in the world. Mr. Trump claimed without any evidence that President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower last year—a claim which the FBI and intelligence officials have rejected as false. He said that 3 to 5 million people voted illegally. Another lie. He said “it looked like a million and a half people" at his inauguration. Not even close. He said his 2016 victory "was the biggest electoral college win since Ronald Reagan.” Also a lie. And Mr. Trump has been lying long before he was president when he started the “birther” conspiracy against President Obama in an attempt to delegitimize our country’s first black president. The United States will not be respected or taken seriously around the world if Donald Trump continues to shamelessly lie.
Over the last five weekends, the president has visited his luxury resort four times – each trip costs American taxpayers about $3 million. It's unknown how much his hotels earn and he as an owner of his hotels earn from his visits. As of last night, Trump had spent 31% of his presidency at Mar-a-Lago. He’s now played golf at least eight times since taking office six weeks ago.
George W. Bush, despite being president on 9/11 and starting the two longest-running wars in American history, found time to break the record for the amount of vacation time taken by a president.
It was four months from the time he took office until Barack Obama played his first weekend game of golf. Four months, in fact, before he took his first day of vacation. Donald Trump didn’t make it even two weeks. But both Obama and Bush were nose-to-the-grindstone types compared to Trump.
Expenditure of President's will not be known as there are many factors, such as their presidential income and how much they will take.
Trump has said he will take almost nothing, i don't see that factored in.
Golfing is a rather arbitrary detail as well, this presumes Presidents somehow equally prefer Golfing as a vacation past-time, and it doesn't go into detail whether any golfing was conducted with Business (pretty cliche thing where business people golf and discuss things).
Extraordinary early days to focus on these details, wait till a year is out at least.
Expenditure of President's will not be known as there are many factors, such as their presidential income and how much they will take.
Trump has said he will take almost nothing, i don't see that factored in.
Golfing is a rather arbitrary detail as well, this presumes Presidents somehow equally prefer Golfing as a vacation past-time, and it doesn't go into detail whether any golfing was conducted with Business (pretty cliche thing where business people golf and discuss things).
Extraordinary early days to focus on these details, wait till a year is out at least.
@vanatos: Trump volunteered to receive only a single dollar per year as president, and refusing the rest of his salary. The president's salary is $400,000, or $1,600,000 over the course of 4 years. Each trip to that resort, according to @smeagolheart, costs $3,000,000, or $12,000,000 in total, for the first month of his presidency. So refunding his entire salary as president, a full 4-year term, would pay less than a quarter of the cost of those 4 trips to his resort alone.
Maybe he'll cut back on these trips. But if he doesn't--if he spends this much taxpayer money every month for the next 4 years--he'd be spending $500 million dollars by the time his first term is over.
Trump volunteered to receive only a single dollar per year as president, and refusing the rest of his salary.
There's no proof that he intends to do that or has done that. It's just another thing that came out of his mouth while he was speaking.
He also said in 2015. "I would not be a president who took vacations. I would not be a president that takes time off.” Source: Interview with The Hill
"There's just so much to be done," Trump told CBS' 60 Minutes in an interview broadcast Nov. 13, 2016. "So I don't think we'll be very big on vacations, no."
So him claiming to only take a dollar salary is just talk like his claim that he would not take vacations. In spite of his pandering claim I don't think Trump's the type to turn down money ever, do you?
What's really happening and not just talk is that he's taking vacations almost every weekend and @semiticgod and I posted figures concerning it.
The GOP healthcare bill has been unveiled. Besides nearly eliminating the Medicaid expansion, the penalty for not being covered no longer goes to the IRS. It now goes directly into the pockets of the insurance companies, who will now be able to charge a 30% increased premium to anyone who lapses in coverage. I don't know how many ways to say I told you so, but you've been scammed. Harder to acquire insurance, and penalites paid directly to a insurance CEO's pocket. Brilliant job America. Your stupidity never disappoints. Of course that's just the tip of the iceberg to what's in this thing.
@vanatos: Trump volunteered to receive only a single dollar per year as president, and refusing the rest of his salary. The president's salary is $400,000, or $1,600,000 over the course of 4 years. Each trip to that resort, according to @smeagolheart, costs $3,000,000, or $12,000,000 in total, for the first month of his presidency. So refunding his entire salary as president, a full 4-year term, would pay less than a quarter of the cost of those 4 trips to his resort alone.
Maybe he'll cut back on these trips. But if he doesn't--if he spends this much taxpayer money every month for the next 4 years--he'd be spending $500 million dollars by the time his first term is over.
And giving back less than 0.1% of it.
Asked whether Trump was outstripping Obama in terms of sticking taxpayers, Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, questioned the accounting of Trump’s Florida trips, which he said were likely less expensive than Obama’s 2013 trip because Trump does not rely for in-state travel on Marine One, the presidential helicopter, as Obama had.
Fitton also said that according to the best available information, Air Force One, the president’s jet, currently costs $142,000 an hour to operate – as much as 25% less than it cost to operate during the Obama years.
“The per-trip cost is a little bit less since the cost-per-hour of Air Force One are less,” Fitton said, comparing Trump and Obama. “Now, if [Trump] travels more – it will depend in the long run on the number of trips he takes, and for what purposes. And to his credit, it’s readily apparent – and he’s criticized for it – when he’s in Mar-a-Lago, he’s doing business. -https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/04/donald-trump-travel-costs-mar-a-lago-taxpayers
Making conclusions of Presidential monetary expenses this early on, is a bit premature.
I also question media reports since there seems to always be some significant details not included, and curiously always bent towards a negative reporting of Trump.
I also find it not logical that there is criticism of Government expense, but also criticism of Trump planning to cut some Government agencies budget.
If we are to get into presidential policy, it is worth pointing out that Trump is making cuts in places where little money is spent and much good is done, rather than places where much money is spent and much of it is wasted.
He's cutting the EPA, not the military. The former is already weak and takes very little money; the latter is incredibly expensive and lies mostly unused.
The military is never a good candidate to compare cost cutting in agencies, because it occupies a unique position in society and is simply unique in nature anyway.
The most waste of military comes from unnecessary wars.
The EPA has a very checkered history, as any Government agency has.
All Government Agencies are known for waste, and the EPA is no exception.
An agency that 'protects the environment' doesn't suddenly exempt it from being a wasteful Government agency in some aspect, anymore then an agency which 'protects the nation-state from foreign attacks'.
If we are to get into presidential policy, it is worth pointing out that Trump is making cuts in places where little money is spent and much good is done, rather than places where much money is spent and much of it is wasted.
He's cutting the EPA, not the military. The former is already weak and takes very little money; the latter is incredibly expensive and lies mostly unused.
The military already costs more than the next 12 highest costing militaries combined.
Cut that a bit and we could have universal healthcare and cheaper or free college like other first world nations.
The military is not the only agency with a unique purpose. All agencies are unique in nature.
Except, of course, for those with redundant missions, and the military is notorious for having multiple agencies with the exact same mission, but which do not even communicate with each other. The problem is so severe that there are multiple redundant groups in the security sphere whose mission is to eliminate redundancies. There's a clever Dilbert strip to that effect.
The basic problem is that people who want to effect change are more interested in starting new agencies rather than strengthening existing ones. All this adds to bureaucratic bloat--and yet the agencies that most often get cut are the ones that are most understaffed and underfunded.
The most waste of military comes from unnecessary wars.
On that note, Trump has shown little interest in withdrawing from military ventures. In fact, the Trump administration is considering expanding the fight against ISIS and has taken a hard line against foreign countries in general... with the notable exception of Russia.
Incidentally, the military budget of the United States is 60 times as high as the EPA's. I don't see how it's mathematically possible for the latter to waste more money than the former.
If you want to reduce the deficit by cutting spending, you target the largest and most expensive projects. Trump is not doing that.
On that note, Trump has shown little interest in withdrawing from military ventures. In fact, the Trump administration is considering expanding the fight against ISIS and has taken a hard line against foreign countries in general... with the notable exception of Russia.
Trump has demanded that countries protected by the American Military must pay more to America (ie Japan.)
He is one of the least war-hawkish of all the candidates in the election, apart from lets say Ben Carson.
'Hard line' is vague.
The rhetoric against Russia is one of the worst things to come from the election, that people somehow found this acceptable is abhorrent, Because Russia is one of the few countries willing to fight back.
If you want to reduce the deficit by cutting spending, you target the largest and most expensive projects. Trump is not doing that.
You target the most wasteful, size is not necessarily a factor.
And the military is never a good candidate to target in a simple manner, because it is unique.
Furthermore Trump's actual increase is far less then you would think, it is less then Obama's.
His rhetoric was mostly to scare other nations, because publicly declaring how much your gonna invest in the Military is one of the dumbest things to announce.
A state of readiness....lmfao. The US military is in such a permanent state of readiness that arguing the opposite is one of the most laughable positions on Earth. We spend more than the next 8 nations COMBINED on our military?? At what point is it enough. 10x?? 20x?? 50x?? What does "it's unique" mean exactly?? It sounds like a euphemism for "military cuts are never on the table". And Obama's was not more, it was over 16 billion less.
And yeah, let's by all means cut the EPA. Let's cut the FDA too while we're at it. I never really liked eating safe food anyway. Much more exciting to not know if your meat or lettuce is going to have deadly bacteria in it. Hell, once a few hundred people die from a couple bad batches of both, I'm sure the "market" will take care of everything. And screw those people, they were probably poor and didn't contribute to society anyway.
A state of readiness....lmfao. The US military is in such a permanent state of readiness that arguing the opposite is one of the most laughable positions on Earth. We spend more than the next 8 nations COMBINED on our military?? At what point is it enough. 10x?? 20x?? 50x??
There is none, There is no measure or precedent to fall back too, because the military occupies a unique position in society, that cannot afford even one mistake in 'investment'.
We can eliminate waste, but we don't know the upper-limit of investment.
But if people were so concerned about military expenditure, i imagine everyone must have been virulently anti-democrat party since.
1. Obama launched wars which drastically increased spending 2. Hillary kept antagonizing Russia which may have launched a cold war.
And yeah, let's by all means cut the EPA. Let's cut the FDA too while we're at it. I never really liked eating safe food anyway. Much more exciting to not know if your meat or lettuce is going to have deadly bacteria in it. Hell, once a few hundred people die from a couple bad batches of both, I'm sure the "market" will take care of everything. And screw those people, they were probably poor and didn't contribute to society anyway.
Ideological positions is no basis to argue against cost cutting.
Or else we'd be in a position never to cut anything in the Government.
Cost cutting is about waste, so unless people know of the actual details to rebut, then its pointless to even discuss this.
A state of readiness....lmfao. The US military is in such a permanent state of readiness that arguing the opposite is one of the most laughable positions on Earth. We spend more than the next 8 nations COMBINED on our military?? At what point is it enough. 10x?? 20x?? 50x??
There is none, There is no measure or precedent to fall back too, because the military occupies a unique position in society, that cannot afford even one mistake in 'investment'.
We can eliminate waste, but we don't know the upper-limit of investment.
But if people were so concerned about military expenditure, i imagine everyone must have been virulently anti-democrat party since.
1. Obama launched wars which drastically increased spending 2. Hillary kept antagonizing Russia which may have launched a cold war.
And yeah, let's by all means cut the EPA. Let's cut the FDA too while we're at it. I never really liked eating safe food anyway. Much more exciting to not know if your meat or lettuce is going to have deadly bacteria in it. Hell, once a few hundred people die from a couple bad batches of both, I'm sure the "market" will take care of everything. And screw those people, they were probably poor and didn't contribute to society anyway.
Ideological positions is no basis to argue against cost cutting.
Or else we'd be in a position never to cut anything in the Government.
Cost cutting is about waste, so unless people know of the actual details to rebut, then its pointless to even discuss this.
Ideological positions are no basis to argue for or against cost cutting?? In what world?? You are simply making up a completely arbitrary set of rules. The military is "unique" so we can't talk about cutting that. We can't use personally held "ideological" arguments for what we think should or shouldn't be cut either. So we are left with whatever your personal definition of "waste" is as the only measure by which this debate can occur. I agree, if that's the case, it is pointless to discuss.
Ideological positions are no basis to argue for or against cost cutting?? In what world?? You are simply making up a completely arbitrary set of rules. The military is "unique" so we can't talk about cutting that. We can't use personally held "ideological" arguments for what we think should or shouldn't be cut either. So we are left with whatever your personal definition of "waste" is as the only measure by which this debate can occur. I agree, if that's the case, it is pointless to discuss.
We can talk about cutting back the military, And there is alot of Waste in the military,but its not on the same level as other agencies in the Government because it is unique, so comparing them is not correct.
Cost cutting waste, is about Waste, size doesn't matter, waste can occur in any agency no matter the size.
The reason why i reject the idealogical rebuttals to cost cutting EPA, is because no one establishes there is 'no waste' but because 'i like this agency on moral reasons' somehow it's the wrong thing to do?
So? There could still be waste and its fine to cut it.
Can you tell me which wars Obama launched being first elected in 2009?
You have ISIL, which is a terrorist theme (making it more of a bush's war on terror) and the U.S. took its sweet time to assist in it and maybe the Libyan civil war, but that was a nato'd backed operation so, it wasn't really just Obama.
Seriously, what an asshole. Clearly someone who has no earthly idea about health care costs, OR how most new cell phones are acquired (paid in full on purchase according to this buffoon).
The people living paycheck to paycheck on medicaid and their iphones trying to have health insurance. Who do they think they are right? ass. Nevermind that spending one visit in the emergency room or hospital can cost more than 10X the cost of the best Iphone. It's easy for him to say, his healthcare is covered.
all this just because they can't let obama have anything, he must be attacked. Oh and so they can get a tax cut for their richest donors.
We've just got a release that is potentially far more damaging then the Snowden leaks of the NSA. It appears the CIA had an even more powerful division then the NSA, developed a wide-range of malware and hacking tools to penetrate Apple, Google and Microsoft products.
And lost control of them so their available to other actors outside the U.S.
If true, this could be a massive scandal and incredibly damaging to even the private sector technology industry.
EDIT: It looks like it wasn't one specific division; the cyber techniques and the documentation involved were spread across multiple groups within the CIA.
- Apparently Wikileaks has not published the actual code; only descriptions of the techniques. So other countries do not currently have access to these tools. Not unless Wikileaks releases it.
- According to the New York Times, the CIA didn't invent malware and then release it into the public sphere (like when Stuxnet accidentally escaped Iran and spread across the world); it borrowed techniques that foreign malware (like those of Russia) used. The CIA was learning from hostile malware, not creating it.
Reddit is more up-to-date on newest findings as people trawl through the 8000+ pages.
Some thing's i am reading
-CIA has developed technology to penetrate Apple, Google, Microsoft products -There seems to be competition between NSA and CIA, and CIA celebrated they got a bigger 'budget' from Obama adminstration then NSA -CIA lost control over their tools so its available to other foreign actors -Their tools can somehow mimic 'signature' so their malware can seem to originate from anywhere.
Wall Street Journal seems to have confirmed the papers are authentic (not sure how this is done).
Comments
- US Senator Bernie Sanders
Over the last five weekends, the president has visited his luxury resort four times – each trip costs American taxpayers about $3 million. It's unknown how much his hotels earn and he as an owner of his hotels earn from his visits. As of last night, Trump had spent 31% of his presidency at Mar-a-Lago. He’s now played golf at least eight times since taking office six weeks ago.
George W. Bush, despite being president on 9/11 and starting the two longest-running wars in American history, found time to break the record for the amount of vacation time taken by a president.
It was four months from the time he took office until Barack Obama played his first weekend game of golf. Four months, in fact, before he took his first day of vacation. Donald Trump didn’t make it even two weeks. But both Obama and Bush were nose-to-the-grindstone types compared to Trump.
Expenditure of President's will not be known as there are many factors, such as their presidential income and how much they will take.
Trump has said he will take almost nothing, i don't see that factored in.
Golfing is a rather arbitrary detail as well, this presumes Presidents somehow equally prefer Golfing as a vacation past-time, and it doesn't go into detail whether any golfing was conducted with Business (pretty cliche thing where business people golf and discuss things).
Extraordinary early days to focus on these details, wait till a year is out at least.
Maybe he'll cut back on these trips. But if he doesn't--if he spends this much taxpayer money every month for the next 4 years--he'd be spending $500 million dollars by the time his first term is over.
And giving back less than 0.1% of it.
He also said in 2015. "I would not be a president who took vacations. I would not be a president that takes time off.” Source: Interview with The Hill
"There's just so much to be done," Trump told CBS' 60 Minutes in an interview broadcast Nov. 13, 2016. "So I don't think we'll be very big on vacations, no."
So him claiming to only take a dollar salary is just talk like his claim that he would not take vacations. In spite of his pandering claim I don't think Trump's the type to turn down money ever, do you?
What's really happening and not just talk is that he's taking vacations almost every weekend and @semiticgod and I posted figures concerning it.
Fitton also said that according to the best available information, Air Force One, the president’s jet, currently costs $142,000 an hour to operate – as much as 25% less than it cost to operate during the Obama years.
“The per-trip cost is a little bit less since the cost-per-hour of Air Force One are less,” Fitton said, comparing Trump and Obama. “Now, if [Trump] travels more – it will depend in the long run on the number of trips he takes, and for what purposes. And to his credit, it’s readily apparent – and he’s criticized for it – when he’s in Mar-a-Lago, he’s doing business.
-https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/04/donald-trump-travel-costs-mar-a-lago-taxpayers
Making conclusions of Presidential monetary expenses this early on, is a bit premature.
I also question media reports since there seems to always be some significant details not included, and curiously always bent towards a negative reporting of Trump.
I also find it not logical that there is criticism of Government expense, but also criticism of Trump planning to cut some Government agencies budget.
He's cutting the EPA, not the military. The former is already weak and takes very little money; the latter is incredibly expensive and lies mostly unused.
The most waste of military comes from unnecessary wars.
The EPA has a very checkered history, as any Government agency has.
All Government Agencies are known for waste, and the EPA is no exception.
An agency that 'protects the environment' doesn't suddenly exempt it from being a wasteful Government agency in some aspect, anymore then an agency which 'protects the nation-state from foreign attacks'.
As with everything, its the details that matter.
Cut that a bit and we could have universal healthcare and cheaper or free college like other first world nations.
Except, of course, for those with redundant missions, and the military is notorious for having multiple agencies with the exact same mission, but which do not even communicate with each other. The problem is so severe that there are multiple redundant groups in the security sphere whose mission is to eliminate redundancies. There's a clever Dilbert strip to that effect.
The basic problem is that people who want to effect change are more interested in starting new agencies rather than strengthening existing ones. All this adds to bureaucratic bloat--and yet the agencies that most often get cut are the ones that are most understaffed and underfunded. On that note, Trump has shown little interest in withdrawing from military ventures. In fact, the Trump administration is considering expanding the fight against ISIS and has taken a hard line against foreign countries in general... with the notable exception of Russia.
Incidentally, the military budget of the United States is 60 times as high as the EPA's. I don't see how it's mathematically possible for the latter to waste more money than the former.
If you want to reduce the deficit by cutting spending, you target the largest and most expensive projects. Trump is not doing that.
In other words, the ideal situation is one where assets are in a state of readiness, but not utilized.
Other Agencies do not operate with such leniency, because most other agencies are involved in civil matters.
Entirely different. Trump has demanded that countries protected by the American Military must pay more to America (ie Japan.)
He is one of the least war-hawkish of all the candidates in the election, apart from lets say Ben Carson.
'Hard line' is vague.
The rhetoric against Russia is one of the worst things to come from the election, that people somehow found this acceptable is abhorrent, Because Russia is one of the few countries willing to fight back. You target the most wasteful, size is not necessarily a factor.
And the military is never a good candidate to target in a simple manner, because it is unique.
Furthermore Trump's actual increase is far less then you would think, it is less then Obama's.
His rhetoric was mostly to scare other nations, because publicly declaring how much your gonna invest in the Military is one of the dumbest things to announce.
Something that has escaped the media.
And yeah, let's by all means cut the EPA. Let's cut the FDA too while we're at it. I never really liked eating safe food anyway. Much more exciting to not know if your meat or lettuce is going to have deadly bacteria in it. Hell, once a few hundred people die from a couple bad batches of both, I'm sure the "market" will take care of everything. And screw those people, they were probably poor and didn't contribute to society anyway.
We can eliminate waste, but we don't know the upper-limit of investment.
But if people were so concerned about military expenditure, i imagine everyone must have been virulently anti-democrat party since.
1. Obama launched wars which drastically increased spending
2. Hillary kept antagonizing Russia which may have launched a cold war. Ideological positions is no basis to argue against cost cutting.
Or else we'd be in a position never to cut anything in the Government.
Cost cutting is about waste, so unless people know of the actual details to rebut, then its pointless to even discuss this.
Then but then they ask for some military money, some bomb money, "oh yeah sure we got that, how many trillions do you want?"
Where's the "corrupt pence" question here?
Fair and balanced lool.
Cost cutting waste, is about Waste, size doesn't matter, waste can occur in any agency no matter the size.
The reason why i reject the idealogical rebuttals to cost cutting EPA, is because no one establishes there is 'no waste' but because 'i like this agency on moral reasons' somehow it's the wrong thing to do?
So? There could still be waste and its fine to cut it. The trillions spent in the military was due to wars, under both Obama and Bush.
It is not a purely GOP thing.
You have ISIL, which is a terrorist theme (making it more of a bush's war on terror) and the U.S. took its sweet time to assist in it and maybe the Libyan civil war, but that was a nato'd backed operation so, it wasn't really just Obama.
Both intentionally done against the current Sovereign Government.
I don't fault Obama for his administrations handling of Iraq to a large degree, as he inherited Iraq from Bush.
Seriously, what an asshole. Clearly someone who has no earthly idea about health care costs, OR how most new cell phones are acquired (paid in full on purchase according to this buffoon).
Lifetime caps....screw anyone who votes for this bill or supports it. Seriously.
all this just because they can't let obama have anything, he must be attacked. Oh and so they can get a tax cut for their richest donors.
It appears the CIA had an even more powerful division then the NSA, developed a wide-range of malware and hacking tools to penetrate Apple, Google and Microsoft products.
And lost control of them so their available to other actors outside the U.S.
If true, this could be a massive scandal and incredibly damaging to even the private sector technology industry.
EDIT: It looks like it wasn't one specific division; the cyber techniques and the documentation involved were spread across multiple groups within the CIA.
- Apparently Wikileaks has not published the actual code; only descriptions of the techniques. So other countries do not currently have access to these tools. Not unless Wikileaks releases it.
- According to the New York Times, the CIA didn't invent malware and then release it into the public sphere (like when Stuxnet accidentally escaped Iran and spread across the world); it borrowed techniques that foreign malware (like those of Russia) used. The CIA was learning from hostile malware, not creating it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/world/europe/wikileaks-cia-hacking.html
Reddit is more up-to-date on newest findings as people trawl through the 8000+ pages.
Some thing's i am reading
-CIA has developed technology to penetrate Apple, Google, Microsoft products
-There seems to be competition between NSA and CIA, and CIA celebrated they got a bigger 'budget' from Obama adminstration then NSA
-CIA lost control over their tools so its available to other foreign actors
-Their tools can somehow mimic 'signature' so their malware can seem to originate from anywhere.
Wall Street Journal seems to have confirmed the papers are authentic (not sure how this is done).