Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort: A southern White House where guests pay to play
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[QUOTE]On any given weekend, you might catch President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top Mideast dealmaker, Jared Kushner, by the beachside soft serve ice cream machine, or his reclusive chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, on the dining patio. If you are lucky, the president himself could stop by your table for a quick chat. But you will have to pay $200,000 for the privilege — and the few available spots are going fast.
Virtually overnight, Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s members-only Palm Beach, Florida, club, has been transformed into the part-time capital of U.S. government, a winter White House where Trump has entertained a foreign head of state, health care industry executives and other presidential guests. But Trump’s gatherings at Mar-a-Lago — he arrived there Friday afternoon, his third weekend visit in a row — have also created [B]an arena for potential political influence rarely seen in U.S. history: a kind of Washington steakhouse on steroids, situated in a sunny playground of the rich and powerful, where members and their guests enjoy a level of access that could elude even the best-connected of lobbyists.[/B]
Membership lists reviewed by The New York Times show that the club’s nearly 500 paying members include dozens of real estate developers, Wall Street financiers, energy executives and others whose businesses could be affected by Trump’s policies.[B] At least three club members are under consideration for an ambassadorship.[/B] Most of the 500 have had memberships predating Trump’s presidential campaign, and there are a limited number of memberships still available.
[B]William I. Koch, who oversees a major mining and fuels company, belongs to Mar-a-Lago[/B], as does billionaire trader Thomas Peterffy, who spent more than $8 million on political ads in 2012 warning of creeping socialism in the United States.
Another member is George Norcross, an insurance executive and the South Jersey Democratic Party boss, whose friendship with Trump dates to the president’s Atlantic City years, when Norcross held insurance contracts with Trump’s casinos, and Trump wrangled with the state’s Democratic leaders over tax treatment of the properties. [B]Yet another member is Janet Weiner, part owner and chief financial officer of the Rockstar energy drink company, which has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying federal officials to avoid tighter regulations on its products.[/B]
Bruce Toll, a real estate executive who co-founded Toll Brothers, one of the nation’s largest homebuilders, and who is still active in the industry, owns a home nearby and frequently sees Trump at Mar-a-Lago, he said. While they did not discuss any of Toll’s specific projects, he said, the two would occasionally discuss national issues, such as Trump’s plans to increase spending on highways and other infrastructure projects.[B] “Maybe you ought to do this or that,” Toll said of the kind of advice that Trump got from club members.[/B]
Trump’s son Eric, in an interview Friday, rejected suggestions that his family is offering access to his father and profiting from it. First, he said, only 20 to 40 new members are admitted per year, [B]and second, the wealthy business executives who frequent the club, among others, have many ways to communicate with the federal government if they want to.[/B]
[B]“It assumes the worst of us and everyone, and that is unfair,” Eric Trump said.[/B]
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[URL]https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2017/02/18/donald-trumps-mar-a-lago-resort-a-southern-white-house-where-guests-pay-to-play[/URL]
Highly recommend you read the full article, very interesting insight into the who and what of what happens at his "Southern White House". Certainly raises a lot of questions beyond the initial conflict of interests ones, like costs, security, and ethics of using taxpayer money to travel to and secure his own business.
[QUOTE=Raidyr;51841947]Certainly raises a lot of questions beyond the initial conflict of interests ones, like costs, security, and ethics of using taxpayer money to travel to and secure his own business.[/QUOTE]
As if Trump gives even the tiniest of shits about that.
[quote]Several members said Trump’s pronouncements on hot-button topics such as immigration — and in particular his recent move to ban visas for visitors from certain nations — had caused some friction among the members at Mar-a-Lago. But Bernd Lembcke, the club’s managing director, said that [b]applications had risen since Trump’s election.[/b]
[b]“It enhances it — his presidency does,”[/b] Lembcke said, referring to membership in the club. [b]“People are now even more interested in becoming members.[/b] But we are very careful in vetting them.” And potential members must be sponsored by a current one, he said. “You still have to be introduced.”[/quote]
Nothing wrong here folks
[QUOTE=KillerJaguar;51842444]Nothing wrong here folks[/QUOTE]
petition to rename :dogsleep: to :congressionalethicswatchdog:
He's pretty much using it to make money off the presidency. There is no doubt. There is no argument. This is pure and simple conflict of interest and this is what his supporters wanted. They wanted a ~shrewd~ businessman president who would run the country like a business and that's exactly what they got. Only guess what, he's in business for himself and his rich friends, not us.
And they'll root for him anyway and go "Oh what a smart business decision", like it's a third person "If I was rich" fantasy. Like identifying with a football team. And I mean hey, maybe while he's busy making money off his little side business called the United States Government so he can shove more golden bullshit in his penthouse, maybe he'll throw us a bone we can have a little bit of bronze bullshit in our home guys
[QUOTE=Mister Sandman;51842695]He's pretty much using it to make money off the presidency. There is no doubt. There is no argument. This is pure and simple conflict of interest and this is what his supporters wanted. They wanted a ~shrewd~ businessman president who would run the country like a business and that's exactly what they got. Only guess what, he's in business for himself and his rich friends, not us.
And they'll root for him anyway and go "Oh what a smart business decision", like it's a third person "If I was rich" fantasy. Like identifying with a football team. And I mean hey, maybe while he's busy making money off his little side business called the United States Government so he can shove more golden bullshit in his penthouse, maybe he'll throw us a bone we can have a little bit of bronze bullshit in our home guys[/QUOTE]
So we need a business man who'd be in business for US? Is it too late for a Bill Gates presidency?
literally it's a club where rich people pay oodles of money for the president's ear, that sounds more like dystopian fiction than anything like how a government should be functioning
[QUOTE=Solo Wing;51842722]So we need a business man who'd be in business for US? Is it too late for a Bill Gates presidency?[/QUOTE]
No, we need a politician that actually knows what the fuck they're doing and isn't interested in fucking over every person under them for the all-mighty dollar.
even better, we have made a second, bigger swamp!
[QUOTE=Sableye;51843031]even better, we have made a second, bigger swamp![/QUOTE]
It's an alternative swamp. Although it's an actual swamp too.
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