(05-11-2025 11:57 AM)Marc Mensa Wrote:  The GOP is an absolute disgrace

The Democrat Part has a historically low approval rating. Not even thirty percent of the entire country approves of your party.

Liverpool gave up the tie goal. I blame you, Mensa. QUIT! DERAILING! THE THREAD!

(05-11-2025 11:57 AM)Marc Mensa Wrote:  The GOP is an absolute disgrace

Why don’t you respond to arguments?

You are a disgrace

Oh, well. Liverpool already has the Premier League championship wrapped up. These remaining games are just a formality at this point.

You'll Never Walk Alone.

(05-11-2025 12:01 PM)WalkThePlank Wrote:  

(05-11-2025 11:57 AM)Marc Mensa Wrote:  The GOP is an absolute disgrace

Why don’t you respond to arguments?

You are a disgrace

I know. He keeps derailing the thread. I wish he'd stop. This is about soccer, after all.

*changes title of thread* See?

Merino of Arsenal received his second yellow card for a reckless challenge. Two yellow cards equals a red card. He is sent off. Arsenal is now down to ten players on the pitch.

Liverpool cannot convert the free kick. The ball was bent too much like Beckham (who actually played for Manchester United.)

So the response from the Trumpistas on this transaction is 'nothing to see', 'whadabout (something Biden)', and the general 'nothing but TDS' ?

Seriously?

Nothing at all unsavory? Especially with the apparent aim of Trump keeping it after the Presidency?

(05-11-2025 12:12 PM)stinkfist Wrote:  

I saw Pele play live at Giants Stadium in the 1970s. His last match. Sellout.

I think I was the only person there who spoke English, lol.

(05-11-2025 11:29 AM)BartlettTigerFan Wrote:  yes. Hail Trump.

I love ya, BT, but Trump Worship is just as bad as Trump Derangment.

We had to live through 12 years of Democrat worship with Obama and Biden.

Uh, this thread is about soccer. Besides, if being POTUS means you don't receive any personal gifts whatsoever, then every single currently living POTUS (including former) should give every single gift they've ever received back. That includes commemorative bowls and plates, sports jerseys from championship winning teams, plants, furniture, and whatever else was a gift. (News flash: It's not going to happen.) And if there's no quid pro quo there, there's nothing to be concerned about.

We are now in extra time. Five minutes of stoppage time.

Air Force One, Courtesy of Qatar: Constitutional and Cost-Saving

Quote:The modern American left is allergic to legality when it does not serve their narrative. Case in point: the apoplexy over President Donald J. Trump’s acceptance of a $1 billion Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar. This aircraft, originally outfitted as a "flying palace," has been offered as a gift to the United States government for temporary use as an interim Air Force One, with the condition that it later be donated to the Trump Presidential Library Foundation. Pundits clutch their pearls, invoking the Emoluments Clause, bribery statutes, and vague notions of impropriety. But their argument is not only unsound, it is unserious.

The aircraft is not a gift to Trump personally, and therein lies the constitutional linchpin. The Department of the Air Force will accept the plane, retrofit it for presidential use, and once the newly delayed Boeing VC-25B is finally delivered, sometime near the end of Trump’s second term, the aircraft will be transferred to the Trump Presidential Library Foundation, and eventually to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), as mandated by the Presidential Libraries Act.

This transaction is not a violation of law, it is an expression of prudence. Boeing’s chronic inability to deliver the new Air Force One aircraft, initially contracted in 2018, has left the president dependent on aging 747-200s from the early 1990s. Trump could have burdened the American taxpayer with an emergency purchase of a stopgap jet, but he chose the more fiscally responsible route: accept a gift on behalf of the American people.

The legality is rooted in clear statutory and constitutional footing. First, 10 U.S.C. §2601 authorizes the Secretary of Defense to accept gifts, including personal property, provided they are not designated for a specific individual. In fact, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth postponed his scheduled diplomatic trip to Israel this week in order to remain available to accept the gift during President Trump’s visit to Qatar. The jet, in this case, is being given to the Air Force, not to Trump. There is no private enrichment.

Second, the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act (5 U.S.C. §7342) provides congressional consent for public officials to accept gifts on behalf of the United States, so long as those gifts are not retained for personal use. The aircraft, during its operational life, will be used exclusively for official government purposes. Afterward, it becomes part of a presidential library, an educational institution run in conjunction with NARA. The chain of custody is public from start to finish.

Critics invoke the Emoluments Clause of Article I, Section 9, as if it were a magic incantation. But the clause prohibits personal acceptance of gifts from foreign states without congressional consent. When the gift is accepted by the US government and used in the public interest, it falls outside the clause’s scope. Legal scholars across ideological lines, including Jonathan Adler and past opinions from the Office of Legal Counsel, affirm this interpretation.

Bribery laws are equally inapplicable. The federal bribery statute, 18 U.S.C. §201, requires a quid pro quo, a thing of value exchanged for an official act. But the Qatar donation contains no such bargain. There is no evidence, even from the fevered imagination of Trump’s critics, that any official act was offered in return. It is a goodwill gesture, legally vetted and structurally sound.

Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House Counsel David Warrington have issued legal opinions affirming that the arrangement is permissible. Bondi’s memo emphasizes that the jet is not a personal gift and that its transfer to a future presidential library, which will itself become government property, further insulates the transaction from constitutional concern. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth concurred after a thorough legal analysis.

The historical precedents are also worth noting. In 2001, the Air Force transferred the decommissioned Boeing 707 known as SAM 27000 to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. That aircraft had served as Air Force One under multiple presidents. It was turned into a museum exhibit, open to the public, and maintained through a private endowment. The Trump library will follow the same procedure. That Reagan’s plane was American-built and Trump’s is a foreign gift is irrelevant. Once accepted by the Air Force, the Qatar 747 becomes government property, indistinguishable in legal status from any other.

If anything, this gesture is a net benefit to the United States. Taxpayers save hundreds of millions, the president has a safe and modern aircraft to use, and in time, the public gains a historic artifact displayed for educational purposes. Only those politically motivated to hate Trump could object.

It is precisely this kind of clear-headed stewardship that Americans voted for in 2024. Trump didn’t cave to bureaucratic inertia or Boeing’s delays. He acted. He found a solution. And he did so within the full bounds of law and constitutional propriety.

Let the Democrats and their media allies fume. The law is not on their side, and neither is the logic. Trump accepted a plane not for himself but for the country. And when he is done using it to serve the nation, it will be handed over, as all such gifts should be, to the American people.

(05-11-2025 12:16 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  So the response from the Trumpistas on this transaction is 'nothing to see', 'whadabout (something Biden)', and the general 'nothing but TDS' ?

Seriously?

Nothing at all unsavory? Especially with the apparent aim of Trump keeping it after the Presidency?

So why not wait until there is actual conflict of interest/quid pro quo that looks suspicious? I’ll absolutely grant your argument if that eventually happens, but until then…no.

Historical context offers that this happens pretty often with other POTUS’. Clinton got a million from Qatar that went to his foundation. Obama received gifts from Saudi Arabia.

Was there quid pro quo there? I don’t recall that happening with Obama and Clinton. Could be wrong.

(05-11-2025 09:01 AM)Marc Mensa Wrote:  Blame Boeing for Trump having to accept a personal gift from the Qatari Crown Prince?

Didn’t bother to read your own post again, eh?

Sad.

Liverpool and Arsenal ends in a draw. Each team gets a point. (Because that's how draws work in soccer.) Both remain one and two in the standings. (Fun fact: The standings is called the "table" in European soccer. I don't know why. They just are.)

(05-11-2025 09:23 AM)Bear Catlett Wrote:  Well the article says it hasn't happened yet. So why are we talking about it now?

Trump was also supposed to have been throwing liberal journalists in gulags by now too and that hasn't happened.

Yea, to the latter, he’s gotta get moving on that, and soon.

whilst waiting on today's baseball game, zongo sheds a tear o' joy...

(05-11-2025 12:28 PM)JMUDunk Wrote:  

(05-11-2025 09:23 AM)Bear Catlett Wrote:  Well the article says it hasn't happened yet. So why are we talking about it now?

Trump was also supposed to have been throwing liberal journalists in gulags by now too and that hasn't happened.

Yea, to the latter, he’s gotta get moving on that, and soon.

I was expecting that, too. I even thought that was going to happen after Liverpool vs. Arsenal. (My guide says that NBC will be showing something called the Laureus World Sports Awards, which are being held in Madrid, Spain.)

(05-11-2025 11:57 AM)Marc Mensa Wrote:  The GOP is an absolute disgrace

Mensa, your party is the disgrace. You and your party advocate for the worst elements of society, and call yourselves the party of morality.

(05-11-2025 11:53 AM)TripleA Wrote:  

(05-11-2025 11:52 AM)TIGERCITY Wrote:  A foreign government offers an irresistible gold-plated Trojan horse to a man who has no concern about national security....with 100% conclusion that the 30% moron and 70% money will drag it into the White House.

Well, look who the cat dragged in! Where ya been, TC?

how can ya not love how these threads evolve, eh?!!

(05-11-2025 12:19 PM)andybible1995 Wrote:  

(05-11-2025 11:29 AM)BartlettTigerFan Wrote:  yes. Hail Trump.

I love ya, BT, but Trump Worship is just as bad as Trump Derangment.

We had to live through 12 years of Democrat worship with Obama and Biden.

Andybible, bless your heart, how can you have been reading my posts all this time and still think I’m a fan of Trump the man?