(04-07-2019 09:44 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(04-07-2019 09:35 PM)georgewebb Wrote:  

(04-07-2019 09:31 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(04-07-2019 09:12 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(04-07-2019 06:51 PM)Rice93 Wrote:  I skipped over that detail because the list of politicians who became uber-wealthy while "serving" their constituents is endless. It makes no sense to me why this should be the case and it is a black mark on our political system. Singling out Obama in this regard is pointless.

So why all the anguish over transactions that are not material to Trump's financial condition? If the prime minister of Slobovia spent two nights in a Trump hotel, that's not even rounding error.

I really think it is far more, "Orange man bad, so let's throw up as many roadblocks as we can," than any serious oversight activity.

But those two days all add up, and foreign nationals have admitted to staying there to curry favor.

Heck, even T-Mobile did it: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019...istration/

The Trump hotel is in a good location, but so are the W, JW Marriott, St. Regis, and on, and on. In fact, those are in even better locations.

So are you just comfortable with these types of conflicts of interest?

Owning a hotel is an ipso facto conflict?

Owning any business can be when you are in politics because people can attempt to use the frequenting of that business to influence your decisions.

To talk Trump specifically, say we're talking about a much smaller scale and Trump was the mayor of Hoboken, NJ. Let's say he owns a local hotel and a waste company is trying to get the new city contract. Well, what if they happen to get a waste conference to come to Hoboken and use Trump's hotel for the conference. And they then win the city contract.

There's a reason Carter sold his peanut farm and presidents put their investments in a blind trust.

On the other hand, Hillary Clinton absolutely refused to put the Clinton enterprises in a blind trust. And in that case, the conflict of interest was notorious: serving a vessel for currying favor was not merely an incidental effect of the enterprise, but its very reason for being. We may never recover from the behavioral standard they set.