This is what Hervé Villechaize (Tattoo) kept shouting in Fantasy Island, that popular comedy show of the ‘70s, now come to life as Trumpie lives out his fantasies with that grandiose gift from Qatar. It is the highpoint in a life of corruption. It is an out-and-out 400-million-dollar bribe.
This is not like Putin’s corruption which is mostly hidden from public view in overseas funds and in extravagant dachas. Or Modi’s, masked by his piety. Trump’s is totally out in the open.
His Republican compadres can never admit that the plane was a bribe, so they talk about the security issues. It’s a coverup for the corruption, taken to new heights. One recalls how he used the Trump Hotel as a business venture, pushing foreign governments to hold conferences at his resort properties, and so on. He fires the people who would oversee and regulate what he and his billionaire friends are doing. How easy it was to corrupt the prosecution, the DOJ.
Everybody knows what’s going on. A retired Air Fprce colonel put it this way: “Those of us who served in the military couldn’t accept a cup of coffee and a donut at a contractor’s site because of the appearance of impropriety. Now Trump is taking a 747 airplane from the government of Qatar for his personal use. Grift and corruption run amok.”
Despite all his bravado, Trump likely won’t get the plane. And a few Republicans could well torpedo his big beautiful budget bill in Congress. To top it off he got stood up by Putin on a deal to end the fighting in Ukraine. Are we beginning to see a deflation of the Trump balloon?
The plane is obviously a sideshow for a deal that succeeds in ingratiating the Qataris with Trump at no real cost. Typical of gifters they value the plane that they were unable to sell before for $250 million at $400 million.
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When I look at that photo and contemplate all the awful, awful things I abhor the most about the “man” (and there are so very many), sometimes I think it may be his taste. Oh, Lordy, the vulgarity of it all just makes me ill.
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