‘Da Plane, Da Plane’. The perfect embodiment of the corruption permeating this administration:
The Trump administration plans to accept a luxury Boeing 747-8 plane as a donation from the Qatari royal family that will be upgraded to serve as Air Force One, which would make it one of the biggest foreign gifts ever received by the U.S. government, several American officials with knowledge of the matter said.
The plane would then be donated to President Trump’s presidential library when he leaves office, two senior officials said. Such a gift raises the possibility that Mr. Trump would have use of the plane even after his presidency ends.
Mr. Trump confirmed the fact that he anticipates receiving the plane in a post on social media on Sunday evening, after a day of controversy in which even some Republicans privately questioned the wisdom of the plan. Mr. Trump suggested that Democrats were “losers” for questioning the ethics of the move.
“So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane,” Mr. Trump wrote. “Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!!”
The corruption, and the Qatari connection, hardly begins and ends with Trump. Take, for example, the AG who is greenlighting this deal:
US President-elect Donald Trump’s new pick for US attorney general, Pam Bondi, worked as a lobbyist on behalf of the government of Qatar.
In July 2019, Bondi, a partner in the DC office of the powerful lobbying group Ballard Partners, was registered through the firm to influence Capitol Hill on human trafficking issues on behalf of the Gulf state for a fee of $115,000 per month.
A contest of sorts has played out across Europe, the United States and the Middle East in recent days as President Trump’s two older sons have pursued a blitz of family moneymaking ventures capitalizing on their father’s name and power, each seemingly trying to outdo the other.
It is a rush to cash in that involves billions of dollars with few precedents in American history.
A luxury hotel in Dubai. A second high-end residential tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Two cryptocurrency ventures based in the United States. A new golf course and villa complex in Qatar. And a new private club in Washington. In many cases these new deals promoted over the last week will personally benefit not only Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., but also President Trump himself.
How about ZERO precedents in American history? Seriously, is the Democratic Party too busy trying to silence David Hogg to raise holy hell about this? Although…apparently Hogg had a less-than-salutary interview with Bill Maher. I didn’t see it. Did you?
Guess Those Companies Aren’t Relocating Here After All:
China and the US have agreed a 90-day pause to the deepening trade war that has threatened to upend the global economy, with reciprocal tariffs to be lowered by 115 percentage points.
Speaking to the media after talks in Geneva, the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said both sides had shown “great respect” in the negotiations.
Bessent said: “The consensus from both delegations this weekend was neither side wants a decoupling.”
The 90-day lowering of tariffs applies to the duties announced by Donald Trump on 2 April, which ultimately escalated to 125% on most Chinese imports, with Beijing responding with equivalent measures.
Another Seemingly-Bizarre Firing–And Why It Went Down. Could it be–corruption?
The Trump administration has fired the head of the U.S. Copyright Office, two sources familiar with the situation confirmed to CBS News Saturday.
The firing of Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter came after Perlmutter and her office earlier this week issued part three of a lengthy report about artificial intelligence and expressed some concerns and questions about the usage of copyrighted materials by AI technology.
“It is an open question, however, how much data an AI developer needs, and the marginal effect of more data on a model’s capabilities,” the report read. “Not everyone agrees that further increases in data and test performance will necessarily lead to continued real world improvements in utility.”
Democratic Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, ranking member of the Committee on House Administration, said in a statement that Perlmutter’s firing was “a brazen, unprecedented power grab with no legal basis.”
Morelle speculated that there was “surely no coincidence he acted less than a day after she refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models,” in reference to the report released by the Copyright Office this week.
Last month, Musk took to his social media platform X to seemingly express support for the abolition of intellectual property laws. Musk also owns AI startup xAI, with which in February he submitted a failed bid to purchase OpenAI, the company that operates ChatGPT.
Another Tainted Kentucky Derby. I’m not an ‘improver of the breed’. But I know we have a few horse-racing fans among us. Why is it OK to whip a horse?:
Junior Alvarado, who rode Sovereignty to victory at last weekend’s Kentucky Derby, has been fined and banned for overuse of his whip during the race.
The jockey was found to have used the whip “more than the permitted amount” the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) said on Saturday. Under HISA regulations, jockeys are allowed to strike their horse six times during a race; Alvarado used the whip on Sovereignty eight times. It was his second such offense in the last 180 days, meaning his fine was doubled to $62,000 – 20% of his winnings from the Kentucky Derby.
So–six times is humane, eight times isn’t?
Bayhealth Once Again Violates Patients’ Privacy Rights?
Bayhealth Medical Center faces a second lawsuit over how patients’ medical information was reportedly exposed to third parties.
Earlier in May, a judge denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by patients that claims the hospital system allowed Facebook and other tech companies to scoop up their private health information through the hospital system’s website. The lawsuit claims the data was gathered and used to target advertising in a way that violates the health care provider’s privacy policies and state laws.
The lawsuit, filed last year, seeks class-action status to represent a host of Bayhealth patients who used the system’s website.
Additionally, the hospital is in negotiations to settle a separate lawsuit also filed last year that claims the hospital system negligently allowed hackers to access and hold for ransom private patient information, according to court filings.
The targeted advertising lawsuit focuses on the use of trackers embedded in Bayhealth’s website − technology that records things like page views, clicks, submissions and searches on the site.
It claims trackers on Bayhealth’s site logged users’ use of the website, including things like keyword searches, physician searches, service activities, medical record-related activities, as well as billing and financial information.
That information was sometimes directly shared with companies like Meta, which operates Facebook and Instagram, and was used to target advertising for those patients, according to the complaint.
Fire Company Opposes Speed Bumps On Main Street. Like I predicted–because fire companies opposed speed controls on Harvey Road, near where I live. It’s what they do–and who’s to say they’re wrong?
What do you want to talk about?