We Have An Expensive President!

Did Trump's campaign pay for his election rally in Melbourne, FL Saturday?

-by Tracy B Ann

I was reading last night that it cost $98 million to guard President Obama during his 8 years as President. This weekend they we, are guarding Trump in Florida, his wife and youngest son in Manhattan and I think his older sons are in Dubai with tax payer security. Plus there are staffers at the White House in DC who get security, as does the White House itself.

According to a report from David Choi at Business Insider:

• Three trips to Mar-a-Lago since Trump's inauguration may have cost about $10 million, based on a government report from October that analyzed White House travel, according to The Post. The expenses include the cost of US Coast Guard patrol boats on the shoreline.

• Palm Beach County officials say they will request reimbursement of tens of thousands of dollars per day from the White House for their deputies who provided security and logistical support around the city.

• Police officials estimate that it would cost New York $500,000 a day, or $183 million a year, to guard Trump Tower, where first lady Melania Trump and son Barron Trump live.

• Secret Service and US embassy employees paid about $100,000 in hotel room bills during Eric Trump's trip to Uruguay, where he promoted a Trump-branded building.

• If the Pentagon secures rental space in Trump Tower-- needed for when the president returns to New York-- it could cost $1.5 million per year, according to the building's website.

• Secret Service paid $12,000 for tents, portable toilets, light towers, and golf carts during Trump's Super Bowl weekend trip to Mar-a-Lago.

From his 3 marriages, Trump has 5 kids, ages; 38, 34, 32, 22 and 10. They all get security. Do we pay to guard his grandkids too? It could end up costing a billion to protect Trump and his family.

The parents and siblings of the President are entitled to Secret Service protection but can decline it. Jimmy Carter's mother Lillian and his brother Billy declined it, so did Roger Clinton. Nixon paid for his own private guards though he was entitled to Secret Service. Barbara Bush declined protection when she left the White House.

"Four days before leaving office, President Bush signed a directive authorizing the Secret Service to provide a period of extended protection for his daughters Jenna and Barbara." They were 28 years old at the time.

The Secret Service also investigates fraud, counterfeiting, cyber investigations and other financial crimes. Beats me, why they do that. The history of the Secret Service is here.

The Secret Service, according to their website, protects:

• The President of the United States
• The Vice President of the United States
• The President’s and Vice President’s immediate families
• Former Presidents, their spouses and their minor children under the age of 16
• Foreign heads of state and their spouses visiting the United States
• Major presidential and vice presidential candidates and their spouses
• Events designated as National Special Security Events by the Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security

I don’t begrudge protecting the office of the President. We actually don’t pay them much, and I think (I’m not certain) that unlike Congress, they have to pay for their health care when they leave office, though they keep their plan.

They also give up their lives and normalcy (most of them) for the time that they serve the country in the office of the President. Their families do as well. So, I want them protected. I want them to have the best protection available.

But I want them to be respectful of their position, and not take advantage of taxpayers. Perhaps they could keep travel to a minimum? Use places like Camp David for meetings, which are easier to secure and cheaper to travel to. And perhaps they could not go to four places at once? Or maybe the Russians could kick in and pay for part of Trumps security.

All of this expense is why elections matter, in case anyone thought they didn’t. A lot of Trump voters may be dismayed to learn that the jobs he is creating right now are 1,000 new Secret Security jobs. To cover his family while they gad about on business adventures. Including Trump at #Mosk-Ow-Lago.

This is why the framers of our Constitution wrote in elections for Congress every 2 years. To give voters a voice. Well, start practicing your scales and warming up your voices so that they can be heard in the 2018 elections.

You don’t even have to wait that long. Several states have elections this year, 2017, for state and local offices. This is where we can make a great start in having our voices heard. Check 90for90 for candidates coming to an area near you.

Don’t forget that we are the UNITED States of America, so what happens in Virginia, New Jersey, Mississippi, and Louisiana matter in Michigan, Tennessee, Oregon and every other state. Let’s make our voices heard, not with a whisper, but with a scream.

Margaret Thatcher And EMILY's List

While we didn't cheer, nor take part in the wailing and the rending of garments,  at the announcement of Margaret Thatcher's death-- she's been all but dead for several years-- yesterday, we did recognize her passing. I hope you read Ken's fair and balanced obit last night. And, regardless what you thought of her reactionary brand of politics, there is certainly no denying her a hard-earned place in history-- England's first women prime minister. When a similarly senile British Consul General assigned to the L.A. garden party and high tea post, viciously anti-union Dame Barbara Hay, went on KPCC to eulogize her idol yesterday, she seemed stumped when asked to name a Thatcher contribution. So she went right to Thatcher breaking the unions, the real bond that she and Reagan had in common.

When her Conservative Party cabinet colleagues kicked her out of office, she was embittered and said, even years later, "I shall never forget; I shall never forgive." What a dreadful old monster she was! And no less so for being a woman. In politics, as in all things, there are good women, great women, horrible women, flawed women and women who are good on some things and bad on others. Sounds a lot like men, doesn't it? Morrissey doesn't have fond memories of Thatcher in any way, shape or form and he wasn't shy in pointing out that she was even a monster when it came to women's issues, even beyond wrecking the social system women often depend on for themselves and their children.

Iron? No. Barbaric? Yes. She hated feminists even though it was largely due to the progression of the women's movement that the British people allowed themselves to accept that a prime minister could actually be female. But because of Thatcher, there will never again be another woman in power in British politics, and rather than opening that particular door for other women, she closed it.

Thatcher will only be fondly remembered by sentimentalists who did not suffer under her leadership, but the majority of British working people have forgotten her already, and the people of Argentina will be celebrating her death. As a matter of recorded fact, Thatcher was a terror without an atom of humanity.

I don't want to go into my whole schpiel about how special interest groups like EMILY's List and, say, Victory Fund make grievous strategic errors when they support a conservative woman or a conservative gay over a progressive man or a progressive straight ally. I watched Barbara Boxer, clearly senile now and past her due date, crowing about how she persuaded an ex-progressive champion, Nancy Pelosi, to support conservative (proto-Republican Wendy Greuel for mayor of L.A. over a far smarter, far more progressive and far better qualified Eric Garcetti for one reason and one reason only: Wendy has a vagina and Eric has a penis. Each of them is a lot more than plumbing. The National Organization for Women (NOW) gets that even if EMILY's List, which predictably, is backing Greuel, doesn't. The California state branch of NOW endorsed Garcetti as did, yesterday, one of California's foremost advocates for women and children in Congress, Rep. Karen Bass, the former state Assembly Speaker. (Sadly, Boxer and Pelosi are in their dotage. Who's going to help them ease out of public life though? It was hard enough for U.K. Conservatives to unceremoniously throw Thatcher out in time.)

There are a number of races EMILY's List is getting involved in that pit conservative women against progressive men and one of their keystone races is for the governor of the Keystone State. Their candidate is great on one issue: Choice. On economic justice issues, she's a backward conservative and a danger to working families. Her record in Congress is disgraceful for anyone calling themselves a Democrat, let alone a Democrat from a safe, solidly blue district like hers. A vice chair of the repulsively corrupt, corporately-owned New Dems, her lifetime ProgressivePunch score on crucial roll calls is a wretched 76.68. But for the current session-- where nothing is in her mind except her lust to become Pennsylvania's first woman governor-- her voting record has really gone into the toilet as she endeavors to prove how conservative she is by voting with Boehner and Cantor whenever she can. Her score for the current session has sunk to an abysmal 52.4, Blue Dog territory.

Allyson Schwartz isn't a terrible candidate because she's a woman. She's a terrible candidate because she's a conservative serving the interests of Big Business and Wall Street rather than of working families of Pennsylvania. EMILY's List is terrible for supporting her just because she's a woman. They should be supporting women-- we need lots more in public office-- but not women like Margaret Thatcher... or Allyson Schwartz. Oh come on, Howie... how can you compare Allyson Schwartz to Margaret Thatcher? Here's how:

• Allyson Did the Dirty Work for America’s Credit Card Industry Against the Middle-Class

She came under heavy fire from liberals in Philadelphia for her vote in favor of the credit card industry-written Bankruptcy Bill of 2005 that the GOP was pushing. The bill allowed the credit card companies to ruin the finances of middle-class Americans and then prevent those same Americans from filing for bankruptcy and getting rid of their credit card debts. The bill also specifically removed protections to prevent identity theft.

• Allyson Gave Cover to House Republicans to Overturn Obamacare

Allyson Schwartz has been accused of siding with health care interests-- one of her biggest bloc of contributors-- and giving House Republicans cover on dismantling important parts of ObamaCare. Schwartz’s actions would result in increased profits for health care providers.

• Allyson Supported Keeping the Bush Tax Cuts For the Wealthy

When President Obama was forced by House Republicans to move the cut-off for the Bush tax cuts to $400,000 from $250,000, Politico reported that Schwartz cheered the move as beneficial to her wealthy district. “It makes a difference for some in my district,” she said. Previously, in 2010, Schwartz proposed extending the Bush tax cuts for those who making up to half a million ($500,000) a year. And in December 2010, Allyson Schwartz voted to extend all of the Bush tax cuts for two more years.

• Allyson Sided With George W. Bush on Iraq

During her first campaign for Congress in 2004, Schwartz said she supported Bush’s War in Iraq and then repeatedly voted to give him blank checks to keep it going. Then, in May 2007, she voted against the bipartisan progressive/Libertarian resolution that sought to safely redeploy U.S. troops out of Iraq. Four years later (March, 2011) she helped defeat another bipartisan plan to end another war, this one in Afghanistan. All the while, she has been voting to renew the Patriot Act without protections for civil liberties.

Is she better than Corbett? Sure... but what a low standard. Pennsylvania Democrats can do a lot better-- and there's more than one good choice. OK, I hope you've paid attention. How about, as a reward of sorts, a couple of songs by Elvis Costello, one he wrote about Margaret Thatcher ruining human existence and one about Alison? Enjoy!

More On The Bush Economic Miracle: Less Than Zero Interest Rate

People put their money in Treasury bills, even though they pay less interest than almost any other investment, because they are considered the safest investment on earth. The full faith and credit of the United States government stands behind them. So you can be sure you at least preserve your capital. And if you lose a little buying power because of inflation... well it won't be too much. At least it wouldn't have been until today.

Interest rates on four-week Treasury bills fell to zero in Tuesday's auction, as investors still sought the safety of government securities without any return on their investment.

The Treasury Department says it sold $32 billion in four-week bills at an interest rate of zero percent. That meant investors were willing to earn no return at all on their money as long as they cold park it in the safety of Treasury securities.

Today's L.A. Times reports that at one point in the day the rate actually dipped below zero. "In effect, a negative yield means some investors are so hungry for Treasuries that they’re willing to pay more for a security than they’ll get back when it matures, and earn no interest while they hold it." That happened at the height of the Great Depression, brought on by a series of presidents with a series of economic agendas very similar to the ones we've just been through. And tomorrow's NY Times paints a bleak picture: "In the market equivalent of shoveling cash under the mattress, hordes of buyers were so eager on Tuesday to park money in the world’s safest investment, United States government debt, that they agreed to accept a zero percent rate of return. The news sent a sobering signal: in these troubled economic times, when people have lost vast amounts on stocks, bonds and real estate, making an investment that offers security but no gain is tantamount to coming out ahead. This extremely cautious approach reflects concerns that a global recession could deepen next year, and continue to jeopardize all types of investments." Enjoy Elvis: