Corruption

[mister_coffee]

Apparently that plane has been sitting in storage for five years while Qatar looked for someone to buy it and take it off their hands.

One practical question is that operating a 747 is not cheap so having one as your personal jet is really a poor use of money. Even someone else's money.

Commercial airlines operating a 747 with well-established service networks and economies of scale typically spend $20,000 to $25,000 per flight hour to fly a 747. Air Force One runs about $200,000 per hour but that's the Air Force.

So I'd suspect that this Qatari 747 would be somewhere in between.

This leaves out the cost of parking it somewhere, which would not be zero.

All this from a person notoriously bad at paying people.

[mister_coffee]

“Saudi Arabia giving $25 million, Qatar, all of these countries, these are people that kill women and treat women horribly, and yet you (Hillary Clinton) take their money. Why don’t you give back the money that you take from certain countries that treat certain groups of people so horribly?” Trump, 2016

“It’s a really nice plane, we don’t have planes like that.” Trump, 2025

[just-jim]

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[PAL]

And does the whole cabinet and VP ever fly with the Pres? Likely not. It is probably protocol to split them up, huh. But...

[mister_coffee]

What I worry about is that I see a lot of ways that plane could be used as a tool to advance a plot against not just Donald Trump but America.

It seems technically doable to hide a transponder on board that could be used at some future date to guide multiple killer drones into the plane, taking out the President. Even scarier someone could have done that and carefully planted evidence pointing at someone else they don't like.

Another thing that would be doable is install jammers that would take the President out of communications at a critical time. So if that was coordinated with an attack on the United States our response might be much less effective -- or in the confusion there might not be any response at all. And again it would put whoever did this in a good position to plant evidence that would point away from them.

You could also modify the plane's avionics so that it turned into a gigantic flying bomb at exactly the worst time.

[Rideback]

The Qatari royal family had tried to dump that plane for 5 years, no one would take it. If, indeed Trump/DoD takes possession I can't imagine how a plane that takes of hundreds of millions to retrofit, that Congress hasn't approved much less appropriated, can be lent out to a private citizen who is no longer in office to be flown to countries probably with contentious world leaders who would be happy to learn our national security operations. Of course DoD isn't in the habit of handing out planes to private citizens anyway much less to a library. Wonder what the library will charge for an overdue return on the jet?

[mister_coffee]

Well now Mexicans are criticizing how corrupt the US government is, and rightly so. Translated from Spanish from the Excelsior article:

https://www.excelsior.com.mx/opinion/le ... le/1716027

When I read the news, I couldn't believe it. I thought it was fake . But no, it turned out to be true. I immediately imagined a huge scandal would ensue. But no, I was wrong again. It didn't happen as I imagined.

Yes, some notes and comments did appear in the press, but not to the extent I expected.

I've discussed this with friends, and we've come to the conclusion that things that were previously absolutely unthinkable have become normal.

Like the government of a nation that finances Islamic terrorist groups offering to give the President of the United States a luxury plane. He accepted it to use it as presidential transportation for the remainder of his term, and then for personal use.

Trump said he considered Qatar's gift "a very nice gesture" and added that only a "fool" would turn down a "free, very expensive plane."

No, it wouldn't be a "fool" who would reject it, but a sensible politician who understands that no one gives anything away for free. Much less a foreign government. Much less a hereditary monarchy of multimillionaire sheikhs who use their money to stay in power.

Certainly not a decent ruler who rejects using his public office to enrich himself.

Someone like Trump , who pursues a patrimonial government project, would do it . He sees no problem with using state resources for personal gain.

For the US president, the gift of a luxuriously equipped 747 is a kind of quid pro quo because his country has provided security to Qatar and "we will continue to do so."

If so, then they should send him the bill for what the American taxpayer spends on Qatari security, collect it, and then put that money into the treasury. There's no way they can collect it with a plane for Trump 's personal use .

We are witnessing, in real time, a case of corruption.

Trump doesn't see it that way. And, apparently, neither does the American media, which hasn't made a big deal out of this story. Yes, they mention it, but everything indicates that Trump will keep his new toy without any problem.

It is the normalization of what was previously unimaginable.

Also, the fact that the President of the United States and his wife, before taking office, created a meme currency to enrich themselves. On the one hand, by collecting commissions on every transaction from people who buy or sell this cryptocurrency. On the other, by maintaining a significant position that they can sell at will.

Most importantly, however, there is no transparency as to who is "investing" in this instrument and in exchange for what. Bribes could be placed on the presidential family without leaving a trace.

Trump , in fact, is promoting his meme coin . He has "announced that top buyers would enjoy a private dinner at one of his golf courses and that top holders would get a tour of the White House."

Is it acceptable for a sitting president to have his own cryptocurrency and conduct business with it while in public office?

Something like this was unthinkable in the past. Today, it's completely normalized.

The New York Times reports that ahead of their trip to the Middle East, Trump ’s sons , Donald Jr. and Eric , traveled to the region to close deals that will benefit the presidential family: “They involve billions of dollars, including a luxury hotel in Dubai, a high-end residential tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and a new golf course and villa complex in Qatar.”

I've said it here, and I'll say it again. Trump admires Putin for a reason . Not only because of the unchecked authoritarian power he wields in his country. He's also the richest man in Russia.

He is the head of the oligarchy that dominates the Russian economy. According to Forbes , Putin 's fortune is estimated at $200 billion. In testimony before the United States Senate, financier Bill Browder said that the Russian president amassed most of his wealth after the imprisonment of oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2003. After Khodorkovsky's conviction, "the other oligarchs came to Putin and asked him what they should do to avoid falling into the same trap as Khodorkovsky . From what followed, it turned out that Putin 's answer was: '50 percent.' He didn't mean 50 percent for the Russian government or the Russian presidential administration, but 50 percent for Putin personally."

The United States is a more prosperous country than Russia. Trump , like Putin , is using power for personal gain. His vision is patrimonial. He will leave the White House much richer than he was. For now, with a new plane worth more than $400 million.

X: @leozuckermann