Trump famously slammed Obama’s frequent golfing at a rally in February 2016, promising that, as president, he would give up visiting his courses in Scotland and South Florida.
“I love golf, but if I were in the White House, I don’t think I’d ever see Turnberry again. I don’t think I’d ever see Doral again,” Trump said. “I don’t ever think I’d see anything. I just want to stay in the White House and work my ass off.”
And this is a conservative estimate!
Most of the costs come from military and law enforcement salaries, which haven’t kept up with inflation, so the figures aren’t adjusted to current dollars… the real costs are almost certainly higher than these unadjusted estimates.
What do you mean by “it” that they all do? Because it’s definitely not spending this much time, or amount of money per trip, that they’re all doing.
In contrast, former President Joe Biden’s trips to Wilmington, Delaware, and Rehoboth Beach cost far less than Trump’s golf trips because he used smaller aircraft or helicopters, as the local airport cannot accommodate a 747.
Former President Barack Obama was also known for his frequent golf outings, but they were far cheaper than Trump’s, as he would also use smaller aircraft or play at nearby courses, including on the course at Maryland’s Joint Base Andrews.
The apologist say it’s good for networking. Which maybe in theory, but doesn’t hold up to scrutiny how he’s using it.
Trump has also used golf as a tool for influence and relationship-building. Politicians and world leaders, from Finnish president Alexander Stubb to US senator Lindsey Graham, have played rounds with him, seeking to win favor or maintain alliances.
And the stretch to justify continues:
Trump’s latest health report also cited his frequent golfing as proof of his physical fitness, framing it as part of an active lifestyle.
If it gave party leaders more in depth knowledge of which candidates had broad appeal (which is likely - knowing how popular each first + second choice combination is gives power to data analytics), they could more accurately spend resources to win more general elections. Actually giving the party more power.
Eventually. They would have to completely rebuild many of the established campaign strategy tools. I think sunk cost fallacy (we invested in these tools, we can’t switch to a system where our expensive software and stuff isn’t used!) is a more powerful block here than power hunger.
Amendment. Or as the other comment alluded to, interstate compact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
They believe the other option would have resulted in even worse outcome. As long as they can imagine it being worse, they can believe voting for their (misguided, but not as much as the other) team is the right thing to do.
The silver lining is that if their team is less inspirational, some voters will become discouraged and stay home instead of voting.
The 2026 optimistic projection is House Democrat majority, and Senate Republican majority (but narrower majority than now). And Trump will still be President in 2026.
How are Democrats supposed to imprison (executive branch) or impeach (Senate required for conviction) in 2026?
Sadly, no, the article text states one sponsor has withdrawn. Guess the editor of the headline didn’t think the truth was sufficiently click-baity.
Leadership believes they would be unable to cobble together enough votes to pass a budget if there wasn’t the threat of a shutdown to hang over the Representatives.
Voters in the US tend to elect Representatives who are unwilling to compromise. Being obstructionist is rewarded with way better re-election chances than getting anything done. Voters want to see their candidate Stand Up To The Enemy, although they will accept passage of a Perfect Bill (as annointed by their media of choice). Passing a bill that is later deemed by their media of choice to have any small non-perfection gets them primaried and booted. So any candidate that doesn’t have extensive cover for passing a budget, that by its nature has to be a compromise, is replaced by a more obstructionist person.
Small businesses were already disproportionately suffering from the capricious tariff situation. And areas with large federal employment specifically were already suffering from the Doge chainsaw layoffs. This administration is just piling it on.
In our first-past-the-post voting system, politicians who address policy don’t get enough votes to win elections. After consistent losses, evolution of election consultants and candidate recruitment has made the “address policy” meme near-extinct.
I believe ranked choice voting could help, but it would take multiple election evolution cycles (at least a decade) foe the now-rare political memes to rebreed up to significant population levels.
They still have to give some veneer of accountability to Congress to keep the Republican Representatives in line. This wasn’t a Pentagon spokesperson going to the media, this was a legislator talking to the media after being briefed by the Pentagon.
“They said that they do not need to positively identify individuals on the vessel to do the strikes,” Rep. Sarah Jacobs (R-CA) told CNN following the briefing.
The lawmaker pointed to the Pentagon’s admission to explain why the Trump administration “could not actually hold or try the individuals that survived one of the attacks is because they could not satisfy the evidentiary burden.”
In just over two years (January 2011 to March 2013) the Republican-controlled House voted 54 times to repeal the ACA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efforts_to_repeal_the_Affordable_Care_Act#Vote_Total_Summary
There was never any path for those votes to progress into law, but they’ve valued repetitive voting performance for decades at this point. I get doing it once - get representatives on the record with a position - but am baffled that so many voters value the repetition that Republicans keep employing this strategy.
Her call for the Senate to remove the 60 vote requirement, and pass the Republican bill with a simple (all Republican) majority, is not better in my eyes. The headline’s implication that she’s talking about negotiating with Democrats is hugely misleading, typical of Daily Beast.
It also appears the entirety of the evidence the Tumblr account is his is the username being the same. That’s interesting, but not conclusive.
The CEOs in the article cite multiple things they like. The article portrays them as way more mixed in feeling than the headline. I am flabbergasted there are only cracks in party unity and no breakage… but I’ll take cracks over nothing. Hopefully they grow quickly.
She might run if she believes it would steer the conversation in a productive way, even if she didn’t believe she could win a primary.
I suspect poor headline editing. The article is about multiple options (Senate, President, other party-promoting path) where the navigational use of the term (“plotting a course”) is reasonable. But then the headline couldn’t fit even two options, so it got reduced to just President and no one on the team connected that plotting has a negative implication with a single subject.
Insider trading is a bipartisan rep problem for sure (legal! since they make the laws!) Not sure it’s any better or just different: in the case of the reps, the corruption wealth gains are not direct money from taxpayers. Stockholders get the short end of the stick on that one.
But the president historically has held to higher standards. What Trump is doing is a new level of corruption, both for the specific office of president and for the direct taxpayers source of his wealth gain. It’s reasonable to have fresh outrage over it, even for people with outrage fatigue on the Congress insider trading issue.