Because Elections and Winning Enough Votes

[abbey1227]

May 3, 2022 5:44:35 GMT merh said:

May 3, 2022 3:53:46 GMT abbey1227 said:

So better to give millionaires favors hoping they'll give the politicians donations than give $300/kid to poor?

Its the GOP style.
They don't have a replacement for the ACA  because they don't want poor to get used to getting stuff like that from the government.  Only millionaires deserve corporate welfare. 

Better? Worse? That's a morality call. I think they're both bad

They're liars, pretty much the whole lot. They weren't elected to 'come up with another plan'. They were elected to REPEAL the ACA.

They're too worried about appearing apathetic or worse if they stick to the truth that the Govt should never be involved in so many things to begin with.

[merh]

[abbey1227]

May 4, 2022 2:11:43 GMT merh said:

Add to that............ Just look how well they treat returning US troops    

[merh]

May 4, 2022 4:28:22 GMT abbey1227 said:

May 4, 2022 2:11:43 GMT merh said:

Add to that............ Just look how well they treat returning US troops    

Troops have always been lied to.

This guy is running here.

[merh]

[merh]

Perspective

[merh]

[merh]

Unfortunately that is what some of them want.
The good old days when men worked & women stayed home being homemakers

[abbey1227]

May 6, 2022 21:00:09 GMT merh said:

Perspective

Gives me a good perspective on why a Republic is so important

[abbey1227]

May 7, 2022 12:54:41 GMT merh said:

Unfortunately that is what some of them want.
The good old days when men worked & women stayed home being homemakers

I've told you many times that some women just love to be abused. On both sides of the aisle. Why act surprised now?

[abbey1227]

May 7, 2022 12:42:55 GMT merh said:

The projection is astounding

once you allow this kind of extreme power to take hold you have no idea who they will come for next - Hillary Clinton

[merh]

May 7, 2022 13:45:44 GMT abbey1227 said:

May 7, 2022 12:42:55 GMT merh said:

The projection is astounding

once you allow this kind of extreme power to take hold you have no idea who they will come for next - Hillary Clinton

You didn't see a womanizing ass running for president, someone who never thought of doing anything for others, who didn't understand the power of the office other than how it could benefit himself as potentially negative?

[abbey1227]

May 7, 2022 22:44:19 GMT merh said:

You didn't see a womanizing ass running for president, someone who never thought of doing anything for others, who didn't understand the power of the office other than how it could benefit himself as potentially negative?

Yes, I did. I saw a spoiled $Billionaire that had grabbed plenty of pussy in his time running for president.......and he was the preferred option.

Never did anything for others? He's employed thousands. Even had women be in charge of some of those projects? How progressive. He got an ice rink built and open after all of your preferred kind of politicians screwed the pooch over budget and far beyond a reasonable deadline.

Your party showed their hand. They're willing to destroy this country in order to retain power. That much is clear.  Hillary & Co was willing to spend $12 Million on a phony dossier......instead of say...helping the poor? Building a homeless shelter? etc etc

[merh]

May 8, 2022 1:19:06 GMT abbey1227 said:

May 7, 2022 22:44:19 GMT merh said:

You didn't see a womanizing ass running for president, someone who never thought of doing anything for others, who didn't understand the power of the office other than how it could benefit himself as potentially negative?

Yes, I did. I saw a spoiled $Billionaire that had grabbed plenty of pussy in his time running for president.......and he was the preferred option.

Really?
Trump lost the popular vote both times, winning on the "technicality" of the electoral college.

Popular vote
Trump-62,984,828
Clinton-65,853,514

Never did anything for others? He's employed thousands. Even had women be in charge of some of those projects? How progressive. He got an ice rink built and open after all of your preferred kind of politicians screwed the pooch over budget and far beyond a reasonable deadline.

So running a company to make money for himself was community service & not captialism/looking to make a buck for himself?
Hiring undocumented workers?

Donald Trump Admits Hiring Illegal Immigrants
By
Jonathan Goodman, Contributor
Host of The Johno Show
Sep. 15, 2016, 06:25 AM EDT | Updated Sep. 15, 2016

Do you remember Nannygate? In 1993, when Bill Clinton put forth two nominees for United States Attorney General and they were both disqualified from the position because they had hired illegal aliens to take care of their kids. Both of these individual’s lives were ruined and they never sought a high profile government position again.

Now, more than two decades later, we have a presidential candidate with a xenophobic message focused on building a wall between our southern neighbors and deporting 11 million undocumented individuals. All while fully being aware that his past is littered with hiring undocumented workers and even today one of his biggest projects has illegals working there.

In 1979, Trump took the lowest of 12 demolition bids and hired Kaszycki & Sons, who had never done a total demolition before but promised to tear down the former Bonwit Teller department store, the future location of Trump Tower, for just $775,000 dollars. Kaszycki hired 15 members of the House Wreckers Union Local 95 as well as 200 non-union men most of which were immigrants from Poland. The Poles were paid a third of what the union members were making. They had no benefits, used sledgehammers instead of power tools, didn’t have hard hats and worked 12 hour days seven days a week. Many of them slept at the demolition site.

Even with what amounted to slave labor, Kaszycki was behind schedule, over budget, and by early 1980 stopped paying the Polish workers. When the workers complained they were met with alleged threats of deportation. So they began to strike and hired John Szabo, a storefront lawyer in Queens to go after the money.

When it finally made it’s way to trial in 1991, Trump claimed no knowledge of the nonunion undocumented workers. The courts heard a different story from former Trump adviser Daniel Sullivan, a labor negotiator for Trump. Daniel Sullivan was previously involved with Trump’s lease agreement for the land adjoining Trump Plaza where Trump drastically overspent $1.1 million dollars on a property Sullivan had bought for just $195K dollars a couple years before. After the deal was done Trump brought Sullivan on as a labor negotiator. And now here of course Sullivan double crossed Trump and called him out for hiring illegals.

Sullivan recalled a conversation for the courts between himself and Donald in June of 1980 where Donald said he was having difficulties and sought his advice regarding some illegal Polish employees on the job. Sullivan told Trump he thought he was nuts and suggested firing them promptly if he had any brains.

The federal court ruled that Trump had engaged in a conspiracy to avoid paying union pension and welfare contributions for the workers and set damages to $325,000 dollars. The case was later settled by negotiation, and the agreement was sealed.

But that wasn’t Trumps only involvement with hiring illegals. In fact, right now, even during his presidential campaign, Trump is using undocumented workers in the construction project to convert Washington, D.C.’s Old Post Office Pavilion into a luxury hotel. Reuters even reviewed Department of Labor data that suggests Trump-owned businesses have tried to gain visas for over one thousand temporary workers from outside the United States since 2000. The forms show these aren’t jobs Americans won’t do. They are positions for waitress, cook, vineyard worker, golf-course superintendent, hotel manager, banquet manager, and maid for Mar A Lago.

Trump let this beloved ice rink fall to pieces. A new partnership is bringing it back to life
Wollman Rink fell into disrepair under the Trump Organization. This weekend, it reopens with a new look.
Trump let this beloved ice rink fall to pieces. A new partnership is bringing it back to life
[Image: VStudios]
BY NATE BERG
3 MINUTE READ
The New York City ice rink run by former President Donald Trump’s business organization was a visible wreck. Located in Central Park, Wollman Rink has been a staple of wintertime recreation in the city since 1950, but in the years since being taken over by the Trump Organization in the 1980s, maintenance had fallen by the wayside. The clubhouse where you rent skates and lockers was a jumble of crowded spaces and decaying storage facilities. Some of its bathrooms lacked basic plumbing. Its exterior trellis was falling apart. Of more than 50 doors in the clubhouse and concessions building, only three worked.


So when the license to operate the rink came up for renewal earlier this year, the Trump Organization was essentially voted out.

“The city did not want to renew their lease for a lot of reasons, as you can imagine,” says Greg Gushee, executive vice president of Related Companies, the New York-based developer. Along with sports venue operator Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment and fitness club operator Equinox, Related formed a joint venture, Wollman Park Partners, to take over the rink. In July the group was awarded a five-year lease by the city. After a fast-tracked renovation, the rink reopens November 14.


The clubhouse area before renovation . . . [Photo: courtesy of Wollman Park Partners]
Gushee says updating the rink was no small task. “It was run with very little maintenance, no [capital expenditures] for many, many years. So it went downhill,” he says. “We basically gutted the inside.”

After years of deferred maintenance, the rink has undergone a $7.5 million refresh. The clubhouse has new electrical wiring, bathroom plumbing, locker areas, and an exterior patio, and upgrades have been made to the food and beverage stands and the skate rental area. The update even tackled straightforward things like digitizing ticket sales instead of having hundreds of people waiting in lines to get inside. “The lines were crazy,” Gushee says. “So we separated the ticketing and the entrance, from a security point of view.”
With designs from global architecture firm Gensler and hospitality specialists Rockwell Group, Wollman Park Partners plans to expand the rink’s amenities to include rink-side seating, new food options, a “S’Mores Lounge,” and a Zamboni shed.

“The goal was not just making it functional but [making] it great,” Gushee says, noting that the group is refocusing the rink’s mission from just a moneymaking park attraction to a place that serves the community. Wollman Park Partners has shared use agreements with community groups like the YMCA, Ice Hockey in Harlem, Figure Skating in Harlem, and the Boys’ Club of New York. They’ve also brought in Melba Wilson of Harlem-based Melba’s Restaurant to provide signature menu items.

As part of their operating contract, Wollman Park Partners has committed to reinvesting profits from the rink into facility upgrades, on-site partnerships with community organizations, and programming. Essentially a break-even venture for the partners, Gushee calls the rink lease a reinvestment in the city.

“This is more of a group project than a commercial project,” he says. “The design and architecture was really a back seat to the real mission, which was the community.”

Plans are still taking shape for the additional buildings alongside the rink and won’t be ready for this winter season. The S’Mores Lounge is currently going through design reviews with various city departments. Gushee says the additions and the renovations are just part of an effort to bring the much-loved rink back to its previous glory.

“It’s not supposed to be a super flashy thing,” Gushee says. “It’s about supporting New York City in an equitable way.”

www.fastcompany.com/90696000/trump-let-this-beloved-ice-rink-fall-to-pieces-a-new-partnership-is-bringing-it-back-to-life

He didn't build the damned rink you know.

Wollman Rink opened in 1950, having been proposed four years earlier. The rink was closed for renovations in late 1980 and reopened in November 1986. Following the renovation, The Trump Organization operated the rink under contract with the New York City government until 1995 and again from 2001 until 2021. From 2003 until 2019, Central Amusement International, LLC, operator of the Luna Park amusement park in Coney Island, Brooklyn, operated Victorian Gardens, a seasonal amusement park for children, on the site from late May to September.

The Wollman family donated the money originally, but the foundation cracked & needed repair.

donald-trump-ed-koch-and-the-ice-skating-rink-a-tale-of-bureaucracy.html

Donald Trump, Ed Koch, and the Ice Skating Rink: A Tale of Bureaucracy
by HUNTER BAKER • February 6, 2013
James Q. Wilson’s terrific book Bureaucracy has an interesting story about Donald Trump and New York mayor Ed Koch. The year was 1986. The city of New York had spent six years and $13 million failing to build an ice skating rink in Central Park. In early summer that year, Donald Trump proposed to Mayor Ed Koch that he take over the project for $3 million and promised to cover any excess amounts himself rather than go back to the city. By late October the project was finished and was three quarters of a million dollars under budget.

How do you explain this story? Why was the city of New York so inept that it could not do in six years and with five times the money what Donald Trump was able to achieve in a few months?

There are several reasons why the city failed so miserably, but ultimately, the answer is that when government tries to do something, everything is infected by politics. For example, when the city planned to build the rink, the type of fuel used for refrigeration was a political matter. When Trump built the rink, he only worried about getting a reliable refrigeration unit. The city also had to abide by standards for equitable bidding of the project. Trump only had to give the contract to someone he knew could get the job done. Most important, when the city had the project there wasn’t much incentive to contain cost. No member of the government would personally have to cover cost overruns. Trump, on the other hand, accepted responsibility for coming in at or under the budget as the only way he could come out ahead.

Your party showed their hand. They're willing to destroy this country in order to retain power. That much is clear.  Hillary & Co was willing to spend $12 Million on a phony dossier......instead of say...helping the poor? Building a homeless shelter? etc etc

The GOP are willing to do anything, dude.
They asked James Garner, a Democrat, to run for office on their ticket just to have another (R) in government.

That dossier was started by 

The opposition research conducted by Fusion GPS on Donald Trump was in two distinct operations, each with a different client. The first research operation, from October 2015 to May 2016, was domestic research funded by The Washington Free Beacon. The second operation, from April 2016 to December 2016, was funded by the DNC and the Clinton campaign. Only the second operation involved the foreign research that produced the dossier. From April 2016 into early May, the Washington Free Beacon and the Clinton Campaign/DNC were independently both clients of Fusion GPS.

In total, Perkins Coie paid Fusion GPS $1.02 million in fees and expenses, of which Fusion GPS paid Orbis $168,000 to produce the dossier. The DNC and Clinton campaign disclosed the total amount paid to Perkins Coie on campaign finance reports. In March 2022, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) fined the DNC $105,000 and the Clinton campaign $8,000 for misreporting those fees and expenses as "legal services" and "legal and compliance consulting" rather than "opposition research"

Where do you get $12 million?

How much have the GOP paid on Trump debt?

[merh]

[abbey1227]

May 8, 2022 3:12:18 GMT merh said:

Trump lost the popular vote both times, winning on the "technicality" of the electoral college.

So running a company to make money for himself was community service & not captialism/looking to make a buck for himself?
Hiring undocumented workers?



He didn't build the damned rink you know.

There are several reasons why the city failed so miserably, but ultimately, the answer is that when government tries to do something, everything is infected by politics. For example, when the city planned to build the rink, the type of fuel used for refrigeration was a political matter. When Trump built the rink, he only worried about getting a reliable refrigeration unit. The city also had to abide by standards for equitable bidding of the project. Trump only had to give the contract to someone he knew could get the job done. Most important, when the city had the project there wasn’t much incentive to contain cost. No member of the government would personally have to cover cost overruns. Trump, on the other hand, accepted responsibility for coming in at or under the budget as the only way he could come out ahead.

Where do you get $12 million?
How much have the GOP paid on Trump debt?

Those 'technicalities' sure seem to bother you guys when you lose..........not so much when you win, though? Again, thank goodness it's a Constitutional Republic rather than a straight democracy.

Capitalists end up making for others all while they're looking to make themselves wealthy. THAT's how it usually works.

If you somehow think everyone can work for the Govt and it'll all get paid for without Capitalists? I think you've really bought into that pipedream.

1 in 10 people, especially in the working class, is an Illegal. Whose fault is that? Oh, yeah.....the Govt.

I was well aware he didn't build that ice rink. He just embarrassed the shit outta the Govt types that screwed it up so badly. Do you actually read that and still support the Govt running more and more projects?

FEC Complaint: Hillary & DNC Broke Elections Laws By Funding …
investortimes.com/freedomoutpost/fec...

Dec 02, 2020 · FEC records indicate that the Hillary campaign and the DNC paid a total of $12 million to Perkins Coie for “legal services.”

[merh]

[merh]

[merh]

We have a Republican running as a Democrat
Because in California party isn't listed on local elections.

[abbey1227]

Jun 1, 2022 15:24:32 GMT merh said:

We have a Republican running as a Democrat
Because in California party isn't listed on local elections.

s'okay........there's plenty of GOPers that end up voting like Dems as it is