Stopping Trump's Qatar Airliner Scam By Joe Conason

[justaprogressive]

Eager to accept a luxury airliner from the government of Qatar, President Donald Trump is testing the limits of Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Usually eager to behave like the servile puppies that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) once described with scorn (before becoming one himself), at least a handful of GOP elected officials seem worried that this "gift" is too obviously an unconstitutional bribe and a threat to national security.

So far none of those Republicans has uttered even the slightest objection to Trump's incessant cryptocurrency grifting, where he and his family have booked billions of dollars of investments, fees and other revenue from known and unknown parties, including the government of the United Arab Emirates. None of them has asked a single question about the Trump Organization's dozen or more deals with corporations connected to foreign governments and sovereign wealth funds. And none has raised any concern about the ridiculous $40 million paid by Amazon to Melania Trump for a mind-numbing "documentary" about her life.

But the super-luxury Qatari airliner set off alarms on the right, although critics have mostly confined themselves to remarks about potential security issues. Substituting a jet built by a foreign government for Air Force One — an aircraft whose defensive and communications mechanisms are of paramount importance — seems like a risky proposition on its face. Qatar's fantastically rich ruling family is a longtime ally of Iran, which made it a pariah in the Gulf region, as well as a longtime financier of al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas and other enemies of the United States.

During his first term, when Trump's favored despots in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates mounted an economic and diplomatic blockade of Qatar, Trump took their side. "The nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level," Trump said at a 2017 press conference. "Do we take the easy road, or do we finally take a hard but necessary action? We have to stop the funding of terrorism."

https://www.creators.com/read/joe-conason/05/25/stopping-trumps-qatar-airliner-scam

[Johnny2X2X]

1. It's a distraction

Qatar could give him 10 planes, it's not going to effect what he is doing to our country one bit either way.

His"big beautiful" spending bill is a declaration of war on working families, children, women, and minorities in America, the coverage right now should be about that bill and what's in it that's going to absolutely destroy any and all hope the bottom 75% of the country had to make a life in our country.