The adventures of President Shyster & his Shysterettes
By now you’ve probably seen President Shyster posing next to a table covered in files:
The setup was extraordinary. Basically he said, Dear Public, these are papers. Papers mean I have no conflicts of interest. No, you can’t see the papers. Plus, there’s no such thing as conflicts of interest for a president anyway! So my props are actually pointless. So stupid! It’s all the fault of that place with the slanty eyed people, the one that rhymes with vagina.
Just in case that wasn’t enough, he carted out his lawyer- because we obviously know there’s never been a lawyer willing to mislead people (in all history.) She began by comparing President Shyster to Nelson Rockefeller. Had I been drinking something I would have spit it out. Meanwhile his Shysterettes were a few steps away from him because nothing proves you won’t be mixing family, business interests and the office of president like having all your children on the stage of one of your first press conferences as president elect.
My Mazamet 
From 1940’s movie(s): “Hey, gang, I’ve got an idea, let’s put on a show.”
I sincerely hope we are entertaining the world as we commit political suicide.
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I lack the personal resentment that I feel for Brexit- but my feelings of horror and disgust are strong.
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Entertaining, but in a bad, freak show sort of way.
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It’s going to be really important that we all keep our sense of humor…it’s going to get worse
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Absolutely! After all, the show is just beginning 😨
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Notice the Good Mad Dog General Mattis has yet to appear at any of his scheduled confirmation hearings? Interesting, that…
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But yesterday I breathed a sigh of relief as Tillerson was questioned! What a relief.
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Three.Ring.Circus. Barnum and Bailey have noting on Donald Trump.
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Wasn’t it? Where are all the people who said he’d become super-duper presidential as soon as he got elected? 😀
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They’re too busy stomping out his fires to notice that nothing’s changed.
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How dare you insult decent shysters everywhere by comparing them to tRump! tRump is a lying, narcissistic a-hole. The difference is subtle, perhaps, but there. Lord, but do I despise this guy.
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I think they will have a 4yr TV show called the orange president
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EU should be watching the budding political romance between Trump and M. Le Pen who was seen recently at the Trump Towers, speculation is she’s looking for financial support.
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She looks for money anywhere she can get it. Usually Putin. The good thing is visiting Trump doesn’t make her more popular in France. On the contrary 😉
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That’s good! She looks hard. I could scratch a match on that chin.
:O
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He’s full of shit; he’s Putin’s bitch; I’m sad for his daughter that she has to be his “first lady” (a role she’s probably been playing since she was 12); if he puts tacky gold ANYTHING on the White House, I’m moving to Mexico.
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Wait…his daughter is playing first lady? What about The Wife? God, this is beginning to sound like the Kardashians…
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The wife said she’s staying in NY- as to not disrupt her son’s life. Do you blame her? 😀
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Blame her? Hell no. I’d pay good money to be a continent away from that monster.
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The wife doesn’t want to leave New York to live in Washington, so she’s staying in Trump Tower at a cost to taxpayers that’s in the tens of millions. So, Ivanka’s gonna be doing “First Lady” duties for her pops. Ain’t this fun?
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I wonder if Wife No.X is already waiting in the wings? Or perhaps being allowed to stay in New York was her reward for playing happy families prior to the election.
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If your daughter is at every dinner, every meeting, and involved in every decision made you can be sure she will be a conduit of any necessary information. What better way to honestly say there is no conflict of interest, that I never speak to my sons about business!
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Oh…didn’t think of that. How…sneaky. 😦
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Sneaky bad though, not sneaky good. 😦
The suggestion that once her husband took on his unpaid gig at the White House she was going to be happy just to concentrate on setting up the family in Washington really doesn’t ring true does it. She’s going to end up quietly influencing every decision made.
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Definitely sneaky bad. 😦
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I watched the whole thing live yesterday and it was beyond farcical; I actually laughed out loud at a couple of points. A complete disgrace to the American people and even debasing the already sullied reputation of politics itself. I predict he won’t last long at all, maybe just months. He’s given an altogether new spin on WikiLeaks, and there may even be video proof of the same. “Pull back from the Polish border Donald, or it’s Golden Shower time all over YouTube!”
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He sounds like Zuma but with worse hair …
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This man is nothing short of moronic. I am still in deep shock that anybody, much less people I actually know and have to interact with very occasionally, voted for him. Just unbelievable and so very dangerous. My suspicion is this: he will be summarily removed from office, somehow (praying for – um, nevermind), and Pence will be President. The Repub Powers That Be knew nobody would vote for Pence, but he’s their lackey boy. And that’s what they want – a figurehead to push their agendas through. This piteous freak of nature will not do as they say, even They know this. But they knew the average American (shudder and *($)%ing shudder again) with nose in CNN and reality shows would elect something to entertain them (‘thing’ used instead of ‘one’ obvious and intentional) and sure as the sun rises, they *^%)$)# did. Or somebody did. Or some force behind the scenes did. If I allow this whole subject to take up even a fraction of space in my head, I get so angry I can barely stand it. So I garden. Ride my bike. Cook. Meet up with like-minded friends. Love everyone and everything I’m capable of loving right now. Because this venom is no good for anyone, even one born in the Year of the Snake. Cheers, Pink man. Carry on ❤
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I saw Carrie Fisher refer to him as Trumplethinskin on tv a few weeks ago, which was perfect.
This half-assed plan of allowing your children run your business for you, then hand it back later, thus completely removing you from conflict of interest is horrifying. That he thinks everyone should be ok with it is equally horrifying. It just reinforces my suspicion that he never expected to be president, that he was competing for a loss which he could blame on the media, and in doing so further the brand of his own newly created media organisation.
I really feel sorry for his staff though, I imagine every perceived slight has him stomping about the office looking for someone to belittle in order to build up that fragile ego. Still crossing my fingers that evidence of his ummmm…. liaisons… really does exist and is released at inopportune times.
I’m sure his enemies have eagerly subscribed to his Twitter feed, what a useful tool to track his moods and how to best annoy him. A little pressure here… a little pressure there… and BANG! Tantrum.
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The publicity stunt that went horribly wrong? It actually makes a terrible kind of sense, which makes DumpTy even more scary as President-Elect/President. Where’s an Act of God when you need one?
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Oh no! Now you’ve been infected by Pink’s Little Thinking, crashing the plane to take out one enemy! 😀
No chance of any god granting that favour now without affecting a crowd of undeserving collateral damage. He’ll enjoy the privilege of being surrounded by an abundance of security for the rest of his life now, as is every ex president. Which has just made me realise that, in effect, the taxpayers will continue to feed that self-important, giant ego until the end.
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Collateral damage…yes…no… ….how about just a little act of god, like a fishbone?
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Ah, I dunno. Fishbone would be the end of him, but his legacy would still live on with his believers.
I think I would rather see him exposed to all as the asshole he seems to be, so that even his fans can’t stomach the sight of him. Perhaps if some humiliating videos of him with obliging Russian ladies in need of a bathroom were released… I never want to see them, bleh… but a sex tape of trump won’t exactly give him the same career boost it gave the Kardashian, will it?! 😀
I suspect that at some point his use of ‘truthful hyperbole’ (apparently that’s what he calls blatant lies when he wants to believe they are truths) is what is going to really trip him up anyway. Lies are just that, lies.
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lol – spoil sport. But you’re right, until even his most diehard supporters see him for what he is, the rift he’s created in US society will just get bigger and bigger.
I just hope we don’t get too used to his ‘truthful hyperbole’ before that happens. We all got used to ‘spin’ and it gave birth to the Post Truth era. 😦
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I still can’t believe that a thing like a ‘post truth era’ even exists! (Myriad sad face 😦 )
What the hell happened to people that a healthy suspicion of authority turned into the utter laziness of never questioning anything?
Just answered my own question didn’t I? In a time when fakebook is what so many people consider to be an authority on current affairs news it’s obvious that laziness is what happened to those sheepy brains. 😦
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I hate to say this, but I think it’s been coming for a very long. Bit by bit we’ve accepted and normalized so much crap that the truth has literally lost its meaning. The best we can hope for is that the pendulum swings back in the opposite direction after this. 😦
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Interesting you say that… I think from a historical perspective all we have is a relatively short truth era that followed the war. Pre-war the media was controlled and manipulated by the powers that be. Now they’ve found a new way to do that by using social media.
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Hmm…Metan’s the historian, not me. 😦 I grew up in the Nixon/Watergate era so just assumed that the news media were unbiased. Maybe I assumed wrong. 😦
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I’m about to post an interesting link on the matter 🙂
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lol – okay. Hurry up. :p
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I don’t think we can assume the media have suddenly become biased, in the past people would have only had the daily papers and nightly news sharing the issues of the day, they couldn’t really go anywhere else to find an alternative view.
I’m sure that right now much of the population in China think their media is unbiased and truthful too… how would they know any different?
We’re always being fed something by the media, whether we know it or not; the reporters personal views, the media owners personal views, something that will rate well on the clickbait scale… we just need to choose a wide range of sources so that we can think for ourselves!
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As a child I was taught (at school and at home) that colonization was a good thing. You know, because we’re civilised and all that. That was the message in textbooks and from mainstream media. Have you ever seen those wartime Pathe films?
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No I haven’t, something add to the viewing list. 🙂
I can’t think of what I was taught as a child regarding colonisation in school or at home. I suspect we in Australia have a very different view about that than most countries. If you are Indigenous colonisation means invasion, and most of the early European settlers were transported here against their will. Not the way to a harmonious and civilised society!
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‘ we just need to choose a wide range of sources so that we can think for ourselves!’
That’s the secret, isn’t it? When I think back to when I was growing up, we had the major dailies, we had regional newspapers, small local newspaper for almost every suburb, commercial channels for TV, the ABC, commercial radio stations, ABC radio etc. Despite not having the global reach of media these days, it was a far more diverse media landscape because, apart from the ABC, it wasn’t all owned by one or two large players.
Now, despite the potential of the internet, the bulk of people are still not getting news from diverse sources. Instead, they’re getting chinese whispers from Facebook. 😦
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Our ABC is owned by one big player though, the government! 😀
They are considered generally unbiased, but we can’t accept that will never change, we need to keep questioning what they say too, otherwise one day we might find we have been drinking the kool-aid too.
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lol – I know you’re right, but so far the ABC has been more left-wing-commie-bastard than right-wing-ultra-conservative! Honestly, I think I’ll give up TV entirely if the ABC goes over to the dark side.
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I couldn’t agree more! I’ve been trying to break down the timeline and it’s in March of 2011 that he makes his first televised remarks on Obama’s birth certificate. That gets him quite a bit of attention so then he’s invited to speak on Fox News and it snowballs from there.
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I love a conspiracy theory that smacks of the truth. 😀
If I recall correctly, shortly before the election it was reported that Kushner had a meeting with a media notable in regards to setting up a new trump tv organisation. With trumps anti-media rhetoric fresh in their ears Mr and Mrs Republican would be a ready made audience for his new cult. Sorry, empire. 🙂
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If it weren’t the specter of Pence looming behind Dump, I’d be fully behind any and all attempts at impeachment, something (I think) the GOP plans on. How horrifying that the Dems will have to try to keep Dump as Pr….. (I can’t say it, let alone type it.)
Oddly, I hope I live long enough to read how history will spin this.
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Surely you meant, having all your ‘ Paid Advisors’ on the stage?
Hugs
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😀
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Oy, every time I read something about him coming from someone outside in the world, I cringe. This is not us. He is not us. Please, do not think we are that. Yes, there are a frightening number of people who voted for him, and a smaller number, who are even more frightening, who support him, but most of us are horrified. Aghast.
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Was Michele O a shyster when she did her Subway commercial? We have to hold ALL of our Reps in check. Thanks for venting!
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Who did the profits go to?
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Goid question!
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I fully support the idea that all politicians should recuse themselves from ANY activity where they have a personal interest. I think the Trump admin will have to curtail their people who make statments that smell anything like an ad. Fair is fair. Good day! 👍
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You didn’t answer my question.
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Sorry, Ivanka is prob the main beneficiary, but I don’t know that definitively. My point is this: Ivanka didn’t make an ad for herself. Therefore, I don’t know how to judge if Michelle Obama made a Subway ad on behalf of the former President. It ALL is too close to the line of political clout being used as a vehicle for advertising. Thanks!
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You still didn’t answer my question. Is Mrs. Obama a beneficiary of the Subway company or brand? Are her children beneficiaries?
If the answer is no, your comparison is highly misleading.
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Yes, not directly. Is Kellysnne Conway a direct beneficiary of Ivanka’s clothing line? Michelle O was paid $41 million in free advertising from Subway for her appearance which was part of a planned ad campaign. Although healthy food for kids is a nice goal, it still shows favoritism to a single company, and negates its competition. Shall govt pick corporate winners and losers by who will give them a benefit?
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41 million for her? Her children? Her friends?
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I understand your point and fear; yhe president’s daughter using her position for gain. Do you understand my point? That gain can mean non-economic political benefits?
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I don’t think you really do understand my point, because you’re trying to equate a situation that falls within the definition and parameters of a conflict of interest with a different situation that does not.
Getting a private company to spend tens of millions for children to eat healthier meals in exchange for an appearance doesn’t meet the standard. Neither in spirit nor in legality.
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I agree to disagree and thank you for the debate. Politicians trade in power, not necessarily dollars. To me, its a textbook case of cronyism because its a fully planned ad campaign, not a foolish, iff the cuff remark.
Getting paid in favors is the same thing as cash IMO. Both are unethical because they sell relationship. Thanks!
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Please tell me what you think happened. I am not American, so I am not up on the minutiae of these things, but Googling I chose the Hill, which I understand is Conservative-leaning. http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/196200-subway-teams-up-with-michelle-obama-for-healthy-food-push
So, as I understand it, Michelle Obama has certain ideas about what is a healthy diet for children, and what is not healthy, and her ideas have some backing from some scientists. Subway agreed to promote a children’s menu which conformed to those ideas. Subway was going to advertise their children’s menu at a cost of $41m, and Mrs Obama’s endorsement would be good publicity for them.
So, Mrs Obama has no personal gain, but her policy goal is advanced. Her policy goal is to do what she reasonably believes is good for your nation’s children, and I feel that is a worthwhile and unobjectionable policy goal for the wife of the head of state.
Am I missing something?
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Good luck 😀
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Is it not strange? There is unethical behaviour- attempting to manipulate businesses to make profit for the President’s daughter- and serious scandal- discussing sanctions with the Russian Ambassador, then lying about it- and then there is this manufactured outrage about Mrs Obama doing something unobjectionable, three years ago. Is Pray Through History a paid agitator, or a complete fool? If Kate Middleton had an idea about stopping pet cats from killing baby birds, and the RSPB co-operated, it could hardly be less scandalous. Though I remain open-minded, and if PTH has anything rational to say I am all ears.
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It all goes to this danger of changing the meanings of words. A conflict of interest is something defined by ethics and the law.
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Now that people can believe what they want and demand equivalent respect because they insert alternate facts while ignoring reality, now that words don’t really mean what they do – or that no one seems to care -, can numbers be far behind… you know, like the number of terms in office)?
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I’ve always said 3 is fake news and only 7 is real. Now, people will FINALLY believe me, all things being equal and all.
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Its still a $41 million dollar favor.
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Only *if* she got 41 million. Do you understand that part? How she got *nothing*?
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S/he doesn’t give up, does she?
What about lying to the Vice President about making promises to the Russian Ambassador. A favour with foreign policy over sanctions worth considerably more than millions. What do you think of that?
There should be laws against causing childhood obesity with excess sugar and fat in food. So, a company stops contributing to that. A favour to the whole people, no?
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Apparently we will disagree on this infinitely. If a public official trades their image for a payment in kind ( not in money) they create a relationship open to manipulation by both parties. This, I feel, opens the door to corruption, graft, a lack of integrity in any society’s leadership. Thanks!
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Yes, genius, the issue however is SOMEONE RECEIVING A PAYMENT.
Who received a payment in the Subway case?
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Can a politician receive non monetary favors? Trips? Vacations? Free meals? Use if corporate lear jets? I believe the law treats payments “in kind” the same way as money. Its just a nicer sounding bribe.
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If that’s the case then you have to provide evidence of what favours were received. Can you point to anything or are you just trying to deceive people with speculation of possibilities?
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How wiuld you feel if a lumber company donated $41 mill for building a wall? Then used the First lady’s image as an ad for themse
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You’re still trying to trick people. Do you have no sense of honesty? You have to point to actual evidence. Do you have any or just more conspiracy theories?
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Can you, me, or any human being bribe someone with a favor?
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How much and to whom? I want specifics. Otherwise I can ask if you can rape a baby- and then push for your arrest without evidence.
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Here’s a link: http://www.subway.com/PressReleases/PHA.pdf
Final thought. Why assess a dollar value for a ‘gift’? The fact the contract exists suggests a reciprocal relationship. Take care!
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What? Your link says: ” the chain will deliver $41 million in media value in the next three years to market healthier
options to children and families, with a specific focus on increasing consumption of fruits and
vegetables.”
How is that Michelle Obama receiving 41 million? At this point I’m wondering if you’re being intentionally dishonest or if you’re having trouble understanding neither Mrs. Obama nor ANYONE she knows received financial compensation for this project designed to improve the lives of children.
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You keep using this word ‘donated’ as if it were payment made to to MO rather than the spending by Subway for an ad campaign… a campaign that cost 42 million. Am I missing something?
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You’re missing the part where you have not been successfully deceived.
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I once asked Subway to let me do an ad for them so I could receive free subs for a year. They completely ignored me, probably because no one knows who the fuck I am and no one cares. But, hey, it was worth a try, eh?
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I see Nancy Reagan co-hosted an edition of “Good Morning America”, a commercial broadcaster’s programme, during her “Just say no” campaign. Is there similar publicity, gift of image, a payment in kind in terms of the production of that programme being given over to her concern?
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I am thoroughly confused. PrayThroughHistory is saying that Ivanka’s line of shoes should not have been publicized by Shelley Whatshername. And we all agree with that. But then why bring up Michelle Obama in an example from which /she/ gains nothing, either in monetary or favours-in-kind terms? Did PTH just misunderstand the whole thing or have I?
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PTH is having trouble reading/interpreting evidence. The problem begins with the basic notion of comprehending what constitutes a conflict of interest.
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Yes. I wonder if myopic resistance to anything Obama doesn’t have something to do with it as well. 😦
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