{"id":138890,"date":"2019-05-25T09:54:15","date_gmt":"2019-05-25T15:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=138890"},"modified":"2019-05-25T09:54:15","modified_gmt":"2019-05-25T15:54:15","slug":"the-procuring-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/05\/25\/the-procuring-president.html","title":{"rendered":"The Procuring President"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I&#39;ve worked for federal contractors, so I know how stringent and neutral the procurement process is. But why bother when you can get free airtime on Fox News and convince the President to personally intervene in contract awards on your behalf? <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Trump?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Trump<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/qwiXsmmrpk\">https:\/\/t.co\/qwiXsmmrpk<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; ***Dave Hill (@Three_Star_Dave) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Three_Star_Dave\/status\/1132025961678016512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 24, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I&#8217;ve worked for federal contractors, so I know how stringent and neutral the procurement process is. But why bother when you can get free airtime on Fox News and convince the President to personally intervene in contract awards on your behalf? #Trump https:\/\/t.co\/qwiXsmmrpk<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I&#8217;ve said it before and I&#8217;ll say it (too many times) again: Donald Trump sees no difference between being President of the United States and being the head of his own privately held company. If he gets an idea in his head, whether spontaneous or instilled there by someone, he wants action take RIGHT NOW, and just what he wants. The ideas of personal constraints, tradition, regulation, or the law mean little to him &#8212; they are only obstacles for his lackies to overcome to serve him as he wants to be served.<\/p>\n<p>The federal procurement process is lengthy, complex, and onerous, but it is 100% designed to do exactly what Donald Trump does not want: to be utterly neutral, fair, and immune to influence and corruption. It is by no means perfect, even in this, but that is its goal, to ensure that our tax dollars are spent, not on something that will enrich a friend or reward an ally, but on the best product \/ service that meets the exhaustively described parameters.<\/p>\n<p>So, of course, Donald is perfectly happy to ignore that and put his thumb on the scales, influenced by an insidiously clever campaign on all the news outlets he sees, unable to understand why he can&#8217;t just say, &#8220;I like that guy, and that product,&#8221; and have the coffers open up to make it so. Process is for bureaucrats, regulation is for the weak &#8212; when you&#8217;re the smartest guy in the room and the most powerful,\u00a0<em>why can&#8217;t it just be the way you want it?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/ten-commandments-so-let-it-be-written.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-138904 aligncenter\" title=\"ten commandments so let it be written\" src=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/ten-commandments-so-let-it-be-written.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>That, in and of itself, is bad enough. The inevitable icing on the cake is when someone figures out how to exploit that impulse.<\/p>\n<p>Yeah, it didn&#8217;t quite work here. So far. Where else\u00a0<em>has<\/em> it worked that we don&#8217;t know of (or have already forgotten in this shit-show administration)? Where else will it be tried? And does anyone <em>really<\/em> think that Donald Trump has absorbed and accepted the lesson &#8216;&#8221;that the president could not just pick a company&#8221; to get the contract in defiance of the federal procurement process&#8221;?<\/p>\n<p><em>Do you want to know more?\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediamatters.org\/blog\/2019\/05\/24\/how-one-company-used-fox-centric-pr-strategy-try-get-trump-give-it-lucrative-federal-contract\/223793\">How one company used a Fox-centric PR strategy to try to get Trump to give it a lucrative federal contract<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Whatever Donald wants, Donald expects to get. And people know that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[78,376,1071],"tags":[723,1077],"class_list":["post-138890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tweets","category-taxing-spending","category-trump","tag-nt","tag-trump"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/ten-commandments-so-let-it-be-written.gif","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":131136,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/20\/because-of-course-donald-trump-wants-to-bring-back-the-patronage-system.html","url_meta":{"origin":138890,"position":0},"title":"Because OF COURSE Donald Trump wants to bring back the patronage system","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 20-Jul-16 8:18pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Because \"You're Fired!\" are his favorite words. Right after, \"And now you owe ME a favor.\"(Oh, by the way, Gov. Christie and Reuters, you might want to actually do some research before resurrecting old libels of the Clinton days. http:\/\/goo.gl\/VHETby) Exclusive: Trump could seek new law to purge government of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":136662,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/06\/01\/trump-wants-to-ban-luxury-german-cars.html","url_meta":{"origin":138890,"position":1},"title":"Trump wants to ban German luxury cars","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 1-Jun-18 8:37am","format":false,"excerpt":"I would love to figure out if this is driven more by some vague sense that the US luxury auto market needs protection, or because Angela Merkel hasn't been sufficiently fawning to him. His reported comment that he doesn't want to see a single Mercedes or BMW driving down Fifth\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/trump-merkel.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":134748,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/18\/course-donald-trump-wants-military-parade-4th-july.html","url_meta":{"origin":138890,"position":2},"title":"Because OF COURSE Donald Trump wants a military parade on the 4th of July","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 18-Sep-17 3:43pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I mean, if the Russians (and even the French!) do it, why wouldn't Donald want to have a big military parade of his very own? Imagine, all the tanks, and soldiers, and missile carriers, and APCs, and jeeps, and more soldiers, and everyone saluting him at the review stand. It\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/unnamed-23.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":132774,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/06\/putin-wants-bill-oreilly-to-apologize-for-calling-him-a-killer.html","url_meta":{"origin":138890,"position":3},"title":"Putin wants Bill O&#039;Reilly to apologize for calling him a &quot;killer&quot;","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 6-Feb-17 8:52pm","format":false,"excerpt":"This being the sort of era, one is tempted to parse this from any of a number of different directions:1. Standard line from the Kremlin, which has similarly denied accusations in the past that Putin has killed (etc.) political opponents (etc.).2. Putin is as thin-skinned about critiques as Trump. (Seems\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":137800,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/12\/donald-trump-wants-to-own-the-washington-dc-fourth-of-july-parade.html","url_meta":{"origin":138890,"position":4},"title":"Donald Trump wants to &#8230; own the Washington, DC, Fourth of July Parade?","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 12-Feb-19 7:37pm","format":false,"excerpt":"But he's pretending like it's all his own idea. You know. To have a parade. On the 4th of July in Washington, DC. I mean, who'd ever be zany enough to do something so crazy-patriotic like that?I mean, it's not like they don't already have a huge parade and festivities\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133521,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/05\/20\/even-oil-companies-are-on-board-with-the-paris-agreement-will-trump-be.html","url_meta":{"origin":138890,"position":5},"title":"Even oil companies are on board with the Paris Agreement. Will Trump be?","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 20-May-17 5:21pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Large global businesses fear one thing worse than legal restrictions on their business: uncertainty about the future. Having a known and understood framework for climate change issues is of value to global energy companies because it helps them direct their business and spending. Plus, y'know, not having civilization collapse due\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138890"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138905,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138890\/revisions\/138905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}