#doonbeg

DONALD TRUMP’S application to construct a protective wall around his Doonbeg golf resort has been rejected by planning authorities in Ireland.

The President had been hoping to get plans for a protective wall approved amid concerns that the 18-hole, 4.5 kilometre golf course would be left exposed to storms and erosion.

Clare County Council initially approved plans for the construction of two “protection structures” measuring 626 meters and 257 meters respectively.

However, Ireland's planning appeals authority An Bord Pleanála has now moved to overturn that decision, citing concerns about the potential impact the construction of the walls would have on the areas natural coastal sand dunes.

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We’re starting to see the scale of Trump’s personal corruption — and it’s massive

(THIS ARTICLE IS COURTESY OF SALON NEWS)

  We’re starting to see the scale of Trump’s personal corruption — and it’s massive Mandatory stops at Trump resorts are the tip of the iceberg. This president has been “wetting his beak” all along

    1

  4 HEATHER DIGBY PARTON SEPTEMBER 9, 2019 1:20 PM (UTC)

So President Trump had a very normal weekend. He tweeted repeatedly about his…

Natasha Bertrand and Bryan Bender at Politico: 

In early Spring of this year, an Air National Guard crew made a routine trip from the U.S. to Kuwait to deliver supplies.

What wasn’t routine was where the crew stopped along the way: President Donald Trump’s Turnberry resort, about 50 miles outside Glasgow, Scotland.

Since April, the House Oversight Committee has been investigating why the crew on the C-17 military transport plane made the unusual stay — both en route to the Middle East and on the way back — at the luxury waterside resort, according to several people familiar with the incident. But they have yet to receive any answers from the Pentagon.

The inquiry is part of a broader, previously unreported probe into U.S. military expenditures at and around the Trump property in Scotland. According to a letter the panel sent to the Pentagon in June, the military has spent $11 million on fuel at the Prestwick Airport — the closest airport to Trump Turnberry — since October 2017, fuel that would be cheaper if purchased at a U.S. military base. The letter also cites a Guardian report that the airport provided cut-rate rooms and free rounds of golf at Turnberry for U.S. military members.

Taken together, the incidents raise the possibility that the military has helped keep Trump’s Turnberry resort afloat — the property lost $4.5 million in 2017, but revenue went up $3 million in 2018.

“The Defense Department has not produced a single document in this investigation,” said a senior Democratic aide on the oversight panel. “The committee will be forced to consider alternative steps if the Pentagon does not begin complying voluntarily in the coming days.”

On previous trips to the Middle East, the C-17 had landed at U.S. air bases such as Ramstein Air Base in Germany or Naval Station Rota in Spain to refuel, according to one person familiar with the trips. Occasionally the plane stopped in the Azores and once in Sigonella, Italy, both of which have U.S. military sites, the person added.

But on this particular trip, the plane landed in Glasgow — a pitstop the five-man crew had never experienced in their dozens of trips to the Middle East. The location lacked a U.S. base and was dozens of miles away from the crew’s overnight lodging at the Turnberry resort.

Had the crew needed to make a stop in the U.K., Lakenheath Air Base is situated nearby in England. The layover might have been cheaper, too: the military gets billed at a higher rate for fuel at commercial airports.

One crew member was so struck by the choice of hotel — markedly different than the Marriotts and Hiltons the 176th maintenance squadron is used to — that he texted someone close to him and told him about the stay, sending a photo and noting that the crew’s per diem allowance wasn’t enough to cover food and drinks at the ritzy resort.

The revelation that an Air Force mission may have helped line the president’s pockets comes days after Vice President Mike Pence was pressed about his decision to stay at Trump’s property in Doonbeg, Ireland, despite its location hundreds of miles away from his meetings in Dublin. The Oversight Committee is also investigating Pence’s stay at the resort.

Mike Pence accused of humiliating hosts in Ireland: ‘He shat on the carpet’

(THIS ARTICLE IS COURTESY OF THE UK EXPRESS)

  Mike Pence accused of humiliating hosts in Ireland: ‘He shat on the carpet’

The vice-president’s comments on Brexit while visiting Ireland and his stay at his boss’s golf course did not go down well

Edward Helmore

Thu 5 Sep 2019 11.26 EDT

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 Vice-President Mike Pence arrives in Doonbeg to dine with relatives at…