Cancel 2020.2 (09-14-2019), Earl (09-15-2019), Stretch (09-14-2019)
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Prestwick has been a military stopover site for decades, but the number of US aircraft using the airport has increased dramatically in recent years, as has the number of overnight stays in the vicinity by air crew.
In 2015 there were just 95 stops and 40 overnights stays, according to a US Air Force statement to US media. By 2018 this had increased to 257 stops and 208 stays. This year, in the first eight months alone, there have been 259 stops and 220 stays, USAF said.
USAF crew have stayed at Turnberry on at least four occasions involving more than 60 service personnel since September 2018, according to Politico, the US news service.
Staff at the resort, which Mr Trump bought in 2014, said US Air Force personnel were repeatedly among its guests, though one worker said their numbers made up only a “minuscule” proportion of clientele. A resort manager referred requests for comment to the Trump Organisation in the US.
* The stays have drawn particular attention because of Turnberry’s billing as a high-end hotel, with standard rooms going for over £220. A hamburger in the hotel’s lounge, with views over the golf course and across the sea to Ireland, costs £21.
Cancel 2020.2 (09-14-2019), Earl (09-15-2019), Stretch (09-14-2019)
In 2014, two years before his election as president, Mr Trump agreed to work with the Scottish airport. At a press conference he said he was “thrilled to be partnering” with Prestwick, would base his own aircraft there, and was sure Turnberry-bound visitors would make the airport “really successful”.
“We are going to have a lot of private aircraft flying in, groups or individuals,” the then-property developer said. “You are going to get a lot of business.”
Any boost from that Turnberry tie-up has been too small to turn round the fortunes of the lossmaking airport, which was rescued by the Scottish government in 2013 and has since been kept afloat by state loans.
Revelations of US military spending at Prestwick are embarrassing for the governing Scottish National party, which has been a vocal opponent of Washington-led military interventions such as the invasion of Iraq. The government is currently trying to sell the airport.
In the Scottish parliament on Tuesday, Michael Matheson, the SNP government’s transport secretary, was at pains to stress that while Prestwick did arrange accommodation for visiting air crew, Turnberry was generally booked only if other hotels were unavailable or “if customers specifically request it”.
Patrick Harvie, co-leader of the opposition Scottish Green party and a veteran critic of Mr Trump, said Prestwick should suspend its relationship with the US military until the congressional investigation had concluded.
“Is it not now clear that we also risk having Scotland’s good international name dragged into a corruption allegation against a far-right US president? We cannot afford that reputational risk,” Mr Harvie said.
Whether Prestwick was asked to send US air crew to Turnberry is likely to be a focus of interest for congressional and other critics of Mr Trump.
Prestwick airport said Turnberry accounted for only a small percentage of its total hotel bookings, but declined to comment on whether the proportion was the same for US air crew as for those of other nations or if it had ever been asked to send them to the Trump resort.
USAF said stopovers at Prestwick had risen because its 24-hour operations made it more viable than increasingly restricted rivals; it had better weather than Ireland’s Shannon Airport and suffered less aircraft parking congestion than locations elsewhere in Europe.
The air force’s Brigadier General Edward Thomas said air crew had stayed at various hotels near Prestwick that met US defence department cost criteria, including Trump Turnberry. “Initial reviews indicate that air crew transiting through Scotland adhered to all guidance and procedures,” he said.
House Democrats in Washington have launched an investigation into whether the stay violated the emoluments clause of the US constitution
which prohibits government officials, including the president, from personally profiting from domestic or foreign government spending.
Cancel 2020.2 (09-14-2019), Earl (09-15-2019), Stretch (09-14-2019)
so the reason for the shift to Prestwick is better weather then the other airports, and 24/7 open for refueling.
The Turnbury average room cost is in line with others in the area ,and the contract was signed before Trump even ran for POTUS
NATURALLY the Dems have "launched an investigation" ( while having no freaking clues what they are looking for)
Rune (09-15-2019)
Cancel 2020.2 (09-14-2019), Earl (09-15-2019), Stretch (09-14-2019)
Let's see if the libs on here can respond INTELLIGENTLY to this thread. My guess would be NO.
cancel2 2022 (09-15-2019), Earl (09-15-2019)
Cancel 2020.2 (09-14-2019), Earl (09-15-2019), Stretch (09-14-2019)
Trump the grifter
OOPS: THE AIR FORCE HAS STAYED AT TRUMP’S TURNBERRY RESORT 40 TIMES
The stays at the Scottish property coincide with a turnaround in the struggling property’s fortunes.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019...ir-force-stays
A Look At President Trump's History Of Profiting Off His Presidency
https://www.npr.org/2019/08/26/75448...his-presidency
“If we have to have a choice between being dead and pitied, and being alive with a bad image, we’d rather be alive and have the bad image.”
— Golda Meir
Zionism is the movement for the self-determination and statehood for the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland, the land of Israel.
ברוך השם
Earl (09-15-2019)
Exactly. He's hardly "lining his pockets".
According to U.S. State Dept. public records data base...
USAF signed refueling contract with Prestwick in 2016.
It's the only military stopover in the area open 24 hours a day.
Stops at Preswick since 2015:
2015 - 95 times
2016 - 145 times
2017 - 180 times
2018 - 257 times
2019 - 259 times
State Sept. charged for hotels (crew lodging per night):
Turnberry - £95 BEST BARGAIN
Blythswood Square - £215
Hilton Glasgow - £249
Hilton Glasgow Grosvenor - £229
Grand Central - £185
Raddison Blu - £179
FIRST 5 MINUTES..........
Abortion rights dogma can obscure human reason & harden the human heart so much that the same person who feels
empathy for animal suffering can lack compassion for unborn children who experience lethal violence and excruciating
pain in abortion.
Unborn animals are protected in their nesting places, humans are not. To abort something is to end something
which has begun. To abort life is to end it.
anatta (09-15-2019), Cancel 2020.2 (09-14-2019), cancel2 2022 (09-15-2019), Earl (09-15-2019)
Earl (09-15-2019)
Rune (09-15-2019)
Earl (09-15-2019)
“If we have to have a choice between being dead and pitied, and being alive with a bad image, we’d rather be alive and have the bad image.”
— Golda Meir
Zionism is the movement for the self-determination and statehood for the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland, the land of Israel.
ברוך השם
Earl (09-15-2019)
TRUMP WILL TAKE FORTY STATES...UNLESS THE SAME IDIOTS WHO BROUGHT US THE 2020 DUNCE-O-CRAT IOWA CLUSTERFUCK CONTINUE THEIR SEDITIOUS ACTIVITIES...THEN HE WILL WIN EVEN MORE ..UNLESS THE RED CHINESE AND DNC COLLUDE, USE A PANDEMIC, AND THEN THE DEMOCRATS VIOLATE ARTICLE II OF THE CONSTITUTION, TO FACILLITATE MILLIONS OF ILLEGAL, UNVETTED, MAIL IN BALLOTS IN THE DARK OF NIGHT..
De Oppresso Liber
anatta (09-15-2019)
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