NEWS -- Sen Sheldon Whitehouse tells me Dems are likely to investigate revelations about Trump soliciting $1 billion
Glad to see Whitehouse onto this.
NEWS --> Sen Sheldon Whitehouse tells me Dems are likely to investigate revelations about Trump soliciting $1 billion from Big Oil execs while corruptly vowing to fulfill their biggest policy demands.
This would be via the Budget Committee. 1/
Link to tweet
“The phrase that instantly came to mind as I was reading the story was ‘quid pro quo,’” Sen Sheldon Whitehouse tells me about WaPo report on Trump's $1 billion Big Oil shakedown.
This would be extension of Budget Committee hearings into oil industry. 2/
https://newrepublic.com/article/181493
Link to tweet
..................“This is practically an invitation to ask more questions,” Whitehouse told me, describing this as a “natural extension of the investigation already underway.”
There’s plenty to explore. As the Post reports, an oil company executive at the gathering, held at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort last month, complained about environmental regulations under the Biden administration. Then this happened:
Trump’s response stunned several of the executives in the room overlooking the ocean: You all are wealthy enough, he said, that you should raise $1 billion to return me to the White House. At the dinner, he vowed to immediately reverse dozens of President Biden’s environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted, according to people with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.
Giving $1 billion would be a “deal,” Trump said, because of the taxation and regulation they would avoid thanks to him, according to the people.
Obviously industries have long donated to politicians in both parties in hopes of governance that takes their interests into account, and they explicitly lobby for this as well. But in this case, Trump may have made detailed, concrete promises while simultaneously soliciting a precise amount in campaign contributions. .........................................
.................
= new reply since forum marked as read
What he really said was he couldn’t be corrupted any more than he already was.
Whew! Glad we got that out of the way.
The only people who ever believed that in the first place were MAGA moron Trump worshipers. So yeah, they may still believe it. The rest of us? Not so much! 
Here we are on a thread discussing one of our most competent representatives and you paint a doomsday scenario that is a paragon of learned helplessness. Do you know what learned helplessness is? It's a term pioneered by Martin Seligman, a psychologist and professor at the University of PA. You really should read up on it because everything you just wrote is an example of it in practice.
I scoff when people say I should be terrified. I'm not about to jump into emotional mode and be "terrified." What the hell good is that going to do? Nope, I'm going to use my common sense and think it through, using the vast amount of reading I've done on the politics of this country over the past 23 years I've been on this board.
Now, using my common sense and looking at your post, my inclination is to tell you that you can never get into someone else's head and ascribe motive, such as you did in your first paragraph. You should have learned that in your first or second year college writing class. 
Your assuming a motive says more about you than it does trump and the republicans. It says to me you feel powerless.
Now I'd like to look at your points and refer to the facts.
You're saying they're so confident they're going to win that they're out saying crazy shit like give me a billion dollars and I'll trash all the environmental laws we've passed to date. I'll get rid of electric cars. Has it occurred to you that the reason they say stupid crap is that they might be desperate, not confident? Their fearless leader is in court, not campaigning. Meanwhile, Biden and the Democrats have, as of April 2024, accumulated $34,572,441. Republicans filed that they had $16,221,286. (FEC Form 3X)
That's less than half what the Democrats have. Yet according to you, they're going to win. 
Where it's being spent is also important. Democratic party money is going for ads, public relations, forming coalitions with unions, etc. Republicans are bailing their guy out by paying his legal bills. Yeah, real effective. No voter wants to see their candidate in court for sleazy behavior like what we saw this week. This precludes spending money strategically. I even read that in Florida they have one person to work on that state. Yes, one person!!
Most ludicrous is your last two sentences. In your scenario they already have the House and the Senate. Well guess what: Their margin in the House is so pitiful their own speaker has to be bailed out by the Democrats.
And I won't even go into who is winning elections, the trend of which is Democratic, not Republican.
Your post makes no logical sense whatsoever, but it speaks to fear real well. Get out of emotional mode and look at the facts. The opposite of "learned helplessness" is self-efficacy. That is what representatives like Sheldon Whitehouse demonstrate. Not only is he confident and good at what he does, he enjoys it. Watch his face when he discusses what he's going to investigate or what actions he's going to take. He smiles and there is a twinkle in his eye. Now that is confidence and self-efficacy.
... because the Repukes have no clue what the word "leadership" means.
... they'd be stupid to give him a $ billion just to piss away on a loser like that.
