House investigators are looking into an allegation that groups — including at least one foreign government — tried to ingratiate themselves to President Donald Trump by booking rooms at his hotels but never staying in them.
It’s a previously unreported part of a broader examination by the House Oversight Committee, included in the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, into whether Trump broke the law by accepting money from U.S. or foreign governments at his properties.
It’s kind of amazing that the brazen “break so many laws they can’t focus on one” strategy is working, but here we are.
Quinerly
Good morning, Cole!
Walker
It is clear that these are all now officia properties of the US government and should be seized and treated as such.
MJS
The payoff for the House is that when the White House refuses to provide documentation and information, that’s another obstruction of justice log to throw on the impeachment fire.
Kay
I bet the plundering increases as the election draws closer. They all have to grab what they can while they can. We’re looking at a white collar crime wave of epic proportions. Breaking windows and looting while wearing suits and taking breaks to appear on cable television.
Kay
@Walker:
They could do it. They have huge power to seize. They’d have the claw back the 4 million Ivanka took just this year from the criminal enterprise.
geg6
I will never, ever, ever forgive anyone who brought this disaster upon us. Never ever.
sherparick
First thing we do, let’s break all the laws.
A Ghost To Most
Facts don’t matter to fascists
Quinerly
@geg6: I’m with you. It’s a long story, but I have had to form a bit of an alliance with some folks who were/are Trump supporters to fight the HOA/Board at some beach property in NC. Everyday I resent it. Otherwise nice people (one couple I have known since I was 17). I think I’m dealing with it pretty well but I know in a few days when I’m there and walk in their place and Fox is on, I’m going to be sick to my stomach.
Matt McIrvin
Trump thinks it’s no fair that they got Capone for tax evasion.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Someone was telling me that Trump is doing a rally in Minneapolis next week, and probably not coincidentally, the police department change their rules to forbid off-duty cops from wearing their uniforms to a political event. I’m shocked they didn’t forbid it before, but apparently not. Anyway, the police union is objecting to the change.
I love unions. I wish we still had more of them. But really, guys?
Amir Khalid
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I thought all police forces, everywhere on the planet, had that rule. You wouldn’t want to go to a uniformed cop for assistance, would you, only to be rebuffed with a “Sorry, I’m off-duty”?
Jinchi
It’s not that amazing when you recognize that the Republican party is totally corrupted and they happen to hold most of the levers of power right now.
SFAW
Maybe it should be renamed from “Gish Gallop” to “Trump Traitor Trots”?
SFAW
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
As best as I can tell, the head of the NYC police union is a piece of work.
FlipYrWhig
But Trump is so concerned about corruption!
Dorothy A. Winsor
I remain dazzled by how obsessed these people are with Obama and Clinton. I supposed it’s because there’s no D nominee yet. But also, Obama and Clinton are out there living their best lives and looking happy. These petty-minded little worms can’t stand it.
schrodingers_cat
I thank Ceiling Cat for the Democrats and Nancy Pelosi.
Quinerly
@FlipYrWhig: if you want a morning laugh, check out this Twitter thread. Rudy is threatening to sue The Swamp. He’s filing a “jaw suit.” mobile.twitter.com/elainaplott/status/1179234987624800256
The Dangerman
@geg6:
It will come to pass that one will be more likely to hear “Yeah, I used to party with Jeffrey Epstein” then “Yeah, I voted for Donald Trump”. MAGA hats and similar evidence will be burned.
schrodingers_cat
OT, today is the 150th birth anniversary of Gandhi and Pravda on the Hudson has an op-ed by Modi, praising Gandhi.
schrodingers_cat
@geg6: This includes Berners and Steiners.
Amir Khalid
@SFAW:
If I recall correctly, he’s the same guy who back in 2000 called Bruce Springsteen names for writing American Skin (41 Shots) about the police killing of Amadou Diallo.
Wag
I would like to think hypothetically here. Let us suppose the Trump gets impeached and convicted, leaving Pence as president. Suppose then the Pence pardons Trump for any and all crimes that he may have committed. If Trump had been pardoned for any and all crimes, does that mean did he could no longer plead the fifth amendment? After all, there’s nothing that he could be convicted of. Could prosecutors then interview Trump and force him to answer questions?
It’s a nightmare scenario, but one that might finally allow us to get to the truth about his crimes.
Matt McIrvin
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I’m actually kind of amazed that Trump hasn’t had Hillary Clinton locked up. We know he tried. Basically every scrap of governmental function and democratic legitimacy we still have is riding on people just ignoring Trump’s most deranged orders until he gets distracted.
Matt McIrvin
@Wag: Yes. But Trump is both a pathological liar and likely demented, so I’m not sure how useful it would be.
Quinerly
Trump called Boris Johnson asking him for help to discredit the Mueller report.
thedailybeast.com/trump-called-boris-johnson-for-help-discrediting-mueller-inquiry-report
Another Scott
FTFNYT was on Carter’s case about his ‘socalled blind trust’ for his Farm and Warehouse in 1979.
Such muckraking!!11
Grrr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Walker
@Wag:
He cannot be pardoned for future crimes. He will be a security risk forever.
Quinerly
@Matt McIrvin: It’s not over. He’s big on his campaign promises. I could see him trying. I’m sure her making the rounds re her new book infuriates him.
Karen S.
@geg6: This is where I’m at, too. I’m fortunate in that I don’t have anyone in my family or social circle, that I know of, who voted for the so-called president or still supports him, so my unwillingness to forgive is rather inactive, I guess.
Matt McIrvin
@Walker: Yeah, they could just pardon him for anything he might have already done, like Ford did for Nixon. Of course you could haul him in to testify and then get him for perjury when he inevitably lies under oath, but at best that’s just a workaround for the pardon. You wouldn’t expect to get any usable information.
SFAW
@The Dangerman:
The same way the stars-and-bars are burned today?
JPL
@schrodingers_cat: The NYTimes puzzle today highlighted India.
SFAW
@Walker:
I assume you mean crimes he will commit after leaving office, as opposed to crimes already committed, but we don’t know about yet (of which I expect there are quite a few).
Cheryl Rofer
@Wag: Pence can’t pardon him for state crimes.
oatler.
“He’s history’s greatest monster!”
Betty
@SFAW: He also can’t be pardoned for state crimes. NY AG is on that.
Kay
It’s amusing because Ivanka and Conway are still saying the sector is doing great. Conway said it yesterday in a Right wing forum with DeVos. Of course, none one of them knows anything about anything or reads anything, DeVos regularly recites incorrect information, so it probably isn’t “a lie” but at some point this will become another area where the Trump Administration shills don’t reflect peoples lived reality.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
There really is no bottom to this guy. By the time this is all over, Donald Tяump will have easily overtaken John C. Calhoun, Jefferson Davis, Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms to take the crown of worst American in history.
NotMax
@JPL
Inquiring minds want to know if the soundtracks of Bewitched reruns for broadcast in India have been altered to say “Calling Doctor Mumbai.”
:)
FlipYrWhig
@Quinerly: As I recall, Samson tried that…
Kay
Conway was at a Right wing forum yesterday and she said welders make 40 dollars an hour. It’s nonsense, but they all sagely nodded their heads and eagerly swallowed it.
She just made it up. This stuff they pump out comes with the imprint of the US government and it’s invented. None of them object. They just play along. It was an AEI forum. Hundreds of paid think tankers and they’re all too lazy to look up what a welder makes. It’s just all such GARBAGE, such across the board LOW QUALITY work.
Jeffro
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Benedict Arnold and Richard Nixon are like, “Really? We’re off the hook? Wow…”
It’s a fate he richly deserves. I hope they find a way to erase him from the list of our presidents forever. Hopefully the Truth and Reconcilation Commission can figure that one out on top of everything else.
rikyrah
@Quinerly:
Morning to Poco and the tribe ? ??
rikyrah
You are telling the truth this morning, Cole ?
Jeffro
@Kay: In fairness, Kay, it’s a lot easier to tout an administration’s success when you can invent success as needed, in any direction, for any particular audience.
Doing it using actual data, after formulating actual policies and putting them into place…that takes a lot of work, frankly.
NotMax
@Kay
Maybe a welder sent to Fukushima. Maybe.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Quinerly: Know what you are going through. I found out many members of my HOA board are Trumpistas, and we need to cooperate with them to get a neighbor to take down a dead and thus dangerous tree. I have to regularly bite my tongue — at least most of our interaction is through email. And after some roofing work was completed, I found out the owner/foreman was an evangelical as he asked me what was up with LGBTQ. We both managed to be civil, and maybe he listened to me explain genetics and how these issues have been around for centuries as he gave my name as a reference for another job. I did tell about his political leanings, but I would rather not have had the conversation at all.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jeffro:
Not me. I want this stinking decaying albatross carcass of a Presidency to be hung around the necks of the Republican party until the sun implodes.
Every time a current GOPer speaks a chyron should pop up with their trump voting record.
cope
@Jinchi: I don’t know that it is actually true but I used to tell my students about a study of coyote and jack rabbit populations out west. As I told it, researchers discovered that the population of coyotes increased as the population of jack rabbits increased but only up to a point. If jack rabbits became too numerous, a coyote would start chasing a jack rabbit for food but get distracted when it saw a different, closer rabbit and take off after it. Since the coyotes were always chasing newly rested rabbits, they would get exhausted before catching dinner and their numbers fell.
True story or not, I have pretty much become an exhausted coyote over the past couple of years.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: When I was working, union carpenters were getting the standard pay package of $50+ per hour* for welding.
*wages, health insurance, vacation pay, and pension contribution
geg6
@schrodingers_cat:
Oh, absolutely!
Amir Khalid
@schrodingers_cat:
“These white people admire Gandhi. So I’ll pretend to admire him too, and with luck they won’t notice that I’m a big fan of the guy who killed him.”
Cacti
When the current human garbage is finally evicted from the White House, the new AG needs to bring an emoluments lawsuit against Trump and the Trump organization, to claw back every ill gotten gain over his 4-year term.
Walker
@SFAW:
Yes. When he starts trying to sell state secrets once he leaves office.
JPL
@cope: True.. I wonder if they chase their own tail also.
NotMax
@Jeffro – @Kay
re: Conway, et al.
Cue the chorus from Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Boxer:”
Lie la lie, lie la lie la lie la lie
Lie la lie, lie la lie la lie la lie, la la lie la lie
Also too, The Knickerbockers:
You think that you’re such a smart girl
And I’ll believe what you say
But who do you think you are, girl
To lead me on this way – hey
Lies, lies
I can’t believe a word you say
OzarkHillbilly
@cope: Funny but not true. Predator populations closely track prey populations. When the inevitable forage depletion or infectious disease collapses the prey numbers, predator populations fall too.
Jeffro
@OzarkHillbilly: Ok, fair point.
Maybe there’s a way to do both. Have to think about that…
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat:
You can thank Ceiling Cat for the Democrats and Nancy Pelosi existing but they’re in power because of people who worked hard to flip districts and put the Dems in power in the House. I was one of those people. I helped flip a longtime Republican district. I’m proud of my hard work and thrilled that it paid off every time I see Nancy SMASH doing her thing.
NotMax
@cope
Acme Rabbit Motel™ saves on all that hither and thithering.
:)
jeffreyw
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yeah, I made at least that 20 years ago as a fitter/welder. Comfortably retired now with a big boost from a union negotiated pension plan.
Yarrow
@OzarkHillbilly:
YES. This. Make them own it.
schrodingers_cat
@Yarrow: True. I was comparing the total collapse of opposition in India to the Ds here. And I became a citizen so that I could vote. My district/county is pretty blue.
ETA: I have also encouraged several GC holders to become citizens, 5 at the last count.
Patricia Kayden
And Trump is still lying about his wall.
twitter.com/ddale8/status/1179385330811723786
Lying should be an impeachable offense as well.
cope
Thanks, OH, I’ll file that away in my “never let the facts get in the way of a good story” drawer.
schrodingers_cat
@Amir Khalid: Also too, Mandela and Dr King.
Omnes Omnibus
@Patricia Kayden:
No, among other reasons, that was part of the excuse for the Clinton impeachment.
Frankensteinbeck
@Matt McIrvin:
Trump can’t lock up Hillary or Obama. It’s not his sycophants reining him in. He does not have the power. On what charge would he have them arrested? Even a hyperconservative judge would throw it out of court, because there is not only no evidence, but no crime.
Hell, this might be why he’s gone batshit deluded over the email server in Ukraine. He could finally get his petty asshole revenge!
gene108
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Look at the recent Republican Presidents they have to “admire”.
Last is wisely hiding from the public, relative to Obama & Bill, and has been disowned by the Republican Party.
They got nothing to look up to, so they tear down.
OzarkHillbilly
@jeffreyw: I’m not collecting my pension yet, got a couple more years to go before I can get the 100%. Thank dawg I don’t have to worry about some corporate board raiding it for their golden parachutes. During the recession the pension fund went into the red and those few of us lucky enough to still be working had to up our contributions for a couple years. Some guys complained a little but most of us just figured it was just part of the deal.
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: My district is dependably blue. I went to the closest district to me that was a target of Red to Blue and worked there. I am now torn between working in that district to re-elect that Rep. or volunteering in another district that I would like to see flip. The one I worked in last time is “lean D” now so may also need some help, although I think this could be a good Dem year. Can’t decide.
OzarkHillbilly
@schrodingers_cat: I talked my wife into becoming a US citezen back in ’06 (iirc). I was very proud that her first vote could be for Obama, but these days of trump have me feeling like I owe her an apology.
Just One More Canuck
@Kay: Bureau of Labour Statistics says that the median wage is $19.89 per hour or about $41,000 per year (2018)
MattF
@Matt McIrvin: I think ‘pathological liar’ is really the key. Every Trump claim is really a tangle of multiple lies.
Elizabelle
@MattF:
And projection.
It would seem the ability to see “projection” might also be a Red/Blue difference. No self-awareness.
rikyrah
Add the UK to the list of secret transcripts.
Uh huh
Uh huh
Ohio Mom
@schrodingers_cat: Oh, so that’s why Gandhi was part of the twist/revealer in today’s (NYT) crossword puzzle. Seems not quite appropriate, like he’s being trivialized.
Kattails
@Matt McIrvin: “every scrap of governmental function and democratic legitimacy we still have….” and yet, as Adam pointed out last night, none of them actually say to themselves that this is insane, this individual is insane, I have to warn everyone. There are political appointees who may be expected to have loyalty to Trump, but others who have been in government for many years. I am inclined to respect the work of those who keep our government functioning day to day; and on one level feel badly for them having to work in this insanity. But they’re paid by us, not Trump.
This was the grand right wing plan, to kill government in any and every way possible; they worked at making it look awful from the outside, so no one would trust it. Now they’ve succeeded in making it be awful and demented and humiliating to work in on the inside .
Bastards.
gvg
@Wag: He has such a distorted view of reality that his answers would be useless. I would go by what he DID provable and what the paper trail shows. Also this is a guy who even has enjoyed negative publicity in the past, so ignoring him would hurt him. Get other people to testify but avoid Mr. chaos. Normal rules like having someone testify under oath, just don’t work with him.
Elizabelle
Also, birthday week greetings to President Carter. Onward to a century, at the least. I am glad he is still with us.
BC in Illinois
On another topic:
The Dow has started the morning with a 290 point drop.
I do not wish for the U.S. economy to crash, just so that I can see it bring Trump down with it. But I do expect that the effects of Trumpian mis-management will have, well, effects. [Trade War, anyone?].
And if anyone suffers for Trump’s reign, I want him to suffer.
(While I was typing this, the Dow is now down 328 points.)
MattF
@OzarkHillbilly: In fact, increasing your contribution as you near retirement is a good strategy anyhow. A relatively small amount of increased savings can make a big difference. The five extra years I worked before retirement made the difference between ‘probably enough’ and ‘more than enough’.
Frankensteinbeck
@Elizabelle:
These things are built into conservatism. Deliberately so. Between spite, racism, and the small-town obsession with enforcing conformism, for decades (well before FOX) Republicans have been angry with the facts and demanding their own reality. As they lose social and demographic ground, that has risen to frothing fury that anyone, ever, should contradict white conservatives about anything.
JanieM
@OzarkHillbilly:
It’s helpful that you specified this.
I’m curious what other people think about something that has been bugging me for a while. It seems to me that when most people say something like “She makes $15 an hour” — they’re talking about an hourly wage, i.e. not taking into account benefits (if any). For most of my life, at least, I’m pretty sure that’s been true, and I think it’s still true for most people (but am willing to be corrected on this: maybe at almost 70 y.o. I’m a dinosaur in more ways than I know).
So here we have one commenter quoting DeVos saying welders make $40/hour, while someone else on this thread quotes $17.xx/hour, and Ozark says $50 (but specifies that that includes benefits).
The only people I’ve ever heard in real life say “He makes $70 an hour” when they’re talking about the benefit package as well as the wages (AND THEY NEVER SPECIFY THAT) are conservative management types who are bitching about how workers make too damned much money. I think they deliberately say “$70 an hour” instead because they know perfectly well that ordinary people will be misled by that statement, and will think $70 is the hourly wage and not the hourly wage + the $ value of the benefit package. It bugs me because I think it’s deliberately meant to mislead.
Is that not so? Does everyone but me understand that “$20 an hour” means hourly wage plus benefits? Or does it sometimes mean one and sometimes the other, and it would be better always to specify which is being cited when citing wages…..?
schrodingers_cat
@Ohio Mom: Giving editorial space to Modi to opine about Gandhi is worse IMHO.
Quinerly
@Cheryl from Maryland: this was my family’s second home on the coast of NC (First World Problems, I know). I inherited it when my mom passed in 2015. The good news in the last year (since the Hurricane Florence damage) I have lost any emotional attachment from 41 years having a connection to it. Loathe the place. The other good news, I’m one of the last original owners (b/c of my mom and dad). They bought cheap. I can sell it somewhat below market to spite those who bought when the market was so high and are struggling with two house payments. (again, First World Problems). This battle with the HOA has come close to consuming me since Dec. You don’t want me to get started. HOAs are evil. And this place wasn’t ever like this before. 46 units, close connections. The new people took over…. Don’t get me started. I can rage for hours. Thanks for piping in.
VOR
@Kay: Tom Emmer currently holds Michele Bachmann’s old seat, the Minnesota 6th Congressional District. When he ran for Minnesota Governor, he claimed waiters routinely made over $100k per year. I’m sure he just pulled that out of thin air.
Quinerly
@rikyrah: ?
Ladyraxterinok
@Yarrow: Bit OT Kendra, the Democrat who won a super surprise upset House seat in OK (OKC area) is in a major fight. GOP is mad they lost ‘their property’ and are pouring in $$$ to get ‘their property’ back
rikyrah
@Kay:
Kay,
this just made me LOL
rikyrah
@geg6:
You got that right.
MattF
@JanieM: And don’t forget taxes. It’s just hard to get the true relation between ‘income’, however defined, and ‘spendable dollars’. But that’s what you actually need to know.
Matt McIrvin
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Police unions are unusual in that so much of their remit is negotiating the ability to use deadly force on the public without consequences. If they stuck to wages and hours stuff it’d be different, but of course as a representative of the interests of cops they can’t. I think the big police unions are a more likely vector for a dictatorial coup than the military, because they could more easily overthrow municipal and state governments.
Yarrow
@Ladyraxterinok: They’re doing that in the district I helped flip as well, although that district has been trending blue so I think it’ll be more challenging for them, especially this cycle.
I see she’s still hedging on impeachment. Which I’m TOTALLY FINE WITH if it’s where she needs to be for her district. She can jump on the impeachment bandwagon late. The most important thing is for her to keep her seat. Link.
I’m not a purity pony on this issue. Nancy has the votes. I’m with her. Just win, baby.
zhena gogolia
@Ohio Mom:
I haven’t done it yet!
Quinerly
@Kay: ?
rikyrah
@Yarrow:
It was always about the votes.
JanieM
@JanieM: @MattF: To clarify my own comment further: I think the right wingers cite the highest number they can possibly concoct specifically in order to turn workers against each other. I once heard someone say that a certain group of public employees made $70/hour — and I could find nothing whatsoever to suggest that that was true based on what *I* would take that statement to mean. I think they took not only the benefit package, but also the effects of a lot of overtime averaged out over the normal work week, to make it seem like those workers were drastically overpaid compared to other workers, and to turn voters against public employees.
Now, public employee benefit packages are probably a lot better these days than those of let’s say retail workers who are never allowed to work quite enough hours to get benefits at all. But my answer to that, given that I hang out here, is probably obvious enough so that I shouldn’t have to spell it out.
Yarrow
@rikyrah: It was. She needed the votes. The whistle blower gave Reps the excuse to switch.
Fleeting Expletive
Seems to be debate over presenting one count for impeachment (Ukraine) or several, including a grab-bag of obstruction counts. Elizabeth Drew, venerable reporter, advises presenting several counts, her thinking being that it would allow R’s to wrap themselves in party loyalty while voting For one or more counts and Against others. That may make sense.
I would like to see careful drafting on an additional catchall count, but with a more or less open timeline right up until the Senate actually holds the vote, because if they cut off the counts of impeachable conduct at the conclusion of the House resolution, DJT will continue said conduct up until the minute he’s impeached.
Providing that the charges can be expanded by addendum up to the last moment might be prudent. We’re dealing with some “slim characters” (hat tip to Anthony Quinn in Lawrence of Arabia).
Courage, House members!
Marcopolo
Warren gets ‘dramatic shift’ in support from black voters
I heard this was a topic of discussion yesterday in one of the threads.
rikyrah
@JanieM:
But, they don’t do it with Police and Fireman….
I don’t know about where you live, but, here in my city, police and firemen make six figures whether they want to or not.
PST
@JanieM: During the GM bankruptcy proceedings, I often heard conservative critics of organized labor cite ridiculous figures for hourly pay and benefits for auto workers. The falsehood in these numbers arose because some retiree benefits (especially medical) were unfunded at the time work was performed and paid later out of current income. As automation reduced the number of working employees, funding of benefits consumed an ever greater percentage of labor cost. This meant that the cost of labor divided by hours worked went up as the labor force shrank, but that didn’t mean current employees were making more money. It was an ironic statistical artifact of layoffs and failure to fund on a current basis — kind of the opposite of what the critics were trying to demonstrate.
rikyrah
@Marcopolo:
19%
19%
JoeyJoeJoe
@Quinerly: @Yarrow:
45 won Horn’s district by 13 points (and that was by far his worst district in Oklahoma) so Horn is understandably cautious . It was the only district to vote for the Democratic nominee for Governor last year, by the way
Yarrow
@JoeyJoeJoe: Those are the districts where the change from red to blue starts. The district I helped flip last year had been Republican for decades in terms of their House representation. They went for Hillary in 2016 though, so the voters were there.
Marcopolo
@rikyrah: Yeah, I hear that is about double anyone else other than Biden. Pretty cool, right?
:)
JanieM
@rikyrah: I live in rural Maine. The $70/hour figure was about toll takers on the Maine Turnpike. IIRC it was being repeated as part of a justification for raising tolls.
joel hanes
@OzarkHillbilly:
I want this stinking decaying albatross carcass of a Presidency to be hung around the necks of the Republican party until the sun implodes.
This.
glory b
@rikyrah: Meh. Same article said it was concurrent with her upswing in general, and probably not dramatically different than that for black voters.
She’s okay, I’ll vote for her, but she’s not catching fire with us.
mrmoshpotato
Haha coppers! You’ll never catch us if we never stop committing crimes!
Boys! Keep criming!
(This would make for a hilarious cops-and-robbers movie if it weren’t real life with a bunch of criminals in the Executive branch.)
low-tech cyclist
This is why I want the impeachment process to focus on three or four of the worst Trump crimes and abuses of power. The Ukraine extortion, the Russia obstruction of justice, and the babies in motherfucking cages. That will suffice.
Maybe add in his use of the office for self-enrichment if the evidence isn’t too hard to collect. But don’t go for the goddamn kitchen sink, because it’ll just sustain the ‘unable to focus’ part.
low-tech cyclist
@Marcopolo:
That 19% figure is nice, but its MOE is about 8.5%, give or take. Small subgroups, and all that.
NotMax
@low-tech cyclist
The longest journey begins with a single step.
J R in WV
@Kay:
Well, fabricator welders are the lowest paid welders. High pressure gas pipeline welders do make more like $40/hour. It’s harder work, dangerous if you mess up a weld, which is why most welds will be x-rayed before the line is buried.
Neighbor is a long-time high pressure gas pipeline worker, can weld with his eyes shut, upside down, in the mud during a blizzard. Well, maybe not with his eyes shut… I stand with the rest, really expert.
ETA: Also NOT a job you get right out of welder training!
J R in WV
@Quinerly: