Is this additional proof we are being played by Trump?

The people sitting on the opposite side of the table?

1…Not the answer I was looking for but curious as to why you offered the people on the other side of the table…Actually quite intriguing answer.

I assume there are at least 6 other people also sitting at that table, or else everyone present at that meeting is sitting on the same side of the table, which seems really weird to me.

Did you mean the water bottle labels not showing the brand?

@AnonymousAccount8 All those heavy hitters sitting in line with Trump in that pic is called a photo op and so are those 6 bottles of water you so astutely now noticed. Tell me why one or the other was “staged” this way? Again there is one or two other details you see and don’t see in the picture

It wasn’t a meeting of six people. I have no idea what is being insinuated with the question.

Here’s a link with a wider photo.

‘The confirmed list of attendees include most of tech’s top leaders’

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos
Apple CEO Tim Cook
Apple CEO Tim Cook
Oracle co-chief executive Safra Catz
Intel CEO Brian Krzanich
Tesla CEO Elon Musk
IBM CEO Ginni Rommety
Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella
Alphabet (neé Google) CEO Larry Page and executive chairman Eric Schmidt
Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins
Palantir CEO Alex Karp. (Karp co-founded the big data firm with Trump’s top Silicon Valley backer venture capitalist Peter Thiel.)
Peter Thiel

@Cruiser I have no idea, but in the picture @Call_Me_Jay posted, the water bottles look like they might be labeled “Trump.”

The attendee titles on the cards also appear to be obscured.

@Earthbound_Misfit I don’t think so, I can at least read Peter Thiel and Tim Cook’s (the two closest to the camera) cards well enough.

Alright @Cruiser that’s 3 guesses, now tell us what you’ve been hinting at!

I can read some names, although the names for some people are not clear. I can’t read any of their titles. They might not be deliberately obscured, but those name cards are not clear.

I was drawn to how all the water bottle labels were turned away from the camera to IMO hide the fact that they are in fact Trump bottles of water…also the placement of the attendees is IMO relevant as well. You have Pence on his right who is obviously his right hand man and on his immediate left is Jeff Thiel who is as connected as you can get with all of the tech world, gave tons of advice to Trump on the campaign trail and why IMO he is on Trumps immediate left. Sitting to the right of Pence is CEO of Face book Sheryl Sandberg and to Thiels left is Apples CEO Tim Cook (see the placard at the very bottom right in the photo to confirm) Trump is the veritable deer meat in a den of Liberal Democrat lions and they all are sitting at attention seemingly at his every word….A very powerful and poignant and powerful picture to the casual viewer. Add in all those bottles of water that you can tell are “Trump” bottles of water obviously turned so we don’t see or make that connection. I cannot help but feel we are being played. This is not unique to Trump…all the Presidents have done these staging maneuvers and Obama and Hillary were expert at filling their backgrounds with staged people. This pic threw me a bit where I noticed all of Trumps water bottles labels were deliberately turned away from the cameras eye…why? What is flamboyant Trump suddenly shying away from? Or is he playing us and the media like a fiddle?

Or he doesn’t want to present a conflict of interest. Or the most logical explanation that his bitches know his ego and pointed the logos at him. Tiny cocks and all.

Liberal Democrat lions

I see you don’t know who Thiel is.

And the others aren’t hugely political. But I can see how a far-right ideologue might see a table of normal people as a liberal cabal.

Yes, Thiel was one of the main speakers at the RNC. He is the one that paid for Hulk Hogan to sue Gawker since Gawker outed Thiel as gay.

Republicans do accept homosexuals in a weird way.

The bottles appear to be a Trump brand of water though this isn’t immediately obvious. Maybe even Trump thought this too crass for the President Elect. Also absent from the meeting is Twitter, Trump’s main channel of communication with the outside world. But the main point you make @Cruiser about Trump being in reality at the mercy of “Liberal Democrat lions’ I don’t get that at all.

Twitter was excluded because during the campaign they would not allow a moneybag emoji for every use of the #CrookedHillary.

Ahh. Something to do at 4am.

Like just about every poster here, the first thing I noticed that could be described as unusual were the water bottle labels. They are indeed Trump water bottles. Here is a clear photo of some blue Trump Spring Water labels. Notice the coat of arms on the 4th bottle on the right, to the right of Trump’s name. It is the now discarded Trump family coat of arms which was just an invention and never recorded in any heraldic register.

The former Trump family coat of arms, invented:
Above the shield is a mailed fist (overwhelming force, usually military) holding a lance (power, usually military) and below is a crusader’s helmet, usually awarded to a family of a long traditional of military service. Below that is a shield bearing three lions (bravery, nobility, royalty, strength, stateliness, and valour,) rampant (ready to strike) profile dexter (right from the shield bearer’s POV) signifying honor . Also on the shield are two chevrons (achievement) Below the field is a ribbon with the name Trump.

In the wider photo provided by @Call_Me_Jay, starting with the water bottle closest to the camera and going down the left side of the table, bottles number 1, 2, 4 and 5 are only partially turned away from the camera. . These labels reveal the letters “MP” to the left of which is a coat of arms.

This is a prototype label. Upon further enlargement and enhancement of the same photo, Trump’s new, official coat of arms appears. This coat of arms is also invented but was finally allowed him in an expensive and protracted court battle after running afoul of Scotland’s ancient heraldry law when he plastered the old one all over everything he owned in Scotland. The heraldry on the new coat of arms was not designed or award by Scottish authorites, but finally approved reluctantly.

It is reasonable to assume, therefore, that the front of his water bottle labels read TR (new coat of arms) MP.

This new coat of arms is extremely interesting for it’s heraldic symbolism and the fact that it is official. First all one must perform a significant service to the country issuing the arms.

The first thing one should notice is that the arms are devoid of all heraldic military symbols. No more mailed fist, no lance, no crusader’s helmet. At the highest point (above all) is now a lion rampant profile dexter (see above in description old CoA) holding high a pennant with nothing written on it. I’m not sure what this is supposed to signify, possibly victory. The lion is standing on a ribbon bearing the motto “Numquam Concidere”, Latin for Never Concede.

On the shield below, there are two solid stars, or mullets, denoting that Donald Trump is his father’s second son. This is to differentiate his arms from those of the rest of his siblings and children. Below are three chevrons. These are in the class of ordinaries and denote achievement. His last coat of arms had only two. Below the chevrons is a two-headed eagle. This signifies empire.

All this talk about the water. I don’t remember ever seeing it in a store. Are you sure it’s not just labeled for his hotels and work place? If so, I can’t really see anything wrong with the water, or getting up in arms about it. If they wanted to be sure the water wasn’t photographed they should have taken it out of the photo. I don’t think the water is a big deal, and I don’t think the Trump people did either.

I’ve never seen his water in stores either. And it’s not a big deal. It’s just something to do while having morning coffee between 4 and 6 am.

I think the labels are obscured on the bottles to avoid the criticism of Trump’s clear obsession with himself. You could pass the photo off as a recasting of the “Last Supper”.

^^they could just ask everyone to take the water off the table for the shot. Would anyone say, hmmmm, bottles of water are missing from the meeting table?

Neither the bottle labels nor the name cards are obscured. The pixels are undisturbed.

Couldn’t it just be a natural reflex to place the water bottles with the front (the side with the label) facing forward?

ermine, three lions rampant couped at the waist and two chevronelles couped sable.

It’s a pretty awful device. Why are the lions cut in half?

Yuck. The new one is worse. Splitting charge groups.

@LostInParadise I count 23 bottles in the wider photo all with their labels either completely or partially turned away from the camera. Not one shows the full front side of the label. That’s too coincidental to not be done on purpose.

Why does it matter if it’s Trump water? The bathrooms might have Trump monogrammed paper towels for drying your hands. So?

@Seek I thought that odd as well. The attitude of a rampant lion’s tail is extremely important in heraldry. There are lions with forked tails, crossed tails, doubly crossed tails, lions with tails nowed or knotted. Ha. Even lions with their tail between their legs which is the lion coward.

Here’s Trump International VP Sarah Malone’s explanation of the new coat of arms:

‘The coat of arms brings together visual elements that signify different aspects of the Trump family heritage and the importance of this project (Trump International Golf Links, Aberdeenshire, Scotland).

‘The Lion Rampant makes reference to Scotland and the stars to America. Three chevronels are used to denote sky, sand dunes and sea – the essential components of the site.

‘The double-sided eagle represents the dual nature and nationality of Trump’s heritage (his mother was born in Scotland).

‘The eagle clutches golf balls (are you sure those are golf balls, lady?), making reference to the great name of golf, and the motto “Numquam Concedere” is Latin for “Never Give Up” – Trump’s philosophy.’
.
.
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So much for heraldic tradition.

I don’t believe a lot of thought went into what to do about the bottles. When the time came to take the shot, one of the Don’s more astute handlers probably noticed that the session would go down as another crass photo of Trump promotionalism. This of course is what the photo is about, water or not. At least the purpose is a bit less obvious minus a table littered with Trump signs. Come to think of it, there’s every chance that a photo was taken with the labels showing, and some individual involved noticed the tacky nature of the result and the thing was hastily redone. The best solution of course would have been to remove the bottles entirely. The fact that not a single label is legible can only be deliberate. This thing should be dismissed as a silly gaffe not worthy of comment, but it is indicative of the difficulty Trump faces with the issue of gravitas. Trump truly is a man of the people. He has all the taste and sensibility of some noveau riche jumped up immigrant dock worker. It is astonishing that a man from his background has yet to understand that the way you distinguish a truly great man from a roob with money is that only the roob finds it necessary to advertise his greatness. Whenever you find a man obsessed with slapping his name all over shit, and ceaselessly bragging on his achievements, you’re invariably looking at a carnival barker in an expensive (though garish) suit. Other roobs are of course impressed, and that is evidently sufficient. But seriously, “I am the greatest” was both suitable and accurate from Cassius Clay, while tasteless in the extreme shouted from the mouth of a President clearly in need of emergency drilling at a finishing school.

I thought you were going to say that all the glasses were empty. No one has drunk the kool-aid. Yet.

But, if you look at the wider angled photo at least the two people (Stephen Miller and ?) in the forefront have a half-full glass in front of them.

Also I note that Coke has managed to make their logo at least partially visible from any angle. Of course the iconic bottle shape makes it almost unnecessary.

My thought is that he is being roasted over the coals for all his business interests and it was intentional to shield his name on his water brand from view. It seems so tacky to serve water in plastic bottles especially for someone like Trump. I would expect gilded crystal water goblets or at least high end glass bottled water. Maybe my posting this question is simply because I loathe plastic bottled water.

Well, the heraldry that I study is very early-period. The whole idea of “symbolism” is a Victorian-era invention. Any symbolism in Medieval heraldry was personal – usually a play on someone’s name (Lord Coombe had a comb, the Dutch village of Hensbroek has a hen inside a pair of breeches) or an inside-joke between the recipient of the arms and the person who granted them. Heralds don’t pun; they cant.

And chevronelles are just ugly, in general. And the mullets are voided – hollow in the middle.

I wonder if Trump knows the two-headed Eagle is a Persian charge.

Well, @Cruiser, that’s because Trump has no actual class to him. He is literally a hobo’s wet dream of wealthiness. He doesn’t know how to do rich and classy, because he is simply a tacky person.

@Cruiser It’s not unusual for bottled water to be at business meetings. What bothers me most about his bottled water is his picture is on it. That’s really weird to me.

@JLeslie The water bottle he served at the meeting does not have his picture on it.

I waited tables for years in my teens and twenties and I set up meeting rooms with coffee & water. In years since I’ve attended plenty of meetings in conference rooms where someone else set up the coffee and water.

It’s not weird or sneaky or any kind of signal when an attentive person makes the room symmetrical and orderly. And that’s for me and the nobodies I know, not the president-elect and billionaires with spaceship companies.

Also Trump is all about “branding”. It’s probably difficult to find something in Trump Tower that isn’t labeled “Trump”.

His kids were at the meeting. The meeting was 20%Trump business interests fully represented.

His kids have no legit reason to be there.

It appears Trump thinks the power of the Presidency is prize he won, and now he gets to use it for personal gain just like any other asset.

Ivanka sat in on the meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister, too. She’s a celebutante with a “lifestyle” brand, and she’s already using her father’s elected position to advertise $10,000 bracelets.

I read this article at lunch today and I literally threw my sandwiches in the garbage. Lost my appetite. http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-tech-meeting-ridiculous-2016-12?r=US&IR=T&IR=T

He is reported as staying on as exec producer on celeb apprentice, so much for your conflict of interest.

@Cruiser Ok good. Some other jelly posted a link that had bottled water with his picture.

I’m back to not thinking the water isn’t anything significant at all. It’s the same as Marriott water, Disney water, or Gaylord water (I made those up, just making a point).

No, it’s NOT the same anymore because Trump is the President of the United States of America and there are laws written directly into the Constitution to stop the leader of the Nation from compromising his principals in defending the constitution from his use of the office for personal, commercial gain.

And it really hurts my heart that more Americans can’t see it.

@cazzie If the government is paying extra for his water then I agree with you.

So, you see no conflict of interest in what Trump is doing? Advertising his branding at official meetings? Bringing his kids, and his key own person in Silicon Valley, into this meeting?

@cazzie I think the kids need to choose political position or the business. Mixing the two isn’t ok. It’s already sketchy the whole nepotism thing.

Regarding key people in Silicon Valley, I’m not sure what to think. All Presidents bring in people they know. I hate the mixing of business and politics with all presidents where it’s obvious policy is influencing money being made for personal gain or indirectly for friends. Take Bush, Cheney, and Halliburton. That was a problem in my opinion.

he isn’t just bringing in people he knows. He is bringing in people he has personal money invested with. It’s not OK. His kids are looking after his businesses, as he’s said and now he is saying ‘There is no line of difference between him and his kids. He wants them by his side, listing in and influencing meetings for increase personal profit. THAT IS NOT what the Presidency is for. We need to draw a line and say, NO, this is NOT ok! We know what it looks like. It looks like a breach of Constitutional Law.

@cazzie There are laws against nepotism, so I’m thinking that when he is president he won’t be able to include his kids like this anymore. During this transition period I don’t think the laws apply. Those laws were put in place in the 60’s I think. It was a reaction to Kennedy.

I honestly don’t see how he can completely separate profit for his businesses from being president. This is part of the underlying problem in politics and having big businessmen in high political positions.

Even if Trump fully divests himself from his businesses he still cares about the businesses for his children.

If he puts the businesses in a blind trust, I feel sure he won’t, after he’s done he gets the businesses back doesn’t he? I don’t know those rules.

what was the purpose of this meeting exactly?

Again… hurts my heart. People don’t seem to understand. it’s more like ‘What do you expect’ rather than, ‘you know what the law says.’

@cazzie I’m just saying there are laws to help us with these things. Law or no law I think it’s not ok.

At least with Ivanka she seems to care about some issues I care about, but those issues don’t have to do with business. Still, it doesn’t matter that I like some of her interests and political standings, because next time it might be a daughter who scares me to death. So, we need rules to prevent this sort of impropriety.

However, it’s not like Trump is going to stop talking to his kids. Just like Hillary would still be talking to her husband and daughter.

If “we” like the idea of not having career politicians then we are going to get people with possible conflicts I think. It’s a little tricky to me.

@AnonymousAccount8 The purpose of this and many of his other meetings was to discuss how his administration will be available to assist the tech industry to reduce regulations that inhibit these companies abilities to innovate and develop new novel technologies. The last 10 years all we have seen the silicon valley do is essentially reinvent their current products…Iphone 7…windows 10 etc. It was focused on how Turmps team can assist their companies in job creation. That select small group of people represents over 1 trillions dollars of our countries annual GDP and with the right environment could easily double and that IMO appears to be Trumps and those in attendance goal. YUGE new job creation potential. A lot of R&D outsourcing is currently being done by these countries because of the lack of skilled engineers in this country. Changing the emphasis of our education priorities is another of Trumps high priorities so we do have these higher educated engineers our countries companies need to continue to develop new technologies.

@Espiritus_Corvus – out of sheer curiosity, I consulted my sources to see whether any golf-related heraldry appeared in my period of study (pre-17th century). It didn’t, but here is a kinda funny short article about it written by my friend Bruce (a man who knows more about heraldry than I should think possible to fit in a single head).

There are laws and he’s breaking them. You have to see that, right? http://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/14/politics/donald-trump-jr-eric-ivanka-transition-role/index.html

I get that meetings with Tech companies are in order, but where was his Secretary of Energy, who should have been there with him as the ‘expert’ in all things new and inventive? Instead his kids, whom, as he said, will be looking after Trumps business interests, were there. There is a blatant use of his position. I’m not saying he’ll over hear an idea and invest money in that business, I’m saying that he will use taxpayer money and new legal incentives to make sure HIS investments bloom and others go bust. He already gave away millions in tax revenue to Carrier. That company is going to get a check from their State Government calling it a ‘Tax Credit’. He did that just so he could get some credit for saving a few jobs. Saving Trump
s face is costing the taxpayers directly in their pockets. He is abusing his power. He is breaking laws.

@cazzie Whether you realize it or not…discord towards any Jelly here invariably does resonate with other Jellies…owning up this reality is helpful…trust me on this one.

@cazzie: It can also be an opportunity for some introspection.

If only some people did. they’d be commenting less about candy bars and reading more about the loss of their constitutional rights

^^I resemble that remark!