Reuters: Trump Defends Decision to Settle Trump University Lawsuits

By Reuters Staff:

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has said over 5,000 students across the country were defrauded out of about $40 million, so Trump‘s settlement of $25 million was around 60 percent of these estimated damages.

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In announcing the settlement, Schneiderman said the deal followed repeated refusals by Trump“to settle for even modest amounts of compensation for the victims of his phony university.”

In a statement, Schneiderman called the settlement a “stunning reversal by Donald Trump and a major victory for the over 6,000 victims of his fraudulent university.”

Students had claimed they were they were lured by false promises into paying up to $35,000 to learn Trump‘s real estate investing secrets from his hand-picked instructors. Trump‘s lawyers denied this.

The deal covers three lawsuits relating to Trump University: two class actions suits in California and a New York case brought by Schneiderman. U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego must still approved the settlement.

The Full Story (November 20, 2016)

Truthout: The Six Worst Things About Trump's Tax Plan

By Frank Clemente:

1. Gives huge tax breaks to the rich and corporations, loses $6.2 trillion over 10 years, and if paid for will require deep cuts to domestic services. Three-quarters of lost revenues are from corporate and business tax breaks largely benefiting the rich. The top 0.1 percent of households, which includes Trump's, will get an annual tax cut of about $1.1 million each. Nearly half (47 percent) of the tax cuts will go to the top 1 percent of households; each one will get an average tax break of nearly $215,000 a year. The bottom 20 percent will get a tax cut of $110. Trump's plan will increase the deficit by $7 trillion, unless massive cuts are made to benefits and services that working Americans depend on.

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5. Cuts taxes on hedge funds and other "pass-through" businesses by $900 billion -- personally benefiting Trump -- and allows high-wage employees to dodge another $600 billion. Many Wall Street firms, law practices and other big-money outfits organize as partnerships or other business entities that allow them to pay their business taxes at individual rates. Trump would cut the tax rate on the owners of these so-called "pass-through entities" by as much as two-thirds, to just 15 percent. Owners of larger pass-throughs would be taxed at the dividend rate of 20 percent. These special low tax rates are expected to entice half of high-paid wage earners to call themselves contractors in order to be treated as pass-through entities. Trump is the sole or principal owner of 500 pass-through entities. He would personally benefit from this massive tax giveaway that's been appropriately dubbed the "Trump Loophole."

The Full Story (November 28, 2016)

[Special] Trump Quote of the Week

As reported in the Washington Post:

Trump also denied the importance of receiving the daily intelligence briefing, a tradition for presidents and presidents-elect. He has received the briefings only sporadically since winning the election.

“I get it when I need it,” he said. “I’m, like, a smart person. I don’t have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years.”

Washington Post: Trump and Pence vs. ‘Hamilton’ Cast, A Collision of Two Americas

By Philip Rucker:

As he took his seat in New York’s Richard Rogers Theatre, Pence heard an impassioned, sustained boo. He sat through a performance celebrating the country’s multiculturalism. And when the show was over and he headed for the exits, the cast was not quite finished.

“We, sir, we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, sir,” said Brandon Victor Dixon, the actor who played Aaron Burr, reading a statement the cast members had drafted together.

“But we truly hope this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and work on behalf of all of us. All of us,” he continued.

The remarkable moment crystallized the cleavage wrought by a toxic presidential campaign, in which millions of aggrieved white Americans propelled Donald Trump and Pence to the White House and left millions of others — blacks and Latinos, gays and lesbians, Muslims and Jews — fearful of what might become of their country.

“It was this collision of two different Americas and two different visions and two different sets of experiences, happening at once, and happening in a rather dramatic way,” said Peter Wehner, a former speechwriter to President George W. Bush and a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

By Saturday morning, Trump decided to respond. He could have chosen to offer assurances that he would be a president for all Americans — that he would respect everybody regardless of race or gender or creed.

But Trump being Trump, the president-elect punched back.

“The Theater must always be a safe and special place,” Trump tweeted. “The cast of Hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, Mike Pence. Apologize!”

There was a certain irony to Trump’s demand, considering that as a candidate he rarely if ever apologized for the blizzard of insults he sprayed across the country.

The Full Story (November 19, 2016)

Washington Post: How Donald Trump Will Retrofit Midtown Manhattan as a Presidential Getaway

By Marc Ambinder:

Donald Trump is a creature of New York. He ran against Washington and called it “a swamp.” During his campaign, he often flew home late at night so he could wake up in his own bed. His 10-year-old son is enrolled in a Manhattan private school. So it’s no wonder Trump is reportedly considering spending time in New York whenever he is able — presumably on weekends.

If so, his home, in the penthouse of Trump Tower, on E. 56th Street and Fifth Avenue, will be the epicenter of an iron curtain that will wall off much of Midtown from the rest of the city. Creating a permanent, sterile environment inside a 58-story, multi-occupancy building on one of the busiest streets in one of the busiest cities in the world poses an unprecedented challenge for the Secret Service and the military.

No city on Earth is better prepared to host a presidential visit than New York: The police department works seamlessly with the Secret Service these days, and Manhattanites are used to traffic jams. But to accommodate a more regular presidential presence, the daily routines of ordinary New Yorkers who live in, work near or commute through a five- to 10-block radius of Trump Tower will change. They will not be able to move freely; sometimes they won’t be able to move at all. Whenever a president moves, everything nearby freezes.

This past week, the Secret Service and the NYPD began to draw up a security blueprint to protect the soon-to-be-president while minimizing disruption. (Secret Service spokesman Marty Mulholland declined to comment for this story, citing the agency’s policy of not talking about protective operations.) But shielding Trump from harm is only one of many objectives. Ensuring that he can communicate with the military, world leaders, Congress and the American people at all times is just as vital, and these goals exponentially increase the number of people, objects and systems that surround a modern president.

The Full Story (November 18, 2016)

Washington Post: Trump Has Made Some Dangerous Appointments

By the Post Editorial Board: 

Americans who hope that incoming President Donald Trump will not upend long-standing U.S. alliances or embrace counterterrorism policies that violate civil liberties and human rights have reason to be disturbed by his first national security appointments. The choices of retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn as national security adviser and Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) as director of the CIA could presage a harsh and counterproductive U.S. approach to the Muslim world, a dangerous turn toward Russia and the reembrace of tactics for handling terrorism suspects that violate international law.

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Mr. Trump has been vague about his plans for fighting the Islamic State and other extremists, but the appointments of Mr. Flynn and Mr. Pompeo suggest a turn toward policies that could deeply alienate U.S. Muslim allies, including Sunni states whose assistance is critically needed to forge political alternatives to the terrorists in Iraq and Syria. An administration that appears to demonize Islam will be welcomed by the recruiters for the Islamic State and al-Qaeda; so will one that returns to the human rights violations symbolized by Guantanamo.

The Full Story (November 18, 2016)

Washington Post: Trump’s Big Infrastructure Plan? It’s a Trap.

By Ronald A. Klain:

First, Trump’s plan is not really an infrastructure plan. It’s a tax-cut plan for utility-industry and construction-sector investors, and a massive corporate welfare plan for contractors. The Trump plan doesn’t directly fund new roads, bridges, water systems or airports, as did Hillary Clinton’s 2016 infrastructure proposal. Instead, Trump’s plan provides tax breaks to private-sector investors who back profitable construction projects. These projects (such as electrical grid modernization or energy pipeline expansion) might already be planned or even underway. There’s no requirement that the tax breaks be used for incremental or otherwise expanded construction efforts; they could all go just to fatten the pockets of investors in previously planned projects.

Moreover, as others have noted, desperately needed infrastructure projects that are not attractive to private investors — municipal water-system overhauls, repairs of existing roads, replacement of bridges that do not charge tolls — get no help from Trump’s plan. And contractors? Well, they get a “10 percent pretax profit margin,” according to the plan. Combined with Trump’s sweeping business tax break, this would represent a stunning $85 billion after-tax profit for contractors — underwritten by the taxpayers.

Second, as a result of the above, Trump’s plan isn’t really a jobs plan, either. Because the plan subsidizes investors, not projects; because it funds tax breaks, not bridges; because there’s no requirement that the projects be otherwise unfunded, there is simply no guarantee that the plan will produce any net new hiring. Investors may simply shift capital from unsubsidized projects to subsidized ones and pocket the tax breaks on projects they would have funded anyway. Contractors have no obligation to hire new workers, or expand workers’ hours, to collect their $85 billion. To their credit, the plan’s authors don’t call it a jobs plan; ironically, it is Democrats looking to align with Trump who have given it that name. They should not fool themselves.

Third, because there is no proposed funding mechanism for Trump’s tax breaks, they will add to the deficit — perhaps as much as $137 billion. Yes, some economists think more deficit spending will boost growth. But you can be sure of this: In Trump’s hands, rising deficits will be weaponized to justify future cuts in health care, education and social programs. Just as David Stockman used deficits caused by the Reagan tax cuts as a rationale to slash social programs three decades ago (the “starve the beast” theory), the deficits caused by Trump’s infrastructure tax cuts will be used to justify cuts in programs. Thus, Democrats should know that every dollar spent on the Trump tax scheme to enrich construction investors and contractors is a dollar that will later be cut from schools, hospitals and seniors.

Fourth, if the Republican approach to the Recovery Act is any indication, the Trump plan will come chock-full of policy changes that undermine core Democratic principles. Buried inside the plan will be provisions to weaken prevailing wage protections on construction projects, undermining unions and ultimately eroding workers’ earnings. Environmental rules are almost certain to be gutted in the name of accelerating projects.

The Full Story (November 18, 2016)