Trump's Lying Claim of Communism

The problem for Trump is that the new stars of the Democratic Party whom Trump wants to defile have nothing whatsoever to do with communism. They barely have anything to do with socialism. 

New York’s Zohran Mamdani, AOC, Seattle’s Katie Wilson, Colorado’s Melat Kiros, and dozens of others — including many who have won recent primaries — are popular because they’re taking on corporate America, attacking political corruption by big money, and dealing with the real problems of ordinary Americans. 

Labels are becoming irrelevant, anyway. In an Axios-Generation Lab poll of young Americans, 67 percent say they have a positive or neutral association with the word “socialism” compared with 40 percent who are positive or neutral toward “capitalism.” A new national survey from the Cato Institute finds Zoomers more supportive of socialism (53 percent) than capitalism (45 percent). 

I can understand Gen Z’s growing disillusionment with capitalism. They can’t afford a home of their own. They struggle to afford health insurance. The job market is horrendous. They can’t afford to start a family. In many ways, capitalism — or whatever you want to call our current system — has failed them. And they’re the future of America.

Trump has run out of cards to play in the midterm elections, which is why he’s now talking about the “communist menace.”

He can’t talk about the economy, because prices continue to rise faster than wages, which means most Americans are getting poorer. He can’t talk about foreign policy, because his war in Iran has been a debacle, his tariffs are an utter failure, and he obviously hasn’t settled the war in Ukraine on “Day 1.” He can’t talk about immigration, because his raids and mass deportations have become so unpopular. 

So, facing the midterm elections, what’s left? 

He’s resorting to the oldest of right-wing tropes — accusing Democrats (especially a rising generation of new, young, vigorous Democratic politicians) of being commies.

Trump Is Trying to Rig the Election

https://youtu.be/3ReeMwsghhU?si=OLwc2N8qjC1dFs69

Beware of Xfinity Fraud Scams _ TV

 Claim to refresh /update your modem.

AI Overview

Xfinity frauds involve scammers impersonating the company to steal personal information, often through fake emails or calls requesting payments via gift cards or unusual methods. Common tactics include creating urgency, promoting fake deals, and asking for credentials via phishing links. To protect yourself, verify all communication by contacting Xfinity directly, use secure websites, don't click suspicious links, and report scams to the Federal Trade Commission (ReportFraud.ftc.gov). 

How to Identify an Xfinity Fraud

• Urgent or Fear-Based Language:

  . 

  Scammers use scare tactics to pressure you into acting quickly. 
Unusual Payment Methods:
. 
Xfinity will never ask for payment via gift cards, wire transfers, or peer-to-peer apps like PayPal, Venmo, or Zelle. 
Phishing Emails/Texts:
. 
Be wary of emails or texts with suspicious links or requests to log in to your account to avoid penalties or update terms. 
Requests for Personal Information:
. 
Be cautious of anyone asking for your username, password, or other sensitive account details over the phone or in an email. 

Trump University : For Profit Education

by Jeff Bryant

Revelations from documents connected to Trump University are generating outrage across the political spectrum, from my colleague Terrance Heath, who called it “a scheme to transfer wealth from people who had little,” to the conservative journal National Review which carried an editorial proclaiming it “a massive scam.”

Much of the commentary has focused on the “playbook” that guided sales reps for Trump U in how to coerce prospective students to sign up for the bogus degree program. A review of the document by CBS News highlights the hard sell tactics Trump U staffers used to push prospects into committing many thousands of dollars – upwards of $35,000 – to a course of study that many of those students now concede turned out to be “useless information.”

The outrage is much deserved, but we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that making a buck off people’s urges to fulfill their education destinies has become commonplace in American society.

As reports of the Trump U documents were breaking, Politico reported on how the Obama administration is currently engaged in a struggle to rein in the practices of for-profit colleges that lure students into degree programs that plunge them deeply into debt without advancing their financial well beings in the long run.

"think tanks" How they work .

Top Obamacare Critic's Op-Eds Drafted by PR Firm That Reps Drug, Health Care Clients

Ed. Note. This is how top PR firms work while calling themselves research institutes.  Note below how the Broad Foundation and Michelle Rhee perform parallel  services.

  

The Drum Report. Mother Jones.

Meet the magic PR elves fueling Sally Pipes' prolific anti-health-care-reform punditry.

Last Tuesday, a week after the Supreme Court's ruling upholding Obamacare, Sally Pipes appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to enumerate the evils of the law. The president of the Pacific Research Institute, a San Francisco-based free-market think tank, Pipes warned members of Congress that if they didn't act quickly Americans would soon suffer the rationed care and long waits supposedly plaguing her native Canada. The country's health care system, she insisted, had killed her mother by refusing to test her for colon cancer, which she later died from.

Pipes' appearance on Capitol Hill, days before the House voted for the 33rd time to repeal Obamacare, capped a busy two weeks for the prominent critic of the president's health reform law. In just the 24 hours following the Supreme Court's Obamacare decision, Pipes churned out thousands of words of outraged copy, publishing columns in the National Review Online, the Orange County Register, the Daily Caller, Human Events, and elsewhere—all while running her small think tank and keeping up her typically frenetic schedule of media interviews. All of this cemented her status as a leading voice of Obamacare opposition. Along with a constant stream of op-eds and TV appearances in recent years, she has also authored three books since 2008 lambasting health care reform.

If Pipes seems supernaturally prolific, there's a good reason. To assist with her written output, PRI employs a DC-based ghostwriting and PR firm with drug and health care industry clients. That firm, Keybridge Communications, researches, drafts, and edits much of Pipes' published work in an arrangement that's unusual for someone at a supposedly independent think tank.

Several former PRI staffers tell Mother Jones it was well known within the organization that Pipes relied heavily on Keybridge, particularly for her books, and did far from all of her own writing. (Pipes thanks Keybridge and specific staffers there in her last three books.) In recent years, PRI has spent large amounts of money on Keybridge's services. Between 2008 and 2010, the think tank paid Keybridge nearly $1 million—$400,000 alone in 2010.

Hired Guns on Astroturf...- Not school reform

Dissent Magazine - Spring 2012 Issue - Hired Guns on Astrotur...
If you want to change government policy, change the politicians who make it. The implications of this truism have now taken hold in the market-modeled “education reform movement.” As a result, the private funders and nonprofit groups that run the movement have overhauled their strategy. They’ve gone political as never before—like the National Rifle Association or Big Pharma or (ed reformers emphasize) the teachers’ unions. 

Devolution of a Movement

For the last decade or so, this generation of ed reformers has been setting up programs to show the power of competition and market-style accountability to transform inner-city public schools: establishing nonprofit and for-profit charter schools, hiring business executives to run school districts, and calculating a teacher’s worth based on student test scores. Along the way, the reformers recognized the value of public promotion and persuasion (called “advocacy”) for their agenda, and they started pouring more money into media outlets, friendly think tanks, and the work of well-disposed researchers. By 2010 critics of the movement saw “reform-think” dominating national discourse about education, but key reform players judged the pace of change too slow.



Read the detailed analysis of Michelle Rhee and other "reformers" who are making millions off of "school reform." 

Oppose Bankster Fraud

It’s time for the Big Banks to bear responsibility for the financial crisis—and for fraud and abuse against homeowners across the country. The nation’s state attorneys general are considering a settlement with the bankers, but there’s a risk they’ll let the people who tanked our economy off with a slap on the wrist. It’s urgent we tell them we need a settlement that holds banks accountable for the damage they’ve done and helps homeowners. Will you write  the White House to let them know?

 Possible letter: 

A Strong Settlement is Needed

Your Letter:

Foreclosures and the abuses of the Big Banks are crippling our economy. In neighborhoods like mine and across the state, we’ve seen people underwater on their mortgages and even losing their homes. Even worse, in many cases the Big Banks broke rules, falsified paperwork or defrauded homebuyers—and gambled with our homes to enrich themselves. They have yet to be held responsible.

Throw the bankers in jail !

A problem with the Country Wide the WaMU settlements.

We have to consider the externalities of the fraud.  While a $337 million dollar fine may be sufficient for the individuals defrauded by Country Wide, the cost to the nation and the state was much greater.  These could be called externalities or collateral damage.  And the costs are truly astronomic. See posts below.

Remember what caused this  crisis – it wasn’t the government. First came the housing bubble and the selling of near fraudulent home mortgages by corporations such as Country Wide and WaMU– thus the settlements.  To make a profit major banks and corporations looted the economy creating an international meltdown.  

 Now we have cuts in parks,  in universities, in nurses, libraries.  School children did not create this crisis. 
The major bankers, finance capitalists in the U.S. robbed the bank last year  – and the federal treasury.  They took hundreds of billions of dollars  – Goldman Sachs alone took $10 Billion.  For example,  Ken Lewis of Bank of America received an $ 81 million dollar pension.  They have not even been punished.  One thing we should do is arrest the top 100 executives and CEO’s of these companies, give them a fair trial, and throw them in jail.  Until we arrest some people there will be no real changes.

Note:  House Concurrent Resolution  85. Dec. 2011.

Country Wide settles fraud complaint for $335 million

Justice Department Reaches $335 Million Settlement to Resolve Allegations of Lending Discrimination by Countrywide Financial Corporation

More than 200,000 African-American and Hispanic Borrowers who Qualified for Loans were Charged Higher Fees or Placed into Subprime Loans

The Department of Justice today filed its largest residential fair lending settlement in history to resolve allegations that Countrywide Financial Corporation and its subsidiaries engaged in a widespread pattern or practice of discrimination against qualified African-American and Hispanic borrowers in their mortgage lending from 2004 through 2008.  

The settlement provides $335 million in compensation for victims of Countrywide’s discrimination during a period when Countrywide originated millions of residential mortgage loans as one of the nation’s largest single-family mortgage lenders.

The settlement, which is subject to court approval, was filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in conjunction with the department’s complaint which alleges that Countrywide discriminated by charging more than 200,000 African-American and Hispanic borrowers higher fees and interest rates than non-Hispanic white borrowers in both its retail and wholesale lending.   The complaint alleges that these borrowers were charged higher fees and interest rates because of their race or national origin, and not because of the borrowers’ creditworthiness or other objective criteria related to borrower risk.  

The Greatest Hoax in the History of Money: The Fed, the Banks, the Lies | California Progress Report

The Greatest Hoax in the History of Money: The Fed, the Banks, the Lies | California Progress Report

Massachusetts Sues 5 Major Banks Over Foreclosure Practices

By GRETCHEN MORGENSON. New York Times. Dec. 2, 2011.

Citing extensive abuses of troubled borrowers across Massachusetts, the state’s attorney general sued the nation’s five largest mortgage lenders on Thursday, seeking relief for consumers hurt by what she called unfair and deceptive business practices.

In addition to creating a new and significant legal headache for the banks named in the suit — Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and GMAC Mortgage — the Massachusetts action diminishes the likelihood of a comprehensive settlement between the banks and federal and state officials to resolve foreclosure improprieties...

The attorney general, Martha Coakley, and her investigators contend that the banks improperly foreclosed on troubled borrowers by relying on fraudulent legal documentation or by failing to modify loans for homeowners after promising to do so. The suit also contends that the banks’ use of MERS “corrupted” the state’s public land recording system by not registering legal transfers properly.

“There is no question that the deceptive and unlawful conduct by Wall Street and the large banks played a central role in this crisis through predatory lending and securitization of those loans,” Ms. Coakley said at a news conference announcing the lawsuit. “The banks may think they are too big to fail or too big to care about the impact of their actions, but we believe they are not too big to have to obey the law.”

Crooks, fools, charlatans, carpetbaggers, and school reform

Inexperienced Companies Chase U.S. School Funds

By SAM DILLON

With the Obama administration pouring billions into its nationwide campaign to overhaul failing schools, dozens of companies with little or no experience are portraying themselves as school turnaround experts as they compete for the money.

A husband-and-wife team that has specialized in teaching communication skills but never led a single school overhaul is seeking contracts in Ohio and Virginia. A corporation that has run into trouble with parents or authorities in several states in its charter school management business has now opened a school turnaround subsidiary. Other companies seeking federal money include offshoots of textbook conglomerates and classroom technology vendors.

Many of the new companies seem unprepared for the challenge of making over a public school, yet neither federal nor many state governments are organized to offer effective oversight, said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, a nonprofit group in Washington. “Many of these companies clearly just smell the money,” Mr. Jennings said.

Rudy Crew, a former New York City schools chancellor who has formed his own consulting company, said he was astonished to see so many untested groups peddling school improvement strategies.“This is like the aftermath of the Civil War, with all the carpetbaggers and charlatans,” Dr. Crew said.

_Note. Rudy Crew was once the Superintendent in Sacramento.

The Obama administration has dramatically increased federal financing for school turnarounds, to $3.5 billion this year, about 28 times as much as in 2007. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is pushing to overhaul 5,000 of the nation’s 100,000 public schools in the next few years.

Whitman: The Candidate from Goldman Sachs

By Robert Cruickshank.

Carla Marinucci and Lance Williams have a long and in-depth article today on Meg Whitman's connections to reviled investment banking house Goldman Sachs, which has played a leading role in the European debt crisis and is accused ofbeing at the center of asset bubbles and their subsequent crashes.  (Goldman Sachs was charged with fraud on Friday in the U.S. )

The article goes into depth on both Whitman's time on the Goldman Sachs board in 2001-02, relations between eBay and Goldman Sachs, and Goldman Sachs' role in state bond issuances. An excerpt:

From 1998 to 2002, while she was CEO of eBay, Whitman helped steer millions of dollars of her company's investment banking business to Goldman, court records show." This is the candidate who Republicans think should be in charge of the California budget? 

Read more at the link above. 

From the California Progress Report. 

McCain and financial fraud

Is it incompetence or fraud in student loan scandal?

June 2, 2007
U.S. Puts Limits on Lenders’ Ties to Universities

By JONATHAN D. GLATER
The Education Department, criticized for lax oversight of student loans, released proposed rules yesterday that would set new standards for universities and ban lenders’ marketing practices that have resulted, in some cases, in loan company payoffs to university officials.

The 225-page package represents a change in direction by the department, which for years had ignored calls by its inspector general, Democratic lawmakers and even some loan-industry officials for it to be more aggressive in policing the $85 billion student loan industry.

The rules would for the first time require universities to include at least three loan companies on any list of lenders they recommend to students and would ban many of the gifts and payments to financial aid officials that lenders have been offering to win student loan volume. The rules would bar everything from travel and entertainment expenses to providing staffing for college aid offices.

They would modify the existing framework, which applies only to federally guaranteed loans, “to strengthen and improve the administration of the loan programs,” the proposal states. The agency said the rules had been sent to the Federal Register for a 60-day comment period. If approved, they would take effect next summer.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings created a task force in April to draw up the rules after an effort to win consensus on a similar package among representatives of students, lenders and academic institutions in a process known as “negotiated rule making” collapsed.

In the past few months, investigations in Congress and in the states, led by Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, turned up an array of undisclosed relationships between universities and lenders, and conflicts of interest on the part of aid administrators. Some university officials who were promoting particular lenders had received stock on favorable terms, consulting payments or gifts from loan companies.

Just this week, the Education Department’s own inspector general reported to Congress that the department had made “minimal” progress in dealing with complaints about abuse in the nation’s government-backed student loan program.

Lenders by law have long been barred from offering inducements to gain loan applications. But what is an inducement is not entirely clear. In 2003, an assistant inspector general criticized the department for not giving any updated opinions about what kinds of incentives were barred since 1995, even though competition for loan business had escalated sharply since then.

Department officials have said in the past that they did not have the authority to oversee many of these practices because they involved private loans — those not guaranteed by the government. They had said they wanted aid administrators and the loan industry to police themselves.

The proposed regulations would still cover only federally guaranteed loans. They identify specific practices that would be barred, including “offering, directly or indirectly, any points, premiums, payments or other benefits to any school or other party to secure” student loan volume. Lenders who offer inducements run the risk of losing the federal guarantee on affected loans, under the proposal.

The rules would also ban a college’s “access to a lender’s other financial products, computer hardware, and payment of the cost of printing and distribution of college catalogs and other materials at less than market rate.” They also make clear that lenders cannot try to get around them by offering benefits to “school-affiliated” groups, like alumni organizations.

In addition, they would require that a university’s list of recommended or “preferred” lenders exclude any that provided incentives. Perhaps most importantly for students, universities would be required to explain how and why they recommend specific lenders and to ensure that all students, not just a few, receive the benefits offered by a lender on a preferred list.

In explaining the need for the regulations on inducements, the department stated that “this guidance, and the general requirements of the law, may no longer be generally known and understood by lenders and other participants” in the federally guaranteed loan program, because the last guidance was provided in 1995.

The rules appeared to be unlikely to meet much resistance. The Consumer Bankers Association indicated that it would seek minimal changes, particularly since Congress is already moving to enact even tougher restrictions.

John Dean, special counsel to the Consumer Bankers Association, said, “I think that you’ll have a series of largely technical comments.”

Lenders, he said, “have come to embrace the inevitability of reform and in many cases welcome it.”

And on Thursday the trade group representing college financial aid officers agreed to bar its members from accepting most gifts and to stop allowing lenders to sponsor its conferences.

Democratic lawmakers in both the House and the Senate who have championed legislation on the student loan industry offered cautious support but also criticized the Education Department for not acting more quickly. So did Mr. Cuomo.

“It has taken far too long for the Department of Education to act,” Mr. Cuomo said in a statement. He noted that the proposed rules would not require preferred lenders to be selected solely on the basis of the best interests of student borrowers. “This seems to be a gaping hole in the regulations,” Mr. Cuomo said.

Robert Shireman, a higher education policy adviser in the Clinton administration who is executive director of the Institute for College Access and Success, said that the rules could still allow philanthropic gifts by lenders to universities that might not be explicitly linked to loan volume.

“There can be the same kind of wink and a nod that occurs around campaign contributions,” Mr. Shireman said, adding that some of the proposals in Congress are stricter.

Separately, the Education Department announced Friday that Ms. Spellings had named Lawrence Warder as acting chief operating officer of the office of Federal Student Aid, previously overseen by Theresa S. Shaw, who stepped down.

Mr. Warder, who has been chief financial officer of the education agency since July 2006, previously worked for years as a management consultant at Deloitte Consulting.

Investigations of conduct in the student loan industry are not over. Yesterday, Senator Christopher J. Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who is chairman of the Banking Committee, announced plans for a hearing on Wednesday to explore ties between lenders and colleges and universities.


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