Trump Will Pay $25 Million To Avoid A Trump University Fraud Trial

On the Morning Joe video from early March above, Trump said he wouldn't settle the Trump University lawsuit "because it's an easy case to win in court... How do you lose a case where people suing you have signed letters and affidavits saying that the school is terrific?... We have a 98% approval rating? How do you settle a case like that?... I could have settled the case a number of times. I could settle the case now if I wanted to settle the case. I don't settle cases... You know what happens? When you settle cases, everbody sues you. At least with me, I don't settle cases very often."

But Trumpy-the-Clown nemesis Judge Curiel has always wanted a settlement and Friday reports of an imminent settlement broke in the NY Daily News. In the future, Trump will be able to pretend he was never found guilty of anything, the same way he can technically claim he's not a serial bankrupt. He's settling both remaining Trump University cases, the one in New York and the one in San Diego. And, worse yet, as one wag on Twitter put it yesterday, "Trump to pay out to people who expected him not to con them so he can focus on conning the nation."

Even before election day, Trump had tentatively agreed to settle but, always the cheapskate, tried bullying his victims again by saying he'd only;y agree to go forward if the amount was $3 or $4 million and never anything above $10 million.

Under the emerging deal being negotiated by Trump's lawyers, New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and the law firm that brought a class action lawsuit regarding Trump University in California, the president-elect will agree to pay between $20 million and $25 million to settle the matter, a source with knowledge of the situation said.

Trump will not admit to any wrongdoing in the final agreement, which could be announced as soon as Friday, the source said.

During the presidential campaign, Trump had threatened to have his executives reopen the school once the cases were done. It's not clear if that was bluster or if the settlement will bar that from happening even if he was serious.

The settlement comes just days before a class action lawsuit in California was set to begin. With the trial date approaching-- and Trump getting ready to take office-- the judge in the case pushed for aggressive settlement talks among all the parties, the source said.

Before being elected President earlier this month Trump had publicly vowed not to settle the matter.

...Schneiderman in 2013 brought a fraud lawsuit against Trump University claiming that the school was nothing but a scam designed to make money for Trump by falsely promising wannabe real estate developers they would learn the tricks of the trade from Trump and his hand-picked teachers.

Instead, those who enrolled were pressured to take more expensive programs from people not selected by Trump. The closest they got to Trump himself was when they were able to take a picture with a cardboard cutout of him, Schneiderman alleged.

Schneiderman initially sought $40 million from Trump, saying he swindled more than 5,000 students through the school. The final $20 million to $25 million settlement will cover students from both the New York and California cases, though there had been some overlap, the source said.

In the end, about 800 people from the New York case who enrolled in Trump University and who have been waiting for compensation since 2012 will now receive it, the source said.

Schneiderman has slammed Trump University, which closed in 2010, as a "fraud from beginning to end" and has suggested that "the initial estimates are that (Trump) personally pocketed $5 million from" his school.

"Using false promises to prey on desperate people has long been a hallmark of 'snake-oil salesmen,’" Schneiderman said this past July. "A lawsuit by my office alleges that Donald Trump was basically doing the same thing with Trump University."

Trump has denied the allegations of fraud, saying 98% of the people who signed up for the programs expressed satisfaction, and blistered Schneiderman as a "lightweight."

Schneiderman is likely to run for governor of New York in 2018. The unpopular Andrew Cuomo is seeking a third term. The Trumpist candidate is like to be deranged Buffalo psychopath Carl Paladino.

And this morning, showing once again he doesn't have a shred of dignity, the idiot is back tweeting about his fraud case...

Civil Lawsuits Could Pursue Trump, Like They Pursued Clinton, for the Rest of His Time in Office

Donald Trump, not yet president-elect, ironically seated with Paula Jones (right), the woman who established the right of a citizen to sue a sitting president

by Gaius Publius

In an unusually ironic twist, the Paula Jones lawsuit against a sitting president, Bill Clinton, has set a precedent for four years of lawsuits against another sitting president, Donald Trump. With a caveat.

Story first, then the caveat. From Stephanie Mencimer writing at Mother Jones (my emphasis):

How Paula Jones Paved the Way for Donald Trump to Be Repeatedly Dragged Into Court as President

The president-elect has Kellyanne Conway's husband to thank, too.

When he moves into the White House in January, Donald Trump will bring with him some unusual baggage: a long list of pending lawsuits in which he is either a plaintiff or a defendant. And just because he'll be president doesn't mean these cases are going away. For this, Trump can thank Paula Jones and the husband of his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway.

By USA Today's count, Trump is involved in at least 75 ongoing cases. They include the numerous fraud lawsuits targeting the president-elect's now-defunct Trump University, which encouraged students to take out hefty loans in order to enroll in its get-rich-quick real estate seminars. A trial in a class-action lawsuit against Trump University is scheduled to begin in California on November 28, though Trump's lawyers have asked to postpone the case until after his inauguration. During his presidency, Trump won't be able to avoid potentially embarrassing court proceedings, depositions, and even the possibility of appearing as a witness in court. The law is clear that a sitting president can be sued for private conduct—which brings us to the Paula Jones story.

In 1994, Jones—who was among a group of Bill Clinton accusers Trump assembled at a press conference before the second presidential debate—sued then-President Clinton for sexual harassment. Ann Coulter, a major supporter of Trump's presidential bid, was reportedly the ghostwriter of Jones' legal complaint. Clinton tried to fend off the suit by asserting presidential immunity, which protects the president from lawsuits over conduct while in office. But Jones argued that her case involved actions that had occurred before Clinton took office. Jones' lawsuit resulted in a 1997 Supreme Court decision in her favor that now ensures that all the civil suits currently pending against Trump—and any that may yet be filed concerning his business or private life—can go forward while he's in office. Because of this ruling, Trump can be forced to testify, produce evidence, submit to depositions, and ultimately pay judgments in cases he loses.

The article has great backstory on how this all came about, then moves to this:

All the arguments that Conway made on Jones' behalf will apply to Trump. He could, of course, settle all the pending suits he's involved in. Trump said repeatedly [though] during the campaign that he did not want to settle the Trump University class-action suit that is slated to go to trial later this month.

Yes he could settle all 75 of them, plus (I anticipate) the many many more that could be filed against his prior activities. It's unlikely he will go that route, however.

The Caveat

Which brings us to the caveat I mentioned above:

There is still one way Trump can avoid the barrage of lawsuits he's enmeshed in, at least for a while. In its decision in Clinton v. Jones, the Supreme Court noted that Congress could pass legislation to shield sitting presidents from civil suits. Will Trump ask the Republican Congress to protect him from legal action? If that's his plan, he'd better act soon. The Trump University trial could start before the Thanksgiving leftovers are gone.

Interesting, yes? Let's see how this shakes out. Something else that Democrats in the Senate, if they have a collective spine, can filibuster.

GP
 

Let's Make Sure The Future Of American Education Is NOT Trump University

Last week you may have caught Señor Trumpanzee's telepromter speech in Cleveland on education. You could tell it was read from a teleprompter because he sounded like he was on Ambien and because he didn't say he would model the American education system on Trump University. Instead he pushed the charter school industry's privatization agenda. Trumpanzee spoke at a dismally failing charter school, Cleveland Arts and Social Sciences Academy, owned by crooked for-profit charter school fanatic Ron Packard. The school received a D for Performance Index, a composite of scores across multiple grades and subjects that Ohio uses to summarize results, and an F in value-added, a measure of student growth and academic progress over a school year. Packard and others trying to dismantle the public school system and privatize it, always call their efforts-- as Señor Trumpanzee did-- "educational choice." Trump pandered shamelessly-- and, of course, deceitfully-- to poor parents promising them the world if they would just back charter schools. He promised to immediately subsidize poor families with a $20 billion grant. I didn't hear a peep out of Ryan or McConnell. Did you?

What Trumpanzee said sounded so innocuous: "It’s simply a matter of putting students first, and not the education bureaucracy" while he emphasized the importance of competition in education and how parents should be able to choose the public, private or charter school of their choice for their children.



Dr. Andre Perry, writing yesterday for The Root wasn't having any of Trump's slick charter school industry sloganeering.

The Republican presidential nominee and founder of Trump University accused Democrats of trapping black and Hispanic youth in failing public schools and offered the postern door of school choice through a proposed block grant, voucher-like program in which per pupil expenditures would follow students to the school of their parents’ liking.

“I want every single inner-city child in America who is today trapped in a failing school to have the freedom, the civil right to attend the school of their choice,” Trump said in his Sept. 8 speech.

The philosophical basis for Trump’s policy should sound familiar. It seems to come out of the playbooks of both Republican and Democrat reformers who advocate for vouchers and/or charter schools. Charter and voucher advocates may distance themselves from the nuclear Trump and his policies, but they will have a hard time distancing themselves from his rhetoric, which reveals how gamey the word “choice” is.

After 25 years of having charter schools, it’s clearer that “educational choice” is dangling bait for black and brown parents who are desperate for change. But its becoming even easier through the thin veil of choice rhetoric to see choice policies have found ways to primarily deconstruct the “monopoly” on public schools-- not address structural inequalities that generate disparate educational outcomes.

Like many education reformers, Trump argues an estimated $620 billion spent on public funding has not translated to educational success, but for the Republican nominee it shows “obviously Common Core doesn’t work.” Notwithstanding the bad coupling of a three year-old Common Core program to decades of public education policy and not giving Common Core a reasonable amount of time to prove itself, Trump asserts parents’ power of the purse would drive improvement through competition if only they had the money. Parents who make the best possible choices for their children would naturally put failing schools out of business.

If that was only true of the school in which he gave his speech – CASSA received a “D” on its Performance Index and an “F” in value-added, a growth measure over a school year. Nevertheless to encourage choice, Trump’s first budget, if elected, would include an additional $20 billion that will be raised by “reprioritizing existing federal dollars” to create a block grant that would be dedicated to “the 11 million school-aged kids living in absolute poverty.” States would be given the option of allowing those dollars to follow the child.

Families could then use their tuition dollars to attend any school of their choice including private, traditional, magnet or charter. But Trump forgot the tiny detail that schools often do the choosing-- even among public schools-- which obviously limits families’ choices. Voucher programs provide insight in this regard. The most selective privates in eligible cities across the country don’t participate in voucher programs.

Students are then left with mediocre options that give the illusion of choice like the school in which he gave his speech. Many private and faith-based schools would close without the public subsidy (“welfare,” for the cynical). Again, research on voucher programs is showing that students in certain states are performing worse than if they attended a public school. Giving students options is not the same as giving families economic and social power, which really empowers parents the influence to enter systems of their wishes.

Most if not all black folk, who poll as supporting Trump at less than 1 percent, see Trump as a hustler, racist and bigot. Still, the choice lobby, which includes charter and voucher advocates, spews choice as fluently as Trump.

Black and brown parents are raring for change. Academic outcomes among black and brown students pale in comparison to their potentials. Black and brown suspension and expulsion rates show our appetite for punishing children. Students often learn in substandard buildings and are not afforded curricula that give them a chance to succeed in college.

Black folks’ outstretched desperation for quality schools and equity is longer than the history of public education itself. Polling done by choice advocates support this basic thirst for change, and they point to that research to make the case for reform. Just like Trump said, “What do you have to lose?”

But let’s be clear; parents may want choice, but they need the power to make the school in their neighborhood great. Black communities don’t need used-car salespeople; they need great transportation and schools. Neither children nor schools should be comparable to jean shopping. An aside-- descendants of the enslaved know too well that people are not commodities. Still, black folks are sold choice as a form of justice.

When you hear someone use the term “choice” like Trump, don’t buy what they’re selling.

Trump showed us the difference between courting and pimping the black community-- the use of the term choice.

Kevin Chavous is a major charter school whore who is always trotted out by the DeVos people as an African-American Democrat. He makes a point of not being a Trumpist but insisted "his speech on school choice demonstrates that he is giving serious thought to education issues and I strongly challenge Hillary Clinton to do the same. As a lifelong Democrat and education reformer, I urge Hillary Clinton to show more openness and creativity when it comes to embracing school reform, choice and charter schools. So far Mrs. Clinton has largely been a representative of the interests of teachers’ unions and the status quo, which is in opposition to parents and students and will serve to be on the wrong side of history."

Recently, Harold Meyerson did an OpEd for the L.A. Times, How The Charter School Lobby Is Changing The Democratic Party showing how charter school lobbies have become a conduit for a lot of right-wing money being funneled into Democratic primaries in California and New York where they can't get a Republican elected. "At a time when Democrats and their party are, by virtually every index, moving left, a powerful center-right pressure group within the liberal universe has nonetheless sprung up," he wrote. "Funded by billionaires and arrayed against unions, it is increasingly contesting for power in city halls and statehouses where Democrats already govern. That’s not how the charter school lobby is customarily described, I’ll allow, but it’s most certainly what it’s become."

In California, political action committees funded by charter school backers have become among the largest donors to centrist Democratic state legislators who not only favor expanding charters at the expense of school districts, but also have blocked some of Gov. Jerry Brown’s more liberal initiatives.

In New York’s upcoming primary, such longtime charter supporters as Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to a PAC seeking to unseat several Democratic legislators who’ve defended the role and budget of traditional public schools.

In future decades, historians will have to grapple with how charter schools became the cause celebre of centrist billionaires-- from Walton to Bloomberg to Broad-- in an age of plutocracy. The historians shouldn’t dismiss the good intentions behind the billionaires’ impulse: the desire to provide students growing up in poverty with the best education possible. But neither should they dismiss their self-exculpation in singling out the deficiencies, both real and exaggerated, of public education as the central reason for the evisceration of the middle class.

  If Wal-Mart, the corporation from which Walton derives her wealth, hadn’t compelled its suppliers to make their products abroad to reduce the price of their goods, more public school students’ parents might have the kind of stable employment and adequate incomes that foster learning-friendly upbringings. Despite the fact that our traditional ladders of mobility-- decent blue-collar and service sector jobs, unions, cross-class marriages-- have largely collapsed, seemingly sentient billionaires insist that teachers and their unions are the main obstacles blocking young people’s escape from poverty.

The poor, or their tribunes, don’t necessarily agree. In the past couple of weeks, both the Movement for Black Lives (50 organizations active in the Black Lives Matter movement) and the NAACP passed resolutions declaring that charter schools increase segregation and leave school districts with both fewer resources and a more challenging student body. While many in minority communities dispute these views, there’s clearly some real skepticism about the merits of charterizing education among the very people it purports to help.

...[C]harter advocates don’t need to win the high-visibility offices to prevail. By spending sufficiently to shift the composition of Democratic caucuses in legislatures, city councils or school boards to the right, they can undermine public education. Whether they mean to or not, by backing more conservative Democrats, they can also impede unrelated progressive initiatives for greater environmental protections and worker rights. And by making Democratic elected officials even more dependent on the mega-donations of the 1%, they make campaign finance reform all the harder to win.

In their mix of good intentions and self-serving blindness, the billionaire education reformers have much in common with some of the upper-class progressives of a century ago, another time of great wealth and pervasive poverty. Some of those progressives, in the tradition of Jane Addams, genuinely sought to diminish the economy’s structural inequities, but others focused more on the presumed moral deficiencies and lack of discipline of the poor. Whatever the merits of charters, the very rich who see them as the great equalizer are no closer to the mark than their Gilded Age predecessors who preached temperance as the answer to squalor.

That's why Blue America has been urging progressives to find out where candidates for local offices stand in regard to public education. Earlier today we celebrated the primary victories of Mike Connolly in Massachusetts and Eloise Reyes in California. Mike beat an entrenched incumbent who has voted to expand for-profit charter school in Massachhusetts, something Mike campaigned against. Similarly, Eloise's opponent has been bought off by the charter school lobbyists, while Eloise is a firm supporter of public schools and for expanding free education on the college level. She pointed me to an OpEd by Ken Pennington in yesterday's Guardian, High school is free in the US. College should be too.

Conservatives have pushed for-profit education schemes on America for decades, insisting private industry can better serve students than our government.

But this week we saw exactly what happens when you let capitalists run college education: ITT Tech.

The school is closing its doors on the heels of a federal crackdown on for-profit institutions that make a buck off of young (and some older) people who want an education and pathway to success.

Research shows that the for-profit sector generally targets lower-income people, communities of color and the elderly with campaigns promising job prospects that may never materialize. All the while, taxpayers and students footed the bill to pad the pockets of shareholders. Millions of dollars in federal financial aid flowed into these schools, and when students graduated they were left deeply in debt. For-profit colleges enroll a tenth of our students but are responsible for generating nearly half of college loan defaults.

At Donald Trump’s for-profit Trump University, a former sales manager admitted they regularly preyed upon vulnerable populations to “separate them from their money.” Students were encouraged to max out credit cards to attend, but were offered only a joke of an education in return.

We let capitalists run our colleges and they screwed it up big time. They left our students with broken promises, inadequate job training and insurmountable debt.

It’s clear that these profit-centric schemes are a failure, and the only prescription moving forward is more government.

Over many decades, Republican lawmakers have spearheaded efforts to cut funding and investments in public higher education, and massive cuts have been accompanied by simultaneous rises in tuition. Forty-six states are spending less in public funds per student than they were before the start of the great recession.

But hope remains if we change course and embrace the socialization of higher education.

In the mid-1800s, Americans began to transition to publicly funded high school education for the vast majority students. It must have been a daunting prospect at the time-- paying for the education of so many children for such an extended period of time, transferring a potential workforce away from productivity for an investment like schooling.

But the experiment paid off. America set itself up for 20th-century success, creating the most educated workforce in the world. It turns out socialized programs like free K-12 education and the GI bill work well.

We as a society consider it immoral not to put somebody through primary and secondary education. Why should higher education be any different?

Numerous studies have mapped out the incredible public benefits of investments in higher education including measurable boosts to economic activity. In the age-old battle between capitalism and socialism, the results are clear for the education sector. For-profit schools are a bust, and America’s public education initiatives on the other hand proved effective as major drivers of economic competitiveness, scientific discovery and cultural development.

We know socialized education is a successful model. It is now incumbent on us to double down on our investment.

Bernie Sanders put free college tuition at public schools on the map in the 2016 presidential debate and we all owe him a debt of gratitude for that service. But we should go further than his plan to provide tuition breaks. Germany in 2014 realized that even a bill as small as $1,300 discouraged students from attending school. In America, there are too many barriers beyond tuition costs holding students back from higher education.

More than one in every two public school students from pre-K through high school qualifies for free or subsidized meals. But what happens when those students go to college? In University of California schools, more than four in 10 students suffer from hunger. And a recent study says more than half of community college students struggle with food security. We should be cognisant of financial barriers outside of the traditional tuition cost in seeking to expand the availability of higher education.

We should take steps in America to erase the cost of tuition, but also to eliminate burdensome fees and cover expenses for food and schooling supplies. We must embrace a comprehensive public model that removes as many barriers to entry as possible.

In the 21st century, America should lead the world in extending public education beyond current bounds. Every child who wants to attend college must be encouraged and empowered to do so at absolutely no cost. It’s good policy for our students, our country and our world.

Trump Fined For Using His Charitable Foundation To Bribe Pam Bondi To Cover Up Trumpanzee University Crimes

Back in June, as a caption to a Trumpanzee gif I wrote that "Hillary isn't my idea of an honest politician but her level of crookedness is nowhere near Trump's," a corollary, I suppose of the lesser-of-two-evils theorem of American politics. Although neither has been charged-- let alone in prison-- it's been known for several months that Trumpanzee bribed Florida's shady Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to drop her investigation into the fraud charges against Trumpanzee University, which had ripped of hundreds of Florida students. Worse, yet, Bondi solicited the bribe from Trump-- a quid pro quo if I ever heard one! AP reported then that Bondi "personally solicited a political contribution from Donald Trump around the same time her office deliberated joining an investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates." The $25,000 was funneled to her PAC-- And Justice For All, illegally, through a tax-deductible charity, a Trump family foundation, on Sept. 17, 2013-- four days after Bondi's office publicly announced she was considering joining a New York state probe of Trump University's activities. As soon as she basically shook Trump down for the $25,000 her office claimed there was "insufficient grounds to proceed." That in spite of "thousands of pages of records related to consumer complaints about Trump University and its affiliates filed with Bondi's office... Many of the Trump-related consumers alleged that they paid money for training materials and personalized instruction which were never delivered." Bind lied to the media and claimed she only got one complain, when in fact, there were at least 20.

Late last week, David Fahrenthold, writing for the Washington Post, reported that Señor Trumpanzee paid an IRS fine for how he paid the bribe, rather than anything to do with the criminal nature of the bribe itself.

Trump's charitable foundation-- through which he funnels other people's money into "charities" he wants to be perceived to be supporting-- paid Bondi's PAC $25,000 to shut down the case, an improper use of a charitable foundation. Slyly Trump tried to cover his tracks by claiming the gift was for an actual charity in Kansas. Once exposed, the Trumpanzee Organization called it a mistake and agreed to the small fine. A Trumpanzee lackey claimed "It was just an honest mistake... It wasn’t done intentionally to hide a political donation, it was just an error."

[T]he Trump Foundation did not notify the IRS of this political donation. Instead, Trump's foundation listed a donation-- also for $25,000-- to a Kansas charity with a name similar to that of Bondi's political group. In fact, Trump's foundation had not given the Kansas group any money.

The prohibited gift was, in effect, replaced with an innocent-sounding but nonexistent donation.

...[W]hen the Trump Foundation sent in its tax filings that year, it compounded the original error by leaving out any mention of a political gift. When the IRS form asked if the Trump Foundation had spent money for political purposes that year, the foundation wrote "No."

Then, the Trump Foundation told the IRS about a gift that did not exist.

The foundation told the IRS that it had given $25,000 to a third group, a charity in Kansas with a similar name, "Justice for All." In fact, the Trump Foundation had not actually sent the Kansas group any money.

This new, incorrect listing had the effect of camouflaging the prohibited gift. Trump's CFO said that the listing of the Kansas group was another mistake, made by the foundation's accountants.

Meanwhile, Bondi has attempted to return the bribe that is likely to end her political career and force her to stand trial one day, but Trump has refused to accept it back!

"Lock up Crooked Hillary Clinton!"

Have You Noticed Trump Is A Fraud As A Businessman Too?

Early Thursday morning Trump was tweeting. "Crooked Hillary Clinton will be a disaster on jobs, the economy, trade, healthcare, the military, guns and just about all else. Obama plus!" Something tells me he's just stoking the lizard-brains of the Trumpist base, not seriously thinking he can win over any new converts to his cause. Just hours before, Adam Davidson, writing for the NY Times' "On Money," warned low-info voters who think they know who Trump is based on his reality TV show and his carefully crafted glitzy appearances, that the man is a con. Behind the Gold Curtain of Donald Trump’s Résumé confirms what observant people have already comcluded: TRump is mostly braggadocio and bluster. His wealth and business acumen have been challenged by knowledgeable sources for many years. Davidson wants to know whether the Trumpster can consolidate the support of business people behind him. "During the last election cycle," he wrote, "Mitt Romney’s business background was a major reason he became the candidate of choice for corporate America; he received huge donations from nearly every major bank, many business-advocacy groups and countless chief executives. But at least so far, such eminences have failed to rally around Trump. The only large corporate donor named in his federal election filings is Aon, the insurance giant; when I called its public-relations office, a seemingly exasperated spokeswoman wanted to make very clear that one employee had given that money and that it did not reflect the views of the company."

Earlier this month, The Times reported that Brian Krzanich, the chief executive of Intel, had planned a fund-raiser for Trump, but the event was mysteriously canceled. Aside from a handful of real-estate developers and investors who have done business with Trump, vocal support from the nation’s corporate elite has been up until now an unusual occurrence. (One rare exception is Peter Thiel, the PayPal billionaire and Gawker persecutor, who backs Trump and has signed on as one of his delegates from California.) I’ve also found next to no support for Trump among economists and business-school professors, a group that included a large contingent of Romney supporters in 2012. Among academic economists, I could find only one: Peter Navarro of the University of California, Irvine, a longtime critic of Chinese trade practices who says he is drawn to Trump’s aggressive stance on trade negotiations.

I asked Trump’s campaign for a list of prominent businesspeople and chief executives who have endorsed him. I was emailed a quote from Trump. “I have too many to mention,” it read. “I get along with everybody.” After further prodding, a campaign spokeswoman provided a list of 10 names, including the chief executives of Nascar and Marvel, as well as several other businesspeople, like Rupert Murdoch and Jack Welch, who opposed Trump for most of the campaign but have recently (and not especially enthusiastically) made statements about party unity.

When I talked to some of the few businesspeople who do support Trump, the common refrain was the one I heard from Andrew Beal: that the specifics of his plans were beside the point, because Trump’s proven instincts as a businessman were all that mattered. Phil Ruffin, a Las Vegas billionaire, said: “I can’t tell you his policies. You’re asking me questions I can’t answer. I don’t think he’s fully developed all the policies he has to develop. The details of which will probably come later.” Stephen Stepanek-- a New Hampshire state representative and a founder of a company called Hampshire Paper-- told me much the same thing. “One of his strengths, as far as I see it: Donald Trump has the unique ability to look at a problem, identify that problem and surround himself with the best possible minds and solve that problem,” he said.

Does he? By many accounts, Mitt Romney did. Romney was an undeniable superstar in the field of private equity, and former business associates praised him as someone who could see a business problem more clearly than others and create powerful, profitable solutions. The professional biography of Trump, by contrast-- though the man is clearly exceptional at something-- hardly inspires such confidence.

Trump’s primary claim to fame is as a Manhattan real-estate developer. He inherited this profession (and his economic worldview) from his father. But it’s worth stressing that within the world of Manhattan real estate, Trump is a relatively minor player. Yes, there are about a dozen buildings in New York City that bear his name, but nearly all are branding relationships, not actual ownership. He sits so far down the pecking order of Manhattan real estate that Adam Pincus, head of research at the industry publication The Real Deal, doesn’t recall ever including Trump or his companies in their major rankings of developers, owners or property managers. Likewise, Trump’s importance in the industry of casinos and luxury resorts is far below what his public reputation might suggest. After multiple bankruptcies, Trump no longer owns any casinos; he owns only nine hotels, with three more said to be “coming soon.”

Through Trump Productions, he has enjoyed remarkable success with his TV show The Apprentice. But of course, that series does not fundamentally belong to him: It was created by Mark Burnett, who cast Trump in the lead. And while Trump’s television franchise at least enjoyed one successful idea before petering out, most of his brand-specific businesses have simply failed outright. The frenetic, panicky way in which he thrusts his name on different products pell-mell-- steaks and ties and wine and bottled water and suits and fragrance-- has engendered what any corporate branding expert would call “brand confusion.” (What are you communicating when you wear a Trump-branded suit-- $143 on Amazon-- to a job interview? That you are brash and ambitious? Cocky on the cheap? Or that you don’t know much about suits?)

His scattershot approach to branding might also hint at cash-flow issues. As a certified billionaire, Mark Cuban recently said in a radio interview: “When you’re putting your name on steaks, you’re putting your name on water, you’re putting your name on playing cards, you’re putting your name on all this nonsense, right, you’re not going to make big bucks, no matter what.” He recalls asking Trump: “What the hell are you doing? Are you that desperate for money?” Based on his read of Trump’s election filings, which showed only $165 million in liquid assets, Cuban harbors doubts about whether Trump is even a billionaire as he claims.

Recent revelations about Trump University, the failed for-profit college that Trump founded in 2005, have centered around the savagely cynical manner in which sales reps separated students from their money, with an array of high-pressure tactics that included encouraging financially challenged prospects to open up new credit-card accounts in order to pay. But the more striking question is Cuban’s: why a man with as much money as Trump claims to have, presiding over as many successful ventures as Trump claims to own, would stoop to start up a boiler-room business like Trump University, squeezing out revenues from would-be students a few thousand dollars at a time. The fact that he did-- even if that decision doesn’t point, as Cuban suggests, to an outright desperation for cash-- speaks volumes about Trump’s utter inability to calibrate risk and reward.

When you try to weigh Trump’s record as a businessman, you quickly find that there’s nothing of substance. Think of the characteristics you might find noteworthy in a business leader: A vision of the future? A single-minded focus on excellence? Discrimination and judgment? He’s no visionary, no Steve Jobs who forges new things. Trump’s accomplishments have come from replicating the products and services of others. He seems to lack any instinct for righting a sinking ship. Despite the declarations of his backers that he’ll “get the best people,” his organizations have hardly been magnets for talent-- as evidenced by the fact that his leadership teams so often consist of people whose last names are Trump or whose sole accomplishment is having worked for him.

Despite all this, Trump receives extremely high marks among voters for how he would supposedly handle the economy: A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll in May found he outpolled Clinton by 11 points on the issue. The biggest mystery is why so many voters-- apparently including, at least for now, some who plan to vote for Hillary Clinton-- seem to have fallen for his act. Perhaps it’s simply the fact that in the absence of real information about Trump the businessman, Americans have spent years watching him play the part. His true calling seems to be acting like a successful businessman-- a performance made all the more impressive by its distance from reality.

Nothing seems to shake the faith in the Trumpist base (i.e., life's losers) in their man. In fact, now that Speaker Paul Ryan noted publicly that Trump's gratuitous attack on an Indiana-born federal judge as a biased Mexican is "the textbook definition of a racist comment," Ryan has come under attack again by Trumpists, who admire Trump's racism and xenophobia-- even if they claim not to recognize his self-destructive and often unhinged racist and xenophobic attacks for what they are. As for his crookedness, how many Trumpists will read today's NY Times piece about how Trump turned his bankruptcies into personal bonanzas that forced others-- taxpayers included-- to pay while he enriched himself?

On the presidential campaign trail, Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, often boasts of his success in Atlantic City, of how he outwitted the Wall Street firms that financed his casinos and rode the value of his name to riches. A central argument of his candidacy is that he would bring the same business prowess to the Oval Office, doing for America what he did for his companies.

“Atlantic City fueled a lot of growth for me,” Mr. Trump said in an interview in May, summing up his 25-year history here. “The money I took out of there was incredible.”

His audacious personality and opulent properties brought attention-- and countless players-- to Atlantic City as it sought to overtake Las Vegas as the country’s gambling capital. But a close examination of regulatory reviews, court records and security filings by the New York Times leaves little doubt that Mr. Trump’s casino business was a protracted failure. Though he now says his casinos were overtaken by the same tidal wave that eventually slammed this seaside city’s gambling industry, in reality he was failing in Atlantic City long before Atlantic City itself was failing.

But even as his companies did poorly, Mr. Trump did well. He put up little of his own money, shifted personal debts to the casinos and collected millions of dollars in salary, bonuses and other payments. The burden of his failures fell on investors and others who had bet on his business acumen.

In three interviews with The Times since late April, Mr. Trump acknowledged in general terms that high debt and lagging revenues had plagued his casinos. He did not recall details about some issues, but did not question The Times’s findings. He repeatedly emphasized that what really mattered about his time in Atlantic City was that he had made a lot of money there.

...“People underestimated Donald Trump’s ability to pillage the company,” said Sebastian Pignatello, a private investor who at one time held stock in the Trump casinos worth more than $500,000. “He drove these companies into bankruptcy by his mismanagement, the debt and his pillaging.”

Is Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi In Prison Yet? Sure... Right Next To Rick Snyder's Cell

Hillary isn't my idea of an honest politician but her level of crookedness is nowhere near Trump's

As we mentioned last weekend, Pam Bondi took a bribe from Donald Trump to halt an investigation into his fraudulent Trump "University" scheme. In fact, she directly solicited the $25,000 bribe from Trump-- an absolute quid pro quo for shutting down her office's investigation. By Monday, AP was painting a rather bleak picture of Biondi in action, now a Trump campaign surrogate. AP made it clear that Bondi "personally solicited a political contribution from Donald Trump around the same time her office deliberated joining an investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates." The $25,000 was funneled to her PAC-- And Justice For All, illegally, through a tax-deductible charity, a Trump family foundation, on Sept. 17, 2013-- four days after Bondi's office publicly announced she was considering joining a New York state probe of Trump University's activities. As soon as she basically shook Trump down for the $25,000 her office claimed there was "insufficient grounds to proceed." That in spite of "thousands of pages of records related to consumer complaints about Trump University and its affiliates filed with Bondi's office... Many of the Trump-related consumers alleged that they paid money for training materials and personalized instruction which were never delivered." Bind lied to the media and claimed she only got one complain, when in fact, there were at least 20.

The timing of the donation by Trump is notable because the now presumptive Republican presidential nominee has said he expects and receives favors from politicians to whom he gives money.

"When I want something I get it," Trump said at an Iowa rally in January. "When I call, they kiss my ass. It's true."

In addition to the money given by his foundation, Trump himself has donated $253,500 since in Florida since 1999, most of it going to Republican candidates, the state party or political committees affiliated with GOP officials. His daughter, Ivanka Trump, also gave a $500 check to Bondi a week before her father's money came in, as well as another $25,000 to the Republican Party of Florida the following year.

Ivanka is notorious for funneling Trump family money to the sleaziest and most corrupt politicians Trump is working. Donald Norcross, brother of New Jersey political machine boss George Norcross, has accepted over ten thousand dollars in bribes from Ivanka while Papa Trump was scamming tax benefits for his New Jersey properties-- not just in Atlantic City but nonsense like calling his golf courses "goat farms" so they could get agricultural tax deductions. She gave another $10,000 to the New Jersey Democratic Party at the same time. Ivanka has also contributed generously to the most blatantly corrupt cash-on-delivery whores in Washington-- from career criminals Chuck Schumer and John McCain to Charlie Rangel and Cory Booker. And, of course tens of thousands to the DCCC, RNC, DSCC, NRCC, NRSC... the whole array of crooked Beltway money machines that have shamelessly sucked up to the Trump family for years.

The Orlando Sentinel's Scott Maxwell has been holding Bondi's feet to the fire by comparing her corruption in this case with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's devotion to protecting the New Yorkers who were scammed and fleeced by Trump, while Bondi, classic gangster style, was just looking to get a cut from herself. This week Sentinel readers got to think about this statement:

It was wildly unethical for her to accept this money. No self-respecting prosecutor would take money from a potential target... It's time for an independent investigator to probe this.... [I]f you want to try to defend Bondi's actions, try finishing this sentence for me: "I think it is perfectly appropriate for a prosecutor to take big chunks of money from someone she has been asked to investigate because ...."

If you can finish that sentence with a straight face, OK. I can't.

And you know what?

I don't think Pam Bondi can either.

I have repeatedly asked her to explain why she thinks her actions were appropriate.

She has yet to provide an answer... probably because she knows there isn't a legitimate one.

Trump Knows What He Knows-- Orders His Pathetic Surrogates To Suspend All Thinking 'Til November

Were you laughing when Trump whined it was inappropriate for surrogate and Adelson-nominee for Trumpish running-mate Newt Gingrich to defend Judge Gonzalo Curiel against Trump's bizarre racist onslaught? The Newtster responded by suggesting Trump might ride into the GOP convention on an elephant but later reversed himself entirely and said, "Trump's complaints about the judge... are valid and reflect a growing pattern of politicized justice." Huh? How did that happen?

Well... some of the hapless campaign surrogates he's given cash payments to-- like Florida Attorney General Pam Biondi, who dropped Florida's suit against Trump University for a $25,000 bribe, were told to intensify criticism of Judge Curiel, something that is driving most Republican office holders insane. The childish and thuggish Trump sees the world in terms of proving himself right in the series of personal spats he starts every waking hour. And he's dragging dragged the GOP into that world. According to Bloomberg reporters, rather than apologize or just let the issue die away, like most Republicans-- including his own campaign staff-- have urged, "an embattled Donald Trump urgently rallied his most visible supporters to defend his attacks on a federal judge's Mexican ancestry during a conference call on Monday in which he ordered them to question the judge's credibility and impugn reporters as racists."

"We will overcome," Trump said, according to two supporters who were on the call and requested anonymity to share their notes with Bloomberg Politics. "And I’ve always won and I’m going to continue to win. And that’s the way it is."

There was no mention of apologizing or backing away from his widely criticized remarks about U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is overseeing cases against the Trump University real-estate program.

When former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer interrupted the discussion to inform Trump that his own campaign had asked surrogates to stop talking about the lawsuit in an e-mail on Sunday, Trump repeatedly demanded to know who sent the memo, and immediately overruled his staff.

"Take that order and throw it the hell out," Trump said.

Told the memo was sent by Erica Freeman, a staffer who circulates information to surrogates, Trump said he didn't know her. He openly questioned how the campaign could defend itself if supporters weren't allowed to talk.

"Are there any other stupid letters that were sent to you folks?" Trump said. "That's one of the reasons I want to have this call, because you guys are getting sometimes stupid information from people that aren't so smart."

Brewer, who was on the call with prominent Republicans like Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, interjected again. "You all better get on the page," she told him.

In response, Trump said that he aspired to hold regular calls with surrogates in order to coordinate the campaign's message, a role usually reserved for lower ranking staffers than the nominee himself.

The e-mailed memo, sent by Freeman on Sunday, was cc'd to campaign manager Corey Lewandowski; Hope Hicks, Trump's top communications staffer; and Rick Gates, a top aide to campaign chairman Paul Manafort. It informed surrogates that "they're not authorized to discuss matters concerning the Trump Organization including corporate news such as the Trump University case.”

"The best possible response is ‘the case will be tried in the courtroom in front of a jury-- not in the media,’” according to the e-mail, obtained by Bloomberg Politics.

We all need to look into this horrible small man's soul:



These soulless surrogates of his are all looking for jobs in his imaginary administration. I wonder at what point they realize it's a losing proposition they won't quickly rebound from and start abandoning him. What will be next-- and worse-- after Judge Curiel? Yesterday Sen. Mark Kirk un-endorsed Trump and one-time running-mate contender Morning Joe called for Republicans to figure out how to get away from him. Arizona Senator Jeff Flake told reporters Monday that Trump was "not my first choice nor my 17th choice... I hope to be able to support the nominee. I certainly can't right now." The best way to help stop Trump and the only way to actually make America great again... here:

Republican Politicians Find Themselves Hopelessly In Trump's Toxic Embrace

Claiming Trump is the lesser of two evils-- as many, if not, most of his Republican congressional supporters now do-- won't save the GOP from Trumpism. When asked if Trump would make a good president, top Oklahoma establishment Republican, Tom Cole, couldn't say he would. "He's a work in progress... To me this is a question of alternatives. I'm comfortable that he will be a better president than Hillary Clinton." Paul Ryan, Trump's latest reluctant endorser-- one who wants everyone to know he is holding his nose when doing so-- "did not," points out the Associated Press, "express support for any of Trump's policies"-- nor for "his confrontational style." Ryan: "he clearly says and does things I don't agree with and I've had to speak up on time to time when that has occurred, and I'll continue to do that if that's necessary-- I hope it's not."

Several other Trump backers on Friday had trouble detailing which of his policies they support and expressed continued concern about his temperament as president.

And, keeping the candidate at arm's length, still others reassured nervous colleagues by citing constitutional protections that could help limit the risks.

"I still believe we have the institutions of government that would restrain someone who seeks to exceed their constitutional obligations," Arizona Sen. John McCain told the New York Times. "We have a Congress. We have the Supreme Court. We're not Romania."

"Our institutions, including the press, are still strong enough to prevent" unconstitutional acts, he said.

New York Rep. Peter King, another Trump backer, suggested his party's resistance to the New York businessman is fueled by his outsider status. While Trump has long been a political donor, he has no direct experience in governing and remains unfamiliar to many GOP leaders.

"It's not like the boardroom when you can just fire somebody. He's not going to be able to fire Nancy Pelosi," King told the AP on Friday. "It's not a question of intelligence or ability but is he ready for all the uncertainties that go with politics and government?"

Georgia Sen. David Perdue offered a simple message for his reluctant colleagues: "Get over it. Do you want Hillary Clinton?"

"I mean, that's the alternative," the Republican senator told the AP. "This is not about whether we're agreeing with every single thing Donald Trump says. We never agree 100 percent with any presidential candidate."

...GOP operative Tim Miller, among a shrinking group of vocal anti-Trump Republicans, offered a warning to any party leaders who believe they can influence Trump by joining his campaign.

"If you sign up with Trump, you get unadulterated Donald and all the bad that comes with it," he said.

Every Republican-- from Speaker Ryan and Majority Leader McCarthy right down through House backbenchers proudly wearing "Make America Great Again" baseball caps like Cresent Hardy and Rod Blum-- who embraces Trump will be tarred and scared by his toxicity. The cartoon above depicts Florida's corrupt Trumpist Attorney General Pam Bondi, one of Trump's earliest supporters in Florida, whose name was even bandied about as a possible running mate for a time. When Florida students started complaining they were being ripped off and conned by Trump's so-called "university," a scam operation set up to separate desperate people from their money, Pam Biondi was one a group of both Democratic and Republican attorneys general across the country to file suit. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman declared it a "straight-up fraud." Greg Abbott, then Teaxs' Republican Attorney General, now the state's governor, opened a civil investigation of "possibly deceptive trade practices."

Bondi and Abbott were different from other Attorneys General inasmuch as they both accepted bribes from Trump to drop their states' suits. AP reported that "Abbott's probe was quietly dropped in 2010 when Trump University agreed to end its operations in Texas. Trump subsequently donated $35,000 to Abbott's successful gubernatorial campaign, according to records... Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi briefly considered joining with Schneiderman in a multi-state suit against Trump University. Three days after Bondi's spokeswoman was quoted in local media reports as saying the office was reviewing the New York lawsuit, the Donald J. Trump Foundation made a $25,000 contribution to a political fundraising committee supporting Bondi's re-election campaign. Bondi, a Republican, soon dropped her investigation, citing insufficient grounds to proceed."



It's hardly a secret that Greg Abbott and Pam Bondi are corrupt politicians who take payoffs and Trump, who brags about buying politicians, is hardly the first criminal to bribe Bondi and Abbott for special treatment. But the attention to Trump University as a criminal enterprise is embarrassing to both of the ambitious politicians now. When Adam Liptak reported in yesterday's NY Times that scholars see Trump as a threat to the rule of law, callow political hacks like Bondi and Abbott, as well as pusillanimous members of Congress, from Lamar Smith and Jeb Hensarling in Texas to Lee Zeldin and Peter King on Long Island, were very much on his mind. "Trump’s blustery attacks on the press," he wrote, "complaints about the judicial system and bold claims of presidential power collectively sketch out a constitutional worldview that shows contempt for the First Amendment, the separation of powers and the rule of law, legal experts across the political spectrum say. Even as much of the Republican political establishment lines up behind its presumptive nominee, many conservative and libertarian legal scholars warn that electing Mr. Trump is a recipe for a constitutional crisis."

With five months to go before Election Day, Mr. Trump has already said he would “loosen” libel laws to make it easier to sue news organizations. He has threatened to sic federal regulators on his critics. He has encouraged rough treatment of demonstrators.

His proposal to bar Muslims from entry into the country tests the Constitution’s guarantees of religious freedom, due process and equal protection.

And, in what was a tipping point for some, he attacked Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel of the Federal District Court in San Diego, who is overseeing two class actions against Trump University.

Mr. Trump accused the judge of bias, falsely said he was Mexican and seemed to issue a threat.

“They ought to look into Judge Curiel, because what Judge Curiel is doing is a total disgrace,” Mr. Trump said. “O.K.? But we will come back in November. Wouldn’t that be wild if I am president and come back and do a civil case?”

David Post, a retired law professor who now writes for the Volokh Conspiracy, a conservative-leaning law blog, said those comments had crossed a line.

“This is how authoritarianism starts, with a president who does not respect the judiciary,” Mr. Post said. “You can criticize the judicial system, you can criticize individual cases, you can criticize individual judges. But the president has to be clear that the law is the law and that he enforces the law. That is his constitutional obligation.”

“If he is signaling that that is not his position, that’s a very serious constitutional problem,” Mr. Post said.

Beyond the attack on judicial independence is a broader question of Mr. Trump’s commitment to the separation of powers and to the principles of federalism enshrined in the Constitution. Randy E. Barnett, a law professor at Georgetown and an architect of the first major challenge to President Obama’s health care law, said he had grave doubts on both fronts.

“You would like a president with some idea about constitutional limits on presidential powers, on congressional powers, on federal powers,” Professor Barnett said, “and I doubt he has any awareness of such limits.”

...Post said there was a difference between Mr. Obama’s view of executive power and that of Mr. Trump. “Whatever you think of Obama’s position on immigration, he is willing to submit to the courts,” he said. “There is no suggestion that he will disobey if the courts rule against him.”

Several law professors said they were less sure about Mr. Trump, citing the actions of another populist, President Andrew Jackson, who refused to enforce an 1832 Supreme Court decision arising from a clash between Georgia and the Cherokee Nation.

“I can easily see a situation in which he would take the Andrew Jackson line,” Professor Epstein said, referring to a probably apocryphal comment attributed to Jackson about Chief Justice John Marshall: “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”

November isn't just about the White House. Believe me, no matter who the next president is, we are going to need as many strong progressive members of Congress as possible. nd that isn't something we can leave up to the corrupt conservative DCCC. Please consider contributing to the grassroots campaigns of the progressive Blue America congressional candidates who are opposing the vile Trumpist Republicans here:

With His Experience As A University Founder, Would Trump Be America's Education President?

Wonder when more voters will start seeing Trump as the con man he is? If the widely mistrusted and disliked Hillary Clinton is the Democratic Party nominee, her only shot to win is if enough voters are more repulsed by Trump than by her. We've been covering the slow-boiling Trump University scandal for several years-- long before he came down the escalator to announce he is running for president by branding Mexican immigrants rapists. Trump's scam-- which he started in 2005-- began unravelling in 2010 when dozens of students started complaining to the authorities in New York, California, Texas and Illinois that the net reprise was a scam and that they had been hustled out of substantial money. Trump was defiant and asserted that the law suit in New York was politically-motivated because his attempted bribe to Attorney General Eric Schneiderman ($12,500) wasn't enough and that Schneiderman wanted more.

Today, the New York Daily News, probably the newspaper that knows Trump best of any publication in the world, labeled Trump a ripoff artist. They reported that "Federal court documents unsealed Tuesday by Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the Indiana-born judge called a 'Mexican' by Trump, revealed a 'playbook' that made marks out would-be real estate investors lured by the Trump name... [starting with a] sales force’s revolting practice of requiring registrants to reveal their incomes, savings and debts so that sellers could rate their likely prospects and leverage the information for later use." The playbook reveals that Trump's employees were instructed to "Collect personalized information that you can utilize during closing time. (For example: are they a single parent of three children that may need money for food?)... Every single company goes into debt when they are first starting out, EVERY SINGLE BUSINESS! The profits pay off the debt and before you know it, your new real-estate business will start making amazing returns."

Last night, Michael Barbaro and Steve Eder, reporting on newly released testimony for the New York Times wrote that it wasn't just the students exposing Trump's scheme, but even high level employees of the enterprise, who portrayed it as "an unscrupulous business that relied on high-pressure sales tactics, employed unqualified instructors, made deceptive claims and exploited vulnerable students willing to pay tens of thousands for Mr. Trump’s insights." Does it sound worse than how the media has presented Hillary for the last couple of decades?

One sales manager for Trump University, Ronald Schnackenberg, recounted how he was reprimanded for not pushing a financially struggling couple hard enough to sign up for a $35,000 real estate class, despite his conclusion that it would endanger their economic future. He watched with disgust, he said, as a fellow Trump University salesman persuaded the couple to purchase the class anyway.

“I believe that Trump University was a fraudulent scheme,” Mr. Schnackenberg wrote in his testimony, “and that it preyed upon the elderly and uneducated to separate them from their money.”

For Mr. Trump, whose presidential campaign hinges on his reputation as a businessman, the newly unsealed documents offer an unflattering snapshot of his career since branching out, over the past decade, from building skyscrapers into endeavors that cashed in on his name to sell everything from water and steaks to ties and education.

...The most striking documents were written testimony from former employees of Trump University who said they had become disenchanted with the university’s tactics and culture. Corrine Sommer, an event manager, recounted how colleagues encouraged students to open up as many credit cards as possible to pay for classes that many of them could not afford.

“It’s O.K., just max out your credit card,” Ms. Sommer recalled their saying.

Jason Nicholas, a sales executive at Trump University, recalled a deceptive pitch used to lure students-- that Mr. Trump would be “actively involved” in their education. “This was not true,” Mr. Nicholas testified, saying Mr. Trump was hardly involved at all. Trump University, Mr. Nicholas concluded, was “a facade, a total lie.”



...Trump had fought Tuesday’s release of previously sealed documents in the case. In an apparent attempt to discredit the judge in the case, Gonzalo P. Curiel, Mr. Trump called him [at a campaign event, no less] biased and a “hater of Donald Trump,” and he sought to draw attention to the judge’s ethnic background-- “we believe Mexican,” Mr. Trump said. (Mr. Curiel was born in Indiana; he is of Mexican descent.)

If he becomes president, maybe he could open up the "school" again and teach all kinds of courses. Statistics might be a popular class, using videos like this one:



Will all this be enough to persuade skeptical voters that Trump really is worse than Clinton? They're hardly typical voters but Fortune 500 CEOs are convinced. 58% favor Clinton to 42% for Trump. The survey didn't ask about Bernie, but this probably isn't his demo anyway.

Big company CEOs tend to lean heavily Republican. But most of the 500 operate on a global scale, and many disagree with Trump’s proposals for raising trade barriers. Some also have been rattled by his stance on immigration, or by his comments showing little understanding of public finance. For instance, Trump told CNBC that if interest rates rose significantly, “we can buy back government debt at a discount”-- a statement that ignores the fact that the government would have to borrow money at higher interest rates to buy back old debt, making any such transaction a wash for the government.