Stable Genius Liberal

Trump Gets $25 Million Tax Write-Off For Trump University Settlement

Think of it as a bailout. We taxpayers are bailing out Trump University. Because that’s totally fair.

Trump’s big infrastructure plan? It’s a trap.

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.

If you voted for new infrastructure, you were conned.

Jon Stewart Brilliantly Points Out The Most Important Question No One Asked Trump During The Election

This gets to the point. MAGA was about feelings. It was never about data or policy or reality. It was always about feelings.

Trump can now loot millions of dollars from the Secret Service with no disclosure

> by asking for Secret Service protection for family members who fly on his plane, Donald Trump can directly funnel taxpayer money into his own pocket.

> Justin Bachman at Bloomberg has the story:

> For any of the Trump or Pence clans assigned a protective detail due to safety risks— and the rancor of the 2016 vote could well produce many — Secret Service travel on a Trump-owned plane means the agency would need to reimburse the aircraft’s owner. In this case, the president.

Donald Trump’s administration is going to be a bonanza for bankers

> Trump’s pose as an anti-finance populist may be the single greatest trick of his entire campaign. Alongside some rhetoric, after all, Trump has an actual policy agenda that he is running on — and that agenda is incredibly favorable to bankers. He wants less regulation of banks and lower taxes for hedge fund and private equity managers.

> And despite repeatedly attacking Clinton for her ties to Wall Street, Trump has close ties to the banking industry himself. His real estate empire has created a network of conflicts of interest (and opportunities to massively enrich himself) never before seen in an American president.

Generation Snowflake? Not the millennials I know Add to …

There is no more fragile ego in the universe than the man who, after winning an election, labels protests about his competence “very unfair.” If the charge against certain younger members of the electorate is that they can’t handle views contrary to their own, the new commander-in-chief is a beacon of childish pique. This is a man who would not acknowledge the validity of the contest he won until he won it. Sad!

The Transition Is A Mess — And The Trump Base Is Unfazed

Trump’s base thought you could repeal and replace Obamacare in 100 days. It’s a waste of breath to explain how complicated a transition is. They’ll just blame any Trump failures on Obama anyway. Use this time to document all the ways Trump is conning them.

Donald Trump will wield the biggest media operation in the history of the U.S. presidency

“ The Ford situation provides the first look at what news about the Trump administration will be like once the president-elect is sworn in come January. On one side, there’s the traditional media, already plenty maligned after an exhausting election. On the other, there’s the collection of media entities that have formed around Trump. Let’s call it the Trump News Network (TNN for short).

TNN provides a way for Trump to leapfrog the traditional press entirely. Particularly for supporters of Trump, TNN will serve as their primary news source, unchecked by the much-loathed mainstream media. For the rest, it’ll be a well-oiled propaganda machine capable of muddying the waters of even straightforward news. ”

Guess which candidate’s foundation was caught in an illegal campaign funding scheme?

“recently he’s found out that Trump’s charitable foundation made an illegal campaign contribution to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (this reporting is based, in turn, in part on work done by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington). Then when they found out they had broken the law, they kinda sorta corrected the error but didn’t actually follow their legal obligation to get the money back.

It’s all at least a little suspicious”

High crimes and misdemeanors as of day one.

NYTimes: Trump Drops Threat of New Hillary Clinton Investigation

Trump Drops Threat of New Hillary Clinton Investigation

Also, I’ve decided not to announce a Papal decree. Because, like Trump, I lack the authority to do so. I’m also refraining from asking Starfleet to violate the prime directive. Same reason.