September 23, 2016

LA Times Calls Trump Presidency A 'Catastrophe' | Trump Foundation Exists For Trump

September 23, 2016/ Anne Enke

Tale of Two Cities: Trump's helps Trumps While the Clintons' Is the Real Deal The Daily Beast

Since 2001, Trump has given $3.8 million to charities, the very limited public record on his giving shows. That includes a recent $1 million gift to a veterans’ charity as part of his campaign to win votes -- and it's not clear that it was actually Trump's money.

Johnson says that Trump claims that over his lifetime, he's given $102 million to charities, but without tax returns he can make up any number he wishes. Work to validate these claims by contacting America's top charities and asking them to document a Trump donation have come up generally empty-handed. And we know that Trump has made almost no contributions to his own Trump Foundation since 2008.

Before commenting on the Clintons' charitable giving, I want to remind people that no only have they made public almost 40 years of tax returns, but they paid income taxes at the highest rates at a federal, state and local level. With all the false claims against the Clintons, they proudly pay their fair share of taxes and no entity has accused them of not doing so. The tax returns don't lie. ~ Anne

Since 2001 the Clintons have given $23.2 million to charity, their income tax returns reveal. The Clintons have released 39 consecutive years of tax returns.

Like Trump, the Clintons give primarily to a foundation bearing the family name, the Clinton Family Foundation.

Trump claims he is worth more than $10 billion. That means his verified gifts since 2001 come to less than four one-hundredths of 1 percent of his claimed wealth. Even if we accept his claim of $102 million—and count it as all being donated since 2001—his total giving would be just 1 percent of his claimed net worth.

The Clintons are worth no more than $62 million, their financial disclosure forms show. Their charitable donations since 2001 come to at least 37.6 percent of their maximum net worth."

Hillary Clinton would make a sober, smart and pragmatic president. Donald Trump would be a catastrophe. Los Angeles Times

She stands for rational, comprehensive immigration reform and an improvement rather than an abandonment of the Affordable Care Act. She supports abortion rights, wants to raise the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour, hopes to reform the sentencing laws that have overcrowded American prisons, would repair the Voting Rights Act and help students to leave college without enormous debt. Abroad she would strengthen America’s traditional alliances, continue the Obama administration’s efforts to “degrade and ultimately defeat” Islamic State and negotiate with potential adversaries such as Russia and China in a way that balances realism and the protection of American interests. Unlike Trump, Clinton accepts the prevailing science on climate change and considers the issue to be “the defining challenge of our time.”

Perhaps her greatest strength is her pragmatism — her ability to build consensus and solve problems. As president, she would be flexible enough and experienced enough to cut across party lines and work productively with her political opponents. As first lady, she worked with Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) to create the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides healthcare coverage to more than 8 million children. As a senator, she was instrumental in persuading a Republican president to deliver billions of dollars in aid to New York after September 11. As secretary of State, she led the charge to persuade nations around the world to impose the tough sanctions on Iran that led to the landmark nuclear agreement, and she negotiated a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

Hillary Clinton Headlines September 23, 2016

Clinton, hoping to reach millennials, submits to mockery on 'Between Two Ferns' Politico

Is Hillary's Wonkiness Wasted on a Polarized America? New York Magazine

Clinton has lead but is vulnerable on trust, connection with voters McClatchy DC

Wall Street Is Starting to Get Freaked Out About Donald Trump New York Magazine

The GOP's Jewish Donors Are Abandoning Trump FiveThirtyEight

Poll: Clinton has big lead over Trump among Hispanic voters Politico

Clinton's real millennial problem: young Americans are less loyal to Democrats VOX

'The West Wing' Cast to Stump in Ohio for Hillary Clinton Rolling Stone

Democratic liberals, moderates feud over public option Politico

Donald Trump, Sex Pistol The Atlantic

Anthony Weiner Reportedly Had an Online Relationship With a 15-Year-Old, and It Got Gross New York Magazine

September 15, 2016

The Trump Organization Is A National Security Nightmare For A Trump Presidency | Ivanka Trump Aborts Cosmo Interview

September 15, 2016/ Anne Enke

How the Trump Organization's Foreign Business Ties Upend U.S. National Security Newsweek

This very important article by Kurt Eichenwald is one of the first to look deeply into the Trump organization and the heap of conflicts of interest and ethical problems that would exist in a Trump presidency. The candidate replies that his kids will run the business while he devotes himself to making America great again. Trump refers to this as a 'blind trust' arrangement, which is technically incorrect. The article also touches on important info on the Clinton Foundation. It's doubtful that this article will have any impact on Trump voters, but any citizen concerned about how a Trump presidency could read it beginning to end.

"The Trump Organization is not like the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, the charitable enterprise that has been the subject of intense scrutiny about possible conflicts for the Democratic presidential nominee. There are allegations that Hillary Clinton bestowed benefits on contributors to the foundation in some sort of “pay to play” scandal when she was secretary of state, but that makes no sense because there was no “pay.” Money contributed to the foundation was publicly disclosed and went to charitable efforts, such as fighting neglected tropical diseases that infect as many as a billion people. The financials audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the global independent accounting company, and the foundation’s tax filings show that about 90 percent of the money it raised went to its charitable programs. (Trump surrogates have falsely claimed that it was only 10 percent and that the rest was used as a Clinton “slush fund.”) No member of the Clinton family received any cash from the foundation, nor did it finance any political campaigns. In fact, like the Clintons, almost the entire board of directors works for free."

The 'new liberal economics' is the key to understanding Hillary Clinton's policies VOX

VOX writes that both the Democratic primary and now the general election shows how the party is shifting on the subject of economic policy. Hillary Clinton's policy proposals and the Democratic platform reflect this new thinking.

Key planks now governing the Democratic thinking include:

Inequality is not a regrettable but inevitable byproduct of an efficient economy, nor a temporary, self-correcting trend. It’s driven by policy choices, and new choices can make a difference.

The economy will not simply bounce back from any weaknesses, as was assumed under Alan Greenspan’s Great Moderation. Rather, there are deep structural problems that include a global savings glut and unwillingness by US companies to make investments.

"Nudging" the private market is not always the best way to deliver core goods and economic security. Deploying government services directly can be more effective.

Ivanka Trump on Her Father's New Child Care and Maternity Leave Policy Cosmopolitan

On Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump released a child care and maternity leave plan, one that offers new mothers only -- not fathers -- six weeks of paid maternity leave, tax deductions for stay-at-home parents, and dependent care savings accounts for families. America is the only industrialized country in the world that does not offer federally-mandated family leave, an idea that Republicans have lobbied against for decades. The campaign hopes that this idea, supported by a newly-launched Women Empowerment Tour, will help boost its highly-negative image among women voters — a deficit estimated at 65 percent in a late August ABC News/Washington Post poll.

Trump credits his highly-visible daughter, 34-year-old Ivanka Trump, an executive at the Trump Organization, mother of three and fashion designer, as the originator of the new policy. Ivanka joined her father in Pennsylvania on Tuesday evening and published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal outlining the policy. Cosmopolitan.com spoke with Ivanka over the phone Wednesday morning about her father’s new family leave and child care policy in what became a fiery interview.

Asked to explain how his newly stated policy lined up with Donald Trump's 2004 comments lamenting the toll of maternity leave on companies, Ivanka pushed back against the question, accusing the writer of 'editorializing' and questioning her with 'hostility'. At the time, Trump said pregnancy is "a wonderful thing for the woman, it's a wonderful thing for the husband, it's certainly an inconvenience for a business. And whether people want to say that or not, the fact is it is an inconvenience for a person that is running a business."

“My father obviously has a track record of decades of employing women at every level of his company, and supporting women, and supporting them in their professional capacity, and enabling them to thrive outside of the office and within,” she said. “To imply otherwise is an unfair characterization of his track record and his support of professional women.”

“You said he made those comments,” she said. “I don't know that he said those comments.”

Prior to her ending her interview ahead of schedule, the businesswoman was also asked to explain why the family plan did not include paternity leave and how it would apply to gay male couples. A competing plan long-ago published on the Hillary Clinton website includes fathers. In response, Ivanka Trump insisted that her father’s plan was “a giant leap from where we are today,” but acknowledged the priority was on the mother.

“The plan, right now, is focusing on mothers, whether they be in same-sex marriages or not,” she said.