Money laundering to get your children into the most honored universities

What will it take to get my kids into UCLA, USC, Stanford, or another Ivy League university? Do I have to bribe someone?

Can money buy anything you want even if it means you cheat? Apparently for many wealthy people the answer is Yes!

Money laundering is the generic term used to describe the process by which criminals disguise the original ownership and control of the proceeds of criminal conduct by making such proceeds appear to have derived from a legitimate source. The processes by which criminally derived property may be laundered are extensive.

The parents, who were charged last month with conspiracy to commit fraud, were charged on Tuesday in a superseding indictment with conspiring to launder bribes and other payments through a charity run by Rick Singer, the mastermind of the scam, as well as by transferring money into the United States to promote the fraud, prosecutors said.

If Lori Loughlin and 15 other parents don’t plead guilty they could face some real prison time. Did these people understand that their actions were at a minimum fraudulent? What did they think bribes given to a non-existent charity was if not an act of money laundering?

I would love to sit on the jury to hear their defense. That is not going to happen. It appears the case will be tried in Boston.

Mystery of the Bully

U.S. president Donald Trump is a Bully!

From Psychology Today:
Bullying is a distinctive pattern of harming and humiliating others, specifically those who are in some way smaller, weaker, younger or in any way more vulnerable than the bully. Bullying is not garden-variety aggression; it is a deliberate and repeated attempt to cause harm to others of lesser power. It’s a very durable behavioral style, largely because bullies get what they want—at least at first. Bullies are made, not born, and it happens at an early age, if the normal aggression of 2-year-olds isn’t handled with consistency.

Studies show that bullies lack prosocial behavior, are untroubled by anxiety, and do not understand others’ feelings. They misread the intentions of others, often imputing hostility in neutral situations. They typically see themselves quite positively. Those who chronically bully have strained relationships with parents and peers. Bullies couldn’t exist without victims, and they don’t pick on just anyone; those singled out lack assertiveness even in nonthreatening situations and radiate fear long before they ever encounter a bully. Increasingly, children are growing up without the kinds of play experiences in which children develop social skills and learn how to solve social problems.

Trump’s methods to obtain the results he wants all can be connected to the behavior described in the Psychology Today answer to the question What is bullying?

Threats of closing the border to Mexico, threat of withdrawing from NATO, threat of tariffs applied to Chinese exports, threat of withdrawing from NAFTA, threatening the firing of the Federal Reserve Chairman, and so many other threats The weak cower and submit to his demands but those standing up to Trump cause him to back down.

While I do not agree with everyone who stands up to Trump, they have proven to the rest that you don’t have to surrender to his threats. Standing up are Nancy Pelosi (No, we won’t budget the money you want to build a wall), Mexico (No we won’t pay for a wall), China (We will respond with tariffs on the goods you want to ship to our country, North Korea (No, we want sanctions ended before we will negotiate), Europe (No to all of your demands), and then there is GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell who told him there will be no replacement to the Affordable Care Act (Obama Care) until after the 2020 election.

Trump, in his style of never backing down always tells us that it was his decision to reach an agreement on trade with China and his decision to postpone a new health plan until after he is re-elected. Trump’s USMCA treaty with Mexico and Canada is remarkably similar to NAFTA but is a great replacement.

The question today is will the GOP grow a backbone to say NO to Trump ideas?

This is Chutzpah! This is Hypocrisy!

If you don’t know the meaning of the word you will have to Google it.

From Dana Milbank’s column March 26, 2019 in the Washington Post. He attended the AIPC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) conference in Washington, D.C.

On Monday, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) literally read from Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” on the House floor and borrowed Hitler’s “big lie” allegation against Jews to use on Democrats. “Unconscionable,” said the Anti-Defamation League. But Republicans, and Netanyahu, said nothing.

Tuesday was the 40th anniversary of the signing of the historic Camp David Accords. But the Israeli leader didn’t mention this, either, instead delivering division to a group that has embraced his (and Trump’s) nationalist policies.

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest branch of American Judaism, noticed that the AIPAC crowd had “beyond a doubt” become mostly pro-Trump conservatives, not the cross section of Israel supporters that AIPAC once drew. The rhetoric fit the room. “To suggest anti-Semitism is part of the Democratic Party and liberal part of the spectrum and not also part of Republican leaders’ discourse .

The thing that has kept Israel safe over the decades is rock-solid bipartisan support.

Consider the hypocrisy:
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) issued (then deleted) a tweet targeting three wealthy Jews: “We cannot allow [George] Soros, [Tom] Steyer and [Michael R.] Bloomberg to BUY this election! But at AIPAC, McCarthy denounced anti-Semitic language on the “floors of Congress” — an apparent reference to Omar — and said he’d be “lying” to say Democrats are as opposed to anti-Semitism as Republicans.

Vice President Pence once declared that “I know of no synagogues in my district” (there were two) and, after the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, attended a memorial with a Jews-for-Jesus Christian rabbi. But at AIPAC, he said Democrats have “been co-opted by people who promote rank anti-Semitic rhetoric.”

President Trump, of course, said there “were very fine people” among the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, told Jews they wouldn’t support him “because I don’t want your money,” tweeted an image of a Star of David atop a pile of cash, used anti-Semitic tropes in an ad with photos of prominent Jews, and often denounces “globalists” such as Soros — among many other offenses. But he calls the Democrats “anti-Jewish.”

And here at AIPAC, his appointees attacked Democrats. “We will not do this for the Benjamins,” David Friedman, Trump’s ambassador to Israel, said, informing the crowd that Trump “deserves” an extended ovation.

Donald Trump’s march to autocracy has been stalled

For definition purposes an autocracy is a system of government by one person with absolute power. I believe that is Donald Trump’s objective.

There are many different examples of autocratic governments in today’s world. The best examples are Venezuela, Cuba, Belarus, Eritrea, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, China, and North Korea.

As I have voiced in my last posting there is very evidence of Trump trying to become America’s first dictator. He is using his power of executive order to remake American law to suit his objective.

Loss of control of the House of Representatives in yesterday’s election will slow and hopefully stop Trump’s objective. With 222 Democratic Party seats in that chamber that party’s control is razor thin. They needed 218 seats to gain control.

Donald Trump is a wily individual and those opposing his march to autocracy will find his determination difficult to block. In his day after the election news conference he said, “It was very close to a complete victory.”

Trump’s firing of Jeff Sessions today is one more step in his drive for absolute power.

Building an Autocracy

The Atlantic Monthly October 2018 devoted most of the edition to the cover question: Is Democracy Dying?

David Frum’s piece titled Building an Autocracy is very troubling. Following is an abridged version is the first article in the magazine. For definition purposes an autocracy is a system of government by one person with absolute power.

Twenty-one months into the Trump presidency, how far has the country rolled down the road to autocracy? Yet measuring the distance traveled is vital.

Let’s start with the good news: Against the Trump presidency, federal law enforcement has held firm. As of this writing, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry is proceeding despite the president’s fulminations. The Department of Justice is ignoring the president’s Twitter demands to prosecute his opponents. As far as we know, the IRS and other federal agencies are not harassing Trump critics.

Around the world, democracy looks more fragile than it has since the Cold War. But if it survives for now in America, future historians may well conclude that it was saved by the president’s Twitter compulsion.

Yet even as Trump ties his own shoelaces together and lurches nose-first into the Rose Garden dirt, he has scored a dismaying sequence of successes in his war on U.S. institutions.

President Trump continues to defy long-standing ethical expectations of the American president. He has never released his tax returns, and he no longer even bothers to offer specious reasons, like a supposed audit.

…the president continues to collect payments from people with a vested interest in decisions made by his administration, from foreign governments looking to influence U.S. policy, and even from his own party.

Perhaps the most defining characteristic of modern autocrats such as Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Viktor Orbán, and Vladimir Putin is the way they seek to subsume the normal operations of government into their cult of personality.

Apparently to punish the Washington Post owner and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos for his paper’s reporting, Trump has pressed the Postal Service to raise Amazon’s rates—thus warning other business leaders to be careful what they say.

Trump’s tariffs personalize power too. They enable him to privilege some industries and hurt others. Some losers—farmers, say—may be compensated; others, such as aerospace manufacturers, will be disregarded.

When Trump refers to “my” generals or “my” intelligence agencies, he is teaching his supporters to rethink how the presidency should function.

To protect the president—and themselves—from the truth about Russia’s intervention in his election, Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee have concocted (and the conservative media have disseminated) an elaborate fantasy about an FBI plot against Trump.

Many Americans want to believe that Democratic victories in November will reverse the country’s course. They should be wary of investing too much hope in that prospect. Should Democrats recover some measure of power in Congress, their gains could perversely accelerate current trends. As Republicans lose power in Washington, Trump will gain power within his party.

We cannot blame democracy’s troubles in the United States or overseas on any one charismatic demagogue. Free societies depend on a broad agreement to respect the rules of the game.

The distrust of free speech on campus is being carried by recent graduates into their jobs and communities. We see in other countries, especially the United Kingdom, the rise of an activist left nearly as paranoid and anti-Semitic, as disdainful of liberal freedoms and democratic institutions, as the so-called alt-right in the U.S.

Restoring democracy will require more from each of us than the casting of a single election ballot. It will demand a sustained commitment to renew American institutions.

The road to autocracy is long—which means that we still have time to halt and turn back. It also means that the longer we wait, the farther we must travel to return home.

Pointless Hearings to Approve a New Supreme Court Justice

Yes the hearings are vacuous. We all know what the outcome will be. Judge Kavanaugh will be confirmed. The judge is given the opportunity to tell us what the various articles and amendments are saying and to add to the drama he refers to the Federalist papers. So we know he is no dummy. The irony is that Senator Harry Reid, the former leader of a Democratic Party controlled Senate, can be blamed for today’s lack of bi-partisan support to consent for any Supreme Court nominee. He led the decision to change a Senate rule requiring a 60 vote for approval of a Supreme Court justice appointment.

This sad situation is the result of a two party political system where everyone and every idea of the opposing party is by definition wrong.