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?

An Agenda for Moderates

By David Brooks New York Times Opinion Columnist

The policy implications of love your neighbor.

Ideas drive history. But not just any ideas, magnetic ideas. Ideas so charismatic that people devote their lives to them.

In his 1999 book, “The Real American Dream,” Andrew Delbanco described the different ideas that, at different stages, drove American history. The first stage in our history was driven by a belief in God. The Pilgrims came because God called them to do so. God’s plans for humanity were to be completed on this continent.

The second phase, through the 19th century, was organized around Nation. The pioneers were settling the West. It was the age of American exceptionalism. America was to be a universal nation, a home and model for all humankind, the last best hope of earth.

The third phase, from 1960 to today, was organized around Self. Each individual should throw off constraints. The best life was the life of maximum self-expression, self-actualization and maximum personal freedom, economic as well as lifestyle.

We are now leaving the era of Self. The right and left now offer two different magnetic ideas. The Trumpian right offers Tribe. “Our” kind of people are under threat from “their” kind of people. We need to erect walls, build barriers and fight. The earlier American nationalism was about frontier; this is about the fortress. Tribalism is a magnetic idea that has mobilized people from time immemorial.

The left offers the idea of Social Justice. The left tells stories of oppression. The story of America is the story of class, racial and gender oppression. The mission now is to rise up and destroy the systems of oppression. This, too, is an electric idea.

The problem with today’s left-wing and right-wing ideas is that they are both based on a scarcity mind-set. They are based upon us/them, friend/enemy, politics is war, life is conflict.

They are both based on the fantasy that the other half of America can be conquered, and when it disappears we can get everything we want. They are both based on the idea that if we can just concentrate enough power in the centralized authoritarian state, then we can ram through the changes we seek.

So a lot of us reject these two ideas. A lot of us don’t want to live in a war society, whether it’s a tribal war or a class war. If the 2020 choice is between Donald Trump and a Democrat who supports the Green New Deal, I’d vote for any moderate alternative.

The problem with moderates has always been that they don’t have a magnetic idea. Recent moderation has been a bland porridge that defines itself by what it doesn’t like.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

What is the core problem facing America today? It is division: The growing gaps between rich and poor, rural and urban, educated and less educated, black and white, left and right.

What big idea counteracts division, fragmentation, alienation? It is found in Leviticus and Matthew: Love your neighbor. Today’s left and right are fueled by anger and seek conflict. The big idea for moderates should be solidarity, fraternity, conversation across difference. A moderate agenda should magnify our affections for one another.

There are four affections that bind our society, and moderates could champion a policy agenda for each:

We are bound together by our love of our children. The first mission is to promote policies to make sure children are enmeshed in webs of warm relationships: child tax credits, early childhood education, parental leave, schools that emphasize social and emotional learning.

We are bound to society by our work. The second mission is to help people find vocations through which they can serve the community: wage subsidies, apprenticeship tracks, subsidies to help people move to opportunity, work councils, which are clubs that would offer workers lifelong training and representation.

We are bound together by our affection for our place. The third mission is to devolve power out of Washington to the local level. Out-radicalize the left and right by offering a different system of power, a system in which power is wielded by neighbors, who know their local context and trust one another. Create a national service program so that young people are paid to serve organizations in their community.

We are bound together by our shared humanity. The fourth mission is to embrace an immigration policy that balances welcome with cultural integration. It’s to champion housing and education policies that encourage racial integration. Neither left nor right talks much about racial integration anymore. But it is the prerequisite for national unity.

Moderation is not an ideology; it is a way of being. It stands for humility of the head and ardor in the heart. When you listen to your neighbor, you see how many perspectives there are and you’re intellectually humble in the face of that pluralism. When you listen to your neighbor, you see that deep down we’re the same and you hunger to deepen that connection.

Let the left and right stand for endless political war. The moderate seeks the beloved community. That, too, is a magnetic idea.

David Brooks has been a columnist with The Times since 2003. He is the author of “The Road to Character” and the forthcoming book, “The Second Mountain.”

A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 25, 2019, on Page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: An Agenda For Moderates. Order Reprints |

Five takeaways from Trump’s State of the Union address

The speech was not inspiring. It felt like Donald Trump was reading from a shopping list.

Trump ignored the issue of dealing with DACA and deaths caused by repeated use of weapons by the hate filled and deranged people that have committed repeated killings. Even in his honoring those who stopped the killing at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh shooting but not a word about stopping the killing committed by the use of guns. Gun violence is a national emergency.

1. A discordant call for unity

“We must reject the politics of revenge, resistance, and retribution — and embrace the boundless potential of cooperation, compromise, and the common good.”

Starting with Donald Trump’s attacks and name calling suddenly he started his speech with conciliatory words that were nowhere to be found since he began his candidacy for the office of president. Who did he think he was talking to? Does he really believe one speech will change Democrat perception of him as a bully who only wants his own way?

2. A call for a wall, but no demand

“It will be deployed in the areas identified by border agents as having the greatest need, and as these agents will tell you, where walls go up, illegal crossings go way down.”

Could Donald Trump be backing down just a little? These word along with his recent statements that the wall is already partially built and more has already been approved may be a signal that a wall from sea to shining sea is something he understands he will never achieve. And there wasn’t a word about declaring a national emergency.

3. A double-down on withdrawal from Afghanistan and Syria

No adamant insistence that there immediate withdrawal of all troops by a date certain but he is determined to bring all troops out of those countries very soon. Maybe James Mattis’ resignation did send a message along with words from some Republican lawmakers did have an effect.

4. Areas for compromise?

Infrastructure repairs and prescription drug cost controls are areas where there could be compromise if both parties are really serious.

5. The shocker

Congress should pass a law denying pregnant woman the right to a late term abortion said the president. No one wants an abortion. The decision to abort is horrible. Should those decisions be controlled by a law or by what would be best for mother and child? Happily as Trump pointed out there are more woman in Congress than ever before. They were mostly wearing white outfits and mostly Democrats This proposal made his base happy but happily it’s dead on arrival.