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How Obama Handled the Conflict-of-Interest Issue Trump Now Faces

by MartiMazure Posted on December 13, 2016

Mother Jones

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Unless something drastic changes, Donald Trump, the self-proclaimed “King of Debt,” will enter the White House on January 20 with about $713 million in debt. He carries mortgages for all his prized properties—including Trump Tower, the Doral golf course in Miami, and his swanky new Washington, DC, hotel—and this does not count another $2 billion in debt (including massive loans from the state-owned Bank of China) that finances partnerships in which he participates.

These loans create significant conflicts of interest. For instance, his biggest lender, Deutsche Bank, is in the middle of negotiations with the Justice Department over how many billions of dollars in civil penalties it should pay for its role in the 2008 financial crisis. Yet as Trump has recently tweeted, the celebrity mogul has no plans to sell his mortgaged assets. Instead, he says, he will let his adult children manage his business and deal with these properties. (Trump postponed a press conference scheduled for this week in which he was supposed to unveil the details of his plan for separating himself from his business empire.) But according to ethics experts, divestiture is the only way Trump can truly address the conflicts.

As Trump has pointed out, there is no law that requires him to sell these assets. But since the 1970s, presidents have taken steps to minimize their conflicts of interest—even if only to avoid the appearance of a conflict. One good example for Trump: President Barack Obama. In 2013, as home mortgage interest rates plummeted, Obama publicly urged Americans to take advantage of the falling rates and save themselves a bundle of money. Alas, Obama told a town hall audience in 2013, he couldn’t follow his own good advice.

“Well, not to get too personal, but our home back in Chicago—not the White House, which, as I said, that’s a rental—our home back in Chicago, my mortgage interest rate, I would probably benefit from refinancing right now, I would save some money,” Obama said. “When you’re President, you have to be a little careful about these transactions, so we haven’t refinanced.”

Be careful—by that, Obama meant he did not want to get close to a conflict of interest by negotiating a deal with any bank. And that entailed a personal sacrifice.

Obama’s mortgage, which he took out in 2005, carries a 5.62 percent interest rate—significantly higher than the current rates that are around 4 percent for a 30-year mortgage. In 2015, USA Today estimated that Obama could save almost $2,100 a month by refinancing. But though he was not prevented from taking advantage of the lower rates, he chose not to do so. He had learned his lesson. Years earlier, when he first entered office, his 5.62 percent mortgage was heavily scrutinized, with the question being whether he had received a below-market rate as an act of favoritism. A Federal Election Commission investigation determined that Obama had obtained a discounted rate but that it was legal because it was within the range offered by Obama’s bank to customers who may provide the bank with additional business.

Before entering the White House, Obama sold his stock portfolio and invested all his personal assets in Treasury notes with some smaller investments in broadly held mutual funds. Once again, he was not compelled to do this by any law—federal conflict-of-interest laws and rules do not apply to the president—but he took this step to remove any taint of possible conflict.

So far, Trump is taking a different approach. He says he has sold off his stocks—without offering any documents to confirm this. But he has not publicly addressed the conflicts posed by his massive borrowing or by his connections to his family business. His transition team now says he will hold a press conference in January to present his plan to deal with potential business conflicts. Yet he certainly has not yet met the standard followed by the man he is succeeding.

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How Obama Handled the Conflict-of-Interest Issue Trump Now Faces

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Leaked Document: Trump Wants to Identify Officials Who Worked on Obama Climate Policies

by MonikaNQAmqd Posted on December 9, 2016

Mother Jones

Donald Trump aides are attempting to identify Department of Energy staffers who played a role in promoting President Barack Obama’s climate policies, according to details of a leaked transition team questionnaire published by Bloomberg Thursday night.

According to Bloomberg:

The transition team has asked the agency to list employees and contractors who attended United Nations climate meetings, along with those who helped develop the Obama administration’s social cost of carbon metrics, used to estimate and justify the climate benefits of new rules. The advisers are also seeking information on agency loan programs, research activities and the basis for its statistics, according to a five-page internal document circulated by the Energy Department on Wednesday. The document lays out 65 questions from the Trump transition team, sources within the agency said.

Bloomberg goes on to say the document was confirmed by two Energy Department employees, who said agency staff were “unsettled” by the request. Someone in Trump’s transition team also confirmed the authenticity of the document to Bloomberg.

Leading Trump’s energy transition team is Tom Pyle, who is currently the president of the American Energy Alliance. Pyle was previously a policy analyst for former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) before becoming director of federal affairs for Koch Industries.

The president-elect isn’t a fan of climate action: He has promised to end America’s involvement in the Paris climate agreement and cancel financial contributions to UN climate programs, and he has claimed that global warming is a scam invented by the Chinese. (He later suggested he was joking about China’s role, but regardless, he has repeatedly called climate change a “hoax.”) You can read an entire timeline of Trump’s various—and at times contradictory—statements on climate change here.

Trump has also assembled a team of climate change deniers, including Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general, who Trump nominated to run the Environmental Protection Agency. Read a full list of the global warming deniers and opponents of climate action who are vying for positions in the Trump administration here.

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Leaked Document: Trump Wants to Identify Officials Who Worked on Obama Climate Policies

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Every Insane Thing Donald Trump Has Said About Global Warming

by bT2jW9hX8q Posted on December 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump has a lot of things to say about global warming. He’s called it an urgent problem, and he’s called it a hoax. He’s claimed it’s a scam invented by the Chinese, and he’s denied that he ever said that. He’s promised to “cancel” the historic Paris climate agreement, and he’s said he still has an “open mind” on the matter.

Some environmental activists have pointed to Trump’s unpredictable statements as evidence that he might not follow through on his campaign pledges to dismantle the Obama administration’s climate legacy. But Trump has already put one of the nation’s most prominent climate skeptics in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency transition. And just last week, one of Trump’s top aides assured Americans that the president-elect still believes climate science is mostly “bunk.”

For those keeping score at home, here’s a timeline of the Donald’s thoughts on global warming. We’ll update it from time to time.

12/6/09

Read the full the letter at Grist.

Trump signs a letter calling for urgent climate action. As Grist reported earlier this year, Trump and three of his children signed a 2009 letter to President Barack Obama calling for a global climate deal. “We support your effort to ensure meaningful and effective measures to control climate change, an immediate challenge facing the United States and the world today,” declared the letter, which was signed by dozens of business leaders and published as an ad in the New York Times. “If we fail to act now, it is scientifically irrefutable that there will be catastrophic and irreversible consequences for humanity and our planet.”

2/14/10

Trump changes his mind, says Gore should be stripped of Nobel Prize because it’s cold outside. According to the New York Post, Trump had changed his tune by early 2010, telling an audience at one of his golf clubs, “With the coldest winter ever recorded, with snow setting record levels up and down the coast, the Nobel committee should take the Nobel Prize back from Al Gore…Gore wants us to clean up our factories and plants in order to protect us from global warming, when China and other countries couldn’t care less. It would make us totally noncompetitive in the manufacturing world, and China, Japan and India are laughing at America’s stupidity.” (He would later say he was joking about the Nobel Prize being rescinded.)

2/16/10

Trump claims scientists admitted global warming is a “con.” Around this time, Trump caught wind of the so-called “ClimateGate scandal,” in which climate deniers wrongly claimed a trove of hacked emails showed that scientists had conspired to fabricate evidence of global warming. Trump said (inaccurately) on Fox News that there was an email “sent a couple months ago by one of the leaders of global warming, the initiative…almost saying—I guess they’re saying it’s a con.” He added that “in Washington, where I’m building a big development, nobody can move because we have 48 inches of snow.”

11/6/12

“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese.”

12/6/13

Trump declares global warming a “hoax.” As an unusually powerful ice storm ripped through the southern part of the United States, Trump announced that climate change is a “hoax.”

Jan. 2014

Trump says scientists are in on the hoax. On January 6, Trump went on Fox News to discuss a severe cold snap that set records across the country. “This winter is brutal,” said Trump, adding that climate change is a “hoax” perpetrated by “scientists who are having a lot of fun.” Trump kept up this line of argument throughout the long and miserable winter.

2014

Trump donates money to fight climate change. At some point in 2014, Trump donated $5,000 of his foundation’s money to Protect Our Winters, an advocacy group dedicated to “mobilizing the outdoor sports community to lead the charge towards positive climate action.” As the group’s website explains, “If we’re serious about slowing climate change, it’s imperative that we decrease our dependence on fossil fuels and focus on cleaner sources of energy and electricity.”

An entry in the Donald J. Trump Foundations’s 2014 tax filings

According to the New York Daily News, Trump made the donation at the request of Olympic snowboarding gold medalist Jamie Anderson, who was one of the contestants on Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice reality show. Anderson was participating on behalf of Protect Our Winters, which, she said on the show, “brings light and inspiration to climate change.” Still, Trump remained a climate change denier. During the season premier, which aired in early 2015, Trump suggested that New York’s cold weather undermined Gilbert Gottfried’s belief in climate science:

6/17/15

Trump says it’s “madness” to call climate change our “No. 1 problem.” The day after announcing his candidacy for the GOP presidential nomination, Trump appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show, where he said he was “not a believer in man-made” warming. He added, “When I hear Obama saying that climate change is the No. 1 problem, it is just madness.”

9/21/15

“I’m not a believer in man-made global warming.” During the GOP primary race, Trump kept up his climate denial. Here he is on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show: “I’m not a believer in man-made global warming. It could be warming, and it’s going to start to cool at some point. And you know, in the early, in the 1920s, people talked about global cooling…They thought the Earth was cooling. Now, it’s global warming…But the problem we have, and if you look at our energy costs, and all of the things that we’re doing to solve a problem that I don’t think in any major fashion exists.”

12/1/15

Trump says it’s “ridiculous” for Obama to pursue the Paris climate agreement. The long-anticipated Paris climate negotiations began barely two weeks after the city was struck by a devastating series of terrorist attacks. As the talks kicked off, Obama called the summit “an act of defiance” against terrorism and urged the world leaders gathered there to agree to an ambitious deal to combat global warming. Trump took to Instagram to express his disapproval. “While the world is in turmoil and falling apart in so many different ways—especially with ISIS—our president is worried about global warming,” he said. “What a ridiculous situation.”

What is Obama thinking?

A video posted by Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) on Dec 1, 2015 at 8:12am PST

12/30/15

“A lot of it’s a hoax,” and “I want to use hair spray.” During a campaign speech in Hilton Head, South Carolina, Trump criticized Obama for worrying too much about “the carbon footprint” of the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change—an issue that Trump proceeded to conflate with the hole in the ozone layer. “I want to use hair spray,” complained Trump. “They say, ‘Don’t use hair spray, it’s bad for the ozone.’ So I’m sitting in this concealed apartment, this concealed unit…It’s sealed, it’s beautiful. I don’t think anything gets out. And I’m not supposed to be using hair spray?” He then returned to the subject of the climate hoax: “So Obama’s talking about all of this with the global warming and the—a lot of it’s a hoax, it’s a hoax. I mean, it’s a money-making industry, okay? It’s a hoax, a lot of it.”

1/24/16

Trump says his claim that global warming is a Chinese hoax was a “joke.” At a Democratic debate in January, Bernie Sanders criticized Trump, noting the real estate mogul “believes that climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese.” Trump responded the next day on Fox News, suggesting that his infamous 2012 tweet was a joke. “I think the climate change is just a very, very expensive form of tax,” said Trump, according to PolitiFact. “A lot of people are making a lot of money…And I often joke that this is done for the benefit of China. Obviously, I joke. But this is done for the benefit of China, because China does not do anything to help climate change. They burn everything you could burn; they couldn’t care less. They have very—you know, their standards are nothing. But they—in the meantime, they can undercut us on price. So it’s very hard on our business.”

May 2016

Trump wants to build a sea wall to protect his resort from global warming. Politico reported that one of Trump’s golf clubs asked officials in County Clare, Ireland, to approve construction of a sea wall to guard against the dangers of sea level rise and “more frequent storm events.” According to an environmental impact statement submitted with the application, “If the predictions of an increase in sea level rise as a result of global warming prove correct…it is likely that there will be a corresponding increase in coastal erosion rates…In our view, it could reasonably be expected that the rate of sea level rise might become twice of that presently occurring.”

5/5/16

“Trump digs coal.” Shortly after clinching the GOP nomination, Trump traveled to West Virginia, where he was endorsed by the West Virginia Coal Association. At a rally in Charleston, Trump pointed to signs being waved in the crowd. “I see over here: ‘Trump digs coal,'” he said. “That’s true. I do.” Trump promised to bring back coal mining jobs by repealing Obama’s “ridiculous rules and regulations.”

Coal miners wave signs at Trump’s May 5 rally in Charleston, West Virginia. Steve Helber/AP

5/26/16

Trump pledges to “cancel” the Paris climate agreement. In a major speech on energy policy, Trump said that during his first 100 days in office, he would “rescind all the job-destroying Obama executive actions including” his landmark climate regulations, “cancel the Paris Climate Agreement,” and “stop all payments of US tax dollars to UN global warming programs.”

7/26/16

Trump says he “probably” called climate change a “hoax.” In a remarkably odd exchange on Fox News, Bill O’Reilly asked Trump whether it was “true” that he had “called climate change a hoax.” Trump replied that he “might have” done so following the release of the ClimateGate emails. “Yeah, I probably did,” he added. “I see what’s going on.” Trump went on to say that fossil fuels “could have a minor impact” on the climate but “nothing compared to what they’re talking about.”

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
9/26/16

Trump picks leading climate skeptic to run the EPA transition. Hours before Trump’s first debate with Hillary Clinton, word leaked that he had chosen Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute to lead his transition efforts at the Environmental Protection Agency. Ebell has a long history of opposing efforts to fight climate change; he’s even accused climate scientists of “manipulating and falsifying the data.” As we reported, “Ebell has called…Obama’s Clean Power Plan ‘illegal’ and the Paris Climate Accord a ‘usurpation of the Senate’s authority.’ Any small increase in global temperatures, he has said, is ‘nothing to worry about.'”

9/26/16

Trump denies saying climate change is a Chinese hoax. During the first debate, Clinton noted that Trump “thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese.” In response, Trump simply lied. “I did not, I did not,” he said. “I do not say that.” Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway later attempted to clarify his position, telling the Huffington Post, “What he has said is, he believes climate change is naturally occurring and is not all man-made.”

11/23/16

Trump has “open mind” on Paris agreement but still thinks scientists are misleading us. In an interview with the New York Times two weeks after his victory, Trump made a number of confusing and contradictory statements about climate science and policy. Asked if he still planned to pull out of the Paris agreement, Trump said, “I have an open mind to it. We’re going to look very carefully.” He conceded that there is “some connectivity” between humans and climate change,” adding, “It depends on how much. It also depends on how much it’s going to cost our companies.” He claimed that the “hottest day ever” was in 1898. He said climate is “a very complex subject. I’m not sure anybody is ever going to really know.” He once again invoked ClimateGate, declaring, “They say they have science on one side but then they also have those horrible emails that were sent between the scientists.” And, apparently in contrast to his request to build a sea wall in Ireland, Trump even speculated that sea level rise would actually improve the Trump National Doral golf course in Florida. (He may be wrong about that.)

11/27/16

Trump’s “default position” is that climate change “is a bunch of bunk.” Following Trump’s confusing New York Times interview, incoming White House chief of staff Reince Priebus sought to reassure supporters that the president-elect is, in fact, a climate change denier. “As far as this issue on climate change, the only thing he was saying, after being asked a few questions about it, is, ‘Look, I’ll have an open mind about it,'” Priebus explained on Fox. “But he has his default position, which is that most of it is a bunch of bunk. But he’ll have an open mind and listen to people.”

12/1/16

Ivanka Trump “wants to make climate change…one of her signature issues.” According to Politico, a “source close to” Trump’s daughter Ivanka said the first daughter “wants to make climate change—which her father has called a hoax perpetuated by the Chinese—one of her signature issues…The source said Ivanka is in the early stages of exploring how to use her spotlight to speak out on the issue.”

12/5/16

Donald and Ivanka Trump meet with Al Gore.

This story has been updated. Natalie Schreyer contributed to this article.

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Every Insane Thing Donald Trump Has Said About Global Warming

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Trump’s Taiwan Call Was No Accident

by JavierHibbins Posted on December 3, 2016

Mother Jones

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So—about that call between Donald Trump and the president of Taiwan. First we have this:

A phone call between Donald Trump and Taiwan’s leader that risks damaging relations between the U.S. and China was pre-arranged, a top Taiwanese official told NBC News on Saturday….”Maintaining good relations with the United States is as important as maintaining good relations across the Taiwan Strait,” Taiwanese presidential spokesman Alex Huang told NBC News. “Both are in line with Taiwan’s national interest.”

And this:

The call was planned in advance with knowledge of Trump’s transition team and was the right thing to do, said Stephen Yates, a former U.S. national security official who served under President George W. Bush. Yates denied multiple media reports that he arranged the call, while adding that it doesn’t make sense for the U.S. to be “stuck” in a pattern of acquiescing to China over Taiwan.

Apparently several sources say that Yates was indeed the guy who helped arrange the call, but Yates denies it. You can decide for yourself who to believe. In any case, both sides claim it was done intentionally.

Was it a good idea? In Trump’s defense, if you’re going to do something like this, the only time to do it is right away. That’s especially true if you want to use it as leverage. Who knows? Maybe Trump’s team is planning to quietly pass along word that Trump is willing to maintain our status quo policy toward Taiwan (i.e., not formally recognizing the Taiwanese government), but only if China commits to doing something serious about North Korea.

Or maybe Trump has no bargain in mind at all, and just wants to change US policy toward China. It would be typically Trump to start out with a slap in the face so they know he means business, and then go from there.

Is this wise? I sort of doubt it, but I’m hardly an old China hand. And I have to admit that China hasn’t gone ballistic, as many people predicted. Their response so far has been distinctly low-key:

China’s first official reaction, from Foreign Minister Wang Yi, was fairly benign — though it was firm in reiterating the One China policy, under which the United States formally recognized Beijing as China’s sole government….A follow-up statement from the Foreign Ministry on Saturday, noting that the ministry had filed a formal complaint with the United States government, was similar in tone. It urged “relevant parties in the U.S.” to “deal with the Taiwan issue in a prudent, proper manner.”

Whatever you think of all this, I’m pretty sure it was no accident. Whether it’s meant just to shake up China; to act as leverage for a future bargain; or as a precursor to a policy change—well, that’s hard to say. But there was something behind it. Stay tuned.

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Trump’s Taiwan Call Was No Accident

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Trump Has a Serious Conflict-of-Interest Problem. Maybe Congress Will Investigate Him.

by DarbyUHAGsdltui Posted on November 14, 2016

Mother Jones

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) requested a formal congressional investigation into Donald Trump’s “financial arrangements” Monday, urging a key congressional committee to examine the president-elect’s sprawling business empire for any conflicts of interests.

“I am writing to request that the Oversight Committee immediately begin conducting a review of President-elect Donald Trump’s financial arrangements to ensure that he does not have any actual or perceived conflicts of interest, and that he and his advisors comply with all legal and regulatory ethical requirements when he assumes the presidency,” Cummings wrote in a November 14 letter to Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Cummings, the top Democrat on the committee, wrote that the United States has “never had a president like Mr. Trump in terms of his vast financial entanglements and his widespread business interests around the globe.” Given Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns, Cummings added, it’s impossible to know how the real estate mogul’s many businesses will affect his future decision-making.

A spokeswoman for Chaffetz did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks also did not respond to a request for comment.

Michael Cohen, an attorney for Trump, told CNN last week that three of Trump’s children—Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric—would run the Trump Organization’s interests through what he called a “blind trust.” The next day it was announced that all three would also serve on Trump’s presidential transition committee, further muddying the ethical waters. On Sunday, Trump adviser and potential cabinet appointee Rudy Giuliani said “there would have to be a wall” between Trump’s children and their father on business and government matters, according to the Associated Press.

It’s no secret that Trump’s conflicts of interest are extensive. As Russ Choma reported in Mother Jones this summer, Trump has at least $364 million in loans through Deutsche Bank, an organization that is currently negotiating with the US Department of Justice regarding a $4 billion to $5 billion settlement for “misselling of mortgage-backed securities in the run up to the financial crisis of 2008,” according to CNBC. The New York Times reported in August that Trump has a “maze” of real estate holdings, and the companies he owns “have at least $650 million in debt,” twice the amount reported in public filings released at the start of his presidential campaign. Two companies holding some of that debt, the Times reports, are the Bank of China and Goldman Sachs.

Chaffetz’s committee has been one of the leading Republican vehicles for attacking Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state, and Chaffetz has said his committee’s investigation of Clinton and her former staff would not stop after the election. In his letter, Cummings pressed Chaffetz to use his committee to dig into Trump’s dealings.

“For the past six years, you and other Republicans in Congress have launched numerous investigations against President Obama and Secretary Clinton, and some of these have been used for partisan political purposes,” Cummings wrote. “Now that Republicans control the White House and Congress, it is incumbent on you and other Republicans to conduct robust oversight over Mr. Trump—not for partisan reasons, but to ensure that our government operates effectively and efficiently and combats even the perception of corruption or abuse.”

Read the whole letter here:

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2016 11 14 EEC to JC (003) (PDF)

2016 11 14 EEC to JC (003) (Text)

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Trump Has a Serious Conflict-of-Interest Problem. Maybe Congress Will Investigate Him.

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How Donald Trump Could Spark a Trade War With Europe

by MayeskiLatouf679 Posted on November 14, 2016

Mother Jones

For all his talk of renegotiating trade deals and cracking down on China, Donald Trump probably didn’t bargain for a trade war with the United States’ closest allies in Europe. But it’s not out of the question.

On Sunday, former French President Nicholas Sarkozy suggested imposing a carbon tax on US goods if Trump walks away from the Paris climate agreement. Sarkozy is currently competing for the presidential nomination of France’s center-right Republican party.

Under the Paris agreement, which went into effect earlier this month, countries pledged to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to limit global warming to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels. During the campaign, Trump pledged to “cancel” the deal.

Sarkozy said that if Trump abandons the agreement, European countries should impose a 1-3 percent tax on American goods, according to the French newspaper Le Monde. The goal would be to protect European businesses that will be abiding by the global climate agreement from being undercut by US industries that won’t be subject to emissions limits.

It’s a striking position for Sarkozy, who sparked controversy earlier this year when he reportedly suggested that humans aren’t to blame for climate change.

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How Donald Trump Could Spark a Trade War With Europe

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Day two of the Trump era, environmentalists set their sights on … holiday cups.

by DeanneJett Posted on November 11, 2016

On the campaign trail, President-elect Donald Trump vowed to make the industry great again. “If I win we’re going to bring those miners back,” he said to an audience in West Virginia before donning a miner’s hat and doing a little working-in-the-coal-mine dance.

But for the coal industry — which donated about $223,000 to Trump’s campaign — reality is less rosy. Sure, shares in the bankrupt coal company Peabody soared nearly 50 percent the day after Trump’s victory. But that’s just Wall Street’s knee-jerk response. The fact is, the coal industry’s future is — at best — flat, according to analysts.

Over the last eight years, coal’s portion of the American electricity supply has dropped from half to a third, a result of falling natural gas prices, declining demand from China, and regulatory efforts to reduce carbon emissions. The best Trump can do, says Bloomberg News, is halt coal’s steep decline.

But even though Trump can’t save Big Coal, he can severely damage the planet by enabling the industry. He has promised to dismantle the Clean Power Plan, ignore the Paris climate agreement, and end investments in renewables. Just as coal can’t be revived, the planet can’t either.

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Day two of the Trump era, environmentalists set their sights on … holiday cups.

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Things We Can Count On In the Next Two Years

by PeggyTabarez Posted on November 10, 2016

Mother Jones

What is Donald Trump going to do in office? Beats me. For the most part, I’d ignore what he said on the campaign trail, since he said so many different things at different times. It’s obvious that (a) he doesn’t know much, and (b) he doesn’t truly care about very many things—and that means he’s going to be willing to negotiate. On that score, I mostly agree with Tyler Cowen, who speculates that “his natural instinct will be to look for some quick symbolic victories to satisfy supporters, and then pursue mass popularity with a lot of government benefits, debt and free-lunch thinking.”

However, this also means Trump is likely to follow the lead of Congress, which is completely in Republican hands and likely to follow the lead of Paul Ryan. Given that, I think there are a few things we can speculate about. Here’s a short list:

The filibuster is toast. Republicans will get rid of it as soon as they need to.

There are three Supreme Court justices who support Roe v. Wade and are getting on in years: Stephen Breyer (78), Anthony Kennedy (80), and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (83). Using standard actuarial tables, there’s a 60 percent chance that at least one of them will die during Trump’s term. That means there’s a 60 percent chance that Roe v. Wade will be overturned.

Repealing Obamacare will be harder than Republicans think, and it’s possible that they’ll shrink from it when they truly have to face up to the consequences. For one thing, it’s impossible to keep the “good parts” (pre-existing conditions, community rating, etc.) and only get rid of the bad parts. In the best case, they’ll pass a bill that repeals Obamacare in name, but leaves most of it in place under a different name. But I doubt that. In the end, I think they’ll rip down the whole thing.

There will be a recession sometime during Trump’s term. I don’t know what this means. But I’ll bet the Republican Congress will be a whole lot more eager to fix it with crude Keynesian pump priming than they were for Obama.

Trump seems to really care about infrastructure, which makes sense since he thinks of himself as a builder. So we might very well get an infrastructure bill passed. I expect that a wall on the southern border will be part of it.

Congress will pass a big tax cut for the rich. Not as big as Trump’s, I think, but plenty big anyway.

Winners from a Trump presidency: rich people; pro-lifers; Paul Ryan, who will now be reelected Speaker easily; China; Wall Street; Vladimir Putin; James Comey; and CNN president Jeff Zucker, who did everything in his power to help elect a guy who could keep his ratings up.

Losers from a Trump presidency: poor people; anyone on Obamacare; illegal immigrants; climate change; the white working class, which fell for Trump’s con but will get virtually nothing from his presidency; anyone who cares about human decency and national dignity; Barack Obama, whose presidency will now be considered a failure; and the Democratic Party, which has lost control of the presidency, the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and most of the states.

Since I have the Reconstruction era on my mind right now, it’s hard to avoid the obvious comparison. Reconstruction lasted about eight years, and then was dismantled almost completely. Barack Obama’s presidency lasted eight years and will now be dismantled almost completely. I will withhold my opinion for now on the obvious reason for this similarity.

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Things We Can Count On In the Next Two Years

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What We Still Don’t Know About Donald Trump

by RodrickXAC Posted on November 4, 2016

Mother Jones

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For the first time in decades, Americans will likely hit the voting booths on Election Day without being able to review the tax returns of one of the major presidential nominees. Though Donald Trump previously vowed to release his taxes—as all top nominees since Richard Nixon have done—he reneged on that promise and for months fiercely refused to make this basic information public, offering shifting excuses. Trump did submit the public financial disclosure form that all federal candidates must fill out, but that does not cover all the fundamentals of his finances. By withholding his tax information, Trump has ensured that the American public cannot see how much income (if any) he pocketed, how much money (if any) he paid in taxes, and how much money (if any) he donated to charities. Without his tax returns, voters are in the dark about important details regarding his sources of income and his debts.

There are many more questions about Trump’s finances and business operations that remain as the 2016 presidential campaign slouches toward its end. Trump is the owner of a private business empire with elements that have been structured in Byzantine fashion. He is a proliferate user of shell companies, as many developers are. He has tried to broker deals around the world with assorted financial players with their own agendas. He has taken on hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. There is a great deal publicly unknown about many of his ventures. Much of his deal-making—probably most—is not transparent. He is asking Americans to vote for a man who has not revealed basic information about his wide-ranging endeavors and associations.

Here is a list of Trump mysteries that will not be solved before Election Day.

* His partners: Trump lists about 500 business entities on his financial disclosure form. Many are shell companies, and if any of them have partners, there is no telling with whom Trump is in business. There is also no way to know if this is an accurate list reflecting all his dealings domestically and overseas. (These disclosures are not vetted by forensic accountants.) These entities would allow anyone seeking to gain favor with Trump to funnel investments and money to him and his family without public disclosure. As Newsweek put it, “Any government wanting to seek future influence with President Trump could do so by arranging for a partnership with the Trump Organization, feeding money directly to the family or simply stashing it away inside the company for their use once Trump is out of the White House…The partnerships are struck with some of the more than 500 entities disclosed in Trump’s financial disclosure forms; each of those entities has its own records that would have to be revealed for a full accounting of all of Trump’s foreign entanglements to be made public.” The magazine added, “The dealings of the Trump Organization reach into so many countries that it is impossible to detail all the conflicts they present in a single issue of this magazine.”

Trump’s personal financial disclosure form hints that he has international business deals in the works that are still under wraps. There are corporations listed that indicate he may be planning hotels (with or without partners) in China and Saudi Arabia—projects which he has not publicly discussed.

* Huge loans from foreign banks: After Trump’s near-crash-and-burn bankruptcies of the 1990s, major US banks stopped doing business with him. But foreign banks picked up the slack, most notably the private banking arm of Deutsche Bank, which Trump owes more than $300 million. His cozy relationship with Deutsche Bank has never been explained. A bank spokeswoman would not talk about how it came to be.

The bond between Trump and this bank poses several problems. The bank in recent months has been in trouble and compelled to sell assets. If it is forced to sell Trump’s loans—or has done so already—the public may not find out immediately (or at all). So it is possible that Trump could be secretly in hock to some overseas person or entity. Also, the Justice Department has demanded that the gigantic German bank pay $14 billion to settle claims regarding its sale of bad mortgage-backed securities in the the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis. The bank is battling this case. Were Trump to become president, he would be heading a government trying to squeeze a gargantuan fine out of a bank that has underwritten a big chunk of his business empire. That’s a super-sized conflict of interest.

Moreover, a New York Times investigation “into the financial maze of Mr. Trump’s real estate holdings” found that “companies he owns have at least $650 million in debt”—about twice the amount listed on his financial disclosure form. A portion of all this debt, the newspaper reported, is held by the Bank of China, posing another set of possible conflicts of interest. But, the Times noted, it is nearly impossible to figure out from publicly available information what Trump owes and to whom: “The full terms of Mr. Trump’s limited partnerships are not known. The current value of the loans connected to them is roughly $1.95 billion, according to various public documents.”

* His creditors: At the first presidential debate, moderator Lester Holt asked Trump about his finances: “Don’t Americans have a right to know if there are any conflicts of interest?” Trump replied, “I could give you a list of banks. I would—if that would help you, I would give you a list of banks. These are very fine institutions, very fine banks. I could do that very quickly.”

Trump has not produced such a list. Why is this list necessary? His personal financial disclosure report offers an incomplete view of his finances. Filed in May, the form lists 16 loans that are valued in vague ranges that make it impossible to determine the total amount he owes. And it does not cover some of the loans mentioned above—such as the Bank of China debt—that are held by companies in which he is deeply invested.

Also, Trump’s most recent financial disclosure is out of date. For instance, Trump reported in May that he owed UBS Real Estate, a subsidiary of the Swiss banking giant, between $5 million and $25 million in connection with a loan for commercial property at New York City’s Trump International Hotel and Tower. Yet public records show that this $7 million loan was paid off with a new $7 million loan from a smaller lender called Ladder Capital Finance. According to public documents, Trump currently owes Ladder Capital at least $275 million. Ladder Capital specializes in packaging loans into larger portfolios that are eventually sold off to other lenders. So where might Trump’s Ladder loans end up? It would be important to know his ultimate creditors. His financial disclosure form also lists a puzzling loan of more than $50 million that comes from one of his own entities. There has been no public explanation of this act of financial acrobatics and what it means for his complete debt picture and financial stability.

* Trump University: There are three pending cases alleging fraud on the part of Trump’s for-profit school. One, in San Diego, is scheduled to begin trial on November 28. New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman accused Trump University of “repeatedly” deceiving “students into thinking that they were attending a legally chartered ‘university.'” Schneiderman’s lawsuit maintains that students were misled about the instructors. A former salesman for Trump University provided an affidavit in which he testified that “while Trump University claimed it wanted to help consumers make money in real estate, in fact Trump University was only interested in selling every person the most expensive seminars they possibly could.” The affidavit notes, “Based upon my personal experience and employment, I believe that Trump University was a fraudulent scheme, and that it preyed upon the elderly and uneducated to separate them from their money.” In June, The New Yorker asked, “Will one of the world’s leading democracies elect as its President a businessman who founded and operated a for-profit learning annex that some of its own employees regarded as a giant ripoff, and that the highest legal officer in New York State has described as a classic bait-and-switch scheme?” The election will occur before questions about Trump University are resolved.

* His lawsuits: Throughout the campaign, Trump has frequently threatened to sue the media and others (including the women who have accused him of sexual assault). But, as USA Today reported, Trump is already engaged in dozens of lawsuits beyond the Trump University cases that remain open. As the paper noted, “Trump faces significant open litigation tied to his businesses: angry members at his Jupiter, Fla. golf course say they were cheated out of refunds on their dues and a former employee at the same club claims she was fired after reporting sexual harassment…Trump is also defending lawsuits tied to his campaign. A disgruntled GOP political consultant sued for $4 million saying Trump defamed her. Another suit, a class action, says the campaign violated consumer protection laws by sending unsolicited text messages. If elected, the open lawsuits will tag along with Trump. He would not be entitled to immunity, and could be required to give depositions or even testify in open court. That could chew up time and expose a litany of uncomfortable private and business dealings to the public.”

The paper pointed out that at least 60 lawsuits and hundreds of liens and judgments have “documented cases where people accused Trump and his businesses of failing to pay them what they were owed for their work.” Many of these have not received full press coverage during the campaign. USA Today also reported: “In at least 20 separate lawsuits, plaintiffs accused Trump and managers at his companies of discriminating against women, ignoring sexual harassment complaints and even participating in the harassment themselves. Women in those disputes have testified they were fired for complaining.”

* His net worth and income: Trump has claimed he’s worth $10 billion. With the records publicly available, this is impossible to confirm. A net worth calculation is meaningless if it does not take debts into account, and his total indebtedness cannot be determined on the basis of public documents. And Trump has a history of inflating his net worth. A decade ago, he sued a reporter who quoted experts saying Trump was worth only $200 million to $300 million, not the $2 billion to $5 billion Trump claimed at the time. (Trump lost.) At the first presidential debate, Trump insisted his 2015 income was $694 million, but a Mother Jones investigation found that Trump had greatly exaggerated his income from golf courses, calling into question that whopping amount. The New York Times recently reported that an examination of property tax appeals and other financial records showed that Trump likely overstated his income: “After expenses, some of his businesses make a small fraction of what he reported on his disclosure forms, or actually lose money. In fact, it is virtually impossible to determine from the forms just how much he is earning in any year.” Ultimately, it may not matter whether Trump has all the wealth and income he insists he possesses—but his truthfulness is at stake with his net worth and income claims.

There is a large amount of information that Trump has not released during the campaign, even after vowing to do so. It’s not just his tax returns. He promised to release evidence that he was under audit by the IRS (the supposed reason he has not released his tax returns). But he put out only a letter from his own lawyer. He said that his wife, Melania—whose past immigration status was questioned in media reports that suggested she might have once worked illegally as a model in the United States—would hold a press conference to set the matter straight. She did not; instead, a Trump lawyer issued a letter without any corroborating documentation. Trump pledged to release “full reports” regarding his health. Those never came.

Other than the tax returns, perhaps the most important information Trump has not produced is how he would separate himself from his businesses, were he to win the White House. His entanglements—which likely include publicly unknown partnerships, investors, and creditors—are extensive and complex. Trump has produced no plan for how he could run the government and be free of all the conflicts of interest posed by his business interests. He is the least transparent presidential candidate in modern times.

Sixteen months of campaign reporting has not revealed all the nooks and crannies of a business empire that is purposefully structured to be impervious to scrutiny. It would have taken a team of forensic accountants to develop a clear picture of Trump’s finances. He did not help by withholding his tax returns and fudging parts of his financial disclosure form. And that was the point. Trump, who is aiming to be perhaps the most powerful man in the world, wanted to keep much of his life secret before Americans voted. He succeeded in doing so.

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What We Still Don’t Know About Donald Trump

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There’s hope for you yet, coffee fiends.

by DessieL48qe Posted on October 24, 2016

According to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), renewable energy, mostly solar and wind, accounted for more than half of all new electric capacity added in the world last year, a 15 percent jump from 2014. Globally, there is now more renewable power capacity than coal power capacity.

Clean energy growth was especially high in China, which was responsible for about 40 percent of all new clean energy capacity. Get this: In China in 2015, two wind turbines were installed every hour.

This surge in renewables, according to the IEA, can be attributed to policy changes, lowered costs, and improvements in technology.

So renewable energy hit some big milestones last year, but it’s still just the beginning: The IEA — which has been accused of underestimating the growth of renewables — expects 28 percent of electricity to come from renewables by 2021, up from 23 percent today.

“I am pleased to see that last year was one of records for renewables and that our projections for growth over the next five years are more optimistic,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. “However, even these higher expectations remain modest compared with the huge untapped potential of renewables.”

So let’s keep this moving, folks.

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There’s hope for you yet, coffee fiends.

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