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Wednesday, August 16, 2017

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Shutting Out Foreign Workers Would Cost American Jobs

By Steve Chapman
Secrecy And Suspicion Surround Trump’s Deregulation Teams

By Robert Faturechi, ProPublica, and Danielle Ivory, The New York Times
Tough New Sanctions Approved By UN Could Cost North Korea $1 Billion In Exports Annually

By Barbara Demick
Take The Generic Drug, Patients Are Told — Unless Insurers Say No

By Charles Ornstein, ProPublica, and Katie Thomas, The New York Times
To Venezuela, This Week’s Sanctions Are A Joke

By Hannah Dreier

Money

Hedge Funds, Oil, Fossil Fuels And Pharma Gave Money To The GOP
During the first half of the year in state legislatures, drug companies have fought bills to reduce medicine prices; the financial industry has tried to stop legislation to end special state tax breaks; and oil and gas firms have pushed to block environmental regulations.
By David Sirota
Did Trump Get A Big Tax Refund After 2005?
The pressure is growing to force President Trump to turn over his tax returns. The other day, for example, 200 Congressmen filed a suit in federal court, arguing that voters and lawmakers have a right to know whether Trump’s businesses are violating the Constitution’s emolument clause, which bars the president from accepting payments from foreign countries.
By Allan Sloan
Much Wealth As Half The World's Population
While Americans fixate on Trump, the super-rich are absconding with our wealth, and the plague of inequality continues to grow. An analysis of 2016 data found that the poorest five deciles of the world population own about $410 billion in total wealth.
By Paul Buchheit
A Federal Regulator Is Probing Wells Fargo’s Mortgage Practices
A consumer watchdog agency is following up on ProPublica’s reports that the scandal-ridden bank improperly charged fees to customers from Los Angeles to Oregon. Meanwhile, the bank is conducting its own inquiry.
By Jesse Eisinger
In Trump's Budget, Both Epic Betrayal And Mathematical Fraud
Aside from defense spending, the Trump budget violates nearly every programmatic promise he made to voters last year. And adding insult to real injuries, he pretends to fulfill his promise to balance the budget with fake numbers. Not only are the numbers phony, but they represent the most audacious mathematical con game in a federal budget that anyone in Washington can remember. It is phonier than the phony budgets cooked up during the Reagan era, when the president’s own budget director eventually confessed, “None of us really understands what’s going on with all these numbers.”
By Joe Conason
Bernie Sanders Gives Budget Director Mick Mulvaney Epic Lesson On American Inequality
Shortly after the Trump administration unveiled its controversial budget proposal for 2018, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) totally dismantled the plan in a scathing op-ed.
By Alexandra Rosenmann
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The Art Of The Steal: Has Trump Finally Found Someone To Buy The Brooklyn Bridge?
At last, Trump has set the stage for a sequel to his first book of lies, The Art of the Deal—and in grand style. He’s found the right investor. He may have received a gold necklace from the Saudi king and looked regal;
By Doug Kreeger
John Lewis Hammers Steve Mnuchin Over Trump's Sadistic Budget Cuts
"Mr. Secretary, I've often said that a budget proposal is a statement of values and priorities," Lewis began. "This administration's proposal makes crystal-clear that the hungry, the middle class, the elderly and the struggling will be left out and left behind."
By Alexandra Rosenmann
The 15 Heartless Proposals In Trump's Budget
Longtime federal budget experts quickly slammed the White House’s proposed 2018 budget on Tuesday. Its $1.4 trillion in cuts over the next decade would endanger tens of millions of households...
By Steven Rosenfeld
Yes, Trump Budget Would Cut Social Security (And Violate His Promise)
A number of usually reliable reporters were duped by White House spin that President Donald Trump’s draconian budget proposal for fiscal year 2018 to slash spending for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) was not a violation of his major campaign pledge to protect Social Security from cuts.
By Craig Harrington
Trump’s New Bank Regulator: Lawyer Who Helped Banks Charge More Fees
Keith Noreika helped big banks avoid state laws protecting consumers. As head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, he now has the power to override those state laws.
By ProPublica
How To Fight The Republicans Who Voted For 'Trumpcare'
Lots of liberals, and even some conservatives, are upset that House Republicans passed Thursday a health care bill that hadn't been vetted by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for its cost or effects, such as the loss of coverage for millions of Americans, as the CBO estimated for a prior version of the legislation. The GOP was apparently ready for it's Obamacare replacement and ready for it now—but opponents also were ready to fight back.
By Tim Marcin
Why Trump's Tax Cut Looks Like Kansas Writ Large
The tax plan Trump outlined last week has echoes of the Sunflower State's big 2012 tax cut, which precipitated a budget crisis that persists to this day. In large part, that's because more people than expected took advantage of the state's generous exemption for pass-through income.
By David Nicklaus
What's Wrong With Obama Getting $400,000 For A Speech?
Let's unpack the complaints about President Obama's $400,000 Wall Street speech. First off, his current job title is former politician. As president, he pushed the passage of Dodd-Frank, the Wall Street reforms despised by many in this paying audience. So where's the quid pro quo?
By Froma Harrop
Trump's Tax Plan: The Grifters Do 'Tax Reform'
The author of his tax plan, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, vowed last winter that Trump’s reforms would not disproportionately benefit the rich. In fact, he went further: “Any reductions we have in upper-income taxes will be offset by less deductions, so there will be no absolute tax cut for the upper class. There will be a big tax cut for the middle class, but any tax cuts we have for the upper class will be offset by less deductions that pay for it.” That was then, this is now -- which with Trump usually means that he was lying.
By Joe Conason
Trump Tax Plan: Exploding Deficits And Bonanzas For the Super-Rich
While the proposed tax cuts would please those helped by them, such as multinational corporations and wealthy taxpayers, Trump's package fell far short of the kind of comprehensive tax reform that both parties in Washington have sought for years. As his milestone 100th day in office on Saturday nears, Trump has been scrambling to show progress on his agenda. The Trump tax plan, though meager in detail, matched up closely with the promises he made during his victorious 2016 election campaign.
By Amanda Becker and Ginger Gibson
3 Big Anti-Trump Marches Coming Up: Tax March, Science March, Climate March
Don't put away that protest sign or cut down on the calls to Congress just yet. The Trump administration has more fuel for the resistance fire, shocking Americans back into action just in time for three anti-Trump marches scheduled this month.
By Ilana Novick
Is Trump On the Verge of His Biggest Legislative Humiliation Yet?
The second plank of Trump’s job program is the much touted and much delayed “trillion-dollar infrastructure jobs plan,” favored by White House adviser Steve Bannon. However, the plan has yet to be drawn up and is not scheduled for presentation until next year. It remains to be seen if Trump and Bannon can harmonize their infrastructure jobs program with that of Senate Democrats or the American Society of Civil Engineers.
By Jefferson Morley
Calling Trump's Bluff: A Guaranteed Job For Every American Who Wants To Work
The job guarantee asserts that, if individuals bear a moral duty to work, then society and employers bear a reciprocal moral duty to provide good, dignified work for all. It would finally make real the ideal, stated in Franklin Roosevelt’s “Economic Bill of Rights,” that every American possesses a “right to a useful and remunerative job” and “to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation.” Not a paternalistic aid, and not some tribute to aristocratic virtue, but a right to be claimed and exercised
By Jeff Spross
Blue America Gets Richer
It's old news that Republican plans to basically kill Obamacare would hit Trump country the hardest. In Kentucky, for example, Obamacare brought coverage to a half-million people (out of a population of 4.4 million) — with 4 in 5 joining the expanded Medicaid program because their incomes were so low.
By Froma Harrop
Revealed: Did Trump Leak His Own 2005 Tax Return To David Cay Johnston?
On the Rachel Maddow Show yesterday evening, Johnston speculated that Trump himself might have sent him the 2005 tax documents anonymously via mail -- since that year's return at least shows the former casino mogul paying some taxes, following his final big score as an actual real estate developer.
By Joe Conason
Trump's Contentious 'Skinny Budget' Is Unlikely To Pass Congress
Get out your calendars and mark a circle around March 16. That’s the date when Congress expects President Donald Trump to present his "skinny budget" outline for the upcoming fiscal year.
By Mirren Gidda
An Open Letter Of Thanks To Trump Voters From The Billionaires
We billionaires just wanted to say a quick thanks for voting for Donald Trump without paying nearly any attention to what his actual policies would be. It's the least we can do, given that you've already done so much for us. Whether we enjoy restoring natural coal-flavoring to river water or seeing the cabinet stocked with our fellow billionaires and buddies from Goldman Sachs, it's the little things -- like being allowed to destroy the climate so we can be a tiny bit richer -- that we appreciate so very much.
By @LOLGOP
How Corporations Make A Killing Out Of Catastrophe
In his new book, Antony Loewenstein analyzes not only how natural disasters and war can be vehicles for capitalist policies, but how corporations push their neoliberal agenda and rake in enormous sums of cash, from immigration, refugee detention, prisons, and discoveries of natural resource reserve
By Ben Norton
Will Wage Growth Be Trump’s Great White Whale?
You’ll see plenty of headlines about how earnings have “accelerated,” but that’s only if you’re a hawk, a nitpicker-in-extremis, or you earn so much money that money is an abstraction.
By Leah McGrath Goodman
Trump's Plan To Gut HUD Threatens America's Poor
According to reports, the Trump administration is mulling whether to slash HUD’s budget by at least $6 billion -- or 14 percent -- in the 2018 fiscal year.
By Sarah Lazare
Trump Invites Bids To Build Wall, Emphasizes Importance Of ‘Aesthetics’
In a little-noticed update, the Department of Homeland Security now says it wants a wall that will be “nominally 30 feet tall,” and that bids will be judged on “aesthetics,” as well.
By T. Christian Miller
6 Reasons Why Trump Is Too Weak To Save American Jobs
It is frightening to see Trump unleash ICE on powerless immigrants, but bend over backward to placate financial elites. A bully attacks the weak and cowers before the powerful.
By Les Leopold
Did The Trump Organization Make A Deal With An Oligarch Linked To Iran?
Donald Trump has styled himself as a hardline opponent of the Iranian regime, but new details of a business deal in Azerbaijan point to the Trump Organization’s relationship with an oligarch’s family that has close links to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
By Jack Moore
Why Trump's Mexican Border Wall Won't Stop The Drug Cartels
The existing barrier, which already covers one-third of the border with Mexico, has not stopped the drugs or the cartels, and closing the gaps won’t change that. More effective and less expensive measures exist to combat the narcos, from better anti-money laundering rules to legalizing drugs.
By Roberto Saviano
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