Who was ripped off by Trump University?
People who were too trusting.
The New York Times here describes the war widow who put her husband’s insurance policy into Trump University and found herself the object of unending sales pitches, not only from Trump University, but from “Cambridge Who’s Who,” a phony company affiliated with Donald Trump, Jr., which promised to give its clients recognition and a “brand.”
The sales pitches seeking to separate Cheryl Lankford from her money began during the recession as she struggled to get back on her feet after the death of her husband, an American soldier serving in Iraq.
Two of them were from companies that have boasted the Trump name.
One was Trump University, the real estate sales seminar that Donald J. Trump promoted as a way for average people to profit from opportunities in the housing market. Ms. Lankford said she spent $35,000 from an Army insurance payment to learn Mr. Trump’s secrets.
Another was Cambridge Who’s Who, a vanity publisher promising “branding services” that seemed to complement the real estate business she hoped to create. She paid thousands of dollars to Cambridge, whose spokesman and “executive director of global branding” was Mr. Trump’s eldest son, Donald Jr.
Six years later, Ms. Lankford, who is 44 and has a son, has little to show for the money she spent, aside from a nagging sense that she was taken advantage of. Several friends in her community in San Antonio fell for similar offers, she said, but most are not eager to talk about it.
“As a widow, you find you were so dependent on your husband, and when you make a mistake because of predatory businesses, it’s embarrassing,” Ms. Lankford said. “We’re an easy target.”
“Easy target” might describe the audience for several enterprises stamped with the Trump brand that have been accused of preying upon desperation, inexperience or vanity. Some are well known. Trump University has most recently gained notice because of Mr. Trump’s attacks on the Mexican heritage of the judge overseeing a fraud lawsuit brought by former students. There was also a multilevel vitamin-selling enterprise, the Trump Network, that Mr. Trump had said would give hope to people looking to “opt out of the recession.”
But intersecting with these was another, largely unexamined, business venture, Cambridge Who’s Who, which generated hundreds of complaints that it deceptively peddled the promise of recognition in a registry, as well as branding and networking services of questionable value. Dozens of people who paid Trump-endorsed businesses were also sold products by Cambridge, which benefited from its partnership with Donald Trump Jr. through “leveraging relationships built by the Trump empire,” according to Cambridge.
Cambridge was not a Trump company; it was operated by Randy Narod, a Long Island, N.Y., nightclub and bagel store owner barred from the securities industry for having had an impostor take his licensing exam. However, Cambridge gained the Trump imprimatur when the younger Mr. Trump came on board in 2010 and began promoting its services as a way for people to distinguish themselves in a tough economic climate.
Can you believe that this huckster and snake-oil salesman is the Republican candidate for President?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And with the next generation in line to extend the brand.
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You know what they say, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Looks like all of Trump’s children are following in his footsteps.
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I simply cannot understand how Trump, to date, has avoided and continues to avoid criminal prosecution and possible jail time for all the people he has defrauded throughout the years.
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In case you hadn’t noticed:
Our laws apply mainly to the poor and the middle class with one major exception: a rich person ripping off other rich people.
The latter was Bernie Maddoff’s mistake.
As long as you rip off the poor and middle class and not the rich you will generally not be prosecuted.
Hope that helps.
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Trump has publicly said that his businesses have benefited from the donations he’s given to politicians over the years, including to Hillary Clinton. Trump golfs with Bill Clinton and dines with both Clintons, including at his latest wedding. No doubt being a political patron is among the factors that have helped Trump avoid prosecution.
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Same way Clinton does
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Trump claimed bankruptcy to avoid paying numerous workers, or simply said the work wad no good. He also used plagiarized papers for his get rich quick scheme called Trump Institute, not to mention his sterling Trump University. Who, exactly, has Hilary defrauded?
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The republican “brand” had rotted out from the inside thanks to both the Teaparty insurgency and the all but complete detachment from reality of its insular old guard leadership and their funders and sycophants. The decadence of the pre-revolutionary French court comes to mind as does its own insularity. This was the perfect environment for a grifter like Trump to step into the chasm between the Replutocrats and their disgusted and increasingly distrusting voter base, one only still marginally loyal because ” the other guys” were worse and hated America etc. etc. I think we are in for ugly times ahead that may make the Obama years seem pleasant. Trump has alienated every voting bloc but lower income white males and cannot win with just them, and when their false hopes are dashed after what is certain to be an ugly, vile campaign, they will have noone to turn to that they think hears them or is to be trusted as Clinton will have been made even more toxic to them by that point. I find it interesting that Trump is now adopting Sanders message, interesting that the Replutocrat leadership is silent on that and that Trumps base finds Sanders message so appealing when it comes from Trump, not that they heard it from Sanders himself. Both the DNC & RNC have each made their own particularly grave miscalculations, and I doubt that Clinton, who seems likely to win the presidency will be able to find a way through the morass that our corrupt and ineffective political/business/ideological purity system has thrown the nation into the bottom of. The NRA and the 1% are sure to continue to do well though.
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If history is any indicator Clinton will work very well with Republicans as her husband did. Even while they pursued him for 8 years. Republicans always work well with one of their own . Think of one major Bill Clinton initiative that was not Republican Dogma .And here on beautiful scenic Long Island it would be hard to classify the Trump supporter as a “lower income white male “. I will grant that there are all sorts of reasons that large segments of the white middle class have abandoned Democrats ,some of it racist and it has been so since Reagan and his Welfare Queen .But it is the Democrats who are responsible for most of this white flight . Many of these people voted for “Hope and Change ” in 2008 they got another Republican . On issues from Trade ,to Education,to immigration to Wall Street. To even a Healthcare plan designed by Hermitage Foundation . A white middle class that fears its college educated children will not have the prosperity that they enjoyed. That they turn to demagogues is explainable by the fact that they feel abandoned by the other party.
Dismal Democrats empower Republicans .
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Trump is “Republican” only in that the fragmentation of the party & resulting dearth of a clear candidate from within provided him convenient entrée into the Presidential campaign. The result is that there is effectively *no* true Republican candidate in this upcoming election; it’s actually between a Democrat & (despite the “Republican” label) a third-party candidate, with actual Republicans (who were poorly represented in the preceding free-for-all) having been shut out. I would have welcomed the presence in this election of a responsible, moderate Republican; at its best, our 2-party system provides compromise & balance, though in recent years it’s been perverted by extremists on both sides. The resulting atmosphere of hatred & divisiveness is our country’s true worst problem, more so than terrorism or who pays for health care.
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As bad as Trump is, none of the Republican candidates were much better. All are privatizers, tools of ALEC
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No argument here! That’s how they got themselves into this mess.
>
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What is to be expected of someone that helped write the rheephorm playbook?
From today’s HuffPost, a piece entitled: “Donald Trump Slammed Candidates Taking Big Money, Then Became One Of Them” with the subtitle “Republicans don’t seem to care about his big money flip-flop, but it’s a problem for independents — and donors.”
The secret sauce for Trump, as well as for rheephormsters, is to garner this sort of support for the education establishment of which they are such a large part:
[start]
JoAnn Pizzino, 62, traveled down from Steubenville to see Trump. “I’m a Trump Democrat. This is the first ‘R’ I ever voted for in my life,” she said. Although at first she said it was “very important” that candidates not take large donations, she similarly had no concerns with Trump’s half-million-dollar solicitations. “That’s okay,” she said. “The bottom line is: Anything he does is okay.”
[end]
Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-big-money-self-funding_us_57782c5de4b09b4c43c0b5b9?tyzcsrqksjrrx80k9
Combine “Anything he does is okay” with the former NJ Comm. of Ed saying “Whatever we’re doing, we need to double down” and $tudent $ucce$$ is assured.
😎
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As an expert on such matters once said “When the Presidential candidate does (or did) it, that means that it’s not illegal”.
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Trump donated to the Clinton Foundation, that was all that was needed for the Clintons to overlook his shady business practices and attend his wedding, golf with him, dine with him, chat with him on the phone, etc. Bill Clinton reportedly called Trump to offer political advice weeks before Trump declared his candidacy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bill-clinton-called-donald-trump-ahead-of-republicans-2016-launch/2015/08/05/e2b30bb8-3ae3-11e5-b3ac-8a79bc44e5e2_story.html
Embittered Bernie Sanders supporters (yes, I am one) have noticed that the same mainstream media bias that showered positive attention on both Hillary and Trump through the primary season has now turned markedly against Trump, it is hard not to suspect that Trump was the preferred opponent of the team Clinton and her media allies, and that they pulled a few strings along the way to help him along. Hillary and the DNC are undoubtedly thrilled to be running against Trump, at this point Hillary’s slogan is, “vote Hillary, at least she’s not Trump.”
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A sad reflection on the current state of the Republican party.
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