Trump update

Donald Trump’s children — Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Ivanka Trump — took out over $22 million in loans over the past few years to pay for luxury homes in Florida, the Daily Mail reports.

Thom Hartmann -    New York Times has a fascinating article about Trump pardoning a major drug dealer and violent loan shark; it’s titled “A Troubling Trump Pardon and a Link to the Kushners.” Like with so much reporting on Trump and his possible criminal activity while in the White House, it somehow manages to miss a possible larger picture, in this case the multiple allegations that Trump and Giuliani were selling pardons for $2 million a pop. Although the allegations are well documented, including under oath in a lawsuit, there’s not a single mention of it in the Times article.

Trump has not spelled out precisely how he might use the military during a second term, although he and his advisers have suggested they would have wide latitude to call up units. While deploying the military regularly within the country’s borders would be a departure from tradition, the former president already has signaled an aggressive agenda if he wins, from mass deportations to travel bans imposed on certain Muslim-majority countries. A law first crafted in the nation’s infancy would give Trump as commander in chief almost unfettered power to do so, military and legal experts said in a series of interviews. The Insurrection Act allows presidents to call on reserve or active-duty military units to respond to unrest in the states, an authority that is not reviewable by the courts.