WASHINGTON — In mid-April, hundreds of members of the payday lending industry will head to Florida for their annual retreat featuring golf and networking at a plush resort just outside Miami. The resort just happens to be the Trump National Doral Golf Club.

It will cap a year in which the industry has gone from villain to victor, the result of a concentrated lobbying campaign that has culminated in the Trump administration’s loosening regulatory grip on payday lenders and a far friendlier approach by the industry’s nemesis, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

... Two weeks ago, Mr. Mulvaney put the brakes on a contentious rule, ushered in by Mr. Cordray, that was set to impose tight restrictions on short-term payday loans. He ended a case that the bureau initiated last year against a group of payday lenders in Kansas accused of charging interest rates of nearly 1,000 percent. Last week, Mr. Mulvaney scrapped an investigation into the marketing and lending practices of World Acceptance Corporation, a lender based in South Carolina that donated $4,500 to Mr. Mulvaney’s previous congressional campaigns through its political action committee.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, payday lenders have contributed more than $13 million to members of Congress since 2010, with the majority of that money going to Republicans who have made it a priority to roll back the financial regulations put in place by President Barack Obama after the financial crisis. That includes Mr. Mulvaney, who received nearly $63,000 for his campaigns from payday lending groups.

Mr. Mulvaney said that the donations were not an issue “because I am not in elected office anymore.”
The payday lending industry is cheering Mr. Mulvaney’s approach.

... The payday industry is just one of many groups holding events at Trump properties in the wake of the election. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is holding an event for “an elite group” of its members at the Trump National Doral in March, according to its website.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/us/politics/payday-lenders-lobbying-regulations.html

His family says they couldn’t even say goodbye.

Immigration officials arrested Syed Ahmed Jamal in his Lawrence front yard on Jan. 24 while he was taking his daughter to school.

The 7th-grade girl ran into the house to alert her mother and brother, while Jamal, a chemist, was handcuffed and led into a car. When his wife tried to hug him, an agent said she could be charged with interfering in an arrest, said son Taseen Jamal, 14.

Late on Feb. 1, supporters of his dad posted Syed Jamal’s story online. By the next night, the campaign had collected more than 2,500 signatures on a petition to stay the deportation of a man who arrived 30 years ago from Bangladesh to study and work in the United States.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article198215114.html

Behind Pence’s plan to rescue the Republican majority in 2018
In an exclusive interview, the vice president said the GOP could expand its majorities in Congress with his team’s campaign strategy.

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. — Vice President Mike Pence is launching one of the most aggressive campaign strategies in recent White House history: He will hopscotch the country over the next three months, making nearly three dozen stops that could raise tens of millions of dollars for House and Senate Republicans, all while promoting the party's legislative accomplishments.

. . . “Elections are about choices,” he said in the interview, in which he discussed his midterm outlook in detail for the first time. “If we frame that choice, I think we’re going to reelect majorities in the House and the Senate, and I actually think we’re going to, when all the dust settles after 2018, I think we’re going to have more Republicans in Congress in Washington, D.C., than where we started.”

The vice president’s team has devised a unique ancillary strategy to support his cross-country campaigning: partnering with America First Policies — a Trump-backed public-policy nonprofit group designed to boost the president's agenda — to hold public events designed specifically to discuss legislative achievements like the tax bill.

. . . Pence vowed to take sharp aim at congressional Democrats in red states who oppose the president’s agenda. On Wednesday, he used a public event here to remind West Virginia voters that “Joe voted no” on tax cuts — a shot at Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).

. . . “I know that conventional wisdom says that the first midterm election for the party in the White House is challenging — but you know what President Trump thinks of conventional wisdom,” Pence said.

“I was in that campaign in 2016,” Pence added. “I’ll never forget how many times we were treated to the latest polling that showed that the race was all but decided. But I never believed it. And I’ve got the same feeling right now.”