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Prestor Jon wrote:
There is absolutely a very troubling connection between the Trump campaign and Russia which should be independently investigated. I think the big difference between Trump's Russian connections and the Clinton Foundation is that what made a lot of the news in regards to Hillary was people and media outlets calling attention to decisions made by the State Dept when Hillary was SecState and then inferring a connection between those decisions and donations to the Clinton Foundation that could be construed as a possible quid pro quo arrangement.

Yeah, I mean there was that time some donors asked for passports and then didn't get them. Or that time people mentioned they were donors to get fast tracked access, and then didn't get it. Damning stuff.

It seems fairly clear that Putin/Russia preferred Trump winning over Hillary Clinton and it certainly seems possible that Putin/Russia may have done things to help the Trump campaign but so far it doesn't look like Trump has done much to help Russia in return.

Co-ordination is damning enough. If true, it means Trump was aware of a foreign power acting to influence the US election and not only said nothing, he actually coordinated with that foreign power to benefit from it. There doesn't need to be any promise of a return favour for that to be unacceptable.

In 2014 governments spent $165 billion on highway maintenance

It's $200 billion above and beyond what is spent right now. You've got a lot of catch up to do. And remember it isn't just roads we're talking about, but dams and other water infrastructure, airports, rail and so on.

The Federal, state and local govt collect about $2.5 trillion in income taxes annually so finding the billions to achieve $200 billion in infrastructure maintenance spending shouldn't be difficult.

I actually work in government budgeting. The first rule you learn is that it is easy to fund any one thing. Its funding everything that's the issue. Which leads to prioritisation. US infrastructure hasn't been prioritised for a long time.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Hey... I'm all for having a special prosecutor to look into this. Seriously, I'm cool with it and I've even emailed both my Senators to do so.

But, it's fething rich with the amount of defense thrown up on Hillary's malfeasance, these people are jumping on Sessions for this and calling for his resignation. When the fething AG Loretta has an impromptu visit with the husband of a person under FBI investigation ON A FETHING AIRPLANE.


Sorry... you don't have any credibility. Just own your partisan nature and just say 'I don't like him, so I'm looking for any excuse to Bork him'.

I've done nothing of the sort, hence why I started out with this line.

While I would hesitate to go down the rabbit hole of what these Russian connections mean and what relevance they may ultimately have

I havent said anything on how Sessions should resign, how true or dangerous the accusations are, or anything else.

All I've done is comment on it being awkward for Trump's administration and how there seem to be double standards when it comes to treasonous accusations from some groups. That said, I also wasnt intending to call out anyone specifically, which I get the sense from these personal attacks that you think I am.

That wasn't meant to target you, but the larger audience.

I don't disagree with you... it's extremely awkward and this whole ordeal about Russian connections definitely deserves an independent prosecutor. Even *I* don't trust the GOP committees to do this right and impartial.

At least you'd be honest and consistent.

well, I'm trying to be, I didnt care roo much about Hillary's emails or Benghazigate, I'm not too concerned about these Russia connections yet as we have zero idea what these contacts consisted of and they could be entirely overblown, but just remarking on the...awkward nature of them for this administration (mostly just how they cant seem keep their gak straight and manage a crisis regardless of the truth of the accusations) and the vociferous nature of the responses in some instances and the passive nature of others.

I'm concerned about possible Russian connections... but the Sessions ordeal seems like a real stretch and smacks of political opportunitisms. Hence why an indy Prosecutor is needed to put this to rest.

Otherwise, this will keep on dogging Trumpo during his administration.

 sebster wrote:
*Why are you using her first name? Hillary and Donald I kind of get because they're in the primary spotlight, but a former attorney general? Should we start calling him Jeff?

He's been calling him "Nate Silvers" for about 4 years, so this seems like an odd line to draw in the sand.

Speaking of building a wall.
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/MS-13-gang-members-charged-with-satanic-10971238.php

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Hey... I'm all for having a special prosecutor to look into this. Seriously, I'm cool with it and I've even emailed both my Senators to do so.

But, it's fething rich with the amount of defense thrown up on Hillary's malfeasance, these people are jumping on Sessions for this and calling for his resignation. When the fething AG Loretta has an impromptu visit with the husband of a person under FBI investigation ON A FETHING AIRPLANE.

Clinton and Lynch* met, it was obviously inappropriate. Everyone outside of the Clintons would get that, but as I and countless others have said many times, the Clintons just don't understand why boundaries and ethical guidelines exist.

The thing is, though, Lynch herself was understood the boundaries, and was not happy with what happened. She knew she'd had been placed in a position where she been seen to be compromised, and so she stepped back from placing any oversight on the investigation. It is likely this is what caused Comey to start wandering off the reservation, not just in going public with the ongoing investigation, but also in deciding it was up to him to decide if there was evidence of a crime - that call should have come from Justice.

So that gives us two differences. The first is that we have one compromsing event, compared to four. And the actions of the compromised parties with Clinton and Lynch there was no mutually beneficial behaviour, while with Trump and Putin we have a bizarrely mutually complementary relationship, and even actions taken by one party to help the other win office.

It really should be very fething obvious how different these things are.

The feth they are...

AG Eric Holder lied about selling guns into Mexico. Was held in contempt and didn't remove himself from the case...

Lois Lerner was found on contempt of Congress for the IRS targeting....

Hillary fething Clinton's 'I thought that (c) was an alphabetical denotation' ...

Bryan Pagliano, also held in contempt of Congress for refusing to attend Congressional hearings...

The Iran Deal...

What does this mean? These are real concerns that are shady (if not outright illegal) as feth that the D defenders and media didn't really give a gak.

*Why are you using her first name? Hillary and Donald I kind of get because they're in the primary spotlight, but a former attorney general? Should we start calling him Jeff?

I call Hillary her first name to distinguish from her husband. (which clinton???).

Sure... call Sessions, Jeff. That's his name.

When the defence of 'your team' is consistently based in "whataboutism', maybe it's time for some introspection?

This goes for both D and R loyalists.

Prestor Jon wrote:


There is absolutely a very troubling connection between the Trump campaign and Russia which should be independently investigated. I think the big difference between Trump's Russian connections and the Clinton Foundation is that what made a lot of the news in regards to Hillary was people and media outlets calling attention to decisions made by the State Dept when Hillary was SecState and then inferring a connection between those decisions and donations to the Clinton Foundation that could be construed as a possible quid pro quo arrangement. It seems fairly clear that Putin/Russia preferred Trump winning over Hillary Clinton and it certainly seems possible that Putin/Russia may have done things to help the Trump campaign but so far it doesn't look like Trump has done much to help Russia in return. We're missing the other half of the quid pro quo arrangement and if that were to materialize or even the appearance of a reasonable possibility that Trump was acting to benefit Putin/Russia I think you'd see a lot of Republicans who weren't enthusiastic Trump supporters start voicing concerns loudly and publicly about a Russian connection. It's going to be difficult for Trump to do something that helps Putin/Russia that doesn't also go against US interests because there really isn't much common ground. We don't share the important economic connection with Russia that we do with China. Russian interests pretty much diametrically oppose US interests in regards to geo politics, economics and resource control. Anything that Trump does that helps Russia is going to be very hard to justify from a US perspective.

Indeed, and thats kind of what I'm wondering as well, if Putin was expecting something from Trump, it is fairly obvious he wont be able to deliver anything explicit, and from Russian media it appears their brief joy at Trumps election has rapidly turned sour after realizing that Trump is in fact a bellicose nutjob, though just not having Hillary regardless may have been enough for them earlier before that realization. In the end, we have a very limited amount of hard facts but a ton of circumstantial evidence, which just feeds paranoia more than hard evidence does.

 sebster wrote:

I understand not wanting to speculate, but lets just lay out what's happened at this point. I mean honestly, Trump had his long string of positive comments about Putin, Putin's hacks were found by the intelligence community to be planned to hurt Clinton and thereby aid Trump, there was strong circumstantial evidence that Trump co-ordinated with Putin in responding to Obama's sanctions, three Trump personnel have resigned with connections to Trump and now a fourth has been found lying about his own communications. Then we can add in all the circumstantial stuff, like the Trump campaign appearing to know ahead of time when new leaks were about to be made.

The least convoluted answer is that Trump and Putin have co-ordinated on some level. It may have been as simple as having a shared goal of wanting Clinton to lose. But what would require an immense amount of imagination at this point is finding some kind of story in which all of the above was just coincidences.

All possible, probable even, and on the surface it definitely doesnt look good, I just dont know enough about the facts or specifics to definitively judge anything much myself aside from the poor handling of this whole thing by Trumps administration regardless of how it turns out.

Sessions is the fourth. There's enough now that we're actually starting to forget Trump personell who've resigned over connections to Russia

Yeah it's getting quite awkward.

 whembly wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Hey... I'm all for having a special prosecutor to look into this. Seriously, I'm cool with it and I've even emailed both my Senators to do so.

But, it's fething rich with the amount of defense thrown up on Hillary's malfeasance, these people are jumping on Sessions for this and calling for his resignation. When the fething AG Loretta has an impromptu visit with the husband of a person under FBI investigation ON A FETHING AIRPLANE.


Sorry... you don't have any credibility. Just own your partisan nature and just say 'I don't like him, so I'm looking for any excuse to Bork him'.

I've done nothing of the sort, hence why I started out with this line.

While I would hesitate to go down the rabbit hole of what these Russian connections mean and what relevance they may ultimately have

I havent said anything on how Sessions should resign, how true or dangerous the accusations are, or anything else.

All I've done is comment on it being awkward for Trump's administration and how there seem to be double standards when it comes to treasonous accusations from some groups. That said, I also wasnt intending to call out anyone specifically, which I get the sense from these personal attacks that you think I am.

That wasn't meant to target you, but the larger audience.

I don't disagree with you... it's extremely awkward and this whole ordeal about Russian connections definitely deserves an independent prosecutor. Even *I* don't trust the GOP committees to do this right and impartial.

At least you'd be honest and consistent.

well, I'm trying to be, I didnt care roo much about Hillary's emails or Benghazigate, I'm not too concerned about these Russia connections yet as we have zero idea what these contacts consisted of and they could be entirely overblown, but just remarking on the...awkward nature of them for this administration (mostly just how they cant seem keep their gak straight and manage a crisis regardless of the truth of the accusations) and the vociferous nature of the responses in some instances and the passive nature of others.

I'm concerned about possible Russian connections... but the Sessions ordeal seems like a real stretch and smacks of political opportunitisms. Hence why an indy Prosecutor is needed to put this to rest.

Otherwise, this will keep on dogging Trumpo during his administration.

Fair enough.

 Frazzled wrote:
Speaking of building a wall.
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/MS-13-gang-members-charged-with-satanic-10971238.php

I want to know why one of those dudes looks half giraffe.

I think the answer may be a different kind of alien altogether

On a more serious note though, by all means lock people like this away and improve enforcement to stop such dudes frm entering, I just dont think a physical wall going to do a whole lot on that count, particularly for the effort and investment required. Hiring more agents to cover more ground, improving training, and devoting more prosecutorial resources to dealing with these kinds of poeple I think will be far more effective.

The whole thing about "whataboutism" is hat supposed to make it right?

 sebster wrote:

This complaint comes after the DNC just elected a new chairman who explicitly campaigned on refocusing on more populist concerns, and rebuilding election efforts around local campaigns and local issues, and not just worrying about the presidency. You might have had a point that the DNC was coming late to the party, except you complained when that guy won.

Perez ran to block Ellison, because Ellison was endorsed by Sanders. If Perez and Ellison are basically the same, why would it be so important for Perez to be pushed to the front a month after Ellison had already announced he was running and had picked up a wide range of endorsements that Obama would drum up support for him? Simply that Ellison already appealed to the left and didn't have the same loyalty to the Democratic establishment that Perez would have. For this reason the left has every reason to doubt him.

 sebster wrote:

Here's a thing for you - Republicans are winning. They're steadily pushing down taxes and watching as deficit pressure slowly pushes down services as a result. And they do this because they turn up and vote, even when their candidate completely sucks.

The Republicans are winning because the Republicans are an actual political party who have kept their fragile coalition by actively engaging people and who get and stay in power by understanding that they're working to get more power.

 sebster wrote:

If you think that things will remain the same you are going to be in for a rude awakening.

Viva la revolu... yeah no feth it we're done here.

The rude awakening I am talking about is liberalism being abandoned by capital in favour of fascism. When the official liberal response to managing to lose to Donald Trump is that it's the voters' fault for not being sufficiently loyal there are very few things stopping them from eating a lot of ass. You think everything is simply normal and that Trump is a minor hiccup who'll inevitably be booted out in four years when all the whiny voters remember their place and come crawling back to the Democratic Party. You are going to be disappointed. The Democratic Party has sunk too much of both its material resources and its credibility.

Rosebuddy wrote:


The rude awakening I am talking about is liberalism being abandoned by capital in favour of fascism. When the official liberal response to managing to lose to Donald Trump is that it's the voters' fault for not being sufficiently loyal there are very few things stopping them from eating a lot of ass. You think everything is simply normal and that Trump is a minor hiccup who'll inevitably be booted out in four years when all the whiny voters remember their place and come crawling back to the Democratic Party. You are going to be disappointed. The Democratic Party has sunk too much of both its material resources and its credibility.

I think you're sorely underestimating the average American. Unless things radically change with the current admin, most will vote for the lesser of two evils, aka, anyone but Trump.

Trump was a fluke because enough people fell for the "just as bad" BS and stayed home. Again, unless something radically changes, voters will see that a drunken squirrel would make a better PotUS the D's will win.

 feeder wrote:

Rosebuddy wrote:


The rude awakening I am talking about is liberalism being abandoned by capital in favour of fascism. When the official liberal response to managing to lose to Donald Trump is that it's the voters' fault for not being sufficiently loyal there are very few things stopping them from eating a lot of ass. You think everything is simply normal and that Trump is a minor hiccup who'll inevitably be booted out in four years when all the whiny voters remember their place and come crawling back to the Democratic Party. You are going to be disappointed. The Democratic Party has sunk too much of both its material resources and its credibility.

I think you're sorely underestimating the average American. Unless things radically change with the current admin, most will vote for the lesser of two evils, aka, anyone but Trump.

Trump was a fluke because enough people fell for the "just as bad" BS and stayed home. Again, unless something radically changes, voters will see that a drunken squirrel would make a better PotUS the D's will win.

Two term trump

 Stevefamine wrote:

 feeder wrote:


I think you're sorely underestimating the average American. Unless things radically change with the current admin, most will vote for the lesser of two evils, aka, anyone but Trump.

Trump was a fluke because enough people fell for the "just as bad" BS and stayed home. Again, unless something radically changes, voters will see that a drunken squirrel would make a better PotUS the D's will win.

Two term trump

I think this is possible. After all, no matter what happens the R's can still just blame it all on the D's and their base will go out and vote for Team Trump loyally. That is what the election taught me. 40% of people will vote R no matter what.

 Stevefamine wrote:

 feeder wrote:

Rosebuddy wrote:


The rude awakening I am talking about is liberalism being abandoned by capital in favour of fascism. When the official liberal response to managing to lose to Donald Trump is that it's the voters' fault for not being sufficiently loyal there are very few things stopping them from eating a lot of ass. You think everything is simply normal and that Trump is a minor hiccup who'll inevitably be booted out in four years when all the whiny voters remember their place and come crawling back to the Democratic Party. You are going to be disappointed. The Democratic Party has sunk too much of both its material resources and its credibility.

I think you're sorely underestimating the average American. Unless things radically change with the current admin, most will vote for the lesser of two evils, aka, anyone but Trump.

Trump was a fluke because enough people fell for the "just as bad" BS and stayed home. Again, unless something radically changes, voters will see that a drunken squirrel would make a better PotUS the D's will win.

Two term trump

Yeah, maybe. If Trumpcare really is better than Obamacare. If his big tax cut to his oligarch friends defies history and does boost the economy 10% or whatever number he claims it will. If his travel ban and border wall and mass deportations do reduce crime like he claims. If all those things happen, I would hope he is rewarded with a second term.

I'm not holding my breath.

Trump is going to remain president unless serious organised opposition to him is mounted. Be aware that he has already begin being normalised. Remember how everything Bush did was unthinkable and scandalous until they became the way things are just done? Remember how happy Obama was with turning a blind eye to torture and invasion, to further use the drone program to kill anyone he wanted to with no oversight and how liberals are now thinking that Bush was pretty alright after all? That's what's in store for Trump unless real activists throw a spanner into the works.

The Democrats already managed to lose to him once and have spent more effort on spiting the left than they have on putting an end to the Trump administration so they aren't very promising in that regard. Two terms for Trump certainly isn't any more ridiculous than one term for Trump.

 feeder wrote:
When the defence of 'your team' is consistently based in "whataboutism', maybe it's time for some introspection?

This goes for both D and R loyalists.

This, big time.

Too often, political argument turn into "But X did Y, so it's not so bad!"

Good NYT OpEd article on Sessions' Russian gak.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/jeff-sessions-needs-to-go/ar-AAnIV8O?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=ASUDHP


Still no Trump ties to Russia to see here, move along...

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-jr-was-likely-paid-at-least-dollar50000-for-event-held-by-hosts-allied-with-russia-on-syria/ar-AAnIY2U?ocid=ASUDHP

You know, if the speaking engagement was a stand alone, I'd be "meh". But in the ongoing context of this administration, that's really becoming harder to do.

Trump's team cancelled ethics training for its White House staff: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-ethics-white-house-235586

Because of course they did.

Rosebuddy wrote:
Remember how everything Bush did was unthinkable and scandalous until they became the way things are just done?

No, I really don't. I remember Bush having such terrible approval ratings at the end of his term that the democrats won in a landslide. There's more to Bush than drone strikes, after all, and people hated him by the end. And the reason people are nostalgic about Bush is not that they really like what he did, it's that Trump is somehow even worse.

 jmurph wrote:
Trump's team cancelled ethics training for its White House staff: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-ethics-white-house-235586

Because of course they did.

It's like a bad joke, but this is reality.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And they are crushing bores on a night out. The drinkers? We have a drink, we have a laugh. We wake up with hangovers the next day directly proportionate to how much we drank (unless I didn't go to Cassidys, in which case I never get a hangover). The stoners? Light up, mong out. Keep trying to say profound stuff which comes out as absolute drivel. They're just no more fun than someone on the Bolivian Marching Powder.

Have you tried being the only sober person in the room. Depending on the amount of drink people had, it can turn just as annoying and gakky.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Good NYT OpEd article on Sessions' Russian gak.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/jeff-sessions-needs-to-go/ar-AAnIV8O?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=ASUDHP

McCarthyism is alive!!!!

Also:

We do not yet know all the facts, but we know enough to see that Attorney General Sessions has to go as well.

I lol'ed that.

Oh... Ben Carson and Rick Perry were confirmed recently.

Did somebody wake Carson up to tell him?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Even if we ignore the fact that Trump actually does not have the majority of the population behind him, he himself called for rapprochement and unity and he won't get it by simply shouting down anyone who doesn't follow the party line.

But it'll get imposed from outside the Administration by shouting Nazi and criticizing how people sit?

 d-usa wrote:
It's not a goalpost change. I've asked "has he condemned these acts on Twitter" a while ago as well.

I also don't think his anti-semetic alt-right supporters will hug their Jewish neighbors if Trump tells them to stop being mean to Jews on Twitter. But I'll believe that Trump is willing to stop pandering to that group if he takes the 10 seconds to go "bad nazis" on their platform.

It's almost as if I explained all that, weird.

- Trump needs to denounce the alt-right on Twitter
- Even if he denounces the alt-right it won't do anything

Remember that talk of goalpost shifting and impossible standards? You're not going to believe Trump no matter what he does. Just be a man and own it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Is it correct that Sessions denied contact with Russians when asked whether he had discussed the Trump campaign “with Russian government officials?

Senator Franken asked Sessions about “a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government.”
Sessions response was: “I’m not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it.”

If so then that makes this more complex than he just spoke with the Russian Ambassador.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
It's not a goalpost change. I've asked "has he condemned these acts on Twitter" a while ago as well.

I also don't think his anti-semetic alt-right supporters will hug their Jewish neighbors if Trump tells them to stop being mean to Jews on Twitter. But I'll believe that Trump is willing to stop pandering to that group if he takes the 10 seconds to go "bad nazis" on their platform.

It's almost as if I explained all that, weird.

- Trump needs to denounce the alt-right on Twitter
- Even if he denounces the alt-right it won't do anything

Remember that talk of goalpost shifting and impossible standards? You're not going to believe Trump no matter what he does. Just be a man and own it.

1) Trump needs to disavow the alt-right gakheads on their own platform for said alt-right gakheads to really feel it.

2)Disavowing alt-right gakheads on Twitter is for Trump and America's benefit, not the alt-right gakheads. America will not benefit if alt-right gakheads are being pandered to from the White House.

That's my take on what d-usa is saying.

 whembly wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Good NYT OpEd article on Sessions' Russian gak.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/jeff-sessions-needs-to-go/ar-AAnIV8O?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=ASUDHP

McCarthyism is alive!!!!

Also:

We do not yet know all the facts, but we know enough to see that Attorney General Sessions has to go as well.

I lol'ed that.

Oh... Ben Carson and Rick Perry were confirmed recently.

Ya lie to Congress, ya gotta go. As AG, he should be setting an example not worming around an answer. Throw the bum out!

Sorry for a 6 page delay in answering this, but life happens.

Peregrine wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
I'm much more in favor of killing income tax and placing the tax burden on consumer goods. Every time a CEO buys a Bentley it chips more into the system than a McDonalds working single mom buying a gallon of milk, and it will work out in the end far better.

You have this completely backwards. Sales taxes are (usually) regressive taxes, as the poorer you are the greater the percentage of your income you spend on purchasing things subject to sales taxes. If you want to shift the tax burden to the wealthy you want income taxes, with money from investments treated as income and subject to the same tax rates, and fewer loopholes for people with lots of money to spend on accountants to exploit. It's theoretically possible to carefully craft a sales tax that accomplishes the same goals, if you're willing to set specific tax rates for individual products (luxury cars, for example), but the result is a convoluted mess. It's much more straightforward to use income taxes instead.

Co'tor Shas wrote:Yeah, progressive tax systems (i.e. you pay more on higher incomes, also known as what we theoretically have now) are the best way. Letting the rich keep more money doesn't stimulate the economy and never has.

Vaktathi wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

And there is where you lose me. I have this problem with looking at the long term fiscally, and looking at how much it would cost for programs like that, and the domino effect I see isn't a good one. It's never the rich who wind up "sharing" all these social program bills, it's the middle class. The ppor aren't contributing, so it falls to most of the country to foot the bill. As taxes excalate to cover costs of every social program, "affordable" housing (we saw how that went down), "affordable" care (To be fair, I got to keep my plan, but my plan is Tricare.), soon more of the citizen's check vanishes to compensate. Suddenly the very people footing the bill are needing the same damn welfare programs because of tax offset.

Except this doesn't really happen this way in nations that offer these socialized services. They have to pay for these things either way, the only difference is if it's going to corporate overhead or government coffers, and, at least in terms of provisioning these kinds of services, the US privatized costs are outrageous for what they offer the consumer relative to the level of service and care that other nations offer from government programs at a far lower cost.

I'm much more in favor of killing income tax and placing the tax burden on consumer goods. Every time a CEO buys a Bentley it chips more into the system than a McDonalds working single mom buying a gallon of milk, and it will work out in the end far better.

Hrm, as others have noted, this is bass-ackwards in terms of placing the burden to minimize the burden on the lower and middle classes.

A CEO buys a Bentley perhaps once a year, maybe every two or three. That's a relatively rare purchase coming from disposable income from a very small market. Meanwhile the mom buying a gallon of milk is doing so once or twice a week. Their income is *far* more limited and they're having to pay that tax *far* more often. So you've shifted the tax burden in tiny increments onto a population of people who can't afford as much, and have to pay it far more often. The McDonald's mom's income has a much higher relative value and much higher economic velocity (because it's being spent very fast on basic necessities) and the taxes on sales as opposed to income means that she gets hit by the tax *way* harder than the CEO.

Co'tor Shas wrote:Think about it this way, that single mom is spending ~80% of her income a year, the vast majority on essential items. That CEO is spending ~35% of his or her income, the vast majority on non-essential items.






Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:
So... regarding that steak dinner... first link I clicked:
http://ijr.com/2017/02/810965-trump-ditched-the-press-to-have-dinner-heres-how-the-president-acts-when-no-one-is-watching/

...gotta say, seems like a normal bloke.

Nice of him to tip that busboy...

Would not tipping him be pretty much expected? You are supposed to tip everything, especially at expensive places like that (you tend to get good money too).

Unless one of these somehow piggybacked in, this is all about the sales tax instead of income tax.

First off, you make it sound like CEOs and corporate chairs don't buy stuff like milk or whatnot. Yes, I do NOT expect them to buy a Bentley a week, I picked a luxury item as an example. Also, with a percentage based sales tax, more is still generated from the larger purchases. And lets face it, rich people LOVE their larger purchases. Our CURRENT tax system puts most of the tax burden squarely on the middle class, which is the polar opposite of what the left advocates. The rich? Tons of ways to avoid/mitigate it, to the point of moving corporate offices to foreign countries to dodge taxes and regulatory fees. And here's a though: how many of you know someone who moved into a new tax bracket that was now bringing home LESS than they were when they got their raise? THAT is the sort of thing that should never happen, and with a graduated tax system, it happens far more often than it should.

 feeder wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
It's not a goalpost change. I've asked "has he condemned these acts on Twitter" a while ago as well.

I also don't think his anti-semetic alt-right supporters will hug their Jewish neighbors if Trump tells them to stop being mean to Jews on Twitter. But I'll believe that Trump is willing to stop pandering to that group if he takes the 10 seconds to go "bad nazis" on their platform.

It's almost as if I explained all that, weird.

- Trump needs to denounce the alt-right on Twitter
- Even if he denounces the alt-right it won't do anything

Remember that talk of goalpost shifting and impossible standards? You're not going to believe Trump no matter what he does. Just be a man and own it.

1) Trump needs to disavow the alt-right gakheads on their own platform for said alt-right gakheads to really feel it.

2)Disavowing alt-right gakheads on Twitter is for Trump and America's benefit, not the alt-right gakheads. America will not benefit if alt-right gakheads are being pandered to from the White House.

That's my take on what d-usa is saying.

That's most people's take on what I'm saying.

 Just Tony wrote:

Co'tor Shas wrote:Think about it this way, that single mom is spending ~80% of her income a year, the vast majority on essential items. That CEO is spending ~35% of his or her income, the vast majority on non-essential items.

Unless one of these somehow piggybacked in, this is all about the sales tax instead of income tax.

First off, you make it sound like CEOs and corporate chairs don't buy stuff like milk or whatnot. Yes, I do NOT expect them to buy a Bentley a week, I picked a luxury item as an example. Also, with a percentage based sales tax, more is still generated from the larger purchases. And lets face it, rich people LOVE their larger purchases. Our CURRENT tax system puts most of the tax burden squarely on the middle class, which is the polar opposite of what the left advocates. The rich? Tons of ways to avoid/mitigate it, to the point of moving corporate offices to foreign countries to dodge taxes and regulatory fees. And here's a though: how many of you know someone who moved into a new tax bracket that was now bringing home LESS than they were when they got their raise? THAT is the sort of thing that should never happen, and with a graduated tax system, it happens far more often than it should.

And the point is that sales taxes are regressive. Because the single mom spends far more of their income on basic goods, and more of their income period, a 25% sales tax would mean practically a 25% tax. Whereas a rich person might pay 50% of their income (which even that might be a bit high), and they would be paying and effective 12.5% tax. See how that is unfair?

And out tax system will always mostly rely on the middle class, because their are a hell of a lot more of us. Now there are ways to help mitigate this. More high-income tax brackets, up to the highest incomes, so that the rich pay more. Cutting out loopholes, so that the rich have to pay their taxes. Aggressively prosecuting tax dodgers. Taxing not just income, but assets over a certain amount (usualt very high)





Also it is literally impossible to make less because you made more because of taxes. The way our tax system works is you pay a % tax on each bracket. If you make $100K a year, you pay the same amount in taxes on that $100K that a multi-millionaire makes on their first $100k.

 Just Tony wrote:


Unless one of these somehow piggybacked in, this is all about the sales tax instead of income tax.

First off, you make it sound like CEOs and corporate chairs don't buy stuff like milk or whatnot.

They do, but the relative value of the money spent to their overall income is dramatically lower than for the aforementioned working mom, and these rich consumers are fewer in number.

Yes, I do NOT expect them to buy a Bentley a week, I picked a luxury item as an example. Also, with a percentage based sales tax, more is still generated from the larger purchases.

Larger purchases are generally far fewer in number. Twenty million gallons of milk being taxed for $1 each are sold for each Bentely that's bringing in say $50k in taxes.

And lets face it, rich people LOVE their larger purchases.

Yes...but those purchases are much fewer in number amongst a far smaller consumer population, and they save/invest/sit on a whole lot more of that income rather than spending it.

A poor family is going to spend 100% of their income almost as soon as they get it, a middle class family may do so to 90% and save 5% for a short time and save the last 5% long term, a well-t-do family may spend 80% of their income and the other 20% in various savings, the ultrawealthy spend a very small percentage of that income and the majority of it goes to things that don't generate sales taxes. The velocity of money (the rate at which money is spent in transactions in a given time frame) increases the poorer one is generally, each dollar generates more economic activity the higher it's velocity, thus dollar for dollar the incomes of the middle and poor generate the most economic activity and are adversely impacted by sales taxes which are transactional in nature and hit on velocity much more than most other taxes.

Our CURRENT tax system puts most of the tax burden squarely on the middle class, which is the polar opposite of what the left advocates.

Most on all sides would agree that tax reform should be a thing, but sales taxes put the burden on the poor and middle class overwhelmingly. They are the classic example of a fundamentally regressive tax.

The rich? Tons of ways to avoid/mitigate it, to the point of moving corporate offices to foreign countries to dodge taxes and regulatory fees.

That's an issue that can be addressed through improvement of the tax code, but really, more to the point, a big issue is that income at the ultra wealthy level isn't taxed as income at all, but as capital gains, and thus at a much lower rate and is derived from and purposed to activity that would avoid sales taxes entirely as well.

And here's a though: how many of you know someone who moved into a new tax bracket that was now bringing home LESS than they were when they got their raise? THAT is the sort of thing that should never happen, and with a graduated tax system, it happens far more often than it should.

That's a symptom of a poorly executed graduated tax system, not with the fundamental nature of graduated tax systems, those are either issues with rising income no longer qualifying for certain benefits resulting in a loss on net income rather than taxes taking more of their income or they're getting hit with a different tax issue (like AMT, which is another issue). Likewise, while such things happen, they are rare exceptions, not ultra common in a standard-of-living-impacting way, and doesn't happen to the overwhelmingly vast majority of people.

Here’s an interesting piece on the Trump/Russia/Sessions/Flynn/Manafort/Page scandal.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-gravity-is-strong

“Certainly, this revelation itself doesn't shake anything to its foundations. But why did Sessions have this meeting at all? It seems at best ill-conceived, coming in the heat of allegations of inappropriate connections between Trump and Russia last Fall.
Far more baffling, why did he choose to conceal it?”

“As I said, big, big scandals work like this. People who don't even appear to be that close to the action keep getting pulled under for what seem like needless deceptions. The answer is usually that the stuff at the center of the scandal is so big that it requires concealment, even about things distant from the main action, things that it would seem much better and less damaging simply to admit.
We've all heard the old saw: It's never the crime, it's the cover-up. This is almost never true. Covering scandals for any length of time is enough to tell you that. People are generally able to make judgments about how much trouble they're in. We think the 'cover up' is worse than the crime because it's actually very seldom that the full scope of the actual crime is ever known. The cover up works better than you think. The other reason the cover up is a logical response is that it usually works. You only find out about it when it doesn't. So it's a good bet.
Astronomers can't see black holes directly. They map them by their event horizon and their effect on nearby stars and stellar matter. We can't see yet what's at the center of the Trump/Russia black hole. But we can tell a lot about its magnitude by the scope of the event horizon and the degree of its gravitational pull, which is immense.”

 whembly wrote:
The feth they are...

And you then 'prove' your claim that Clinton's foundation and Trump's ties to Russia are the same, by talking about fast & furious, and the IRS scandal, and some random thing about Iran. This is not how conversation works.

I call Hillary her first name to distinguish from her husband. (which clinton???).

Yuo missed my point. Clinton and Trump were just used as examples. Go look at the name my note was attached to - to former AG Lynch. You called her AG Loretta, it was strange.

Sure... call Sessions, Jeff. That's his name.

No, please no-one do this.


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Rosebuddy wrote:
Perez ran to block Ellison, because Ellison was endorsed by Sanders. If Perez and Ellison are basically the same, why would it be so important for Perez to be pushed to the front a month after Ellison had already announced he was running...

And here you try to make it sound sinister that more than one person would attempt to run for an elected positions. Funny stuff.

The Republicans are winning because the Republicans are an actual political party who have kept their fragile coalition by actively engaging people and who get and stay in power by understanding that they're working to get more power.

Actually they've engaged less people. They've won the popular vote for the presidency once in 24 years. This is the basic stuff of US politics that you keep getting wrong here, mate. They've maintained something close to a power balance because they snuck over the line in both of the close elections, and because they have a much greater discipline meaning they vote right down the card, and get out and vote in mid-terms. And from there Republicans have used their share of the power much better, because their congressmen have much stronger discipline, and a voting base that doesn't punish them for any cynical ploys.

The rude awakening I am talking about is liberalism being abandoned by capital in favour of fascism. When the official liberal response to managing to lose to Donald Trump is that it's the voters' fault for not being sufficiently loyal there are very few things stopping them from eating a lot of ass.

And here you're taking my comments about the Democrats and their voters, and then just make believing them in to being 'the official liberal response'. I had no idea I had such a standing within liberalism in America.

As well as that bit of ridiculousness, you also re-interpret my statement to voters lacking loyalty, which is weird and very silly. This is nothing to do with loyalty, that's just another bit of moralism you've added to the conversation because you continue to be unable to see anything through a practical lens. The issue is about liberal voters being realistic about what politics is and how it works. You don't need to be loyal anything but your own mind to recognise that the modern Republican party is a disaster, you don't need to be loyal to anything but your own values to vote to stop that Republican party gaining power. This is a lesson that liberal America remembers after they experience a period of Republican governance. It is a lesson they quickly forget again once Republicans are pushed out of power.

You think everything is simply normal and that Trump is a minor hiccup who'll inevitably be booted out in four years when all the whiny voters remember their place and come crawling back to the Democratic Party. You are going to be disappointed. The Democratic Party has sunk too much of both its material resources and its credibility.

So far Trump is shaping up to be a worse president than Bush, but perhaps less of a disaster because Trump might not start a major war for no good reason. The US and the Democrats survived Bush, in fact the Democrats came out stronger, because that's how oppositional politics works.


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 Easy E wrote:
I think this is possible. After all, no matter what happens the R's can still just blame it all on the D's and their base will go out and vote for Team Trump loyally. That is what the election taught me. 40% of people will vote R no matter what.

Yep, they turned out for Bush after he started the most pointless war imaginable. The major thing was that in 2004 opinion hadn't yet turned against the war in Iraq, for reasons that I doubt I will ever understand. Without that impetus to drive Democratic turn out, then Kerry's mediocrity combined with the swift boat lies effectively sunk the Democratic turn out.

I can potentially see something very similar happening this time around, if somehow Trump becomes normalised, at least for a little while, and Democrats decide that while they hate Trump their own candidate just isn't quite exciting enough.


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 whembly wrote:
McCarthyism is alive!!!!

And here we have 'McCarthyism' being used to describe people calling for action against someone being caught lying in testimony to Congress about their involvement in a potential presidential scandal.

Yes, that is a thing that is happening.


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 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Is it correct that Sessions denied contact with Russians when asked whether he had discussed the Trump campaign “with Russian government officials?

Senator Franken asked Sessions about “a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government.”
Sessions response was: “I’m not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it.”

If so then that makes this more complex than he just spoke with the Russian Ambassador.

It isn't complex. Sessions lied. If he wanted to say he had no contact with Russia in his role in the Trump campaign, he would have said "I did not have communications with Russians in my role in the Trump campaign." He didn't add that qualifier because he didn't want to invite questions on about the conversations he did have. So instead he lied, and said he had no conversations at all.

Lying used to be a bad thing.


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 Just Tony wrote:
Unless one of these somehow piggybacked in, this is all about the sales tax instead of income tax.

First off, you make it sound like CEOs and corporate chairs don't buy stuff like milk or whatnot. Yes, I do NOT expect them to buy a Bentley a week, I picked a luxury item as an example. Also, with a percentage based sales tax, more is still generated from the larger purchases. And lets face it, rich people LOVE their larger purchases.

No, you don't understand how this works. As you earn more you save more, this is one of the strongest, best established rules in economics. Just ask yourself who is more likely to be putting 10% of their pay in to a 401k - a guy on $30k, or a guy on $130k? It should be intuitive and obvious that the richer you are the more you free up for savings & investment, which means they are spending less of their income on consumption goods and therefore losing a smaller share of their income to consumption tax. As such it is regressive tax.

Now this doesn't mean that sales taxes are automatically bad. They're cheap to collect. They capture lots of tax sources that might otherwise escape through the grey market. And the regressive effect can be offset by other measures, such as income taxes. But it is impossible to deny that sales taxes are regressive, that is just not a thing, so please stop.

Our CURRENT tax system puts most of the tax burden squarely on the middle class, which is the polar opposite of what the left advocates. The rich? Tons of ways to avoid/mitigate it, to the point of moving corporate offices to foreign countries to dodge taxes and regulatory fees.

While you are right that there are lots of measures to avoid income tax, you are absolutely wrong that it means the bulk of taxes fall on the middle class. The average tax paid by someone in the top 1% is 27%, while people in the top 10% pay around 15%. Someone in the middle class will pay something around 5 to 10% federal income tax.

And here's a though: how many of you know someone who moved into a new tax bracket that was now bringing home LESS than they were when they got their raise? THAT is the sort of thing that should never happen, and with a graduated tax system, it happens far more often than it should.

This is also wrong. Moving up a bracket doesn't mean all your income is taxed at the new higher rate. Only income above the new bracket range is taxed at the new rate. You can't ever take home less by moving up a bracket.