Is there a politics thread? Guess I'm making one

[Grefter]

I'm all for trashing Trump as an immoral failure and hammering him for not releasing the taxes, but I more consider it a commentary on the system rather than Trump that he paid as little taxes as possible. That just seems like human nature.

I do on the other hand.  I think if you are running for office as an elected official in any capacity then having an active disdain for the spirit of the system that is going to pay you then I don't trust you with that money.  Tax iexists for a goddamned reason.  Those loopholes people abuse are also there to try and reduce the burden on investors and "job creators" so that when things don't go well their livelyhood isn't completely destroyed.

Aggressive abuse of that is entirely something I am going to judge your character on.  If it is human nature it is a disgusting part of human nature.

Not paying tax (when you financially are capable of course, if you have no taxable income, you paid the tax you owed)and then complaining about the system is significantly worse than not voting and complaining.

[NotMiki]

http://abovethelaw.com/2016/10/judge-posner-benchslaps-governor-mike-pence-on-syrian-refugee-opposition/

So this is fun, three of the most prominent conservative jurists in the country just told Mike Pence where he can stick it.  Posner and Easterbrook are unquestionably the two most influential and respected jurists not on the Supreme Court, and Sykes is on Trump's short list as a Supreme Court appointee.  Yikes.

[dunie]

What a fun title.

[NotMiki]

What a fun title.

Yeaaaaaah this kinda sums up Above The Law and the big firm legal culture it stands at the heart of: outwardly, admirably liberal - frequently taking biglaw to task for not being diverse enough - but with a side of microaggressions because the writers are a product of the biglaw bros culture they criticize.  Very New York.

[Shale]

I go on vacation for TWO FUCKING DAYS...

[OblivionKnight]

Ha.

Hah.

Hahahahaha.

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[superaielman]

Ha.

Hah.

Hahahahaha.

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

me irl right now

[Grefter]

So being out of the loop I had to look it up.


Seriously, that is what set it all off?  Confirmation of blatantly obvious behaviour?  Okay America.

[The Duck]

He's said heinous shit about all kinds of minorities and has been for years. Then he enabled a bunch of white nationalists/the alt right. It's a bit telling that this is the line. That's not to say this is not a big deal, but I'm not sure this is the worst thing he's said this week .

[superaielman]

And a special burn in hell to the media, which played along with Trump in the primaries and gave him wall to wall coverage even though shit like this was known.

[NotMiki]

2016 Election shaping up like a cautionary tale with an ending so blunt and forced you have to roll your eyes.  Oh a taped comment admitting to sexual assault, in EXACTLY the manner in which he had already been accused - in court no less - of sexual assault.  2016 needs a competent editor to tone this shit down.

tl;dr

[OblivionKnight]

It's funny because it's true.

I think it's so damn funny that this is what seems to be tipping things.  It shouldn't have taken this long, but I think there were a lot of people just trying to justify the situation as best they could.  Particularly why he was picked as the Republican nominee over the, what, 11 other actually not totally abysmal candidates?

"Oh, he's a business man first, of course he would use the tax breaks.  That's not bad, he clearly knows where the tax loopholes are.  That's a good thing!"

"He's not a career politician, he's different.  So he says things as he thinks of them, no filter.  He's got a different platform - this means we'll get some changes!"

I think this was the first thing that really couldn't be defended, since that's why Trump himself apologized for the first time...at least in this campaign, but probably in his goddamned life.  Not any good way to spin this - "oohhh...Bill Clinton is a man whore look at him instead" doesn't really work.  I mean, we knew this for a while (and anyone who took half a second to look would have figured it out earlier - this is the era of the internet, people, not that hard to find stuff).  It's really frustrating that it got this far. 

Agreed about the media - this election (and previous elections have been building up to this one) is way too focused on sensationalism - it's so hard to find non-idiotic media coverage.  How about we talk a bit more about policies and the like?  There's a reason the founding fathers (was it Adams?  I can't remember for sure) said that we should have multiple parties, not a 1-2 party system, which leas to situations like this.

Really hoping Johnson makes a big impact here.  And that the Republican party gets a hell of a reform. 

[NotMiki]

"Oh, he's a business man first, of course he would use the tax breaks.  That's not bad, he clearly knows where the tax loopholes are.  That's a good thing!"

As a professional in the business of tax breaks, I can't condemn him for this IF his tax breaks were proper under the tax code.  But we don't have anywhere near enough information to evaluate that.  If he amassed $915m in losses the hard way, fine.  His properties in the late 80s were hemorrhaging money, so we know it's at least partially legit.   On the other hand, was he trying to get tax breaks he did not deserve, using the complexity of his returns to try and pull one over on the IRS?  The most compelling theory is that the $915m is composed in large part of losses from his S-Corp that were intended to have been written off, but which a mistake in drafting of the tax code meant he could "legitimately" claim.  So a tax loophole in the truest sense.

So that's about all I have to say about that.  Maybe Trump's a cheat but we don't have enough inforOBJECTION!

Of course.  Of course!  This is Trump we're talking about, and so any argument even marginally in his favor had to be undermined in the stupidest way possible.  And here it is: Trump definitively cheated on his New York state property taxes, in order to reap a $6,000 benefit.  So there you go, decisive evidence he's a tax cheat!  An unimaginably petty tax cheat.

p.s. I've heard a lot of outlets assert that he got $915m in losses in a single year.  That's not true.  Those $915m include carried losses from previous years.  This also lends SOME credibility to the number - presumably parts of it are from returns that had already been audited.

[Grefter]

I think this was the first thing that really couldn't be defended, since that's why Trump himself apologized for the first time...at least in this campaign, but probably in his goddamned life.  Not any good way to spin this - "oohhh...Bill Clinton is a man whore look at him instead" doesn't really work.  I mean, we knew this for a while (and anyone who took half a second to look would have figured it out earlier - this is the era of the internet, people, not that hard to find stuff).  It's really frustrating that it got this far.

Yeah except the apology had NO U right there as well.

I’ve said some foolish things, but there’s a big difference between the words and actions of other people. Bill Clinton has actually abused women, and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated his victims. We will discuss this more in the coming days. See you at the debate on Sunday.

"Actually" abused women. 

[dunie]

Clinton's appeal to fact-checking is exhausting; she literally sounds like a lecturing oldie. I doubt anyone behind Trump would reverse their opinion if they discovered he wasn't a man of his words. She's getting better pants suits than she had while campaigning, kudos. Her e-mail apology is overly-practiced and as believable in integrity as Donald Trump's locker room talk. She does a better job, however, not defending a practice as legitimate. I don't care about her e-mails; still, I sometimes wonder if her response to "I've been cleared," doesn't make the situation seem any less tenuous. Cooper was impatient with Trump, cool. I vibed with it; his shortness did seem like a vendetta to repair the first debate. Kinda lame, but reminds me off the tempo of conversations between myself and men who sicken me. Single status no dependents professional me doesn't care 2 pennies about Clinton's "think of the children" rhetoric. I've always valued the saying that you can tell a country's value and demeanor by how they treat the dead and the insertion of Khan into the conversation teetered from the gross with Clinton and the offensive with Trump. That's where I went to bed; just read the transcript - still not happy with a lot of Hillary (2 pts for reminding folk that MA was Muslim, albeit the poisonous black nationalist machismo version for some time). But hey, that's a complaint not worth developing anymore. It's 2015 and talks about race always displace the diversity of asians to some so-called periphery. And when they talk about black folk, it's always a monolithic slave-descended African-American group, which is just not true at all, and no one wants to talk about living costs to any serious extent in this debate when "gentrification" rolls off every tongue like clockwork. Most interesting thing said that night was reversing Citizens United & refugees. We have more than enough space but not enough people in power willing to think creatively beyond vetting.

[SnowFire]

Clinton's appeal to fact-checking is exhausting; she literally sounds like a lecturing oldie. I doubt anyone behind Trump would reverse their opinion if they discovered he wasn't a man of his words.

So what exactly do you propose she do?

Obama got a lot of crap for the first debate in 2012 for being way too passive against Romney and just ignoring Romney's attacks.  Flip side, if Clinton responds to everything Trump claims, she allows Trump to dictate what the debate will be about, and the rare undecided voter watching is the type who will assume the truth is somewhere in-between the disputed positions, which is bad if Trump says "Clinton eats babies" and Clinton is saying "I don't eat babies" (conclusion: Clinton eats babies occasionally).  A blanket denial with "check my website for details on why that's all wrong" is about her best option IMO that both counters Trump but doesn't eat all her time, but maybe you have a different suggestion...?

[superaielman]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/glenn-beck-hillary-clinton_us_57fc695be4b0e655eab74351

This fucking election.

[dunie]

Clinton's appeal to fact-checking is exhausting; she literally sounds like a lecturing oldie. I doubt anyone behind Trump would reverse their opinion if they discovered he wasn't a man of his words.

So what exactly do you propose she do?

Obama got a lot of crap for the first debate in 2012 for being way too passive against Romney and just ignoring Romney's attacks.  Flip side, if Clinton responds to everything Trump claims, she allows Trump to dictate what the debate will be about, and the rare undecided voter watching is the type who will assume the truth is somewhere in-between the disputed positions, which is bad if Trump says "Clinton eats babies" and Clinton is saying "I don't eat babies" (conclusion: Clinton eats babies occasionally).  A blanket denial with "check my website for details on why that's all wrong" is about her best option IMO that both counters Trump but doesn't eat all her time, but maybe you have a different suggestion...?

Unlike Obama, Clinton got flack for being too prepared and rebutting, but honestly, I find little value in waxing poetic as if I'm a debate specialist. Her not-now diversion is just not effective to silence Trump's active lying during the debate. The low-hanging fruit for character digs by her is juicy, sure, but she should keep up how she has actually slighted his misinformation at the beginning of her responses.

 

[Luther Lansfeld]

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2016/october-web-only/speak-truth-to-trump.html

"Enthusiasm for a candidate like Trump gives our neighbors ample reason to doubt that we believe Jesus is Lord. They see that some of us are so self-interested, and so self-protective, that we will ally ourselves with someone who violates all that is sacred to us—in hope, almost certainly a vain hope given his mendacity and record of betrayal, that his rule will save us."

It's nice to see someone go for the throat on this issue. I've definitely concluded that evangelicals are largely hypocrites on this issue throughout the past few months.

[Captain K]

Well one positive thing came out of this election.  Texas, a state with normally horrendous voter participation, has registered a record 15 million voters.  Hopefully if most of them registered to defeat Trump they'll also vote out some of the other crummy Republicans we have.

[NotMiki]

Generally speaking, the category of potential voters with the worst registration and participation rate in Texas are Hispanics.  So that seems pretty likely.

[NotMiki]

Encountered some bona fide white supremacists protesting Jews and international banking outside the federal reserve in Boston yesterday.  Told them they're racist shits and to get the fuck out of Boston (they said they're from Connecticut) to which one replied that I'm "obviously a Jew" if I object to them.

It really rattled me, honestly.  This fucking election cannot be over soon enough.

[dunie]

Fuck yeah CK!

What the -fuck- Jim? Sorry you experienced that but had the steel to say something.

[NotMiki]

Never seen anything like that here.  Naturally it was on the same day Trump gave a speech about how Hillary is in cahoots with "international bankers" wink wink to steal our country from us.  Absolutely disgusting.

[OblivionKnight]

I wanted to post something here, like, a long discussion.

But fuck that noise.  All I'll say is that Trump's scorched earth policy is the strategy of a goddamned 4 year old.