2020 US election - It Came from Washington DC

[Labster]

You know, that would be a great way to reduce minority representation. Just require them to go inside a police office, where they would never want to go.

There are a lot of things that sound perfectly reasonable to the average European, but just remember that the U.S. is always just that one step more fucked up than you think.

[SilverFang01]

2020 continues to bend us over.
SCOTUS judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg passes away from pancreatic cancer.

How's that protest voting looking NOW?

[SilverFang01]

ICE is forcing immigrants detained in concentration camps to get hysterectomies. Is it ok to call them Nazis yet or is it still “an unfair comparison?”

ICE whistleblower speaks out, alleges mass hysterectomies performed on migrant women

[Rajvik]

i will not make any rude comments about this. While i did not agree with the woman in politics, i at least can respect what she has done, and has stood for. May the heavens keep and honor you Justice Ginsburg.

[SilverFang01]

What do they call it when a single political ideology decides patriotism?

Because the part that comes next is designating those who aren't "patriotic" enough as enemies of the state -- and Trump and his political party have ALREADY suggested such.

[Rajvik]

Silverfang, do i need to point at Joe's political commercial about invoking that a mask mandate should be viewed as a patriotic duty?

what has happened is that the socialists have taken control of the schools especially in the colleges and they DO teach how evil this country is supposed to be.

[hazard]

Registering to vote as a Dutch citizen is easy.

Be a Dutch citizen, and be of age. Providing your current address is optional, and mostly so that the bureaucracy knows where to send your voting card to. You can in fact go and fetch it from the appropriate city hall personally, and have to notify the municipality of any changes in person.

[robkelk]

Silverfang, do i need to point at Joe's political commercial about invoking that a mask mandate should be viewed as a patriotic duty?

It's about time somebody said that. Only a callous uncaring person would think otherwise - politics doesn't factor into it.

what has happened is that the socialists have taken control of the schools especially in the colleges and they DO teach how evil this country is supposed to be.

When did you ever have socialists in US politics? Even Saunders is a wannabe in that regard.

[SilverFang01]

Rob, for a conservative in the US a ‘socialist’ is anyone who dares show a bit of empathy for his fellow.

[robkelk]

That doesn't mean they get to redefine the word to suit their prejudices.

[SilverFang01]

Narrator: This means "no."

[Jinx999]

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...de/616424/

Long article and I don't know how accurate, but it's worrying . . . .

[Labster]

Voting advice for this year:
1. Plan your vote.  Apply for a mail ballot if it's necessary or allowed in your state.  If not, have fun taking off your mask to prove you match your voter ID, after waiting in three-hour-long lines to get a voting machine (white areas excluded).
2. Be sure you have a full tank of gas before Election Day.
3. Make sure you have a current passport.  Can be used as a voter ID in some states; also you just need to be able to leave the country when shit goes downhill.
4. Own guns?  Be sure to stock up on ammo.
5. Plan an escape route.

I'm not joking.  Don't wait for things to get too hot before readying yourself to leave.  I expect a slow burn where tensions continue to rise in the days following Election Day -- keep aware of your community and your surroundings.

[robkelk]

Something that was pointed out to me today:

Whether you like what he's doing or not, the Nicknamer-in-Chief is doing what he promised to do before being elected. That's something that a lot of people find appealing in a leader.

[Jinx999]

So, where's the infrastructure investment?

How's getting Mexico to pay for a wall going?

[Norgarth]

The Election that could break America (article from The Atlantic)
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...de/616424/

[DHBirr]

It's finally come to this:  a historian who's written a book on Mussolini told Business Insider that comparing Trump to Il Duce is an insult to Benny the Moose. Because Mussolini was literate in more than one language, read newspapers daily, and was artistic....

   David I. Kertzer, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Pope and Mussolini, told Insider that comparing Trump and Mussolini does “a disservice” to the Italian leader given he “read newspapers every day in four languages, followed policy issues closely, played the violin and loved classical music, and was not particularly interested in lining his own pocket (although there was no lack of corruption in his regime).”
   “What the present moment in American politics does make me appreciate more is how Italy, a parliamentary democracy, could so quickly become a dictatorship,” Kertzer added.
   Kertzer noted that Mussolini said “people were like sheep” and “craved being followers,” adding, “Like Trump, he had very little in the way of strong ideological beliefs himself, and knew the power of emotional rather than rational appeals, and of the power of repeating simple, emotionally powerful yet substantively empty phrases (Make America Great Again).”
   To Kertzer, the most striking parallel between Trump and Mussolini is that similar to the Italian fascist dictator, the president has enjoyed strong support from religious leaders despite not having “a religious bone in his body.”

Earlier in the article, another historian's tweet was quoted (Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a New York University historian who’s written extensively on Mussolini):

Ruth Ben-Ghiat
@ruthbenghiat
When Mussolini was still Prime Minister, he used to joke about staying in office for 20 years. No one understood what he meant until it was too late.
     Rob Way
     @RobWayTV
     “10 more years,” a crowd at President Trump’s South Carolina rally just started chanting.
     Trump: “We’ll set the term limit at 25 years” and said Senator Lindsey Graham will help get it passed.
11:58 AM · Feb 29, 2020

[Labster]

TRUMP’S TAXES SHOW CHRONIC LOSSES AND YEARS OF TAX AVOIDANCE
Records Obtained by The Times After Years of Secrecy

Man, I wish I could get my taxes down to $750, and this guy does it two years in a row?  Verily, a stable genius.

[Rajvik]

First of all, your believing the NYT, again. How many times have they been proven wrong? answer, a lot. how many times have they been shown to be idealogue liars, more.

second, when you lose money in invesetments, ITS A TAX WRITE OFF. a good investor knows just what stocks to keep to keep his loss high enough to offset his gains to where he doesn't pay as much in taxes.

third, HE DOESN'T OWN AS MUCH AS YOU SEEM TO THINK HE DOES
that company with his name on it, its publicly traded, yes he may own a controlling portion of the stock, or he and his family do, but they do not hold all of it.

[robkelk]

First of all, your believing the NYT, again. How many times have they been proven wrong? answer, a lot.

If there really is "a lot", then you should have no problem naming three cases. Please do so. EDIT: And I want actual citations, not a pointer to a propaganda film like the last time I asked you to support one of your statements.

Or are you confusing the NY Times with the NY Post?

[Labster]

First of all, your believing the NYT, again. How many times have they been proven wrong? answer, a lot. how many times have they been shown to be idealogue liars, more.

second, when you lose money in invesetments, ITS A TAX WRITE OFF. a good investor knows just what stocks to keep to keep his loss high enough to offset his gains to where he doesn't pay as much in taxes.

third, HE DOESN'T OWN AS MUCH AS YOU SEEM TO THINK HE DOES
that company with his name on it, its publicly traded, yes he may own a controlling portion of the stock, or he and his family do, but they do not hold all of it.

Okay.  Trump can, once and for all, prove them wrong.  Prove that they made up the numbers.  All he has to do is to release his own tax returns.  Do it, and prove at long last that the New York Times is a cabal of liberal liars, and can never be trusted again.  Fucking do it, Mr. President.

Or is the President still under audit?  Does that mean our President is under active investigation for over five years?  I mean, wow -- did he do something wrong?  He says everything is above board, and why not take him at his word?  Trump should really want to release his taxes to clear his own name.  Expose the Deep State plot to keep him under investigations for what they are, and all he has to do is release his tax returns.

At this point, if the NYT is lying, and Trump still doesn't release his tax returns, it can only mean the truth is worse than the fiction published in the newspaper.

[robkelk]

He is Donald J. Trump, millionaire. He owns a mansion and a yacht. How does he pay for the upkeep on them, if his businesses are doing so badly that he's had writeoffs every year for the last decade?

EDIT: He might not own the yacht any more, but I can't find a citation for that, so ...

[Jinx999]

From what I've read

1) It isn't unusual for a President or Politician to be audited by the IRS, just as a matter of general principle or as a precaution. You can't draw any conclusions from this.

2) Being audited does not interfere with your ability to release your tax records to the public.

3) It's also not that odd for a sucessful or prominent buisnessman to end up so heavily leaveraged that they have negative net worth. I remember hearing about one once (can't remember the name), and the banks were still eager to lend him more so he could make the money needed to pay them back, they trusted his skills to that extent. I don't personally consider this terribly sane on their part and I don't know if it worked. It's even less unusual for one to be feeding money from sucessful buisnesses to ones that cost money.

4) Assuming the NYT report is at all accurate, Trump is either not that good a buisnessman or he's blatantly abusing the tax system or both. I don't know enough to speculate on what exactly.

5) The NYT has invested a lot of its reputation into the accuracy of this report and they will have double checked. The figures will have come from a tracable source and passed a smell test. Either they're reasonably accurate or . . . I mean it's possible that someone in the Trump campaign has released a provably false fake accounts in order to discredit their opponents, but I don't think this is likely. Unless Trump actually releases his tax records, the NYT report is as trustworth a source as we're likely to see.

6) It's possible that his tax avoidance scheme is legal. It'd still be in a grey area where it'd only be legal for the immensely rich people who can afford teams of creative accountants and lawyers. It's still an abuse of the system and places more burden on anyone who isn't Donal Trump

[robkelk]

As to point #4, there's a Internet meme about him being so bad at business that he managed to bankrupt a casino.

I did some checking on that.

He managed to bankrupt two casinos in Atlantic City - Trump Plaza (1984-2014) and Trump's Taj Mahal (1990-2016) - according to the industry website NJCasino.com

Trump’s reign in Atlantic City came to an end in 2004, when his consolidated company Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts filed for bankruptcy, with Trump resigning as chairman.

Many other Atlantic City casinos' revenues saw constant growth throughout Trump’s public battle against bankruptcy. These revenues would only see a decline following the 2008 recession.

[Bob Schroeck]

Regarding point 5, there is a reason that the NYT has been the "newspaper of record" for the nation for ... what, a century or more? With a centrist editorial position through most of that. The only people who claim otherwise are those who are fully invested in the Trump Cult of Personality and are chugging the Koolaid in gallon bottles.