A thread for Democrats Only
POSTED BY: THGRRI
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 15:36
VIEWED: 755368
PAGE 87 of 725
Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
ahhhh yes. Another of the forgotten Obama-Gates.
What I'm glad to see here is that we all seem to be in agreement that TPP is bad. Even Second and G don't seem to support it. Whether or not that's because Trump might be is up for debate, but I'll take opposition to it in any form.
I can't figure out why T seems so pro-TPP though.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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I’ve often heard veterans wish for a draft, for something that would drag more Americans into orbit around the dark star that is the country’s constant exercise of military power. The Founders of the republic originally wanted to force Congress to vote every two years just to keep a standing Army; these days Congress won’t even permit a vote to replace an Authorization for the Use of Military Force that was passed prior to the Iraq War and that we are now using to justify fighting against groups that didn’t even exist back then.
For the military men and women overseas looking to explain why they’re risking their lives, they have no public debate to refer to, no clear benchmarks of success being analyzed in Congress and on TV. Nor is there even clear guidance from the commander in chief, who one month rolls out an escalation in Afghanistan with the express purpose of increasing military pressure on the Taliban to motivate them to engage in a political settlement, and then a few months later announces that he’s uninterested in negotiations. Can service members maintain a sense of purpose when nobody — not the general public, or the Congress elected to represent them, or the commander in chief himself — seems to take the wars we’re fighting seriously?
Our military is a major part of who we are as a country; it is the force that has undergirded the post–World War II international order. Being an American means being deeply implicated in that, for good or for ill. The solution to our current dead end doesn’t lie within the military itself. The military can’t set its own goals, can’t determine its own budget or which ideals it fights and dies for, and can’t decide how its losses will be honored, dishonored, or appropriated after the fact. So while America as a whole chooses to express its love for its military in gooey, substance-free displays, our military waits, perhaps hopelessly, for a coherent national policy that takes the country’s wars seriously.
What would such a thing look like? It would probably look like rescinding the open-ended Authorization for the Use of Military Force and making the president regularly go before Congress to explain where and why he was putting troops in harm’s way, what resources the mission required, and what the terms of success were. It would look like every member of Congress carrying out his or her constitutionally mandated duty to provide oversight of our military adventures by debating and then voting on that plan. It would look like average Americans taking part in that debate, and scorning anyone who tried to tell them they couldn’t. It would look like average Americans rolling their eyes in disgust when our leaders tell us we’re not at war while American troops are risking their lives overseas, or claim that Americans must support the wars their country engages in if they want to support the troops, or when a press secretary argues that anyone who questions the success of a military raid in which a service member died “owes an apology” to that fallen soldier. It would look like our politicians letting the fallen rest in peace, rather than propping up their corpses for political cover.
Without a political leadership that articulates and argues for a mission and objective worth dying for, it’s no surprise that soldiers sometimes stop caring about the mission altogether. A sergeant who deployed to the Korengal Valley, in Afghanistan, told me that by the end of his deployment, he had purposely adopted a defensive posture, sacrificing mission for safety at every opportunity he could. This is reminiscent of what one officer said of the later stages of the Vietnam War: “The gung-ho attitude that made our soldiers so effective in 1966, ’67, was replaced by the will to survive.” It’s not that those troops lacked courage, but that the ends shifted. “We fought for each other,” I’ve heard plenty of veterans claim about their time in service, and no wonder. If your country won’t even resource the wars with what its own generals say is necessary for long-term success, what else is ther
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The president is not a king but a citizen, deserving of the presumption of innocence and other protections, yet also vulnerable to lawful scrutiny. If Trump doesn't recognizes this, how Republican lawmakers respond will shape the future not only of this presidency, but of the American experiment itself.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/04/15/media/new-york-times-editorial-rule-of
-law/index.html
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www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/As-you-file-your-t
axes-don-t-forget-about-12835908.php
Tax Day, on Tuesday, offers a reminder that President Donald Trump continues to refuse to release his tax returns. In doing so, he is ignoring a tradition in transparency followed by every president since Richard Nixon.
For the past several decades, most presidential candidates have released their tax returns, including Trump’s 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton. But not Trump.
This should concern all Americans.
Tax returns show how much a person earned, where the money came from and how much they paid in taxes. For Trump, it could help reveal whether he’s had financial ties to foreign interests. Without a doubt, politicians give up some of their privacy by releasing details about their income — but voters have a right to expect their leaders to show where they derive their income, and what potential financial conflicts of interests they may have.
Trump’s claim during the campaign that he could not release his tax returns because he was being audited by the IRS was bogus. The tax agency itself said Trump was free to release them.
Throughout our history, the conduct of presidents has often been guided by norms rather than formal rules and laws. Trump’s refusal to follow many of these norms may mean such rules are needed.
The Maryland Legislature took the unprecedented step this year of passing a bill that would require presidential and vice-presidential candidates to release their tax returns in order to get on the state’s ballot. It is unclear if such alaw would be constitutional, as judges have never tackled the issue.
As president, Trump wields great influence over policy and can even induce swings in the stock market. We deserve to know where his financial interests lie, and, for example, how he was personally affected by the tax reform bill he signed into law in December. The White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said her boss would “likely take a big hit” by the tax changes. On that count, we ask the president to prove it.
Trump has gambled that Americans would stop caring about his tax returns. He may be right — with repeated firings and resignations in his White House, the Mueller probe, salacious allegations about extramarital affairs and tensions with Russia, Americans can be forgiven for focusing on more pressing issues.
Trump has long boasted about being a savvy dealmaker and businessman, a real estate scion and television star who has earned billions. If there is any argument that may appeal to him, it’s this one: Release your tax returns, Mr. President, and think how impressed we’ll be to count all of those zeros.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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The IRS knows exactly what is in Trump's returns.
Instead of focusing on his taxes, or the ridiculous Russian probe, we should be focusing on more important things. I can think of three just off the top of my head...
1. TPP
2. Jobs and quality of life for the working class.
3. Figuring out why the kids today aren't alright.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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I'd be more impressed if Hilliary released something more important and pertinent, like her subpoenaed E-mails to the Investigators.
Trump's Tax Filings have never been subpoenaed before, have they?
Lame Red Herring from Libtards today, yet again.
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Tax Day, on Tuesday, offers a reminder that President Donald Trump continues to refuse to release his tax returns. In doing so, he is ignoring a tradition in transparency followed by every president since Richard Nixon.
"Russian Money Laundering" - I don't recall, is there a separate form for that?
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Quote:
Originally posted by captaincrunch:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Tax Day, on Tuesday, offers a reminder that President Donald Trump continues to refuse to release his tax returns. In doing so, he is ignoring a tradition in transparency followed by every president since Richard Nixon.
"Russian Money Laundering" - I don't recall, is there a separate form for that?
I think it's just on the standard money laundering form that most of the Clinton Foundation bribes were put on.
They simplified all of that with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:A normal commander in chief would not operate ongoing businesses in two countries that are backing rival factions in an ongoing civil war while pivoting US policy toward that war. A normal commander in chief would not be pocketing checks from foreign governments and their lobbyists in Washington. A normal commander in chief would not collect large, entirely secret financial flows on an ongoing basis — flows that make him an easy mark for foreign states seeking to influence American policy.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by captaincrunch:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Tax Day, on Tuesday, offers a reminder that President Donald Trump continues to refuse to release his tax returns. In doing so, he is ignoring a tradition in transparency followed by every president since Richard Nixon.
"Russian Money Laundering" - I don't recall, is there a separate form for that?
I think it's just on the standard money laundering form that most of the Clinton Foundation bribes were put on.
They simplified all of that with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
The sheer number of financial conflicts of interests is so large that it’s unclear which direction personal business interests would push Trump. But it’s certainly clear that he has personal interests that are separate from the national interest. Every issue Trump touches — including Syria — is awash in conflicts of interest. Four examples:
1) Earlier this month, Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Jr. were in the United Arab Emirates to promote the family’s golf resort in Dubai. The UAE is supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is the umbrella organization led by Syria’s Kurdish separatists.
2) George Nader, who once served as a key influence peddler on behalf of the UAE, is now a cooperating witness working with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
3) Trump also has a major real estate venture in Turkey. Turkey backs some opposition groups in Syria, but its main current interest in the war is blocking the SDF and Kurdish separatists from controlling too much territory.
4) Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at Trump’s hotel. Bahrain and Saudi Arabia loudly support military action against Assad, and the Saudis in particular have at times been key financial backers of anti-Assad rebels. Kuwait is less vocal about its position.
None of this is to say that Trump’s decision-making on Syria is being driven by narrow financial considerations — indeed, one could make the case that’s impossible since Trump is on the take from so many different directions — but it underscores that essentially nothing the administration does in the region is entirely on the level.
www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/16/17238058/syria-bombing-trump
-business-interests
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I think it's just on the standard money laundering form that most of the Clinton Foundation bribes were put on.
Was that the money the Clinton's took to sell homeless children into slavery on Jumanji Island where they had to make pepperoni for that sex/pizza shop in Manhattan?
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