U.S. Politics

[ronan01]

Comedians are best at what they are paid for, not to be taken seriously...
But super Tuesday is coming. I think "Drumpf" will have the last laugh.

US voters will decide who has the last laugh - it may be Trump, it seems he is motivating people to vote

[Jsell50]

Yes, the voters will decide. So far today it is Trump 6, Cruz 2, Rubio 1, one undecided and Clinton 6, Sanders 4 one undecided but leaning to Sanders. #'s 2 and 3 in the Rep side are still giving victory speeches

[GT93]

Oh cool. The Drumpf - Clinton show is now warming up. We've got much of the rest of the year to enjoy this. Drumpf might not make America great again but he makes American politics greatly entertaining. I think there's going to be a lot of political muck flying around in the second half of this year.

[Jsell50]

If he follows through on 1/10th of what he says, without getting assassinated, he will do a lot better job than the last few decades of presidents have. None since the 1950's have even tried to protect American's jobs and border protection has been worse than laughable.

[GT93]

Romney seems to have got under Drumpf's skin. I wonder if others in the Republican establishment will now find the mettle to come out swinging really really hard against Drumpf. I doubt this will shake off too many Drumpf supporters. Wall Street and the Wall Street candidate will be enjoying this.

[Jsell50]

The only problem with Romney, is he is shooting blanks. It is very hard to accuse someone of wrongdoing about his tax returns when Romney didn't release his until late in Sept. of the election year he ran in. I really don't think Bernie stands a chance because the Dems feel they owe this one to Hilary for being such a party hack for so many years. I also think they know they could run a chimp and stand a great chance because so many don't want a change to the type of America Trump is campaigning for. Too many of the voters might have to work for a living.

[Jello]

Trump took some hits (along with defending the size of his penis) in the latest Fox news debate.
Will it hurt him? Probably not.

* Donald Trump: Trump totally dominated the debate in terms of speaking time and the broader conversation. There were times where it felt more like an interview with Trump than a debate with three candidates not named Trump on stage. As is usually the case with Trump in a debate setting, the more he talks, the less positive the outcome is for him. He repeatedly came across as juvenile — calling Rubio "Little Marco" and Cruz "Lyin' Ted." Hell, within the first 10 minutes of the debate Trump was insisting that questions about his endowment — not the financial kind — were way off.

From a more substantive perspective, Trump took real body blows — especially from Cruz — regarding Trump University and the comments he made in an off-the-record session with the New York Times. Trump, as he has in nearly every debate, showed a wafer-thin understanding of policy and, when pressed about that lack of knowledge, reverted to name-calling. Does any of the above matter? It hasn't yet.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the ... ?tid=sm_tw

(CNN)—Donald Trump assured American voters Thursday night that despite what Marco Rubio had suggested, there was "no problem" with the size of his hands -- or anything else.
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/03/polit ... rco-rubio/

Debate moderator Megan Kelly also called him out on the "Trump University" lawsuits -


Full debate here -


and some more (fact based) comedy -

[BigRick808]

Trump gets hammered and Cruz eats booger!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs3CjZQ ... YV2lMicUag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4BNtP7tN8I

Now that's entertainment! ! !

[GT93]

The headline from a New Zealand news website about the Detroit debate:

"Donald Trump declares during debate that he's got a big enough penis to run the country"

Quite where Hillary fits in this scheme of things is something I haven't yet worked out. It would seem a penis isn't necessary for the top job although many of Drumpf's supporters might hold a different view.

[Jsell50]

Ah, Megan Kelly, the angry woman syndrome... Rubio, short man syndrome... Where Hilary fits in the scheme of things, hopefully nowhere. And yes, Trump shouldn't argue about the size of things. Rubio has no chance of winning anything. And in a brokered convention, everyone loses. The only person who is bringing out the Rep voters in record numbers is Trump.

[Jello]

Corporate "Tax Forgiveness". A giant wet kiss for the tax dodgers.

Why haven’t voters heard about this from candidates? Because Republicans and Democrats both know it would make angry voters even angrier.
The major multinationals complain about a tax problem that most citizens would love to have for themselves: Thanks to a loophole in the tax code, the companies do not have to pay US taxes on profits they have earned in foreign countries until they bring the money home to American shores. Altogether, the globalized US companies have accumulated $2.1 trillion in untaxed profits, most of it parked in overseas tax havens.

http://www.thenation.com/article/democr ... 0-billion/

Trumps tax plan-

4 brackets; 1-5-10-15%; kill death tax & corporate tax
My 5-part tax plan involves reforming the income tax. The government confiscates way too much of your paycheck. The tax code is also a very complicated system that forces Americans to waste 6.1 billion hours a year trying to figure it out.
What does that tell you? It tells me that it's time we restore simplicity & sanity to the income tax. Here's my income tax plan:
⦁ Up to $30,000, you pay 1%
⦁ From $30,000 to $100,000, you pay 5%
⦁ From $100,000 to $1 million, you pay 10%
⦁ On $1 million or above, you pay 15%
It's clear and fair. Best of all, it can be filled out on the back of a postcard and will save Americans big bucks on accountants and massive amounts of time wasted attempting to decipher the tax code.
Our country is hungry for real tax reform. That's why we should implement the 1-5-10-15 income tax plan. And we need to enact [the rest of] my 5-part tax policy: kill the death tax; lower the tax on capital gains & dividends; eliminate corporate taxes; and a 20% import tax.

http://www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Donald ... Reform.htm

A analysis of Trump’s tax proposal from the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

the highest-income 0.1 percent of taxpayers (those with incomes over $3.7 million in 2015 dollars) would experience an average tax cut of more than $1.3 million in 2017, nearly 19 percent of after-tax income. Middle-income households would receive an average tax cut of $2,700, or 4.9 percent of after-tax income.
Business Taxes
It would also impose a one-time transition tax of up to 10 percent on existing unrepatriated foreign income of US companies, payable over 10 years.

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/Uploaded ... x-plan.pdf

Looks like his plan helps the corporations and millionaires more than the middle class.

[Jsell50]

How many people would have an increase in their taxes? And how much money would it bring back into the country to be invested in new business and jobs?
P.S. What would the increased import tax do, even though it is lower than the tax on our goods into some countries?

[GT93]

I find myself getting a bit anxious about American voters putting Trump in charge of the nuclear football (aka atomic football, the president's emergency satchel etc.).

Wikipedia states: "the president is always accompanied by a military aide carrying a "football" with launch codes for nuclear weapons ... The football is a metal Zero Halliburton briefcase ... carried in a black leather "jacket". The package weighs around 45 pounds (20 kilograms) ... A small antenna protrudes from the bag near the handle ... Before the order can be processed by the military, the president must be positively identified using a special code issued on a plastic card, nicknamed the "biscuit" ... The United States has a two-man rule in place, and while only the president can order the release of nuclear weapons, the order must be confirmed by the Secretary of Defense (there is a hierarchy of succession in the event that the president is killed in an attack) ... Once all the codes have been verified, the military would issue attack orders to the proper units. These orders are given and then re-verified for authenticity."

Trump might do away with some of the checks and balances in this procedure.

I don't think many Florida Republicans will share these concerns today.

[parrot]

The article at http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... ne/471525/ gives some insight into the complex foreign relations world we live in today. Agree or disagree with Obama's doctrine, it's worthy to note that the next president is going to have to deal, one way or another, with these issues.

I've just the last two episodes of House of Cards, season 3, to view....before launching into season 4. There have been times where you want to say, 'no way...that sort of thing just doesn't happen in politics'.......but as this election season continues to progress, I don't find myself questioning those things as much.

[ronan01]

Trump continues to upset the elite and the establishment.

[Jsell50]

Trump continues to upset the elite and the establishment.

Thank Heaven!
Florio is down the drain, and I don't think Kasich will last much longer.

I do think Trump will upset the apple-cart of foreign relations. He wants to rewrite all of the unfair trade agreements on the books now and I am sure many countries that have been making lots of money from them will be unhappy with him.

[parrot]

Jeffrey Goldberg, the author of the Atlantic article on Obama, discusses his talks with Obama/foreign policy.....including the red line....with Charlie Rose:
http://www.charlierose.com/
'‘dropping bombs on someone to prove that you’re willing to drop bombs on someone is just about the worst reason to use force.’

[Jsell50]

Personally, I wouldn't listen to anything Obama has to say.

[redwolf]

Jeffrey Goldberg, the author of the Atlantic article on Obama, discusses his talks with Obama/foreign policy.....including the red line....with Charlie Rose:
http://www.charlierose.com/
'‘dropping bombs on someone to prove that you’re willing to drop bombs on someone is just about the worst reason to use force.’

That was a great article. Thanks for the link to Charlie's interview with the author.

[MrFixer]

Funny that some people think that Trump upsets the 'elite and the establishment'. Trump is the elite and establishment, for goodness sake! Hillary went to his wedding, he gave money to her. He's promising big tax cuts for corporations and the very wealthy. They are both extremely wealthy and live life in a bubble. Two sides of the same coin.
Anyone notice parallels between Trump and Silvio Berlusconi in Italy?
The guy who really would upset the establishment is Sanders, but he's considered a communist for suggesting policies that would be considered centre-ground in virtually all developed nations.