During one of the debates Trump asked Biden how he came to own three very expensive homes. Trump made a sarcastic face and said something like “it makes no sense”, but then he let it go. I think he could’ve won the election with that issue alone. That is the populace tact that could win - Dem or GOP. Nancy how did you become rich? Hammer on that. Mitch can’t help but notice you’re a millionnaire. What are the politicians tax returns say, how much did they earn and does that equate to 3 homes.
And their wealth is just the grease on the rails that moved the big money. Trump was already rich and was immune to the trap. It was fun to watch a incorruptable patroit swinging like Iron Mike against the tide of slime. Hope he gets in the ring again, but he's earned a retirememt imo.
Trump came from a family fortune based on being a slumlord, not paying your bills and solving problems by suing people. He is not a patriot, he is a grifter.
Slowly, very slowly, I feel like there is a convergence between left and right developing in Matt's comments page, on at least some key issues. It's one of the main reasons I'm here. Not everyone is feeling the love, but some perceptible and gratifying connections are being made.
That said, someone will be here shortly to complain about something like Trump charging the Secret Service for staying in his hotels when they accompanied him and point to this as evidence of corruption. (They will not know, or will ignore, that Biden charges the Secret Service to stay at his guest house, and of course they are not displacing other paying guests, as they would be at the Trump hotels.)
But here's an undeniable fact: Public service has made Trump poorer, but it has made the Bidens, Obamas, and Clintons much, much richer.
Nonsense. It's made him (and his family far richer) just as it has with the others you named. Notably you left out Ronald Reagan, George Bush and George W. Bush....hmmmm. There's no president alive who doesn't emerge from that office far better off than they were when they entered, Trump being no exception.
Note that this article says nothing about the Secret Service or anything about Russiagate.
Weak tea my man. Super weak. You reference a Newsweek (!) article written 5 months after Trump was inaugurated, a low effort hit piece. And an inscrutable unreferenced chart of nothing.
Or the rank corruption of Biden withholding aid to Ukraine to remove a prosecutor who stood in the way of Hunter's installation on the board of Burisma. https://youtu.be/rtO1OigwfVs
Turn off CNN and do some research. You will find many more examples, but only if you want to learn the truth. Biden family is pure graft, and part and parcel of the Deep State for decades. FBI has Hunters' laptop for like 2 years now, yet no prosecution at all, in spite of reported lurid interactions with minor relatives. Anyone in possession of Hunters' laptop possesses child pornography. Pretty good disincentive for getting involved there, especially in the current milieu of selective enforcement.
Or how he was never prosecuted for falsifying a firearm application, a felony. Discharged from armed services for drugs, but a couple years later no history of drug use on his firearm application... works if your name is Biden.
Inescapable conclusion is the Bidens are favored members of the Deep State, and the IC and MSM wings are doing their best to protect them. OTOH Trump is sworn enemy to IC and MSM because he is outside their control. He already had money, and he loves America.
To those of us who paid attention for the last 5 years this is obvious. To those who devoured the fear porn of CNN for the last 5 years, might as well be written in Linear A.
1) Just stating things as though they are iron clad truths and then waving your hands isn't a valid form of argument. Who cares if the Newsweek article was 5 weeks or 5 years after the inauguration? Do you dispute ANY of the ways they claim he set himself and his family up to enrich themselves (ex. NOT putting business holdings in a blind trust)?
2) The Pro-Publica chart has all kinds of references. I'm sorry if you lack reading comprehension skills or if you're viewing the page from your Samsung Galaxy S6 from 12 years ago, but there are links for "Download all data" and "View data sources." Once again, if you disagree with any of them, please lay it out here.
3) RTDS = Reverse Trump Derangement Syndrome. I don't GAF about Biden, Obama, Clinton, Bush I, Bush II - OR - Trump's corruption. They're ALL corrupt. But you RTDS folks seem to think that Trump was some unicorn perfect President who didn't monetize his White House tenure. He may have fallen a few dozen spots on the Forbes list (not that his wealth was ever liquid or actually verifiable), but he made over a billion while he was President. https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-made-at-least-16-billion-while-us-president-2021-2?op=1
4) I don't disagree one iota that Biden is the favorite of the deep state, but that didn't stop Trump from hiring swamp creatures like Michael Bolton and other current and former members of the deep state. I don't GAF about Biden's son's laptop, but I can tell you that the allegations of child pron are most likely bogus. You have any good links to back up that assertion? Trump is on record talking about how he likes 'em young, hung out plenty with Epstein, and has bragged about how he'd go back in the dressing room at his pageants for Miss USA and Miss Universe. I quote (from his interview with Howard Stern):
"Well, I'll tell you the funniest is that I’ll go backstage before a show, and everyone's getting dressed, and ready and everything else, and you know, no men are anywhere, and I'm allowed to go in because I'm the owner of the pageant and therefore I'm inspecting it. You know, I'm inspecting because I want to make sure that everything is good.
"You know, the dresses. 'Is everyone okay?' You know, they're standing there with no clothes. 'Is everybody okay?' And you see these incredible looking women, and so, I sort of get away with things like that. But no, I've been very good."
In the exchange, Stern asks Trump if, in the years he owned Miss Universe and Miss USA, there were times he had sex with the contestants, all of whom are over age 18.
Trump first answers, "I never comment on things like that."
Again, Biden loves sniffing girls' hair and Trump likes to "grab 'em by the pussy" - so both are old pervs.
P.S. - Do you REALLY think that the 'deep state' would let ANYONE actually get elected in the first place if they didn't control or approve of the candidate?
P.P.S. - Stop watching OAN and Newsmax; they're frying your brain. I never watch CNN or MSNBC - or ANY cable news/website. Your idiotic assumption that I do is based purely on your RTDS.
I feel like if a politician did that, they would probably be universally despised by all the establishment figures in DC and the press. In my more paranoid moments, I can even imagine them being framed by the intelligence agencies, to destroy any chance of having a successful Presidency.
That's the reason this dead horse keeps getting beaten. If you don't want politicians to get rich, I don't know what to tell you. Even the people running the Soviet Union got rich, at least comparatively.
«Even the people running the Soviet Union got rich, at least comparatively.»
That "comparatively" is a wild exaggeration, for example, here someone who was Minister for Science and Energy in the 1960 in the UK describes an official visit to the UK, from his diary, 1963-06-14:
“In the evening we went to dinner with Kirillin and his wife and daughter, Ola, at their flat, along with the Ambassador, and Gvishiani, Academician Artsemivitsch and Academician Keldersh. Madame Santalova was the interpreter. I had been told by the Ambassador that Russian Ministers never invite British Ministers to their flats or homes and he was absolutely amazed when this invitation came in but it was, of course, because I had asked Kirillin to my home in London. It was lovely. We sat and talked in a tiny little flat where he and his wife and child live. Kirillin is one of the Vice-Premiers of the Soviet Union and an eminent scientist. We sat in his little library while the meal was being laid and we ate together, then he showed us home movies of his trip to England and having snowballs thrown at him by the children.”
And he was an Academician, a category that still today in Russia enjoys the greatest prestige (in a poll more people said that their dream was to be an academician than an oligarch).
Skeptic says: "...That said, someone will be here shortly to complain about something like Trump charging the Secret Service for staying in his hotels when they accompanied him and point to this as evidence of corruption. (They will not know, or will ignore, that Biden charges the Secret Service to stay at his guest house, and of course they are not displacing other paying guests, as they would be at the Trump hotels.)"
First off, the Secret Service does not "charge" or bill presidents for their work. The government, a.k.a. the taxpayers, pick up the tab.
And from BusinessInsider:
"Even when Trump's golf club in Bedminster, N.J. was closed up earlier in the coronavirus pandemic, the documents obtained in the lawsuit show the Secret Service still got hit with a $21,800 charge for a cottage rental and other room fees....The usual rate for agents to stay at a Trump property — even when there's no indication he will stop by — is $567 per night, according to the Post....That's a far cry from the mere "50 bucks" per room Eric Trump claimed the taxpayers dish out when defending the practice back in October 2016."
Perhaps it's an accounting error with the travel ledgers. Junior miscatalogued the $50 bucks for, you know, maybe a discount hooker down on her luck---something like that, but for goodness sake who knows with those boys....
Donald Trump’s adult children reportedly cost taxpayers $140,000 in Secret Service security in the month after the clan’s patriarch left the White House in January.
Ordinarily, family members of a president lose their security detail when they leave office. But in the case of the four Trump siblings and two of their spouses, the former president issued a directive to extend post-presidency protections by six months.
The costs, obtained by the watchdog group Citizens for Ethics, do not include security protections at Trump properties in New Jersey, Palm Beach and Briarcliff, New York. With those factored in, the total would likely be far higher, according to the group.
According to the watchdog, records reveal that the Trump children maintained a “breakneck speed of travel, and racked up significant hotel and transportation bills for the Secret Service”.
Transport costs alone amounted to $52,296.75, and hotel costs totaled at least $88,678.39.The watchdog found that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump went from their jobs at the White House to a 10-day vacation in Utah, racking up hotel costs of $62,599. After a month in Miami, they stayed at Trump’s Bedminster golf property for three days in late February.
Eric and Lara Trump spent much of February at Trump’s Briarcliff property, interspersed with trips to New York, Miami and Palm Beach, at a cost of $12,742.
Donald Trump Jr also spent time in New York City, on Long Island, and in upstate New York, racking up bills of $13,337.
But Citizens for Ethics said the Secret Service did not provide records of spending at Trump businesses.
“While it may be tempting to put the story of the Trump family’s profiteering in the past, we cannot until they have actually stopped directing taxpayer money into their own bank accounts,” the group said.
Ah, the Trumps: the family that drifts together....grifts together.
Yep. Secret Service costs. You've made an ironclad case for corruption.
I'm sure you also have them tabulated to the penny for the Obamas and Clintons for comparison.
By the way, people on the right used to do this exact same thing for Obama's Secret Service costs for trips to Hawaii, a big trip to France for Michelle and the daughters, etc. etc. It was stupid then, and it's stupid now.
Why would Trump people even think they need Secret Service Protection? Just paranoid, right? Quoting Maxine Waters: "“Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere. We’ve got to get the children connected to their parents.”
Yes. Why would they even think they needed protection? After all, none less that Maxine Waters threatened them, and called for the general population to do the same? Why might they feel threatened? Must be paranoia?
Interesting. Out of the blocks with the gratuitous assumption that I'm defending the Obamas. Was I defending the Obamas? I don't believe I was defending the Obamas. But I must say it was a rather clumsy pivot away from the issue at hand, which is, quite simply, your categorical irresponsible posting (and intellectual laziness), and propensity for churning out third-rate propaganda in lieu of fact stating. But you get a gold star for chivalry, even if it is second-hand chivalry, for advocating for continued secret service protection for the "kids" from the intrepid Maxine Waters. Personally, I myself would feel a lot more comfortable with the 101st Airborne between me and "Mad Max." And Skeptic, if it's any consolation to you, the last person to call me a democrat got punched in the face....
Well, I can personally attest to the expenses of U.S. taxpayer contributions to Mr. Dick Cheney's dry cleaning bills? I happened to live in the area of Jackson WY during Mr. Cheney's reign. It wasn't entirely without notice.
Dick seemed to have a proclivity for disrupting the lives of his neighbors to the extent we'd avoid even being in the same area as he was, which was difficult in a place that only had 10,000 people in it to start with? On the upside, it was pretty easy to notice his presence by looking for black towncars in the parking lot.
I agree. But the media spent four years being shocked, shocked at supposedly unprecedented outrages from Trump, while ignoring similar behavior from Democrats. It got old, and it drove some credulous people into hysteria.
Yeah...The Dems all took his campaign donations when he was a democrat. He was just as much of misogynistic pagan back then but the Clintons loved him. Pelosi took his dough and I'm sure Chucky S did as well.
No, Fox news was gushing about him the whole time. 5 years ago, Fox was shocked about everything Obama did, while the liberal side gushed. Both sides have their own propaganda and they both tell everyone else that they are the real enemies of America.
If there was no CCP Virus, we would be rocking now. We were on a roll 2017-2019.
Say we find China created COVID. Would the next question be on purpose. And we all know Fauci financed part of the study. There are a lot of implications there.
What I can't understand is why the Democrats wanted to blame the US for COVID????
The gullibles don't realize that in the USA (and in the world) it is real estate mobsters who bribe or blackmail politicians, not vice-versa. Trump probably could have been convicted many times over of bribery, but that issue was never brought up because the vast majority of the politicians he bribed must have been from the Democratic party (in NYC and NJ, likely to get building permits and other favourable decisions).
His attitude to Republicans instead was different: he was one of their biggest campaign donors ever (probably to get even more favourable tax rules for real estate).
"Incorruptible" is going too far. But he did have a certain degree of immunity that occasionally produced interesting remarks. Roughly along these lines was my favorite, his declaration that he loved the "poorly educated." It was really kind of brilliant.
RJF, Trump didn't want to explain how he got so "rich". Especially when his tax information was almost released. That would have been a disaster for him.
That is just one of the many baseless smears about Trump.
He is very rich, if only because he inherited a lot of NYC real estate decades ago, and NYC has ballooned in price over the decades.
Also the tax return is pointless, we all know that thanks to various loopholes he did not pay tax, but he has give a far more useful document. A previous commenter has summyrized well:
“Tax returns tell you nothing of substance. Check out Biden's from 2017, for example. [...] The real picture - the best view - is in the required financial disclosures. Then you see assets and other income sources not available in a return. Trump's are available too. He IS fabulously wealthy and has impressive assets. The point is, tax returns are a distraction - they are in no way a meaningful look at someone's finances. This is especially true when multiple corporations and corporations within corporations complicate the view.”
I've heard this argument before, but never quite understood how it jibed with Trump and his family machine's tooth-and-nail fight to prevent any recent tax documents from seeing the light of day.
Obviously tax returns aren't going to tell a complete story, but boy did he try his damnedest to keep them away from the public eye.
«did he try his damnedest to keep them away from the public eye»
Obviously because he did not pay any tax despite being very wealthy and having a huge real income. Most likely he and the other real estate moghuls did not want publicity for the enormous loopholes that he (and them) purchased over the decades from Congress. Only the little people pay taxes...
But that is a completely different issue from how wealthy and successful in business he has been. His hiding the tax return was not because he is actually poor and needs to be bribed by russian politicians with a few hotel bills, like the roaring buffoons arguing about the "Emoluments Clause" were implying.
On the surface that would make sense, but he made frequent statements to the effect that it was a *good* thing that he didn't actually pay taxes because he was smart and a "good businessman" - and his base lapped it up. It wasn't a perception problem among his supporters that he may not have paid taxes due to loopholes, after all Bernie Sanders has 3 houses and what not.
Clearly the Russian bribe thing is cooked up nonsense or something would have surfaced by now, but I think there's more merit to the notion that he's actually not very rich than you do. For one thing, he has a lot of creditors and the extent of them isn't fully known, nor is it totally understood how leveraged his properties are or whether he's inflating the values of certain assets.
«there's more merit to the notion that he's actually not very rich than you do. For one thing, he has a lot of creditors and the extent of them isn't fully known, nor is it totally understood how leveraged his properties are or whether he's inflating the values of certain assets.»
The real estate business is very different from normal businesses (in many respects it is a supercharged version of "private equity"), it is all about leverage, loopholes, bankruptcies, weird accounting, carry forward tax losses, all totally legal because the loopholes have been purchased. If you don't know how it works you can't just handwave. Nothing new, for an example here is a quote from A deTocqueville, "Democracy in America", 1834:
“Consequently, in the United States the law favors those classes that elsewhere are most interested in evading it. [...] In America there is no law against fraudulent bankruptcies, not because they are few, but because they are many. The dread of being prosecuted as a bankrupt is greater in the minds of the majority than the fear of being ruined by the bankruptcy of others; and a sort of guilty tolerance is extended by the public conscience to an offense which everyone condemns in his individual capacity.”
Mar 14, 2017The official added that Trump “paid $38m even after taking into account large-scale depreciation for construction, on an income of more than $150m, as well as paying tens of millions of dollars in other taxes such as sales and excise taxes and employment taxes, and this illegally published return proves just that”.
He's on record stating he counts loan money as assets so please tell me how if no one can possibly know how rich he is you know he is very wealthy and has a huge income..........
I used to believe that too. Honestly. But as I aged, experienced more of the tax code and how it applied tome and others, I found the loopholes to be mostly nonexistent. There was a year back in the early 2000's I grossed over $3 million and I paid enough in taxes I felt snubbed because no one named a U.S. Aircraft carrier for me. :)
But generally I think you'll find a conspicous lack of loopholes, and I really mean that. It's almost the golden fleece of American Dreams, that after you achieve some level of income the tax code simply disappears; it stops being a problem. That isn't so, and there are many folks around to attest to it.
Now I find the code much more lenient. I don't make much money in my old age and my guess is I actually take in more government funding than I pay. In the past ten or so years I haven't paid any taxes at all?
«It's almost the golden fleece of American Dreams, that after you achieve some level of income the tax code simply disappears»
Personal income enjoys few loopholes, but there are large discounts for capital taxes, significant loopholes for corporate taxes, and the sky is the limit for offshore corporate tax loopholes. So the key techniques are to capitalize income, launder it through a corporate shell, and ideally an offshore corporate shell managed by nominees.
This is most convenient for the owners of businesses (Warren Buffet pointed out he paid a lower percentage of his income in taxes than his secretary), but even the CEOs and CFOs of many corporates are not "John Smith", the person, but "JS Management Services, postbox 666, Dubai City, UAE".
An example from a comment on an english newspaper from the owner of a London cleaning business:
«London is indeed full of oligarchs from the USA to Outer Mongolia, hell bent of out spending and out doing their neighbours, if they even bother to turn up. Running a small cleaning company in the magic areas over the last few years has been insane. The demand for our cleaning services is high and we are able to turn down the so called oligarchs who whine about price but never about the quality, of course it won’t last
Many of our payments are coming from North African based banks within the Spanish territories, Morocco, Algeria and most unusual Mali, who seems to issue a huge number of loaded debit cards for payment of services. In very recent years,many of the houses we clean, have been mortgaged to once again Mali based banks, although they have very familiar names, eg Santander.»
Mar 14, 2017The official added that Trump "paid $38m even after taking into account large-scale depreciation for construction, on an income of more than $150m, as well as paying tens of millions of dollars in...
«did he try his damnedest to keep them away from the public eye»
Obviously because he did not pay any tax despite being very wealthy and having a huge real income. Most likely he and the other real estate moghuls did not want publicity for the enormous loopholes that he (and them) purchased over the decades from Congress. Only the little people pay taxes...
But that is a completely different issue from how wealthy and successful in business he has been. His hiding the tax return was not because he is actually poor and needs to be bribed by russian politicians with a few hotel bills, like the roaring buffoons arguing about the "Emoluments Clause" were implying.
Maybe he isn't as rich as he wanted people to think he was. If, as this article proposes, the US is a plutocracy. Then, Trump has to maintain his Master of the Universe illusion.
applaud? No Sir I do not. He wasn't the first blatant liar President, nor the last. He did however, mostly by accident, I think, reveal what's actually behind the curtain
Wouldn't know if they were breaking the law? Hahahahahahaha -- laughing so hard I have tears in my eyes. A guy who owed how much in unpaid taxes, Tim Geitner, who was head of the NY Fed leading up to 2008 financial disaster, was confirmed as Obama's Treasury Secretary. Sharpton, who may still (allegedly) owe thousands to NY and/or other taxing bodies, was Obama's racial affairs guru and frequent White House guest --- a role model for us all. So funny.
It's pretty much safe to say that we all expect you to like your own posts, so why is it you keep doing it? OK. You like your own posts. Put that thing back in your shorts and let it heal?
I think the IRS would be the first to catch them. If there is no outstanding evidence, you're just fishing which is what the democrats do with their many Conspiracy Investigations.
Once again, if you don't know how much Trump owes then you CANNOT speculate upon how wealthy he is.
He's on public record stating that he counts loans as assets. If I get to define the standards and definition of wealth, I too could be fabulously wealthy.
Which means he already knew how the game was played. He built in NYC, one would have to be an expert in precisely the corruption the article describes. In fact, that may have been his secret sauce and why the establishment feared him.
This is hilarious. Confirmation that Hunter Thompson was right. A decent chunk of the US liked Nixon for being a clever crook. An even larger group likes Trump for the same.
I think Thompson was right about quite a few things. Ever heard of Brad Marchand? Hockey player for Boston. He's a total dick but holy mackinaw can that guy play hockey. Dirty, mean, vicious Hockey. The fans love him. He wins a lot too.
The comments today are bananas!! BlueRocket, a game of hockey may be a decent metaphor for US politics and economy. If I shout loud enough, buy expensive seats, and enough hot dogs maybe the fucking players will score some goals. Maybe the facilities staff will look into why the ice is melting too.
They didn't fear him very much they just couldn't do much to him because they're all complicit in war crimes and massive fraud. What reforms did Trump make ?
Yeah I missed your point. You’re saying if Trump made a big deal of it -Joe’s wealth -it would have blown up in his face because his tax return would show all kinds of unflattering stuff. You are right.
Your point was not "Joe's wealth", but how he got it. He was a "public servant" (God, that makes me puke) for 44 years. being a government employee does not enable wealth. THAT is the point that Trump could have focused on, the abuse of the people's trust. The Orange man got whatever he has in the world of business - whether honest or not, not from the people.
«The Orange man got whatever he has in the world of business - whether honest or not, not from the people.»
He still got most of his wealth from the people, through the "free markets", it is the people who ultimately pay the price of higher real estate rents and prices that make developers rich. Just like as Kucinich's book described, making money through jacked up utility prices etc. is paid for by the people.
Both the "free markets" and the state can be vehicles for extractive enrichment, and as to that the "free markets" enable far more extraction than the government.
Ha! No they don't... Real estate - how many people were arrested because of NINJA loans? Casinos - regulated by the NGC. Crookedness inherent - are you saying "people" are ok with this? People did like Nixon too, but people also fired him.
Perhaps if tax burdens were equitably distributed among all U.S. citizens, the tax code made fair once again, these sorts of talk show gotchas, this never ending fixation on the peculiarly acquired wealth of a small but not insubstantial subset of parasitic citizenry, we could move on to, say, solving other problems...
This is exciting: a book I would actually read by and about a politician whose only flaws have been remarkable prescience and integrity. I recently tweeted at Kucinich a few times urging him to run for the open Ohio Senate seat. With the book out of the way (and now on my reading list), maybe he will give that idea some serious thought.
Oooh...that word, that word. I was thinking while I read the article "He might as well have a scarlet "I" tattooed on his forehead, so all the elected apparatchiks and brokers could avoid him. "INTEGRITY". I wonder if the brains of people like Pelosi and McConnell can actually process it, or if so, with the beginning provision "A trait exhibited by people *not yourself or your political allies*, which involves adherence to moral and ethical principles; etc."
I'm on the right, but I was always skeptical of the Iraq War.
I'll never forget when Kucinich was on some Sunday morning chat show in around 2004, and a Bush apologist was flaunting photos of old chemical weapons receptacles that were found in Iraq, arguing that there really were WMD.
Kucinich politely asked if he could have the photos, the hack agreed, and Kucinich asked the cameraman to zoom in on one. It showed a long, rusted out metal canister, looking like something you'd see in a scrap metal yard.
Kucinich asked, just slightly raising his voice, "We went to war--over this?"
The Bushee started stuttering and hemming and hawing and otherwise showing what a direct hit it was.
Saddam Hussein was between a rock and a hard place. He didn't have a nuclear program after 1981 aside from a pile of yellowcake and some high level wastes at Osirak, surrounded by a huge dirt berm you can see on a Google Maps satellite shot. He had a small bioweapons program. He had chemical weapons. But he had UN inspectors breathing down his neck on one side and Iran on the other. He feared a loss of deterrence vis a vis Iran if he came clean about what little he actually had. So he prevaricated. When actually invaded, he made drug deals with the most likely leaders - strangely enough the Iranians and the Syrians. Most of the chemical weapons left (mostly artillery shells) after the wars and his internal use of it went to Syria, and most of that was either used or destroyed by now. The remnants of his nuclear program were removed from Iraq by the US in 2008 or so. The bioweapons program I know nothing about where it went, but it wasn't huge and basically amounted to weaponized anthrax. Not that that is nothing, but it's not the world-ending threat we once thought it was.
Kucinich's political stuff in 2004 might have seemed poignant but it was pretty ill informed.
I understood Kucinich's point to be that there was not a sufficient national security reason to invade. It sounds like you might agree with that, but only in hindsight.
But there were quite a few savvy players (including people on the right like Bob Novak) who smelled a rat and tried to raise the alarm before the invasion.
Any chemical weapons program that Saddam had were in some way either financed or allowed to happen by the United States in our own attempt to foment and keep the war with Iran running (likely with strong Israeli influence).
There's no legitimate documentation that any viable chemical weapons or other "WMDs" were sent to Syria prior to or after the invasion despite the prevalence of this myth among the neocons who wanted to sell that war to to the American people and then being embarrassed after the invasion when it was shown to the world that no such (current/viable) programs existed (as pointed out by Kucinich and others).
Nobody with any actual intelligence on the matter (or common sense) ever thought Saddam posed a "world-ending threat", ever.
As far as the remnants of his alleged nuclear program being removed from Iraq by the US in 2008, I'd have to see some sort of documentation. That rings hollow without backing evidence.
OK, so I mis-read your post regarding Saddam's "nuclear program" - I though you were implying it was a nuclear *weapons* program, when in fact I was aware that a lot of low-grade uranium from previous civilian nuclear program was removed during Obama's presidency, IIRC. Maybe at one point he had a small nuclear weapons program, but that wasn't the intended use for the vast majority of the yellow cake in question. You are correct, he had abandoned the weapons program way back in 1981, assuming it was ever really in earnest or just 'prevarication' or tough talk with the aim of deterrence.
FYI the removal happened under Bush, they gave out pretty unit citations to everyone involved telling us that we were responsible, and I quote, for "removing Saddam Hussein's nuclear program from Iraq". Someone was trying to airbrush history, but it's true with a lot of asterisks and caveats. They handed out the unit citations a week or two before Obama was inaugurated.
Ah, OK. I knew it was close to Obama's taking office and guess I was going on your original guesstimate of "2008 or so"....didn't know for sure if it happened under Bush or Obama.
The Osirak reactor was fueled with HEU and set up to produce plutonium at the time it was hit. The Iraqis bought a separation rig in 1979. The conclusion is obvious. That wasn't a reactor intended for civilian uses. The Israelis hit it in 1981 and blew it to smithereens. That's what McCall got out of there, at least within the limits of moon suits and the like. I imagine the reactor itself is still hot, too hot for that
To his "credit", Saddam never restarted the program. Truthfully, that might not be by choice, but it's true nonetheless. They took bulldozers and put up a several hundred foot high berm around the reactor and called it a day. I was there; I have pictures. You can see the fortifications atop the berm from the satellite shots, it looks rather pathetic now. A lot of human remains in the area at the time. About a mile east from the Tigris, ~15 klicks SE of central Baghdad. Google names it "Atomic Energy Organization", can't miss it.
Iraq had been working on a civilian nuclear power program since the 1960s. Osirak was a French model that was intended to be a 70mW unit (with a smaller one nearby). That said, at the time the Israelis destroyed the reactor, it wasn't even stocked with uranium, so they knew there was no risk to any nuclear fallout.
Regardless, I have yet to see any documentation (pre- or post-invasion) that proves Osirak was intended to produce anything other than electricity and other nuclear materials for civilian/medicinal use. There's plenty of Israeli-derived propaganda to the contrary, and of course the Western media and military establishment have long run with that narrative. And sure, as I mentioned, Saddam could very well have wanted to present the image of a nuclear deterrent, but I've seen no proof that Osirak was going to produce weapons grade fissile materia.
Personally never cared about the whole Iraq weapons canard. I always saw it as a casus belli. I wanted to take down two countries hard. THEN LEAVE!! The mistake as I see it was staying around to make those two shit hole countries (classic Trump) into electoral paradises. Only idiot DC swamp rats could believe that. It did make a lot of people rich though.
The WMDs were a canard and a bogus casus belli. Why would you want to take down Iraq and leave? They never attacked us (and frankly neither did Afghanistan - it was the Saudis). But what you're describing is exactly what Obama did to Libya. Look what happened there. Do you support the "taking down of Libya hard" and leaving (and stealing their gold) like we did?
You're right about people getting rich, but that's ANY war throughout history. The USA just seems to have found a way to get away with fomenting endless profitable wars....for now.
After 911 I felt the most expeditious effective way to “fight terrorism”(terrorism being a technique not an ideology) was to hammer two countries. Then leave. Then make it policy(unofficial) that if your country shielded terrorists or financed terrorists something very bad would happen to you, your family, or your country. Possibly all three. That was my preferred policy. Unpleasant but effective.
During one of the debates Trump asked Biden how he came to own three very expensive homes. Trump made a sarcastic face and said something like “it makes no sense”, but then he let it go. I think he could’ve won the election with that issue alone. That is the populace tact that could win - Dem or GOP. Nancy how did you become rich? Hammer on that. Mitch can’t help but notice you’re a millionnaire. What are the politicians tax returns say, how much did they earn and does that equate to 3 homes.
And their wealth is just the grease on the rails that moved the big money. Trump was already rich and was immune to the trap. It was fun to watch a incorruptable patroit swinging like Iron Mike against the tide of slime. Hope he gets in the ring again, but he's earned a retirememt imo.
Trump came from a family fortune based on being a slumlord, not paying your bills and solving problems by suing people. He is not a patriot, he is a grifter.
Trump was immune to the trap ? Ha ! That's fucking hilarious !
Holy shit. I needed a laugh today. I agree that Trump may have at some point bitten off a human ear like Mike Tyson.
Love Iron Mike. He too could fight
I'm a fan of Mike Tyson. Especially because of who he is now.
Tyson is a bright and insightful man when he is sober. I’m definitely a fan of his, in and out of the ring.
He could at least be a House Representative...
Dude you just called Trump incorruptible. Matt’s audience is not gonna like that.
Slowly, very slowly, I feel like there is a convergence between left and right developing in Matt's comments page, on at least some key issues. It's one of the main reasons I'm here. Not everyone is feeling the love, but some perceptible and gratifying connections are being made.
That said, someone will be here shortly to complain about something like Trump charging the Secret Service for staying in his hotels when they accompanied him and point to this as evidence of corruption. (They will not know, or will ignore, that Biden charges the Secret Service to stay at his guest house, and of course they are not displacing other paying guests, as they would be at the Trump hotels.)
But here's an undeniable fact: Public service has made Trump poorer, but it has made the Bidens, Obamas, and Clintons much, much richer.
"Public service has made Trump poorer...."
Nonsense. It's made him (and his family far richer) just as it has with the others you named. Notably you left out Ronald Reagan, George Bush and George W. Bush....hmmmm. There's no president alive who doesn't emerge from that office far better off than they were when they entered, Trump being no exception.
Note that this article says nothing about the Secret Service or anything about Russiagate.
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-family-profiting-presidency-books-deals-business-696244
This one might mention the Secret Service staying at his hotels, but if so it's a tiny, tiny exception to the rest of the information.
https://projects.propublica.org/paying-the-president/
Weak tea my man. Super weak. You reference a Newsweek (!) article written 5 months after Trump was inaugurated, a low effort hit piece. And an inscrutable unreferenced chart of nothing.
Compare that to "plus 10 mil for the big guy" https://youtu.be/LcpJu_MJrjc
Or the rank corruption of Biden withholding aid to Ukraine to remove a prosecutor who stood in the way of Hunter's installation on the board of Burisma. https://youtu.be/rtO1OigwfVs
Turn off CNN and do some research. You will find many more examples, but only if you want to learn the truth. Biden family is pure graft, and part and parcel of the Deep State for decades. FBI has Hunters' laptop for like 2 years now, yet no prosecution at all, in spite of reported lurid interactions with minor relatives. Anyone in possession of Hunters' laptop possesses child pornography. Pretty good disincentive for getting involved there, especially in the current milieu of selective enforcement.
Or debauchery with chinese hookers is 100% A-OK for a Presidents son? https://gtv.org/video/id=5f977cf9384a485bd9603541
Or how he was never prosecuted for falsifying a firearm application, a felony. Discharged from armed services for drugs, but a couple years later no history of drug use on his firearm application... works if your name is Biden.
https://nypost.com/2021/03/29/hunter-biden-should-be-charged-for-lying-on-gun-application/
Inescapable conclusion is the Bidens are favored members of the Deep State, and the IC and MSM wings are doing their best to protect them. OTOH Trump is sworn enemy to IC and MSM because he is outside their control. He already had money, and he loves America.
To those of us who paid attention for the last 5 years this is obvious. To those who devoured the fear porn of CNN for the last 5 years, might as well be written in Linear A.
Duuuude, you RTDS jokers always crack me up.
1) Just stating things as though they are iron clad truths and then waving your hands isn't a valid form of argument. Who cares if the Newsweek article was 5 weeks or 5 years after the inauguration? Do you dispute ANY of the ways they claim he set himself and his family up to enrich themselves (ex. NOT putting business holdings in a blind trust)?
2) The Pro-Publica chart has all kinds of references. I'm sorry if you lack reading comprehension skills or if you're viewing the page from your Samsung Galaxy S6 from 12 years ago, but there are links for "Download all data" and "View data sources." Once again, if you disagree with any of them, please lay it out here.
3) RTDS = Reverse Trump Derangement Syndrome. I don't GAF about Biden, Obama, Clinton, Bush I, Bush II - OR - Trump's corruption. They're ALL corrupt. But you RTDS folks seem to think that Trump was some unicorn perfect President who didn't monetize his White House tenure. He may have fallen a few dozen spots on the Forbes list (not that his wealth was ever liquid or actually verifiable), but he made over a billion while he was President. https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-made-at-least-16-billion-while-us-president-2021-2?op=1
4) I don't disagree one iota that Biden is the favorite of the deep state, but that didn't stop Trump from hiring swamp creatures like Michael Bolton and other current and former members of the deep state. I don't GAF about Biden's son's laptop, but I can tell you that the allegations of child pron are most likely bogus. You have any good links to back up that assertion? Trump is on record talking about how he likes 'em young, hung out plenty with Epstein, and has bragged about how he'd go back in the dressing room at his pageants for Miss USA and Miss Universe. I quote (from his interview with Howard Stern):
"Well, I'll tell you the funniest is that I’ll go backstage before a show, and everyone's getting dressed, and ready and everything else, and you know, no men are anywhere, and I'm allowed to go in because I'm the owner of the pageant and therefore I'm inspecting it. You know, I'm inspecting because I want to make sure that everything is good.
"You know, the dresses. 'Is everyone okay?' You know, they're standing there with no clothes. 'Is everybody okay?' And you see these incredible looking women, and so, I sort of get away with things like that. But no, I've been very good."
In the exchange, Stern asks Trump if, in the years he owned Miss Universe and Miss USA, there were times he had sex with the contestants, all of whom are over age 18.
Trump first answers, "I never comment on things like that."
Again, Biden loves sniffing girls' hair and Trump likes to "grab 'em by the pussy" - so both are old pervs.
P.S. - Do you REALLY think that the 'deep state' would let ANYONE actually get elected in the first place if they didn't control or approve of the candidate?
P.P.S. - Stop watching OAN and Newsmax; they're frying your brain. I never watch CNN or MSNBC - or ANY cable news/website. Your idiotic assumption that I do is based purely on your RTDS.
Wrong. Trump lost money. Never took a salary.
DJT is supposedly a billionaire and your barometer of whether he gained or lost wealth over 4 years is whether or not he took a 400k salary...?
What does a salary have to do with not making money ?? Holy cow man think !
Good, and true point
Could a politician on either side ride this line of thinking - lambasting all Pols - to the White House? Glenn Greenwald as campaign chair.
I feel like if a politician did that, they would probably be universally despised by all the establishment figures in DC and the press. In my more paranoid moments, I can even imagine them being framed by the intelligence agencies, to destroy any chance of having a successful Presidency.
Oh, that could never happen! Not even if the candidate were a faux populist blowhard who tweeted like a 12-year-old edgelord.
Sublime summation my man!
There's too much money to be made.
That's the reason this dead horse keeps getting beaten. If you don't want politicians to get rich, I don't know what to tell you. Even the people running the Soviet Union got rich, at least comparatively.
Stop donating money to their campaigns for starters.
«Even the people running the Soviet Union got rich, at least comparatively.»
That "comparatively" is a wild exaggeration, for example, here someone who was Minister for Science and Energy in the 1960 in the UK describes an official visit to the UK, from his diary, 1963-06-14:
“In the evening we went to dinner with Kirillin and his wife and daughter, Ola, at their flat, along with the Ambassador, and Gvishiani, Academician Artsemivitsch and Academician Keldersh. Madame Santalova was the interpreter. I had been told by the Ambassador that Russian Ministers never invite British Ministers to their flats or homes and he was absolutely amazed when this invitation came in but it was, of course, because I had asked Kirillin to my home in London. It was lovely. We sat and talked in a tiny little flat where he and his wife and child live. Kirillin is one of the Vice-Premiers of the Soviet Union and an eminent scientist. We sat in his little library while the meal was being laid and we ate together, then he showed us home movies of his trip to England and having snowballs thrown at him by the children.”
And he was an Academician, a category that still today in Russia enjoys the greatest prestige (in a poll more people said that their dream was to be an academician than an oligarch).
That's pretty much what Trump did. He just became what he lambasted along the way.
Wow you read Matt's mind on his June 3 essay!
Please list the first 7 numbers between 1 an 53 that come to mind. 😃
Skeptic says: "...That said, someone will be here shortly to complain about something like Trump charging the Secret Service for staying in his hotels when they accompanied him and point to this as evidence of corruption. (They will not know, or will ignore, that Biden charges the Secret Service to stay at his guest house, and of course they are not displacing other paying guests, as they would be at the Trump hotels.)"
First off, the Secret Service does not "charge" or bill presidents for their work. The government, a.k.a. the taxpayers, pick up the tab.
And from BusinessInsider:
"Even when Trump's golf club in Bedminster, N.J. was closed up earlier in the coronavirus pandemic, the documents obtained in the lawsuit show the Secret Service still got hit with a $21,800 charge for a cottage rental and other room fees....The usual rate for agents to stay at a Trump property — even when there's no indication he will stop by — is $567 per night, according to the Post....That's a far cry from the mere "50 bucks" per room Eric Trump claimed the taxpayers dish out when defending the practice back in October 2016."
Perhaps it's an accounting error with the travel ledgers. Junior miscatalogued the $50 bucks for, you know, maybe a discount hooker down on her luck---something like that, but for goodness sake who knows with those boys....
https://www.businessinsider.com/secret-service-billed-1-million-trump-properties-rooms-wapo-2020-9
And Skeptic, don't think of this as a "complaint," merely a friendly reprimand....
Hey Skeptic,
Why doncha introduce yourself to Google and basic internet research, and layoff the sloppy propaganda---or stick to UFO and crypto sites.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/08/trump-secret-service-detail-children-post-white-house
Donald Trump’s adult children reportedly cost taxpayers $140,000 in Secret Service security in the month after the clan’s patriarch left the White House in January.
Ordinarily, family members of a president lose their security detail when they leave office. But in the case of the four Trump siblings and two of their spouses, the former president issued a directive to extend post-presidency protections by six months.
The costs, obtained by the watchdog group Citizens for Ethics, do not include security protections at Trump properties in New Jersey, Palm Beach and Briarcliff, New York. With those factored in, the total would likely be far higher, according to the group.
According to the watchdog, records reveal that the Trump children maintained a “breakneck speed of travel, and racked up significant hotel and transportation bills for the Secret Service”.
Transport costs alone amounted to $52,296.75, and hotel costs totaled at least $88,678.39.The watchdog found that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump went from their jobs at the White House to a 10-day vacation in Utah, racking up hotel costs of $62,599. After a month in Miami, they stayed at Trump’s Bedminster golf property for three days in late February.
Eric and Lara Trump spent much of February at Trump’s Briarcliff property, interspersed with trips to New York, Miami and Palm Beach, at a cost of $12,742.
Donald Trump Jr also spent time in New York City, on Long Island, and in upstate New York, racking up bills of $13,337.
But Citizens for Ethics said the Secret Service did not provide records of spending at Trump businesses.
“While it may be tempting to put the story of the Trump family’s profiteering in the past, we cannot until they have actually stopped directing taxpayer money into their own bank accounts,” the group said.
Ah, the Trumps: the family that drifts together....grifts together.
Yep. Secret Service costs. You've made an ironclad case for corruption.
I'm sure you also have them tabulated to the penny for the Obamas and Clintons for comparison.
By the way, people on the right used to do this exact same thing for Obama's Secret Service costs for trips to Hawaii, a big trip to France for Michelle and the daughters, etc. etc. It was stupid then, and it's stupid now.
Why would Trump people even think they need Secret Service Protection? Just paranoid, right? Quoting Maxine Waters: "“Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere. We’ve got to get the children connected to their parents.”
Yes. Why would they even think they needed protection? After all, none less that Maxine Waters threatened them, and called for the general population to do the same? Why might they feel threatened? Must be paranoia?
Interesting. Out of the blocks with the gratuitous assumption that I'm defending the Obamas. Was I defending the Obamas? I don't believe I was defending the Obamas. But I must say it was a rather clumsy pivot away from the issue at hand, which is, quite simply, your categorical irresponsible posting (and intellectual laziness), and propensity for churning out third-rate propaganda in lieu of fact stating. But you get a gold star for chivalry, even if it is second-hand chivalry, for advocating for continued secret service protection for the "kids" from the intrepid Maxine Waters. Personally, I myself would feel a lot more comfortable with the 101st Airborne between me and "Mad Max." And Skeptic, if it's any consolation to you, the last person to call me a democrat got punched in the face....
Well, I can personally attest to the expenses of U.S. taxpayer contributions to Mr. Dick Cheney's dry cleaning bills? I happened to live in the area of Jackson WY during Mr. Cheney's reign. It wasn't entirely without notice.
Dick seemed to have a proclivity for disrupting the lives of his neighbors to the extent we'd avoid even being in the same area as he was, which was difficult in a place that only had 10,000 people in it to start with? On the upside, it was pretty easy to notice his presence by looking for black towncars in the parking lot.
There's no solution to this problem I can see?
I agree. But the media spent four years being shocked, shocked at supposedly unprecedented outrages from Trump, while ignoring similar behavior from Democrats. It got old, and it drove some credulous people into hysteria.
Yeah...The Dems all took his campaign donations when he was a democrat. He was just as much of misogynistic pagan back then but the Clintons loved him. Pelosi took his dough and I'm sure Chucky S did as well.
No, Fox news was gushing about him the whole time. 5 years ago, Fox was shocked about everything Obama did, while the liberal side gushed. Both sides have their own propaganda and they both tell everyone else that they are the real enemies of America.
If there was no CCP Virus, we would be rocking now. We were on a roll 2017-2019.
Say we find China created COVID. Would the next question be on purpose. And we all know Fauci financed part of the study. There are a lot of implications there.
What I can't understand is why the Democrats wanted to blame the US for COVID????
They blame the US for everything. They don’t like America
«Dude you just called Trump incorruptible»
The gullibles don't realize that in the USA (and in the world) it is real estate mobsters who bribe or blackmail politicians, not vice-versa. Trump probably could have been convicted many times over of bribery, but that issue was never brought up because the vast majority of the politicians he bribed must have been from the Democratic party (in NYC and NJ, likely to get building permits and other favourable decisions).
His attitude to Republicans instead was different: he was one of their biggest campaign donors ever (probably to get even more favourable tax rules for real estate).
The correct term is "pre-corrupted"
"Incorruptible" is going too far. But he did have a certain degree of immunity that occasionally produced interesting remarks. Roughly along these lines was my favorite, his declaration that he loved the "poorly educated." It was really kind of brilliant.
Not a bad way to go...
Totally agree. We should be going after pols on both sides on this issue. It’s disgusting
RJF, Trump didn't want to explain how he got so "rich". Especially when his tax information was almost released. That would have been a disaster for him.
That is just one of the many baseless smears about Trump.
He is very rich, if only because he inherited a lot of NYC real estate decades ago, and NYC has ballooned in price over the decades.
Also the tax return is pointless, we all know that thanks to various loopholes he did not pay tax, but he has give a far more useful document. A previous commenter has summyrized well:
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/which-is-the-real-working-class-party/comments#comment-707998
“Tax returns tell you nothing of substance. Check out Biden's from 2017, for example. [...] The real picture - the best view - is in the required financial disclosures. Then you see assets and other income sources not available in a return. Trump's are available too. He IS fabulously wealthy and has impressive assets. The point is, tax returns are a distraction - they are in no way a meaningful look at someone's finances. This is especially true when multiple corporations and corporations within corporations complicate the view.”
I've heard this argument before, but never quite understood how it jibed with Trump and his family machine's tooth-and-nail fight to prevent any recent tax documents from seeing the light of day.
Obviously tax returns aren't going to tell a complete story, but boy did he try his damnedest to keep them away from the public eye.
«did he try his damnedest to keep them away from the public eye»
Obviously because he did not pay any tax despite being very wealthy and having a huge real income. Most likely he and the other real estate moghuls did not want publicity for the enormous loopholes that he (and them) purchased over the decades from Congress. Only the little people pay taxes...
But that is a completely different issue from how wealthy and successful in business he has been. His hiding the tax return was not because he is actually poor and needs to be bribed by russian politicians with a few hotel bills, like the roaring buffoons arguing about the "Emoluments Clause" were implying.
On the surface that would make sense, but he made frequent statements to the effect that it was a *good* thing that he didn't actually pay taxes because he was smart and a "good businessman" - and his base lapped it up. It wasn't a perception problem among his supporters that he may not have paid taxes due to loopholes, after all Bernie Sanders has 3 houses and what not.
Clearly the Russian bribe thing is cooked up nonsense or something would have surfaced by now, but I think there's more merit to the notion that he's actually not very rich than you do. For one thing, he has a lot of creditors and the extent of them isn't fully known, nor is it totally understood how leveraged his properties are or whether he's inflating the values of certain assets.
«there's more merit to the notion that he's actually not very rich than you do. For one thing, he has a lot of creditors and the extent of them isn't fully known, nor is it totally understood how leveraged his properties are or whether he's inflating the values of certain assets.»
The real estate business is very different from normal businesses (in many respects it is a supercharged version of "private equity"), it is all about leverage, loopholes, bankruptcies, weird accounting, carry forward tax losses, all totally legal because the loopholes have been purchased. If you don't know how it works you can't just handwave. Nothing new, for an example here is a quote from A deTocqueville, "Democracy in America", 1834:
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/1_ch13.htm
“Consequently, in the United States the law favors those classes that elsewhere are most interested in evading it. [...] In America there is no law against fraudulent bankruptcies, not because they are few, but because they are many. The dread of being prosecuted as a bankrupt is greater in the minds of the majority than the fear of being ruined by the bankruptcy of others; and a sort of guilty tolerance is extended by the public conscience to an offense which everyone condemns in his individual capacity.”
Trump tax returns: president had to pay millions due to ...
Search domain theguardian.comhttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/14/donald-trump-tax-return-leaked-alternative-minimum
Mar 14, 2017The official added that Trump “paid $38m even after taking into account large-scale depreciation for construction, on an income of more than $150m, as well as paying tens of millions of dollars in other taxes such as sales and excise taxes and employment taxes, and this illegally published return proves just that”.
He's on record stating he counts loan money as assets so please tell me how if no one can possibly know how rich he is you know he is very wealthy and has a huge income..........
Do you know how much he owes ??
I used to believe that too. Honestly. But as I aged, experienced more of the tax code and how it applied tome and others, I found the loopholes to be mostly nonexistent. There was a year back in the early 2000's I grossed over $3 million and I paid enough in taxes I felt snubbed because no one named a U.S. Aircraft carrier for me. :)
But generally I think you'll find a conspicous lack of loopholes, and I really mean that. It's almost the golden fleece of American Dreams, that after you achieve some level of income the tax code simply disappears; it stops being a problem. That isn't so, and there are many folks around to attest to it.
Now I find the code much more lenient. I don't make much money in my old age and my guess is I actually take in more government funding than I pay. In the past ten or so years I haven't paid any taxes at all?
«It's almost the golden fleece of American Dreams, that after you achieve some level of income the tax code simply disappears»
Personal income enjoys few loopholes, but there are large discounts for capital taxes, significant loopholes for corporate taxes, and the sky is the limit for offshore corporate tax loopholes. So the key techniques are to capitalize income, launder it through a corporate shell, and ideally an offshore corporate shell managed by nominees.
This is most convenient for the owners of businesses (Warren Buffet pointed out he paid a lower percentage of his income in taxes than his secretary), but even the CEOs and CFOs of many corporates are not "John Smith", the person, but "JS Management Services, postbox 666, Dubai City, UAE".
An example from a comment on an english newspaper from the owner of a London cleaning business:
«London is indeed full of oligarchs from the USA to Outer Mongolia, hell bent of out spending and out doing their neighbours, if they even bother to turn up. Running a small cleaning company in the magic areas over the last few years has been insane. The demand for our cleaning services is high and we are able to turn down the so called oligarchs who whine about price but never about the quality, of course it won’t last
Many of our payments are coming from North African based banks within the Spanish territories, Morocco, Algeria and most unusual Mali, who seems to issue a huge number of loaded debit cards for payment of services. In very recent years,many of the houses we clean, have been mortgaged to once again Mali based banks, although they have very familiar names, eg Santander.»
Do you think wealthy people not paying taxes is a good thing?
87% of the taxes are paid by the top 20%.
Do you think we should import ONLY people who suck up more services than the contribute in revenue?
Sure, if they're doing it legally. The real threat is government coercion.
Absolutely, if they're doing it legally.
Trump tax returns: president had to pay millions due to ...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/14/donald-trump-tax-return-leaked-alternative-minimum
Mar 14, 2017The official added that Trump "paid $38m even after taking into account large-scale depreciation for construction, on an income of more than $150m, as well as paying tens of millions of dollars in...
He had to pay them in order to get his mail order bride into the country remember ?
this was pertaining to 2005. I'm sure his people found plenty of loopholes in the 16 years since.
«did he try his damnedest to keep them away from the public eye»
Obviously because he did not pay any tax despite being very wealthy and having a huge real income. Most likely he and the other real estate moghuls did not want publicity for the enormous loopholes that he (and them) purchased over the decades from Congress. Only the little people pay taxes...
But that is a completely different issue from how wealthy and successful in business he has been. His hiding the tax return was not because he is actually poor and needs to be bribed by russian politicians with a few hotel bills, like the roaring buffoons arguing about the "Emoluments Clause" were implying.
You still need to tell us how you know he's actually rich when you have no clue how much he owes.
Like the quip goes.
If you owe the bank $30,000 and can't pay, you have a problem.
If you owe the bank $30 million and can't pay, the bank has a problem.
You aren't curious about a wealthy persons finances and how they became so wealthy? It's amazing how many people applaud the rich for being crooked.
Maybe he isn't as rich as he wanted people to think he was. If, as this article proposes, the US is a plutocracy. Then, Trump has to maintain his Master of the Universe illusion.
Why do you applaud this? Let's say you're right. Then a blatant liar was elected as US President. This is like like chat-russian-roulette.
applaud? No Sir I do not. He wasn't the first blatant liar President, nor the last. He did however, mostly by accident, I think, reveal what's actually behind the curtain
We knew more about what he was doing just by reading his tweets 3AM. Biden is underhanded as Obama.
The NYT, WA PO, lied more than Trump. You'll find out he sold you down the river after he leaves, like Obama.
Peoples finances should be a personal matter if they're not breaking the law. Why are you only concerned with this one set of citizens?
If they're a personal matter you'd never know if they were breaking the law now would you ?
Wouldn't know if they were breaking the law? Hahahahahahaha -- laughing so hard I have tears in my eyes. A guy who owed how much in unpaid taxes, Tim Geitner, who was head of the NY Fed leading up to 2008 financial disaster, was confirmed as Obama's Treasury Secretary. Sharpton, who may still (allegedly) owe thousands to NY and/or other taxing bodies, was Obama's racial affairs guru and frequent White House guest --- a role model for us all. So funny.
It's pretty much safe to say that we all expect you to like your own posts, so why is it you keep doing it? OK. You like your own posts. Put that thing back in your shorts and let it heal?
I think the IRS would be the first to catch them. If there is no outstanding evidence, you're just fishing which is what the democrats do with their many Conspiracy Investigations.
You seem obsessed with people that are successful. Not sure why you and so many others have so much contempt for this one group of citizens.
BORDERLAND is a lobbyist.
Most are not crooked as they provide most of the jobs we have:
Statistics of U.S. Businesses (SUSB)
Search domain census.govhttps://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/susb.html
The 2017 Statistics of U.S. Businesses counted employment of 128.6M, of which 68.0M worked for enterprises 500+ in size and 60.5M for those under 500.
Horse shit. The economy is crooked so they have no choice but to be crooked. All the honest ones went out of business decades ago.
The facts are in your face. Fess up!
Once again, if you don't know how much Trump owes then you CANNOT speculate upon how wealthy he is.
He's on public record stating that he counts loans as assets. If I get to define the standards and definition of wealth, I too could be fabulously wealthy.
Which means he already knew how the game was played. He built in NYC, one would have to be an expert in precisely the corruption the article describes. In fact, that may have been his secret sauce and why the establishment feared him.
This is hilarious. Confirmation that Hunter Thompson was right. A decent chunk of the US liked Nixon for being a clever crook. An even larger group likes Trump for the same.
I think Thompson was right about quite a few things. Ever heard of Brad Marchand? Hockey player for Boston. He's a total dick but holy mackinaw can that guy play hockey. Dirty, mean, vicious Hockey. The fans love him. He wins a lot too.
The comments today are bananas!! BlueRocket, a game of hockey may be a decent metaphor for US politics and economy. If I shout loud enough, buy expensive seats, and enough hot dogs maybe the fucking players will score some goals. Maybe the facilities staff will look into why the ice is melting too.
and I'll jump and shout when Marchand spears a guy in the neck. Especially if the Refs miss it. Yup, solid metaphor.
They didn't fear him very much they just couldn't do much to him because they're all complicit in war crimes and massive fraud. What reforms did Trump make ?
I have accidentally outed myself as a Trump supporter
Whatever. You can be anything you want. I was just explaining why that strategy for Trump would have been a disaster.
Yeah I missed your point. You’re saying if Trump made a big deal of it -Joe’s wealth -it would have blown up in his face because his tax return would show all kinds of unflattering stuff. You are right.
Your point was not "Joe's wealth", but how he got it. He was a "public servant" (God, that makes me puke) for 44 years. being a government employee does not enable wealth. THAT is the point that Trump could have focused on, the abuse of the people's trust. The Orange man got whatever he has in the world of business - whether honest or not, not from the people.
«The Orange man got whatever he has in the world of business - whether honest or not, not from the people.»
He still got most of his wealth from the people, through the "free markets", it is the people who ultimately pay the price of higher real estate rents and prices that make developers rich. Just like as Kucinich's book described, making money through jacked up utility prices etc. is paid for by the people.
Both the "free markets" and the state can be vehicles for extractive enrichment, and as to that the "free markets" enable far more extraction than the government.
Well said
Wait...were you being sarcastic in your OG post? If so, mastermind.
I was not being sarcastic. Too bad i’ve never been called a mastermind before
No it wouldn’t-people understand A-how real estate developers and casino owners make $$, and B-the crookedness inherent in those endeavors.
Ha! No they don't... Real estate - how many people were arrested because of NINJA loans? Casinos - regulated by the NGC. Crookedness inherent - are you saying "people" are ok with this? People did like Nixon too, but people also fired him.
Absolutely.
Perhaps if tax burdens were equitably distributed among all U.S. citizens, the tax code made fair once again, these sorts of talk show gotchas, this never ending fixation on the peculiarly acquired wealth of a small but not insubstantial subset of parasitic citizenry, we could move on to, say, solving other problems...
This is exciting: a book I would actually read by and about a politician whose only flaws have been remarkable prescience and integrity. I recently tweeted at Kucinich a few times urging him to run for the open Ohio Senate seat. With the book out of the way (and now on my reading list), maybe he will give that idea some serious thought.
Thanks, Matt!
Stay tuned
As a Dem? If so, he must be a glutton for punishment ...
Oooh...that word, that word. I was thinking while I read the article "He might as well have a scarlet "I" tattooed on his forehead, so all the elected apparatchiks and brokers could avoid him. "INTEGRITY". I wonder if the brains of people like Pelosi and McConnell can actually process it, or if so, with the beginning provision "A trait exhibited by people *not yourself or your political allies*, which involves adherence to moral and ethical principles; etc."
I'm on the right, but I was always skeptical of the Iraq War.
I'll never forget when Kucinich was on some Sunday morning chat show in around 2004, and a Bush apologist was flaunting photos of old chemical weapons receptacles that were found in Iraq, arguing that there really were WMD.
Kucinich politely asked if he could have the photos, the hack agreed, and Kucinich asked the cameraman to zoom in on one. It showed a long, rusted out metal canister, looking like something you'd see in a scrap metal yard.
Kucinich asked, just slightly raising his voice, "We went to war--over this?"
The Bushee started stuttering and hemming and hawing and otherwise showing what a direct hit it was.
Damn, I was impressed.
Saddam Hussein was between a rock and a hard place. He didn't have a nuclear program after 1981 aside from a pile of yellowcake and some high level wastes at Osirak, surrounded by a huge dirt berm you can see on a Google Maps satellite shot. He had a small bioweapons program. He had chemical weapons. But he had UN inspectors breathing down his neck on one side and Iran on the other. He feared a loss of deterrence vis a vis Iran if he came clean about what little he actually had. So he prevaricated. When actually invaded, he made drug deals with the most likely leaders - strangely enough the Iranians and the Syrians. Most of the chemical weapons left (mostly artillery shells) after the wars and his internal use of it went to Syria, and most of that was either used or destroyed by now. The remnants of his nuclear program were removed from Iraq by the US in 2008 or so. The bioweapons program I know nothing about where it went, but it wasn't huge and basically amounted to weaponized anthrax. Not that that is nothing, but it's not the world-ending threat we once thought it was.
Kucinich's political stuff in 2004 might have seemed poignant but it was pretty ill informed.
I understood Kucinich's point to be that there was not a sufficient national security reason to invade. It sounds like you might agree with that, but only in hindsight.
But there were quite a few savvy players (including people on the right like Bob Novak) who smelled a rat and tried to raise the alarm before the invasion.
Any chemical weapons program that Saddam had were in some way either financed or allowed to happen by the United States in our own attempt to foment and keep the war with Iran running (likely with strong Israeli influence).
There's no legitimate documentation that any viable chemical weapons or other "WMDs" were sent to Syria prior to or after the invasion despite the prevalence of this myth among the neocons who wanted to sell that war to to the American people and then being embarrassed after the invasion when it was shown to the world that no such (current/viable) programs existed (as pointed out by Kucinich and others).
Nobody with any actual intelligence on the matter (or common sense) ever thought Saddam posed a "world-ending threat", ever.
As far as the remnants of his alleged nuclear program being removed from Iraq by the US in 2008, I'd have to see some sort of documentation. That rings hollow without backing evidence.
I could document this and the rest but I choose not to. Do your own research. Hint, "Operation McCall".
Not my fault you are ill-informed.
OK, so I mis-read your post regarding Saddam's "nuclear program" - I though you were implying it was a nuclear *weapons* program, when in fact I was aware that a lot of low-grade uranium from previous civilian nuclear program was removed during Obama's presidency, IIRC. Maybe at one point he had a small nuclear weapons program, but that wasn't the intended use for the vast majority of the yellow cake in question. You are correct, he had abandoned the weapons program way back in 1981, assuming it was ever really in earnest or just 'prevarication' or tough talk with the aim of deterrence.
FYI the removal happened under Bush, they gave out pretty unit citations to everyone involved telling us that we were responsible, and I quote, for "removing Saddam Hussein's nuclear program from Iraq". Someone was trying to airbrush history, but it's true with a lot of asterisks and caveats. They handed out the unit citations a week or two before Obama was inaugurated.
Ah, OK. I knew it was close to Obama's taking office and guess I was going on your original guesstimate of "2008 or so"....didn't know for sure if it happened under Bush or Obama.
The Osirak reactor was fueled with HEU and set up to produce plutonium at the time it was hit. The Iraqis bought a separation rig in 1979. The conclusion is obvious. That wasn't a reactor intended for civilian uses. The Israelis hit it in 1981 and blew it to smithereens. That's what McCall got out of there, at least within the limits of moon suits and the like. I imagine the reactor itself is still hot, too hot for that
To his "credit", Saddam never restarted the program. Truthfully, that might not be by choice, but it's true nonetheless. They took bulldozers and put up a several hundred foot high berm around the reactor and called it a day. I was there; I have pictures. You can see the fortifications atop the berm from the satellite shots, it looks rather pathetic now. A lot of human remains in the area at the time. About a mile east from the Tigris, ~15 klicks SE of central Baghdad. Google names it "Atomic Energy Organization", can't miss it.
Iraq had been working on a civilian nuclear power program since the 1960s. Osirak was a French model that was intended to be a 70mW unit (with a smaller one nearby). That said, at the time the Israelis destroyed the reactor, it wasn't even stocked with uranium, so they knew there was no risk to any nuclear fallout.
Regardless, I have yet to see any documentation (pre- or post-invasion) that proves Osirak was intended to produce anything other than electricity and other nuclear materials for civilian/medicinal use. There's plenty of Israeli-derived propaganda to the contrary, and of course the Western media and military establishment have long run with that narrative. And sure, as I mentioned, Saddam could very well have wanted to present the image of a nuclear deterrent, but I've seen no proof that Osirak was going to produce weapons grade fissile materia.
Personally never cared about the whole Iraq weapons canard. I always saw it as a casus belli. I wanted to take down two countries hard. THEN LEAVE!! The mistake as I see it was staying around to make those two shit hole countries (classic Trump) into electoral paradises. Only idiot DC swamp rats could believe that. It did make a lot of people rich though.
The WMDs were a canard and a bogus casus belli. Why would you want to take down Iraq and leave? They never attacked us (and frankly neither did Afghanistan - it was the Saudis). But what you're describing is exactly what Obama did to Libya. Look what happened there. Do you support the "taking down of Libya hard" and leaving (and stealing their gold) like we did?
You're right about people getting rich, but that's ANY war throughout history. The USA just seems to have found a way to get away with fomenting endless profitable wars....for now.
After 911 I felt the most expeditious effective way to “fight terrorism”(terrorism being a technique not an ideology) was to hammer two countries. Then leave. Then make it policy(unofficial) that if your country shielded terrorists or financed terrorists something very bad would happen to you, your family, or your country. Possibly all three. That was my preferred policy. Unpleasant but effective.