US Politics Mega-thread - Page 246

On May 21 2013 06:08 DeepElemBlues wrote:
Oh the hypocrisy of criticizing Republicans for going after Tesla while Democratic states go after gun makers, energy producers, and basically any business they ideologically don't like.

Meanwhile real issues of civil liberties and trust in government are being ignored here, because it's easier to bullshit about Keynes and Milton Friedman and how bad business is and tears than look at the fact that the US government tailed a reporter like he was a criminal, knew at the highest levels about abuse of the government's powers against it's opponents, abused the government's powers to help out Jeremiah Wright (subsequently thrown under the bus by the president), has completely fucked up the student aid system that it took over to "protect" students from predatory lenders, asked citizens about the contents of their prayers, and, a more familiar if still egregious tactic, leaked documents to smear a whistleblower.

But please, let's continue to live in this alternate world where we beat each other over the head about John Maynard Keynes and how we love Republican tears. I guess it's time to get back to grounding and pounding about the scandals that are scandals everywhere except at TL because Republicans are bad so they're irrelevant. It almost makes me wish it was a Republican president in the Oval Office with all this happening, because people like asgfhhagjdgj would be tearing their hair out and frothing spittle all over their keyboards about the fascist Republicans threatening our democracy.

The revelation that the DOJ would classify a journalist as an un-indicted co-conspirator under the 1917 Espionage Act is “even a bigger deal” than the department’s seizure of Associated Press phone records, said Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.

“A line has been crossed that has always been a very critical bulwark,” Wizner said to MSNBC. “That’s the line between government leakers and media publishers.” No journalist has ever been prosecuted under the Espionage Act,what has traditionally “only been used against those who gave or sold secrets to the enemy.”

On May 21 2013 07:23 DeepElemBlues wrote:
Who else has the DOJ put under surveillance for saying or reporting things the Administration doesn't like?

Those dark days of American fascism under George W. Bush are looking so bright anymore.

On May 21 2013 08:20 Adila wrote:


Any journalists in jail yet because of Obama? I seem to recall at least 1 under W. Bush.

On May 21 2013 08:20 Adila wrote:


Any journalists in jail yet because of Obama? I seem to recall at least 1 under W. Bush.

In short: the very day after the president of the quite publicly anti-Tea Party labor union — the union for IRS employees — met with President Obama, the manager of the IRS “Determinations Unit Program agreed” to open a “Sensitive Case report on the Tea party cases.” As stated by the IG report.

On May 21 2013 08:20 Adila wrote:


Any journalists in jail yet because of Obama? I seem to recall at least 1 under W. Bush.

On May 21 2013 08:20 Adila wrote:


Any journalists in jail yet because of Obama? I seem to recall at least 1 under W. Bush.

On May 21 2013 20:45 BioNova wrote:


Does innocent Yemeni journo's count? Jeremy Scahill' Nation Report.

On May 21 2013 21:03 nunez wrote:

oh snap!
context: abdulelah haider shaye

On May 21 2013 21:16 aksfjh wrote:

Foreign journalist arrested, tried, and imprisoned in a foreign land. While Obama could have kept out of it, he and his administration didn't do any of the legwork on this one.

On May 21 2013 21:21 nunez wrote:

obama is not only personally responsible for him being in jail, but the events unfolding in yemen that he is reporting on is a direct consequence of obama's administrations foreign policy (mass murder in al-Majalah, murder of Anwar al-Awlaki).

what do you mean exactly when you say that they didn't do the legwork?

On May 21 2013 21:46 aksfjh wrote:

What are the biggest obstacles in trying a journalist in America? Citizenship, proving guilt, and American public opinion. This guy has none of these. He wasn't even working for a big syndicated news organization (like Al-Jazeera). Yemen is the country with the initial beef with him, and while they had him captive and tried, Obama took the "safe" route to ask to keep him locked up.

And boo-fucking-hoo about him being in jail because of a campaign pursued by the executive branch. You must have missed what the CIA has been doing since the 1960s. Our country has likely caused genocide in some cases, and we have thrown an entire country into war within the past decade. I'm certain journalists have been shot and killed with all the crap going on in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Any journalists in jail yet because of Obama?

Apple pays an extraordinary amount in US taxes. Apple is likely the largest corporate income tax payer in the US, having paid nearly $6 billion in taxes to the US Treasury in FY2012. These payments account for $1 in every $40 in corporate income tax the US Treasury collected last year. The Company’s FY2012 total US federal cash effective tax rate was approximately 30.5%. The Company expects to pay over $7 billion in taxes to the US Treasury in its current fiscal year. In accordance with US law, Apple pays US corporate income taxes on the profits earned from its sales in the US and on the investment income of its Controlled Foreign Corporations (“CFCs”), including the investment earnings of its Irish subsidiary, Apple Operations International (“AOI”)…

Offshore Entities With No Declared Tax Jurisdiction. Apple has established and directed tens of billions of dollars to at least two Irish affiliates, while claiming neither is a tax resident of any jurisdiction, including its primary offshore holding company, Apple Operations International (AOI), and its primary intellectual property rights recipient, Apple Sales International (ASI). AOI, which has no employees, has no physical presence, is managed and controlled in the United States, and received $30 billion of income between 2009 and 2012, has paid no corporate income tax to any national government for the past five years…

Apple, a company with $145 billion of cash, is issuing some $17 billion of debt to buy back its own shares. Why doesn't it just use its cash to do the same thing? First, because a lot of that cash is overseas, and bringing it back to America would incur a tax charge. Second, because interest rates are low and debt interest is tax-deductible, making this look a great arbitrage. ...

ADD: In short, the whole deal is linked to tax distortions; the treatment of repatriated cash, debt versus equity and capital gains versus income. The ideal tax system, as we have argued many times, is neutral between sources of income. The tax deductibility of interest played its part in creating this mess, both in the corporate and mortgage markets. Why should the taxpayer want to encourage higher leverage, when high leverage is the root of financial crises?