US Politics Mega-thread - Page 5156

On September 27 2016 02:25 farvacola wrote:
If only y'all could see how Ohio Democrats campaign, shit's embarrassing.

On September 27 2016 02:31 TheNewEra wrote:
Have a short question about the Debates. Not sure how to phrase it, because my English isn't so good but here goes
nothing.
Are these 3 debates organized 'privately' between the Republican and the Democratic party? Or are they officially done by the USA. Because in that case they would need to have the other Presidential candidates of the other parties, too, or not?

As most of you know, I had been endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, for my personal safety, because I live in California. It isn’t safe to be a Trump supporter where I live. And it’s bad for business too. But recently I switched my endorsement to Trump, and I owe you an explanation. So here it goes.

1. Things I Don’t Know: There are many things I don’t know. For example, I don’t know the best way to defeat ISIS. Neither do you. I don’t know the best way to negotiate trade policies. Neither do you. I don’t know the best tax policy to lift all boats. Neither do you. My opinion on abortion is that men should follow the lead of women on that topic because doing so produces the most credible laws. So on most political topics, I don’t know enough to make a decision. Neither do you, but you probably think you do.

Given the uncertainty about each candidate – at least in my own mind – I have been saying I am not smart enough to know who would be the best president. That neutrality changed when Clinton proposed raising estate taxes. I understand that issue and I view it as robbery by government.

I’ll say more about that, plus some other issues I do understand, below.

2. Confiscation of Property: Clinton proposed a new top Estate Tax of 65% on people with net worth over $500 million. Her website goes to great length to obscure the actual policy details, including the fact that taxes would increase on lower value estates as well. See the total lack of transparency here, where the text simply refers to going back to 2009 rates. It is clear that the intent of the page is to mislead, not inform.

So don’t fall for the claim that Clinton has plenty of policy details on her website. She does, but it is organized to mislead, not to inform. That’s far worse than having no details.

The bottom line is that under Clinton’s plan, estate taxes would be higher for anyone with estates over $5 million(ish). I call this a confiscation tax because income taxes have already been paid on this money. In my case, a dollar I earn today will be taxed at about 50% by various government entities, collectively. With Clinton’s plan, my remaining 50 cents will be taxed again at 50% when I die. So the government would take 75% of my earnings from now on.

Yes, I can do clever things with trusts to avoid estate taxes. But that is just welfare for lawyers. If the impact of the estate tax is nothing but higher fees for my attorney, and hassle for me, that isn’t good news either.

You can argue whether an estate tax is fair or unfair, but fairness is an argument for idiots and children. Fairness isn’t an objective quality of the universe. I oppose the estate tax because I was born to modest means and worked 7-days a week for most of my life to be in my current position. (I’m working today, Sunday, as per usual.) And I don’t want to give 75% of my earnings to the government. (Would you?)

About a year ago I told you that Donald Trump would change far more than politics. I predicted that he would change your understanding of the human condition and your role in reality.

Back then, I couldn’t explain what I meant. You didn’t have the mental framework to hold this new idea – unless you were a trained hypnotist or a cognitive scientist. The ideas were too radical.

Until now.

Murders in the US rose 10.8% last year, the biggest single-year percentage jump since 1971, according to data released Monday by the FBI.

The rising violence was driven by an increase in the murders of black men, and by an increase in the number of gun murders. At least 900 more black men were killed in 2015 than in 2014, according to FBI data.

There were roughly 1,500 additional firearm murders in 2015. No other type of weapon saw a comparable increase. The number of knife murders dropped slightly.

The percentage of murders committed with guns increased to 71.5%.

The increase, which follows a two-decade downward trend, put the number of murders back at 15,696, about the same number as in 2009. The national murder rate is still about half what it was in 1991, at the peak of the violent crime wave of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Even as murders rose, the country’s overall crime rates did not increase as substantially. There was a 3.9% increase in the estimated number of violent crimes, but a 2.6% decrease in the estimated number of property crimes.

There is no consensus yet on what factors might be driving a sharp increase in murders alone, but crime has become a politically charged election issue, and the uptick will probably figure in Monday’s presidential debate.

Crime trend experts said they expected politicians to overplay the significance of the new numbers and to react with “hysteria”.

On September 27 2016 02:51 TheYango wrote:
I would guess that for the most part "people who work 7-day work weeks" and "people who pay estate tax" are mutually exclusive groups.

On September 27 2016 02:42 farvacola wrote:
It's nice when a cartoonist like Adams puts on display why it is that he should stick to drawing and not writing.

So is Adams an idiot, a child, or both?

On September 27 2016 02:55 Nebuchad wrote:


It didn't strike me until you pointed it out. This is quite a gem.

Leonardo DiCaprio is heading to the White House.

The Oscar winner is set to meet with President Barack Obama next week to discuss climate change, the White House announced Sunday.

The conversation, which will also be joined by climate scientist Dr. Katharine Hayhoe and center on "the importance of protecting the one planet we've got for future generations," will be part of the inaugural South by South Lawn: A White House Festival of Ideas, Art, and Action. The Oct. 3 discussion will be followed by a screening of DiCaprio's new climate documentary Before the Flood.





DiCaprio, 41, has long been an activist on climate change. He even made it the focal point in his Academy Awards acceptance speech earlier this year.

On September 27 2016 02:51 TheYango wrote:
I would guess that for the most part "people who work 7-day work weeks" and "people who pay estate tax" are mutually exclusive groups.

Three days after guard dogs attacked Native Americans protesting an oil pipeline project in North Dakota in early September, an unprecedented event took place at the White House.

Brian Cladoosby, president of the National Congress of American Indians, which represents more than 500 tribes, spoke to nearly a dozen of President Barack Obama's Cabinet-level advisers at a September 6 meeting of the White House's three-year-old Native American Affairs Council.

It was the first time a tribal leader addressed a session of the council, and Cladoosby was invited in his role as the Indian Congress’ leader.

Cladoosby, a Swinomish Indian from Washington state, spoke twice at the one-hour roundtable. He told Reuters he praised the Obama administration in his opening statement for its track record on Native American issues such as pushing to reform the Indian Health Service.

But when Cladoosby gave his closing speech, he delivered an impassioned request to his audience: stand with Native Americans who have united with the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and block construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, a 1,100 mile conduit to get oil from North Dakota to Illinois.

That plea marked one of the previously unreported turning points in a drama that played out since February and culminated September 9 with an about face by the U.S. government, from giving the pipeline a green light to backing a request from North Dakota's Standing Rock Sioux to halt construction of the pipeline.

The tribe fears sacred sites could be destroyed during the line's construction and that a future oil spill would pollute its drinking water.

This month's win for the tribe, which could be reversed by regulators, is a rare instance of protests resulting in quick federal action and the triumph of an unusual alliance between environmentalists and Native Americans, who both say they were emboldened by the defeat of the Keystone XL pipeline last fall.

It also was the most galvanizing movement in Native American politics in decades, some tribal leaders said, as Crow, Navajo, Sioux and other traditional rivals united to fight what they considered an assault on their way of life.

Cladoosby did not play a high-profile role in the early days of the pipeline controversy. But that day he spoke to a high echelon of power, including Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, White House Domestic Policy Council director Celia Munoz, and the heads of the Departments of Energy; Agriculture; Education; Health and Human Services; and the Environmental Protection Agency, according to a senior administration official who asked not to be named and to a photo of attendees seen by Reuters.