A new US Republican thread 2016

[fohat]

The Republican problem is much larger than the Trump problem.

Even after he is impeached after the Russia disaster, we are left with Pence and Ryan to do, arguably, more damage.

[jacobolus]

http://m.democracynow.org/stories/17163

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about this, when it comes to Vancouver. And specifically, just having read your piece, talk about Felix Sater and who he is.

JAMES HENRY: Right. Felix Sater is a convicted felon. He also happened to run a company with a partner, called Bayrock, which was a big investor in the project called the Trump SoHo, which basically went belly up. Bayrock no longer exists; it went bankrupt. But Felix and his partner, you know, have been accused of being a conduit to former Soviet Union money that was flowing into these projects. You know, that’s a matter of litigation that’s before the courts now.

But it is the case that the farther you look into Felix and his partners, the more curious the situation becomes. He was convicted and then had a very generous plea deal in 2000 from our former attorney general, Loretta Lynch, despite the fact that he had been convicted of felonies for a huge $40 million financial scam. He never served a day in jail. He then did a kind of very big plea bargain with the Justice Department. And essentially, we think he may have been helping the CIA repurchase Stinger missiles in Afghanistan with the help of his Russian friends. Anyway, that’s another whole smoking gun we need to investigate. But Sater, to this day, has been involved in—his latest thing was to propose a kind of a relaxed sanctions on Russia with respect to the Ukraine, just in January, using Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, as a conduit. So, this guy—the fact that these kinds of people are floating around the Trump Organization, just in and out of the door, is very disturbing. And, you know, my piece goes into a lot of the different networks and the extensive—

AMY GOODMAN: But staying on Felix, you actually show the business card of Felix Sater, which we will show right here—

JAMES HENRY: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: —which says, "Felix H. Sater," and on top it says, "Trump," "The Trump Organization."

JAMES HENRY: That’s right. I mean, he was, at a certain point, an adviser to Trump. He was meeting with him in his office. They were scheming to do projects all over the planet. You know, he was making campaign contributions to the Trump Organization this summer. They have distanced themselves from him. I mean, he has a—you know, this is a fellow who’s been convicted of slashing somebody with a margarita glass.

So, you know, the issue, more broadly, just beyond Felix Sater, is: How do we get to the bottom of all of these allegations? I think that David’s point about needing some kind of independent investigation, maybe a national commission, on this whole issue, just to clear the air, is essentially the way to go.

But the most recent report that I’ve been doing, I wanted to just turn to that, because, you know, the Sater story has been done. We know it’s out there. It still needs work. But, you know, the most interesting thing I’ve come up with lately is about our new secretary of commerce investing in a Russian-owned bank that’s basically, up to the minute, involved in money laundering. And he’s got, you know, three partners in that bank who are wealthy oligarchs, one of whom was a KGB agent, appointed by Putin to the bank. This is the Bank of Cyprus. And at least 50 percent of that bank is Russian-owned. So, Wilbur Ross is the fellow we’re talking about. We presented our report over the weekend. Several U.S. senators took the material there and asked Ross questions about all of his connections with these folks. But he never responded. And on Monday, the U.S. Senate voted 72 to 27 in his favor. I just find this, you know, outrageous, Amy. It’s something that—

AMY GOODMAN: Well—

JAMES HENRY: You know, yet another case.

AMY GOODMAN: But talk more specifically about Wilbur Ross, again, the wealthiest, I believe, of the Cabinet members.

JAMES HENRY: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Your subtitle, "There’s Still Time for Senators"—well, this is before Wilbur Ross was confirmed—"to Examine Wilbur Ross and His Mysterious Russian-Controlled Bank in Cyprus." Talk more specifically about this and the money he made—

JAMES HENRY: Yes, exactly.

AMY GOODMAN: —and why this matters right now.

JAMES HENRY: Well, he invested in this bank, which is the largest bank in Cyprus. It has a long—Cyprus is a big offshore haven, especially for Russians. Most of the direct investments that go into Russia are going through Cyprus. And his first partner in the bank, his co-vice chairman, was a guy who was a KGB agent, appointed to that position by Putin because there were a lot of Russian shareholders in the bank after it went belly up.

A second partner was the potash tsar of Russia, worth about $8 billion, a guy named Rybolovlev. And Dmitry Rybolovlev not only sold Donald Trump his house—bought Donald Trump’s house in 2008 for $95 million in Palm Beach, but he was also tagged as bird-dogging the president on the campaign trail, you know, intersecting with his landings in places like Charlotte, North Carolina, and Concord and Las Vegas, all over the campaign trail, and flying his Airbus 319 on these same routes. So, what was he up to? Why was Rybolovlev, you know, intersecting with the president’s campaign?

And the third partner was a fellow named Vekselberg, who is another big garch, Russian investor. He has four companies in Switzerland, one of which has been implicated in intelligence spying, for, you know, tapping people’s internet connections. So, you know, this is kind of unacceptable.

The final thing is that Wilbur Ross personally nominated as the CEO of this Bank of Cyprus, this Russian haven bank, the former head of Deutsche Bank, which was just, as David said, implicated in something like $10 billion of Russian money laundering. And Josef Ackermann was there for 10 years. All of this happened on his watch. His reward is to become head of the Wilbur Ross-run Bank of Cyprus.

AMY GOODMAN: He was fined $650 million for helping launder Russian money through Deutsche Bank offices in Moscow, New York and Cyprus. Deutsche Bank, as you point out, is Trump’s largest known lender, having extended him more than $300 million of loans that remain outstanding.

JAMES HENRY: That’s right. So, anyway, all this nets out to, you know, a whole lot of smoke, a few fires breaking, more and more contradictions in the administration’s position. And I would say, if you were looking at this statistically, you know, we’re now out—up to maybe the odds of this being happening just by probability is like one in 10,000. You know, there is something going on with this administration. It’s the only way, for example, you could really explain all of the positions that Donald Trump takes that are perfectly aligned with those of Vladimir Putin—on NATO, on the EU, on pipelines, on human rights, on immigration. I mean, it’s like they’re kissing cousins. So, you know—

[002]

Oh cool...I figured ShareBlue had run out of money as this thread went quiet for a while

[jacobolus]

I have no idea what ShareBlue is, sorry. I’m just posting links here for webwit’s sake.

Republicans are promoting a proposed bill to allow businesses to effectively charge a large fine to employees who don’t get DNA tested and give the company the results: http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/03/11/e ... osed-bill/

Unrelated, the Republican senators introduced a bill to let ISPs sell customer browsing history and other information. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/201 ... sing-data/

[jacobolus]

Party of disease and death.

CBO reports that 24 million will lose insurance coverage under the GOP plan.

Paul Ryan: “I’m pretty encouraged by [the CBO report]. It actually exceeded my expectations.”

[fohat]

Paul Ryan: “I’m pretty encouraged by [the CBO report]. It actually exceeded my expectations.”

Massive hate going around centered on the Trump/Bannon head.

Everybody needs to stay focused on the fact that Ryan is the real Spawn of Satan.

[jacobolus]

Trump tax returns on their way to the light?

https://twitter.com/maddow/status/841795163664089089

[chuckdee]

I have no idea what ShareBlue is, sorry. I’m just posting links here for webwit’s sake.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareblue

http://shareblue.com/

[002]

Ha...about that tax return...

https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/841824743405817856

[seebart]

Trump tax returns on their way to the light?

https://twitter.com/maddow/status/841795163664089089

Looks like msnbc broke the story:

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watc ... 8054723694

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tru ... se-n733611

[fohat]

1995 and 2005 show very different situations. Both were before the real involvement with Russia started.

[jacobolus]

002: I’ll agree that Romney’s taxes were a joke. Pulling in Sanders on that one is totally stupid though (also, the number seems wrong?). Sanders’s entire income is his Senate salary, plus Social Security for him and his wife, and maybe a few thousand other miscellaneous dollars.

Inre Sanders 2014 tax returns, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/pos ... nate-post/

According to his tax forms, Sanders and his wife paid $27,653 in federal income tax and another $7,903 in Vermont income tax last year. The couple paid an effective tax rate of 19.6 percent on their federal taxable income of $140,994.

Sanders reported receiving $156,441 from his Senate job, after contributions to a savings plan and health insurance. The couple reported receiving another $46,213 in Social Security benefits, of which $39,281 was taxable.

Sanders also reported income of $4,982 from the pension he receives having been mayor of Burlington, Vt., in the 1980s. And his wife had another $4,900 in compensation for sitting on a commission devoted to the management of low-level radioactive waste disposal.

Comparing tax rates between someone with income of ~$200 thousand and someone with income in the $100s of millions is a joke.

The top marginal tax rates (on income over $10 million, say) should be restored to their mid-century levels of well over 50%. I’d push for a top marginal tax rate of something like 75%.

* * *

Also note that Trump’s tax plan calls for abolition of the alternative minimum tax, without which his tax rate in 2005 would have been <5%.

* * *

Overall, two pages of one tax return from a decade ago doesn’t cut it. Trump should release the full content of his past several years of tax returns, so that the American people can figure out just how deep in debt he is to Russian oligarchs.

[jacobolus]

[002]

Haha even /r/The_Donald got a kick out of that one.
Such a cute and funny moment

[jacobolus]

Proposed budget:

(Of course, this chart doesn’t include all the money spent on security for Trump to spend every weekend in Florida, for his family to keep living in NYC, and for his sons to jet all around the world with taxpayer-funded security details.)

Cuts to programs for laid-off coal miners have folks in coal country feeling betrayed:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-t ... 6N2VF?il=0

[andrewjoy]

Hey at least he is looking after vets who served the country .

Every cloud and all .

[fohat]

I have a state soil and water conservation certificate since I work in construction.

These were in a newsletter that I received today, along with a surprisingly thoughtful editorial from William Ruckelshaus.

[chuckdee]

https://twitter.com/hashtag/BipartisanRoadtrip?src=hash

It's a pretty interesting experiment, and one that needs to be repeated. We need to get past this them vs us mentality, and get people in the room together to work together, and come up with things that work for both sides. Neither side is going to be fully satisfied, but isn't that what a compromise is?

(though I'll undermine that statement with a different tweet: Obama vs. Trump on reading: http://pic.twitter.com/3yTjhQYoNT, just because I think that Presidents that read are vital, especially to not reducing funding for the Arts)

[jacobolus]

Trump is putting US agriculture in disaster mode: http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-f ... migration/

Eventually labor-intensive crops will just go out of business and get imported from Mexico.

Less labor-intensive crops will have prices rise. Remaining farmworkers (mostly still undocumented Mexicans and Central Americans) will get better pay.

Agriculture in the US will be increasingly mechanized; some crops will do better under robot care than others.

In general, food prices will go up substantially,

[vivalarevolución]

https://twitter.com/hashtag/BipartisanRoadtrip?src=hash

It's a pretty interesting experiment, and one that needs to be repeated. We need to get past this them vs us mentality, and get people in the room together to work together, and come up with things that work for both sides. Neither side is going to be fully satisfied, but isn't that what a compromise is?

(though I'll undermine that statement with a different tweet: Obama vs. Trump on reading: http://pic.twitter.com/3yTjhQYoNT, just because I think that Presidents that read are vital, especially to not reducing funding for the Arts)

Actual dialogue is the answer to many of the world's conflicts. Gamesmanship and standoffs do not promote understanding and dialogue. Love your enemy, that takes more courage than hate. And reading a variety of different literature certainly does help with understanding.

Trump is putting US agriculture in disaster mode: http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-f ... migration/

Eventually labor-intensive crops will just go out of business and get imported from Mexico.

Less labor-intensive crops will have prices rise. Remaining farmworkers (mostly still undocumented Mexicans and Central Americans) will get better pay.

Agriculture in the US will be increasingly mechanized; some crops will do better under robot care than others.

In general, food prices will go up substantially,

With regards to food, deporting immigrants and discouraging immigration and putting tariffs on Mexico will all raise the price of food for Americans and permanent residents. It's pretty clear that many policies being put forth by the administration and Congress will raise the cost of living for poor and middle class Americans. The upper class has some nice big tax breaks on the horizon that are supposed to trickle down (they rarely do).

But there always is money for more bombs and guns. Mick Mulvaney, the new OMB director, said it best. It is compassionate to not have the average American pay for lunch for impoverished schoolchildren, hot meals for seniors, and Sesame Street. By that assumption, it is also compassionate that Americans are more than willing to pay for bombing innocent civilians in far away countries. That makes no sense, but it is the current reality of American politics.

[jacobolus]

Party of war criminals and traitors:

In a series of texts reviewed by Business Insider that appear to have been sent by Andrea [Manafort] to her sister, Jessica, in March 2015, Andrea said their father had "no moral or legal compass."

"Don't fool yourself," Andrea wrote to her sister, according to the texts. "That money we have is blood money."

"You know he has killed people in Ukraine? Knowingly," she continued, according to the reviewed texts. "As a tactic to outrage the world and get focus on Ukraine. Remember when there were all those deaths taking place. A while back. About a year ago. Revolts and what not. Do you know whose strategy that was to cause that, to send those people out and get them slaughtered."

[...]

"He is a sick f------ tyrant," Andrea allegedly wrote to Bond about her father. "And we keep showing up and dancing for him ... We just keep showing up and eating the lobster. Nothing changes."

http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-man ... ine-2017-3

[fohat]

Party of war criminals and traitors:

Trump's imminent impeachment will hardly change anything.
Until Ryan is gone we are all in great jeopardy.

[adhoc]

Oh cool...I figured ShareBlue had run out of money as this thread went quiet for a while

But seriously, we can't let him get the nuclear codes.

[jacobolus]

Nunes, the House Intelligence chair, is incompetent, and possibly compromised (frankly that’s a fair summary of most House Republicans, but is unacceptable for the intelligence committee chairman).

He is both trying to provide inept and transparently bogus political cover for the White House, and leaking information from classified intelligence to folks at the White House who are implicated in possible crimes (i.e. obstruction of justice), while hiding that information from the house intelligence committee.

There must be an independent investigation headed by someone of irreproachable character given broad discretion to get to the facts.

Representative Schiff today:

[adhoc]

Thank you for the post. $0.02 have been deposited to your paypal account.

[jacobolus]

Senate Republicans just voted to let internet service providers sell customer browser history to advertisers, https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/201 ... vertisers/

We should just post a list of everyone’s favorite news sites, medical concerns, online dating profiles, multiplayer game addictions, porn preferences, etc. on their front door (and maybe mail a copy to their grandma), if it’s all going to be widely known anyway.

[fohat]

This piece (the 2nd one, "Inside the Wealthy Family .... ") helped me better understand why it is all going down like it is:

http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2 ... 2017-03-22

[jacobolus]

So the conspiracy theorists pulling Trump’s puppet strings and have spent >$80 million dollars on twisting US politics in the past few years (a) are funding a collection of 14,000 human urine samples, and (b) think that nuclear war is good for humanity?

Okay wow. This is a rabbit hole I don’t want to go down anymore.

[jacobolus]

Republican state legislators in multiple states have received new talking points (you can tell it’s coming from some central source because they all parrot almost precisely the same line) about their unconstitutional efforts to disenfranchise voters: Yes, they accept that there is no evidence of voter fraud, but voter ID laws are required because of the “perception” that there might be voter fraud (this perception, of course, was created by the loud and consistent lies promulgated by Republican pundits and hacks, including e.g. Trump). They’re not even trying for the appearance of intellectual honesty anymore. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/23/us/e ... r-ids.html

Hopefully the courts can strike down these laws soon enough and definitively enough that they don’t continue to subvert our elections.

[jacobolus]

Looks like Trump/Ryan’s shit sandwich healthcare plan is dead in the water. Low-energy Trump now says he’s tired of working on healthcare. Blames Democrats.

Remember, the House GOP voted to repeal the ACA 54 times when it didn’t matter. Now that their vote will have real effects, they have nothing.

The GOP is a party of whiners and “tough guys” who have no idea what to do when they have real power, because they never had any intention of governing.

Don’t take it from me. Here’s a Republican congressman:

“Sometimes you’re playing Fantasy Football and sometimes you’re in the real game,” Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) said. “We knew the president, if we could get a repeal bill to his desk, would almost certainly veto it. This time we knew if it got to the president’s desk it would be signed.”

On the flip side, Trump did get to sit in a big boy truck on the white house lawn and make his constipated face yesterday: