US Political Discussion: Biden/Harris Edition (Rules in OP)

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G_3_3_k_

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I do understand Feudalism. In the "civilized" world people wouldn't allow humans to be executed or incarcerated for not working. However, they have no problems generally if people are left to starve aside from talking about how terrible it is. Most don't have the fortitude to actually do things about it, or are selfish, or don't have the resources. Either way. Modern social pressures and morality don't allow the dire consequences you mentioned. But there are still consequences. I'm not arguing that our entire system is feudal. I'm making the argument that our brand of capitalism in the US has lead to defacto corporate feudalism and imperialism. We are not in disagreement about people being inherently selfish. Because they are inherently selfish, it is my personal opinion, that people and businesses should be made to contribute back into the system. It is better for the future of people. Especially because of the myth of continuous economic growth in the face of finite resources. This also brings up the issue that masses of wealth being stagnant in capitalism creates. If money isn't moving around, it isn't serving its purpose. It can't create growth with its purchasing power reinvigorating the economy, and it can't be taxed forcing local governments to find other ways of funding themselves, and starving necessary programs like education.
 

Flappydoodle

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I absolutely agree. You would have to build in some counters to the efficiency process. Beneficial efficiency vs absolute efficiency.

Then you've created a politician!

Who is valued more? A pensioner or a school kid?

How much $ is one life worth? Should we spend $1M keeping someone in jail for life? What about $10M? We clearly can't say life is worth an infinite amount, but it also can't be zero. So there must be a monetary amount somewhere which is appropriate.

As soon as you insert "values", you've created a politician lol



On the topic of campaign funds, disclosure is a needed first step. But I think that there shouldn't be the ability for business to donate. I think every individual should get a tax break for donating a percentage of their income to some form of political candidate up to a certain dollar value not percentage of income. Or if we can't get business involved, then the businesses decide what they want to contribute, and divide that money equivalently to each employees and each employee decides where they want that money to go. I think that speeches/debates and things should only be on public channels. Or make it so that whatever network broadcasting it can't make ad revenue off of it. The way money is allocated in politics has to change so that votes actually matter again. Also, the DNC and RNC have to give up their totalitarian control over the process, and they need to have complete transparency about what they are doing and why.

I'm not American, but campaign finance laws do exist. And when the news says "Hillary got $20M donations from Goldman Sachs" it really means from employees, who are all bound by the upper maximum donation limit.

The thing that really broken, IMO, is the lobbying and the jobs people get immediately after their political career. How many people have cashed in with books about Trump, or spots on CNN. I mean, the fucking ex-head of the CIA is on daily TV now, as is the former director of national intelligence. And the previous head of the FBI also wrote a book to cash in. That's so wrong, lol. They're all basking in celebrity status, with their little troops of dedicated fans soaking up their every opinion.

I hate to bring them up again, but look at Bill and Hillary. They're worth more than $100M now, from a career in politics. Obama, worth $135M. That's from the book deals, speaking gigs, consulting gigs etc. Kinda ridiculous.
 

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Explorer

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So, several things happened of major interest.

The most important, in terms of the major consequences for the other matters, is the announcement that Manafort was charged by New York State immediately after he was sentenced in Federal court. It's not that a grand jury conveniently indicted him just this morning. Instead, a sealed indictment was unsealed.

This indictment was made possible by Mueller's team sharing evidence with other authorities, because he's a smart prosecutor.

IIRC, the icing on the cake is that accepting a Trump pardon on the federal charges is an admission of guilt... meaning Manafort could no longer plead not guilty on the NY charges. That's gotta hurt anyone in a similar position.

That leads to Roger Stone. Stone has a New York residence, and that residence was raided alongside that of his girlfriend also in New York at the same time Stone's Florida residence was served and searched. Florida would likely refuse to charge Stone because Republicans often refuse to charge crimes by Trump family and associates, so Stone didn't have the worry of state charges affecting a Trump pardon, until we all learned that NY has hidden sealed indictments. Now Stone has discovered that his courting a corrupt Trump pardon won't necessarily save him, so he has to be considering flipping.

Next, we also know that Ivanka and Junior were almost charged in New York in 2012, but the charges were dropped by Vance, who was then being investigated for accepting a bribe by Cohen and Trump. Now it turns out Vance was part of the unsealed indictment against Manafort... which means he could also be part of sealed indictments against Ivanka and Junior.

Financial records gotten by Mueller will also indicate if Trump and his kin/associates/family have continually broken the law up until the election, or even longer as a continuing enterprise. That brings us to the college admission charges today... which I believe were brought under the RICO statutes. Additionally, if lawbreaking is ongoing, like continuing to commit tax fraud, the statute of limitations only starts running once the behavior ends. Further, the building NY case regarding Donald Trump criminally inflating (for loan purposes) and deflating (for loan purposes) asset values has led to very soecific subpoenas, and NY has already taken control of the Trump Foundation in order to dissolve it.

Again, accepting a presidential pardon is an admission of guilt, removing the option of pleading not guilty to related state charges. Mueller is a smart man.

----

Hmm. What else has happened?

Nadler stated that Whitaker revealed he indeed had conversations with Trump regarding the Mueller investigation, as well as about firing US attorneys to obstruct justice, as well as the scope of the Trumo-Cohen SDNY case.

It turns out that 52 of the 81 document requests are about... Ivanka. She's a target.

It certainly seems that there is a lot of obstruction-of-justice evidence surfacing, and more flipping by the guilty is likely.

Lastly, Pelosi was clever in stating Trump wasn't worth impraching yet. This goaded Trump into starting to talk about impeachment, and thereby himself normalizing talking about his being impeached. Further, Trump made the case in his tweet that, should he have commited "high crimes and misdemeanors," he should be impeached, allowing Pelosi to use Trump's own words against him when she agrees with him.
 

Drew

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Looks like Christmas may have come early for you guys.

Not a big fan of The Daily Beast, but news is news. This definitely looks really, really bad for the cheetopope.

Man, can you imagine how stressful it's gotta be to be Cohen right now? :lol:
Especially after Manafort just got slammed. Yikes.
That's a little awkward. Question, though - is offering to pardon Cohen actually illegal? Conceivably you could argue that it's a form of obscruction of justice, offering a presidential pardon so he doesn't testify against Trump... but that would seem somewhat hard to prove. Would Cohen's testimony be enough?

Now Stone has discovered that his courting a corrupt Trump pardon won't necessarily save him, so he has to be considering flipping.
Wildcard here though is the Supreme Court is due to hear a case arguing that the President's power of pardon should also extend to state crimes because to be able to try at the state and federal level would be a form of double jeopardy. I think all things considered Roberts, who is right of center but also very concerned with the court's reputation for impartiality and who would no doubt see this as a transfer of power from the courts to the president, is likely to vote against that argument, but the rest of the conservative ring is likely to be in favor so it's a close decision.
 

Ordacleaphobia

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That's a little awkward. Question, though - is offering to pardon Cohen actually illegal? Conceivably you could argue that it's a form of obscruction of justice, offering a presidential pardon so he doesn't testify against Trump... but that would seem somewhat hard to prove. Would Cohen's testimony be enough?

Wildcard here though is the Supreme Court is due to hear a case arguing that the President's power of pardon should also extend to state crimes because to be able to try at the state and federal level would be a form of double jeopardy. I think all things considered Roberts, who is right of center but also very concerned with the court's reputation for impartiality and who would no doubt see this as a transfer of power from the courts to the president, is likely to vote against that argument, but the rest of the conservative ring is likely to be in favor so it's a close decision.

That's a really, really good question, and something I've been thinking about since I read it. It's bad optics for sure, but beyond that, I can't pretend I have the legal background to make an informed assumption. I would hope that offering a pardon in exchange for not testifying would count as obstruction, but like you said, that'd be difficult to prove. And especially with someone that's been as crucified by the public as Trump, I think the burden of proof would be quite high.

I didn't know there was a case heading to the supreme court for pardon extension. That'll be interesting for sure- the whole time I was reading Explorer's post I was thinking "that kind of sounds like double jeopardy..." so I'm definitely curious to see what the court finds.
 

jaxadam

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Drew

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This should be interesting:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...poena-fight-gets-supreme-court-look-this-week

tl;dr - there's been a subpoena working its way through the courts system for some time now, under the utmost of secrecy. We know it's been served to a foreign-owned company, though one with substantial US business. We know it's related to the Mueller investigation, though that hadn't been officially confirmed until pretty recently. If they're arguing the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act protects them from being subpoenaed in a US court, then they're very likely a state-owned entity. Security is air-tight - an entire floor of a district court was cleared and closed to the public for the courts to hear arguments, and again it's only been within the past month that the Mueller investigation has been formally linked to this subpoena. At present, the subpoena has been in place since June of 2018, is accruing $50,000 a day for every day of noncompliance, and penalties stand at over $2mm at present.

This kind of undercuts the rumors swirling that Mueller's investigation is finished and his report should be out shortly. There isn't much to go on, but if I had to take a wild stab I'd guess Rosneft, the Russian state owned oil company - they showed up early on in some of the rumors about the investigation way back in the day before we had anything concrete to go on, after they sold 19.5% of their shares to unknown buyers in December of 2016, and then the very next day Trump agent Carter Page met with senior management in the company in Moscow. They're in the right place, at the right time, and fit the description...
 

Drew

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@Drew I'm expecting full blue balls on this one.
Well, given the level of secrecy, we may never know who was subpoenaed. I'll be curious to see what the SC does here, they seem a little hesitant to touch it even if (especially because?) the legal issues seem pretty clear-cut.
 


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