Usa Thread

[cavanami]

From what I have been reading, yes, many 1%-ers have stashed away $$$, but mostly has been

legal thanks to the azzhole politicians...

 

My tax reporting has grown to over 56 pages, thanks to the anti-money laundering, while the 1%-ers

and their politicians lackeys have been making sure there are loop holes...

[jitagawn]

I am comfortable with Bernie

[Flashermac]

The Panama Papers could hand Bernie Sanders the keys to the White House

 

 

 

The revelation that the rich and wealthy are shovelling money in overseas tax havens is not a particularly surprising one. Nevertheless, the sheer scale of the 11.5 million document leak from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonesca has whipped up an overdue storm and forced the issue of tax justice back on the agenda. It is likely that the Panama papers is just the tip of the iceberg, and if even more is revealed about the financial affairs of world leaders, the implication for global politics will be huge.

 

The Democratic presidential primaries in the US have been characterised by surging anger at the global elite. The Panama papers scandal will only fuel popular indignation at the actions of perceived establishment figures – those who have stood idly by and allowed this huge miscarriage of justice to take place.

...

 

"It has been revealed Clinton pushed through the Panama Free Trade Deal at the same time that Sanders vocally opposed it, citing research warning that it would strictly limit the government’s ability to clamp down on questionable or even illegal activity. Even if the Clintons remain unmentioned in future tax bombshells, Sanders can continue to exploit the narrative that Clinton is part of the demographic responsible, and has assisted in flagrant abuses of the system through trade deals."

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-panama-papers-could-hand-bernie-sanders-the-keys-to-the-white-house-a6969481.html

[Flashermac]

For Bernie Sanders, it's momentum versus maths

 

 

Bernie Sanders can now boast four wins in a row and victories in six of the last seven contests for the Democratic presidential nomination.

 

Despite all the talk about the challenges he faces in trying to catch Hillary Clinton, it's still a remarkable achievement given how far back he started from the former secretary of state when the race began last year.

 

The Vermont senator wasn't in Wisconsin to relish the win, however. He chose to spend primary night instead at a rally in Wyoming, which holds its Democratic caucus on Saturday.

 

For Mr Sanders every delegate counts if he wants to catch Mrs Clinton - a formidable task given the sizable lead she built up by routing the Vermont senator in contests across the South last month.*

 

...

 

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-35975079

 

 

*It's worth noting that every one of those states will probably vote Republican in the November election.

[Coss]

I would suggest that Mossack Fonseca is not the only law firm in Panama, and that Panama is not the only country with Law Firms.

[bust]

And those legs will quickly get chopped off

[unit731]

No sex for you !

 

Unless it is legitimate marital sex.

 

And by my calculations - 98% of board members here would be arrested immediately if they ever entered the state of Mississippi USA. The other 2% are virgins (and you know who you are).

 

Yes, we need more of these Christian Sharia laws.

 

“Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant has signed a controversial "religious freedom" bill into law.

 

The legislation, HB 1523, promises that the state government will not punish people who refuse to provide services to people because of a religious opposition to same-sex marriage, extramarital sex or transgender people.â€

 

LINK

[Flashermac]

Selective indignation ...

 

 

[Flashermac]

A Bernie Sanders Victory Just Got a Little Less Impossible

 

 

When this presidential campaign began 10,000 years ago, Hillary Clinton was expected to cruise to the Democratic nomination. She had the resume of a president-in-waiting, a terrifyingly vast fundraising operation, and no prominent challengers on the horizon.

 

"Clinton is basically guaranteed to win the Democratic nomination with little opposition whatsoever," VICE contributor Kevin Lincoln wrote in April 2015. Back then, people were speculating about a possible Elizabeth Warren or Joe Biden campaign—no one was talking about an angry old man from Burlington who kept yelling about how great the healthcare is in Denmark.

 

A year later, Bernie Sanders's emergence has resulted in one of the most substantive primary policy debates in memory. The fact that the fancy people in mainstream media and politics have had to grapple seriously with a guy who calls himself a Democratic socialist and says stuff like "the business model of Wall Street is fraud" is a moral victory for the Vermont senator.

 

But Sanders has also scored actual victories, too: In the past month, he's won caucuses in Idaho, Utah, Washington, Hawaii, Alaska, and, as of last night, the Wisconsin primary.

 

Now here comes the part where, like every article written about Sanders, we note the obstacles between him and the Democratic Party nomination. Even leaving out unpledged "superdelegates," Sanders is well behind Clinton in the delegate count, thanks to her series of landslide wins across the Republican South. He also remains several points back in polls in New York, Pennsylvania, and California, three delegate-rich primaries that will basically decide the contest over the next two months.

 

Given those realities, a Clinton win in Wisconsin would have more or less wrapped the whole thing up. Instead, Sanders not only beat the frontrunner, but eclipsed her by a large margin, outperforming polling expectations.

 

The victory lends credence to the narrative of Sanders's campaign: He can overcome the long odds if voters in the upcoming primaries can be convinced he has a legitimate chance to beat Clinton, and go on to defeat whatever rough beast slouches out of the Republican National Convention in July. After Tuesday, Clinton's still got the numbers on her side for now, but Sanders has the momentum.

 

"Momentum is starting this campaign 11 months ago and the media determining that we were a 'fringe' candidacy," Sanders said during a speech in Wyoming last night, according to the New York Times. "Do not tell Secretary Clinton—she's getting a little nervous... But I believe we've got an excellent chance to win New York and a lot of delegates in that state."

 

It wasn't just the media who thought that Sanders didn't have a shot at the candidacy. According to a Times story published Monday, which quoted several people close to his campaign, Sanders himself "was originally skeptical that he could beat Mrs. Clinton, and his mission in 2015 was to spread his political message about a rigged America rather than do whatever it took to win the nomination."

According to the Times,that outlook prompted Sanders to campaign only part-time for most of 2015, while Clinton devoted all of her energies to the race, and may have played a role in his early reticence to attack his opponent over her private speeches to Goldman Sachs and the ongoing scandal over her private email server.

 

Even now, Sanders is not quite willing to throw mud like a man who actually wants to be president. In an interview with the New York Daily News this week, he refused to say that Clinton wasn't "trustworthy," instead emphasizing that although he disagrees with her, "I have not attacked her personally."

 

The problem is, Clinton doesn't seem to have the same set of standards. In that same Daily News interview, Sanders seemed to stumble over the details of how exactly he would break big banks up and prosecute wrongdoing on Wall Street—questions that you'd expect him to have polished answers on. Immediately, Clinton pounced on him for being unprepared, with a campaign staffer tweeting, "At some point, you have to have actual details. How you'll break up the banks. Pay for your college and health care plan. Win the nomination."

On Wednesday morning, Clinton herself appeared on Morning Joe and said, "I think he hadn't done his homework and he'd been talking for more than a year about doing things that he obviously hadn't really studied or understood, and that does raise a lot of questions."

 

All this sets up a showdown at the Democratic debate scheduled for April 14, five days before the New York primary. There will almost certainly be a question thrown at Sanders about that Daily News interview, and the specific ways he would go about fighting Wall Street, as well as about his general preparedness to be president. He's got a week to cobble together a clear plan for implementing his policies.

 

Thanks to his Wisconsin win, Sanders has a path to the nomination, but a key step on that path is going to be dominating that

debate—not just by laying out his positions and inspiring voters who already love him, but also by going after Clinton in a way that makes her appear shaky and defensive—something he really hasn't managed yet.

 

If he falters, and New York delivers the nomination to Clinton, we'll still have spent the last six months talking about bank breakups, student loan forgiveness, and income inequality for the last six months, largely thanks to Sanders. And that can hardly be called a defeat.

 

http://www.vice.com/read/a-bernie-sanders-victory-just-got-a-little-less-impossible?utm_source=vicetwitterus

[Flashermac]

 

 

Despite winning Wyoming 56-44 percent on Saturday, Bernie Sanders will split the pledged delegates evenly with Hillary Clinton, plus Clinton gets the state's 4 superdelegates, tilting the delegate count to her favor, 11-7.

 

 

True democracy ... Democrat style