U.S. Politics

[snowychap]

Quote

Donald Trump will not release his tax returns even after repeated promises to do so after a supposed audit, one of his senior advisers said on Sunday, confirming that the president will break a 40-year tradition and not show Americans the extent of his financial interests and obligations.

Kellyanne Conway, a senior counselor to the president, told ABC’s This Week the Trump administration would do nothing about calls to release the information.

“The White House response is that he’s not going to release his tax returns,” she said. “We litigated this all through the election.”

The broken promise alienated WikiLeaks, which for months during the campaign released hacked Democratic emails, which Trump often seized on to denigrate his opponent Hillary Clinton.

On Sunday, the group tweeted: “Trump’s breach of promise over the release of his tax returns is even more gratuitous than Clinton concealing her Goldman Sachs transcripts.”

The organization then asked for someone to give them the tax returns, in order to achieve their publication.

Speaking to ABC, Conway contradicted polls that show most Americans want to see the returns when she said: “People didn’t care.

“They voted for him, and let me make this very clear: most Americans … are very focused on what their tax returns will look like while President Trump is in office, not what his look like.”

Last week, a Washington Post-ABC poll showed that 74% of Americans, including 53% of Republicans, want to see Trump’s returns. In October, a CNN poll

found that 73% of registered voters, including 49% of Republicans, wanted to see the tax returns.

A petition on the White House website that calls for the immediate release of the returns and “all information needed to verify emoluments clause compliance” had 218,465 signatures as of Sunday afternoon.

The returns could show the breadth of Trump’s financial interests around the world, including where he does business, who his partners are and to whom he owes money.

...more on link

White House alienates WikiLeaks by refusing to release Trump's tax returns

[villakram]

1 hour ago, Davkaus said:

Well, it's the man their broken electoral college system voted for, but sure.

This is not true (the broken part).

Minus California, Trump won the popular vote by 1.3/1.4 million votes. Due to the nature of the system by which a president is elected in the United States, he did not campaign in California, hence the trouncing by Clinton there. A true popular vote may or may not have changed the result of the election regardless of the dreams of the anti-Trump crowd, e.g., Trump won ~2600 counties in the election, Clinton ~500.

Edited January 22, 2017 by villakram
breitbart related Google link provided dodgy numbers :|

[Ingram85]

**** hell lol. If I didn't laugh I'd **** cry. 

How many lies is enough until it breaks and crashes down? At what point do even his staunchest blind sheep cultists realise the cool aid tastes a bit funky? Or won't they? Is this it now, this bleak tit for tat, fingers in ears 'fake news' political future until the searing white light ends us all?

I think it's time to go all ostrich on the world and bury my head. I need to start ignoring the news completely as if I have to listen to the depressing brexit/trump camps hatred, nonsense and bile much more I'm going to explode. I **** hate humanity.

Edited January 22, 2017 by Ingram85

[villakram]

1 hour ago, Genie said:

For me, Brexit and Trump have proved that there are an awful lot of people who seemed to have the opinion of "I've got nothing to lose so f**k it, I'll go for the mad choice".

I think given the fullness of time those people will learn that they do actually have plenty to lose, and they'll lose it. 

Just my take on it.

Given the known wealth distribution of the bottom 50%, what they have to lose is relatively little. For example, do you know that life expectancy dropped for the US population this year. Take a guess who is bearing the brunt of this.  

Politics/those in power have ignored this problem and now we all have to figure out how to best avoid catastrophe, one which will effect the well off much more on a relative basis. More of the same is all I've heard thus far, aka extend & pretend, kicking the can down the road etc. etc.  

[snowychap]

4 minutes ago, villakram said:

Politics/those in power have ignored this problem and now we all have to figure out how to best avoid catastrophe, one which will effect the well off much more on a relative basis. More of the same is all I've heard thus far, aka extend & pretend, kicking the can down the road etc. etc.  

As a response to Genie's post, this sounds like a non-committal support of Trump.

[VILLAMARV]

4 hours ago, Genie said:

Joke or not, the president of the United States should not be making 'jokes' like that.

Shows just how little respect he has for those outside of the USA. 

I can't see his reign ending in anything but carnage. Most likely someone will shoot him, but second bet I could see some kind of military coup or some no confidence vote if that that's possible.

 

4 hours ago, Davkaus said:

It didn't sound like he was joking to me, but even if he was, the head of state can't be joking about potentially invading another country and taking their oil, ffs.

"It's just a joke" just about works when you're a clearing in the woods hosting Top Gear. Not so much in international diplomacy.

Surely the scary thing about this is the only thing that's changed is the public facade. I couldn't agree more that it's disgraceful and a scary thing to say, but the reality is we have had exactly the same foreign policy served up for many decades under the facade of democracy and freedom. Would it really be any better if behind the scenes the re-re-invasion of Iraq is being planned yet Clinton is stood out front talking about humanitarianism while letting the death drones fly like Obama?

Clinton didn't want anyone to hear what she had to say to Goldman Sachs lest the public actually saw her for what she was. Trump just isn't bothering with any of that.

You're right imo to be incensed by it, just don't let the situation fool you into thinking Trump is the mastermind or he's changing anything when it comes to foreign policy. "ISIS is the number one tricky" after all. Putin said a lot of things about the Ukraine that people pointed out he shouldn't really be saying and then took all their gas fields like he wanted and no one's done a damn thing about it. 

[VILLAMARV]

3 hours ago, Genie said:

It's worrying that some people see a barking mad leader of the most powerful country in the world as a bit of light entertainment 

 

3 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

It isn't.

Using art as a dissenting voice. What's not to like?

[villakram]

1 hour ago, snowychap said:

As a response to Genie's post, this sounds like a non-committal support of Trump.

Oh, it's anything but support of Trump. It was more of a general comment at the state of the opposition. Wailing and moaning while the other candidate was the rusty knife. Changes are needed in how society is currently run.

Perhaps Trump will be the catalyst for this, but it's much more likely that some shallow victories will satisfy these same "principled objectors" and quieten everyone back down to just trying to survive. It's a bloody depressing state of affairs.

[snowychap]

22 minutes ago, villakram said:

Oh, it's anything but support of Trump. It was more of a general comment at the state of the opposition. Wailing and moaning while the other candidate was the rusty knife. Changes are needed in how society is currently run.

Perhaps Trump will be the catalyst for this, but it's much more likely that some shallow victories will satisfy these same "principled objectors" and quieten everyone back down to just trying to survive. It's a bloody depressing state of affairs.

So it's a criticism of the critics of Trump on the basis that they didn't sort out the problems that allowed Trump to take power?

If you don't want people to 'quieten back down to just try to survive' then perhaps you ought to actually start talking about what you mean rather than wrapping it in puff pastry and selling it as some sort of artisan philosophy?

Edited January 23, 2017 by snowychap

[HanoiVillan]

3 hours ago, villakram said:

This is not true (the broken part).

Minus California, Trump won the popular vote by 1.3/1.4 million votes. Due to the nature of the system by which a president is elected in the United States, he did not campaign in California, hence the trouncing by Clinton there. A true popular vote may or may not have changed the result of the election regardless of the dreams of the anti-Trump crowd, e.g., Trump won ~2600 counties in the election, Clinton ~500.

And minus Texas, Clinton would have won by even more, and so on ad infinitum. 

I must have missed the moment when California was expelled from the union. 

[Awol]

On the Iraq piece one of Trump's campaign promises was to go much harder against ISIS and others in the Mid East and beyond.

That is going to happen and will necessarily require increased operational tempo in Iraq & Syria. His NS Advisor Mike Flynn was the lead intelligence officer in the hugely successful special forces campaign against ISIS predecessor AQI in Iraq, he is now leading the strategic effort and will be under pressure from Trump to deliver quick wins.

That will likely involve closer cooperation with the Russians in Syria but will cause friction with the Iranians and their Shia clients (politicians and militias) in Iraq. I've no idea how that will pan out. 

The bit that will cause even greater tension and possibly another Palestinian Intifida is relocating the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  

The broader regional fallout from that is very hard to predict, but if you want to understand the new approach I'd recommend reading Flynn's book 'Field of Fight' and start googling Sebastian Gorka, a civilian CT expert appointed by Flynn as his chief advisor on the issue.

It's fair to say they don't agree with the more touchy feely approach of Obama towards Islamic radicalism and will be much more aggressive in their approach towards the physical manifestation of the problem AND the ideology itself. 

Look out Qatar and Saudi Arabia..

 

[Genie]

TBH, I'm quite surprised the Trump administration has not eradicated ISIS yet. It can't be long before they confirm 'officially' that they have.

 

[mjmooney]

1 hour ago, Genie said:

TBH, I'm quite surprised the Trump administration has not eradicated ISIS yet. It can't be long before they confirm 'officially' that they have.

 

But, but... that would be a blatant alternative fact. 

[Genie]

7 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

But, but... that would be a blatant alternative fact. 

ah no, that would be the fact. The alternative opinion that they are still alive and strong will be the alternative fact!

[Xann]

[mjmooney]

I see Americans STILL don't understand the difference between 'alternate' and 'alternative'. 

[Davkaus]

18 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

I see Americans STILL don't understand the difference between 'alternate' and 'alternative'. 

 

The alternator fact is that they do.

[Keyblade]

It's just starting to sink in how surreal it is that on the first day of his presidency, the POTUS wheeled out his press secretary to give a press conference lying about the size of his inauguration crowd off all things.

How thin skinned can you get, jheeze. What happens if a world leader says something about him, or they laugh at him at the G20 summit or something, is he going to drop nukes?

[villaglint]

4 hours ago, Awol said:

On the Iraq piece one of Trump's campaign promises was to go much harder against ISIS and others in the Mid East and beyond.

That is going to happen and will necessarily require increased operational tempo in Iraq & Syria. His NS Advisor Mike Flynn was the lead intelligence officer in the hugely successful special forces campaign against ISIS predecessor AQI in Iraq, he is now leading the strategic effort and will be under pressure from Trump to deliver quick wins.

That will likely involve closer cooperation with the Russians in Syria but will cause friction with the Iranians and their Shia clients (politicians and militias) in Iraq. I've no idea how that will pan out. 

The bit that will cause even greater tension and possibly another Palestinian Intifida is relocating the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  

The broader regional fallout from that is very hard to predict, but if you want to understand the new approach I'd recommend reading Flynn's book 'Field of Fight' and start googling Sebastian Gorka, a civilian CT expert appointed by Flynn as his chief advisor on the issue.

It's fair to say they don't agree with the more touchy feely approach of Obama towards Islamic radicalism and will be much more aggressive in their approach towards the physical manifestation of the problem AND the ideology itself. 

Look out Qatar and Saudi Arabia..

 

Thanks for the tips. 

Be interesting to see how he gets on if that is the approach. Tough to maintain public support for big exercises like that especially if it means lots of troops on the ground. 

He also starts from a very low point of public support so as they say in Dodgeball it's a bold strategy Cotton.

[bannedfromHandV]

12 hours ago, Ingram85 said:

**** hell lol. If I didn't laugh I'd **** cry. 

How many lies is enough until it breaks and crashes down? At what point do even his staunchest blind sheep cultists realise the cool aid tastes a bit funky? Or won't they? Is this it now, this bleak tit for tat, fingers in ears 'fake news' political future until the searing white light ends us all?

I think it's time to go all ostrich on the world and bury my head. I need to start ignoring the news completely as if I have to listen to the depressing brexit/trump camps hatred, nonsense and bile much more I'm going to explode. I **** hate humanity.

It's not fake news, it's apparently an 'alternative truth'

 

You couldn't make it up (and yet, they are)!