U.S. Politics: Gar Nicht Trump's Traumschiff!

[DireWolfSpirit]

My God Nunes is an asshole.My God Nunes is an asshole.My God Nunes is an asshole.My God Nunes is an asshole.My God Nunes is an asshole.My GodMy God Nunes is an asshole. Nunes is an asshole.My God Nunes is an asshole.

This cannot be said enough.

[Fragile Bird]

Well, Sondland just got his credibility destroyed.

[DanteGabriel]

26 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Well, Sondland just got his credibility destroyed.

Can you give us a quick summary please, for those unable to listen or watch live?

[DMC]

29 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Well, Sondland just got his credibility destroyed.

Well, Sondland doesn't have credibility in the same way a button man doesn't have credibility after he flips on his boss, but that's still been effective many times - just ask Rudy Guiliani.  As for anything in the hearings "destroying his credibility," I haven't seen anything of the sort.

[Fragile Bird]

I just got home after being out, and watched some Reublican (I missed his name) get Sondland to admit that Sondland could not say that Trump ever mentioned the Bidens to him nor connect Trump with withholding security aid from the Ukrainians for investigations into the Bidens, and that 2 assumptions plus 2 assumptions do not equal 1 fact. 

Saying assumptions are one thing,but Sondland just made things up is pretty effective.

This is the guy who said CNN's banner headline says "Sondland ties Trump and top officials to a plan to demand investigations into the Bidens" when in fact Siondland has done no such thing.

Trump is one crafty bastard. He told everyone to talk to Guiliani. He told Sondland he wanted nothing, just for the Ukrainians to do what they said they would do. 

[DMC]

3 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I just got home after being out, and watched some Reublican (I missed his name) get Sondland to admit that Sondland could not say that Trump ever mentioned the Bidens to him nor connect Trump with withholding security aid from the Ukrainians for investigations into the Bidens, and that 2 assumptions plus 2 assumptions do not equal 1 fact. 

Saying assumptions are one thing,but Sondland just made things up is pretty effective.

No, I don't think Jordan's screaming at Sondland was effective at all.  As Schiff quickly pointed out, this logic is based on the ludicrous notion that the only legitimate evidence of Trump's wrongdoing is if he explicitly asked Sondland (or anyone else) to commit bribery/a quid pro quo/etc.

[Maithanet]

5 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Trump is one crafty bastard. He told everyone to talk to Guiliani. He told Sondland he wanted nothing, just for the Ukrainians to do what they said they would do. 

Please.  This is fewer precautions than a mid level mob boss or drug dealer takes.  Any half competent district attorney could have the whole lot of them in prison for conspiracy if it weren't for the fact that the justice department works for Trump. 

[IheartIheartTesla]

Leaving the impeachment aside, the NYT/Siena polls in the battleground states earlier this month, and the new Marquette poll for Wisconsin about now are showing head-to-heads that are close, within the margin of error. The 'good news' is that the battleground states now include Arizona (but also PA). Its still a ways away, but I suggest that the Democratic Party not lose sight this time of the states to go after. Man, I still cant believe the way they prioritized the campaign last time.

Anyway, time for everyone to knuckle down in those states. Any effort, however small, will count.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

Y'all I was summoned, but am late to the party.

The amount of ignorance about (1) how the US tax system works, (2) how multinational groups are organized, and (3) tax policy in general, is rife.

A few points, not in any particular order, and in a bit of stream of consciousness:

• From a policy perspective, the US, at the federal level, has an income tax.  We do not have a federal-level consumption tax (e.g., a VAT or GST equivalent) or a gross receipts or revenue tax.  This income tax applies to taxable persons, basically individuals and corporations (with some noise around taxable trusts and estates that it isn't worth going into here).  Thus the first and fundamental question is how you define "income", and then, more specifically, "taxable income".  The US Code has a VERY broad definition of this taxable base which is reductive and circular ("all income from whatever source derived"). 
• Note that we have decided that an annual accounting system is the right way to measure the tax base. This is not ineluctable.  You could easily imagine true quarterly accounting, a 5 year period; a 10 year period, etc.  E.g., we budget on a longer term, so you could have a longer term accounting period.  I recommend R. David Wheat's paper "Honey I Shrunk the Tax Year" on this in Taxes magazine in the March 2018 ed. (full disclosure, David is one of my partners and I think very highly of him; behind a paywall, I believe).
• So circling back to "taxable income" the next question is what kinds of income go into a tax base in any annual accounting period.  There are four separate things to consider in this architecture:  (i) at what time should income be included within an annual tax base (e.g., as cash is received?  as the income accrues for economic purposes whether or not cash has been received (think about prepayments on a contract where performance occurs over several years)?  when both conditions have been met?) - these are "method of accounting" and "timing" questions; (ii) what items should be deducted against gross income to create the tax base, (iii) at what point has a taxpayer sufficiently exited an investment to create a tax event versus preserving built in gain to be taxed at a later time (this is a "recognition" question); and (iv) how to think about which taxing authority globally gets to tax a dollar of profit earned by a global enterprise (this is a transfer pricing question).  The answer to none of these questions is simple, and the tax press (and people here) talk about these issues reductively (e.g., Company X paid $0 of income tax in Y jurisdiction...oooooo....bad).  Transfer pricing and competition among states for a portion of each dollar of global profit creates a lot of this noise, and is in fact the point of the OECD BEPS project (to which the US has tepidly responded but will never truly join, I believe, given the difference between the US and non-US systems).  As a further point, most tax systems are struggling a lot with the problem posed by "stateless" property like intellectual property and cloud services as most systems were built when there was a specific "thing" that could be identified.  I can give more examples of this problem later, if I have time.
• Leaving aside whether the existing proposals for a wealth tax are good policy (I think they aren't, based on the experiences of European countries that have tried this - the valuation compliance morass is nearly insurmountable on an annual basis among other infirmities), as currently proposed I believe they will not pass Constitutional muster (they resemble impermissible capitation taxes).  A much more realistic and actionable policy is to have a REAL estate and gift tax (where the valuation events are at least identifiable though, of course, always suspect where the property in question is private).
• Finally, without going into some really complicated stuff about how complex financial instruments are taxed, I did want to quickly talk about debt.  Because the borrower has an obligation to repay a borrowing plus a time value element, generally the borrower doesn't have income upon the receipt of loan proceeds (there are exceptions to this rule).  If the borrower's obligation to repay is cancelled without full payment (that, itself is a complicated subject), then, indeed, the borrower has income.  The amount of that income will depend on whether the loan is secured or unsecured.  If you want to go back and read them, the relevant cases that establish this are Kirby Lumber, Crane, Philadelphia Park Amusement, Tufts, and Briarpark.  The relevant Code section is 108 (and the associated regulations).

[Jace, Extat]

32 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Leaving the impeachment aside, the NYT/Siena polls in the battleground states earlier this month, and the new Marquette poll for Wisconsin about now are showing head-to-heads that are close, within the margin of error. The 'good news' is that the battleground states now include Arizona (but also PA). Its still a ways away, but I suggest that the Democratic Party not lose sight this time of the states to go after. Man, I still cant believe the way they prioritized the campaign last time.

Anyway, time for everyone to knuckle down in those states. Any effort, however small, will count.

It's worth reminding, I think, that there was a significant sentiment that Democrats, and Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, had lost the House and Senate by not "playing 50 states" or "trying to lose" as some on this very board put it.

HRC and her campaign were fucking terrible, but given the fact that she was running against an insane orange toddler I'm required by my Oath of Vengeful Neutrality to bring up that while it was a poor plan executed incompetently in the warm glow of overconfidence, there is a logic to what HRC and friends were doing. And in fact before it failed a lot of people were blaming Obama for focusing too much on battleground states and losing ground all over the country as a result.

Just my two cents that I hope unravels each of you into fine tendrils of madness, stacked upon each and another then drowned by a well made chicken stock. Let the warmth of broth and bowl call to you, my sweets. Let the aroma of hope and landfowl bring you home, bring you back to me with its delicate intonations of dream and despair... soft and terrible like a madman's lullaby.

[DMC]

55 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

as currently proposed I believe they will not pass Constitutional muster (they resemble impermissible capitation taxes).

This is important to emphasize in relation to the discussion we were having.  Even in the hypothetical where a President Warren somehow gets her wealth tax through Congress, it's a virtual certainty that it will be struck down by the current SCOTUS.

[Ran]

1 hour ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Y'all I was summoned, but am late to the party.

The amount of ignorance about (1) how the US tax system works, (2) how multinational groups are organized, and (3) tax policy in general, is rife.

You are a font of knowledge. That was very interesting reading!

I agree on the wealth tax issues. It's bad policy, an attempt to retroactively punish people who legally made enormous fortunes due to laxness in a variety of areas of federal policy. The way to make this an aberration is to address that laxness to prevent recurrence rather than a deliberately confiscatory wealth tax.

I don't really know what to make of Warren's proposal, especially with her seeming course-correction towards a "Medicare for all who want it" approach to things as an "interim" step. I've lost a little of my enthusiasm for her candidacy because of the lack of clarity. I'll vote for whoever goes up against Trump, but I'd be happier if they didn't feel they had to promise unrealistic or bad policy to get to that point. 

[Fragile Bird]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

No, I don't think Jordan's screaming at Sondland was effective at all.  As Schiff quickly pointed out, this logic is based on the ludicrous notion that the only legitimate evidence of Trump's wrongdoing is if he explicitly asked Sondland (or anyone else) to commit bribery/a quid pro quo/etc.

No, it wasn't Jordan, and it wasn't a screamer. He just kept asking Sondland what Trump told him and Sondland insists the words "Biden" and "Bidens" were never used. Just "Burisma" and "corruption".

The answer back, then, is let Pompeo and a long list of others testiify, and release the requested documents.

The new Republican defense seems to be everyone in the diplomatic service was a rogue player and Trump was totally innocent.

 

[Fragile Bird]

Oh, and btw, see the difference between a pro and an amateur. All the pros kept careful notes. Sondland, the amateur, did not keep notes, and even laughed at the idea, saying that's something he's not good at.

Trump, the crafty amateur, thinks he can escape consequences by never using e-mail and never keeping notes. You have to admit, it's worked for him quite well so far. If he kept notes it would have been difficult to say "I do not recall" 33 times in his written responses to Mueller.

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

He just kept asking Sondland what Trump told him and Sondland insists the words "Biden" and "Bidens" were never used. Just "Burisma" and "corruption".

Yes, just like Volker yesterday, Sondland is using this distinction and feigning ignorance so as to not demonstrate glaring inconsistencies with their closed-door depositions.  It's not credible, but it also is irrelevant to anything but potential prosecution of Volker and Sondland.  This isn't a court of law - the link between Burisma and Biden is obvious to anyone over six years old.

7 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

The answer back, then, is let Pompeo and a long list of others testiify, and release the requested documents.

The House Dems still seem to be resigned to the reality they aren't going to be able to compel such testimony in time (and they definitely want to wrap up by Christmas so the Senate trial is hopefully done by the end of January).  But, I do think today will increase pressure on them to try to take Giuliani, Pompeo, etc. to court.

[IheartIheartTesla]

1 hour ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

HRC and her campaign were fucking terrible, but given the fact that she was running against an insane orange toddler I'm required by my Oath of Vengeful Neutrality to bring up that while it was a poor plan executed incompetently in the warm glow of overconfidence, there is a logic to what HRC and friends were doing. And in fact before it failed a lot of people were blaming Obama for focusing too much on battleground states and losing ground all over the country as a result.

There is a worthwhile debate to be had about a 50 state strategy versus battleground states....but the plan cooked by Donna Brazile and others to ramp up voting in places like Chicago and New Orleans (even though IL and LA were not remotely competitive) because they feared HRC would win the EC but lose the popular vote was lunacy.

Local (or rather, non-EC) elections in all 50 states are important, but the goal above makes no sense. Its literally catering to some non-existent public perception that wouldnt matter once the election was won,

[Zorral]

Trump sees note-taking as suspicious behavior, and it is Not Done in meetings with him.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/trump-really-doesnt-like-it-when-his-staff-takes-notes.html

In the meantime the Ukraine people know what he was doing:

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/11/ukrainians-know-all-about-trumps-corruption-and-even-have-a-special-word-for-it/

Quote

 

When Donald Trump asked his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate his opponent Joe Biden, it wasn’t just political dirt he was trying to import to the U.S., but a whole phenomenon.

It has a name in Ukraine which can be roughly translated as “problem-solving.” A whole class of people who provide that service. The local name for them is a “reshala.”

For example, if your business is being attacked by the government’s security service for no apparent reason, someone will offer you a solution. For a certain fee, of course. (In America, that’s known as a protection racket.)

 

Will this very long day of hearings, which is still going on as of 5:39 PM, or at least will resume soon, impact watchers of the 9 PM debate?  

[Ran]

3 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Trump sees note-taking as suspicious behavior, and it is Not Done in meetings with him.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/trump-really-doesnt-like-it-when-his-staff-takes-notes.html

 

[The Mother of The Others]

Pete will be taking it real hard tonight from everyone.   I hope he gets stiff in response and takes on all comers.    Take your 10 point lead and make them feel every bit of it, Pete.

Remember every other day of your lives?  That was when Ken Starr quotes weren't held in such high regard.  And they still shouldn't be.  He's being misquoted.

Remember also how every other day this year has also been a bombshell day featuring the most devastating testimony thus far?   The dems should literally not be able to charge anyone else with bribery.  It's too much, coming from them.   It's a level of irony that in ancient Greece would have been an affront to all the gods.  And it also doesn't qualify as bribery under the definitions.   So one more soon forgotten Smallwell fart of a bombshell, and hey aren't we supposed to be concerned about the children in cages?  Nope.  They were inconsequential as it turns out so we've moved on.   As we've moved on from all of msnbc's previous certainties on all those other devastating days of testimony.   How long until even you tire of being used this way?   Oh well.  We know the answer already.    The season of the marionette is Always.

[DanteGabriel]

42 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

There is a worthwhile debate to be had about a 50 state strategy versus battleground states....but the plan cooked by Donna Brazile and others to ramp up voting in places like Chicago and New Orleans (even though IL and LA were not remotely competitive) because they feared HRC would win the EC but lose the popular vote was lunacy.

Local (or rather, non-EC) elections in all 50 states are important, but the goal above makes no sense. Its literally catering to some non-existent public perception that wouldnt matter once the election was won,

Are we sure Brazile isn't a double agent? Holy fuck does disaster follow wherever she shows up.