Billyboy and Hillary set up a shell company
- Thread starter WVPATX
- Start date
Are you sure you are using the correct terminology? What you are describing sounds illegal. However, establishing the right kind of LLC will enable you to significantly increase your NET worth through by increasing assets while providing the ability and look of operating at a loss thus enabling you to write off said losses on your taxes. Diversifying is not illegal, it's smart business and the legal way to decrease the % of taxes you have to pay.
Hill and Bill are using a charity to funnel 100s of millions of dollars into their pockets in returns for directing Billions of U.S. Taxpayer money to people. They are getting rich off of the U.S. Taxpayers' backs in exchange for favors and money. Mitt Romney NEVER did this. He is a legitimate businessman and unfortunately the average U.S. citizen is too stupid to realize he would have been a great president. Remember folks "Osama is dead and Alquida is on the run"....yea...whatever.
This is good news for your side, no? or is this just another tantilizingly close call where her opponents want to take her down in the media but like the email thing, find out that there's really not much there?
I am using the correct terminology. Here is what they did. The Clintons set up a shell LLC. The company had no assets and was therefore not subject to disclosure rules . They then funneled money that Billyboy made making speeches and doing consulting work for companies unknown. It was strictly a pass-through entity not subject to disclosure. There was nothing illegal about this. They did not eVade taxes but they almost certainly avoided taxes. The biggest reason for this shell company was to avoid disclosure so that we would not know how much money Clinton made performing consulting work for unknown companies that may of had business before the US government.
I would have agreed several months ago that she was likely a shoe in for the office, but as more and more stuff comes out, the pattern being shaped is not good. It comes across as more of a "do as I say and not as I do" type of candidate. I admit I am biased on her and there is virtually nothing that she could do that would garner my vote, but the stuff coming out won't sit well with the average voter the more the picture takes shape. Dangerous game she is playing with an already weak record of accomplishments.
My favorite game right now is talking to people who are seemingly supportive of her and asking them why and what could they point to as making her qualified for the office. Shockingly, less than 10% of the people I have spoken to can point to a single thing she has accomplished as a Senator or Sec. of State. A lot of it is just emotion and the fact that she is a woman "and it's time we had a woman president". It's frightening.
The big issue for Dems is the thrashing they get during the mid-terms. This results in a very, very thin bench. I don't see any other Dem with a possible chance of winning. They have to stick with the old war horse, warts and all. As I posted yesterday, the far left is absolutely taking over the Dem party. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders represent the far left along with DeBlasio. That is where all the energy is. The old middle of the road Dem is virtually gone. The media talks incessantly about the far righty, but completely ignore the far left.
I think the middle of the road Dem or Repub is a rare find these days. I think Manchin fits the bill for the Dems, but he's one of the few new ones. You had Olympia Snow (moderate GOP) citing the polariztion of politics as part of her reason for retiring.
I have no problem with some folks on the far left and some folks on the far right being office holders. I think there is a lot of value to having voices from those views as part of the debate. The problem is the debate - it doesn't really occur. It does in front of the cameras when they aren't speaking directly with each other. The other problem is that you can't compromise with someone if you paint everything that they do as evil. Neither side has a monopoly on that. Maybe the only thing that makes this thing get better is if there was a viable 3rd party that can give voters another option. That makes the debates more robust because one candidate can't just run on not being the other guy - they have to run on their merits and views.
Campaign Finance Reform/Overhaul
Term Limits
Insider Trading Oversight
Pay for Play (The current Clinton accusations with basically pay for play) Oversight
Realign Congressional Healthcare to use TriCare
Realign Congressional Pay structure to be that of the median income of their respective state (It should be a service, not a career)
Viable 3rd Party/No parties...run on your own platform.
just some things I thing would benefit the people.
1. I love term limits and think that would help greatly. No more than 8 years
2. I would ban a politician from any lobbying position, permanently
3. I love the idea of 3rd parties, but am not sure how to get that off the ground
4. Insider trading must be permanently banned
5. Force Congress to live under all laws required of us, retroactively
6. Not a fan of limiting free speech in campaigns, so not a fan of campaign finance reform. These reforms almost always favor the incumbent
But the most important reform of all is to dramatically reign in the power of the 4th branch of government, Federal Agencies. These bureaucrats are unelected and can do great harm to our country. All significant regulations should be approved by Congress and signed by the President.
The USSC decision that money is speech means that campaign finance reform is basically going to have to happen via a Constitutional amendment. I'm not sure about the pay idea, and I'll say why. Running for office is mostly a rich person's game. If you drop the pay that low, you really take out the average person, although I don't know that it would make a difference. The pay scale isn't high enough to allow an average person to fund a run for office anyway.
In Colorado I believe that a measure is going up for vote in 2016 that would change the primary structure to top 2 - no matter party or what, the top 2 vote getters in an open primary go to the general. As it stands now, the GOP does a primary and the Dems do a caucus - a generally disenfranchising way to pick a candidate in my opinion. I don't get to vote in either though since I registered as independent, but I would be allowed to vote under the new proposal. It doesn't sound perfect to me, but it's better than what we are doing now.
I'll also add one - make the redistricting following the census a non-partisan thing. If you don't understand why, take a look at the districting around Austin, TX. The city is split into about 4 or 5 districts. Think that makes any sense unless you are trying to set those 4 or 5 seats up for a specific party? I'm not meaning to pick on the GOP only with that. I'm sure that it happens the same way in other states in favor of the dems. Districts should make some geographic or economic sense, not be based on voting patterns to give either party a specific advantage.
I know that you have a Supreme Court decision on your side with respect to the campaign finance reform topic, but I think that is flawed. It just seems too much like a legal bribe to me. If money is speech, why is bribery illegal?
1. Term Limits would limit or almost kill the incumbent advantage. I also don't see it as free speech. The amount of money going into these PACs and Super PACs is ridiculous. It's basically unregulated payment to politicians no matter how many regulations are put in place.
2. I have no issues with lobbyists, but Term Limits and Finance Reform severely hamper those.
3. Third parties are easy to get started, you just have to cast a vote and garner enough support.
2 things are needed. 1) Term limits, 2) Committee assignement by lottery.
Harder for special interests to target candidates if they only have a few years in office and don't know which committees they'll sit on while in office.
Both sides have equal access to money. Free speech is too important to leave in the hands of politicians.
A great reform would be in transparency. The FOIA requests are being stalled, often for years. E-mails are being destroyed, as are text messages. E-mail aliases are being used. Put the IG's in charge of each FOIA request overseen by a court. Don't let politicians decide what and when any information is released. Criminally charge those that destroy government information, which is the people's information.
It's not a competitive advantage thing to me. It's a what do they owe the person who backs them with big cash. If the same person came knocking on their door with that cash when the pol wasn't running for office, it would be a crime. Also, look at what Jeb is doing. He's running around the country raising big money for a PAC - dinners and speaking engagements with big money pay outs to the PAC. All the while he's talking about thinking about running for office. This is all legal until he declares. When he declares, he'll step away from the PAC, but they're going to back him. I'm not trying to knock him - he's playing by the rules. While there isn't necessarily an explicit quid pro quo in those donations, you know there is an implicit one - at least if he wants their "speech" backing him up next go 'round.
The Dems already have a huge communications advantage, free of charge. They have late night TV, which is extremely powerful (e.g. Jon Stewart). They have Hollywood and all the studios for movies and tv. They have all of academia that powerfully sways younger voters. Study upon study upon study have shown that they overwhelmingly have the media, except for radio talk shows and Fox. All union labor is free, both public and private. To combat this enormous advantage, Republicans can raise money and pay to have their voices heard.
Both sides can raise money to have their voices heard, and not all unions are supportive of the dems. I also see and hear about candidates on both sides of the aisle in media. If a candidate does something newsworthy, they're in the news. Jon Stewart and Letterman are biased late night folks, but I've seen Stewart bash both sides - usually the dems less frequently by a long shot. Regardless, what were their numbers for viewership - a handful of million at most. Stewart's on basic cable for another few months and Letterman just retired - and he was last among the late night ratings.
I love the academia issue also. Not all of academia is liberal, and a fair amount of academia doesn't discuss politics. I was a math major, and I couldn't tell you the political leanings of any professor I had in college. I didn't take any poli sci classes, so maybe that's part of it. I think academic brainwashing is overblown. Younger people tend, on average, to be more liberal. Pick your poison as to the reason why - life experience or a slow tendency to the "get off my lawn" mentality. It's as old as the hills though - the quote incorrectly attributed to Churchill (actually sounds like it was written by a Frenchman in 1875) "If you're not a liberal at 25, you have no heart. If you are not a conservative at 35, you have no brain."
I love the academia issue also. Not all of academia is liberal, and a fair amount of academia doesn't discuss politics. I was a math major, and I couldn't tell you the political leanings of any professor I had in college. I didn't take any poli sci classes, so maybe that's part of it. I think academic brainwashing is overblown. Younger people tend, on average, to be more liberal. Pick your poison as to the reason why - life experience or a slow tendency to the "get off my lawn" mentality. It's as old as the hills though - the quote incorrectly attributed to Churchill (actually sounds like it was written by a Frenchman in 1875) "If you're not a liberal at 25, you have no heart. If you are not a conservative at 35, you have no brain."
Wait a minute - it's "unethical" for Bill & Hillary, but not for Mitt? Ethical considerations are supposed to apply evenly to all.
Some other ideas from other posts:
Term limits would require a constitutional amendment, and nobody on the Hill is going to write themselves out of a job. Even if they did I'm not sure it could be ratified.
Campaign finance reform is as dead as the passenger pigeon. The Supreme Court bent over backwards to find a legal endorsement for George Will's "money is speech" principle, and once again only a constitutional amendment can fix it ... see Term Limits.
Members of Congress in Tricare? Please. Tricare is overburdened and underfunded already, just like the VA. Besides which, FEHB isn't much different from most employer health care plans, in that the government only covers about 15-20 percent of the premium.
A third party will only work when it can attract enough voters to kill off one or the other of the existing parties. The last time it happened was in 1856 when the Republican party absorbed the Whigs and a few splinter groups.
I don't dispute anything you said, my intent was that they would be nice to haves and likely fix a lot of the issues we are currently seeing with our increasingly inept Congressional Representatives.
I've said that all along. The problem isn't with the terms, it's with people who run for multiple terms and get re-elected. We got the 22nd Amendment (term limits for the President) according to former Chief Justice Warren Burger, because Republicans hadn't been able to beat FDR in four tries. He called it the worst thing ever to happen to the Constitution.
No. Sack up and beat the incumbents. I think term limits is a terrible idea. Seats would become a revolving door for corporations. At least currently the voters can scare career politicians with the threat of losing their office, but bought and paid for seat warmers that go in knowing they have X amount of years? I'll pass.
Someday PATX is going to learn that it doesn't matter if a Dem was found guilty of murder, that people would still vote for them just because of the (D).
It already is an open door for corporations.
And he was wrong. Framers didn't intend for a lifer in the White House, but didn't expect people to be so damn stupid when it comes to how they vote.
In the perfect world I'd agree with you both, but this is a world of morons on twitter discussing what Kim Kardashian just did while waiting in line to vote for an office they know nothing about for people they know nothing about. Voting for a person because of their skin color, sex, little letter after their name on the ballot.
Agreed. But you can scare some lifetime politicians, so I think the problem would only get worse with term limits.
Scare them into doing what? Career politicians are beholden to whoever gives them the most money imo. If a congressman/senator wasn't constantly worried about being re-elected, I feel that they'd be more likely to vote their conscience or in the interests of their constituents if they weren't worried about voting "properly" or raising money for the next election. Bring on the term limits.
I would argue they would be less beholden to their corporate benefactors and could actually vote their conscience and not their lobby since they would have no concern for having to run for re-election.
Big difference. Romney set up his LLC when he ran Bain. The Clinton's set up their's strictly to avoid disclosure and did so just two days after her appointment as Sec State. Nice try though.
Hell yes it's ok. The point being made is that Dems vilified Mitt Romney, yet are all about it for Hill. We were just trying to play by the Dem rules you all established. Now the goal line has moved again? Color me shocked. You all have zero principles.
"You all"? Try to keep up: WVPATX bashed Bill & Hillary for doing the same thing Mitt Romney did, "nothing illegal but certainly unethical." Both did what they did for the same reason, to exploit a loophole that allowed them to avoid disclosure. So if it was unethical for Bill & Hillary, it was also unethical for Mitt, and if it wasn't unethical for Mitt, it wasn't unethical for the Clintons, and "you all" should stop acting like the rules should apply differently depending on which side of the aisle you sit on. That's Hillary's attitude - that the rules only apply to everybody else but her.
Similar threads
