OT - Trump

[Little Digger]

I worked out hard for 45 minutes today and then went home and pigged out on greasy food the relatives sent over..I'm hopeless.

[turk3d]

This is not a knock on you Mylie, I've had several businesses myself ( I have respect for people like yourself who've been able to establish successful businesses) and run them morally and ethically. What I have a problem with what I term the "filthy rich" (the 1% as Bernie calls them) which I assume you are not one of.

To add to FNQs points, Trump is about to eliminate the estate tax, which will result in the very wealthy being allowed to leave their estates to their children their who may not have done a thing to earn it and could be totally inept and useless as a human being (not the case with Trumps children it seems).This will likely result in a huge tax loss for the country.

[Mylie10]

Doesn't the estate tax affect more than just filthy rich? Normal people who leave a house behind for their children when they pass have their estate taxed again, after they have paid taxes their entire lives on that property or whatever else is contained in the estate.

Correct me if I'm wrong about that though....I may be.

And I think you guys are lumping in the ultra rich and huge corporations with other business and people who make what windfall good money. Again, not against taxation. Not against raising the minimum wage, not even sure why that was brought up.

I'm against over taxation and over regulation. When they become restrictive to even keep the business going.

[Mylie10]

This is not a knock on you Mylie, I've had several businesses myself ( I have respect for people like yourself who've been able to establish successful businesses) and run them morally and ethically. What I have a problem with what I term the "filthy rich" (the 1% as Bernie calls them) which I assume you are not one of.

To add to FNQs points, Trump is about to eliminate the estate tax, which will result in the very wealthy being allowed to leave their estates to their children their who may not have done a thing to earn it and could be totally inept and useless as a human being (not the case with Trumps children it seems).This will likely result in a huge tax loss for the country.

You can't say that because someone is super wealthy that somehow their kids might be inept and we need to take their money from them....come on dude. That's just fear mongering. Government is just way to huge and now you Turk are gonna decide who should have and who shouldn't? You are going to take be cause you fear?

I hate rich a holes as much as the next guy, but what you suggest is the epitome of whats wrong.

[turk3d]

This is not a knock on you Mylie, I've had several businesses myself ( I have respect for people like yourself who've been able to establish successful businesses) and run them morally and ethically. What I have a problem with what I term the "filthy rich" (the 1% as Bernie calls them) which I assume you are not one of.

To add to FNQs points, Trump is about to eliminate the estate tax, which will result in the very wealthy being allowed to leave their estates to their children their who may not have done a thing to earn it and could be totally inept and useless as a human being (not the case with Trumps children it seems).This will likely result in a huge tax loss for the country.

You can't say that because someone is super wealthy that somehow their kids might be inept and we need to take their money from them....come on dude. That's just fear mongering. Government is just way to huge and now you Turk are gonna decide who should have and who shouldn't? You are going to take be cause you fear?

I hate rich a holes as much as the next guy, but what you suggest is the epitome of whats wrong.

That's not what I'm saying at all. You don't need to squash the tax laws to make sure that a good portion of one's wealth is passed on to offspring (there's many tax loopholes that allow that). What i have a problem with (maybe I'm jealous) is that the super rich in this country have accumulated so much wealth, that some of them have set it up so that that wealth gets passed on 10 generations down the line without those offspring having to work one iota (while people in this country are homeless) and on top of that, our government probably spends more taxpayer money giving it away to foreign countries. You ok with that?

[turk3d]

Doesn't the estate tax affect more than just filthy rich? Normal people who leave a house behind for their children when they pass have their estate taxed again, after they have paid taxes their entire lives on that property or whatever else is contained in the estate.

Correct me if I'm wrong about that though....I may be.

And I think you guys are lumping in the ultra rich and huge corporations with other business and people who make what windfall good money. Again, not against taxation. Not against raising the minimum wage, not even sure why that was brought up.

I'm against over taxation and over regulation. When they become restrictive to even keep the business going.

I agree with you on over taxation and over regulation Mylie. And I also agree with you that anyone (regardless of wealthy or not) should be able to leave something for their families (or whoever they want for that matter).I just want more sensible laws that are unbiased and not specifically designed for one special interest group of which we know the wealthiest have a tremendous amount of influence with government lawmakers.

IF I'm not mistaken, if you leave part of your estate to a charitable organization, none of that is taxed. So if you will your children your estate (or part of it), I don't see why it shouldn't be taxed somewhat as income being received. What I believe Trump is talking about is removing Estate tax altogether which is what I object to. As I said previously, there's plenty of ways to leave money to family members and avoid paying little or no taxes, trusts being one of the most common ones.

[Black Jack]

Sad to see our country descend into oligarchy and barbarism. This is going to be a very sad eight years (and Trump is too corrupt to lose re-election).

Also, it's absurd that the candidate who loses the majority of votes by 1.5 million + wins. The electoral college was created to empower slave states and is an abomination.

[FNQ]

Doesn't the estate tax affect more than just filthy rich? Normal people who leave a house behind for their children when they pass have their estate taxed again, after they have paid taxes their entire lives on that property or whatever else is contained in the estate.

Correct me if I'm wrong about that though....I may be.

And I think you guys are lumping in the ultra rich and huge corporations with other business and people who make what windfall good money. Again, not against taxation. Not against raising the minimum wage, not even sure why that was brought up.

I'm against over taxation and over regulation. When they become restrictive to even keep the business going.

It's brought up because isolating one part of a larger argument is the method that both political parties do to keep people placated as they continuously screw them. We are 'over-taxed' because those were raised without a nation-wide wage increase, which is not effective.

It's like the argument direct at Nick Hanauer, a venture capitalist who is strongly for the fight for $15/hr: conservatives criticized him for not paying his low wage employees 15/hr. They are essentially asking him to kneecap himself and play to rules that only he would have to follow.

California's tax laws, much like Obamacare, is a half-solution. Without the full solution, it's ultimately ineffective for a large chunk of Americans. California's tax laws are functional for places like SF and even Oakland who've been raising their wages, but ineffective for rural Californians who don't have those urban cities to stabilize them. Obamacare is great in that it got more people covered, but it also watered down our policies while increasing premiums. In both cases (for taxes, a wage hike; for Obamacare, healthcare regulation), half of a solution did very little and in fact gave conservatives more ammo to use.

[FNQ]

This is not a knock on you Mylie, I've had several businesses myself ( I have respect for people like yourself who've been able to establish successful businesses) and run them morally and ethically. What I have a problem with what I term the "filthy rich" (the 1% as Bernie calls them) which I assume you are not one of.

To add to FNQs points, Trump is about to eliminate the estate tax, which will result in the very wealthy being allowed to leave their estates to their children their who may not have done a thing to earn it and could be totally inept and useless as a human being (not the case with Trumps children it seems).This will likely result in a huge tax loss for the country.

You can't say that because someone is super wealthy that somehow their kids might be inept and we need to take their money from them....come on dude. That's just fear mongering. Government is just way to huge and now you Turk are gonna decide who should have and who shouldn't? You are going to take be cause you fear?

I hate rich a holes as much as the next guy, but what you suggest is the epitome of whats wrong.

I would much rather have elected officials decide who has and who doesn't than the people who have fought against living wages - and at the same time, small businesses. When the laws are made so that an inordinate amount of wealth can be retained without giving any back to the country, we are essentially living in an economic monarchy.

For example: Trump somehow didn't pay taxes. Many corporations that bring in billions in income every year are somehow being funded by the government, if not entirely bailed out. Other corporations use offshore tax shelters to protect and hoard their money. They are far, far more responsible for economic decline than any incremental tax hike. Where is the outrage there? What about that most of our taxes go to fund wars that are dubious in nature, at best? All of these things are connected, and until people really get to the bottom of why their taxes are going up and who's really benefiting from all of it, it will just be continued in-fighting among the largest demographic in America: the f****d.

[FNQ]

Sad to see our country descend into oligarchy and barbarism. This is going to be a very sad eight years (and Trump is too corrupt to lose re-election).

Also, it's absurd that the candidate who loses the majority of votes by 1.5 million + wins. The electoral college was created to empower slave states and is an abomination.

Progressive Dem here.
Sure you dont want to wait to see what he does before we already label him? The worst thing I can call him right now is pandering and inexperienced.

And until the Dem side eliminates superdelegates, I dont think they have much of a platform to stand on when it comes to the electoral college. Though gerrymandering is probably one of the least democratic things I've ever seen.

The answer is education. But when the government cuts and controls federal education.. things like Columbus Day happen.

[FNQ]

I'm not arguing against wage increase. I want wage increase. There are other restrictive taxes involved in doing business beyond raising the minimum wage. And what I as a business owner like, is to pay the people I work with more money, and give them more incentive. That is better for my business to have happy employees who want to and enjoy their work.

And I imagine the reason your practice is thriving has more to do with the quality of service you provide. Reputation is everything.

Its not. The reason is because people can now afford to do more in-house treatments with them, as opposed to 6 years ago, when people would ask for their regimen and try and do it at home by themselves. Which we would allow because ultimately our goal is to help and rehab, but could result in less results and definitely resulted in less income for us.

The problem is that if you did pay your people a living wage - and prorated the people above minimum to what they would get in a 15/hr minimum wage - you'd be putting yourself at such a competitive disadvantage to other companies in the same industry. Would you hire better people? Sure. But unless they are re-inventing the wheel most would prefer the cheaper option, especially when the economy isn't strong, and they'd deal with the results. That's the reality of what's going on, and that's why places like amazon and walmart continue to grow strong no matter whats going on.

It doesnt hurt that they use dark money to lobby for these laws to stay in tact, either. They have perfected the strategy of isolating a part of the argument and pretending its the whole argument. And the majority, both sides, have bought it.

[KevinMcreynolds]

He conned a bunch of fools in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvanian to vote for him and now he's gonna cut all their overtime pay

Good job, good effort

[jason bourne]

Also.. every single political stance it trying to force their agenda on the populace. Be it conservative, be it liberal, be it progressive, be it libertarian. Putting your opinion out there doesn't make you an a-hole. I'd think that calling someone an a-hole for putting their political preference out there is literally the definition, actually.

I called him an a-hole because he's not someone whom I expected to hear from over politics. I had enough of the political bickering and complaining in my own life at the time. Many were looking for a respite after the election. Everyone's emotions were running at an all time high. I was angry, too, over having to choose over a known dishonest crook or an unknown n00b for POTUS. Bernie Sanders had fallen by the wayside. Then we find out Hillary Clinton got the questions in advance from Donna Brazile. Again, that was the straw that broke the camel's back. She had the election in the bag, but you still have to cheat? Then there was the oligarchy. We do not have a democracy anymore. I posted what Jimmy Carter said. Who can I trust when all of the Democrat money is flying around? After all this, we hear Bernie Sanders is supporting Hillary Clinton. What? This was just weird. Did he get paid off or something? If she didn't cheat, then I can see him supporting her, but after calling her a crook, I just couldn't see that.

I'll read what you posted below and will tell you what I didn't like. You can have the last response if you want.

Here's Pop being an a-hole:

Pops first sentence out of his biased pie hole, "half the people ignored all of that."

Maybe it's not they ignored all of that. Maybe they were looking at what Obama has done over immigration, Obamacare, government bailouts and handling the deficit. Maybe they were sick and tired of Obama taking so many million dollar golf trips and vacations. Maybe they were sick of his using Air Force One and causing more "global warming." Maybe they were sick of his do as I say and not as I do. Maybe they were sick of Obama implying that illegal immigrants could vote.

Then there's Clinton. Maybe they were looking at what Hillary said and will continue to do using an executive order. Maybe they were reading the Wikileaks stuff over Servergate and what the Clinton Foundation did. Maybe they thought Hillary Clinton was bought and paid for with pay-for-play and when seeing how much money Bernie Sanders got from the unions and comparing it to what she got from the banks and the rich Democrats. The rich Democrats have much more money than the rich Republicans today from Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Mark Zuckenberg, Doris Fisher, the Waltons of Wal-Mart, Reed Hastings and more. Maybe the working class didn't like being called deplorables by Clinton. Now you can say it was Comey, but that was over Servergate and his conclusions were the same as July. So that is a wash. Now, what was funny was the stuff coming from the DOJ. The DOJ didn't appear to be a neutral party. They seemed to be at odds with the FBI even back in July. Maybe the public should not feel the DOJ was in Obama's hip pocket and that they were working for the public good instead of special interests. All of this right before the election. Again, I voted for Obama the first time, but not the second time. This time I didn't vote for anyone for POTUS. Figured Clinton was going to win anyway.

See how he's riled up because he feels bad for people who were targeted by hate-speech?

What an A**HOLE

I'll give you and Pops this one. I agree on the fear mongering and Trump's hateful language.

It doesn't do any good to rehash over all of it. There are new developments to discuss like Trump's cabinet. A few of those are creepy and scary.

Your country, your choice, you guys can obviously vote for whomever you like.

Voting for someone who is definitely crooked because he calls his opponent "crooked Hilary" and intimates she may be crooked doesn't seem to be the most logical reason for doing so however.

I'm not sure what you're even talking about.

Where I agreed with Trump was that this election was rigged. The election WAS rigged. Hillary Clinton should have won this thing.
So why did she have to cheat against Bernie Sanders?

[e83pw2oa9hl5f]

My lord, we all know trickle down doesnt work and these old fables disproved. I cant believe some people still drink this coolaid and vote against their own self interest. Thats what they depend on to keep recycling this notion.

Do you live in California?

Don't call it trickle down if you'd like. Do you really believe that people with money don't spend it? To me that's a laughable notion and belies common sense. And describe rich to me, because different people have different thoughts on that.

I am from Pebble Beach, But live in NZ mostly even though I still work in Cali.

Not my fault if you chose to believe in myths.

[floppymoose]

Doesn't the estate tax affect more than just filthy rich? Normal people who leave a house behind for their children when they pass have their estate taxed again, after they have paid taxes their entire lives on that property or whatever else is contained in the estate.

No, the estate tax does not apply to people of normal means. You may be thinking of what happens if you don't have a will.. in that case a big chunk may go the state (not sure on details and i think it may vary from state to state). The federal estate tax only kicks in if your estate is worth more than about 5.5 *million* dollars.

It's a fake issue. There are people out there who will never be affected by it who think that they will be, and have been fooled into thinking that repealing it is somehow looking out for them. Repealing it just shifts more of the tax burden to the poor and middle class.

[Black Jack]

Sad to see our country descend into oligarchy and barbarism. This is going to be a very sad eight years (and Trump is too corrupt to lose re-election).

Also, it's absurd that the candidate who loses the majority of votes by 1.5 million + wins. The electoral college was created to empower slave states and is an abomination.

Progressive Dem here.
Sure you dont want to wait to see what he does before we already label him? The worst thing I can call him right now is pandering and inexperienced.

And until the Dem side eliminates superdelegates, I dont think they have much of a platform to stand on when it comes to the electoral college. Though gerrymandering is probably one of the least democratic things I've ever seen.

The answer is education. But when the government cuts and controls federal education.. things like Columbus Day happen.

Are you paying attention? He's picked racists and crazies for his key posts. It's not even a joke, we're headed into a buzzsaw full speed ahead.

People are in denial about what's about to happen, these guys aren't playing.

[Black Jack]

Doesn't the estate tax affect more than just filthy rich? Normal people who leave a house behind for their children when they pass have their estate taxed again, after they have paid taxes their entire lives on that property or whatever else is contained in the estate.

No, the estate tax does not apply to people of normal means. You may be thinking of what happens if you don't have a will.. in that case a big chunk may go the state (not sure on details and i think it may vary from state to state). The federal estate tax only kicks in if your estate is worth more than about 5.5 *million* dollars.

It's a fake issue. There are people out there who will never be affected by it who think that they will be, and have been fooled into thinking that repealing it is somehow looking out for them. Repealing it just shifts more of the tax burden to the poor and middle class.

Remember, everyone in America thinks they are going to be a billionaire soon.

[Mylie10]

Doesn't the estate tax affect more than just filthy rich? Normal people who leave a house behind for their children when they pass have their estate taxed again, after they have paid taxes their entire lives on that property or whatever else is contained in the estate.

No, the estate tax does not apply to people of normal means. You may be thinking of what happens if you don't have a will.. in that case a big chunk may go the state (not sure on details and i think it may vary from state to state). The federal estate tax only kicks in if your estate is worth more than about 5.5 *million* dollars.

It's a fake issue. There are people out there who will never be affected by it who think that they will be, and have been fooled into thinking that repealing it is somehow looking out for them. Repealing it just shifts more of the tax burden to the poor and middle class.

Thanks Flop

[FNQ]

Sad to see our country descend into oligarchy and barbarism. This is going to be a very sad eight years (and Trump is too corrupt to lose re-election).

Also, it's absurd that the candidate who loses the majority of votes by 1.5 million + wins. The electoral college was created to empower slave states and is an abomination.

Progressive Dem here.
Sure you dont want to wait to see what he does before we already label him? The worst thing I can call him right now is pandering and inexperienced.

And until the Dem side eliminates superdelegates, I dont think they have much of a platform to stand on when it comes to the electoral college. Though gerrymandering is probably one of the least democratic things I've ever seen.

The answer is education. But when the government cuts and controls federal education.. things like Columbus Day happen.

Are you paying attention? He's picked racists and crazies for his key posts. It's not even a joke, we're headed into a buzzsaw full speed ahead.

People are in denial about what's about to happen, these guys aren't playing.

They still can't do very much without Congress approval. And if they do start going crazy at these posts, then the administration will collapse and/or we will have a new president next cycle. There's no going back at this point.

But being combative before the presidency even starts is a great way to further push the gap. The middle and lower class should be looking to unify, through education, and using their numbers to take back the country from political elites who are largely unaffected by the laws they enact. The protests do nothing. The rhetoric does nothing. It's what they [try to] accomplish that matters. If they try to accomplish something racist or misogynistic, then rally against them. Pre-rallying does nothing but stoke the flame.

[Black Jack]

Progressive Dem here.
Sure you dont want to wait to see what he does before we already label him? The worst thing I can call him right now is pandering and inexperienced.

And until the Dem side eliminates superdelegates, I dont think they have much of a platform to stand on when it comes to the electoral college. Though gerrymandering is probably one of the least democratic things I've ever seen.

The answer is education. But when the government cuts and controls federal education.. things like Columbus Day happen.

Are you paying attention? He's picked racists and crazies for his key posts. It's not even a joke, we're headed into a buzzsaw full speed ahead.

People are in denial about what's about to happen, these guys aren't playing.

They still can't do very much without Congress approval. And if they do start going crazy at these posts, then the administration will collapse and/or we will have a new president next cycle. There's no going back at this point.

But being combative before the presidency even starts is a great way to further push the gap. The middle and lower class should be looking to unify, through education, and using their numbers to take back the country from political elites who are largely unaffected by the laws they enact. The protests do nothing. The rhetoric does nothing. It's what they [try to] accomplish that matters. If they try to accomplish something racist or misogynistic, then rally against them. Pre-rallying does nothing but stoke the flame.

We'll see about that.