Tuesday, August 09, 2016
Donald Trump is playing the same old sad song. Hillary Clinton has been consistent in her policies.
May 10, 2016
By Eugene Kirby
By Eugene Kirby
...Clinton has a gun violence prevention proposal (click here) on her website, which would deny gun owners from buying certain guns and block or delay the ability of some to purchase guns. But it does not call for taking any guns away.
Among other things, her plan would:
- Expand background checks. Her proposal would expand required background checks to include some private sales at gun shows and over the Internet. The current requirement exempts any person “who makes occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby, or who sells all or part of his personal collection of firearms.”
- Close the so-called “Charleston Loophole.” Federal law currently allows federally licensed dealers to sell firearms after a three-day waiting period for a background check even if a background check on the buyer is not completed. Legislation proposed by Democratic Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina would require a potential gun buyer to pass a background check before being sold the gun.
- Ban semi-automatic “assault weapons.” Clinton supports reinstating the 1994 ban that expired in 2004. The ban was signed by her husband, President Bill Clinton. Her proposal makes no mention of retroactively banning such weapons. She was a cosponsor of legislation that would have extended the assault weapons ban before it expired in September 2004. The 1994 law allowed gun owners to keep prohibited weapons purchased before the ban took effect.
Clinton has said her gun proposals are “consistent with constitutional rights,” acknowledging that gun owners have a constitutional right to own guns....
Republican always prioritize as if there were no national debt.
Donald Trump is no different than any other rhetorical president wannabe. He is placing the cart before the horse. The real workhorse in the American economy is the labor of the Middle Class. When the country wants to grow it's economy the tax cuts should be for the middle class, not corporations.
There is currently less than 5 percent unemployment. Leave it alone. What has to be addressed is the lagging income of the working poor.
In order to address the national debt there needs to be more taxes and not less. Cuts have been made for years now and the accumulation of debt still continues. In raising the wages of the middle there is an automatic increase in the US treasury to pay down the national debt. Raising taxes doesn't have to mean raising the percentage of taxes so much as increasing the pay rates of the middle class and let the taxes rise as their income increases.
August 10, 2016
The linchpin of Trump's plan (click here) is the slashing of various taxes on American individuals and corporations, a proposal he said would lead to the biggest tax reform since President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. He would sharply reduce corporate tax to 15 per cent from the current 35 per cent, and set a 10 per cent tax on what he described as trillions of dollars that US businesses have "now parked overseas" but want to repatriate into the country. Personal income tax rates would be compressed from seven brackets to just three, with today's highest rate of 39.6 per cent shrinking to 33 per cent....
Corporate rates can remain the same because there is a high percentage of profits as reflected by stock prices and profit and loss. None of the American companies are in trouble as they were in 2008. The corporate rate is where it should be until there is a marked reduction in our national debt.
If a President wants to show willingness to decrease the national debt, there are ways of doing it without hurting the income into the US Treasury. Benchmarks can be noted that will automatically trigger a reduction in corporate debt rates. When a five percent of the national debt is achieved the corporate rate can automatically be dropped by 0.5 percent. When the national debt is reduced by 10 percent the corporate rate can be reduced by 1 percent, etc. This is a way to hold down frivolous spending by Congress as well. It is a way of telling Congress American taxpayers and their industries are doing their level best to pay down the national debt, so they can't simply continue to spend with high tax rates.
...Trump would immediately slap a moratorium on all federal agency regulations that he believes are needlessly killing jobs. He said he would "cut regulations massively". Already on the chopping block would be the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan, which forces investment in renewable energy at the expense of coal and natural gas, and the Interior Department's moratorium on coal mining permits. He would also repeal President Barack Obama's landmark healthcare law....
This is nothing more than rhetoric. Every presidential candidate, since the time of Ronald Reagan, has promised to cut regulations. It is all rhetorical, impractical and unachievable.
There is regulation that is necessary. We have witnessed the insult to regulation with the Flint River poisoning of the city's residents. That should be a strong lesson to anyone running for office, Clean Air, Clean Water and containment of greenhouse gases is vital to the health of Americans.
It is easy to tell who is writing the economic proposals, too. The exploitative petroleum industry, namely Howard Hamm. AGAIN! He has no respect for life. Oklahoma has increasing seismic activity due to fracking and does Howard Hamm take responsibility? No, he pretends there is nothing wrong and only focuses on money.
...Trump is opposed to the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) backed by Obama and Republican congressional leaders. It was signed by his Administration and 11 other nations in 2015, but, hit a snag in Congress. He wants to abolish the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico that was signed into law in 1994, describing it as a pact that has "shipped your jobs to Mexico and other countries."...
I agree.
CAFTA is another thing called "free trade." It was nothing but a crony give away by Marko Rubio.
...Trump reiterated his support for strengthened protections against currency manipulation that allow other countries to "cheat by unfairly subsidising their goods". China, warned Trump, "is responsible for nearly half of our entire trade deficit". He said he would go after Beijing for its "rampant" theft of intellectual property, its dumping of Chinese products on the US market and currency manipulation....
Something has to be done. China impacted the economy and Wall Street when it manipulated it's currency as The Fed was preparing to raise interest on money for the first time in eight years. There needs to be a method of mitigating losses and I am thinking of a proposal to the WTO.
When a country impacts the economies globally and the financial markets there needs to be a place where complaints are filed to regain a significant proportion of the losses due to currency manipulation.
But, something needs to be done. It needs to be addressed at the global level like that of the WTO, but, domestically Congress can still write and pass a financial law that would provide impacts to Chinese imports with monies from the import tax levy to aid companies effected.
Trump called for an "energy revolution", starting with cancellation of Obama's climate plan and the Paris Climate Agreement, and a halt of US payments to UN global warming programmes. He would also expand offshore drilling, increase natural gas production, and reverse what he called Obama's "war on coal". He would call on Canadian firm TransCanada to renew its permit application for building Keystone XL, the crude oil pipeline between Canada and US oil refineries rejected by the Obama Administration last year.
Rhetoric. The climate crisis is real. The revolution surrounding the climate crisis has been postponed for five decades, it doesn't need to be postponed any longer. There are record droughts in a world where hunger and famine were already a problem.
The Republicans like to point to the initiative of teaching people to farm to insure their food supply. That is interesting, but, it doesn't work if there is no rain to grow the crops people have learned to grow.
We have witnessed unprecedented events on Earth that validates this climate as the most dangerous in human history. The drought and war torn lands from battles for water caused requests of the "Svalbard Global Seed Vault."
There is far too much evidence pointing to a deteriorating Earth from the accumulation of greenhouse gases.
It is not nor has been time to entertain expanding the use of fossil fuels. It is time to let the old ways pass into history.
The Syrian war began when farmers no longer had land capable of growing crops. The Syrian war is a water war.
Sure the "Svalbard Global Seed Vault" is covered with snow. Gratefully, it is covered with snow. It was designed that way. If there was no snow the vault could lose it's purpose and all the seeds inside might become spoiled and unusable.
We have to solve the climate crisis and soon. The fact the USA has some of the most densest carbon dioxide and METHANE in the world should be an alarm to create concern in the country and with voters to begin a new era of alternative energy sources and modernized transportation.
There is currently less than 5 percent unemployment. Leave it alone. What has to be addressed is the lagging income of the working poor.
In order to address the national debt there needs to be more taxes and not less. Cuts have been made for years now and the accumulation of debt still continues. In raising the wages of the middle there is an automatic increase in the US treasury to pay down the national debt. Raising taxes doesn't have to mean raising the percentage of taxes so much as increasing the pay rates of the middle class and let the taxes rise as their income increases.
August 10, 2016
The linchpin of Trump's plan (click here) is the slashing of various taxes on American individuals and corporations, a proposal he said would lead to the biggest tax reform since President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. He would sharply reduce corporate tax to 15 per cent from the current 35 per cent, and set a 10 per cent tax on what he described as trillions of dollars that US businesses have "now parked overseas" but want to repatriate into the country. Personal income tax rates would be compressed from seven brackets to just three, with today's highest rate of 39.6 per cent shrinking to 33 per cent....
Corporate rates can remain the same because there is a high percentage of profits as reflected by stock prices and profit and loss. None of the American companies are in trouble as they were in 2008. The corporate rate is where it should be until there is a marked reduction in our national debt.
If a President wants to show willingness to decrease the national debt, there are ways of doing it without hurting the income into the US Treasury. Benchmarks can be noted that will automatically trigger a reduction in corporate debt rates. When a five percent of the national debt is achieved the corporate rate can automatically be dropped by 0.5 percent. When the national debt is reduced by 10 percent the corporate rate can be reduced by 1 percent, etc. This is a way to hold down frivolous spending by Congress as well. It is a way of telling Congress American taxpayers and their industries are doing their level best to pay down the national debt, so they can't simply continue to spend with high tax rates.
...Trump would immediately slap a moratorium on all federal agency regulations that he believes are needlessly killing jobs. He said he would "cut regulations massively". Already on the chopping block would be the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan, which forces investment in renewable energy at the expense of coal and natural gas, and the Interior Department's moratorium on coal mining permits. He would also repeal President Barack Obama's landmark healthcare law....
This is nothing more than rhetoric. Every presidential candidate, since the time of Ronald Reagan, has promised to cut regulations. It is all rhetorical, impractical and unachievable.
There is regulation that is necessary. We have witnessed the insult to regulation with the Flint River poisoning of the city's residents. That should be a strong lesson to anyone running for office, Clean Air, Clean Water and containment of greenhouse gases is vital to the health of Americans.
It is easy to tell who is writing the economic proposals, too. The exploitative petroleum industry, namely Howard Hamm. AGAIN! He has no respect for life. Oklahoma has increasing seismic activity due to fracking and does Howard Hamm take responsibility? No, he pretends there is nothing wrong and only focuses on money.
...Trump is opposed to the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) backed by Obama and Republican congressional leaders. It was signed by his Administration and 11 other nations in 2015, but, hit a snag in Congress. He wants to abolish the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico that was signed into law in 1994, describing it as a pact that has "shipped your jobs to Mexico and other countries."...
I agree.
CAFTA is another thing called "free trade." It was nothing but a crony give away by Marko Rubio.
...Trump reiterated his support for strengthened protections against currency manipulation that allow other countries to "cheat by unfairly subsidising their goods". China, warned Trump, "is responsible for nearly half of our entire trade deficit". He said he would go after Beijing for its "rampant" theft of intellectual property, its dumping of Chinese products on the US market and currency manipulation....
Something has to be done. China impacted the economy and Wall Street when it manipulated it's currency as The Fed was preparing to raise interest on money for the first time in eight years. There needs to be a method of mitigating losses and I am thinking of a proposal to the WTO.
When a country impacts the economies globally and the financial markets there needs to be a place where complaints are filed to regain a significant proportion of the losses due to currency manipulation.
But, something needs to be done. It needs to be addressed at the global level like that of the WTO, but, domestically Congress can still write and pass a financial law that would provide impacts to Chinese imports with monies from the import tax levy to aid companies effected.
Trump called for an "energy revolution", starting with cancellation of Obama's climate plan and the Paris Climate Agreement, and a halt of US payments to UN global warming programmes. He would also expand offshore drilling, increase natural gas production, and reverse what he called Obama's "war on coal". He would call on Canadian firm TransCanada to renew its permit application for building Keystone XL, the crude oil pipeline between Canada and US oil refineries rejected by the Obama Administration last year.
Rhetoric. The climate crisis is real. The revolution surrounding the climate crisis has been postponed for five decades, it doesn't need to be postponed any longer. There are record droughts in a world where hunger and famine were already a problem.
The Republicans like to point to the initiative of teaching people to farm to insure their food supply. That is interesting, but, it doesn't work if there is no rain to grow the crops people have learned to grow.
There is far too much evidence pointing to a deteriorating Earth from the accumulation of greenhouse gases.
It is not nor has been time to entertain expanding the use of fossil fuels. It is time to let the old ways pass into history.
The Syrian war began when farmers no longer had land capable of growing crops. The Syrian war is a water war.
Sure the "Svalbard Global Seed Vault" is covered with snow. Gratefully, it is covered with snow. It was designed that way. If there was no snow the vault could lose it's purpose and all the seeds inside might become spoiled and unusable.
We have to solve the climate crisis and soon. The fact the USA has some of the most densest carbon dioxide and METHANE in the world should be an alarm to create concern in the country and with voters to begin a new era of alternative energy sources and modernized transportation.
No one needs the return of the "Bush Doctrine" of illegal and immoral invasion! A new military profile for the Republicans is welcome.
I thought most of these guys were retired. Their ideas are from at least a generation past. I assume these 50 angry men support Hillary Clinton?
I am actually pleased all these Republican Neocons find fault with Donald Trump's national security (including foreign policy) policy. I don't necessary think his policy is correct and best, but, to realize there is a Republican willing and able to stand on his own is nothing short of a small miracle. It is about time the Republicans take the approach of strong foreign policy that is moral and calls on military as a last resort rather than the first priority. I congratulate Donald Trump for taking an independent and new approach to Republican policy. At least the American people don't have to be afraid of their military shadow with candidates that see diplomacy as a strength in foreign relations.
August 8, 2016
By Eric Bradner, Elise Labott and Dana Bash
Fifty prominent Republican (clickk here) foreign policy and national security experts -- many veterans of George W. Bush's administration -- have signed a letter denouncing Donald Trump's presidential candidacy and pledging not to vote for him.
The letter, first reported by The New York Times Monday, warns: "We are convinced that in the Oval Office, he would be the most reckless President in American history."
Its signatories include former CIA and National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden, former Director of National Intelligence and Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and Eric Edelman, who was Vice President Dick Cheney's national security adviser and has worked closely with Michele Flournoy -- a candidate for secretary of defense in a prospective Clinton administration -- to forge a centrist group of defense experts on key military issues....
...Trump's campaign responded with a statement from Trump denouncing the signatories as people who deserve the "blame for making the world such a dangerous place."...
Exactly! I congratulate him and his supporters for living in the real world and not one created to reap riches from war, ie: Halliburton.
This is a new beginning for the Republicans. I suggest they embrace a deescalated military profile for their policy.
...Bellinger told CNN the letter was circulated five days ago with very few changes....
Precisely. How is it fifty angry men can agree without even a common meeting? Because they listen to advisors without practical knowledge of real policy. ( John Bellinger, a former State Department legal adviser to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.)
It is a modern day phenomena. Advisers are in control of USA policy without question by the talking heads of the political elite. These advisers have controlled Republican policy for decades and is why the Republican rhetoric exists. The fear factor generation after generation speaks to the sameness of the policies that have directed this country. The same advisers and the same political talking heads. And the media calls it, performance art. Amazing.
The USA arrived to win. Congratulations.
Simone Biles, (click here) the wait is over. Her Olympic competition begins Sunday with the women’s artistic gymnastics qualifying round. She and her American teammates are all but assured spots in the team final, the all-around final and event finals: vault, uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise. Here’s what to know as the competition kicks off.
How to Watch in the U.S.
The qualifications will start at 8:45 a.m. Eastern. The Americans will begin at 4:30 p.m., but NBC has scheduled its coverage in prime time. To avoid the tape delay and see more competition, stream the full day of gymnastics via the NBC Olympics site or NBC Sports app. You will need cable credentials to log in. To watch international broadcasts, use a VPN....
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