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Vetting Presidential Candidates

Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2016 3:49 pm
by Tunnelcat
So Trump want's extreme vetting for immigrants. Well, I've got a couple of requirements for vetting potential presidential candidates.

Trump claimed last night that as part of his tax plan, he would get rid of the carried interest provision in the tax code. Hillary and Obama are on record supporting the exact same thing, but Congress has never put forth a bill for Obama to sign. From what I looked up, carried interest is generally used by partnership-structured funds, like hedge funds, to lower their taxes and is not often used for real estate transactions. The only way we'd know if Trump is actually taking advantage of this loophole is for him to publicly release his tax returns. It's very unlikely that Trump is using this particular loophole since he's always claimed he's made his money as a "real estate tycoon". Since he won't release his tax returns, we can't tell if anything he wants to eliminate in the tax code might or might not affect him and his wealthy brethren personally. The conflict of interest here is that potentially he's eliminating tax breaks for rich investors OTHER than himself, and keeping the ones that benefit him personally, such as taking a billion dollar loss and then not paying taxes for 18 years. That's not going to help most people in the middle class either. So, why don't we get Congress to require vetting of all presidential candidates by making it a "requirement" that the tax returns of every presidential candidate be made public after the primaries? :wink:

http://fortune.com/2016/10/10/president ... -interest/

Now, as part of that vetting, why don't we also require drug testing as well? Most large employers in the country require drug screening for future employees, and since we are essentially "hiring" a person to run our country when we vote, why not make drug testing a requirement for every presidential candidate?

The only reason I brought this up was after watching both presidential debates and noticing something. Trump in particular was always sniffling his nose, like it's constantly running. Sniffle, talk, sniffle, talk, sniffle! It was the same in the first debate. Either he has a very long lasting sinus infection OR he's using cocaine. His doctor claimed he was the paragon of health and made no mention of a chronic sinus infection. Other signs of cocaine use are that he's always grandiose and agitated, pacing constantly and staying up to Tweet acidic remarks at 3 AM all the time. I mean, when does he actually sleep? As long as the right wingers are proclaiming that the supposed ill health of Hillary Clinton would impact her performance as president, I think that we have a right to know if Trump is a drug user, especially since he may be the one who ends up driving the national car (God save us all).

Also, why does his body mass index look so high? It was clear last night that his BMI is way into the unhealthy category, which certainly correlates with heart attacks and stroke. Add drug use and well............. :wink:

I also came up with this thought long before I Googled it, so Howard Dean isn't alone with this particular "theory". :wink:

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/pre ... se-cocaine

Re: Vetting Presidential Candidates

Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2016 4:54 pm
by sigma
Frankly, I suspect that the US President already has be elected.
Even if I feel that the US President can be not nearly Santa Claus, you can imagine what kind of information has Putin?
Otherwise he would not have to carry out regular checks of combat readiness of the troops and he wouldn't have to build new detection systems potentially dangerous missile or UFO...
I do not know, in the end, you choose the President for yourself, and we do not care who he/she/it will be)

Re: Vetting Presidential Candidates

Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2016 3:41 pm
by Tunnelcat
Somebody in Russia cares enough to hack the Democratic Party's emails and release them to WikiLeaks. :wink:

Re: Vetting Presidential Candidates

Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2016 1:49 pm
by Grendel

Re: Vetting Presidential Candidates

Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2016 2:58 pm
by sigma
tunnelcat wrote:Somebody in Russia cares enough to hack the Democratic Party's emails and release them to WikiLeaks. :wink:
Despite the fact that the reliability of this information is not confirmed, I can assume, it's possible, given what I know about (I will not specify about what, if you let, TC). But so far I have no reason to depart from my view that this is the usual response preventive reflex to a potentially dangerous threat. There is nothing surprising or unusual. USA knew in advance that this would be a natural reaction, and nevertheless went for it.

Re: Vetting Presidential Candidates

Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2016 3:42 pm
by Tunnelcat
Any verification of this information that's not partisan like Fox News Grendel? Not that I'm defending Hillary. :wink:

I didn't remember that Nixon and Ford never released their tax returns. Tsk, tsk, Nixon especially. Since those 2, it's now pretty much expected that candidates release their returns, except for Trump, who's bucking the new trend. I still say it needs to be a requirement for election to office, especially if a candidate says he or she is going to change the tax code to help ordinary Americans, when makings those changes could potentially be a conflict of interest. Even the appearance of it stinks.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... ying-taxes

Also, is Trump a little too "friendly" with a coke dealer?

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/ ... ler-173892
sigma wrote:Despite the fact that the reliability of this information is not confirmed, I can assume, it's possible, given what I know about (I will not specify about what, if you let, TC). But so far I have no reason to depart from my view that this is the usual response preventive reflex to a potentially dangerous threat. There is nothing surprising or unusual. USA knew in advance that this would be a natural reaction, and nevertheless went for it.
Our intelligence agencies are 90% sure the hacking was done by the Russians. That's a pretty high confidence about the source sigma. Whether that's really true, I can't say personally. The world of spies and espionage is not really my purview. I DO know Putin has denied that the Russians did the hacking, but then he did say that the release of those emails was "a public service".

http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/Vladimi ... id/746491/

Re: Vetting Presidential Candidates

Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2016 4:39 pm
by Grendel
tunnelcat wrote:Any verification of this information that's not partisan like Fox News Grendel? Not that I'm defending Hillary. :wink:
Nope, didn't look since it's an opinion piece. Legend says that the author "is a financial columnist who also writes for The Fiscal Times", so I doubt it's made up; Possibly cherry picked info tho ;)
tunnelcat wrote:Our intelligence agencies are 90% sure the hacking was done by the Russians. That's a pretty high confidence about the source sigma. Whether that's really true, I can't say personally. The world of spies and espionage is not really my purview. I DO know Putin has denied that the Russians did the hacking, but then he did say that the release of those emails was "a public service".
Personally I'm w/ Putin on that one :P Anyway, IMHO the "90%" statement is purely political, there's no way to trace the hacker w/o a very deep forensic analysis of all computers involved or Wikileaks spilling info about their source.

Re: Vetting Presidential Candidates

Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2016 5:17 pm
by sigma
tunnelcat wrote:Any verification of this information that's not partisan like Fox News Grendel? Not that I'm defending Hillary. :wink:

I didn't remember that Nixon and Ford never released their tax returns. Tsk, tsk, Nixon especially. Since those 2, it's now pretty much expected that candidates release their returns, except for Trump, who's bucking the new trend. I still say it needs to be a requirement for election to office, especially if a candidate says he or she is going to change the tax code to help ordinary Americans, when makings those changes could potentially be a conflict of interest. Even the appearance of it stinks.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... ying-taxes

Also, is Trump a little too "friendly" with a coke dealer?

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/ ... ler-173892
sigma wrote:Despite the fact that the reliability of this information is not confirmed, I can assume, it's possible, given what I know about (I will not specify about what, if you let, TC). But so far I have no reason to depart from my view that this is the usual response preventive reflex to a potentially dangerous threat. There is nothing surprising or unusual. USA knew in advance that this would be a natural reaction, and nevertheless went for it.
Our intelligence agencies are 90% sure the hacking was done by the Russians. That's a pretty high confidence about the source sigma. Whether that's really true, I can't say personally. The world of spies and espionage is not really my purview. I DO know Putin has denied that the Russians did the hacking, but then he did say that the release of those emails was "a public service".
I know it better than you, so I do not want to talk about it. Despite the fact that there is virtually nothing is impossible, I would prefer that these matters are dealt with at the negotiating table and not by such methods.

Re: Vetting Presidential Candidates

Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2016 9:18 pm
by Tunnelcat
Grendel wrote:
tunnelcat wrote:Our intelligence agencies are 90% sure the hacking was done by the Russians. That's a pretty high confidence about the source sigma. Whether that's really true, I can't say personally. The world of spies and espionage is not really my purview. I DO know Putin has denied that the Russians did the hacking, but then he did say that the release of those emails was "a public service".
Personally I'm w/ Putin on that one :P Anyway, IMHO the "90%" statement is purely political, there's no way to trace the hacker w/o a very deep forensic analysis of all computers involved or Wikileaks spilling info about their source.
Yeah, unless Assange spills the beans, we won't know for sure. And I agree with you that whoever did the DNC hacking DID do us a public service. I already figured Hillary was a slimebag and the emails confirmed it. At the very least, it was manna from heaven for Trump. However, with a few actual women coming forward today to claim Trump physically groped them, he's got more problems of his own. :wink:

Sigma, I can't argue with you on the source of the hacking. There is no real proof about who spied on whom.

Re: Vetting Presidential Candidates

Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2016 1:20 pm
by Tunnelcat
:lol: Is it too late to take him up on his "idea"? I say they both have to take a drug test before the debate.

http://www.wbmq.net/news/trump-calls-fo ... pumped-up/

Re: Vetting Presidential Candidates

Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2016 1:27 pm
by Top Gun
Considering he's been snorting like a crackhead through two debates, sure, go for it.

Re: Vetting Presidential Candidates

Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2016 1:31 pm
by Spidey
This election cycle just keeps getting better and better.