President Trump has Covid19

[rawma]

He had to divulge that info in order to even receive a security clearance.

The President does not receive a security clearance. He simply has access to all the nation's secrets. The National Security Act does not and, constitutionally, could not require the President to receive a clearance. The only exception to this is the Census data.

This President, and no other President before him, has ever had to submit any info to receive a security clearance in their role as President. (I'm sure George H.W. Bush did in his prior career as Director of the CIA.)

The "security clearance" for the President is that granted by a majority of voters plurality of voters majority of electoral votes usually directed by the voters, which is why modern presidential candidates should and with rare exceptions do provide their recent tax returns.

All that aside: I find it fascinating how much the public does not understand how the National Security apparatus works. How much data they assume the national security apparatus has and what type of data it is. This leads to a weird situation where the US public is both mad at the counter-intelligence community for collecting types of data which it actually doesn't, while giving them a complete pass for the types of data it DOES collect that they should be horrified about. We are a country of lovely contradictions.

At the risk of harming Tanin Wulf's reputation by association with me, these are all good posts.

While the 12th Amendment says the House must choose "immediately," nothing actually defines immediately. It's entirely possible to stall through procedural votes until a new Congress is in. If something tectonic happened to the House this election, then the Republicans could then seek to stall in the opposite direction until Pence becomes President by default in March.

Of course, this would all wind up in the courts because these particular provisions have never been litigated before. (Does "immediately" in the 12th Amendment mean  the vote must be cast immediately, ignoring the House's usual rules, or do the House rules of procedure apply and thus the immediately only means you have to start  the process immediately?) By the time the Courts resolve such an issue, if they do at all, it may already be fiat accompli.

That assumes though that any swing state which decides to contest the outcome of the election doesn't simply vote to cast all their Electors  in a particular way, regardless of what the current outcome says, "because the veracity is in doubt." While on the face of it that would seem to run afoul of Chiafolo v. Washington, it doesn't because the exact issue of, "what happens if the vote itself is in doubt?" has not been litigated.

The "winner takes all" approach, whether at the state level or even the congressional district level, seems to be the source of a lot of issues. It encourages voter turnout to sag in all but the closest places (no point if you're well in the minority, someone else will put your side over the top if you're in the majority); encourages campaigns to focus on a small number of states; increases the chance that an election outcome will hinge on a very small number of votes (Florida in 2000). The electoral college serves no actual function but to complicate the process and maybe rarely create a disaster; its only remaining function is to give greater weight to small states. It would be much better to weight small states higher and then go by the weighted popular vote; states with high turnout would get more of a say, and every state would matter a bit. Maybe the Senate alone gives small states enough voice. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is one way of trying to undo the electoral college, but by its name alone it's already unconstitutional unless Congress approves (maybe in advance?).

[rawma]

Could you give me the quote where he tells you to inject bleach?

I know it breaks your rule of providing sources so I will understand if you choose not to....

April 23 coronavirus task force press conference; I quoted it above, and you can find it easily on the White House website:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-briefing-31/

What disinfectant do you think he was referencing? That Trump insisted the next day that he was being sarcastic should tell you you're on the wrong talking point. "He said disinfectant], not bleach" is really a stupid defense.

[Spinachcat]

I love how all the people who can't possibly fathom the basic 4th grade math to understand the real CoronaChan death rate suddenly have become tax experts far beyond the CPAs of the IRS.

Larry Correia (CPA turned Nerd Author) broke down the Trump tax nonsense
https://monsterhunternation.com/2020/09/28/no-you-idiots-thats-not-how-taxes-work-an-accountants-guide-to-why-you-are-a-gullible-moron/

TL;DR...Trump's accountants are top dollar and the IRS goons are maximum spaz, so if any tax problems existed, the IRS auditors would have berserked years ago. Also, tax loopholes exist because of decades of bipartisan Congress decisions...and Dementia JoJo has been pulling those levers for 47 years!

[rawma]

Obama gave real estate developers a tax break to develop real estate and Trump is a real estate developer who took Obama real estate tax breaks.

Such tax breaks have existed for decades, and were used by Trump before Obama was president; so you are going with the time travel thing. 

[Spinachcat]

OK, maybe he thought you could inject ultraviolet light

You can. Light therapy as disinfectant isn't new.

From 2017 "Ultraviolet Irradiation of Blood: "The Cure That Time Forgot"?"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6122858/

https://www.biospace.com/article/releases/global-pandemic-consortium-supports-trump-s-call-for-investigation-of-ultraviolet-light-as-a-potential-treatment-for-covid-19/

It's probably true that many of the calls to Poison Control about bleach were fakes.

I hope not!!!

[Delete_me]

The "security clearance" for the President is that granted by a majority of voters plurality of voters majority of electoral votes usually directed by the voters, which is why modern presidential candidates should and with rare exceptions do provide their recent tax returns.

I agree, but this is also an area where the solution should be, "since custom has failed us, we should now make a law." Congress should act if we've decided this is important to us as a nation.

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is one way of trying to undo the electoral college, but by its name alone it's already unconstitutional unless Congress approves (maybe in advance?).

Ehh... you might be surprised. The Consent of Congress can be inferred from Congress simply not acting to oppose it. (Cf. Virginia v. West Virginia, 1871.) It doesn't actually have to be an affirmative consent. However, this one is probably so core, so sacred to the American process that the Supreme Court would look at its recent ruling in Chiafalo v. Washington and go, "oh hell no," and thus require affirmative consent from the Congress. (This would also be backed by Virginia v. Tennessee, where the court held that only an interstate compact "directed to the formation of any combination tending to the increase of political power in the States, which may encroach upon or interfere with the just supremacy of the United States" actually requires Congress' approval.)

You'd then also get into weird territory like, "what happens if the Supreme Court overturns the compact?" What's to stop the electors from just voting the way the State told them to anyway?

This and the 2016 election cycle are demonstrating our system has some fundamental flaws we had never considered (because they had never been important before now). Those flaws are fracturing us as a society and people (especially here, just as much as the leftists they claim to hate) because we've realized they might be ways to game the system, a system that both sides feel  treats them unfairly because of 'this one weird trick that politicians hate and don't want you to know about' (TM).

[Delete_me]

I hope not!!!

Do you really hate your fellow American that much?

[Delete_me]

Such tax breaks have existed for decades, and were used by Trump before Obama was president; so you are going with the time travel thing. 

This is one of those things that both sides are using when it's advantageous to their argument at the expense of truth.

The simple fact is that yes, Obama did sign into law several tax breaks that the current President has used (despite how, for 8 years, we Conservatives liked to beat the drum about how Obama was raising our taxes). However, the other side of that is who made that tax law? A Republican Congress and the bill was authored by a Michigan Republican.

So, as with most things in politics, both sides are to blame and nobody's really driving the car.

[Delete_me]

TL;DR...Trump's accountants are top dollar and the IRS goons are maximum spaz, so if any tax problems existed, the IRS auditors would have berserked years ago.

...what do you think a 10 year audit is? It's the IRS going berserk over complicated tax problems. (Note that "tax problem" does not mean the President did anything wrong. You can have problems with your taxes and have done nothing criminal. So don't misread that.)

And that's not harassment, that's a sign of a tax code that's so convoluted that the people who administer it cannot figure out what the hell it says, and how they're supposed to go about showing intent or lack of intent.

[Pat]

The electoral college serves no actual function but to complicate the process and maybe rarely create a disaster; its only remaining function is to give greater weight to small states.

Not true. One additional function of the electoral college is to make recounts easier. The 2000 election, for instance, came down to a few hundred votes. But they only had to do recounts in 4 Florida counties, because the results in all the other states and counties were either settled, or irrelevant. If it was a straight popular national election and two candidates came within 537 votes, then you'd have to recount every vote cast in every county and in every state, because a discrepancy anywhere could swing the entire election. That would add a huge amount of overhead, and encourage lots of fraud.

[Ratman_tf]

Injecting bleach is pretty much as fake as fake news can be.

A quick check of Politifact would have pointed that out, but that site is probably too far to the right for him.

...although I am inclined to think anyone who even considers injecting themselves with bleach probably should...hopefully before they breed

"And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning..." - Donald J. Trump, very stable genius (with added bold formatting)

OK, maybe he thought you could inject ultraviolet light, and maybe the disinfectant in question was isopropyl alcohol.

It's probably true that many of the calls to Poison Control about bleach were fakes. Probably.

Could you give me the quote where he tells you to inject bleach?

I know it breaks your rule of providing sources so I will understand if you choose not to....

The only person I remember actually saying "inject bleach" was Nancy Pelosi. And so even if warning against it, she's the one who put the idea in people's heads.

[Ratman_tf]

You claim Trump called out the military and then walk it back to just McCain when challenged.
You claim Trump didn't pay taxes and then walk it back to his tax returns when challenged.
Melania is the kind of Hollywood gossip that I really don't give a shit about.
The Woodward tapes I'm not as familiar with, so I'll let someone else opine about that.

You might notice that I originally claimed only that they were major topics in the campaign; that much is certainly true (although the Melania one never really got far as a major topic because of COVID-19 rampaging through the White House; it would have brought forward the child separation policy again, as Melania falsely claimed in the tape that Obama did it first - Politifact said that was False when Donald Trump claimed it). I am still trying to fathom where you think the conspiracy theory is, if some portion is easily verified; I still haven't gotten any response on that.

You're the one repeating left wing echo chamber talking points and then waffling when people point out you're full of shit. Maybe this time Trump's tax returns will show he's been in Putin's pocket the whole time, just like all the other times they found a big fat nothingburger.

So there's enough evidence, mostly from videos and audio tapes, that some portion of each is true, and the remainder is therefore a legitimate issue; you'll notice that Chris Wallace (Fox News, y'know) asked Trump point blank about his income taxes. I'm not interested in a long back-and-forth where I give references from The Atlantic, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, statements by elected officials, Trump relatives and Trump administration members, and you reference Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the Gateway Pundit.

"Some portion". I need some maple syrup for all this waffling.

[Spinachcat]

I hope not!!!

Do you really hate your fellow American that much?

Anyone dumb enough to drink bleach (or eat Tide Pods) won't be missed.
The gene pool is already murky enough.

[Spinachcat]

...what do you think a 10 year audit is?

A witch hunt.

Imagine the news if Saint Obama was under the same scrutiny!

Waaaaaaaycisms!

(Note that "tax problem" does not mean the President did anything wrong. You can have problems with your taxes and have done nothing criminal. So don't misread that.)

Larry Corriea's article discussed that issue. Apparently, there was a study done where 100 different accounting firms of various price points did the fictional taxes of a single family and came up with 100 different returns. Why? There are so many possible 99% LEGAL interpretations of the tax code.

So, thanks to decades of convoluted nonsense shoved into the tax code BY BOTH PARTIES, we have a situation where the MSM can easily do a partisan hit job by simply interpreting the code as they like because the code's intricacies have gone so far beyond the 6th grade reading level of the average citizen.   

[Ghostmaker]

TL;DR...Trump's accountants are top dollar and the IRS goons are maximum spaz, so if any tax problems existed, the IRS auditors would have berserked years ago.

...what do you think a 10 year audit is? It's the IRS going berserk over complicated tax problems. (Note that "tax problem" does not mean the President did anything wrong. You can have problems with your taxes and have done nothing criminal. So don't misread that.)

And that's not harassment, that's a sign of a tax code that's so convoluted that the people who administer it cannot figure out what the hell it says, and how they're supposed to go about showing intent or lack of intent.

If you think that's bad, imagine how much fun it is to try and enforce it within a org where the pressure is to -close- cases. Not necessarily to 'win', but to just close them.