Politics And Current Events

[MWB]

I assume it’s a reference to your last twitter post.

[Factorial]

Nothing outside of his name being mentioned.

[Freddy Rumsen]

Good call. The Loaded 8.

[Factorial]

I don't engage in the abortion argument. That's for people who want to debate for the sake of it.

[Guinness]

The value of the two lives is certainly the crux, as you say. If one removes any emotion and view in terms of objective value (admittedly, a callous way to look at this), a "fully developed woman" would have more value. She is a known commodity. An established life. The unborn is "potential." Of course, the next step to that is determine how valuable the woman's established life is? What if she is a crack whore who gets knocked up repeatedly and has already had 5 abortions? In my opinion, her life would not have value over a potential life.

There is no easy way to look at this. Frankly, it surprises me when people come to absolute conclusions about abortion. Every situation is unique, every life is different. There is no fair or correct answer to this.

I don't know that I agree that objectively the conclusion is that the mother has more value, but I couldn't agree with you more that the question of abortion is uniquely - and 'uniquely' is almost an insufficient term to describe it - challenging question in terms of policy.

[DigitalGypsy66]

Tech billionaire and commencement speaker pays the student loans off of 400 Morehouse College graduates. Estimates are around $40 million in tuition.

https://apnews.com/eb336fc7c0bc4c62be68839f6c9c00d7

How awesome is that? Walking out of your commencement tuition debt free...wow.

[Freddy Rumsen]

Is this for real or is this like Michael Scott Promise Scholarship stuff?

[Morkle]

Seems like major major news:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/busi ... shner.html

Anti-money laundering specialists at Deutsche Bank recommended in 2016 and 2017 that multiple transactions involving legal entities controlled by Donald J. Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, be reported to a federal financial-crimes watchdog.

The transactions, some of which involved Mr. Trump’s now-defunct foundation, set off alerts in a computer system designed to detect illicit activity, according to five current and former bank employees. Compliance staff members who then reviewed the transactions prepared so-called suspicious activity reports that they believed should be sent to a unit of the Treasury Department that polices financial crimes.

But executives at Deutsche Bank, which has lent billions of dollars to the Trump and Kushner companies, rejected their employees’ advice. The reports were never filed with the government.

The nature of the transactions was not clear. At least some of them involved money flowing back and forth with overseas entities or individuals, which bank employees considered suspicious.

[Morkle]

Ms. McFadden, a longtime anti-money laundering specialist in Deutsche Bank’s Jacksonville office, said she had reviewed the transactions and found that money had moved from Kushner Companies to Russian individuals. She concluded that the transactions should be reported to the government — in part because federal regulators had ordered Deutsche Bank, which had been caught laundering billions of dollars for Russians, to toughen its scrutiny of potentially illegal transactions.

[MR25]

Wonder if that's the stuff Mueller was passing off to the NY investigation into Trump's finances?

[Troy Loney]

Ms. McFadden, a longtime anti-money laundering specialist in Deutsche Bank’s Jacksonville office, said she had reviewed the transactions and found that money had moved from Kushner Companies to Russian individuals. She concluded that the transactions should be reported to the government — in part because federal regulators had ordered Deutsche Bank, which had been caught laundering billions of dollars for Russians, to toughen its scrutiny of potentially illegal transactions.

This seems crazy to me. If the OCC isn’t in there in looking at this ASAP that would be nuts. For management to nix a SAR? You really can’t understate that, i have to take AML training every year, the idea that a manager would tell an aml person to not file is potential prison time for the manager.

[Morkle]

Trump saying this morning he didn't need banks because of how much money he had. He's pretty much laying out a bunch of reasons why Congress needs to see his tax returns, and the SDNY need to investigate the foundation and it's connections to DB.

[Factorial]

Trump saying this morning he didn't need banks because of how much money he had. He's pretty much laying out a bunch of reasons why Congress needs to see his tax returns, and the SDNY need to investigate the foundation and it's connections to DB.

Put this story to a Bush or Clinton, etc and it would be HUGE news. Just another crime from America's number one crime family.

[Factorial]

Wonder if that's the stuff Mueller was passing off to the NY investigation into Trump's finances?

More than likely yes.

[Freddy Rumsen]

I would be shocked if Trump is not guilty in his business life of skirting and breaking lots of financial laws.

[Troy Loney]

We already know his foundation broke laws. Basically every law that was written about charities.

[Morkle]

I would be shocked if Trump is not guilty in his business life of skirting and breaking lots of financial laws.

It seems as if these financial laws that are broken, have very much to do with potential political influence if they were happening around 2016.

At what point do we (figurative 'we') stop being OK with allowing this to happen, and stop saying it had something to do with his business? Nobody knows what it had to deal with, and I'm not taking Trump's word for it. There should certainly be an investigation into his finances to determine if this type of stuff has taken place.

Maybe I'm naive, but I don't think you should be president if you're potentially directing major financial crimes. I don't want any president no matter the political side to do these kinds of things.

[mikey]

Would this, in your opinion, also expand to members of Congress as well?

[Factorial]

Would this, in your opinion, also expand to members of Congress as well?

Is this the "they are all criminals" argument that we often hear from nobody?

[Troy Loney]

Would this, in your opinion, also expand to members of Congress as well?

it should, but it wouldn't be as pertinent, as an individual congressman has much less ability to dictate policy.

The problem with all of this is foreign policy. The executive has basically full discretion in that realm and we shouldn't be worried about a war with Iran while the Saudis are stuffing money into Trump's pockets. Because if you don't think Trump would sell out US foreign policy, you are a dope.

[Morkle]

Would this, in your opinion, also expand to members of Congress as well?

Absolutely. Do I care if they're all criminals? yes. I think this should be highly regulated, highly scrutinized.

[mikey]

Would this, in your opinion, also expand to members of Congress as well?

Is this the "they are all criminals" argument that we often hear from nobody?

Nah, sorry, I'm not a party-line flunkie...I'm just curious as to what level does the scrutiny go down to...or, and I don't think this is the case, but or is this just a "well, now that I see that Trump is like [this]/has done [this]/whatever" I want it to be illegal/banned/etc.

[mikey]

Would this, in your opinion, also expand to members of Congress as well?

Absolutely. Do I care if they're all criminals? yes. I think this should be highly regulated, highly scrutinized.

I'm good with that.

Tangentially, maybe term limits would help these people focus on actually trying to make things better instead of worrying about their re-election for each of their terms...*cough*

[tifosi77]

I don't think the problem is necessarily term limits as much as it is election fatigue.

The average size of a Congressional district today is roughly 775,000 people; when the Constitution was ratified, the population of the entire country was barely 4 million. It is not practical to have every House seat up for election every two years; you have a situation today where members of Congress spend as much time on the phone gladhanding for contributions as they do in their offices or committee rooms.

[tifosi77]

Would this, in your opinion, also expand to members of Congress as well?

Absolutely. Do I care if they're all criminals? yes. I think this should be highly regulated, highly scrutinized.

The thing that bothers me most is that stuff like insider trading is effectively legal for members of Congress. A law was passed several years ago to criminalize it, but it was quickly amended to remove the public disclosure of stock trades requirements, and so in practice Congresspeople can make a killing based on their regulatory knowledge. Iirc, the average investment return for a Representative is roughly 7% and the return for a Senator is somewhere north of 10%.... while the average return for a 'civilian' investor is actually barely positive.