This just in from Democrats Abroad, whose front office remains so stunningly oblivious to the number one issue and existential threat to its constituency that it completely ignored it in today’s missive:
Dear [random person on our mailing list],
I hope you agree with me that there has been a lot to celebrate over the last few weeks. The Supreme Court upheld Obamacare and preserved health insurance for millions of Americans. Thanks to the Supreme Court again, this year we were able to celebrate the first Fourth of July in which all Americans truly were equal and free to marry the person of their choice. And we can now celebrate the possibility of an Iran without nuclear weapons.
While there are many things that we cannot yet celebrate, let’s take a moment to celebrate the 54th birthday (on Tuesday) of the man who has made many of our celebrations possible: President Obama. He has worked tirelessly to make America a better country and the world a safer place. He fought for the right of every American to have affordable health care. He appointed two superb Supreme Court Justices who have upheld the fundamental rights of all Americans. And he has worked for peace, not war, around the world.
Let’s send him a gift that he – and we – will appreciate – victory in the 2016 elections. A 2016 election victory that will keep a Democrat in the White House and take back Congress – that will preserve and extend President Obama’s legacy – and keep the Supreme Court from moving further to the right.
You can send that gift by contributing $54 – or whatever you can to Democrats Abroad and help us turn out overseas voters in the 2016 elections. There are now an estimated 8 million Americans living abroad – more than ever before. We have made the difference in the past between defeat and victory – and we will do so again in the crucial upcoming 2016 elections.
But we need your help – so please donate today and click the dropdown menu for “President Obama’s 54th”. That way we can both keep on celebrating.
Democratically yours,
Katie Solon
International Chair
Democrats AbroadThis message is paid for by the Democratic Party Committee Abroad
Democrats AbroadPO Box 15130
Washington, DC 20003
United States
Telephone: +1-202-621-2085 +1-202-621-2085
After being so thoroughly and regularly betrayed and insulted by your own overseas organization’s breathtakingly tone-deaf leadership, I have two completely genuine suggestions for Democrats Abroad members who still truly respect democracy and who actually want to remain abroad:
1. Take that $54 you were going to send to DA and instead donate it to the American-based FATCA Legal Action Fund. By contributing directly to legal challenges demonstrating FATCA’s unconstitutionality, you will be making a far better investment in your own future, and that of your children and grandchildren, than by celebrating the birthday of a President and supporting a party whose FATCA campaign against you and your family has turned your lives into a living hell.
2. While you’re at it, why not demonstrate some more of that old-time Democratic compassion and progressive support for civil and human rights everywhere by also donating to the Canadian-based ADCS FATCA legal challenge, which seeks redress under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms from the Canadian federal government’s capitulation to those same FATCA laws you already know and loathe so well. Since $54 USD is now equivalent to 70-something Canadian dollars, and since our just-announced Canadian federal election is expected to last a record-breaking 78 days, I would suggest that $78 CDN would be an entirely appropriate amount to start with to help support your Canadian brothers and sisters, especially if you’re a member of one of DA’s Canadian chapters.
So, instead of pointlessly counting birthday candles today, why not count human lives affected by FATCA, and do something positive about it? Your soul might just thank you – and don’t forget about those kids either.
As I read that missive from the DA Chairperson I honestly felt like vomiting. Regardless however … it strikes me that deckard’s suggestion is eminently sensible.
This Katie Solon is nothing but betraying deceiving little puppet for her masters in Washington.
The fact that she has a title of international chair is a joke.
Her sole purpose, what puts money in her own checking acct. is not what she does for any registered democrat abroad, oh no.
Her sole purpose is to deceive Americans abroad and coerce them to vote democrat in all elections.
She (Katie) dies give a rat’s tooter about how FATCA has affected Americans overseas.
That is not part of her agenda.
Katie Solon will tell you ANYTHING to get you to vote blue in 2016.
Sorry Katie, not next election. Americans abroad
Know very well to vote Republican in 2016 and it will be a landslide. No deceiving little tricks and comments you make will change it.
Democrats have abused, lied to, and dragged overseas Americans through the mud and Dems are trying to put the best face on it through half-hearted effort “door knocks”(a joke) and the proverbial lip service the likes I I have never seen before. Dems representing the diaspora
will shake your hand with a smile and attempt to make you think the Dem initiative is in your best interest.
This can be likened to that used car salesman
trying to sell you the lemon on the lot.
Don’t fall for the trash like Katie Solon puts out.
It is aimed at the weak and gullible who are easily manipulated to further HER agenda.
Not yours.
Tell you what, Katie: give me a candidate who supports RBT, and I will do my best to turn out the vote for them. Otherwise, I will do my best to defeat them. Fair enough?
Meanwhile, Deckard1138’s suggestion sounds like a positive step.
Some miss information in regards to US persons abroad:
“Americans truly were equal and free to marry the person of their choice.” Point of information: now with special US policy hazards if marry non US persons.
“possibility of an Iran without nuclear weapons.” Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. Should be: possibility of the hopefully multi-year delay in the inevitability of Iran getting nuclear weapons.
“fought for the right of every American to have affordable health care.” This is Democrats Abroad – he has not fought for affordability of Americans overseas, he just made it more expensive for some – NIIT – without any improvement for all.
“upheld the fundamental rights of all Americans” By fundamental may be meant human rights and constitutional rights. No and no for US persons abroad.
Shouldn’t Obama have some candles – LOTS of them?
http://youtu.be/7aLBzY8hG5s
I am voting Republican – I have one issue and one issue only and the DA will not provide us with any relief. In fact, Hillary will likely just make it worse if she wins.
https://www.facebook.com/DemsAbroad/posts/10155796195755005
Note: they’re not talking about the national embarrassment of having the same tax policy as Eritrea, paying for highways by sneaking due date changes into the law and then screaming “GOTCHA!” when you file late, or threatening to enforce the tax laws by stealing your passport and holding you hostage when you come back for a visit or exiling you if you have missing tax forms.
They’re talking about Republicans.
This is just as extreme as any rhetoric you find over here on Brock. Except they’re not employing that rhetoric in the service of Americans abroad. Homelanders only care about Homeland battles.
I wonder if there is any way to get Katie Solon impeached. Recall election, vote of no-confidence…?
She needs to be replaced with someone who sees their job as being there to represent the interests of Americans abroad to the DNC — instead of the reverse, which is what she apparently thinks her job is.
Anybody have any ideas on this?
The real problem here is not democrat or republican, it is universal, so for this cycle I propose we all be universalist. Our tax code is so backward and out of date. The current tax code isn’t the fault of either party exclusively, they both have and do contribute to its unfairness. 50% of those who owe taxes have decided to evade taxation all together. The IRS knows this but simply don’t know who they are and cannot make them comply with the law. The expats are paying taxes for services they could not ever use.
Both parties have a vested interest in the Marxist Progressive Income Tax. They are both equal when it comes to slipping ear marks into the code to benefit one taxpayer and have done this 8,000 times since 1986. They do it to extort campaign contributions and extend the secret tax breaks every year just in time to get the contributions. No contribution, no tax break extension.
The IRS is one of those departments that is in its self an ongoing criminal enterprise. It must be abolished and the FairTax passed. That would cure all the problems of citizens all over the world. If you live abroad then you will not be taxed and the tax code that tracks with the Communist Manifesto, will be voided for the rescue of our nation. Even criminals of all stripes will have to pay as they spend and anyone living abroad won’t pay.
It’s weird to think that when I was 6 years old in the midst of my first happy and carefree year in Canada a baby boy was born who, decades later, would bring my dreams to a crashing halt with the stroke of a pen. No, I will not be celebrating that boy’s 54th birthday. I will be heading off to a courthouse in Vancouver to observe the beginning of the end of the evil he has wrought.
@Eric – This has little or nothing to do with the Isaac Brock Society or the FATCA CBT CRS GATCE thing so please let us not get into too much of a debate on these things but I just had a quick read of the Facebook post by Democrats Abroad … and paid particular attention to the comments and felt one or two objections are needed … Slavery did not start 200 years ago, slavery has been around since the beginning of time and involves all races … remember the slaves chained to their rowing benches in the North African, Roman and etc Galley ships around the Mediterranean and raiding northern European shores like Ireland and France and England capturing more slaves ? Remember the rebellion of the slaves in Italy lead by Spartacus (and his Gladiator colleagues) ? Racism (& Jingoism) is not just a European thing; it is (and has been for millennia) a universal thing … think of the Zulus considering other tribes as “cattle”, Chinese considering Mongols (and later Europeans) as Barbarian Primitives, Japanese considering other Asians as lesser people. The longest lasting, largest and most brutal slave trade was not west across the Atlantic but East across the Sahara and East Africa and into Arab lands. Slavery still exists in East Africa and I do not mean mere “wage slavery” but the “ownership of other humans”.
The British (who were once frequently enslaved by Romans, Vikings, Saxons and others and who in time became industrial level slave traffickers themselves) are the ones who ended slavery in their Empire and it was the Royal Navy that intercepted suspected slave ships on the oceans of the world to disrupt the slave trade in other Empires (and America). Those Royal Navy Captains did that work at material personal risk since if they intercepted a suspected ship that could NOT be shown to be a slaver (despite the stench), those Captains were at times sued by the owners of the ships for full compensation.
Taxation to deprive people of what they earn destroys culture and in due course reduces earnings and innovation. Consider the case of a recent CEO in the US in a high tech company who decided to pay a minimum wage to all his employees of $70,000 per annum. The result seems presently to be the departure of some of his best producers and grave disaffection amongst his middle and senior ranks as they see people getting as much as they (or much higher percentage pay raises) despite those persons having far less responsibility or productivity. I have witnessed the same phenomena in a company that I once ran. I have also seen a common complaint that when people produced more and as a consequence earned more there were vastly increased taxation related deductions out of their paycheck; in many case this meant that people scaled back their productivity to do just enough rather than to do their best.
There is so much else that one can try to inform folks of but one statement used back in the late 1980s by a former Jamaican Prime Minister says it all …. “It takes Cash to Care”. I go further, “Caring” (spending resources on people) without first earning the Cash to fund that “Care” will in the fullness of time destroy a nation. Resources like large National Bank reserves or Raw Material Resources in the ground can buffer the decay for a time … but these things run out. Can we look around the world for examples ? Some tried to spend resources on “Care” (or corruption) borrowed from other nations … vide the appeal this week by the present Jamaican Prime Minister to the United Nations for 100% write off of loans by Multilateral agencies (and countries?) to indebted Caribbean and Latin American nations (sounds a bit like the Greek thing eh?). Real Ginalism (a Jamaican term).
Misinformation is rife in the educational systems worldwide and needs to be challenged.
Here is ACA’s latest update, including all things supporting Same Country Exemption (SCE):
American Citizens Abroad (ACA) News Update Summer 2015
@Calgary411
TY for the post re the Same Country Exemption (a grossly inadequate smoke blowing proposal). I think that a comment that I have posted elsewhere on Brock might demonstrate the point … see copy below:
___________________________________________________
Consider … if you were a US Person (or any other sort of person actually) living in Greece …. would you be satisfied with a Same Country Exemption from FATCA ? Or would you want a back up account that you could access as needed (preferably in cash) in say Switzerland or Cyprus or London or ……
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11779777/Greek-industry-decimated-by-eurozone-crisis-as-capital-controls-crush-output.html
Seems all, including SCE, part of the bigger control of people (especially US-deemed US Persons Abroad) through tools like FATCA and GATCA (CRS / AEOI). Thanks for helping viewing SCE in a scenario of what is happening in Greece, nervousinvestor.
Seems relevant here- from a comment on an NPR story about the untimely demise of Hitchbot, the friendly robot that successfully hitchhiked across Canada and Germany only to be destroyed in Philadelphia.
“Having lived in that neck of PA for a couple of years, this writer is not terribly surprised that the City of Brotherly Disdain and immediate environs was the killing field for this mechanical ambassador of friendship and trust. However, this speaks volumes to the general character of my country of birth; I am as surprised that it lasted as long as it did once on our turf. One cannot help but acknowledge this as an example of why America/Americans often are held in low esteem. [We] readily point out the violent shortcomings of other people but are so oblivious to our own culture of ignorance.”
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/08/03/428990732/group-offers-to-help-revive-hitchbot-vandalized-in-philadelphia?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=storiesfromnpr
@nervousinvestor. Regarding the UK ending its involvement in the slave trade….it was the tireless efforts of William Wilberforce, MP, who doggedly kept this before parliament….over decades! We could use a few like him. His story is well-told in the film Amazing Grace.
@Lake Superior Guy – It was indeed through heroic effort by folks like Wilberforce and Clergy on the ground in the West Indies and to a degree rebellion by the slaves on the ground like Sam Sharpe in Montego Bay that the British Government came to the realization that Slavery must be ended. To their credit they did indeed abolish Slavery … albeit with terms that some did not favour … and then set out to end the TRADE in slaves worldwide. This element seems to be overlooked in schools in the anti colonialism rhetoric and Politically Correct anti “White Slave Owner” narrative so popular amongst some left leaning political thought.
There are still some absolutely awesome counter-arguments to Strong SCE Supporter in London being posted today. Read them and applaud …
http://blogs.wsj.com/expat/2015/07/28/fatca-relief-coming-for-u-s-expats-via-same-country-exception-opinion/tab/comments/?sort_order=desc
@EmBee – Comment posted.
And thank you so much for the 3.8% Obamacare tax on the sale of my main residence, taxable in the USA even though it’s not taxable where I live. And even though I have not lived in the USA in over 40 years.
But thanks also for your discriminatory, stupid nationality law intended to “punish” the offspring of unmarried mothers. Thanks to that neither my married daughter’s nor my unmarried daughter’s children, born abroad, are US citizens!
Explained here: http://www.afsa.org/citizenship-and-unwed-border-moms-misfortune-geography