UPDATE: If you just can’t stomach Trump or Clinton, here’s a list of write-in candidates
Some notables (can you believe these?)
VADER, DARTH SPOKANE,WA 10/27/2015 Write-In
MOUSE, MICKEY ANAHEIM,CA 08/30/2015 Write-In
THE ELF, BUDDY NORTH POLE,AK 08/10/2015 Write-In
RAFF, RIFF NOTRE DAME,IN 02/04/2016 Write-In
ALSO: 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments released by Wikileaks leads to resignation of Wasserman-Schultz; shut-down of Bernie confirmed
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but as things stand today, I think Trump will win. Here's my 5 reasons why: https://t.co/jotMPWmt96
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) July 23, 2016
Michael Moore wrote a compelling post on why Trump is going to win. It is difficult to imagine he is wrong………
Some excerpts:
Friends:
I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I gave it to you straight last summer when I told you that Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee for president. And now I have even more awful, depressing news for you: Donald J. Trump is going to win in November. This wretched, ignorant, dangerous part-time clown and full time sociopath is going to be our next president. President Trump. Go ahead and say the words, ‘cause you’ll be saying them for the next four years: “PRESIDENT TRUMP.”
Never in my life have I wanted to be proven wrong more than I do right now.
I assumed during the primaries that certainly the American people would come to their senses and that someone who wasn’t in the main spotlight would emerge toward the end. That someone seemed to be Kaisch…but it wasn’t to be. Now, I suppose many are assuming the same sort of thing regarding Hillary. Even if you don’t like her, she is the more reasonable choice. America has changed and I am sure those of us who have been gone for decades no longer have a real “feel” for what is going on down south.
1) Midwest Math, or Welcome to Our Rust Belt Brexit.
I believe Trump is going to focus much of his attention on the four blue states in the rustbelt of the upper Great Lakes – Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Four traditionally Democratic states – but each of them have elected a Republican governor since 2010 ………
Trump is ahead of Hillary in the latest polls in Pennsylvania and tied with her in Ohio. Tied? How can the race be this close after everything Trump has said and done? Well maybe it’s because he’s said (correctly) that the Clintons’ support of NAFTA helped to destroy the industrial states of the Upper Midwest. Trump is going to hammer Clinton on this and her support of TPP and other trade policies that have royally screwed the people of these four states. When Trump stood in the shadow of a Ford Motor factory during the Michigan primary, he threatened the corporation that if they did indeed go ahead with their planned closure of that factory and move it to Mexico, he would slap a 35% tariff on any Mexican-built cars shipped back to the United States. It was sweet, sweet music to the ears of the working class of Michigan, and when he tossed in his threat to Apple that he would force them to stop making their iPhones in China and build them here in America, well, hearts swooned and Trump walked away with a big victory that should have gone to the governor next-door, John Kasich.
From Green Bay to Pittsburgh, this, my friends, is the middle of England – broken, depressed, struggling, the smokestacks strewn across the countryside with the carcass of what we use to call the Middle Class. Angry, embittered working (and nonworking) people who were lied to by the trickle-down of Reagan and abandoned by Democrats who still try to talk a good line but are really just looking forward to rub one out with a lobbyist from Goldman Sachs who’ll write them nice big check before leaving the room. What happened in the UK with Brexit is going to happen here….
And this is where the math comes in. In 2012, Mitt Romney lost by 64 electoral votes. Add up the electoral votes cast by Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It’s 64. All Trump needs to do to win is to carry, as he’s expected to do, the swath of traditional red states from Idaho to Georgia (states that’ll never vote for Hillary Clinton), and then he just needs these four rust belt states. He doesn’t need Florida. He doesn’t need Colorado or Virginia. Just Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And that will put him over the top. This is how it will happen in November.
Being from Ohio, and seeing Michigan towns when driving back to see family, it is not at all hard to imagine this. Lots and lots of factory workers here and unhappy ones at that.
2) The Last Stand of the Angry White Man.Our male-dominated, 240-year run of the USA is coming to an end. A woman is about to take over! How did this happen?! On our watch! There were warning signs, but we ignored them.
Nixon, the gender traitor, imposing Title IX on us, the rule that said girls in school should get an equal chance at playing sports. Then they let them fly commercial jets. Before we knew it, Beyoncé stormed on the field at this year’s Super Bowl (our game!) with an army of Black Women, fists raised, declaring that our domination was hereby terminated! Oh, the humanity!This monster, the “Feminazi,”the thing that as Trump says, “bleeds through her eyes or wherever she bleeds,” has conquered us — and now, after having had to endure eight years of a black man telling us what to do, we’re supposed to just sit back and take eight years of a woman bossing us around? After that it’ll be eight years of the gays in the White House! Then the transgenders! You can see where this is going. By then animals will have been granted human rights and a fuckin’ hamster is going to be running the country. This has to stop!
Can’t relate to that at all so will say nothing…….
3) The Hillary Problem
But her vote for the Iraq War made me promise her that I would never vote for her again. To date, I haven’t broken that promise. For the sake of preventing a proto-fascist from becoming our commander-in-chief, I’m breaking that promise. I sadly believe Clinton will find a way to get us in some kind of military action. She’s a hawk, to the right of Obama.
Let’s face it: Our biggest problem here isn’t Trump – it’s Hillary. She is hugely unpopular — nearly 70% of all voters think she is untrustworthy and dishonest. She represents the old way of politics, not really believing in anything other than what can get you elected.
Young women are among her biggest detractors, which has to hurt considering it’s the sacrifices and the battles that Hillary and other women of her generation endured so that this younger generation would never have to be told by the Barbara Bushes of the world that they should just shut up and go bake some cookies. But the kids don’t like her, and not a day goes by that a millennial doesn’t tell me they aren’t voting for her.
The enthusiasm just isn’t there. And because this election is going to come down to just one thing — who drags the most people out of the house and gets them to the polls — Trump right now is in the catbird seat.
I don’t like Trump. But after watching a lot of the Republican convention and then seeing Hillary speak in a commercial, it is hard to come away thinking that there’s any excitement or passion to be had by supporting her. She is boring……..and that war thing…….
4) The Depressed Sanders Vote
Stop fretting about Bernie’s supporters not voting for Clinton – we’re voting for Clinton! The polls already show that more Sanders voters will vote for Hillary this year than the number of Hillary primary voters in ’08 who then voted for Obama. This is not the problem. The fire alarm that should be going off is that while the average Bernie backer will drag him/herself to the polls that day to somewhat reluctantly vote for Hillary, it will be what’s called a “depressed vote” – meaning the voter doesn’t bring five people to vote with her. He doesn’t volunteer 10 hours in the month leading up to the election. She never talks in an excited voice when asked why she’s voting for Hillary. …….
They’re not going to vote for Trump; some will vote third party, but many will just stay home. Hillary Clinton is going to have to do something to give them a reason to support her — and picking a moderate, bland-o, middle of the road old white guy as her running mate is not the kind of edgy move that tells millenials that their vote is important to Hillary. Having two women on the ticket – that was an exciting idea. But then Hillary got scared and has decided to play it safe. This is just one example of how she is killing the youth vote.
Definitely not hard to picture……..so depressed maybe, that lots stay home.
5) The Jesse Ventura Effect
Finally, do not discount the electorate’s ability to be mischievous or underestimate how any millions fancy themselves as closet anarchists once they draw the curtain and are all alone in the voting booth. It’s one of the few places left in society where there are no security cameras, no listening devices, no spouses, no kids, no boss, no cops, there’s not even a friggin’ time limit. You can take as long as you need in there and no one can make you do anything.
There are no rules. And because of that, and the anger that so many have toward a broken political system, millions are going to vote for Trump not because they agree with him, not because they like his bigotry or ego, but just because they can. Just because it will upset the apple cart and make mommy and daddy mad. And in the same way like when you’re standing on the edge of Niagara Falls and your mind wonders for a moment what would that feel like to go over that thing,……..
I have a feeling the American people are so sick and tired of the same-old same-old, this is a very distinct possiblity (and opportunity).
Coming back to the hotel after appearing on Bill Maher’s Republican Convention special this week on HBO, a man stopped me. “Mike,” he said, “we have to vote for Trump. We HAVE to shake things up.” That was it. That was enough for him. To “shake things up.” President Trump would indeed do just that, and a good chunk of the electorate would like to sit in the bleachers and watch that reality show.
“Can anyone explain what would be the drawbacks to the same-country exemption proposal?”
It doesn’t really add problems. It just doesn’t subtract any problems. The meta-problem is that some people THINK it subtracts some problems, so they stop looking for real solutions.
Thanks.
If it establishes that an account held in the country of residence is not a “foreign” account, that would seem to be a significant step in the right direction. Especially if that could be made applicable to FBAR also.
So often this stuff seems to be about mindset as much as revenue.
@iota
Same country exception only solves the issue for around 1/5 of the US diaspora who are US tax-compliant, and leaves the other 4/5 adrift. Getting rid of citizenship based taxation entirely would solve things for everyone. Moreover, if same country exception passes it probably won’t be a “step in the right direction” but will instead be seen by congress, the press, and public opinion as “problem solved.” This will make it much harder, perhaps impossible, to then slay citizenship based taxation.
As for FBAR, my guess is that it’s not revenue or mindset so much as information gathering and big data that is the interest here.
@Watcher – I agree that information gathering and big data are the major drivers in the whole shebang – CBT, FATCA, FBAR and the rest of it. And that’s why it seems to me these things are not going to go away. Compromises will be found – defending the data capturing function against calls for repeal, by offering limited, controlled relief via mechanisms that don’t interfere with the data stream. That’s my guess, but of course it is only a guess.
Watcher: Great, in-a-nutshel, explanation of why Same Country Exception would be a disaster for most of us. Thank you for stating it so clearly.
“Middle Finger says
July 24, 2016 at 6:28 pm
We’ll all be damned if Clinton is elected, and we’ll all be damned if Trump is elected, so pick your poison. The only positive I can hand to Clinton is that she’s perhaps the devil we know, while Trump is an unknowable incoherent mess, the damage he’ll do won’t be known until he does it. Clinton will probably maintain the status-quo, which we at least know what that will be like since we’re living in it right now, just more of the same old crap.”
‘The only positive’: Clinton: The Devil we know: As Secretary of State:
Four Dead in Benghazi: Watching real time from an over head drone. Help denied.
Over 600 requests for extra security denied in months before attack.
(Reasons for no help and denial of extra security: gun running, arming ISIS, drug running, child sex trafficking.)
Clinton Foundation: Money funneled to Clinton Foundation secured government approval for contracts with cash kickbacks to Clintons , for speeches and donations. ( selling 20% of US Uranium stores to Russia for cash is treason)
Illegal and criminal
Unsecured e-mails to cover for the criminal and traitorous activities, then destroyed.
Compromising National Security and putting many , many lives at risk.
Complete raiding of foreign country resources via Clinton Foundation. Promises made, broken while huge cash donations to foundation find their way to elite lifestyle while only 10%, if that, go to ‘help’ the people in the countries whose resources have been stripped and stolen.
IF elected President of the United States:
Approval of TPP. Continued increase in taxes for Obamacare. Huge increase in taxes overall.
Increase in illegal migration , up over 550% .
The elimination of the Coal Industry. The elimination of the Steel industry. The elimination of manufacturing. Increase in funding for Global Warming initiatives and Carbon Taxes.
The end of the oil industry. End of 2nd Amendment and 1st Amendment.
Continuation of aggression towards Russia. Continuation of European destruction for power of EU.
Continuation of Islamic Terror, increasing throughout the world. Support for Erdogan from US.
(Remember Armenian Genocide)
Approval of TPP is sovereignty ending in and of itself. PERIOD. ( Justin Trudeau needs to perk up his ears)
The devil we know: She is a corrupt criminal who belongs in jail. At the very least.
“Trump is an unknowable incoherent mess” :
Republican platform ( written by Donald Trump and mirrors his campaign for the last year)
END illegal immigration. Building the wall on border with Mexico ( BP insists this is MANDATORY and so do the citizens of the border states, who are under criminal assault and murder every single day! )
Ending drug running by cartels. Ending Sanctuary cities.
Lowering taxes and lowering corporate taxes and lifting punishing initiatives that keep corporations overseas.( who would otherwise come home to the US with over 2 Trillion dollars to invest in the US)
Ending FATCA and implementing Residency based taxation.
Full support of Israel. Destroying ISIS ( which is US funded)
Demanding proper documentation before immigration. Moratorium on immigration from Terror sponsoring countries.
Ending Veterans Administration abuses. Repeal and replace Obamacare ( replacing with something cheaper, better, in the hands of the individual {mirrors healthcare in Canada} )
Ending the IRS and their abuses.
Ending TPP.
TPP puts the country ( and all signature countries) into the hands of a tribunal from which there is no recourse for any country. Run by 3 lawyers as judges pulled from a pool of lawyers who switch between the tribunal of judges to the pool of lawyers who ‘defend’.
NO appeals. NO recourse. Overrides all courts including the Supreme Court. Countries, though DO pay. For both prosecution an “defense”.
“The country needs trade, but trade that is beneficial to the United States and mutually beneficial to trading partners”-Donald Trump
Complete defense of the 2nd Amendment and the 1st Amendment. ( called UPHOLDING the Constitution)
Appointment of judges. EXTREMELY important.: Conservative, Constitutional judges who will NOT legislate from the bench. ( there could be 3-4 or even 5 in the next four to eight years. He has submitted his list of 10 judges from which he would choose. HIGHLY praised on all sides.
<B< These are the issues that Donald Trump has campaigned on, implemented into the Republican platform and intends to implement when he is President
Which is why he is so popular and that popularity is rising daily.
Americans love him because they know it is either Donald Trump or civil war. They want their country back and do not want bloodshed.
Americans want an end to the Soros funded divide and conquer paid thugs who along with the Obama administration seek to destroy the country by inciting violence everywhere.
And Canada had better pay attention.
The fate of the United States has a profound impact on us in this country.
@Watcher,
>Getting rid of citizenship based taxation entirely would solve things for everyone.
No. I have talked about this numerous times. You need rational treatment of all foreign accounts if you want to leave the US or other countries, work for a while and return. I don’t need CBT since I am resident in the US. I need less burden,complexity and crazy taxes on my foreign accounts.
@Neill
Absolutely. You already know that I have endured much of the same crap that you have, and only by grace of God — and my early and swift departure from the US — are our circumstances now different.
I was just trying to encapsulate the major objections of US expats to same country exception in a couple of sentences. No amount of nonsense-fixing for US expats is likely to help the appalling tax situation forced on US immigrants who have money back in the ‘old country’.
My understanding of Same Country Exemption is that it will make banks even more prone to reject American clients. Isn’t part of the proposal to exempt from FATCA reporting US persons who are legally resident in the country and who are US tax compliant?
In other words, to be exempt from FATCA, I have to submit my US tax forms to my bank, where some backroom compliance clerk must determine whether I am US tax compliant. Only then can he sort me out from the other US person accounts. Thus, even more work for the banks. And what are the risks if one of those clerks gets it wrong, and exempts someone who lied on her 1040 or didn’t declare a capital gain that the bank could have been aware of (from a spike in that savings account)? Will the bank then suffer US sanctions, another multi-billion dollar fine?
I think SCSE will be the final straw that makes every bank refuse to do business with Americans. Combined with Watcher’s point that it allows the cretins in Washington to wash their hands of us, it seems to me that SCSE makes FATCA 1000 times worse.
Just like FATCA in theory was meant to catch big-time tax cheats, but in practice is screwing over millions of honest people, I think in the same way SCSE will in theory alleviate the problem for bonafide US expats, but its real effect will be to turn what is already a crippling menace for US persons abroad into a nightmare of monstrous proportions.
@Barbara – here’s how SCE would work, according to ACA:
“If an American identified herself as an American, presenting her American passport, and provided the bank with an IRS “Same Country” election, that is, electing to have her account treated as a non-US account, FATCA would not apply. There would be no additional due diligence hoops to be jumped through; there would be no reporting to the Model 1 jurisdiction tax authority or to the IRS. The bank would not be required to look behind the face of the account holder’s election. The account holder would give one copy of the election to the bank, a second copy to the IRS (as an attachment to her Form 1040), and would retain one copy.”
So it does require compliance, unsurprisingly, but that’s not policed by the bank.
Whether it’s useful or not, depends on the individual’s circumstances. It wouldn’t have been relevant for me, because I was fortunate enough to be able to renounce, but for some of those who can’t renounce or don’t want to renounce, SCE might be useful.
@Iota, thanks. I must have had old information. The thing is, though, the way it’s described, I don’t see what good SCSE does for anyone. It still requires the bank to distinguish between different types of American accounts. As it stands now, banks aren’t required to report your account if there’s less than US$50,000 in it. But the fact is that the IGAs I’ve read allow the option of reporting accounts regardless of balance. My kids’ accounts have been strenuously FATCA’d, though they each contain under US$2000. My letter to the bank, quoting the IGA, saying my kids’ accounts are exempt because of their balance, got us threatening letters in return, demanding compliance from my kids or the accounts would be closed. Thus, wholesale reporting of US accounts is the actual practice, being less trouble for the banks than sorting them out by balance.
Won’t the same be true with SCSE? If given the option, won’t it be easier and therefore cheaper for the banks to continue to wholesale report all US accounts, regardless of balance or SCSE declaration?
But the point is: so what if they don’t report my account under SCSE? A FATCA report of my account is creepy, and raises privacy and security concerns, but it doesn’t directly harm me any more than the FBAR. So SCSE is of little tangible benefit to end users. And I honestly don’t see it as beneficial to banks, either. So we’re still left at square one. The whole thing is a mess.
@Barbara – that’s my understanding also – the Model 1 IGA allows banks to choose whether to apply the thresholds. A bank might choose not to apply the thresholds either to avoid extra cost (if applying the thresholds would require software changes), or out of somewhat-justifiable paranoia (report all U.S accounts just in case).
As I understand the ACA description, SCE would operate differently, by flagging SCE accounts as non-US accounts. This would cause the due diligence screening software to skip over the SCE accounts in the same way it skips over all other non-US accounts. That wouldn’t require any significant software changed, and it actually reduces a bank’s risks vis-a-vis FATCA withholding, so there’s no incentive for a bank to ignore the SCE election, indeed to do so could bring them trouble.
“But the point is: so what if they don’t report my account under SCSE? A FATCA report of my account is creepy, and raises privacy and security concerns, but it doesn’t directly harm me any more than the FBAR. So SCSE is of little tangible benefit to end users. And I honestly don’t see it as beneficial to banks, either. ”
I believe the point of SCE is to persuade banks to stop refusing services to USCs. Which is one of the main problems for many USCs abroad.
SCE adds another layer of complexity to FATCA for the banks, when their goal is to reduce complexity and sanctions by getting rid of USP’s.
Where’s the guarantee that the USP actually sends that 1040 with appropriate SCE attachment to the IRS?
SCE is a red herring.
The US should just stay in character with what they’ve shown with FATCA itself and threaten to sanction banks that close USP accounts. USP’s (assumably compliant) can complain directly to the a division of US government that would deal directly with enforcement and sanction the bank by withholding. Another great revenue producer for the USG!
Didn’t the SCE include a proviso that the US tainted person had to have lived in their country of residence for a required period of time? If so that would mean another layer of questioning/compliance/software for banks to deal with. Has anyone asked banks if they would agree to this extra burden?
The letter setting out the SCE proposal is at http://www.google.co.uk/url?q=https://www.americansabroad.org/media/files/files/9d44e9cd/Treasury_Ltr_Same_Country_ACA_160429_FINAL.PDF&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwiU6Y3un5TOAhVCGZoKHZlKAisQFggYMAU&usg=AFQjCNFnK_XUioct0P9htlWTYXHphtVJtw
Since it’s only a lobby group’s proposal, it’s a moot point whether it (or anything similar) will ever be a reality.
Another argument against SCE, and which could ensure its defeat in Congress, is that it could be seen as undermining the whole witch-hunt purpose behind FATCA. For example, the expat-haters’ favorite boogeyman, Eduardo Saverin, before his renunciation was final, could have claimed SCE privilege to not disclose his multi-squillion dollar Singapore bank accounts. It would also enable plain old ordinary US expats to hide capital gains windfalls in plain sight (since without the FATCA threat, it will be easier to lie on FBARs).
I get the creepy feeling that the final solution, if Clinton is elected (ptui!), is what Bubblebustin pointed out: banks will be threatened and fined for refusing US customers. Much more in character for the Greatest Country on Earth (to quote her husband the other night).
The SCE proposal is for a change in the FATCA regulations, which would not require legislation.
@Bubblebustin – “SCE adds another layer of complexity to FATCA for the banks, when their goal is to reduce complexity and sanctions by getting rid of USP’s.
Where’s the guarantee that the USP actually sends that 1040 with appropriate SCE attachment to the IRS?”
@Heidi – “Didn’t the SCE include a proviso that the US tainted person had to have lived in their country of residence for a required period of time? If so that would mean another layer of questioning/compliance/software for banks to deal with. Has anyone asked banks if they would agree to this extra burden?”
Under the SCE proposal the banks would not be required to take any action except treat the account as non-U.S. and keep the election certificate on file.
The SCE proposal would only be relevant for USCs intending to remain USCs and remain compliant. Anyone renouncing wouldn’t need it. Anyone under the radar and intending to keep it that way would obviously not choose to identify themselves as a USC by signing the form.
“Anyone under the radar and intending to keep it that way would obviously not choose to identify themselves as a USC by signing the form.”
And thus risk losing their accounts for not providing either proof of compliance or a CLN.
There’s nothing in the SCE proposal that would increase a USC’s risk of account closure. It actually would reduce the risk for a USC who elects to have the account treated as a non-US account. It wouldn’t change anything for anyone else.
Doesn’t help accidental Americans who have no need nor desire to have anything to do with a foreign, to them, government.
The SCE proposal would only be relevant for tax-compliant USCs intending to remain tax-compliant USCs.
As the IRS receives only 500,000-600,000 tax returns from overseas, that is a hell of a lot of overseas USCs who it would not help, given the current estimate of 9 million USCs living abroad.
It’s extremely unlikely, in my view, that any relief is going to be on offer that doesn’t require tax compliance.
The SCE proposal, if adopted, could make life easier for some.
There in lies the rub. Many simply can not comply and it is wrong to force others, such as children born outside the States who also spend their entire lives outside the States to do so.
SCE would help a very, very few at best.