Vox: Elizabeth Warren has a plan to eradicate DC corruption

[Renegade7]

10 minutes ago, Llevron said:

 

Its 2018 though bro you dont even have to try to dig up info on someone. You dont even have to have real info. You can be born in DC and they will say you are from Kenya. 

 

All the more reason not to demand everything in order for it to be blown out of proportion.

 

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I think we should know everything about the person running the world. It's not just a job. It's a serious responsibility - the biggest in the world at that - and if the only way to get serious people is to dissect every aspect of their being then I think that should be the price to pay for running the world. 

 

Define everything.  I disagree with this being only way to get serious people to run, why someone have to have their entire life good or bad out for everyone to see even if they dont get elected or even the nomination?

 

[PleaseBlitz]

13 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

 

Then make an exception for people running for office. 

 

I don't feel I have the right to know everything about someone that runs for office, jus the stuff that may interfere with them being what I vote for.  Candidates should have right to clear up anything government finds something that ain't right before it gets to the public, court of public opinion tends to hyperventilate about stuff like that, but rare if any of them individually actually look at the candidates tax returns.

 

**** that.  I want to know if someone wants to be an elected official and has been doing funny **** with their finances or is getting paid by someone shady.  If you want to learn about someones character, looking at their taxes is way more effective that listening to them speak.  

[Renegade7]

14 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

**** that.  I want to know if someone wants to be an elected official and has been doing funny **** with their finances or is getting paid by someone shady.  If you want to learn about someones character, looking at their taxes is way more effective that listening to them speak.  

Pfft... if it's illegal, government will take care of it.  To confirm, how often is something funny found in these candidate's tax returns that would lead to you not voting for them?  It seems like the new obsession since Trump said no (genuinely curious here).  If you don't trust government to find conflicts of interest why even have Warren agency?

 

Might be good time to say I think we should ban private funding for campaigns period, no exceptions for candidate themselves, public funding only.  And no more campaign ads, like UK.

[PleaseBlitz]

1 minute ago, Renegade7 said:

Pfft... if it's illegal, government will take care of it.  To confirm, how often is something funny found in these candidate's tax returns that would lead to you not voting for them?  It seems like the new obsession since Trump said no (genuinely curious here).  If you don't trust government to find conflicts of interest why even have Warren agency?

 

For President?  Never that I can recall, because everyone that I've ever voted for has been a relatively upright citizen.  That is kind of the point.  Most people that know there is some shady **** in their tax return, or past generally, decide not to run for President. 

 

1 minute ago, Renegade7 said:

 

Might be good time to say I think we should ban private funding for campaigns period, no exceptions for candidate themselves, public funding only.  And no more campaign ads, like UK.

 

I think we should definitely ban unlimited PAC spending.  I think we should keep small-dollar, capped individual donations but I wouldn't complain either way.  And I often get a kick out of campaign ads, but usually they are just annoying.  

[Renegade7]

1 minute ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

For President?  Never that I can recall, because everyone that I've ever voted for has been a relatively upright citizen.  That is kind of the point.  Most people that know there is some shady **** in their tax return, or past generally, decide not to run for President. 

 

In all fairness, this is my point.  It's not that their tax return's won't be seen, and probed, jus not all their business good or bad will be out for everyone to see.  If it's bad, let government deal with it, I'm on fence on letting the candidate try to clear it up, be releaesed if it's bad.  Mostly this isn't a problem, I dont want to punish everyone because of Trump, win or lose everything is out on you when you run, I know good people that won't run because if this, and they done nothing wrong.

 

1 minute ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

I think we should definitely ban unlimited PAC spending.  I think we should keep small-dollar, capped individual donations but I wouldn't complain either way.  And I often get a kick out of campaign ads, but usually they are just annoying.  

 

I want to have the little stuff, too, but I think the only way to get the private funding ban through the supreme court is only if you stop private funding from everyone, period.  I'd say, free speech, well, you can't jus say anything, you can't say you want to kill the president.  Zero may be the only fair.  

 

As for campaign ads, we can't make them not be negative because who would decide that and itd be a violation of free speech sayin what can and cannot say about somebody.  My hope is this will put more of an emphasis on candidates websites, platforms, town halls, debates, and interviews, enough of the 20 second scare tactics.

[PleaseBlitz]

5 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

 

In all fairness, this is my point.  It's not that their tax return's won't be seen, and probed, jus not all their business good or bad will be out for everyone to see.  If it's bad, let government deal with it, I'm on fence on letting the candidate try to clear it up, be releaesed if it's bad.  Mostly this isn't a problem, I dont want to punish everyone because of Trump, win or lose everything is out on you when you run, I know good people that won't run because if this, and they done nothing wrong.

 

 

#1, that politicizes governance way too much.  What if it's in a grey area, and now the IRS or other government agency has to decide whether to deal with it or let it slide?  And if they report it out, how to report it.  The FBI totally ****ed that up during the last election, and probably swung the election.  

 

#2, I think Trump is a black swan, but I also think he exposed some weaknesses in the process because everyone prior to him abided by norms that weren't actually law.  I think those norms make sense and should be laws.  

 

The rest of your post about campaign finance I agree with.  

[Renegade7]

3 hours ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

#1, that politicizes governance way too much.  What if it's in a grey area, and now the IRS or other government agency has to decide whether to deal with it or let it slide?  And if they report it out, how to report it.  The FBI totally ****ed that up during the last election, and probably swung the election.  

 

#2, I think Trump is a black swan, but I also think he exposed some weaknesses in the process because everyone prior to him abided by norms that weren't actually law.  I think those norms make sense and should be laws.  

 

The rest of your post about campaign finance I agree with.  

 

Ya, I know I still need to flesh that first part out.  It want to say IRS should just give returns to DOJ and if something illegal found release to public asap instead a couple weeks before the election.  If its grey area, think you jus warn them that they gonna be watched on that and called on that. Honestly, this all boils down to I believe we are demanding TMI on these candidates and I can see it getting worse when we should be more efficient. You'd think it anyone knows if something is a clear conflict of interests it'd be the government since they know dots to connect that maybe we shouldnt.

 

I'm open to either finding a middle ground or admiting I'm wrong.

 

Just to confirm, has Muller supeonaed Trump's tax returns yet?  How about at this point he shouldn't have to.  Part of me says if we can't trust DOJ to be apolitcial on this we have a different problem all together.

[Bozo the kKklown]

It is PUBLIC office.

[Renegade7]

8 minutes ago, BenningRoadSkin said:

It is PUBLIC office.

and?

[Dancing Bear]

I am all for getting rid of lobbyists, but I feel that the rest of bill is somewhat unfair. Honest people have been known to build up their prophilo to ensure a decent living after retirement. And to tell them they had to give all that up before taking office is somewhat communist to me.

[Bozo the kKklown]

14 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

and?

Since it is public office, they are public people, and we as the public should be able to scrutinize them.

[Renegade7]

11 minutes ago, BenningRoadSkin said:

Since it is public office, they are public people, and we as the public should be able to scrutinize them.

To what extent?

[Renegade7]

8 hours ago, Dancing Bear said:

I am all for getting rid of lobbyists, but I feel that the rest of bill is somewhat unfair. Honest people have been known to build up their prophilo to ensure a decent living after retirement. And to tell them they had to give all that up before taking office is somewhat communist to me.

 

Not word I'd use, but absolutely agree with you.  I wouldn't want the trade for 8 years of office to be liquidating assets then having to live the rest of your life.

 

  I'd say our laws ain't **** in regards to Trump holding as many functions at his properties as possible, that's dead wrong, but that doesn't mean I want him to sell his properties. 

 

I think W had to sell the Texas Rangers, but I have no idea why. Anyone remember that?

[zoony]

Now this, I can firmly get behind

[Riggo-toni]

They should not have to liquidate their assets - that's ridiculous, but they should have to transfer them into a blind trust.

[Bozo the kKklown]

7 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

To what extent?

to the extent that we should know their tax returns

 

we should know what they are invested in

 

we should know what they wrote in college

 

who they have business dealings

 

The only thing I do not agree with is liquidating assets, but I get why she feels that way. A blind trust isn't enough because its not like you forgot what you invested in. I think that is too harsh, but there should be a compromise like an elected official must recuse themselves if they have a relationship with the proposed bill. (John Corker's bribe to vote for the tax bill is an example)

 

Like @Llevron said, they should be dedicating their lives to this, not working on a get rich scheme.

 

We need to know who we are voting for.

[HOF44]

8 minutes ago, Riggo-toni said:

They should not have to liquidate their assets - that's ridiculous, but they should have to transfer them into a blind trust.

Hey now didntbTrump,do that???

[Renegade7]

52 minutes ago, BenningRoadSkin said:

to the extent that we should know their tax returns

 

Kinda already gone back and forth with PB about it, don't know if you read the posts, but this is really first time someone has said they don't want to turn over their tax returns and people really demanding it out of concern.  It's an unnecessary precedent, but I'm willing to find a middle ground here because I don't want people to have tell everyone their business, but we should be able to look for something illegal if someone decides to run.  I'll ask you same thing I asked him, when's the last time you looked at the tax return of someone you voted for?  Lets not get carried away here.

 

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we should know what they are invested in

 

If DoJ knows, they should be able to warn the candidate about the potential conflict of interests and they will be on their ass if they see it in action.  We shouldn't assume anyone going forward is going to be like Trump, that's paranoia.

 

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we should know what they wrote in college

 

Huh?  Like demand that like you demand tax returns?  You have to be at least 35 to be president, most are in their 40s, 50s, 60s when elected.  We really going to judge these men and women on something they wrote when they were a teenage or early 20s?  What's the saying if you look at the world the same way at 40 that you did at 20, you wasted 20 years of your life?  This is beyond overboard and will be impossible to enforce.  You're probably thinking something like a thesis, I hope, most of these candidates don't have Phd's.

 

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who they have business dealings

 

Define business dealings with?  If we ban private funding, that threat diminishes considerably.  Maybe let DOJ do a background check on all the candidates?  Are you asking candidates to disclose everyone they do business with or expecting that to be seen in the tax return? This is how all the sudden family members get drug into this, if you're basically going through a public security clearance process, they find nothing illegal, and then don't even get elected, is it worth it?  At this point you kinda have to assume these candidates have made mistakes or friends they had to cut off.  Nobodies perfect, so everyone is going to end up guilty of something, even if it isn't breaking the law.  We need people that are qualified and know what they are talking about outside of being skin peeling snake lawyers, demanding everyone be a cub scout since kindergarten is going to make that impossible.  The "if you done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide" argument is same thing we made with the PRISM program, ya'll know how I feel about that one.

 

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The only thing I do not agree with is liquidating assets, but I get why she feels that way. A blind trust isn't enough because its not like you forgot what you invested in. I think that is too harsh, but there should be a compromise like an elected official must recuse themselves if they have a relationship with the proposed bill. (John Corker's bribe to vote for the tax bill is an example)

 

Recusing is an interesting idea.  I want them to be able to do their job and not have to sacrifice everything to do it.  Something like a tax break, hopefully we don't get anymore for the 1% anytime soon anyway (we can't afford it).  But we should be putting more effort into monitoring elected officials without going full on dragnet.  I don't think we have the resources for it, people should still be innocent until proven guilty, but more resources devoted to keeping up with suspected corruption.  I know there isn't enough put to that, we took a lot of those resources from the FBI after 9/11 and gave to counter-terrorism.

 

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Like @Llevron said, they should be dedicating their lives to this, not working on a get rich scheme.

 

We need to know who we are voting for.

 

We don't need to know that to know what they are voting for and shouldn't be asking them to sacrifice their lives in order to do it.  We have the capability to catch them in the act, we don't have to preemptively nuke their lives to prove their worth.  What I want is to focus on people's platforms more then the fact they are human.  What's your voting record as an elected official?  What bills did you get passed?  What bills do you want to get passed?  Can you spell out the numbers in English and get them correct when you are talking about them?

 

Everything some of ya'll are demanding we know about these candidates is just going to be a distraction from that, these negative attack ads get us nowhere, watching candidates spend more time talking about the other's non-political F ups instead of their own political plan is killing us, BS talking points and personal attack ammo has become just as toxic to our democracy as the Koch brothers.  We'll continue to get these robots in suits who have no shame if we scare off everyone that knows they aren't perfect.

 

I get not wanting another Trump, but asking them to asexual penniless Buddhist is out the ball park unnecessary.

[No Excuses]

I would love to see Liz Warren as our AG. A pit bull hunting down white collar criminals is badly needed in the US. 

[Going Commando]

19 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

I would love to see Liz Warren as our AG. A pit bull hunting down white collar criminals is badly needed in the US. 

 

I like her in the Senate.  I have no doubt that she could be a good AG but she's a fundraising force of nature in the Senate.

[No Excuses]

2 hours ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

I like her in the Senate.  I have no doubt that she could be a good AG but she's a fundraising force of nature in the Senate.

 

Fundraisers come and go. Her sharp legal mind is badly needed either at DoJ or Treasury.

[Cooked Crack]

Probably why the President shouldn't have a business that can be a conflict.

[Voice_of_Reason]

On 8/22/2018 at 9:35 PM, Riggo-toni said:

They should not have to liquidate their assets - that's ridiculous, but they should have to transfer them into a blind trust.

The whole IRS release tax records and blind-trust/sell off assets thing is just political maneuvering against Trump.  

 

I revile Trump and everything he stands for.  But he collected his money in whatever way he did, and he shouldn't be forced to sell his assets if he is elected President.  Blind Trust, sure.  And the president should not profit from his presidency. ie: the vast amounts of money paid to Trump properties, which seems to just be swept under the rug, is ridiculous.  

 

Also, I'm not in favor of the IRS HAVING to release tax records for privacy reasons.  If the candidate chooses to, great. Trump didn't.  To me, that disqualified me from voting for him.  (Granted, the fact that he is a race-baiting git also disqualified me from voting for him prior to his refusal to release his tax returns,but whatever.)

 

I don't think the government should be compelled to release private information of any citizen.  Period.  

 

And this whole thing is why I dislike Warren. Not as much as Trump.  But I'm not even remotely a fan. 

[Cooked Crack]

16 minutes ago, Voice_of_Reason said:

I don't think the government should be compelled to release private information of any citizen.  Period. 

So you would eliminate financial disclosures all together?

[Voice_of_Reason]

12 hours ago, Cooked Crack said:

So you would eliminate financial disclosures all together?

I would not allow the government to release private information about a private citizen without their authorization under any circumstance.  Which is kinda how it is now.

 

However, if the individual either authorizes the IRS to disclose, or discloses themselves, I'm all for it.  And I think candidates for office SHOULD disclose their investments.  And I also think that ALL campaign donations should be public information, and if organizations donate funds, I think that the funding of those organizations should be public.  If you really want to know who is influencing what, that's the way to do it.

 

For example, if the NRA donates to candidate X, that amount is disclosed, an the funding of that amount also has to be disclosed.  So in this example you could see, for example, that gun manufacturers funded the NRA, which funded Candidate X.

 

If you want transparency and figure out which special interest are paying off which candidates, that's the way to do it.  

 

In addition to understanding personal financials.  

 

Of course, Warren missed that piece, because both sides of the aisle are just as guilty of taking money from special interests, and there is no inventive to change it for anybody.