USA News and Discussions

weatheriscool
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Federal investigation of Hunter Biden heats up
Source: CNN

Washington (CNN)A Justice Department investigation into Hunter Biden's business activities has gained steam in recent months, with a flurry of witnesses providing testimony to federal investigators and more expected to provide interviews in the coming weeks, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

The probe, led by the US Attorney in Wilmington, Delaware, began as early as 2018 and concerns multiple financial and business activities in foreign countries dating to when Biden's father was vice president. Investigators have examined whether Hunter Biden and some of his associates violated money laundering, tax and foreign lobbying laws, as well as firearm and other regulations, multiple sources said.

To do so, law enforcement has gathered information from lobbyists connected to Hunter Biden, from his business partners, and from others who've observed his financial engagements, including a woman with whom he had a child.

Hunter Biden has not been charged with any crimes and has denied any wrongdoing. His father, President Joe Biden is not being investigated as part of the probe of his son's business activities, according to sources who have been briefed.
Read more: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/30/poli ... index.html

It is pretty sick that the media hide this from the public during the election. I am sorry but the truth needs to be known and criminals need to go down. I don't fully disagree with you about trumps crimes and the need to investigate him but lets be fair. Our political class is truly disgusting and criminal.
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caltrek
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Taking Aim at Billionaire Tax Avoiders, Biden Proposes Minimum Tax for Ultrarich
by Paul Kiel, Jesse Eisinger and Jeff Ernsthausen
March 28, 2022

https://www.propublica.org/article/taki ... -ultrarich

Introduction:
(ProPublica) Last year ProPublica, drawing on a trove of IRS data, gave the public its most extensive view ever of the taxes of the wealthiest Americans. The first article in the Secret IRS Files series put real numbers to a core truth about the U.S. tax system: Billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett can easily shield their fortunes from taxation by avoiding the sorts of income captured on a tax return.

A proposal released today by the Biden administration takes direct aim at this issue. The policy, if enacted, would, for a sliver of the very wealthiest, close that escape hatch. Vast increases in wealth would result in owing taxes.

Generally, the IRS does not tax gains unless they are “realized,” typically when a person sells a stock that has gained in value. Billionaires who hold on to assets that have appreciated get the benefit of those unrealized gains — they often borrow against them — without owing any tax
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This is by no means a new bug in the U.S. system. But as ProPublica explained last year, the explosion of wealth inequality in recent decades, coupled with the particular nature of how these new fortunes have been built, has made unrealized gains particularly important at this point in our history.

Past U.S. presidents have, on occasion, pushed for higher taxes on the rich, but usually by hiking traditional income tax rates. Biden’s proposal calls for a paradigm shift: It would change what gets counted as income. “Although the taxation of unrealized gain is still far from enactment, and even if enacted would await an uncertain fate in the Supreme Court, presidential endorsement of the concept is a milestone in the history of the income tax,” said Lawrence Zelenak, a Duke University School of Law professor whose expertise includes income and corporate tax and tax policy.
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Yuli Ban
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Democrats are about to get fucking CRUSHED, holy SHIT


USA on track to follow Hungary in just a few years
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
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Yuli Ban
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And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
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Yuli Ban
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The Biden administration plans to freeze federal student loan payments through Aug. 31, extending a moratorium that has allowed millions of Americans to postpone payments during the coronavirus pandemic, according to an administration official familiar with the White House’s decision-making.

Student loan payments were scheduled to resume May 1 after being halted since early in the pandemic. But following calls from Democrats in Congress, the White House plans to give borrowers additional time to prepare for payments.

The action applies to more than 43 million Americans who owe a combined $1.6 trillion in student debt held by the federal government, according to the latest data from the Education Department. That includes more than 7 million borrowers who have defaulted on student loans, meaning they are at least 270 days late on payments.

Borrowers will not be asked to make payments until after Aug. 31, and interest rates are expected to remain at 0% during that period.
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caltrek
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Why Hasn’t the US Been Kicked Off UN Human Rights Council?
by David Lindorff

https://www.eurasiareview.com/09042022- ... ncil-oped/

Introduction:
(Eurasian Review) The United Nations General Assembly voted 93-24 with 58 abstentions to drop the Russian Federation from membership on the UN Human Rights Council, based on allegations and grisly videos and photos appearing to show execution-style slayings of civilians in Ukraine by Russian troops.

While there are calls for independent investigations into those allegations, the US and NATO member state governments have been pushing the claim that Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine including the major war crime of invading another country, the unasked question in the US media is: Why hasn’t the US been kicked out of the Human Rights Council for similar war crimes that aren’t at all allegations, but are well-documented fact? Why indeed, for all the accusations that Russian President Vladimir Putin is himself a war criminal responsible for all these crimes, haven’t a number of US presidents still living been accused of war crimes?

Let’s look at some of those crimes:

The first and biggest, there is the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Iraq posed no immediate threat to the US. Not even close to the way Ukraine shares a 1300-mile border with Russia, Iraq had no navy, no long-range bombers or missiles, and is located 7000 miles from the nearest US border.

That war, completely illegal, went unpunished, as did the people who ordered it: President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
caltrek's comment: To the extent this is just propaganda meant to distract from Putin's war crimes, I think the above article can safely be dismissed as bovine excrement. However, to the extent it is an honest question, it is a good point that deserves careful review an analysis. Let me think, how does that old saying go?

Something like "he who lives in glass houses should not throw bricks."

Edit: The article states: "US is directly responsible for 363,000 civilian deaths." This is a highly misleading figure as estimates actually vary quite widely. Ironically, my sense and recollection is that this estimate is on the low side and that the actual number is probably much higher than this.
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caltrek
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Trump Jr. Pushed Meadows to Overturn Election as Votes Were Counted, Texts Show
by Julia Conley
April 9, 2022

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/ ... texts-show

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) Text messages obtained by the House select committee that is investigating the January 6, 2021 insurrection revealed that people in former President Donald Trump's closest circle—specifically his son, Donald Trump Jr.—were strategizing before the votes were even counted how they could overturn the results of the 2020 election and make sure Trump served a second term.

As CNN reported late Friday, Trump Jr. texted former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on November 5, 2020—just two days after the election and before President Joe Biden was announced the winner—to urge White House officials to use "operational control" to ensure a Trump victory regardless of the results.

"POTUS must start 2nd term now," Trump Jr. told Meadows.

He then suggested that Republican-controlled state legislatures in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Michigan "step in" and put forward "Trump electors."
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caltrek
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Why Hasn’t the US Been Kicked Off UN Human Rights Council?
More on that from Amy Goodman:

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022 ... war-crimes

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) In early April, shocking video surfaced revealing the brutal murder of civilians by an occupying army. The year was 2010, however, not 2022, in Iraq, not Ukraine, and the soldiers were American, not Russian. On April 5th, 2010, Wikileaks, the whistleblower website, released a classified U.S. military video it called "Collateral Murder." The video was recorded on July 12, 2007 aboard a U.S. Army Apache helicopter gunship as it fired on a crowd in Baghdad. Two Reuters employees were killed, along with at least eight others, and two children were seriously injured. The video includes audio of U.S soldiers laughing and swearing as they kill, as well as radio transmissions authorizing the attacks from their chain of command. Ultimately, only one U.S. soldier was prosecuted: Army Private Chelsea Manning was court martialed, not for participating in that attack on civilians, but for revealing it to the world.

Biden's escalating rhetoric against Putin will continue to ring hollow as long as the U.S. rejects the ICC.
"Collateral Murder" and the trove of documents Manning uploaded to Wikileaks, the Iraq War Logs and the Afghan War Logs, documented numerous atrocities committed by the U.S., in cold, military jargon.

In the twelve years since the video was released, military conflicts and the inevitable crimes that accompany them have raged around the world, from Congo to Sudan, Ethiopia and Tigray to Libya, from Yemen to Burma to West Papua, to name just a few. In Ukraine, the level of video and photographic documentation, satellite imagery and drone footage published instantaneously and shared globally is unprecedented.

Images of dead civilians littering the streets of Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv, many executed with their hands bound behind their backs, have shocked the world. Hospitals have been bombed across the country, as have civilian shelters. Russia is also accused of deploying a new type of antipersonnel landmine, which explodes not only when stepped on but merely when a person walks near them. War crimes have reportedly been committed by Ukrainian defenders as well, against Russian prisoners of war and suspected collaborators.

So-called "rules of engagement" are regularly ignored in the all-consuming violence and barbarism of war. U.S. and coalition troops were guilty of this in Afghanistan, as documented by Manning's disclosures to Wikileaks and often corroborated by journalists and human rights investigators. Few if any of those who committed atrocities will ever be held accountable.
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