Random Politics & Religion #01

All thats missing is the IOC.

Not having the "Edit" function isn't that big of a nuisance.

/shrug

Meh...

That and ctrl+mouse scrolling work.

I bet Putin hides his Fifa bribe money in offshore accounts.

I bet Fifa pays out their bribe money from offshore accounts.

Looks like his "message" is falling flat in Wisconsin. I can see him collapsing completely after this last week of embarrassments.

Isn't that what people have been saying practically every single week?

The difference is this time, he made serious mistakes on the campaign trail and it looks like it is going to cost him tomorrow in Wisconsin.

FIFA is a payee, not a payer. They aren't really big fans of giving up money.


His Wisconsin moves are indeed not winning him any fans, but he was never winning there anyway; Wisconsin is still very friendly to the GOP establishment, with their boys Walker and Ryan. It was always going to be Cruz vs Kasich, and it's possible he's writing it off as a lost cause and just doing whatever he thinks will appeal to anti-GOP establishment types elsewhere. WI is a lot of delegates but it's not so many that losing it would sink him.


Yeah, this. Let's not bury the front runner yet; no one else has any plausible chance* before the convention, and if he goes into Cleveland close to the magic number, that'll be an ugly scenario.

* = Cruz is closest, and he would need upwards of 80% of the remaining delegates to win outright; short of video surfacing of Trump eating a kitten while jackin it to a picture of Hillary, nothing is going to drop him that far.

Don't ground the joke in reality!!


But on the topic Trump its not like he's losing a large # of delegate votes with these states.

Though it seems the establishment is banking on him bleeding at the convention and Paul Ryan white knighting the GoP. Well at least the latest speculation these days.

People need to stop and remember that "offshore accounts" is a bit of a large statement. Technically I have an "offshore account" because I have a checking account with a Korean bank that keeps money in KRW. Now due to international transfer charges being ridiculous, I end up taking the money out from a local US Bank (they do exist) in USD, and then carrying it as cash into my Korean back where they buy it in exchange for KRW. This is all legal but could easily be misconstrued as money laundering to an "offshore bank account".

What we are really talking about is anonymous banking, banks that will not report the name and account holdings to foreign entities. Switzerland is one location, Cayman Islands is another, and there are many more. Once money is inside those locations it doesn't come out, doesn't earn interest either but is never reported to the US either. Getting the money there is the hard part as any record of it is easy for the IRS or government to track, which is why there isn't nearly as much money in those places as people think.

A few pages ago I discussed generational wealth and the various ways that it's protected. One of those ways is to move money using failed business's ventures or selling to friend / myself via foreign aliases and then having it transferred there in a non-US currency. None of these methods are cheap and you lose money in the process. Like you start out with 10 million USD, but only 6~8 million would actually make it there, and from that point on you can never transfer it back into USD again without raising a ton of flags. It's the wealthy persons version of stuffing cash in a box and burying in the backyard. You won't make money from it, but if ***ever got bad it's a fallback fund.

Cursed missing grammatical markers!! Its the era of syntax errors!

The best case scenario for the GOP was Trump winning the nomination outright before the convention, I don't think thats going to happen if he loses Wisconsin. Obviously Trump is the only one that can win the nomination beforehand, but I just don't see it happening now after these gaffes. And a contested convention wow you said it, its going to be bad for the GOP. Thats probably why Kasich isn't dropping out, he is a better candidate than Cruz and they both know it.

Topicbanned for tax evasion.

GoP establishment, including the media arm, has been fabricating *** about him at every corner in the hope of blunting his momentum. He is playing them and using all the free publicity to promote his name.

I would posit that the best case scenario for the GOP at this point is:

- Trump completely flaming out
- Cruz catching up to Trump but not overtaking him
- Kasich winning big in WI and PA, cementing his "I can win when it counts" message

That scenario dovetails nicely into "neither of you could get it done, and we want to make sure we win the battleground states". Brokering the convention with Trump and Cruz both in the 8-900s is a lot different than doing it when Trump's at 1150 or something.

Kasich is by far the most electable of the three, and the one most likely to actually accomplish things in office (as Congress wouldn't despise him, and he'd have the backing of the GOP establishment). He's clearly still in the race because he expects to emerge triumphant from a brokered convention, and that's been his play all along.

Fortunately for the establishment his comments about NATO, Japan/SK, and abortion (and subsequent flip flop that only hurt him more) all came directly from him, no fabrication needed, no momentum to be had.

I agree with what you are saying about Kasich but I believe you are overstating how well he is doing in Wisconsin, keep in mind the primary is tomorrow, and all polls have him solidly in 3rd. Of course polls aren't the end all but...I am going to go ahead and say that Kasich winning "big" tomorrow is fantasy. I think even a narrow victory is a huge stretch.
I would look ahead to PA and New York. He isn't dropping out despite both of the other guys piling on him to do so, it just reflects their desperation, particularly Cruz'. He has been the best candidate the entire race, but, he needs to do more. His message of "Look how well I did in Ohio" has gotten beyond old.

A "brokered convention" where the winner wasn't the one with the highest going in would just hand the election to the democrats. The moment the GoP attempts to play foul to sideline Trump is the moment he runs as independent and takes away a large portion of the GoP voters.

That was the meaning behind his treat that he would run as independent if the GoP "treated him poorly". It was a clear statement that if the GoP power brokers rig the nomination then it's open season.

Total delgates so far: 1355
Trump total : 737
Cruz: 475
Kasich: 143

Trump is at 54% of the total delegates so far, with Cruz at 35% and Kasich at 10%, that is a clear majority.

Baring a scandal, or something completely out of the blue, Trump is going to be the GoP nominee come this fall. People are seriously underestimating the sheer amount of massive support Trump is pulling among voters, especially the segment that normally doesn't involve itself in the political process. Any attempt to sabotage him would be telling that support base to "*** off" and would cause the Republicans to lose the general election.

Right now if Cruz wants to win he has to win fairly. Kasich has zero chance.

Oh, sure. That was purely the "what they're hoping for" scenario.

The worst case scenarios at this point:
- Trump getting to 1175 or something, but with zero momentum
- Cruz gaining ground, enough to pass Trump but still not win outright. Too little, too late

Either of those sets up a contentious convention, which is precisely what they don't want. Both of those two need to look like lost causes for brokering in Kasich to not be a fiasco.

A Trump vs Hillary contest is easily Trump, hell a Turnip vs Hillary still has the Turnip winning. Non-affiliated and swing voters, just view Hillary as a continuation of Obama and they don't want that. The American public tends to want to change government every eight years, especially during times of high dissatisfaction like now. The worst thing Hillary did was accept a position as Secretary of State. She should of stayed a senator and waited her time to throw her name in.

That's without going into the current situation. I can tell you guys right now, that based solely on what is available to the public, she has either committed a felony or is accessory the commission of that felony. Transmitting classified material, regardless of the classification, across non approved private information processing devices (anything related to computers) is breaking all sorts of NSA regulations and if the person did so knowingly then it's a felony subject to lots of prison time. Hell putting classified ~anything~ into a personal vehicle and taking it home is enough to get people's access stripped and removed from their position. Her position as secretary of state along with her political clout has granted her a gigantic shield, but that's not going to last forever.

Let's not give the GOP establishment more credit than they deserve, with regards to strategy, and certainly not with regards to candidate selection. I'm just trying to figure out what the entrenched establishment wants, and it's pretty clearly not Trump (who they can't control) or Cruz (who they loathe). The only question is how far are they willing to go, to retain control of the party?

• Trump gets the nomination, wins: they're nominally in power but not really, and he's a total wild card. The party apparatus likely splinters in some places.

• Trump gets the nomination, loses: losing the general election with a potentially open Supreme Court seat, that could change the balance forever, does real and lasting damage to their policy goals. Party is damaged from the inability to control their presidential nominee, and from the resulting loss.

• Cruz gets the nomination, wins: Functionally a lame duck from day one, as Congress can't stand him, and his unbending principles make it impossible to get anything done. Party doesn't suffer internally like it does with Trump, but nobody's happy about this.

• Cruz gets the nomination, loses: more or less the Trump loss scenario.

• Kasich gets nomination, wins: their perfect scenario. An establishment Republican capable of working with Congress who can re-tilt the Supreme Court. Party is invigorated by regaining control

• Kasich gets the nomination loses: 2012 all over again. A weak candidate will be blamed and things will chug along as they more or less were.

Honestly, I think this election is probably going blue either way, barring an actual indictment of Hillary, or Sanders coming from behind to actually nab the nomination (because then it's anyone's ballgame).

Can always pull out a hail marry and motion to rules committee to throw out rule 40(b) if nobody wins on the first round of votes allowing for a nomination from the floor... Speaker of the House maybe? Oh the dramatic the fallout that would incur.

Ryan's already said no to that.

Nobody is disputing this, we have all said a brokered convention would be a disaster for the GOP. The pressure is already starting on Paul Ryan, whose position of heading the convention has gone from a mere formality to a potential rodeo. Good thing he isn't doing anything else I guess.
The first thing on the docket is will the rules committee change the rules to favor Cruz? In 2012 they passed a rule saying that a candidate had to lead the delegate count in 8 states in an effort to freeze out Ron Paul and hand the nomination to Romney. Fast forward to today and that was looking like a mountain for Cruz, tho I'm not sure if it is anymore. Last I checked he was at 4, he might be at 5 now. If they change the rule to say 5 states Trump will of course pounce on it and that will probably work in his favor. If they don't change it then Cruz might not even qualify and Trump will win the nomination automatically. So I guess the question for Paul Ryan is how does he play the role of kingmaker without damaging the party.

He say's no now, but we'll see come summertime. Wouldn't be the first time he's changed his tune.

Exhibit A:



seems to me he's making some night moves to position himself for some serious national appeal.