And those that have viewed your posts over the years might suggest that your own self-portrait might be a bit self-serving. Your OP is so skewed as to be worthless, in my opinion.
No actual answer, I see.
Yet you think that such attacks are diminishing the Straight Dope brand.
I see you aren’t even going to attempt to answer my question. Not much of a surprise there.
Reminds me of this exchange:
He never responded. Care to elaborate on the “despicable” treatment of Trump?
There is a reasonable reason- Trump ordered the AG not to release the Mueller report.
That is certainly (another) red flag, but I think the ones I listed are the basic ones that justify action by Congress, and since the law is there already, I think it’s fine for them to use it to get the data. Whether they release that to the public will be their call. My guess is that it will get released at this point, both for the embarrassment factor and, more importantly, as the people just want to know if there is anything going on with all this smoke. Trump certainly is his own worst enemy, assuming there isn’t anything more in there than he is less rich than he claimed. If there is, then it would make sense for him to stir things up to obscure whatever is in there, but my WAG is there isn’t really anything in there that rises to the level of real conflict of interest and he’s doing it just because he’s an idiot. I HOPE there is something in there though, I admit…
I actually get the strong impression that he posts these weak anti-Trump threads about trivial subjects just in order to be able to link to them when he’s accused of being pro-Trump.
Oh, totally. “See guys? I’m just being fair!”
Similar to the pattern of sexism interspersed with an occasional example of a man white knighting to the rescue of a woman. “See guys? This guy did something great for a helpless female, and I support it!”
I’m surprised he hasn’t posted a thread about a pleasant restaurant experience to offset the insult tip he left a waitress because his Hollandaise has “no discernible lemon.”
(I swear, the two phrases this board has seared into my memory are Aldebaran’s “My post is my cite” and Quartz’s “no discernible lemon.”)
Yeah, those kind of threads by him came to mind too.
I fail to see any argument that the UK is to be commended in that respect.
“Hey, our politicians can more easily embezzle and cheat the people! Why y’all not doing it like us??”
Well…because that would be stupid. If your country has been able to claw out a decent set of anti-corruption measures against the people who actually make the laws - something that is traditionally almost impossible to accomplish - I fail to see the argument that you would want to get rid of it. It’s like complaining that someone was actually able to quit smoking…if you’re complaining out of sour grapes, then I suppose that’s fine. But there’s no argument that, somehow, smoking is good for you. If someone tried to make the argument that somehow it was bad to quit smoking, I’d generally be curious who was paying their wage and if it was somehow connected to the tobacco industry.
And, in the case of the President of the United States, his office is defined by the Constitution. That same document also makes an explicit rule that the office holder cannot receive any payments or other goods of value from a foreign nation. It makes sense, on that basis, for the person to have their finances on the public record.
It’s against the law.
I believe his argument is that since the law says that someone who is arguably the most powerful person in the world, with immense ability to influence finances and trade, has to release his tax returns, then it’s only fair that every other single person in the country should also have to release theirs. And if you disagree with this, it’s obviously just because you’re biased against Trump. Gotcha!
That’s a guess, however, since he’s made no attempt to actually explain what his point was.
People with stupid arguments like to drag you into the weeds of lunacy, so that it crowds out the fundamental facts and reason of the matter.
I have no interest in that. There was a question with a factual answer. I answered it factually. Everything else is redundant given the fact of the matter.
There is no ‘point’; it’s a question. You’re letting your blind bias show. Try actually answering my OP.
We don’t. Our politicians have to register all their interests. We check up front, not after the fact.
So, I take it that all of your citizens do as well?
It’s been answered several times over.
Your post is your bias.
I’ve answered it several times., as have others. You haven’t provided any substantive response to anyone, but avoided it. What is your position on the OP? That nobody should have to reveal their returns, or that everyone should? If so, what are the reasons for that?
And the fact that you’re ignoring my answers while accusing me of bias pretty much validates the suggestions for the reasons you started the thread.
It’s illegal, and what purpose would it serve? This is just a game of “ho ho, I’ll scare you by threatening to release your taxes so you won’t come after mine.”
It started after Nixon released his taxes to prove he was “not a crook”, that he wasn’t cheating on his taxes. Except they proved that he was a crook. Then candidates began the practice of releasing their taxes to show they were not a Nixon.
No.
Moderator Action
This thread is all over the place.
There are a lot of comments that are more suitable to GD than IMHO. There is also very little focus on the actual OP, which is about whether it is fair to demand everyone’s tax returns. While this question is undoubtedly inspired by the Trump tax returns issue, responses are focusing only on the broader issue and the actual OP seems to have gotten lost.
I think this thread is too scattered to save at this point. It has strayed too far out of IMHO territory to rein it back in, and is too unfocused to just move it to GD.
Those wishing to discuss Trump’s tax returns in general are free to do so in one of the many already existing threads. If anyone wishes to discuss the proposal framed i the OP of this thread, again, GD would probably be a better place, and I would recommend stating very clearly in the OP that you wish to restrict the topic of the thread to that aspect of the topic.
This thread is closed.