American Politics

[EihTooms]

I wouldn't vote for Trump for dog catcher, let alone president Tooms. Nor would I vote for Biden.

Then you might as well vote directly for Trump. With the cactus, tumbleweed, rattlesnake and outhouse Red State Repub-advantaged Electoral College election rigging in place, any vote not cast or not cast for a Dem more often than not ultimately helps a Repub win. But you knew that already.

But yes, I admire some of Trump's policies and actions more than Elvis and Cali Guy put together. For example, the changes in the corporate tax in the TCJA that he signed into law. And the way he pushed approval of the COVID vaccines through the FDA. And Operation Warp speed. Contrast to the abysmal failure of the Biden administration in supporting COVID testing during the Omicron wave and in doing something about the extreme shortage of many cancer drugs right now. Biden's FDA shut down our main supplier of cisplatin and carboplatin. People are dying as a result. President Trump never would have let that happen. Yeah he may have sponsored the occasional super spreader event. But nobody's perfect.

So-called president Trump's decisions contrary to all expert warnings not to do something so stupid and dangerous in 2018 and 2019 not only let Trump's Pandemic happen but his 2020 year long dismissal of its spread as a "HOAX", mocking known and proven mitigation measures and lies about how it was already disappearing and disappearing without a vaccine so nobody needed to bother wasting time and money inventing one or taking one made sure with absolute certainty that it would be as historically damaging and economically disastrous as it was.

But you knew that already too.

And, at which point, so much for any phantom or perceived net economic benefit to anyone of that piddling tax cut.

[Tiny 12]

I wouldn't vote for Trump for dog catcher, let alone president Tooms. Nor would I vote for Biden. But yes, I admire some of Trump's policies and actions more than Elvis and Cali Guy put together. For example, the changes in the corporate tax in the TCJA that he signed into law. And the way he pushed approval of the COVID vaccines through the FDA. And Operation Warp speed. Contrast to the abysmal failure of the Biden administration in supporting COVID testing during the Omicron wave and in doing something about the extreme shortage of many cancer drugs right now. Biden's FDA shut down our main supplier of cisplatin and carboplatin. People are dying as a result. President Trump never would have let that happen. Yeah he may have sponsored the occasional super spreader event. But nobody's perfect.

[Paulie97]

The conservative stacked Supreme Court has in a 6-3 decision rejected the "independent state legislature theory," an unconstitutional angle used by MAGAs to try and steal the 2020 election. It's based on a misreading of Article 1 of the Constitution that reads, "The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof. " Looks like MAGAs will still have to win the old fashioned way, at the ballot box.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...court-rejects/

All the major news outlets are covering this so take your pick. The bottom line? State legislatures DO NOT have exclusive and unlimited power in setting the rules for national elections. As a consequence state court decisions in the context of Covid which allowed mail in ballot provisions were perfectly valid. There's other implications, especially in matters of district gerrymandering that gives us a better outlook going forward.

[Elvis 2008]

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/...ion-bombshells

Globalists now seek:

1) Biden out on health grounds.

2) Hunter out with him faded into obscurity after his plea deal.

3) Trump locked up or disqualified.

4) RFK Jr marginalised like Bernie Sanders was.

5) A Gavin Newsome Vs Ron DeSantis presidential race.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

[EihTooms]

Whether COVID 19 came from a lab leak, from gain of function research, and / or the Wuhan market is indeed not settled, and as you say various USA government agencies disagree about the source.

Some evidence came out earlier this year that supports the theory that the transmission of COVID-19 to humans was through animals at the Wuhan market. See.

https://www.science.org/content/arti...sing-sequences

If this theory is correct, it points to a Chinese coverup, of the origin of COVID. The Chinese CDC acquired samples from stalls of the Wuhan market between January 1, 2020 and March 2, 2020. They submitted papers that said the samples that tested positive for the COVID virus contained human genetic material, but no DNA from animals. Furthermore, they concluded that the animals at the marketplace probably weren't the origin of COVID.

Fast forward to 2023. On March 4, Florence Debarre, a French evolutionary biologist, randomly came across a previously unknown sequence of data from the samples collected at the Wuhan market, while doing other research, on the GISAID virology database. The data had been posted there by Chinese researchers, probably in order to satisfy requirements to get their research published in a journal. Based on her analysis, some samples from the Wuhan market that tested positive for COVID did contain animal DNA, from raccoon dogs, bamboo rats, palm civets, and other animals.

What happens next? Well, the data mysteriously disappears from the GISAID database. It's removed, at the request of the submitter.

So why did the data disappear? Well, at one time the Chinese military was pushing the idea that the USA developed the virus and was using it as a weapon. And China also claimed it shut down all its wet markets, where live animals were sold. Neither of those is very compatible with the idea that COVID 19 was initially transmitted to humans at the Wuhan market.

Anyway, Debarre's theory is consistent with JustTK's belief that the Chinese government bears some responsibility for the pandemic, by engaging in a cover up. The Chinese initially reported an outbreak of pneumonia, with no deaths, in late December, 2019 and early January, 2020. The data they provided to the World Health Organization caused the WHO to state there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission on January 22, 2020. The Chinese knew better. On the same day, January 22, they announced a quarantine of the Wuhan area. If the Chinese hadn't been involved in a cover up, perhaps the world could have responded better and fewer lives would have been lost. Or maybe not. The reproduction rate of the virus was pretty high -- as many as 6.5 new infections were generated by each infectious person, according to estimates by researchers. It must be hard to prevent the spread of something like that. See

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7074654/

Debarre's theory is not consistent with your and JustTK's belief that the USA Government bears responsibility for the worldwide pandemic. It's not reasonable to expect that a president Hillary Clinton would have somehow shut down the Wuhan market prior to 2020, or otherwise caused the USA to respond quickly enough to prevent a pandemic, when the Chinese were doing their best to cover it up. Remember, while the first few COVID-19 cases in the USA may have come from China, the pandemic initially spread from China to Europe, and then from Europe to the USA.

Seriously, Tiny. I have never seen anyone work so hard to sidestep, dismiss and ignore the most blatantly obvious incomparable World Leader contribution made by Trump in making sure the initial spread developed into a Pandemic regardless where or how it started.

The World expected China to engage in cover ups of that kind. That is what they do. That is why we had agents stationed in those labs, in order to alert responsible officials at the earliest possible time rather than wait until whatever was spreading around in China got so bad even the Chinese could not cover it up anymore.

A President Hillary Clinton could not have prevented a Pandemic from developing by the time China's cover up was no longer possible in the face of so many covered up infection cases? LOL. Hey, no kidding. And neither could a so-called president Trump. Obviously.

But, of course, that utterly misses, ignores and misdirects from the unavoidable fact of Trump's incomparable contribution in removing those agents against all expert warnings not to do something so stupid and dangerous in the first place so as to allow China free reign to engage in a cover up.

How about this; I will even concede that a so-called president Trump could have and indeed might have moved to prevent or at least far more quickly and effectively responded to the earliest possible cases alerts if only that same so-called president Trump had not so stupidly and dangerously removed all the "anti China cover up" agents assigned to that job 5 months earlier. We don't even need to compare him to a Dem in that regard.

Who knows, maybe Roger Stone would have gotten wind of those earliest alerts and decide preventing a historic worldwide economic and health disaster would look nice on Trump's bio instead him having contributed more to creating one than any other individual on the planet and he would have had one his famous meetings with him where he fools big dumb Trump into thinking Stone's idea was something he thought up himself.

[Tiny 12]

U.S. intelligence agencies remain divided over likely Covid origin, report shows

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/24/us-i...ndroidappshare

Now, if only there had been some Pandemic Prevention and Response agents in that lab in November 2019 to monitor and report those first cases to the world so immediate action could have been taken to prevent or at least greatly delay its development into a Pandemic until effective vaccines had been invented, distributed and administered throughout the world. Word is just a 2-3 month heads up would have made all the difference.

I hear such agents were fully funded and maintained there during the Obama Administration. I wonder what happened to them after that.

Lololol.

Whether COVID 19 came from a lab leak, from gain of function research, and / or the Wuhan market is indeed not settled, and as you say various USA government agencies disagree about the source.

Some evidence came out earlier this year that supports the theory that the transmission of COVID-19 to humans was through animals at the Wuhan market. See.

https://www.science.org/content/arti...sing-sequences

If this theory is correct, it points to a Chinese coverup, of the origin of COVID. The Chinese CDC acquired samples from stalls of the Wuhan market between January 1, 2020 and March 2, 2020. They submitted papers that said the samples that tested positive for the COVID virus contained human genetic material, but no DNA from animals. Furthermore, they concluded that the animals at the marketplace probably weren't the origin of COVID.

Fast forward to 2023. On March 4, Florence Debarre, a French evolutionary biologist, randomly came across a previously unknown sequence of data from the samples collected at the Wuhan market, while doing other research, on the GISAID virology database. The data had been posted there by Chinese researchers, probably in order to satisfy requirements to get their research published in a journal. Based on her analysis, some samples from the Wuhan market that tested positive for COVID did contain animal DNA, from raccoon dogs, bamboo rats, palm civets, and other animals.

What happens next? Well, the data mysteriously disappears from the GISAID database. It's removed, at the request of the submitter.

So why did the data disappear? Well, at one time the Chinese military was pushing the idea that the USA developed the virus and was using it as a weapon. And China also claimed it shut down all its wet markets, where live animals were sold. Neither of those is very compatible with the idea that COVID 19 was initially transmitted to humans at the Wuhan market.

Anyway, Debarre's theory is consistent with JustTK's belief that the Chinese government bears some responsibility for the pandemic, by engaging in a cover up. The Chinese initially reported an outbreak of pneumonia, with no deaths, in late December, 2019 and early January, 2020. The data they provided to the World Health Organization caused the WHO to state there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission on January 22, 2020. The Chinese knew better. On the same day, January 22, they announced a quarantine of the Wuhan area. If the Chinese hadn't been involved in a cover up, perhaps the world could have responded better and fewer lives would have been lost. Or maybe not. The reproduction rate of the virus was pretty high -- as many as 6.5 new infections were generated by each infectious person, according to estimates by researchers. It must be hard to prevent the spread of something like that. See

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7074654/

Debarre's theory is not consistent with your and JustTK's belief that the USA Government bears responsibility for the worldwide pandemic. It's not reasonable to expect that a president Hillary Clinton would have somehow shut down the Wuhan market prior to 2020, or otherwise caused the USA to respond quickly enough to prevent a pandemic, when the Chinese were doing their best to cover it up. Remember, while the first few COVID-19 cases in the USA may have come from China, the pandemic initially spread from China to Europe, and then from Europe to the USA.

[EihTooms]

U.S. intelligence agencies remain divided over likely Covid origin, report shows

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/24/us-i...ndroidappshare

A long-anticipated government report on the origins of Covid-19 offered new details on the U.S. intelligence communitys findings but did not state definitively whether the source of the coronavirus was exposure to an infected animal or an event at a laboratory.

All agencies continue to assess that both a natural and laboratory-associated origin remain plausible hypotheses to explain the first human infection, the 10-page declassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said.

The report laid out divisions within the Intelligence Community.

While the National Intelligence Council and four unnamed agencies found that natural exposure to an infected animal was most likely, the Department of Energy and FBIs assessment was that a laboratory-associated incident was the more likely scenario for the first human infection.

Meanwhile, the CIA and an unidentified agency remain unable to determine the precise origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, as both hypotheses rely on significant assumptions or face challenges with conflicting reporting, the report states.

But almost all intelligence agencies agreed that the virus wasnt genetically engineered, and all agencies agreed that Covid was not manufactured as a biological weapon.

Congress passed legislation earlier this year requiring the intelligence community to declassify information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the pandemics origins.

The report shed light on the Wuhan institute, which has been at the center of a hypothesis that the virus escaped from a lab and began infecting people or was transmitted to humans from an animal.

In 2021, a U.S. intelligence report identified three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology who sought treatment at a hospital after falling ill in November 2019 -- providing inconclusive, circumstantial evidence that appeared to bolster a hypothesis that the virus may have spread to humans after escaping from the lab.

The intelligence community in March expanded its inquiry into Covid-19, by examining whether the first human infection with the virus was the result of natural exposure to an infected animal or a lab-linked incident, according to Fridays report.

A spokesman for the White House National Security Council said the reports release reflects a commitment from President Joe Biden to declassify and share as much information as possible related to the origins of COVID-19, while protecting sources and methods. The spokesman added that getting to the bottom of the origins of Covid remains a top priority for the president.

Now, if only there had been some Pandemic Prevention and Response agents in that lab in November 2019 to monitor and report those first cases to the world so immediate action could have been taken to prevent or at least greatly delay its development into a Pandemic until effective vaccines had been invented, distributed and administered throughout the world. Word is just a 2-3 month heads up would have made all the difference.

I hear such agents were fully funded and maintained there during the Obama Administration. I wonder what happened to them after that.

Lololol.

[Tiny 12]

It has been years since I had to choose and current laws might be different, but I believe there are several countries around the world with an agreement with the USA that allows the expat to choose which country's federal taxes to pay. Thailand is one of them. I could have chosen to pay Thailand taxes on income rather than USA taxes. But, again, I have not looked into it in years.

I never even considered choosing to pay Thailand taxes instead of USA Federal taxes. For one thing I don't know the Thai language well enough to be absolutely certain what I would owe, who to pay and that there isn't a badly translated passage in paragraph 12 on page 1,523 of the Thai tax code that really states all of my income and property transfers to the royals at my age 70 or some such craziness. Of course, there is no option not to pay Thailand's 7% consumer VAT tax on some purchases. However, some businesses allow visitors to get that refunded at the airport on departure if you've kept all the receipts and don't mind waiting in a queue or at the airport for who knows how long to get that money back. I don't think I have ever met a USA visitor to Thailand that has done it.

But primarily it is because I have never in my life felt paying taxes in the USA was so onerous or had the least bit of more downside than upside to pay them that I needed to jump through flaming hoops to avoid it. And that was especially true when I included California State tax to the mix. My god, the upside to being lucky enough to have lived, worked, earned and invested in California USA for 50+ years so far surpassed any potential downside it was ridiculous and pathetic to spend as much as a minute whining and complaining about it.

There are dual tax treaties between the USA and Thailand and other countries. They do not give you any choice as to where you file returns or pay tax. If you're a USA Citizen, you must file a USA Tax return, no matter where you live. It's been that way during your entire adult life. The only exception is if your income is under $14,700.

If you don't have any Thai sourced income, I'm not sure whether or not you need to file a tax return in Thailand. I looked into this some time back, and Thailand used to have a territorial tax system. You didn't have to pay tax in Thailand for income realized from the USA, or any other country besides Thailand. But from a quick Google search, Thailand may now be taxing foreign income brought into Thailand from abroad, if the taxpayer is resident in Thailand over 180 days in a year.

The USA taxes your worldwide income. There is one exception. You could realize up to $112,000 per year in EARNED income (for example, from a salary) in a foreign country and not pay USA Taxes on that amount. This is not available if you spend over 30 days in the USA over a 12 month period.

You are generally allowed to use foreign income taxes paid as a tax credit on your USA Income tax. You will generally end up paying the higher of the tax rates of the two countries. For example, say you pay 10% tax on income from a Thai rental property, and you're in the 30% tax bracket in the USA. Then you end up paying a tax of 10% on that income to Thailand, and 20% to the USA.

If you have a Thai bank account or a bank or securities account in any other country, I assume you know you need to file Form Fincen 114 with the Treasury Department, and Form 8938 with your Form 1040. The penalties for not filing are severe. A friend had about $30,000 in a foreign bank account that he didn't report. He received roughly $50 interest income over a several year period. He went through voluntary disclosure with the IRS because he hadn't filed the Fincen 114, and ended up paying about 30% of his highest bank balance, or $9000 in penalties, plus about $3000 in accounting or legal fees. Again, he only had $50 in undeclared income! If he hadn't gone through voluntary disclosure and the IRS had caught him, he figures he would have paid a fine of about $45,000, or 150% of his highest bank balance.

You seem pretty astute, so you probably have been complying with the reporting requirements for foreign financial accounts and foreign income, if you have any. If not feel free to PM me. I may be a dreaded Republican/Bothsider/Neithersider, but otherwise am a reasonably nice person. And have unfortunately had to put a lot of time in over the years on this subject.

I don't begrudge paying the state of Texas or my city or county taxes. They're efficient and don't rape me. I'd happily pay them more. I do not share your view of the taxes I pay to the federal government.

[Paulie97]

It doesn't prove lab leak? Like if I find a starnger in my house with a bloody knife in his hand and my wife dead on the floor, that doesn't prove the stranger killed her either. Its true maybe an infected bat flew in thru the lab window and infected them. Hey strange things happen!

You have both a false analogy and a non-sequitur going here. These recent revelations come from questionable anonymous sources while there remains some decent evidence to point to the wet market spillover theory. There likely will never be a slam dunk on this one thus dogmaticism is invalid.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/...idence/674495/

[Tiny 12]

Every Repub who posts here say polls aren't valid. Unless, of course, the polls favor their position. I certainly don't give any credence to a poll conducted in Ukraine.

Historically Republicans have been more motivated to go out and vote. The polls may reflect voters intentions reasonably well, but not as many Democratic and Democratic leaning voters showed up at the polls. So the Republicans had a point.

That started changing around 2020 for three reasons.

Trump encouraged Republicans not to participate in mail in and absentee voting.

Democrats and many independents are mad as hell at Trump because he tried to steal an election. And Trump's the figurehead of the Republican Party.

The Supreme Court abortion decision made many Democrats and independents mad as hell too.

Now Democrats are more motivated to vote, and outperforming the polls. You saw that in 2022.

Going forward, I expect Democrats will be the ones saying the polls aren't valid.

Here are some quotes from the link above. "Before, during and after the referendum was proclaimed, the Crimean peninsula saw Russian soldiers take over public buildings and Ukrainian military installations. When the referendum was proclaimed, the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People called for a boycott of the referendum. " and "A poll by the International Republican Institute in May 2013 found that 53% wanted "Autonomy in Ukraine (as today)", 12% were for "Crimean Tatar autonomy within Ukraine", 2% for "Common oblast of Ukraine" and 23% voted for "Crimea should be separated and given to Russia". ".

Yeah, that's why I posted the correction. The May, 2013 poll was pre-referendum. The post referendum polls in the Wikipedia link, all conducted by respected western organizations, showed overwhelming support for the results of the referendum.

[Tiny 12]

I had no idea that this story had broke before. I am surprised it never got much traction. Thanks for that.

It doesn't prove lab leak? Like if I find a starnger in my house with a bloody knife in his hand and my wife dead on the floor, that doesn't prove the stranger killed her either. Its true maybe an infected bat flew in thru the lab window and infected them. Hey strange things happen!

And most certainly the lab was doing gain of function, so again you just want to ignore all the evidence and "wah, wah, wah, I can't hear you!

If you don't know JustTK, eating crow is an American saying for ashamedly admitting you were wrong. I'm not quite there yet, and I already admitted you may be right. But there's some new reporting, out this week, again in the Wall Street Journal. Some of it repeats what you've already said.

The three researchers working at the Wuhan Lab back in late 2019 who fell ill were as follows.

Ben Hu, who had done extensive laboratory research on how coronaviruses infect humans.

Yu Ping, a Chinese scientist who wrote a 2019 thesis that was the first to describe a new family of SARS-like coronaviruses that are most closely related to the COVID 19 virus.

Yan Zhu.

The three "published on SARS-related coronavirus experiments done at inappropriately low biosafety settings that could have resulted in a laboratory infection," according to Robert Kadlec, a former senior Health and Human Services department official who conducted a Senate study that concluded a lab leak was the more likely cause of COVID.

The article goes on to say, "The Government Accountability Office noted in a report last week that some of the research at the Wuhan Institute was funded by the USA Agency for International Development and the National Institutes of Health. Between 2014 and 2019, about $1. 4 million was disbursed for work at the institute by both agencies before such grants were suspended. ".

[PVMonger]

That's why I referred to the polling, not the referendum. The post referendum polls referenced in the link were conducted by the USA Government Broadcasting Board of Governors agency, Gallup, the Pew Research Center, and GfK, which is Germany's biggest market research organization. All showed overwhelming support among Crimeans for the results of the referendum. None of those groups were holding guns to people's heads. None were conducted under the guidance of Russian armed forces or intelligence agencies. Again, see Post-referendum polls in

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_C...us_referendum..

Xpartan, I strongly disagree with a number of your points but need to get some dinner before I have to go back to work. I'll be back with you.

Every Repub who posts here say polls aren't valid. Unless, of course, the polls favor their position. I certainly don't give any credence to a poll conducted in Ukraine.

Here are some quotes from the link above. "Before, during and after the referendum was proclaimed, the Crimean peninsula saw Russian soldiers take over public buildings and Ukrainian military installations. When the referendum was proclaimed, the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People called for a boycott of the referendum. " and "A poll by the International Republican Institute in May 2013 found that 53% wanted "Autonomy in Ukraine (as today)", 12% were for "Crimean Tatar autonomy within Ukraine", 2% for "Common oblast of Ukraine" and 23% voted for "Crimea should be separated and given to Russia". ".

[EihTooms]

Tooms has already done that, left the USA. He's just extremely partisan.

A question, is that passport you mention an American one? I understand the USA and Eritrea are the only countries in the world that tax their citizens and require them to file income tax returns regardless of where they live in the world. And also that some foreign banks won't accept USA Citizens as customers, because of our government's onerous reporting requirements. So a USA citizen living abroad may have to jump through hoops to simply open a bank account. All of that seemingly would make it difficult to truly be free, just by leaving the USA.

And a second question, when you say "take the orange pill," do you mean you finally recognized what the USA government's all about? Or are you talking about crypto?

And finally, what does "Dis" mean?

Sorry for all the questions. You may be my new guru.

It has been years since I had to choose and current laws might be different, but I believe there are several countries around the world with an agreement with the USA that allows the expat to choose which country's federal taxes to pay. Thailand is one of them. I could have chosen to pay Thailand taxes on income rather than USA taxes. But, again, I have not looked into it in years.

I never even considered choosing to pay Thailand taxes instead of USA Federal taxes. For one thing I don't know the Thai language well enough to be absolutely certain what I would owe, who to pay and that there isn't a badly translated passage in paragraph 12 on page 1,523 of the Thai tax code that really states all of my income and property transfers to the royals at my age 70 or some such craziness. Of course, there is no option not to pay Thailand's 7% consumer VAT tax on some purchases. However, some businesses allow visitors to get that refunded at the airport on departure if you've kept all the receipts and don't mind waiting in a queue or at the airport for who knows how long to get that money back. I don't think I have ever met a USA visitor to Thailand that has done it.

But primarily it is because I have never in my life felt paying taxes in the USA was so onerous or had the least bit of more downside than upside to pay them that I needed to jump through flaming hoops to avoid it. And that was especially true when I included California State tax to the mix. My god, the upside to being lucky enough to have lived, worked, earned and invested in California USA for 50+ years so far surpassed any potential downside it was ridiculous and pathetic to spend as much as a minute whining and complaining about it.

[Tiny 12]

I should read links and footnotes before I post. I should have said the majority of Crimeans indisputably wanted to be part of Russia after the 2014 Referendum. The polls before had mixed results, but show support for unification of Russia or autonomy far preferred to becoming a common province of Ukraine, like Donetsk and Luhansk. Crimea did have autonomy in Ukraine before 2014. Crimea was a part of Russia until 1954.

And I think that almost everyone has seen the videos of Russian soldiers (with weapons) taking people to "vote" last year. Any "vote" where somebody holds a gun to your head isn't a "vote" at all.

Indisputably, no less! The first sentence in your link says it is a disputed referendum. The article goes on listing numerous issues with this so-called referendum. Did you even read it?

But sure, why not advocate a so-called "referendum" held under the guidance of Russian armed forces and intelligence agencies.

That's why I referred to the polling, not the referendum. The post referendum polls referenced in the link were conducted by the USA Government Broadcasting Board of Governors agency, Gallup, the Pew Research Center, and GfK, which is Germany's biggest market research organization. All showed overwhelming support among Crimeans for the results of the referendum. None of those groups were holding guns to people's heads. None were conducted under the guidance of Russian armed forces or intelligence agencies. Again, see Post-referendum polls in

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_C...us_referendum..

Xpartan, I strongly disagree with a number of your points but need to get some dinner before I have to go back to work. I'll be back with you.

[Tiny 12]

Bioweapons was never part of the analogy, so you can out that part aside. The point I am making is that when the actions of one party cause damage not another parties property, financial or physical, the causer is held repsonsible for those damages.

The big difference between German reparations then and USA now is that Germany had been destroyed by war and was unable to pay those reparations. USA has done nothing but cause war and is perfectly able to pay reparations. Just ask Besos and Musk to cough it up. Better still, Gates.

JustTK, You never made a good case that the USA should pay reparations for COVID in my mind. I believe the USA Role in the world was very positive during the pandemic. The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines and Paxlovid, mostly developed in the USA, saved hundreds of thousands of lives all over the world.

Now if you want to argue the USA Should pay reparations for war in certain instances, I believe you could make a very good case. Getting the USA, or China, to pay reparations would be next to impossible though. They're the top two economic and military powers in the world, and their politicians and people aren't going to agree to it.

Gates is giving his fortune away to charity in a way that will benefit many of the world's poorest. Musk has used his capital to pioneer developments in electric vehicles, solar batteries, and satellite technology. I believe taking money away from them and giving it to inefficient and often corrupt governments to distribute as reparations would be very unwise. Bezos' giving on the other hand might be a good argument for socialism. He gave a $100 million, probably tax deductible, gift to Dolly Parton for example. But in general I'm opposed to taking capital away from our most successful capitalists, in excess of normal taxes levied on everyone else.