[SpecialOlympian]

Is he not legally required to do so?

I was about to leave the office when you asked this and I thought you'd like a better explanation.

It has never been a requirement to release tax returns. Nixon was actually one of the first people to start calling on opponents to release them, but ironically not the first to do so. Nixon knew how to play dirty.

The reason the tax return thing is associated with Mitt Romney this election is because his tax returns would have made him look bad in 2012. Nominally, our progressive tax system requires that anyone earning over $500,000 pay 39.6% in taxes on any income earned beyond that point (here is a helpful calculator I have used when I was curious about a client's tax burden, it is very good at illustrating how our progressive income tax works). When Romney released his taxes I believe it was discovered that he, as a multimillionaire earning millions per year, was paying a hilariously low 14%. And on top of that, it was speculated that he had purposely increased his tax burden the year prior to running, and that after the election he would re-file his taxes to reclaim the money he had overpaid.

This was the speculation as to why Romney, who only released the prior year's tax returns, refused to release his returns from previous years.

However, this election cycle, Trump refuses to do so because he's a bullshitter who isn't that rich. He has allegedly claimed a tax credit that only applies to homeowners who earn less than $500,000 per year. Which sounds plausible, because how many billionaires make their nut by putting their names on steaks?

[Donna]

America has unlike China and Russia, real allies, like GB + NATO, Gulfstates, Japan South-Korea Taiwan, as allies...

This isn't really an alliance. It is the subversive control of the world's richest nations by a small group of people who do not have any localized allegiances other than their cabalistic bloodlines. Their only objective is world domination and the Satanic fusion of technology, humanity, and nature. They are the final culmination of the Fall of Man and Baruch Spinoza's discovery of counter-initiation. They deny and hate Jesus Christ and must be stopped at any cost.

I honestly do believe that both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin were sent to us by God to stop them.

[Hong Wu]

USC / LATimes poll: Trump +7, http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... linton-40/

Is Hillary going to get a bump from the convention? There are two narratives running about it right now. The DNC/HFA alliance is determined to do nothing about recent leaks but they can't hide people's anger over them either. Every time they write something about how great a speaker was instead of covering the leaks, they look more corrupt.

[Ombrageux]

Since when it the nation-state compatible with tribalism?

Easy: every tribe gets its own state. That way no one ever accuses anyone else of "racism," which is inevitable in a multitribal state.

You make a tribe by splitting from a larger heterogeneous group: you amalgamate those who can and should be united into one tribe, and separate from the rest. Just like the Jews in Israel, the Kurdish project, the early United States, Bismarck's Klein-Reich, etc..

Obama's forgotten legacy: First black president, brought about (the first iteration of) universal healthcare for AMERICA, presided over the 2008 financial crisis and recovery, killed Osama. Yeah, right to the ash heap Obama goes.

lol, Obama is a non-entity. He's simply riding the downward slope of plutocratic pseudo-egalitarianism and, in 2008, he was the best salesman/branding for the oligarchs behind that. And really, after Bush, it really was brilliant marketing, both at home and abroad.

But Obama has no character. He didn't even believe in gay marriage 10 years ago and now he's pushing tranny bathrooms on the country. I am disappointed with Obama he actually knows better. He knows why African-Americans suffer a disproportionate amount of police violence and he also knew, I am sure, that pandering to BLM grievances and demonizing cops would lead to chaos in the black community, including contributing to the spike in violent crime over the past two years, which has killed far more blacks than cops do.

But Obama has no character. He is bad for both his European and his African brothers in blood.

[Rugoz]

Easy: every tribe gets its own state. That way no one ever accuses anyone else of "racism," which is inevitable in a multitribal state.

The entire point of the nation state was to do away with tribalism. How would you separate a country into protestants, catholics, sunni, shia? Or into different races? Or into different languages?

[Beren]

The entire point of the nation state was to do away with tribalism. How would you separate a country into protestants, catholics, sunni, shia? Or into different races? Or into different languages?

He's going to say "As Switzerland does".

[Igor Antunov]

As I understand it they don't even check identity at polling booths in some states. I might fly over and vote for Trump, multiple times.

Lolocracy.

[Ombrageux]

Rugoz - That depends on what you think is relevant to people identifying with one another. No doubt, the more ethnic, cultural, religious homogeneity you have, the higher your potential for unity.

Among secular modern peoples, religion becomes less important. Homogeneity of language is very important: if people do not speak the same language, people will form linguistic communities that do not identify with each other (Belgium, Canada). Another is relative genetic homogeneity: as a rough rule, people of the same continental continental origin can generally be assimilated (although they will still change the host nation's character somewhat), where peoples of different continents, in practice, do not seamlessly meld (see: North & South America, the Caribbean, various nations of the Indian ocean..).

These two: genes and language, strike me as the most important.

One needn't be too autistic about these things. If peoples are mixed and the usual ethnic tensions arise, sometimes one just has to make the best of it. Europe would probably work better if all the nations exclusively spoke English, but I do not particularly desire this.

Beren - Scientists have found that ethno-linguistic separation is part of the formula for Switzerland's unique ability to manage its European diversity.

[Igor Antunov]

2 of the 3 companies that control the electronic voting machines (Dominion Voting, H.I.G Capitol) are donors to the Clinton foundation.
http://www.thecommonsenseshow.com/2016/ ... elections/

[Decky]

As I understand it they don't even check identity at polling booths in some states. I might fly over and vote for Trump, multiple times.

In Britain they don't check anything at all; they just ask your name and tick you off the list as they give you the card.

[Albert]

Here how I believe things will play out. Trump will loose. For one he is to much of a wildcard to get elected. For second most women will vote for the bitch Hilary. Third, I just do not have the gut feeling he will win this election. I had a gut feeling Brexit vote will succeed, but Trump is just to crazy to be frank. It most likely be a very close call, and it will be fun to see all the liberals shit bricks and throw fits of rage.

Most importantly though: what Trump will do this election cycle is bring forth discussion to the table that need to be addressed. American politics will never be the same after this election. He will open up the door to ideas that had to flood the political discourse long ago. After he is gone, much more capable men, who perhaps had no confidence to do so before, will come to take up the flag of American nativisn and fight against liberal progressivism, the evil of which will sooner or later thankfully be defeated.

With that said, crazy as Trump is America will get a worse president. Grandma Hilary will wreck America in the same fashion Market had done to Germany and EU. Many I suspect will look back at this time in the future with hindsight and wish Trump as eccentric as he was would had been elected rather then Hilary.

Anyways, my two cents into the fountain.

PS. Trump also is fighting against the establishment and current ethos of post-60s civil-rights era that is very well entrenched in general American society. This is nearly impossible battle to win. But he will show to a lot that, with time and perseverance it is possible in the end.

[Godstud]

Trump IS the establishment. He has millions of rubes duped into thinking that he is not. That's all.

[Decky]

We has the same thing in Britain with Nigel Farage (a guy who was a millionaire before he was 30) pretending to be some sort of anti establishment outsider.

[Rugoz]

Rugoz - That depends on what you think is relevant to people identifying with one another. No doubt, the more ethnic, cultural, religious homogeneity you have, the higher your potential for unity.

Among secular modern peoples, religion becomes less important. Homogeneity of language is very important: if people do not speak the same language, people will form linguistic communities that do not identify with each other (Belgium, Canada). Another is relative genetic homogeneity: as a rough rule, people of the same continental continental origin can generally be assimilated (although they will still change the host nation's character somewhat), where peoples of different continents, in practice, do not seamlessly meld (see: North & South America, the Caribbean, various nations of the Indian ocean..).

These two: genes and language, strike me as the most important.

One needn't be too autistic about these things. If peoples are mixed and the usual ethnic tensions arise, sometimes one just has to make the best of it. Europe would probably work better if all the nations exclusively spoke English, but I do not particularly desire this.

Beren - Scientists have found that ethno-linguistic separation is part of the formula for Switzerland's unique ability to manage its European diversity.

You kind of miss my point. I do not doubt that ethnic etc. homogeneity has a higher potential for unity. But fact is that common interests extend far beyond ethnically homogeneous communities. Swiss cantons with different languages and religions joined because they had common interests (a process that took hundreds of years). The reason why Switzerland is conflict-free today (and was relatively conflict-free throughout its history) is because it "grew organically" (IMO).

There is no alternative to political institutions that extend beyond ethnically homogeneous communities. There's no alternative to pan-European institutions, not now and certainly not in the long term. We better make it work.

P.S. This it totally OT.

[Ombrageux]

Switzerland is a bit of a special case. But anyway it does show some problems: you don't really have a normal elected government, but a permanent "grand coalition," do you not? Many decisions are reserved for the cantons, limiting interethnic decisionmaking. And I believe you even have to have a referendum every few years to even maintain the government together? But I will grant you: Switzerland is clearly the most successful multiethnic country, albeit 60% Germanic. I am not convinced this model can be transposed everywhere else, as evidenced by all the multiethnic countries in the world who are, more typically, wracked with ethnic tensions and often outright war.

There will always be exceptions and sophists - often ethnically-motivated - will claim that because there are exceptions, there are never any rules!

I agree a European organization is positive. I believe all the problems of the European Union can be resolved eventually one way or another - but not if we actually physically replace Europeans with non-assimilating immigrants. There is an alternative to continuing this (from my point of view) horrifying nation-wrecking process. That is what Trump and the more enlightened nationalist/identitarian politics are about. There is an alternative to globalism!

[Potemkin]

The entire point of the nation state was to do away with tribalism. How would you separate a country into protestants, catholics, sunni, shia? Or into different races? Or into different languages?

I believe they had something called pillarisation in Holland and Belgium.

[Rugoz]

Switzerland is a bit of a special case. But anyway it does show some problems: you don't really have a normal elected government, but a permanent "grand coalition," do you not? Many decisions are reserved for the cantons, limiting interethnic decisionmaking. And I believe you even have to have a referendum every few years to even maintain the government together? But I will grant you: Switzerland is clearly the most successful multiethnic country, albeit 60% Germanic. I am not convinced this model can be transposed everywhere else, as evidence by all the multiethnic countries in the world who are, more typically, wracked with ethnic tensions and often outright war.

- On a federal level the government is a "grand coalition", in the sense that parties get federal councillors (ministers) according to their strength in parliament. The individual councillors must be elected/confirmed by parliament. There were several attempts (initiatives) to introduce the direct election of the federal council (the councils of the cantons are elected directly), but the people always rejected it. The existing system works well enough. It leads to "extreme" parties like the SVP/SP having a large representation in the government (2 federal councillors each). In the cantons the councils are dominated by centrist parties like CVP/FDP.
- It's a federal state, so obviously cantons have a large amount of autonomy.
- There are no referendums to "keep the government together".

But apart from the direct democracy stuff and the collective executives Switzerland is your typical federal state. Like the US, or Germany, or Brazil, or India etc. No doubt any European state will be a federation (or a technocratic dictatorship).

[ArtAllm]

The entire point of the nation state was to do away with tribalism. How would you separate a country into protestants, catholics, sunni, shia? Or into different races? Or into different languages?

Is Israel not a tribal state?

Does they not constantly repeat that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish (speak tribal) state?

Most western politicians are just masquerading as democrats, conservatives, liberals, etc., all these words became meaningless, because they are just part of one single and corrupt Establishment.

When they say that the national state is dead and that western countries must be "enriched" by uncontrolled migration of people who do not have any intention or capability to assimilate, then they must apply to Israel the same standards, but they do not.

These guys, called "representatives", just repeat what their masters with a global agenda want them to say.

Who controls the money, controls the rest.

When Obama on the one hand kisses the ass of the "Israel Lobby" and voices his concern about the "demographic shift" in Israel that is threatening the existence of the "Jewish state", and on the other hand advocates a demographic shift in the USA and other western countries, then it becomes obvious that he does not have any political or ideological believes at all, he is just a marionette.

Trump is a fresh breeze of air on the stinking political arena.

Yes, Trump has to kiss the ass of the Israel Lobby, too.
But Trump asks politically incorrect questions:



If a wall is good for Israel, why should it be bad for the US or Europe?



But his opponent just ignore these simple questions and call him "Anti-Semite" and other silly and boring names.

[Ombrageux]

Rugoz. Thanks for the info. Here is what I was referring to:

Since World War II, the federal constitution authorises the Confederation to levy a number of taxes, the most significant of which are an income tax, a withholding tax and a value added tax. However, Switzerland is unique among modern sovereign states in that the authority to levy these taxes is limited in duration and extent.[4][5] The Constitution imposes an upper limit on the federal tax rates and causes the federal authority to levy taxes to expire in 2020. A renewal of that authority requires a constitutional amendment, which must be approved in a popular referendum by both a majority of the popular vote and the cantons. If that renewal is not approved at the polls (as it has been six times since 1958),[5] the Confederation itself will conceivably dissolve for lack of funds. All attempts to remove this limitation by amending the constitution to provide for a permanent federal authority to levy taxes have been rejected in Parliament or – no less than five times – by popular vote, most recently in 1991.[6]

This strikes me as rather fragile, then again, I don't know that this is strictly to due with Switzerland's multiethnic character . . . and some might consider it a feature rather than a bug!

[noemon]

The reason why Switzerland is conflict-free today (and was relatively conflict-free throughout its history) is because it "grew organically" (IMO).

Swiss neutrality was imposed by Russia to the other Great Powers during the Napoleonic Wars.

In 1809 Kapodistrias entered the service of Alexander I of Russia.[36] His first important mission, in November 1813, was as unofficial Russian ambassador to Switzerland, with the task of helping disentangle the country from the French dominance imposed by Napoleon. He secured Swiss unity, independence and neutrality, which were formally guaranteed by the Great Powers, and actively facilitated the initiation of new federal constitution for the 19 cantons that were the component states of Switzerland, with personal drafts.[37] In the ensuing Congress of Vienna, 1815, as the Russian minister, he counterbalanced the paramount influence of the Austrian minister, Prince Metternich, and insisted on French state unity under a Bourbon monarch. He also obtained new international guarantees for the constitution and neutrality of Switzerland through an agreement among the Powers. After these brilliant diplomatic successes, Alexander I appointed Kapodistrias joint Foreign Minister of Russia (with Karl Robert Nesselrode).

In the course of his assignment as Foreign Minister of Russia, Kapodistrias' ideas came to represent a progressive alternative to Metternich's aims of Austrian domination of European affairs.[36] Kapodistrias' liberal ideas of a new European order so threatened Metternich that he wrote in 1819:[36]

Kapodistrias is not a bad man, but honestly speaking he is a complete and thorough fool, a perfect miracle of wrong-headedness...He lives in a world to which our minds are often transported by a bad nightmare.

— Metternich on Kapodistrias, [36]
Metternich then tried to undermine Kapodistrias' position in the Russian court because he realised that Kapodistrias' progressive vision was antithetical to his own.[36] Although Metternich was not a decisive factor in Kapodistrias' leaving his post as Russian Foreign Minister, he nevertheless attempted to actively undermine Kapodistrias by rumours and innuendo. According to the French ambassador to Saint Petersburg, Metternich was a master of insinuation and he attempted to neutralise Kapodistrias because he viewed him as the only man capable of counterbalancing Metternich's own influence on the Russian court.

More than anyone else he possesses the art of devaluing opinions that are not his own; the most honourable life, the purest intentions are not sheltered from his insinuations. It is thus with profound ingenuity that he knew how to neutralize the influence of Count Capodistrias, the only one who could counterbalance his own

— French ambassador on Metternich, [36]
Metternich, by default, succeeded in the short term since Kapodistrias eventually left the Russian court on his own, but with time Kapodistrias' ideas and policies for a new European order prevailed.[36]

He was always keenly interested in the cause of his native country, and in particular the state of affairs in the Seven Islands, which in a few decades’ time had passed from French revolutionary influence to Russian protection and then British rule. He always tried to attract his Emperor's attention to matters Greek.

Kapodistrias visited his Ionian homeland, by then under British rule, in 1818, and in 1819 he went to London to discuss the islanders' grievances with the British government, but the British gave him the cold shoulder partly because of the fact that, uncharacteristically, he refused to show them the memorandum he wrote to the czar about the subject.[38] Kapodistrias became increasingly active in support of Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire, but did not succeed in obtaining Alexander's support for the Greek revolution of 1821.[8] This put Kapodistrias in an untenable situation and in 1822 he took an extended leave of absence from his position as Foreign Minister and retired to Geneva where he applied himself to supporting the Greek revolution by organising material and moral support.[8]

The election of Capodistrias at Third National Assembly at Troezen
Kapodistrias moved to Geneva, where he was greatly esteemed, having been made an Honorary Citizen for his past services to Swiss unity and particularly to the cantons.[39] In 1827, he learned that the newly formed Greek National Assembly had, as he was the most illustrious Greek-born politician in Europe, elected him as the first head of state of newly liberated Greece, with the title of Kyvernetes (Κυβερνήτης – Governor).