This Is A Sample Of A Congressional Response Report: Fill & Download for Free

Hey Richard!It takes one to know one, right? Because as a business man President Dumbass Trump was the biggest loser of them all…Last October, the New York Times published a monumental exposé of how Donald Trump and other members of the Trump family engaged in sham financial schemes during the nineteen-nineties, including what the newspaper described as “instances of outright fraud,” to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes on the real-estate fortune that Fred Trump passed on to his children.Based upon “printouts from Trump’s official Internal Revenue Service transcripts Trump claims, before he became a reality-television star and entered politics, he was a highly successful self-made businessman. He was anything but.Between 1985 and 1994, the Times story says, Trump’s core businesses lost money every single year, and the accumulated losses came to more than a billion dollars. “In fact, year after year, Trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer, the Times found when it compared his results with detailed information the I.R.S. compiles on an annual sampling of high-income earners,” Buettner and Craig write. “His core business losses in 1990 and 1991—more than $250 million each year—were more than double those of the nearest taxpayers in the I.R.S. information for those years.”In case you didn’t take all that in, here is a quick recap: when Trump was portraying himself as a newly minted billionaire and financial genius, his core businesses were losing money hand over fist. Assuming the Times reporters’ analysis of the I.R.S. data on high earners is accurate—and there is no apparent reason to doubt it—he was the biggest loser in the country for two years in a row.The Times reporters and other journalists have already covered some of this troubled history. In September, 2016, the Times received a copy of part of Trump’s 1995 tax return, which showed that he declared a massive tax loss, of nine hundred and sixteen million dollars. Under tax laws, business owners are allowed to carry losses into subsequent years and offset them against income. Trump’s loss was so huge in 1995, the Times noted, that it “could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years.” In response to that Times scoop, Trump’s campaign released a statement that didn’t challenge the nine-hundred-and-sixteen-million-dollar loss but claimed that he “has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes.”Meanwhile, Trump and his Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, who oversees the I.R.S., are busy fighting congressional requests for the President’s more recent tax records. It’s too early to say how that dispute will ultimately be resolved, but an amicable settlement seems highly unlikely.Even now, there are a lot of Americans who believe that the President is a savvy and successful businessman who knows what he is doing. The actual record, which, thanks to the Times, we now know a good deal more about, suggests the exact opposite. It reveals Trump to be a reckless conman who burned money and relied on his father, even as he was fashioning a myth that eventually took him all the way to the White House. No wonder he is so averse to allowing the American public to see any more accurate information about his financial history.So the word ‘loser’ is so deeply embedded in Trump’s twisted brain and mind that he utters it time and time again to describe other people and/or their actions. Trump’s a very insecure weakling and coward: lashing out at his subordinates, bullying Senators, refusing to explain his decision process, refusing to address the serious concerns raised, and appearing mercurial at best in his decisions.The White House appears to be unraveling from all sides. That’s one thing for the country to deal with as a matter of domestic political turmoil. But it’s quite another when an intemperate and insecure commander-in-chief is making dramatic and enormously consequential decisions for what can only be assumed to be the worst of reasons…Edit: The great Sam Adams brought this to my attention and is more than worth to include in this post: How Trump used financial documents to exaggerate his wealth and hide debts, Thank you for the input, Sam!

While I didn’t vote for Barack Obama in 2008, I made a conscious choice to give his presidency the benefit of the doubt. Asking any modern day historians to rank Barack Obama’s presidency will likely land him among the top 5 out of 45 presidents the United States has had to date.Unfortunately, if anyone asked upon which criteria those “historians” used to justify the subsequent ranking of President Obama, no two people would provide the same criteria used to justify their response because those hundreds of historians have no common metrics by which to judge the efficacy of a presidency.Personally, I rank Barack Obama right behind Woodrow Wilson (worst) and FDR (second worst) as the 3rd worst president in our history.It’s important to realize how easy it is to evaluate the efficacy of all presidents using the same system to evaluate performance. I believe the only FAIR way to judge EVERY PRESIDENT, is by their written job description that exists only in the Constitution itself.Preserve, Protect and Defend the constitution of the United States of America.Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the United States; that is to say their job is to ENFORCE existing laws.Commander and Chief of the US Armed ForcesThe following items are REPRESENTATIVE ONLY of a handful of unconstitutional actions taken by the Obama Administration, in direct violation of their constitutional job description.NOTE The links and sources I provide below are NOT intended to provide or disprove my point of view. Rather they are intended ONLY as a starting point for open minded, honest readers to do their own homework before bashing me simply because I dare criticize the job performance of “the chosen one.”GM BAIL OUTThe GM bailout defied hundreds of years of bankruptcy laws, in an effort for the Obama Administration to repay the Unions for their support of his presidential election. A NEW GM corporation would be owned60% by the U.S. government,12% by the Canadian government,17.5% by the United Automobile Workers union, and10% by old G.M. bondholders0% by old G.M. shareholdersUnder the terms of the reorganization, common share holders entire investments were wiped out while the Bondholders, higher in a bankruptcy distribution as a secured creditor, received almost 50% less than the UAW who held unsecured credit status. The point has nothing to do with who the entities are (creditor vs laborer) but rather the hundreds of years of stability this deal destroys at the hands of the Obama Administration, specifically.In addition to this obvious obfuscation of bankruptcy laws, the US Government took a controlling equity position in a privately held company, using that power to remove a board elected executive while at the same time providing direct level oversight of company operations by Steven Ratter, the Automotive Czar.The idea that the president (any president) steps in to save any private company with tax payer funds, has any direct or indirect oversight of said private company and unilaterally changes the pecking order of longstanding bankruptcy laws to pay off political favors is unsettling and entirely unconstitutional.Recess AppointmentsPresident Obama was frustrated that 3 separate nominations for the Consumer Protections Bureau were going unconfirmed by the Senate. In an effort to end-route the “obstruction” of the Senate, President Obama unilaterally declared the Senate “in recess,” immediately making 3 recess appointments to said board.President Obama’s unconstitutional actions was rebuked by a unanimous Supreme Court for his lawlessness.Voter IntimidationFour individuals, associated with the New Black Panther Party, were charged with voter intimidation by the justice department under the Bush Administration. During trial, the 4 defendants chose to not show up in their defense, ensuring a guaranteed “default” win by the Department of Justice. Unfortunately just before the “default judgement” (win) was to be granted by the judge, two political appointees of the Obama Administration decided to drop charges against all four New Black Panther members, for no apparent reason.Stifling of the PressThe Obama Administration was self-touted as the most “transparent” administration in history. Unfortunately, it did not believe in transparency when it came to whistleblowers or the press. The Obama Administration targeted journalists, based on the Espionage Act signed into law by Woodrow Wilson in 1917. The Obama Administration applied the Espionage Act more in 8 years than all presidents since 1917, COMBINED. That is saying a lot since Woodrow Wilson is known for imprisoning thousands of citizens reading the constitution aloud in public and for speaking out publicly against its tax policies.In addition, reporters Sharyl Attkisson and James Rosen were specifically targeted by the Obama Administration for their critical reporting of their activities. Wire taps, pulling of phone records, deleting of Benghazi materials from their personal computers are all activities associated with a lawless Administration.Operation Fast and FuriousThis operation is not to be confused with the Bush Administration’s Operation Wide Receiver, as claimed by Attorney General Eric Holder. Operation Fast and Furious was an ILLEGAL gun running operation, without cooperation or knowledge of the Mexican government, that FORCED legal firearm dealers to knowingly sell guns to straw purchasers and cartel members. The idea was these guns would be tracked to their origins in Mexico so cartels could be picked apart. Unfortunately, the ATF lost track of some 65% of the guns. Of those lost guns, one was used to kill Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in 2010 while other Fast and Furious weapons were later identified as having been used in the Paris Terror Attacks in 2015.The disagreement between Congress and the Attorney General, Eric Holder, surrounding the congressional investigations and document production into Operation Fast and Furious led to the Attorney General being held in Contempt of Congress.ObamaCareRegardless what one thinks of ObamaCare, it is undeniable that in order to sell the plan to the American people, the Administration proclaimed ObamaCare was a penalty to those who who did not enroll, rather than a tax. Conversely, during Supreme Court testimony, the Obama Administration labored extraordinarily hard to convince the Supreme Court that the “penalties” in the law were actually taxes, because if the penalties weren’t taxes, the law would have to be struck down as unconstitutional. John Roberts ultimately agreed with this painstaking assessment, and for the first time in history, the Supreme Court changed wording of a law to uphold its constitutionality.Regardless of the Supreme Court ruling, several additional unilateral actions by the Obama Administration and its executive level departments raise serious questions about the legality of its implementation. For instance, without congressional approval, the administration unilaterally delayed the individual mandate, and separately, the employer mandate. The question should not be whether the changes to ObamaCare should have been made, but whether the Executive Branch has the authority to make the changes without Congress (it does not).NOTEWORTHY REMINDERS: It’s worth reminding everyone of how two of the architects of this bill, talked about it openly in friendly crowds.Jacob Hacker - ObamaCare not a Trojan Horse to single payer, it’s just right there.Johnathan Gruber - They (progressives) were able to take advantage of the stupidity of the American people’s total lack of understanding about taxation and markets.Defense of Marriage ActThe job of the president is to uphold and defend existing laws whether you like them or not. Those laws you don’t like, you work with Congress to change. However, rather than go through that arduous process, the Obama Administration unilaterally decided to stop defending laws they didn’t agree with, that prior administrations and sessions of congress lawfully enacted. One specific law that comes to mind is the DOMA, singed into law by Bill Clinton, which in 2010, the Obama Administration simply decided to quit defending in court. As a result, the law was struck down (despite having been upheld countless times in separate cases in the 20 prior years).As President you don’t get to choose which laws you like and don’t like, rather, you are the Chief Law Enforcement Officer in the land. You uphold existing law, defend existing law and that it. The extent of law making authority that exists in the executive branch is that of veto or signing power when a bill reaches the President’s desk from Congress.DACAAgain, the job of the president is to enforce existing law, not skirt the law or create new laws from an administrative perspective. One such illegal law created by President Obama is DACA. Using Executive Order, the President created a policy his executive level agencies were to follow when carrying out deportation orders. In fact, the details of the EO essentially granted executive level amnesty to vast swaths of illegal immigrants. Whether or not you agree with the outcome, the President of the United States does NOT have this authority, as President Obama said in his own words on so many different occasions, like in 2011 when speaking at a luncheon to the Counsel of La Raza.Iranian Nuclear DealRegardless if one thinks the Iranian Nuclear Agreement was a good or bad deal for the American people, no sane individual can say it was done constitutionally. If the Obama Administration ever had any intent on this “non-treaty” agreement being binding on the United States, the only way to ensure their efforts wouldn’t be unilaterally undone by a future administration was to submit the agreement to the Senate for approval. However, the Administration knew there was no case that could be made to garner the support of 60 US Senators that the Iranian Nuclear Agreement was in fact in the best interest of the United States. Since that was impossible, the Obama Administration hung their hopes of a “non” US Treaty staying in effect using only the power of the presidency.Clearly the sanctions prior to this “treaty” were working. Iran’s economy was collapsing. Iran is undoubtedly the worlds foremost state sponsor of terrorism. Why then would the US led coalition agree to allow $150 Billion be released from foreign banks (under US Sanctions) under an agreement that allows Iran to essentially self-determine whether they are abiding by the agreement or not.ConclusionThis is in no way a comprehensive list of unconstitutional acts by the Obama Administration, but rather a sampling of his progressive ideology in action. However, what is clear, is that on major policy issues, the Obama Administration was clearly willing to absorb as much power into the executive branch as possible. Whether or not you agree with his policies or decisions, one needs to realize the following:1. Imagine the politician you trust the most.2. Imagine the politician you trust the most implementing the policies you agree the most with.3. Imagine how great life is.4. Now imagine that same power in the hands of the politician you distrust the most implementing the policies you disagree the most with.It’s like the saying — be careful what you ask for, you may just get it. It is for these reasons that we do not have a King. It is for these reasons that the powers of the president do not authorize the president to make laws, but rather simply enforce laws and sign or veto proposed legislation. That’s it.Some of the information from this post come from my own writings of Bryce Ebeling's answer to What was the worst thing about Barack Obama's presidency?

Hahahaha.You’ve been fed a line of bullshit.First, there is no “inconvenience”. I can go to literally any clinic, doctor, or hospital in the country and all I need to do is to show them my health card:Second, about those taxes: healthcare expenditures are mostly covered by various forms of income taxes, which means that you pay based on what you earn. If you’re a struggling new grad, you pay very little. If you are a rich old fart, you pay more. In both cases, overwhelmingly, people think that it is “worth it”. (And by the way? Just as an aside? In Canada, our taxes are actually lower than your taxes + health insurance + copays.)Here’s a great short video (by an American doctor) which explains the Canadian healthcare system really well:This article is well worth reading: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/08/06/health-insurance-canada-lie/?arc404=trueHere’s the text:In my prior life as an insurance executive, it was my job to deceive Americans about their health care. I misled people to protect profits. In fact, one of my major objectives, as a corporate propagandist, was to do my part to “enhance shareholder value.” That work contributed directly to a climate in which fewer people are insured, which has shaped our nation’s struggle against the coronavirus, a condition that we can fight only if everyone is willing and able to get medical treatment. Had spokesmen like me not been paid to obscure important truths about the differences between the U.S. and Canadian health-care systems, tens of thousands of Americans who have died during the pandemic might still be alive.In 2007, I was working as vice president of corporate communications for Cigna. That summer, Michael Moore was preparing to release his latest documentary, “Sicko,” contrasting American health care with that in other rich countries. (Naturally, we looked terrible.) I spent months meeting secretly with my counterparts at other big insurers to plot our assault on the film, which contained many anecdotes about patients who had been denied coverage for important treatments. One example was 3-year-old Annette Noe. When her parents asked Cigna to pay for two cochlear implants that would allow her to hear, we agreed to cover only one.Clearly my colleagues and I would need a robust defense. On a task force for the industry’s biggest trade association, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), we talked about how we might make health-care systems in Canada, France, Britain and even Cuba look just as bad as ours. We enlisted APCO Worldwide, a giant PR firm. Agents there worked with AHIP to put together a binder of laminated talking points for company flacks like me to use in news releases and statements to reporters.Here’s an example from one AHIP brief in the binder: “A May 2004 poll found that 87% of Canada’s business leaders would support seeking health care outside the government system if they had a pressing medical concern.” The source was a 2004 book by Sally Pipes, president of the industry-supported Pacific Research Institute, titled “Miracle Cure: How to Solve America’s Health Care Crisis and Why Canada Isn’t the Answer.” Another bullet point, from the same book, quoted the CEO of the Canadian Association of Radiologists as saying that “the radiology equipment in Canada is so bad that ‘without immediate action radiologists will no longer be able to guarantee the reliability and quality of examinations.’ ”Much of this runs against the experience of many Americans, especially the millions who take advantage of low pharmaceutical prices in Canada to meet their prescription needs. But there were more specific reasons to be skeptical of those claims. We didn’t know, for example, who conducted that 2004 survey or anything about the sample size or methodology — or even what criteria were used to determine who qualified as a “business leader.” We didn’t know if the assertion about imaging equipment was based on reliable data or was an opinion. You could easily turn up comparable complaints about outdated equipment at U.S. hospitals.(Contacted by The Washington Post, an AHIP spokesman said this perspective was “from the pre-ACA past. We are future focused by building on what works and fixing what doesn’t.” He added that the organization “believes everyone deserves affordable, high-quality coverage and care — regardless of health status, income, or pre-existing conditions.” An APCO Worldwide spokesperson told The Post that the company “has been involved in supporting our clients with the evolution of the health care system. We are proud of our work.” Cigna did not respond to requests for comment.)Nevertheless, I spent much of that year as an industry spokesman, my last after 20 years in the business, spreading AHIP’s “information” to journalists and lawmakers to create the impression that our health-care system was far superior to Canada’s, which we wanted people to believe was on the verge of collapse. The campaign worked. Stories began to appear in the press that cast the Canadian system in a negative light. And when Democrats began writing what would become the Affordable Care Act in early 2009, they gave no serious consideration to a publicly financed system like Canada’s. We succeeded so wildly at defining that idea as radical that Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), then chair of the Senate Finance Committee, had single-payer supporters ejected from a hearing.Today, the respective responses of Canada and the United States to the coronavirus pandemic prove just how false the ideas I helped spread were. There are more than three times as many coronavirus infections per capita in the United States, and the mortality rate is twice the rate in Canada. And although we now test more people per capita, our northern neighbor had much earlier successes with testing, which helped make a difference throughout the pandemic.The most effective myth we perpetuated — the industry trots it out whenever major reform is proposed — is that Canadians and people in other single-payer countries have to endure long waits for needed care. Just last year, in a statement submitted to a congressional committee for a hearing on the Medicare for All Act of 2019, AHIP maintained that “patients would pay more to wait longer for worse care” under a single-payer system.While it’s true that Canadians sometimes have to wait weeks or months for elective procedures (knee replacements are often cited), the truth is that they do not have to wait at all for the vast majority of medical services. And, contrary to another myth I used to peddle — that Canadian doctors are flocking to the United States — there are more doctors per 1,000 people in Canada than here. Canadians see their doctors an average of 6.8 times a year, compared with just four times a year in this country.Most important, no one in Canada is turned away from doctors because of a lack of funds, and Canadians can get tested and treated for the coronavirus without fear of receiving a budget-busting medical bill. That undoubtedly is one of the reasons Canada’s covid-19 death rate is so much lower than ours. In America, exorbitant bills are a defining feature of our health-care system. Despite the assurances from President Trump and members of Congress that covid-19 patients will not be charged for testing or treatment, they are on the hook for big bills, according to numerous reports.That is not the case in Canada, where there are no co-pays, deductibles or coinsurance for covered benefits. Care is free at the point of service. And those laid off in Canada don’t face the worry of losing their health insurance. In the United States, by contrast, more than 40 million have lost their jobs during this pandemic, and millions of them — along with their families — also lost their coverage.Then there’s quality of care. By numerous measures, it is better in Canada. Some examples: Canada has far lower rates than the United States of hospitalizations from preventable causes like diabetes (almost twice as common here) and hypertension (more than eight times as common). And even though Canada spends less than half what we do per capita on health care, life expectancy there is 82 years, compared with 78.6 years in the United States.When the pandemic reached North America, Canadian hospitals, which operate under annual global budgets — fixed payments typically allocated at the provincial and regional levels to cover operating expenses — were better prepared for the influx of patients than many U.S. hospitals. And Canada ramped up production of personal protective equipment much more quickly than we did.Of the many regrets I have about what I once did for a living, one of the biggest is slandering Canada’s health-care system. If the United States had undertaken a different kind of reform in 2009 (or anytime since), one that didn’t rely on private insurance companies that have every incentive to limit what they pay for, we’d be a healthier country today. Living without insurance dramatically increases your chances of dying unnecessarily. Over the past 13 years, tens of thousands of Americans have probably died prematurely because, unlike our neighbors to the north, they either had no coverage or were so inadequately insured that they couldn’t afford the care they needed. I live with that horror, and my role in it, every day.