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Second rate reporter says what?

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I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

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Fuck these fucking interesting times.

So many bastards, so little time.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Late Night ‘Dance of the Seven Unveils’ Open Thread: Speaking of Politicians Who Won’t Release Their Tax Returns…

Late Night ‘Dance of the Seven Unveils’ Open Thread: Speaking of Politicians Who Won’t Release Their Tax Returns…

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Sooo… I guess Bernie’s going on Fox News next Monday because he has a book to sell?

If you’re old like me (and I ain’t as old as Bernie!), you’ll remember that back in 1985 (Democratic) Speaker Jim Wright had to step down after he was charged with bulk-selling his own book to lobbyists hoping to influence him.

Sen. Sanders better have all his royalty receipts in good order and ready to go, because I’m quite sure the Repubs will have no qualms about accusing St. Bernie of similar sleight-of-hand. Heck, Newt Gingrich (who was the first to attack Wright, even though he’d done the same thing himself while a state lege) may come back from the Vatican just to lead the charge!


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30Comments

  2. 2.

    prob50

    Guess that “Bern” some folks were feeling was just a gust of some old farts flatulence.

  3. 3.

    NotMax

    A multitude of reasons to dismiss Wilmer, but comparing him to Horatio Alger is more than a bit much.

    …In 1864 [Alger] was installed as pastor at the Brewster church. He threw himself into his work, delivering vigorous sermons and involving himself in all aspects of parish life. He was especially passionate about organizing games and excursions for the boys’ groups.

    Parishioners noticed he was ‘always with the boys.’ They also wondered why he didn’t court the parish’s eligible young woman [sic]. He was 32, single, and something of a catch.

    They began to ask why, and finally investigated him through a committee made up of the church’s male lay officers. Parish records made public in the 1970s revealed Horatio Alger and the boys had engaged in acts ‘too revolting to relate.’ Two young boys were named and others hinted at.

    Alger was called before the committee and denied nothing. He said he had been ‘imprudent.’ He left Brewster that evening, never to return. The parish notified other Massachusetts parishes about his dismissal without disclosing the reason. Source

  4. 4.

    Mnemosyne

    Raise your hand if you think that Wilmer actually wrote his own book and didn’t just slap his name on something a staffer ghostwrote for him.

    .

    .

    .

    .

    .

    Yeah, me neither.

  5. 5.

    Aleta

    The Hoarse Whisperer
    ‏Replying to @KaivanShroff

    There’s some speculation Sanders is dragging his feet so his 10 years of returns excludes 2008.

    There’s something a bit odd in his Senate disclosures… His 2009 filing lists a 20-year old mortgage not listed the year before in 2008. Weird.

  6. 6.

    Mnemosyne

    @NotMax:

    Wow, that straw man was worthy of goblue72 at his worst,

    Horatio Alger was a child molester, therefore comparing Bernie’s empty slogans to Alger’s means that you’re calling Bernie a child molester! How dare you?!?!?

  8. 8.

    Amir Khalid

    @NotMax:
    @Mnemosyne:
    It seems to me that Notmax is noting that Wilmer is like Alger in hawking empty slogans, not so much in molesting children. That said, linking to a story focused on the latter was probably not the best way to illustrate the point.

  9. 9.

    piratedan

    well as people have mentioned before regarding Wilmer…

    It’s not so much that he can’t commit to being a Democrat and that he uses the party apparatus as his own sandbox but takes none of the responsibility for maintaining it….

    it’s the multitude of other crap….

    his financial coziness with the Russians on certain items
    his lack of antipathy for the NRA
    his own lukewarm response to sexual harassment issues on part of his own staff
    his lack of ownership in crafting any legislation that betters the lives of Americans during his legislative career
    his POV that racism is a financially driven issue
    his inability to recognize POC and their importance to the Democratic coalition

    That’s what sets my teeth on edge about him and even recognizing that, he’s a far superior human being than DJT and the hypocrites that comprise the GOP.

  10. 10.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Zachary ?? @zatchry
    · 11h

    this answer that would get ripped to shreds by the left if any one but Bernie said it

    Zachary ?? @zatchry

    it’s less about the hypocrisy of him being a socialist as it just sounds like something an out of touch millionaire would say.

    This.

    Imagine the firestorm if Clinton had said this.

  11. 11.

    Sab

    I wonder if the tighter rules in the House explains Tim Ryan’s issue with Pelosi. He has written a couple of books.

  12. 12.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    making him even a bigger phony – according to his 2017 financial report, he took the book money and invested in….. wait for …. Wall Street. (link)

    FRAUD!

    Watch, after he loses this election, he’ll resign and cash in further by become a spokesperson and lobbyist for Jamie Dimon.

    Viva La Revolución!

  13. 13.

    Amir Khalid

    @piratedan:
    I think the description you’re looking for re Wilmer is “carpetbagger”. And I disagree that he is much better than Trump. He’s certainly nowhere near as rampantly corrupt; but many of his political positions are not so different, as you note, and there is no real reason to expect he would be a better chief executive of government. At best, Wilmer is a bit less bad than Trump.

  14. 14.

    Patricia Kayden

    Is anyone really surprised that Sanders is a millionaire? I’m just glad that he’s been pressured to release his taxes. He appears to be the front runner amongst the Democratic candidates so he needs to be transparent.

  15. 15.

    Nelle

    When did he become a millionaire? If it was after the book sale, then it was after he bought house number 3 for $600,000. And if there is just the slightest move towards “transparency,” then what about those FEC filings not filed after June or July 2016? If he ever got around to that, I missed it.

  16. 16.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    He put his beach house in a trust so it can pass to his wife and later to his children without ever facing the estate tax.

    Socialism – Leading by example

  17. 17.

    Gvg

    He hasn’t actually released his taxes yet, so i’ll wait to believe. Last time it was a summary with no real details. He has also never acknowledged that his not releasing his gave some cover to Trump not releasing his and I think Trumps contained far more criminal stuff we should have known about. Romney too, but we are talking about BS. I don’t even know if BS really had anything I needed to know, but he helped make it possible for others to hide things. He misunderstands his own actions significance, which I find pretty typical for him. In other words, I think he is too stupid to be my candidate.

  18. 18.

    Another Scott

    ‘morning all.

    There was a bunch of skeevy stuff about Wilmer’s 2016 campaign (all the “$27” donations), but one that didn’t get the attention I thought it deserved – how was he legally able to use campaign money to take a quick junket to try to see the Pope’s people in Rome? $562,746 went to the charter company 2 days before the trip. It didn’t smell right…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  21. 21.

    Chris Johnson

    I want my 2016 money back if he’s so damn rich.

    That’s not the Onion? ‘you can be a millionaire too’? No you can’t. Not without getting elected and becoming another Bernie, and that position is taken. Prosperity gospel is cancelled.

  22. 22.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Huey Long: Every man a king, every man a king, for you can be a millionaire

    Wilmer: you can be rich too if you hire some schlub and pay him peanuts to ghostwrite some crap your cult will buy just to spite Hillary.

  23. 23.

    Just Chuck

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:

    Watch, after he loses this election, he’ll resign and cash in further by become a spokesperson and lobbyist for Jamie Dimon.

    I doubt that, but I wouldn’t rule out him becoming a Fox News commentator.

  24. 24.

    Sherparick

    There are a lot of reasons not to like Sanders, and especially some of his holier than thou, ends justified the means, supporters and advisors like Sirota. And it does seem that Bernie is a bit embarrassed that he and Jane are well off. Also silly. (Warren was being beaten up about this a few months ago by Bernie Bros and Fox News that she was some kind of hypocrite because she was a millionaire (she had written and sold books, been successful lawyer and Harvard Law professor, and a regular on the lecture circuit since the 1990s, long before she ran for the Senate in 2012). “Warren was a highly influential law professor. Although she published in many fields, her expertise was in bankruptcy and commercial law. In that field, only Bob Scott of Columbia and Alan Schwartz of Yale were cited more often than Warren. “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Warren

    Just because you are rich and successful does not mean one has to be sociopathic, selfish, asshole like Howard Schultz.

  25. 25.

    Juice Box

    Bernie implied that the Clintons were somehow corrupt because the made a ton of money writing books and giving speeches (which is like, totally different from putting the stories on paper). The skeevy old hypocrite.

  26. 26.

    matt

    Well, now we know why he stayed in after he couldn’t possibly get enough delegates to win. To make more money.

  27. 27.

    kindness

    I’m hearing too much chatter among the BernieBro crowd about how Bernie was robbed in 2016 and he deserves to be nominated in 2020 because of that or they’ll burn it all down (again). He wasn’t. He lost fair and square.

    That’s a WTF kinda thing. Did these people not learn a damn thing from what they did in 2016? Apparently not. I guess there is a lot of Maine/LePage liberals out there who for some reason or other call themselves Democrats.

  28. 28.

    Raoul Paste

    If you’re Bernie”s age and you’re NOT a millionaire, you can’t afford to retire in America (unless you have a SUPER pension).

    Okay, he’s a millionaire, NOT OKAY is ripping the Clintons for selling books and speaking. gigs.

  29. 29.

    Feckless

    Every single member of Harry Reed’s family, out to 2nd cousins was/is a lobbyist.

    By exonerating Cheney & Bush he made tRumps law breaking inevitable.

    He was a/the dem party leader while we hemorrhaged democratic legislative control of the entire country.

    But the problem I’m told here in the comments is that the outsiders who didn’t pay the party dues like Reed are the problem.

    I was a proud Bernie rep in 2016, but not releasing your taxes is a deal breaker. Period.

    That said, leave the ad hominems to the Republicans, enough of the circular firing squad. The vast majority of Bernie supporters voted for Hillary. I phone banked for her. Spreading the lie that Bernie lost the election is counter productive and is disunifying rather than advocating for your candidate for the dem nomination.

    Leave the mud slinging to the KKK/KGB/GOP.

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