The Panama Papers Could Hand Bernie Sanders the Keys to the White House

[Avalux]

The revelation that the rich and wealthy are shovelling money in overseas tax havens is not a particularly surprising one. Nevertheless, the sheer scale of the 11.5 million document leak from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca has whipped up an overdue storm and forced the issue of tax justice back on the agenda. It is likely that the Panama papers is just the tip of the iceberg, and if even more is revealed about the financial affairs of world leaders, the implication for global politics will be huge.

The Democratic presidential primaries in the US have been characterised by surging anger at the global elite. The Panama papers scandal will only fuel popular indignation at the actions of perceived establishment figures – those who have stood idly by and allowed this huge miscarriage of justice to take place.

Although there have been no major American casualties over the leak at this stage, all of the presidential candidates will be questioned about the scandal. And nobody is going to be under more pressure than Hillary Clinton. For some Americans, she is the embodiment of a “global elite”, while Bernie Sanders is its antithesis.

The huge leak exposes governments across the globe willfully ignoring tax avoidance by the rich. Although Clinton has not been linked to any malfeasance in the leak, there is a sense that she is among the elite rich, some of whose members have benefited from such schemes.

It has been revealed Clinton pushed through the Panama Free Trade Deal at the same time that Sanders vocally opposed it, citing research warning that it would strictly limit the government’s ability to clamp down on questionable or even illegal activity. Even if the Clintons remain unmentioned in future tax bombshells, Sanders can continue to exploit the narrative that Clinton is part of the demographic responsible, and has assisted in flagrant abuses of the system through trade deals.
__________

But this more than a battle of candidates, it is a battle of ideas. Globalisation, heralded by the likes of Hillary Clinton, has enabled the richest in society to exploit the system while ordinary working people pick up the tab. This has been going on for decades; as a political family, the Clintons have done nothing about it. Hillary continues to describe her opponent’s policy platform as ‘pie in the sky’, yet corporations paying their fair share of taxes could easily fund many of Sanders’ proposals.

The longer this scandal is kept alive the more beneficial will be for Sanders. And if any more skeletons in the Clinton closet see the light, it will parachute Bernie Sanders into the White House.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-panama-papers-could-hand-bernie-sanders-the-keys-to-the-white-house-a6969481.html

So....if a battle over qualifications is created by the media and gets everyone in an uproar, maybe we won't pay attention to the Panama Papers and the implications therein. You can bet your first born that's what is going on right now.

[questionseverything]

1. i don't watch too much msm but i have not seen a peep about it there

thank goodness for the intertubes

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017351637

[Avalux]

2. 11.5 million documents.

Yet not a peep.....thanks for the link!

[Agschmid]

3. There have been several peeps, it's been mentioned quite a bit on MSNBC.

Also NPR has had several stories as well.

[Avalux]

4. Really?

Since I don't watch and missed it on NPR, what are they saying?

[azmom]

5. It's a major story and the media is covering

Hillary riding the NY subway.

[beedle]

7. MSNBC

had a split screen start-to-finish coverage of subway ride, with some local politician relating stories of how the Clintons were New York "Royalty".

The Brits probably didn't cover the 'Royal Wedding' as breathlessly.

[azmom]

9. She looked fucking ridiculous. I couldn't

Turn the damn thing fast enough.

[riderinthestorm]

6. FWIW, I don't think they'll find any Clinton or Clinton Foundation shenanigans here

Mossack Fonseca is the world's 4th largest law firm handling overseas banking .

That means they're not #1.

If I had to guess, I'd say the Clintons use whatever firm is the premier firm.

We won't find wrongdoing here I believe.



That doesn't mean Bernie wasn't still 100% correct on this and Hillary 100% wrong on the Panama Free Trade Agreement.

[Avalux]

10. You may be right.

I am just amazed at the volume of documents...this is a worldwide issue that shows all of us the ugly underbelly of world finances.

Even if the Clintons aren't mentioned, they are part of that club.

[Sunlei]

8. only thing I read about Americans involved is Ams don't need to use Panama because they have

USA based tax haven locations. One is in Nevada, and two others I don't remember where.

[seabeyond]

11. Your title alone, .... Ha ha.

[quantass]

12. K&R

[JudyM]

13. "Hillary continues to describe her opponent’s policy platform as ‘pie in the sky’, yet corporations

paying their fair share of taxes could easily fund many of Sanders’ proposals."


There's the "money" quote.

[Avalux]

14. Yes, and it takes a brit publication to state it so well. n/t

[Waiting For Everyman]

15. The next round of docs is to be about more Americans.

Supposedly. That much paper will take some time to sift through, to find the good stuff.

From a comment under the article, this tip, reported to be the latest feed for all countries, which it looks to be from what I can see so far:

http://panama-papers.site

[Avalux]

16. I have bookmarked that. Thank you. n/t

[amborin]

17. more here:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-07/yes-panama-papers-could-really-end-hillary-clintons-campaign

With Senator Bernie Sanders winning seven of the last eight delegate battles — the most recent was Tuesday night’s Wisconsin victory — there’s a feeling in the air that most progressives haven’t felt since the Iowa caucus. It speaks to a hard truth Hillary Clinton and her choleric campaign staffers will encounter when they wake up in the morning: Bernie really could still beat Clinton and become the Democratic nominee for president.

No way, some of you are saying. The television faces said the delegate math was too hard. The superdelegates make it impossible. Hillary wins the primaries, Bernie only wins caucuses; America won’t elect a socialist; the nation won’t rally behind free healthcare and college tuition.

Despite the supposedly ineluctable logic of Sanders’ unelectability, many pundits now believe there has been a seismic shift in the 2016 presidential race. It is becoming increasingly obvious that Americans are sick to death of the two corporatist political establishments and will do anything to send them a message. The evidence of this is that the two most popular candidates in the 2016 election are a Jewish democratic socialist and a reality TV star who referred to his penis during a nationally televised debate.

Then there’s the matter of the Panama Papers. In case you haven’t heard about them over the roar of mainstream media’s ‘round-the-clock anti-Trump coverage, it’s being referred to as the biggest data leak in history. For the last year, 400 journalists have been secretly decoding 11.5 million documents leaked from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. The 2.6 terabytes of data show billions of dollars worth of transactions dating back 40 years.

Acquired from an anonymous source by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and then shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the documents present a jaw-dropping paper trail of how the upper echelon of the 1 percent has used shell companies and offshore tax havens to avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes. In less than a week of exposure, the Panama Papers have already implicated 140 world leaders from 50 different countries. Top executives and celebrities who appear in the leaked emails, PDFs, and other documents may also be indicted in money laundering, tax evasion, and sanctions-busting activities.

Though the source of the leak opted not to do a Wikileaks-style data dump and is instead allowing media outlets to curate the information, international tax reform could be imminent.

The revelations are relevant to the 2016 presidential election because they once again illustrate the stark contrast in judgement between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. The transgressions documented in the Panama Papers were directly facilitated by the Panama-United States Trade Promotion Agreement, which Congress ratified in 2012. In 2011, Sanders took to the floor of the senate to strongly denounce the trade deal:






“Panama is a world leader when it comes to allowing wealthy Americans and large corporations to evade US taxes by stashing their cash in offshore tax havens. The Panama free trade agreement will make this bad situation much worse. Each and every year, the wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations evade about $100 billion in taxes through abusive and illegal offshore tax havens in Panama and in other countries.”

Clinton, on the other hand, completely ignored the tax haven issue, and instead, regurgitated the same job-creation platitude she used to peddle NAFTA, which has decimated American manufacturing jobs and led to an economic refugee crisis in Mexico.

Beyond just exposing her unwillingness to understand how modern free trade agreements benefit the rich and punish impoverished countries, Clinton may have a more nefarious connection to the Panama Papers.

In lobbying for the Panama-United States Trade Promotion Agreement, Clinton paved the way for major banks and corporations, most notably the Deutsche Bank, to skirt national laws and regulations. After she resigned as Secretary of State, the Deutsche Bank paid her $485,000 for a speech. While criminality can’t yet be definitively established, this may change when the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” publishes its comprehensive list at the end of the month. In addition to the aforementioned connection, Clinton’s name has already surfaced in connection to a billionaire and a Russian-controlled bank named in the files.

The fallout from the Panama Papers is being felt around the world. On Tuesday, Iceland’s Prime Minister resigned after it was revealed his family had used a shell company to hold millions of dollars worth of bonds in a collapsed bank. After an interview in which Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson had a meltdown when asked about the company’s assets, over 20,000 citizens of Iceland protested.

How does this lead to Bernie Sanders defeating Hillary Clinton? The Sanders campaign has been run on the premise that Clinton is inextricably linked to political corruption, disastrous military interventions, and collusion with Wall Street. If it can be shown that Clinton was involved in criminal improprieties exposed by the Panama Papers, this will constitute yet another major line of attack for Sanders headed into the April 14th debate in New York. If Sanders wins the New York primary a few days later and scoops up a proportion of its 247 delegates, the narrative of the election will dramatically shift.

When added to the myriad other Clinton scandals and political vulnerabilities, the Democratic party’s gatekeeper superdelegates could decide that Clinton is too big of a liability going into the general election. It all comes down to New York, though — Sanders must win New York. If he does, you will see historic chaos unleashed upon the American electorate. And if the Panama Papers leak sets off an unstoppable domino effect, the DNC may soon find its fractured party looking just as ghoulish as the clown’s autopsy being conducted on the Republican Party.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Been looking into the articles released by the News Consortion

and next on tap for maybe sending nation to crisis is PM Cameron

The implications are very large. I will have an article by Monday. Still mulling on how to tackle this. And yes this is the story of the century and I predict it will lead to actual anger (just not in the US)

[HereSince1628]

19. Any hints of Panama Papers connections to members of the Bilderberg?

Just thinking it's almost impossible for it not to involve many of them.

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. Nope, sorry

[HereSince1628]

21. seems David Cameron did hook up with Biderberg conference...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2337407/David-Cameron-attend-secretive-Bilderberg-Group-conference-say-meets.html

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. But that was dad's trust

sorry, if there is any direct reference in there any of us will be shocked. Given how many of these are done with bearer shares... aka there is no physical ID as to who is behind them. Why they are prefect for money laundering incidentally