Merchants Have No Country

I'm conflicted on aspects of Jeffersonian Democracy, but dude got it right when he wrote,

"but merchants have no country. the mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains."

Jefferson was admonishing New England merchants and shipowners who were more concerned about diminishing the profitability of transatlantic trade than rallying around their country in the War of 1812.

Fast forward 200 years. US companies have $2.1 trillion clams parked overseas for the sole purpose of avoiding US corporate taxes. Microsoft, Apple, and Google are brand-name players in this shenanigans.

 It's time to bring down a big government hammer on this shit:

• Step 1. Fill Nino's seat with a moderate.
• Step 2. Overturn Citizens United v. FEC.
• Step 3. Clean Congress the fuck up.
• Step 4. Double Congressional salaries to $384K a year but require our representatives to shop for health insurance on some shitty website like the rest of us.
• Step 5...You'll have to buy the book.

REFERENCES

• Letter Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 17 March 1814., Founders Online.
• U.S. Companies Are Stashing $2.1 Trillion Overseas to Avoid Taxes, Bloomberg Business, 4 March 2015.

Congressional Approval? Sure.

Constitutionally lawful & brilliant political calculus by President Obama to first seek Congressional approval before ordering an utterly senseless and unpopular military action in Syria.

Let the conservative nincompoops and spineless Democrats in Congress fall all over themselves to bloody their hands entangling the US in yet another ill-conceived quagmire.

We'd be better off ridding ourselves of the entire Republican Party ― who demonstrably hate 99% of us ― and then shit-can all the spineless Democrats who vote for a punitive bombing of Syria to prove their war-mongering chops.