United States

Earlier today, for the first time we got a glimpse into some of the American names allegedly contained in the "Panama Papers", largest ever leak. "Some", not all, and "allegedly" because as we said yesterday, "one can't help but wonder: why not do a Wikileaks type data dump, one which reveals if not all the 2.6 terabytes of data due to security concerns, then at least the identities of these 441 US-based clients. After all, with the rest of the world has already been extensively shamed, it's only fair to open US books as well."

Max Boot’s argument for the importance of NATO unwittingly draws attention to one of the biggest problems with the alliance over the last two decades:

Preface 1: One of the reasons that voters like Sanders and Trump is because they oppose fake "free trade" deals, which help a handful of fatcats ... but have almost nothing to do with "free trade", and which hurt the American worker.

Preface 2: I'm for consistency ... either we ALL get to hide our money from taxing authorities, or none of us should be able to.

Barack Obama pushed the trade deal with Panama which allowed the tax evasion revealed by the "Panama Papers" to flourish.  Huffington Post reported in 2011:

In what he assures will be "an easy decision," Donald Trump has released details of his plan to "compel Mexico to pay for the wall." In a 600 word statement, Trump proposes, in a potentially devastating move for Mexico’s economy, to block billions of dollars in payments immigrants send back home until the nation made "a one-time payment of $5-10 billion" to the U.S.

Let’s face it: in times of war, the Constitution tends to take a beating. With the safety or survival of the nation said to be at risk, the basic law of the land—otherwise considered sacrosanct—becomes nonbinding, subject to being waived at the whim of government authorities who are impatient, scared, panicky, or just plain pissed off.