The General Election

[BigRedBuster]

 

Guess this makes Donald extra smart.

This seems to be the latest big issue the Democrats are trying to blow up.

 

Now......I know it's strange that I would be defending the village idiot. But, this is a normal accounting practice and almost any business that has been in business long enough has used it. If you lose money one year, you can deduct those losses from future profits for tax purposes. I fully support this rule being in the code. However, I thought there was a limit on time you had to use the losses. Oh well....I'm not a CPA.

 

That said, the biggest joke in all of this is that on the radio this morning driving to work, I heard one of his surrogates claiming this is evidence of his genius business man brain at work.

WTF???? So, now they are claiming if he loses close to a Billion $$$ it's just him being a genius???? Wow....Next year I need to work hard for my business to lose money...because that's what genius's do.

 

And...don't give me the loss-carry-forwards were evidence of him being a genius. Any 22 year old out of college with an accounting degree knows how to do that.

[Red Five]

 

[BigRedBuster]

 

Does this guy have any clue how dumb he looks complaining about other people's taxes when he won't release his returns and the NYT article just came out?

 

Bigger question.....and people still support this idiot???

[BigRedBuster]

OH....what a genius.

 

[Danny Bateman]

I always thought the one mentioning Romney waiting until September was particularly priceless...

Basically, he's a gigantic hypocrite and I don't know what kind of political calculus he's doing, but whatever it is, he's determined getting mocked like this and raising questions is apparently preferable to releasing the actual returns.

 

And yeah, I get that it's legal. I have no qualms there. Dems are hammering him on this because it just shows his flagrant hypocrisy when he vigorously attacked Romney about his tax return process and has complained loudly about how people not paying their taxes is crippling the US economy. Behind the scenes, it turns out he's a tax cheat himself and has been for many years. I'm not sure anyone finds it particularly surprising, but it just seems wrong. The juxtaposition of the Bernie Sanders campaign spending the past year railing against billionaires not paying their fair share of taxes and Trump apparently having paid nothing is something to see.

And yeah, you heard that surrogate right. Giuliani was doing the Sunday morning show circuit, called him genius, and then said he wishes he had that "genius working for him." And I was like... "REALLY? You want him to lose $916M in one year... for YOU?"

[Danny Bateman]

The Clinton campaign is actually pretty good at cutting ads in a quick manner. Took less than two days:

 

[BigRedBuster]

Again...the rule is not a bad thing and he isn't a tax cheat for taking advantage of it.

[BigRedBuster]

Here's another way of looking at it.

 

He lost 916,000,000 and they claim he then didn't pay taxes for 18 years.

 

So, if he used that loss over 18 years, that means he deducted basically 51,000,000 per year from income.

 

Well...51,000,000 is one hell of a lot of money. But, he acts like he makes one hell of a lot more than that.

[TGHusker]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/1c621104-b0eb-3b4d-9b0a-7bb979f80d7d/clinton-cancels-joint-events.html

 

Yahoo articles on Clinton, Sanders and younger voters

[zoogs]

I get the fiduciary responsibility line. I can't accept the repeated promotion of how charitable he is, as well as the insistence that there's nothing interesting in releasing his tax returns.

 

The New Yorker had a fair take on it:

 

 

The problem with this strategy should be obvious. Far from demonstrating that Trump is a “genius” or a “highly-skilled businessman,” the 1995 returns confirm what longtime observers have known for years: earlier in his career, at least, Trump was a terrible businessman. (...) Trump personally was only saved from the humiliation of being declared bust by the fact that his bankers believed they would get more of their money back by throwing him a lifeline.

(...) Indeed, Trump’s real skill has always been as a self-promoter and flimflam man rather than as a creator of successful companies.

 

These are aspects of his record that run highly contrary to his branding, and which he does not want in the open.

 

From the NY Times, his tax preparer until 1996:

 

 

Mr. Mitnick, though, said there were times when even he, for all his years helping wealthy New Yorkers navigate the tax code, found it difficult to face the incongruity of his work for Mr. Trump. He felt keenly aware that Mr. Trump was living a life of unimaginable luxury thanks in part to Mr. Mitnick’s ability to relieve him of the burden of paying taxes like everyone else.

“Here the guy was building incredible net worth and not paying tax on it,” he said.

[BigRedBuster]

[NM11046]

Heard that he slipped up in front of PTSD veterans today ... bad start to a very long week I think.

[Red Five]

[Danny Bateman]

Oh snap.

 

Yeah, NM, here's the PTSD quote:

 

Admittedly, it's a bit of a stretch to say he was calling people weak, I think. But seriously, PTSD and stigmatizing mental illness is not at all something this country needs right now. Anybody who tries to draw some kind of line between weakness and mental illness is doing serious damage do a very important issue.

[knapplc]

That is in large part to Fahrenthold's dogged pursuit of the story. There was something there, it just needed digging into. This is exactly the kind of reporting we need from the press.

 

An odd contrast to the relatively simple work of one newspaper reporter are the 33 hearings and 10 Congressional committees that dug into Benghazi... and found nothing.