I mean what happened in the Kavanaugh hearings exactly? A woman testified before Congress that Kavanaugh raped her, and she was more convincing than his denial of the same. Truly the greatest miscarriage of justice in American history.
A complete basket case coached into testifying on events she couldn’t remember, couldn’t elaborate on and couldn’t have corroborated by anyone.
Complete basket cases are well known for their ability to complete PhD programs and get hired by Stanford University. I can't say for certain whether her testimony is true or not, but this idea that, after watching her testify and then watching Kavanaugh blatantly commit perjury right afterward, one would have to conclude that this was some total fabrication cooked up by Democrats is a patently absurd conspiracy theory.
I'd almost rather he did. Given their statements in the past, the Senate would have shot Cruz dead on the floor of the chamber before they confirmed him.
Believe it or not, I actually agree. A choice between some crazy Jesus-freak, or Ted Cruz, who just seems to dislike other people having fun? Seems like an easy choice to me. I don't like getting pushed around because of OTHER PEOPLE'S imaginary beliefs.
Conservatives want to be victims so badly. They're already inventing some "anti-Catholic" smear campaign against Barrett out of whole cloth, despite the fact that "Catholics aren't Christians" is a refrain I've heard my entire life from the evangelical protestants who make up their base.
It's really a shame that there's such a lack of Catholic representation on the Supreme Court already...
Not seeing this as any different from any of the previous "bombshell" reports about his tax returns. His businesses lose money, he uses legal tax framework to write off the losses on his tax returns. Thanks Obama.
If you think he reduced his tax burden to effectively $0 for two decades straight through purely legal means, I have a Trump-branded bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. He's also $300 million in debt with no way to repay it, which might be the biggest security risk the Oval Office has ever seen. Also the revenues at the properties he frequents jumped precipitously when he won the White House, which in no way resembles domestic actors paying him for access nor foreign actors paying him to influence American foreign policy. He's also claiming that Ivanka is a contractor and is writing off money he gives her. Dude is a fraud. Always has been. Accept it, apologize to your friends and family, and vote him out.
Dude, what? In what world is it acceptable for a purported billionaire running on an anti-corruption platform to pay less in taxes than basically everybody? That is what Drain the Swamp meant, right? Anti-corruption?
Ours. Most of the ultra-wealthy pay little to no taxes. I think Warren Buffet paid less taxes than his secretary most years (or there was a quote about that somewhere). The revenues at the properties jumped? I'd like to see that math or some sources. I can imagine he's golfing to keep some of the resorts alive. The Trump resorts and DC hotels are functionally empty, and he's done incalculable damage to the brand: who wants the President (or his family) as a landlord? Who's having an event at his resort now? You try inviting a wedding party or a corporate conference there, and watch absolutely no one show up or half of the attendees tell you to go fuck yourself. I agree he's a fraud, and he's using a LOT of legal, but sketchy bullshit to avoid paying taxes. He's on his what, 5th bankruptcy? Let's be honest here: he's using Michael Cohen as a lawyer for most of these years, his accountant has to be equally inept and unethical. Trump doesn't strike me as the kind of guy with strong math or accounting skills. He finds a slimy piece of shit who will do the dirt for him, and should he get caught, under the bus they go. This is unfortunately the lamest scandal, because Trump didn't pioneer tax fraud by the wealthy. I'm willing to bet a few dozen other "moguls" are doing just as much sketchy shit to weasel out of taxes. They're just not dumb enough to enter politics or the public eye to the extent theirs gets reviewed by the NYT. When he refused to release his taxes, we kind of all knew he was cheating on them, right? Fuck this fucking fuck. Also, fuck the outrage around telling us shit we already knew.
We don’t have his full returns or income statements, all we know is what he paid, so it’s tough to get a full picture of his tax liability. Kubla is right, there is nothing knew here and we already discussed this exact thing a few years ago. I had posted he was probably using a loss carry-over, which is exactly what the NYT article says he did. In order to do that, he probably had to post losses in the hundreds of millions. There isn’t any “fraud” if he’s just using the tax system as it’s written, although that specific allowance should be discontinued.
Buffet's point was that he pays a lower rate than his secretary (because her wages are regular income, while most of his wealth is from capital gains), not that he pays less in an absolute amount. He was arguing that the capital gains tax rate is unfairly low compared to the normal income tax rate.
Alas, he was wrong. Anything over 0% is unfairly high. No need to tax that revenue twice, especially with the nice bonus of taxing it a third time when he dies.
If people are forced to pay higher taxes due their home and surrounding property gaining in value, people can pay capital gains. Anyway, regardless of what you think of Trump paying jackshit in taxes, the fact that he owes somewhere in the neighborhood of $400 million to $1 billion is a huge security risk. People who owe that kind of money are more susceptible to being bribed or otherwise being controlled by whomever owns their debts.
[QUOTE="Clutch, post: 642269, member: 472"It's obvious why he wouldn't want to release his returns. They're complicated and full of things that the media can take out of context to provoke outrage amongst the crowd that can't figure out how to fill out their own 1040EZ.[/QUOTE] It makes me wonder if the crowd voting for him had seen his taxes, would they have still voted for him? What with them being all complex and all, and maybe they need some folks from the media to help them understand why paying $750 in taxes isn't a good thing for a "billionaire". Let's be real: $400m in debt on properties that are tainted by an unliked amateur politician is a problem. Not to mention what his son-in-law and the rest of his family is into. Is it a "he shouldn't be president" problem? Eh...not if he's trying to run the country like his businesses. I think Trump has run the brand into the ground. He's poisoned the appeal of the cult of business for people. Whatever he paid for the hotel with his name on it in DC, it's losing money because no one wants to be associated with him. His own supporters famously lied to polls because they were embarrassed to admit voting for him, you think people want to give his property money? Most of the uber-wealthy have the common sense to manage their image better: only Zuckerberg is as disliked (or worse) than Trump. I don't think the tax info changes anyone's mind about Trump. It confirms whatever bias you have: "the media is out to get ol Donny T"....true, because he's a tax and draft dodging piece of shit. "Trump paid $750 in taxes!" as if that was illegal? He played by the rules of the game, and while it might work out a little different for someone who's not passing fucking tax laws (FOR GOD'S BUTT-FUCKING SAKES!), it's not like he broke the law. It does raise some eyebrows that he may owe nearly $100m more in taxes if a lawsuit around an audit doesn't break his way and again...this is not the kind of predicament we want in a sitting fucking president. Conflict of interest for us feds starts at like $20. This motherfucker has a half billion dollars worth of CofI, and we're just going to pretend he's doing the right thing about it? Also, the time where he pays fuck all in taxes, we run up a record deficit with no real plan to pay down. Fuck this fucking fuck. But, in terms of the "gotcha" the NYT is talking about? Not seeing it. Nothing we didn't already know....it's like they're screaming "YOU THOUGHT HE WAS A PIECE OF SHIT, DID YOU ALSO KNOW HE WAS A TURD?" Yup. No shock here.