Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Zaydin]

NYT might be playing the long game, and having their own 'breaking news' stories about these taxes to overshadow whatever manufactured outrage Trump's camp will inevitably toss out as a distraction.

Though if I was Trump's camp I'd be putting the screws to Congress to get the Supreme Court hearings up and ready. Either the news collectively ignores Trump's taxes to cover it - and the shitshow surrounding it - or the focus remains on the Tax story and Barret can get her seat without a media circus.

I figure they realize that if they stagger the stories out they get to dominate the news cycle for a bit and it keeps a steady stream of blows to Trump and keeping him off balance in October.

[Xyonai]

I figure they realize that if they stagger the stories out they get to dominate the news cycle for a bit and it keeps a steady stream of blows to Trump and keeping him off balance in October.

Yeah that's what I meant to say but worded it badly.

[eschatological]

Oop, looks like we got our distraction: Project Veritas is trying to trend some nonsense conspiracy theory about ballot harvesting.

I like that they dropped it in the middle of the night on a work night in the U.S., right in time for their GRU friends in Russia to amplify it to ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FOUR THOUSAND TWEETS. NFL games don't get that kind of action on Sunday afternoons, and they're always on the top of the current trending.

It boggles my mind how anyone can take Project "Veritas" with any semblance of seriousness, yet all the usual suspects, Jack Posobiec, Brietbart, etc, are amplifying the "explosive" evidence of ballot harvesting which amounts to a video of a guy with a bunch of envelopes in his car IN JUNE FOR THE NOVEMBER ELECTION which don't even match MN absentee ballots, and him claiming he's a "former political operative" in these shenanigans.

I especially like how this "former political operative" said his supposed job was to bully Somali immigrants to fill out absentee ballots for Ilhan Omar......when that's literally her most popular demographic, as she herself is a Somali immigrant.

[Deja Thoris]

In 2018, Trump's fiscal disclosure form (not taxes) said he made over $400 million.

The NYTimes story says Trump actually lost $47 million, and yes, used that to his tax advantage.

If Trump actually did both, he lied on a federal form. That's a felony. Where the hell is @cubby when you need him?

One is revenue. The other was profit / loss. Theres a difference.

The "issue" here is overclaiming deductions for tax purposes. Like how his admin expenses went up 5 fold from one year to the next or how he managed to claim Ivankas beauty expenses as business ones etc etc.

[ohtlmtlm]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...mid=tw-nytimes
-easy to follow compilation of events.

It really is a shame that people accepted his excuses for not disclosing his taxes like every other candidate had done since Nixon. Now you got people that are entrenched in defending this inexcusable amount of financial criminality on top of the political division that has led to regular protests and rioting and people killing and beating each other over this crook who's just trying to navigate a way to keep the con going.

[Breccia]

One is revenue. The other was profit / loss. Theres a difference.

Ah, yep, good point. it's the same limited form that puts assets in spans of value rather than specific value. Which means Trump is claiming he spent 10% more than he earned, and that it was business expenses (you can't deduct money just because you spent it) or continuing cumulative losses from massive losses pre-2018. Either of those makes him a bad businessman.

In other news: The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has grown increasingly concerned that President Donald Trump, pushed by a new member of his coronavirus task force, is sharing incorrect information about the pandemic with the public.

Dr. Robert Redfield, who leads the CDC, suggested in a conversation with a colleague Friday that Dr. Scott Atlas is arming Trump with misleading data about a range of issues, including questioning the efficacy of masks, whether young people are susceptible to the virus and the potential benefits of herd immunity.

"Everything he says is false," Redfield said during a phone call made in public on a commercial airline and overheard by NBC News.

Redfield acknowledged after the flight from Atlanta to Washington, D.C., that he was speaking about Atlas, a neuroradiologist with no background in infectious diseases or public health. Atlas was brought on to the White House task force in August.

Redfield testified before Congress this month that he suspects that a face covering could protect him from Covid-19 better than any future vaccine. Most public health officials share the view that masks are essential to stop the spread of the virus. Still, Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on how useful wearing them may be.

"If every one of us did it, this pandemic would be over in eight to 12 weeks," Redfield said before offering a stark warning that contradicted the president's assertion that the country is "rounding the corner" on the pandemic.

"We're nowhere near the end," Redfield said.

Before he joined the task force, Atlas was a frequent guest on Fox News, where he pushed to reopen the country and espoused views that more closely align with Trump's opinions during the health crisis. Since his addition to the task force, Atlas has become the medical expert who spends the most time with the president, and his profile has been elevated in recent weeks by his appearing in the White House briefing room when Trump speaks with reporters.

Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci, who attended near-daily briefings with the president alongside Redfield in the spring, have, at times, voiced their disagreements with Atlas as the number of coronavirus cases has surged, climbing by 22 percent in the last two weeks, according to data reviewed by NBC News. Two dozen states reported higher numbers than during the previous seven-day period. More than 204,000 people have died of the virus in the United States, with 7 million infected so far.

There is a concern among Redfield and others that Atlas continually briefs the president and misrepresents what other health experts have said in sworn testimony, according to a member of the task force.

Yes, Trump picked a guy from FOX News based on his views and listened only to him starting August 10 of this year, not the other experts who he already had who'd been working in the trenches for months. Even Dr. Atlas' colleagues say he's a threat.

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Near as I can tell, Trump's last tweet was 21 hours ago.

Obamacare will be replaced with a MUCH better, and FAR cheaper, alternative if it is terminated in the Supreme Court. Would be a big WIN for the USA!

I'm not the first one to point out his silence probably means his phone was stolen, or we'd be seeing a meltdown of Trumpian proportions. BUt let's discuss that tweet.

What is the replacement?

Trump, famously, ran on this premise. Better health coverage for more people for less money, it was. He never revealed any plan despite being elected, and let the House and Senate make and then kill their own. He'd promised a new plan multiple times this very year and has none.

"Oh yeah? Well let's see Biden come up with something."

It's called the ACA.

"Um, I mean, something else. Not stuff that already exists."

He proposed these changes in April.

Quick note, Trump likely picked Dr. Atlas for Dr. Atlas' view on the ACA. Dr. Atlas is a big fan of tax credits for buying health insurance, which of course, means people with bad or no jobs get fucked. The ACA, as a reminder, has sliding scale discounts based on income directly reducing the cost in the first place.

Trump has no plan. He had well over four years to come up with something more specific than "repeal and replace the ACA" and has not done so (admittedly the court case is working on half, but there is no replacement plan yet).

And the only reason I'm not issuing yet another 24 hour challenge to find Trump's plan is because a far more important challenge is ongoing. Also, the plan Trump announced 4 days ago clearly isn't it. We've already covered that giving seniors $200 stolen from other programs is barely anything, and his executive orders are ineffective like his withered old man dick. Executive Orders cannot force private companies to cover civilians. That's why a law had to be passed to force the issue. And in early August he promised to have a full plan in two weeks, that never happened, so the challenge would be just another excuse to refuse to answer and be branded a coward.

[DingDongKing]

-snip-

He reposted something from David Harris Jr around 7 hours ago. He then screamed 'FAKE NEWS' sometime before that.

[Breccia]

Twenty-one states saw new cases rise by 10% in the last week. Eleven saw a 10% or more decrease but Florida is one, so it's really ten.

Basically every medical expert who isn't a brain surgeon put in charge of a virus outbreak (oh right, Dr. Atlas isn't a specialist in infectious diseases) is predicting a surge in the fall/school year/flu season. As I've personally cited as recently as yesterday, death tolls are expected to rise significantly -- doubling or even higher -- in the fall/winter months.

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He reposted something from David Harris Jr around 7 hours ago. He then screamed 'FAKE NEWS' sometime before that.

Ah, yes, there it is. He retweeted a book on his campaign's merchandise store and the book spelled "patriotism" wrong.

[Ripster42]

Trump likely took so much money from campaign like the stories of over charging for his hotels and property.

Now I admit most of it is probably not illegal since this is how our politics work. I can even admit if Trump steals from rich donors, who let's face it the money is nothing to them, I have no sympathy.

It's illegal to charge over market rate. This is to prevent the laundering of bribe money. It's charged under honest services fraud.

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It's likely Trump put these loans into some kind of LLC or whatever, meaning in each case he'll "only" lose the property but not his own money. Personally, I want to see a bank scrape Trump's name off what used to be his tower. Maybe Trump can see it through his window at Riker's.

A lot of the loans are personally secured. Chigago tower, DC hotel, and FL golf resort, totaling about 300m are personally secured to germans who launder russian money.

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Thus far it's been shit to the tune of "well it would only be hypocritical if he were a pro-tax candidate" and "nothing illegal has been proved or else it'd be in court", but the impact of these tax returns was never really a function of his base anyway.

This is great. "It'd be in court." Looks at our courts and sees that it is, indeed, in court.

[Breccia]

A lot of the loans are personally secured.

I'll be honest, after his fourth bankruptcy, I kind of assumed all his loans were secured.

Trump declared assets of $1.4 billion and the NYTimes says he owes more than a billion. If the NYTimes has accurate reports, Trump is not a billionaire.

On topic: I had a chat with an old friend of mine and the topic of Pascale came up. He was...not very charitable. Specifically, he blamed Pascale for basically stealing an election that put someone incompetent in charge, leading to a massive market crash and 200 thousand plus dead. The description was so directed that I'm actually wondering if Pascale tried to commit suicide because he knew they were coming to get all his stolen money, or if the guilt of wiping out about a third the population of Boston, with another third projected, finally got to him and he couldn't bear the grief of being complicit with hundreds of thousands of innocent Americans dead.

However, neither of us will be sending thoughts and prayers. Pascale adds yet another "I never thought Trump would betray me" to the increasing pile, and it's unlikely his story is over.

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I don't know if this topic has been raised yet. So, Trump unilaterally created the biggest tax increase ever levied on Americans with the tariffs from China.

"Yes, we've discussed that."

But not the WTO Sept 15 ruling that some of those tariffs are illegal.

China has Most Favored Nation status. There are only a few ways to bypass that and tariff them -- that's the point of the status. Trump tried two ways, and both failed, because Trump. One, he claimed that the US and China had come to a resolution, because China responded with its own tariffs. Naturally, China disagreed, and that's the end of that argument. (It's also a lot like saying the murder attempt is over because the victim started shooting back) Trump also used the WTO variant of National Security Lol, something called "personal morals". The claim was the tariffs might maybe who knows shut down China's unfair tech stealing practices.

Except, as the WTO finding says, the tariffs were applied to sectors where no such issue existed. It's not like China sent spies to the US to figure out how to cut trees down. Worse, when the exclusions were filed for in, personal morals were not brought up at the time, making the defense retroactive and therefore lame-ass, limp-dick, and IMPOTUS.

Also, let's think about what this means. The US tried to tariffs China because China was being mean to them, and claimed MFN status would not stop that. Um, wouldn't nearly every country on Earth put tariffs on the US right now? If Personal Morals Lol was a thing that would let, say, the EU tariffs goods from the US because they didn't like Trump's dictatorial power grab, why wouldn't they? Can you imagine what that could do to an election? What would happen if, say, all of EUrope and all of Asia collectively said "we're going to tariff all US goods by 500% until Trump is out of office, because he's refusing to accept election results caused by mail in ballots he personally made mandatory then personally sabotaged the ability to send. Our personal morals say we don't like dictators."

[Elegiac]

Trump has specifically attacked her at his last few rallies. It isn't unheard of, but it stopped until the last few days. Coincidence?

One of Trump's last tweets prior to the NYT story being dropped was "watch the ballots", so no.

The fact this is Project Veritas (an organization known for producing deceptively edited videos), which dropped this video during slow hours in the US where GRU bots could get it trending, immediately after an incredibly damaging news story dropped... Yeah, this has a foul odor about it.

Also, Rep. Omar has issued her reply to the allegations.

[Ivanstone]

https://twitter.com/bradleyrsimpson/...14620146970626
"Abraham Lincoln paid 3x more in taxes in 1864 than Donald Trump in 2016. Not more as a share of his income. More in taxes. Lincoln paid $1981.67 in federal taxes on a salary of $25,000 in 1864-1865. Trump paid $750 in 2016, about one-third what Lincoln paid, but 151 years later."

[Thekri]

https://twitter.com/bradleyrsimpson/...14620146970626
"Abraham Lincoln paid 3x more in taxes in 1864 than Donald Trump in 2016. Not more as a share of his income. More in taxes. Lincoln paid $1981.67 in federal taxes on a salary of $25,000 in 1864-1865. Trump paid $750 in 2016, about one-third what Lincoln paid, but 151 years later."

Trump smarter then Lincoln confirmed!
-Fox News, probably.

[Machismo]

I'm going to enjoy all the Trumpsters trying to justify Trump being a welfare queen.

[szechuan]

And now more idiotic trumpers are saying "So what if he lied about his Taxes" it's their only argument, Trumpers are either QTards or don't care about Morals.

[Paranoid Android]

President Trump floated his daughter Ivanka Trump as a vice-presidential running mate during the 2016 election, The Washington Post reports.

"She's bright, she's smart, she's beautiful, and the people would love her!" he said, according to the newspaper.

He is still trying to bleep her.

[luc54]

I'm going to enjoy all the Trumpsters trying to justify Trump being a welfare queen.

Here's one attempted one :
https://twitter.com/JamesGRickards/s...78757699350528

Jim Rickards
@JamesGRickards
I have a graduate law degree in taxation, was tax counsel to world's largest bank. So, maybe I know more about taxes than the NYTimes. In real estate, gains are deferred until you sell the building. Expenses are current, (depreciation, interest, fees). So, tax losses are normal.

It's apparently ok not to pay taxes for real estate until you sell them or something. And Trump has no other source of income. What a load of bullshit.

[DingDongKing]

-snip-

I would. But I’m not her Dad.

[Milchshake]

Why Brad Parscale tried to kill himself. Shit is going down. 170 million diverted and laundered.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/28/comp...-spending.html

[masterhorus8]

Here's one attempted one :
https://twitter.com/JamesGRickards/s...78757699350528

It's apparently ok not to pay taxes for real estate until you sell them or something. And Trump has no other source of income. What a load of bullshit.

Yeah, it is indeed BS, especially in NY. I work in the loan industry, and you may get to pay nothing on income if you're losing enough (not my area of Underwriting), but property tax is completely separate. You're paying by the parcel, and the property depreciation just means you're paying the same % on a lower value. Nothing fancy on that one.

Like, I'm looking at a 1.5mil 3-unit investment co-op in Brooklyn right now, and they're paying more than $750 a month in city property tax alone. And that's excluding their income taxes. (Income tax on a property is another form.)