Trump: "Pundits, most of them aren’t worth the ground they’re standing on, some of their ground could be fairly wealthy ground, good ground" pic.twitter.com/ywkfgbSZeF
— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) October 2, 2016
Trump, letting go of his meagre moiety of marbles…
Trump's 1995 taxes show a $916 million loss, suggesting he could have paid no federal taxes for up to 18 years https://t.co/kedGabJpxe
— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 2, 2016
Based on return address/number of disparate pages, at least someone in Trump Tower appears to have issues w him https://t.co/hNEbusF1Kw
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) October 2, 2016
RYAN: So the question is: who would want to hurt Donald Trump?
(silence)
CHRISTIE: (laughs)
RYAN: (laughs)
CONWAY: (laughs)
RYAN: srsly tho— Owen Ellickson (@onlxn) October 2, 2016
Yesterday, one of the NYTimes‘ least explicable hires, Alessandra Stanley, got some prime space in the ‘Fashion & Style’ section to discuss, in the most anodyne possible terms, “The Other Trump“…
"Tiffany did not consent to be interviewed for this article, although she did pose for its photo shoot." https://t.co/phaZVPcOfN
— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) October 1, 2016
… For much of the campaign, except for a brief speech at the Republican National Convention, Tiffany — Donald J. Trump’s daughter with his former wife Marla Maples — has been the B-list Trump, off to the side in family photos and missing from the campaign trail and that now-infamously spooky ad aimed at the millennial vote.
She was left out of the biographical documentary of Mr. Trump shown at that convention and was unmentioned in news articles that detail the advice his three older children are doling out as the race gets tighter…
As the campaign grapples with the post-debate firestorm Mr. Trump started by fat-shaming a former Miss Universe, his youngest daughter may be around a lot more. He could use an extra young woman in his corner.
Mr. Trump’s team appears to be grooming Tiffany — gingerly — to pitch in on the campaign trail in the coming weeks, particularly with millennials. Her Instagram feed, which in the past was dotted with party shots of her and a group of close friends who have been called the “Snap Pack,” has been cleaned up, and her Twitter account largely restricted to campaign photos and a fund-raising pitch by Tiffany, and steering clear of any Skittles-like controversies.
Tiffany, according to her mother, has felt wounded by the media depictions of her as the forgotten Trump and is eager to help out on her father’s campaign as it heads into its final six weeks…
My speculation is that Marla Maples leaked the 1995 tax return. They were married at the time and filed jointly.
— Wyeth Ruthven (@wyethwire) October 2, 2016
If the Trickster God were a better scriptwriter, one could easily imagine the jump cut to Marla on the phone, yelling “We had an agreement, Donald — that you’d keep Marla Tiffany out of your dirty business!”
It would be kinda awesome if it was her https://t.co/ORUVJahrgC
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) October 2, 2016
Also do you think the NYT posted this on Sat Oct 1 so that no one had used up their ten free articles for the month?
— Jeff O'Neal (@thejeffoneal) October 2, 2016
inventor
How could anybody lose that much money IN THE 1990’s?
Huuuuuge incompetence, really tremendous incompetence, the best incompetence in the world!
Major Major Major Major
Ha. heh. Oh man, what a fun story.
Love the last tweet.
So, I’ve been playing with the balloon-juice corpus again. The two most popular 3-word phrases are “a lot of”, and “@adam l silverman”.
redshirt
Trump fans will spin this as a win. The remaining 73% will strive to justify it in some manner.
Bess
“if we don’t win on November 8th”
“I have tens and tens of millions of dollars”
Did Donald slip up and let a little reality slip into his thinking?
Major Major Major Major
Drudge’s headline right now is about a hurricane that isn’t moving or going to hit the US or anything.
EDIT: One more thing! Sam Wang wants you to vote on this debate question about gerrymandering.
ted mills
What if it actually turned out to be the housekeeper?
bluehill
This is an interesting take on a potentially bigger issue with Trump’s treatment of his business losses.
Major Major Major Major
@ted mills: Or the racist butler?
Arclite
I don’t understand how a loss in the 90s can keep you from paying taxes decades later.
Shalimar
I don’t have any idea who turned over the tax info originally, but it is obvious who mailed those 3 pages to the NYTimes: The Clinton campaign. Her oppo research turned up someone with Trump’s tax returns who was happy to share with them. That is why Clinton could state so confidently during the debate that Trump doesn’t pay taxes. That was the biggest trap, not Machado. Within days of the debate, the first tax return leak arrives at the Times office.
There will be more. If it was an individual with a grudge against Trump leaking to the Times, they would have sent everything they have. Likewise, it seems unlikely that anyone with a grudge against Donald would only have a few pages from the most damaging return. Only the Clinton campaign (and the newspapers that get the returns) benefits from having the returns leaked one year at a time.
Cckids
@Arclite: You can carry the loss forward & apply it to a newer year’s tax bill, until the amount is used up.
Mai.naem.mobile
Roger Stone and Frank Luntz are tweeting quite breathlessly about Wikileaks dropping a Hilz leak on Wednesday.
hellslittlestangel
So Tiffany is Little Gloves’ fourth-born offspring? I guess with his attention-span, he got bored with his children by then. Baron’s lucky he’s a boy, or he’d have been left at the Mar A Lago lost and found by now.
TS
@Shalimar: You seem to think the Clinton campaign is full of the same type of fools as the Trump campaign. There is NO way ever that anyone from the Clinton camp would touch those pages. They are sane & intelligent people.
amk
the so-called spin meister
How was he even considered a guru beats me.
dm
I guess this makes Donald Trump part of Mitt Romney’s “47% who pay no (federal income) taxes”.
amk
More desperation.
amk
@Shalimar:
her campaign is not that dumb.
Villago Delenda Est
@redshirt: Drumpf fans are the common clay of the New West.
Villago Delenda Est
@amk: Well, Frank, we’ll never know unless he releases all his taxes, now will we? Because he cannot be trusted without authentic documentary evidence.
Major Major Major Major
SNL opened with a debate skit. It’s amusing.
Villago Delenda Est
@amk: ZOMG, the man is of the common clay of the New West, too.
/bangs head on desk.
amk
Brachiator
@bluehill: The Bronte Capital blog entry is great and gets right to the heart of things.
If Trump has a $900 million plus net operating loss, he is not a terrifically successful businessman. But the losses are huge, but understandable. But if he is pulling something to hide cancellation of debt income, now that would be some audacious shit.
Arclite
@Cckids:
Jesus, that sounds like a pretty big loophole.
Mike J
Holy moley. Bad news for Lewis Hamilton.
Joyce H
Or here’s a fun speculation. Maybe it wasn’t Marla, maybe it was Tiffany. Getting back at Daddy for a lifetime of neglect.
Villago Delenda Est
@Joyce H: Best I can tell, Tiffany and Barron are not the same nature as Uday, Qusay, and Lolita.
Joyce H
@Villago Delenda Est:
Okay, maybe revenge isn’t the motive. Maybe she simply knows enough about Daddy Dearest to know what a disaster he’d be as President. Maybe Tiffany saved the world! I’m just saying, if Marla has copies of that return, well, Tiffany grew up in the same house, and a curious kid can find things.
Steeplejack
@Arclite:
From the Times article:
Earlier in the article:
That could have covered the three previous years (1992-94) and the 15 years after—up to 2009 or 2010, depending on when the 15-year period starts.
Villago Delenda Est
@Joyce H: It’s highly plausible that Marla did have copies of the returns, and keeping in mind that she elected to live on the other side of the continent after the divorce, and well, we’ve got a more solid basis to wildly speculate about the Maples household in this case than anyone does about anything any of the Clintons might be involved in.
Major Major Major Major
@Steeplejack: the fuck do we have that rule for?
Villago Delenda Est
Oh…shouldn’t that quote be “We had an agreement, Donald — that you’d keep Tiffany out of your dirty business!”
Anne Laurie
@hellslittlestangel:
I’m a cynic; I assume Melania had ‘shall be permitted to bear one child’ written into her pre-nup. Not as an anchor baby for citizenship, but as a guarantee that she couldn’t be completely cut out of the Trump estate once the old man wheezed his last. (Twelve years ago, how was she to know he’d blow the wad on a vanity presidential campaign?)
Helen
Stolen from Jon Lovett on Twitter:
“It was Ms. Maples in Trump Tower with the tax return”.
Payback’s a bitch, Donald.
Steeplejack
@Major Major Major Major:
I am not a lawyer and I’m not a CPA, but I do know that real-estate accounting is extremely twisted even by the twisted standards of twisted business accounting. I’ll defer to the experts who may weigh in, but I think it has its roots in the idea that the (high-end) real-estate business is riskier and more volatile than “normal” business and that the players need the tax cushions to see them through the boom and bust cycles. And, like everything in the tax code, it has mutated and metastasized from there.
Steeplejack
@Anne Laurie:
Ellickson has been killing it in “WORDS!!!” I am loving all the little side notes—Guggo and the clown army, Roger Ailes as an eldritch horror, Boehner baiting Paul Ryan from retirement, even the gratuitous but regular slamming of Scott Adams. I’ve gotten addicted to checking the feed.
cokane
@Arclite: read the article, perhaps
David Fud
@Steeplejack: Losses apply to anything, not just real estate. If you lose a bunch of money on the stock market, you can have the same situation. The losses only apply to capital gains, so he would be looking for ways to maximize capital gains for a really long time. And he would likely be able to bring on capital partners into his projects on a more competitive basis, knowing that he wouldn’t pay taxes… Might make up for his tendency to stick others with the bankruptcies and bills.
Brachiator
@Steeplejack:
A net operating loss is available to any business; it is not something that is specific to real estate.
An earlier poster had a link to a blogger who questioned whether Trump legitimately had an NOL. This is where sharp, or dubious, accounting may come into play.
Brachiator
@David Fud: Capital losses, as from a stock sale, are not the same thing as a net operating loss.
And unless you have capital gains to offset capital losses, the most you could deduct in any one year would be $3,000. The remainder would carry forward.
David Fud
@Brachiator: Need coffee. You are correct.
MattF
@Mai.naem.mobile: Roger Stone and Frank Luntz are about the two least believable people I can think of. Well, there’s also Assange.
amk
@Mike J: Yup, them merc boys have been fucking with Hamilton all season. Wonder why.
Chris T.
@Arclite: The details get complicated, but yes, it’s quite a convenient loophole for businesses.
As others have mentioned, there are equivalent loopholes for individuals when dealing with capital gains and losses (from buying and selling stocks and bonds, mainly). These get classified as “short” and “long” term and you can only cancel gains with like-kind losses. As a somewhat odd result, this means that if you bought (say) DD and T (DuPont and AT&T) some years ago and DD has gone from $30 to $60 while T has gone from $40 to $35 and you need to sell things to raise cash, you may wish to sell enough of T (if you can) to turn the -$5/share into an equal amount as the +$30/share on DD, so that you owe no taxes on the overall transaction.
A separate rule, called the “wash sale” rule, is used to attempt to keep people from simply selling something and then buying it back again the next day in order to game the tax system. The wash sale rule says you may not buy something “equivalent” for 30 days in order to harvest the tax loss. As a hack around the wash sale rule, people used to do something called “shorting against the box”, which is now also illegal. However, you can build a synthetic short using options, and that particular mole has never been whacked, as far as I know.
(I have played this very game myself. It used to be a sort of Full Employment Act for accountants, but these days computer programs make it easier to do on one’s own. It’s also important for the person playing the game to remember that this end of year tax optimization is merely the tail: it should not wag the dog, which is “make sound investments”. But ignoring the tail may mean one forks over an extra ten grand this year, instead of putting it off to another year. It tends to be a wash in the end, but money in hand now is worth more than money tomorrow, unless the environment turns deflationary.)
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
I’m not a CPA, but I did pass all of the exams.
This isn’t a loophole, per se. You are supposed to pay taxes on your net income, and losses in a given year constitute negative net income. Say that you started working in Year A, then lost a lot of money in Year B. You paid taxes on all of the money you earned from Year A to Year B-1. The money you lost in Year B was, in this simplified example, all money that you had already paid taxes on. So, it stands to reason that your negative income in Year B would produce a negative tax liability. The tax code won’t let you get a payment from the government for that negative liability, but it does let you carry it forward. Money you earn from Year B+1 to B+18 can be credited against that loss, until they are equal. So, you will have paid taxes on all of your net income, unless you have less income over those years than the loss. If that happens, you’re just out of luck.
Now, there are all sorts of games that can be played trying to generate paper losses that don’t really hurt you. The 1986 tax reform got rid of some of the most egregious, but they’re are still some there. Brachiator is focusing on Net Operating Loss, which is harder to game than bottom line Net Income, but far from impossible. And there’s the question of debt forgiveness on top of that, which isn’t gaming but could be flat out tax fraud.
raven
@Chris T.: So it’s like me dumping a ton salary into tax deferred to lower my taxes?
low-tech cyclist
And according to a reporter interviewed by Claire Landsbaum of New York magazine, they routinely have people going Full Brownshirt:
This was in a piece about what it’s like to be a woman reporter covering the Trump campaign, but Landsbaum (a) buried what should have been the lede, and (b) missed what looks like the bigger story here: that this is the shit that is routinely going on at Trump rallies, and apparently nobody’s calling these people out.
If this quote reflects what’s really going on, then Hillary’s ‘basket of deplorables’ comment, if anything, soft-pedaled the issue.
amk
The moneyquote (pun intended) from the nyt piece.
He scammed both his investors and his contractors and enriched his ugly ass while at the same time did not pay any taxes leaving the ordinary tax-payers, his so called ‘base’, holding the bag. And is simultaneously scamming the rubes with how the elites are screwing over the little guys like them vile rhetoric. A complete con man.
amk
shit, mod monster.
Kay
They were always gross deadbeats, though, the Trump Family. Every single thing they do points to “gross deadbeats”- this is just the tax portion.
Does he really only pay himself 6,000 a year? Is that so he doesn’t have to pay withholding on a normal salary?
Chris T.
@raven: Well, the original concept (especially for business Net Operating Loss) is more to smooth out “lumpy” income: if you lose $200k in your first (startup) year (lots of expenses such as office equipment and leasing, hiring, whatever) and then earn $50k, $100k, $150k, -$-120k (big expansion), and $250k in the next five years, you can, in effect, spread your startup and expansion year losses out over a bunch of your gain years, and so on. (Incidentally, all this gets even more complicated since some items are Capital Equipment expenditures and some are Operating—but by mixing leasing with buying you can interconvert.)
But in effect, more or less, yes. Of course as soon as you set up some complicated rules, someone will try to game them to their advantage.
amk
@Kay:
low-tech cyclist
@Steeplejack:
Yeah, I’m another one that’s gotten hooked on Owen Ellickson, thanks to Anne. (For those who want to get their fix directly, the feed is twitter.com/onlxn .)
Kay
If you think about how many people the Trumps have ripped off, there have to be a couple who have access to information.
Raven
@Chris T.: got it
Kay
It would probably be less damaging if he hadn’t have said all those bad things about other people not paying enough federal income tax. He ripped Obama for paying 20%. Not enough, according to Donald Trump.
Chris T.
@Kay:
I don’t know the actual and raw numbers, but yes.
Kay
Trump says the reason we have a budget deficit is because 50% of people don’t make enough to pay federal income taxes.
People didn’t know he was including himself in that group.
amk
@Kay:
The moneyquote (as it were) from nyt (which got modded out twice ‘cuz bad word)
Kay
@Chris T.:
How does that get by the IRS? Ordinary small business people talk about that a lot- what to pay themselves as far as taxes. I’ve seen people who own one restaurant who pay themselves 40k and they’re worried that’s low- will trigger questions. Is this another special “rich” person exception? How fucking cheap are these people?
Unemployed people are imputed at minimum wage X 40 in county courts- 16,100 in this state. It’s assumed everyone with a pulse can make 16,100 if they work 40 hours a week. Trump claims 6 and that’s okay with the IRS?
kd bart
Now we’re getting to why Romney & Trump were and are reluctant to release their tax returns. The Tax Code is full of nuggets that only benefit the super rich and will never be taken advantage of by 99.99% of us. They’re written by tax lawyers who have the connections to get them passed into law without anyone being wiser. They can be a couple of paragraphs tucked into 500 page bill which no one has the time to read and fully understand before passage. The things that they can legally get away with at their wealth level is what they don’t want to give up.
Joel
@Arclite: It’s not. But here’s where the capital gains / income system is rigged:
If you take a loss on investments, you can deduct those losses as income (and the corresponding income tax rate applies).
If you make gains on investments, provided those gains are from investments held for longer than a year, your income is taxed at the flat capital gains rate.
In other words, a classic moral hazard (by design, I should add).
amk
The decades long trump scam indicates utter failure of IRS and SEC. How could such a con man, who was fleecing his investors, go on and open so many publicly traded companies, scam charities, scam university etc.
rikyrah
@Mai.naem.mobile: I bet they are
LOL
rikyrah
@Major Major Major Major:
Baldwin nailed Ferret Head
Joel
@Major Major Major Major: basically to promote investment. It reduces the downside risk so that people will lend (via investing) more. It actually works although it’s not without substantial downside.
Brachiator
One more thing. Trump’s tax return shows interest income of $7.3 million. Let’s say that the interest rate on savings in 1995 was 3.5 percent. This might mean that Trump had $211 million in the bank, in the year in which he paid no income tax.
Chris T.
@Kay:
Apparently the answer is “it doesn’t”: he gets audited every year.
But, presumably, the amount he saves on taxes, by having his corporations pay for his cars, helicopters, houses, etc., is less than the amount he pays his lawyers to file paperwork proving that yes, his salary really is that low.
This is how the game works: say it costs 1 million of your “controlled-by-you” dollars to set up some tax shelter. If you’re a 99%er, with your total real income (AGI) at $4 million or lower, this is not worthwhile: your total Federal tax is well under $1.5 million, probably even under $1 million. Why pay $1M to save at most $1M?
But if you’re a 1%er with an AGI that would be $250 million this year, your total Federal tax might run around $50 million (20% of $250M). So you take the $1M hit to set up that tax shelter. After sheltering, your Federal tax is on a newly computed AGI of $10 million, instead of $250 million. If you pay a net effective rate of 20%, your tax is now $2M. Add the $1M and you’ve paid $3M, instead of $50M. You just saved yourself $47M!
OK, it comes with some headache: you get audited and pay expensive lawyers another $2M. Your net savings that year is down to $45M. Oh no! How will you ever survive on just $45M of dubious extra income?
Brachiator
@kd bart:
This is not necessarily the case. A small business owner can take advantage of net operating losses as can a rich guy like Trump.
That said, these 3 pages are not enough to get the full picture of what Trump did to rack up these huge losses.
amk
@Brachiator:
Really? How? Unless the small business owner can afford expensive lawyers and accountants to show him these nuggets, these nuggets are for the eyes of rich only. Nice false equivalence though.
Chyron HR
@amk:
There’s literally a line on the form where you can apply your “Net Operating Losses” from other years. It’s not a super-secret rich people scam.
amk
@Chyron HR:
“Net Operating Losses” – That’s where the catch/loophole is.
Gindy51
@Steeplejack: Here is the statute he profited from (not paying taxes on your income in my mind is pure profit):
(a) Deduction allowed
There shall be allowed as a deduction for the taxable year an amount equal to the aggregate of (1) the net operating loss carryovers to such year, plus (2) the net operating loss carrybacks to such year. For purposes of this subtitle, the term “net operating loss deduction” means the deduction allowed by this subsection.
(b) Net operating loss carrybacks and carryovers
(1) Years to which loss may be carried
(A) General ruleExcept as otherwise provided in this paragraph, a net operating loss for any taxable year—
(i) shall be a net operating loss carryback to each of the 2 taxable years preceding the taxable year of such loss, and
(ii) shall be a net operating loss carryover to each of the 20 taxable years following the taxable year of the loss.
(26 U.S.C. 172)
22 years not 18.. worse than what the other folks are saying!
Chyron HR
@amk:
Have you tried considering the possibility that you might just be wrong?
Vhh
Just checked Drudgereport and Breitbart at 750 am. Zero coverage of Trump tax outing. Misleading articles on Hillary’s talk about plight of millenials still living with parents. Reminds me of when I used to read Pravda while going to work on the Moscow subway in 1977.
RSA
@ted mills:
The housekeeper in the library with the handheld scanner…
Kay
@amk:
To me it isn’t that so much- it’s the success of his thirty year PR campaign where he managed to palm himself off as a successful businessperson.
He has been using media for 30 years, really effectively. Go back and look at the clips of Trump in the gym with that sad 19 year old Miss Universe. He is surrounded by media. How is a promo for his stupid pageant “news”? What, exactly, was his claim to celebrity prior to the reality tv show? WHY did they slavishly cover him?
amk
@Kay: These oversight and tax agencies actually see his numbers and have the power to act on them, unlike the bright object chasing media.
JMG
@Kay: True story: Although I didn’t see him, I covered Trump for one day in 1987 as a Boston sportswriter. There was a court battle for ownership of the Patriots, who were years away from Bob Kraft owning them, between the broke owners, the Sullivan family and an equally broke plaintiff, Fran Murray. Their lawyers, the two smartest and highest-paid lawyers in the city, were pretending to fight while joining forces to find a buyer with real money. One day they announced they needed a recess so everybody could fly down to NYC to meet with Trump. They said his name like the townsfolk in Blazing Saddles said “Randolph Scott.” The judge bought it completely. In the event, Some very smart people, not just the media, bought Trump’s image of endless wealth. In the event, he didn’t buy. Maybe he knew he couldn’t pass the NFL audit of his finances.
trnc
Really? Seems to me someone else managed to get big crowds for his political speeches.
http://hitler-didnothing-wrong-blog.tumblr.com/image/37459543746
Yes, I purposely chose a source that I assume was created by a supporter of the sherbert shitshow.
NickM
Sounds like Trump was having a mental breakdown about this last night. Full bore crazy https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/10/02/as-news-of-trumps-taxes-broke-he-goes-off-script-at-a-rally-in-pennsylvania/“rel=”nofollow”
Iowa Old Lady
I’m looking at gifs of Trump physically mocking Clinton’s pneumonia collapse the way he did that reporter.
Go sit in the corner, Donny. Don’t come out until you can tell me what you did wrong.
trnc
The tax return story is at the top of the Google News page right now. I wish I could post an image.
trnc
I hope someone manages to put this quote in front of the mango menace. Should be good for a retaliatory tweetstorm.
scav
Sure, maybe nothing illegal. But lay off the boasts of superior business knowlege orange boy, the “l’m the only one, the single savior that understands money and tax loopholes so I can fix them, only me.” You’re one of a job-lot of losers, actual losers (especially in your case, to the tune of how much again?) to play these dodges, you are sooooo not unique wthe the knowlege. It’s your lawyer/accountants that know the details, in this exact instance, it’s one of your Dad’s lawyer/accountants that you got handed along with that “small” loan. (The losses making the whole gravy train work, those seem legitimatetly all yours, how high were they again?). And you did it all unselfishly because of your responsibility to your children and employees. Was it that same noble sense of responsibility that drove you to stiffing contractors, not paying bills and abusing employees in various fashions? You pious hero. Funny how all the stgmata of your superior heroism alwys end up as extra cash in your pocket, but you are sooo not unique in this, except maybe in the scale of the long brag and maybe losses.
D58826
@Shalimar: If true the Putin better watch out for Prez Hilz – he will wake up one morning with the head of a horse in his bed.
Matt McIrvin
@Vhh:
I’m actually a bit shocked at how little traction that bullshit is getting outside of the right-wing echo chamber, and a few Buster concern trolls on the blogs. Two weeks ago it’d have been splashed all over the headlines as the “both sides” counter to all the negative Trump stories. Something changed.
John Tully
The stand-up comedian, actress and “Real Time” show regular Sarah Silverman stopped by Friday night to Bill Maher’s weekly HBO program.
She answered a few Bernie Sanders questions and Mr. Maher congratulated her for officially becoming a “Pundit”
“F- you!” she replied. Then – with a grin on her face -“Oh never mind…”
She famously implored “Bernie-or-Busters” to vote for Hillary in November when she spoke at this year’s 2016 Democratic Convention the last week of July.
~ Quotes ~
“Trump is the product of a long tradition of pointing at other people and accusing them of doing what you’re doing”…
“There’s no one more Bernie than me”
“Bernie needs an ally in office”
“I’m so inspired everyday by Bernie Sanders”
“Don’t show my neck. My neck goes crazy when I have passion…”
— Sarah Silverman :: appearing on Real Time With Bill Maher September 30th 2016 —
https://goo.gl/1xQCqH
Baud
@Matt McIrvin: I haven’t read the original transcript, but others have said that Hillary is actually quite empathetic to Bernie voters if you see what she said in context, contrary to the reporting.
D58826
@Matt McIrvin: @Matt McIrvin: The debate. 80 million people saw Trump in all of his inglorious splendor. ‘Both sides do it’ doesn’t fly.
And the hotel opening press conference a week or so ago. Media got conned in public and they are not amused. Payback time..
mike in dc
Trump has had one hell of a bad week: Bad debate performance, the Miss Universe thing, the charity thing, the Cuba thing, the tax thing, even a story that Trump tried to coax Marla Maples into posing for Playboy(she refused) while they were married. And then Alec Baldwin’s portrayal of him on SNL wasn’t exactly flattering. We need 3 more bad weeks for him for this thing to be in the bag.
El Caganer
Who released the tax returns? Perhaps it was…The Cyber, Secret Agent of Crooked Hillary!
dr. bloor
@amk:
This is silly. Most of these mechanisms are baked into your ordinary TurboTax software. I have a two-family and typically take a loss (or minimal gain) on the rental unit, and I don’t know jack about tax law. I type in the income, and once the program takes into account amortization, maintenance, etc., it’s usually close to zeroed out.
SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch
@Matt McIrvin:
Two weeks ago, when Trump gave his September 16 “press conference” (that allowed no press questions) when he grudgingly admitted Obama’s U.S. citizenship — the “press conference” that was in reality a free commercial for his new hotel in DC — the media suddenly and simultaneously realized they’d been played for fools, not just that day but for the past fifteen months. And they didn’t like it.
gf120581
@SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: I’d say that was a tipping point, yes. Media types were visibly pissed off after they got, as Jake Tapper put it, “Rick-rolled” by Donnie.
But it’s also due to the sheer deluge of disgusting and self-destructive behavior by Trump. It’s just like the weeks following the DNC when he went on the rampage against the Khans. His behavior was and is so beyond the pale that “both sides” simply isn’t plausible anymore.
different-church-lady
MattF
@Matt McIrvin: In addition to what others have said, there’s been a slow buildup of contrast between fake concern about the Clinton Foundation vs. docunented self-dealing with the Trump Foundation. It’s a case where the whole ‘both sides’ treatment is blatantly false.
Ivan X
I haven’t watched the Sunday shows in years, but I am tempted this morning. How do I properly prepare myself? I’ve already had a Bloody Mary.
MattF
@Ivan X: Have another and just say ‘no’.
Peale
@different-church-lady: it really is as if the Simpsons decided to make Abe into a world leader
Ivan X
Ok, there’s something amusing about Chris Wallace grilling Chris Christie about the tax return and his late night tweets. He doesn’t lay a glove on him of course, Christie’s a master subject changer.
Tripod
@inventor:
Bust out. Someone was raking the tills.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@inventor:
Lose money in real estate in the NYC area at that too.
Why did someone swindle The Donald back then?
Ivan X
Christie’s actually asking where the outrage is about Hillary calling out Trump’s racism during the debate.
hovercraft
@Ivan X:
Christie is trying to spin the NY Times story as a positive, it shows that he is a smart business man, he re-built his empire, and used the tax code to his benefit, and since he knows it best he is the one to fix it. Chris Wallace isn’t buying, thinks the American people will be offended by the non payment. Asks Christie why Trump is still tweeting about Merchado, Christie pivots to ask why no one is making a big deal about the fact that Hillary stood on stage and called Trump a racist, why is supposed sexism and no one is outraged by her accusations of racism, why the double standard. Wallace is like huh?
EDIT: I see you’re watching FOX too.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: I was away and didn’t realize that happened.
Peter
Speaking of October Surprise, didn’t Julian Assange promise months ago that there would be a slow and steady drip of Clinton-related leaks leading up to the election? What the fuck happened to that?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Shalimar: While it makes sense the Clinton campaign would do it a bit at a time, they would have gone to the Washington Post since the NYT is so pro Trump. That’s why it’s likely someone inside the Trump Campaign (likely just found out they are not getting paid)
Brachiator
@amk:
Sorry, dude. There ain’t no magic secret mojo at work here. A first year H&R Block employee can compute and apply a net operating loss.
Every off the shelf tax software product that will do a Schedule C will compute and apply a net operating loss.
Most of the time, when a rich person claims that they are doing something special or fancy on their tax returns that the “average little guy” can’t do, they are either lying or cheating. Or in Trump’s case, lying and cheating.
MattF
@Peter: Roger Stone has been tweeting that Wednesday is @Wikileaks day. We shall see.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Peter: Wasn’t there something about Hillary saying something nasty about Berni Bros last week that got ignored? I think no one cares with the Trump melt down.
dr. bloor
@Ivan X: Have four more.
Soylent Green
@Vhh:
I learned to read Russian in the early ’70s and would read Pravda daily. When Nixon resigned, they buried the news in a short paragraph way inside the paper, so as not to tell the people that corrupt leaders can be deposed. Of course our RW propaganda rags won’t report bad news at all.
Brachiator
@SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch:
Yes!!
The press thought they were the special friends of that cool super rich guy, Trump. Then they found out the extent to which he was simply using them as stooges and PR hacks.
dr. bloor
@Peter: He’s still translating the incriminating e-mails out of the original Russian.
Ivan X
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Bernie was just on George S’s show, and he was asked about Hillary saying in February that young people (I.e. Bernie supporters) have to live in their parents’ basements and have no job prospects other than being baristas. If you wanted to hear it as condescending or insulting, you could, but Bernie said she’s 100% right, job prospects for college grads are awful.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Ivan X: Yes, that’s what Millennials say about themselves. It’s actually a good thing it’s being noticed because the damn Austerity Ponies don’t get is these Millennials have learned to live outside the normal economy – it’s going to be really hard to get them to work on some 10 hour a day, sucko pay, entry level job when they can make more off of what ever they got going.
Uncle Cosmo
@D58826:
To match the horse’s arse already there.
lollipopguild
No one can act like Trump. Any Dem trying to act like him would be killed by the press and the voters. After so long you assume that no matter what he does or says nothing will come of it. Not paying taxes and bragging about it may be the straw that breaks Trumpolini’s back.
Soylent Green
WaPo’s coverage of Trump’s latest rally:
So he’s inciting his goons to harass and intimidate minority voters. Are the authorities taking notice?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@NickM: Holy crap. That is like a nine year old angry at this mother,….
The Donald
Thus speaks someone who’se clearly never done any competitive sport or martial art in his life. I really get sick an tired of throwing a temper tantrum is a sign of competitiveness. That’s losing control, not getting control back.
low-tech cyclist
@Brachiator:
The NYT suggests that the ‘secret sauce’ is in the “byzantine networks of partnerships, limited liability companies and S corporations,” and that it’s the construction of that network and the shifting of income and losses among the corporations that enables the maximization of the NOL.
I can’t speak to the accuracy of that, but I’m confident that the creation and manipulation of those networks is somewhat beyond the scope of TurboTax’ capabilities.
Brachiator
Net operating losses, which can be carried back 3 years and forward 15 years, are explained in IRS Publication 536.
A much easier read than the tax code.
There is likely F1 help explaining it if you used TurboTax or some other product to do your taxes.
hovercraft
The AP’s Julie Pace, thinks that the GOP has a good defense of Trump not paying taxes, that the government just wastes our tax dollars, is a good argument, Bob Woodward thinks Hillary won the debate, but that her subsequent gloating shows that she is in it for herself, she should not celebrate her win because this is why people don’t trust her.
Bill E Pilgrim
Snuffleupagas panel consensus is that Trump is toast.
Blessedly devoid of any Kellyannes or Guilianis or Hewitts saying “Well the important thing about this Trump tax story is Benghazi”
Bupalos
@amk: not at all. I’m a small business owner and definitely have taken advantage of loss carryforward. Its not just a loophole, it would make no sense for someone to spend 100k setting up a business in year 1 and make 100k in year two for a total 2 year net profit of 0 and then pay 28k in taxes on that 0.
The devil here would be in the details. Was the loss really a loss, or created or goosed by teams of accountants? You can tell right off by how trump is running his campaign (renting from himself at Manhattan rates+ for phone banking that could be done at half the rate and 1/20th the rent in Tonawanda).
Brachiator
@low-tech cyclist:
I said earlier that it is the magnitude of the NOL that is shocking, but the basics of NOL is available to little guys, not just the super wealthy.
And I gave full credit to an earlier poster who linked to a blogger who laid out a good case that the way that Trump generated his massive NOLs may either be very complicated, or criminal.
I also noted that we need to see more tax returns and more years to get an idea of what Trump was doing.
By the way, Trump’s use of his foundation to pay his personal expenses, if true, is not sophisticated, but a very basic violation of tax law. His other tax schemes might be similarly stupid.
I’m wondering who his accountant is and what kind of work they do.
lollipopguild
So we should all follow Julie Pace’s argument and simply stop paying our taxes? Bob W. has been worthless for years and needs to be forced into retirement. Or shot.
hovercraft
@Bill E Pilgrim:
FOX has Woodward saying that Hillary and Trump are both the same, too isolated without anyone whose advice they take, they are both equally terrible.
hovercraft
@lollipopguild:
SHOT
SFAW
@hovercraft:
This makes me glad that he and Carl Bernstein “found” Mark Felt before Woodward’s dementia set in.
Bill E Pilgrim
@hovercraft: If the only person advising Hillary is herself then based on this week she should give herself a promotion.
SNL in the debate satire had her listening to a Trump rage aria in response to her baiting with her pantomiming reeling in a fish. Then breaking into tears at the next one saying “I just had no idea it would go this well!”
Brachiator
@hovercraft:
Yeah, I’ve seen this argument that it is a rich person’s patriotic duty to avoid paying taxes because the money would only go to undeserving poor people and non-whites.
I’m watching the ABC Sunday show with George S. They are nailing Trump on the tax issue.
Tripod
@SFAW:
Old Villagers who think they are still tuned in, but aren’t, are pretty fucking sad cases. Hanging around for the cocktail parties and Sunday morning appearances.
Steeplejack
It is somewhat ingenuous to dismiss criticism of Trump’s tax dealings as involving mechanisms “available to everybody.” Technically they are, in the sense that, hypothetically, anyone can buy a Pratt & Whitney jet engine. The problem is that (a) the vast majority of people can’t afford one and (b) they don’t have a jet to put it on.
From the Times article:
Joe Six-Pack is not getting that deal.
You aren’t getting that from TurboTax, at least not by itself. Everybody has access to NOL, sure, but the vast majority of Americans have neither the goodies with which to load up the NOL pipeline nor access to the technical expertise to manage the process.
Matt McIrvin
@Peter:
They’ve been coming, just like he promised. But the material is incredibly weak; there’s just nothing there. The “basement dwellers” thing that Hugh Hewitt tried to spin as Hillary’s most fatal gaffe was the most recent drop.
Tripod
@Steeplejack:
We all should turn a blind eye when out legitimate business associates are stealing everything not nailed down….
Baud
@Matt McIrvin: I didn’t realize that came from Assange. The reveals are shockingly weak so far. I don’t think I could look as good with an equivalent level of scrutiny.
Another Scott
DeLong points us to some commentary on Trump’s taxes:
An excerpt:
Hehe. This could have legs for months.
(Checks popcorn futures)
Cheers,
Scott.
Villago Delenda Est
@hovercraft: I guess being played by Robert Redford in a movie will do that to you.
Tripod
@Matt McIrvin:
Well I’m sure great offense was taken at cacaus99percent and among Booman’s regulars. Mom wants them to take out the trash, and go get a job…
Why are all the Bernie bitter enders the living embodiment of a Chris Elliot bit?
RaflW
This write up from Philly by the UK Independent is pretty great. The video at the top is actually a very solid explainer of the situation for folks just getting up to speed (ie Brits, I suppose) on the ins n outs of US campaigns and tax returns. The plucky musical soundtrack is perfect.
But the article below the video is the main attraction.
Really, read the whole thing. It’s more satisfying than a Sunday morning pastry from your favorite coffee shop!
gf120581
@Baud: Pretty much everything from Assange has been a big fat nothing. I mean, the biggest revelation he had was that some at the DNC didn’t like Bernie much. Gee, big shock there.
Not to mention it’s difficult to take anything he puts out at face value because he’s so clearly a Russian stooge.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I thought it did but I guess it didn’t; sounds as if someone gave it to the Washington Free Beacon, a right-wing website.
lollipopguild
@hovercraft: That was my vote too.
redshirt
At this point I don’t think any single scandal or gaffe can hurt Trump. But the collective weight of them all, and the relentless way they unfold week after week might have an impact.
The True Believers will never be swayed. But hopefully some in the middle can.
hovercraft
@Brachiator:
I put FOX on to see how they’d try to spin it. Basically they went with both sides.
Now I’m watching Reliable Sources, they have some asshole from Newsbusters on, having him on as a legitimate member of the media tells you how far the media has descended, Seltzer is trying to hold his feet to the fire, but the flack is just ranting.
TerryC
@Steeplejack: I have three small businesses. One is a piece of rental property, the other is a retail outlet for disc golf paraphernalia, and the third is a farm at our home on which I have planted 6,000 fruit and nut trees in the past three years, designed around three nine hole disc golf courses.
The farm loses money. The rental property breaks even. The pro shop makes enough money to keep my son and his family comfortable.
We are not talking about large sums of money here! But, let me tell you, if you get to be over 50 years old and you have not started a business and hired an accountant, you are essentially in what Donald might call the “sucker pool”. There are an amazing amount of things you can do with small amounts of money.
Our businesses, without the accountant, would be illegal and dead. With the accountant, and we don’t pay that much money to his firm, they are a thriving set of enterprises that do a great job of maximizing the benefits of the money flow.
Tripod
@redshirt:
I assume he is in hock to certain Russian interests, and they can hurt him, which would explain his willingness to roll around in the electoral wash basin, and have all his naughty bits exposed.
gf120581
@hovercraft: “Both sides” is the Fox News default mode when there’s a bad GOP scandal. It’s a tell that they know this is trouble.
lollipopguild
@Villago Delenda Est: That was a long time ago in a land far away.
Nom de Plume
@gf120581:
Yep. Call it “The Fox Curve”. If they are spinning something as a big win for Trump, that means it was actually about even. If they are in “both sides” mode, that means Trump fucked up.
philadelphialawyer
@Brachiator: I agree that using NOL is not some esoteric, for the super rich only, dodge.
However, I think it is also the case that elaborately faking a billion dollar NOL (which is my guess as to what Trump did) DOES take fancy accountants, and fancy lawyers, and all of them, and the client, taking aggressive, gray area (at best) positions, and using nuances and loopholes in the law, and that all of that is not available to the average person.
Matt McIrvin
@Tripod: The Daily Beast has an article insisting that the Busters are a real threat to Hillary.
philadelphialawyer
@Steeplejack: Exactly. It is not NOL, per se, that is the egregious loophole, rather it is the inflated calculation of NOL available to rich crooks like Trump.
RaflW
@RaflW: Aha. The Independent ran the WaPo story, but only credited the author, not the Post. Curious.
The general reaction this am from people not trapped in the GOP bubble is that he looked extra-nutso last night (warning, may include people in the Dem bubble, but we hope ours is more permeable). So, keep at it Donald! You’re doin’ great!
low-tech cyclist
@Brachiator:
Per the NYT article, which notes that Mitnick is both a lawyer and an accountant:
RaflW
Also, too, Rudy saying everyone cheats on their spouses to Chuck Todd on national TeeVee.
So classy! Such perfect outreach to Values Voters™.
Nom de Plume
@RaflW: Wait, did he really? Is there a link?
dr. bloor
@RaflW: Donnie, Rudy and Newtie have cheated enough on their various spouses to more than make up for everyone who doesn’t. So, on average, “everyone” cheats on their spouses.
Steeplejack (phone)
@low-tech cyclist:
The article says:
He is now “semi-retired and living in Florida.” The Times talked to him because he prepared the 1995 return. Apparently he hasn’t touched Trump’s taxes in 20 years.
Steve in the ATL
@hovercraft: @TerryC:
So, a head shop?
Elie
@redshirt:
Its not just the more immediate effect on the election, but making sure that after the election that the remaining monster will be too damaged to spend much time doing anything but trying to recover his empire — such as it is. Making sure that the thing stays dead.
Lizzy L
There are two things which completely make Trump lose his shit. First one is: criticism and/or mockery. He cannot stand criticism of any kind. It’s worse when it comes from women, but it is always bad. Second is: losing control of the narrative, especially if such loss involves criticism. See #1. The Times’s tax revelation accomplishes both. I would expect more Trump meltdowns and more nastiness towards Hillary; not because he actually holds her responsible for the leak to the Times, but because she’s his opponent and she’s a woman, and he prefers to go after women. Oh, and it also appears to make him crazy when people fight back against his attacks. I suspect he’s used to people just caving. Hilz doesn’t cave.
Also, I cannot fathom why any sane person would listen to Bob Woodward.
Brachiator
@philadelphialawyer:
I agree, and another poster has noted that Trump has used an accountant who specializes in working for NY real estate families. So there is expertise brought to bear that the average person does not have access to.
And again I give credit to an earlier poster who linked to a blog post that suggested that Trump’s accounting team may have done something shady to prevent the recognition of taxable cancellation of debt income, which instead became a massive net operating loss.
amk
People are here comparing the run of the mill two-bit tax software that plebes use to what the tax dodgers like mittbot, donnie dick and their ilk use? Great.
redshirt
@TerryC: Fascinating. As a semi-avid golfer, I’ve often wondered about disc golf. Is it popular? How could you sell accessories? It seems like a very cheap sport to play.
SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch
@Nom de Plume:
@RaflW:
Found this by doing a bit of googling. The “everybody does” is about 40 seconds in.
sigaba
@philadelphialawyer: I just keep it simple? This is the guy who flies around on a private 757, lives in a solid gold condo on the 30th floor of the Manhattan office tower, owns hotels and has his name plastered on buildings around the world, has supposedly TEN BILLION DOLLARS in net worth, and this man pays no income tax?
Brachiator
@hovercraft:
I just can’t bring myself to watch Fox News. Switching between ABC and NBC I saw former Mayor Rudy claim that Trump did well in the debate.
And he also tried to push the idea that Trump is a genius who understands the tax code so well that only he knows how to make it work for everyone.
It was also funny to hear Rudy G talk about how “poor people use tax loopholes, too!”
SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch
@SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch:
Also, I love the way Rudy basically says “It’s okay for me to cheat because I just confess it to my priest and I’m good to go.” How does Catholicism even survive some of its Catholics?
Villago Delenda Est
@SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: The classic error of failure to atone.
The tumbrels will make up for that.
different-church-lady
@SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: Soooooo… if your biggest surrogate is saying everyone cheats on their spouses, doesn’t that make it a wee bit harder for the candidate to succeed with his threat to attack the opponent’s spouse for doing it?
I mean, wasn’t there a time when message discipline was the one thing the GOP did the best?
SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch
@different-church-lady:
They’re really not thinking things through the way they used to.
amk
priceless.
Another Scott
@Another Scott: I see that bluehill got there first at #7.
Kudos!
Cheers,
Scott.
geg6
@SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch:
Your adeptness at understatement is impressive! LOL!
Eric U.
@amk: funny thing about software, Trump’s accountant used software that couldn’t properly print a 9 digit loss, so he had to whiteout and type by hand
Another Scott
@Chris T.: Didn’t the IRS Commissioner say that, in general, not referring to Donnie specifically, that year after year audits are extremely rare? Yes, he did:
Another Scott
@Another Scott: Grr. Blockquote fail.
FYWP.
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
Trump is nothing if not predictable.
But he was not smart enough to prevent the collapse of his [email protected] or Trump airlines.
Easy debate question. Mr Trump, exactly where in your tax plan, do you get rid of the tax breaks from which you have benefited?
Lizzy L
@Brachiator: It might be interesting to ask Trump (in public, maybe in a debate setting) what he thinks is wrong with our current tax laws, and what he would “fix.” They seem to work well for him.
geg6
@amk:
I can’t tell you how much I love Erick Son of Erick’s sads this election season.
lgerard
There is something I don’tt understand here, as I am not an accountant, thankfully
Trimps “NJ investment” was a publicly traded corporation. not an S corporation or a partnership, so how could its balance sheet “pass through”, excepting of course, the sale or purchase of those stocks?
Another Scott
@Lizzy L: Naah. He’s already said how he would change the tax system. It’s a huge giveaway to himself and other (genuine) 0.01%ers.
The question he should be asked is something like:
The issue isn’t his plans, it’s his feeling of entitlement and his willingness to twist the rules and conventions of our society beyond all recognition.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Another Scott:
sell corporationsshell corporations(sigh)
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@sigaba:
Ten will get you twenty that the gold is not solid but gold leaf, the 757 is 25 yrs old, probably bought for below wholesale because an airline couldn’t use it anymore, and lastly, never, ever believe that D. Trump is worth 10 billion. In the real world of multi-billionaires, he is broke. Like everything else in his world the operative word is bullshit. Bullshit is the underlying premise in everything in the Trump world. His car is undercoated in bullshit, his plane is upholstered in it, all that gold leaf is tarnished by it. He’s been bullshitting so long and so hard he’s conned himself into believing it.
gogol's wife
@SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch:
And his righteous indignation that Todd has the nerve to discuss his personal life!
debbie
@Brachiator:
The size of the NOL is preposterous. I was living in NYC at that time and people in real estate were making money hand over fist. You could not lose money if you were in real estate. That the IRS apparently didn’t question this is criminal.
Ruckus
@SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch:
I realize that was snark but I think they are thinking it through just as far as they used to, they just haven’t realized yet that bullshit layered on bullshit is still bullshit because they are now supporting the master bullshitter, they’ve been conned and don’t know it or know, and like it.
Ivan X
@RaflW: he also insinuated, if I heard him correctly, that Bill Clinton has raped women.
Ivan X
@amk: you’re going too far back. In 1995, it was probably 16-bit.
Ruckus
@Another Scott:
You really think that asking that question would get any kind of reasonable answer? Yeah I didn’t think so. He doesn’t care about any of those things, all he cares about is as I said the other day, is being a slave owner. He wants all of us to work for him for free, actually for all of us to pay him to work for him. He isn’t running to be president, he wants the entire country to be his plantation.
Applejinx
@Tripod: You know, when Bernie AND HILLARY are both agreeing that there aren’t jobs for the millenials, you might want to listen. That leak was a win for Hillary because it’s true (like most things she says) and observant (which a lot of people didn’t expect of her, but they thought wrong).
Bernie confirmed that for a reason. We’re all on the same page, it’s you who are reading out of Milton Friedman 101 or something.
Applejinx
@Matt McIrvin: Busters a threat to Hillary? Every one I know ended up deciding to vote for Hillary except one, and he’s posting a twentieth of the anti-Hillary crap he used to, and is on a Basic Income, anti-corporatist kick with a side of ‘no militarization of police’ (and more power to him). Even he might end up voting for Hillary if she’s seen taking a leftward stance.
You have to realize these people were led to believe she’d personally merge all the agra and pharma monopolies and pass TPP, cackling and fracking the earth wherever she goes. That’s looking sillier and sillier: the picture of Hillary now is the picture of a woman tickled pink she’ll get to run as a proper liberal and govern progressively as much as she likes (not as much as they’d like) because her opposition is obliterating itself behind a lunatic.
Berners are no threat to Hillary. They are merely another power bloc, and Hillary can win them over literally as much as she wants. If she didn’t want them she wouldn’t have bothered to learn about them and make her oh-so-shocking ‘basement dweller’ remarks.
Ruckus
@Applejinx:
I wonder where they got those ideas from? Republicans? No…. Now who could it have been…….
I won’t hold my breath waiting for a reply.
Applejinx
@Ruckus: Oh, do carry on. This is your safe space where you needn’t worry about winning over any Bernie fans to Hillary ever, which is more than Bernie can say, much less the rest of us.
Go on, tell me. I do admit I painted very much the Berniac protest-and-giant-puppets argument and didn’t put forth the ‘she’s a lesbian who killed and ate Vince Foster and wants to take your guns’ wingnut rave-fest, because I am not a wingnut so those arguments are basically ‘mwah mwah mwah Ginger mwah’ to me.
She changed her mind about TPP. She’s changed her mind about a lot of stuff. I like it. I like this new, winning Clinton.
So does Bernie (to a reasonable degree). We all might end up liking her a lot more if she sticks with this populist thing: she seems to be enjoying it bigtime, and so she should. It’s a rare gift when a politician gets to win all they desire by not lying or bullshitting. Thanks Trump ;P
Annie
@Anne Laurie:
How does a child guarantee that? In some states you don’t have to leave a child anything in your will.
TerryC
@Steve in the ATL: No such stereotype. We have more than 10,000 golf discs, a separate room for bags, and all sorts of other paraphernalia like shirts, decals, etc.
But nada for smokers of any kind, it’s pure sports, our staff are mostly world champions.