Trump looses again

[TheDrake]

The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied former president Donald Trump’s efforts to block the release of his tax records to a congressional committee that has sought the information for years.
The court’s order means that the Treasury Department may quickly hand over six years of tax records from Trump and some of his companies to the House Ways and Means Committee.
There were no recorded dissents in the court’s order.

[msquared]

it's almost like Congress had the law on their side.

Trump will finally keep a campaign promise from 2015 and release his taxes.

[msquared]

And no dissents by the judges he put on the court. Now of course, how long before he says he is disappointed in them and that they are all out to get him.

[msquared]

Lindsay Graham testified in GA today.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-sen-lindsey-graham-questioned-201115975.html

[yossarian22c]

Lindsay Graham testified in GA today.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-sen-lindsey-graham-questioned-201115975.html

I wonder how many times he pled the 5th or answered "I don't recall".

[msquared]

The Special Master may be out.  No ruling yet but the Court of Appeals looks like it might reverse the decision to appoint the Special Master.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-justice-department-seeks-void-080044293.html

Not that the Special Master has helped Trump other than delay things.

[msquared]

And Trump has his usual morning melt down over the SC decision.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-reacts-supreme-court-095920812.html

Even when no Justice hints that they might have supported him, he calls them basically wrong. Even the 3 he put on the Court.

He just does not get it. When you lose in a court of law it does not mean it was corrupt. It means you were wrong.

[TheDrake]

Yes, Donald, it sets a terrible precedent of making tax records of presidents available to the public. Then he goes on to ask if Biden is going to get treated the same way. I mean, I know he's separated himself from reality, but that's next level. Biden has already voluntarily released those records, you know, like the precedent set after Nixon, IIRC

[msquared]

What was unprecedented  was his not releasing his tax returns before 2016.

I do not think he realizes that these unprecedented actions are caused by his unprecedented actions. If had released his tax returns, if he had not tried to cause an insurrection, if he had not tried to overturn the election, if he had not taken Gov documents, if he had not allowed his company to commit fraud, most of this would never have happened.

He could kill someone and then say it was unprecedented for a former President to be charged with murder. Never happened before.

[msquared]

In 2009 and 2010 Trump lost almost $1 Billion.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/stand-accountant-confirms-trump-claimed-001106247.html

Such a wonderful business man.  Of course he was able to claim those losses in future years and not pay any taxes for years to come.

[Fenring]

To be fair, anyone in real estate would have been facing extreme swings on the balance sheet between 2007-2008 and even in the couple of years following. The lag in employment and other pricing could well have extended to a couple of years after the proximal incident of the GFC.

[msquared]

But Trump is a business man like no other. I would think he would be smart enough to do better than every one else.

[Mynnion]

To be fair, anyone in real estate would have been facing extreme swings on the balance sheet between 2007-2008 and even in the couple of years following. The lag in employment and other pricing could well have extended to a couple of years after the proximal incident of the GFC.

There certainly was a bubble but he'd only take a loss if he sold.

[TheDrake]

To be fair, anyone in real estate would have been facing extreme swings on the balance sheet between 2007-2008 and even in the couple of years following. The lag in employment and other pricing could well have extended to a couple of years after the proximal incident of the GFC.

It's not so much that he had losses. It's him claiming that he didn't, and losing money for a decade, not just in the crash. The other issue is what he declared as wealth when trying to raise funds.

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump reported losses on his tax returns every year for a decade, including nearly $700 million in 2009 and $200 million in 2010, his longtime accountant testified Tuesday, confirming long-held suspicions about the former president’s tax practices.

Donald Bender, a partner at Mazars USA LLP who spent years preparing Trump’s personal tax returns, said Trump’s reported losses from 2009 to 2018 included net operating losses from some of the many businesses he owns through his Trump Organization.

[rightleft22]

As a immature strategic optimist Trump is able to view any 'Loss' as a Win and not bother with the details. It is unlikely that Trump ever learns anything from his failures as their can't be any.

[Fenring]

To be fair, anyone in real estate would have been facing extreme swings on the balance sheet between 2007-2008 and even in the couple of years following. The lag in employment and other pricing could well have extended to a couple of years after the proximal incident of the GFC.

There certainly was a bubble but he'd only take a loss if he sold.

Losses in real estate fair value end up on the quarterly balance sheets, and believe it or not can appear as a revenue loss, so that a company with positive cash flow that happens to be in the middle of a market deflation could well show extreme net income losses in their statements. That is in fact happening to many real estate companies right now (revenues up, fair value down, huge deductions in income are calculated in). The main reason for it being done this way is that in real estate the capital value of a building is a huge proportion of its value, not just the cash revenues. Sometimes you'd go into a venture knowing you're cash flow negative and not caring because of the capital appreciation (see: mortgage market crisis for extreme example of this). Therefore is it actually logical that fair value losses would be reported as revenue losses even if you are doing well for cash in hand. It's possible for someone like Trump, for instance, to be making a lot of money while reporting losses, and this is neither illegal nor unethical (assuming this is all he did). Given that he's into casinos, Russia, and other stuff, it's more than likely all the accounting mumbo jumbo is used to hide shady things. I'm just addressing your point that you'd only post losses if you sell, which is true in equities but not in real estate.

[msquared]

Well another loss for Trump.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-doesnt-absolute-immunity-over-171331696.html

They just keep piling up. It's almost like his legal team does not know what they are doing.

[Ouija Nightmare]

Well another loss for Trump.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-doesnt-absolute-immunity-over-171331696.html

They just keep piling up. It's almost like his legal team does not know what they are doing.

It’s almost like when you repeated and flagrantly break the law there’s only so much legal slight of hand can manage before a seasoned Judge.

[msquared]

Looks like Trump is going to lose the Special Master his pet judge put into place.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-might-face-worst-nightmare-094353886.html

[msquared]

South Carolina SC says Meadows must testify in GA inquiry.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/mark-meadows-must-testify-georgia-173449575.html

One comment that seems to show up time and time again in these decisions " that it found his arguments “manifestly without merit.”"

Court after court has found the arguments by Trump and his people to be with out merit. And not just a little bit with out merit. 

[msquared]

Trump's lawyers keep failing to follow the rules in the NY fraud case.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-org-defense-lawyer-scolded-170547775.html

[Wayward Son]

It's part of their legal strategy.

The lawyers plan on appealing the decisions on the grounds that Trump's legal counsels were incompetent.  

[rightleft22]

The lawyers think their on a episode of the Good Fight

[msquared]

Special Master decision over turned.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/appeals-court-overturns-special-master-225940461.html

Best line in the decision.

"The law is clear," the three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled. "We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so."

[msquared]

Trump White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and deputy Pat Philbin testified to a DC Grand Jury today.

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/trump-white-house-counsel-pat-181200191.html

[msquared]

Well Trump got an almost $20 million loan and did not disclose it.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-had-hidden-19-8-125434457.html

Got the loan during his run and paid it off after he won, but no one is quite sure how it got paid off.

One line from the article.

Such loans are largely reported on an honor system because the U.S. Office of Government Ethics has neither the resources nor the power to delve into a president’s assets.

“If someone does not disclose a loan, OGE has no way to know,” said Walter Shaub, who ran that agency when Trump took office.

Don Fox, who once also headed the office, told Forbes:“The system is kind of predicated upon people actually following a law because they want to follow the law.”

And we all know how little Trump likes to follow the law when it comes to money.

[Lloyd Perna]

You missed a very important part of the article you linked.

Trump may have skirted disclosure laws and not committed an outright violation because the loan was on the books of his company, the Trump Organization, and not identified as a personal loan, Forbes noted.

The whole article is ridiculous.  He "Hid" a loan by failing to disclose the loan he was not required to disclose because it wasn't actually his loan.

[msquared]

Well as the article says, it is the Honor system and we know Trump is with out honor.

[TheDrake]

You missed a very important part of the article you linked.

Trump may have skirted disclosure laws and not committed an outright violation because the loan was on the books of his company, the Trump Organization, and not identified as a personal loan, Forbes noted.

The whole article is ridiculous.  He "Hid" a loan by failing to disclose the loan he was not required to disclose because it wasn't actually his loan.

He's definitely good at arranging shell companies, sham charities and other ways to hide payments, like the ones made to porn stars. Legal it might be. Ethical? Not on your life.

[Lloyd Perna]

I'm sure you will be just as outraged when we find out next year that Biden didn't disclose his business relationships with his Son's Companies.  Right? 

[TheDrake]

I'm sure you will be just as outraged when we find out next year that Biden didn't disclose his business relationships with his Son's Companies.  Right?

How much you want to bet we don't find out next year? Because Biden didn't have anything to do with his son's business dealings and never received any money.

But yes, given your hypothetical, I would also call Biden unethical, if you and your right wing pals could ever manage a scrap of proof beyond, "a guy said the laptop said that Biden was the big guy". If Biden is shady, and he might be, he's in politics, he's way more skilled at it, running for senator, vp, and president with primary and general opponents, and nobody has been able to reveal the supposed dirt.

[msquared]

They have the proof in a drawer along with Obama's birth certificate and the fraud evidence for 2020.

[msquared]

Trump companies guilty on all charges.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-companies-convicted-charges-manhattan-205808953.html

That did not take long.

I guess we can now officially call them the Trump Crime Family since Trump and his kids were all directly involved. I wonder if they will go after those 4 now?

[msquared]

Well another stake in Trump's supposed power.

His hand picked candidate goes down.  Only Trump seemed to think he was a good choice.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/herschel-walkers-son-says-trump-111606386.html

[msquared]

Waiting on Trump to call Walker a loser for conceding and not claiming fraud.

[msquared]

Looks like the Special Counsel is moving closer.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-probe-subpoena-georgia-secretary-183627634.html

[msquared]

Even Republicans no longer want Trump.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-trouble-republican-support-2024-100009062.html

Since running for President is the only way he can keep his grift going and use the excuse that he is being politically persecuted who wants to bet he tries to start a 3rd party when he does not get the nomination?  Maybe the "White is Right" Party? The 4th Reich Party?  Or to keep on brand The Trump Party?

[TheDrake]

The Great America Party, forcing both the amusement park and the Gap to change their names like companies whose acronym spelled ISIS.

[msquared]

Well the DC  Board of Professional Ethics says Rudy should be disciplined for at least one of his election lawsuits.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/giuliani-disciplined-over-2020-election-155751722.html

[yossarian22c]

$99 NFT Trading Cards?

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/donald-trump-big-announcement-selling-161804314.html

This has to be a joke, right?

Moving this from the 2024 channel.

But Trump’s launch comes at a time when the NFT market has stagnated, with prices dropping 97% since the start of the year.

Looks like Trump is a little late to the NFT scam. But I'm sure he'll rake in some money from his fans. I wonder if buying one automatically signs you up for a monthly subscription like donating to his campaign did.

[Wayward Son]

You gotta see the video for the trading "cards." 

[msquared]

Even Steve Bannon thinks it was a disaster.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/even-steve-bannon-thinks-trumps-134830308.html

Now we just need Alex Jones, who never met a grift he didn't like, to chime in on how awful this was.

[msquared]

Well election denier Fincham in AZ had his suit tossed yesterday.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/arizona-republican-loses-election-lawsuit-034406877.html

To no ones real surprise. Lake's suit will very likely go the same way.

[msquared]

It looks like Trump thinks he is still President with a pool of reporters at his beck and call.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-had-told-pool-012354771.html

[TheDrake]

The House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday voted 24-16 to release former president Donald Trump’s tax returns to the public

[Mynnion]

Not thrilled with this.  I am not a Trump fan and he should have followed through with his promise to release them but I am not sure these should have been released.  If there was wrong doing then they would have been brought forward at trial. I just see this as a political mess.

[msquared]

I do not feel any sorrow for him. He promised he would release them back when he was running and then fought it for 6 years. I would not have had a problem if he had said from the start he would not release them. At least he would have been consistent.

I know the Trumpist say it is setting a dangerous precedent, but every presidential candidate for basically the past 50 years have released their tax returns. Do you really think there is going to be a rash of Dem candidates that are not going to release theirs?

[TheDrake]

The people blaming this Congress for abusing the powers of their office for political reasons are the same ones that thought Trump pressuring a foreign leader to go after his political opponent was a perfect phone call. Fascinating.

[msquared]

I find it interesting that the IRS says it audits the Presidents taxes each year automatically but that they did not do it for 2017/2018/2019, years where Trump was President.   Didn't he appoint the head of the IRS for those years? Did Trump order the head of the IRS to not do the audit? Just asking questions? What is Trump trying to hide?

[Mynnion]

The people blaming this Congress for abusing the powers of their office for political reasons are the same ones that thought Trump pressuring a foreign leader to go after his political opponent was a perfect phone call. Fascinating.

Is it wrong to have an issue with both?  I believe that all public officials should provide their tax returns or at least be audited regularly but since that is not currently the law I have an issue with Congress releasing the tax records of Trump or anyone else.  Not that I am not interested in what they show but I see it as an erosion of privacy for strictly political reasons.  If there were any significant red flags they should have been investigated and only released in a courtroom setting if charges were warranted.